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THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 PM989 
 .Mil 
 L 6 
 
 1897 
 
 4 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 111111111111 
 
 10001774689 
 
LONDON PRIDE 
 
 WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER 
 
 BY 
 
 M. E. BRADDON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," "ISHMAEL," ETC. 
 
 COPYRIGHT EDITION. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. I. 
 
 LEIPZIG 
 BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 
 
 1897. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF VOLUME I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. p age 
 
 A Harbour from the Storm 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 "Within Convent Walls 26 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Letters from Home 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Valley of the Shadow 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A Ministering Angel 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Between London and Oxford 113 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 At the Top of the Fashion 144 
 
6 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Pa?e 
 
 Superior to Fashion 163 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 In a Puritan House 174 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Priest's Hole 195 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Lighter than Vanity 203 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Lady Fareham's Day 218 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Sage of Sayes Court 242 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Millbank Ghost 258 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Falcon and Dove 272 
 
LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 
 
 The wind howled across the level fields, and flying 
 showers of sleet rattled against the old leathern coach as 
 it drove through the thickening dusk. A bitter winter, 
 this year of the Royal tragedy. 
 
 A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been 
 followed by the hardest frost this generation had ever 
 known. The Thames was frozen over, and tempestuous 
 winds had shaken the ships in the Pool, and the steep 
 gable ends and tall chimney-stacks on London Bridge. 
 A never-to-be-forgotten winter, which had witnessed the 
 martyrdom of England's King, and the exile of her chief 
 nobility, while a rabble Parliament rode roughshod over 
 a cowed people. Gloom and sour visages prevailed, the 
 maypoles were down, the play-houses were closed, the 
 bear-gardens were empty, the cock-pits were desolate; 
 and a saddened population, impoverished and de- 
 pressed by the sacrifices that had been exacted and the 
 
8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 tyranny that had been exercised in the name of Liberty, 
 were ground under the iron heel of Cromwell's red- 
 coats. 
 
 The pitiless journey from London to Louvain, a 
 journey of many days and nights, prolonged by accident 
 and difficulty, had been spun out to uttermost tedium 
 for those two in the heavily moving old leathern coach* 
 Who and what were they, these wearied travellers, 
 journeying together silently towards a destination which 
 promised but little of pleasure or luxury by way of 
 welcome — a destination which meant severance for those 
 two? 
 
 One was Sir John Kirkland, of the Manor Moat, 
 Bucks, a notorious Malignant, a grey-bearded cavalier, 
 aged by trouble and hard righting; a soldier and servant 
 who had sacrificed himself and his fortune for the King, 
 and must needs begin the world anew now that his 
 master was murdered, his own goods confiscated, the 
 old family mansion, the house in which his parents died 
 and his children were born, emptied of all its valuables, 
 and left to the care of servants, and his master's son a 
 wanderer in a foreign land, with little hope of ever win- 
 ning back crown and sceptre. 
 
 Sadness was the dominant expression of Sir John's 
 stern, strongly marked countenance, as he sat staring 
 out at the level landscape through the unglazed coach 
 window, staring blankly across those wind-swept Flemish 
 fields where the cattle were clustering in sheltered 
 corners, a monotonous expanse, crossed by ice-bound 
 dykes that looked black as ink, save where the last rays 
 of the setting sun touched their iron hue with blood-red 
 splashes. Pollard willows indicated the edge of one 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 9 
 
 field, gaunt poplars marked the boundary of another, 
 alike leafless and unbeautiful, standing darkly out against 
 the dim grey sky. Night was hastening towards the 
 travellers, narrowing and blotting out that level land- 
 scape, field, dyke, and leafless wood. 
 
 Sir John put his head out of the coach window, and 
 looked anxiously along the straight road, peering through 
 the shades of evening in the hope of seeing the crocketed 
 spires and fair cupolas of Louvain in the distance. But 
 he could see nothing save a waste of level pastures and 
 the gathering darkness. Not a light anywhere, not a 
 sign of human habitation. 
 
 Useless to gaze any longer into the impenetrable 
 night. The traveller leant back into a corner of the 
 carriage with folded arms, and, with a deep sigh, com- 
 posed himself for slumber. He had slept but little for 
 the last week. The passage from Harwich to Ostend in 
 a fishing-smack had been a perilous transit, prolonged 
 by adverse winds. Sleep had been impossible on board 
 that wretched craft; and the land journey had been 
 fraught with vexation and delays of all kinds — stupidity 
 of postillions, dearth of horseflesh, badness of the roads 
 — all things that can vex and hinder. 
 
 Sir John's travelling companion, a small child in a 
 cloak and hood, crept closer to him in the darkness, 
 nestled up against his elbow, and pushed her little cold 
 hand into his leathern glove. 
 
 "You are crying again, father," she said, full of pity. 
 "You were crying last night. Do you always cry when 
 it grows dark?" 
 
 "It does not become a man to shed tears in the day- 
 light, little maid," her father answered gently. 
 
10 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Is it for the poor King you are crying — the King 
 those wicked men murdered?" 
 
 "Ay, Angela, for the King; and for the Queen and 
 her fatherless children still more than for the King, for 
 he has crowned himself with a crown of glory, the 
 diadem of martyrs, and is resting from labour and 
 sorrow, to rise victorious at the great day, when his 
 enemies and his murderers shall stand ashamed before 
 him. I weep for that once so lovely lady — widowed, 
 discrowned, needy, desolate — a beggar in the land where 
 her father was a great king. A hard fate, Angela, father 
 and husband both murdered." 
 
 "Was the Queen's father murdered too?" asked the 
 silver-sweet voice out of darkness, a pretty piping note 
 like the song of a bird. 
 
 "Yes, love." 
 
 "Did Bradshaw murder him?" 
 
 "No, dearest, 'twas in France he was slain — in Paris; 
 stabbed to death by a madman." 
 
 "And was the Queen sorry?" 
 
 "Ay, sweetheart, she has drained the cup of sorrow. 
 She was but a child when her father died. She can 
 but dimly remember that dreadful day. And now she 
 sits, banished and widowed, to hear of her husband's 
 martyrdom; her elder sons wanderers, her young 
 daughter a prisoner." 
 
 "Poor Queen!" piped the small sweet voice, "I am 
 so sorry for her." 
 
 Little had she ever known but sorrow, this child of 
 the Great Rebellion, born in the old Buckinghamshire 
 manor house, while her father was at Falmouth with the 
 Prince — born in the midst of civil war, a stormy petrel, 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. I I 
 
 bringing no message of peace from those unknown skies 
 whence she came, a harbinger of woe. Infant eyes love 
 bright colours. This baby's eyes looked upon a house 
 hung with black. Her mother died before the child 
 was a fortnight old. They had christened her Angela. 
 ''Angel of Death," said the father, when the news of his 
 loss reached him, after the lapse of many days. His 
 fair young wife's coffin was in the family vault under 
 the parish church of St. Nicholas in the Vale, before he 
 knew that he had lost her. 
 
 There was an elder daughter, Hyacinth, seven years 
 the senior, who had been sent across the Channel in the 
 care of an old servant at the beginning of the troubles 
 between King and Parliament. 
 
 She had been placed in the charge of her maternal 
 grandmother, the Marquise de Montrond, who had taken 
 ship for Calais when the Court left London, leaving her 
 royal mistress to weather the storm. A lady who had 
 wealth and prestige in her own country, who had been 
 a famous beauty when Richelieu was in power, and who 
 had been admired by that serious and sober monarch, 
 Louis the Thirteenth, could scarcely be expected to put 
 up with the shifts and shortcomings of an Oxford 
 lodging-house, with the ever-present fear of finding her- 
 self in a town besieged by Lord Essex and the rebel 
 army. 
 
 With Madame de Montrond, Hyacinth had been 
 reared, partly in a mediaeval mansion, with a portcullis 
 and four squat towers, near the Chateau d'Arques, and 
 partly in Paris, where the lady had a fine house in the 
 Marais. The sisters had never looked upon each other's 
 faces, Angela having entered upon the troubled scene 
 
12 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 after Hyacinth had been carried across the Channel to 
 her grandmother. And now the father was racked with 
 anxiety lest evil should befall that elder daughter in 
 the war between Mazarin and the Parliament, which 
 was reported to rage with increasing fury. 
 
 Angela's awakening reason became conscious of a 
 world where all was fear and sadness. The stories she 
 heard in her childhood were stories of that fierce war 
 which was reaching its disastrous close while she was 
 in her cradle. She was told of the happy peaceful 
 England of old, before darkness and confusion gathered 
 over the land; before the hearts of the people were 
 set against their King by a wicked and rebellious Par- 
 liament. 
 
 She heard of battles lost by the King and his 
 partisans; cities besieged and taken; a flash of victory 
 followed by humiliating reverses; the King's party always 
 at a disadvantage; and hence the falling away of the 
 feeble and the false, the treachery of those who had 
 seemed friends, the impotence of the faithful. 
 
 Angela heard so often and so much of these things 
 — from old Lady Kirkland, her grandmother, and from 
 the grey-haired servants at the manor — that she grew 
 to understand them with a comprehension seemingly 
 far beyond her tender years. But a child so reared is 
 inevitably older than her years. This little one had 
 never known childish pleasures or play, childish com- 
 panions or childish fancies. 
 
 She roamed about the spacious gardens, full of 
 saddest thoughts, burdened with all the cares that 
 weighed down that kingly head yonder; or she stood 
 before the pictured face of the monarch with clasped 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. I 3 
 
 hands and tearful eyes, looking up at him with the 
 adoring compassion of a child prone to hero-worship — 
 thinking of him already as saint and martyr — whose 
 martyrdom was not yet consummated in blood. 
 
 King Charles had presented his faithful servant, Sir 
 John Kirkland, with a half-length replica of one of his 
 Vandyke portraits, a beautiful head, with a strange in- 
 ward look — that look of isolation and aloofness which 
 we who know his story take for a prophecy of doom — 
 which the sculptor Bernini had remarked, when he 
 modelled the royal head for marble. The picture hung 
 in the place of honour in the long narrow gallery at the 
 Manor Moat, with trophies of Flo d den and Zutphen ar- 
 ranged against the blackened oak panelling above it. 
 The Kirklands had been a race of soldiers since the 
 days of Edward III. The house was full of war-like 
 decorations — tattered colours, old armour, memorials of 
 fighting Kirklands who had long been dust. 
 
 There came an evil day when the rabble rout of 
 Cromwell's crop-haired soldiery burst into the manor 
 house to pillage and destroy, carrying off curios and 
 relics that were the gradual accumulation of a century 
 and a half of peaceful occupation. 
 
 The old Dowager's grey hairs had barely saved her 
 from outrage on that bitter day. It was only her utter 
 helplessness and afflicted condition that prevailed upon 
 the Parliamentary captain, and prevented him from 
 carrying out his design, which was to haul her off to 
 one of those London prisons at that time so gorged 
 with Royalist captives that the devilish ingenuity of the 
 Parliament had devised floating gaols on the Thames, 
 where persons of quality and character were herded to- 
 
14 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 gether below decks, to the loss of health, and even of 
 life. 
 
 Happily for old Lady Kirkland, she was too lame 
 to walk, and her enemies had no horse or carriage in 
 which to convey her; so she was left at peace in her 
 son's plundered mansion, whence all that was valuable 
 and easily portable was carried away by the Round- 
 heads. Silver plate and family plate had been sacrificed 
 to the King's necessities. 
 
 The pictures, not being either portable or readily 
 convertible into cash, had remained on the old panelled 
 walls. 
 
 Angela used to go from the King's picture to her 
 father's. Sir John's was a more rugged face than the 
 Stuart's, with a harder expression; but the child's heart 
 went out to the image of the father she had never seen 
 since the dawn of consciousness. He had made a hur- 
 ried journey to that quiet Buckinghamshire valley soon 
 after her birth — had looked at the baby in her cradle, 
 and then had gone down into the vault where his young 
 wife was lying, and had stayed for more than an hour 
 in cold and darkness alone with his dead. That lovely 
 French wife had been his junior by more than twenty 
 years, and he had loved her passionately — had loved 
 her and left her for duty's sake. No Kirkland had 
 ever faltered in his fidelity to crown and king. This 
 John Kirkland had sacrificed all things, and, alone with 
 his beloved dead in the darkness of that narrow charnel 
 house, it seemed to him that there was nothing left for 
 him except to cleave to those fallen fortunes and 
 patiently await the issue. 
 
 He had fought in many battles and had escaped 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. I 5 
 
 with a few scars; and he was carrying his daughter to 
 Louvain, intending to place her in the charge of her 
 great- aunt, Madame de Montrond's half sister, who was 
 head of a convent in that city, a safe and pious shelter, 
 where the child might be reared in her mother's faith. 
 
 Lady Kirkland, the only daughter of the Marquise 
 de Montrond, one of Queen Henrietta Maria's ladies-in- 
 waiting, had been a papist, and, although Sir John had 
 adhered steadfastly to the principles of the Reformed 
 Church, he had promised his bride, and the Marquise, 
 her mother, that if their nuptials were blessed with off- 
 spring, their children should be educated in the Roman 
 faith — a promise difficult of performance in a land 
 where a stormy tide ran high against Rome, and where 
 Popery was a scarlet spectre that alarmed the ignorant 
 and maddened the bigoted. And now, duly provided 
 with a safe conduct from the regicide, Bradshaw, he 
 was journeying to the city where he was to part with 
 his daughter for an indefinite period. He had seen 
 but little of her, and yet it seemed as hard to part thus 
 as if she had prattled at his knees and nestled in his 
 arms every day of her young life. 
 
 At last across the distance, against the wind-driven 
 clouds of that stormy winter sky, John Kirkland saw 
 the lights of the city — not many lights or brilliant of 
 their kind, but a glimmer here and there — and behind 
 the glimmer the dark bulk of masonry, roofs, steeples, 
 watchtowers, bridges. 
 
 The carriage stopped at one of the gates of the 
 city, and there were questions asked and answered, 
 and papers shown, but there was no obstacle to the 
 entrance of the travellers. The name of the Ursuline 
 
1 6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Convent acted like a charm, for Louvain was papist to 
 the core in these days of Spanish dominion. It had 
 been a city of refuge nearly a hundred years ago for 
 all that was truest and bravest and noblest among 
 English Roman Catholics, in the cruel days of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and Englishmen had become the leading 
 spirits of the University there, and had attracted the 
 youth of Romanist England to the sober old Flemish 
 town, before the establishment of Dr. Allan's rival 
 seminary at Douai. Sir John could have found no safer 
 haven for his little ewe lamb. 
 
 The tired horses blundered heavily along the stony 
 streets, and crossed more than one bridge. The town 
 seemed pervaded by water, a deep narrow stream like 
 a canal, on which the houses looked, as if in feeble 
 mockery of Venice — houses with steep crow-step gables, 
 some of them richly decorated; narrow windows for the 
 most part dark, but with here and there the yellow 
 light of lamp or candle. 
 
 The convent faced a broad open square, and had a 
 large walled garden in its rear. The coach stopped in 
 front of a handsome doorway, and after the travellers 
 had been scrutinised and interrogated by the portress 
 through an opening in the door, they were admitted 
 into a spacious hall, paved with black and white marble, 
 and adorned with a statue of the Virgin Mother, and 
 thence to a parlour dimly lighted by a small oil lamp, 
 where they waited for about ten minutes, the little girl 
 shivering with cold, before the Superior appeared. 
 
 She was a tall woman, advanced in years, with a 
 handsome, but melancholy countenance. She greeted 
 the cavalier as a familiar friend. 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 17 
 
 "Welcome to Flanders!" she said. "You have fled 
 from that accursed country where our Church is de- 
 spised and persecuted " 
 
 "Nay, reverend kinswoman, I have fled but to go 
 back again as fast as horses and sails can carry me. 
 While the fortunes of my King are at stake, my place 
 is in England, or it may be in Scotland, where there 
 are still those who are ready to fight to the death in 
 the royal cause. But I have brought this little one for 
 shelter and safe keeping, and tender usage, trusting in 
 you who are of kin to her as I could trust no one else 
 — and, furthermore, that she may be reared in the faith 
 of her dead mother." 
 
 "Sweet soul!" murmured the nun. "It was well 
 for her to be taken from your troubled England to the 
 kingdom of the saints and martyrs." 
 
 "True, reverend mother; yet those blasphemous 
 levellers who call us 'Malignants' have dubbed them- 
 selves 'Saints.'" 
 
 "Then affairs go no better with you in England, I 
 fear, Sir John?" 
 
 "Nay, madam, they go so ill that they have reached 
 the lowest depth of infamy. Hell itself hath seen no 
 spectacle more awful, no murder more barbarous, no 
 horrider triumph of wickedness, than the crime which 
 was perpetrated this day se'nnight at Whitehall." 
 
 The nun looked at him wistfully, with clasped hands, 
 as one who half apprehended his meaning. 
 
 "The King!" she faltered, "still a prisoner?" 
 
 "Ay, reverend lady, but a prisoner in Paradise, 
 where angels are his guards, and saints and martyrs his 
 companions. He has regained his crown; but it is the 
 
 London Pride. I. 2 
 
1 8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 crown of martyrdom, the aureole of slaughtered saints. 
 England, our little England that was once so great 
 under the strong rule of that virgin-queen who made 
 herself the arbiter of Christendom, and the wonder of 
 the world " 
 
 The pious lady shivered and crossed herself at this 
 praise of the heretic queen — praise that could only 
 come from a heretic. 
 
 "Our blessed and peaceful England has become a 
 den of thieves, given over to the ravening wolves of 
 rebellion and dissent, the penniless soldiery who would 
 bring down all men's fortunes to their own level, seize 
 all, eat and drink all, and trample crown and peerage 
 in the mire. They have slain him, reverend mother, 
 this impious herd — they gave him the mockery of a 
 trial — just as his Master, Christ, was mocked. They 
 spurned and spat upon him, even as our Redeemer was 
 spurned; and then, on the Sabbath day, they cried 
 aloud in their conventicles, "Lord, hast Thou not smelt 
 a sweet savour of blood?" Ay, these murderers gloried 
 in their crime, bragged of their gory hands, lifted them 
 up towards heaven as a token of righteousness ! " 
 
 The cavalier was pacing to and fro in the dimness 
 of the convent parlour, with quick, agitated steps, his 
 nostrils quivering, grizzled brows bent over angry eyes, 
 his hand trembling with rage as it clutched his sword- 
 hilt. 
 
 The reverend mother drew Angela to her side, took 
 off the little black silk hood, and laid her hand caress- 
 ingly on the soft brown hair. 
 
 "Was it Cromwell's work?" she asked. 
 
 "Nay, reverend mother, I doubt whether of his own 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM, I g 
 
 accord Cromwell would have done this thing. He is a 
 villain, a damnable villain — but he is a glorious villain. 
 The Parliament had made their covenant with the King 
 at Newport — a bargain which gave them all, and left 
 him nothing — save only his broken health, grey hairs, 
 and the bare name of King. He would have been but 
 a phantom of authority, powerless as the royal spectres 
 iEneas met in the under-world. They had got all from 
 him — all save the betrayal of his friends. There he 
 budged not, but was firm as rock." 
 
 "'Twas likely he remembered Strafford, and that he 
 prospered no better for having flung a faithful dog to 
 the wolves," said the nun. 
 
 "Remembered Strafford? Ay, that memory has been 
 a pillow of thorns through many a sleepless night. No, 
 it was not Cromwell who sought the King's blood — 
 though it has been shed with his sanction. The Parlia- 
 ment had got all, and would have been content, but 
 the faction they had created was too strong for them. 
 The levellers sent their spokesman — one Pride, an ex- 
 drayman, now colonel of horse — to the door of the 
 House of Commons, who arrested the more faithful and 
 moderate members, imposed himself and his rebel crew 
 upon the House, and hurried on that violation of con- 
 stitutional law, that travesty of justice, which compelled 
 an anointed King to stand before the lowest of his 
 subjects — the jacks-in- office of a mutinous commonalty 
 — to answer for having fought in defence of his own 
 inviolable rights." 
 
 "Did they dare condemn their King?" 
 
 "Ah, madam, they found him guilty of high treason, 
 in that he had taken arms against the Parliament. They 
 
 2* 
 
20 LONDON PPJDE. 
 
 sentenced their royal master to death — and seven days 
 ago London saw the spectacle of judicial murder — a 
 blameless King slain by the minion of an armed rabble ! " 
 
 "But did the people — the English people — suffer this 
 in silence? The wisest and best of them could surely 
 be assembled in your great city. Did the citizens of 
 London stand placidly by to see this deed accom- 
 plished?" 
 
 "They were like sheep before the shearer. They 
 were dumb. Great God! can I ever forget that sea of 
 white faces under the grey winter sky, or the universal 
 groan that went up to heaven when the stroke of the 
 axe sounded on the block, and men knew that the 
 murder of their King was consummated; and when that 
 anointed head with its grey hairs, whitened with sorrow, 
 mark you, not with age, was lifted up, bloody, terrible, 
 and proclaimed the head of a traitor? Ah, reverend 
 mother, ten such moments will age a man by ten years. 
 Was it not the most portentous tragedy which the earth 
 has ever seen since He who was both God and Man 
 died upon Calvary? Other judicial sacrifices have been, 
 but never of a victim as guiltless and as noble. Had 
 you but seen the calm beauty of his countenance as he 
 turned it towards the people ! Oh, my King, my master, 
 my beloved friend, when shall I see that face in Paradise, 
 with the blood washed from that royal brow, with the 
 smile of the redeemed upon those lips ! w 
 
 He flung himself into a chair, covered his face with 
 those weather-stained hands, which had broadened by 
 much grasping of sword and pistol, pike and gun, and 
 sobbed aloud, with a fierce passion that convulsed the 
 strong muscular frame. Of all the King's servants this 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 21 
 
 one had been the most steadfast, was marked in the 
 black book of the Parliament as a notorious Malignant. 
 From the raising of the standard on the castle-hill at 
 Nottingham — in the sad evening of a tempestuous day, 
 with but scanty attendance, and only evil presages — to 
 the treaty at Newport, and the prison on the low 
 Hampshire coast, this man had been his master's con- 
 stant companion and friend; fighting in every battle, 
 cleaving to King and Prince in spite of every opposing 
 influence, carrying letters between father and son in the 
 teeth of the enemy, humbling himself as a servant, and 
 performing menial labours, in those latter days of bitter- 
 ness and outrage, when all courtly surroundings were 
 denied the fallen monarch. 
 
 And now he mourned his martyred King more bitterly 
 than he would have mourned his own brother. 
 
 The little girl slipped from the reverend mother's 
 lap, and ran across the room to her father. 
 
 "Don't cry, father!" she murmured, with her own 
 eyes streaming. "It hurts me to see you." 
 
 "Nay, Angela," he answered, clasping her to his 
 breast. "Forgive me that I think more of my dead 
 King than of my living daughter. Poor child, thou hast 
 seen nothing but sorrow since thou wert born; a land 
 racked by civil war; Englishmen changed into devils; a 
 home ravaged and made desolate; threatenings and 
 curses; thy good grandmother's days shortened by 
 sorrow and rough usage. Thou wert born into a house 
 of mourning, and hast seen nothing but black since thou 
 hadst eyes to notice the things around thee. Those 
 tender ears should have heard only loving words. But 
 it is over, dearest; and thou hast found a haven within 
 
22 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 these walls. You will take care of her, will you not, 
 madam, for the sake of the niece you loved?" 
 
 "She shall be the apple of my eye. No evil shall 
 come near her that my care and my prayers can avert. 
 God has been very gracious to our order — in all 
 troublous times we have been protected. We have many 
 pupils from the best families of Flanders — and some even 
 from Paris, whence parents are glad to remove their 
 children from the confusion of the time. You need fear 
 nothing while this sweet child is with us; and if in years 
 to come she should desire to enter our order " 
 
 "The Lord forbid!" cried the cavalier. "I want her 
 to be a good and pious papist, madam, like her sweet 
 mother; but never a nun. I look to her as the staff and 
 comfort of my declining years. Thou wilt not abandon 
 thy father, wilt thou, little one, when thou shalt be tall 
 and strong as a bulrush, and he shall be bent and 
 gnarled with age, like the old medlar on the lawn at 
 the Manor? Thou wilt be his rod and staff, wilt thou 
 not, sweetheart?" 
 
 The child flung her arms round his neck and kissed 
 him. It was her only answer, but that mute reply was 
 a vow. 
 
 "Thou wilt stay here till England's troubles are over, 
 Angela, and that base herd yonder have been trampled 
 down. Thou wilt be happy here, and wilt mind thy 
 book, and be obedient to those good ladies who will 
 teach thee; and some day, when our country is at peace, 
 I will come back to fetch thee." 
 
 "Soon," murmured the child, "soon, father?" 
 
 "God grant it may be soon, my beloved! It is hard 
 for father and children to be scattered, as we are 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 2 3 
 
 scattered; thy sister Hyacinth in Paris, and thou in 
 Flanders, and I in England. Yet it must needs be so 
 for a while!" 
 
 "Why should not Hyacinth come to us and be 
 reared with Angela?" asked the reverend mother. 
 
 "Nay, madam, Hyacinth is well cared for with your 
 sister, Madame de Montrond. She is as dear to her 
 maternal grandmother as this little one here was to my 
 good mother, whose death last year left us a house of 
 mourning. Hyacinth will doubtless inherit a consider- 
 able portion of Madame de Montrond's wealth, which 
 is not insignificant. She is being brought up in the 
 precincts of the Court." 
 
 "A worldly and a dangerous school for one so young," 
 said the nun, with a sigh. "I have heard my father talk 
 of what life was like at the Louvre when the Bearnais 
 reigned there in the flower of his manhood, newly master 
 of Paris, flushed with hard-won victory, and but lately 
 reconciled to the Church." 
 
 "Methinks that great captain's court must have been 
 laxer than that of Queen Anne and the Cardinal. I have 
 been told that the child-king is being reared, as it were, 
 in a cloister, so strict are mother and guardian. My 
 only fear for Hyacinth is the troubled state of the city, 
 given over to civil warfare only less virulent than that 
 which has desolated England. I hear that the Fronde 
 is no war of epigrams and pamphlets, but that men are 
 as earnest and bloodthirsty as they were in the League. 
 I shall go from here to Paris to see my first-born before 
 I make my way back to London." 
 
 "I question if you will find her at Paris," said the 
 reverend mother. "I had news from a priest in the 
 
24 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 diocese of the Coadjutor. The Queen-mother left the city 
 secretly with her chosen favourites in the dead of the 
 night on the sixth of this month, after having kept the 
 festival of Twelfth Night in a merry humour with her 
 Court. Even her waiting-women knew nothing of her 
 plans. They went to St. Germain, where they found 
 the chateau unfurnished, and where all the Court had to 
 sleep upon was a few loads of straw. Hatred of the 
 Cardinal is growing fiercer every day, and Paris is in a 
 state of siege. The Princes are siding with Mathieu Mole 
 and his Parliament, and the Provincial Parliaments are 
 taking up the quarrel. God grant that it may not be in 
 France as it has been with you in your unhappy England; 
 but I fear the Spanish Queen and her Italian minister 
 scarce know the temper of the French people." 
 
 "Alas, good friend, we have fallen upon evil days, and 
 the spirit of revolt is everywhere; but if there is trouble 
 at the French Court, there is all the more need that I 
 should make my way thither, be it at St. Germain or 
 at Paris, and so assure myself of my pretty Hyacinth's 
 safety. She was so sweet an infant when my good and 
 faithful steward carried her across the sea to Dieppe. 
 Never shall I forget that sad moment of parting, when 
 the baby arms were wreathed round my sweet saint's 
 neck; she so soon to become again a mother, so brave 
 and patient in her sorrow at parting with her first-born. 
 Ah, sister, there are moments in this life that a man 
 must needs remember, even amidst the wreck of his 
 country." He dashed away a tear or two, and then 
 turned to his kinswoman with outstretched hands and 
 said, "Good night, dear and reverend mother; good 
 night and good-bye. I shall sleep at the nearest inn, 
 
A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 25 
 
 and shall be on the road again at daybreak. Good-bye, 
 my soul's delight." 
 
 He clasped his daughter in his arms, with something 
 of despair in the fervour of his embrace, telling himself, 
 as the soft cheek was pressed against his own, how 
 many years might pass ere he would again so clasp that 
 tender form and feel those innocent kisses on his bearded 
 lips. She and the elder girl were all that were left to 
 him of love and comfort, and the elder sister had been 
 taken from him while she was a little child. He would 
 not have known her had he met her unawares; nor had 
 he ever felt for her such a pathetic love as for this guilt- 
 less death-angel, this baby whose coming had ruined his 
 life, whose love was nevertheless the only drop of sweet- 
 ness in his cup. 
 
 He plucked himself from that gentle embrace, and 
 walked quickly to the door. 
 
 "You will apply to me for whatever money is needed 
 for the child's maintenance and education," he said, and 
 in the next moment was gone. 
 
26 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 
 
 More than ten years had come and gone since that 
 bleak February evening when Sir John Kirkland carried 
 his little daughter to a place of safety, in the old city 
 of Louvain, and in all those years the child had grown 
 like a flower in a sheltered garden, where cold winds 
 never come. The bud had matured into the blossom 
 in that mild atmosphere of piety and peace; and now, 
 in this fair springtide of 1660, a girlish face watched 
 from the convent casement for the coming of the father 
 whom Angela Kirkland had not looked upon since she 
 was a child, and the sister she had never seen. 
 
 They were to arrive to-day, father and sister, on a 
 brief visit to the quiet Flemish city. Yonder in Eng- 
 land there had been curious changes since the stern 
 Protector turned his rugged face to the wall, and laid 
 down that golden sceptre with which he had ruled as 
 with a rod of iron. Kingly title would he none; yet 
 where kings had chastised with whips, he had chastised 
 with scorpions. Ireland could tell how the little finger 
 of Cromwell had been heavier than the arm of the 
 Stuarts. She had trembled and had obeyed, and had 
 prospered under that scorpion rule, and England's 
 armaments had been the terror of every sea while 
 Cromwell stood at the helm; but now that strong brain 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 2 *] 
 
 and bold heart were in the dust, and it had taken 
 England little more than a year to discover that 
 Puritanism and the Rump were a mistake, and that to 
 the core of her heart she was loyal to her hereditary 
 King. 
 
 She asked not what manner of man this hereditary 
 ruler might be; asked not whether he were wise or 
 foolish, faithful or treacherous. She forgot all of tyranny 
 and of double-dealing she had suffered from his for- 
 bears. She forgot even her terror of the scarlet spectre, 
 the grim wolf of Rome, in her disgust at Puritan fervour 
 which had torn down altar-rails, usurped church pulpits, 
 destroyed the beauty of ancient cathedrals. Like a 
 woman or a child, she held out her arms to the un- 
 known, in a natural recoil from that iron rule which 
 had extinguished her gaiety, silenced her noble liturgy, 
 made innocent pleasures and elegant arts things for- 
 bidden. She wanted her churches, and her theatres, 
 her cock-pits and taverns, and bear-gardens and may- 
 poles back again. She wanted to be ruled by the law, 
 and not by the sword; and she longed with a romantic 
 longing for that young wanderer who had fled from her 
 shores in a fishing-boat, with his life in his hand, to re- 
 turn in a glad procession of great ships dancing over 
 summer seas, eating, drinking, gaming, in a coat worth 
 scarce thirty shillings, and with empty pockets for his 
 loyal subjects to make haste and fill. 
 
 Angela had the convent parlour all to herself this 
 fair spring morning. She was the favourite pupil of the 
 nuns, had taken no vows, pledged herself to no novi- 
 ciate, ever mindful of her promise to her father. She 
 had lived as happily and as merrily in that abode of 
 
28 LONDON PREDE. 
 
 piety as she could have lived in the finest palace in 
 Europe. There were other maidens, daughters of the 
 French and Flemish nobility, who were taught and 
 reared within those sombre precincts, and with them 
 she had played and worked and laboured at such 
 studies as became a young lady of quality. Like that 
 fair daughter of affliction, Henrietta of England, she 
 had gained in education by the troubles which had 
 made her girlhood a time of seclusion. She had been 
 first the plaything of those elder girls who were finish- 
 ing their education in the convent, her childishness ap- 
 pealing to their love and pity; and then, after being 
 the plaything of the nuns and the elder pupils, she be- 
 came the favourite of her contemporaries, and in a 
 manner their queen. She was more thoughtful than 
 her class-fellows, in advance of her years in piety and 
 intelligence; and they, knowing her sad story — how she 
 was severed from her country and kindred, her father 
 a wanderer with his King, her sister bred up at a 
 foreign Court — had first compassionated and then ad- 
 mired her. From her twelfth year upwards her in- 
 tellectual superiority had been recognised in the con- 
 vent, alike by the nuns and their pupils. Her aptitude 
 at all learning, and her simple but profound piety, had 
 impressed everybody. At fourteen years of age they 
 had christened her "the little wonder;" but later, seeing 
 that their praises embarrassed and even distressed her, 
 they had desisted from such loving flatteries, and were 
 content to worship her with a silent adulation. 
 
 Her father's visits to the Flemish city had been few 
 and far apart, fondly though he loved his motherless 
 girl. He had been a wanderer for the most part 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 2Q 
 
 during those years, tossed upon troubled seas, fighting 
 with Conde against Mazarin and Anne of Austria, and 
 reconciled with the Court later, when peace was made, 
 and his friends the Princes were forgiven; an exile from 
 France of his own free will when Louis banished his 
 first cousin, the King of England, in order to truckle to 
 the triumphant usurper. He had led an adventurous 
 life, and had cared very little what became of him in a 
 topsy-turvy world. But now all things were changed. 
 Richard Cromwell's brief and irresolute rule had 
 shattered the Commonwealth, and made Englishmen 
 eager for a king. The country was already tired of 
 him whose succession had been admitted with blank 
 acquiescence; and Monk and the army were soon to 
 become masters of the situation. There was hope that 
 the General was rightly affected, and that the King 
 would have his own again; and that such of his fol- 
 lowers as had not compounded with the Parliamentary 
 Commission would get back their confiscated estates; 
 and that all who had suffered in person or pocket 
 for loyalty's sake would be recompensed for their 
 sacrifices. 
 
 It was five years since Sir John's last appearance at 
 the convent, and Angela's heart beat fast at the thought 
 that he was so near. She was to see him this very 
 day; nay, perhaps this very hour. His coach might 
 have passed the gate of the town already. He was 
 bringing his elder daughter with him, that sister whose 
 face she had never seen, save in a miniature, and who 
 was now a great lady, the wife of Baron Fareham, of 
 Chilton Abbey, Oxon, Fareham Park, in the County of 
 Hants, and Fareham House, London, a nobleman whose 
 
30 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 estates had come through the ordeal of the Parlia- 
 mentary Commission with a reasonable fine, and to 
 whom extra favour had been shown by the Commis- 
 sioners, because he was known to be at heart a Re- 
 publican. In the meantime, Lady Fareham had a 
 liberal income allowed her by the Marquise, her grand- 
 mother, and she and her husband had been among 
 the most splendid foreigners at the French Court, where 
 the lady's beauty and wit had placed her conspicuously 
 in that galaxy of brilliant women who shone and 
 sparkled about the sun of the European firmament — 
 Le roi soleil, or "the King," par excellence, who took 
 the blazing sun for his crest. The Fronde had been 
 a time of pleasurable excitement to the high-spirited 
 girl, whose mixed blood ran like quicksilver, and who 
 delighted in danger and party strife, stratagem and in- 
 trigue. The story of her courage and gaiety of heart 
 in the siege of Paris, she being then little more than a 
 child, had reached the Flemish convent long after the 
 acts recorded had been forgotten at Paris and St. Ger- 
 main. 
 
 Angela's heart beat fast at the thought of being re- 
 stored to these dear ones, were it only for a short span. 
 They were not going to carry her away from the con- 
 vent; and, indeed, seeing that she so loved her aunt, 
 the good reverend mother, and that her heart cleaved 
 to those walls and to the holy exercises which filled so 
 great a part of her life, her father, in replying to a 
 letter in which she had besought him to release her 
 from her promise and allow her to dedicate herself to 
 God, had told her that, although he could not surrender 
 his daughter, to whom he looked for the comfort of his 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 3 I 
 
 closing years, he would not urge her to leave the Ursu- 
 lines until he should feel himself old and feeble, and in 
 need of her tender care. Meanwhile she might be a 
 nun in all but the vows, and a dutiful niece to her kind 
 aunt, Mother Anastasia, whose advanced years and fail- 
 ing health needed all consideration. 
 
 But now, before he went back to England, whither 
 he hoped to accompany the King and the Princes ere 
 the year was much older, Sir John Kirkland was coming 
 to visit his younger daughter, bringing Lady Fareham, 
 whose husband was now in attendance upon His 
 Majesty in Holland, where there were serious negotia- 
 tions on hand — negotiations which would have been full 
 of peril to the English messengers two years ago, when 
 that excellent preacher and holy man, Dr. Hewer, of 
 St. Gregory, was beheaded for having intelligence with 
 the King, through the Marquess of Ormond. 
 
 The parlour window jutted into the square over 
 against the town hall, and Angela could see the whole 
 length of the narrow street along which her father's 
 carriage must come. 
 
 The tall, slim figure and the fair, girlish face stood 
 out in full relief against the grey stone mullion, bathed 
 in sunlight. The graceful form was undisguised by 
 courtly apparel. The soft brown hair fell in loose 
 ringlets, which were drawn back from the brow by a 
 band of black ribbon. The girl's gown was of soft grey 
 woollen stuff, relieved by a cambric collar covering the 
 shoulders, and by cambric elbow-sleeves. A coral and 
 silver rosary was her only ornament; but face and form 
 needed no aid from satins or velvets, Venetian lace or 
 Indian filagree. 
 
32 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 The sweet, serious face was chiefly notable for eyes 
 of darkest grey, under brows that were firmly arched 
 and almost black. The hair was a dark brown, the 
 complexion somewhat too pale for beauty. Indeed, that 
 low-toned colouring made some people blind to the 
 fine and regular modelling of the high-bred face; while 
 there were others who saw no charm in a countenance 
 which seemed too thoughtful for early youth, and there- 
 fore lacking in one of youth's chief attractions — glad- 
 ness. 
 
 The face lighted suddenly at this moment, as four 
 great grey Flanders horses came clattering along the 
 narrow street and into the square, dragging a heavy 
 painted wooden coach after them. The girl opened the 
 casement and craned out her neck to look at the arrival. 
 The coach stopped at the convent door, and a footman 
 alighted and rang the convent bell, to the interested 
 curiosity of two or three loungers upon the steps of the 
 town hall over the way. 
 
 Yes, it was her father, greyer but less sad of visage 
 than at his last visit. His doublet and cloak were hand- 
 somer than the clothes he had worn then, though they 
 were still of the same fashion, that English mode which 
 he had affected before the beginning of the troubles, 
 and which he had never changed. 
 
 Immediately after him there alighted a vision of 
 beauty, the loveliest of ladies, in sky-blue velvet and pale 
 grey fur, and with a long white feather encircling a sky- 
 blue hat, and a collar of Venetian lace veiling a bosom 
 that scintillated with jewels. 
 
 "Hyacinth!" cried Angela, in a flutter of delight. 
 
 The portress peered at the visitors through her spy- 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. S3 
 
 hole, and being satisfied that they were the expected 
 guests, speedily opened the iron-clamped door. 
 
 There was no one to interfere between father and 
 daughter, sister and sister, in the convent parlour. 
 Angela had her dear people all to herself, the Mother 
 Superior respecting the confidences and outpourings of 
 love, which neither father nor children would wish to be 
 witnessed even by a kinswoman. Thus, by a rare 
 breach of conventual discipline, Angela was allowed to 
 receive her guests alone. 
 
 The lay-sister opened the parlour door and ushered 
 in the visitors, and Angela ran to meet her father, and 
 fell sobbing upon his breast, her face hidden against 
 his velvet doublet, her arms clasping his neck. 
 
 "What, mistress, hast thou so watery a welcome, 
 now that the clouds have passed away, and every loyal 
 English heart is joyful?" cried Sir John, in a voice that 
 was somewhat husky, but with a great show of gaiety. 
 
 "Oh, sir, I have waited so long, so long for this day. 
 Sometimes I thought it would never come, that I should 
 never see my dear father again." 
 
 "Poor child! it would have been only my desert 
 hadst thou forgotten me altogether. I might have come 
 to you sooner, pretty one; indeed, I would have come, 
 only things w r ent ill w T ith me. I was down-hearted and 
 hopeless of any good fortune in a world that seemed 
 given over to psalm-singing scoundrels; and till the tide 
 turned I had no heart to come nigh you. But now 
 fortunes are mended, the King's and mine, and you 
 have a father once again, and shall have a home by- 
 and-by, the house where you were born, and where your 
 angel-mother made my life blessed. You are like her, 
 
 London Pride. I. 3 
 
34 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Angela!" holding back the pale face in his strong hands, 
 and gazing upon it earnestly. "Yes, you favour your 
 mother; but your face is over sad for your years. Look 
 at your sister here! Would you not say a sunbeam 
 had taken woman's shape and come dancing into the 
 room?" 
 
 Angela looked round and greeted the lady, who had 
 stood aside while father and daughter met. Yes, such 
 a face suggested sunlight and summer, birds, butterflies, 
 all things buoyant and gladsome. A complexion of 
 dazzling fairness, pearly, transparent, with ever-varying 
 carnations; eyes of heavenliest blue, liquid, laughing, 
 brnnming with espieglerie ; a slim little nose with an 
 upward tilt, which expressed a contemptuous gaiety, 
 an inquiring curiosity; a dimpled chin sloping a little 
 towards the full round throat; the bust and shoulders of 
 a Venus, the waist of a sylph, set off by the close-fitting 
 velvet bodice, with its diamond and turquoise buttons; 
 hair of palest gold, fluffed out into curls that were traps 
 for sunbeams; hands and arms of a milky whiteness 
 emerging from the large loose elbow-sleeves — a radiant 
 apparition which took Angela by surprise. She had seen 
 Flemish vraus in the richest attire, and among them 
 there had been women as handsome as Helena Forment; 
 but this vision of a fine lady from the court of the "roi 
 soleil" was a revelation. Until this moment, the girl 
 had hardly known what grace and beauty meant. 
 
 "Come and let me hug you, my dearest Puritan," 
 cried Hyacinth, holding out her arms. "Why do you 
 suffer your custodians to clothe you in that odious grey, 
 which puts me in mind of lank-haired psalm-singing 
 scum, and all their hateful works? I would have you 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 35 
 
 sparkling in white satin and silver, or blushing in 
 brocade powdered with forget-me-nots and rosebuds. 
 What would Fareham say if I told him I had a Puritan 
 in grey woollen stuff for my sister? He sends you his 
 love, dear, and bids me tell you there shall be always 
 an honoured place in our home for you, be it in England 
 or France, in town or country. And why should you 
 not fill that place at once, sister? Your education is 
 finished, and to be sure you must be tired of these stone 
 walls and this sleepy town." 
 
 "No, Hyacinth, I love the convent and the friends 
 who have made it my home. You and Lord Fareham 
 are very kind, but I could not leave our reverend mother; 
 she is not so well or so strong as she used to be, and 
 I think she likes to have me with her, because though 
 she loves us all, down to the humblest of the lay-sisters, 
 I am of her kin, and seem nearest to her. I don't 
 want to forsake her; and if it was not against my father's 
 wish I should like to end my days in this house, and 
 to give my thoughts to God." 
 
 "That is because thou knowest nought of the world 
 outside, sweetheart," protested Hyacinth. "I admire 
 the readiness with which folks will renounce a banquet 
 they have never tasted. A single day at the Louvre or 
 the Palais Royal would change your inclinations at once 
 and for ever." 
 
 "She is too young for a court life, or a town life 
 either," said Sir John. "And I have no mind to remove 
 her from this safe shelter till the King shall be firm 
 upon his throne, and our poor country shall have settled 
 into a stable and peaceful condition. But there must 
 
 3* 
 
36 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 be no vows, Angela, no renunciation of kindred and 
 home. I look to thee for the comfort of my old age!" 
 
 "Dear father, I will never disobey you. I shall 
 remember always that my first duty is to you; and when 
 you want me, you have but to summon me; and whether 
 you are at home or abroad, in wealth and honour, or in 
 exile and poverty, I will go to you, and be glad and 
 happy to be your daughter and your servant." 
 
 "I knew thou wouldst, dearest. I have never for- 
 gotten how the soft little arms clung about my neck, 
 and how the baby lips kissed me, in this same parlour, 
 when my heart was weighed down by a load of iron, 
 and there seemed no ray of hope for England or me. 
 You were my comforter then, and you will be my com- 
 forter in the days to come. Hyacinth here is of the 
 butterfly breed. She is fair to look upon, and tender 
 and loving; but she is ever on the wing. And she has 
 her husband and her children to cherish, and cannot 
 be burdened with the care of a broken-down grey- 
 beard." 
 
 "Broken-down! Why, you are as brave a gallant as 
 the youngest cavalier in the King's service," cried 
 Hyacinth. "I would pit my father against Montagu or 
 Buckingham, Buckhurst or Roscommon — against the 
 gayest, the boldest of them all, on land or sea. Broken- 
 down, forsooth! We will hear no such words from you, 
 sir, for a score of years. And now you will want all 
 your wits to take your proper place at Court as sage 
 counsellor and friend of the new King. Sure he will 
 need his father's friends about him to teach him state- 
 craft — he who has led such a gay, good-for-nothing life 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. tf 
 
 as a penniless rover, with scarce a sound coat to his 
 back." 
 
 "Nay, Hyacinth, the King will have no need of us 
 old Malignants. We have had our day. He has shrewd 
 Ned Hyde for counsellor, and in that one long head 
 there is craft enough to govern a kingdom. The new 
 Court will be a young Court, and the fashion of it will 
 be new. We old fellows, who were gallant and gay 
 enough in the forties, when we fought against Essex and 
 his tawny scarves, would be but laughable figures at the 
 Court of a young man bred half in Paris, and steeped 
 in French fashions and French follies. No, Hyacinth, it 
 is for you and your husband the new day dawns. If I 
 get back to my old meads and woods and the house 
 where I was born, I will sit quietly down in the chimney 
 corner, and take to cattle-breeding, and a pack of har- 
 riers, for the diversion of my declining years. And when 
 my Angela can make up her mind to leave her good 
 aunt she shall keep house for me." 
 
 "I should love to be your housekeeper, dearest 
 father. If it please Heaven to restore my aunt to health 
 and strength, I will go to you with a heart full of joy," 
 said the girl, hanging caressingly upon the old cavalier's 
 shoulder. 
 
 Hyacinth flitted about the room with a swift, birdlike 
 motion, looking at the sacred images and prints, the 
 tableau over the mantelpiece, which told, with much 
 nourish of penmanship, the progress of the convent 
 pupils in learning and domestic virtues. 
 
 "What a humdrum, dismal room!" she cried. "You 
 should see our convent parlours in Paris. At the 
 Carmelites, in the Rue Saint Jacques, par exemple, the 
 
38 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Queen-mother's favourite convent, and at Chaillot, the 
 house founded by Queen Henrietta — such pictures, and 
 ornaments, and embroidered hangings, and tapestries 
 worked by devotees. This room of yours, sister, stinks 
 of poverty, as your Flemish streets stink of garlic and 
 cabbage. Faugh! I know not which is worse!" 
 
 Having thus delivered herself of her disgust, she 
 darted upon her younger sister, laid her hands upon 
 the girl's shoulders, and contemplated her with mock 
 seriousness. 
 
 "What a precocious young saint thou art, with no 
 more interest in the world outside this naked parlour 
 than if thou wert yonder image of the Holy Mother. 
 Not a question of my husband, or my children, or of 
 the last fashion in hood and mantle, or of the new laced 
 gloves, or the French King's latest divinity." 
 
 "I should dearly like to see your children, Hyacinth," 
 answered her sister. 
 
 "Ah! they are the most enchanting creatures, the 
 girl a perpetual sunbeam, ethereal, elfish, a being of life 
 and movement, and with a loquacity that never tires; 
 the boy a lump of honey, fat, sleek, lazily beautiful. I 
 am never tired of admiring them, when I have time to 
 see them. Papillon — an old friend of mine has sur- 
 named her Papillon because she is never still — was five 
 years old on March 19. We were at St. Germain on 
 her birthday. You should have seen the toys and 
 trinkets and sweetmeats which the Court showered upon 
 her — the King and Queen, Monsieur, Mademoiselle, the 
 Princess Henrietta, her godmother — everybody had a 
 gift for the daughter of La folle Baronne Fareham. Yes, 
 they are lovely creatures, Angela; and I am miserable to 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 39 
 
 think that it may be half a year before I see their sweet 
 faces again." 
 
 "Why so long, sister?" 
 
 "Because they are at the Chateau de Montrond, 
 grandmother's place near Dieppe, and because Fareham 
 and I are going hence to Breda to meet the King, our 
 own King Charles, and help lead him home in triumph. 
 In London the mob are shouting, roaring, singing, for 
 their King; and Montagu's fleet lies in the Downs, wait- 
 ing but the signal from Parliament to cross to Holland. 
 He who left his country in a scurvy fishing-boat will go 
 back to England in a mighty man-of-war, the Naseby — 
 mark you, the Naseby — christened by that Usurper, in 
 insolent remembrance of a rebel victory; but Charles 
 will doubtless change that hated name. He must not 
 be put in mind of a fight where rebels had the better of 
 loyal gentlemen. He will sail home over those dancing 
 seas, with a fleet of great white-winged ships circling 
 round him like a flight of silvery doves. Oh, what a 
 turn of fortune's wheel! I am wild with rapture at the 
 thought of it!" 
 
 "You love England better than France, though you 
 must be almost a stranger there," said Angela, wonder- 
 ingly, looking at a miniature which her sister wore in a 
 bracelet. 
 
 "Nay, love, 'tis in Paris I am an insignificant alien, 
 though they are ever so kind and flattering to me. At 
 St. Germain I am only Madame de Montrond's grand- 
 daughter — the wife of a somewhat morose gentleman 
 who was cleverer at winning battles than at gaining 
 hearts. At Whitehall I shall be Lady Fareham, and 
 shall enjoy my full consequence as the wife of an 
 
4 o 
 
 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 English nobleman of ancient lineage and fine estate, for, 
 I am happy to tell you, his lordship's property suffered 
 less than most people's in the rebellion, and anything his 
 father lost when he fought for the good cause will be 
 given back to the son now the good cause is triumphant, 
 with additions, perhaps — an earl's coronet instead of 
 a baron's beggarly pearls. I should like Papillon to be 
 Lady Henrietta." 
 
 "And you will send for your children, doubtless, 
 when you are sure all is safe in England?" said Angela, 
 still contemplating the portrait in the bracelet, which her 
 sister had unclasped while she talked. "This is Papillon, 
 I know. What a sweet, kind, mischievous face!" 
 
 "Mischievous as a Barbary ape — kind, and sweet as 
 the west wind," said Sir John. 
 
 "And your boy?" asked Angela, reclasping the 
 bracelet on the fair, round arm, having looked her fill 
 at the mutinous eyes, the brown, crisply curling hair, 
 dainty, pointed chin, and dimpled cheeks. "Have you 
 his picture, too?" 
 
 "Not his; but I wear his father's likeness somewhere 
 betwixt buckram and Flanders lace," answered Hyacinth, 
 gaily, pulling a locket from amidst the splendours of her 
 corsage. "I call it next my heart; but there is a stout 
 fortification of whalebone between heart and picture. 
 You have gloated enough on the daughter's impertinent 
 visage. Look now at the father, whom she resembles in 
 little, as a kitten resembles a tiger." 
 
 She handed her sister an oval locket, bordered with 
 diamonds, and held by a slender Indian chain; and 
 Angela saw the face of the brother-in-law whose kind- 
 ness and hospitality had been so freely promised to her. 
 
WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 4 I 
 
 She* explored the countenance long and earnestly. 
 
 "Well, do you think I chose him for his beauty?" 
 asked Hyacinth. "You have devoured every lineament 
 with that serious gaze of yours, as if you were trying to 
 read the spirit behind that mask of flesh. Do you think 
 him handsome?'' 
 
 Angela faltered: but was unskilled in flattery, and 
 could not reply with a compliment. 
 
 "No, sister; surely none have ever called this 
 countenance handsome; but it is a face to set one 
 thinking." 
 
 "Ay, child, and he who owns the face is a man to 
 set one thinking. He has made me think many a 
 time when I would have travelled a day's journey to 
 escape the thoughts he forced upon me. He was not 
 made to bask in the sunshine of life. He is a stormy 
 petrel. It was for his ugliness I chose him. Those 
 dark stern features, that imperious mouth, and a brow 
 like the Olympian Jove. He scared me into loving him. 
 I sheltered myself upon his breast from the thunder of 
 his brow, the lightning of his eye." 
 
 "He has a look of his cousin Wentworth," said Sir 
 John. "I never see him but I think of that murdered 
 man — my father's friend and mine — whom I have never 
 ceased to mourn." 
 
 "Yet their kin is of the most distant," said Hyacinth. 
 "It is strange that there should be any likeness." 
 
 "Faces appear and reappear in families," answered 
 her father. "You may observe that curiously recurring 
 likeness in any picture-gallery, if the family portraits 
 cover a century or two. Louis has little in common 
 with his grandfather; but two hundred years hence there 
 
42 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 may be a prince of the royal house whose every feature 
 shall recall Henry the Great. 
 
 The portrait was returned to its hiding-place, under 
 perfumed lace and cobweb lawn, and the reverend 
 mother entered the parlour, ready for conversation, and 
 eager to hear the history of the last six weeks, of the 
 collapse of that military despotism which had convulsed 
 England and dominated Europe, and was now melting 
 into thin air as ghosts dissolve at cock-crow, of the 
 secret negotiations between Monk and Grenville, now 
 known to everybody; of the King's gracious amnesty and 
 promise of universal pardon, save for some score or so 
 of conspicuous villains, whose hands were dyed with the 
 Royal Martyr's blood. 
 
 She was full of questioning : and, above all, eager to 
 know whether it was true that King Charles was at 
 heart as staunch a papist as his brother the Duke of 
 York was believed to be, though even the Duke lacked 
 the courage to bear witness to the true faith. 
 
 Two lay-sisters brought in a repast of cakes and 
 syrups and light wines, such delicate and dainty food 
 as the pious ladies of the convent were especially skilled 
 in preparing, and which they deemed all-sufficient for 
 the entertainment of company ! even when one of their 
 guests was a rugged soldier like Sir John Kirkland. 
 When the light collation had been tasted and praised, 
 the coach came to the door again, and swallowed up the 
 beautiful lady and the old cavalier, who vanished from 
 Angela's sight in a cloud of dust, waving hands from the 
 coach window. 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 LETTERS FROM HOME. 
 
 The quiet days went by, and grew into years, and 
 time was only marked by the gradual failure of the re- 
 verend mother's health; so gradual, so gentle a decay, 
 that it was only when looking back on St. Sylvester's 
 Eve that her great-niece became aware how much of 
 strength and activity had been lost since the Superior 
 knelt in her place near the altar, listening to the solemn 
 music of the midnight Mass that sanctified the passing 
 of the year. This year the reverend mother was led to 
 her seat between two nuns, who sustained her feeble 
 limbs. This year the meek knees, which had worn the 
 marble floor in long hours of prayer during eighty pious 
 years, could no longer bend. The meek head was 
 bowed, the bloodless hands were lifted up in supplica- 
 tion, but the fingers were wasted and stiffened, and there 
 was pain in every movement of the joints. 
 
 There was no actual malady, only the slow death in 
 life called old age. All the patient needed was rest 
 and tender nursing. This last her great-niece supplied, 
 together with the gentlest companionship. No highly 
 trained nurse, the product of modern science, could have 
 been more efficient than the instinct of affection had 
 made Angela. And then the patient's temper was so 
 
44 LONDON PRJDfi. 
 
 amiable, her mind, undimmed after eighty-three years of 
 life, was a mirror of God. She thought of her fellow- 
 creatures with a Divine charity; she worshipped her 
 Creator with an implicit faith. For her in many a 
 waking vision the heavens opened and the spirits of de- 
 parted saints descended from their abode in bliss to 
 hold converse with her. Eighty years of her life had 
 been given to religious exercises and charitable deeds. 
 Motherless before she could speak, she had entered the 
 convent as a pupil at three years of age, and had taken 
 the veil at seventeen. Her father had married a great 
 heiress, whose only child, a daughter, was allowed to 
 absorb all the small stock of parental affection; and 
 there was no one to dispute Anastasia's desire for the 
 cloister. All she knew of the world outside those walls 
 was from hearsay. A rare visit from her lovely half-sister, 
 the Marquise de Montrond, had astonished her with the 
 sight of a distinguished Parisienne, and left her wonder- 
 ing. She had never read a secular book. She knew not 
 the meaning of the word pleasure, save in the mild 
 amusements permitted to the convent children — 
 "children" till they left the convent as young women 
 — on the evening of a saint's day; a stately dance of 
 curtsyings and waving arms; a little childish play, 
 dramatising some incident in the lives of the saints. So 
 she lived her eighty years of obedience and quiet useful- 
 ness, learning and teaching, serving and governing. She 
 had lived through the Thirty Years' War, through the 
 devastations of Wallenstein, the cruelties of Bavarian 
 Tilly, the judicial murder of Egmont and Horn. She 
 had heard of villages burnt, populations put to the sword, 
 women and children killed by thousands. She had con- 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 45 
 
 versed with those who remembered the League; she had 
 seen the nuns weeping for Edward Campion's cruel fate; 
 she had heard Masses sung for the soul of murdered 
 Mary Stuart. She had heard of Raleigh's visions of 
 conquest and of gold, setting his prison-blanched face 
 towards the West, in the afternoon of life, to encounter 
 bereavement, treachery, sickening failure, and go back to 
 his native England to expiate the dreams of genius with 
 the blood of a martyr. And through all the changes 
 and chances of that eventful century she had lived apart, 
 full of pity and wonder, in a charmed circle of piety 
 and love. 
 
 Her room, in these peaceful stages of the closing 
 scene, was a haven of rest. Angela loved the seclusion 
 of the panelled chamber, with its heavily mullioned case- 
 ment facing the south-west, and the polished oak floor, 
 on which the red and gold of the sunset were mirrored, 
 as on the dark stillness of a moorland tarn. For her 
 every object in the room had its interest or its charm. 
 The associations of childhood hallowed them all. The 
 large ivory crucifix, yellow with age, dim with the kisses 
 of adoring lips; the delf statuettes of Mary and Joseph, 
 flaming with gaudy colour; the figure of the Saviour and 
 St. John the Baptist, delicately carved out of boxwood, in 
 a group representing the baptism in the river Jordan, the 
 holy dove trembling on a wire over the Divine head; the 
 books, the pictures, the rosaries: all these she had gazed 
 at reverently when all things were new, and the convent 
 passages places of shuddering, and the service of the 
 Mass an unintelligible mystery. She had grown up within 
 those solemn walls; and now, seeing her kinswoman's 
 life gently ebbing away, she could but wonder what she 
 
46 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 would have to do in this world when another took the 
 Superior's place, and the tie that bound her to Louvain 
 would be broken. 
 
 The lady who would in all probability succeed 
 Mother Anastasia as Superior was a clever, domineering 
 woman, whom Angela loved least of all the nuns — a 
 widow of good birth and fortune, and a thorough 
 Fleming; stolid, bigoted, prejudiced, and taking much 
 credit to herself for the wealth she had brought to the 
 convent, apt to talk of the class-room and the chapel 
 her money had helped to build and restore as "my 
 class-room," or "my chapel." 
 
 No; Angela had no desire to remain in the convent 
 when her dear kinswoman should have vanished from 
 the scene her presence sanctified. The house would be 
 haunted with sorrowful memories. It would be time for 
 her to claim that home which her father had talked of 
 sharing with her in his old age. She could just faintly 
 remember the house in which she was born — the moat, 
 the fish-pond, the thick walls of yew, the peacocks and 
 lions cut in box, of which the gardener who clipped 
 them was so proud. Faintly, faintly, the picture of the 
 old house came back to her; built of grey stone, and 
 stained with moss, grave and substantial, occupying three 
 sides of a quadrangle, a house of many windows, few of 
 which were intended to open, a house of dark passages, 
 like these in the convent, and nights of shallow steps, 
 and curious turns and twistings here and there. There 
 were living birds that sumied their spreading tails and 
 stalked in slow stateliness on the turf terraces, as well 
 as those peacocks clipped out of yew. The house lay 
 in a Buckinghamshire valley, shut round and sheltered 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 47 
 
 by hills and coppices, where there was an abundance 
 of game. Angela had seen the low, cavern-like larder 
 hung with pheasants and hares. 
 
 Her heart yearned towards the old house, so dis- 
 tinctly pictured by memory, though perchance with some 
 differences from the actual scene. The mansion would 
 seem smaller to her, doubtless, beholding it with the 
 eyes of womanhood, than childish memory made it. But 
 to live there with her father, to wait upon him and tend 
 him, to have Hyacinth's children there, playing in the 
 gardens as she had played, would be as happy a life as 
 her fancy could compass. 
 
 All that she knew of the march of events during 
 those tranquil years in the convent came to her in let- 
 ters from her sister, who was a vivacious letter-writer, 
 and prided herself upon her epistolary talent— *- as in- 
 deed upon her general superiority, from a literary stand- 
 point, to the women of her day. 
 
 It was a pleasure to Lady Fareham in some rare 
 interval of solitude — when the weather was too severe 
 for her to venture outside the hall door, even in her 
 comfortable coach, and when by some curious concatena- 
 tion she happened to be without visitors — to open her 
 portfolio and prattle with her pen to her sister, as she 
 would have prattled with her tongue to the visitors 
 whom snow or tempest kept away. Her letters written 
 from London were apt to be rare and brief, Angela 
 noted; but from his lordship's mansion near Oxford, or 
 at the Grange between Fareham and Winchester — once 
 the property of the brothers of St. Cross — she always 
 sent a budget. Few of these lengthy epistles contained 
 anything bearing upon Angela's own existence — except 
 
48 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the oft-repeated entreaty that she would make haste and 
 join them — or even the flippant suggestion that Mother 
 Anastasia should make haste and die. They were of the 
 nature of news-letters; but the news was tinctured by 
 the feminine medium through which it came, and there 
 was a flavour of egotism in almost every page. Lady 
 Fareham wrote as only a pretty woman, courted, flattered, 
 and indulged by everybody about her, ever since she 
 could remember, could be forgiven for writing. People 
 had petted her and worshipped her with such uniform 
 subservience that she had grown to thirty years of age 
 without knowing that she was selfish, accepting homage 
 and submission as a law of the universe, as kings and 
 princes do. 
 
 Only in one of those letters was there that which 
 might be called a momentous fact, but which Angela 
 took as easily as if it had been a mere detail, to be 
 dismissed from her thoughts when the letter had been 
 laid aside. 
 
 It w r as a letter with a black seal, announcing the 
 death of the Marquise de Montrond, who had expired 
 of an apoplexy at her house in the Marais, after a 
 supper party at which Mademoiselle, Madame de Longue- 
 ville, Madame de Montausier, the Duchesse de Bouillon, 
 Lauzun, St. Evremond, cheery little Godeau, Bishop of 
 Vence, and half a dozen other famous wits had been 
 present, a supper bristling with royal personages. Death 
 had come with appalling suddenness while the lamps of 
 the festival were burning, and the cards were still upon 
 the tables, and the last carriage had but just rolled 
 under the porte cochere. 
 
 "It is the manner of death she would have chosen," 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 4Q 
 
 wrote Hyacinth. "She never missed confession on the 
 first Sunday of the month; and she was so generous to 
 the Church and to the poor that her director declared 
 she would have been too saintly for earth, but for the 
 human weakness of liking fine company. And now, 
 dearest, I have to tell you how she has disposed of her 
 fortune; and I hope, if you should think she has not 
 used you generously, you will do me the justice to be- 
 lieve that I have neither courted her for her wealth 
 nor influenced her to my dear sister's disadvantage. 
 You will consider, tres chere, that I was with her from 
 my eighth year until the other day when Fareham 
 brought me to England. She loved me passionately in 
 my childhood, and has often told me since that she 
 never felt towards me as a grandmother, but as if she 
 had been actually my mother, being indeed still a young 
 woman when she adopted me, and by strangers always 
 mistaken for my mother. She was handsome to the 
 last, and young in mind and in habits long after youth 
 had left her. I was said to be the image of what she 
 was when she rivalled Madame de Hautefort in the 
 affections of the late King. You must consider, sweet- 
 heart, that he was the most moral of men, and that 
 with him love meant a passion as free from sensual 
 taint as the preferences of a sylph. I think my good 
 grandmother loved me all the better for this fancied 
 resemblance. She would arrange her jewels about my 
 hair and bosom, as she had worn them when Bucking- 
 ham came wooing for his master; and then she would 
 bid her page hold a mirror before me and tell me to 
 look at the face of which Queen Anne had been jealous, 
 and for which Cinq Mars had run mad. And then she 
 
 London Pride. I. 4 
 
50 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 would shed a tear or two over the years and the charms 
 that were gone, till I brought the cards and cheered her 
 spirits with her favourite game of primero. 
 
 "She had her fits of temper and little tantrums 
 sometimes, Ange, and it needed some patience to restrain 
 one's tongue from insolence; but I am happy to re- 
 member that I ever bore her in profound respect, and 
 that I never made her seriously angry but once — which 
 was when I, being then almost a child, went out into the 
 streets of Paris with Henri de Malfort and a wild party, 
 masked, to hear Beaufort address the populace in the 
 market-place, and when I was so unlucky as to lose the 
 emerald cross given her by the great Cardinal, for whom, 
 I believe, she had a sneaking kindness. Why else should 
 she have so hated his Eminence's very much favoured 
 niece, Madame de Combalet? 
 
 "But to return to that which concerns my dear sister. 
 Regarding me as her own daughter, the Marquise has 
 lavished her bounties upon me almost to the exclusion 
 of my own sweet Angela. In a word, dearest, she 
 leaves you a modest income of four hundred louis — or 
 about three hundred pounds sterling — the rental of two 
 farms in Normandy; and all the rest of her fortune she 
 bequeaths to me, and Papillon after me, including her 
 house in the Marais — sadly out of fashion now that 
 everybody of consequence is moving to the Place Royale 
 — and her chateau near Dieppe; besides all her jewels, 
 many of which I have had in my possession ever since 
 my marriage. My sweet sister shall take her choice of a 
 carcanet among those old-fashioned trinkets. And now, 
 dearest, if you are left with a pittance that will but serve 
 to pay for your gloves and fans at the Middle Exchange, 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 5 I 
 
 and perhaps to buy you an Indian nightgown in the 
 course of the year — for your Court petticoats and man- 
 tuas will cost three times as much — you have but to 
 remember that my purse is to be yours, and my home 
 yours, and that Fareham and I do but wait to welcome 
 you either to Fareham House, in the Strand, or to Chiltern 
 Abbey, near Oxford. The Grange near Fareham I never 
 intend to re-enter if I can help it. The place is a 
 warren of rats, which the servants take for ghosts. If 
 you love water you will love our houses, for the river 
 runs near them both; indeed, when in London, we 
 almost think ourselves in Venice, save that we have a 
 spacious garden, which I am told few of the Venetians 
 can command, their city being built upon an assemblage 
 of minuscule islets, linked together by innumerable 
 bridges." 
 
 Angela smiled as she looked down at her black 
 gown — the week-day uniform of the convent school, ex- 
 changed for a somewhat superior grey stuff on Sundays 
 and holidays — smiled at the notion of spending the rent 
 of two farms upon her toilet. And how much more 
 ridiculous seemed the assertion that to appear at King 
 Charles's Court she must spend thrice as much! Yet 
 she could but remember that Hyacinth had described 
 trains and petticoats so loaded with jewelled embroidery 
 that it was a penance to wear them— lace worth hun- 
 dreds of pounds — plumed hats that cost as much as a 
 year's maintenance in the convent. 
 
 Mother Anastasia expressed considerable displeasure 
 at Madame de Montrond's disposal of her wealth. 
 
 "This is what it is to live in a Court, and to care 
 only for earthly things!" she said. "All sense of justice 
 
 4* 
 
52 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 is lost in that world of vanity and self-love. You are as 
 near akin to the Marquise as your sister; and yet, be- 
 cause she was familiar with the one and not with the 
 other — and because her vain, foolish soul took pleasure 
 in a beauty that recalled her own perishable charms, she 
 leaves one sister a great fortune and the other a pittance ! " 
 
 "Dear aunt, I am more than content " 
 
 "But I am not content for you, Angela. Had the 
 estate been divided equally you might have taken the 
 veil, and succeeded to my place in this beloved house, 
 which needs the accession of wealth to maintain it in 
 usefulness and dignity." 
 
 Angela would not wound her aunt's feelings by one 
 word of disparagement of the house in which she had 
 been reared; but, looking along the dim avenue of the 
 future, she yearned for some wider horizon than the 
 sky, barred with tall poplars which rose high above the 
 garden wall that formed the limit of her daily walks. 
 Her rambles, her recreations, had all been confined 
 within that space of seven or eight acres, and she thought 
 sometimes with a sudden longing of those hills and val- 
 leys of fertile Buckinghamshire, which lay so far back 
 in the dawn of her mind, and were yet so distinctly 
 pictured in her memory. 
 
 And London — that wonderful city of which her sister 
 wrote in such glowing words ! the long range of palaces 
 beside the swift-flowing river, wider than the Seine 
 where it reflects the gloomy bulk of the Louvre and the 
 Temple ! Were it only once in her life, she wou d like 
 to see London — the King, the two Queens, Whitehall, 
 and Somerset House. She would like to see all the 
 splendour of Court and city; and then to taste the 
 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 53 
 
 placid retirement of the house in the valley, and to be 
 her father's housekeeper and companion. 
 
 Another letter from Hyacinth announced the death 
 of Mazarin. 
 
 "The Cardinal is no more. He died in the day of 
 success, having got the better of all his enemies. A 
 violent access of gout was followed by an affection of 
 the chest which proved fatal. His sick-room was crowded 
 with courtiers and sycophants, and he was selling sine- 
 cures up to the day of his death. Fareham says his 
 death-bed was like a money-changer's counter. He was 
 passionately fond of hocca, the Italian game which he 
 brought into fashion, and which ruined half the young 
 men about the Court. The counterpane was scattered 
 with money and playing cards, which were only brushed 
 aside to make room for the last Sacraments. My Lord 
 Clarendon declares that his spirits never recovered from 
 the shock of his Majesty's restoration, which falsified all 
 his calculations. He might have made his favourite 
 niece Queen of England; but his Italian caution re- 
 strained him, and the beautiful Hortense has to put up 
 with a new-made duke — a title bought with her uncle's 
 money — to whom the Cardinal affianced her on his 
 death-bed. He was a remarkable man, and so profound 
 a dissembler that his pretended opposition to King 
 Louis' marriage with his niece Olympe Mancini would 
 have deceived the shrewdest observer, had we not all 
 known that he ardently desired the union, and that it 
 was only his fear of Queen Anne's anger which pre- 
 vented it. Her Spanish pride was in arms at the no- 
 tion, and she would not have stopped short at revolu- 
 tion to prevent or to revenge such an alliance. 
 
54 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "This was perhaps the only occasion upon which 
 she ever seriously opposed Mazarin. With him expires 
 all her political power. She is now as much a cypher 
 as in the time of the late King, when France had only 
 one master, the great Cardinal. He who is just dead, 
 Fareham says, was but a little Richelieu; and he recalls 
 how when the great Cardinal died people scarce dared 
 tell one another of his death, so profound was the awe 
 in which he was held. He left the King a nullity, and 
 the Queen all powerful. She was young and beautiful 
 then, you see; her husband was marked for death, her 
 son was an infant. All France was hers — a kingdom 
 of courtiers and flatterers. And now she is old and 
 ailing; and Mazarin being gone, the young King will 
 submit to no minister who claims to be anything better 
 than a clerk or a secretary. Colbert he must tolerate 
 — for Colbert means prosperity — but Colbert will have 
 to obey. My friend, the Duchesse de Longueville, who 
 is now living in strict retirement, writes me the most ex- 
 quisite letters; and from her I hear all that happens in 
 that country which I sometimes fancy is more my own 
 than the duller climate where my lot is now cast. 
 Fifteen years at the French Court have made me in 
 heart and mind almost a Frenchwoman; nor can I fail 
 to be influenced by my maternal ancestry. I find it 
 difficult sometimes to remember my English, when con- 
 versing with the clodhoppers of Oxfordshire, who have 
 no French, yet insist, for finery's sake, upon larding 
 their rustic English with French words. 
 
 "All that is most agreeable in our court is imitated 
 from the Palais Royal and the Louvre. 
 
 " 'Whitehall is but the shadow of a shadow," says 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 55 
 
 Fareham, in one of his philosophy fits, preaching upon 
 the changes he has seen in Paris and London. And, 
 indeed, it is strange to have lived through two revolu- 
 tions, one so awful in its final catastrophe that it dwarfs 
 the other, yet both terrible; for I, who was a witness 
 of the sufferings of Princes and Princesses during the 
 two wars of the Fronde, am not inclined to think lightly 
 of a civil war which cost France some of the flower of 
 her nobility, and made her greatest hero a prisoner and 
 an exile for seven years of his life. 
 
 "But oh, my dear, it was a romantic time! and I 
 look back and am proud to have lived in it. I was but 
 twelve years old at the siege of Paris; but I was in 
 Madame de Longueville's room, at the Hotel de Ville, 
 while the fighting was going on, and the officers, in their 
 steel cuirasses, coming in from the thick of the strife. 
 Such a confusion of fine ladies and armed men — breast- 
 plates and blue scarves — fiddles squeaking in the salon, 
 
 trumpets sounding in the square below!" 
 
 ***** 
 
 In a letter of later date Lady Fareham expatiated 
 upon the folly of her sister's spiritual guides. 
 
 "I am desolated, ma mie, by the absurd restriction 
 which forbids you to profit by my New Year's gift. I 
 thought, when I sent you all the volumes of la Scudery's 
 enchanting romance, I had laid up for you a year of 
 enjoyment, and that, touched by the baguette of that 
 exquisite fancy, your convent walls would fall, like those 
 of Jericho at the sound of Jewish trumpets, and you 
 would be transported in imagination to the finest society 
 in the world — the company of Cyrus and Mandane — 
 under which Oriental disguise you are shown every 
 
56 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 feature of mind and person in Conde and his heroic 
 sister, my esteemed friend, the Duchesse de Longue- 
 ville. As I was one of the first to appreciate Made- 
 moiselle Scudery's genius, and to detect behind the 
 name of the brother the tender sentiments and delicate 
 refinement of the sister's chaster pen, so I believe I was 
 the first to call the Duchesse 'Mandane,' a sobriquet 
 which soon became general among her intimates. 
 
 "You are not to read 'Le Grand Cyrus,' your aunt 
 tells you, because it is a romance! That is to say, you 
 are forbidden to peruse the most faithful history of your 
 own time, and to familiarise yourself with the persons 
 and minds of great people whom you may never be so 
 fortunate as to meet in the flesh. I myself, dearest 
 Ange, have had the felicity to live among these princely 
 persons, to revel in the conversations of the Hotel de 
 Rambouillet — not, perhaps, as our grandmother would 
 have told you, in its most glorious period — but at least 
 while it was still the focus of all that is choicest in let- 
 ters and in art. Did we not hear M. Poquelin read his 
 first comedy before it was represented by Monsieur's 
 company in the beautiful theatre at the Palais Royal, 
 built by Richelieu, when it was the Palais Cardinal? 
 Not read 'Le Grand Cyrus,' and on the score of 
 morality! Why, this most delightful book was written 
 by one of the most moral women in Paris — one of the 
 chastest — against whose reputation no word of slander 
 has ever been breathed! It must, indeed, be confessed 
 that Sapho is of an ugliness which would protect her even 
 were she not guarded by the aegis of genius. She is 
 one of those fortunate unfortunates who can walk through 
 the furnace of a Court unscathed, and leave a reputa- 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 57 
 
 tion for modesty in an age that scarce credits virtue in 
 woman. 
 
 "I fear, dear child, that these narrow-minded re- 
 strictions of your convent will leave you of a surpassing 
 ignorance, which may cover you with confusion when 
 you find yourself in fine company. There are accom- 
 plishments without which youth is no more admired 
 than age and grey hairs; and to sparkle with wit or 
 astonish with learning is a necessity for a woman of 
 quality. It is only by the advantages of education that 
 we can show ourselves superior to such a hussy as 
 Albemarle's gutter-bred duchess, who was the faithless 
 wife of a sailor or barber — I forget which — and who 
 hangs like a millstone upon the General's neck now that 
 he has climbed to the zenith. To have perfect Italian 
 and some Spanish is as needful as to have fine eyes 
 and complexion nowadays. And to dance admirably is 
 a gift indispensable to a lady. Alas! I fear that those 
 little feet of yours — I hope they are small — have never 
 been taught to move in a coranto or a contre-danse, 
 and that you will have to learn the alphabet of dancing at 
 an age when most women are finished performers. The 
 great Conde, while winning sieges and battles that sur- 
 passed the feats of Greeks and Romans, contrived to 
 make himself the finest dancer of his day, and won 
 more admiration in high-bred circles by his graceful 
 movements, which everyone could understand and ad- 
 mire, than by prodigies of valour at Dunkirk or Nord- 
 lingen." 
 
 The above was one of Lady Fareham's most serious 
 letters. Her pen was exercised, for the most part, in a 
 lighter vein. She wrote of the Court beauties, the Court 
 
58 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 jests — practical jokes some of them, which our finer 
 minds of to-day would consider in execrable taste — 
 such jests as we read of in Grammont's memoirs, which 
 generally aimed at making an ugly woman ridiculous, or 
 an injured husband the sport and victim of wicked lover 
 and heartless wife. No sense of the fitness of things 
 constrained her ladyship from communicating these Court 
 scandals to her guileless sister. Did they not comprise 
 the only news worth anybody's attention, and relate to 
 the only class of people who had any tangible existence 
 for Lady Fareham? There were millions of human 
 beings, no doubt, living and acting and suffering on the 
 surface of the earth, outside the stellary circles of which 
 Louis and Charles were the suns; but there was no 
 interstellar medium of sympathy to convey the idea of 
 those exterior populations to Hyacinth's mind. She 
 knew of the populace, French or English, as of some- 
 thing which was occasionally given to become dangerous 
 and revolutionary, which sometimes starved and some- 
 times died of the plague, and was always unpleasing to 
 the educated eye. 
 
 Masquerades, plays, races at Newmarket, dances, 
 duels, losses at cards — Lady Fareham touched every 
 subject, and expatiated on all; but she had usually more 
 to tell of the country she had left than of that in which 
 she was living. 
 
 "Here everything is on such a small scale, si mes- 
 quin!" she wrote. "Whitehall covers a large area, but 
 it is only a fine banqueting hall and a labyrinth of 
 lodgings, without suite or stateliness. The pictures in 
 the late King's cabinet are said to be the finest in the 
 world, but they are a kind of pieces for which I care 
 
LETTERS FEOxM HOME. 59 
 
 very little — Flemish and Dutch chiefly — with a series of 
 cartoons by Raphael, which connoisseurs affect to ad- 
 mire, but which, did they belong to me, I would gladly 
 exchange for a set of Mortlake tapestries. 
 
 "His Majesty here builds ships, while the King of 
 France builds palaces. I am told Louis in spending 
 millions on the new palace at Versailles, an ungrateful 
 site — no water, no noble prospect as at St. Germain, no 
 population. The King likes the spot all the better, 
 Madame tells me, because he has to create his own 
 landscape, to conjure lakes and cataracts out of dry 
 ground. The buildings have been but two years in 
 progress, and it must be long before these colossal 
 foundations are crowned with the edifice which Louis 
 and his architect, Mansart, have planned. Colbert is 
 furious at this squandering of vast sums on a provincial 
 palace, while the Louvre, the birthplace and home of 
 dynasties, remains unfinished. 
 
 "The King's reason for disliking St. Germain — a 
 chateau his mother has always loved — has in it some- 
 thing childish and fantastic, if, as my dear duchess de- 
 clares, he hates the place only because he can see 
 the towers of St. Denis from the terrace, and is thus 
 hourly reminded of death and the grave. I can hardly 
 believe that a being of such superior intelligence could 
 be governed by any such horror of man's inevitable end. 
 I would far sooner attribute the vast expenditure of 
 Versailles to the common love of monarchs and great 
 men for building houses too large for their necessities. 
 Indeed, it was but yesterday that Fareham took me to 
 see the palace — for I can call it by no meaner name 
 —that Lord Clarendon is building for himself in the 
 
60 LONDON PRTDE. 
 
 open country at the top of St. James's Street. It pro- 
 mises to be the finest house in town, and, although not 
 covering so much ground as Whitehall, is judged far 
 superior to that inchoate mass in its fine proportions 
 and the perfect symmetry of its saloons and galleries. 
 There is a garden a-making, projected by Mr. Evelyn, 
 a great authority on trees and gardens. A crowd of 
 fine company had assembled to see the newly finished 
 hall and dining parlour, among them a fussy person, 
 who came in attendance upon my Lord Sandwich, and 
 who was more voluble than became his quality as a 
 clerk in the Navy Office. He was periwigged and dressed 
 as fine as his master, and, on my being civil to him, 
 talked much of himself and of divers taverns in the city 
 where the dinners were either vastly good or vastly ill. 
 I told him that as I never dined at a tavern the subject 
 was altogether beyond the scope of my intelligence, at 
 which Sandwich and Fareham laughed, and my per- 
 tinacious gentleman blushed as red as the heels of his 
 shoes. I am told the creature has a pretty taste in 
 music, and is the son of a tailor, but professes a genteel 
 ancestry, and occasionally pushes into the best com- 
 pany. 
 
 "Shall I describe to you one of my latest conquests, 
 sweetheart? 'Tis a boy — an actual beardless boy of 
 eighteen summers; but such a boy! So beautiful, so 
 insolent, with an impudence that can confront Lord 
 Clarendon himself, the gravest of noblemen, who, with 
 the sole exception of my Lord Southampton, is the one 
 man who has never crossed Mrs. Palmer's threshold, 
 or bowed his neck under that splendid fury's yoke. My 
 admirer thinks no more of smoking these grave nobles, 
 
LETTERS FROM HORffi. 6 1 
 
 men of a former generation, who learnt their manners 
 at the court of a serious and august King, than I do of 
 teasing my falcon. He laughs at them, jokes with them 
 in Greek or in Latin, has a ready answer and a witty 
 quip for every turn of the discourse; will even interrupt 
 his Majesty in one of those anecdotes of his Scottish 
 martyrdom which he tells so well and tells so often. 
 Lucifer hmiself could not be more arrogant or more 
 audacious than this bewitching boy-lover of mine, who 
 writes verses in English or Latin as easy as I can toss a 
 shuttle-cock. I doubt the greater number of his verses 
 are scarce proper reading for you or me, Angela; for I 
 see the men gather round him in corners as he murmurs 
 his latest madrigal to a chosen half-dozen or so; and I 
 guess by their subdued tittering that the lines are not 
 over modest; while by the sidelong glances the listeners 
 cast round, now at my Lady Castlemaine, and anon at 
 some other goddess in the royal pantheon, I have a 
 shrewd notion as to what alabaster breast my witty 
 lover's shafts are aimed at. 
 
 "This youthful devotee of mine is the son of a 
 certain Lord Wilmot, who fought on the late King's side 
 in the troubles. This creature went to the university 
 of Oxford at twelve years old — as it were, straight 
 from his go-cart to college, and was master of arts at 
 fourteen. He has made the grand tour, and pretends 
 to have seen so much of this life that he has found out 
 the worthlessness of it. Even while he wooes me with 
 a most romantic ardour, he affects to have outgrown the 
 capacity to love. 
 
 "Think not, dearest, that I outstep the bounds of 
 matronly modesty by this airy philandering with my 
 
6 2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 young Lord Rochester, or that my serious Fareham is 
 ever offended at our pretty trifling. He laughs at the 
 lad as heartily as I do, invites him to our table, and is 
 amused by his monkeyish tricks. A woman of quality 
 must have followers; and a pert, fantastical boy is the 
 safest of lovers. Slander itself could scarce accuse Lady 
 Fareham, who has had soldier-princes and statesmen at 
 her feet, of an unworthy tenderness for a jackanapes of 
 seventeen; for, indeed, I believe his eighteenth birthday 
 is still in the womb of time. I would with all my heart 
 thou wert here to share our innocent diversions; and I 
 know not which of all my playthings thou wouldst 
 esteem highest, the falcon, my darling spaniels, made 
 up of soft silken curls and intelligent brown eyes, or 
 Rochester. Nay, let me not forget the children, Pa- 
 pillon and Cupid, who are truly very pretty creatures, 
 though consummate plagues. The girl, Papillon, has a 
 tongue which Wilmot says is the nearest approach to 
 perpetual motion that he has yet discovered; and the 
 boy, who was but seven last birthday, is full of mischief, 
 in which my admirer counsels and abets him. 
 
 "Oh, this London, sweetheart, and this Court! How 
 wide those violet eyes would open couldst thou but look 
 suddenly in upon us after supper at Basset, or in the 
 park, or at the playhouse, when the orange girls are 
 smoking the pretty fellows in the pit, and my Lady 
 Castlemaine is leaning half out of her box to talk to the 
 King in his! I thought I had seen enough of festivals 
 and dances, stage-plays and courtly diversions beyond 
 sea; but the Court entertainments at Paris or St. 
 Germain differed as much from the festivities of White- 
 hall as a cathedral service from a dance in a booth at 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 6% 
 
 Bartholomew Fair. His Majesty of France never forgets 
 that he is a king. His Majesty of England only re- 
 members his kingship when he wants a new subsidy, or 
 to get a Bill hurried through the Houses. Louis at 
 four-and-twenty was serious enough for fifty. Charles at 
 thirty-four has the careless humour of a schoolboy. He 
 is royal in nothing except his extravagance, which has 
 squandered more millions than I dare mention since he 
 landed at Dover. 
 
 "I am growing almost as sober as my solemn spouse, 
 who will ever be railing at the King and the Duke, and 
 even more bitterly at the favourite, his Grace of Buck- 
 ingham, who is assuredly one of the most agreeable men 
 in London. I asked Fareham only yesterday why he 
 went to Court, if his Majesty's company is thus distaste- 
 ful to him. "It is not to his company I object, but to 
 his principles," he answered, in that earnest fashion of 
 his which takes the lightest questions au grand serieux. 
 "I see in him a man who, with natural parts far above 
 the average, makes himself the jest of meaner intellects, 
 and the dupe of greedy courtesans; a man who, trained 
 in the stern school of adversity, overshadowed by the 
 great horror of his father's tragical doom, accepts life as 
 one long jest, and being, by a concatenation of circum- 
 stances bordering on the miraculous, restored to the 
 privileges of hereditary monarchy, takes all possible 
 pains to prove the uselessness of kings. I see a man 
 who, borne back to power by the irresistible current of 
 the people's affections, has broken every pledge he gave 
 that people in the flush and triumph of his return. I 
 see one who, in his own person, cares neither for Paul 
 nor Peter, and yet can tamely witness the persecution 
 
64 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of his people because they do not conform to a State 
 religion — can allow good and pious men to be driven 
 out of the pulpits where they have preached the Gospel 
 of Christ, and suffer wives and children to starve be- 
 cause the head of the household has a conscience. I 
 see a king careless of the welfare of his people, and 
 the honour and glory of his reign; affecting to be a 
 patriot, and a man of business, on the strength of an 
 extravagant fancy for shipbuilding; careless of everything 
 save the empty pleasure of an idle hour. A king who 
 lavishes thousands upon wantons and profligates, and 
 who ever gives not to the most worthy, but to the most 
 importunate." 
 
 "I laughed at this tirade, and told him, what indeed 
 I believe, that he is at heart a Puritan, and would better 
 consort with Baxter and Bunyan, and that frousy crew, 
 than with Buckhurst and Sedley, or his brilliant kins- 
 man, Roscommon." 
 
 From her father directly, Angela heard nothing, and 
 her sister's allusions to him were of the briefest, anxiously 
 as she had questioned that lively letter-writer. Yes, her 
 father was well, Hyacinth told her; but he stayed mostly 
 at the Manor Moat. He did not care for the Court 
 gaieties. 
 
 "I believe he thinks we have all parted company 
 with our wits," she wrote. "He seldom sees me but to 
 lecture me, in a sidelong way, upon my folly; for his 
 railing at the company I keep hits me by implication. I 
 believe these old courtiers of the late King are Puritans 
 at heart; and that if Archbishop Laud were alive he 
 would be as bitter against the sins of the town as any 
 of the cushion-thumping Anabaptists that preach to the 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. D5 
 
 elect in back rooms and blind alleys. My father talks 
 and thinks as if he had spent all his years of exile in 
 the cave of the Seven Sleepers. And yet he fought 
 shoulder to shoulder with some of the finest gentlemen 
 in France — Conde, Turenne, Gramont, St. Evremond, 
 Bussy, and the rest of them. But all the world is 
 young, and full of wit and mirth, since his Majesty came 
 to his own; and elderly limbs are too stiff to trip in our 
 new dances. I doubt my father's mind is as old- 
 fashioned, and of as rigid a shape as his Court suit, at 
 sight of which my best friends can scarce refrain from 
 laughing." 
 
 This light mention of a parent whom she reverenced 
 wounded Angela to the quick; and that wound was 
 deepened a year later, when she was surprised by a 
 visit from her father, of which no letter had forewarned 
 her. She was walking in the convent garden, in her 
 hour of recreation, tasting the sunny air, and the beauty 
 of the many-coloured tulips in the long narrow borders, 
 between two espalier rows trained with an exquisite 
 neatness, and reputed to bear the finest golden pippins 
 and Bergamot pears within fifty miles of the city. The 
 trees were in blossom, and a wall of pink and white 
 bloom rose up on either hand above the scarlet and 
 amber tulips. 
 
 Turning at the end of the long alley, where it met a 
 wall that in August was flushed with the crimson velvet 
 of peaches and nectarines, Angela saw a man advancing 
 from the further end of the walk, attended by a lay 
 sister. The high-crowned hat and pointed beard, the 
 tall figure in a grey doublet crossed with a black sword- 
 belt, the walk, the bearing, were unmistakable. It might 
 
 London Pride. I. 5 
 
66 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 have been a figure that had stepped out of Vandyke's 
 canvas. It had nothing of the fuss and flutter, the 
 feathers and ruffles, the loose flow of brocade and velvet, 
 that marked the costume of the young French Court. 
 
 Angela ran to receive her father, and could scarce 
 speak to him, she was so startled, and yet so glad. 
 
 " Oh, sir, when I prayed for you at Mass this morning, 
 how little I hoped for so much happiness ! I had a letter 
 from Hyacinth only a week ago, and she wrote nothing 
 of your intentions. I knew not that you had crossed 
 
 the sea." 
 
 "Why, sweetheart, Hyacinth sees me too rarely, and 
 is too full of her own affairs, ever to be beforehand with 
 my intentions; and, although I have been long heartily 
 sick of England, I only made up my mind to come to 
 Flanders less than a week ago. No sooner thought of 
 than done. I came by our old road, in a merchant 
 craft from Harwich to Ostend, and the rest of the way 
 in the saddle. Not quite so fast as they used to ride 
 that carried his Majesty's post from London to York, in 
 the beginning of the troubles, when the loyal gentlemen 
 along the north road would galop faster with despatches 
 and treaties than ever they rode after a stag. Ah, child, 
 how hopeful we were in those days; and how we all 
 told each other it was but a passing storm at West- 
 minster, which could all be lulled by a little civil con- 
 cession here and there on the King's part! And so it 
 might, perhaps, if he would but have conceded the right 
 thing at the right time — yielded but just the inch they 
 asked for when they first asked — instead of shilly-shally- 
 ing till they got angry, and wanted ells instead of inches. 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 6 J 
 
 Tis the stitch in time, Angela, that saves trouble, in 
 politics as well as in thy petticoat." 
 
 He had flung his arm round his daughter's neck as 
 they paced slowly side by side. 
 
 "Have you come to stay at Louvain, sir?" she asked, 
 timidly. 
 
 "Nay, love, the place is too quiet for me. I could 
 not stay in a town that is given over to learning and 
 piety. The sound of their everlasting carillon would 
 tease my ear with the thought, 'Lo, another quarter of 
 an hour gone of my poor remnant of days, and nothing 
 to do but to doze in the sunshine or fondle my spaniel, 
 fill my pipe, or ride a lazy horse on a level road, such 
 as I have ever hated.' " 
 
 "But why did you tire of England, sir? I thought 
 the King would have wanted you always near him. 
 You, his father's close friend, who suffered so much for 
 Royal friendship. Surely he loves and cherishes you! 
 He must be a base, ungrateful man if he do not." 
 
 "Oh, the King is grateful, Angela, grateful enough 
 and to spare. He never sees me at Court but he has 
 some gracious speech about his father's regard for me. 
 It grows irksome at last, by sheer repetition. The turn 
 of the sentence varies, for his Majesty has a fine stand- 
 ing army of words, but the gist of the phrase is always 
 the same, and it means, 'Here is a tiresome old Put to 
 whom I must say something civil for the sake of his 
 ancient vicissitudes.' And then his phalanx of foppery 
 stares at me as if I were a Topinambou; and since I 
 have seen them mimic Ned Hyde's stately speech and 
 manners, I doubt not before I have crossed the ante- 
 room I have served to make sport for the crew, since 
 
 5* 
 
6£ LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 their wit has but two phases — ordure and mimickry. 
 Look not so glum, daughter. I am glad to be out of a 
 
 Court which is most like such places as I dare not 
 
 name to thee." 
 
 "But to have you disrespected, sir; you, so brave, so 
 noble ! You who gave the best years of your life to your 
 royal master!" 
 
 "What I gave I gave, child. I gave him youth — 
 that never comes back — and fortune, that is not worth 
 grieving for. And now that I have begun to lose the 
 reckoning of my years since fifty, I feel I had best take 
 myself back to that roving life in which I have no time 
 to brood upon losses and sorrows." 
 
 "Dear father, I am sure you must mistake the King's 
 feelings towards you. It is not possible that he can think 
 lightly of such devotion as yours." 
 
 "Nay, sweetheart, who said he thinks lightly? He 
 never thinks of me at all, or of anything serious under 
 God's sky. So long as he has spending money, and can 
 live in a circle of bright eyes, and hear only flippant 
 tongues that offer him a curious incense of flattery spiced 
 with impertinence, Charles Stuart has all of this life that 
 he values. And for the next — a man who is shrewdly 
 suspected of being a papist, while he is attached by 
 gravest vows to the Church of England, must needs hold 
 heaven's rewards and hell's torments lightly." 
 
 "But Queen Catherine, sir — does not she favour 
 you? My aunt says she is a good woman." 
 
 "Yes, a good woman, and the nearest approach to 
 a cypher to be found at Hampton Court or Whitehall. 
 Young Lord Rochester has written a poem upon 
 'Nothing.' He might have taken Queen Catherine's 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 69 
 
 name as a synonym. She is nothing; she counts for 
 nothing. Her love can benefit nobody; her hatred, were 
 the poor soul capable of hating persistently, can do no 
 one harm." 
 
 "And the King — is he so unkind to her?" 
 "Unkind! No. He allows her tc^ live. Nay, when 
 for a few days — the brief felicity of her poor life — she 
 seemed on the point of dying, he was stricken with 
 remorse for all that he had not been to her, and was 
 kind, and begged her to live for his sake. The polite 
 gentleman meant it for a compliment — one of those 
 pious falsehoods that men murmur in dying ears — but 
 she took him at his word and recovered; and she is 
 there still, a little dark lady in a fine gown, of whom 
 nobody takes any notice, beyond the emptiest formality 
 of bent knees and backward steps. There are long 
 evenings at Hampton Court in which she is scarce 
 spoken to, save when she fawns upon the fortunate lady 
 whom she began by hating. Oh, child, I should not 
 talk to you of these things; but some of the disgust that 
 has made my life bitter bubbles over in spite of me. 
 I am a wanderer and an exile again, dear heart. I 
 would sooner trail a pike abroad than suffer neglect at 
 home. I will fight under any flag so long as it flies not 
 for my country's foe. I am going back to my old friends 
 at the Louvre, to those few who are old enough to care 
 for me; and if there come a war with Spain, why my 
 sword may be of some small use to young Louis, whose 
 mother was always gracious to me in the old days at 
 St. Germain, when she knew not in the morning whether 
 she would go safe to bed at night. A golden age of 
 peace has followed that wild time; but the Spanish. 
 
70 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 king's death is like to light the torch and set the war- 
 dogs ^barking. Louis will thrust his sword through the 
 treaty of the Pyrenees if he see the way to a throne 
 t'other side of the mountains." 
 
 "But could a good man violate a treaty?" 
 
 "Ambition knows no laws, sweet, nor ever has since 
 Hannibal." 
 
 "Then King Louis is no better a man than King 
 Charles?" 
 
 "I cannot answer for that, Angela; but I'll warrant 
 him a better king from the kingly point of view. Scarce 
 had death freed him from the Cardinal's leading-strings 
 than he snatched the reins of power, showed his 
 ministers that he meant to drive the coach. He has a 
 head as fit for business as if he had been the son of a 
 woollen- draper. Mazarin took pains to keep him ignorant 
 of everything that a king ought to know; but that shrewd 
 judgment of his taught him that he must know as much 
 as his servants, unless he wanted them to be his masters. 
 He has the pride of Lucifer, with a strength of will and 
 power of application as great as Richelieu's. You will 
 live to see that no second Richelieu, no new Mazarin, 
 will arise in his reign. His ministers will serve him, 
 and go down before him, like Nicolas Fouquet, to whom 
 he has been implacable." 
 
 "Poor gentleman! My aunt told me that when his 
 judges sentenced him to banishment from France, the 
 King changed the sentence to imprisonment for life." 
 
 "I doubt if the King ever forgave those fetes at 
 Vaux, which were designed to dazzle Mademoiselle la 
 Valliere, whom this man had the presumption to love. 
 One may pity so terrible a fall, yet it is but the ruin of 
 
LETTERS FROM HOME. 71 
 
 a bold sensualist, who played with millions as other 
 men play with tennis balls, and who would have drained 
 the exchequer by his briberies and extravagances if he 
 had not been brought to a dead stop. The world has 
 been growing wickeder, dearest, while this fair head has 
 risen from my knee to my shoulder; but what have you 
 to do with its wickedness? Here you are happy and 
 at peace " 
 
 "Not happy, father, if you are to hazard your life 
 in battles and sieges. Oh, sir, that life is too dear to 
 us, your children, to be risked so lightly. You have 
 done your share of soldiering. Everybody that ever 
 heard your name in England or in France knows it is 
 the name of a brave captain — a leader of men. For 
 our sakes, take your rest now, dear sir. I should not 
 sleep in peace if I knew you were with Conde's army. 
 I should dream of you wounded and dying. I cannot 
 bear to think of leaving my aunt now that she is old 
 and feeble; but my first duty is to you, and if you 
 want me I will go with you wherever you may please 
 to make your home. I am not afraid of strange 
 countries." 
 
 "Spoken like my sweet daughter, whose baby arms 
 clasped my neck in the day of despair. But you must 
 stay with the reverend mother, sweetheart. These bones 
 of mine must be something stiffer before they will con- 
 sent to rest in the chimney corner, or sit in the shade 
 of a yew hedge while other men throw the bowls. 
 When I have knocked about the world a few years 
 longer, and when Mother Anastasia is at rest, thou 
 shalt come to me at the Manor, and I will find thee a 
 noble husband, and will end my days with my children 
 
72 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and grandchildren. The world has so changed since 
 the forties, that I shall think I have' lived centuries in- 
 stead of decades, when the farewell hour strikes. In 
 the mean time I am pleased that you should be here. 
 The Court is no place for a pure maiden, though some 
 sweet saints there be who can walk unsmirched in the 
 midst of corruption." 
 
 "And Hyacinth? She can walk scatheless through 
 that Court furnace. She writes of Whitehall as if it 
 were Paradise." 
 
 "Hyacinth has a husband to take care of her; a 
 man with a brave headpiece of his own, who lets her 
 spark it with the fairest company in the town, but 
 would make short work of any fop who dared attempt 
 the insolence of a suitor. Hyacinth has seen the worst 
 and the best of two Courts, and has an experience of 
 the Palais Royal and St. Germain which should keep 
 her safe at Whitehall." 
 
 Sir John and his daughter spent half a day together 
 in the garden and the parlour, where the traveller was 
 entertained with a collation and a bottle of excellent 
 Beaujolais before his horse was brought to the door. 
 Angela saw him mount, and ride slowly away in the 
 melancholy afternoon light, and she felt as if he were 
 riding out of her life for ever. She went back to her 
 aunt's room with an aching heart. Had not that kind 
 lady, her mother in all the essentials of maternal love, 
 been so near the end of her days, and so dependent 
 on her niece's affection, the girl would have clung about 
 her father's neck, and implored him to go no more 
 a-soldiering, and to make himself a home with her in 
 England, 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 73 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 
 
 The reverend mother lingered till the beginning of 
 summer, and it was on a lovely June evening, while the 
 nightingales were singing in the convent garden, that 
 the holy life slipped away into the Great Unknown. She 
 died as a child falls asleep, the saintly grey head lying 
 peacefully on Angela's supporting arm, the last look of 
 the dying eyes resting on that tender nurse with infinite 
 love. 
 
 She was gone, and Angela felt strangely alone. Her 
 contemporaries, the chosen friend who had been to her 
 almost as a sister, the girls by whose side she had sat 
 in class, had all left the convent. At twenty-one years 
 of age, she seemed to belong to a former generation; 
 most of the pupils had finished their education at seven- 
 teen or eighteen, and had returned to their homes in 
 Flanders, France, or England. There had been several 
 English pupils, for Louvain and Douai had for a century 
 been the seminaries for English Romanists. 
 
 The pupils of to-day were Angela's juniors, with 
 whom she had nothing in common, except to teach 
 English to a class of small Flemings, who were almost 
 unteachable. 
 
 She had heard no more from her father, and knew 
 not where or with whom he might have cast in his lot, 
 
74 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 She wrote to him under cover to her sister; but of late 
 Hyacinth's letters had been rare and brief, only long 
 enough, indeed, to apologise for their brevity. Lady 
 Fareham had been in London or at Hampton Court 
 from the beginning of the previous winter. There was 
 talk of the plague having come to London from Amster- 
 dam, that the Privy Council was sitting at Sion House, 
 instead of in London, that the judges had removed to 
 Windsor, and that the Court might speedily remove to 
 Salisbury or Oxford. "And if the Court goes to Ox- 
 ford, we shall go to Chilton," wrote Hyacinth; and that 
 was the last of her communications. 
 
 July passed without news from father or sister; and 
 Angela grew daily more uneasy about both. The great 
 horror of the plague was in the air. It had been raging 
 in Amsterdam in the previous summer and autumn, and 
 a nun had brought the disease to Louvain, where she 
 might have died in the convent infirmary but for Angela's 
 devoted attention. She had assisted the over-worked 
 infirmarian at a time of unusual sickness — for there was 
 a good deal of illness among the nuns and pupils that 
 summer — mostly engendered of the fear lest the pesti- 
 lence in Holland should reach Flanders. Doctor and 
 infirmarian had alike praised the girl's quiet courage, 
 and her instinct for doing the right thing. 
 
 Remembering all the nun had told of the horrors of 
 Amsterdam, Angela awaited with fear and trembling for 
 news from London; and as the summer wore on, every 
 news-letter that reached the Ursulines brought tidings 
 of increasing sickness in the great prosperous city, which 
 was being gradually deserted by all who could afford to 
 travel. The Court had moved first to Hampton Court, 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 75 
 
 in June, and later to Salisbury, where again the French 
 Ambassador's people reported strange horrors — corpses 
 found lying in the street hard by their lodgings — the 
 King's servants sickening. The air of the cathedral 
 city was tainted — though deaths had been few as com- 
 pared with London, which was becoming one vast 
 lazar-house — and it was thought the Court and Am- 
 bassadors would remove themselves to Oxford, where 
 Parliament was to assemble in the autumn, instead of 
 at Westminster. 
 
 Most alarming of all was the news that the Queen- 
 mother had fled with all her people, and most of her 
 treasures, from her palace at Somerset House — for Hen- 
 rietta Maria was not a woman to fly before a phantom 
 fear. She had seen too much of the stern realities of 
 life to be scared by shadows; and she had neither 
 establishment nor power in France equal to those she 
 left in England. In Paris the daughter of the great 
 Henry was a dependent. In London she was second 
 only to the King; and her Court was more esteemed 
 than Whitehall. 
 
 "If she has fled, there must be reason for it," said 
 the newly elected Superior, who boasted of correspond- 
 ents at Paris, notably a cousin in that famous convent, 
 the Visitandines de Chaillot, founded by Queen Hen- 
 rietta, and which had ever been a centre of political 
 and religious intrigue, the most fashionable, patrician, 
 exalted, and altogether worldly establishment. 
 
 Alarmed at this dismal news, Angela wrote urgently 
 to her sister, but with no effect; and the passage of every 
 day, with occasional rumours of an increasing death-rate 
 in London, strengthened her fears, until terror nerved 
 
76 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 her to a desperate resolve. She would go to London to 
 see her sister; to nurse her if she were sick; to mourn 
 for her if she were dead. 
 
 The Superior did all she could to oppose this deci- 
 sion, and even asserted authority over the pupil who, 
 since her eighteenth year had been released from dis- 
 cipline, subject but to the lightest laws of the convent. 
 As the great-niece and beloved child of the late Superior 
 she had enjoyed all possible privileges; while the liberal 
 sum annually remitted for her maintenance gave her a 
 certain importance in the house. 
 
 And now on being told she must not go, her spirit 
 rose against the Superior's authority. 
 
 "I recognise no earthly power that can keep me 
 from those I love in their time of peril!" she said. 
 
 "You do not know that they are in sickness or 
 danger. My last letters from Paris stated that it was 
 only the low people whom the contagion in London was 
 attacking." 
 
 "If it was only the low people, why did the Queen- 
 mother leave? If it was safe for my sister to be in 
 London it would have been safe for the Queen." 
 
 "Lady Fareham is doubtless in Oxfordshire." 
 
 "I have written to Chilton Abbey as well as to 
 Fareham House, and I can get no answer. Indeed, 
 reverend mother, it is time for me to go to those to 
 whom I belong. I never meant to stay in this house 
 after my aunt's death. I have only been waiting my 
 father's orders. If all be well with my sister I shall go 
 to the Manor Moat, and wait his commands quietly 
 there, I am home-sick for England," 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 77 
 
 "You have chosen an ill time for home-sickness, 
 when a pestilence is raging." 
 
 Argument could not touch the girl, whose mind was 
 braced for battle. The reverend mother ceded with as 
 good a grace as she could assume, on the top of a very- 
 arbitrary temper. An English priest was heard of who 
 was about to travel to London on his return to a noble 
 friend and patron in the north of England, in whose 
 house he had lived before the troubles; and in this 
 good man's charge Angela was permitted to depart, on 
 a long and weary journey by way of Antwerp and the 
 Scheldt. They were five days at sea, the voyage 
 lengthened by the almost unprecedented calm which 
 had prevailed all that fatal summer— a weary voyage 
 in a small trading vessel, on board which Angela had 
 to suffer every hardship that a delicate woman can be 
 subjected to on board ship: a wretched berth in a 
 floating cellar called a cabin, want of fresh water, of 
 female attendance, and of any food but the coarsest. 
 These deprivations she bore without a murmur. It was 
 only the slowness of the passage that troubled her. 
 
 The great city came in view at last, the long roof of 
 St. Paul's dominating the thickly clustered gables and 
 chimneys, and the vessel dropped anchor opposite the 
 dark walls of the Tower, whose form had been made 
 familiar to Angela by a print in a History of London, 
 which she had hung over many an evening in Mother 
 Anastasia's parlour. A row-boat conveyed her and her 
 fellow-traveller to the Tower stairs, where they landed, 
 the priest being duly provided with an efficient voucher 
 that they came from a city free of the plague. Yes, 
 this was London. Her foot touched her native soil for 
 
78 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the first time after fifteen years of absence. The good- 
 natured priest would not leave her till he had seen her 
 in charge of an elderly and most reputable waterman, 
 recommended by the custodian of the stairs. Then he 
 bade her an affectionate adieu, and fared on his way 
 to a house in the city, where one of his kinsfolk, a de- 
 vout Catholic, dwelt quietly hidden from the public eye, 
 and where he would rest for the night before setting 
 out on his journey to the north. 
 
 After the impetuous passage through the deep, dark 
 arch of the bridge, the boat moved slowly up the river 
 in the peaceful eventide, and Angela's eyes opened wide 
 with wonder as she looked on the splendours of that 
 silent highway, this evening verily silent, for the traffic 
 of business and pleasure had stopped in the terror of 
 the pestilence, like a clock that had run down. It was 
 said by one who had seen the fairest cities of Europe 
 that "the most glorious sight in the world, take land 
 and water together, was to come upon a high tide from 
 Gravesend, and shoot the bridge to Westminster;" and 
 to the convent-bred maiden how much more astonishing 
 was that prospect! 
 
 The boat passed in front of Lord Arundel's sumptuous 
 mansion, with its spacious garden, where marble statues 
 showed white in the midst of quincunxes, and prim 
 hedges of cypress and yew; past the Palace of the 
 Savoy, with its massive towers, battlemented roof, and 
 double line of mullioned windows fronting the river; 
 past Worcester House, where Lord Chancellor Hyde had 
 been living in a sober splendour, while his princely 
 mansion was building yonder on the Hounslow Road, 
 or that portion thereof lately known as Piccadilly. That 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 79 
 
 was the ambitious pile of which Hyacinth had written, 
 a house of clouded memories and briefest tenure; fore- 
 doomed to vanish like a palace seen in a dream; a 
 transient magnificence, indescribable; known for a little 
 while opprobriously as Dunkirk House, the supposed re- 
 sult of the Chancellor's too facile assistance in the sur- 
 render of that last rag of French territory. The boat 
 passed before Rutland House and Cecil House, some 
 portion of which had lately been converted into the 
 Middle Exchange, the haunt of fine ladies and Golconda 
 of gentlewomen milliners, favourite scene for assignations 
 and intrigues; and so by Durham House, where in the 
 Protector Seymour's time the Royal Mint had been 
 established; a house whose stately rooms were haunted 
 by tragic associations, shadows of Northumberland's 
 niece and victim, hapless Jane Grey, and of fated 
 Raleigh. Here, too, commerce shouldered aristocracy, 
 and the New Exchange of King James's time competed 
 with the Middle Exchange of later date, providing more 
 milliners, perfumers, glovers, barbers, and toymen, and 
 more opportunity for illicit loves and secret meetings. 
 
 Before Angela's eyes those splendid mansions passed 
 like phantom pictures. The westering sunlight showed 
 golden above the dark Abbey, while she sat silent, with 
 awe-stricken gaze, looking out upon the widespread city 
 that lay chastened and afflicted under the hand of an 
 angry God. The beautiful, gay, proud, and splendid 
 London of the West, the new London of Covent Garden, 
 St. James's Street, and Piccadilly, whose glories her 
 sister's pen had depicted with such fond enthusiasm, 
 was now deserted by the rabble of quality who had 
 peopled its palaces, while the old London of the East, 
 
80 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the historic city, was sitting in sackcloth and ashes, a 
 place of lamentations, a city where men and women 
 rose up in the morning hale and healthy, and at night- 
 fall were carried away in the, dead-cart, to be flung 
 into the pit where the dead lay shroudless and un- 
 honoured. 
 
 How still and sweet the summer air seemed in that 
 sunset hour; how placid the light ripple of the incom- 
 ing tide; how soothing even the silence of the city! 
 And yet it all meant death. It was but a few months 
 since the fatal infection had been brought from Holland 
 in a bundle of merchandise: and, behold, through city 
 and suburbs, the pestilence had crept with slow and 
 stealthy foot, now on this side of a street, now on an- 
 other. The history of the plague was like a game at 
 draughts, where man after man vanishes off the board, 
 and the game can only end by exhaustion. 
 
 "See, mistress, yonder is Somerset House," said the 
 boatman, pointing to one of the most commanding 
 facades in that highway of palaces. "That is the 
 palace which the Queen-mother has raised from the 
 ashes of the ruins her folly made, for the husband who 
 loved her too well. She came back to us no wiser for 
 years of exile — came back with her priests and her 
 Italian singing-boys, her incense-bearers and golden 
 candlesticks and gaudy rags of Rome. She fled from 
 England with the roar of cannon in her ears, and the 
 fear of death in her heart. She came back in pride 
 and vain-glory, and boasted that had she known the 
 English people better, she would never have gone away; 
 and she has squandered thousands in yonder palace, 
 upon floors of coloured woods, and Italian marbles — 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. §1 
 
 the people's money, mark you, money that should have 
 built ships and fed sailors; and she meant to end her 
 days among us. But a worse enemy than Cromwell 
 has driven her out of the house that she made beauti- 
 ful for herself; and who knows if she will ever see Lon- 
 don again?" 
 
 "Then those were right who told me that it was for 
 fear of the plague her Majesty left London?" said 
 Angela. 
 
 "For what else should she flee? She was loth 
 enough to leave, you may be sure, for she had seated 
 herself in her pride yonder, and her Court was as 
 splendid, and more looked up to than Queen Cathe- 
 rine's. The Queen-mother is the prouder woman, and 
 held her head higher than her son's wife has ever dared 
 to hold hers; yet there are those who say King Charles's 
 widow has fallen so low as to marry Lord St. Albans, a 
 son of Belial, who would hazard his immortal soul on a 
 cast of the dice, and lose it as freely as he has 
 squandered his royal mistress's money. She paid for 
 Jermyn's feasting and wine-bibbing in Paris, 'tis said, 
 when her son and his friends were on short commons." 
 
 "You do wrong to slander that royal lady," remon- 
 strated Angela. "She is of all widows the saddest and 
 most desolate — ever the mark of evil fortune. Even in 
 the glorious year of her son's restoration sorrow pursued 
 her, and she had to mourn a daughter and a son. She 
 is a most unhappy lady." 
 
 "You would scarcely say as much, young madam, 
 had you seen her in her pomp and power yonder. 
 And as for Lord St. Albans, if he is not her hus- 
 band ! Well, thou art a young innocent thing — so 
 
 London Pride. /. 6 
 
82 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 I had best hold my peace. Both palaces are empty 
 and forsaken, both Whitehall and Somerset House. 
 The rats and the spiders can take their own pleasure 
 in the rooms that were full of music and dancing, card- 
 playing and feasting, two or three months ago. Why, 
 there was no better sight in London, after the dead- 
 cart, than to watch the train of carriages and horse- 
 men, carts and wagons, upon any of the great high- 
 roads, carrying the people of London away to the 
 country, as if the whole city had been moving in one 
 mass like a routed army." 
 
 "But in palaces and noblemen's houses surely there 
 would be little danger?" said Angela. "Plagues and 
 fevers are the outcome of hunger and uncleanliness, and 
 all such evils as the poor have to suffer." 
 
 "Nay, but the pestilence that walketh in darkness 
 is no respecter of persons," answered the grim boat- 
 man. "I grant you that death has dealt hardest with 
 the poor who dwell in crowded lanes and alleys. But 
 now the very air reeks with poison. It may be carried 
 in the folds of a woman's gown, or among the feathers 
 of a courtier's hat. They are wise to go who can go. 
 It is only such as I, who have to work for my grand- 
 children's bread, that must needs stay." 
 
 "You speak like one who has seen better days," 
 said Angela. 
 
 "I was a sergeant in Hampden's regiment, madam, 
 and went all through the war. When the King came 
 back I had friends who stood by me, and bought me 
 this boat. I was used to handle an oar in my boy- 
 hood, when I lived on a little bit of a farm that be- 
 longed to my father, between Reading and Henley. I 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 83 
 
 was oftener on the water than on the land in those 
 days. There are some who have treated me roughly 
 because I fought against the late King; but folks are 
 beginning to find out that the Brewer's disbanded red- 
 coats can be honest and serviceable in time of peace." 
 
 After passing the Queen-mother's desolate palace 
 the boat crept along near the Middlesex shore, till it 
 stopped at the bottom of a flight of stone steps, against 
 which the tide washed with a pleasant rippling sound, 
 and above which there rose the walls of a stately build- 
 ing facing south-west; small as compared with Somerset 
 and Northumberland houses, midway between which it 
 stood, yet a spacious and noble mansion, with a richly 
 decorated river- front, lofty windows with sculptured 
 pediments, floriated cornice, and two side towers topped 
 with leaded cupolas, the whole edifice gilded by the 
 low sun, and very beautiful to look upon, the windows 
 gleaming as if there were a thousand candles burning 
 within, a light that gave a false idea of life and festivity, 
 since that brilliant illumination was only a reflected 
 glory. 
 
 "This, madam, is Fareham House," said the boat- 
 man, holding out his hand for his fee. 
 
 He charged treble the sum he would have asked half 
 a year ago. In this time of evil those intrepid spirits 
 who still plied their trades in the tainted city demanded 
 a heavy fee for their labour; and it would have been 
 hard to dispute their claim, since each man knew that 
 he risked his life, and that the limbs which toiled to-day 
 might be lifeless clay to-night. There was an awfulness 
 about the time, a taste and odour of death mixed with 
 all the common things of daily life, a morbid dwelling 
 
 6* 
 
84 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 upon thoughts of corruption, a feverish expectancy of 
 the end of all things, which no man can rightly conceive 
 who has not passed through the Valley of the Shadow 
 of Death. 
 
 Angela paid the man his price without question. 
 She stepped lightly from the boat, while he deposited 
 her two small leather-covered trunks on the stone landing- 
 place in front of the Italian terrace which occupied the 
 whole length of the facade. She went up a flight of 
 marble steps, to a door facing the river. Here she 
 rang a bell which pealed long and loud over the quiet 
 water, a bell that must have been heard upon the Surrey 
 shore. Yet no one opened the great oak door; and 
 Angela had a sudden sinking at the heart as the slow 
 minutes passed and brought no sound of footsteps 
 within, no scrooping of a bolt to betoken the opening of 
 the door. 
 
 "Belike the house is deserted, madam," said the 
 boatman, who had moored his wherry to the landing- 
 stage, and had carried the two trunks to the doorstep. 
 "You had best try if the door be fastened or no. Stay!" 
 he cried suddenly, pointing upwards, "Go not in, 
 madam, for your life! Look at the red cross on the 
 door, the sign of a plague-stricken house." 
 
 Angela looked up with awe and horror. A great 
 cross was smeared upon the door with red paint, and 
 above it someone had scrawled the words, "Lord, have 
 mercy upon us!" 
 
 And the sister she loved, and the children whose faces 
 she had never seen, were within that house, sick and in 
 peril of death, perhaps dying — or dead! She did not 
 hesitate for an instant, but took hold of the heavy iron 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 85 
 
 ring which served as a handle for the door and tried to 
 open it. 
 
 "I have no fear for myself," she said to the boat- 
 man; "I have nursed the sick and the fever-stricken, 
 and am not afraid of contagion — and there are those 
 within whom I love. Good night, friend." 
 
 The handle of the door turned somewhat stiffly in 
 her hand, but it did turn, and the door opened, and 
 she stood upon the threshold looking into a vast hall 
 that was wrapped in shadow, save for a shaft of golden 
 light that streamed from an oval window on the stair- 
 case. Other windows there were on each side of the 
 door, shuttered and barred. 
 
 Seeing her enter the house, the old Cromwellian 
 shrugged his shoulders, shook his head despondently, 
 shoved the two trunks hastily over the threshold, ran 
 back to his boat, and pushed off. 
 
 "God guard thy young life, mistress!" he cried, and 
 the wherry shot out into the stream. 
 
 There had been silence on the river, the silence of 
 a deserted city at eventide; but that had seemed as 
 nothing to the stillness of this marble-paved hall, where 
 the sunset was reflected on the dark oak panelling in 
 one lurid splash like blood. 
 
 Not a mortal to be seen. Not a sound of voice or 
 footstep. A crowd of gods and goddesses in draperies 
 of azure and crimson, purple and orange, looked down 
 from the ceiling. Curtains of tawny velvet hung beside 
 the shuttered windows. A great brazen candelabrum, 
 filled with half-consumed candles, stood tall and splendid 
 at the foot of a wide oak staircase, the banister-rail 
 whereof was cushioned with tawny velvet, Splendour 
 
86 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of fabric, wood and marble, colour and gilding, showed 
 on every side; but of humanity there was no sign. 
 
 Angela shuddered at the sight of all that splendour, 
 as if death were playing hide and seek in those volumi- 
 nous curtains, or were lurking in the deep shadow which 
 the massive staircase cast across the hall. She looked 
 about her, full of fear, then seeing a silver bell upon the 
 table, she took it up and rang it loudly. Upon the same 
 carved ebony table there lay a plumed hat, a cane with 
 an amber handle, and a velvet cloak neatly folded, as if 
 placed ready for the master of the house, when he went 
 abroad; but looking at these things closely, even in that 
 dim light, she saw that cloak and hat were white with 
 dust, and, more even than the silence, that spectacle of 
 the thick dust on the dark velvet impressed her with the 
 idea of a deserted house. 
 
 She had no lack of courage, this pupil of the Flemish 
 nuns, and her footstep did not falter as she went quickly 
 up the broad staircase until she found herself in a 
 spacious gallery, and amidst a flood of light, for the 
 windows on this upper or noble floor were all unshuttered, 
 and the sunset streamed in through the lofty Italian 
 casements. Fareham House was built upon the plan of the 
 Hotel de Rambouillet, of which the illustrious Catherine 
 de Vivonne was herself at once owner and architect. 
 The staircase, instead of being a central feature, was at 
 the western end of the house, allowing space for an un- 
 broken suite of rooms communicating one with the other, 
 and terminating in an apartment with a fine oriel window 
 looking east. 
 
 The folding doors of a spacious saloon stood wide 
 open, and Angela entered a room whose splendour was 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 8 7 
 
 a surprise to her who had been accustomed to the sober 
 simplicity of a convent parlour and the cold grey walls 
 of the refectory, where the only picture was a pinched 
 and angular Virgin by Memling, and the only ornament 
 a crucifix of ebony and brass. 
 
 Here for the first time she beheld a saloon for whose 
 decoration palaces had been ransacked and churches 
 desecrated — the stolen treasures of many an ancestral 
 mansion, spoil of rough soldiery or city rabble, things 
 that had been slyly stowed away by their possessors 
 during the stern simplicity of the Commonwealth, and 
 had been brought out of their hiding-places and sold to 
 the highest bidder. Gold and silver had been melted 
 down in the Great Rebellion; but art treasures would 
 not serve to pay soldiers or to buy ammunition; so these 
 had escaped the melting-pot. At home and abroad the 
 storehouses of curiosity merchants had been explored to 
 beautify Lady Fareham's reception-rooms; and in the 
 fading light Angela gazed upon hangings that were 
 worthy of a royal palace, upon Italian crystals and 
 Indian carvings, upon ivory and amber and jade and 
 jasper, upon tables of Florentine mosaic, and ebony 
 cabinets incrusted with rare agates, and upon pictures 
 in frames of massive and elaborate carving, Venetian 
 mirrors which gave back the dying light from a thousand 
 facets, curtains and portieres of sumptuous brocade, 
 gold-embroidered, gorgeous with the silken semblance 
 of peacock plumage, done with the needle, from the 
 royal manufactory of the Crown Furniture at the 
 Gobelins. 
 
 She passed into an ante-room, with tapestried walls, 
 and a divan covered with raised velvet, a music desk 
 
88 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of gilded wood, and a spinet, on which was painted the 
 story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Beyond this there was 
 the dining-room, more soberly though no less richly 
 furnished than the saloon. Here the hangings were of 
 Cordovan leather, stamped and gilded with fleur-de-lys, 
 suggesting a French origin, and indeed these very hang- 
 ings had been bought by a Dutch Jew dealer in the 
 time of the Fronde, had belonged to the hated minister 
 Mazarin, and had been sold among other of his effects 
 when he fled from Paris: to vanish for a brief season 
 behind the clouds of public animosity, and to blaze out 
 again, an elderly phoenix, in a new palace, adorned with 
 new treasures of art and industry that made royal 
 princes envious. 
 
 Angela gazed on all this splendour as one bewildered. 
 In front of that gilded wall, quivering in mid-air, as if it 
 had been painted upon the shaft of light that streamed 
 in from the tall window, her fancy pictured the blood- 
 red cross and the piteous legend, "Lord, have mercy on 
 us!" written in the same blood colour. For herself she 
 had neither horror of the pestilence nor fear of death. 
 Religion had familiarised her mind with the image of 
 the destroyer. From her childhood she had been 
 acquainted with the grave, and with visions of a world 
 beyond the grave. It was not for herself she trembled, 
 but for her sister, and her sister's children; for Lord 
 Fareham, whose likeness she recalled even at this 
 moment, the grave dark face which Hyacinth had shown 
 her on the locket she wore upon her neck, the face 
 which Sir John said reminded him of Strafford. 
 
 "He has just that fatal look," her father had told her 
 afterwards when they talked of Fareham, "the look that 
 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 00, 
 
 men saw in Wentworth's face when he came from Ire- 
 land, and in his Majesty's countenance, after Wentworth's 
 murder." 
 
 While she stood in the dying light, wavering for a 
 moment, doubtful which way to turn — since the room 
 had no less than three tall oak doors, two of them ajar 
 — there came a pattering upon the polished floor, a 
 scampering of feet that were lighter and quicker than 
 those of the smallest child, and the first living creature 
 Angela saw in that silent house came running towards 
 her. It was only a little black-and-tan spaniel, with long 
 silky hair and drooping ears, and great brown eyes, fond 
 and gentle, a very toy and trifle in the canine kingdom; 
 yet the sight of that living thing thrilled her awe-stricken 
 heart, and her tears came thick and fast as she knelt 
 and took the little dog in her arms and pressed him 
 against her bosom, and kissed the cold muzzle, and 
 looked, half laughing, half crying, into the pathetic brown 
 eyes. 
 
 "At least there is life near. This dog would not be 
 left in a deserted house," she thought, as the creature 
 trembled against her bosom and licked the hand that 
 held him. 
 
 The pattering was repeated in the adjoining room, 
 and another spaniel, which might have been twin brother 
 of the one she held, came through the half open door, 
 and ran to her, and set up a jealous barking which 
 reverberated in the lofty room, and from within that 
 unseen chamber on the other side of the door there 
 came a groan, a deep and hollow sound, as of mortal 
 agony. 
 
 She set down the dog in an instant, and was on 
 
QO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 her feet again, trembling but alert. She pushed the 
 door a little wider and went into the next apartment, a 
 bedroom more splendid than any bed-chamber her fancy 
 had ever depicted when she read of royal palaces. 
 
 The walls were hung with Mortlake tapestries, repre- 
 senting in four great panels the story of Perseus and 
 Andromeda, and the Rape of Proserpine. To her who 
 knew not the old Greek fables those figures looked 
 strangely diabolical. Naked maiden and fiery dragon, 
 flying horse and Greek hero, Demeter and Persephone, 
 hell-god and chariot, seemed alike demoniac and unholy, 
 seen in the dim light of expiring day. The high chimney- 
 piece, with its Oriental jars, blood-red and amber, faced 
 her as she entered the room, and opposite the three tall 
 windows stood the state bed, of carved ebony, the posts 
 adorned with massive bouquets of chased silver flowers, 
 the curtains of wine coloured velvet, heavy with bullion 
 fringes. One curtain had been looped back, showing 
 the amber satin lining, and on this bed of state lay a 
 man, writhing in agony, with one bloodless hand pluck- 
 ing at the cambric upon his bosom, while with the 
 other he grasped the ebony bed-post in a paroxysm 
 of pain. 
 
 Angela knew that dark and powerful face at the first 
 glance, though the features were distorted by suffering. 
 This sick man, the sole occupant of a deserted mansion, 
 was her brother-in-law, Lord Fareham. A large high- 
 backed armchair stood beside the bed, and on this 
 Angela seated herself. She recollected the Superior's 
 injunction just in time to put one of the anti-pestilential 
 lozenges into her mouth before she bent over the suf- 
 ferer, and took his clammy hand in hers, and endured 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. QI 
 
 the acrimony of his poisonous breath. That anxious 
 gaze, the dark yellow complexion, and those great beads 
 of sweat that poured down the pinched countenance too 
 plainly indicated the disease which had desolated London. 
 The Moslem's invisible plague-angel had entered this 
 palace, and had touched the master with his deadly 
 lance. That terrible Presence, which for the most part 
 had been found among the dwellings of the poor, was 
 here amidst purple and fine linen, here on this bed of 
 state, enthroned in ebony and silver, hung round with 
 velvet and bullion. She needed not to discover the 
 pestilential spots beneath that semi- diaphanous cambric 
 which hung loose upon the muscular frame, to be con- 
 vinced of the cruel fact. Here, abandoned and alone, 
 lay the master of the house, with nothing better than a 
 pair of spaniels for his companions, and neither nurse 
 nor watcher, wife nor friend, to help him towards recovery, 
 or to comfort his passing soul. 
 
 One of the little dogs leapt on the bed, and licked 
 his master's face again and again, whining piteously be- 
 tween whiles. 
 
 The sick man looked at Angela with awful, unseeing 
 eyes, and then burst into a wild laugh — 
 
 "See them run, the crop-headed clod-hoppers!" he 
 cried. "Ride after them — mow them down — scatter the 
 rebel clot-pols! The day is ours!" And then, passing 
 from English to French, from visions of Lindsey and 
 Rupert and the pursuit at Edgehill to memories of 
 Conde and Turenne, he shouted with the voice that was 
 like the sound of a trumpet, " Bouttc-selle! boutte-selle ! 
 Monte a cheval! tnonte a cheval! a I'arme, a Varme!" 
 
 He was in the field of battle again. His wandering 
 
0,2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 wits had carried him back to his first fight, when he was 
 a lad in his father's company of horse, following the 
 King's fortunes, breathing gunpowder, and splashed with 
 human blood for the first time — when it was not so long 
 since he had been blooded at the death of his first fox. 
 He was a young man again, with the Prince, that Bour- 
 bon prince and hero whom he loved and honoured far 
 above any of his own countrymen. 
 
 "O, la folk entreprise du Prince de Conde," he sang, 
 waving his hand above his head, while the spaniels 
 barked loud and shrill, adding their clamour to his. He 
 raved of battles and sieges. He was lying in the trenches, 
 in cold and rain and wind — in the tempestuous dark- 
 ness. He was mounting the breach at Dunkirk against 
 the Spaniard; at Charenton in a hand-to-hand fight with 
 Frondeurs. He raved of Chatillon and Chanleu, and 
 the slaughter of that fatal day when Conde mourned a 
 friend and each side lost a leader. Fever gave force to 
 gesture and voice; but in the midst of his ravings he 
 fell back, half fainting, upon the pillow, his heart beating 
 in a tumult which fluttered the lace upon the bosom of 
 his shirt, while the acrid drops upon his brow gathered 
 thicker than poisonous dew. Angela remembered how 
 last year in Holland these death-like sweats had not 
 always pointed to a fatal result, but in some cases had 
 afforded an outlet to the [pestilential influences, though 
 in too many instances they had served only to enfeeble 
 the patient, the fire of disease still burning, while the 
 damps of approaching dissolution oozed from the fevered 
 body — flame within and ice without. 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. Q3 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A MINISTERING ANGEL. 
 
 Angela flung off hood and mantle, and looked 
 anxiously round the room. There were some empty- 
 phials and ointment boxes, some soiled linen rags and 
 wet sponges, upon a table near the bed, and the chamber 
 reeked with the odour of drugs, hartshorn and elder 
 vinegar, cantharides, and aloes; enough to show that a 
 doctor had been there, and that there had been some 
 attempt at nursing the patient. But she had heard how 
 in Holland the nurses had sometimes robbed and 
 abandoned their charges, taking advantage of the con- 
 fusions and uncertainties of that period of despair, quick 
 and skilful to profit by sudden death, and the fears and 
 agonies of relatives and friends, whose grief made plunder 
 easy. She deemed it likely that one of those devilish 
 women had first pretended to succour, and had then 
 abandoned Lord Fareham to his fate, after robbing his 
 house. Indeed, the open doors of a stately inlaid ward- 
 robe between two windows over against the bed, and 
 the confused appearance of the clothes and linen on the 
 shelves, indicated that it had been ransacked by hasty 
 hands; while, doubtless, there had been many valuables 
 lying loose about a house where there was every indi- 
 cation of a careless profusion. 
 
94 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Alas! poor gentleman, to be left by some mercenary 
 wretch — left to die like the camel in the desert!" 
 
 She bent over him, and laid her hand with gentle 
 firmness upon his death-cold forehead. 
 
 "What! are there saints and angels in hell as well 
 as felons and devils?" he cried, clutching her by the 
 wrist, and looking up at her with distended eyes, in 
 which the natural colour of the eye-ball was tarnished 
 almost to blackness with injected blood. 
 
 For long and lonely hours, that seemed an eternity, 
 he had been tossing in a burning fever upon that dis- 
 ordered bed, until he verily believed himself in a place 
 of everlasting torment. He had that strange, double 
 sense which goes with delirium — the consciousness of 
 his real surroundings, the tapestry and furniture of his 
 own chamber, and yet the conviction that this was hell, 
 and had always been hell, and that he had descended 
 to this terrible under-world through infinite abysses of 
 darkness. The glow of sunset had been to him the 
 fierce light of everlasting flames; the burning of fever 
 was the fire that is never quenched; the pain that racked 
 his limbs was the worm that dieth not. And now in his 
 torment there came the vision of a seraphic face bending 
 over him in gentle solicitude ; a face that brought comfort 
 with it, even in the midst of his agony. After that one 
 wild question he sank slowly back upon the pillows, and 
 lay faint and weak, his breathing scarce audible. Angela 
 laid her fingers on his wrist. The pulse was fluttering 
 and intermittent. 
 
 She remembered every detail of her aunt's treatment 
 of the plague-patient in the convent infirmary, and how 
 the turning-point of the malady and beginning of cure 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. 95 
 
 had seemed to be brought about by a draught of strong 
 wine which the reverend mother had made her give the 
 poor fainting creature at a crisis of extreme weakness. 
 She looked about the room for any flask which might 
 contain wine; but there was nothing there except the 
 apothecary's phials and medicaments. 
 
 It was dusk already, and she was alone in a strange 
 house. It would seem no easy task to find what she 
 wanted, but the case was desperate, and she knew 
 enough of this mysterious disease to know that if the 
 patient could not rally speedily from his prostrate con- 
 dition the end must be near. With steady brain she set 
 herself to face the difficulty — first to administer some- 
 thing which should sustain the sick man's strength, and 
 then, without loss of time, to seek a physician, and bring 
 him to that deserted bed. Wine was the one thing 
 she could trust to in this crisis; for of the doses and 
 lotions on yonder table she knew nothing, nor had her 
 experience made her a believer in the happy influence 
 of drugs. 
 
 Her first search must be for light with which to 
 explore the lower part of the house, where in pantry or 
 stillroom, or, if not above ground, in the cellars, she 
 must find what she wanted. Surely somewhere in that 
 spacious bedchamber there would be tinder-box and 
 matches. There were a pair of silver candlesticks on 
 the dressing-table, with thick wax candles burnt nearly 
 to the sockets. 
 
 A careful search at last discovered a tinder-box and 
 matches in a dark angle of the fireless hearth, hidden 
 behind the heavy iron dog. She struck a light, kindled 
 her match, and lighted a candle, the sick man's eyes 
 
96 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 following all her movements, but his lips mute. As she 
 went out of the door he called after her — 
 
 "Leave me not, thou holy visitant — leave not my 
 soul in hell!" 
 
 "I will return!" she cried. "Have no fear, sir; I go 
 to fetch some wine." 
 
 Her errand was not done quickly. Amidst all the 
 magnificence she had noted on her journey through the 
 long suite of reception-rooms — the littered treasures of 
 amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver — 
 she had seen only an empty wine-flask; so with quick 
 footfall she ran down the wide, shallow stairs to the lower 
 floor, and here she found herself in a labyrinth of 
 passages opening into small rooms and servants' offices. 
 Here there were darkness and gloom rather than 
 splendour; though in many of those smaller rooms there 
 was a sober and substantial luxury which became the 
 inferior apartments of a palace. She came at last to 
 a room which she took to be the butler's office, where 
 there were dressers with a great array of costly Venetian 
 glass, and a great many pieces of silver — cups, tankards, 
 salvers, and other ornamental plate — in presses behind 
 glazed door. One of the glass panels had been broken, 
 and the shelves in that press were empty. 
 
 Wine there was none to be found in any part of the 
 room; but a small army of empty bottles in a corner 
 of the floor, and a confusion of greasy plates, knives, 
 chicken bones, and other scraps, indicated that there 
 had been carousing here at no remote time. 
 
 The cellars were doubtless below these offices; but 
 the wine-cellars would assuredly be locked, and she had 
 to search for the keys. She opened drawer after drawer 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. 97 
 
 in the lower part of the presses, and at last, in an inner 
 and secret drawer, found a multitude of keys, some of 
 which were provided with parchment labels, and among 
 these happily were two labelled "Ye great wine cellar, 
 S." and "Ye smaller wine cellar, W." 
 
 This was a point gained; but the search had occupied 
 a considerable time. She had yet enough candle to last 
 for about half an hour, and her next business was to find 
 one of those cellars which those keys opened. She was 
 intensely anxious to return to her patient, having heard 
 how in some cases unhappy wretches had leapt from the 
 bed of death and rushed out-of-doors, delirious, half 
 naked, to anticipate their end by a fatal chill. 
 
 On her way to the butler's office she had seen a 
 
 stone archway at the head of a flight of stairs leading 
 
 down into darkness. By this staircase she hoped to 
 
 find the wine-cellars, and presently descended, her 
 
 candlestick in one hand, and the two great keys in the 
 
 other. As she went down into the stone basement, 
 
 which was built with the solidity of a dungeon, she 
 
 heard the plash of the tide, and felt that she was now 
 
 on a level with the river. Here she found herself again 
 
 in a labyrinth of passages, with many doors standing 
 
 ajar. At the end of one passage she came to a locked 
 
 I door, and on trying her keys, found one of them to fit 
 
 i the lock; it was "Ye great wine cellar, S.," and she 
 
 : understood by the initial "S." that the cellar looked south 
 
 1 and faced the river. 
 
 She turned the heavy key with an effort that strained 
 
 . the slender fingers which held it; but she was uncon- 
 
 j scious of the pain, and wondered afterwards to see her 
 
 hand dented and bruised where the iron had wrung it. 
 
 London Prtde. /. 7 
 
q8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 The clumsy door revolved on massive hinges, and she 
 entered a cellar so large that the light of her candle did 
 not reach the furthermost corners and recesses. 
 
 This cellar was built in a series of arches, fitted with 
 stone bins, and in the upper part of one southward- 
 fronting arch there was a narrow grating, through which 
 came the cool breath of evening air and the sound of 
 water lapping against stone. A patch of faint light 
 showed pale against the iron bars, and as Angela looked 
 that way, a great grey rat leapt through the grating, and 
 ran along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as 
 he cuttled across them. Then came a thud on the 
 sawdust-covered stones, and she knew that the loathsome 
 thing was on the floor upon which she was standing. 
 She lowered her light shudderingly, and, for the first 
 time since she entered that house of dread, the young 
 brave heart sank with the sickness of fear. 
 
 The cellar might swarm with such creatures; the 
 darkness of the fast-coming night might be alive with 
 them ! And if yonder dungeon-like door were to swing 
 to and shut with a spring lock, she might perish there 
 in the darkness. She might die the most hideous of 
 deaths, and her fate remain for ever unknown. 
 
 In a sudden panic she rushed back to the door, and I 
 pushed it wider — pushed it to its extremest opening. It 
 seemed too heavy to be likely to swing back upon its 
 hinges; yet the mere idea of such a contingency appalled 
 her. Remembering her labour in unlocking the door 
 from the outside, she doubted if she could open it from 
 within were it once to close upon that awful vault. And 
 all this time the lapping of the tide against the stone 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. 9Q 
 
 sounded louder, and she saw little spirts of spray flashing 
 against the bars in the lessening light. 
 
 She collected herself with an effort, and began her 
 search for the wine. Sack was the wine she had given 
 to the sick nun, and it was that wine for which she 
 looked. Of Burgundy, and claret, labelled "Clary Wine," 
 she tound several full bins, and more that were nearly 
 empty. Tokay and other rarer wines were denoted by 
 the parchment labels which hung above each bin; but 
 it was some minutes before she came to a bin labelled 
 "Sherris," which she knew was another name for sack. 
 The bottles had evidently been undisturbed for a long 
 time, for the bin was full of cobweb, and the thick 
 coating of dust upon the glass betokened a respectable 
 age in the wine. She carried off two bottles, one under 
 each arm, and then, with even quicker steps than had 
 brought her to that darksome place, she hastened back 
 to the upper floor, leaving the key in the cellar door, 
 and the door unlocked. There would be time enough 
 to look after Lord Fareham's wine when she had cared 
 for Lord Fareham himself. 
 
 His eyes were fixed upon the doorway as she entered. 
 They shone upon her in the dusk with an awful glassi- 
 ness, as if life's last look had become fixed in death. 
 He did not speak as she drew near the bed, and set the 
 wine bottles down upon the table among the drugs and 
 cataplasms. 
 
 She had found a silver-handled corkscrew in the 
 buttler's room among the relics of the feast, and with 
 this she opened one of the bottles, Fareham watching 
 her all the time. 
 
 "Is that some new alexipharmic?" he asked with a 
 
 7* 
 
100 . LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 sudden rational air, which was almost as startling as 
 if a dead man had spoken. "I will have no more of 
 their loathsome drugs. They have made an apothecary's 
 shop of my body. I would rather they let me rot by 
 the plague than that they should poison me with their 
 antidotes, or dissolve me to death with their sudorifics." 
 
 "This is not a medicine, Lord Fareham, but your own 
 wine; and I want you to drink a long draught of it, and 
 then, who knows but you may sleep off your malady?" 
 
 "Ay, sleep in the grave, sweet friend! I have seen 
 the tokens on my breast that mean death. There is 
 but one inevitable end for all who are so marked. 
 ? Tis like the forester's notch upon the tree. It means 
 doom. He was king of the forest once, perhaps; but 
 no matter. His time has come. Oh, Lord, thou hast 
 tormented me with hot burning coals!" he cried, in 
 a sudden access of pain; and in the next minute he was 
 raving. 
 
 Angela filled a beaker with the bright golden wine, 
 and offered it to the sick man's lips. It was not without 
 infinite pains and coaxing that she induced him to 
 drink; but, when once his parched lips had tasted the 
 cold liquor, he drank eagerly, as if that strong wine 
 had been a draught of water. He gave a deep sigh 
 of solace when the beaker was empty, for he had been 
 enduring an agony of thirst through all the glare and 
 heat of the afternoon, and there was unspeakable com- 
 fort in that first long drink. He would have drunk foul 
 water with almost as keen a relish. 
 
 He talked fast and furiously, in the disjointed sen- 
 tences of delirium, for some little time; and then, little 
 by little, he grew more tranquil; and Angela, sitting be- 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. 10 I 
 
 side the bed, with her fingers laid gently on his wrist, 
 marked the quieter beat of the pulse, which no longer 
 fluttered like the wing of a frightened bird. Then with 
 deep thankfulness she saw the eyelids droop over the 
 bloodshot eyeballs, while the breathing grew slower and 
 heavier as sleep clouded the wearied brain. The spaniels 
 crept nearer him, and nestled close to his pillow, so that 
 the man's dark locks were mixed with the silken curls 
 of the dogs. 
 
 Would he die in that sleep? she wondered. 
 
 It was only now for the first time since she entered 
 this unpeopled house that she had leisure to speculate 
 on the circumstances which had brought about such 
 loneliness and neglect, here where rank and state, and 
 wealth almost without limit should have secured the 
 patient every care and comfort that devoted service 
 could lavish upon a sufferer. How was it that she 
 found her sister's husband abandoned to the care of 
 hirelings, left to the chances of paid service? 
 
 To the cloister-reared maiden the idea of wifely 
 duty was elevated almost to a religion. To father or to 
 husband she would have given a boundless devotion, 
 in sickness most of all devoted. To leave husband or 
 father in a plague-stricken city would have seemed to 
 her a crime as abominable as Tullia's, a treachery base 
 as Goneril's or Regan's. Could it be that her sister, 
 that bright and lovely creature, whose face she remem- 
 bered as a sunbeam incarnate, could she have been 
 swept away by the pestilence which spared neither youth 
 nor beauty, neither the strong man nor the weakling 
 child? Her heart grew heavy as lead at the thought 
 that this stranger, by whose pillow she was watching, 
 
102 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 might be the sole survivor in that forsaken palace, and 
 that in a few more hours he, too, would be numbered 
 with the dead, in that dreadful city where Death reigned 
 omnipotent, and where the living seemed but a vanish- 
 ing minority, pale shadows of living creatures passing 
 silently along one inevitable pathway to the pest-house 
 or pit. 
 
 That calm sleep of the pi ague- stricken might mean 
 recovery, or it might mean death. Angela examined 
 the potions and unguents on the table near the bed, 
 and read the instructions on jars and phials. One was 
 an alexipharmic draught, to be taken the last thing at 
 night, another a sudorific, to be administered once in 
 every hour. 
 
 "I would not wake him to give him the finest 
 medicine that ever physician prescribed," Angela said to 
 herself. "I remember what a happy change one hour 
 of quiet slumber made in Sister Monica, when she was 
 all but dead of a quartan fever. Sleep is God's physic." 
 
 She knelt upon a Prie-Dieu chair remote from the 
 bed, knowing that contagion lurked amid those volu- 
 minous hangings, beneath that stately canopy with its 
 lustrous satin lining, on which the light of the wax 
 candles was reflected in shining patches as upon a lake 
 of golden water. She had no fear of the pestilence; but 
 an instinctive prudence made her hold herself aloof, 
 now that there was nothing more to be done for the 
 sufferer. 
 
 She remained long in prayer, repeating one of those 
 litanies which she had learnt in her infancy, and which 
 of late had seemed to her to have somewhat too set 
 and mechanical a rhythm. The earnestness and fervour 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. 103 
 
 seemed to have gone out of them in somewise since she 
 had come to womanhood. The names of the saints her 
 lips invoked were dull and cold, and evolved no image 
 of human or superhuman love and power. What need 
 of intercessors whose personality was vague and dim, 
 whose earthly histories were made up of truth so inter- 
 woven with fable that she scarce dared believe even 
 that which might be true? In the One Crucified was 
 help for all sinners, gospel and creed, the rule of life 
 here, the promise of immortality hereafter. 
 
 The litanies to Virgin and Saints were said as a 
 duty — a part of implicit obedience which was the 
 groundwork of her religion; and then all the aspirations 
 of her heart, her prayers for the sick man yonder, her 
 fears for her absent sister, for her father in his foreign 
 wanderings, went up in one stream of invocation to 
 Christ the Redeemer. To Him, and Him alone, the 
 strong flame of faith and love rose, like the incense upon 
 an altar — the altar of a girl's trusting heart. 
 
 She was so lost in meditation that she was uncon- 
 scious of an approaching footstep in the stillness of the 
 deserted house, till it drew near to the threshold of the 
 sick-room. The night w T as close and sultry, so she had 
 left the door open, and that slow tread had crossed the 
 threshold by the time she rose from her knees. Her 
 heart beat fast, startled by the first human presence 
 which she had known in that melancholy place, save the 
 presence of the pest-stricken sufferer. 
 
 She found herself face to face with a middle-aged 
 gentleman of medium stature, clad in the sober colour- 
 ing that suggested one of the learned professions. He 
 appeared even more startled than Angela at the un- 
 
104 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 expected vision which met his gaze, faintly seen in the 
 dim light. 
 
 There was silence for a few moments, and then the 
 stranger saluted the lady with a formal reverence, as he 
 laid down his gold-handled cane. 
 
 "Surely, madam, this mansion of my Lord Fareham's 
 must be enchanted," he said. "I left a crowd of at- 
 tendants, and the stir of life below and above stairs, 
 only this forenoon last past. I find silence and vacancy. 
 That is scarce strange in this dejected and unhappy 
 time: for it is but too common a trick of hireling nurses 
 to abandon their patients, and for servants to plunder 
 and then desert a sick house. But to find an angel 
 where I left a hag! That is the miracle! And an angel 
 who has brought healing, if I mistake not," he added, 
 in a lower voice, bending over the speaker. 
 
 "I am no angel, sir, but a weak, erring mortal," 
 answered the girl, gravely. "For pity's sake, kind 
 doctor — since I doubt not you are my lord's physician — 
 tell me where are my dearest sister, Lady Fareham, and 
 her children. Tell me the worst, I entreat you!" 
 
 "Sweet lady, there is no ill news to tell. Her lady- 
 ship and the little ones are safe at my lord's house in 
 Oxfordshire, and it is only his lordship yonder who has 
 fallen a victim to the contagion. Lady Fareham and 
 her girl and boy have not been in London since the 
 plague began to rage. My lord had business in the 
 city, and came hither alone. He and the young Lord 
 Rochester, who is the most audacious infidel this town 
 can show, have been bidding defiance to the pestilence, 
 deeming their nobility safe from a sickness which has for 
 the most part chosen its victims among the vulgar." 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. IO5 
 
 "His lordship is very ill, I fear, sir?" said Angela 
 interrogatively. 
 
 "I left him at eleven o'clock this morning with but 
 scanty hope of finding him alive after sundown. The 
 woman I left to nurse him was his house-steward's wife, 
 and far above the common kind of plague-nurse. I did 
 not think she would turn traitor." 
 
 "Her husband has proved a false steward. The 
 house has been robbed of plate and valuables, as I 
 believe, from signs I saw below stairs; and I suppose 
 husband and wife went off together." 
 
 "Alack! madam, this pestilence has brought into 
 play some of the worst attributes of human nature. The 
 tokens and loathly boils which break out upon the flesh 
 of the plague-stricken are less revolting to humanity than 
 the cruelty of those who minister to the sick, and whose 
 only desire is to profit by the miseries that surround 
 them; wretches so vile that they have been known wil- 
 fully to convey the seeds of death from house to house, 
 in order to infect the sound, and so enlarge their area 
 of gains. It was an artful device of those plunderers to 
 paint the red cross on the door, and thus scare away 
 any visitor who might have discovered their depredations. 
 But you, madam, a being so young and fragile, have you 
 no fear of the contagion?" 
 
 "Nay, sir, I know that I am in God's hand. Yonder 
 poor gentleman is not the first plague-patient I have 
 nursed. There was a nun came from Holland to our 
 convent at Louvain last year, and had scarce been one 
 night in the house before tokens of the pestilence were 
 discovered upon her. I helped the infirmarian to nurse 
 her, and with God's help we brought her round. My 
 
106 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 aunt, the reverend mother, bade me give her the best 
 wine there was in the house — strong Spanish wine that 
 a rich merchant had given to the convent for the use 
 of the sick — and it was as though that good wine drove 
 the poison from her blood. She recovered by the grace 
 of God after only a few days' careful nursing. Finding 
 his lordship stricken with such great weakness, I ven- 
 tured to give him a draught of the best sack I could 
 find in his cellar." 
 
 "Dear lady, thou art a miracle of good sense and 
 compassionate bounty. I doubt thou hast saved thy 
 sister from widow's weeds," said Dr. Hodgkin, seated by 
 the bed, with his fingers on the patient's wrist, and his 
 massive gold watch in the other hand. "This sound 
 sleep promises well, and the pulse beats somewhat slower 
 and steadier than it did this morning. Then the case 
 seemed hopeless, and I feared to give wine — though 
 a free use of generous wine is my particular treatment — 
 lest it should fly to his brain, and disturb his intellectuals 
 at a time when he should need all his senses for the 
 final disposition of his affairs. Great estates sometimes 
 hang upon the breath of a dying man." 
 
 "Oh, sir, but your patient! To save his life, that 
 would sure be your first and chiefest thought?" 
 
 "Ay, ay, my pretty miss; but I had other measures. 
 Apollo twangs not ever on the same bowstring. Did 
 my sudorific work well, think you?" 
 
 "He was bathed in perspiration when first I found 
 him; but the sweat-drops seemed cold and deadly, as if 
 life itself were being dissolved out of him." 
 
 "Ay, there are cases in which that copious sweat is 
 the forerunner of dissolution; but in others it augurs 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. 107 
 
 cure. The pent-up poison which is corrupting the 
 patient's blood finds a sudden vent, its virulence is 
 diluted, and if the end prove fatal, it is that the patient 
 lacks power to rally after the ravages of the disease, 
 rather than that the poison kills. Was it instantly after 
 that profuse sweat you gave him the wine, I wonder?" 
 
 "It was as speedily as I could procure it from the 
 cellar below." 
 
 "And that strong wine, given in the nick of time, 
 reassembled Nature's scattered forces, and rekindled the 
 flame of life. Upon my soul, sweet young lady, I believe 
 thou hast saved him! All the drugs in Bucklersbury 
 could do no more. And now tell me what symptoms 
 you have noted since you have watched by his bed; 
 and tell me further if you have strength to continue his 
 nurse, with such precautions as I shall dictate, and such 
 help as I can send you in the shape of a stout, honest, 
 serving- wench of mine, and a man to guard the lower 
 part of your house, and fetch and carry for you?" 
 
 "I will do everything you bid me, with all my heart, 
 and with such skill as I can command." 
 
 "Those delicate fingers were formed to minister to 
 the sick. And you will not shrink from loathsome offices 
 — from the application of cataplasms, from cleansing 
 foul sores? Those blains and boils upon that poor body 
 will need care for many days to come." 
 
 "I will shrink from nothing that may be needful for 
 his benefit. I should love to go on nursing him, were 
 it only for my sister's sake. How sorry she would feel 
 to be so far from him, could she but know of his sick- 
 ness!" 
 
 "Yes, I believe Lady Fareham would be sorry," 
 
108 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 answered the physician, with a dry little laugh; "though 
 there are not many married ladies about Rowley's court 
 of whom I would diagnose as much. Not Lady Den- 
 ham, for instance, that handsome, unprincipled houri, 
 married to a septuagenarian poet, who would rather 
 lock her up in a garret than see her shine at White- 
 hall; or Lady Castlemaine, whose husband has been 
 uncivil enough to show discontent at a peerage that was 
 not of his own earning; or a dozen others I could name, 
 were not such scandals as these Hebrew to thine inno- 
 cent ear." 
 
 "Nay, sir, my sister has written of Court scandals 
 in many of her letters, and it has grieved me to think 
 her lot should be cast among people of whose reckless 
 doings she tells me with a lively wit that makes sin 
 seem something less than sin." 
 
 "There is no such word as 'sin' in Charles Stuart's 
 Court, my dear young lady. It is harder to achieve bad 
 repute nowadays than it was once to be thought a saint. 
 Existence in this town is a succession of bagatelles. 
 Men's lives and women's reputations drift down to the 
 bottomless pit upon a rivulet of epigrams and chansons. 
 You have heard of that Dance of Death, which was one 
 of the nervous diseases of the fifteenth century — a malady 
 which, after beginning with one lively caperer, would in- 
 fect a whole townspeople, and send an entire population 
 curvetting and prancing, until death stopped them. I 
 sometimes think, when I watch the follies at Whitehall, 
 that those graceful dancers, sliding upon pointed toe 
 through a coranto, amid a blaze of candles and star- 
 shine of diamonds, are capering along the same fatal 
 road by which St. Vitus lured his votaries to the grave. 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. IOg 
 
 And then I look at Rowley's licentious eye and cynical 
 lip, and think to myself, 'This man's father perished 
 on the scaffold; this man's lovely ancestress paid the 
 penalty of her manifold treacheries after sixteen years 
 imprisonment; this man has passed through the jaws of 
 death, has left his country a fugitive and a pauper, has 
 returned as if by a miracle, carried back to a throne 
 upon the hearts of his people; and behold him now — 
 saunterer, sybarite, sensualist — strolling through life with- 
 out one noble aim or one virtuous instinct; a King who 
 traffics in the pride and honour of his country, and 
 would sell her most precious possessions, level her 
 strongest defences, if his cousin and patron t'other side 
 the Channel would but bid high enough.' But a plague 
 on my tongue, dear lady, that it must always be wagging. 
 Not one word more, save for instructions." 
 
 Dr. Hodgkin loved talking even better than he loved 
 a fee, and he allowed himself a physician's licence to be 
 prosy; but he now proceeded to give minute directions 
 for the treatment of the patient — the poultices and stoups 
 and lotions which were to reduce the external indica- 
 tions of the contagion, the medicines which were to be 
 given at intervals during the night. Medicine in those 
 days left very little to Nature, and if patients perished 
 it was seldom for want of drugs and medicaments. 
 
 "The servant I send you will bring meat and all 
 needful herbs for making a strong broth, with which you 
 will feed the patient once an hour. There are many 
 who hold with the boiling of gold in such a broth, but I 
 will not enter upon the merits of aurum potabile as a 
 fortifiant. I take it that in this case you will find beef 
 and mutton serve your turn. I shall send you from my 
 
I I O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 own larder as much beef as will suffice for to-night's 
 use; and to-morrow your servant must go to the place 
 where the country people sell their goods, butchers , 
 meat, poultry, and garden-stuff; for the butchers' shops 
 of London are nearly all closed, and people scent con- 
 tagion in any intercourse with their fellow- citizens. You 
 will have, therefore, to look to the country people for 
 your supplies; but of all this my own man will give you 
 information. So now, good night, sweet young lady. It 
 is on the stroke of nine. Before eleven you shall have 
 those who will help and protect you. Meanwhile you 
 had best go downstairs with me, and lock and bolt 
 the great door leading into the garden, which I found 
 ajar." 
 
 "There is the door facing the river, too, by which I 
 entered." 
 
 "Ay, that should be barred also. Keep a good 
 heart, madam. Before eleven you shall have a sturdy 
 watchman on the premises." 
 
 Angela took a lighted candle and followed the phy- 
 sician through the great empty rooms, and down the 
 echoing staircase; under the ceiling where Jove, with 
 upraised goblet, drank to his queen, while all the galaxy 
 of the Greek pantheon circled his imperial throne. Upon 
 how many a festal procession had those Olympians 
 looked down since that famous house-warming, when the 
 colours were fresh from the painter's brush, and when 
 the third Lord Fareham's friend and gossip, King James, 
 deigned to witness the representation of Jonson's "Time 
 Vindicated," enacted by ladies and gentlemen of quality, 
 in the great saloon, a performance which — with the 
 banquet and confectionery brought from Paris, and "the 
 
A MINISTERING ANGEL. I I I 
 
 sweet waters which came down the room like a shower 
 from heaven," as one wrote who was present at that 
 splendid entertainment, and the feux cl artifice on the 
 river — cost his lordship a year's income, but stamped 
 him at once a fine gentleman. Had he been a trifle 
 handsomer, and somewhat softer of speech, that masque 
 and banquet might have placed Richard Revel, Baron 
 Fareham, in the front rank of royal favourites; but the 
 Revels were always a black-visaged race, with more force 
 than comeliness in their countenances, and more gall 
 than honey upon their tongues. 
 
 It was past eleven before the expected succour ar- 
 rived, and in the interval Lord Fareham had awakened 
 once, and had swallowed a composing draught, having 
 apparently but little consciousness of the hand that ad- 
 ministered it. At twenty minutes past eleven Angela 
 heard the bell ring, and ran blithely down the now 
 familiar staircase to open the garden door, outside which 
 she found a middle-aged woman and a tall, sturdy 
 young man, each carrying a bundle. These were the 
 nurse and the watchman sent by Dr. Hodgkin. The 
 woman gave Angela a slip of paper from the doctor, by 
 way of introduction. 
 
 "You will find Bridget Basset a worthy woman, and 
 able to turn her hand to anything; and Thomas Stokes 
 is an honest, serviceable youth, whom you may trust 
 upon the premises, till some of his lordship's servants 
 can be sent from Chilton Abbey, where I take it there 
 is a large staff." 
 
 It was with an unspeakable relief that Angela wel- 
 comed these humble friends. The silence of the great 
 empty house had been weighing upon her spirits, until 
 
I I 2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the sense of solitude and helplessness had grown almost 
 unbearable. Again and again she had watched Lord 
 Fareham turn his feverish head upon his pillow, while 
 the parched lips moved in inarticulate mutterings; 
 and she had thought of what she should do if a 
 stronger delirium were to possess him, and he were 
 to try and do himself some mischief If he were to 
 start up from his bed and rush through the empty 
 rooms, or burst open one of yonder lofty casements and 
 fling himself headlong to the terrace below! She had 
 been told of the terrible things that plague-patients had 
 done to themselves in their agony; how they had run 
 naked into the streets to perish on the stones of the 
 highway; how they had gashed themselves with knives; 
 or set fire to their bed-clothes, seeking any escape from 
 the torments of that foul disease. She knew that those 
 burning plague-spots, which her hands had dressed, must 
 cause a continual anguish that might wear out the 
 patience of a saint; and as the dark face turned on the 
 tumbled pillow, she saw by the clenched teeth and 
 writhing lips, and the convulsive frown of the strongly 
 marked brows, that even in delirium the sufferer was 
 struggling to restrain all unmanly expressions of his 
 agony. But now, at least, there would be this strong, 
 capable woman to share in the long night watch; and 
 if the patient grew desperate there would be three pair 
 of hands to protect him from his own fury. 
 
 She made her arrangements promptly and decisively. 
 Mrs. Basset was to stay all night with her in the 
 patient's chamber, with such needful intervals of rest as 
 each might take without leaving the sick-room; and 
 Stokes was first to see to the fastening of the various 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 113 
 
 basement doors, and to assure himself that there was 
 no one hidden either in the cellars or on the ground 
 floor; also to examine all upper chambers, and lock all 
 doors; and was then to make himself a bed in a dress- 
 ing closet adjoining Lord Fareham's chamber, and was 
 to lie there in his clothes, ready to help at any hour of 
 the night, should help be wanted. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 
 
 Three nights and days had gone since Angela first 
 set her foot upon the threshold of Fareham House, and 
 in all that time she had not once gone out into the 
 great city, where dismal silence reigned by day and 
 night, save for the hideous cries of the men with the 
 dead-carts, calling to the inhabitants of the infected 
 houses to bring out their dead, and roaring their awful 
 summons with as automatic a monotony as if they had 
 been hawking some common necessary of life — a dismal 
 cry that was but occasionally varied by the hollow tones 
 of a Puritan fanatic, stalking, gaunt and half clad, along 
 the Strand, and shouting some sentence of fatal bode- 
 ment from the Hebrew prophets; just as before the siege 
 of Titus there walked through the streets of Jerusalem 
 one who cried, "Woe to the wicked city!" and whose 
 voice could not be stopped but by death. 
 
 In those three days and nights the worst symptoms 
 of the contagion were subjugated. But the ravages of 
 the disease had left the patient in a state of weakness 
 
 London Pride. I. 8 
 
I I 4 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 which bordered on death; and his nurses were full of 
 apprehension lest the shattered forces of his constitution 
 should fail even in the hour of recovery. The violence 
 of the fever was abated, and the delirium had become 
 intermittent, while there were hours in which the sufferer 
 was conscious and reasonable, in which calmer intervals 
 he would fain have talked with Angela more than her 
 anxiety would allow. 
 
 He was full of wonder at her presence in that 
 house; and when he had been told who she was, he 
 wanted to know how and why she had come there. 
 By what happy accident, by what interposition of Pro- 
 vidence, had she been sent to save him from a hideous 
 death ? 
 
 "I should have died but for you," he said. "I 
 should have lain here till the cart fetched my putrid 
 carcase. I should be rotting in one of their plague-pits 
 yonder, behind the old Abbey." 
 
 "Nay, indeed, my lord, your good doctor would have 
 discovered your desolate condition, and would have 
 brought Mrs. Basset to nurse you." 
 
 "He would have been too late. I was drifting out 
 to the dark sea of death. I felt as if the river were 
 bearing me so much nearer to that unknown sea with 
 every ripple of the hurrying tide. 'Twas your draught 
 of strong wine snatched me back from the cruel river, 
 drew me on to terra firma again, renewed my conscious- 
 ness of manhood, and that I was not a weed to be 
 washed away. Oh, that wine! Ye gods! what elixir 
 to this parched, burning throat! Did ever drunkard in 
 all Alsatia snatch such fierce joy from a brimmer?" 
 
 Angela put her finger on her lip, and with the other 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I I 5 
 
 hand drew the silken coverlet over the sick man's 
 shoulders. 
 
 "You are not to talk," she said, "you are to sleep. 
 Slumber is to be your diet and medicine after that good 
 soup at which you make such a wry face." 
 
 "I would swallow the stuff were it Locusta's hell- 
 broth, for your sake." 
 
 "You will take it for wisdom's sake, that you may 
 mend speedily, and go home to my sister," said Angela. 
 
 "Home, yes! It will be bliss ineffable to see flowery 
 pastures and wooded hills after this pest-haunted town; 
 but oh, Angela, mine angel, why dost thou linger in this 
 poisonous chamber where every breath of mine exhales 
 infection? Why do you not fly while you are still un- 
 stricken? Truly the plague-fiend cometh as a thief in 
 the night. To-day you are safe. To-night you may be 
 doomed. 
 
 "I have no fear, sir. You are not the first plague- 
 patient I have nursed." 
 
 "And thou fanciest thyself pestilence-proof! Sweet 
 girl, it may be that the divine lymph which fills those 
 azure veins has no affinity with poisons that slay rude 
 mortals like myself." 
 
 "Will you ever be talking?" she said with grave 
 reproach, and left him to the care of Mrs. Basset, whose 
 comfortable and stolid personality did not stimulate his 
 imagination. 
 
 She had a strong desire to explore that city of which 
 she had yet seen so little, and her patient being now 
 arrived at a state of his disorder when it was best for 
 him to be tempted to prolonged slumbers by silence 
 and solitude, she put on her hood and gloves and went 
 
 8* 
 
I I 6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 out alone to see the horrors of the deserted streets, of 
 which nurse Basset had given her so appalliug a pic- 
 ture. 
 
 It was four o'clock, and the afternoon was at its 
 hottest; the blue of a cloudless sky was reflected in the 
 blue of the silent river, where, instead of the flotilla of 
 gaily painted wherries, the procession of gilded barges, 
 the music and song, the ceaseless traffic of Court and 
 City, there was only the faint ripple of the stream, or 
 here and there a solitary barge creeping slowly down 
 the tide with ineffectual sail flapping in the sultry atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
 That unusual calm which had marked this never-to 
 be-forgotten year, from the beginning of spring, was yet 
 unbroken, and the silent city lay like a great ship be- 
 calmed on a tropical ocean; the same dead silence; the 
 same cruel, smiling sky above; the same hopeless sub- 
 mission to fate in every soul on board that death-ship. 
 How would those poor dying creatures, panting out their 
 latest breath in sultry, airless chambers, have welcomed 
 the rush of rain, the cool freshness of a strong wind 
 blowing along those sun-baked streets, sweeping away 
 the polluted dust, dispersing noxious odours, bringing 
 the pure scents of far-off woodlands, of hillside heather 
 and autumn gorse, the sweetness of the country across 
 the corruption of the town. But at this dreadful season, 
 when storm and rain would have been welcomed with 
 passionate thanksgiving, the skies were brass, and the 
 ground was arid and fiery as the sands of the Arabian 
 desert, while even the grass that grew in the streets, 
 where last year multitudinous feet had trodden, sickened 
 as it grew, and faded speedily from green to yellow. 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I I 7 
 
 Pausing on the garden terrace to survey the prospect 
 before she descended to the street, Angela thought of 
 that river as her imagination had depicted it, after read- 
 ing a letter of Hyacinth's, written so late as last May; 
 the gay processions, the gaudy liveries of watermen and 
 servants, the gilded barges, the sound of viol and guitar, 
 the harmony of voices in part songs, "Go, lovely rose," 
 or "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" the beauty and 
 the splendour; fair faces under vast plumed hats, those 
 picturesque hats which the maids of honour snatched 
 from each other's heads with giddy laughter, exchanging 
 head-gear here on the royal barge, as they did some- 
 times walking about the great rooms at Whitehall; the 
 King with his boon companions clustered round him on 
 the richly carpeted dais in the stern, his courtiers and 
 his favoured mistresses; haughty Castlemaine, empres, 
 regnant over the royal heart, false, dissolute, impudent, 
 glorious as Cleopatra when her purple sails bore her 
 down the swift-flowing Cydnus; the wit and folly and 
 gladness. All had vanished like the visions of a dreamer; 
 and there remained but this mourning city, with its closed 
 windows and doors, its watchmen guarding the marked 
 houses, lest disease and death should hold communion 
 with that poor remnant of health and life left in the 
 infected town. Would that fantastic vision of careless, 
 pleasure-loving monarch and butterfly Court ever be 
 realised again? Angela thought not. It seemed to her 
 serious mind that the glory of those wild years since his 
 Majesty's restoration was a delusive and pernicious 
 brightness which could never shine again. That extra- 
 vagant splendour, that reckless gaiety had borne beneath 
 their glittering surface the seeds of ruin and death. An 
 
tl8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 angry God had stretched out His hand against the 
 wicked city where sin and profaneness sat in the high 
 places. If Charles Stuart and his courtiers ever came 
 back to London they would return sobered and chast- 
 ened, taught wisdom by adversity. The Puritan spirit 
 would reign once more in the land, and an age of 
 penitence and Lenten self-abasement would succeed the 
 orgies of the Restoration; while the light loves of White- 
 hall, the noble ladies, the impudent actresses, would 
 vanish into obscurity. Angela's loyal young heart was 
 full of faith in the King. She was ready to believe that 
 his sins were the sins of a man whose head had been 
 turned by the sudden change from exile to a throne, 
 from poverty to wealth, from dependence upon his 
 Bourbon cousin and his friends in Holland to the lavish 
 subsidies of a too-indulgent Commons. 
 
 No words could paint the desolation which reigned 
 between the Strand and the City in that fatal summer, 
 now drawing to its melancholy close. More than once 
 in her brief pilgrimage Angela drew back, shuddering, 
 from the embrasure of a door, or the inlet to some 
 narrow alley, at sight of death lying on the threshold, 
 stiff, stark, unheeded; more than once in her progress 
 from the New Exchange to St. Paul's she heard the 
 shrill wail of women lamenting for a soul just departed. 
 Death was about and around her. The great bell of 
 the cathedral tolled with an inexorable stroke in the 
 summer stillness, as it had tolled every day through 
 those long months of heat, and drought, and ever-grow- 
 ing fear, and ever-thickening graves. 
 
 Eastward there rose the red glare of a great fire, 
 and she feared that some of those old wooden houses 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I IQ 
 
 in the narrower streets were blazing, but on inquiry of a 
 solitary foot passenger, she learnt that this fire was one 
 of many which had been burning for three days, at 
 street corners and in open spaces, at a great expense of 
 sea-coal, with the hope of purifying the atmosphere and 
 dispersing poisonous gases — but that so far no ameliora- 
 tion had followed upon this outlay and labour. She 
 came presently to a junction of roads near the Fleet 
 ditch, and saw the huge coal-fire flaming with a sickly 
 glare in the sunshine, tended by a spectral figure, half- 
 clad and hungry-looking, to whom she gave an alms; 
 and at this juncture of ways a great peril awaited her, 
 for there sprang, as it were, out of the very ground, so 
 quickly did they assemble from neighbouring courts and 
 alleys, a throng of mendicants, who clustered round her, 
 with filthy hands outstretched, and shrill voices implor- 
 ing charity. So wasted were their half-naked limbs, so 
 ghastly and livid their countenances, that they might 
 have all been plague-patients, and Angela recoiled from 
 them in horror. 
 
 "Keep your distance, for pity's sake, good friends, and 
 I will give you all the money I carry," she exclaimed, 
 and there was something of command in her voice and 
 aspect, as she stood before them, straight and tall, with 
 pale, earnest face. 
 
 They fell off a little way, and waited till she scattered 
 the contents of her purse — small Flemish coin — upon 
 the ground in front of her, where they scrambled for it, 
 snarling and scuffling with each other like dogs fighting 
 for a bone. 
 
 Hastening her footsteps after the horror of that en- 
 counter, she went by Ludgate Hill to the great cathedral, 
 
120 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 keeping carefully to the middle of the street, and glanc- 
 ing at the walls and shuttered casements on either side 
 of her, recalling that appalling story which the Italian 
 choir-mistress at the Ursulines had told her of the great 
 plague in Milan — how one morning the walls and doors 
 of many houses in the city had been found smeared with 
 some foul substance, in broad streaks of white and yellow, 
 which was believed to be a poisonous compost carrying 
 contagion to every creature who touched or w r ent within 
 the influence of its mephitic odour; how this thing had 
 happened not once, but many times; until the Milanese 
 believed that Satan himself was the prime mover in this 
 horror, and that there were a company of wretches who 
 had sold themselves to the devil, and were his servants 
 and agents, spreading disease and death through the 
 city. Strange tales were told of those who had seen 
 the foul fiend face to face, and had refused his proffered 
 gold. Innocent men were denounced, and but narrowly 
 escaped being torn limb from limb, or trampled to death, 
 under the suspicion of being concerned in this anointing 
 of the walls, and even the cathedral benches, with 
 plague-poison; yet no death, that the nun could re- 
 member, had ever been traced directly to the compost. 
 It was a mysterious terror which struck deep into the 
 hearts of a frightened people, so that at last, against his 
 better reason, and at the repeated prayer of his flock, 
 the good Archbishop allowed the crystal coffin of 
 St. Carlo Borromeo to be carried in solemn procession, 
 upon the shoulders of Cardinals, from end to end of the 
 city — on which occasion all Milan crowded into the 
 streets, and clustered thick on either side of the pompous 
 train of monks and incense-bearers, priests and acolytes. 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 12 1 
 
 But soon there fell a deeper despair upon the inhabitants 
 of the doomed city; for within two days after this solemn 
 carrying of the saintly remains the death-rate had tripled 
 and there was scarce a house in which the contagion had 
 not entered. Then it was said that the anointers had 
 been in active work in the midst of the crowd, and had 
 been busiest in the public squares where the bearers of 
 the crystal coffin halted for a space with their sacred 
 load, and where the people clustered thickest. The 
 Archbishop had foreseen the danger of this gathering of 
 the people, many but just recovering from the disease, 
 many infected and unconscious of their state; but his 
 flock saw only the handiwork of the fiend in this in- 
 crease of evil. 
 
 In Protestant London there had been less inclination 
 to superstition; yet even here a comet which, under 
 ordinary circumstances, would have appeared but as 
 other comets, was thought to wear the shape of a fiery 
 sword stretched over the city in awful threatening. 
 
 Full of pity and of gravest, saddest thoughts, the 
 lonely girl walked through the lonely town to that part 
 of the city where the streets were narrowest, a labyrinth 
 of lanes and alleys, with a church-tower or steeple rising 
 up amidst the crowded dwellings at almost every point 
 to which the eye looked. Angela wondered at the sight 
 of so many fine churches in this heretical land. Many 
 of these city churches were left open in this day of wrath, 
 so that unhappy souls who had a mind to pray might go 
 in at will, and kneel there. Angela peered in at an old 
 church in a narrow court, holding the door a little way 
 ajar, and looking along the cold grey nave. All was 
 gloom and silence, save for a monotonous and suppressed 
 
122 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 murmur of one invisible worshipper in a pew near the 
 altar, who varied his supplicatory mutterings with long- 
 drawn sighs. 
 
 Angela turned with a shudder from the cold empti- 
 ness of the great grey church, with its sombre woodwork, 
 and lack of all those beautiful forms which appeal to the 
 heart and imagination in a Romanist temple. She 
 thought how in Flanders there would have been tapers 
 burning, and censors swinging, and the rolling thunder 
 of the organ pealing along the vaulted roof in the solemn 
 strains of a Dies Irae, lifting the soul of the worshipper 
 into the far-off heaven of the world beyond death, sooth- 
 ing the sorrowful heart with visions of eternal bliss. 
 
 She wandered through the maze of streets and lanes, 
 sometimes coming back unawares to a street she had 
 lately traversed, till at last she came to a church that 
 was not silent, for through the open door she heard a 
 voice within, preaching or praying. She hesitated for a 
 few minutes on the threshold, having been taught that 
 it was a sin to enter a Protestant church; and then 
 something within her, some new sense of independence 
 and revolt against old traditions, moved her to enter, 
 and take her place quietly in one of the curious wooden 
 boxes where the sparse congregation were seated, listen- 
 ing to a man in a Geneva gown, who was preaching in 
 a tall oaken pulpit, surmounted by a massive sounding- 
 board, and furnished with a crimson velvet cushion, 
 which the preacher used with great effect during his 
 discourse, now folding his arms upon it and leaning for- 
 ward to argue familiarly with his flock, now stretching a 
 long, lean arm above it to point a denouncing finger at 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 123 
 
 the sinners below, anon belabouring it severely in the 
 passion of his eloquence. 
 
 The flock was small, but devout, consisting for the 
 most part of middle-aged and elderly persons in sombre 
 attire and of Puritanical aspect; for the preacher was one 
 of those Calvinistic clergy of Cromwell's time who had 
 been lately evicted from their pulpits, and prosecuted 
 for assembling congregations under the roofs of private 
 citizens, and had shown a noble perseverance in serving 
 God in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. And now, 
 though the Primate had remained at his post, unfaltering 
 and unafraid, many of the orthodox shepherds had fled 
 and left their sheep, being too careful of their own 
 tender persons to remain in the plague-stricken town and 
 minister to the sick and dying; whereupon the evicted 
 clergy had in some cases taken possession of the deserted 
 pulpits and the silent churches, and were preaching 
 Christ's Gospel to that remnant of the faithful which 
 feared not to assemble in the House of God. 
 
 Angela listened to a sermon marked by a rough 
 eloquence which enchained her attention and moved her 
 heart. It was not difficult to utter heart-stirring words or 
 move the tender breast to pity when the Preacher's theme 
 was death; with all its train of attendant agonies; its 
 partings and farewells; its awful suddenness, as shown 
 in this pestilence, where a young man rejoicing in his 
 health and strength at noontide sees, as the sun slopes 
 westward, the death-tokens on his bosom, and is lying 
 dumb and stark at nightfall; where the joyous maiden 
 is surprised in the midst of her mirth by the apparition 
 of the plague-spot, and in a few hours is lifeless clay. 
 The Preacher dwelt upon the sins and follies and vanities 
 
124 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of the inhabitants of that great city; their alacrity in 
 the pursuit of pleasure; their slackness in the service of 
 God. 
 
 "A man who wall give twenty shillings for a pair of 
 laced gloves to a pretty shop woman at the New Ex- 
 change, will grudge a crown for the maintenance of 
 God's people that are in distress; and one who is not 
 hardy enough to walk half a mile to church, will stand 
 for a whole afternoon in the pit of a theatre, to see 
 painted women-actors defile a stage that was evil enough 
 in the late King's time, but which has in these latter 
 days sunk to a depth of infamy that it befits not me to 
 speak of in this holy place. Oh, my Brethren, out of 
 that glittering dream which you have dreamt since his 
 Majesty's return, out of the groves of Baal, where you 
 have sung and danced, and feasted, worshipping false 
 gods, steeping your benighted souls in the vices of 
 pagans and image-worshippers, it has pleased the God 
 of Israel to give you a rough waking. Can you doubt 
 that this plague, which has desolated a city, and filled 
 many a yawning pit with the promiscuous dead, has been 
 God's way of chastening a profligate people, a people 
 caring only for fleshly pleasures, for rich meats and 
 strong wines, for fine clothing and jovial company, and 
 despising the spiritual blessings that the Almighty Father 
 has reserved for them that love Him? Oh, my afflicted 
 Brethren, bethink you that this pestilence is a chastise- 
 ment upon a blind and foolish people; and if it strikes 
 the innocent as well as the guilty, if it falls as heavily 
 upon the spotless virgin as upon the hoary sinner, re- 
 member that it is not for us to measure the workings of 
 Omnipotence with the fathom-line of our earthly in- 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I 25 
 
 tellects; or to say this fair girl should be spared, and 
 that hoary sinner taken. Has not the Angel of Death 
 ever chosen the fairest blossoms? His business is to 
 people the skies rather than to depopulate the earth. 
 The innocent are taken, but the warning is for the guilty; 
 for the sinners whose debaucheries have made this world 
 so polluted a place that God's greatest mercy to the pure 
 is an early death. The call is loud and instant, a call 
 to repentance and sacrifice. Let each bear his portion 
 of suffering with patience, as under that wise rule of a 
 score years past each family forewent a weekly meal to 
 help those who needed bread. Let each acknowledge 
 his debt to God, and be content to have paid it in a 
 season of universal sorrow." 
 
 And then the Preacher turned from that awful image 
 of an angry and avenging God to contemplate Divine 
 compassion in the Redeemer of mankind — godlike power 
 joined with human love. He preached of Christ the 
 Saviour with a fulness and a force which were new to 
 Angela. He held up that commanding, that touching 
 image, unobscured by any other personality. All those 
 surrounding figures which Angela had seen crowded 
 around the godlike form, all those sufferings and virtues 
 of the spotless Mother of God were ignored in that im- 
 passioned oration. The preacher held up Christ cruci- 
 fied, Him only, as the fountain of pity and pardon. He 
 reduced Christianity to its simplest elements, primitive 
 as when the memory of the God-man was yet fresh in 
 the minds of those who had seen the Divine counten- 
 ance and listened to the Divine voice; and Angela felt 
 as she had never felt before the singleness and purity of 
 the Christian's faith. 
 
126 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 It was the day of long sermons, when a preacher 
 who measured his discourse by the sands of an hour- 
 glass was deemed moderate. Among the Nonconformists 
 there were those who turned the glass, and let the flood 
 of eloquence flow on far into the second hour. The old 
 man had been preaching a long time when Angela 
 awoke as from a dream, and remembered that sick- 
 chamber where duty called her. She left the church 
 quietly and hurried westward, guided chiefly by the 
 sun, till she found herself once more in the Strand; and 
 very soon afterwards she was ringing the bell at the 
 chief entrance of Fareham House. She returned far 
 more depressed in spirits than she went out, for all the 
 horror of the plague-stricken city was upon her; and, 
 fresh from the spectacle of death, she felt less hopeful 
 of Lord Fareham's recovery. 
 
 Thomas Stokes opened the great door to admit that 
 one modest figure, a door which looked as if it should 
 open only to noble visitors, to a procession of courtiers 
 and court beauties, in the fitful light of wind-blown 
 torches. Thomas, when interrogated, was not cheerful 
 in his account of the patient's health during Angela's 
 absence. My lord had been strangely disordered; Mrs. 
 Basset had found the fever increasing, and was "afeared 
 the gentleman was relapsing." 
 
 Angela's heart sickened at the thought. The Preacher 
 had dwelt on the sudden alternations of the disease, 
 how apparent recovery was sometimes the precursor of 
 death. She hurried up the stairs, and through the 
 seemingly endless suite of rooms which nobody wanted, 
 which never might be inhabited again perhaps, except 
 by bats and owls, to his lordship's chamber, and found 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I 2 J 
 
 him sitting up in bed, with his eyes fixed on the door 
 by which she entered. 
 
 "At last!" he cried. "Why did you inflict such 
 torturing apprehensions upon me? This woman has 
 been telling me of the horrors of the streets where you 
 have been; and I figured you stricken suddenly with 
 this foul malady, creeping into some deserted alley to 
 expire uncared for, dying with your head upon a stone, 
 lying there to be carried off by the dead-cart. You 
 must not leave this house again, save for the coach that 
 shall fetch you to Oxfordshire to join Hyacinth and her 
 children — and that coach shall start to-morrow. I am 
 a madman to have let you stay so long in this infected 
 house." 
 
 "You forget that I am plague-proof," she answered, 
 throwing off hood and cloak, and going to his bedside, 
 to the chair in which she had spent many hours watch- 
 ing by him and praying for him. 
 
 No, there was no relapse. He had only been rest- 
 less and uneasy because of her absence. The disease 
 was conquered, the pest-spots were healing fairly, and 
 his nurses had only to contend against the weakness 
 and depression which seemed but the natural sequence 
 of the malady. 
 
 Dr. Hodgkin was satisfied with his patient's progress. 
 He had written to Lady Fareham, advising her to send 
 some of her servants with horses for his lordship's 
 coach, and to provide for relays of post-horses between 
 London and Oxfordshire, a matter of easier accomplish- 
 ment than it would have been in the earlier summer, 
 when the quality were flying to the country, and post- 
 horses were at a premium, Now there were but few 
 
128 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 people of rank or standing who had the courage to stay 
 in town, like the Archbishop, who had not left Lambeth, 
 or the stout old Duke of Albemarle, at the Cockpit, who 
 feared the pestilence no more than he feared sword or 
 cannon. 
 
 Two of his lordship's lackeys, and his Oxfordshire 
 major-domo and clerk of the kitchen, arrived a week 
 after Angela's landing, bringing loving letters from 
 Hyacinth to her husband and sister. The physician had 
 so written as not to scare the wife. She had been told 
 that her husband had been ill, but was in a fair way to 
 recovery, and would post to Oxfordshire as soon as he 
 was strong enough for the journey, carrying his sister-in- 
 law with him, and lying at the accustomed inn at High 
 Wycombe, or perchance resting two nights and spending 
 three days upon the road. 
 
 That was a happy day for Angela when her patient 
 was well enough to start on his journey. She had been 
 longing to see her sister and the children, longing still 
 more intensely to escape from the horror of that house, 
 where death had seemed to lie in ambush behind the 
 tapestry hangings, and where few of her hours had been 
 free from a great fear. Even while Fareham was on the 
 high-road to recovery there had been in her mind the 
 ever-present dread of a relapse. She rejoiced with fear 
 and trembling, and was almost afraid to believe phy- 
 sician and nurse when they assured her that all danger 
 was over. 
 
 The pestilence had passed by, and they went out in 
 the sunshine, in the freshness of a September morning, 
 balmy, yet cool, with a scent of flowers from the gardens 
 of Lambeth and Bankside blowing across the river. 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I 20. 
 
 Even this terrible London, the forsaken city, looked fair 
 in the morning light; her palaces and churches, her 
 streets of heavily timbered houses, their projecting win- 
 dows enriched with carved wood and wrought iron — 
 streets that recalled the days of the Tudors and even 
 suggested an earlier and rougher age, when the French 
 King rode in all honour, albeit a prisoner, at his con- 
 queror's side; or later, when fallen Richard, shorn of all 
 royal dignity, rode abject and forlorn through the city, 
 and caps were flung up for his usurping cousin. But 
 oh, the horror of closed shops and deserted houses, and 
 pestiferous wretches running by the coach door in their 
 poisonous rags, begging alms, whenever the horses went 
 slowly, in those narrow streets that lay between Fareham 
 House and Westminster! 
 
 To Angela's wondering eyes Westminster Hall and 
 the Abbey offered a new idea of magnificence, so grandly 
 placed, so 'dignified in their antiquity. Fareham watched 
 her eager countenance as the great family coach, which 
 had been sent up from Oxfordshire for his accommoda- 
 tion, moved ponderously westward, past the Chancellor's 
 new palace, and other new mansions, to the Hercules 
 Pillars Inn, past Knightsbridge and Kensington, and 
 then northward by rustic lanes, and through the village 
 of Ealing to the Oxford road. 
 
 The family coach was as big as a small parlour, and 
 afforded ample room for the convalescent to recline at 
 his ease on one seat, while Angela and the steward, a 
 confidential servant with the manners of a courtier, sat 
 side by side upon the other. 
 
 They had the two spaniels with them, Puck and 
 Ganymede, silky-haired little beasts, black and tan, with 
 
 London Pride. I. 9 
 
I3O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 bulging foreheads, crowded with intellect, pug noses so 
 short as hardly to count for noses, goggle eyes that 
 expressed shrewdness, greediness, and affection. Puck 
 snuggled cosily in the soft lace of his lordship's shirt; 
 Ganymede sat and blinked at the sunshine from Angela's 
 lap. Both snarled at Mr. Manningtree, the steward, and 
 resented the slightest familiarity on his part. 
 
 Lord Fareham's thoughtful face brightened with its 
 rare smile — half amused, half cynical — as he watched 
 Angela's eager looks, devouring every object on the 
 road. 
 
 "Those grave eyes look at our London grandeurs 
 with a meek wonder, something as thy namesake an 
 angel might look upon the splendours of Babylon. You 
 can remember nothing of yonder palace, or senate house, 
 or Abbey, I think, child?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember the Abbey, though it looked 
 different then. I saw it through a cloud of falling snow. 
 It was all faint and dim there. There were soldiers in 
 the streets, and it was bitter cold; and my father sat in 
 the coach with his elbows on his knees and his face 
 hidden in his hands. And when I spoke to him, and 
 tried to pull his hands away — for I was afraid of that 
 hidden face — he shook me off and groaned aloud. Oh, 
 such a harrowing groan! I should have thought him 
 mad had I known what madness meant; but I know 
 not what I thought. I remember only that I was 
 frightened. And later, when I asked him why he was 
 sorry, he said it was for the King." 
 
 "Ay, poor King! We have all supped full of sorrow 
 for his sake. We have cursed and hated his enemies, 
 and drawn and quartered their vile carcases, and have 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I3I 
 
 dug them out of the darkness where the worms were 
 eating them. We have been distraught with indignation, 
 cruel in our fury; and I look back to-day, after fifteen 
 years, and see but too clearly now that Charles Stuart's 
 death lies at one man's door." 
 
 "At Cromwell's? At Bradshaw's?" 
 
 "No, child; at his own. Cromwell would have 
 never been heard of, save in Huntingdon Market-place, 
 as a God-fearing yeoman, had Charles been strong and 
 true. The King's weakness was Cromwell's opportunity. 
 He dug his own grave with false promises, with shilly- 
 shally, with an inimitable talent for always doing the 
 w T rong thing and choosing the wrong road. Open not 
 so wide those reproachful eyes. Oh, I grant you, he 
 was a noble king, a king of kings to walk in a royal 
 procession, to sit upon a dais under a velvet and gold 
 canopy, to receive ambassadors, and patronise foreign 
 painters, and fulfil all that is splendid and stately in 
 ideal kingship. He was an adoring husband — confiding 
 to simplicity — a kind father, a fond friend, though never 
 a firm one." 
 
 "Oh, surely, surely you loved him?" 
 
 "Not as your father loved him, for I never suffered 
 with him. It was those who sacrificed the most who 
 loved him best, those who were with him to the end, 
 long after common sense told them his cause was hope- 
 less; indeed, I believe my father knew as much at Not- 
 tingham, when that luckless standard was blown down 
 in the tempest. Those who starved for him, and lay 
 out on barren moors through the cold English nights 
 for him, and wore their clothes threadbare and their 
 shoes into holes for him, and left wife and children, and 
 
 9* 
 
132 ( LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 melted their silver and squandered their gold for him — 
 those are the men who love his memory dearest, and 
 for whose poor sakes we of the younger generation must 
 make believe to think him a saint and a martyr." 
 
 "Oh, my lord, say not that you think him a bad 
 man!" 
 
 "Bad! Nay, I believe that all his instincts were 
 virtuous and honourable, and that — until the whirlwind 
 of those latter days in which he scarce knew what he 
 was doing — he meant fairly by his people, and had 
 their welfare at heart. He might have done far better 
 for himself and others had he been a brave bad man 
 like Wentworth — audacious, unscrupulous, driving straight 
 to a fixed goal. No, Angela, he was that which is worse 
 for mankind — an obstinate, weak man. A bundle of 
 impulses, some good and some evil; a man who had 
 many chances, and lost them all; who loved foolishly 
 and too well, and let himself be ruled by a wife who 
 could not rule herself. Blind impulse, passionate folly 
 were sailing the State ship through that sea of troubles 
 which could be crossed but by a navigator as politic, 
 profound, and crafty as Richelieu or Mazarin. Who 
 can wonder that the Royal Charles went down?" 
 
 "It must seem strange to you, looking back from the 
 Court, as Hyacinth's letters have painted it — to that time 
 of trouble?" 
 
 "Strange! I stand in the crowd at Whitehall some- 
 times, amidst their masking and folly, their frolic schemes, 
 their malice, their jeering wit and riotous merriment, 
 and wonder whether it is all a dream, and I shall wake 
 and see the England of '44, the year Henrietta Maria 
 vanished — a discrowned fugitive, from the scene where 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I 33 
 
 she had lived to do harm. I look along the perspective 
 of painted faces and flowing hair, jewels, and gay colours, 
 towards that window through which Charles I. walked 
 to his bloody death, suffered with a kingly grandeur that 
 made the world forget all that was poor and petty in his 
 life; and I wonder does anyone else recall that suffering 
 or reflect upon that doom. Not one! Each has his 
 jest, and his mistress — the eyes he worships, the lips he 
 adores. It is only the rural Put that feels himself lost 
 in the crowd whose thoughts turn sadly to the sad 
 past." 
 
 "Yet whatever your lordship may say " 
 
 "Tush, child, I am no lordship to you! Call me 
 brother, or Fareham; and never talk to me as if I were 
 anything else than your brother in affection." 
 
 "It is sweet to hear you say so much, sir," she an- 
 swered gently. "I have often envied my companions 
 at the Ursulines when they talked of their brothers. It 
 was so strange to hear them tell of bickering and ill-will 
 between brother and sister. Had God given me a 
 brother, I would not quarrel with him." 
 
 "Nor shalt thou quarrel with me, sweetheart; but 
 we will be fast friends always. Do I not owe thee my 
 life?" 
 
 "I will not hear you say so; it is blasphemy against 
 your Creator, who relented and spared you." 
 
 "What! you think that Omnipotence, in the inacces- 
 sible mystery of Heaven, keeps the muster-roll of earth 
 open before Him, and reckons each little life as it drops 
 off the list? That is hardly my notion of Divinity. I 
 see the Almighty rather as the Roman poet saw Him — 
 an inexorable Father, hurling the thunderbolt our folly 
 
134 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 has deserved from His red right hand, yet merciful to 
 stay that hand when we have taken our punishment 
 meekly. That, Angela, is the nearest my mind can 
 reach to the idea of a personal God. But do not bend 
 those pencilled brows with such a sad perplexity. You 
 know, doubtless, that I come of a Catholic family, and 
 was bred in the old faith. Alas! I have conformed ill 
 to Church discipline. I am no theologian, nor quite an 
 infidel, and should be as much at sea in an argument 
 with Hobbes as with Bossuet. Trouble not thy gentle 
 spirit for my sins of thought or deed. Your tender care 
 has given me time to repent all my errors. You were 
 going to tell my lordship something, when I chid you 
 for excess of ceremony " 
 
 "Nay, sir — brother, I had but to say that this wicked 
 Court, of which my father and you have spoken so ill, 
 can scarcely fail to be turned from its sins by so terrible 
 a visitation. Those who have looked upon the city as 
 I saw it a week ago can scarce return with unchastened 
 hearts to feasting and dancing and idle company." 
 
 "But the beaux and belles of Whitehall have not 
 seen the city as my brave girl saw it," cried Fareham. 
 "They have not met the dead-cart, nor heard the groans 
 of the dying, nor seen the red cross upon the doors. 
 They made off with the first rumour of peril. The roads 
 were crowded with their coaches, their saddle-horses, 
 their furniture and finery; one could scarce command a 
 post-horse for love or money. 'A thousand less this 
 week,' says one. 'We may be going back to town and 
 have the theatres open again in the cold weather.'" 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 1 35 
 
 They dined at the Crown, at Uxbridge, which was 
 that "fair house at the end of the town" provided for 
 the meeting of the late King's Commissioners with the 
 representatives of the Parliament in the year '44. Fareham 
 showed his sister-in-law a spacious panelled parlour, 
 which was that "fair room in the middle of the house" 
 that had been handsomely dressed up for the Commis- 
 sioners to sit in. 
 
 They pushed on to High Wycombe before nightfall, 
 and supped tete-a-tete in the best room of the inn, with 
 Fareham's faithful Manninsrtree to bring in the chief 
 dish, and the people of the house to wait upon them. 
 They were very friendly and happy together, Fareham 
 telling his companion much of his adventurous life in 
 France, and how in the first Fronde war he had been 
 on the side of Queen and Minister, and afterwards, for 
 love and admiration of Conde, had joined the party of 
 the Princes. 
 
 "Well, it was a time worth living in — a good educa- 
 tion for the boy-king, Louis, for it showed him that the 
 hereditary ruler of a great nation has something more 
 to do than to be born, and to exist, and to spend 
 money." 
 
 Lord Fareham described the shining lights of that 
 brilliant court with a caustic tongue; but he was more 
 indulgent to the follies of the Palais Royal and the 
 Louvre than he had been to the debaucheries of White- 
 hall. 
 
 "There is a grace even in their vices," he said. 
 41 Their wit is lighter, and there is more mind in their 
 follies. Our mirth is vulgar even when it is not bestial. 
 I know of no Parisian adventure so degrading as certain 
 
I36 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 pranks of Buckhurst's, which I would not dare mention 
 in your hearing. We imitate them, and out-herod Herod r 
 but we are never like them. We send to Paris for our 
 clothes, and borrow their newest words — for they are 
 ever inventing some cant phrase to startle dulness — and 
 we make our language a foreign farrago. Why, here is 
 even plain John Evelyn, that most pious of pedants, 
 pleading for the enlistment of a troop of Gallic sub- 
 stantives and adjectives to eke out our native English!" 
 
 Fareham told Angela much of his past life during 
 the freedom of that long tete-a-tete, talking to her as if 
 she had indeed been a young sister from whom he had 
 been separated since her childhood. That mild, pensive 
 manner promised sympathy and understanding, and he 
 unconsciously inclined to confide his thoughts and opinions 
 to her, as well as the history of his youth. 
 
 He had fought at Edgehill as a lad of thirteen, had 
 been with the King at Beverley, York, and Nottingham, 
 and had only left the Court to accompany the Prince of 
 Wales to Jersey, and afterwards to Paris. 
 
 "I soon sickened of a Court life and its petty plots 
 and parlour intrigues," he told Angela, "and was glad 
 to join Conde's army, where my father's influence got 
 me a captaincy before I was eighteen. To fight under 
 such a leader as that was to serve under the god of 
 war. I can imagine Mars himself no grander soldier. 
 Oh, my dear, what a man! Nay, I will not call him by 
 that common name. He was something more or less 
 than man — of another species. In the thick of the fight 
 a lion; in his dominion over armies, in his calmness 
 amidst danger, a god. Shall I ever see it again, I wonder 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 1 37 
 
 — that vulture face, those eyes that flashed Jove's red 
 lightning?" 
 
 "Your own face changes when you speak of him," 
 said Angela, awestricken at that fierce energy which 
 heroic memories evoked in Fareham's wasted coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 "Nay, you should have seen the change in his face 
 when he flung off the courtier for the captain. His whole 
 being was transformed. Those who knew Conde at 
 St. Germain, at the Hotel de Rambouillet, at the Palais 
 Royal, knew not the measure or the might of that great 
 nature. He was born to conquer. But you must not 
 think that with him victory meant brute force. It meant 
 thought and patience, the power to foresee and to com- 
 bine, the rapid apprehension of opposing circumstances, 
 the just measure of his own materials. A strict disci- 
 plinarian, a severe master, but willing to work at the 
 lowest details, the humblest offices of war. A soldier, 
 did I say? He was the Genius of modern warfare." 
 
 "You talk as if you loved him dearly." 
 
 "I loved him as I shall never love any other man. 
 He was my friend as well as my General. But I claim 
 no merit in loving one whom all the world honoured. 
 Could you have seen princes and nobles, as I saw them 
 when I was a boy at Paris, standing on chairs, on tables, 
 kneeling, to drink his health! A demi-god could have 
 received no more fervent adulation. Alas! sister, I look 
 back at those years of foreign service and know they 
 were the best of my life!" 
 
 They started early next morning, and were within 
 half a dozen miles of Oxford before the sun was low. 
 
I38 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 They drove by a level road that skirted the river; and 
 now, for the first time, Angela saw that river flowing 
 placidly through a rural landscape, the rich green of 
 marshy meadows in the foreground, and low wooded 
 hills on the opposite bank, while midway across the 
 stream an islet covered with reed and willow cast a 
 shadow over the rosy water painted by the western sun. 
 
 "Are we near them now?" she asked eagerly, know- 
 ing that her brother-in-law's mansion lay within a few 
 miles of Oxford. 
 
 "We are very near," answered Fareham; "I can see 
 the chimneys, and the white stone pillars of the great 
 gate." 
 
 He had his head out of the carriage, looking sun- 
 ward, shading his eyes with his big doe- skin gauntlet as 
 he looked. Those two days on the road, the fresh 
 autumn air, the generous diet, the variety and movement 
 of the journey, had made a new man of him. Lean 
 and gaunt he must needs be for some time to come; 
 but the dark face was no longer bloodless; the eyes had 
 the fire of health. 
 
 "I see the gate — and there is more than that in 
 view!" he cried excitedly. "Your sister is coming in a 
 troop to meet us, with her children, and visitors, and 
 servants. Stop the coach, Manningtree, and let us out." 
 
 The postboys pulled up their horses, and the steward 
 opened the coach door and assisted his master to alight 
 Fareham's footsteps were somewhat uncertain as he 
 walked slowly along the waste grass by the roadside, 
 leaning a little upon Angela's shoulder. 
 
 Lady Fareham came running towards them in ad- 
 vance of children and friends, an airy figure in blue 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. I 39 
 
 and white, her fair hair flying in the wind, her arms 
 stretched out as if to greet them from afar. She clasped 
 her sister to her breast even before she saluted her 
 husband, clasped her and kissed her, laughing between 
 the kisses. 
 
 "Welcome, my escaped nun!" she cried. "I never 
 thought they would let thee out of thy prison, or that 
 thou wouldst muster courage to break thy bonds. Wel- 
 come, and a hundred times, welcome. And that thou 
 shouldst have nursed and tended my ailing lord! Oh, 
 the wonder of it! While I, within a hundred miles of 
 him, knew not that he was ill, here didst thou come 
 across seas to save him! Why, 'tis a modern fairy 
 tale." 
 
 "And she is the good fairy," said Fareham, taking 
 his wife's face between his two hands and bending 
 down to kiss the white forehead under its cloud of pale 
 golden curls, "and you must cherish her for all the rest 
 of your life. But for her I should have died alone in 
 that great gaudy house, and the rats would have eaten 
 me, and then perhaps you would have cared no longer 
 for the mansion, and would have had to build another 
 further west, by my Lord Clarendon's, where all the 
 fine folks are going — and that would have been a pity." 
 
 "Oh, Fareham, do not begin with thy irony-stop! I 
 know all your organ tones, from the tenor of your kind- 
 ness to the bourdon of your displeasure. Do you think 
 I am not glad to have you here safe and sound? Do 
 you think I have not been miserable about you since I 
 knew of your sickness? Monsieur de Malfort will tell 
 you whether I have been unhappy or not." 
 
 "Why, Malfort! What wind blew you hither at this 
 
I4O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 perilous season, when Englishmen are going abroad for 
 fear of the pestilence, and when your friend St. Evre- 
 mond has fled from the beauties of Oxford to the malo- 
 dorous sewers and fusty fraus of the Netherlands?" 
 
 "I had no fear of the contagion, and I wanted to 
 see my friends. I am in lodgings in Oxford, where 
 there is almost as much good company as there ever 
 was at Whitehall." 
 
 The Comte de Malfort and Fareham clasped hands 
 with a cordiality which bespoke old friendship; and it 
 was only an instinctive recoil on the part of the English- 
 man which spared him his friend's kisses. They had 
 lived in camps and in courts together, these two, and 
 had much in common, and much that was antagonistic, 
 in temperament and habits, Malfort being lazy and 
 luxurious, when no fighting was on hand; a man whose 
 one business, when not under canvas, was to surpass 
 everybody else in the fashion and folly of the hour, to 
 be quite the finest gentleman in whatever company he 
 found himself. 
 
 He was a godson and favourite of Madame de Mon- 
 trond, who had numbered his father among the army 
 of her devoted admirers. He had been Hyacinth's 
 play-fellow and slave in her early girlhood, and had 
 been I'ami de la maison in those brilliant years of the 
 young King's reign, when the Farehams were living in 
 the Marais. To him had been permitted all privileges 
 that a being as harmless and innocent as he was 
 polished and elegant might be allowed, by a husband 
 who had too much confidence in his wife's virtue, and 
 too good an opinion of his own merits to be easily 
 
BETWEEN . LONDON AND OXFORD. I4I 
 
 jealous. Nor was Henri de Malfort a man to provoke 
 jealousy by any superior gifts of mind or person. 
 Nature had not been especially kind to him. His 
 features were insignificant, his eyes pale, and he had 
 not escaped that scourge of the seventeenth century, 
 the small-pox. His pale and clear complexion was but 
 slightly pitted, however, and his eyelids had not suffered. 
 Men were inclined to call him ugly; women thought 
 him interesting. His frame was badly built from the 
 athlete's point of view; but it had the suppleness which 
 makes the graceful dancer, and was an elegant scaffold- 
 ing on which to hang the picturesque costume of the 
 day. For the rest, all that he was he had made him- 
 self, during those eighteen years of intelligent self- 
 culture, which had been his engrossing occupation since 
 his fifteenth birthday, when he determined to be one of 
 the finest gentlemen of his epoch. 
 
 A fine gentleman at the Court of Louis had to be 
 something more than a figure steeped in perfumes and 
 hung with ribbons. His red-heeled shoes, his periwig 
 and cannon sleeves, were indispensable to fashion, but 
 not enough for fame. The favoured guest of the Hotel 
 de Rambouillet, and of Mademoiselle de Scudery's 
 "Saturdays," must have wit and learning, or at least 
 that capacity for smart speech and pedantic allusion 
 which might pass current for both in a society where 
 the critics were chiefly feminine. Henri de Malfort had 
 graduated in a college of blue- stockings. He had grown 
 up in an atmosphere of gunpowder and bouts rime's. 
 He had stormed the breach at sieges where the assault 
 was led off by a company of violins, in the Spanish 
 fashion. ■ He had fought with distinction under the 
 
I42 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 finest soldiers in Europe, and had seen some of his 
 dearest friends expire at his side. 
 
 Unlike Gramont and St. Evremond, he was still in 
 the floodtide of royal favour in his own country; and it 
 seemed a curious caprice that had led him to follow 
 those gentlemen to England, to shine in a duller society, 
 and sparkle at a less magnificent court. 
 
 The children hung upon their father, Papillon on one 
 side, Cupid on the other, and it was in them rather 
 than in her sister's friend that Angela was interested. 
 The girl resembled her mother only in the grace and 
 flexibility of her slender form, the quickness of her 
 movements, and the vivacity of her speech. Her hair 
 and eyes were dark, like her father's, and her colouring 
 was that of a brunette, with something of a pale bronze 
 under the delicate carmine of her cheeks. The boy 
 favoured his mother, and was worthy of the sobriquet 
 Rochester had bestowed upon him. His blue eyes, 
 chubby cheeks, cherry lips, and golden hair were like 
 the typical Cupid of Rubens, and might be seen re- 
 peated ad libitum on the ceiling of the Banqueting 
 House. 
 
 "I'll warrant this is all flummery," said Fareham, 
 looking down at the girl as she hung upon him. "Thou 
 art not glad to see me." 
 
 "I am so glad that I could eat you, as the Giant 
 would have eaten Jack," answered the girl, leaping up 
 to kiss him, her hair flying back like a dark cloud, her 
 nimble legs struggling for freedom in her long brocade 
 petticoat. 
 
 "And you are not afraid of the contagion?" 
 
BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 1 43 
 
 "Afraid ! Why, I wanted mother to take me to you 
 as soon as I heard you were ill." 
 
 "Well, I have been smoke-dried and pickled in 
 strong waters, until Dr. Hodgkin accounts me safe, or 
 I would not come nigh thee. See, sweetheart, this is 
 your aunt, whom you are to love next best to your 
 mother." 
 
 "But not so well as you, sir. You are first," said 
 the child, and then turned to Angela and held up her 
 rosebud mouth to be kissed. "You saved my father's 
 life," she said. "If you ever want anybody to die for 
 you let it be me." 
 
 "Gud! what a delicate wit! The sweet child is 
 positively tuant," exclaimed a young lady, who was 
 strolling beside them, and whom Lady Fareham had 
 not taken the trouble to introduce by name to anyone, 
 but who was now accounted for as a country neigh- 
 bour, Mrs. Dorothy Lettsome. 
 
 Angela was watching her brother-in-law as they 
 sauntered along, and she saw that the fatigue and 
 agitation of this meeting were beginning to affect him. 
 He was carrying his hat in one hand, while the other 
 caressed Papillon. There were beads of perspiration 
 on his forehead, and his footsteps began to drag a 
 little. Happily the coach had kept a few paces in 
 their rear, and Manningtree was walking beside it; so 
 Angela proposed that his lordship should resume his 
 seat in the vehicle and drive on to his house, while she 
 went on foot with her sister. 
 
 "I must go with his lordship," cried Papillon, and 
 leapt into the coach before her father. 
 
 Hyacinth put her arm through Angela's, and led 
 
144 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 her slowly along the grassy walk to the great gates, the 
 Frenchman and Mrs. Lettsome following; and unversed 
 as the convent-bred girl was in the ways of this par- 
 ticular world, she could nevertheless perceive that in the 
 conversation between these two, M. de Malfort was 
 amusing himself at the expense of his fair companion. 
 His own English was by no means despicable, as he 
 had spent more than a year at the Embassy im- 
 mediately after the Restoration, to say nothing of his 
 constant intercourse with the Farehams and other 
 English exiles in France; but he was encouraging the 
 young lady to talk to him in French, which was spoken 
 with an affected drawl, that was even more ridiculous 
 than its errors in grammar. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 
 
 NoTfflNG could have been more cordial than Lady 
 Far eh am' s welcome to her sister, nor w T ere it easy to 
 imagine a life more delightful than that at Chilton 
 Abbey in that autumnal season, when every stage of 
 the decaying year clothed itself with a variety and 
 brilliancy of colouring which made ruin beautiful, and 
 disguised the approach of winter, as a court harridan 
 might hide age and wrinkles under a yellow satin mask 
 and flame-coloured domino. The Abbey was one of 
 those capacious, irregular buildings in which all that a 
 house was in the past and all that it is in the present 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 1 45 
 
 are composed into a harmonious whole, and in which 
 past and present are so cunningly interwoven that it 
 would have been difficult for anyone but an architect to 
 distinguish where the improvements and additions of 
 yesterday were grafted on to the masonry of the four- 
 teenth century. Here, where the spacious plate-room 
 and pantry began, there were walls massive enough for 
 the immuring of refractory nuns; and this corkscrew 
 Jacobean staircase, which wound with carved balusters 
 up to the garret story, had its foundations in a flight 
 of Cyclopean stone steps that descended to the cellars, 
 where the monks kept their strong liquors and brewed 
 their beer. Half of my lady's drawing-room had been 
 the refectory, and the long dining-parlour still showed 
 the groined roof of an ancient cloister; while the music- 
 room, into which it opened, had been designed by 
 Inigo Jones, and built by the last Lord Fareham. All 
 that there is of the romantic in this kind of architectural 
 patchwork had been enhanced by the collection of old 
 furniture that the present possessors of the Abbey had 
 imported from Lady Fareham's chateau in Normandy, 
 and which was more interesting though less splendid 
 than the furniture of Fareham's town mansion, as it was 
 the result of gradual accumulation in the Montrond 
 family, or of purchase from the wreck of noble houses, 
 ruined in the civil war which had distracted France be- 
 fore the reign of the Bearnais. 
 
 To Angela the change from an enclosed convent to 
 such a house as Chilton Abbey, was a change that filled 
 all her days with wonder. The splendour, the air of 
 careless luxury that pervaded her sister's house, and 
 suggested costliness and waste in every detail, could but 
 
 London Pride. I. IO 
 
I46 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 be distressing to the pupil of Flemish nuns, who had 
 seen even the trenchers scraped to make soup for the 
 poor, and every morsel of bread garnered as if it were 
 gold dust. From that sparse fare of the convent to this 
 Rabelaisian plenty, this plethora of meat and poultry, 
 huge game pies and elaborate confectionery, this per- 
 petual too much of everything, was a transition that 
 startled and shocked her. She heard with wonder of 
 the numerous dinner tables that were spread every day 
 at Chilton. Mr. Manningtree's table, at which the 
 Roman Priest from Oxford dined, except on those rare 
 occasions when he was invited to sit down with the 
 quality; and Mrs. Hubbock's table, where the superior 
 servants dined, and at which Henriette's dancing-master 
 considered it a privilege to over-eat himself; and the 
 two great tables in the servants' hall, twenty at each 
 table; and the gouvernante , Mrs. Priscilla Goodman's 
 table in the blue parlour upstairs, at which my lady's 
 English and French waiting-women, and my lord's gentle- 
 men ate, and at which Henriette and her brother were 
 supposed to take their meals, but where they seldom 
 appeared, usually claiming the right to eat with their 
 parents. She wondered as she heard of the fine-drawn 
 distinctions among that rabble of servants, the upper 
 ranks of whom were supplied by the small gentry — of 
 servants who waited upon servants, and again other 
 servants who waited on those, down to that lowest 
 stratum of kitchen sluts and turnspits, who actually 
 made their own beds and scraped their own trenchers. 
 Everywhere there was lavish expenditure — everywhere 
 the abundance which, among that uneducated and un- 
 thoughtful class, ever degenerates into wanton waste. 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 1 47 
 
 It sickened Angela to see the long dining-table 
 loaded, day after day, with dishes that were many of 
 them left untouched amidst the superabundance, while 
 the massive Cromwellian sideboard seemed to need all 
 the thickness of its gouty legs to sustain the "regalia" 
 of hams and tongues, pasties, salads and jellies. And 
 all this time The Weekly Gazette from London told of 
 the unexampled distress in that afflicted city, which was 
 but the natural result of an epidemic that had driven 
 all the well-to-do away, and left neither trade nor em- 
 ployment for the lower classes. 
 
 "What becomes of that mountain of food?" Angela 
 asked her sister, after her second dinner at Chilton, by 
 which time she and Hyacinth had become familiar and 
 at ease with each other. "Is it given to the poor?" 
 
 "Some of it, perhaps, love; but I'll warrant that 
 most of it is eaten in the offices — with many a hand- 
 some sirloin and haunch to boot." 
 
 "Oh, sister, it is dreadful to think of such a troop! 
 I am always meeting strange faces. How many servants 
 have you?" 
 
 "I have never reckoned them. Manningtree knows, 
 no doubt; for his wages book would tell him. I take it 
 there may be more than fifty, and less than a hundred. 
 Anyhow, we could not exist were they fewer." 
 
 "More than fifty people to wait upon four!" 
 
 "For our state and importance, che'rie. We are very 
 ill-waited upon. I nearly died last week before I could 
 get anyone to bring me my afternoon chocolate. The 
 men had all rushed off to a bull-baiting, and the women 
 were romping or fighting in the laundry, except my own 
 women, who are too genteel to play with the under- 
 
 10* 
 
I48 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 servants, and had taken a holiday to go and see a 
 tragedy at Oxford. I found myself in a deserted house. 
 I might have been burnt alive, or have expired in a fit, 
 for aught any of those over-fed devils cared." 
 
 "But could they not be better regulated?" 
 
 "They are, when Manningtree is at home. He has 
 them all under his thumb." 
 
 "And he is an honest, conscientious man?" 
 
 "Who knows? I dare say he robs us, and takes a 
 pot de vin wherever 'tis offered. But it is better to be 
 robbed by one than by an army; and if Manningtree 
 keeps others from cheating he is worth his wages." 
 
 "And you, dear Hyacinth. Do you keep no ac- 
 counts?" 
 
 "Keep accounts! Why, my dearest simpleton, did 
 you ever hear of a woman of quality keeping accounts — 
 unless it were some lunatic universal genius like her 
 Grace of Newcastle, who rises in the middle of the 
 night to scribble verses, and who might do anything 
 preposterous. Keep accounts ! Why, if you w T as to tell 
 me that two and two make five I couldn't controvert 
 you, from my own knowledge." 
 
 "It all seems so strange to me," murmured Angela. 
 "My aunt supervised all the expenditure of the convent, 
 and was unhappy if she discovered waste in the smallest 
 item." 
 
 "Unhappy! Yes, my dear innocent. And do you 
 think if I was to investigate the cost of kitchen and 
 cellar, and calculate how many pounds of meat each of 
 our tall lackeys consumes per diem, I should not speedily 
 be plagued into grey hairs and wrinkles? I hope we are 
 rich enough to support their wastefulness. And if we 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 1 49 
 
 are not — why, vogue la galere — when we are ruined the 
 King must do something for Fareham — make him Lord 
 Chancellor. His Majesty is mighty sick of poor old 
 Clarendon and his lectures. Fareham has a long head, 
 and would do as well as anybody else for Chancellor if 
 he would but show himself at Court oftener, and con- 
 form to the fashion of the time, instead of holding him- 
 self aloof, with a Puritanical disdain for amusements and 
 people that please his betters. He has taken a leaf out 
 of Lord Southampton's book, and would not allow me 
 to return a visit Lady Castlemaine paid me the other 
 day, in the utmost friendliness: and to slight her is the 
 quickest way to offend his Majesty." 
 
 "But, sister, you would not consort with an infamous 
 woman?" 
 
 "Infamous! Who told you she is infamous? Your 
 innocency should be ignorant of such trumpery tittle- 
 tattle. And one can be civil without consorting, as you 
 call it." 
 
 Angela took her sister's reckless speech for mere 
 sportiveness. Hyacinth might be careless and ignorant 
 of business, but his lordship doubtless knew the extent 
 of his income, and was too grave and experienced a 
 personage to be a spendthrift. He had confessed to 
 seven and thirty, which to the girl of twenty seemed 
 serious middle-age. 
 
 There were musicians in her ladyship's household — 
 youths who played lute and viol, and sang the dainty, 
 meaningless songs of the latest ballad-mongers very 
 prettily. The warm weather, which had a bad effect 
 upon the bills of mortality, was so far advantageous that 
 it allowed these gentlemen to sing in the garden while 
 
I50 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the family were at supper, or on the river while the 
 family were taking their evening airing. Their newest 
 performance was an arrangement of Lord Dorset's lines 
 — "To all you ladies now on land," set as a round. 
 There could scarcely be anything prettier than the dying 
 fall of the refrain that ended every verse: — 
 
 "With a fa, la, la, 
 Perhaps permit some happier man 
 To kiss your hand or flirt your fan, 
 
 With a fa, la, la." 
 
 The last lines died away in the distance of the moonlit 
 garden, as the singers slowly retired, while Henri de 
 Malfort illustrated that final couplet with Hyacinth's fan, 
 as he sat beside her. 
 
 "Music, and moonlight, and a garden. You might 
 fancy yourself amidst the grottoes and terraces of 
 St. Germain." 
 
 "I note that whenever there is anything meritorious 
 in our English life Malfort is reminded of France, and 
 when he discovers any obnoxious feature in our manners 
 or habits he expatiates on the vast difference between 
 the two nations," said his lordship. 
 
 "Dear Fareham, I am a human being. When I am 
 in England I remember all I loved in my own country. 
 I must return to it before I shall understand the worth 
 of all I leave here — and the understanding may be 
 bitter. Call your singers back, and let us have those 
 two last verses again. 'Tis a fine tune, and your fellows 
 perform it with sweetness and brio." 
 
 The song was new. The victory which it celebrated 
 was fresh in the minds of men. The disgrace of later 
 Dutch experiences — the ships in the Nore ravaging and 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. I5I 
 
 insulting — was yet to come. England still believed her 
 floating castles invincible. 
 
 To Angela's mind the life at Chilton was full of 
 change and joyous expectancy. No hour of the day but 
 offered some variety of recreation, from battledore and 
 shuttlecock in the plaisance to long days with the hounds 
 or the hawks. Angela learnt to ride in less than a 
 month, instructed by the stud-groom, a gentleman of 
 considerable importance in the household; an old cam- 
 paigner, who had groomed Fareham's horses after many 
 a battle, and many a skirmish, and had suffered scant 
 food and rough quarters without murmuring; and also 
 with considerable assistance and counsel from Lord 
 Fareham, and occasional lectures from Papillon, who 
 was a Diana at ten years old, and rode with her father 
 in the first flight. Angela was soon equal to accom- 
 panying her sister in the hunting-field, for Hyacinth liked 
 following the chase after the French rather than the 
 English fashion, affecting no ruder sport than to wait at 
 an opening of the wood, or on the crest of a common, 
 to see hounds and riders sweep by; or, favoured by 
 chance now and then, to signal the villain's whereabouts 
 by a lace handkerchief waved high above her head. 
 This was how a beautiful lady who had hunted in the 
 forests of St. Germain and Fontainebleau understood 
 sport; and such performances as this Angela found easy 
 and agreeable. They had many cavaliers who came to 
 talk with them for a few minutes, to tell them what was 
 doing or not doing yonder where the hounds were 
 hidden in thicket or coppice; but Henri de Malfort was 
 their most constant attendant. He rarely left them, and 
 dawdled through the earlier half of an October day, 
 
152 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 walking his horse from point to point, or dismounting at 
 sheltered corners to stand and talk at Lady Fareham's 
 side, with a patience that made Angela wonder at the 
 contrast between English headlong eagerness, crashing 
 and splashing through hedge and brook, and French 
 indifference. 
 
 "I have not Fareham's passion for mud," he ex- 
 plained to her, when she remarked upon his lack of 
 interest in the chase, even when the music of the hounds 
 was ringing through wood and valley, now close beside 
 them, anon diminishing in the distance, thin in the thin 
 air. "If he comes not home at dark plastered with mire 
 from boots to eyebrows he will cry, like Alexander, 'I 
 have lost a day.' " 
 
 Partridge-hawking in the wide fields between Chilton 
 and Nettlebed was more to Malfort's taste, and it was 
 a sport for which Lady Fareham expressed a certain 
 enthusiasm, and for which she attired herself to the 
 perfection of picturesque costume. Her hunting-coats 
 were marvels of embroidery on atlas and smooth cloth; 
 but her smartest velvet and brocade she kept for the 
 sunny mornings, when, with hooded peregrine on wrist, 
 she sallied forth intent on slaughter, Angela, Papillon, 
 and De Malfort for her cortege, an easy-paced horse to 
 amble over the grass with her, and the Dutch falconer 
 to tell her the right moment at which to slip her falcon's 
 hood. 
 
 The nuns at the Ursuline Convent would scarcely 
 have recognised their quondam pupil in the girl on the 
 grey palfrey, whose hair flew loose under a beaver hat, 
 mingling its tresses with the long ostrich plume, whose 
 trimly fitting jacket had a masculine air which only 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 153 
 
 accentuated the womanliness of the fair face above it, 
 and whose complexion, somewhat too colourless within 
 the convent walls, now glowed with a carnation that 
 brightened and darkened the large grey eyes into new 
 beauty. 
 
 That open-air life was a revelation to the cloister- 
 bred girl. Could this earth hold greater bliss than to 
 roam at large over spacious gardens, to cross the river, 
 sculling her boat with strong hands, with her niece 
 Henriette, otherwise Papillon, sitting in the stern to steer, 
 and scream instructions to the novice in navigation; and 
 then to lose themselves in the woods on the further 
 shore, to wander in a labyrinth of reddening beeches, 
 and oaks on which the thick foliage still kept its dusky 
 green; to emerge upon open lawns where the pale gold 
 birches looked like fairy trees, and where amber and 
 crimson toadstools shone like jewels on the skirts of the 
 dense undergrowth of holly and hawthorn? The liberty 
 of it all, the delicious feeling of freedom, the release 
 from convent rules and convent hours, bells ringing for 
 chapel, bells ringing for meals, bells ringing to mark the 
 end of the brief recreation — a perpetual ringing and 
 drilling which had made conventual life a dull machine, 
 working always in the same grooves. 
 
 Oh, this liberty, this variety, this beauty in all things 
 around and about her! How the young glad soul, newly 
 escaped from prison, revelled and expatiated in its 
 freedom! Papillon, who at ten years old, had skimmed 
 the cream off all the simple pleasures, appointed herself 
 her aunt's instructress in most things, and taught her to 
 row, with some help from Lord Fareham, who was an 
 expert waterman; and, at the same time, tried to teach 
 
154 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 her to despise the country, and all rustic pleasures, 
 except hunting — although in her inmost heart the minx 
 preferred the liberty of Oxfordshire woods to the 
 splendour of Fareham House, where she was cooped in 
 a nursery with her gonvernante for the greater part of her 
 time, and was only exhibited like a doll to her mother's 
 fine company, or seated upon a cushion to tinkle a 
 saraband and display her precocious talent on the guitar, 
 which she played almost as badly as Lady Fareham 
 herself, at whose feeble endeavours even the courteous 
 De Malfort laughed. 
 
 Never was sister kinder than Hyacinth, impelled by 
 that impulsive sweetness which was her chief charac- 
 teristic, and also, it might be, moved to lavish generosity 
 by some scruples of conscience with regard to her grand- 
 mother's will. Her first business was to send for the 
 best milliner in Oxford, a London Madam who had 
 followed her court customers to the university town, and 
 to order everything that was beautiful and seemly for a 
 young person of quality. 
 
 "I implore you not to make me too fine, dearest," 
 pleaded Angela, who was more horrified at the milliner's 
 painted face and exuberant figure than charmed by the 
 contents of the baskets which she had brought with her 
 in the spacious leather coach — velvets and brocades, 
 hoods and gloves, silk stockings, fans, perfumes and 
 pulvilios, sweet-bags and scented boxes — all of which the 
 woman spread out upon Lady Fareham's embroidered 
 satin bed, for the young lady's admiration. "I pray you 
 remember that I am accustomed to have only two gowns 
 — a black and a grey. You will make me afraid of my 
 image in the glass if you dress me like — like " 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 1 55 
 
 She glanced from her sister's decollete bodice to the 
 far more appalling charms of the milliner, which a gauze 
 kerchief rather emphasised than concealed, and could 
 find no proper conclusion for her sentence. 
 
 "Nay, sweetheart, let not thy modesty take fright. 
 Thou shalt be clad as demurely as the nun thou hast 
 escaped being — 
 
 ' And sable stole of Cyprus lawn 
 Over thy decent shoulders drawn.' 
 
 We will have no blacks, but as much decency as you 
 choose. You will mark the distinction between my sister 
 and your maids of honour, Mrs. Lewin. She is but a 
 debutante in our modish world, and must be dressed as 
 modestly as you can contrive, to be consistent with the 
 fashion." 
 
 "Oh, my lady, I catch your ladyship's meaning, and 
 your ladyship's instructions shall be carried out as far as 
 can be without making a savage of the young lady. I 
 know what some young ladies are when they first come 
 to Court. I had fuss enough with Miss Hamilton before 
 I could persuade her to have her bodice cut like a 
 Christian. And even the beautiful Miss Brooks were 
 all for high tuckers and modesty-pieces w T hen I began to 
 make for them; but they soon came round. And now 
 with my Lady Denham it is always, 'Gud, Lewin, do you 
 call that the right cut for a bosom? Udsbud, woman, 
 you haven't made the curve half deep enough.' And 
 with my Lady Chesterfield it is, 'Sure, if they say my legs 
 are thick and ugly, I'll let them know my shoulders are 
 worth looking at. Give me your scissors, creature,' and 
 then with her own delicate hand she will scoop me a 
 
I56 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 good inch off the satin, till I am fit to swoon at seeing 
 the cold steel against her milk-white flesh." 
 
 Mrs. Lewin talked with but little interruption for the 
 best part of an hour while measuring her new customer, 
 showing her pattern-book, and exhibiting the ready-made 
 wares she had brought, the greater number of which 
 Hyacinth insisted on buying for Angela — who was 
 horrified at the slanderous innuendoes that dropped in 
 casual abundance from the painted lips of the milliner; 
 horrified, too, that her sister could loll back in her 
 armchair and laugh at the woman's coarse and malignant 
 talk. 
 
 "Indeed, sister, you are far too generous, and you 
 have overpowered me with gifts," she said, when the 
 milliner had curtsied herself out of the room; "for I 
 fear my own income will never pay for all these costly 
 things. Three pounds, I think she said, was the price 
 of the Mazarine hood alone — and there are stockings 
 and gloves innumerable." 
 
 "Mon Ange, while you are with me your own income 
 is but for charities and vails. I will have it spent for 
 nothing else. You know how rich the Marquise has 
 made me — while I believe Fareham is a kind of modern 
 Croesus, though we do not boast of his wealth, for all 
 that is most substantial in his fortune comes from his 
 mother, whose father was a great merchant trading with 
 Spain and the Indies, all through James's reign, and 
 luckier in the hunt for gold than poor Raleigh. Never 
 must you talk to me of obligation. Are we not sisters, 
 and was it not a mere accident that made me the elder, 
 and Madame de Montrond's protegee!" 
 
 "I have no words to thank you for so much kind- 
 
AT THE TOP OP THE FASHION. I 57 
 
 ness. I will only say I am so happy here that I could 
 never have believed there was such full content on this 
 sinful earth." 
 
 "Wait till we are in London, Angelique. Here we 
 endure existence. It is only in London that we live." 
 
 "Nay, I believe the country will always please me 
 better than the town. But, sister, do you not hate that 
 Mrs. Lewin — that horrid painted face and evil tongue?" 
 
 "My dearest child, one hates a milliner for the 
 spoiling of a bodice or the ill cut of a sleeve — not for 
 her character. I believe Mrs. Lewin's is among the 
 worst, and that she has had as many intrigues as Lady 
 Castlemaine. As for her painting, doubtless she does 
 that to remind her customers that she sells alabaster 
 powder and ceruse." 
 
 "Nay, if she wants to disgust them with painted 
 faces she has but to show her own." 
 
 "I grant she lays the stuff on badly. I hope, if I 
 live to have as many wrinkles, I shall fill them better 
 than she does. Yet who can tell what a hideous toad 
 she might be in her natural skin? It may be Christian 
 charity that induces her to paint, and so to spare us the 
 sight of a monster. She will make thee a beauty, Ange, 
 be sure of that. For satin or velvet, birthday or gala 
 gowns, nobody can beat her. The wretch has had 
 thousands of my money, so I ought to know. But for 
 thy riding-habit and hawking-jacket we want the firmer 
 grip of a man's hand. Those must be made by Roget." 
 
 "A Frenchman?" 
 
 "Yes, child. One only accepts British workmanship 
 when a Parisian artist is not to be had. Clever as Lewin 
 is, if I want to eclipse my dearest enemy on any special 
 
I58 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 occasion I send Manningtree across the Channel, or ask 
 De Malfort to let his valet — who spends his life in transit 
 like a king's messenger — bring me the latest confection 
 from the Rue de Richelieu." 
 
 "What infinite trouble about a gown — and for you 
 who would look lovely in anything!" 
 
 "Tush, child! You have never seen me in 'any- 
 thing.' If ever you should surprise me in an ill gown 
 you will see how much the feathers make the bird. 
 Poets and playwrights may pretend to believe that we 
 need no embellishment from art; but the very men who 
 write all that romantic nonsense are the first to court a 
 well-dressed woman. And there are few of them who 
 could calculate with any exactness the relation of beauty 
 to its surroundings. That is why women go deep into 
 debt to their milliners, and would sooner be dead in 
 well-made graveclothes than alive in an old-fashioned 
 mantua." 
 
 Angela could not be in her sister's company for a 
 month without discovering that Lady Fareham's whole 
 life was given up to the worship of the trivial. She was 
 kind, she w T as amiable, generous, even to recklessness. 
 She was not irreligious, heard Mass and went to con- 
 fession as often as the hard conditions of an alien and 
 jealously treated Church would allow, had never disputed 
 the truth of any tenet that was taught her — but of 
 serious views, of an earnest consideration of life and 
 death, husband and children, Hyacinth Fareham was as 
 incapable as her ten-year-old daughter. Indeed, it some- 
 times seemed to Angela that the child had broader and 
 deeper thoughts than the mother, and saw her surround- 
 ings with a shrewder and clearer eye, despite the 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 159 
 
 natural frivolity of childhood, and the exuberance of a 
 fine physique. 
 
 It was not for the younger sister to teach the elder, 
 nor did Angela deem herself capable of teaching. Her 
 nature was thoughtful and earnest; but she lacked that 
 experience of life which can alone give the thinker a 
 broad and philosophic view of other people's conduct. 
 She was still far from the stage of existence in which to 
 understand all is to pardon all. 
 
 She beheld the life about her with wonder and 
 bewilderment. It was so pleasant, so full of beauty and 
 variety; yet things were said and done that shocked her. 
 There was nothing in her sister's own behaviour to alarm 
 her modesty; but to hear her sister talk of other women's 
 conduct outraged all her ideas of decency and virtue. If 
 there were really such wickedness in the world, women 
 so shameless and vile, was it right that good women 
 should know of them, that pure lips should speak of 
 their iniquity? 
 
 She was still more shocked when Hyacinth talked 
 of Lady Castlemaine with a good-humoured indulgence. 
 
 "There is something fine about her," Lady Fareham 
 said one day, "in spite of her tempers and pranks." 
 
 "What!" cried Angela, aghast, having thought these 
 creatures unrecognised by any honest woman, "do you 
 know her — that Lady Castlemaine of whom you have 
 told me such dreadful things?" 
 
 "C'est vrai. J'en ai dit des raides. Mon Ange, in 
 town one must needs know everybody, though I doubt 
 that after not returning her visit t'other day, I shall be 
 in her black books, and in somebody else's. She has 
 never been one of my intimates. If I were often at 
 
l60 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Whitehall, I should have to be friends with her. But 
 Fareham is jealous of Court influences; and I am only 
 allowed to appear on gala nights — perhaps not a half- 
 dozen times in a season. There is a distinction in not 
 showing oneself often: but it is provoking to hear of 
 the frolics and jollities which go on every day and every 
 night, and from which I am banished. It mattered little 
 while the Queen-mother was at Somerset House, for her 
 Court ranked higher — and was certainly more refined 
 in its splendour — than her son's ragamuffin herd. But 
 now she is gone, I shall miss our intellectual milieu, and 
 wish myself in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, where 
 the Hotel du Rambouillet, even in its decline, offers a 
 finer style of company than anything you will see in 
 England." 
 
 "Sister, I fear you left half your heart in France." 
 
 "Nay, sweet; perhaps some of it has followed me," 
 answered Hyacinth, with a blush and an enigmatic 
 smile. "Peste! I am not a woman to make a fuss 
 about hearts! There is not a grain of tragedy in my 
 composition. I am like that girl in the play we saw at 
 Oxford t'other day. Fletcher's was it, or Shakespeare's? 
 'A star danced, and under that was I born.' Yes, I 
 was born under a dancing star; and I shall never break 
 my heart — for love." 
 
 "But you regret Paris?" 
 
 "He'las! Paris means my girlhood; and were you 
 to take me back there to-morrow you could not make 
 me seventeen again — and so where's the use? I should 
 see wrinkles in the faces of my friends; and should 
 know that they were seeing the same ugly lines in mine. 
 Indeed, Ange, I think it is my youth I sigh for rather 
 
AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. l6l 
 
 than the friends I lived with. They were such merry- 
 days: battles and sieges in the provinces, parliaments 
 disputing here and there; Conde in and out of prison — 
 now the King's loyal servant, now in arms against him; 
 swords clashing, cannon roaring under our very windows; 
 alarm bells pealing, cries of fire, barricades in the streets; 
 and amidst it all, lute and theorbo, bouts rime's and 
 madrigals, dancing and play-acting, and foolish practical 
 jests! One could not take the smallest step in life but 
 one of the wits would make a song about it. Oh, it 
 was a boisterous time! And we were all mad, I think; 
 so lightly did we reckon life and death, even when the 
 cannon slew some of our noblest, and the finest saloons 
 were hung with black. You have done less than live, 
 Angelique, not to have lived in that time." 
 
 Hyacinth loved to ring the changes on her sister's 
 name. Angela was too English, and sounded too much 
 like the name of a nun; but Angelique suggested one 
 of the most enchanting personalities in that brilliant 
 circle on which Lady Fareham so often rhapsodised. 
 This was the beautiful Angelique Paulet, whose father 
 invented the tax called by this name, La Paulette — a 
 financial measure, which was the main cause of the first 
 Fronde war. 
 
 "I only knew her when she was between fifty and 
 sixty," said Lady Fareham, "but she hardly looked 
 forty; and she was still handsome, in spite of her red 
 hair. Trop dore, her admirers called it; but, my love, 
 it was as red as that scullion's we saw in the poultry 
 yard yesterday. She was a reigning beauty at three 
 Courts, and had a crowd of adorers when she was only 
 fourteen. Ah, Papillon, you may open your eyes! What 
 
 London Pride. I. II 
 
102 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 will you be at fourteen? Still playing with your babies, 
 or mad about your shock dogs, I dare swear!" 
 
 "I gave my babies to the housekeeper's grand- 
 daughter last year," said Papillon, much offended, "when 
 father gave me the peregrine. I only care for live things 
 now I am old." 
 
 "And at fourteen thou wilt be an awkward, long- 
 legged wench that will frighten away all my admirers, 
 yet not be worth the trouble of a compliment on thine 
 own account." 
 
 "I want no such stuff!" cried Papillon. "Do you 
 think I would like a French fop always at my elbow as 
 Monsieur de Malfort is ever at yours? I love hunting 
 and hawking, and a man that can ride, and shoot, and 
 row, and fight, like father or Sir Denzil Warner — not a 
 man who thinks more of his ribbons and periwig and 
 cannon-sleeves than of killing his fox or flying his falcon." 
 
 "Oh, you are beginning to have opinions!" sighed 
 Hyacinth. "I am indeed an old woman! Go and find 
 yourself something to play with, alive or dead. You are 
 vastly too clever for my company." 
 
 "I'll go and saddle Brownie. Will you come for a 
 ride, Aunt Angy?" 
 
 "Yes, dear, if her ladyship does not want me at 
 home." 
 
 "Her ladyship knows your heart is in the fields and 
 woods. Yes, sweetheart, saddle your pony, and order 
 your aunt's horse and a pair of grooms to take care of 
 you." 
 
 The child ran off rejoicing. 
 
 "Precocious little devil! She will pick up all our 
 jargon before she is in her teens." 
 
SUPERIOR TO FASHION. I 63 
 
 "Dear sister, if you talk so indiscreetly before 
 her " 
 
 "Indiscreet! Am I really so indiscreet? That is 
 Fareham's word. I believe I was born so. But I was 
 telling you about your namesake, Mademoiselle Paulet. 
 She began to reign when Henri was king, and no doubt 
 he was one of her most ardent admirers. Don't look 
 frightened ! She was always a model of virtue. Made- 
 moiselle Scudery has devoted pages to painting her 
 perfections under an Oriental alias. She sang, she 
 danced, she talked divinely. She did everything better 
 than everybody else. Priests and Bishops praised her. 
 And after changes and losses and troubles, she died 
 far from Paris, a spinster, nearly sixty years old. It 
 was a paltry finish to a life that began in a blaze of 
 glory." 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 SUPERIOR TO FASHION. 
 
 At Oxford Angela was so happy as to be presented 
 to Catharine of Braganza, a little dark woman, whose 
 attire still bore some traces of its original Portuguese 
 heaviness; such a dress — clumsy, ugly, infinitely rich 
 and expensive — as one sees in old portraits of Spanish 
 and Netherlandish matrons, in which every elaborate 
 detail of the costly fabric seems to have been devised 
 in the research of ugliness. She saw the King also; 
 met him casually — she walking with her brother-in-law, 
 while Lady Fareham and her friends ran from shop to 
 
 11* 
 
t64 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 shop in the High Street — in Magdalen College grounds, 
 a group of beauties and a family of spaniels fawning 
 upon him as he sauntered slowly, or stopped to feed 
 the swans that swam close by the bank, keeping pace 
 with him, and stretching long necks in greedy solici- 
 tation. 
 
 The loveliest woman Angela had ever seen — tall, 
 built like a goddess — walked on the King's right hand. 
 She carried a heap of broken bread in the satin petti- 
 coat which she held up over one white arm, while 
 with her other hand she gave the pieces one by one to 
 the King. Angela saw that as each hunch changed 
 hands the royal ringers touched the lady's tapering finger- 
 tips and tried to detain them. 
 
 Fareham took off his hat, bowed low in a grave and 
 stately salutation, and passed on; but Charles called him 
 back. 
 
 "Nay, Fareham, has the world grown so dull that 
 you have nothing to tell us this November morning?" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I fear that my riverside hermitage can 
 afford very little news that could interest your Majesty 
 or these ladies." 
 
 "A fox gone to ground, an otter killed among your 
 reeds, or a hawk in the sulks, is an event in the country. 
 Anything would be a relief from the weekly total of 
 London deaths, which is our chief subject of conversa- 
 tion, or the General's complaints that there is no one in 
 town but himself to transact business, or dismal prophe- 
 cies of a Nonconformist rebellion that is to follow the 
 Five Mile Act." 
 
 The group of ladies stared at Angela in a smiling 
 silence, one haughtier than the rest standing a little 
 
SUPERIOR TO FASHION. I 65 
 
 aloof. She was older, and of a more audacious love- 
 liness than the lady who carried broken bread in her 
 petticoat; but she too was splendidly beautiful as a 
 goddess on a painted ceiling, and as much painted 
 perhaps. 
 
 Angela contemplated her with the reverence youth 
 gives to consummate beauty, unaware that she was ad- 
 miring the notorious Barbara Palmer. 
 
 Fareham waited, hat in hand, grave almost to 
 sullenness. It was not for him to do more than reply 
 to his Majesty's remarks, nor could he retire till dis- 
 missed. 
 
 "You have a strange face at your side, man. Pray 
 introduce the lady," said the King, smiling at Angela, 
 whose vivid blush was as fresh as Miss Stewart's had 
 been a year or two ago, before she had her first quarrel 
 with Lady Castlemaine, or rode in Gramont's glass 
 coach, or gave her classic profile to embellish the coin 
 of the realm — the "common drudge 'tween man and 
 man." 
 
 I have the honour to present my sister-in-law, Mis- 
 tress Kirkland, to your Majesty." 
 
 The King shook hands with Angela in the easiest 
 way, as if he had been mortal. 
 
 "Welcome to our poor court, Mistress Kirkland. Your 
 father was my father's friend and companion in the evil 
 days. They starved together at Beverley, and rode side 
 by side through the Warwickshire lanes to suffer the 
 insolence of Coventry. I have not forgotten. If I had 
 I have a monitor yonder to remind me," glancing in the 
 direction of a middle-aged gentleman, stately, and sober 
 of attire, who was walking slowly towards them, "The 
 
1 66 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Chancellor is a living chronicle, and his conversation 
 chiefly consists in reminiscences of events I would rather 
 forget." 
 
 "Memory is an invention of Old Nick," said Lady 
 Castlemaine. "Who the deuce wants to remember any- 
 thing, except what cards are out and what are in?" 
 
 "Not you, Fairest. You should be the last to culti- 
 vate mnemonics for yourself or for your friends. Is your 
 father in England, sweet mistress?" 
 
 Angela faltered a negative, as if with somebody else's 
 voice — or so it seemed to her. A swarthy, heavy-browed 
 man, wearing a dark-blue ribbon and a star — a man 
 with whom his intimates jested in shameless freedom — 
 a man whom the town called Rowley, after some igno- 
 minious quadruped — a man who had distinguished him- 
 self neither in the field nor in the drawing-room by any 
 excellence above the majority, since the wit men praised 
 has resolved itself for posterity into half a dozen happy 
 repartees. Only this! But he was a King, a crowned 
 and anointed King, and even Angela, who was less 
 frivolous and shallow than most women, stood before 
 him abashed and dazzled. 
 
 His Majesty bowed a gracious adieu, yawned, flung 
 another crust to the swans, and sauntered on, the Stewart 
 whispering in his ear, the Castlemaine talking loud to 
 her neighbour, Lady Chesterfield, this latter lady very 
 pretty, very bold and mischievous, newly restored to the 
 Court after exile with her jealous husband at his mansion 
 in Wales. 
 
 They were gone; Charles to be button-holed by Lord 
 Clarendon, who waited for him at the end of the walk; 
 the ladies to wander as they pleased till the two-o'clock 
 
SUPERIOR TO FASHION. 1 67 
 
 dinner. They were gone, like a dream of beauty and 
 splendour, and Fareham and Angela pursued their walk 
 by the river, grey in the sunless November. 
 
 "Well, sister, you have seen the man whom we 
 brought back in a whirlwind of loyalty five years ago, 
 and for whose sake we rebuilt the fabric of monarchical 
 government. Do you think we are much the gainers by 
 that tempest of enthusiasm which blew us home Charles 
 the Second? We had suffered all the trouble of the 
 change to a Republic; a life that should have been 
 sacred had been sacrificed to the principles of liberty. 
 While abhorring the regicides, we might have profited 
 by their crime. We might have been a free state to- 
 day, like the United Provinces. Do you think we are 
 better off with a King like Rowley, to amuse himself at 
 the expense of the nation?" 
 
 "I detest the idea of a Republic." 
 
 "Youth worships the supernatural in anointed kings. 
 Think not that I am opposed to a constitutional 
 monarchy, so long as it works well for the majority. 
 But when England had with such terrible convulsions 
 shaken off all those shackles and trappings of royalty, 
 and when the ship, so lightened, had sailed so steadily 
 with no ballast but common sense, does it not seem 
 almost a pity to undo what has been done — to begin 
 again the long procession of good kings and bad kings, 
 foolish or wise — for the sake of such a man as yonder 
 saunterer?" with a glance towards the British Sultan 
 and his harem. 
 
 "England was never better governed than by Crom- 
 well," he continued. "She was tranquil at home and 
 victorious abroad, admired and feared. Mazarin, while 
 
I 68 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 pretending to be the faithful friend of Charles, was 
 the obsequious courtier of Oliver. The finest form of 
 government is a limited despotism. See how France 
 prospered under the sagacious tyrant, Louis the Eleventh, 
 under the soldier- statesman, Sully, under pure reason 
 incarnate in Richelieu. Whether you call your tyrant 
 king or protector, minister or president, matters nothing. 
 It is the man and not the institution, the mind and not 
 the machinery that is wanted." 
 
 "I did not know you were a Republican, like Sir 
 Denzil Warner." 
 
 "I am nothing now I have left off being a soldier. 
 I have no strong opinions about anything. I am a 
 looker on; and life seems little more real to me than a 
 stage play. Warner is of a different stamp. He is an 
 enthusiastic in politics — godson of Hollis — a disciple of 
 Milton's, the son of a Puritan, and a Puritan himself. 
 A fine nature, Angela, allied to a handsome presence." 
 
 Sir Denzil Warner was their neighbour at Chilton, 
 and Angela had met him often enough for them to be- 
 come friends. He had ridden by her side with hawk 
 and hound, had been one of her instructors in English 
 sport, and had sometimes, by an accident, joined her 
 and Henriette in their boating expeditions, and helped 
 her to perfect herself in the management of a pair of 
 sculls. 
 
 "Hyacinth has her fancies about Warner," Fareham 
 said presently, as they strolled along. 
 
 There was a significance in his tone that the girl 
 could not mistake; more especially as her sister had not 
 been reticent about those notions to which Fareham. 
 alluded, 
 
SUPERIOR TO FASHION. 1 69 
 
 "Hyacinth has fancies about many things," she said, 
 blushing a little. 
 
 Fareham noted the slightness of the blush. 
 
 "I verily believe that handsome youth has found you 
 adamant," he said, after a thoughtful silence. "Yet you 
 might easily choose a worse suitor. Your sister has 
 often the strangest whims about marriage-making; but 
 in this fancy I did not oppose her. It would be a very 
 suitable alliance." 
 
 "I hope your lordship does not begin to think me 
 a burden on your household," faltered Angela, wounded 
 by his cold-blooded air in disposing of her. "When 
 you and my sister are tired of me I can go back to my 
 convent." 
 
 "What! Return to those imprisoning walls; immure 
 your sweet youth in a cloister? Not for the Indies. I 
 would not suffer such a sacrifice. Tired of you! I — 
 so deeply bound! I who owe you my life! I who 
 looked up out of a burning hell of pain and madness 
 and saw an angel standing by my bed! Tired of you! 
 Indeed you know me better than to think so badly of 
 me were it but in one flash of thought. You can need 
 no protestations from me. Only, as a young and beauti- 
 ful woman, living in an age that is full of peril for 
 women, I should like to see you married to a good and 
 true man — such as Denzil Warner." 
 
 "I am sorry to disappoint you," Angela answered 
 coldly; "but Papillon and I have agreed that I am 
 always to be her spinster aunt, and am to keep her 
 house when she is married, and wear a linsey gown 
 and a bunch of keys at my girdle, like Mrs, Hubbuck, 
 at Chilton," 
 
170 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "That's just like Henriette. She takes after her 
 mother, and thinks that this globe and all the people 
 upon it were created principally for her pleasure. The 
 Americas to give her chocolate, the Indian isles to 
 sweeten it for her, the ocean tides to bring her feathers 
 and finery. She is her own centre and circumference, 
 like her mother." 
 
 "You should not say such an ill thing of your wife, 
 Fareham," said Angela, deeply shocked. "Hyacinth is 
 not one to look into the heart of things. She has too 
 happy a disposition for grave backward-reaching thoughts; 
 but I will swear that she loves you — ay — almost to 
 reverence." 
 
 "Yes, to reverence, to over much reverence, perhaps. 
 She might have given a freer, fonder love to a more 
 amiable man. I have some strain of my unhappy kins- 
 man's temper, perhaps — the disposition that keeps a 
 wife at a distance. He managed to make three wives 
 afraid of him; and it was darkly rumoured that he killed 
 one." 
 
 "Strafford — a murderer! No, no." 
 
 "Not by intent. An accident — only an accident. 
 They who most hated him pretended that he pushed 
 her from him somewhat roughly when she was least 
 able to bear roughness, and that the after consequences 
 of the blow were fatal. He was one of the doomed 
 always, you see. He knew that himself, and told his 
 bosom friend that he was not long-lived. The brand of 
 misfortune was upon him even at the height of his 
 power. You may read his destiny in his face." 
 
 They walked on in silence for some time, Angela 
 depressed and unhappy. It seemed as if Fareham had 
 
SUPERIOR TO FASHION. 171 
 
 lifted a mask and shown her his real countenance, with 
 all the lines that tell a life history. She had suspected 
 that he was not happy; that the joyous existence amidst 
 fairest surroundings which seemed so exquisite to her 
 was dull and vapid for him. She could but think that 
 he was like her father, and that action and danger were 
 necessary to him, and that it was only this rustic tran- 
 quillity that weighed upon his spirits. 
 
 "Do not for a moment believe that I would speak 
 slightingly of your sister," Fareham resumed, after that 
 silent interval. "It w r ere indeed an ill thing in me — 
 most of all to disparage her in your hearing. She is 
 lovely, accomplished, learned even, after the fashion of 
 the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. She used to shine 
 among the brightest at the Scuderys' Saturday parties, 
 which were the most wearisome assemblies I ever ran 
 away from. The match was made for us by others, and 
 I was her betrothed husband before I saw her. Yet I 
 loved her at first sight. Who could help loving a face 
 as fair as morning over the eastward hills, a voice as 
 sweet as the nightingales in the Tuileries garden? She 
 was so young — a child almost; so gentle and confiding. 
 And to see her now with Papillon is to question which 
 is the younger, mother or daughter. Love her? Why, 
 of course I love her. I loved her then. I love her now. 
 Her beauty has but ripened with the passing years; and 
 she has walked the furnace of fine company in two 
 cities, and has never been seared by fire. Love her! 
 Could a man help loving beauty, and frankness, and a 
 natural innocence which cannot be spoiled even by the 
 knowledge of things evil, even by daily contact with sin 
 in high places?" 
 
172 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Again there was a silence, and then, in a deeper 
 tone, after a long sigh, Fareham said — 
 
 "I love and honour my wife; I adore my children; 
 yet I am alone, Angela, and I shall be alone till death." 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "Oh yes, you do; you understand as well as I who 
 suffer. My wife and I love each other dearly. If she 
 have a fit of the vapours, or an aching tooth, I am 
 wretched. But we have never been companions. The 
 things that she loves are charmless for me. She is en- 
 chanted with people from whom I run away. Is it com- 
 panionship, do you think, for me to look on while she 
 walks a coranto or tosses shuttlecocks with De Malfort? 
 Roxalana is as much my companion when I admire her 
 on the stage from my seat in the pit. There are times 
 when my wife seems no nearer to me than a beautiful 
 picture. If I sit in a corner, and listen to her pretty 
 babble about the last fan she bought at the Middle 
 Exchange, or the last witless comedy she saw at the 
 King's Theatre, is that companionship, think you? I 
 may be charmed to-day — as I was charmed ten years 
 ago — with the silvery sweetness of her voice, with the 
 graceful turn of her head, the white roundness of her 
 throat. At least I am constant. There is no change 
 in her or in me. We are just as near and just as far 
 apart as when the priest joined our hands at St. Eustache. 
 And it must be so to the end, I suppose; and I think 
 the fault is in me. I am out of joint with the world I 
 live in. I cannot set myself in tune with their new 
 music. I look back, and remember, and regret; yet 
 hardly know why I remember or what I regret." 
 
 Again a silence, briefer than the last, and he went on;— ■ 
 
SUPERIOR TO FASHION. 1 73 
 
 "Do you think it strange that I talk so freely — to 
 you — who are scarce more than a child, less learned 
 than Henriette in worldly knowledge? It is a comfort 
 sometimes to talk of oneself; of what one has missed 
 as well as of what one has. And you have such an air 
 of being wise beyond your years; wise in all thoughts 
 that are not of the world — thoughts of things of which 
 there is no truck at the Exchanges; which no one buys 
 or sells at Abingdon fair. And you are so near allied 
 to me — a sister! I never had a sister of my own blood, 
 Angela. I w T as an only child. Solitude was my portion. 
 I lived alone with my tutor and gouvernante — a poor 
 relation of my mother's — alone in a house that was 
 mostly deserted, for Lord and Lady Fareham were in 
 London with the King, till the troubles brought the 
 Court to Christchurch, and them to Chilton. I have 
 had few in whom to confide. And you — remember 
 what you have been to me, and do not wonder if I trust 
 you more than others. Thou didst go down to the very 
 grave with me, didst pluck me out of the pit. Cor- 
 ruption could not touch a creature so lovely and so in- 
 nocent. Thou didst walk unharmed through the charnel- 
 house. Remembering this, as I ever must remember, 
 can you wonder that you are nearer to me than all the 
 rest of the world?" 
 
 She had seated herself on a bench that commanded 
 a view of the river, and her dreaming eyes were look- 
 ing far away along the dim perspective of mist and 
 water, bare pollard willows, ragged sedges. Her head 
 drooped a little so that he could not see her face, and 
 one ungloved hand hung listlessly at her side. 
 
 He bent down to take the slender hand in his, lifted 
 
174 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 it to his lips, and quickly let it go; but not before she 
 had felt his tears upon it. She looked up a few minutes 
 later, and the place was empty. Her tears fell thick 
 and fast. Never before had she suffered this exquisite 
 pain — sadness so intense, yet touching so close on joy. 
 She sat alone in the inexpressible melancholy of the 
 late autumn; pale mists rising from the river; dead 
 leaves falling; and Fareham's tears upon her hand. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN A PURITAN HOUSE. 
 
 How quickly the days passed in that gay household 
 at Chilton! and yet every day of Angela's life held so 
 much of action and emotion that, looking back at Christ- 
 mas time to the three months that had slipped by since 
 she had brought Fareham from his sick bed to his 
 country home, she could but experience that common 
 feeling of youth in such circumstances. Surely it was 
 half a lifetime that had lapsed; or else she, by some 
 subtle and supernatural change, had become a new 
 creature. 
 
 She thought of her life in the Convent, thought of it 
 much and deeply on those Sunday mornings when she 
 and her sister and De Malfort and a score or so of 
 servants crept quietly to a room in the heart of the 
 house where a Priest, who had been fetched from Ox- 
 ford in Lady Fareham's coach, said Mass within locked 
 doors, The familiar words of the service, the odour of 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. I 75 
 
 the incense, brought back the old time — the unforgotten 
 atmosphere, the dull tranquillity of ten years, which had 
 been as one year by reason of their level monotony. 
 
 Could she go back to such a life as that? Go back! 
 Leave all she loved? At the mere suggestion her trem- 
 bling hand was stretched out involuntarily to clasp her 
 niece Henriette, kneeling beside her. Leave them — 
 leave those with whom and for whom she lived? Leave 
 this loving child — her sister — her brother? Fareham had 
 told her to call him "Brother." He had been to her as 
 a brother, with all a brother's kindness, counselling her, 
 confiding in her. 
 
 Only with one person at Chilton Abbey had she 
 ever conversed as seriously as with Fareham, and that 
 person was Sir Denzil Warner, who at five and twenty 
 was more serious in his way of looking at serious things 
 than most men of fifty. 
 
 "I cannot make a jest of life," he said once, in 
 reply to some flippant speech of De Malfort's; "it is too 
 painful a business for the majority." 
 
 "What has that to do with us — the minority? Can 
 we smooth a sick man's pillow by pulling a long face? 
 We shall do him more good by tossing him a crown, if 
 he be poor; or helping to build him a hospital by the 
 sacrifice of a night's winnings at ombre. Long faces help 
 nobody; that is what you Puritans will never consider." 
 
 "No; but if the long faces are the faces of men who 
 think, something may come of their thoughts for the 
 good of humanity." 
 
 Denzil Warner was the only person who ever spoke 
 to Angela of her religion. With extreme courtesy, and 
 with gentle excuses for his temerity in touching on so 
 
I76 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 delicate a theme, he ventured to express his abhorrence 
 of the superstitions interwoven with the Romanist's 
 creed. He talked as one who had sat at the feet of 
 the blind poet — talked sometimes in the very words of 
 John Milton. 
 
 There was much in what he said that appealed to 
 her reason; but there was no charm in that severer form 
 of worship which he offered in exchange for her own. 
 He was frank and generous; he had a fine nature, but 
 was too much given to judging his fellow-men. He had 
 all the arrogance of Puritanism superadded to the natural 
 arrogance of youth that has never known humiliating 
 reverses, that has never been the servant of circum- 
 stance. 
 
 He was Angela's senior by something less than four 
 years; yet it seemed to her that he was in every attri- 
 bute infinitely her superior. In education, in depth of 
 thought, in resolution for good, and scorn of evil. If he 
 loved her — as Hyacinth insisted upon declaring — there 
 was nothing of youthful impetuosity in his passion. He 
 had, indeed, betrayed his sentiments by no direct speech. 
 He had told her gravely that he was interested in her, 
 and deeply concerned that one so worthy and so 
 amiable should have been brought up in the house of 
 idolaters, should have been taught falsehood instead of 
 truth. 
 
 She stood up boldly for the faith of her maternal 
 ancestors. 
 
 "I cannot continue your friend if you speak evil of 
 those I love, Sir Denzil," she said. "Could you have 
 seen the lives of those good ladies of the Ursuline 
 Convent, their unselfishness, their charity, you must 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. 177 
 
 needs have respected their religion. I cannot think why 
 you love to say hard words of us Catholics; for in all I 
 have ever heard or seen of the lives of the Noncon- 
 formists they approach us far more nearly in their prin- 
 ciples than the members of the Church of England, who, 
 if my sister does not paint them with too black a brush, 
 practise their religion with a laxity and indifference that 
 would go far to turn religion to a jest." 
 
 Whatever Sir Denzil's ideas might be upon the ques- 
 tion of creed — and he did not scruple to tell Angela 
 that he thought every Papist foredoomed to everlasting 
 punishment — he showed so much pleasure in her society 
 as to be at Chilton Abbey, and the sharer of her walks 
 and rides, as often as possible. Lady Fareham en- 
 couraged his visits, and was always gracious to him. 
 She discovered that he possessed the gift of music, 
 though not in the same remarkable degree as Henri de 
 Malfort, who played the guitar exquisitely, and into 
 whose hands you had but to put a musical instrument 
 for him to extract sweetness from it. Lute or theorbo, 
 viola or viol di gamba, treble or bass, came alike to 
 his hand and ear. Some instruments he had studied; 
 with some his skill came by intuition. 
 
 Denzil Warner performed very creditably upon the 
 organ. He had played on John Milton's organ in St. 
 Bride's Church, when he was a boy, and he had played 
 of late in the church at Chalfont St. Giles, where he had 
 visited Milton frequently, since the poet had left his 
 lodgings in Artillery Walk, carrying his family and his 
 books to that sequestered village in the shelter of the 
 hills between Uxbridge and Beaconsfield. Here from 
 the lips of his sometime tutor the Puritan had heard 
 
 London Pride. I, 12 
 
I7o LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 such stories of the Court as made him hourly expectant 
 of exterminating fires. Doubtless the fire would have 
 come, as it came upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but for 
 those righteous lives of the Nonconformists, which re- 
 deemed the time; quiet, God-fearing lives in dull old 
 city houses, in streets almost as narrow as those which 
 Milton remembered in his beloved Italy; streets where 
 the sun looked in for an hour, shooting golden arrows 
 down upon the diamond-paned casements, and deepen- 
 ing the shadow of the massive timbers that held up the 
 overlapping stories, looked in and bade "good night" 
 within an hour or so, leaving an atmosphere of sober 
 grey, cool, and quiet, and dull, in those obscure streets 
 and alleys where the great traffic of Cheapside or Lud- 
 gate sounded like the murmur of a far-off sea. 
 
 Pious men and women worshipped the implacable 
 God of the Puritans in the secret chambers of those 
 narrow streets; and those who gathered together in 
 these days — if they rejected the Liturgy of the Church 
 of England — must indeed be few, and must meet by 
 stealth, as if to pray or preach after their own manner 
 were a crime. Charles, within a year or so of his 
 general amnesty and happy restoration, had made such 
 worship criminal; and now the Five Mile Act, lately 
 passed at Oxford, had rendered the restrictions and 
 penalties of Nonconformity utterly intolerable. Men 
 were lying in prison here and there about merry Eng- 
 land for no greater offence than preaching the gospel to 
 a handful of God-fearing people. But that a Puritan 
 tinker should moulder for a dozen years in a damp jail 
 could count for little against the blessed fact of the 
 Maypole reinstated in the Strand, and five playhouses in 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. I 79 
 
 London performing ribald comedies, till but recently > when 
 the plague shut their doors. 
 
 Milton, old and blind, and somewhat soured by 
 domestic disappointments, had imparted no optimistic 
 philosophy to young Denzil Warner, whose father he 
 had known and loved. The fight at Hopton Heath had 
 made Denzil fatherless; the Colonel of Warner's horse 
 riding to his death in the last fatal charge of that me- 
 morable day. 
 
 Denzil had grown up under the prosperous rule of 
 the Protector, and his boyhood had been spent in the 
 guardianship of a most watchful and serious -minded 
 mother. He had been , somewhat over -cosseted and 
 apron-stringed, it may be, in that tranquil atmosphere 
 of the rich widow's house; but not all Lady Warner's 
 tenderness could make her son a milksop. Except 
 for a period of two years in London, when he had 
 lived under the roof of the great Republican, a docile 
 pupil to a stern but kind master, Denzil had lived 
 mostly under the open sky, was a keen sportsman, and 
 loved the country with almost as sensitive a love as his 
 quondam master and present friend, John Milton; and 
 it was perhaps this appreciation of rural beauty which 
 had made a bond of friendship between the great poet 
 and the Puritan squire. 
 
 "You have a knack of painting rural scenes which 
 needs but to be joined with the gift of music to make 
 you a poet," he said, when Denzil had been expatiating 
 upon the landscape amidst which he had enjoyed his 
 last bout of falconry, or his last run with his half-dozen 
 couple of hounds. "You are almost as the power of 
 sight to me when you describe those downs and valleys 
 
 12* 
 
l8o LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 whose every shape and shadow I once knew so well. 
 Alas, that I should be changed so much and they so 
 little!" 
 
 "It is one thing, sir, to feel that this world is beau- 
 tiful, and another to find golden words and phrases 
 which to a prisoner in the Tower could conjure up as 
 fair a landscape as Claude Lorraine ever painted. Those 
 sonorous and mellifluous lines which you were so gracious 
 as to repeat to me, forming part of the great epic which 
 the world is waiting for, bear witness to the power that 
 can turn words into music, and make pictures out of 
 the common tongue. That splendid art, sir, is but 
 given to one man in a century — or in several centuries; 
 since I know but Dante and Virgil who have ever 
 equalled your vision of heaven and hell." 
 
 "Do not over-praise me, Denzil, in thy charity to 
 poverty and affliction. It is pleasing to be understood 
 by a youth who loves hawk and hound better than 
 books; for it oners the promise of popular appreciation 
 in years to come. Yet the world is so little athirst for 
 my epic that I doubt if I shall find a bookseller to give 
 me a few pounds for the right to print a work that has 
 cost me years of thought and laborious revision. But 
 at least it has been my consolation in the long blank 
 night of my decay, and has saved me many a heartache. 
 For while I am building up my verses, and engraving 
 line after line upon the tablets of memory, I can forget 
 that I am blind, and poor, and neglected, and that the 
 dear saint I loved was snatched from me in the noon- 
 tide of our happiness." 
 
 Denzil talked much of John Milton in his conver- 
 sations with Angela, during those rides or rambles, in 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. I8l 
 
 which Papillon was their only chaperon. Lady Fareham 
 sauntered, like her royal master; but she rarely walked 
 a mile at a stretch; and she was pleased to encourage 
 the rural wanderings that brought her sister and Warner 
 into a closer intimacy, and promised well for the success 
 of her matrimonial scheme. 
 
 "I believe they adore each other already," she told 
 Fareham one morning, standing by his side in the great 
 stone porch, to watch those three youthful figures ride 
 away, aunt and niece side by side, on palfrey and pony, 
 with Denzil for their cavalier. 
 
 "You are always over-quick to be sure of anything 
 that suits your own fancy, dearest," answered Fareham, 
 watching them to the curve of the avenue; "but I see 
 no signs of favour to that solemn youth in your sister. 
 She suffers his attentions out of pure civility. He is an 
 accomplished horseman, having given all his life to learn- 
 ing how to jump a fence gracefully; and his company is 
 at least better than a groom's." 
 
 "How scornfully you jeer at him!" 
 
 "Oh, I have no more scorn than the Cavalier's 
 natural contempt for the Roundhead. A hereditary 
 hatred, perhaps." 
 
 "You say such hard things of his Majesty that one 
 might often take you to be of Sir Denzil's way of think- 
 ing." 
 
 "I never think about the King. I only wonder. I 
 may sometimes express my wonderment too freely for a 
 loyal subject." 
 
 "I cannot vouch for Angela, but I will wager that he 
 is deep in love," persisted Hyacinth. 
 
 "Have it your own way, sweetheart. He is dull 
 
I 82 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 enough to be deep in debt, or love, or politics, anything 
 dismal and troublesome," answered his lordship, as he 
 strolled off with his spaniels; not those dainty toy dogs 
 which had been his companions at the gate of death, 
 but the fine liver-and-black shooting dogs that lived in 
 the kennels, and thought it doghood's highest privilege 
 to attend their lord in his walks, whether with or without 
 a gun. 
 
 His lordship kept open Christmas that year at 
 Chilton Abbey, and there was great festivity, chiefly de- 
 vised and carried out by the household, as Fareham 
 and his wife were too much of the modern fashion, and 
 too cosmopolitan in their ideas, to appreciate the fuss 
 and feasting of an English Christmas. They submitted, 
 however, to the festival as arranged for them by Mr. 
 Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbuck — the copious feasting 
 for servants and dependents, the mummers and carol- 
 singers, the garlands and greenery which disguised the 
 fine old tapestry, and made a bower of the vaulted hall. 
 Everything was done with a lavish plenteousness, and 
 no doubt the household enjoyed the fun and feasting all 
 the more because of that dismal season of a few years 
 back, when all Christmas ceremonies had been denounced 
 as idolatrous, and when the members of the Anglican 
 Church had assembled for their Christmas service 
 secretly in private houses, and as much under the ban 
 of the law as the Nonconformists were now. 
 
 Angela was interested in everything in that bright 
 world where all things were new. The children piping 
 Christmas hymns in the clear cold morning enchanted 
 her. She ran down to kiss and fondle the smaller 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. I 83 
 
 among them, and finding them thinly clad promised to 
 make them warm cloaks and hoods as fast as her fingers 
 could sew. Denzil found- her there in the wide snowy 
 space before the porch, prattling with the children, 
 bareheaded, her soft brown hair blown about in the 
 wind; and he was moved, as a man must needs be 
 moved by the aspect of the woman that he loves 
 caressing a small child, melted almost to tears by the 
 thought that in some blessed time to come she might so 
 caress, only more warmly, a child whose existence should 
 be their bond of union. 
 
 And yet, being both shy and somewhat cold of 
 temperament, he restrained himself, and greeted her 
 only as a friend; for his mother's influence was holding 
 him back, urging him not to marry a Papist, were she 
 ever so lovely or lovable. 
 
 He had known Angela for nearly three months, and 
 his acquaintance with her had reached this point of 
 intimacy, yet Lady Warner had never seen her. This 
 fact distressed him, and he had tried hard to awaken 
 his mother's interest by praises of the Fareham family 
 and of Angela's exquisite character; but the Scarlet 
 Spectre came between the Puritan lady and the house 
 of Fareham. 
 
 "There is nothing you can tell me about this girl, 
 upon whom I fear you have foolishly set your affection, 
 which can make me forget that she has been nursed 
 and swaddled in the bondage of a corrupt Church, taught 
 to worship idols, and to cherish lying traditions, while 
 the light of God's holy word has been made dark for 
 her." 
 
 "She is young enough to embrace a purer creed, 
 
184 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and to walk by the clearer light that leads your footsteps, 
 mother. If she were my wife I should not despair of 
 winning her to think as we do." 
 
 "And in all the length of England was there no 
 young woman of right principles fit to be thy wife, that 
 thou must needs fall into the snare of the first Popish 
 witch who set her lure for thee?" 
 
 "Popish witch! Oh, mother, how ill you can con- 
 ceive the image of my dear love, who has no witchcraft 
 but beauty, no charm so potent as her truth and in- 
 nocency!" 
 
 "I know them — these children of the Scarlet Woman 
 — and I know their works, and the fate of those who 
 trust them. The late King — weak and stubborn as he 
 was — might have been alive this day, and reigning over 
 a contented people, but for that fair witch who ruled 
 him. It was the Frenchwoman's sorceries that wrought 
 Charles's ruin." 
 
 "If thou wouldst but see my Angela," pleaded the 
 son, with a caressing arm about his mother's spare 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Thine! What! is she thine — pledged and promised 
 already? Then, indeed, these white hairs will go down 
 with sorrow to the grave." 
 
 "Mother, I doubt if thou couldst find so much as a 
 single grey hair in that comely head of thine," said the 
 son; and the mother smiled in the midst of her afflic- 
 tion. "And as for promise — there has been none. I 
 have said no word of love; nor have I been encouraged 
 to speak by any token of liking on the lady's part. I 
 stand aloof and admire, and wonder at so much modesty 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. 1 85 
 
 and intelligence in Lady Fareham's sister. Let me bring 
 her to see you, mother?" 
 
 "This is your house, Denzil. Were you to fill it 
 with the sons and daughters of Belial, I could but pray 
 that your eyes might be opened to their iniquity. I 
 could not shut these doors against you or your com- 
 panions. But I want no Popish women here." 
 
 "Ah, you do not know! Wait until you have seen 
 her," urged Denzil, with the lover's confidence in the 
 omnipotence of his mistress's charms. 
 
 And now on this Christinas Day there came the op- 
 portunity Denzil had been waiting for. The weather 
 was cold and bright, the landscape was blotted out with 
 snow; and the lake in Chilton Park offered a sound 
 surface for the exercise of that novel amusement of 
 skating, an accomplishment which Lord Fareham had 
 acquired while in the Low Countries, and in which he 
 had been Denzil's instructor during the late severe 
 weather. Angela, at her brother-in-law's entreaty, had 
 also adventured herself upon a pair of skates, and had 
 speedily found delight in the swift motion, which seemed 
 to her like the flight of a bird skimming the steely 
 surface of the frozen lake, and incomparable in enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 "It is even more delightful than a gallop on 
 Zephyr," she told her sister, who stood on the bank 
 with a cluster of gay company, watching the skaters. 
 
 "I doubt not that; since there is even more danger 
 of getting your neck broken upon runaway skates than 
 on a runaway horse," answered Hyacinth. 
 
 After an hour on the lake, in which Denzil had 
 distinguished himself by his mastery of the new exer- 
 
1 86 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 cise, being always at hand to support his mistress at 
 the slightest indication of peril, she consented to the re- 
 moval of her skates, at Papillon's earnest entreaty, who 
 wanted her aunt to walk with her before dinner. After 
 dinner there would be the swift -coming December 
 twilight, and Christmas games, snap-dragon and the like, 
 which Papillon, although a little fine lady, reproducing 
 all her mother's likes and dislikes in miniature, could 
 not, as a human child, altogether disregard. 
 
 "I don't care about such nonsense as Georgie does," 
 she told her aunt, with condescending reference to her 
 brother; "but I like to see the others amused. Those 
 village children are such funny little savages. They 
 stick their fingers in their mouths and grin at me, and 
 call me 'Your annar,' or 'Your worship,' and say 'Anan' 
 to everything. They are like Audrey in the play you 
 read to me." 
 
 Denzil was in attendance upon aunt and niece. 
 
 "If you want to come with us, you must invent a 
 pretty walk, Sir Denzil," said Papillon. "I am tired of 
 long lanes and ploughed fields." 
 
 "I know of one of the pleasantest rambles in the 
 shire — across the woods to the Grange. And we can 
 rest there for half an hour, if Mrs. Angela will allow us, 
 and take a light refreshment." 
 
 "Dear Sir Denzil, that is the very thing," answered 
 Papillon, breathlessly. "I am dying of hunger. And I 
 don't want to go back to the Abbey. Will there be 
 any cakes or mince pies at the Grange?" 
 
 "Cakes in plenty, but I fear there will be no mince 
 pies. My mother does not love Christmas dainties." 
 
 Henriette wanted to know why. She was always 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. 1 87 
 
 wanting the reason of things. A bright inquiring little 
 mind, perpetually on the alert for novelty; an imitative 
 brain like a monkey's; hands and feet that know not 
 rest; and there you have the Honourable Henrietta 
 Maria Revel, alias Papillon. 
 
 They crossed the river, Angela and Denzil each 
 taking an oar, while Papillon pretended to steer, a pro- 
 cess which she effected chiefly by screaming. 
 
 "Another lump of ice!" she shrieked. "We shall 
 be swamped. I believe the river will be frozen before 
 Twelfth Night, and we shall be able to dance upon it. 
 We must have bonfires and roast an ox for the poor 
 people. Mrs. Hubbuck told me they roasted an ox the 
 year King Charles was beheaded. Horrid brutes — to 
 think that they could eat at such a time! If they had 
 been sorry they could not have relished roast beef." 
 
 Hadley Grange, commonly known as the Grange, 
 was in every detail the antithesis of Chilton Abbey. At 
 the Abbey the eye was dazzled, the mind was be- 
 wildered, by an excess of splendour — an overmuch of 
 everything gorgeous or beautiful. At the Grange sight 
 and mind were rested by the low tone of colour, the 
 quaker-like precision of form. All the furniture in the 
 house was Elizabethan, plain, ponderous, the con- 
 scientious work of Oxfordshire mechanics. On one side 
 of the house there was a bowling green, on the other a 
 physic garden, where odours of medicinal herbs, camo- 
 mile, fennel, rosemary, rue, hung ever on the surround- 
 ing air. There was nothing modern in Lady Warner's 
 house but the spotless cleanliness; the perfume of last 
 summer's roses and lavender; the polished surface of 
 tables and cabinets, oak chests and oak floors, testify- 
 
I 88 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ing to the inexorable industry of rustic housemaids. In 
 all other respects the Grange was like a house that had 
 just awakened from a century of sleep. 
 
 Lady Warner rose from her high-backed chair by 
 the chimney corner in the oak parlour, and laid aside 
 the book she had been reading, to welcome her son, 
 startled at seeing him followed by a tall, fair girl in a 
 black mantle and hood, and a little slip of a thing, with 
 bright dark eyes and small determined face, pert, 
 pointed, interrogative, framed in swansdown — a small 
 aerial figure in a white cloth cloak, and a scarlet brocade 
 frock, under which two little red shoes danced into the 
 room. 
 
 "Mother, I have brought Mrs. Angela Kirkland and 
 her niece to visit you this Christmas morning." 
 
 "Mrs. Kirkland and her niece are welcome," and 
 Lady Warner made a deep curtsy, not like one of Lady 
 Fareham's sinking curtsy s, as of one near swooning in 
 an ecstasy of politeness, but dignified and inflexible, 
 straight down and straight up again. 
 
 "But as for Christmas, 'tis one of those superstitious 
 observances which I have ever associated with a Church 
 I abhor." 
 
 Denzil reddened furiously. To have brought this 
 upon his beloved! 
 
 Angela drew herself up, and paled at the unex- 
 pected assault. The brutality of it was startling, though 
 she knew, from Denzil's opinions, that his mother must 
 be an enemy of her faith. 
 
 "Indeed, madam, I am sorry that anybody in Eng- 
 land should think it an ill thing to celebrate the birth- 
 day of our Redeemer and Lord," she said. 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. ISO, 
 
 "Do you think, young lady, that foolish romping 
 games, and huge chines of beef, and smoking ale made 
 luscious with spices and roasted pippins, and carol-sing- 
 ing and play-acting, can be the proper honouring of 
 Him who was God first and for ever, and Man only for 
 one brief interval in His eternal existence? To keep 
 God's birthday with drunken rioting! What blasphemy! 
 If you can think that there is not more profaneness 
 than piety in such sensual revelries — why, it is that you 
 do not know how to think. You would have learnt to 
 reason better had you known that sweet poet and 
 musician, and true thinker, Mr. John Milton, with whom 
 it was my privilege to converse frequently during my 
 husband's lifetime, and afterwards when he con- 
 descended to accept my son for his pupil, and spent 
 three days and nights under this roof." 
 
 "Mr. Milton is still at Chalfont, mother. So you 
 may hope to see him again with a less journey than to 
 London," said Denzil, seizing the first chance of a 
 change in the conversation; "and here is a little Miss 
 to whom I have promised a light collation, with some 
 of your Jersey milk." 
 
 "Mistress Kirkland and her niece shall have the 
 best I can provide. The larder will furnish something 
 acceptable, I doubt not, although I and my household 
 observe this day as a fast." 
 
 "What, madam, are you sorry that Jesus Christ was 
 born to-day?" asked Papillon. 
 
 "I am sorry for my sins, little mistress, and for the 
 sins of all mankind, which nothing but His blood could 
 wash away. To remember His birth is to remember 
 
I gO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 that He died for us; and that is why I spend the 
 twenty-fifth of December in fasting and prayer." 
 
 "Are you not glad you are to dine at the Abbey 
 to-day, Sir Denzil?" asked Papillon, by way of com- 
 mentary. 
 
 "Nay, I put no restraint on my son. He can serve 
 God after his own manner, and veer with every wind of 
 passion or fancy, if he will. But you shall have your 
 cake and' draught of milk, little lady, and you too, 
 Mistress Kirkland, will, I hope, taste our Jersey milk, 
 unless you would prefer a glass of Malmsey wine." 
 
 '•Mrs. Kirkland is as much an anchorite as yourself, 
 mother. She takes no wine." 
 
 Lady Warner was the soul of hospitality, and par- 
 ticularly proud of her dairy. When kept clear of 
 theology and politics she was not an ill-natured woman. 
 But to be a Puritan in the year of the Five Mile Act 
 was not to think kindly of the Government under which 
 she lived; while her sense of her own wrongs was in- 
 tensified by rumours of over-indulgence shown to Papists, 
 and the broad assertion that King and Duke were 
 Roman Catholic at heart, and waited only the con- 
 venient hour to reforge the fetters that had bound Eng- 
 land to Rome. 
 
 She was fond of children, most of all of little girls, 
 never having had a daughter. She bent down to kiss 
 Henriette, and then turned to Angela with her kindest 
 smile — 
 
 "And this is Lady Fareham's daughter? She is as 
 pretty as a picture." 
 
 "And I am as good as a picture— sometimes, madam," 
 
EN A PURITAN HOUSE. igi 
 
 chirped Papillon. "Mother says I am douce comme tine 
 image." 
 
 "When thou hast been silent or still for five minutes," 
 said Angela, "and that is but seldom." 
 
 A loud handbell summoned the butler, and an Arca- 
 dian meal was speedily set out on a table in the hall, 
 where a great fire of logs burnt as merrily as if it had 
 been designed to enliven a Christmas-keeping house- 
 hold. Indeed there was nothing miserly or sparing 
 about the housekeeping at the Grange, which harmonised 
 with the sombre richness of Lady Warner's grey brocade 
 gown, from the old-fashioned silk mercer's at the sign 
 of the Flower-de-luce, in Cheapside. There was liberality 
 without waste, and a certain quiet refinement in every 
 detail, which reminded Angela of the convent parlour 
 and her aunt's room — and contrasted curiously with the 
 elegant disorder of her sister's surroundings. 
 
 Papillon clapped her hands at sight of the large 
 plum cake, the jug of milk, and bowl of blackberry conserve. 
 
 "I was so hungry," she said apologetically, after 
 Denzil had supplied her with generous slices of cake, 
 and large spoonfuls of jam. "I did not know that 
 Nonconformists had such nice things to eat." 
 
 "Did you think we all lay in gaol to suffer cold 
 and hunger for the faith that is in us, like that poor 
 preacher at Bedford?" asked Lady Warner, bitterly. "It 
 will come to that some day, perhaps, under the new Act." 
 
 "Will you show Mistress Kirkland your house, 
 mother, and your dairy?" Denzil asked hurriedly. "I 
 know she would like to see one of the neatest dairies 
 in Oxfordshire." 
 
 No request could be more acceptable to Lady 
 
IQ2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Warner, who was a housekeeper first and a con- 
 troversialist afterwards. Inclined as she was to rail 
 against the Church of Rome — partly because she had 
 made up her mind upon hearsay, chiefly Miltonian, that 
 Roman Catholicism was only another name for image- 
 worship and martyr-burning, and partly on account of 
 the favour that had been shown to Papists, as compared 
 with the cruel treatment of Nonconformists — still there 
 was a charm in Angela's gentle beauty against which 
 the daughterless matron could not steel her heart. She 
 melted in the space of a quarter of an hour, while 
 Denzil was encouraging Henriette to over-eat herself, 
 and trying to persuade Angela to taste this or that 
 dainty, or reproaching her for taking so little; and by 
 the time the child had finished her copious meal, Lady 
 Warner was telling herself how dearly she might have 
 loved this girl for a daughter-in-law, were it not for that 
 fatal objection of a corrupt and pernicious creed. 
 
 No! Lovely as she was, modest, refined, and in all 
 things worthy to be loved, the question of creed must 
 be a stumbling-block. And then there were other ob- 
 jections. Rural gossip, the loose talk of servants, had 
 brought a highly coloured description of Lady Fareham's 
 household to her neighbour's ears. The extravagant 
 splendour, the waste and idleness, the late hours, the 
 worship of pleasure, the visiting, the singing, and dancing, 
 and junketing, and worst of all, the too-indulgent friend- 
 ship shown to a Parisian fopling, had formed the subject 
 of conversation in many an assembly of pious ladies, and 
 hands and eyebrows had been uplifted at the iniquities 
 of Chilton Abbey, as second only to the monstrous 
 goings-on of the Court at Oxford. 
 
IN A PURITAN HOUSE. 1 93 
 
 Almost ever since the Restoration Lady Warner had 
 been living in meek expectancy of fire from heaven; and 
 the chastisement of this memorable year had seemed to 
 her the inevitable realisation of her fears. The fiery 
 rain had come down — impalpable, invisible, leaving its 
 deadly tokens in burning plague spots, the forerunners 
 of death. That the contagion had mostly visited that 
 humbler class of persons who had been strangers to the 
 excesses and pleasures of the Court made nothing 
 against Lady Warner's conviction that this scourge was 
 Heaven's vengeance upon fashionable vice. Her son 
 had brought her stories of the life at Whitehall, terrible 
 pictures of iniquity, conveyed in the scathing words of 
 one who sat apart, in a humble lodging, where for him 
 the light of day came not, and heard with disgust and 
 horror of that wave of debauchery which had swept 
 over the city he loved, since the triumph of the Royalists. 
 And Lady Warner had heard the words of Milton, and 
 had listened with a reverence as profound as if the 
 blind poet had been the prophet of Israel, alone in his 
 place of hiding, holding himself aloof from an idolatrous 
 monarch and a wicked people. 
 
 And now her son had brought her this fair girl, 
 upon whom he had set his foolish hopes, a Papist, and 
 
 the sister of a woman whose ways were the ways of ! 
 
 A favourite scriptural substantive closed the sentence in 
 Lady Warner's mind. 
 
 No; it might not be. Whatever power she had over 
 her son must be used against his Papistical syren. She 
 would treat her with courtesy, show her house and dairy, 
 and there an end. And so they repaired to the offices, 
 with Papillon running backwards and forwards as they 
 
 London Pride. I 1 3 
 
194 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 went along, exclaiming and questioning, delighted with 
 the shining oak floors and great oak chests in the cor- 
 ridor, and the armour in the hall, where, as the sacred 
 and central object, hung the breastplate Sir George 
 Warner wore when he fell at Hopton Heath, dinted by 
 sword and pike, as the enemy's horse rode him down 
 in the melee. His orange scarf, soiled and torn, was 
 looped across the steel cuirass. Papillon admired every- 
 thing, most of all the great cool dairy, which had once 
 been a chapel, and where the piscina was converted to 
 a niche for a polished brass milk-can, to the horror of 
 Angela, who could say no word in praise of a place that 
 had been created by the profanation of holy things. A 
 chapel turned into a storehouse for milk and butter! 
 Was this how Protestants valued consecrated places? 
 An awe- stricken silence came upon her, and she was 
 glad when Denzil remembered that they would have 
 barely time to walk back to the Abbey before the two 
 o'clock dinner. 
 
 "You keep Court hours even in the country," said 
 Lady Warner. "I dined half an hour before you came." 
 
 "I don't care if I have no dinner to-day," said 
 Papillon; "but I hope I shall be able to eat a mince pie. 
 Why don't you love mince pies, madam? He" — point- 
 ing to Denzil — "says you do not." 
 
THE PRIEST'S HOLE. IQ5 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PRIEST'S HOLE. 
 
 Denzil dined at the Abbey, where he was always 
 made welcome. Lady Fareham had been warmly in- 
 sistent upon his presence at their Christmas gaieties. 
 
 "We want to show you a Cavalier's Christmas," she 
 told him at dinner, he seated at her side in the place 
 of honour, while Angela sat at the other end of the 
 table between Fareham and De Malfort. "For ourselves 
 we care little for such simple sports: but for the poor 
 folk and the children Yule should be a season to be 
 remembered for good cheer and merriment through all 
 their slow, dull year. Poor wretches! I think of their 
 hard life sometimes, and wonder they don't either drown 
 themselves or massacre us." 
 
 "They are like the beasts of the field, Lady Fareham. 
 They have learnt patience from the habit of suffering. 
 They are born poor, and they die poor. It is happy for 
 us that they are not learned enough to consider the 
 inequalities of fortune, or we should have the rising of 
 want against abundance, a bitterer strife, perhaps, than 
 the strife of adverse creeds, which made Ireland so 
 bloody a spectacle for the world's wonder thirty years 
 ago." 
 
 "Well, we shall make them all happy this afternoon; 
 and there will be a supper in the great stone barn which 
 
 13* 
 
I96 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 will acquaint them with abundance for this one evening 
 at least," answered Hyacinth, gaily. 
 
 "We are going to play games after dinner!" cried 
 Henriette, from her place at her father's elbow. 
 
 His lordship was the only person who ever reproved 
 her seriously, yet she loved him best of all her kindred 
 or friends. 
 
 "Aunt Angy is going to play hide-and-seek with us. 
 Will you play, Sir Denzil?" 
 
 "I shall think myself privileged if I may join in your 
 amusements. 
 
 "What a courteous speech! You will be cutting off 
 your pretty curly hair, and putting on a French perruque, 
 like his" — pointing to De Malfort. "Please do not. You 
 would be like everybody else in London — and now you 
 are only like yourself — and vastly handsome." 
 
 "Hush, Henriette! you are much too pert," remon- 
 strated Fareham. 
 
 "But 'tis the very truth, father. All the women who 
 visit mother paint their faces, so that they are all alike; 
 and all the men talk alike, so that I don't know one 
 from t'other, except Lord Rochester, who is impudenter 
 and younger than the others, and gives me more sugar- 
 plums and pays me prettier compliments than anybody 
 else." 
 
 "Hold your tongue, mistress! A dinner-table is no 
 place for pert children. Thy brother there has better 
 manners," said her father, pointing to the cherubic son 
 and heir, whose ideas were concentrated upon a loaded 
 plate of red-deer pasty. 
 
 "You mean that he is greedier than I," retorted 
 Papillon. "He will eat till he won't be able to run 
 
THE PRIEST'S HOLE. I 97 
 
 about with us after dinner; and then he will sprawl 
 upon mother's satin train by the fire, with Ganymede 
 and Phosphor, and she will tell everybody how good 
 and gentle he is, and how much better bred than his 
 sister. And now, if people are ever going to leave off 
 eating, we may as well begin our games before it is 
 quite dark. Perhaps you are ready, auntie, if nobody 
 else is." 
 
 Dinner may have ended a little quicker for this 
 speech, although Papillon was sternly suppressed, and 
 bade to keep silence or leave the table. She obeyed 
 so far as to make no further remarks, but expressed 
 her contempt for the gluttony of her elders by several 
 loud yawns, and bounced up out of her seat, like a ball 
 from a racket, directly the little gentleman in black 
 sitting near his lordship had murmured a discreet thanks- 
 giving. This gentleman was the Roman Catholic priest 
 from Oxford, who had said Mass early that morning in 
 the muniment room, and had been invited to his lord- 
 ship's table in honour of the festival. 
 
 Papillon led all the games, and ordered everybody 
 about. Mrs. Dorothy Lettsome, the young lady who 
 was sorry she had not had the honour to be born in 
 France, was of the party, with her brother, honest Dan 
 Lettsome, an Oxfordshire squire, who had been in 
 London only once in his life, to see the Coronation, 
 and had nearly lost his life, as well as his purse and 
 jewellery, in a tavern, after that august ceremonial. 
 This bitter experience had given him a distaste for the 
 pleasures of the town which his poor sister deplored 
 exceedingly; since she was dependent upon his coffers, 
 and subject to his authority, and had no hope of leaving 
 
IQ8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Oxfordshire unless she were fortunate enough to find a 
 town-bred husband. 
 
 These two joined in the sports with ardour, Squire 
 Dan glad to be moving about, rather than to sit still 
 and listen to music which he hated, or to conversation 
 to which he could contribute neither wit nor sense, 
 unless the kennel or the gun-room were the topic under 
 discussion. The talk of a lady and gentleman who had 
 graduated in the salons of the Hotel de Rambouillet 
 was a foreign language to him; and he told his sister 
 that it was all one to him whether Lady Fareham and 
 the Mounseer talked French or English, since it was 
 quite as hard to understand 'em in one language as in 
 t'other. 
 
 Papillon, this rustic youth adored. He knew no 
 greater pleasure than to break and train a pony for her, 
 to teach her the true knack of clearing a hedge, to ex- 
 plain the habits and nature of those vermin in whose 
 lawless lives she was deeply interested — rats, weasels, 
 badgers, and such-like — to attend her when she hunted, 
 or flew her peregrine. 
 
 "If you will marry me, sweetheart, when you are of 
 the marrying age, I would rather wait half a dozen years 
 for you than have the best woman in Oxfordshire that 
 I know of at this present." 
 
 "Marry you!" cried Lord Fareham's daughter. "Why, 
 I shall marry no one under an earl; and I hope it will 
 be a duke or a marquis. Marchioness is a pretty title: 
 it sounds better than duchess, because it is in three 
 syllables — mar-chion-ess," with an affected drawl. "I 
 am going to be very beautiful. Mrs. Hubbuck says so, 
 and mother's own woman; and I heard that painted old 
 
THE priest's hole. tgQ 
 
 wretch, Mrs. Lewin, tell mother so. 'Eh, gud, your 
 la'ship, the young miss will be almost as great a beauty 
 as your la'ship's self!' Mrs. Lewin always begins her 
 speeches with 'Eh, gud!' or 'What devil!' But I hope 
 I shall be handsomer than mother," concluded Papillon, 
 in a tone which implied a poor opinion of the maternal 
 charms. 
 
 And now on this Christmas evening, in the thicken- 
 ing twilight of the rambling old house, through long 
 galleries, crooked passages, queer little turns at right 
 angles, rooms opening out of rooms, half a dozen in suc- 
 cession, Squire Dan led the games, ordered about all 
 the time by Papillon, whom he talked of admiringly as 
 a high-mettled filly, declaring that she had more tricks 
 than the running-horse he was training for Abingdon 
 races. 
 
 De Malfort, after assisting in their sports for a quarter 
 of an hour with considerable spirit, had deserted them, 
 and sneaked off to the great saloon, where he sat on 
 the Turkey carpet at Lady Fareham's feet, singing 
 chansonettes to his guitar, while George and the spaniels 
 sprawled beside him, the whole group making a picture 
 of indolent enjoyment, fitfully lighted by the blaze of a 
 yule log that filled the width of the chimney. Fareham 
 and the Priest were playing chess at the other end of 
 the long low room, by the light of a single candle. 
 
 Papillon ran in at the door and ejaculated her dis- 
 gust at De Malfort's desertion. 
 
 "Was there ever such laziness? It's bad enough 
 in Georgie to be so idle; but then, he has over-eaten 
 himself." 
 
200 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "And how do you know that I haven't over-eaten 
 myself, mistress!" asked De Malfort. 
 
 ''You never do that; but you often drink too much 
 — much, much, much too much!" 
 
 "That's a slanderous thing to say of your mother's 
 most devoted servant," laughed De Malfort. "And pray 
 how does a baby-girl like you know when a gentleman 
 has been more thirsty than discreet?" 
 
 "By the way you talk — always French. Jarni ! ch'dame, 
 n'savons joui d' n'belle s'ree — n'fam-partie d'ombre. Moi 
 j'ai p'du n'belle f'tune, p'rol'd'nneur ! You clip your 
 words to nothing. Aren't you coming to play hide-and- 
 seek?" 
 
 "Not I, fair slanderer. I am a salamander, and love 
 the fire." 
 
 "Is that a kind of Turk? Good-bye. I'm going to hide." 
 
 "Beware of the chests in the gallery, sweetheart," 
 said her father, who heard only this last sentence, as 
 his daughter ran past him towards the door. "When I 
 was in Italy I was told of a bride who hid herself in 
 an old dower-chest, on her wedding-day — and the lid 
 clapped to with a spring and kept her there for half a 
 century." 
 
 "There's no spring that ever locksmith wrought that 
 will keep down Papillon," cried De Malfort, sounding a 
 light accompaniment to his words on the guitar strings, 
 with delicatest touch, like fairy music. 
 
 "I know of better hiding-places," answered the child, 
 and vanished, banging the great door behind her. 
 
 She found her aunt with Dorothy Lettsome and 
 her brother and Denzil in the gallery above stairs, walk- 
 ing up and down, and listening with every indication of 
 
THE PRIEST'S HOLE. 201 
 
 weariness to the Squire's discourse about his hunters 
 and running-horses. 
 
 "Now we are going to have real good sport!" cried 
 Papillon. "Aunt Angy and I are to hide, and you 
 three are to look for us. You must stop in this gallery 
 for ten minutes by the French clock yonder — with the 
 door shut. You must give us ten minutes' law, Mr. 
 Lettsome, as you did the hare the other day, when I 
 was out with you — and then you may begin to look for 
 us. Promise." 
 
 "Stay, little miss, you will be outside the house be- 
 like, roaming lord knows where; in the shrubberies, or 
 the barns, or halfway to Oxford — while we are made 
 fools of here." 
 
 "No, no. We will be inside the house." 
 
 "Do you promise that, pretty lady? ' 
 
 "Yes, I promise." 
 
 Mrs. Dorothy suggested that there had been enough 
 of childish play, and that it would be pleasanter to sit 
 in the saloon with her ladyship, and hear Monsieur de 
 Malfort sing. 
 
 "I'll wager he was singing when you saw him just 
 now." 
 
 "Yes, he is always singing foolish French songs — and 
 I'm sure you can't understand 'em." 
 
 "I've learnt the French ever since I was as old as 
 you, Mistress Henriette." 
 
 "Ah! that was too late to begin. People who learn 
 French out of books know what it looks like, but not 
 what it sounds like." 
 
 "I should be very sorry if I could not understand a 
 French ballad, little miss." 
 
202 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Would you — would you, really?" cried Papillon, 
 her face alight with impish mirth. "Then, of course, 
 you understand this — 
 
 "Oh, la d'moiselle, comme elle est sot-te, 
 Eh, je me moque de sa sot-ti-se! 
 Eh, la d'moiselle comme elle est be-te, 
 Eh, je m'ris de sa be-ti-se ! " 
 
 She sang this impromptu nonsense prestissimo as she 
 danced out of the room, leaving the accomplished 
 Dorothy vexed and perplexed at not having understood 
 a single word. 
 
 It was nearly an hour later when Denzil entered 
 the saloon hurriedly, pale and perturbed of aspect, with 
 Dorothy and her brother following him. 
 
 "We have been hunting all over the house for Mrs. 
 Angela and Henriette," Denzil said, and Fareham started 
 up from the chess-table, scared at the young man's agi- 
 tated tone and pallid countenance. "We have looked 
 in every room " 
 
 "In every closet," interrupted Dorothy. 
 
 "In every corner of the staircases and passages," said 
 Squire Dan. 
 
 "Can your lordship help us? There may be places 
 you know of which we do not know?" said Denzil, his 
 voice trembling a little. "It is alarming that they should 
 be so long in concealment. We have called to them in 
 every part of the house." 
 
 Fareham hurried to the door, taking instant alarm — « 
 anxious, pale, alert. 
 
 "Come!" he said to the others. "The oak chests 
 
THE PRIEST'S HOLE. 203 
 
 in the music-room — the great Florentine coffer in the 
 gallery? Have you looked in those?" 
 
 "Yes; we have opened every chest." 
 
 "Faith, to see Sir Denzil turn over piles of tapestries, 
 you would have thought he was looking for a fairy that 
 could hide in the folds of a curtain ! " said Lettsome. 
 
 "It is no theme for jesting. I hate these tricks of 
 hiding in strange corners," said Fareham. "Now, show 
 me where they left you." 
 
 "In the long gallery." 
 
 "They have gone up to the roof, perhaps." 
 
 "We have been in the roof," said Denzil. 
 
 "I have scarcely recovered my senses after the 
 cracked skull I got from one of your tie-beams," added 
 Lettsome; and Fareham saw that both men had their 
 doublets coated with dust and cobwebs, in a manner 
 which indicated a remorseless searching of places un- 
 visited by housemaids and brooms. 
 
 Mrs. Dorothy, with a due regard for her dainty lace 
 kerchief and ruffles, and her cherry silk petticoat, had 
 avoided these loathly places, the abode of darkness, 
 haunted by the fear of rats. 
 
 Fareham tramped the house from cellar to garret, 
 Denzil alone accompanying him. 
 
 "We want no posse comitatus," he had said, some- 
 what discourteously. "You, Squire, had best go and 
 mend your cracked head in the eating-parlour with a 
 brimmer or two of clary wine; and you, Mrs. Dorothy, 
 can go and keep her ladyship company. But not a 
 word of our fright. Swoons and screaming would only 
 hinder us." 
 
 He took Mrs. Lettsome's arm, and led her to the 
 
204 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 staircase, pushing the Squire after her, and then turned 
 his anxious countenance to Denzil. 
 
 "If they are not to be found in the house, they must 
 be found outside the house. Oh, the folly, the madness 
 of it! A December night — snow on the ground — a 
 rising wind — another fall of snow, perhaps — and those 
 two afoot and alone!" 
 
 "I do not believe they are out-of-doors," Denzil an- 
 swered. "Your daughter promised that they would not 
 leave the house." 
 
 "My daughter tells the truth. It is her chief virtue." 
 
 "And yet we have hunted in every hole and corner," 
 said Denzil, dejectedly. 
 
 "Hole!" cried Fareham, almost in a shout. "Thou 
 hast hit it, man ! That one word is a flash of lightning. 
 The Priest's Hole ! Come this way. Bring your candle ! " 
 snatching up that which he had himself set down on a 
 table, when he stood still to deliberate. "The Priest's 
 Hole? The child knew the secret of it — fool that I was 
 ever to show her. God! what a place to hide in on a 
 winter night!" 
 
 He was halfway up the staircase to the second story 
 before he had uttered the last of these exclamations, 
 Denzil following him. 
 
 Suddenly, through the stillness of the house, there 
 sounded a faint far-off cry, the shrill thin sound of a 
 child's voice. Fareham and Warner would hardly have 
 heard it had they not been sportsmen, with ears trained 
 to listen for distant sounds. No view-hallo sounding 
 across miles of wood and valley was ever fainter or more 
 ethereal. 
 
 "You hear them?" cried Fareham. "Quick, quick!" 
 
THE PRIEST'S HOLE. 20$ 
 
 He led the way along a narrow gallery, about eight 
 feet high, where people had danced in Elizabeth's time, 
 when the house was newly converted to secular uses; 
 and then into a room in which there were several iron 
 chests, the muniment room, where a sliding panel, of 
 which the master of the house knew the trick, revealed 
 an opening in the wall. Fareham squeezed himself 
 through the gap, still carrying the tall iron candlestick, 
 with flaring candle, and vanished. Denzil followed, and 
 found himself descending a narrow stone staircase, very 
 steep, built into an angle of the great chimney, while as 
 if from the bowels of the earth there came, louder at 
 every step, that shrill cry of distress, in a voice he could 
 not doubt was Henriette's. 
 
 "The other is mute," groaned Fareham; "scared to 
 death, perhaps, like a frightened bird." And then he 
 called, "I am coming. You are safe, love; safe, safe!" 
 And then he groaned aloud, "Oh, the madness, the 
 folly of it!" 
 
 Halfway down the staircase there was a sudden gap 
 of six feet, down which Fareham dropped with his 
 hands on the lowest stair, Denzil following; a break in 
 the continuity of the descent planned for the discom- 
 fiture of strangers and the protection of the family 
 hiding-place. 
 
 Fareham and Denzil were on a narrow stone land- 
 ing at the bottom of the house; and the child's wail of 
 anguish changed to a joyous shriek, "Father, father!" 
 close in their ears. Fareham set his shoulder against 
 the heavy oak door, and it burst inwards. There had 
 been no question of secret spring or complicated 
 machinery; but the great, clumsy door dragged upon 
 
206 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 its rusty hinges, and the united strength of the two girls 
 had not served to pull it open, though Papillon, in her 
 eagerness for concealment in the first fever of hiding, 
 had been strong enough to push the door till she had 
 jammed it, and thus made all after efforts vain. 
 
 "Father!" she cried, leaping into his arms, as he 
 came into the room, large enough to hold six men 
 standing upright; but a hideous den in which to perish 
 alone in the dark. "Oh, father! I thought no one 
 would ever find us. I was afraid we should have died 
 like the Italian lady — and people would have found our 
 skeletons and wondered about us. I never was afraid 
 before. Not when the great horse reared as high as a 
 house — and her ladyship screamed. I only laughed 
 then — but to-night I have been afraid." 
 
 Fareham put her aside without looking at her. 
 
 "Angela! Great God! She is dead!" 
 
 No, she was not dead, only in a half swoon, leaning 
 against the angle of the wall, ghastly white in the flare 
 of the candles. She was not quite unconscious. She 
 knew whose strong arms were holding her, whose lips 
 were so near her own, whose head bent suddenly upon 
 her breast, leaning against the lace kerchief, to listen for 
 the beating of her heart. 
 
 She made a great effort to relieve his fear, under- 
 standing dimly that he thought her dead; but could 
 only murmur broken syllables, till he carried her up 
 three or four stairs, to a secret door that opened into 
 the garden. There in the wintry air, under the steely 
 light of wintry stars, her senses came back to her. She 
 opened her eyes and looked at him. 
 
 "I am sorry I have not Papillon's courage," she said. 
 
THE PRIEST'S HOLE. 20~J 
 
 "Til m'as donne une afTreuse peur — je te croyais 
 morte," muttered Fareham, letting his arms drop like 
 lead as she released herself from their support. 
 
 Denzil and Henriette were close to them. They had 
 come to the open door for fresh air, after the charnel- 
 like chill and closeness of the small underground chamber. 
 
 "Father is angry with me," said the girl; "he won't 
 speak to me." 
 
 "Angry! no, no;" and he bent to kiss her. "But 
 oh, child, the folly of it! She might have died — you 
 too — found just an hour too late." 
 
 "It would have taken a long time to kill me," said 
 Papillon; "but I was very cold, and my teeth were 
 chattering, and I should soon have been hungry. Have 
 you had supper yet?" 
 
 "Nobody has even thought of supper." 
 
 "I am glad of that. And I may have supper with 
 you, mayn't I, and eat what I like, because it's Christ- 
 mas, and because I might have been starved to death 
 in the Priest's Hole. But it was a good hiding-place, 
 tout de mime. Who guessed at last?" 
 
 "The only person who knew of the place, child. 
 And now, remember, the secret is to be kept. Your 
 dungeon may some day save an honest man's life. You 
 must tell nobody where you were hid." 
 
 "But what shall I say when they ask me? I must 
 not tell them a story." 
 
 "Say you were hidden in the great chimney — which 
 is truth; for the Priest's Hole is but a recess at the back 
 of the chimney. And you, Warner," turning to Denzil, 
 who had not spoken since the opening of the door, "I 
 know you'll keep the secret." 
 
20 8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Yes. I will keep your secret," Denzil answered, 
 cold as ice; and said no word more. 
 
 They walked slowly round the house by the terrace, 
 where the clipped yews stood out like obelisks against 
 the bleak bright sky. Papillon ran and skipped at her 
 father's side, clinging to him, expatiating upon her 
 sufferings in the dust and darkness. Denzil followed 
 with Angela, in a dead silence. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LIGHTER THAN VANITY. 
 
 "I think father must be a witch," Henriette said at 
 dinner next day, "or why did he tell me of the Italian 
 lady who was shut in the dower-chest, just before Angela 
 and I were lost in" — she checked herself at a look from 
 his lordship — "in the chimney?" 
 
 "It wants no witch to tell that little girls are foolish 
 and mischievous," answered Fareham. 
 
 "You ladies must have been vastly black when you 
 came out of your hiding-place," said De Malford. "I 
 should have been sorry to see so much beauty disguised 
 in soot. Perhaps Mrs. Kirkland means to appear in the 
 character of a chimney at our next Court masquerade. 
 She would cause as great a stir as Lady Muskerry, in 
 all her Babylonian splendour; but for other reasons. 
 Nothing could mitigate the Muskerry's ugliness; and no 
 disguise could hide Mrs. Angela's beauty." 
 
 "What would the costume be?" asked Papillon. 
 
LIGHTER THAN VANITY. .200, 
 
 "Oh, something simple. A long black satin gown, 
 and a brick-dust velvet hat, tall and curiously twisted, 
 like your Tudor chimney; and a cluster of grey feathers 
 on the top, to represent smoke." 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte makes a joke of everything. 
 But what would father have said if we had never been 
 found?" 
 
 "I should have said that they are right who swear 
 there is a curse upon all property taken from the Church, 
 and that the ban fell black and bitter upon Chilton 
 Abbey," answered his lordship's grave deep voice from 
 the end of the table, where he sat somewhat apart from 
 the rest, gloomy and silent, save when directly ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 Her ladyship and De Malfort had always plenty to 
 talk about. They had the past as well as the present 
 for their discourse, and were always sighing for the 
 vanished glories of their youth — at Paris, at Fontaine- 
 bleau, at St. Germain. Nor were they restricted to the 
 realities of the present and the memories of the past; 
 they had that wider world of unreality in which to 
 circulate; they had the Scudery language at the tips 
 of their tongues, the fantastic sentimentalism of that 
 marvellous old maid who invented the seventeenth- 
 century hero and heroine; or who crystallised the 
 vanishing figures of that brilliant age and made them 
 immortal. All that little language of toyshop platonics 
 had become a natural form of speech with these two, 
 bred and educated in the Marais, while it was still the 
 .select and aristocratic quarter of Paris. 
 
 To-day Hyacinth and her old playfellow had been 
 chattering like children, or birds in an aviary, and with 
 
 London Pride. I. 1 4 
 
2IO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 little more sense in their conversation; but at this talk 
 of the Church's ban, Hyacinth stopped in her prattle 
 and was almost serious. 
 
 "I sometimes think we shall have bad luck in this 
 house," she said, "or that we shall see the ghosts of the 
 wicked monks who were turned out to make room for 
 Fareham's great-grandfather.'* 
 
 "Tush, child! what do you know of their wicked- 
 ness, after a century?" 
 
 "They were very wicked, I believe, for it was one 
 of those quiet little monasteries where the monks could 
 do all manner of evil things, and raise the devil, if they 
 liked, without anybody knowing. And when Henry the 
 Eighth sent his Commissioners, they were taken by 
 surprise; and the altar at which they worshipped Beelze- 
 bub was found in a side chapel, and a wax figure of 
 the King stuck with arrows, like St. Sebastian. The 
 Abbot pretended it was St. Sebastian; but nobody be- 
 lieved him." 
 
 "Nobody wanted to believe him," said Fareham. 
 "King Henry made an example of Chilton Abbey, and 
 gave it to my worthy ancestor, who was a fourth cousin 
 of Jane Seymour's, and had turned Protestant to please 
 his royal master. He went back to the Church of Rome 
 on his death-bed, and we Revels have been Papists ever 
 since. I wish the Church joy of us ! " 
 
 "The Church has neither profit nor honour from 
 you," said his wife, shaking her fan at him. "You seldom 
 go to Mass; you never go to confession." 
 
 "I would rather keep my sins to myself, and atone 
 for them by the pangs of a wounded conscience. That, 
 is too easy a religion which shifts the burden of guilt on 
 
LIGHTER THAN VANITY. 211 
 
 to the shoulders of a stipendiary priest, and walks away 
 from the confessional absolved by the payment of a few 
 extra prayers/' 
 
 "I believe you are either an infidel or a Puritan." 
 
 "A cross between the two, perhaps — a mongrel in 
 religion, as I am a mongrel in politics." 
 
 Angela looked up at him with sad eyes — reproachful, 
 yet full of pity. She remembered his wild talk, semi- 
 delirious some of it, all feverish and excited, during his 
 illness, and how she had listened with aching heart to 
 the ravings of one so near death, and so unfit to die. 
 And now that the pestilence had passed him by, now 
 that he was a strong man again, with half a lifetime be- 
 fore him, her heart was still heavy for him. She who 
 sat in the theatre of life as a spectator had discovered 
 that her sister's husband was not happy. The trifles 
 that delighted Hyacinth left Fareham unamused and 
 discontented; and his wife knew not that there was any- 
 thing wanting to his felicity. She could go on prattling 
 like a child, could be in a fever about a fan or a bunch 
 of ribbons, could talk for an hour of a new play or the 
 contents of the French Gazette, while he sat gloomy and 
 apart. 
 
 The sympathy, the companionship that should be in 
 marriage was wanting here. Angela saw and deplored 
 this distance, scarce daring to touch so delicate a theme, 
 fearful lest she, the younger, should seem to sermonise 
 the elder; and yet she could not be silent for ever while 
 duty and religion urged her to speak. 
 
 At Chilton Abbey the sisters were rarely alone. 
 Papillon was almost always with them; and De Malfort 
 spent more of his life in attendance upon Lady Fareham 
 
 14* 
 
212 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 than at Oxford, where he was supposed to be living. 
 Mrs. Lettsome and her brother were frequent guests; 
 and coach-loads of fine people came over from the court 
 almost every day. Indeed, it was only Fareham's char- 
 acter — austere as Clarendon's or Southampton's — which 
 kept the finest of all company at a distance. Lady 
 Castlemaine had called at Chilton in her coach-and-four 
 early in July; and her visit had not been returned — a 
 slight which the proud beauty bitterly resented: and 
 from that time she had lost no opportunity of depreciat- 
 ing Lady Fareham. Happily her jests, not over refined 
 in quality, had not been repeated to Hyacinth's husband. 
 
 One January afternoon the longed-for opportunity 
 came. The sisters were sitting alone in front of the 
 vast mediaeval chimney, where the Abbots of old had 
 burnt their surplus timber — Angela busy with her em- 
 broidery frame, working a satin coverlet for her niece's 
 bed; Hyacinth yawning over a volume of Cyrus; in 
 whose stately pages she loved to recognise the portraits 
 of her dearest friends, and for which she was a living 
 key. Angela was now familiar with the famous romance, 
 which she had read with deepest interest, enlightened 
 by her sister. As an eastern story — a record of battles 
 and sieges evolved from a clever spinster's brain, an 
 account of men and women who had never lived — the 
 book might have seemed passing dull; but the story of 
 actual lives, of living, breathing beauty, and valour that 
 still burnt in warrior breasts, the keen and clever ana- 
 lysis of men and women who were making history, 
 could not fail to interest an intelligent girl, to whom all 
 things in life were new. 
 
LIGHTER THAN VANITY. 2 I j 
 
 Angela read of the siege of Dunkirk, where Fareham 
 had fought; of the tempestuous weather; the camp in 
 the midst of salt marshes and quicksands, and all the 
 sufferings and perils of life in the trenches. He had 
 been in more than one of those battles which mademoi- 
 selle's conscientious pen depicted with such graphic 
 power, the Gazette at her elbow as she wrote. The 
 names of battles, sieges, Generals, had been on his lips 
 in his delirious ravings. He had talked of the taking 
 of Charenton, the key to Paris, a stronghold dominating 
 Seine and Marne; of Clanleu, the brave defender of the. 
 fortress; of Chatillon, who led the charge — both killed 
 there — Chatillon, the friend of Conde, who wept bitterest 
 tears for a loss that poisoned victory. Read by these 
 lights, the "Grand Cyrus" was a book to be pored over, 
 a book to bend over in the grey winter dusk, reading 
 by the broad blaze of the logs that flamed and crackled 
 on wrought-iron standards. Just as merrily the blaze 
 had spread its ruddy light over the room when it was a 
 monkish refectory, and when the droning of a youthful 
 brother reading aloud to the fraternity as they ate their 
 supper was the only sound, except the clattering of 
 knives and grinding of jaws. 
 
 Now the room was her ladyship's drawing-room, 
 bright with Gobelin tapestry, dazzling with Venetian 
 mirrors, gaudy with gold and colour, the black oak floor 
 enlivened by many-hued carpets from our new colony of 
 Tangiers. Fareham told his wife that her Moorish car- 
 pets had cost the country fifty times the price she had 
 paid for them, and were associated with an irrevocable 
 evil in the existence of a childless Queen; but that 
 piece of malice, Hyacinth told him, had no foundation 
 
214 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 but his hatred of the Duke, who had always been per- 
 fectly civil to him. 
 
 "Of two profligate brothers I prefer the bolder 
 sinner," said Fareham. "Bigotry and debauchery are an 
 ill mixture." 
 
 "I doubt if his Majesty frets for the want of an 
 heir," remarked De Malfort. "He is not a family man." 
 
 "He is not a one family man, Count," answered 
 Fareham. 
 
 Fareham and De Malfort were both away on this 
 January evening. Papillon was taking a dancing lesson 
 from a wizened old Frenchman, who brought himself and 
 his fiddle from Oxford twice a week for the damsel's 
 instruction. Mrs. Priscilla, nurse and gouvernante, at- 
 tended these lessons, at which the Honourable Henrietta 
 Maria Revel gave herself prodigious airs, and was in^ 
 deed so rude to the poor old professor that her aunt 
 had declined to assist at any more performances. 
 
 "Has his lordship gone to Oxford?" Angela asked, 
 after a silence broken only by her sister's yawns. 
 
 "I doubt he is anywhere rather than in such good 
 company," Hyacinth answered carelessly. "He hates 
 the King, and would like to preach at him, as John 
 Knox did at his great-grandmother. Fareham is riding, 
 or roving with his dogs, I dare say. He has a gloomy 
 taste for solitude." 
 
 "Hyacinth, do you not see that he is unhappy?" 
 Angela asked, suddenly, and the pain in her voice 
 startled her sister from the contemplation of the sublime 
 Mandane. 
 
 "Unhappy, child! What reason has he to be un- 
 happy?" 
 
LIGHTER THAN VANITY. 21$ 
 
 "Ah, dearest, it is that I would have you discover. 
 'Tis a wife's business to know what grieves her hus- 
 band." 
 
 "Unless it be Mrs. Lewin's bill — who is an inexorable 
 harpy — I know of no act of mine that can afflict him." 
 
 "I did not mean that his gloom was caused by any 
 act of yours, sister. I only urge you to discover why 
 he is so sad." 
 
 "Sad? Sullen, you mean. He has a fine, generous 
 nature. I am sure it is not Lewin's charges that trouble 
 him. But he had always a sullen temper — by fits and 
 starts." 
 
 "But of late he has been always silent and gloomy." 
 
 "How the child watches him ! Ma ires chere, that 
 silence is natural. There are but two things Fareham 
 loves — the first, war; the second, sport. If he cannot 
 be storming a town, he loves to be killing a fox. This 
 fireside life of ours — our books and music, our idle talk 
 of plays and dances — wearies him. You may see how 
 he avoids us — except out-of-doors." 
 
 "Dear Hyacinth, forgive me!" Angela began, falter- 
 ingly, leaving her embroidery frame and moving to the 
 other side of the hearth, where she dropped on her knees 
 by her ladyship's chair, and was almost swallowed up 
 in the ample folds of her brocade train. "Is it not pos- 
 sible that Lord Fareham is pained to see you so much 
 gayer and more familiar with Monsieur de Malfort than 
 you ever are with him?" 
 
 "Gayer! more familiar!" cried Hyacinth. "Can you 
 conceive any creature gay and familiar with Fareham? 
 One could as soon be gay with Don Quixote; indeed, 
 there is much in common between the knight of the 
 
2l6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 rueful countenance and my husband. Gay and familiar! 
 And pray, mistress, why should I not take life pleasantly 
 with a man who understands me, and in whose friend- 
 ship I have grown up almost as if we were brother and 
 sister? Do you forget that I have known Henri ever 
 since I was ten years old — that we played battledore 
 and shuttlecock together in our dear garden in the Rue 
 de Touraine, next the bowling-green, when he was at 
 school with the Jesuit Fathers, and used to spend all 
 his holiday afternoons with the Marquise? I think I 
 only learnt to know the saints' days because they brought 
 me my playfellow. And when I was old enough to 
 attend the Court — and, indeed, I was but a child when 
 I first appeared there — it was Henri who sang my 
 praises, and brought a crowd of admirers about me. 
 Ah, what a life it was! Love in the city, and war at 
 the gates: plots, battles, barricades! How happy we all 
 were! except when there came the news of some great 
 man killed, and walls were hung with black, where 
 there had been a thousand wax candles and a crowd of 
 dancers. Chatillon, Chabot, Laval! He'las, those were 
 sad losses!" 
 
 "Dear sister, I can understand your affection for 
 an old friend, but I would not have you place him 
 above your husband; least of all would I have his lord- 
 ship suspect that you preferred the friend to the hus- 
 band " 
 
 "Suspect! Fareham! Are you afraid I shall make 
 Fareham jealous, because I sing duets and cudgel these 
 poor brains to make bouts rime's with De Malfort? Ah, 
 child, how little those watchful eyes of yours have dis- 
 covered the man's character! Fareham jealous! Why, 
 
LIGHTER THAN VANITY. 21 J 
 
 at St. Germain he has seen me surrounded by adorers; 
 the subject of more madrigals than would fill a big book. 
 At the Louvre he has seen me the — what is that Mr. 
 What's-his-name, your friend's old schoolmaster, the Re- 
 publican poet, calls it — 'the cynosure of neighbouring 
 eyes.' Don't think me vain, ma mie. I am an old 
 woman now, and I hate my looking-glass ever since it 
 has shown me my first wrinkle; but in those days I had 
 almost as many admirers as Madame Henriette, or the 
 Princess Palatine, or the fair-haired Duchess. I was 
 called la belle Anglaise." 
 
 It was difficult to sound a warning-note in ears so 
 obstinately deaf to all serious things. Papillon came 
 bounding in after her dancing-lesson — exuberant, loqua- 
 cious. 
 
 "The little beast has taught me a new step in the 
 coranto. See, mother," and the slim small figure was 
 drawn up to its fullest, and the thin little lithe arms 
 were curved with a studied grace, as Papillon slid and 
 tripped across the room, her dainty little features il- 
 lumined by a smirk of ineffable conceit. 
 
 "Henriette, you are an ill-bred child to call your 
 master so rude a name," remonstrated her mother, 
 languidly. 
 
 "'Tis the name you called him last week when his 
 dirty shoes left marks on the stairs. He changes his 
 shoes in my presence," added Papillon, disgustedly. "I 
 saw a hole in his stocking. Monsieur de Malfort calls 
 him Cut- Caper." 
 
2l8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 
 
 A monih later the Oxford Gazette brought Lady 
 Fareham the welcomest news that she had read for ever 
 so long. The London death-rate had decreased, and 
 his Majesty had gone to Hampton Court, attended by 
 the Duke and Prince Rupert, Lord Clarendon, and his 
 other indispensable advisers, and a retinue of servants, 
 to be within easy distance of that sturdy soldier Albe- 
 marle; who had remained in London, unafraid of the 
 pestilence, and who declared that while it was essential 
 for him to be in frequent communication with his Majesty, 
 it would be perilous to the interests of the State for him 
 to absent himself from London; for the Dutch war had 
 gone drivelling on ever since the victory in June, and 
 that victory was not to be supposed final. Indeed, ac- 
 cording to the General, there was need of speedy action 
 and a considerable increase of our naval strength. 
 
 Windsor had been thought of in the first place as a 
 residence for the King; but the law courts had been 
 transferred there, and the judges and their following 
 had overrun the town, while there was a report of an 
 infected house there. So it had been resolved that his 
 Majesty should make a brief residence at Hampton 
 Court, leaving the Queen, the Duchess, and their be- 
 longings at Oxford, whither he could return as soon as 
 the business of providing for the setting out of the fleet 
 had been arranged between him and the General, who 
 could travel in a day backwards and forwards between 
 the Cockpit and Wolsey's palace. 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 2IO, 
 
 When this news came they were snowed up at 
 Chilton. Sport of all kinds had been stopped, and Fare- 
 ham, who, in his wife's parlance, lived in his boots all 
 the winter, had to amuse himself without the aid of 
 horse and hound; while even walking was made difficult 
 by the snowdrifts that blocked the lanes, and reduced 
 the face of Nature to one muffled and monotonous 
 whiteness, while all the edges of the landscape were 
 outlined vaguely against the misty greyness of the sky. 
 
 Hyacinth spent her days half in yawning and sigh- 
 ing, and half in idle laughter and childish games with 
 Henriette and De Malfort. When she was gay she was 
 as much a child as her daughter; when she was fretful 
 and hipped, it was a childish discontent. 
 
 They played battledore and shuttlecock in the 
 picture-gallery, and my lady laughed when her volant 
 struck some reverend judge or venerable bishop a rap 
 on the nose. They sat for hours twanging guitars, 
 Hyacinth taking her music-lesson from De Malfort, whose 
 exquisite taste and touch made a guitar seem a different 
 instrument from that on which his pupil's delicate fingers 
 nipped a wiry melody, more suggestive of finger-nails 
 than music. 
 
 He taught her, and took all possible pains in the 
 teaching, and laughed at her, and told her plainly that 
 she had no talent for music He told her that in her 
 hands the finest lute Laux Maler ever made, mellowed 
 by three centuries, would be but wood and catgut. 
 
 "It is the prettiest head in the w r orld, and a fore- 
 head as white as Queen Anne's," he said one day, with 
 a light touch on the ringletted brow, "but there is no- 
 thing inside. I wonder if there is anything here?" and 
 
2 20 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the same light touch fluttered for an instant against her 
 brocade bodice, at the spot where fancy locates the 
 faculty of loving and suffering. 
 
 She laughed at his rude speeches, just as she 
 laughed at his flatteries — as if there were safety in that 
 atmosphere of idle mirth. Angela heard and wondered, 
 wondering most perhaps what occupied and interested 
 Lord Fareham in those white winter days, when he lived 
 for the greater part alone in his own rooms, or pacing 
 the long walks from which the gardeners had cleared 
 the snow. He spent some of his time indoors, deep in 
 a book. She knew as much as that. He had allowed 
 Angela to read some of his favourites, though he would 
 not permit any of the new comedies, which everybody 
 at Court was reading, to enter his house, much to Lady 
 Fareham's annoyance. 
 
 "I am half a century behind all my friends in in- 
 telligence," she said, "because of your Puritanism. One 
 tires of your everlasting gloomy tragedies — your Broken 
 Hearts and Philasters. I am all for the genius of 
 comedy." 
 
 "Then satisfy your inclinations, and read Moliere. 
 He is second only to Shakespeare." 
 
 "I have him by heart already." 
 
 The Broken Heart and Philaster delighted Angela; 
 indeed, she had read the latter play so often, and with 
 such deep interest, that many passages in it had en- 
 graved themselves on her memory, and recurred to her 
 sometimes in the silence of wakeful nights. 
 
 That character of Bellario touched her as no heroine 
 of the "Grand Cyrus" had power to move her. How 
 elaborately artificial seemed the Scudery's polished 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 221 
 
 tirades, her refinements and quintessences of the grand 
 passion, as compared with the fervid simplicity of the 
 woman-page — a love so humble, so intense, so un- 
 selfish ! 
 
 Sir Denzil came to Chilton nearly every day, and 
 was always graciously received by her ladyship. His 
 Puritan gravity fell away from him like a pilgrim's cloak, 
 in the light air of Hyacinth's amusements. He seemed 
 to grow younger; and Henriette's sharp eyes discovered 
 an improvement in his dress. 
 
 "This is your second new suit since Christmas," she 
 said, "and I'll swear it is made by the King's tailor. 
 Regardez done, madame! What exquisite embroidery, 
 silver and gold thread intermixed with little sparks of 
 garnets sewn in the pattern! It is better than anything 
 of his lordship's. I wish I had a father who dressed 
 well. I'm sure mine must be the shabbiest lord at 
 Whitehall. You have no right to be more modish than 
 monsieur mon pere, Sir Denzil." 
 
 "Hold that insolent tongue, p'tit drole!" cried the 
 mother. "Sir Denzil is younger by a dozen years than 
 -his lordship, and has his reputation to make at Court, 
 and with the ladies he will meet there. I hope you are 
 coming to London, Denzil. You shall have a seat in 
 one of our coaches as soon as the death-rate diminishes, 
 and this odious weather breaks up." 
 
 "Your ladyship is all goodness. I shall go where 
 my lode-star leads," answered Denzil, looking at Angela, 
 and blushing at the audacity of his speech. 
 
 He was one of those modest lovers who rarely bring 
 a blush to the cheek of the beloved object, but are so 
 poor-spirited as to do most of the blushing themselves. 
 
222 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 A week later Lady Fareham could do nothing but 
 praise that severe weather which she had pronounced 
 odious, for her husband, coming in from Oxford after a 
 ride along the road, deep with melting snow, brought 
 the news of a considerable diminution in the London 
 death-rate; and the more startling news that his Majesty 
 had removed to Whitehall for the quicker despatch of 
 business with the Duke of Albemarle, albeit the bills of 
 mortality recorded fifteen hundred deaths from the pesti- 
 lence in the previous week, and although not a carriage 
 appeared in the deserted streets of the metropolis except 
 those in his Majesty's train. 
 
 "How brave, how admirable!" cried Hyacinth, clap- 
 ping her hands in the exuberance of her joy. "Then 
 we can go to London to-morrow, if horses and coaches 
 can be made ready. Give your orders at once, Fare- 
 ham, I beseech you. The thaw has set in. There will 
 be no snow to stop us." 
 
 "There will be floods which may make fords im- 
 passable." 
 
 "We can avoid every ford — there is always a de'toar 
 by the lanes." 
 
 "Have you any idea what the lanes will be like after 
 two feet deep of snow? Be sure, my love, you are 
 happier twanging your lute by this fireside than you 
 would be stuck in a quagmire, perishing with cold in a 
 windy coach." 
 
 "I will risk the quagmires and the windy coach. Oh, 
 my lord, if you ever loved me let us set out to-morrow. 
 I languish for Fareham House — my basset-table, my 
 friends, my watermen to waft me to and fro between 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 22$ 
 
 Blackfriars and Westminster, the mercers in St. Paul's 
 Churchyard, the Middle Exchange. I have not bought 
 myself anything pretty since Christmas. Let us go to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "And risk spoiling the prettiest thing you own — your 
 face — by a plague-spot." 
 
 "The King is there — the plague is ended." 
 
 "Do you think he is a God, that the pestilence will 
 flee at his coming?" 
 
 "I think his courage is godlike. To be the first to 
 return to that abandoned city." 
 
 "What of Monk and the Archbishop, who never 
 left it?" 
 
 "A rough old soldier! A Churchman! Such lives 
 were meant to face danger. But his Majesty! A man 
 for whom existence should be one long holiday?" 
 
 "He has done his best to make it so; but the pesti- 
 lence has shown him that there are grim realities in life. 
 Don't fret, dearest. We will go to town as soon as it is 
 prudent to make the move. Kings must brave great 
 hazards; and there is no reason that little people like 
 us should risk our lives because the necessities of State 
 compel his Majesty to imperil his." 
 
 "We shall be laughed at if we do not hasten after 
 him." 
 
 "Let them laugh who please. I have passed through 
 the ordeal, Hyacinth. I don't want a second attack of 
 the sickness; nor would I for worlds that you or your 
 sister should run into the mouth of danger. Besides, 
 you can lose little pleasure by being absent; for the play- 
 houses are all closed, and the Court is in mourning for 
 the French Queen-mother." 
 
2 24 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Poor Queen Anne!" sighed Hyacinth. "She was 
 always kind to me. And to die of a cancer — after out- 
 living those she most loved! King Louis would scarcely 
 believe she was seriously ill, till she was at the point of 
 death. But we know what mourning means at White- 
 hall — Lady Castlemaine in black velvet, with forty thou- 
 sand pounds in diamonds to enliven it; a concert instead 
 of a play, perhaps; and the King sitting in a corner 
 whispering with Mrs. Stewart. But as for the contagion, 
 you will see that everybody will rush back to London, 
 and that you and I will be laughing-stocks." 
 
 The next week justified Lady Fareham's assertion. 
 As soon as it was known that the King had established 
 himself at Whitehall, the great people came back to their 
 London houses, and the town began to fill. It was as if 
 a God had smiled upon the smitten city, and that heal- 
 ing and happiness radiated from the golden halo round 
 that anointed head. Was not this the monarch of whom 
 the most eloquent preacher of the age had written, "In 
 the arms of whose justice and wisdom we lie down in 
 safety"? 
 
 London flung off her cerements — erased her plague- 
 marks. The dead-cart's dreadful bell no longer sounded 
 in the silence of an afflicted city. Coffins no longer 
 stood at every other door; the pits at Finsbury, in 
 Tothill Fields, at Islington, were all filled up and 
 trampled down; and the grass was beginning to grow 
 over the forgotten dead. The Judges came back to 
 Westminster. London was alive again — alive and 
 healed; basking in the sunshine of Royalty. 
 
 Nowhere was London more alive in the month of 
 March than at Fareham House on the Thames, where 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 2 25 
 
 the Fareham liveries of green and gold showed con- 
 spicuous upon his lordship's watermen, lounging about 
 the stone steps that led down to the water, or waiting 
 in the terraced garden, which was one of the finest on 
 the river. Wherries of various weights and sizes filled 
 one spacious boathouse, and in another handsome stone 
 edifice with a vaulted roof Lord Fareham's barge lay in 
 state, glorious in cream colour and gold, with green 
 velvet cushions and Oriental carpets, as splendid as that 
 blue-and-gold barge which Charles had sent as a present 
 to Madame, a vessel to out-glitter Cleopatra's galley, 
 when her ladyship and her friends and their singing- 
 boys and musicians filled it for a voyage to Hampton 
 Court. 
 
 The barge was used on festive occasions, or for 
 country voyages, as to Hampton or Greenwich; the 
 wherries were in constant requisition. Along that shin- 
 ing water-way rank and fashion, commerce and business, 
 were moving backwards and forwards all day long. That 
 more novel mode of transit, the hackney coach, was 
 only resorted to in foul weather; for the Legislature had 
 handicapped the coaching trade in the interests of the 
 watermen, and coaches were few and dear. 
 
 If Angela had loved the country, she was not less 
 charmed with London under its altered aspect. All this 
 gaiety and splendour, this movement and brightness, 
 astonished and dazzled her. 
 
 "I am afraid I am very shallow-minded," she told 
 Denzil when he asked her opinion of London. "It 
 seems an enchanted place, and I can scarcely believe it 
 is the same dreadful city I saw a few months ago, when 
 
 London Pride. I. 1 5 
 
2 26 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the dead were lying in the streets. Oh, how clearly it 
 comes back to me — those empty streets, the smoke of 
 the fires, the wretched ragged creatures begging for bread ! 
 I looked down a narrow court, and saw a corpse lying 
 there, and a child wailing over it; and a little way farther 
 on a woman flung up a window, and screamed out, 
 'Dead, dead! The last of my children is dead! Has 
 God no relenting mercy?'" 
 
 "It is curious," said Hyacinth, "how little the town 
 seems changed after all those horrors. I miss nobody 
 I know." 
 
 "Nay, madam," said Denzil, "there have only died 
 one hundred and sixty thousand people, mostly of the 
 lower classes; or at least that is the record of the bills; 
 but I am told the mortality has been twice as much, for 
 people have had a secret way of dying and burying 
 their dead. If your ladyship could have heard the ac- 
 count that Mr. Milton gave me this morning of the suffer- 
 ings he saw before he left London, you would not think 
 the visitation a light one." 
 
 "I wonder you consort with such a rebellious sub- 
 ject as Mr. Milton," said Hyacinth. "A creature of 
 Cromwell's, who wrote with hideous malevolence and 
 disrespect of the murdered King, who was in hiding 
 for ever so long after his Majesty's return, and who now 
 escapes a prison only by the royal clemency." 
 
 "The King lacks only that culminating distinction of 
 having persecuted the greatest poet of the age in order 
 to stand equal to the bigots who murdered Giordano 
 Bruno," said Denzil. 
 
 "The greatest poet! Sure you would not compare 
 Milton with Waller?" 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 2 2*] 
 
 "Indeed I would not, Lady Fareham." 
 
 "Nor with Cowley, nor Denham — dear cracked- 
 brained Denham?" 
 
 "Nor with Denham. To my fancy he stands as high 
 above them as the pole-star over your ladyship's garden 
 lamps." 
 
 "A pamphleteer who has scribbled schoolboy Latin 
 verses, and a few short poems; and, let me see, a 
 masque — yes, a masque that he wrote for Lord Bridge- 
 water's children before the troubles. I have heard my 
 father talk of it. I think he called the thing Comus." 
 
 "A name that will live, Lady Fareham, when Waller 
 and Denham are shadows, remembered only for an 
 occasional couplet." 
 
 "Oh, but who cares what people will think two or 
 three hundred years hence? Waller's verses please us 
 now. The people who come after me can please them- 
 selves, and may read Comus to their hearts' content. I 
 know his lordship reads Milton, as he does Shakespeare, 
 and all the cramped old playwrights of Elizabeth's time. 
 Henri, sing us that song of Waller's, 'Go, lovely rose.' 
 I would give all Mr. Milton has written for that per- 
 fection." 
 
 They were sitting on the terrace above the river in 
 the golden light of an afternoon that was fair and warm 
 as May, though by the calendar 'twas March. The 
 capricious climate had changed from austere winter to 
 smiling spring. Skylarks were singing over the fields at 
 Hampstead, and over the plague-pits at Islington, and 
 all London was rejoicing in blue skies and sunshine. 
 Trade was awakening from a death-like sleep. The 
 theatres were closed; but there were plays acted now 
 
 15* 
 
±2% LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and then at Court. The New and the Middle Exchange 
 were alive with beribboned fops and painted belles. 
 
 It was Lady Fareham's visiting-day. The tall windows 
 of her saloon were open to the terrace, French windows 
 that reached from ceiling to floor, like those at the Hotel 
 de Rambouillet, and which Hyacinth had substituted for 
 the small Jacobean casements, when she took possession 
 of her husband's ancestral mansion. Saloon and terrace 
 were one on a balmy afternoon like this; and her lady- 
 ship's guests wandered in and out at their pleasure. Her 
 lackeys, handing chocolate and cakes on silver or gold 
 salvers, were so many as to seem ubiquitous; and in the 
 saloon, presided over by Angela, there was a still choicer 
 refreshment to be obtained at a tea-table, where tiny 
 cups of the new China drink were dispensed to those 
 who cared for exotic novelties. 
 
 "Prythee, take your guitar and sing to us, were it 
 but to change the conversation," cried Hyacinth; and 
 De Malfort took up his guitar and began, in the sweetest 
 of tenors, "Go, lovely rose." 
 
 He had all her ladyship's visitors, chiefly feminine, 
 round him before he had finished the first verse. That 
 gift of song, that exquisite touch upon the Spanish 
 guitar, were irresistible. 
 
 Lord Fareham landed at the lower flight of steps as 
 the song ended, and came slowly along the terrace, 
 saluting his wife's friends with a grave courtesy. He 
 brought an atmosphere of silence and restraint with him, 
 it seemed to some of his wife's visitors, for the babble 
 that usually follows the end of a song was wanting. 
 
 Most of Lady Fareham's friends affected literature, 
 and professed familiarity with two books which had 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 2 29 
 
 caught the public taste on opposite sides of the Channel. 
 In London people quoted Butler, and vowed there was 
 no wit so racy as the wit in "Hudibras." In Paris the 
 cultured were all striving to talk like Rochefoucauld's 
 "Maxims," which had lately delighted the Gallic mind 
 by the frank cynicism that drew everybody's attention 
 to somebody else's failings. 
 
 "Himself the vainest of men, 'tis scarce wonderful 
 that he takes vanity to be the mainspring that moves 
 the human species," said De Malfort, when someone 
 had found fault with the Duke's analysis. 
 
 "Oh, now we shall hear nothing but stale Roche- 
 foucauldisms, sneers at love and friendship, disparage- 
 ment of our ill-used sex ! Where has my grave husband 
 been, I wonder?" said Hyacinth. "Upon my honour, 
 Fareham, your brow looks as sombre as if it were 
 burdened with the care of the nation." 
 
 "I have been with one who has to carry the greater 
 part of that burden, my lady, and my spirits may have 
 caught some touch of his uneasiness." 
 
 "You have been prosing with that pragmatical 
 personage at Dunkirk — nay, I beg the Lord Chancellor's 
 pardon, Clarendon House. Are not his marbles and 
 tapestries much finer than ours? And yet he began 
 life as a sneaking lawyer, the younger son of a small 
 Wiltshire squire " 
 
 "Lady Fareham, you allow your tongue too much 
 licence " 
 
 "Nay, I speak but the common feeling. Everybody 
 is tired of a Minister who is a hundred years behind the 
 age. He should have lived under Elizabeth." 
 
 "A pretty woman should never talk politics. Hyacinth," 
 
2^0 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Of what else can I talk when the theatres are closed, 
 and you deny me the privilege of seeing the last comedy 
 performed at Whitehall? Is it not rank tyranny in his 
 lordship, Lady Sarah?" turning to one of her intimates, 
 a lady who had been a beauty at the court of Henrietta 
 Maria in the beginning of the troubles, and who from 
 old habit still thought herself lovely and beloved. "I 
 appeal to your ladyship's common sense. Is it not 
 monstrous to deprive me of the only real diversion in 
 the town? I was not allowed to enter a theatre at all 
 last year, except when his favourite Shakespeare or 
 Fletcher was acted, and that was but a dozen times, I 
 believe." 
 
 "Oh, hang Shakespeare!" cried a gentleman whose 
 periwig occupied nearly as much space against the blue 
 of a vernal sky as all the rest of his dapper little person. 
 "Gud, my lord, it is vastly old-fashioned in your lord- 
 ship to taste Shakespeare!" protested Sir Ralph Mas aroon, 
 shaking a cloud of pulvilio out of his cataract of curls. 
 "There was a pretty enough play concocted t'other day 
 out of two of his — a tragedy and comedy — Measure for 
 Measure and Much Ado about Nothing, the interstices 
 filled in with the utmost ingenuity. But Shakespeare 
 unadulterated — faugh ! " 
 
 "I am a fantastical person, perhaps, Sir Ralph; but 
 I would rather my wife saw ten of Shakespeare's plays 
 — in spite of their occasional coarseness — than one of 
 your modern comedies." 
 
 "I should revolt against such tyranny," said Lady 
 Sarah. "I have always appreciated Shakespeare, but I 
 adore a witty comedy, and I never allowed my husband 
 to dictate to me on a question of taste." 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 2$ I 
 
 "Plays which her Majesty patronises can scarcely be 
 unfit entertainment for her subjects," remarked another 
 lady. 
 
 "Our Portuguese Queen is an excellent judge of the 
 niceties of our language," said Fareham. "I question if 
 she understands five sentences in as many acts." 
 
 "Nor should I understand anything low or vulgar," 
 said Hyacinth. 
 
 "Then, madam, you are best at home, for the whole 
 entertainment would be Hebrew to you." 
 
 "That cannot be," protested Lady Sarah; "for all 
 our plays are written by gentlemen. The hack writers 
 of King James's time have been shoved aside. It is 
 the mark of a man of quality to write a comedy." 
 
 "It is a pity that fine gentlemen should write foul 
 jests. Nay, it is a subject I can scarce speak of with 
 patience, when I remember what the English stage has 
 been, and hear what it is; when I recall what Lord 
 Clarendon has told me of his Majesty's father, for whom 
 Shakespeare was a closet companion, who loved all that 
 was noblest in the drama of the Elizabethan age. Time, 
 which should have refined and improved the stage, has 
 sunk it in ignominy. We stand alone among nations in 
 our worship of the obscene. You have seen plays enough 
 in Paris, Hyacinth. Recall the themes that pleased you 
 at the Marais and the Hotel de Bourgogne; the stories 
 of classic heroism, of Christian fortitude, of manhood 
 and womanhood lifted to the sublime. You who, in 
 your girlhood, were familiar with the austere genius of 
 Corneille " 
 
 "I am sick of that Frenchman's name," interjected 
 Lady Sarah. "St. Evremond was always praising him, 
 
2 $2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and had the audacity to pronounce him superior to 
 Dryden; to compare China with the Indian Queen." 
 
 "A comparison which makes one sorry for Mr. Dry- 
 den," said Fareham. "I have heard that Conde, when 
 a young man, was affected to tears at the scene between 
 Augustus and his foe." 
 
 "He must have been very young," said Lady Fare- 
 ham. "But I am not going to depreciate Corneille, or 
 to pretend that the French theatre is not vastly superior 
 to our own. I would only protest that if our laughter- 
 loving King prefers farce to tragedy, and rhyme to blank- 
 verse, his subjects should accommodate themselves to 
 his taste, and enjoy the plays he likes. It is a foolish 
 prejudice that deprives me of such a pleasure. I could 
 always go in a mask." 
 
 "Can you put a mask upon your mind, and preserve 
 that unstained in an atmosphere of corruption? Indeed, 
 your ladyship does not know what you are asking for. 
 To sit and simper through a comedy in which the 
 filthiest subjects are discussed in the vilest language; to 
 see all that is foolish or lascivious in your own sex 
 exaggerated with a malignant licence, which makes a 
 young and beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, 
 uniting the extreme of masculine profligacy with the 
 extreme of feminine silliness. Will you encourage by 
 your presence the wretches who libel your sex? Will 
 you sit smiling to see your sisters in the pillory of 
 satire?" 
 
 "I should smile as at a fairy tale. There are no 
 such women among my friends " 
 
 "And if the satire hits an enemy, it is all the more 
 pungent," said Lady Sarah, 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 2^3 
 
 "An enemy! The man who can so write of women 
 is your worst enemy. The day will come, perhaps, 
 long after we are dust, when the women in Epsom 
 Wells will be thought pictures from life. 'Such an one/ 
 people will say, as they stand to read your epitaph, 
 'was this Lady Sarah, whose virtues are recorded here 
 in Latin superlatives. We know her better in the pages 
 of Shadwell.' " 
 
 Lady Sarah paled under her rouge at that image of 
 a tomb, as Fareham's falcon eye singled her out in the 
 light-hearted group of which De Malfort was the central 
 figure, sitting on the marble balustrade, in an easy 
 impertinent attitude, swinging his legs, and dandling his 
 guitar. She was less concerned at the thought of what 
 posterity might say of her morals than at the idea that 
 she must inevitably die. 
 
 "Not a word against Shad," protested Sir Ralph. "I 
 have roared with laughter at his last play. Never did 
 anyone so hit the follies of town and country. His 
 rural Put is perfection; his London rook is to the very 
 life." 
 
 "And if the generality of his female characters con- 
 duct themselves badly there is always one heroine of 
 irreproachable morals," said Lady Sarah. 
 
 "Who talks like a moral dragoon," said Fareham. 
 
 "Oh, dem, we must have the playhouses!" cried 
 Masaroon. "Consider how dull town is without them. 
 They are the only assemblies that please quality and 
 riffraff alike. Sure 'tis the nature of wit to bubble into 
 licentiousness, as champagne foams over the rim of a 
 glass; and, after all, who listens to the play? Half the 
 time one is talking to some adventurous miss ? w ho will 
 
234 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 swallow a compliment from a stranger if he offer it with 
 a china orange. Or, perhaps, there is quarrelling; and 
 all our eyes and ears are on the scufflers. One may 
 ogle a pretty actress on the stage; but who listens to 
 the play, except the cits and commonalty?" 
 
 "And even they are more eyes than ears," said Lady 
 Sarah, "and are gazing at the King and Queen, or the 
 Duke and Duchess, when they should be following an 
 intrigue by Shadwell or Dryden." 
 
 "Pardieu!" exclaimed De Malfort, "there are trage- 
 dies and comedies in the boxes deeper and more 
 human than anything that is acted on the stage. To 
 watch the Queen, sitting silent and melancholy, while 
 Madame Barbara lolls across half a dozen people to 
 talk to his Majesty, dazzling him with her brilliant eyes, 
 bewildering him by her daring speech. Or, on other 
 nights to see the same lady out of favour, sitting apart, 
 with an ivory shoulder turned towards Royalty, scowling 
 at the audience like a thunder-cloud." 
 
 "Well, it is but natural, perhaps, that such a Court 
 should inspire such a stage," returned Fareham, "and 
 that for the heroic drama of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 Webster, Massinger, and Ford, we should have a gross 
 caricature of our own follies and our own vices. Nay, 
 so essential is foulness to the modern stage that when 
 the manager ventures a serious play, he takes care to 
 introduce it with some filthy prologue, and to spice the 
 finish with a filthier epilogue." 
 
 "Zounds, Fareham!" cried Masaroon, "when one 
 has yawned or slept through five acts of dull heroics, 
 one needs to be stung into wakefulness by a high-spiced 
 epilogue. For my taste your epilogue can't be too 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. ^35 
 
 pungent to give a flavour to my oysters and Rhenish. 
 Gud, my lord, we must have something to talk about 
 when we leave the playhouse!" 
 
 "His lordship is spoilt; we are all spoilt for London 
 after having lived in the most exquisite city in the world," 
 drawled Mrs. Danville, one of Lady Fareham's particular 
 friends, who had been educated at the Visitandines with 
 the Princess Henrietta, now Duchess of Orleans. "Who 
 can tolerate the coarse manners and sea-coal fires of 
 London after the smokeless skies and exquisite courtesies 
 of Parisian good company in the Rue St. Thomas du 
 Louvre — a society so refined that a fault in grammar 
 shocks as much as a slit nose at Charing Cross? I 
 shudder when I recall the Saturdays in the Rue du 
 Temple, and compare the conversations there, the play 
 of wit and fancy, the elaborate arguments upon platonic 
 love, the graceful raillery, with any assembly in London 
 ■ — except yours, Hyacinth. At Fareham Llouse we 
 breathe a finer air, although his lordship's esprit moqueur 
 will not allow us any superiority to the coarse English 
 mob." 
 
 "Indeed, Mrs. Danville, even your prejudice cannot 
 deny London fine gentlemen and wits," remonstrated 
 Sir Ralph. "A court that can boast a Buckhurst, a 
 Rochester, an Etherege, a Sedley " 
 
 "There is not one of them can compare with Voiture 
 or Godeau, with Bussy or St. Evremond, still less with 
 Scarron or Moliere," said De Malfort. "I have heard 
 more wit in one evening at Scarron's than in a week at 
 Whitehall. Wit in France has its basis in thought and 
 erudition. Here it is the sparkle and froth of empty 
 minds, a trick of speech, a knack of saying brutal things 
 
236 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 under a pretence of humour, varnishing real impertinence 
 with mock wit. I have heard Rowley laugh at insolences 
 which, addressed to Louis, would have ensured the 
 speaker a year in the Bastille." 
 
 "I would not exchange our easy-tempered King for 
 your graceful despot," said Fareham. "Pride is the 
 mainspring that moves Louis' self-absorbed soul. His 
 mother instilled it into his mind almost before he could 
 speak. He was bred in the belief that he has no more 
 parallel or fellow than the sun which he has chosen for 
 his emblem. And then, for moral worth, he is little 
 better than his cousin. Louis has all Charles's elegant 
 vices, plus tyranny." 
 
 "Louis is every inch a King. Your easy- tempered 
 gentleman at Whitehall is only a tradition," answered 
 De Malfort. "He is but an extravagantly paid official, 
 whose office is a sinecure, and who sells something of 
 his prerogative every session for a new grant of money. 
 I dare adventure, by the end of his reign, Charles will 
 have done more than Cromwell to increase the liberty 
 of the subject and to demonstrate the insignificance of 
 kings." 
 
 "I doubt the easy- tempered sinecurist who trusts the 
 business of the State to the nation's representatives will 
 wear longer than your officious tyrant, who wants to 
 hold all the strings in his own fingers." 
 
 "He may do that safely, so long as he has men like 
 Colbert for puppets " 
 
 "Men!" cried Fareham. "A man of so rare an 
 honesty must not be thought of in the plural. Colbert's 
 talent, probity, and honour constitute a phcenix that 
 appears once in a century, and; given those rare. 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 1^1 
 
 qualities in the man, it needs a Richelieu to inspire the 
 minister, and a Mazarin to teach him his craft, and to 
 prepare him for double-dealing in others which his own 
 direct mind could never have imagined. Trained first 
 by one of the greatest, and next by one of the subtlest 
 statesmen the world has ever seen, the provincial woollen- 
 draper's son has all the qualities needed to raise France 
 to the pinnacle of fortune, if his master will but give 
 him a free hand." 
 
 "At anyrate, he will make Jacques Bonhomme pay 
 handsomely for his Majesty's new palaces and new loves," 
 said De Malfort. "Colbert adores the King, and is 
 blind to his follies, which are no more economical than 
 the vulgar pleasures of your jovial Rowley." 
 
 "Who takes four shillings in every country gentle- 
 man's pound to spend on the pleasures of London," 
 interjected Masaroon. "Royalty is plaguey expensive." 
 
 The company sighed a melancholy assent. 
 
 "And one can never tell whether the money they 
 squeeze out of us goes to build a new ship, or to pay 
 Lady Castlemaine's gambling debts," said Lady Sarah. 
 
 "Oh, no doubt the lady, as Hyde calls her, has her 
 tithes," said De Malfort. "I have observed she always 
 flames in new jewels after a subsidy." 
 
 "Royal accounts should be kept so that every tax- 
 payer could look into them," said Masaroon. "The 
 King has spent millions. We were all so foolishly fond 
 of him in the joyful day of his restoration that we 
 allowed him to wallow in extravagance, and asked no 
 questions; and for a man who had worn threadbare 
 velvet and tarnished gold, and lived upon loans and 
 gratuities from foreign princes and particulars, it was 
 
238 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 a new sensation to draw ad libitum upon a national 
 exchequer." 
 
 "The exchequer Rowley draws upon should be as 
 deep and wide as the river Pactolus; for he is a spend- 
 thrift by instinct," said Fareham. 
 
 "Yet his largest expenditure can hardly equal his 
 cousin's drain upon the revenue. Mansart is spending 
 millions on Versailles, with his bastard Italian architec- 
 ture, his bloated garlands and festoons, his stone lilies 
 and pomegranates. Charles builds no palaces, initiates 
 no war " 
 
 "And will leave neither palace nor monument; will 
 have lived only to have diminished the dignity and 
 importance of his country. Restored to kingdom and 
 power as if by a miracle, he makes it his chief business 
 to show Englishmen how well they could have done 
 without him," said Denzil Warner, who had been hang- 
 ing over Angela's tea-table until just now, when they 
 both sauntered on to the terrace, the lady's office being 
 fulfilled, the little Chinese teapot emptied of its costly 
 contents, and the tiny teacups distributed among the 
 modish few who relished, or pretended to relish, the 
 new drink. 
 
 "You are a Republican, Sir Denzil, fostered by an 
 arrant demagogue!" exclaimed Masaroon, with a con- 
 temptuous shake of his shoulder ribbons. "You hate 
 the King because he is a King." 
 
 "No, sir, I despise him because he is so much less 
 than a King. Nobody could hate Charles the Second. 
 He is not big enough." 
 
 "Oh, dem, we want no meddlesome Kings to quarrel 
 with their neighbours, and set Europe by the ears! The 
 
LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 239 
 
 treaty of the Pyrenees may be a fine thing for France, 
 but how many noble gentlemen's lives it cost, to say 
 nothing of the common people! Rowley is the finest 
 gentleman in his kingdom, and the most good-natured. 
 Eh, gud, sirs! what more would you have?" 
 
 "A man— like Henry the Fifth, or Oliver Cromwell, 
 or Elizabeth." 
 
 "Faith, she had need possess the manly virtues, for 
 she must have been an untowardly female — a sour, 
 lantern-jawed spinster, with all the inclinations but none 
 of the qualities of a coquette." 
 
 "Greatness has the privilege of small failings, or it 
 would scarce be human. Elizabeth and Julius Caesar 
 might be excused some harmless vanities." 
 
 The spring evenings were now mild enough for 
 promenading St. James's Park, and the Mall was crowded 
 night after night by the finest company in London. 
 Hyacinth walked in the Mall, and appeared occasionally 
 in her coach in Hyde Park; but she repeatedly re- 
 minded her friends how inferior was the mill-round of 
 the Ring to the procession of open carriages along the 
 Cours la Reine, by the side of the Seine; the splendour 
 of the women's dress, outshone sometimes by the ex- 
 travagant decoration of their coaches and the richness 
 of their liveries; the crowds of horsemen, the finest 
 gentlemen in France, riding at the coach doors, and 
 bandying jests and compliments with Beauty, enthroned 
 in her triumphal chariot. Gay, joyous sunsets; light 
 laughter; delicate feasting in Renard's garden, hard by 
 the Tuileries. To remember that fairer and different 
 
24O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 scene was to recall the freshness of youth, the romance 
 of a first love. 
 
 Here in the Mall there was gaiety enough and to 
 spare. A crowd of fine people that sometimes thickened 
 to a mob, hustled by the cits and starveling poets who 
 came to stare at them. 
 
 Yet, since St. James's Park was fashion's favourite 
 promenade, Lady Fareham affected it, and took a turn 
 or two nearly every evening, alighting from her chair at 
 one gate and returning to it at another, on her way to 
 rout or dance. She took Angela with her; and De Mal- 
 fort and Sir Denzil were generally in attendance upon 
 them, Denzil's devotion stopping at nothing except a 
 proposal of marriage, for which he had not mustered 
 courage in a friendship that had lasted half a year. 
 
 "Because there was one so favoured as Endymion, 
 am I to hope for the moon to come down and give 
 herself to me?" he said one day, when Lady Fareham 
 rebuked him for his reticence. "I know your sister 
 does not love me; yet I hang on, hoping that love will 
 come suddenly, like the coming of spring, which is ever 
 a surprise. And even if I am never to win her, it is 
 happiness to see her and to talk with her. I will not 
 spoil my chance by rashness; I will not hazard banish- 
 ment from her dear company." 
 
 "She is lucky in such an admirer," sighed Hyacinth. 
 "A silent, respectful passion is the rarest thing nowa- 
 days. Well, you deserve to conquer, Denzil; and if my 
 sister were not of the coldest nature I ever met in 
 woman she would have returned your passion ages ago, 
 when you were so much in her company at Chilton." 
 
 "I can afford to wait as long as the Greeks waited 
 
LADY FAREHAM's DAY. 2.1 I 
 
 before Troy," said Denzil; "and I will be as constant 
 as they were. If I cannot be her lover I can be her 
 friend, and her protector." 
 
 "Protector! Nay, surely she needs no protector 
 out-of-doors, when she has Fareham and me within!" 
 
 "Beauty has always need of defenders." 
 
 "Not such beauty as Angela's. In the first place, 
 her charms are of no dazzling order; and in the second, 
 she has a coldness of temper and an old-fashioned 
 wisdom which would safeguard her amidst the rabble 
 rout of Comus." 
 
 "There I believe you are right, Lady Fareham. 
 Temptation could not touch her. Sin, even the sub- 
 tlest, could not so disguise itself that her purity would 
 not take alarm. Yes; she is like Milton's lady. The 
 tempter could not touch the freedom of her mind. 
 Sinful love would wither at a look from those pure 
 eyes." 
 
 He turned away suddenly and walked to the win- 
 dow. 
 
 "Denzil! Why, what is the matter? You are 
 weeping!" 
 
 "Forgive me!" he said, recovering himself. "In- 
 deed, I am not ashamed of a tributary tear to virtue 
 and beauty like your sister's." 
 
 "Dear friend, I shall not be happy till I call you 
 brother." 
 
 She gave him both her hands, and he bent down 
 to kiss them. 
 
 "I swear you are losing all your Anabaptist stiff- 
 ness," she said, laughingly. "You will be ruffling it in 
 Covent Garden with Buckhurst and his crew before long." 
 
 London Pride. I. 1 6 
 
242 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. 
 
 One of Angela's letters to her convent companion, 
 the chosen friend and confidante of childhood and girl- 
 hood, Leonie de Ville, now married to the Baron de 
 Beaulieu, and established in a fine house in the Place 
 Royale, will best depict her life and thoughts and feel- 
 ings during her first London season. 
 
 "You tell me, chere, that this London, which I have 
 painted in somewhat brilliant colours, must be a poor 
 place compared with your exquisite city; but, indeed, 
 despite all you say of the Cours la Reine, and your 
 splendour of gilded coaches, fine ladies, and noble 
 gentlemen, who ride at your coach windows, talking to 
 you as they rein in their spirited horses, I cannot think 
 that your fashionable promenade can so much surpass 
 our Ring in Hyde Park, where the Court airs itself 
 daily in the new glass coaches, or outvie for gaiety our 
 Mall in St. James's Park, where all the world of beauty 
 and wit is to be met walking up and down in the 
 gayest, easiest way, everybody familiar and acquainted, 
 with the exception of a few women in masks, who are 
 never to be spoken to or spoken about. Indeed, my 
 sister and I have acquired the art of appearing neither 
 to see nor to hear objectionable company, and pass 
 close beside fine flaunting masks, rub shoulders with 
 them even — and all as if we saw them not. It is for 
 this that Lord Fareham hates London. Here, he says, 
 vice takes the highest place, and flaunts in the sun, 
 while virtue blushes, and steals by with averted head. 
 
THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. 243 
 
 But though I wonder at this Court of Whitehall, and 
 the wicked woman who reigns empress there, and the 
 neglected Queen, and the ladies of honour, whose bad 
 conduct is on everyone's lips, I wonder more at the 
 people and the life you describe at the Louvre, and 
 St. Germain, and Fontainebleau , and your new palace 
 of Versailles. 
 
 "Indeed, Leonie, the world must be in a strange 
 way when vice can put on all the grace and dignity of 
 virtue, and hold an honourable place among good and 
 noble women. My sister says that Madame de Mon- 
 tausier is a woman of stainless character, and her hus- 
 band the proudest of men; yet you tell me that both 
 husband and wife are full of kindness and favours for 
 that unhappy Mile, de la Valliere, whose position at 
 Court is an open insult to your Queen. Have Queens 
 often been so unhappy, I wonder, as her Majesty here, 
 and your own royal mistress? One at least was not. 
 The martyred King was of all husbands the most con- 
 stant and affectionate, and, in the opinion of many, lost 
 his kingdom chiefly through his fatal indulgence of 
 Queen Henrietta's caprices, and his willingness to be 
 governed by her opinions in circumstances of difficulty, 
 where only the wisest heads in the land should have 
 counselled him. But how I am wandering from my de- 
 fence of this beautiful city against your assertion of its 
 inferiority! I hope, chere, that you will cross the sea 
 some day, and allow my sister to lodge you in this 
 house where I write; and when you look out upon our 
 delightful river, with its gay traffic of boats and barges 
 passing to and fro, and its palaces, rising from gardens 
 and Italian terraces on either side of the stream; when 
 
 16* 
 
244 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 you see our ancient cathedral of St. Paul; and the 
 Abbey of St. Peter, lying a little back from the water, 
 grand and ancient, and somewhat gloomy in its massive 
 bulk; and eastward, the old fortress-prison, with its four 
 towers; and the ships lying in the Pool; and fertile 
 Bermondsey with its gardens; and all the beauty of 
 verdant shores and citizens' houses between the bridge 
 and Greenwich, you will own that London and its ad- 
 jacent villages can compare favourably with any metro- 
 polis in the world. 
 
 "The only complaint one hears is of its rapid 
 growth, which is fast encroaching upon the pleasant 
 fields and rustic lanes behind the Lambs Conduit and 
 Southampton House; and on the western side spreading 
 so rapidly that there will soon be no country left be- 
 tween London and Knightsbridge. 
 
 "How I wish thou couldst see our river-terrace on 
 my sister's visiting-day, when De Malfort is lolling on 
 the marble balustrade, singing one of your favourite 
 chansons to the guitar which he touches so exquisitely, 
 and when Hyacinth's fine lady friends and foppish ad- 
 mirers are sitting about in the sunshine ! Thou wouldst 
 confess that even Renard's garden can show no gayer 
 scene. 
 
 "It was only last Tuesday that I had the opportunity 
 of seeing more of the city than I had seen previously — 
 and at its best advantage, as seen from the river. Mr. 
 Evelyn, of Sayes Court, had invited my sister and her 
 husband to visit his house and gardens. He is a great 
 gardener and arboriculturist, as you may have heard, 
 for he has travelled much on the Continent, and ac- 
 
THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. 245 
 
 quired a world-wide reputation for his knowledge of 
 trees and flowers. 
 
 "We were all invited — the Farehams, and my niece 
 Henriette; and even I, whom Mr. Evelyn had seen but 
 once, was included in the invitation. We were to travel 
 by water, in his lordship's barge, and Mr. Evelyn's coach 
 was to meet us at a landing-place not far from his 
 house. We were to start in the morning, dine with him, 
 and return to Fareham House before dark. Henriette 
 was enchanted, and I found her at prayers on Monday 
 night praying St. Swithin, whom she believes to have 
 care of the weather, to allow no rain on Tuesday. 
 
 "She looked so pretty next morning, dressed for the 
 journey, in a light blue cloth cloak embroidered with 
 silver, and a hood of the same; but she brought me 
 bad news — my sister had a feverish headache, and 
 begged us to go without her. I went to Hyacinth's 
 room to try to persuade her to go with us, in the hope 
 that the fresh air along the river would cure her head- 
 ache; but she had been at a dance overnight, and was 
 tired, and would do nothing but rest in a dark room 
 all day — at least, that was her resolve in the morning; 
 but later she remembered that it was Lady Lucretia 
 Topham's visiting-day, and, feeling better, ordered her 
 chair and went off to Bloomsbury Square, where she 
 met all the wits, full of a new play which had been 
 acted at Whitehall, the public theatres being still closed 
 on account of the late contagion. 
 
 "They do not act their plays here as often as 
 Moliere is acted at the Hotel de Bourgogne. The town 
 is constant in nothing but wanting perpetual variety, 
 and the stir and bustle of a new play, which gives 
 
246 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 something for the wits to dispute about. I think we 
 must have three playwrights to one of yours; but I 
 doubt if there is wit enough in a dozen of our writers 
 to equal your Moliere, whose last comedy seems to sur- 
 pass all that has gone before. His lordship had a copy 
 from Paris last week, and read the play to us in the 
 evening. He has no accent, and reads French beauti- 
 fully, with spirit and fire, and in the passionate scenes 
 his great deep voice has a fine effect. 
 
 "We left Fareham House at nine o'clock on a lovely 
 morning, worthy this month of May. The lessening of 
 fires in the city since the warmer weather has freed our 
 skies from sea-coal smoke, and the sky last Tuesday 
 was bluer than the river. 
 
 "The cream-coloured and gold barge, with twelve 
 rowers in the Fareham green velvet liveries, would have 
 pleased your eyes, which have ever loved splendour; 
 but you might have thought the master of this splendid 
 barge too sombre in dress and aspect to become a scene 
 which recalled Cleopatra's galley. To me there is much 
 that is interesting in that severe and serious face, with 
 its olive complexion and dark eyes, shadowed by the 
 strong, thoughtful brow. People who knew Lord Strafford 
 say that my brother-in-law has a look of that great, un- 
 fortunate man — sacrificed to stem the rising flood of 
 rebellion, and sacrificed in vain. Fareham is his kins- 
 man on the mother's side, and may have perhaps some- 
 thing of his powerful mind, together with the rugged 
 grandeur of his features and the bent carriage of his 
 shoulders, which someone the other day called the 
 Strafford stoop. 
 
 "I have been reading some of Lord Strafford's letters, 
 
THE SAGE OF SAVES COURT. 2 47 
 
 and the account of his trial. Indeed he was an ill-used 
 man, and the victim of private hatred — from the Vanes 
 and others — as much as of public faction. His trial 
 and condemnation were scarce less unfair — though the 
 form and tribunal may have been legal — than his master's, 
 and indeed did but forecast that most unwarrantable, 
 judgment. Is it not strange, Leonie, to consider how 
 much of tragical history you and I have lived through 
 that are yet so young? But to me it is strangest of all 
 to see the people in this city, who abandon themselves 
 as freely to a life of idle pleasures and sinful folly — at 
 least, the majority of them — as if England had never 
 seen the tragedy of the late monarch's murder, or been 
 visited by death in his most horrible aspect, only the 
 year last past. My sister tells everyone, smiling, that 
 she misses no one from the circle of her friends. She 
 never saw the red cross on almost every door, the coffins, 
 and the uncoffined dead, as I saw them one stifling 
 summer day, nor heard the shrieks of the mourners in 
 houses where death was master. Nor does she suspect 
 how near she was to missing her husband, who was 
 hanging between life and death when I found him, for- 
 saken and alone. He never talks to me of those days 
 of sickness and slow recovery; yet I think the memory 
 of them must be in his mind as it is in mine, and that 
 this serves as a link to draw us nearer than many a 
 real brother and sister. I am sending you a little 
 picture which I made of him from memory, for he has 
 one of those striking faces that paint themselves easily 
 upon the mind. Tell me how you, who are clever at 
 reading faces, interpret this one. 
 
 "He'las, how I wander from our excursion! My pen 
 
248 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 winds like the river which carried us to Deptford. 
 Pardon, cherie, si je m'onblie trop ; mats c'est si doux de 
 causer avec une amie d'enfance. 
 
 "At the Tower stairs we stopped to take on board 
 a gentleman in a very fine peach-blossom suit, and with 
 a huge periwig, at which Papillon began to laugh, and 
 had to be chid somewhat harshly. He was a very civil- 
 spoken, friendly person, and he brought with him a lad 
 carrying a viol. He is an officer of the Admiralty, 
 called Pepys, and, Fareham tells me, a useful, in- 
 defatigable person. My sister met him at Clarendon 
 House two years ago, and wrote to me about him some- 
 what scornfully; but my brother respects him as shrewd 
 and capable, and more honest than such persons usually 
 are. We were to fetch him to Sayes Court, where he 
 also was invited by Mr. Evelyn; and in talking to 
 Henriette and me, he expressed great regret that his 
 wife had not been included, and he paid my niece 
 compliments upon her grace and beauty which I could 
 but think very fulsome and showing want of judgment 
 in addressing a child. And then, seeing me vexed, he 
 hoped I was not jealous; at which I could hardly com- 
 mand my anger, and rose in a huff and left him. But 
 he was a person not easy to keep at a distance, and 
 was following me to the prow of the boat, when Fareham 
 took hold of him by his cannon sleeve and led him to 
 a seat, where he kept him talking of the navy and the 
 great ships now a-building to replace those that have 
 been lost in the Dutch War. 
 
 "When we had passed the Pool, and the busy trading 
 ships, and all the noise of sailors and labourers shipping 
 pr unloading cargo, and the traffic of small boats hasten- 
 
THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. 249 
 
 ing to and fro, and were out on a broad reach of the 
 river with the green country on either side, the lad tuned 
 his viol, and played a pretty, pensive air, and he and 
 Mr. Pepys sang some verses by Herrick, one of our 
 favourite English poets, set for two voices — 
 
 " 'Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may, 
 Old time still is a-flying; 
 And this same flower that smiles to-day, 
 To-morrow will be dying.' 
 
 The boy had a voice like Mere Ursule's lovely soprano, 
 and Mr. Pepys a pretty tenor; and you can imagine 
 nothing more silvery sweet than the union of the two 
 voices to the staccato notes of the viol, dropping in here 
 and there like music whispered. The setting was Mr. 
 Pepys' own, and he seemed overcome with pride when 
 we praised it. When the song was over, Fareham came 
 to the bench where Papillon and I were sitting, and 
 asked me what I thought of this fine Admiralty gentle- 
 man, whereupon I confessed I liked the song better than 
 the singer, who at that moment was strutting on the 
 deck like a peacock, looking at every vessel we passed 
 as if he were Neptune, and could sink navies with 
 a nod. 
 
 " Misericorde ! how my letter grows! But I love to 
 prattle to you. My sister is all goodness to me; but she 
 has her ideas and I have mine; and though I love her 
 none the less because our fancies pull us in opposite 
 directions, I cannot talk to her as I can write to you; 
 and if I plague you with too much of my own history 
 you must not fear to tell me so. Yet if I dare judge by 
 my own feelings, who am never weary of your letters — 
 nay, can never hear enough of your thoughts and 
 
25O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 doings — I think you will bear with my expatiations, and 
 not deem them too impertinent. 
 
 "Mr. Evelyn's coach was waiting at the landing- 
 stage; and that good gentleman received us at his hall 
 door. He is not young, and has gone through much 
 affliction in the loss of his dear children — one, who died 
 of a fever during that wicked reign of the Usurper 
 Cromwell, was a boy of gifts and capacities that seemed 
 almost miraculous, and had more scholarship at five 
 years old than my poor woman's mind could compass 
 were I to live till fifty. Mr. Evelyn took a kind of sad 
 delight in talking to Henriette and me of this gifted 
 child, asking her what she knew of this and that subject, 
 and comparing her extensive ignorance at eleven with 
 his lamented son's vast knowledge at five. I was more 
 sorry for him than I dared to say; for I could but think 
 this dear overtaught child might have died from a per- 
 petual fever of the brain as likely as from a four days' 
 fever of the body; and afterwards when Mr. Evelyn 
 talked to us of a manner of forcing fruits to grow in 
 strange shapes — a process in which he was greatly in- 
 terested — I thought that this dear infant's mind had 
 been constrained and directed, like the fruits, into a 
 form unnatural to childhood. Picture to yourself, Leonie, 
 at an age when he should have been chasing butterflies 
 or making himself a garden of cut- flowers stuck in the 
 ground, this child was labouring over Greek and Latin, 
 and all his dreams must have been filled with the toil- 
 some perplexities of his daily tasks. It is happy for the 
 bereaved father that he takes a different view, and that 
 his pride in the child's learning is even greater than his 
 grief at having lost him. 
 
THE SAGE OF SAVES COURT. 2$ I 
 
 "At dinner the conversation was chiefly of public 
 affairs — the navy, the war, the King, the Duke, and the 
 General. Mr. Evelyn told Fareham much of his em- 
 barrassments last year, when he had the Dutch prisoners, 
 and the sick and wounded from the fleet, in his charge; 
 and when there was so terrible a scarcity of provision 
 for these poor wretches that he was constrained to draw 
 largely on his own private means in order to keep them 
 from starving. 
 
 "Later, during the long dinner, Mr. Pepys made 
 allusions to an unhappy passion of his master and 
 patron, Lord Sandwich, that had diverted his mind 
 from public business, and was likely to bring him to 
 disgrace. Nothing was said plainly about this matter, 
 but rather in hints and innuendoes, and my brother's 
 brow darkened as the conversation went on; and then, 
 at last, after sitting silent for some time while Mr. 
 Evelyn and Mr. Pepys conversed, he broke up their 
 discourse in a rough, abrupt way he has when greatly 
 moved. 
 
 "'He is a wretch — a guilty wretch — to love where 
 he should not, to hazard the world's esteem, to grieve 
 his wife, and to dishonour his name ! And yet, I wonder, 
 is he happier in his sinful indulgence than if he had 
 played a Roman part, or, like the Spartan lad we read 
 of, had let the wild-beast passion gnaw his heart out, 
 and yet made no sign? To suffer and die, that is 
 virtue, I take it, Mr. Evelyn; and you Christian sages 
 assure us that virtue is happiness. A strange kind of 
 happiness!' 
 
 " 'The Christian's law is a law of sacrifice,' Mr. Evelyn 
 
252 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 said, in his melancholic way. 'The harvest of surrender 
 here is to be garnered in a better world.' 
 
 "'But if Sandwich does not believe in the everlast- 
 ing joys of the heavenly Jerusalem — and prefers to 
 anticipate his harvest of joy!' said Fareham. 
 
 " 'Then he is the more to be pitied,' interrupted 
 Mr. Evelyn. 
 
 " 'He is as God made him. Nothing can come out 
 of a man but what his Maker put in him. Your gold 
 vase there will not turn vicious and produce copper — 
 nor can all your alchemy turn copper to gold. There 
 are some of us who believe that a man can live only 
 once, and love only once, and be happy only once in 
 that pitiful span of infirmities which we call life; and 
 that he is wisest who gathers his roses while he may — 
 as Mr. Pepys sang to us this morning.' 
 
 "Mr. Evelyn sighed, and looked at my brother with 
 mild reproof. 
 
 " 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are 
 of all men most miserable,' he said. 'My lord, when 
 those you love people the Heavenly City, you will begin 
 to believe and hope as I do.' 
 
 "I have transcribed this conversation at full length, 
 Leonie, because it gives you the keynote to Fareham's 
 character, and accounts for much that is strange in his 
 conduct. Alas, that I must say it of so noble a man! 
 He is an infidel! Bred in our Church, he has faith 
 neither in the Church nor in its Divine Founder. His 
 favourite books are metaphysical works by Descartes, 
 Hobbes, Spinoza. I have discovered him reading those 
 pernicious writings whose chief tendency is to make us 
 question the most blessed truths our Church has taught 
 
THE SAGE OF SAVES COURT. 253 
 
 us, or to confuse the mind by leading us to doubt even 
 of our own existence. I was curious to know what 
 there could be in books that so interested a man of his 
 intelligence, and asked to be allowed to read them; but 
 the perusal only served to make me unhappy. This 
 daring attempt to reduce all the mysteries of life to a 
 simple sum in arithmetic, and to make God a mere 
 attribute in the mind of man, disturbed and depressed 
 me. Indeed, there can be no more unhappy moment 
 in any life than that in which for the first time a terrible 
 'if flashes upon the mind. If God is not the God I 
 have worshipped, and in whose goodness I rest all my 
 hopes of future bliss; if in the place of an all-powerful 
 Creator, who gave me my life and governs it, and will 
 renew it after the grave, there is nothing but a quality 
 of my mind, which makes it necessary to me to invent 
 a Superior Being, and to worship the product of my 
 own imagination! Oh, Leonie, beware of these modern 
 thinkers, who assail the creed that has been the strong- 
 hold and comfort of humanity for sixteen hundred years, 
 and who employ the reason which God has given them 
 to disprove the existence of their Maker. Fareham in- 
 sists that Spinoza is a religious man — and has beautiful 
 ideas about God; but I found only doubt and despair in 
 his pages; and I ascribe my poor brother's melancholic 
 disposition in some part to his study of such philosophers. 
 "I wonder what you would think of Fareham, did 
 you see him daily and hourly, almost, as I do. Would 
 you like or dislike, admire or scorn him? I cannot tell. 
 His manners have none of the velvet softness which is 
 the fashion in London — where all the fine gentlemen 
 shape themselves upon the Parisian model; yet he is 
 
2 54 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 courteous, after his graver mode, to all women, and kind 
 and thoughtful of our happiness. To my sister he is 
 all beneficence; and if he has a fault it is overmuch 
 indulgence of her whims and extravagances — though 
 Hyacinth, poor soul, thinks him a tyrant because he 
 forbids her some places of amusement to which other 
 women of quality resort freely. Were he my husband, 
 I should honour him for his desire to spare me all evil 
 sounds and profligate company; and so would Hyacinth, 
 perhaps, had she leisure for reflection. But in her Lon- 
 don life, surrounded ever with a bevy of friends, moving 
 like a star amidst a galaxy of great ladies, there is little 
 time for the free exercise of a sound judgment, and 
 she can but think as others bid her, who swear that her 
 husband is a despot. 
 
 "Mrs. Evelyn was absent from home on a visit; so 
 after dinner Henriette and I, having no hostess to 
 entertain us, walked with our host, who showed us all 
 the curiosities and beauties of his garden, and con- 
 descended to instruct us upon many interesting par- 
 ticulars relating to trees and flowers, and the methods 
 of cultivation pursued in various countries. His fig trees 
 are as fine as those in the convent garden at Louvain; 
 and, indeed, walking with him in a long alley, shut in 
 by holly hedges of which he is especially proud, and with 
 orchard trees on either side, I was taken back in fancy 
 to the old pathway along which you and I have paced 
 so often with Mother Agnes, talking of the time when 
 we should go out into the world. You have been more 
 than three years in that world of which you then knew 
 so little, but it lacks still a quarter of one year since I 
 left that quiet and so monotonous life; and already I 
 
THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. 255 
 
 look back and wonder if I ever really lived there. I 
 cannot picture myself within those walls. I cannot call 
 back my own feelings or my own image at the time when 
 I had never seen London, when my sister was almost a 
 stranger to me, and my sister's husband only a name. 
 Yet a day of sorrow might come when I should be fain 
 to find a tranquil retreat in that sober place, and to 
 spend my declining years in prayer and meditation, as 
 my dear aunt did spend nearly all her life. May God 
 maintain us in the true faith, sweet friend, so that we 
 may ever have that sanctuary of holy seclusion and 
 prayer to fly to — and, oh, how deep should be our pity 
 for a soul like Fareham's, which knows not the con- 
 solations nor the strength of religion, for whom there is 
 no armour against the arrows of death, no City of Refuge 
 in the day of mourning! 
 
 "Indeed he is not happy. I question and perplex 
 myself to find a reason for his melancholy. He is rich 
 in money and in powerful friends; has a wife whom all 
 the world admires; houses which might lodge Royalty. 
 Perhaps it is because his life has been over-prosperous 
 that he sickens of it, like one who flings away from a 
 banquet table, satiated by feasting. Life to him may be 
 like the weariness of our English dinners, where one 
 mountain of food is carried away to make room on the 
 board for another; and where after people have sat 
 eating and drinking for over an hour comes a roasted 
 swan, or a peacock, or some other fantastical dish, which 
 the company praise as a pretty surprise. Often, in the 
 midst of such a dinner, I recall our sparing meals in the 
 convent; our soup maigre and snow eggs, our cool 
 salads and black bread — and regret that simple food, 
 
256 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 while the reeking joints and hecatombs of fowl nauseate 
 my senses. 
 
 "It was late in the afternoon when we returned to the 
 barge, for Mr. Pepys had business to transact with our 
 host, and spent an hour with him in his study, signing 
 papers, and looking at accounts, while Papillon and I 
 roamed about the garden with his lordship, conversing 
 upon various subjects, and about Mr. Evelyn, and his 
 opinions and politics. 
 
 "'The good man has a pretty trivial taste that will 
 keep him amused and happy till he drops into the grave 
 —but, lord! what insipid trash it all seems to the heart 
 on fire with passion!' Fareham said in his impetuous 
 way, as if he despised Mr. Evelyn for taking pleasure in 
 bagatelles. 
 
 "The sun was setting as we passed Greenwich, and 
 I thought of those who had lived and made history in 
 the old palace — Queen Elizabeth, so great, so lonely; 
 Shakespeare, whom his lordship honours; Bacon, said 
 to be one of the wisest men who have lived since the 
 Seven of Greece; Raleigh, so brave, so adventurous, so 
 unhappy! Surely men and women must have been 
 made of another stuff a century ago; for what will those 
 who come after us remember of the wits and beauties 
 of Whitehall, except that they lived and died? 
 
 "Mr. Pepys was somewhat noisy on the evening 
 voyage, and I was very glad when he left the barge. 
 He paid me ridiculous compliments mixed with scraps 
 of French and Spanish, and, finding his conversation 
 distasteful, he insisted upon attempting several songs — 
 not one of which he was able to finish, and at last began 
 one which for some reason made his lordship angry, who 
 
THE SAGE OF SAVES COURT. ^57 
 
 gave him a cuff on his head that scattered all the scented 
 powder in his wig; on which, instead of starting up 
 furious to return the blow, as I feared to see him, Mr. 
 Pepys gave a little whimpering laugh, muttered some- 
 thing to the effect that his lordship was vastly nice; and 
 sank down in a corner of the cushioned seat, where he 
 almost instantly fell asleep. 
 
 "Henriette and I were spectators of this scene at 
 some distance, I am glad to say, for all the length of the 
 barge divided us from the noisy singer. 
 
 "The sun went down, and the stars stole out of the 
 deep blue vault, and trembled between us and those 
 vast fields of heaven. Papillon watched their reflection 
 in the river, or looked at the houses along the shore, 
 few and far apart, where a solitary candle showed here 
 and there. Fareham came and seated himself near us, 
 but talked little. We drew our cloaks closer, for the air 
 was cold, and Papillon nestled beside me and dropped 
 asleep. Even the dipping of the oars had a ghostly 
 sound in the night stillness; and we seemed so melancholy 
 in this silence, and so far away from one another, that 
 I could but think of Charon's boat laden with the souls 
 of the dead. 
 
 "Write to me soon, dearest, and as long a letter as 
 I have written to you. 
 
 "A toi de cceur, 
 
 "Angela." 
 
 London Pride. I. l t 
 
2S8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MILLBANK GHOST. 
 
 (k the greatest charms of London has ever been 
 the facility of getting away from it to some adjacent 
 rustic or pseudo-rustic spot; and in 1666, though many 
 people declared that the city had outgrown all reason, 
 and was eating up the country, a two-mile journey would 
 carry the Londoner from bricks and mortar to rusticity, 
 and while the tower of St. Paul's Cathedral was still 
 within sight he might lie on the grass on a wild hillside, 
 and hear the skylark warbling in the blue arch above 
 him, and scent the hawthorn blowing in untrimmed 
 hedgerows. And then there were the fashionable re- 
 sorts — the gardens or the fields which the town had 
 marked as its own. Beauty and wit had their choice 
 of such meeting-grounds between Westminster and Barn 
 Elms, where in the remote solitudes along the river 
 murder might be done in strict accordance with etiquette, 
 and was too seldom punished by law. 
 
 Among the rendezvous of fashion there was one re- 
 tired spot less widely known than Fox Hall or the Mul- 
 berry Garden, but which possessed a certain repute, 
 and was affected rather by the exclusives than by the 
 crowd. It was a dilapidated building of immemorial 
 age, known as the "haunted Abbey," being, in fact, the 
 refectory of a Cistercian monastery, of which all other 
 remains had disappeared long ago. The Abbey had 
 flourished in the lifetime of Sir Thomas More, and was 
 mentioned in some of his familiar epistles. The ruined 
 building had been used as a granary in the time of 
 
THE MILLBANK GHOST. 259 
 
 Charles the First; and it was only within the last de- 
 cade that it had been redeemed from that degraded 
 use, and had been in some measure restored and made 
 habitable for the occupation of an old couple, who 
 owned the surrounding fields, and who had a small 
 dairy farm from which they sent fresh milk into London 
 every morning. 
 
 The ghostly repute of the place and the attraction 
 of new milk, cheese cakes, and syllabubs, had drawn a 
 certain number of those satiated pleasure-seekers who 
 were ever on the alert for a new sensation, among whom 
 there was none more active or more noisy than Lady 
 Sarah Tewkesbury. She had made the haunted Abbey 
 in a manner her own, had invited her friends to mid- 
 night parties to watch for the ghost, and to morning 
 parties to eat syllabubs and dance on the grass. She 
 had brought a shower of gold into the lap of the miserly 
 freeholder, and had husband and wife completely under 
 her thumb. 
 
 Doler, the husband, had fought in the civil war, and 
 Mrs. Doler had been a cook in the Fairfax household; 
 but both had scrupulously sunk all Cromwellian associa- 
 tions since his Majesty's return, and in boasting, as he 
 often did boast, of having fought desperately and been 
 left for dead at the battle of Brentford, Mr. Doler had 
 been careful to suppress the fact that he was a hireling 
 soldier of the Parliament. He would weep for the 
 martyred King, and tell the story of his own wounds, 
 until it is possible he had forgotten which side he had 
 fought for, in remembering his personal prowess and 
 sufferings. 
 
 So far there had been disappointment as to the 
 
2bO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ghost. Sounds had been heard of a most satisfying 
 grimness, during those midnight and early morning 
 watchings, rappings, and scrapings, and scratching on the 
 wall groanings and moanings, sighings and whisperings 
 behind the wainscote; but nothing spectral had been 
 seen; and iSlrs. Doler had been severely reprimanded 
 by her patrons and patronesses for the unwarrantable 
 conduct of a spectre which she professed to have seen 
 as often as she had fingers and toes. 
 
 It was the phantom of a nun — a woman of exceed- 
 ing beauty, but white as the linen which banded her 
 cheek and brow. There was a dark story of violated 
 oaths, priestly sin, and the sleepless conscience of the 
 dead, who could not rest even in that dreadful grave 
 where the sinner had been immured alive, but must 
 needs haunt the footsteps of the living, a wandering 
 shade. Some there were who disbelieved in the tradi- 
 tions of that living grave, and who even went so far as 
 to doubt the ghost; but the spectre had an established 
 repute of more than a century, was firmly believed in 
 by all the children and old women of the neighbour- 
 hood, and had been written about by students of the 
 unseen. 
 
 One of Lady Sarah's parties took place at full moon, 
 not long after the visit to Deptford, and Lord Fareham's 
 barge was again employed, this time on a nocturnal 
 expedition up the river to the fields near the haunted 
 Abbey, to carry Hyacinth, her sister, De Malfort, Lord 
 Rochester, Sir Ralph Masaroon, Sir Denzil Warner, and 
 a bevy of wits and beauties — beauties who had, some 
 of them, been carrying on the beauty-business and trad- 
 ing in eyes and complexion for more than one decade, 
 
THE MILLBANK GHOST. 26 I 
 
 and who loved that night season when paint might be 
 laid on thicker than in the glare of day. 
 
 The barge wore a much more festive aspect under 
 her ladyship's management than when used by his lord- 
 ship for a daylight voyage like the trip to Deptford. 
 Satin coverlets and tapestry curtains had been brought 
 from Lady Fareham's own apartments, to be flung with 
 studied carelessness over benches and tabourets. Her 
 ladyship's singing-boys and musicians were grouped 
 picturesquely under a silken canopy in the bows, and a 
 row of lanterns hung on chains festooned from stem 
 to stern, pretty gewgaws, that had no illuminating power 
 under that all-potent moon, but which glittered with 
 coloured light like jewels, and twinkled and trembled in 
 the summer air. 
 
 A table in the stern was spread with a light colla- 
 tion, which gave an excuse for the display of parcel- 
 gilt cups, silver tankards, and Venetian wine-flasks. A 
 miniature fountain played perfumed waters in the midst 
 of this splendour; and it amused the ladies to pull off 
 their long gloves, dip them in the scented water, and 
 flap them in the faces of their beaux. 
 
 The distance was only too short, since Lady Fare- 
 ham's friends declared the voyage was by far the 
 pleasanter part of the entertainment. Denzil, among 
 others, was of this opinion, for it was his good fortune 
 to have secured the seat next Angela, and to be able 
 to interest her by his account of the buildings they 
 passed, whose historical associations were much better 
 known to him than to most young men of his epoch. 
 He had sat at the feet of a man who scoffed at Pope 
 
20 2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and King, and hated Episcopacy, but who revered all 
 that was noble and excellent in England's past. 
 
 "Flams, mere flams!" cried Hyacinth, acknowledging 
 the praises bestowed on her barge; "but if you like 
 dary wine better than skimmed milk you had best drink 
 a brimmer or two before you leave the barge, since 'tis 
 odds you'll get nothing but syllabubs and gingerbread 
 from Lady Sarah." 
 
 "A substantial supper might frighten away the ghost, 
 who doubtless parted with sensual propensities when she 
 died," said De Malfort. "How do we watch for her? 
 In a severe silence, as if we were at church?" 
 
 "Aw would keep silence for a week o' Sawbaths gin 
 Aw was sure o' seeing a bogle," said Lady Euphemia 
 Dubbin, a Scotch marquess's daughter, who had married 
 a wealthy cit, and made it the chief endeavour of her 
 life to ignore her husband and keep him at a distance. 
 
 She hated the man only a little less than his ple- 
 beian name, which she had not succeeded in persuading 
 him to change, because, forsooth, there had been Dub- 
 bins in Mark Lane for many generations. All previous 
 Dubbins had lived over their warehouses and offices; 
 but her ladyship had brought Thomas Dubbin from 
 Mark Lane to my Lord Bedford's Piazza in the Convent 
 Garden, where he endured the tedium of existence in a 
 fine new house in which he was afraid of his fine new 
 servants, and never had anything to eat that he liked, 
 his gastronomic taste being for dishes the very names 
 of which were intolerable to persons of quality. 
 
 This evening Mr. Dubbin had been incorrigible, and 
 had insisted on intruding his clumsy person upon Lady 
 
THE MLLBANK GHOST. 263 
 
 Fareham's party, arguing with a dull persistence that his 
 name was on her ladyship's billet of invitation. 
 
 "Your name is on a great many invitations only 
 because it is my misfortune to be called by it," his wife 
 told him. "To sit on a barge after ten o'clock at night 
 in June — the coarsest month in summer — is to court 
 lumbago; and all I hope is ye'll not be punished by a 
 worse attack than common." 
 
 Mr. Dubbin had refused to be discouraged, even by 
 this churlishness from his lady, and appeared in attend- 
 ance upon her, wearing a magnificent birthday suit 
 of crimson velvet and green brocade, which he meant 
 to present to his favourite actor at the Duke's Theatre, 
 after he had exhibited himself in it half a dozen times 
 at Whitehall, for the benefit of the great world, and at 
 the Mulberry Garden for the admiration of the bona- 
 robas. He was a fat, double-chinned little man, the 
 essence of good nature, and perfectly unconscious of 
 being an offence to fine people. 
 
 Although not a wit himself, Mr. Dubbin was occa- 
 sionally the cause of wit in others, if the practice of 
 bubbling an innocent rustic or citizen can be called wit. 
 Rochester and Sir Ralph Masaroon, and one Jerry 
 Spavinger, a gentleman jockey, who was a nobody in 
 town, but a shining light at Newmarket, took it upon 
 themselves to draw the harmless citizen, and, as a 
 preliminary to making him ridiculous, essayed to make 
 him drunk. 
 
 They were clustered together in a little group some- 
 what apart from the rest of the company, and were 
 attended upon by a lackey who brought a full tankard 
 at the first whistle on the empty one, and whom Mr. 
 
264 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Dubbin, after a rapid succession of brimmers, insisted 
 on calling " drawer." It was very seldom that Rochester 
 condescended to take part in any entertainment on 
 which the royal sun shone not, unless it were some 
 post-midnight marauding with Buckhurst, Sedley, and a 
 band of wild coursers from the purlieus of Drury Lane. 
 He could see no pleasure in any medium between 
 Whitehall and Alsatia. 
 
 "If I am not fooling on the steps of the throne, let 
 me sprawl in the gutter with pamphleteers and orange- 
 girls," said this precocious profligate. "I abhor a re- 
 putable party among your petty nobility, and if I had 
 not been in love with Lady Fareham off and on, ever 
 since I cut my second teeth, I would have no hand in 
 such a humdrum business as this." 
 
 '•'There's not a neater filly in the London stable 
 than her ladyship," said Jerry, "and I don't blame your 
 taste. I was side-glassing her yesterday in Hi' Park, 
 but she didn't seem to relish the manoeuvre, though I 
 was wearing a Chedreux peruke that ought to strike 
 'em dead." 
 
 "You don't give your peruke a chance, Jerry, while 
 you frame that ugly phiz in it." 
 
 "Why not buffle the whole company, my lord?" said 
 Masaroon, while Mr. Dubbin talked apart with Lady 
 Euphemia, who had come from the other end of the 
 barge to warn her husband against excess in Rhenish 
 or Burgundy. "You are good at disguises. Why not 
 act the ghost and frighten everybody out of their 
 senses?" 
 
 "77 ny a pas de quoi, Ralph. The creatures have 
 no sense to be robbed of. They are second-rate fashion, 
 
THE MILLBANK GHOST. 265 
 
 which is only worked by machinery. They imitate us as 
 monkeys do, without knowing what they aim at. Their 
 women have virtuous instincts, but turn wanton rather 
 than not be like the maids of honour; and because we 
 have our duels their men murder each other for a 
 shrugged shoulder or a casual word. No, I'll not chalk 
 my face or smear myself with phosphorus to amuse 
 such trumpery. It was worth my pains to disguise my- 
 self as a German Nostradamus, in order to fool the 
 lovely Jennings and her friend Price — who won't easily 
 forget their adventures as orange-girls in the heart of 
 the city. But I have done with all such follies." 
 
 "You are growing old, Wilmot. The years are tell- 
 ing upon your spirits." 
 
 "I was nineteen last birthday, and 'tis fit I should 
 feel the burden of time, and think of virtue and a rich 
 wife." 
 
 "Like Mrs. Mallet, for example." 
 
 "Faith, a man might do worse than win so much 
 beauty and wealth. But the creature is arrogant, and 
 calls me 'child;' and half the peerage is after her. But 
 we'll have our jest with the city scrub, Ralph; not 
 because I bear him malice, but because I hate his wife. 
 And we'll have our masquerading some time after mid- 
 night; if you can borrow a little finery." 
 
 Mr. Dubbin was released from his lady's sotto voce 
 lecture at this instant, and Lord Rochester continued his 
 communication in a whisper, the Honourable Jeremiah 
 assenting with nods and chucklings, while Masaroon 
 whistled for a fresh tankard, and plied the honest 
 merchant with a glass which he never allowed to be 
 empty, 
 
266 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 The taste for masquerading was a fashion of the 
 time, as much as combing a periwig, or flirting a fan. 
 While Rochester was planning a trick upon the citizen, 
 Lady Fareham was whispering to De Malfort under cover 
 of the fiddles, which were playing an Italian pazzemano, 
 an air beloved by Henrietta of Orleans, who danced 
 to that music with her royal brother-in-law, in one of the 
 sumptuous ballets at St. Cloud. 
 
 "Why should they be disappointed of their ghost," 
 said Hyacinth, "when it would be so easy for me to 
 dress up as the nun and scare them all? This white 
 satin gown of mine, with a few yards of white lawn 
 arranged on my head and shoulders " 
 
 "Ah, but you have not the lawn at hand to-night, 
 or your woman to arrange your head," interjected De 
 Malfort quickly. "It would be a capital joke; but it 
 must be for another occasion and choicer company. 
 The rabble you have to-night is not worth it. Besides, 
 there is Rochester, who is past-master in disguises, and 
 would smoke you at a glance. Let me arrange it some 
 night before the end of the summer — when there is a 
 waning moon. It were a pity the thing were done ill." 
 
 "Will you really plan a party for me, and let me 
 appear to them on the stroke of one, with my face 
 whitened? I have as slender a shape as most women." 
 
 "There is no such sylph in London." 
 
 "And I can make myself look ethereal. Will you 
 draw the nun's habit for me? and I will give your picture 
 to Lewin to copy." 
 
 "I will do more. I will get you a real habit." 
 
 "But there are no nuns so white as the ghost." 
 
THE jVHLLBANK GHOST. 267 
 
 "True, but you may rely upon me. The nun's robes 
 shall be there, the phosphorus, the blue fire, and a 
 selection of the choicest company to tremble at you. 
 Leave the whole business to my care. It will amuse 
 me to plan so exquisite a jest for so lovely a jester." 
 
 He bent down to kiss her hand, till his forehead 
 almost touched her knee, and in the few moments that 
 passed before he raised it, she heard him laughing 
 softly to himself, as if with irrepressible delight. 
 
 "What a child you are," she said, "to be pleased 
 with such folly!" 
 
 "What children we both are, Hyacinth! My sweet 
 soul, let us always be childish, and find pleasure in 
 follies. Life is such a poor thing, that if we had leisure 
 to appraise its value we should have a contagion of 
 suicide that would number more deaths than the plague. 
 Indeed, the wonder is, not that any man should com- 
 mit felo de se } but that so many of us should take the 
 trouble to live." 
 
 Lady Sarah received them at the landing-stage, with 
 an escort of fops and fine ladies; and the festival 
 promised to be a success. There was a better supper, 
 and more wine than people expected from her ladyship ; 
 and after supper a good many of those who pretended 
 to have come to see the ghost, wandered off in couples 
 to saunter along the willow-shaded bank, while only the 
 more earnest spirits were content to wait and watch and 
 listen in the great vaulted hall, with no light but the 
 moon which sent a flood of silver through the high 
 Gothic window, from which every vestige of glass had 
 long vanished. 
 
268 LONDON PREDE. 
 
 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 super- 
 stitious 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 for- 
 gotten 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 
 snatched her satin petticoat from contact with the 
 citizen's porpoise figure. 
 
 "J hate mixed company," she told Angela, "and olcl 
 
THE MILLBANK GHOST. 269 
 
 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 any- 
 body with strong lungs — dairymaid or cowboy — could 
 shriek. They all wanted to see something, a real mani- 
 festation 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 assembly, 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, apprehen- 
 sion 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, re- 
 coiling till they were all clustered against the opposite 
 wall, leaving a clear space in front of the spectres, 
 whence they looked on, shuddering, at the tragedy of 
 the erring Sister's fate, repeated in dumb show. The 
 
2 70 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 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 pick- 
 axe 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 per- 
 formers. 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 be- 
 mused 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, 
 
THE MILLBANK GHOST. 2*] I 
 
 in his shirt and breeches, and those light riding-boots 
 which he rarely exchanged for a more courtly chaus- 
 sure. 
 
 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," remon- 
 strated Lady Sarah. 
 
 "Indeed, sister, you have to thank his light-headed 
 lordship for giving a spirited end to your assembly. 
 Could you conceive how preposterous you and your 
 friends looked sitting against the walls, mute as stock- 
 fish, 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 indigna- 
 tion, 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 
 
2J2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 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 Tun- 
 bridge — 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 no- 
 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 assured 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 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 2J $ 
 
 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 passed chiefly in attendance upon Lady Fare- 
 ham — singing and playing, fetching and carrying, comb- 
 ing 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 passing 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?" re- 
 peated 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 
 
 London Pride. I. 1 8 
 
274 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 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 dien! 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 in- 
 ventory taken — documents 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 surpassed 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 engage- 
 ments 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.'* 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 275 
 
 "Then, Indeed, had you been very earnest in want- 
 ing 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 — ex- 
 cept, perhaps, some of the new lace. I might trust you 
 to buy that, though HI 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 ser- 
 vants 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!" 
 
 18* 
 
276 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "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 com- 
 pared 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 balustrade, nursing the guitar on which he 
 had been playing when Fareham interrupted their noon- 
 tide 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 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 277 
 
 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." 
 
 "Not more so than your Hamlet or Othello. Shake- 
 speare was but kept in fashion during the late King's 
 reign because his Majesty loved him — and will soon be 
 forgotten, now that we have so many gayer and brisker 
 dramatists." 
 
 "Whoever quotes Shakespeare, nowadays?" asked 
 Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, who had been showing a rustic 
 
278 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 niece the beauties of the river, as seen from Fareham 
 House. "Even Mr. Taylor, whose sermons bristle with 
 elegant allusions, never points one of his passionate 
 climaxes with a Shakespearian line. And yet there are 
 some very fine lines in Hamlet and Macbeth, which 
 would scarce sound amiss from the pulpit," added her 
 ladyship, condescendingly. "I have read all the plays, 
 some of them twice over. And I doubt that though 
 Shakespeare cannot hold the stage in our more en- 
 lightened age, and will be less and less acted as the 
 town grows more refined, his works will always be tasted 
 by scholars; among whom, in my modest way, I dare 
 reckon myself." 
 
 Lord Fareham left London on horseback, with but 
 one servant, in the early August dawn, before the rest 
 of the household were stirring. Hyacinth lay nearly as 
 late of a morning as Henrietta Maria, whom Charles 
 used sometimes to reproach for not being up in time for 
 the noonday office at her own chapel. Lady Fareham 
 had not Portuguese Catherine's fervour, who was often 
 at Mass at seven o'clock; but she did usually contrive 
 to be present at High Mass at the Queen's chapel; and 
 this was the beginning of her day. By that time Angela 
 and her niece and nephew had spent hours on the river, 
 or in the meadows at Chiswick, or on Putney Heath, 
 ever glad to escape from the great overgrown city, which 
 was now licking up every stretch of green sward, and 
 every flowery hedgerow west of St. James's Street. Soon 
 there would be no country between the Haymarket and 
 "The Pillars of Hercules." 
 
FALCON AKD DOVE. 279 
 
 Denzil sometimes enjoyed the privilege of accompany- 
 ing Angela, children, and gouvernante, on these rural 
 expeditions by the great waterway; and on such occa- 
 sions he and Angela would each take an oar and row 
 the boat for some part of the voyage, while the water- 
 men rested, and in this manner Angela, instructed by 
 Sir Denzil, considerably advanced her power as an oars- 
 woman. It was an exercise she loved, as indeed she 
 loved all out-of-door exercises, from riding with hawks 
 and hounds to battledore and shuttlecock. But most 
 of all, perhaps, she loved the river, and the rhythmical 
 dip of oars in the fresh morning air, when every curve 
 of the fertile shores seemed to reveal new beauty. 
 
 It had been a hot, dry summer, and the grass in 
 the parks was burnt to a dull brown — had, indeed, 
 almost ceased to be grass — while the atmosphere in 
 town had a fiery taste, and was heavy with the dust 
 which whitened all the roadways, and which the faintest 
 breath of wind dispersed. Here on the flowing tide 
 there was coolness, and the long rank grass upon those 
 low sedgy shores was still green. 
 
 Lady Fareham supported the August heats sitting 
 on her terrace, with a cluster of friends about her, and 
 her musicians and singing-boys grouped in the distance, 
 ready to perform at her bidding; but Henriette and her 
 brother soon tired of that luxurious repose, and would 
 urge their aunt to assist in a river expedition. The 
 gouvernante was fat and lazy and good-tempered, had 
 attended upon Henriette from babyhood, and always did 
 as she was told. 
 
 "Her ladyship says I must have some clever person 
 instead of Priscilla before I am a year older," Henriette 
 
20O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 told her aunt; "but I have promised poor old Prissy to 
 hate the new person consumedly." 
 
 Angela and Denzil laughed as they rowed past the 
 ruined abbey, seen dimly across the low water-meadow, 
 where cows of the same colour were all lying in the 
 same attitude, chewing the cud. 
 
 "I think Mr. Spavinger's trick must have cured your 
 sister's fine friends of all belief in ghosts," he said. 
 
 "I doubt they would be as ready to believe — or to 
 pretend to believe — to-morrow," answered Angela. 
 "They think of nothing from morning till night but 
 how to amuse themselves; and when every pleasure has 
 been exhausted, I suppose fear comes in as a form of 
 entertainment, and they want the shock of seeing a 
 ghost." 
 
 "There have been no more midnight parties since 
 Lady Sarah's assembly, I think?" 
 
 "Not among people of quality, perhaps; but there 
 have been citizens' parties. I heard Monsieur de 
 Malfort telling my sister about a supper given by a 
 wealthy wine-cooper's lady from Aldersgate. The city 
 people copy everything that their superiors wear or do." 
 
 "Even to their morals," said Denzil. "'Twere happy 
 if the so-called superiors would remember that, and 
 upon what a fertile ground they sow the seed of new 
 vices. It is like the importation of a new weed or a 
 new insect, which, beginning with an accident, may end 
 in ruined crops and a country's famine." 
 
 Without deliberate disobedience to her husband, 
 Lady Fareham made the best use of her time during his 
 absence in Paris. The public theatres had not yet re- 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 2 8 I 
 
 opened after the horror of the plague. Whitehall was 
 a desert, the King and his chief following being at 
 Tunbridge. It was the dullest season of the year, and 
 the recrudescence of the contagion in the low-lying 
 towns along the Thames — Deptford, Greenwich, and the 
 neighbourhood — together with some isolated cases in 
 London, made people more serious than usual, despite 
 of the so-called victory over the Dutch, which, although 
 a mixed benefit, was celebrated piously by a day of 
 General Thanksgiving. 
 
 Hyacinth, disgusted at the dulness of the town, was 
 for ordering her coaches and retiring to Chilton. 
 
 "It is mortal dull at the Abbey," she said, "but at 
 least we have the hawks, and breezy hills to ride over, 
 instead of this sickly city atmosphere, which to my 
 nostrils smells of the pestilence." 
 
 Henri de Malfort argued against such a retreat. 
 
 "It were a deliberate suicide," he said. "London, 
 when everybody has left — all the bodies we count worthy 
 to live, par exemple — is a more delightful place than 
 you can imagine. There are a host of vulgar amuse- 
 ments which you would not dare to visit when your 
 friends are in town; and which are ten times as amusing 
 as the pleasures you know by heart. Have you ever 
 been to the Bear Garden? I'll warrant you no, though 
 'tis but across the river at Bankside. We'll go there this 
 afternoon, if you like, and see how the common people 
 taste life. Then there are the gardens at Islington. 
 There are mountebanks, and palmists, and fortune-tellers, 
 who will frighten you out of your wits for a shilling. 
 There's a man at Clerkenwell, a jeweller's journeyman 
 from Venice, who pretends to practise the transmutation 
 
282 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of metals, and to make gold. He squeezed hundreds 
 out of that old miser Denham, who was afraid to have 
 the law of him for imposture, lest all London should 
 laugh at his own credulity and applaud the cheat. And 
 you have not seen the Italian puppet-play, which is 
 vastly entertaining. I could find you novelty and amuse- 
 ment for a month." 
 
 "Find anything new, even if it fail to amuse me. I 
 am sick of everything I know." 
 
 "And then there is our midnight party at Millbank, 
 the ghost-party, at which you are to frighten your dearest 
 friends out of their poor little wits," 
 
 "Most of my dearest friends are in the country." 
 
 "Nay, there is Lady Lucretia Topham, whom I know 
 you hate; and Lady Sarah and the Dubbins are still in 
 Covent Garden." 
 
 "I will have no Dubbin — a toping wretch — and she 
 is a too incongruous mixture, with her Edinburgh lingo 
 and her Whitehall arrogance. Besides, the whole notion 
 of a mock ghost was vulgarised by Wilmot's foolery, who 
 ought to have been born a saltimbanque, and spent his 
 life in a fair. No, I have abandoned the scheme." 
 
 "What! after I have been taxing my invention to 
 produce the most terrible illusion that was ever wit- 
 nessed? Will you let a clown like Spavinger — a well- 
 born stable-boy — baulk us of our triumph? I am send- 
 ing to Paris for a powder to burn in a corner of the 
 room, which will throw the ghastliest pallor upon your 
 countenance. When I devise a ghost, it shall be no 
 impromptu spectre in yellow riding-boots, but a vision so 
 awful, so true an image of a being returned from the 
 dead, that the stoutest nerves will thrill and tremble at 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 283 
 
 the apparition. The nun's habit is coming from Paris. 
 I have asked my cousin, Madame de Fiesque, to obtain 
 it for me at the Carmelites." 
 
 "You are taking a vast deal of trouble. But what 
 kind of assembly can we muster at this dead season?" 
 
 "Leave all in my hands. I will find you some of the 
 choicest spirits. It is to be my party. I will not even 
 tell you what night I fix upon, till all is ready. So make 
 no engagements for your evenings, and tell nobody any- 
 thing." 
 
 "Who invented that powder?" 
 
 "A French chemist. He has it of all colours, and 
 can flood a scene in golden light, or the rose of dawn, 
 or the crimson of sunset, or a pale silvery blueness that 
 you would swear was moonshine. It has been used in 
 all the Court ballets. I saw Madame once look as 
 ghastly as death itself, and all the Court was seized 
 with terror. Some blundering fool had burnt the wrong 
 powder, which cast a greenish tint over the faces, and 
 Henriette's long thin features had a look of death. It 
 seemed the forecast of an early grave; and some of us 
 shuddered, as at a prophecy of evil." 
 
 "You might expect the worst in her case, knowing 
 the wretched life she leads with Monsieur." 
 
 "Yes, when she is with him; but that is not always. 
 There are compensations." 
 
 "If you mean scandal, I will not hear a word. She 
 is adorable. The most sympathetic person I know — 
 good even to her enemies — who are legion." 
 
 "You had better not say that, for I doubt she has 
 only one kind of enemy." 
 
 "As how?" 
 
284 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "The admirers she has encouraged and disappointed. 
 Yes, she is adorable, wofully thin, and, I fear, con- 
 sumptive, but royal: and adorable, 'douceur et lumiere/ 
 as Bossuet calls her. But to return to my ghost-party." 
 
 "If you were wise, you would abandon the notion. 
 I doubt that in spite of your powders your friends will 
 never believe in a ghost." 
 
 "Oh yes, they will. It shall be my business to get 
 them in the proper temper." 
 
 That idea of figuring in a picturesque habit, and in 
 a halo of churchyard light, was irresistible. Hyacinth 
 promised to conform to Malfort's plans, and to be ready 
 to assume her phantom role whenever she was called 
 upon. 
 
 Angela knew something of the scheme, and that 
 there was to be another assembly at Millbank; but her 
 sister had seemed disinclined to talk of the plan in her 
 presence — a curious reticence in one whose sentiments 
 and caprices were usually given to the world at large 
 with perfect freedom. For once in her life Hyacinth 
 had a secret air, and checked herself suddenly in the 
 midst of her light babble at a look from De Malfort, 
 who had urged her to keep her sister out of their mid- 
 night party. 
 
 "I pledge my honour that there shall be nothing to 
 offend," he told her, "but I hope to have the wittiest 
 coxcombs in London, and we want no prudes to strangle 
 every jest with a long-drawn lip and an alarmed eye. 
 Your sister has a pale, fragile prettiness which pleases 
 an eye satiated with the exuberant charms of your 
 Rubens and Titian women; but she is not handsome 
 enough to give herself airs; and she is a little inclined 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 285 
 
 that way. By the faith of a gentleman, I have suffered 
 scowls from her that I would scarce have endured from 
 Barbara!" 
 
 "Barbara! You are vastly free with her ladyship's 
 name." 
 
 "Not freer than she has ever been with her friend- 
 ship." 
 
 "Henri, if I thought " 
 
 "What, dearest?" 
 
 "That you had ever cared for that — wanton " 
 
 "Could you think it, when you know my life in 
 England has been one long tragedy of loving in vain — 
 of sighing only to be denied — of secret tears — and public 
 submission." 
 
 "Do not talk so," she exclaimed, starting up from 
 her low tabouret, and moving hastily to the open win- 
 dow, to fresh air and sunshine, rippling river and blue 
 sky, escaping from an atmosphere that had become 
 feverish. 
 
 "De Malfort, you know I must not listen to foolish 
 raptures." 
 
 "I know you have been refusing to hear for the last 
 two years." 
 
 They were on the terrace now, she leaning on the 
 broad marble balustrade, he standing beside her, and 
 all the traffic of London moving with the tide below 
 them. 
 
 "To return to our party," she said, in a lighter tone, 
 for that spurt of jealousy had betrayed her into serious- 
 ness. "It will be very awkward not to invite my sister 
 to go with me." 
 
 "If you did she would refuse, belike, for she is 
 
286 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 under Fareham's thumb; and he disapproves of every- 
 thing human." 
 
 "Under Fareham's thumb! What nonsense! Indeed 
 I must invite her. She would think it so strange to be 
 omitted." 
 
 "Not if you manage things cleverly. The party is 
 to be a surprise. You can tell her next morning you 
 knew nothing about it beforehand." 
 
 "But she will hear me order the barge — or will see 
 me start." 
 
 "There will be no barge. I shall carry you to Mill- 
 bank in my coach, after your evening's entertainment, 
 wherever that may be." 
 
 "I had better take my own carriage at least, or my 
 chair." 
 
 "You can have a chair, if you are too prudish to 
 use my coach, but it shall be got for you at the mo- 
 ment. We won't have your own chairman and links to 
 chatter and betray you before you have played the 
 ghost. Remember you come to my party not as a guest, 
 but as a performer. If they ask why Lady Fareham 
 is absent I shall say you refused to take part in our 
 foolery." 
 
 "Oh, you must invent some better excuse. They 
 will never believe anything rational of me. Say I was 
 disappointed of a hat or a mantua. Well, it shall be as 
 you wish. Angela is apt to be tiresome. I hate a dis- 
 approving carriage, especially in a younger sister." 
 
 Angela was puzzled by Hyacinth's demeanour. A 
 want of frankness in one so frank by nature aroused her 
 fears. She was puzzled and anxious, and longed for 
 
FALCON AND DOVE. 287 
 
 Fareham's return, lest his giddy-pated wife should be 
 guilty of some innocent indiscretion that might vex him. 
 "Oh! if she but valued him at his just worth she 
 would value his opinion second only to the approval of 
 conscience," she thought, sadly, ever regretful of her 
 sister's too obvious indifference towards so kind a hus- 
 band. 
 
 end of vol. r. 
 
PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER, 
 
LONDON PRIDE 
 
 OR 
 
 WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER 
 
 BY 
 
 M. E. BRADDON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," "ISHMAEL," ETC. 
 
 COPYRIGHT EDITION. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. II. 
 
 LEIPZIG 
 BERNHARD TAUCIINITZ, 
 
CONTENTS 
 OF VOLUME II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. Page 
 
 Which was the fiercer Fire? 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Motive — Murder 32 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Revelations .• 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Dido 69 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Philaster 91 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Good-bye, London no. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 At the Manor Moat 129 
 
6 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. p age 
 
 Patient, not passionate .141 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 "Quite out of Fashion" 196 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 High Stakes 223 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 In the Court of King's Bench 249 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Bringers of Sunshine . 269 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 In a dead Calm 28 S 
 
LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 
 
 It was Saturday, the first of September, and the 
 hot dry weather having continued with but trifling 
 changes throughout the month, the atmosphere was at 
 its sultriest, and the burnt grass in the parks looked as 
 if even the dews of morning and evening had ceased to 
 moisten it, while the arid and dusty foliage gave no 
 feeling of coolness, and the very shadows cast upon that 
 parched ground seemed hot. Morning was sultry as 
 noon; evening brought but little refreshment; while the 
 night was hotter than the day. People complained that 
 the season was even more sickly than in the plague 
 year, and prophesied a new and worse outbreak of the 
 pestilence. Was not this the fatal year about which 
 there had been darkest prophecies? 1666! Something 
 awful, something tragical was to make this triplicate of 
 sixes for ever memorable. Sixty-five had been terrible, 
 sixty-six was to bring a greater horror; doubtless a 
 recrudescence of that dire malady which had desolated 
 London. 
 
8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "And this time," says one modish raven, "'twill be 
 the quality that will suffer. The lower 'classis' has paid 
 its penalty, and only the strong and hardy are left. We 
 have plenty of weaklings and corrupt constitutions that 
 will take fire at a spark. I should not wonder were the 
 contagion to rage worst at Whitehall. The buildings 
 lie low, and there is ever a nucleus of fever somewhere 
 in that conglomeration of slaughter-houses, bakeries, 
 kitchens, stables, cider-houses, coal-yards, and over- 
 crowded servants's lodgings." 
 
 "One gets but casual whiffs from their private 
 butcheries and bakeries," says another. "What I com- 
 plain of is the atmosphere of his Majesty's apartments, 
 where one can scarce breathe for the stench of those 
 cursed spaniels he so delights in." 
 
 Everyone agreed that the long dry summer menaced 
 some catastrophic change which should surprise this 
 easy-going age as the plague had done last year. But 
 oh, how lightly that widespread calamity had touched 
 those light minds! and, if Providence had designed to 
 warn or to punish, how vain had been the warning, and 
 how soon forgotten the penalty that had left the worst 
 offenders unstricken! 
 
 There was to be a play at Whitehall that evening, 
 his Majesty and the Court having returned from Tun- 
 bridge Wells, the business of the navy calling Charles 
 to council with his faithful General — the General par 
 excellence, George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and his 
 Lord High Admiral and brother — par excellence the 
 Duke. Even in briefest residence, and on sternest busi- 
 ness intent, with the welfare and honour of the nation 
 contingent on their consultations, to build or not to build 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 9 
 
 warships of the first magnitude, the ball of pleasure 
 must be kept rolling. So Killigrew was to produce a 
 new version of an old comedy, written in the forties, 
 but now polished up to the modern style of wit. This 
 new-old play, The Parson's Widow , was said to be all 
 froth and sparkle and current interest, fresh as the last 
 London Gazette, and spiced with allusions to the late 
 sickness, an admirable subject, and allowing a wide field 
 for the ridiculous. 
 
 Hyacinth was to be present at this Court function; 
 but not a word was to be said to Angela about the 
 entertainment. 
 
 "She would only preach me a sermon upon Fare- 
 ham's tastes and wishes, and urge me to stay away be- 
 cause he abhors a fashionable comedy," she told De 
 Malfort. "I shall say I am going to Lady Sarah's to 
 play basset. Ange hates cards, and will not desire to 
 go with me. She is always happy with the children, 
 who adore her." 
 
 " Fante de mieux." 
 
 "You are so ready to jeer! Yes, I know I am a 
 neglectful mother. But what would you have?" 
 
 "I would have you as you are," he answered, "and 
 only as you are; or for choice a trifle worse than you 
 are; and so much nearer my own level." 
 
 "Oh, I know you! It is the wicked women you 
 admire — like Madame Palmer." 
 
 "Always harping upon Barbara. 'My mother had a 
 maid called Barbara.' His Majesty has — a lady of the 
 same melodious name. Well, I have a world of engage- 
 ments between now and nine o'clock, when the play 
 begins. I shall be at the door to lift you out of your 
 
IO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 chair. Cover yourself with your richest jewels — or at 
 least those you love best — so that you may blaze like 
 the sun when you cast off the nun's habit. All the 
 town will be there to admire you." 
 
 "All the town! Why, there is no one in London!" 
 "Indeed, you mistake. Travelling is so easy nowa- 
 days. People tear to and fro between Tunbridge and 
 St. James's as often as they once circulated betwixt 
 London and Chelsea. Were it not for the highwaymen 
 we should be always on the road." 
 
 Angela and her niece were on the terrace in the 
 evening coolness. The atmosphere was less oppressive 
 here by the flowing tide than anywhere else in London; 
 but even here there was a heaviness in the night air, 
 and Henriette sprawled her long thin legs wearily on 
 the cushioned bench where she lay, and vowed that it 
 would be sheer folly for Priscilla to insist upon her going 
 to bed at her usual hour of nine, when everybody knew 
 she could not sleep. 
 
 "I scarce closed my eyes last night," she protested, 
 "and I had half a mind to put on a petticoat and come 
 down to the terrace. I could have come through the 
 yellow drawing-room, where the men usually forget to 
 close the shutters. And I should have brought my 
 theorbo and serenaded you. Should you have taken me 
 for a fairy, chere, if you had heard me singing?" 
 
 "I should have taken you for a very silly little 
 person who wanted to frighten her friends by catching 
 an inflammation of the lungs." 
 
 "Well, you see, I thought better of it, though it 
 would have been impossible to catch cold on such a 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? I I 
 
 stifling night. I heard every clock strike in Westminster 
 and London. It was light at five, yet the night seemed 
 endless. I would have welcomed even a mouse behind 
 the wainscot. Priscilla is an odious tyrant," making a 
 face at the easy-tempered gouvernante sitting by; "she 
 won't let me have my dogs in my room at night." 
 
 "Your ladyship knows that dogs in a bedchamber 
 are unwholesome," said Priscilla. 
 
 "No, you foolish old thing; my ladyship knows the 
 contrary; for his Majesty's bedchamber swarms with 
 them, and he has them on his bed even — whole families 
 — mothers and their puppies. Why can't I have a few 
 dear little mischievous innocents to amuse me in the 
 long dreary nights?" 
 
 By dint of clamour and expostulation the honourable 
 Henriette contrived to stay up till ten o'clock was belled 
 with solemn tone from St. Paul's Cathedral, which 
 magnificent church was speedily to be put in hand for 
 restoration, at a great expenditure. The wooden 
 scaffolding which had been necessary for a careful 
 examination of the building was still up. Until the 
 striking of the great city clock, Papillon had resolutely 
 disputed the lateness of the hour, putting forward her 
 own timekeeper as infallible — a little fat round purple 
 enamel watch with diamond figures, and gold hands 
 much bent from being pushed backwards and forwards, 
 to bring recorded time into unison with the young lady's 
 desires — a watch to which no sensible person could give 
 the slightest credit. The clocks of London having 
 demonstrated the futility of any reference to that ill- 
 used Geneva toy, she consented to retire, but was re- 
 luctant to the last. 
 
12 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "I am going to bed," she told her aunt, "because 
 this absurd old Prissy insists upon it, but I don't expect 
 a quarter of an hour's sleep between now and morning; 
 and most of the time I shall be looking out of the 
 window, watching for the turn of the tide, to see the 
 barges and boats swinging round." 
 
 "You will do nothing of the kind, Mrs. Henriette; 
 for I shall sit in your room till you are sound asleep," 
 said Priscilla. 
 
 "Then you will have to sit there all night; and I 
 shall have somebody to talk to." 
 
 "I shall not allow you to talk." 
 
 "Will you gag me, or put a pillow over my face, 
 like the Blackamoor in the play?" 
 
 The minx and her governess retired, still disputing, 
 after Angela had been desperately hugged by Henriette, 
 who brimmed over with warmest affection in the midst 
 of her insolence. They were gone, their voices sound- 
 ing in the stillness on the terrace, and then on the stair- 
 case, and through the great empty rooms, where the 
 windows were open to the sultry night, while the host 
 of idle servants caroused in the basement, in a spacious 
 room with a vaulted roof, like a college hall, where they 
 were free to be as noisy or as drunken as they pleased. 
 My lady was out, had taken only her chair, and running 
 footmen, and had sent chairmen and footmen back from 
 Whitehall, with an intimation that they would be wanted 
 no more that night. 
 
 Angela lingered on the terrace in the sultry summer 
 gloom, watching solitary boats moving to and fro, shadowy 
 as Charon's. She dreaded the stillness of silent rooms, 
 and to be alone with her own thoughts, which were not 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? I 3 
 
 of the happiest. Her sister's relations with De Malfort 
 troubled her, innocent as they doubtless were: innocent 
 as that close friendship of Henrietta of England with her 
 cousin of France, when they two spent the fair mid- 
 summer nights roaming in palace gardens, close as 
 lovers, but only fast friends. Malicious tongues had 
 babbled even of that innocent friendship; and there were 
 those who said that if Monsieur behaved like a brute 
 to his lovely young wife, it was because he had good 
 reason for jealousy of Louis in the past, as well as of 
 De Guiche in the present. These innocent friendships 
 are ever the cause of uneasiness to the lookers-on. It 
 is like seeing children at play on the edge of a cliff. 
 They are too near danger and destruction. 
 
 Hyacinth, being about as able to carry a secret as 
 to carry an elephant, had betrayed by a hundred indica- 
 tions that a plot of some kind was being hatched be- 
 tween her and De Malfort. And to-night, before going 
 out, she had made too much fuss about so simple a 
 matter as a basset-party at Lady Sarah's, who had her 
 basset-table every night, and was popularly supposed to 
 keep house upon her winnings, and to have no higher 
 code of honour than De Gramont had when he invited 
 a brother officer to supper on purpose to rook him. 
 
 Mr. Killigrew's comedy had been discussed in Angela's 
 hearing. People who had been deprived of the theatre 
 for over a year were greedy and eager spectators of all 
 the plays produced at Court; but this production was an 
 exceptional event. Killigrew's wit and impudence and 
 impecuniosity were the talk of the town, and anything 
 written by that audacious jester was sure to be worth 
 hearing. 
 
14 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Had her sister gone to Whitehall to see the new 
 comedy, in direct disobedience to her husband, instead 
 of to so accustomed an entertainment as Lady Sarah's 
 basset-table? And was that the only mystery between 
 Hyacinth and De Malfort? Or was there something 
 else — some ghost-party, such as they had planned and 
 talked about openly till a fortnight ago, and had 
 suddenly dropped altogether, as if the notion were 
 abandoned and forgotten? It was so unlike Hyacinth 
 to be secret about anything; and her sister feared, 
 therefore, that there was some plot of De Malfort's con- 
 triving — De Malfort, whom she regarded with distrust 
 and even repugnance; for she could recall no sentiment 
 of his that did not make for evil. Beneath that gossamer 
 veil of airy language which he flung over vicious theories, 
 the conscienceless, unrelenting character of the man had 
 been discovered by those clear eyes of the meditative 
 onlooker. Alas! what a man to be her sister's closest 
 friend, claiming privileges by long association, which 
 Hyacinth would have been the last to grant her dissolute 
 admirers of yesterday, but which were only the more 
 perilous for those memories of childhood that justified a 
 so dangerous friendship. 
 
 She was startled from these painful reflections by the 
 clatter of horses' hoofs on the paved courtyard east of 
 the house, and the jingle of sword-belt and bit, sounds 
 instantly followed by the ringing of the bell at the 
 principal door. 
 
 Was it her sister coming home so early? No, Lady 
 Fareham had gone out in her chair. Was it his lordship 
 returning unannounced? He had stated no time for his 
 return, telling his wife only that, on his business in Paris 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? I 5 
 
 being finished, he would come back without delay. 
 Indeed, Hyacinth had debated the chances of his arrival 
 this very evening with half a dozen of her particular 
 friends, who knew that she was going to see Mr. 
 Killigrew's play. 
 
 "Fate cannot be so perverse as to bring him back 
 on the only night when his return would be trouble- 
 some," she said. 
 
 "Fate is always perverse, and a husband is very 
 lucky if there is but one day out of seven on which his 
 return would be troublesome," answered one of her 
 gossips. 
 
 Fate had been perverse, for Angela heard her 
 brother-in-law's deep strong voice talking in the hall, 
 and presently he came down the marble steps to the 
 terrace, and came towards her, white with Kentish dust, 
 and carrying an open letter in his hand. She had risen 
 at the sound of the bell, and was hurrying to the house 
 as he met her. He came close up to her, scarcely 
 according her the civility of greeting. Never had she 
 seen his countenance more gloomy. 
 
 "You can tell me truer than those drunken devils 
 below stairs," he said. "Where is your sister?" 
 
 "At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury's." 
 
 "So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom 
 I found asleep in the hall, say they set her down at the 
 palace." 
 
 "At Whitehall?" 
 
 "Yes, at Whitehall. There is a modish performance 
 there to-night, I hear; but I doubt it is over, for the 
 Strand was crowded with hackney coaches moving east- 
 ward. I passed a pair of handsome eyes in a gilded 
 
I 6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 chair, that flashed fury at me as I rode by, which I'll 
 swear were Mrs. Palmer's; and, waiting for me in the 
 hall, I found this letter, that had just been handed in 
 by a link, who doubtless belonged to the same lady. 
 Read, Angela; the contents are scarce long enough to 
 weary you." 
 
 She took the letter from him with a hand that trembled 
 so that she could hardly hold the sheet of paper. 
 
 "Watch! There is an intrigue afoot this night; and 
 you must be a greater dullard than I think you if you 
 cannot unmask a deceitful " 
 
 The final word was one which modern manners 
 forbid in speech or printed page. Angela's pallid cheek 
 flushed crimson at the sight of the vile epithet. Oh, 
 insane lightness of conduct which made such an insult 
 possible ! Standing there, confronting the angry husband, 
 with that detestable paper in her hand, she felt a pang 
 of compunction at the thought that she might have been 
 more strenuous in her arguments with her sister, more 
 earnest and constant in reproof. When the peace and 
 good repute of two lives were at stake, was it for her 
 to consider any question of older or younger, or to be 
 restrained by the fear of offending a sister who had been 
 so generous and indulgent to her? 
 
 Fareham saw her distress, and looked at her with 
 angry suspicion. 
 
 Come," he said, "I scarce expected a lying answer 
 from you; and yet you join with servants to deceive me. 
 You know your sister is not at Lady Sarah's." 
 
 "I know nothing, except that, wherever she is, I will 
 vouch that she is innocently employed, and has done 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? I 7 
 
 nothing to deserve that infamous aspersion," giving him 
 back the letter. 
 
 "Innocently employed! You carry matters with a 
 high hand. Innocently employed, in a company of she- 
 profligates, listening to Killigrew's ribald jokes — Killi- 
 grew, the profanest of them all, who can turn the 
 greatest calamity this city ever suffered to horseplay 
 and jeering. Innocently employed, in direct disobe- 
 dience to her husband! So innocently employed that 
 she makes her servants — and her sister — tell lies to 
 cover her innocence!" 
 
 "Hector as much as you please, I have told your 
 lordship no lies; and, with your permission, I will leave 
 you to recover your temper before my sister's return, 
 which I doubt will happen within the next hour." 
 
 She moved quickly past him towards the house. 
 
 "Angela, forgive me " he began, trying to detain 
 
 her; but she hurried on through the open French 
 window, and ran upstairs to her room, where she locked 
 herself in. 
 
 For some minutes she walked up and down, pro- 
 foundly agitated, thinking out the position of affairs. To 
 Fareham she had carried matters with a high hand, but 
 she was full of fear. The play was over, and her 
 sister, who doubtless had been among the audience, 
 had not come home. Was she staying at the palace, 
 gossiping with the maids-of-honour, shining among that 
 brilliant, unscrupulous crowd, where intrigue was in the 
 very air, where no woman was credited with virtue, and 
 every man was remorseless? 
 
 The anonymous letter scarcely influenced Angela's 
 thoughts in these agitated moments — that was but a foul 
 
 London Pride. II. 2 
 
I 8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 assault on character by a foul-minded woman. But the 
 furtive confabulations of the past week must have had 
 some motive; and her sister's fluttered manner before 
 leaving the house had marked this night as the crisis of 
 the plot. 
 
 Angela could imagine nothing but that ghostly mas- 
 querading which had, in the first place, been discussed 
 freely in her presence; and she could but wonder that 
 De Malfort and her sister should have made a mystery 
 about a plan which she had known in its inception. 
 The more deeply she considered all the circumstances, 
 the more she inclined to suspect some evil intention on 
 De Malfort's part, of which Hyacinth, so frank, so shallow, 
 might be too easy a dupe. 
 
 "I do little good doubting and suspecting and 
 wondering here," she said to herself; and after hastily 
 lighting the candles on her toilet-table, she began to 
 unlace the bodice of her light-coloured silk mantua, and 
 in a few minutes had changed her elegant evening attire 
 for a dark cloth gown, short in the skirt, and loose in 
 the sleeves, which had been made for her to wear upon 
 the river. In this costume she could handle a pair of 
 sculls as freely as a waterman. 
 
 When she had put on a little black silk hood, she 
 extinguished her candles, pulled aside the curtain which 
 obscured the open window, and looked out on the ter- 
 race. There was just light enough to show her that the 
 coast was clear. The iron gate at the top of the water- 
 stairs was seldom locked, nor were the boat-houses often 
 shut, as boats were being taken in and out at all hours, 
 and, for the rest, neglect and carelessness might always 
 be reckoned upon in the Fareham household. 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? I g 
 
 She ran lightly down a side staircase, and so by an 
 obscure door to the river-front. No, the gate was not 
 locked, and there was not a creature within sight to 
 observe or impede her movements. She went down the 
 steps to the paved quay below the garden terrace. The 
 house where the wherries were kept was wide open, 
 and, better still, there was a skiff moored by the side 
 of the steps, as if waiting for her; and she had but to 
 take a pair of sculls from the rack and step into the 
 boat, unmoor and away westward, with swiftly dipping 
 oars, in the soft summer silence, broken now and then 
 by sounds of singing — a tipsy, unmelodious strain, per- 
 haps, were it heard too near, but musical in the distance 
 — as the rise and fall of voices crept along a reach of 
 running water. 
 
 The night was hot and oppressive, even on the river. 
 But it was better here than anywhere else; and Angela 
 breathed more freely as she bent over her sculls, rowing 
 with all her might, intent upon reaching that landing- 
 stage she knew of in the very shortest possible time. 
 The boat was heavy, but she had the incoming tide to 
 help her. 
 
 Was Fareham hunting for his wife, she wondered? 
 Would he go to Lady Sarah's lodgings, in the first place; 
 and, not finding Hyacinth there, to Whitehall? And 
 then, would he remember the assembly at Millbank, in 
 which he had taken no part, and apparently no interest? 
 And would he extend his search' to the ruined abbey? 
 At the worst, Angela would be there before him, to pre- 
 pare her sister for the angry suspicions which she would 
 have to meet. He was not likely to think of that place 
 till he had exhausted all other chances. 
 
20 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 It was not much more than a mile from Fareham 
 House to that desolate bit of country betwixt West- 
 minster and Chelsea, where the modern dairy-farm 
 occupied the old monkish pastures. As Angela ran her 
 boat inshore, she expected to see Venetian lanterns, and 
 to hear music and voices, and all the indications of a 
 gay assembly; but there were only silence and darkness, 
 save for one lighted window in the dairyman's dwelling- 
 house, and she thought that she had come upon a futile 
 errand, and had been mistaken in her conjectures. 
 
 She moored her boat to the wooden landing-stage, 
 and went on shore to examine the premises. The 
 revelry might be designed for a later* hour, though it 
 was now near midnight, and Lady Sarah's party had 
 assembled at eleven. She walked across a meadow, 
 where the dewy grass was cool under her feet, and so 
 to the open space in front of the dairyman's house — a 
 shabby building attached like a wen to the ruined re- 
 fectory. 
 
 She started at hearing the snort of a horse, and the 
 jingling of bit and curb-chain, and came suddenly upon 
 a coach-and-four, with a couple of post-boys standing 
 beside their team. 
 
 "Whose coach is this?" she asked. 
 
 "Mr. Malfy's, your ladyship." 
 
 "The French gentleman from St. James's Street, my 
 lady," explained the other man. 
 
 "Did you bring Monsieur de Malfort here?" 
 
 "No, madam. We was told to be here at eleven, 
 with horses as fresh as fire; and the poor tits be mighty 
 impatient to be moving. Steady, Champion! You'll 
 have work enough this side Dartford," — to the near 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 2 1 
 
 leader, who was shaking his head vehemently, and paw- 
 ing the gravel. 
 
 Angela waited to ask no further questions, but made 
 straight for the unglazed window, through which Mr. 
 Spavinger and his companions had entered. 
 
 There was no light in the great vaulted room, save 
 the faint light of summer stars, and two figures were 
 there in the dimness — a woman standing straight and 
 tall in a satin gown, whose pale sheen reflected the star- 
 light; a woman whose right arm was flung above her 
 head, bare and white, her hand clasping her brow dis- 
 tractedly; and a man, who knelt at her feet, grasping the 
 hand that hung at her side, looking up at her, and talk- 
 ing eagerly, with passionate gestures. 
 
 Her voice was clearer than his; and Angela heard 
 her repeating with a piteous shrillness, "No, no, no! 
 No, Henri, no!" 
 
 She stayed to hear no more, but sprang through the 
 opening between the broken mullions, and rushed to her 
 sister's side; and as De Malfort started to his feet, she 
 thrust him vehemently aside, and clasped Hyacinth in 
 her arms. 
 
 "You here, Mistress Kill-joy?" he muttered, in a 
 surly tone. "May I ask what business brought you? 
 For I'll swear you wasn't invited." 
 
 "I have come to save my sister from a villain, sir. 
 But oh, my sweet, I little dreamt thou hadst such need 
 of me!" 
 
 "Nay, love, thou didst ever make tragedies out of 
 nothing," said Hyacinth, struggling to disguise hysterical 
 tears with airy laughter. "But I am right glad all the 
 same that you are come; for this gentleman has put a 
 
22 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 scurvy trick upon me, and brought me here on pretence 
 of a gay assembly that has no existence." 
 
 "He is a villain and a traitor," said Angela, in deep, 
 indignant tones. "Dear love, thou hast been in danger 
 I dare scarce think of. Fareham is searching for you." 
 
 "Fareham! In London?" 
 
 "Returned an hour ago. Hark!" 
 
 She lifted her finger warningly as a bell rang, and 
 the well-known voice sounded outside the house, calling 
 to someone to open the door. 
 
 "He is here!" cried Hyacinth, distractedly. "For 
 God's sake, hide me from him! Not for worlds — not 
 for worlds would I meet him!" 
 
 "Nay, you have nothing to fear. It is Monsieur de 
 Malfort who has to answer for what he has done." 
 
 "Henri, he will kill you! Alas, you know not what 
 he is in anger! I have seen him, once in Paris, when 
 he thought a man was insolent to me. God ! the thunder 
 of his voice, the blackness of his brow! He will kill 
 you ! Oh, if you love me — if you ever loved me — come 
 out of his way! He is fatal with his sword!" 
 
 "And am I such a tyro at fence, or such a poltroon 
 as to be afraid to meet him? No, Hyacinth, I go with 
 you to Dover, or I stand my ground and face him." 
 
 "You shall not!" sobbed Hyacinth. "I will not 
 have your blood on my head! Come, come — by the 
 garden — by the river!" 
 
 She dragged him towards the window; he pretending 
 to resist, as Angela thought, yet letting himself be led 
 as she pleased to lead him. They had but just crossed 
 the yawning gap between the mullions and vanished into 
 the night, when Fareham burst into the room with his 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 2$ 
 
 sword drawn, and came towards Angela, who stood in 
 shadow, her face half hidden in her close-fitting hood. 
 
 "So, madam, I have found you at last," he said; 
 "and in time to stop your journey, though not to save 
 myself the dishonour of a wanton wife! But it is your 
 paramour I am looking for, not you. Where is that 
 craven hiding?" 
 
 He went back to the inhabited part of the house, 
 and returned after a hasty examination of the premises, 
 carrying the lamp which had lighted his search, only to 
 find the same solitary figure in the vast bare room. 
 Angela had moved nearer the window, and had sunk 
 exhausted upon a large carved oak chair, which might 
 be a relic of the monkish occupation. Fareham came 
 to her with the lamp in his hand. 
 
 "He has given me a clean pair of heels," he said; 
 "but I know where to find him. It is but a pleasure 
 postponed. And now, woman, you had best return to 
 the house your folly, or your sin, has disgraced. For 
 to-night, at least, it must needs shelter you. Come!" 
 
 The hooded figure rose at his bidding, and he saw 
 the face in the lamplight. 
 
 "You!" he gasped. "You!" 
 
 "Yes, Fareham, it is I. Cannot you take a kind 
 view of a foolish business, and believe there has been 
 I only folly and no dishonour in the purpose that brought 
 me here?" 
 
 "You!" he repeated. "You!" 
 
 His bearing was that of a man who staggers under 
 a crushing blow, a stroke so unexpected that he can 
 but wonder and suffer. He set down the lamp with a 
 shaking hand, then took two or three hurried turns up 
 
24 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and down the room; then stopped abruptly by the lamp, 
 snatched the anonymous letter from his breast, and read 
 the lines over again. 
 
 " 'An intrigue on foot ' No name. And I took 
 
 it for granted my wife was meant. I looked for folly 
 from her; but wisdom, honour, purity, all the virtues 
 from you. Oh, what was the use of my fortitude, what 
 the motive of self-conquest here," striking himself upon 
 the breast, "if you were unchaste? Angela, you have 
 broken my heart." 
 
 There was a long pause before she answered, and 
 her face was turned from him to hide her streaming 
 tears. At last she was able to reply calmly — 
 
 "Indeed, Fareham, you do wrong to take this matter 
 so passionately. You may trust my sister and me. On 
 my honour, you have no cause to be angry with either 
 of us." 
 
 "And when I gave you this letter to read," he went 
 on, disregarding her protestations, "you knew that you 
 were coming here to meet a lover. You hurried away 
 from me, dissembler as you were, to steal to this lonely 
 place at midnight, to fling yourself into his arms. Tell 
 me where he is hiding, that I may kill him; now, while 
 I pant for vengeance. Such rage as mine cannot wait 
 for idle forms. Now, now, now, is the time to reckon 
 with your seducer!" 
 
 "Fareham, you cover me with insults!" 
 
 He had rushed to the door, still carrying his naked 
 sword; but he turned back as she spoke, and stood 
 looking at her from head to foot with a savage scorn- 
 fulness. 
 
 "Insult!" he cried. "You have sunk too low for 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 25 
 
 insult. There are no words that I know vile enough to 
 stigmatise such disgrace as yours! Do you know what 
 you have been to me, Angela? A saint — a star; in- 
 effably pure, ineffably remote; a creature to worship at 
 a distance; for whose sake it was scarce a sacrifice to 
 repress all that is common to the base heart of man; 
 from whom a kind word was enough for happiness — so 
 pure, so far away, so detached from this vile age we 
 live in. God, how that saintly face has cheated me! 
 Mock saint, mock nun; a creature of passions like my 
 own but more stealthy; from top to toe an incarnate lie!" 
 
 He flung out of the room, and she heard his foot- 
 steps about the house, and heard doors opened and 
 shut. She waited for no more; but, being sure by this 
 time that her sister had left the premises, her own de- 
 sire was to return to Fareham House as soon as pos- 
 sible, counting upon finding Hyacinth there; yet with a 
 sick fear that the seducer might take base advantage 
 of her sister's terror and confused spirits, and hustle 
 her off upon the fatal journey he had planned. 
 
 The boat lay where she had moored it, at the foot 
 of the wooden stair, and she was stepping into it when 
 Fareham ran hastily to the bank. 
 
 "Your paramour has got clear off," he said; and 
 then asked curtly, "How came you by that boat?" 
 
 "I brought it from Fareham House." 
 
 "What! you came here alone by water at so late 
 an hour! You heaven-born adventuress! Other women 
 need education in vice; but to you it comes by nature.' , 
 
 He pulled off his doublet as he stepped into the 
 boat; then seated himself and took the sculls. 
 
26 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Has your lordship not left a horse waiting for 
 you?" Angela inquired hesitatingly. 
 
 "My lordship's horse will find his stables before 
 morning with the groom that has him in charge. I am 
 going to row you home. Love expectant is bold; but 
 disappointed love may lack courage for a solitary jaunt 
 after midnight. Come, mistress, let us have no cere- 
 mony. We have done with that for ever — as we have 
 done with friendship. There are thousands of women 
 in England, all much of a pattern; and you are one of 
 them. That is the end of our romance." 
 
 He bent to his work, and rowed with a steady 
 stroke and in a stubborn silence, which lasted till it 
 was more strangely broken than such angry silence is 
 apt to be. 
 
 The tide was still running up, and it was as much 
 as the single oarsman could do, in that heavy boat, to 
 hold his own against the stream. 
 
 Angela sat watching him, with her gaze rooted to 
 that dark countenance and bare head, on which the 
 iron-grey hair waved thick and strong, for Fareham had 
 never consented to envelop his neck and shoulders in a 
 mantle of dead men's tresses, and wore his own hair 
 after the fashion of Charles the First's time. So intent 
 was her watch, that the objects on either shore passed 
 her like shadows in a dream. The Primate's palace on 
 her right hand, as the boat swept round that great 
 bend which the river makes opposite Lambeth Marsh; 
 on her left, as they neared London, the stern grandeur 
 of the Abbey and St. Margaret's. It was only as they 
 approached Whitehall that she became aware of a light 
 upon the water which was not the reflection of day- 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 27 
 
 break, and, looking suddenly up, she saw the fierce 
 glare of a conflagration in the eastern sky, and 
 cried — 
 
 "There is a fire, my lord! — a great fire, I doubt, in 
 the city." 
 
 The long roof and massive tower of St. Paul's stood 
 dark against the vivid splendour of that sky, and every 
 timber in the scaffolding showed like a black lattice 
 across the crimson and sulphur of raging flames. 
 
 Fareham looked round, without moving his sculls 
 from the rowlocks. 
 
 "A great fire in verity, mistress! Would God it 
 meant the fulfilment of prophecy!" 
 
 "What prophecy, sir?" 
 
 "The end of the world, with which we are threatened 
 in this year. God, how the flames rage and mount! 
 Would it were the great fire, and He had come to 
 judge us, and to empty the vials of His wrath upon 
 profligates and seducers!" 
 
 He looked at the face opposite, radiant with reflected 
 rose and gold, supernal in that strange light, and, oh, 
 so calm in every line and feature, the large dark eyes 
 meeting his with a gaze that seemed to him half in- 
 dignant, half reproachful. 
 
 "Oh, what hypocrites these women are!" he told 
 himself. "And all alike — all alike. What comedians! 
 For acting one need not go to the Duke's or the King's. 
 One may see it at one's own board, by one's own 
 hearth. Acting, nothing but acting! And I thought 
 that in the universal mass of falsehood and folly there 
 were some rare stars, dwelling apart here and there, and 
 that she was one of them. An idle dream! Nature has 
 
28 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 made them all in one mould, and it is but by means 
 and opportunity that they differ." 
 
 Higher and higher rose that vast sheet of vivid 
 colour; and now every tower and steeple was bathed in 
 rosy light, or else stood black against the radiant sky — 
 towers illuminated, towers in densest shadow; the slim 
 spars of ships showing as if drawn with pen and ink 
 on a sulphur background — a scene of surpassing 
 splendour and terror. Fareham had seen Flemish 
 villages blazing, Flemish citadels exploding, their frag- 
 ments hurled skyward in a blue flame of gunpowder; 
 but never this vast arch of crimson, glowing and grow- 
 ing before Ins astonished gaze, as he paddled the boat 
 inshore, and stood up to watch the great disaster. 
 
 "God has remembered the new Sodom," he said 
 savagely. "He punished us with pestilence, and we 
 took no heed. And now He tries us with fire. But 
 if it come not yonder," pointing to Whitehall, which was 
 immediately above them, for their boat lay close to the 
 King's landing-stage — "if, like the contagion, it stays 
 in the east and only the citizens suffer, why, vive la 
 bagatelle! We — and our concubines — have no part in 
 the punishment. We, who call down the fire, do not 
 suffer it." 
 
 Spellbound by that strange spectacle, Fareham stood 
 and gazed, and Angela was afraid to urge him to take 
 the boat on to Fareham House, anxious as she was to 
 span those few hundred yards of distance, to be assured 
 of her sister's safety. 
 
 They waited thus nearly an hour, the sky ever in- 
 creasing in brilliancy, and the sounds of voices and 
 tramp of hurrying feet growing with every minute. 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 2 0, 
 
 Whitehall was now all alive — men and women, in a 
 careless undress, at every window, some of them hang- 
 ing half out of the window to talk to people in the court 
 below. Shrieks of terror or of wonder, ejaculations, and 
 oaths sounding on every side; while Fareham, who had 
 moored the boat to an iron ring in the wall by his 
 Majesty's stairs, stood gloomy and motionless, and made 
 no further comment, only watched the conflagration in 
 dismal silence, fascinated by that prodigious ruin. 
 
 It was but the beginning of that stupendous destruc- 
 tion, yet it was already great enough to seem like the 
 end of all things. 
 
 "And last night, in the Court theatre, Killigrew's 
 players were making a jest of a pestilence that filled the 
 grave-pits by thousands," Fareham muttered, as if awak- 
 ing from a dream. "Well, the wits will have a new 
 subject for their mirth — London in flames." 
 
 He untied the rope, took his seat and rowed out 
 into the stream. Within that hour in which they had 
 waited, the Thames had covered itself with traffic; boats 
 were moving westward, loaded with frightened souls in 
 casual attire, and with heaps of humble goods and 
 chattels. Some whose houses were nearest the river 
 had been quick enough to save a portion of their poor 
 possessions, and to get them packed on barges; but 
 these were the wise minority. The greater number of 
 the sufferers were stupefied by the suddenness of the 
 calamity, the rapidity with which destruction rushed 
 upon them, the flames leaping from house to house, 
 spanning chasms of emptiness, darting hither and thither 
 like lizards or winged scorpions, or breaking out mysteri- 
 ously in fresh places, so that already the cry of arson 
 
30 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 had arisen, and the ever-growing fire was set down to 
 fiendish creatures labouring secretly at a work of 
 universal destruction. 
 
 Most of the sufferers looked on at the ruin of their 
 homes, paralysed by horror, unable to help themselves 
 or to mitigate their losses by energetic action of any 
 kind. Dumb and helpless as sheep, they saw then- 
 property destroyed, their children's lives imperilled, and 
 could only thank Providence, and those few brave men 
 who helped them in their helplessness, for escape from 
 a fiery death. Panic and ruin prevailed within a mile 
 eastward of Fareham House, when the boat ground 
 against the edge of the marble landing-stage, and 
 Angela alighted and ran quickly up the stairs, and made 
 her way straight to the house. The door stood wide 
 open, and candles were burning in the vestibule. The 
 servants were at the eastern end of the terrace watch- 
 ing the fire, too much engrossed to see their master and 
 his companion land at the western steps. 
 
 At the foot of the great staircase Angela heard her- 
 self called by a crystalline voice, and, looking up, saw 
 Henriette hanging over the banister rail. 
 
 "Auntie, where have you been?" 
 
 "Is your mother with you?" Angela asked. 
 
 "Mother is locked in her bed-chamber, and mighty 
 sullen. She told me to go to bed. As if anybody 
 could lie quietly in bed with London burning!" added 
 Papillon, her tone implying that a great city in flames 
 was a kind of entertainment that could not be too highly 
 appreciated. 
 
 She came flying downstairs in her pretty silken 
 
WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? 3 I 
 
 deshabille, with her hair streaming, and flung her arm 
 round her aunt's neck. 
 
 "Ma chatte, where have you been?" 
 
 "On the terrace." 
 
 " Fi done, menteuse! I saw you and my father land 
 at the west stairs, five minutes ago." 
 
 "We had been looking at the fire." 
 
 "And never offered to take me with you! What a 
 greedy pig!" 
 
 "Indeed, dearest, it is no scene for little girls to 
 look upon." 
 
 "And when I am grown up what shall I have to 
 talk about if I miss all the great sights?" 
 
 "Come to your room, love. You will see only too 
 much from your windows. I am going to your mother." 
 
 ." Ce n' est pas la peine. She is in one of her tempers, 
 and has locked herself in." 
 
 "No matter. She will see me." 
 
 "Je m'en donte. She came home in a coach-and- 
 four nearly two hours ago, with Monsieur de Malfort; 
 and I think they must have quarrelled. They bade 
 each other good night so uncivilly; but he was more 
 hulfed than mother." 
 
 "Where were you that you know so much?" 
 
 "In the gallery. Did I not tell you I shouldn't be 
 able to sleep? I went into the gallery for coolness, and 
 then I heard the coach in the courtyard, and the doors 
 opened, and I listened." 
 
 "Inquisitive child!" 
 
 "No, I was not inquisitive. I was only vastly hipped 
 for want of knowing what to do with myself. And I 
 ran to bid her ladyship good morning, for it was close 
 
32 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 upon one o'clock; but she frowned at me, and pushed 
 me aside with a 'Go to your bed, troublesome imp! 
 What business have you up at this hour?' 'As much 
 business as you have riding about in your coach,' I had 
 a mind to say, mais je me tenais coy ; and made her 
 ladyship la belle Jennings' curtsy instead. She sinks 
 lower and rises straighter than any of the other ladies. 
 I watched her on mother's visiting-day. Lord, auntie, 
 how white you are! One might take you for a ghost!" 
 
 Angela put the little prattler aside, more gently, per- 
 haps, than the mother had done, and passed hurriedly 
 on to Lady Fareham's room. The door was still locked, 
 but she would take no denial. 
 
 "I must speak with you," she said. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MOTIVE MURDER. 
 
 For Lady Fareham and her sister September and 
 October made a blank interval in the story of life — un- 
 eventful as the empty page at the end of a chapter. 
 They spent those months at Fareham, a house which 
 Hyacinth detested, a neighbourhood where she had 
 never condescended to make friends. She condemned 
 the local gentry as a collection of nobodies, and had 
 never taken the trouble to please the three or four great 
 families within a twenty-mile drive, because, though they 
 had rank and consequence, they had not fashion. The 
 haut gout of Paris and London was wanting to them. 
 
 Lord Fareham had insisted upon leaving London on 
 the third of September, and had, his wife declared, out 
 
THE MOTIVE — MURDER. 3$ 
 
 of pure malignity, taken his family to Fareham, a place 
 she hated, rather than to Chilton, a place she loved, at 
 least as much as any civilised mortal could love the 
 country. Never, Hyacinth protested, had her husband 
 been so sullen and ferocious. 
 
 "He is not like an angry man," she told Angela, 
 "but like a wounded lion; and yet, since your goodness 
 took all the blame of my unlucky escapade upon your 
 shoulders, and he knows nothing of De Malfort's in- 
 solent attempt to carry me off, I see no reason why he 
 should have become such a gloomy savage." 
 
 She accepted her sister's sacrifice with an amiable 
 lightness. How could it harm Angela to be thought 
 to have run out at midnight for a frolic rendezvous? 
 The maids of honour had some such adventure half a 
 dozen times in a season, and were found out, and 
 laughed at, and laughed again, and wound up their 
 tempestuous careers by marrying great noblemen. 
 
 "If you can but get yourself talked about you may 
 marry as high as you choose," Lady Fareham told her 
 sister. 
 
 Early in November they went back to London, and 
 though all Hyacinth's fine people protested that the town 
 stank of burnt wood, smoked oil, and resin, and was 
 altogether odious, they rejoiced not the less to be back 
 again. Lady Fareham plunged with renewed eagerness 
 into the whirlpool of pleasure, and tried to drag Angela 
 with her; but it was a surprise to both, and to one a 
 cause for uneasiness, when his lordship began to show 
 himself in scenes which he had for the most part 
 avoided as well as reviled. For some unexplained 
 
 London Pride. II. 3 
 
34 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 reason he became now a frequent attendant at the 
 evening festivities at Whitehall, and without even the 
 pretence of being interested or amused there. 
 
 Fareham's appearance at Court caused more surprise 
 than pleasure in that brilliant circle. The statue of the 
 Comandante would scarcely have seemed a grimmer 
 guest. He was there in the midst of laughter and de- 
 light, with never a smile upon his stern features. He 
 was silent for the most part, or if badgered into talking 
 by some of his more familiar acquaintances, would vent 
 his spleen in a tirade that startled them, as the pleasant 
 chirpings of a poultry-yard are startled by the raid of a 
 dog. They laughed at his conversation behind his back; 
 but in his presence, under the angry light of those grey 
 eyes, the gloom of those bent brows, they were chilled 
 into submission and civili y. He had a dignity which 
 made his Puritanical plainness more patrician than 
 Rochester's finery, more impressive than Buckingham's 
 graceful splendour. The force and vigour of his coun- 
 tenance were more striking than Sedley's beauty. The 
 eyes of strangers singled him out in that gay throng, and 
 people wanted to know who he was and what he had 
 done for fame. 
 
 A soldier, yes, cela saute aux yeux. He could be 
 nothing else than a soldier. A cavalier of the old school. 
 Albeit younger by half a lifetime than Southampton and 
 Clarendon, and the other ghosts of the troubles. 
 
 Charles treated him with chill civility. 
 
 "Why does the man come here without his wife?" 
 he asked De Malfort. "There is a sister, too, fresher 
 and fairer than her ladyship. Why are we to have the 
 shadow without the sun? Yet it is as well, perhaps, 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 35 
 
 they keep away; for I have heard of a visit which was 
 not returned — a condescension from a woman of the 
 highest rank slighted by a trumpery baron's wife — and 
 after an offence of that kind she could only have brought 
 us trouble. Why do women quarrel, Wilmot?" 
 
 "Why are there any men in the world, sir? If there 
 were none, women would live together like lambs in a 
 meadow. It is only about us they fight. As for Lady 
 Fareham, she is adorable, though no longer young. I 
 believe she will be thirty on her next birthday." 
 
 "And the sister? She had a wild-rose prettiness, I 
 thought, when I saw her at Oxford. She looked like a 
 lily till I spoke to her, and then flamed like a red rose. 
 So fresh, so easily startled. 'Tis pity that shyness of 
 youthful purity wears off in a week. I dare swear by 
 this time Mrs. Kirkland is as brazen as the boldest of 
 our young houris yonder," with a glance in the direc- 
 tion of the maids of honour, the Queen's and the 
 Duchess's, a bevy of chatterers, waving fans, giggling, 
 whispering, shoulder to shoulder with the impudentest 
 men in his Majesty's kingdom; the men who gave their 
 mornings to writing comedies coarser than Dryden or 
 Etherege, and their nights to cards, dice, and strong 
 drink; roving the streets half clad, dishevelled, wanton; 
 beating the watch, and insulting decent pedestrians; 
 with occasional vicious outbreaks which would have 
 been revolting in a company of inebriated coal-heavers, 
 and which brought these fine gentlemen before a too 
 lenient magistrate. But were not these the manners of 
 which St. Evremond lightly sang — 
 
 ' "La douce erreur ne s'appelait point crime; 
 Les vices delicats se nommaient des plaisirs.' " 
 
 3* 
 
36 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Mistress Kirkland has an inexorable modesty which 
 would outlive even a week at Whitehall, sir," answered 
 Rochester. "If I did not adore the matron I should 
 worship the maid. Happily for the wretch who loves 
 her I am otherwise engaged!" 
 
 "Thou insolent brat! To be eighteen years of age 
 and think thyself irresistible ! " 
 
 "Does your Majesty suppose I shall be more attrac- 
 tive at six and thirty?" 
 
 "Yes, villain; for at my age thou wilt have ex- 
 perience." 
 
 "And a reputation for incorrigible vice. No woman 
 of taste can resist that." 
 
 "And pray who is Mrs. Kirkland's lover?" 
 
 "A Puritan baronet. One Denzil Warner." 
 
 "There was a Warner killed at Hoptown Heath." 
 
 "His son, sir. A fellow who believes in extempore 
 prayer and republican government; and swears England 
 was never so happy or prosperous as under Cromwell." 
 
 "And the lady favours this psalm-singing rebel?" 
 
 "I know not. For all I have seen of the two she 
 has been barely civil to him. That he adores her is 
 obvious; and I know Lady Fareham's heart is set upon 
 the match." 
 
 "Why did not Lady Fareham return the Countess's 
 visit?" 
 
 There was no need to ask what Countess. 
 
 "Be sure, sir, the husband was to blame, if there 
 was want of respect for that lovely lady. I can answer 
 for Lady Fareham's right feeling in that matter." 
 
 "The husband takes a leaf out of Hyde's book, and 
 forgets that what may be passed over in the Lord 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 37 
 
 Chancellor, and a man of prodigious usefulness, is in- 
 tolerable in a person of Fareham's insignificance." 
 
 "Nay, sir, insignificance is scarcely the word. I 
 would as soon call a thunderstorm insignificant. The 
 man is a volcano, and may explode at any provocation." 
 
 "We want no such suppressed fires at Whitehall. 
 Nor do we want long faces; as Clarendon may discover 
 some day, if his sermons grow too troublesome." 
 
 "The Chancellor is a domestic man; as your Majesty 
 may infer from the size and splendour of his new house." 
 
 "He is an expensive man, Wilmot. I believe he got 
 more by the sale of Dunkirk than his master did." 
 
 "In that case your Majesty cannot do better than 
 shift all the disgrace of the transaction on to his shoul- 
 ders. Dunkirk will be a sure card to play when Clarendon 
 has to go overboard." 
 
 That incivility of Lady Fareham's in the matter of an 
 unreturned visit had rankled deep in the bosom of the 
 King's imperious mistress. To sin more boldly than 
 woman ever sinned, and yet to claim all the privileges 
 and honours due to virtue was but a trifling inconsistency 
 in a mind so fortified by pride that it scarce knew how 
 to reckon with shame. That she, in her supremacy of 
 beauty and splendour, a fortune sparkling in either ear, 
 the price of a landed estate on her neck — that she, 
 Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, should have driven in 
 a windowless coach through dusty lanes, eating dirt, as it 
 were, with her train of court gallants on horseback at her 
 coach doors, her ladies in a carriage in the rear, to visit 
 a person of Lady Fareham's petty quality, a Bucking- 
 hamshire Knight's daughter married to a Baron of 
 Henry the Eighth's creation! And that this amazing 
 
38 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 condescension — received with a smiling and curtsying 
 civility — should have been unacknowledged by any re- 
 ciprocal courtesy was an affront that could hardly be 
 wiped out with blood. Indeed, it could never be atoned 
 for. The wound was poisoned, and would rankle and 
 fester to the end of that proud life. 
 
 Yet on Fareham's appearance at Whitehall Lady 
 Castlemaine distinguished with a marked civility, and 
 even condescended, smilingly, as if there were no cause 
 of quarrel, to inquire after his wife. 
 
 "Her ladyship is as pretty as ever, though we are 
 all growing old," she said. "We exchanged curtsies at 
 Tunbridge Wells the other day. I wonder how it is we 
 never get further than smiles and curtsies? I should 
 like to show the dear woman some more substantial 
 civility. She is buried alive in your stately house by the 
 river, for the want of an influential friend to show her 
 the world we live in." 
 
 "Indeed, madam, my wife has all the pleasure she 
 desires — her visiting-day, her friends." 
 
 "And her admirers. Rochester is always hanging 
 about your garden, or landing from his wherry, when I 
 go by; or, if he himself be not visible, there are a couple 
 of his watermen on your steps." 
 
 "My Lord Rochester has a precocious wit which 
 amuses my wife and her sister." 
 
 "And then there is De Malfort — an impertinent, 
 second only to Gramont. He and Lady Fareham are 
 twin stars. I have seldom seen them apart." 
 
 "Since De Malfort has the honour of being some- 
 what intimate with your ladyship, he has doubtless given 
 you full particulars of his friendship for my wife. I as- 
 
THE MOTIVE — MURDER. 39 
 
 sure you it will bear being talked about. There are no 
 secrets in it." 
 
 "Really; I thought I had heard something about a 
 sedan which took the wrong road after Killigrew's play. 
 But that was the night before the fire. Good God! my 
 lord, your face darkens as if a man had struck you. 
 Whatever happened before the fire should have been 
 burnt out of our memories by this time." 
 
 "I see his Majesty looking this way, madam, and I 
 have not yet paid my respects to him," Fareham said, 
 moving away, but a dazzling hand on his sleeve arrested 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, your respects will keep; he has Miss Stewart 
 giggling at his elbow. Strange, is it not, that a woman 
 with as much brain as a pigeon can amuse a man who 
 reckons himself both wise and witty?" 
 
 "It is not the lady who amuses the gentleman, 
 madam. She has the good sense to pretend that he 
 amuses her." 
 
 '-'And no more understands a jest than she does 
 Hebrew." 
 
 "She is conscious of pretty teeth and an enchanting 
 smile. Wit or understanding would be superfluous," 
 answered Fareham, bowing his adieu to the Sultana in 
 chief. 
 
 There was a great assembly, with music and dancing, 
 on the Queen's birthday, to which Lord and Lady Fare- 
 ham and Mistress Kirkland were invited; and again 
 Angela saw and wondered at the splendid scene, and 
 at this brilliant world, which calamity could not touch. 
 Pestilence had ravaged the city, names had devoured it 
 
40 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 — yet here there were only smiling people, gorgeous 
 dress, incomparable jewels. The plague had not touched 
 them, and the fire had not reached them. Such afflic- 
 tions are for the common herd. Angela promenaded 
 with De Malfort in the spacious banqueting-hall, with 
 its ceiling of such prodigious height that the apotheosis 
 of King James, and all the emblematical figures, 
 triumphal cars, lions, bears and rams, corn-sheaves and 
 baskets of fruit, which filled the panels, might as well 
 have been executed by a sign-painter's rough-and-ready 
 brush, as by the pencil of the great Fleming. 
 
 "We are a little kinder to Rubens at the Louvre," 
 said De Malfort, noting her upward gaze; "for we allow 
 his elaborate glorification of his Majesty's grandfather 
 and grandmother about half a mile of wall. But 
 I forgot, you have not seen Paris, nor those acres of 
 gaudy colouring which Henri's vanity inflicted upon us. 
 Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks and opulent 
 shoulders — the Roman-nosed Bearnais, with his pointed 
 beard and stiff ruff. Mon Dieu, how the world has 
 changed since Ravaillac's knife snapped that valiant life! 
 And you have never seen Paris? You look about you 
 with wide-open eyes, and take this crowd, this ceiling, 
 those candlebra for splendour." 
 
 "Can there be a scene more splendid?" asked Angela, 
 pleased to keep him by her side, rather than see him 
 devote himself to her sister; grateful for his attention in 
 that crowd where most people were strangers, and 
 where Lord Fareham had not vouchsafed the slightest 
 notice of her. 
 
 "When you have seen the Louvre, you will wonder 
 that any King, with a sense of his own consequence in 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 4 I 
 
 the world, can inhabit such a hovel as Whitehall — this 
 congeries of shabby apartments, the offices of servants, 
 the lodgings of followers and dependents, soldiers and 
 civilians — huddled in a confused labyrinth of brick and 
 stone — redeemed from squalor only by one fine room. 
 Could you see the grand proportions, the colossal majesty 
 of the great Henri's palace — that palace whose costly 
 completion sat heavy upon Sully's careful soul! Henri 
 loved to build — and his grandson, Louis, inherits that 
 Augustan taste." 
 
 "You were telling us of a new palace at Ver- 
 sailles " 
 
 "A royal city in stone — white — dazzling — grandiose. 
 The mortar was scarcely dry when I was there in March; 
 but you should have seen the mi-careme ball. The 
 finest masquerade that was ever beheld in Europe. All 
 Paris came in masks to see that magnificent spectacle. 
 His Majesty allowed entrance to all — and those who 
 came yere feasted at a banquet which only Rabelais 
 could fairly describe. And then with our splendour 
 there is an elegant restraint — a decency unknown here. 
 Compare these women — Lady Shrewsbury yonder, Lady 
 Chesterfield, the fat woman in sea-green and silver — 
 Lady Castlemaine, brazen in orange velvet and emeralds 
 — compare them with Conde's sister, with the Duchesse 
 de Bouillon, the Princess Palatine " 
 
 "Are those such good women?" 
 
 "Humph! They are ladies. These are the kind of 
 women King Charles admires. They are as distinct a 
 race as the dogs that lie in his bedchamber, and follow 
 him in his walks, a species of his own creation. They 
 do not even affect modesty. But I am turning preacher, 
 
4 5 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 like Fareham. Come, there is to be an entertainment in 
 the theatre. Roxalana has returned to the stage — and 
 Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer, is to perform." 
 
 They followed the crowd, and De Malfort remained 
 at Angela's side till the end of the performance, and 
 attended her to the supper-table afterwards. Fareham 
 watched them from his place in the background. He 
 stood ever aloof from the royal focus, the beauty, and 
 the wit, the most dazzling jewels, the most splendid 
 raiment. He was amidst the Court, but not of it. 
 
 Yes; the passion which these two entertained for 
 each other was patent to every eye; but had it been an 
 honourable attachment upon De Malfort's side, he would 
 have declared himself before now. He would not have 
 abandoned the field to such a sober suitor as Denzil. 
 Henri de Malfort loved her, and she fed his passion 
 with her sweetest smiles, the low and tender tones of 
 the most musical voice Fareham had ever listened to. 
 
 "The voice that came to me in my desolation — the 
 sweetest sound that ever fell on a dying man's ear," he 
 thought, recalling those solitary days and nights in the 
 plague year, recalling those vanished hours with a fond 
 longing, "that arm which shows dazzling white against 
 the purple velvet of his sleeve is the arm that held up 
 my aching head, in the dawn of returning reason; those 
 are the eyes that looked down upon mine, so pitiful, so 
 anxious for my recovery. Oh, lovely angel, I would be 
 a leper again, a pi ague- stricken wretch, only to drink 
 a cup of water from that dear hand — only to feel the 
 touch of those light fingers on my forehead! There 
 was a magic in that touch that suipassed the healing 
 powers of kings. There was a light as of heaven in 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 43 
 
 those benignant eyes. But, oh, .she is changed since 
 then. She is plague-stricken with the contagion of a 
 profligate age. Her wings are scorched by the fire of 
 this modish Tophet. She has been taught to dress and 
 look like the women around her — a little more modest 
 — but after the same fashion. The nun I worshipped is 
 no more." 
 
 Someone tapped him on the shoulder with an ostrich 
 fan. He turned, and saw Lady Castlemaine close at 
 his elbow. 
 
 "Image of gloom, will you lead me to my rooms?" 
 she asked, in a curious voice, her dark blue eyes 
 deepened by the pallor that showed through her rouge. 
 
 "I shall esteem myself too much honoured by that 
 office," he answered, as she took his arm and moved 
 quickly, with hurried footsteps, through the lessening 
 throng. 
 
 "Oh, there is no one to dispute the honour with 
 you. Sometimes I have a mob to hustle me to my 
 lodgings, borne on the current of their adulation — some- 
 times I move through a desert, as I do to-night. Your 
 face attracted me — for I believe it is the only one at 
 Whitehall as gloomy as my own — unless there are some 
 of my creditors, men to whom I owe gaming debts." 
 
 It was curious to note that subtle change in the 
 faces of those they passed, which Barbara Palmer knew 
 so well — faces that changed, obedient to the weather- 
 cock of royal caprice — the countenances of courtiers who 
 even yet had not learnt justly to weigh the influence of 
 that imperial favourite, or to understand that she ruled 
 their King with a power which no transient fancy for 
 newer faces could undermine. A day or two in the 
 
44 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 sulks, frowns and mournful looks for gossip Pepys to 
 jot down in his diary, and the next day the sun would 
 be shining again, and the King would be at supper with 
 "the lady." 
 
 Perhaps Lady Castlemaine knew that her empire was 
 secure; but she took these transient fancies moult se'rieuse- 
 ment. Her jealous soul could tolerate no rival — or it 
 may be that she really loved the King. He had given 
 himself to her in the flush of his triumphant return, 
 while he was still young enough to feel a genuine passion. 
 For her sake he had been a cruel husband, an insolent 
 tyrant to an inoffensive wife; for her sake he had squan- 
 dered his people's money, and outraged every moral 
 law; and it may be that she remembered these things, 
 and hated him the more fiercely for them when he was 
 inconstant. She was a woman of extremes, in whose 
 tropical temperament there was no medium between 
 hatred and love. 
 
 "You will sup with me, Fareham?" she said, as he 
 waited on the threshold of her lodgings, which were in 
 a detached pile of buildings, near the Holbein Gateway, 
 and looking upon an enclosed and somewhat gloomy 
 garden. 
 
 "Your ladyship will excuse me. I am expected at 
 home." 
 
 "What devil! Perhaps you think I am inviting you 
 to a tete-a-tete. I shall have some company, though the 
 drove have gone to the Stewarts' in a hope of getting 
 asked to supper — which but a few of them can realise 
 in her mean lodgings. You had better stay. I may 
 have Buckhurst, Sedley, De Malfort, and a few more of 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 45 
 
 the pretty fellows — enough to empty your pockets at 
 basset." 
 
 "Your ladyship is all goodness/' said Fareham, 
 quickly. 
 
 De Malfort's name had decided him. He followed 
 his hostess through a crowd of lackeys, a splendour of 
 wax candles, to her saloon, where she turned and flashed 
 upon him a glorious picture of mature loveliness, her 
 complexion the peach in its ripest bloom, the orange 
 sheen of her velvet mantua shining out against a back- 
 ground of purple damask curtains embroidered with gold. 
 
 The logs blazed and roared in the wide chimney. 
 Warmth, opulence, hospitality, were all expressed in the 
 brilliantly lighted room, where luxurious fauteuils, after 
 the new French fashion, stood about, ready to receive 
 her ladyship's guests. 
 
 These were not long waited for. There was no crowd. 
 Less than twenty men, and about a dozen women, were 
 enough to add an air of living gaiety to the brilliancy of 
 light and colour. De Malfort was the last who entered. 
 He kissed her ladyship's hand, looked about him, and 
 recognised Fareham with open wonder. 
 
 "An Israelite in the house of Dagon!" he said, sotto 
 voce, as he approached him. "What, Fareham, have 
 you given your neck to the yoke? Do you yield to the 
 charm which has subjugated such lighter natures as Vil- 
 liers and Buckhurst?" 
 
 "It is only human to love variety. You have dis- 
 covered the charm of youth and innocence." 
 
 "Do you think it needs a modish Columbus to dis- 
 cover that? We all worship innocence, were it but for 
 its rarity, as we esteem a black pearl or a yellow diamond 
 
46 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 above a white one. Jarni, but I am pleased to see you 
 here ! It is the most human thing I have known of you 
 since you recovered of the contagion ; for you have been 
 a gloomier man from that time." 
 
 "Be assured I am altogether human — at least upon 
 the worser side of humanity." 
 
 "How dismal you look! Upon my soul, Fareham, 
 you should fight against that melancholic habit. Her 
 ladyship is in the black sulks. We are in for a pleasant 
 evening. Yet, if we were to go away, she would storm 
 at us to-morrow; call us sycophants and time-servers, 
 swear she would hold no further commerce with any 
 manjack among our detestable crew. Well, she is a 
 magnificent termagant. If Cleopatra was half as hand- 
 some, I can forgive Antony for following her to ruin at 
 Actium." 
 
 "There is supper in the music-room, gentlemen," said 
 Lady Castlemaine, who was standing near the fire in 
 the midst of a knot of whispering women. 
 
 They had been abusing the fair Frances, and ridi- 
 culing old Rowley, to gratify their hostess. She knew 
 them by heart — their falsehood and hollowness. She 
 knew that they were ready, every one of them, to steal 
 her royal lover, had they but the chance of such a con- 
 quest; yet it solaced her soreness to hear Miss Stewart 
 depreciated even by those false lips — "She was too tall." 
 "Her Britannia profile looked as if it was cut out of 
 wood." "She was bold, bad, designing." "It was she 
 who would have the King, not the King who would 
 have her." 
 
 "You are too malicious, my dearest Price," said Lady 
 Castlemaine, with more good humour than had been 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 47 
 
 seen in her countenance that evening. "Buckhurst, will 
 you take Mrs. Price to supper? There are cards in the 
 gallery. Pray amuse yourselves." 
 
 "But will your ladyship neither sup nor play?" 
 asked Sedley. 
 
 "My ladyship has a raging headache. What devil! 
 Did I not lose enough to some of you blackguards last 
 night? Do you want to rook me again? Pray amuse 
 yourselves, friends. No doubt his Majesty is being 
 exquisitely entertained where he is ; but I doubt if he 
 will get as good a supper as you will find in the next 
 room." 
 
 The significant laugh which concluded her speech 
 was too anjry for mirth, and the blackness of her brow 
 forbade questioning. All the town knew next day that 
 she had contrived to get the royal supper intercepted 
 and carried off, on its way from the King's kitchen to 
 Miss Stewart's lodgings, and that his Majesty had a 
 Barmecide feast at the table of beauty. It was a joke 
 quite in the humour of the age. 
 
 The company melted out of the room; all but Fare- 
 ham, who watched Lady Castlemaine as she stood by 
 the hearth in an attitude of hopeless self-forgetfulness, 
 leaning against the lofty sculptured chimney-piece, one 
 slender foot in gold-embroidered slipper and transparent 
 stocking poised on the brazen fender, and her proud eye- 
 lids lowered as if there was nothing in this world worth 
 looking at but the pile of ship's timber, burning with 
 many-coloured flames upon the silver andirons. 
 
 In spite of that sullen downward gaze she was con- 
 scious of Fareham's lingering. 
 
 "Why do you stay, my lord?" she asked, without 
 
48 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 looking up. "If your purse is heavy there are friends 
 of mine yonder who will lighten it for you, fairly or 
 foully. I have never made up my mind how far a 
 gentleman may be a rogue with impunity. If you don't 
 love losing money you had best eat a good supper and 
 begone." 
 
 "I thank you, madam. I am more in the mood for 
 cards than for feasting." 
 
 She did not answer him, but clasped her hands 
 suddenly before her face and gave a heart-breaking sigh. 
 Fareham paused on the threshold of the gallery, watch- 
 ing her, and then went slowly back, bent down to take 
 the hand that had dropped at her side, and pressed his 
 lips upon it, silently, respectfully, with a kind of homage 
 that had become strange of late years to Barbara Palmer. 
 Adorers she had and to spare, toadeaters and flatterers, 
 a regiment of mercenaries; but these all wanted some- 
 thing of her — kisses, smiles, influence, money. Disin- 
 terested respect was new. 
 
 "I thought you w T ere a Puritan, Lord Fareham." 
 
 "I am a man; and I know what it is to suffer the 
 hell-fire of jealousy." 
 
 "Jealousy, yes! I never was good at hiding my 
 feelings. He treats me shamefully. Come, now, you 
 take me for an abandoned profligate woman, a callous 
 wanton. That is what the world takes me for; and, 
 perhaps, I have deserved no better of the world. But 
 whatever I am 'twas he made me so. If he had been 
 true, I could have been constant. It is the insolence of 
 abandonment that stings; the careless slights, scarce con- 
 scious that he wounds. Before the eyes of the world, 
 too, before wretches that grin and whisper, and prophesy 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 49 
 
 the day when my pride shall be in the dust. It is treat- 
 ment such as this that makes women desperate; and if 
 we cannot keep him we love, we make believe to love 
 someone else, and flaunt our fancy in the deceiver's 
 face. Do you think I cared for Buckingham, with his 
 heart of ice; or for such a snipe as Jermyn; or for a 
 low-born rope-dancer? No, Fareham; there has been 
 more of rage and hate than of passion in my caprices. 
 And he is with Frances Stewart to-night. She sets up 
 for a model of chastity, and is to marry Richmond next 
 month. But we know, Fareham, we know. Women 
 who ride in glass coaches should not throw stones. I 
 will have Charles at my feet again. I will have my foot 
 upon his neck again. I cannot use him too ill for the 
 pain he gives me. There, go — go! Why did you tempt 
 me to lay my heart bare?" 
 
 "Dearest lady, believe me, I respect your candour. 
 My heart bleeds for your wrongs. So beautiful, so high 
 above all other women in the capacity to charm! Ah, 
 be sure such loveliness has its responsibilities. It is a 
 gift from Heaven, and to hold it cheap is a sin." 
 
 "There is nothing in this life can be held too cheap. 
 Beauty, love — all trumpery! You would make life a 
 tragedy. It is a farce, Fareham, a farce; and all our 
 pleasures and diversions only serve to make us forget 
 what worms we are. There, go — to cards — to supper — 
 as you please. I am going to my bedchamber to rest 
 this throbbing head. I may return and take a hand at 
 cards by-and-by, perhaps. Those fellows will game and 
 booze till daylight." 
 
 Fareham opened the door for her, as she went out, 
 regal in port and air. She had moved him to com- 
 
 London Pride. II. 4 
 
50 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 passion, even while she owned herself a wanton. To 
 love passionately — and to see another preferred! There 
 is a brotherhood in agony, that brings even opposite 
 natures into sympathy. He passed into the gallery, a 
 long low room, hung with modern tapestries, richly 
 coloured, voluptuous in design. Clusters of wax tapers 
 in gilded sconces lit up those Paphian pictures. There 
 were several tables, at which the mixed company were 
 sitting. Piles of the new guineas, fresh from his Majesty's 
 Mint, shone in the candle-light. At some tables there 
 was a silent absorption in the game, which argued high 
 play, and the true gambler's spirit; at others mirth 
 reigned — talk, laughter, animated looks. One of the 
 noisiest was the table at which De Malfort was the most 
 conspicuous figure: his periwig the highest, his dress 
 the most sumptuous, his breast glittering with orders. 
 His companions were Sir Ralph Masaroon, Colonel 
 Dangerfield, an old Malignant, who had hibernated 
 during the Protectorate, and had never left his own 
 country, and Lady Lucretia Topham, a visiting acquaint- 
 ance of Hyacinth's. 
 
 "Come here, Fareham," cried De Malfort; "there is 
 plenty of room for you. I'll wager Lady Lucretia will 
 pass you her hand, and thank you for taking it." 
 
 "Lady Lucretia is glad to be quit of such dishonest 
 company," said the lady, tossing her cards upon the 
 table, and rising in a cloud of powder and perfume, and 
 a nutter of lace and brocade. "If I were ill-humoured 
 I would say you marked the cards! but as I'm the soul 
 of good nature, I'll only swear you are the luckiest dog 
 in London." 
 
 "You are the soul of good nature, and I am the 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 5 I 
 
 luckiest dog in the universe when you smile upon me," 
 answered De Malfort, without looking up from his cards, 
 as the lady posed herself gracefully at the back of his 
 chair, leaning over his shoulder to watch his play. "I 
 would not limit the area to any city, however big." 
 
 Fareham seated himself in the chair the lady had 
 vacated, and gathered up the cards she had abandoned. 
 He took a handful of gold from his pocket, and put it 
 on the table at his elbow, all with a somewhat churlish 
 silence, that escaped notice where everybody was loqua- 
 cious. De Malfort went on fooling with Lady Lucretia, 
 whose lovely hand and arm, her strongest point, de- 
 scended upon a card now and then, to indicate the play 
 she deemed wisest. 
 
 Once he caught the hand and kissed it in transit. 
 
 "Wert thou as wise as this hand is fair it should 
 direct my play; but it is only a woman's hand, and 
 points the way to perdition." 
 
 Fareham had been losing steadily from the moment 
 he took up Lady Lucretia's cards; and his pile of jaco- 
 buses had been gradually passed over to De Malfort's 
 side of the table. He had emptied his pockets, and had 
 scrawled two or three I.Q.U.'s upon scraps of paper 
 torn from a note-book. Yet he went on playing, with 
 the same immovable countenance. The room had 
 emptied itself, the rest of the visitors leaving earlier 
 than their usual hour in that hospitable house. Perhaps 
 because the hostess was missing; perhaps because the 
 royal sun was shining elsewhere. 
 
 Lackeys handed their salvers of Burgundy and Bor- 
 deaux, and the players refreshed themselves occasionally 
 with a brimmer of clary; but no wine brightened Fare- 
 
 4* 
 
52 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ham's scowling brow, or changed the gloomy intensity 
 of his outlook. 
 
 "My cards have brought your lordship bad luck," 
 said Lady Lucretia, who w T atched De Malfort's winnings 
 with an air of personal interest. 
 
 "I knew T my risk before I took them, madam. When 
 an Englishman plays against a Frenchman he is a fool 
 if he is not prepared to be rooked." 
 
 "Fareham, are you mad?" cried De Malfort, starting 
 to his feet. "To insult your friend's country, and, by 
 basest implication, your friend." 
 
 "I see no friend here. I say that you Frenchmen 
 cheat at cards — on principle — and are proud of being 
 cheats! I have heard De Gramont brag of having 
 lured a man to his tent, and fed him, and wined him, 
 and fleeced him while he was drunk." He took a goblet 
 of claret from the lackey who brought his salver, emptied 
 it, and went on, hoarse with passion. "To the marrow 
 of your bones you are false, all of you! You do not 
 cog your dice, perhaps, but you bubble your friends 
 with finesses, and are as much sharpers at heart as the 
 lowest tat-mongers in Alsatia. You empty our purses, 
 and cozen our women with twanging guitars and jingling 
 rhymes, and laugh at us because we are honest and 
 trust you. Seducers, tricksters, poltroons!" 
 
 The footman was at De Malfort's elbow now. He 
 snatched a tankard from the salver, and flung the con- 
 tents across the table, straight at Fareham's face. 
 
 "This bully forces me to spoil his Point de Venise," 
 he said coolly, as he set down the tankards "There 
 should be a law for chaining up rabid curs that have 
 run mad without provocation." 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 53 
 
 Fareham sprang to his feet, black and terrible, but 
 with a savage exultation in his countenance. The wine 
 poured in a red stream from his point-lace cravat, but 
 had not touched his face. 
 
 "There shall be something redder than Burgundy 
 spilt before we have done!" he said. 
 
 " Sacre nom , nous sommes tombe's dans tin autre de 
 betes sauvages!" exclaimed Masaroon, starting up, and 
 anxiously examining the skirts of his brocade coat, lest 
 that sudden deluge had caught him. 
 
 "None of your French to show your fine breed- 
 ing!" growled the old cavalier. "Fareham, you deserved 
 the insult; but one red will wash out another. I'm with 
 your lordship." 
 
 "And I'm with De Malfort," said Masaroon. "He 
 had more than enough provocation." 
 
 "Gentlemen, gentlemen, no bloodshed!" cried Lady 
 Lucretia; "or, if you are going to be uncivil to each 
 other, for God's sake get me to my chair. I have a 
 husband who would never forgive me if it were said you 
 fought for my sake." 
 
 "We will see you safely disposed of, madam, before 
 we begin our business," said Colonel Dangerfield, bluntly. 
 "Fareham, you can take the lady to her chair, while 
 Masaroon and I discuss particulars." 
 
 "There is no need of a discussion," interrupted 
 Fareham, hotly. "We have nothing to arrange — nothing 
 to wait for. Time, the present; place, the garden, un- 
 der these windows; weapons, the swords we wear. We 
 shall have no witnesses but the moon and stars. It is 
 the dead middle of the night, and we have the world 
 all to ourselves." 
 
54 
 
 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Give me your rapier, then, that I may compare it 
 with the Count's. You are satisfied, monsieur? 'Tis 
 you that are the offender, and Lord Fareham has the 
 choice of weapons." 
 
 "Let him choose. I will fight him with cannon — or 
 with soap-bubbles," answered De Malfort, lolling back 
 in his chair, tilted at an angle of forty-five, and drum- 
 ming a gay dance tune with his finger-tips on the table. 
 "'Tis a foolish imbroglio from first to last: and only his 
 lordship and I know how foolish. He came here to 
 provoke a quarrel, and I must indulge him. Come, 
 Lady Lucretia" — he turned to his fair friend, as he 
 unbuckled his sword and flung it on the table — "it is 
 my place to lead you to your chair. Colonel, you and 
 your friend will find me below stairs in front of the 
 Holbein Gate." 
 
 "You are forgetting your winnings," remonstrated 
 the lady, pointing to the pile of gold. 
 
 "The lackeys will not forget them when they clear 
 the room," answered De Malfort, putting her hand 
 through his arm, and leaving the money on the table. 
 
 Ten minutes later Fareham and De Malfort were 
 standing front to front in the glare of four torches, held 
 by a brace of her ladyship's lackeys who had been 
 impressed into the service, and the colder light of a 
 moon that rode high in the blue-black of a wintry 
 heaven. There was not a sound but the ripple of the 
 unseen river, and the distant cry of a watchman in Petty 
 France, till the clash of swords began. 
 
 It was decided after a brief parley that the principals 
 only should fight. The quarrel was private. The 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 55 
 
 seconds placed their men on a piece of level turf, five 
 paces apart. They were bare-headed, and without coat 
 or vest, the lace ruffles of their shirt-sleeves rolled back 
 to the elbow, their naked arms ghastly white, their faces 
 suggesting ghost or devil as the spectral moonlight or 
 the flame of the flambeaux shone upon them. 
 
 "You mean business, so we may sink the parade of 
 the fencing saloon," said Dangerneld. "Advance, gentle- 
 men." 
 
 "A pity," murmured Masaroon, "there is nothing 
 prettier than the salute a la Frangaise.''' 
 
 Dangerneld handed the men their swords. They 
 were nearly similar in fashion, both flat-grooved blades, 
 with needle points, and no cutting edge, furnished with 
 shell-guards and cross-bars in the Italian style, and were 
 about of a length. 
 
 The word was given, and the business of engage- 
 ment proceeded slowly and warily, for a few moments 
 that seemed minutes; and then the blades were firmly 
 joined in carte, and a series of rapid feints began, De 
 Mai fort having a slight advantage in the neatness of his 
 circles, and the swiftness of his wrist play. But in these 
 preliminary lunges and parries, he soon found he 
 needed all his skill to dodge his opponent's point; for 
 Fareham's blade followed his own, steadily and strongly, 
 through every turn. 
 
 De Malfort had begun the fight with an insolent 
 smile upon his lips, the smile of a man who believes 
 himself invincible, while Fareham's countenance never 
 changed from the black anger that had darkened it all 
 that night. It was a face that meant death. A man 
 who had never been a duellist, who had raised his voice 
 
56 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 sternly against the practice of duelling, stood there in- 
 tent upon bloodshed. There could be no mistake as to 
 his purpose. The quarrel was an artificial quarrel — the 
 object was murder. 
 
 De Malfort, provoked at the unexpected strength of 
 Fareham's fence, attempted a partial disarmament, after 
 the deadly Continental method. Joining his opponent's 
 blade near the point, from a wide circular parry, he 
 made a rapid thrust in seconde, carrying his forte the 
 entire length of Fareham's blade, almost wrenching the 
 sword from his grasp; and then, in the next instant, 
 reaching forward to his fullest stretch, he lunged at his 
 enemy's breast, aiming at the vital region of the heart; 
 a thrust that must have proved fatal had not Fareham 
 sprung aside, and so received the blow where the sword 
 only grazed his ribs, inflicting a flesh-wound that showed 
 red upon the whiteness of his shirt. Dangerfield tore 
 off his cravat, and wanted to bind it round his principal's 
 waist; but Fareham repulsed him, and lashed into hot 
 fury by the Frenchman's uncavalier-like ruse, met his 
 adversary's thrusts with a deadly purpose, which drove 
 De Malfort to reckless lunging and riposting, and the 
 play grew fast and fierce, while the rattle of steel seemed 
 never likely to end. Suddenly, timing his attack to the 
 fraction of a second, Fareham dropped on his left knee, 
 and planting his left hand upon the ground, sent a 
 murderous thrust home under De Malfort's guard, whose 
 blade passed harmlessly over his adversary's head as he 
 crouched on the sward. 
 
 De Malfort fell heavily in the arms of the two seconds, 
 who both sprang to his assistance. 
 
 "Is it fatal?" asked Fareham, standing motionless 
 
THE MOTIVE MURDER. 57 
 
 as stone, while the other men knelt on either side of 
 De Malfort. 
 
 "I'll run for a surgeon," said Masaroon. "There's a 
 fellow I know of this side the Abbey — mends bloody 
 noses and paints black eyes," and he was off, running 
 across the grass to the nearest gate. 
 
 "It looks plaguily like a coffin," Dangerfield an- 
 swered, with his hand on the wounded man's breast. 
 "There's throbbing here yet; but he may bleed to death, 
 like poor Lindsey, before surgery can help him. You 
 had better run, Fareham. Take horse to Dover, and 
 get across to Calais or Ostend. You were devilish pro- 
 voking. It might go hard with you if he was to die." 
 
 "I shall not budge, Dangerfield. Didn't you hear 
 me say I wanted to kill him? You might guess I didn't 
 care a cast of the dice for my life when I said as much. 
 Let them find it murder, and hang me. I wanted him 
 out of the world, and don't care how soon I follow." 
 
 "You are mad — stark, staring mad!" 
 
 The wounded man raised himself on his elbow, 
 groaning aloud in the agony of movement, and beckoned 
 Fareham, who knelt down beside him, all of a piece, 
 like a stone figure. 
 
 "Fareham, you had better run; I have powerful 
 friends. There'll be an ugly stir if I die of this bout. 
 Kiss me, mon ami. I forgive you. I know what wound 
 rankled; 'twas for your wife's sister you fought — not the 
 cards." 
 
 He sank into Dangerfield's arms, swooning from loss 
 of blood, as Masaroon came back at a run, bringing a 
 surgeon, an elderly man of that Alsatian class which is 
 to be found out of bed in the small hours. He brought 
 
58 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 styptics and bandages, and at once set about staunching 
 the wound. 
 
 While this was happening a curtain had been sud- 
 denly pulled aside at an upper window in Lady Castle- 
 maine's lodgings, showing a light within. The window 
 was thrown open, and a figure appeared, clad in a white 
 satin night-gown that glistened in the moonlight, with a 
 deep collar of ermine, from which the handsomest face 
 in London looked across the garden, to the spot where 
 Fareham, the seconds, and the surgeon were grouped 
 about De Malfort. 
 
 It was Lady Castlemaine. She leant out of the 
 window and called to them. 
 
 "What has happened? Is anyone hurt? I'll wager 
 a thousand pounds you devils have been fighting." 
 
 "De Malfort is stabbed!" Masaroon answered. 
 
 "Not dead?" she shrieked, leaning farther out of the 
 window. 
 
 "No; but it looks dangerous." 
 
 "Bring him into my house this instant! I'll send my 
 fellows to help. Have you sent for a surgeon?" 
 
 "The surgeon is here." 
 
 The radiant figure vanished like a vision in the skies; 
 and in three minutes a door was heard opening, and a 
 voice calling, "John, William, Hugh, Peter, every man- 
 jack of you. Lazy devils! There's been no time for 
 you to fall asleep since the company left. Stir your- 
 selves, vermin, and out with you!" 
 
 "We had best levant, Fareham," muttered Danger- 
 field, and drew away his principal, who went with him, 
 silent and unresisting, having no more to do there; not 
 to fly the country, however, but to walk quietly home to 
 
REVELATIONS. 59 
 
 Fareham House, and to let himself in at the garden 
 door, known to the household as his lordship's. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REVELATIONS. 
 
 Lord Fareham stayed in his own house by the 
 Thames, and nobody interfered with his liberty, though 
 Henri de Malfort lay for nearly a fortnight between life 
 and death, and it was only in the beginning of December 
 that he was pronounced out of danger, and was able to 
 be removed from Lady Castlemaine's luxurious rooms to 
 his own lodgings. Scandal-mongers might have made 
 much talk of his lying ill in her ladyship's house, and 
 being tenderly nursed by her, had not Lady Castlemaine 
 outlived the possibility of slander. It would have been 
 as difficult for her name to acquire any blacker stain as 
 for a damaged reputation to wash itself white. The secret 
 of the encounter had been faithfully kept by principals 
 and seconds, De Malfort behaving with a chivalrous 
 generosity. He appeared, indeed, as anxious for his 
 antagonist's safety as for his own recovery. 
 
 "It was a mistake," he said, when Masaroon pressed 
 him with home questions. " Every man is mad once in 
 his life. Fareham's madness took an angry turn against 
 an old friend. Why, we slept under the same blanket 
 in the trenches before Dunkirk; we rode shoulder to 
 shoulder through the rain of bullets at Chatillon; and 
 to pick a trumpery quarrel with a brother-in-arms ! " 
 
 "I wonder the quarrel was not picked earlier," 
 Masaroon answered bluntly. "Your courtship of the 
 
60 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 gentleman's wife has been notorious for the last five 
 years." 
 
 "Call it not courtship, Ralph. Lady Fareham and I 
 are old playfellows. We were reared in the pays dn 
 tendre, Loveland — the kingdom of innocent attachments 
 and pure penchants, that country of which Mademoiselle 
 Scudery has given us laws and a map. Your vulgar 
 London lover cannot understand platonics — the affection 
 which is satisfied with a smile or a madrigal. Fareham 
 knows his wife and me better than to doubt us." 
 
 "And yet he acted like a man who was madly jealous. 
 His rudeness at the card-table was obvious malice afore- 
 thought. He came resolved to quarrel." 
 
 "Ay, he came to quarrel — but not about his wife." 
 
 Pressed to explain this dubious phrase, De Malfort 
 affected a fit of languor, and would talk no more. 
 
 The town was told that the Comte de Malfort was 
 ill of a quartain fever, and much was said about his 
 sufferings during the Fronde, his exposure to damp and 
 cold in the sea-marshes by Dunkirk, his rough fare and 
 hard riding through the war of the Princes. This fever, 
 which hung about him so long, was an after-consequence 
 of hardship suffered in his youth — privations faced with 
 a boyish recklessness, and which he had paid for with 
 an impaired constitution. Fine ladies in gilded chairs, 
 and vizard-masks in hackney coaches, called frequently 
 at his lodgings in St. James's Street to inquire about his 
 progress. Lady Fareham's private messenger was at his 
 door every morning, and brought a note, or a book, or 
 a piece of new music from her ladyship, who had been 
 sternly forbidden to visit her old friend in person. 
 
 "You grow every day a gloomier tyrant!" Hyacinth 
 
REVELATIONS. 6 1 
 
 protested, with more passion in her voice and mien than 
 ever her husband had known. "Why should I not go 
 to him when he is ill — dangerously ill — dying perhaps? 
 He is my old, old friend. I remember no joy in life 
 that he did not share. Why should I not go to him in 
 his sorrow?" 
 
 "Because you are my wife, and I forbid you. I 
 cannot understand this passion. I thought you suffered 
 the company of that empty-headed fop as you suffered 
 your lap-dogs — the trivial appendage of a fine lady's 
 state. Had I supposed that there was anything serious 
 in your liking — that you could think him worth anger or 
 tears — I should have ordered your life differently, and 
 he would have had no place in it." 
 
 "Tyrant! tyrant!" 
 
 "You astound me, Hyacinth! Would you dispute 
 the favours of a fop with your young sister?" 
 
 "With my sister!" she cried, scornfully. 
 
 "Ay, with your sister, whom he has courted assidu- 
 ously; but with no honourable motive! I have seen his 
 designs." 
 
 "Well, perhaps you are right. He may care for 
 Angela — and think her too poor to marry." 
 
 "He is a traitor and a villain " 
 
 "Oh, what fury! Marry my sister to Sir Denzil, and 
 then she will be safe from all pursuit! He will bury her 
 alive in Oxfordshire — withdraw her for ever from this 
 wicked town — like poor Lady Yarborough in Cornwall." 
 
 "I will never ask her to marry a man she cannot 
 love." 
 
 "Why not? Are not you and I a happy couple? 
 And how much love had we for each other before we 
 
62 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 married? Why I scarce knew the colour of your eyes; 
 and if I had met you in the street, I doubt if I should 
 have recognised you! And now, after thirteen years of 
 matrimony, we are at our first quarrel, and that no last- 
 ing one. Come, Fareham, be pleasant and yielding. Let 
 me go and see my old playfellow. I am heartbroken for 
 lack of his company, for fear of his death." 
 
 She hung upon him coaxingly, the bright blue eyes 
 looking up at him — eyes that had so often been compared 
 to Madame de Longueville's, eyes that had smiled and 
 beamed in many a song and madrigal by the parlour 
 poets of the Hotel de Rambouillet. She was exquisitely 
 pretty in her youthful colouring of lilies and roses, blue 
 eyes, and pale gold hair, and retained at thirty almost 
 all the charms and graces of eighteen. 
 
 Fareham took her by both hands and held her away 
 from him, severely scrutinising a face which he had 
 always been able to admire as calmly as if it had been 
 on canvas. 
 
 "You look an innocent woman," he said, "and I 
 have always believed you a good woman; and have 
 trusted my honour in your keeping — have seen that man 
 fawning at your feet, singing and sighing in your ear, 
 and have thought no evil. But now that you have told 
 me, as plainly as woman can speak to man, that this is 
 the man you love, and have loved all your life, there 
 must needs come an end to the sighing and singing. 
 You and Henri de Malfort must meet no more. Nay, 
 look not such angry scorn. I impute no guilt; but 
 between innocence and guilt there need be but one 
 passionate hour. The wife goes out an honest woman, 
 able to look her husband in the face as you are looking 
 
REVELATIONS. 6 3 
 
 at me; the wanton comes home, and the rest of her life 
 is a shameful lie. And the husband awakes some day 
 from his dream of domestic peace to discover that he 
 has been long the laughing-stock of the town. I will be 
 no such fatuous husband, Hyacinth. I will wait for no 
 second warning." 
 
 Lady Fareham submitted in silence, and with deep 
 resentment. She had never before experienced a hus- 
 band's authority sternly exercised. She had been for- 
 bidden the free run of London playhouses, and some of 
 the pleasures of Court society; but then she had been 
 denied with all kindness, and had been allowed so many 
 counterbalancing extravagances, pleasures, and follies, 
 that it would have been difficult for her to think herself 
 ill-used. 
 
 She submitted angrily, passionately regretting the man 
 whose presence had long been the brightest element in 
 her life. Her cheek paled; she grew indifferent to the 
 amusements which had been her sole occupation; she 
 sulked in her rooms, equally avoiding her children and 
 their aunt; and, indeed, seemed to care for no one's 
 society except Mrs. Lewin's. The Court milliner had 
 business with her ladyship every day, and was regaled 
 with cakes and liqueurs in her ladyship's dressing-room. 
 
 "You must be very busy about new gowns, Hya- 
 cinth," her husband said to her one day at dinner. "I 
 meet the harridan from Covent Garden on the stairs 
 every morning." 
 
 "She is not a harridan, whatever that elegant word 
 may mean. And as for gowns, it would be wiser for me 
 to order no new ones, since it is but likely I shall soon 
 have to wear mourning for an old friend." 
 
64 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 She looked at her husband, defying him. He rose 
 from the table with a sigh, and walked out of the room. 
 There was war between them, or at best an armed 
 neutrality. He looked back, and saw that he had been 
 blind to the things he should have seen, dull and un- 
 observant where he should have had sense and under- 
 standing. 
 
 "I did not care enough for my honour," he 
 thought. "Was it because I cared too little for my wife? 
 It is indifference, and not love, that is blind." 
 
 Angela saw the cloud that overshadowed Fareham 
 House with deepest distress; and yet felt herself power- 
 less to bring back sunshine. Her sister met her remon- 
 strances with scorn. 
 
 "Do you take the part of a tyrant against your own 
 flesh and blood?" she asked. "I have been too tame a 
 slave. To keep me away from the Court while I was 
 young and worth looking at — to deny me amusements 
 and admiration which are the privilege of every woman 
 of quality — to forbid me the playhouse, and make a 
 country cousin of me by keeping me ignorant of modern 
 wit. I am ashamed of my compliance." 
 
 "Nay, dearest, was it not an evidence of his love 
 that he should desire you to keep your mind pure as 
 well as your face fair?" 
 
 "No, he has never loved me. It is only a churlish 
 jealousy that would shut me up in a harem like a Turk's 
 wife, and part me from the friend I like best in the 
 world — with the purest platonic affection." 
 
 "Hyacinth, don't be angry with me for being out of 
 the fashion; but indeed I cannot think it right for a 
 
REVELATIONS. 65 
 
 wife to care for the company of any other man but her 
 husband." 
 
 "And my husband is so entertaining! Sure any 
 woman might be content with such gay company — such 
 flashes of wit — such light raillery!" cried Hyacinth, 
 scornfully, walking up and down the room, plucking at 
 the lace upon her sleeves with restless hands, her bosom 
 heaving, her eyes steel-bright with anger. "Since his 
 sickness last year, he has been the image of melancholy; 
 he has held himself aloof from me as if / had had the 
 pestilence. I was content that it should be so. I had 
 my children and you, and one who loved me better, in 
 his light way, than any of you — and I could do without 
 Lord Fareham. But now he forbids me to see an old 
 friend that is dangerously ill, and every drop of blood 
 in my veins boils in rebellion against his tyranny!" 
 
 It was in the early dusk, an hour or so after dinner. 
 Angela sat silent in the shadow of a bay window, quite 
 as heavy-hearted as her sister — sorry for Hyacinth, but 
 still sorrier for Hyacinth's husband, yet feeling that there 
 was treachery and unkindness in making him first in her 
 thoughts. But surely, surely he deserved a better wife 
 than this! Surely he deserved a wife's love — this man 
 who stood alone among the men she knew, hating all 
 evil things, honouring all things good and noble! He 
 had been unkind to her — cold and cruel — since that 
 fatal night. He had let her understand that all friend- 
 ship between them was at an end for ever, and that she 
 had become despicable in his sight; and she had sub- 
 mitted to be scorned by him, since it was impossible 
 that she should clear herself. She had made her sisterly 
 sacrifice for a sister who regarded it very lightly; to 
 
 London Pride. II. 5 
 
66 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 whose light fancy that night and all it involved counted 
 but as a scene in a comedy; and she could not unmake 
 it. But having so sacrificed his good opinion whose 
 esteem she valued, she wanted to see some happy result, 
 and to save this splendid home from shipwreck. 
 
 Suddenly, with a passionate impulse, she went to her 
 sister, and put her arms round her and kissed her. 
 
 "Hyacinth, you shall not continue in this folly," she 
 cried, "to fret for that shallow idler, whose love is lighter 
 than thistledown, whose element is the ruelle of one of 
 those libertine French duchesses he is ever talking about. 
 To rebel against the noblest gentleman in England! Oh, 
 sister, you must know him better than I do; and yet I, 
 who am nothing to him, am wretched when I see him 
 ill-used. Indeed, Hyacinth, you are acting like a wicked 
 wife. You should never have wished to see De Malfort 
 again, after the peril of that night. You should have 
 known that he had no esteem for you, that he was a 
 traitor — that his design was the wickedest, cruellest " 
 
 "I don't pretend to know a man's mind as well as 
 you — neither De Malfort's nor my husband's. You have 
 needed but the experience of a year to make you wise 
 enough in the world's ways to instruct your elders. I 
 
 am not going to be preached to Hark!" she cried, 
 
 running to the nearest window, and looking out at the 
 river, "that is better than your sermons." 
 
 It was the sound of fiddles playing the symphony 
 of a song she knew well — one of De Malfort's, a French 
 chanson, her latest favourite, the words adapted from a 
 little poem by Voiture, "Pour vos beaux yeux." 
 
 She opened the casement, and Angela stood beside 
 her looking down at a boat in which several muffled 
 
REVELATIONS. 67 
 
 figures were seated, and which was moored to the 
 terrace wall. 
 
 There were three violins and a 'cello, and a quartette 
 of singing-boys with fair young faces smiling in the light 
 of the lamps that hung in front of Fareham's house. 
 
 The evening was still, and mild as early autumn, 
 and the plash of oars passing up and down the river 
 sounded like a part of the music — 
 
 "Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play, 
 Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair, 
 
 Love does on both her lips for ever stray, 
 
 And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there; 
 
 In all her outward parts love's always seen; 
 
 But, oh, he never went within." 
 
 It was a song of Cowley's, which De Malfort had 
 lately set to music, and to a melody which Hyacinth 
 especially admired. 
 
 "A serenade! Only De Malfort could have thought 
 of such a thing. Lying ill and alone, he sends me the 
 sweetest token of his regard — my favourite air, his own 
 setting — the last song I ever heard him sing. And you 
 wonder that I value so pure, so disinterested a love! 
 protested Hyacinth to her sister, in the silence at the 
 end of the song. 
 
 "Sing again, sweet boys, sing again!" she cried, 
 snatching a purse from her pocket, and flinging it with 
 impetuous aim into the boat. 
 
 It hit one of the fiddlers on the head, and there 
 was a laugh, and in a trice the largesse was divided 
 and pocketed. 
 
 "They are from his Majesty's choir; I know their 
 voices," said Hyacinth, "so fresh, and pure. They are 
 
68 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the prettiest singers in the chapel. That little monkey 
 with the cherub's voice is Purcell — Dr. Blew's favourite 
 pupil — and a rare genius." 
 
 They sang another song from De Malfort's repertoire, 
 an Italian serenade, which Hyacinth had heard in the 
 brilliant days before her marriage, when the Italian Opera 
 was still a new thing in Paris. The melody brought 
 back the memory of her happy girlhood with a rush of 
 sudden tears. 
 
 The little concert lasted for something less than an 
 hour, with intervals of light music, dances and marches, 
 between the singing. Boats passed and repassed. Strange 
 voices joined in a refrain now and then, and the sisters 
 stood at the open window enthralled by the charm of 
 the music and the scene. London lay in ruins yonder 
 to the east, and Sir Matthew Hale and other judges 
 were sitting at Clifford's Inn to decide questions of title 
 and boundary, and the obligation to rebuild; but here 
 in this western London there were long ranges of lighted 
 windows shining through the wintry mists, wherries pass- 
 ing up and down with lanterns at their prows, an air of 
 life and gaiety hanging over that river which had carried 
 so many a noble victim to his doom yonder, where the 
 four towers stood black against the starlit greyness, un- 
 scathed by fire, and untouched by time. 
 
 The last notes of a good-night song dwindled and 
 died, to the accompaniment of dipping oars, as the boat 
 moved slowly along the tideway, and lost itself among 
 other boats — jovial cits going eastward, from an after- 
 noon at the King's theatre, modish gallants voyaging 
 westward from playhouse or tavern, some going home 
 to domesticity, others intent upon pleasure and intrigue, 
 
REVELATIONS. 69 
 
 as the darkness came down, and the hour for supper 
 and deeper drinking drew near. And who would have 
 thought, watching the lighted windows of palace and 
 tavern, hearing those joyous sounds of glee or catch 
 trolled by voices that reeked of wine — who would have 
 thought of the dead-cart, and the unnumbered dead 
 lying in the pest pits yonder, or the city in ruins, or the 
 King enslaved to a foreign power, and pledged to a 
 hated Church? London, gay, splendid, and prosperous, 
 the queen-city of the world as she seemed to those who 
 loved her — could rise glorious from the ashes of a fire 
 unparalleled in modern history, and to Charles and 
 Wren it might be given to realise a boast which in 
 Augustus had been little more than an imperial phrase. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DIDO. 
 
 The armed neutrality between man and wife con- 
 tinued, and the domestic sky at Fareham House was 
 dark and depressing. Lady Fareham, who had hitherto 
 been remarkable for a girlish amiability of speech which 
 went well with her girlish beauty, became now the 
 height of the mode for acidity and slander. The worst 
 of the evil speakers on her ladyship's visiting-day 
 flavoured the China tea with no bitterer allusions than 
 those that fell from the rosy lips of the hostess. And, 
 for the colouring of those lips, which once owed their 
 vermeil tint only to nature, Lady Fareham was now 
 dependent upon Mrs. Lewin, as well as for the carnation 
 
70 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of cheeks that looked pallid and sunken in the glass 
 which reflected the sad mourning face. 
 
 Mrs. Lewin brought roses and lilies in her queer 
 little china pots and powder boxes, pencils and brushes, 
 perfumes and washes without number. It cost as much 
 to keep a complexion as to keep a horse. And Mrs. 
 Lewin was infinitely useful at this juncture, since she 
 called every day at St. James's Street, to carry a lace 
 cravat, or a ribbon, or a flask of essence to the invalid 
 languishing in lodgings there, and visited by all the 
 town, except Fareham and his wife. De Malfort had 
 lain for a fortnight at Lady Castlemaine's house, alter- 
 nately petted and neglected by his fair hostess, as the 
 fit took her, since she showed herself ever of the 
 chameleon breed, and hovered betwixt angel and devil. 
 His surgeon told him in confidence that when once his 
 wound was healed enough to allow his removal, the 
 sooner he quitted that feverish company the better it 
 would be for his chance of a speedy convalescence. 
 So, at the end of the second week, he was moved in a 
 covered litter to his own lodgings, where his faithful 
 valet, who had followed his fortunes since he came to 
 man's estate, was quite capable of nursing him. 
 
 The town soon discovered the breach between Lord 
 Fareham and his friend — a breach commented upon 
 with many shoulder-shrugs, and not a few coarse in- 
 nuendoes. Lady Lucretia Topham insisted upon making 
 her way to the sick man's room, in the teeth of messages 
 delivered by his valet, which, even to a less intelligent 
 mind than Lady Lucretia's, might have conveyed the 
 fact that she was not wanted. She flung herself on her 
 knees by De Malfort's bed, and wept and raved at the 
 
DIDO. 7 I 
 
 brutality which had deprived the world of his charming 
 company — and herself of the only man she had ever 
 loved. De Malfort, fevered and vexed at her intrusion, 
 and at this renewal of fires long burnt out, had yet 
 discretion enough to threaten her with his dire dis- 
 pleasure if she betrayed the secret of his illness. 
 
 "I have sworn Dangerfield and Masaroon to silence," 
 he said. "Except servants, who have been paid to 
 keep mute, you are the only other witness of our 
 quarrel; and if the story becomes town talk, I shall 
 know whose busy tongue set it going — and then — well, 
 there are things I might tell that your ladyship would 
 hardly like the world to know." 
 
 "Traitor! If your purse has accommodated me once 
 in a way when luck has been adverse " 
 
 "Oh, madam, you cannot think me base enough to 
 blab of a money transaction with a lady. There are 
 secrets more tender — more romantic." 
 
 "Those secrets can be easily denied, wretch. How- 
 ever, I know you would not injure me with a husband 
 so odious and tyrannical that I stood excused in ad- 
 vance for inconstancy when I stooped to wed country 
 manners and stubborn ignorance. Indeed, mo?i ami, if 
 you will but take pains to recover, I will never breathe 
 a word about the duel; but if — if — " a sob indicated 
 the tragic possibility which Lady Lucretia dared not put 
 into words — "I will do all that a weak woman can do 
 to get Fareham hanged for murder. There has never 
 been a peer hanged in England, I believe. He should 
 be the first." 
 
 "Dear soul, there need be no hanging! I have 
 been on the mending hand for a week, or my doctors 
 
J 2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 would not have let you upstairs. There, go, my pretty 
 Lucrece; but if your milliner or your shoemaker is 
 pressing, there are a few jacobuses in the right-hand 
 drawer of yonder escritoire, and you may as well take 
 them as leave them for my valet to steal. He is one 
 of those excellent old servants who make no distinctions, 
 and he robs me as freely as he robbed my father be- 
 fore me." 
 
 "Mrs. Lewin is always pressing," sighed Lady 
 Lucretia. "She made me a gown like that of Lady 
 Fareham's, for which you were all eyes. I ordered the 
 brocade to please you; and now I am wearing it when 
 you are not at Whitehall. Well, as you are so kind, I 
 will be your debtor for another trifling loan. It is 
 wicked to leave money where it tempts a good servant 
 to dishonesty. Ah, Henri" — she was pocketing the 
 gold as she talked — "if ten years of my life could save 
 you ten days of pain and fever, how gladly would I 
 give them to you!" 
 
 "Ah, douce, if there were a market for the exchange 
 of such commodities, what a roaring trade would be 
 done there! I never loved a woman yet but she 
 offered me her life, or an instalment of it." 
 
 "I have emptied your drawer," laughing coyly. 
 "There is just enough to keep Lewin in good humour 
 till you are well again, and we can be partners at 
 basset." 
 
 "It will be very long before I play basset in 
 London." 
 
 "Oh, but indeed you will soon be well." 
 
 "Well enough to change the scene, I hope. It needs 
 change of places and persons to make life bearable. I 
 
dido. 7 3 
 
 long to be at the Louvre again, to see a play by 
 Moliere's company, as only they can act, instead of the 
 loathsome translations we get here, in which all that 
 there is of wit and charm in the original is transmuted 
 to coarseness and vulgarity. When I leave this bed, 
 Lucrece, it will be for Paris." 
 
 "Why, it will be ages before you are strong enough 
 for such a journey." 
 
 "Oh, I will risk that. I hate London so badly, that 
 to escape from it will work a miraculous cure for me." 
 
 An armed neutrality! Even the children felt the 
 change in the atmosphere of home, and nestled closer 
 to their aunt, who never changed to them. 
 
 "Father mostly looks angry," Henriette complained 
 "and mother is always unhappy, if she is not laughing 
 and talking in the midst of company; and neither of 
 them ever seems to want me. I wish I was grown up, 
 so that I could be maid of honour to the Queen or the 
 Duchess, and live at Whitehall. Mademoiselle told me 
 that there is always life and pleasure at Court." 
 
 "Your father does not love the Court, dearest, and 
 mademoiselle should be wiser than to talk to you of 
 such things, when she is here to teach you dancing and 
 French literature." 
 
 "Mademoiselle" was a governess lately imported 
 from Paris, recommended by Mademoiselle Scudery, 
 and full of high-flown ideas expressed in high-flown 
 language. All Paris had laughed at Moliere's Pre- 
 cieuses Ridicules; but the Precieuses themselves, and 
 their friends, protested that the popular farce was aimed 
 only at the low-born imitators of those great ladies who 
 
74 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 had originated the school of superfine culture and 
 romantic aspirations. 
 
 "Sapho" herself, in tracing her own portrait with a 
 careful and elaborate pencil, told the world how shame- 
 fully she had been imitated by the spurious middle- 
 class Saphos, who set up their salons, and vied with 
 the sacred house of Rambouillet, and the privileged 
 coterie of the Rue de Temple. 
 
 Lady Fareham had not ceased to believe in her 
 dear, plain, witty Scudery, and was delighted to secure 
 a governess of her choosing, whereby Papillon, who 
 loved freedom and idleness, and hated lessons of all 
 kinds, was set down to write themes upon chivalry, 
 politeness, benevolence, pride, war, and other abstrac- 
 tions; or to fill in bouts-rimes, by way of enlarging her 
 acquaintance with the French language, which she had 
 chattered freely all her life. Mademoiselle insisted upon 
 all the niceties of phraseology as discussed in the Rue 
 Saint Thomas du Louvre. 
 
 There had been a change of late in Fareham's 
 manner to his sister-in-law, a change refreshing to her 
 troubled spirit as mercy, that gentle dew from heaven, 
 to the criminal. He had been kinder; and though he 
 spent very few of his hours with the women of his 
 household, he had talked to Angela somewhat in the 
 friendly tone of those fondly remembered days at 
 Chilton, when he had taught her to row and ride, to 
 manage a spirited palfrey and fly a falcon, and had 
 been in all things her mentor and friend. He seemed 
 less oppressed with gloom as time went on, but had 
 his sullen fits still, and, after being kind and courteous 
 to wife and sister, and playful with his children, would 
 
dido. 75 
 
 leave them suddenly, and return no more to the saloon 
 or drawing-room that evening. Yet on the whole the 
 sky was lightening. He ignored Hyacinth's resentment, 
 endured her pettishness, and was studiously polite 
 to her. 
 
 It was on Lady Fareham's visiting-day, deep in that 
 very severe winter, that some news was told her which 
 came like a thunder-clap, and which it needed all the 
 weak soul's power of self-repression to suffer without 
 swooning or hysterics. 
 
 Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, gorgeous in velvet and fur, 
 her thickly painted countenance framed in a furred 
 hood, entered fussily upon a little coterie in which 
 Masaroon, vapouring about the last performance at the 
 King's theatre, was the principal figure. 
 
 "There was a little woman spoke the epilogue," he 
 said, "a little creature in a monstrous big hat, as large 
 and as round as a cart-wheel, which vastly amused his 
 Majesty." 
 
 "The hat?" 
 
 "Nay, it was woman and hat. The thing is so small 
 it might have been scarce noticed without the hat, but 
 it has a pretty little, insignificant, crumpled face, and 
 laughs all over its face till it has no eyes, and then 
 stops laughing suddenly, and the eyes shine out, twink- 
 ling and dancing like stars reflected in running water, 
 and it stamps its little foot upon the stage in a comic 
 passion — and — nous verrons. It sold oranges in the 
 pit, folks tell me, a year ago. It may be selling sine- 
 cures and captaincies in a year or two, and putting an- 
 other shilling in the pound upon land." 
 
76 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Is it that brazen little comedy actress you are 
 talking of, Masaroon?" Lady Sarah asked, when she 
 had exchanged curtsies with the ladies of the company, 
 and established herself on the most comfortable tabouret, 
 near Lady Fareham's tea-table; "Mrs. Glyn — Wynn — 
 Gwyn? I wonder a man of wit can notice such a vulgar 
 creature, a she-jack-pudden, fit only to please the rabble 
 in the gallery." 
 
 "Ay, but there is a finer sort of rabble — a rabble 
 of quality — beginning with his Majesty, that are always 
 pleased with anything new. And this little creature is 
 as fresh as a spring morning. To see her laugh, to 
 hear the ring of it, clear and sweet as a skylark's song ! 
 On my life, madam, the town has a new toy; and Mrs. 
 Gwyn will be the rage in high quarters. You should 
 have seen Castlemaine's scowl when Rowley laughed, 
 and ducked under the box almost, in an ecstasy of 
 amusement at the huge hat." 
 
 "Lady Castlemaine's brow would thunder-cloud if 
 his Majesty looked at a fly on a window-pane. But she 
 has something else to provoke her frowns to-day." 
 
 "What is that, chere dame?' 3 asked Hyacinth, 
 snatching a favourite fan from Sir Ralph, who was teas- 
 ing one of the Blenheims with African feathers that were 
 almost priceless. 
 
 "The desertion of an old friend. The Comte de 
 Malfort has left England." 
 
 Lady Fareham turned livid under her rouge. Angela 
 ran to her and leant over her, upon a pretence of 
 rescuing the fan and chiding the dogs; and so contrived 
 to screen her sister's change of complexion from the 
 malignity of her dearest friends. 
 
dido. 77 
 
 "Left England! Why, he is confined to his bed with 
 a fever!" Hyacinth said faintly, when she had some- 
 what recovered from the shock. 
 
 "Nay, it seems that he began to go abroad last week, 
 but would see no company, except a confidential friend 
 or so. He left London this morning for Dover." 
 
 "No doubt he has business in Burgundy, where his 
 estate is, and at Paris, where he is of importance at the 
 Court," said Hyacinth, as lightly as she could; "but I'll 
 wager anything anybody likes that he will be in London 
 again in a month." 
 
 "I'll take you for those black pearls in your ears, 
 ma mie" said Lady Sarah. "His furniture is to be 
 sold by auction next week. I saw a bill on the house 
 this afternoon. It is sudden! Perhaps the Castlemaine 
 had become too exacting!" 
 
 "Castlemaine!" faltered Hyacinth, agitated beyond 
 her power of self-control. "Why, what is she to him 
 more than she is to other men?" 
 
 "Very little, perhaps," said Sir Ralph, and then 
 everybody laughed, and Hyacinth felt herself sitting 
 among them like a child, understanding nothing of their 
 smiles and shrugs, the malice in their sly interchange of 
 glances. 
 
 She sat among them feeling as if her heart were 
 turned to stone. He had left the country without even 
 bidding her farewell — her faithful slave, upon whose 
 devotion she counted as surely as upon the rising of the 
 sun. Whatever her husband might do to separate her 
 from this friend of her girlhood, she had feared no de- 
 fection upon De Malfort's part. He would always be 
 near at hand, waiting and watching for the happier days 
 
78 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 that were to smile upon their innocent loves. She had 
 written to him every day during his illness. Good Mrs. 
 Lewin had taken the letters to him, and had brought 
 her his replies. Ke had not written so often, or at such 
 length, as she, and had pleaded the languor of con- 
 valescence as his excuse; but all his billet-doux had 
 been in the same delicious hyperbole, the language of 
 the Pays du Tendre. She sat silent while her visitors 
 talked about him, plucking a reputation as mercilessly 
 as a kitchen wench plucks a fowl. He was gone. He 
 had left the country deep in debt. It was his landlord 
 who had stuck up that notice of a sale by auction. 
 Tailors and shoemakers, perruquiers and perfumers were 
 bewailing his flight. 
 
 So much for the sordid side of things. But what of 
 those numerous affairs of the heart — those entangle- 
 ments which had made his life one long intrigue? 
 
 Lady Sarah sat simpering and nodding as Masaroon 
 whispered close in her ear. 
 
 Barbara! Oh, that was almost as old as the story 
 of Antony and Cleopatra. She had paid his debts — and 
 he had paid hers. Their purse had been in common. 
 And the handsome maid of honour? Ah, poor silly 
 soul ! That was a horrid, ugly business, and his Majesty's 
 part in it the horridest. And Mrs. Levington, the rich 
 silk mercer's wife? That was a serious attachment. It 
 was said that the husband attempted poison, when De 
 Malfort refused him the satisfaction of a gentleman. And 
 the poor woman was sent to die of ennui and rheu- 
 matism in a castle among the Irish bogs, where her 
 citizen husband had set up as a landed squire. 
 
 The fine company discussed all these foul stories 
 
dido. 79 
 
 with gusto, insinuating much more than they expressed 
 in words. Never until to-day had they spoken so freely 
 of De Malfort in Lady Fareham's presence; but the 
 story had got about of a breach between Hyacinth and 
 her admirer, and it was supposed that any abuse of the 
 defaulter would be pleasant in her ears. And then, he 
 was ruined and gone; and there is no vulture's feast 
 sweeter than to banquet upon a departed rival's char- 
 acter. 
 
 Hyacinth listened in dull silence, as if her sensations 
 were suddenly benumbed. She felt nothing but a hor- 
 rible surprise. Her lover — her platonic lover — that other 
 half of her mind and heart — with whom she had been 
 in such tender sympathy, in unison of spirit, so subtle 
 that the same thoughts sprang up simultaneously in the 
 minds of each, the same language leapt to their lips, 
 and they laughed to find their words alike. It had 
 been only a shallow woman's shallow love — but trivial 
 woes are tragedies for trivial minds; and when her 
 guests had gradually melted away, dispersing themselves 
 with reciprocal curtsies and airy compliments, elegant in 
 their modish iniquity as a troop of vicious fairies — 
 Hyacinth stood on the hearth where they had left her, 
 a statue of despair. 
 
 Angela went to her, when the stately double doors 
 had closed on the last of the gossips and lackeys, and 
 they two were alone amidst the spacious splendour. 
 The younger sister hugged the elder to her breast, and 
 kissed her, and cried over her, like a mother comforting 
 her disappointed child. 
 
 "Don't heed that shameful talk, dearest. No char- 
 acter is safe with them. Be sure Monsieur de Malfort 
 
SO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 is not the reprobate they would make him. You have 
 known him nearly all your life. You know him too well 
 to judge him by the idle talk of the town." 
 
 "No, no; I have never known him. He has always 
 worn a mask. He is as false as Satan. Don't talk to 
 me — don't kiss me, child. You have smeared my face 
 horribly with your kisses and tears. Your pity drives 
 me mad. How can you understand these things — you 
 who have never loved anyone? What can you know 
 of what women feel? There, silly fool! you are trem- 
 bling as if I had hit you," as Angela withdrew her arms 
 suddenly, and stood aloof. "I have been a virtuous 
 wife, sister, in a town where scarce one woman in ten 
 is true to her marriage vows. I have never sinned 
 against my husband; but I have never loved him. Henri 
 had my heart before I knew what the word love meant; 
 and in all these years we have loved each other with 
 the purest, noblest affection — at least he made me be- 
 lieve my love was reciprocated. We have enjoyed a 
 most exquisite communion of thought and feeling. His 
 letters — you shall read his letters some day — so noble, 
 so brilliant — all poetry, and chivalry, and wit. I lived 
 upon his letters when fate parted us. And when he 
 followed us to England, I thought it was for my sake 
 that he came — only for me. And to hear that he was 
 her lover — hers — that woman! To know that he came 
 to me — with sweetest words upon his lips — knelt to kiss 
 the tips of my fingers — as if it were a privilege to die 
 for — from her arms, from her caresses — the wickedest 
 woman in England — and the loveliest!" 
 
 "Dear Hyacinth, it was a childish dream — and you 
 have awakened? You will live to be glad of being re- 
 
DIDO. 8 t 
 
 called from falsehood to truth. Your husband is worth 
 fifty De Malforts, did you but know it. Oh, dearest, 
 give him your heart who ought to be its only master. 
 Indeed he is worthy. He stands apart — an honourable, 
 nobly thinking man in a world that is full of libertines. 
 Be sure he deserves your love." 
 
 "Don't preach to me, child! If you could give me 
 a sleeping-draught that would blot out memory for ever 
 — make me forget my childhood in the Marais — my 
 youth at St. Gennain — the dances at the Louvre — all 
 the days when I was happiest; why, then, perhaps, you 
 might make me in love with Lord Fareham." 
 
 "You will begin a new life, sister, now De Malfort 
 is gone." 
 
 "I will never forgive him for going!" cried Hyacinth, 
 passionately. "Never — never! To give me no note of 
 warning! To sneak away like a thief who had stolen 
 my diamonds! To fly for debt, too, and not come to 
 me for money! Why have I a fortune, if not to help 
 those I love? But — if he was that woman's lover — I 
 will never see his face again — never speak his name — 
 never — from the moment I am convinced of that hellish 
 treason — never! Her lover! Lady Castlemaine's ! We 
 have laughed at her, together! Her lover! And there 
 were other women those spiteful wretches talked about 
 just now — a tradesman's wife! Oh, how hateful, how 
 hateful it all is! Angela, if it is true, I shall go mad!" 
 
 "Dearest, to you he was but a friend — and though 
 you may be sorry he was so great a sinner, his sins 
 cannot concern your happiness " 
 
 "What! not to know him a profligate? The man 
 to whom I gave a chaste woman's love! Angela, that 
 
 London Pride. II. 6 
 
82 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 night, in the ruined abbey, I let him kiss me. Yes, for 
 one moment I was in his arms — and his lips were on 
 mine. And he had kissed her — the same night per- 
 haps. Her tainted kisses were on his lips. And it was 
 you who saved me! Dear sister, I owe you more than 
 life — I might have given myself to everlasting shame 
 that night. God knows! I was in his power — her 
 lover — judging all women, perhaps, by his knowledge of 
 that " 
 
 The epithet which closed the sentence was not a 
 word for a woman's lips; but it was wrung from the 
 soreness of a woman's wounded heart. 
 
 Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister's 
 arms. 
 
 "You saved me!" she cried, hysterically. "He 
 wanted me to go to Dover with him — back to France — 
 where we were so happy. He knelt to me, and I refused 
 him; but he prayed me again and again; and if you had 
 not come to rescue me, should I have gone on saying 
 no? God knows if my courage would have held out. 
 There were tears in his eyes. He swore that he had 
 never loved anyone upon this earth as he loved me. 
 Hypocrite! Deceiver — liar! He loved that woman! 
 Twenty times handsomer than ever I was — a hundred 
 times more wicked. It is the wicked women that are 
 best loved, Angela, remember that. Oh, bless you for 
 coming to save me ! You saved Fareham's life in the 
 plague year. You saved me from everlasting misery. 
 You are our guardian angel!" 
 
 "Ah, dearest, if love could guard you, I might deserve 
 that name " 
 
DIDO. 83 
 
 It was late in the same evening that Lady Fareham's 
 maid came to her bedchamber to inquire if she would 
 be pleased to see Mrs. Lewin, who had brought a pattern 
 of a new French bodice, with her humble apologies for 
 waiting on her ladyship so late. 
 
 Her ladyship would see Mrs. Lewin. She started up 
 from the sofa where she had been lying, her forehead 
 bound with a handkerchief steeped in Hungary water. 
 She was all excitement. 
 
 "Bring her here instantly!" she said, and the interval 
 necessary to conduct the milliner up the grand staircase 
 and along the gallery seemed an age to Hyacinth's im- 
 patience. 
 
 "Well? Have you a letter for me?" she asked, when 
 her woman had retired, and Mrs. Lewin had bustled and 
 curtsied across the room. 
 
 "In truly, my lady; and I have to ask your ladyship's 
 pardon for not bringing it early this morning, when his 
 honour gave it to me with his own hand out of his 
 travelling carriage. And very white and wasted he 
 looked, dear gentleman, not fit for a voyage to France in 
 this severe weather. And I was to carry you his letter 
 immediately; but, eh, gud! your ladyship, there was 
 never such a business as mine for surprises. I was 
 putting on my cloak to step out with your ladyship's 
 letter, when a coach, with a footman in the royal undress 
 livery, sets down at my door, and one of the Duchess's 
 women had come to fetch me to her Highness; and 
 there I was kept in her Highness's chamber half the 
 morning, disputing over a paduasoy for the Shrove 
 Tuesday masquerade — for her Highness gets somewhat 
 bulky, and is not easy to dress to her advantage or to 
 
 6* 
 
84 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 my credit — though she is a beauty compared with the 
 Queen, who still hankers after her hideous Portuguese 
 fashions " 
 
 "And employs your rival, Madame Marifleur " 
 
 "Marifleur! If your ladyship knew the creature as 
 well as I do, you'd call her Sally Cramp." 
 
 "I never can remember a low English name. Mari- 
 fleur seems to promise all that there is of the most 
 graceful and airy in a ruffled sleeve and a ribbon 
 shoulder-knot." 
 
 "I am glad to see your ladyship is in such good 
 spirits," said the milliner, wondering at Lady Fareham's 
 flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes. 
 
 They were brilliant with a somewhat glassy bright- 
 ness, and there was a touch of hysteria in her manner. 
 Mrs. Lewin thought she had been drinking. Many of her 
 customers ended that way — took to cognac and ratafia, 
 when choicer pleasures were exhausted and wrinkles 
 began to show through their paint. 
 
 Hyacinth was reading De Malfort's letter as she 
 talked, moving about the room a little, and then stopping 
 in front of the fireplace, where the light from two clusters 
 of wax candles shone down upon the finely written 
 page. 
 
 Mrs. Lewin watched her for a few minutes, and then 
 produced some pieces of silk out of her muff. 
 
 "I made so bold as to bring your ladyship some 
 patterns of Italian silks which only came to hand this 
 morning," she said. "There is a cherry-red that would 
 become your ladyship to the T." 
 
 "Make me a gown of it, my excellent Lewin — and 
 good night to you." 
 
DIDO. 85 
 
 "But sure your ladyship will look at the colour? 
 There is a pattern of amber with gold thread might 
 please you better. Lady Castlemaine has ordered a 
 Court mantua " 
 
 Lady Fareham rang her hand-bell with a vehemence 
 that suggested anger. 
 
 "Show Mrs. Lewin to her coach," she said shortly, 
 when her woman appeared. "When you have done 
 that you may go to bed; I want nothing more to- 
 night." 
 
 "Mrs. Kirkland has been asking to see your lady- 
 ship." 
 
 "I will see no one to-night. Tell Mrs. Kirkland so, 
 with my love." 
 
 She ran to the door when the maid and milliner 
 were gone, and locked it, and then ran back to the 
 fireplace, and flung herself down upon the rug to read 
 her letter. 
 
 " Cherie, when this is handed to you, I shall be sitting 
 in my coach on the dull Dover road, with frost-clouded 
 windows and a heart heavier than your leaden skies. 
 Loveliest of women, all things must end; and, despite 
 your childlike trust in man's virtue, you could scarce 
 hope for eternity to a bond that was too strong for 
 friendship and too weak for love. Dearest, had you 
 given yourself that claim upon love and honour which 
 we have talked of, and which you have ever refused, no 
 lesser power than death should have parted us. I would 
 have dared all, conquered all, for my dear mistress. 
 But you would not. It was not for lack of fervid 
 prayers that the statue remained a statue; but a man 
 
86 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 cannot go on worshipping a statue for ever. If the 
 Holy mother did not sometimes vouchsafe a sign of 
 human feeling, even good Catholics would have left off 
 kneeling to her image. 
 
 "Or, shall I say, rather, that the child remains a 
 child — fresh, and pure, and innocent, and candid, as in 
 the days when we played our jeu de volant in your 
 grandmother's garden — fit emblem of the light love of 
 our future years. You remained a child, Hyacinth, and 
 asked childish love-making from a man. Dearest, accept 
 a cruel truth from a man of the world — it is only the 
 love you call guilty that lasts. There is a stimulus in 
 sin and mystery that will fan the flame of passion and 
 keep love alive even for an inferior object. The ugly 
 women know this, and make lax morals a substitute for 
 beauty. An innocent intrigue, a butterfly affection like 
 ours, will seldom outlive the butterfly's brief day. Indeed, 
 I sometimes admire at myself as a marvel of constancy 
 for having kept faith so long with a mistress who has 
 rewarded me so sparingly. 
 
 "So, my angel, I am leaving your foggy island, my 
 cramped London lodgings, and extortionate London 
 tradesmen, on whom I have squandered so much of my 
 fortune that they ought to forgive me for leaving a 
 margin of debt, which I hope to pay the extortioners 
 hereafter for the honour of my name. I doubt if I 
 shall ever revisit England. I have tasted all London 
 pleasures, till familiarity has taken the taste out of 
 them; and though Paris may be only London with a 
 difference, that difference includes bluer skies, brighter 
 streets and gardens , and all the originals of which you 
 have here the copies. There, at least, I shall have the 
 
DIDO. 8j 
 
 fashion of my peruke and my speech at first hand. 
 Here you only adopt a mode when Paris begins to tire 
 of it. 
 
 "Farewell, then, dearest lady, but let it be no 
 tragical or eternal parting, since your fine house in the 
 Rue de Touraine will doubtless be honoured with your 
 presence some day. You have only to open a salon 
 there in order to be the top of the mode. Some really 
 patrician milieu is needed to replace the antique court 
 of the dear old Marquise, and to extinguish the Scudery, 
 whose Saturdays grow more vulgar every week. Yes, 
 you will come to Paris, bringing that human lily, Mrs. 
 Angela, in your train; and I promise to make you the 
 fashion before your house has been open a month. The 
 wits and Court favourites will go where I bid them. 
 And though your dearest friend, Madame de Longue- 
 ville, has retired from the world in which she was more 
 queenly than the Queen, you will find Mademoiselle de 
 Montpensier as faithful as ever to mundane pleasures, 
 and, after having refused kings and princes, slavishly de- 
 voted to a colonel of dragoons who does not care a 
 straw for her. 
 
 "Louise de Bourbon, a woman who can head a re- 
 volt and fire a cannon, would think no sacrifice too 
 great for a cold-hearted schemer like Lauzun — yet you 
 who swore you loved me, when the coach was waiting 
 that would have carried me to paradise, and made us 
 one for all this life, could suffer a foolish girl to separate 
 us in the very moment of triumphant union. You were 
 mine, Hyacinth; heart and mind were consenting, when 
 your convent-bred sister surprised us, and all my hopes 
 of bliss expired in a sermon. And now I can but say, 
 
88 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 with that witty rhymester, whom everybody in London 
 quotes — 
 
 'Love in your heart as idly burns, 
 As fire in antique Roman urns.' 
 
 "Good-bye, which means 'God be with you.' I 
 know not if the fear of Him was in your mind when 
 you sacrificed your lover to that icy abstraction women 
 call virtue. The Romans had but one virtue, which 
 meant the courage that dares; and to me the highest 
 type of woman would be one whose bold spirit dared 
 and defied the world for love's sake. These are the 
 women history remembers, and whom the men who live 
 after them worship. Cleopatra, Mary Stuart, Diana of 
 Poictiers, Marguerite de Valois, la Chevreuse, la Mont- 
 bazon! Think you that these became famous by keep- 
 ing their lovers at a distance? 
 
 "'Go, lovely rose!' 
 
 "How often I have sung those lines, and you have 
 listened, and nothing has come of it; except time 
 wasted, smiles, sighs, and tears, that ever promised, 
 and ever denied. Beauty, too choice to be kind, adieu! 
 
 "De Malfort." 
 
 When she had read these last words, she crushed 
 the letter in her palm, clenching her fingers over it till 
 the nails wounded the delicate flesh; and then she 
 opened her hand, and employed herself in smoothing 
 out the crumpled paper, as if her life depended on 
 making the letter readable again. But her pains could 
 not undo what her passion had done; and finding this, 
 she tossed the ragged paper into the flames, and began 
 to walk about the room in a distracted fashion, giving 
 
DIDO. 
 
 a little hysterical cry every now and then, and clasping 
 her hands upon her forehead. 
 
 Anger, humiliation, wounded love, wounded vanity, 
 disappointment, disillusion, were all in that cry, and in 
 the passionate beating of her heart, her stifled breath, • 
 her clenched hands. 
 
 "He was laughing when he wrote that letter — I am 
 sure he was laughing. There was not one serious 
 moment, not one pang at leaving me! He has been 
 laughing at me ever since he came to London. I have 
 been his fool, his amusement. Other women have had 
 his love, the guilty love that he praises! He has come 
 to me straight from their wicked houses, their feasting, 
 and riot, and drunkenness — has come and pretended to 
 love poetry, and Scudery's romances, and music, and 
 innocent conversation — come to rest himself after dis- 
 solute pleasures, bringing me the leavings of that hellish 
 company! And I have reviled such women, and he 
 has pretended an equal horror of them; and he was 
 their slave all the time, and went from me to them, and 
 made a jest of me for their amusement. I know his 
 biting raillery. And he was at the playhouse day after 
 day, where I could not go, sitting side by side with his 
 Jezebels, laughing at filthy comedies, and at me that 
 was forbidden to appear there. He had pleasures of 
 which I knew nothing; and when I fancied our inmost 
 souls moved in harmony, his thoughts were full of 
 wanton women and their wanton jests, and he smiled 
 at my childishness, and fooled me as children are 
 fooled." 
 
 The thought was distraction. She plucked out hand- 
 fuls of her pale gold hair, the pretty blonde hair which 
 
90 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 had been almost as famous in Paris as Beaufort's or 
 Madame de Longueville's yellow locks. The thought 
 of De Malfort's ridicule cut her like a whalebone whip. 
 She had fancied herself his Beatrice, his Laura, his 
 Stella — a being to be worshipped as reverently as the 
 stars, to make her lover happy with smiles and kindly 
 words, to stand for ever a little way off, like a goddess 
 in her temple, yet near enough to be adored. 
 
 And fondly believing this to be her mission, having 
 posed for the character, and filled it to her own fancy, 
 she found that she had only been a dissolute man's 
 dupe all the time; and no doubt had been the laugh- 
 ing-stock of her acquaintance, who looked at the game. 
 
 "And I was so proud of his devotion — I carried my 
 slave everywhere with me. Oh, fool, fool, fool!" 
 
 And then — the poor little brains being disordered 
 by passionate regrets — wickedest ideas ran riot in the 
 confusion of a mind not wide enough to hold life's large 
 passions. She began to be sorry that she was not like 
 those other women — to hate the modesty that had lost 
 her a lover. 
 
 To be like Barbara Castlemaine! That was woman's 
 only royalty. To rule with sovereign power over the 
 hearts and senses of men. A King for her lover, con- 
 stant in inconstancy, always going back to her from 
 every transient fancy — her property, her chattel; and 
 the foremost wits and dandies of the age for her ser- 
 vants, her Court of adorers, whom she ruled with frowns 
 or smiles, as her humour prompted. To be daring, 
 profuse, reckless, tyrannical; to suffer no control of 
 heaven or men — yes, that was, indeed, to be a Queen! 
 And compared with such empire, the poor authority of 
 
PHILASTER. Q I 
 
 the Precieuse, dictating the choice of adjectives, con- 
 demning pronouns, theorising upon feelings and passions 
 of which in practice she knows nothing, was a thing 
 for scornfullest laughter. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PHILASTER. 
 
 January was nearly over, the memorial service for 
 the martyred King was drawing near, and royalty and 
 fashion had deserted Whitehall for Hampton Court; 
 yet the Farehams lingered at their riverside mansion. 
 His lordship had business in London, while Sir Denzil 
 Warner, who came to Fareham House daily, was also 
 detained in the city by some special attraction, which 
 made hawk and hound, and even his worthy mother's 
 company, indifferent to him. 
 
 Lady Fareham had an air of caring for neither town 
 nor country, but on the whole preferred town. 
 
 "London has become a positive desert — and the 
 smoke from the smouldering ruins poisons the garden 
 and terrace whenever there is an east wind," she com- 
 plained. "But Oxfordshire would be a worse desert — 
 and I believe I should die of the spleen in a week, if 
 I trusted myself in that great rambling Abbey. I can 
 just suffer life in London; so I suppose I had best stay 
 till his lordship has finished his business, about which he 
 is so secret and mysterious." 
 
 Denzil was more devoted, more solicitous to please 
 than ever; and had a better chance of pleasing now 
 that most of her ladyship's fine visitors had left town. 
 
92 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 He read aloud to Hyacinth and her sister as they worked 
 — or pretended to work — at their embroidery frames. 
 He played the organ, and sang duets with Angela. He 
 walked with her on the terrace, in the cold, bleak after- 
 noon, and told her the news of the town — not the 
 scandals and trivialities which alone interested Lady 
 Fareham, but the graver facts connected with the state 
 and the public welfare — the prospects of war or peace, 
 the outlook towards France and Spain, Holland and 
 Sweden, Andrew Marvel's last speech, or the last grant 
 to the King, who might be relied on to oppose no 
 popular measure when his lieges were about to provide 
 a handsome subsidy or an increase of his revenue. 
 
 "We are winning our liberties from him," Denzil 
 said. "For the mess of pottage we give, the money he 
 squanders on libertine pleasures, England is buying free- 
 dom. Yet why, in the name of common sense, maintain 
 this phantom King, this Court which shocks and outrages 
 every decent Englishman's sense of right, and maintains 
 an ever-widening hotbed of corruption, so that habits 
 and extravagances once unknown beyond that focus of 
 all vice, are now spreading as fast as London; and 
 wherever there are bricks and mortar there are profligacy 
 and irreligion? Can you wonder, that all the best and 
 wisest in this city regret Cromwell's iron rule, the rule 
 of the strongest, and deplore that so bold a stroke for 
 liberty should have ended in such foolish subservience 
 to a King of whom we knew nothing when we begged 
 him to come and reign over us?" 
 
 "But if you win liberty while he is King, if wise 
 laws are established " 
 
 "Yes; but we might have been noble as well as 
 
PHILASTER. 93 
 
 free. There is something so petty in our resumed 
 bondage. Figure to yourself a thoroughbred horse that 
 had kicked off the traces, and stood free upon the open 
 plain with arched neck and lifted nostrils, sniffing the 
 morning air, and behold he creeps back to his harness, 
 and makes himself again a slave! We had done with 
 the Stuarts, at the cost of a tragedy, and in ten years 
 we call them back again, and put on the old shackles; 
 and for common sense, religion, and freedom, we have 
 the orgies of Whitehall, and the extravagance of Lady 
 Castlemaine. It will not last, Angela; it cannot last. I 
 was with his lordship in Artillery Row last night, and 
 we talked with the blind sage who would sacrifice the 
 remnant of his darkened days in the cause of liberty." 
 
 "Sir Denzil, I hope you are not plotting mischief — 
 you and my brother," Angela said anxiously. "You are 
 so often together; and his lordship has such a pre- 
 occupied air." 
 
 "No, no, there is no conspiring; but there is plenty 
 of discontent. It would need but little to fire the train. 
 Can any man in his senses be happy when he sees his 
 country, which ten years ago was at the pinnacle of 
 power and renown, sinking to the appanage of a foreign 
 sovereign; England threatened with a return to Rome; 
 honest men forbidden to preach the gospel; and in- 
 nocent seekers after truth hounded off to gaol, to rot 
 among malefactors, because they have dared to worship 
 God after their own fashion?" 
 
 "Where was your liberty of conscience under the 
 Protectorate, when the Liturgy was forbidden as if it 
 were an unholy thing, when the Anglican priests were 
 turned out of their pulpits, and the Anglican service 
 
94 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 tolerated in only one church in all this vast London?" 
 Angela asked indignantly. 
 
 "That was a revolt of deep thinkers against a service 
 which has all the mechanical artifice of Romanism with- 
 out its strong appeal to the heart and the senses — dry, 
 empty, rigid — a repetition of vain phrases. If I am ever 
 to bow my neck beneath the Church's yoke, let me 
 swallow the warm-blooded errors of Papacy rather than 
 the heartless formalism of English Episcopacy." 
 
 "But what can you or Fareham — or a few good men 
 like you — do to change established things? Remember 
 Venner's plot, and how many lives were wasted on that 
 foolish, futile attempt. You can only hazard your lives, 
 die on the scaffold. Or would you like to see civil war 
 again; the nation divided into opposite camps; English- 
 men fighting with Englishmen? Can you forget that 
 dreadful last year of the Rebellion? I was only a little 
 child; but it is branded deep on my memory. Can you 
 forget the murder of the King? He was murdered; let 
 Mr. Milton defend the deed as he can with his riches 
 of big words. I have wept over the royal martyr's own 
 account of his sufferings." 
 
 "Over Dr. Gauden's account, that is to say. 'Eikon 
 Basilike' w T as no more written by Charles than by Crom- 
 well. It was a doctored composition — a churchman's 
 spurious history, trumped up by Charles's friends and 
 partisans, possibly with the approval of the King him- 
 self. It is a fine piece of special pleading in a bad 
 cause." 
 
 "You make me hate you when you talk so slightingly 
 of that so ill-used King. You will make me hate you 
 
PHILASTER. 95 
 
 more if you lead Fareham into danger by underhand 
 work against the present King." 
 
 "Lies Fareham's safety so very near your heart?" 
 
 "It lies in my heart," she answered, looking at him, 
 and defying him with straight, clear gaze. "Is he not 
 my sister's husband, and to me as a brother? Do you 
 expect me to be careless about his fate? I know you 
 are leading him into danger. Some mischief must come 
 of these visits to Mr. Milton, a Republican outlaw, who 
 has escaped the penalty of his treasonous pamphlets 
 only because he is blind and old and poor. I doubt 
 there is danger in all such conferences. Fareham is at 
 heart a Republican. It would need little persuasion to 
 make him a traitor to the King." 
 
 "You have it in your power to make me so much 
 your slave, that I would sacrifice every patriotic aspira- 
 tion at your bidding, Angela," Denzil answered gravely. 
 "I know not if this be the time to speak, or if, after 
 waiting more than a year, I may not even now be pre- 
 mature. Dearest girl, you know that I love you — that 
 I haunt this house only because you live here; that I 
 am in London only because my star shines there; that 
 above all public interests you rule my life. I have 
 exercised a prodigious patience, only because I have a 
 prodigious resolution. Is it not time for me to reap my 
 reward?" 
 
 "Oh, Denzil, you fill me with sorrow! Have I not 
 said everything to discourage you?" 
 
 "And have I not refused to be discouraged? Angela, 
 I am resolved to discover the reason of your coldness. 
 Was there ever a young and lovely woman who shut 
 love out of her heart? History has no record of such 
 
9 6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 an one. I am of an appropriate age, of good birth and 
 good means, not under-educated, not brutish, or of 
 repulsive face and figure. If your heart is free I ought 
 to be able to win it. If you will not favour my suit, it 
 must be because there is someone else, someone who 
 came before me, or who has crossed my path, and to 
 whom your heart has been secretly given." 
 
 She had turned from red to pale as he spoke. She 
 stood before him in the winter light, with her colour 
 changing, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes cast down, 
 and tears trembling on the long dark lashes. 
 
 "You have no right to question me. It is enough 
 for you to have my honest answer. I esteem you, but 
 I do not love you; and it distresses me when you talk 
 of love." 
 
 "There is someone else, then! I knew it. There 
 is someone else. For me you are marble. You are 
 fire for him. He is in your heart. You have said it." 
 
 "How dare you " she began. 
 
 "Why should I shrink from warning you of your 
 danger? It is Fareham you love. I have seen you 
 tremble at his touch — start at the sound of his footstep 
 — that step you know so well. His footstep? Why, the 
 very air he breathes carries to you the consciousness of 
 his approach. Oh, I have watched you both, Angela; 
 and I know, I know. Jealous pangs have racked me, 
 day after day; yet I have hung on. I have been very 
 patient. 'She knows not the sinful impulses of her own 
 heart,' I said, 'knows not in her purity how near she 
 goes to a fall. Here, in her sister's house, passionately 
 loved by her sister's husband! She calls him 'brother,' 
 whose eyes cannot look at her without telling their story 
 
PHILASTER. 
 
 97 
 
 of wicked love. She walks on the edge of a precipice 
 — self- deceived. Were I to abandon her she might fall. 
 My affection is her only safeguard; and by winning her 
 to myself I shall snatch her from the pit of hell.' " 
 
 It was the truth he was telling her. Yes ; even when 
 Fareham was harshest, she had been dimly conscious 
 that love was at the root of his unkindness. The cold- 
 ness that had held them apart since that midnight meet- 
 ing had been ice over fire. It was jealousy that had 
 made him so angry. No word of love, directly spoken, 
 had ever offended her ear; but there had been many a 
 speech of double meaning that had set her wondering 
 and thinking. 
 
 And, oh! the guilt of it, when an honourable man 
 like Denzil set her sin before her, in plain language. 
 She stood aghast at her own wickedness. That which 
 had been a sin of thought only, a secret sorrow, wrestled 
 with in many an hour of heartfelt prayer, with all the 
 labour of a soul that sought heavenly aid against earthly 
 temptation, was conjured into hideous reality by Denzil's 
 plain speech. To love her sister's husband, to suffer his 
 guilty love, to know gladness only in his company, to be 
 exquisitely happy were he but in the same room with 
 her — to sink to profoundest melancholy when he was 
 absent. Oh, the sin of it! In what degree did her 
 guilt differ from that of the women of the Court, who 
 had each her open secret in some base intrigue that all 
 the world knew and laughed at? She had been kept 
 aloof from that libertine crew; but was she any better 
 than they? Was Fareham, who openly scorned the royal 
 debauchee, was he any better than the King? 
 
 She remembered how he had talked of Lord Sand- 
 
 London Pride. II. 7 
 
g8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 wich, making excuses for a perverted love. She had 
 heard him speak of other offenders in the same strain. 
 He had been ever ready to recognise fatality where a 
 good Catholic would have perceived only sin. 
 
 "Angela, believe me, you are drifting helmless in 
 perilous waters," Denzil urged, while she stood beside 
 him in mute distress. "Let me be your strong rock. 
 Only give me the promise of your hand. I can be 
 patient still. I will give time for love to grow. Grant 
 me but the right to guard you from the danger of an 
 unholy passion that is always near you in this house." 
 
 "You pretend to be his lordship's friend, and you 
 speak slander of him." 
 
 "I am his friend. I could find it in my heart to 
 pity him for loving you. Indeed, it has been in friend- 
 ship 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, God- 
 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 nobler 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 
 
PHILASTER. gg 
 
 that I have considered a sure way out of all my diffi- 
 culties. 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 noble 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 tram- 
 mels 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 think- 
 ing," he said. 
 
 "You mean that if I loved you I should love you 
 better than I love God?" 
 
 "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, there- 
 fore, despite my poor mother's violent opinions, in the 
 union of those who worship the same God, and whose 
 creed differs only in particulars. 'How knowest thou, 
 O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?' Indeed, love, 
 
 7* 
 
IOO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 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. 1 ' 
 
 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 passion. 
 
 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." 
 
PHILASTER. I O I 
 
 "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 
 duchess. 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 passionate 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 Phil aster's part, no fire of 
 passion to scathe and destroy; only a gentle gratitude 
 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 
 
102 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 as I walked home," he said; "and as Hyacinth is 
 always teasing me for denying her the playhouse, 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 playwrights of Elizabeth's age were poets and gentle- 
 men. 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 glass? 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 Duchess, 
 who no longer amused or scandalised the audience by 
 those honeymoon coquetries which had distinguished 
 
PHILASTER. 103 
 
 their earlier appearances in public. Duchess 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, look- 
 ing 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 hell than hell 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 
 
104 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 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 passage 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 noble 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 
 w x as 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 
 
PHILASTER. IO5 
 
 atom acting and acted upon by higher powers; sur- 
 rendering every desire and every hope that distinguished 
 her from the multitude 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 ex- 
 quisitely 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 noble teams, to 
 the provocation of much ill -language from postillions, 
 and flunkeys, and linkmen, for it was dark when they 
 
106 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 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 glass — arrant trumpery." 
 
 "But her gown was not trumpery. It was Lady 
 Castlemaine's last birthday gown. I heard a lady tell- 
 ing 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." 
 
PHILASTER. IO7 
 
 "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 un- 
 natural to be mute. 
 
 Papillon sprang off the coach step into her father's 
 arms. 
 
 "Sweetheart, why are you so sad?" she asked. "You 
 look more unhappy than Philaster when he thought his 
 lady loved him not." 
 
 She would not be put off, but hung about him all the 
 
108 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 length of the corridor, to the door of his room, where 
 he parted from her with a kiss on her forehead. 
 
 "How your lips burn!" she cried. "I hope you are 
 not sickening for the plague. I dreamt last night that 
 the contagion had come back'; and that our new glass 
 coach was going about with a bell collecting the dead." 
 
 "Thou hadst eaten too much supper, sweet. Such 
 dreams are warnings against excess of pies and jellies. 
 Go, love; I have business." 
 
 "You have always business now. You used to let 
 me stay with you — even when you was busy," Henriette 
 remonstrated, dejectedly, as the sonorous oak door closed 
 against her. 
 
 Fareham flung himself into his chair in front of the 
 large table, with its heaped-up books and litter of papers. 
 Straight before him there lay Milton's pamphlet — a 
 publication of ten years ago; but he had been reading 
 it only that morning — "The Doctrine and Discipline of 
 Divorce." 
 
 There were sentences which seemed to him to stand 
 out upon the page, almost as if written in fire; and to 
 these he recurred again and again, brooding over and 
 weighing every word. ". . . . Neither can this law 
 be of force to engage a blameless creature to his own 
 perpetual sorrow, mistaken for his expected solace, 
 without suffering charity to step in and do a confessed 
 good work of parting those whom nothing holds together 
 but this of God's joining, falsely supposed against the 
 express end of his own ordinance. ... 'It is not 
 good,' said He, 'that man should be alone; I will make 
 him a helpmeet for him.' From which words, so plain, 
 less cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned inter- 
 
PHILASTER. IOg 
 
 preter, than that in God's intention a meet and happy 
 conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage. 
 . . . Again, where the mind is unsatisfied, the solitari- 
 ness of man, which God had namely and principally 
 ordered to prevent by marriage, had no remedy, but 
 lies in a worse condition than the loneliest single life; 
 for in single life the absence and remoteness of a helper 
 might insure him to expect his own comforts out of 
 himself, or to seek with hope; but here the continual 
 sight of his deluded thoughts, without cure, must needs 
 be to him, if especially his complexion incline him to 
 melancholy, a daily trouble and pain of loss, in some 
 degree like that which reprobates feel." 
 
 He closed the book, and started up to pace the long, 
 lofty room, full of shadow, betwixt the light of the fire 
 and that one pair of candles on his reading desk. 
 
 "Reprobate! Yes. Am not I a reprobate, and the 
 worst, plotting against innocence? New England," he 
 repeated to himself. "How much the name promises. 
 A new world, a new life, and old fetters struck off. 
 God, if it could be done! It would hurt no one — no 
 one — except perhaps those children, who might suffer 
 a brief sorrow — and it would make two lives happy that 
 must be blighted else. Two lives! Am I so sure of her? 
 Yes, if eyes speak true. Sure as of my own fond passion. 
 The contagion, quotha! I have suffered that, sweet, 
 and know its icy sweats and parching heats; but 'tis not 
 so fierce a fever as that devilish disease, the longing for 
 your company." 
 
I I O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 GOOD-BYE, LONDON. 
 
 Sitting in her room before supper, a letter was 
 brought to Angela — a long letter, closely written, in a 
 neat, firm hand she knew very well. 
 
 It was from Denzil Warner; a letter full of earnest 
 thought and warm feeling, in which he pursued the sub- 
 ject of their morning's discourse. 
 
 "We were interrupted before I had time to open my 
 heart to you, dearest," he wrote; "and at a moment 
 when we had touched on the most delicate point in our 
 friendship — the difference in our religious education 
 and observance. Oh, my beloved, let not difference in 
 particulars divide two hearts that worship the same God, 
 or make a barrier between two minds that think alike 
 upon essentials. The Christ who died for you is not less 
 my Saviour because I love not to obtrude the dressed-up 
 image of His earthly mother between His Godhead and 
 my prayers. In the regeneration of baptism, in the 
 sanctity of marriage, in the resurrection of the body, 
 and the life of the world to come, in the reality of sin 
 and the necessity for repentance, I believe as truly as 
 any Papist living. Let our lives be but once united, 
 who knows how the future may shape and modify our 
 minds and our faith? I may be brought to your way 
 of thinking, or you to mine. I will pledge myself never 
 to be guilty of disrespect to your religion, or to unkindly 
 urge you to any change in your observances. I am 
 not one of those who have exchanged one tyranny for 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. I I I 
 
 another, and who, released from the dominion of Rome, 
 have become the slave of the Covenant. I have been 
 taught by one who, himself deeply religious, would have 
 all men free to worship God by the light of their own 
 conscience; and to my wife, that dearer half of my soul, 
 I would allow perfect freedom. I suffer from the lack 
 of poetic phrases with which to embellish the plain 
 reality of my love; but be sure, Angela, that you may 
 travel far through the world, and receive many a flowery 
 compliment to your beauty, yet meet none who will love 
 you as faithfully as I have loved you for this year last 
 past, and as I doubt I shall love you — happy or un- 
 fortunate in my wooing — for all the rest of my life. 
 Think, dearest, whether it were not wise on your part to 
 accept the chaste and respectful homage of a suitor who 
 is free to love and cherish you, and thus to shield your- 
 self from the sinful pursuit of one who offends Heaven 
 and dishonours you whenever he looks at you with the 
 eyes of a lover. I would not write harshly of a man 
 whose very sin I pity, and whom I believe not wholly 
 vile; but for him, as for me, that were a happy day 
 which should make you my wife, and thus end the mad- 
 ness of unholy hopes. I would again urge that Lady 
 Fareham desires our union with all a sister's concern for 
 you, and more than a friend's tenderness to me. 
 
 "I beseech your pardon and indulgence for my rough 
 words of this morning. God forbid that I should impute 
 one unworthy thought to her whose virtues I honour 
 above all earthly merit. If your heart inclines towards 
 one whom it were misery for you to love, I know that it 
 must be with an affection pure and ethereal as the love 
 of the disguised girl in Fletcher's play. But, ah, dearest 
 
112 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 angel, you know not the peril in which you walk. Your 
 innocent mind cannot conceive the audacious height to 
 which unholy love may climb in a man's fiery nature. 
 You cannot fathom the black depths of such a character 
 as Fareham — a man as capable of greatness in evil as 
 of distinction in good. Forget not whose fierce blood 
 runs in those veins. Can you doubt his audacity in 
 wrong-doing, when you remember that he comes of the 
 same stock which produced that renegade and tyrant, 
 Thomas Wentworth — a man who would have waded 
 deep in the blood of a nation to reach his desired goal, 
 all the history of whose life was expressed by him in 
 one word — 'thorough'? 
 
 "Do you consider what that word means to a man over 
 whose heart sin has taken the upper hand? Thorough! 
 How resolute in evil, how undaunted and without limit 
 in baseness, is he who takes that word for his motto! 
 Oh, my love, there are dragons and lions about thy 
 innocent footsteps — the dragons of lust, the lions of pre- 
 sumptuous love. Flee from thy worst enemy, dearest, 
 to the shelter of a heart which adores thee; lean upon 
 a breast whose pulses beat for thee with a truth that 
 time cannot change. 
 
 "Thine till death, 
 
 "Warner." 
 
 Angela tore up the letter in anger. How dared he 
 write thus of Lord Fareham? To impute sinful passions, 
 guilty desires — to enter into another man's mind, and 
 read the secret cipher of his thoughts and wishes with 
 an assumed key, which might be false? His letter was 
 a bundle of false assumptions. What right had he to 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. 113 
 
 insist that her brother-in-law cared for her with - more 
 than the affection authorised by affinity? He had no 
 right. She hated him for his insolent letter. She scorned 
 the protection of his love. She had her refuge and her 
 shelter in a holier love than his. The doors of the old 
 home would open to her at a word. 
 
 She sat on a low stool in front of the hearth, while 
 the pile of ship timber on the andirons burnt itself out 
 and turned from red to grey. She sat looking into the 
 dying fire and recalling the pictures of the past; the 
 dull grey convent rooms and formal convent garden; 
 the petty rules and restrictions; the so-frequent functions 
 — low mass and high, benedictions, vespers — the re- 
 current sound of the chapel bell. The few dull books, 
 permitted in the hour of so-called recreation; the sombre 
 grey gown, which was the only relief from perpetual 
 black; the limitations of that colourless life. She had 
 been happy with the Ursulines under her kinswoman's 
 gentle sway. But could she be happy with the present 
 Superior, whose domineering temper she knew? She 
 had been happy in her ignorance of the outer world; 
 but could she be happy again in that grey seclusion — 
 she who had sat at the banquet of life, who had seen 
 the beauty and the variety of her native land? To be 
 an exile for the rest of her days, in the hopeless gloom 
 of a Flemish convent, among the heavy faces of Flemish 
 nuns! 
 
 In the intensity of introspective thought she had 
 forgotten one who had forbidden that gloomy seclusion, 
 and to whom it would be as natural for her to look for 
 protection and refuge as to convent or husband. From 
 her thoughts to-night the image of her wandering father 
 
 London Pride. II. 8 
 
ii4 
 
 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 had been absent. His appearances in her life had been 
 so rare and so brief, his influence on her destiny so 
 slight, that she was forgetful of him now in this crisis of 
 her fate. 
 
 It was within a week of that evening that the sisters 
 were startled by the arrival of their father, unannounced, 
 in the dusk of the winter afternoon. He had come by 
 slow stages from Spain, riding the greater part of the 
 journey — like Howell, fifty years earlier — attended only 
 by one faithful soldier-servant, and enduring no small 
 suffering, and running no slight risk, upon the road. 
 
 "The wolves had our provender on more than one 
 occasion," he told them. "The wonder is they never 
 had us or our hackneys. I left Madrid in July, not long 
 after the death of my poor friend Fanshawe. Indeed, 
 it was his friendship and his good lady's unvarying 
 courtesy that took me to the capital. We had last met 
 at Hampton Court, with the King, shortly before his 
 Majesty's so ill-advised flight; and we were bosom-friends 
 then. And so, he being dead of a fever early in the 
 summer, I had no more to do but to travel slowly home- 
 ward, to end my days in my own chimney-corner, and 
 to claim thy promise, Angela, that thou wouldst keep 
 my house, and comfort my declining years." 
 
 "Dear father!" Angela murmured, hanging over him 
 as he sat in the high-backed velvet chair by the fire, 
 while her ladyship's footmen set a table near him, with 
 wine and provisions for an impromptu meal, Lady Fare- 
 ham directing them, and coming between-whiles to 
 embrace her father in a flutter of spirits, the firelight 
 shining on her flame-coloured velvet gown and primrose 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. I I 5 
 
 taffety petticoat, her pretty golden curls and sparkling 
 Sevigne, her ruby necklace and earrings, and her bright 
 restless eyes. 
 
 While the elder sister was all movement and agita- 
 tion, the younger stood calm and still beside her father's 
 chair, her hands clasped in his, her thoughtful eyes 
 looking down at him as he talked, stopping now and 
 then in his story of adventures to eat and drink. 
 
 He looked much older than when he surprised her 
 in the Convent garden. His hair and beard, then iron 
 grey, were now silver white. He wore his own hair, 
 which was abundant, and a beard cut after the fashion 
 she knew in the portraits of Henri Quatre. His clothes 
 also were of that style, which lived now only in the 
 paintings of Vandyke and his school. 
 
 "How the girl looks at me!" Sir John said, surpris- 
 ing his daughter's earnest gaze. "Does she take me for 
 a ghost?" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, she may well fancy you have come 
 back from the other world while you wear that antique 
 suit," said Hyacinth. "I hope your first business to- 
 morrow will be to replenish your wardrobe by the as- 
 sistance of Lord Rochester's tailor. He is a German, 
 and has the best cut for a justau-corps in all the West 
 End. Fareham is shabby enough to make a wife 
 ashamed of him; but his clothes are only too plain for 
 his condition. Your Spanish cloak and steeple hat are 
 fitter for a travelling quack doctor than for a gentleman 
 of quality, and your doublet and vest might have come 
 out of the ark." 
 
 "If I change them, it will be but to humour your 
 vanity, sweetheart," answered her father, ( 'l bought the 
 
Il6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 suit in Paris three years ago, and I swore I would cast 
 them back upon the snip's hands if he gave me any- 
 new-fangled finery. But a riding-suit that has crossed 
 the Pyrenees and stood a winter's wear at Montpelier — 
 where I have been living since October — can scarce do 
 credit to a fine lady's saloon; and thou art finest, I'll 
 wager, Hyacinth, where all are fine." 
 
 "You would not say that if you had seen Lady 
 Castlemaine's rooms. I would wager that her gold and 
 silver tapestry cost more than the contents of my house." 
 
 "Thou shouldst not envy sin in high places, Hya- 
 cinth." 
 
 "Envy! I envy a " 
 
 "Nay, love, no bad names! 'Tis a sorry pass Eng- 
 land has come to w T hen the most conspicuous personage 
 at her Court is the King's mistress. I was with Queen 
 Henrietta at Paris, who received me mighty kindly, and 
 bewailed with me over the contrast betwixt her never- 
 to-be-forgotten husband and his sons. They have no- 
 thing of their father, she told me, neither in person nor 
 in mind. 'I know not whence their folly comes to 
 them!' she cried. It would have been uncivil to remind 
 her that her own father, hero as he was, had set no 
 saintly example to royal husbands; and that it is pos- 
 sible our princes take more of their character from their 
 grandfather Henry than from the martyr Charles. Poor 
 lady, I am told she left London deep in debt, after 
 squandering her noble income of these latter years, and 
 that she has sunk in the esteem of the French court by 
 her alliance with Jermyn." 
 
 "I can but wonder that she, above all women, 
 should ever cease to be a widow." 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. I I 7 
 
 "She comes of a light-minded race and nation, 
 Angela; and it is easy to her to forget; or she would 
 not easily forget that so-adoring husband whose fortunes 
 she ruined. His most fatal errors came from his sub- 
 servience to her. When I saw her in her new splendour 
 at Somerset House, all smiles and gaiety, with youth 
 and beauty revived in the sunshine of restored fortune, 
 I could but remember all he was, in dignity and manly 
 affection, proud and pure as King Arthur in the old 
 romance, and all she cost him by womanish tyrannies 
 and prejudices, and difficult commands laid upon him 
 at a juncture of so exceeding difficulty." 
 
 The sisters listened in respectful silence. The old 
 cavalier cut a fresh slice of chine, sighed, and continued 
 his sermon. 
 
 "I doubt that while we, the lookers on, remember, 
 they, the actors, forget; for could the son of such a 
 noble victim wallow in a profligate court, surrender him- 
 self to the devilish necromancies of vicious women and 
 viler men, if he remembered his father's character, and 
 his father's death? No; memory must be a blank, and 
 we, who suffered with our royal master, are fools to 
 prate of ingratitude or neglect, since the son who can 
 forget such a father may well forget his father's servants 
 and friends. But we will not talk of public matters in 
 the first hour of our greeting. Nor need I prate of the 
 King, since I have not come back to England to clap a 
 periwig over my grey hairs, and play waiter upon Court 
 favour, and wear out the back of my coat against the 
 tapestry at Whitehall, standing in the rear of the crowd, 
 to have my toes trampled upon by the sharp heels of 
 Court ladies, and an elbow in my stomach more often 
 
I I LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 than not. I am come, like Wolsey, girls, to lay my old 
 bones among you. Art thou ready, Angela? Hast thou 
 had enough of London, and playhouses, and parks; and 
 wilt thou share thy father's solitude in Buckinghamshire?" 
 
 "With all my heart, sir." 
 
 "What! never a sigh for London pleasures? Thou 
 hast the great lady's air and carriage in that brave blue 
 taffety. The nun I knew three years ago has vanished. 
 Can you so lightly renounce the splendour of this house, 
 and your sister's company, to make a prosing old father 
 happy?" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I am ready to go with you." 
 
 "How she says that — with what a countenance of 
 woeful resignation ! But I will not make the Manor Moat 
 too severe a prison, dearest. You shall visit London, 
 and your sister, when you will. There shall be a coach 
 and a team of stout roadsters to pull it when they are 
 not wanted for the plough. And the Vale of Aylesbury 
 is but a long day's journey from London, while 'tis no 
 more than a morning's ride to Chilton." 
 
 "I could not bear for her to be long away from me," 
 said Hyacinth. "She is the only companion I have in 
 the world." 
 
 "Except your husband." 
 
 "Husbands such as mine are poor company. Fare- 
 ham has a moody brow, and a mind stuffed with public 
 matters. He dines with Clarendon one day, and with 
 Albemarle another; or he goes to Deptford to grumble 
 with Mr. Evelyn; or he creeps away to some obscure 
 quarter of the town to hob-nob with Milton, and with 
 Marvel, the member for Hull. I doubt they are 
 all of one mind in abusing his Majesty, and conspir- 
 
GOOD-EYE, LONDON. I I 9 
 
 ing against him. If I lose my sister I shall have no 
 one." 
 
 "What, no one; when you have Henriette, who even 
 three years ago had shrewdness enough to keep an old 
 grandfather amused with her impertinent prattle?" 
 
 "Grandfathers are easily amused by children they 
 see as seldom as you have seen Papillon. To have her 
 about you all day, with her everlasting chatter, and 
 questions, and remarks, and opinions (a brat of twelve 
 with opinions), would soon give you the vapours." 
 
 "I am not so subject to vapours as you, child. Let 
 me look at you, now the candles are lighted." 
 
 The footmen had lighted clusters of wax candles on 
 either side the tall chimney-piece. 
 
 Sir John drew his elder daughter to the light, and 
 scrutinised her face with a father's privilege of uncom- 
 promising survey. 
 
 "You paint thick enough, i' conscience' name, though 
 not quite so thick as the Spanish sefioras. They are 
 browner than you, and need a heavier hand with white 
 and red. But you are haggard under all your red. You 
 are not the woman I left in '65." 
 
 "I am near two years older than the woman you left; 
 and as for paint, there is not a woman over twenty in 
 London who uses as little red and white as I do." 
 
 "What has become of Fareham to-night?" Sir John 
 asked presently, when Hyacinth had picked up her 
 favourite spaniel to nurse and fondle, while Angela had 
 resumed her occupation at an embroidery frame, and 
 a reposeful air as of a long-established domesticity had 
 fallen upon the scene. 
 
 "He is at Chilton. When he is not plotting he rushes 
 
120 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 off to Oxfordshire for the hunting and shooting. He 
 loves buglehorns and yelping curs, and huntsmen's 
 cracked voices, far before the company of ladies or the 
 conversation of wits." 
 
 "A man was never meant to sit in a velvet chair and 
 talk fine. It is all one for a French Abbe and a few 
 old women in men's clothing to sit round the room and 
 chop logic with a learned spinster like Mademoiselle 
 Scudery; but men must live sab Jove, unless they are 
 statesmen or clerks. They must have horses and hounds, 
 gun and spaniel, hawk or rod. I am glad Fareham 
 loves sport. And as for that talk of conspiring, let me 
 not hear it from thee, Hyacinth. 'Tis a perilous dis- 
 course to but hint at treason; and your husband is a 
 loyal gentleman who loves, and" — with a wry face — 
 "reveres — his King." 
 
 "Oh, I was only jesting. But, indeed, a man who 
 so disparages the things other people love must needs 
 be a rebel at heart. Did you hear of Monsieur de Mal- 
 fort while you were at Paris?" 
 
 The inquiry was made with that over-acted care- 
 lessness which betrays hidden pain; but the soldier's 
 senses had been blunted by the rough-and-tumble of an 
 adventurer's life, and he was not on the alert for shades 
 of feeling. 
 
 Angela accepted her father's return, with the new 
 duties it imposed upon her, as if it had been a decree 
 of Heaven. She put aside all consideration of that refuge 
 which would have meant so complete a renunciation 
 and farewell. On her knees that night, in the midst of 
 fervent prayers, her tears streamed fast at the thought 
 that, secure in the shelter of her father's love, in the 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. 12 1 
 
 peaceful solitude of her native valley, she could look to 
 a far-off future when she and Fareham might meet with- 
 out fear of sin, when no cloud of passion should darken 
 his brotherly affection for her; when his heart, now 
 estranged from holy things, would have returned to the 
 faith of his ancestors, reconciled to God and the Church. 
 She could but think of him now as a fallen angel — a 
 wanderer who had strayed far from the only light and 
 guide of human life, and was thus a mark for the 
 tempter. What lesser power than Satan's could have so 
 turned good to evil; the friendship of a brother to the 
 base passion which had made so wide a gulf between 
 them; and which must keep them strangers till he was 
 cured of his sin? Only to diabolical possession could 
 she ascribe the change that had come over him since 
 those happy days when she had watched the slow dawn 
 of health upon his sunken cheeks, when he and she had 
 travelled together through the rich autumn woods, along 
 the pleasant English roads, and when, in the leisure of 
 the slow journey, he had poured out his thoughts to her, 
 the story of his life, his opinions, expatiating in fraternal 
 confidence upon the things he loved and the things he 
 hated. And at Chilton, she looked back and remem- 
 bered his goodness to her, the pains he had taken in 
 choosing horses for her to ride, their long mornings on 
 the river with Henriette, their hawking parties, and in 
 all his tender brotherly care of her. The change in him 
 had come about by almost imperceptible degrees: but it 
 had been chiefly marked by a fitful temper that had cut 
 her to the quick; now kind; now barely civil; courting 
 her company to-day; to-morrow avoiding her, as if there 
 were contagion in her presence. Then, after the meet- 
 
122 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ing at Millbank, there had come a coldness so icy, a 
 sarcasm so cutting, that for a long time she had thought 
 he hated as much as he despised her. She had withered 
 in his contempt. His unkindness had overshadowed 
 every hour of her life, and the longing to cry out to him 
 "Indeed, sir, your thoughts wrong me. I am not the 
 wretch you think," had been almost too much for her 
 fortitude. She had felt that she must exculpate herself, 
 even though in so doing she should betray her sister. 
 But honour, and affection for Hyacinth, had prevailed; 
 and she had bent her shoulders to the burden of un- 
 deserved shame. She had sat silent and abashed in his 
 presence, like a guilty creature. 
 
 Sir John Kirkland spent a week at Fareham House, 
 employed in choosing a team of horses, suitable alike 
 for the road and the plough, looking out, among the 
 coachmakers, for a second-hand travelling carriage, and 
 eventually buying a coach of Lady Fanshawe's, which 
 had been brought from Madrid with the rest of her very 
 extensive goods and chattels. 
 
 One need scarce remark that it was not one of the 
 late Ambassador's state carriages, his ruby velvet coach, 
 with fringes that cost three hundred pounds, or his 
 brocade carriage, but a coach that had been built for 
 the everyday use of his suite. 
 
 Sir John also bought a little plain silver, in place of 
 that fine collection of silver and parcel-gilt which had 
 been so willingly sacrificed to royal necessities; and 
 though he breathed no sigh over past losses, some bitter 
 thoughts may have come across his cheerfulness as he 
 heard of the splendour and superabundance of Lady 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. I 23 
 
 Castlemaine's plate and jewels, or of the ring worth six 
 hundred pounds lately presented to a pretty actress. 
 
 In a week he was ready for Buckinghamshire; and 
 Angela had her trunks packed, and had bid good-bye 
 to her London friends, amidst the chatter of Lady 
 Fareham's visiting-day, and the clear, bell-like clash of 
 delicate china tea-cups — miniature bowls of egg-shell 
 porcelain, without handles, and to be held daintily be- 
 tween the tips of high-bred fingers. 
 
 There was a chorus of courteous bewailing at the 
 notion of Mrs. Kirkland's departure. 
 
 Sir Ralph Masaroon pretended to be in despair. 
 
 "Is it not bad enough to have had the coldest 
 winter my youth can remember? But you must needs 
 take the sun from our spring. Why, the maids of 
 honour will count for handsome when you are gone. 
 What's that Butler says? — 
 
 'The twinkling stars begin to muster, 
 And glitter with their borrowed lustre.' 
 
 But what's to become of me without the sun? I shall 
 have no one to side-glass in the Ring." 
 
 "Indeed, Sir Ralph, I did not know that you ever 
 side-glassed me!" 
 
 "What, you have suffered my devotion to pass un- 
 perceived? When I have broken half a dozen coach 
 windows in your service, rattling a glass down with a 
 vehemence which would have startled a Venus in marble 
 to turn and recognise an adorer! Round and round the 
 Ring I have driven for hours, on the chance of a look. 
 Nay, marble is not so coy as froward beauty! And at 
 the Queen's chapel have I not knelt at the Mass morn- 
 ing after morning, at the risk of being thought a Papist, 
 
124 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 for the sake of seeing you at prayers; and have envied 
 the Romish dog who handed you the aspersoir as you 
 went out? And you to be unconscious all the time!" 
 
 "Nay, 'tis so much happier for me, Sir Ralph, since 
 you have given me a reserve of gratified vanity that will 
 last me a year in the country, where I shall see nothing 
 but ploughmen and bird-boys." 
 
 "Look out for the scarecrows in Sir John's fields, for 
 the odds are you will see me some day disguised as one." 
 
 "Why disguised?" asked his friend Mr. Penington, 
 who had lately produced a comedy that had been acted 
 three afternoons at the Duke's Theatre, and one evening 
 at Court, which may be taken as a prosperous run for a 
 new play. 
 
 Lady Sarah Tewkesbury held forth on the pleasures 
 of a country life, and lamented that family connections 
 and the necessity of standing well with the Court con- 
 strained her to spend the greater part of her existence 
 in town. 
 
 "I am like Milton," she said. "I adore a rural life. 
 To hear the cock — 
 
 'From his watchtower in the skies, 
 When the horse and hound do rise.' 
 
 Oh, I love buttercups and daisies above all the Paris 
 finery in the Exchange; and to steep one's complexion 
 in May- dew, and to sup on a syllabub or a dish of 
 frumenty — so cheap, too, while it costs a fortune but to 
 scrape along in London." 
 
 "The country is well enough for a month at hay- 
 making, to romp with a bevy of London beauties in the 
 meadows near Tunbridge Wells, or to dance to a couple 
 of fiddles on the Common by moonlight," said Mr. 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. I 25 
 
 Penington; whereupon all agreed that Tunbridge Wells, 
 Epsom, Doncaster, and Newmarket were the only country 
 possible to people of intellect. 
 
 "I would never go further than Epsom, if I had my 
 will," said Sir Ralph; "for I see no pleasure in New- 
 market for a man who keeps no running-horses, and has 
 no more interest in the upshot of a race than he might 
 have in a maggot match on his own dining-table, did he 
 stake high enough on the result." 
 
 "But my sister is not to be buried in Buckingham- 
 shire all the year round," explained Hyacinth. "I shall 
 fetch her here half a dozen times in a season; and her 
 shortest visits must be long enough to take the country 
 freshness out of her complexion, and save her from be- 
 coming a milkmaid." 
 
 "Gud, to see her freckled!" cried Penington. "I 
 could as soon imagine Helen with a hump. That London 
 pallor is the choicest charm in a girl of quality — a 
 refined sickliness that appeals to the heart of a man of 
 feeling, an 'if-you-don't-lend-me-your-arm-I-shall-swoon,' 
 sort of air. Your country hoyden, with her roses-and- 
 cream complexion, and open-air manners, is more shock- 
 ing than Medusa to a man of taste." 
 
 The talk drifted to other topics at the mention of 
 Buckingham, who had but lately been let out of the 
 Tower, where he and Lord Dorchester had been com- 
 mitted for scuffling and quarrelling at the Canary 
 Conference. 
 
 "Has your ladyship seen the Duke and Lord Dor- 
 chester since they came out of the house of bondage?" 
 asked Lady Sarah. "I think Buckingham was never 
 so gay and handsome, and takes his imprisonment as 
 
126 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the best joke that ever was, and is as great at Court as 
 ever." 
 
 "His Majesty is but too indulgent," said Masaroon, 
 "and encourages the Duke to be insolent and careless 
 of ceremony. He had the impertinence to show himself 
 at chapel before he had waited on his Majesty." 
 
 "Who was very angry and forbade him the Court," 
 said Penington. "But Buckingham sent the King one 
 of his foolish, jesting letters, capped with a rhyme or 
 two; and if you can make Charles Stuart laugh you may 
 pick his pocket " 
 
 "Or seduce his mistress " 
 
 "Oh, he will forgive much to wit and gaiety. He 
 learnt the knack of taking life easily, while he led that 
 queer, shifting life in exile. He was a cosmopolitan and 
 a soldier of fortune before he was a King de facto ; and 
 still wears the loose garments of those easy, beggarly 
 days, when he had neither money nor care. Be sure 
 he regrets that roving life — Madrid, Paris, the Hague — 
 and will never love a son as well as little Monmouth, 
 the child of his youth." 
 
 "What would he not give to make that base-born 
 brat Prince of Wales? Strange that while Lord Ross is 
 trying to make his offspring illegitimate by Act of Par- 
 liament, his master's anxieties should all tend the other 
 way." 
 
 "Don't talk to me of Parliament ! " cried Lady Sarah; 
 "the tyranny of the Rump was nothing to them. Look 
 at the tax upon French wines, which will make it almost 
 impossible for a lady of small means to entertain her 
 friends. And an Act for burying us all in woollen, for 
 the benefit of the English trade in wool." 
 
GOOD-BYE, LONDON. I 27 
 
 "But, indeed, Lady Sarah, it is we of the old faith 
 who have most need to complain," said Lady Fareham, 
 "since these wretches make us pay a double poll-tax; 
 and all our foreign friends are being driven away for the 
 same reason — just because the foolish and the ignorant 
 must needs put down the fire to the Catholics." 
 
 "Indeed, your ladyship, the Papists have had an 
 unlucky knack at lighting fires, as Smithfield and Oxford 
 can testify," said Penington; "and perhaps, having no 
 more opportunity of roasting martyrs, it may please some 
 of your creed to burn Protestant houses, with the chance 
 of cooking a few Protestants inside 'em." 
 
 Angela had drawn away from the little knot of fine 
 ladies and finer gentlemen, and was sitting in the bay 
 window of an ante-room, with Henriette and the boy, 
 who were sorely dejected at the prospect of losing her. 
 The best consolation she could offer was to promise 
 that they should be invited to the Manor Moat as soon 
 as she and her father had settled themselves comfortably 
 there — if their mother could spare them. 
 
 Henriette laughed outright at this final clause. 
 
 "Spare us!" she cried. "Does she ever want us? I 
 don't think she knows when we are in the room, unless 
 we tread upon her gown, when she screams out 'Little 
 viper!' and hits us with her fan." 
 
 "The lightest touch, Papillon; not so hard as you 
 strike your favourite baby." 
 
 "Oh, she doesn't hurt me; but the disrespect of it! 
 Her only daughter, and nearly as high as she is!" 
 
 "You are an ungrateful puss to complain, when her 
 
128 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ladyship is so kind as to let you be here to see all her 
 fine company." 
 
 "I am sick of her company, almost always the same, 
 and always talking about the same things. The King, 
 and the Duke, and the General, and the navy; or Lady 
 Castlemaine's jewels, or the last new head from Paris, or 
 her ladyship's Flanders lace. It is all as dull as ditch- 
 water now Monsieur de Malfort is gone. He was always 
 pleasant, and he let me play on his guitar, though he 
 swore it excruciated him. And he taught me the new 
 Versailles coranto. There's no pleasure for anyone since 
 he fell ill and left England." 
 
 "You shall come to the Manor. It will be a change, 
 even though you hate the country and love London." 
 
 "I have left off loving London. I have had too 
 much of it. If his lordship let us go to the play-house 
 often it would be different. Oh, how I loved Philaster 
 — and that exquisite page! Do you think I could act 
 that character, auntie, if his lordship's tailor made me 
 such a dress?" 
 
 "I think thou hast impudence for anything, dearest." 
 
 "I would rather act that page than Pauline in 
 Polyeucte, though Mademoiselle swears I speak her 
 tirades nearly as well as an actress she once saw at the 
 Marais, who was too old and fat for the character. How 
 I should love to be an actress, and to play tragedy and 
 comedy, and make people cry and laugh! Indeed, I 
 would rather be anything than a lady — unless I could 
 be exactly like Lady Castlemaine." 
 
 "Ah, Heaven forbid!" 
 
 "But why not? I heard Sir Ralph tell mother that, 
 let her behave as badly as she may, she will always be 
 
AT THE MANOR MOAT. I 20, 
 
 atop of the tree, and that the young sparks at the 
 Chapel Royal hardly look at their prayer-books for gazing 
 at her, and that the King " 
 
 "Ah, sweetheart, I want to hear no more of her!" 
 
 "Why, don't you like her? I thought you did not 
 know her. She never comes here." 
 
 "Are there any staghounds in the Vale of Ayles- 
 bury?" asked the boy, who had been looking out of the 
 window, watching the boats go by, unheeding his sister's 
 babble. 
 
 "I know not, love; but there shall be dogs enough 
 for you to play with, I'll warrant, and a pony for you to 
 ride. Grandfather shall get them for his dearest." 
 
 Sir John was fond of Henriette, whom he looked 
 upon as a marvel of precocious brightness; but the boy 
 was his favourite, whom he loved with an old man's 
 half-melancholy affection for the creature which is to live 
 and act a part in the world when he, the greybeard, 
 shall be dust. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT THE MANOR MOAT. 
 
 Solid, grave, and sober, grey with a quarter of a 
 century's neglect, the Manor House, in the valley below 
 Brill, differed in every detail from the historical Chilton 
 Abbey. It was a moated manor house, the typical house 
 of the typical English squire; an E-shaped house, with 
 a capacious roof that lodged all the household servants, 
 and clustered chimney-stacks that accommodated a great 
 company of swallows. It had been built in the reign of 
 
 London Pride, II. 9 
 
I30 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Henry the Seventh, and was coeval with its distinguished 
 neighbour, the house of the Verneys, at Middle Claydon, 
 and it had never served any other purpose than to 
 shelter Englishmen of good repute in the land. Sou- 
 venirs of Bosworth field — a pair of huge jack-boots, a 
 two-handed sword, and a battered helmet — hung over 
 the chimney-piece in the low-ceiled hall; but the end of 
 the civil war was but a memory when the Manor House 
 was built. After Bosworth a slumberous peace had 
 fallen on the land, and in the stillness of this secluded 
 valley, sheltered from every bleak wind by surrounding 
 hills and woods, the gardens of the Manor Moat had 
 grown into a settled beauty that made the chief attrac- 
 tion of a country seat which boasted so little of archi- 
 tectural dignity, or of expensive fantasy in moulded 
 brick and carved stone. Plain, sombre, with brick walls 
 and heavy stone mullions to low-browed windows, the 
 Manor House stood in the midst of gardens such as the 
 modern millionaire may long for, but which only the 
 grey old gardener Time can create. 
 
 There was more than a mile of yew hedge, eight 
 feet high, and three feet broad, walling in flower garden 
 and physic garden, the latter the particular care of the 
 house-mothers of previous generations, the former a 
 paradise of those old flowers which bloom and breathe 
 sweet odours in the pages of Shakespeare, and jewel the 
 verse of Milton. The fritillary here opened its dusky 
 spotted petals to drink the dews of May; and here, 
 against a wall of darkest green, daffodils bloomed un- 
 ruffled by March winds. 
 
 Verily a garden of gardens; but when Angela came 
 there in the chill February there Were no flowers to wel~ 
 
AT THE MANOR MOAT. I3I 
 
 come her, only the long, straight walks beside those 
 walls of yew, and the dark shining waters of the moat 
 and the fish-pond, reflecting the winter sun; and over all 
 the scene a quiet as of the grave. 
 
 A little colony of old servants had been left in the 
 house, which had escaped confiscation, albeit the pro- 
 perty of a notorious Malignant, perhaps chiefly on ac- 
 count of its insignificance, the bulk of the estate having 
 been sold by Sir John in '44, when the king's condition 
 was waxing desperate, and money was worth twice its 
 value to those who clung to hope, and were ready to 
 sacrifice their last jacobus in the royal cause. The poor 
 little property — shrunk to a home-farm of ninety acres, 
 a humble homestead, and the Manor House — may have 
 been thought hardly worth selling; or Sir John's rights 
 may have been respected out of regard for his son-in- 
 law, who, on the maternal side, had kindred in high 
 places under the Commonwealth, a fact of which Hya- 
 cinth occasionally reminded her husband, telling him 
 that he was by hereditary instinct a rebel and a king- 
 slayer. 
 
 The farm had been taken to by Sir John's steward, 
 a man who in politics was of the same easy temper as 
 the Vicar of Bray in religion, and was a staunch Crom- 
 wellian so long as Oliver or Richard sat at Whitehall, 
 or would have tossed up his cap and cheered for Monk, 
 as Captain- General of Great Britain, had he been called 
 upon to till his fields and rear his stock under a military 
 despotism. It mattered little to any man living at ease 
 in a fat Buckinghamshire valley what King or Common- 
 wealth ruled in London, so long as there was a ready 
 market at Aylesbury or Thame for all the farm could 
 
 9* 
 
132 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 produce, and civil war planted neither drake nor culverin 
 on Brill Hill. 
 
 The old servants had vegetated as best they might 
 in the old house, their wages of the scantiest; but to 
 live and die within familiar walls was better than to fare 
 through a world which had no need of them. The 
 younger members of the household had scattered, and 
 found new homes; but the grey-haired cook was still in 
 her kitchen; the old butler still wept over his pantry, 
 where a dozen or so of spoons, and one battered tankard 
 of Heriot's make, were all that remained of that store of 
 gold and silver which had been his pride forty years 
 ago, when Charles was bringing home his fair French 
 bride, and old Thames at London was alight with fire- 
 works and torches, and alive with music and singing, as 
 the city welcomed its young Queen, and when Reuben 
 Holden was a lad in the pantry, learning to polish a 
 salver or a goblet, and sorely hectored by his uncle the 
 butler. 
 
 Reuben, and Marjory, the old cook, famous in her 
 day as any cordon-bleu, were the sole representatives of 
 the once respectable household; but a couple of stout 
 wenches had been hired from the cluster of labourers' 
 hovels that called itself a village; and these had been 
 made to drudge as they had never drudged before in 
 the few days of warning which prepared Reuben for 
 his master's return. 
 
 Fires had been lighted in rooms where mould and 
 mildew had long prevailed; wainscots had been scrubbed 
 and polished till the whole house reeked of bees-wax 
 and turpentine, to a degree that almost overpowered 
 
AT THE MANOR MOAT. 1 33 
 
 those pervading odours of damp and dry rot, which can 
 curiously exist together. The old furniture had been 
 made as bright as faded fabrics and worm-eaten wood 
 could be made by labour; and the leaping light of 
 blazing logs, reflected on the black oak panelling, gave 
 a transient air of cheerfulness to the spacious dining- 
 parlour where Sir John and his daughter took their first 
 meal in the old home. And if to Angela's eye, accus- 
 tomed to the Italian loftiness of the noble mansions on 
 the Thames, the broad oak crossbeams seemed coming 
 down upon her head, there was at least an air of 
 homely snugness in the low darkly coloured room. 
 
 On that first evening there had been much to in- 
 terest and engage her. She had the old house to ex- 
 plore, and dim childish memories to recall. Here was 
 the room where her mother died, the room in which she 
 herself had first seen the light — perhaps not until a 
 month or so after her birth, since the seventeenth- 
 century baby was not flung open-eyed into her birthday 
 sunshine, but was swaddled and muffled in a dismal 
 apprenticeship to life. The chamber had been hung 
 with "blacks" for a twelvemonth, Reuben told her, as 
 he escorted her over the house, and unlocked the doors 
 of disused rooms. 
 
 The tall bedstead with its red and yellow stamped 
 velvet curtains and carved ebony posts looked like an 
 Indian temple. One might expect to see Buddha squat- 
 ting on the embroidered counterpane — the work of half 
 a lifetime. When the curtains were drawn back, a huge 
 moth flew out of the darkness, and spun and wheeled 
 round the room with an awful humming noise, and to 
 the superstitious mind might have suggested a human 
 
134 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 soul embodied in this phantasmal greyness, with power 
 of sound in such excess of its bulk. 
 
 "Sir John never used the room after her ladyship's 
 death," Reuben explained, "though 'tis the best bed- 
 chamber. He has always slept in the blue room, which 
 is at the furthest end of the gallery from the room that 
 has been prepared for madam. We call that the garden 
 room, and it is mighty pretty in summer." 
 
 In summer! How far it seemed to summer-time in 
 Angela's thoughts ! What a long gulf of nothingness to 
 be bridged over, what a dull level plain to cross, before 
 June and the roses could come round again, bringing 
 with them the memory of last summer; and the days 
 she had lived under the same roof with Fareham, and 
 the evenings when they had sat in the same room, or 
 loitered on the terrace, pausing now and then beside an 
 Italian vase of gaudy flowers to look at this or that, or 
 to watch the mob on the river; and those rare golden 
 days, like that at Sayes Court, which she had spent in 
 some excursion with Fareham and Henriette. 
 
 "I hope madam likes the chamber we have pre- 
 pared for her?" the old man said, as she stood dream- 
 ing. 
 
 "Yes, my good friend, it is very comfortable. My 
 woman complained of the smoky chimney in her 
 chamber; but no doubt we shall mend that by-and-by." 
 
 "It would be strange if a gentlewoman's servant 
 found not something to grumble about," said Reuben; 
 "they have ever less work to do than anyone else in 
 the house, and ever make more trouble than their mis- 
 tresses. I'll settle the hussy, with madam's leave." 
 
 "Nay, pray, Mr. Reuben, no harshness. She is a 
 
AT THE MANOR MOAT. 135 
 
 willing, kind-hearted girl, and we shall find plenty of 
 work for her in this big house where there are so few 
 servants." 
 
 "Oh, there's work enough for sure, if she'll do it, 
 and is no fine city madam that will scream at sight of a 
 mouse, belike." 
 
 "She is a girl I had out of Oxfordshire." 
 
 "Oh, if she comes out of Oxfordshire, from his lord- 
 ship's estate, I dare swear she is a good girl. I hate 
 your London trash; and I think the great fire would 
 have been a blessing in disguise if it had swept away 
 most of such trumpery." 
 
 "Oh, sir, if a Romanist were to say as much as 
 that!" said Angela, laughing. 
 
 "Oh, madam, I am not one of they fools that say 
 because half London was burnt the Papishes must have 
 set it on fire. What good would the burning of it do 
 'em, poor souls? And now they are to pay double 
 taxes, as if it was a sure thing their faggots kindled the 
 blaze. I know how kind and sweet a soul a Papish 
 may be, though she do worship idols; for I had the 
 honour to serve your ladyship's mother from the hour 
 she first entered this house till the day I smuggled the 
 French- priest by the back stairs to carry her the holy 
 oils. Ah! she was a noble and lovely lady. Madam's 
 eyes are of her colour; and, indeed, madam favours 
 her mother more than my Lady Fareham does." 
 
 "Have you seen Lady Fareham of late years?" 
 
 "Ay, madam, she came here in her coach- and-six 
 the summer before the pestilence, with her two beautiful 
 children, and a party of ladies and gentlemen. They 
 rode here from his Grace of Buckingham's new mansion 
 
I36 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 by the Thames — Clefden, I think they call it; and they 
 do say his Grace do so lavish and squander money in 
 the building of it, that belike he will be ruined and dead 
 before his palace be finished. There were three coaches 
 full, with servants and what not. And they brought 
 wine, and capons ready dressed, and confectionery, and 
 I helped to serve a collation for them in the garden. 
 And after they had feasted merrily, with a vast quantity 
 of sparkling French wine, they all rushed through the 
 house like madcaps, laughing and chattering, regular 
 French magpies, for there was more of 'em French than 
 English, her ladyship leading them, till she comes to 
 the door of this room, and finds it locked, and she be- 
 gins to thump upon the panels like a spoilt child, and 
 calls, 'Reuben, Reuben, what is your mystery? Sure 
 this must be the ghost-chamber! Open, open, instantly.' 
 And I answered her quietly, "Tis the chamber where 
 that sweet angel, your ladyship's mother, lay in state, 
 and it has never been opened to strangers since she 
 died.' And all in the midst of her mirth, the dear 
 young lady burst out weeping, and cried, 'My sweet, 
 sweet mother! I remember the last smile she gave me 
 as if it was yesterday.' And then she dropped on her 
 knees and crossed herself, and whispered a prayer, with 
 her face close against the door; and I knew that she 
 was praying for her lady-mother, as the way of your 
 religion is madam, to pray for the dead; and sure, 
 though it is a simple thing, it can do no harm; and to 
 my thinking, when all the foolishness is taken out of 
 religion the warmth and the comfort seem to go too; for 
 I know I never used to feel a bit more comfortable after 
 a two hours' sermon, when I was an Anabaptist." 
 
AT THE MANOR MOAT. I 37 
 
 "Are you not an Anabaptist now, Reuben?" 
 "Lord forbid madam! I have been a member of 
 the Church of England ever since his Majesty's restora- 
 tion brought the Vicar to his own again, and gave us 
 back Christmas Day, and the organ, and the singing- 
 boys." 
 
 Angela's life at the Manor was so colourless that the 
 first blossoming of a familiar flower was an event to note 
 and to remember. Life within convent walls would 
 have been scarcely more tranquil or more monotonous. 
 Sir John rode with his hounds three or four times a 
 week, or was about the fields superintending the farm- 
 ing operations, walking beside the ploughman as he 
 drove his furrow, or watching the scattering of the 
 seed. Or he was in the narrow woodlands which still 
 belonged to him, and Angela, taking her solitary walk 
 at the close of day, heard his axe ringing through the 
 wintry air. 
 
 It was a peaceful, and should have been a pleasant, 
 life, for father and for daughter. Angela told herself 
 that God had been very good to her in providing this 
 safe haven from tempestuous seas, this quiet little world, 
 where the pulses of passion beat not; where existence 
 was like a sleep, a gradual drifting away of days and 
 weeks, marked only by the changing note of birds, the 
 deepening umber on the birch, the purpling of beech 
 buds, and the starry celandine shining out of grassy 
 banks that had so lately been obliterated under the 
 drifted snow. 
 
 "I ought to be happy," she said to herself of a 
 morning, when she rose from her knees, and stood look- 
 
138 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ing across the garden to the grassy hills beyond, while 
 the beads of her rosary slipped through her languid 
 fingers — "I ought to be happy." 
 
 And then she turned from the sunny window with a 
 sigh, and went down the dark, echoing staircase to the 
 breakfast parlour, where her own little silver chocolate- 
 pot looked ridiculously small beside Sir John's quart 
 tankard, and where the crisp, golden rolls, baked in the 
 French fashion by the maid from Chilton, who had been 
 taught by Lord Fareham's chef, contrasted with the chine 
 of beef and huge farmhouse loaf that accompanied the 
 knight's old October. 
 
 After all his Continental wanderings Sir John had 
 come back to substantial English fare with an unabated 
 relish; and Angela had to sit down, day after day, to 
 a huge joint and an overloaded dish of poultry, and to 
 reassure her father when he expressed uneasiness be- 
 cause she ate so little. 
 
 "Women do not want much food, sir. Martha's rolls, 
 and our honey, and the conserves old Marjory makes 
 so well, are better for me than the meat which suits 
 your heartier appetite." 
 
 "Faith, child, if I played no stouter a part at table 
 than you do, I should soon be fit to play living skeleton 
 at Aylesbury Fair. And I dubitate as to your diet- 
 loaves and confectionery suiting you better than a slice 
 of chine or sirloin, for you have a pale cheek and a 
 pensive eye that smite me to the heart. Indeed, I 
 begin to question if I was kind to take you from all 
 the pleasures of the town to be mewed up here with a 
 rusty old soldier." 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I could be happier nowhere than here. 
 
AT THE MANOR MOAT. I 39 
 
 I have had enough of London pleasures; and I was 
 meditating upon returning to the convent, when you 
 came to put an end to all my perplexities; and, sir, I 
 think God sent you to me when I most needed a father's 
 love." 
 
 She went to him and knelt by his chair, hiding her 
 tearful eyes against the cushioned arm. But, though 
 he could not see her face, he heard the break in her 
 voice, and he bent down and lifted her drooping head 
 on his breast, and kissed her soft brown hair, and em- 
 braced her very tenderly. 
 
 "Sweetheart, thou hast all a father's love, and it is 
 happiness to me to have thee here; but old as I am, 
 and with so little cunning to read a maiden's heart, I 
 can read clear enough to know thou art not happy. 
 Whisper, dearest. Is it a sweetheart who sighs for thy 
 favours far off, and will not beard this old lion in his 
 den? My gentle Angela would make no ill choice. 
 Fear not to trust me, my heart. I will love whom you 
 love, favour whom you favour. I am no tyrant, that my 
 sweet daughter should grow pale with keeping secrets 
 from me." 
 
 "Dear father, you are all goodness. No, there is no 
 one — no one! I am happy with you. I have no one 
 in the world but you, and, in a so much lesser degree 
 of love, my sister and her children " 
 
 "And Fareham. He should be to you as a brother. 
 He is of a black melancholic humour, and not a man 
 whom womon love; but he has a heart of gold, and 
 must regard you with grateful affection for your goodness 
 to him when he was sick. Hyacinth is never weary of 
 expatiating upon your devotion in that perilous time." 
 
I4O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "She is foolish to talk of services I would have given 
 as willingly to a sick beggar," Angela answered, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 Her face was still hidden against her father's breast; 
 but she lifted her head presently, and the pale calmness 
 of her countenance reassured him. 
 
 "Well, it is uncommon strange," he said, "if one so 
 fair has no sweetheart among all the sparks of White- 
 hall." 
 
 "Lord Fareham hates Whitehall. We have only 
 attended there at great festivals, when my sister's ab- 
 sence would have been a slight upon her Majesty and the 
 Duchess." 
 
 "But my star, though seldom shining there, should 
 have drawn some satellites to her orbit. You see, 
 dearest, I can catch the note of Court flattery. Nay, I 
 will press no questions. My girl shall choose her own 
 partner; provided the man is honest and a loyal servant 
 of the King. Her old father shall set no stumbling- 
 block in the high-road to her happiness. What right 
 has one who is almost a pauper to stipulate for a wealthy 
 son-in-law?" 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I A I 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 
 
 The quiet days went on, and the old Cavalier settled 
 down into a tranquil happiness, which comforted his 
 daughter with the feeling of duty prosperously fulfilled. 
 To make this dear old man happy, to be his companion 
 and friend, to share in his rides and rambles, and of an 
 evening to play the games he loved on the old shovel- 
 board in the hall, or an old-fashioned game at cards, or 
 backgammon beside the fire in the panelled parlour, 
 reconciled her to the melancholy of an existence from 
 which hope had vanished like a light extinguished. It 
 seemed to her as if she had dropped back into the old 
 life with her great-aunt. The Manor House was just a 
 little gayer than the Flemish Convent — for the voices and 
 footsteps of the few inhabitants had a freer sound, which 
 made the few seem more populous than the many. And 
 then there were the dogs. What a powerful factor in 
 home life those four-footed friends were! Out-of-doors 
 a stone barn had been turned into a kennel for five 
 couple of foxhounds; indoors a couple of setters, sent 
 by a friend over sea from Waterford, had insinuated 
 themselves into the parlour, where they established 
 themselves as household favourites, to the damage of 
 those higher hereditary qualities which fitted them for 
 distinction with the guns. Indeed, the old Knight was 
 
142 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 too fond of his fireside companions to care very much 
 if he missed a bird now and then because Cataline was 
 over-fed or Caesar disobedient. They stood sentinel on 
 each side of his chair at dinner, like supporters to a 
 coat-of-arms. Angela had her own particular favourite 
 in a King Charles's spaniel. It was the very dog which 
 had first greeted her in the silence of the pi ague- stricken 
 house. She had chosen this one from the canine troop 
 when her sister offered her the gift of a dog at parting, 
 though Hyacinth had urged her to take something 
 younger than this, which was over five years old. 
 
 "He will die just when you love him best," she said. 
 
 "Nay; but such partings must come. I love this 
 one because he was with me in fear and sadness. He 
 used to cling to me, and look up and lick my face, as if 
 he were telling me to hope, when my brother seemed 
 marked for death." 
 
 "Poor Fareham! Did you desire every dog in the 
 house — and my spaniels are of the same breed as the 
 King's, and worth fifty pound apiece — you have a right 
 to take them. But, indeed, I would rather you chose a 
 younger dog — and with a shorter nose; but of course, 
 if you like this one best " 
 
 Angela held by her first choice, and Ganymede was 
 the companion of all her hours, walked and lived with 
 her, and slept on a satin cushion at the foot of her 
 spacious four-post bed, and fretted and whined if she 
 left him shut in an empty room for half an hour; yet 
 with all his refinements, and his air of being as dainty 
 a gentleman as any spark of quality, he had a gross 
 passion for the kitchen, and after nibbling sweet cakes 
 delieately out of his mistress's taper fingers, he would 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 43 
 
 waddle through a labyrinth of passages, and find his way 
 to the hog-tub, there to wallow in slush and broken 
 victuals, till he all but drowned himself in a flood of 
 pot-liquor. It was hard to reconcile so much beauty 
 and grace, such eloquent eyes and satin coat, with tastes 
 and desires so vulgar; and Angela sighed over him when 
 a scullion brought him to her, greasy and penitent, to 
 crouch at her feet, and deprecate her disgust with an 
 abject tail. 
 
 Oh, tranquil, duteous life, how fair it might have 
 seemed, as spring advanced, and the garden smiled 
 with the promise of summer, were it not for that aching 
 sense of loss, the some one missing, whose absence made 
 all things grey and cold! 
 
 Yes, she knew now, fully realising as she had never 
 done before, how long and how utterly her life had been 
 influenced by an affection which even to contemplate 
 was mortal sin. Yet to extinguish memory was not 
 within her power. She looked back and remembered 
 how Fareham's protecting love had enfolded her with 
 its gentle warmth, in those happy days at Chilton; how 
 all she knew of poetry and the drama, of ethics and 
 philosophy, had been learnt from him. She recalled his 
 evident delight in opening the rich treasures of a mind 
 which he had never ceased to cultivate, even amidst the 
 vicissitudes of a soldier's life, in making her familiar 
 with the writers he loved, and teaching her to estimate, 
 and to discuss them. And in all their talk together he 
 had been for the most part careful to avoid disparage- 
 ment of the religion in which she believed — so that it 
 was only some chance revelation of the infidel's narrow 
 outlook that reminded her of his unbelief. 
 
144 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Yes, his love had been round her like an atmosphere; 
 and she had been exquisitely happy while that unques- 
 tioning affection was hers. On her part there had been 
 neither doubt nor fear. It seemed the most natural 
 thing in the world that he should be fond of her and 
 she of him. Affinity had made them brother and sister; 
 and then they had been together in sickness and in peril 
 of death. It might be true, as he himself had affirmed, 
 that her so happy arrival had saved his life; since just 
 those hours between the departure of his attendants and 
 the physician's evening visit may have been the crisis of 
 his disease. 
 
 Well, it was past — the exquisite bliss, the unconscious 
 sin, the confidence, the danger. All had vanished into 
 the grave of irrecoverable days. 
 
 She had heard nothing from Denzil since she left 
 London, nor had she acknowledged his letter. Her 
 silence had doubtless angered him, and all was at an 
 end between them, and this was what she wished. 
 Hyacinth and her children were at Chilton, whence 
 came letters of complaining against the dulness of the 
 country, where his lordship hunted four times a week, 
 and spent all the rest of his time in his library, appear- 
 ing only "at our stupid heavy meals; and that not 
 always, since on his hunting days he is far afield when 
 I have to sit down to the intolerable two-o'clock dinner, 
 and make a pretence of eating — as if anybody with 
 more intellectuals than a sheep could dine; or as if ap- 
 petite came by staring at green fields! You remember 
 how in London supper was the only meal I ever cared 
 for. There is some grace in a repast that comes after 
 conversation and music, or the theatre, or a round of 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 45 
 
 visits — a table dazzling with lights, and men and women 
 ready to amuse, and be amused. But to sit down in 
 broad daylight, when one has scarce swallowed one's 
 morning chocolate, and face a sweltering sirloin, or open 
 a smoking veal pie! Indeed, dearest, our whole method 
 of feeding smacks of a vulgar brutishness, more appro- 
 priate to a company of Topinambous than to persons of 
 quality. Why, oh, why must these reeking hecatombs 
 load our tables, when they might as easily be kept out 
 of sight upon a buffet? The spectacle of huge mountains 
 of meat, the steam and odour of rank boiled and roast 
 under one's very nostrils, change appetite to nausea, 
 and would induce a delicate person to rise in disgust 
 and fly from the dining-room. Mais, je ne fats que 
 divaguer; and almost forget what it was I was so earnest 
 to tell thee when I began my letter. 
 
 "Sir Denzil Warner has been over here, his ostensible 
 motive a civil inquiry after my health; but I could see 
 that his actual purpose was to hear of you. I told him 
 how happily your simple soul has accommodated itself 
 to an almost conventual seclusion, and a very inferior 
 style of living — whereupon he smiled his rapture, and 
 praised you to the skies. 'Would that she could accom- 
 modate herself to my house as easily,' he said; 'she 
 should have every indulgence that an adoring husband 
 could yield her.' And then he said much more, but as 
 lovers always sing the same repetitive song, and have no 
 more strings to their lyre than the ancients had before 
 Mercury expanded it, I confess to not listening over 
 carefully, and will leave you to imagine the eloquence 
 of a manly and honourable love. Ah, sweetheart! you 
 
 London Pride. II. IO 
 
I46 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 do wrong to reject him. Thou hast a quiet soothing 
 prettiness of thine own, but art no blazing star of beauty, 
 like the Stewart, to bring a King to thy feet — he would 
 have married her if poor Catherine had not disappointed 
 him by her recovery — and to take a Duke as pis aller. 
 Believe me, love, it were wise of you to become Lady 
 Warner, with an unmortgaged estate, and a husband who, 
 in these Republican times, may rise to distinction. He 
 is your only earnest admirer; and a love so steadfast, 
 backed by a fortune so respectable, should not be dis- 
 carded lightly." 
 
 Over all these latter passages in her sister's letter 
 Angela's eye ran with a scornful carelessness. Her 
 womanly pride revolted at such petty schooling — that she 
 should be bidden to accept this young man gratefully, 
 because he was her only suitor. No one else had ever 
 cared for her pale insignificance. She looked at her 
 clouded image in the oblong glass that hung on the 
 panel above her secretaire, and whose reflection made 
 any idea of her own looks rather speculative than pre- 
 cise. It showed her a thoughtful face, too pale for 
 beauty; yet she could but note the harmony of lines 
 which recalled that Venetian type familiar to her eye 
 in the Titians and Tintorets at Fareham House. 
 
 "I doubt I am good-looking enough for anyone to be 
 satisfied with the outward semblance who valued the 
 soul within," she thought, as she turned from the glass 
 with a mournful sigh. 
 
 It was not of Denzil she was thinking, but of that 
 other, who in slow contemplative days in the library, 
 where he had taught her what books she ought to love, 
 and where she might never more enter, must naturally 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 47 
 
 sometimes remember her, and cast some backward 
 thoughts to the hours they had spent together. 
 
 Hyacinth's letter of matronly counsel was but a week 
 old, when Sir John surprised his daughter one morning, 
 as they sat at table, by the announcement of a visitor 
 to stay in the house. 
 
 "You will order the west room to be got ready, 
 Angela, and bid Marjory Cook serve us some of her 
 savourest dishes while Sir Denzil stays here." 
 
 "Sir Denzil!" 
 
 "Yes, ma mie, Sir Denzil! Ventregrzs, the girl stares 
 as if I had said Sir Bevis of Southampton, or Sir Guy 
 of Warwick! I knew this young gentleman's father before 
 the troubles — an honest man, though he took the wrong 
 side. He paid for his perversity with his life; so we'll 
 say requiescat. The young man is a fine young man, 
 whom I would fain have something nearer to me than 
 he is. So at a hint from your sister I have asked him 
 to bring his fishing tackle and whip our streams for a 
 May trout or two. He may catch a finer fish than trout, 
 perhaps, while he is a-flshing; if you will be his guide 
 through the meadows." 
 
 "Father, how could you " 
 
 "Ah! thou art a sly one, fair mistress. Who was it 
 told me there was no one? 'No one, dear father, and 
 indeed, sir, I was thinking of the convent when you 
 came to London,' while here was as handsome a spark 
 as one would meet in a day's march, sighing and dying 
 for you." 
 
 "Father, I do protest to you " she began, with 
 
 a pale distressed look that vouched for her earnestness; 
 
 10* 
 
I48 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 but the Knight had his face in the tankard, and set it 
 down only to pursue his own train of thought. 
 
 "If it had not have been for that little bird at 
 Chilton you might have hoodwinked me as blind as ever 
 gerfalcon was hooded. Well, the young man will be 
 here before evening. I would not force your inclinations, 
 but it is the dearest desire of my heart to see you 
 happily married before I blow out the candle, and bid 
 my last good night. And a man of honour, handsome 
 and of handsomest fortune, is not to be slighted." 
 
 Angela's spirit rose against this recurrence of her 
 sister's sermon. 
 
 "If Sir Denzil is coming to this house as my suitor, 
 I will go to Louvain without an hour's delay that I can 
 help," she said resolutely. 
 
 "Why, what a vixen! Nay, dearest, there is no need 
 for that angry flush. The young man is too courteous 
 to plague you with unwelcome civilities. I saw him in 
 London at the tennis court, and was friendly to him for 
 his father's memory, knowing nothing of his desire to be 
 my son-in-law. He is a fine player at that royal game, 
 and a fine man. He comes here this evening as my 
 friend; and if you please to treat him disdainfully, I 
 cannot help it. But, indeed, I wonder as much as your 
 sister why you should not reciprocate this gentleman's 
 love." 
 
 "When you were young, father, did you love the first 
 comer; only because she was handsome and civil?" 
 
 "No, child; I had seen many handsome women be- 
 fore I met your mother. She came over in '35 with 
 the Marquise, who had been lady of honour to Queen 
 Marie before the Princess Henriette married our King, 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 49 
 
 and Queen Henriette was fond of her, and invited her 
 to come to London, and she divided her life between 
 the two countries till the troubles, when she was one of 
 the first to scamper off, as you know. My wife was little 
 more than a child when I saw her at Court, hiding be- 
 hind her mother's large sleeves. I had seen handsomer 
 women; but she was the first whose face went straight 
 to my heart. And it has dwelt there ever since," he 
 concluded, with a sudden break in his voice. 
 
 "Then you can comprehend, dear sir, that a man 
 may be honourable, and courteous, and handsome, and 
 yet not win a woman's love." 
 
 "Ah, it is not the man; it is love that should win, 
 sweetheart. Love is worthy of love. When that is the 
 true coin it should buy its reward. Indeed I have rarely 
 seen it otherwise. Love begets love. Louise de la 
 Valliere is not the handsomest woman at the French 
 Court. Her complexion has suffered from small-pox, 
 and she has a defective gait; but the King discovered a 
 so fond and romantic attachment to his person, a love 
 ashamed of loving, the very poetry of affection; and that 
 discovery made him her slave. The Court beauties — 
 sultanas splendid as Vashti — look on in angry wonder. 
 Louise is adored because she began by adoring. Mind, 
 I do not praise or excuse her, for 'tis a mortal sin to 
 love a married man, and steal him from his wife. Foolish 
 child, how your cheek crimsons! I do wrong to shock 
 your innocence with my babble of a King's mistress." 
 
 Denzil arrived at sunset, on horseback, with a 
 mounted servant in attendance, carrying his saddlebags 
 and fishing tackle. It was but a short day's ride from 
 Oxford. Fareham's rides with the hounds must have 
 
150 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 brought him sometimes within a few miles of the Manor 
 Moat. Hyacinth and her children might have ridden 
 over in their coach; and indeed she had promised her 
 sister a visit in more than one of her letters. But there 
 had been always something to postpone the expedition 
 — company at home, or bad weather, or a fit of the 
 vapours — so that the sisters had been as much asunder 
 as if the elder had been in Yorkshire or Northumberland. 
 
 Denzil brought news of the household at Chilton. 
 Lady Fareham was as charming as ever, and though she 
 had complained very often of bad health, she had been 
 so lively and active whenever the whim took her, riding 
 with hawk and hound, visiting about the neighbourhood, 
 driving into Oxford, that Denzil was of opinion her ail- 
 ments were of the spirits only, a kind of rustic malady 
 to which most fine ladies were subject, the nostalgia of 
 paving-stones and oil lamps. Henriette — she now in- 
 sisted upon discarding her nick-name — was less volatile 
 than in London, and missed her aunt sorely, and quar- 
 relled with mademoiselle, who was painfully strict upon 
 all points of speech and manners. George's days of 
 unalloyed idleness were also ended, for the Roman Ca- 
 tholic priest was now a resident in the house as the 
 little boy's tutor, besides teaching Henriette the rudi- 
 ments, and instructing her in her mother's religion. 
 
 Denzil told them even of the guests he had met at 
 the Abbey; but of the master of the house his lips spoke 
 not, till Sir John questioned him. 
 
 "And Fareham? Has he that same air of not be- 
 longing to the family which I remarked of him in Lon- 
 don?" 
 
 "His lordship has ever an air of being aloof from 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 5 I 
 
 everybody," Denzil answered gravely. "He is solitary 
 even in his sports, and his indoor life is mostly buried 
 in a book." 
 
 "Ah, those books, they will be the ruin of nations! 
 As books multiply, great actions will grow less. Life's 
 golden hours will be wasted in dreaming over the fancies 
 of dead men; and the world will be over- full of brood- 
 ing philosophers like Descartes, or pamphleteers like 
 your friend Mr. Milton." 
 
 "Nay, sir, the world is richer for such a man as 
 John Milton, who has composed the grandest poem in 
 our language — an epic on a scale and subject as sub- 
 lime as the Divine Comedy of Dante." 
 
 "I never saw Mr. Dante's comedy acted, and con- 
 fess myself ignorant of its merits." 
 
 "Comedy, sir, with Dante, is but a name. The 
 Italian poem is an epic, and not a play. Mr. Milton's 
 poem will be given to the world shortly, though, alas! 
 he will reap little substantial reward for the intellectual 
 labour of years. Poetry is not a marketable commodity 
 in England, save when it flatters a royal patron, or takes 
 the vulgarer form of a stage-play. But this poem of Mr. 
 Milton's has been the solace of his darkened life. You 
 have heard, perhaps, of his blindness?" 
 
 "Yes, he had to forego his office as Latin Secretary 
 to that villain. To my mind the decay of sight was a 
 judgment upon him for having written against his 
 murdered King, even to the denial of his Majesty's own 
 account of his sufferings. But I confess that even if the 
 man had been a loyal subject, I have little admiration 
 for that class; scribblers and pamphleteers, brooders over 
 books, crouchers in the chimney-corner, who have never 
 
152 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 trailed a pike or slept under the open sky. And seeing 
 this vast increase of book-learning, and the arising of 
 such men as Hobbes, to question our religion — and 
 Milton to assail monarchy — I can but believe those who 
 say that this old England has taken the downward bent; 
 that, as we are dwindling in stature, so we are decaying 
 in courage and capacity for action." 
 
 Denzil listened respectfully to the old man's dis- 
 quisitions over his morning drink; while Reuben stood 
 at the sideboard carving a ham or a round of powdered 
 beef; and while Angela sipped her chocolate out of the 
 porcelain cup which Hyacinth had bought for her at the 
 Middle Exchange, where curiosities from China and the 
 last inventions from Paris were always to be had before 
 they were seen anywhere else. Nothing could be more 
 reverential than the young man's bearing to his host, 
 while his quiet friendliness set Angela at her ease, and 
 made her think that he had abandoned his suit, and 
 henceforward aspired only to such a tranquil friendship 
 as they had enjoyed at Chilton before any word of love 
 had been spoken. 
 
 Apart from the question of love and marriage, his 
 presence was in no manner displeasing to her; indeed, 
 the long days in that sequestered valley lost something 
 of their grey monotony now that she had a companion 
 in all her intellectual occupations. Fondly as she loved 
 her father, she had not been able to hide from herself 
 the narrowness of his education and the blind prejudice 
 which governed his ideas upon almost every subject, 
 from politics to natural history. Of the books which 
 make the greater part of a solitary life she could never 
 talk to him; and it was here that she had so sorely 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 53 
 
 missed the counsellor and friend who had taught her to 
 love and to comprehend the great poets of the past — 
 Homer and Virgil, Dante and Tasso, and the deep 
 melancholy humour of Cervantes, and, most of all, the 
 inexhaustible riches of the Elizabethans. 
 
 Denzil was of a temper as thoughtful, but his studies 
 had taken a different direction. He was not even by 
 taste or apprehension a poet. Had he been called upon 
 to criticise his tutor's compositions, he might, like John- 
 son, have objected to the metaphoric turns of Lycidas, 
 and have missed the melody of lines as musical as the 
 nightingale. In that great poem of which he had been 
 privileged to transcribe many of the finest passages from 
 the lips of the poet, he admired rather the heroic 
 patience of the blind author than the splendour of the 
 verse. He was more impressed by the schoolmaster's 
 learning than by that God-given genius which lifted that 
 one Englishman above every other of his age and 
 country. No, he was eminently prosaic, had sucked 
 prose and plain-thinking from his mother's breast; but 
 he was not the less an agreeable companion for a girl 
 upon whose youth an unnatural solitude had begun to 
 weigh heavily. 
 
 All that one mind can impart to another of a widely 
 different fibre, Denzil had learnt from Milton in that 
 most impressionable period of boyhood which he had 
 spent in the small house in Holborn, whose back rooms 
 looked out over the verdant spaces of Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, where Lord Newcastle's palace had not yet 
 begun to rise from its foundations, and where the sing- 
 ing birds had not been scared away by the growth of 
 the town. A theatre now stood where the boy and a 
 
154 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 fellow- scholar had played trap and ball, and the stately 
 houses of Queen Street hard by were alive with rank 
 and fashion. 
 
 In addition to the classical curriculum which Milton 
 had taught with the solemn earnestness of one in whom 
 learning is a religion, Denzil had acquired a store of 
 miscellaneous knowledge from the great Republican; 
 and most interesting among these casual instructions 
 had been the close acquaintance with nature gained in 
 the course of many a rustic ramble in the country lanes 
 beyond Gray's Inn, or sauntering eastward along the 
 banks of the limpid Lee, or in the undulating meadows 
 beside Sir Hugh Middleton's river. Mixed with plain 
 facts about plant or flower, animal or insect, Milton's 
 memory was stored with the quaint absurdities of the 
 Hermetic philosophy, that curious mixture of deep- 
 reaching theories and old women's superstitions, the 
 experience of the peasant transmuted by the imagina- 
 tion of the adept. Sound and practical as the poet 
 had ever shown himself — save where passion got the 
 upper hand of common sense, as in his advocacy of 
 divorce — he was yet not entirely free from a leaning to 
 Baconian superstitions, and may, with Gesner, have be- 
 lieved that the pickerel weed could engender pike, and 
 that frogs could turn to slime in winter, and become 
 frogs again in spring. Whatever rags of old-world 
 fatuity may have lingered in that strong brain, he had 
 been not the less a delightful teacher, and had im- 
 parted an ardent love of nature to his little family of 
 pupils in that peripatetic school between hawthorn 
 hedges or in the open fields by the Lee. 
 
 And now, in quiet rambles with Angela, in the midst 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 55 
 
 of a landscape transfigured by that vernal beauty which 
 begins with the waning of April, and is past and vanished 
 before the end of May, Denzil loved to expound the 
 wonders of the infinitesimal; the insect life that sparkled 
 and hummed in the balmy air, or flashed like living light 
 among the dewy grasses; the life of plant and flower, 
 which seemed almost as personal and conscious a form 
 of existence; since it was difficult to believe there was 
 no sense of struggle or of joy in those rapid growths 
 which shot out from a tangle of dark undergrowth up- 
 ward to the sunlight, no fondness in the wild vines that 
 clung so close to some patriarchal trunk, covering decay 
 with the beautiful exuberance of youth. Denzil taught 
 her to realise the wonders of creation — most wonderful 
 when most minute — for beyond the picturesque and 
 lovely in nature, he showed her those marvels of order, 
 and law, and adaptation, which speak to the naturalist 
 with a stronger language than beauty. 
 
 There was a tranquil pleasure in these rustic walks, 
 which beguiled her into forgetfulness that this man had 
 ever sought to be more to her than he was now — a 
 respectful, unobtrusive friend. Of London, and the 
 tumultuous life going on there, he had scarcely spoken, 
 save to tell her that he meant to stand for Henley at 
 the next Parliament; nor had he alluded to the past at 
 Chilton; nor ever of his own accord had he spoken 
 Lord Fareham's name; indeed, that name was studi- 
 ously avoided by them both; and if Denzil had never 
 before suspected Angela of an unhappy preference for 
 one whom she could not love without sin, he might 
 have had some cause for such suspicion in the eager- 
 ness with which she changed the drift of the con- 
 
I56 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 versation whenever it approached that forbidden sub- 
 ject. 
 
 From his Puritanical bringing up, the theory of self- 
 surrender and deprivation ever kept before him, Denzil 
 had assuredly learnt to possess his soul in patience; and 
 throughout all that smiling month of May, while he 
 whipped the capricious streams that wound about the 
 valley, with Angela for the willing companion of his 
 saunterings from pool to pool, he never once alarmed 
 her by any hint of a warmer feeling than friendship; 
 indeed, he thought of himself sometimes as one who 
 lived in an enchanted world, where to utter a certain 
 fatal word would be to break the spell; and whatever 
 momentary impulse or passionate longing, engendered 
 by a look, a smile, the light touch of a hand, the mere 
 sense of proximity, might move him to speak of his love, 
 he had sufficient self-command to keep the fatal words 
 unspoken. He meant to wait till the last hour of his 
 visit. Only when separation was imminent would he 
 plead his cause again. Thus at the worst he would 
 have lost no happy hours of her company. And, in the 
 meantime, since she was always kind, and seemed to 
 grow daily more familiar and at ease in his society, he 
 dared hope that affection for him and forgetfulness of 
 that other were growing side by side in her mind. 
 
 In this companionship Angela learnt many of the 
 secrets and subtleties of the angler's craft, as acquired, 
 by her teacher's personal experience, or expounded in 
 that delightful book, then less than twenty years old, 
 which has ever been the angler's gospel. Often after 
 following the meandering water till a gentle weariness 
 invited them to rest, Angela and Denzil seated them- 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 57 
 
 selves on a sheltered bank and read their Izaak Walton 
 together, both out of the same volume, he pleased to 
 point out his favourite passages and to watch her smile 
 as she read. 
 
 Before May was ended, she knew old Izaak almost 
 as well as Denzil, and had learnt to throw a fly, and 
 to choose the likeliest spot and the happiest hour of the 
 day for a good trout; had learnt to watch the clouds 
 and cloud-shadows with an angler's keen interest; and 
 had amused herself with the manufacture of an artificial 
 minnow, upon Walton's recipe, devoting careful labour 
 and all the resources of her embroidery basket — silks 
 and silver thread — to perfecting the delicate model, 
 which, when completed, she presented smilingly to 
 Denzil, who was strangely moved by so childish a toy, 
 and had some difficulty in suppressing his emotion as 
 he held the glistening silken fish in his hands, and 
 thought how her tapering fingers had caressed it, and 
 how much of her very self seemed, as he watched her, 
 to have been enwrought with the fabric. So poor, so 
 trivial a thing; but her first gift! If she had tossed 
 him a flower, plucked that moment, he would have 
 treasured it all his life; but this, which had cost her so 
 much careful work, was far more than any casual 
 blossom. Something of the magnetism of her mind 
 had passed into the silver thread drawn so daintily 
 through her rosy fingers — something of the soft light in 
 her eyes had mixed with the blended colours of the 
 silk. Foolish fancies these, but in the gravest man's 
 love there is a vein of folly. 
 
 Sometimes they rode with Sir John, and in this way 
 explored the neighbourhood, which was rich in historical 
 
I58 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 associations — some of the remote past, as when King 
 John kept Christmas at Brill; but chiefly of those 
 troubled times through which Sir John Kirkland had 
 lived, an active participator in that deadly drama. He 
 showed them the site of the garrison at Brill, and trod 
 every foot of the earthworks to demonstrate how the 
 hill had been fortified. He had commanded in the de- 
 fence against Hampden and his greencoats — that regi- 
 ment of foot raised in his pastoral shire, whose standard 
 bore on one side the watchword of the Parliament, 
 "God with us," and on the other Hampden's own de- 
 vice, " Vestigia nulla retrorsum." 
 
 "'Twas a legend to frighten some of us, who had 
 no Latin," said Sir John; "but we put his bumpkin 
 green-coats to the rout, and trampled that insolent flag 
 in the mire." 
 
 All was peaceful now in the hamlet on the hill. 
 Women and children were sitting upon sunny doorsteps, 
 with their pillows on their knees and their bobbins 
 moving quickly in dexterous fingers, busy at the lace- 
 making which had been established in Buckinghamshire 
 more than a century before by Catherine of Aragon, 
 whose dowry was derived from the revenues of Steeple 
 Claydon. The Curate had returned to the grey old 
 church, and rural life pursued its slumbrous course, 
 scarce ruffled by rumours of maritime war, or plague, 
 or fire. They rode to Thame — a stage on the journey 
 to Oxford, Angela thought, as she noted the figures on 
 a milestone, and at a flash her memory recalled that 
 scene in the gardens by the river, when Fareham had 
 spoken for the first time of his inner life, and she had 
 seen the man behind the mask. She thought of her 
 
159 
 
 sister, so fair, so sweet, charming in her capriciousness 
 even, yet not the woman to fill that unquiet heart, or 
 satisfy that sombre and earnest nature. It was not by 
 many words that Fareham had revealed himself. Her 
 knowledge of his character and feelings went deeper 
 than the knowledge that words can impart. It came 
 from that constant unconscious study which a romantic 
 girl devotes to the character of the man who first 
 awakens her interest. 
 
 Angela was grave and silent throughout the drive to 
 Thame and the return home, riding for the most part in 
 the rear of the two men, leaving Denzil to devote all his 
 attention to Sir John, who was somewhat loquacious that 
 afternoon, stimulated by the many memories of the 
 troubled time which the road awakened. Denzil listened 
 respectfully, and went never astray in his answers, but 
 he looked back very often to the solitary rider who kept 
 at some distance to avoid the dust. 
 
 Sometimes in the early morning they all went with 
 the otter hounds, the Knight on horseback, Denzil and 
 Angela on foot, and spent two or three very active hours 
 before breakfast in rousing the otter from his holt, and 
 following every flash of his bead upon the stream, with 
 that briskness and active enjoyment which seem a part 
 of the clear morning atmosphere, the inspiring breath of 
 dewy fields and flowers unfaded by the sun. All that 
 there was of girlishness in Angela's spirits was awakened 
 by those merry morning scampers by the margin of the 
 stream, which had often to be forded by the runners, 
 with but little heed of wet feet or splashed petticoat. 
 The Parson and his daughters from the village of St. 
 Nicholas joined in the sport, and were invited to the 
 
l6o LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 morning drink and substantial breakfast afterwards, where 
 the young ladies were lost in admiration of Angela's 
 silver chocolate-pot and porcelain cups, while their 
 clerical father owned to a distaste for all morning drinks 
 except such as owed their flavours and strength to malt 
 and hops. 
 
 "If you had lived among green fields and damp 
 marshes as long as I have, miss, you would know what 
 poor stuff your chocolate is to fortify a man's bones 
 against ague and rheumatism. I am told the Spaniards 
 brought it from Mexico, where the natives eat nothing 
 else, from which comes the copper colour of their skins." 
 
 Denzil's visit lasted over a month, during which time 
 he rode into Oxfordshire twice, to see Lady Warner, 
 stopping a night each time, lest that worthy person 
 should fancy herself neglected. 
 
 Sir John derived the utmost pleasure from the young 
 man's company, who bore himself towards his host with 
 a respectful courtesy that had gone out of fashion after 
 the murder of the King, and was rarely met with in an 
 age when elderly men were generally spoken of as "old 
 puts," and considered proper subjects for "bubbling." 
 
 To Denzil the old campaigner opened his heart more 
 freely than he had ever done to anyone except a brother 
 in arms; and although he was resolute in upholding the 
 cause of Monarchy against Republicanism, he owned to 
 the natural disappointment which he had felt at the 
 King's neglect of old friends, and reluctantly admitted 
 that Charles, sauntering along Pall Mall with ruin at his 
 heels, and the wickedest men and women in England for 
 his chosen companions, was not a monarch to maintain 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. l6l 
 
 and strengthen the public idea of the divinity that doth 
 hedge a King. 
 
 "Of all the lessons danger and adversity can teach 
 he has learnt but one/' said Sir John, with a regretful 
 sigh. "He has learnt the Horatian philosophy — to snatch 
 the pleasures of the day, and care nothing what may 
 happen on the morrow. I do not wonder that predictions 
 of a sudden end to this globe of ours should have been 
 bruited about of late; for if lust and profaneness could 
 draw down fire from heaven, London would be in as 
 perilous a case as Gomorrah. But I doubt such par- 
 ticular judgments belonged but to the infancy of this 
 world, when men believed in a Personal God, interested 
 in all their concerns, watchful to bless or to punish. 
 We have now but the God of Spinoza — a God who is 
 in all things and everywhere about us, of whom this 
 Creation in which we move is but the garment — a 
 Universal Essence which should govern and inform all 
 we are and all we do; but not the Judge and Father 
 of His people, to be reached by prayer and touched by 
 pity." 
 
 "Ah, sir, our life here and hereafter is encompassed 
 with mystery. To think is to be lost on the trackless 
 ocean of doubt. The Papists have the easiest creed, 
 for they believe that which they are taught, and take the 
 mysteries of the unseen world at second hand from their 
 Priests. A year ago, had I been happy enough to win 
 your daughter, I should have tried my hardest to wean 
 her from Rome; but I have lived and thought since then, 
 and I have come to see that Calvinism is a religion of 
 despair, and that the doctrine of Predestination involves 
 
 London Pride. II. 1 1 
 
1 62 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 contradictions as difficult to swallow as any fable of the 
 Roman Church." 
 
 "It is well that you should be prepared to let her 
 keep her religion; for I doubt she has a stubborn 
 affection for the creed she learnt in her childhood. 
 Indeed, it was but the other day she talked of the 
 cloister; and I fear she has all the disposition to that 
 religious prison in which her great aunt lived con- 
 tentedly for the space of a long lifetime. But it is for 
 you, Denzil, to cure her of that fancy, and to spare me 
 the pain of seeing my best-beloved child under the 
 black veil." 
 
 "Indeed, sir, if a love as earnest as man ever ex- 
 perienced " 
 
 "Yes, Denzil, I know you love her; and I love you 
 almost as if you were my very son. In the years that 
 went by after Hyacinth was born, before the beginning 
 of trouble, I used to long for a son, and I am afraid 
 I did sometimes distress my dear wife by dwelling too 
 persistently upon disappointed hopes. And then came 
 chaos — England in arms, a rebellious people, a King 
 put upon his defence — and I had leisure to think of 
 none but my royal master. And in the thick of the 
 strife my poor lamb was born to me — the bringer of my 
 life's great sorrow — and there was no more thought of 
 sons. So, you see, friend, the place in my heart and 
 home has waited empty for you. Win but yonder shy 
 dove to consent, and we shall be of one family and of 
 one mind, and I as happy as any broken-down cam- 
 paigner in England can be — content to creep to the 
 grave in obscurity, forgotten by the Prince whose father 
 it is my dear memory to have served." 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 63 
 
 "You loved your king, sir, I take it, with a personal 
 affection." 
 
 "Ah, Denzil, we all loved him. Even the common 
 people — led as they were by hectoring preachers of 
 sedition, of no more truth or honesty than the mounte- 
 banks that ply their knavish trade round Henry's statue 
 on the Pont Neuf — even they, the very rabble, had their 
 hours of loyalty. I rode with his Majesty from Royston 
 to Hatfield, in '47, when the people filled the mid- 
 summer air with his name, from hearts melting with love 
 and pity. They strewed the ways with boughs, and 
 strewed the boughs with roses. So great honour has 
 been seldom shown to a royal captive." 
 
 "I take it that the lower class are no politicians, and 
 loved their King for his private virtues." 
 
 "Never was monarch worthier to be so esteemed. 
 He was a man of deep affections, and it was perhaps 
 his most fatal quality where he loved to love too much. 
 I have no grudge against that beautiful and most 
 accomplished woman he so worshipped, and who was 
 ever gracious to me; but I cannot doubt that Henrietta 
 Maria was his evil star. She had the fire and daring 
 of her father, but none of his care and affection for the 
 people. The daughter of the most beloved of kings 
 had the instincts of a tyrant, and was ever urging her 
 too pliant husband to unpopular measures. She wanted 
 to set that little jewelled shoe of hers on the neck of 
 rebellion, when she should have held out her soft white 
 hand to make friends of her foes. Her beauty and her 
 grace might have done much, had she inherited with the 
 pride of the Medici something of their finesse and 
 suavity. But he loved her, Denzil, forgave all her follies, 
 
164 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 her lavish spending and wasteful splendour. 'My wife is 
 a bad housekeeper/ I heard him say once, when she 
 was hanging upon his chair as he sat at the end of the 
 Council table. The palace accounts were on the table 
 — three thousand pounds for a masque — extravagance 
 only surpassed by Nicholas Fouquet twenty years after- 
 wards, when he was squandering the public money. 
 'My wife is a bad housekeeper,' his Majesty said gently, 
 and then he drew down the little French museau with a 
 caressing hand, and kissed her in the presence of those 
 greybeards." 
 
 "His son is strangely unlike him in domestic matters." 
 "His son has the manners of a Frenchman and the 
 morals of a Turk. He is a despot to his wife and a 
 slave to his mistress. There never was greater cruelty 
 to a woman than his Majesty's treatment of Catherine 
 while she was still but a stranger in the land, and when 
 he forced his notorious paramour upon her as her lady 
 of honour. Of honour, quotha! There was sorry store 
 of honour in his conduct. He had need feel the sting 
 of remorse t'other day when the poor lady was thought 
 to be on her death-bed — so gentle, so affectionate, so 
 broken to the long-suffering of consort- queens, apologising 
 for having lived to trouble him. Ned Hyde has given 
 me the whole story of that poor lady's subjugation, for 
 he was behind the scenes, and in their secrets. Poor 
 soul! Blood rushed from her ears and nostrils when 
 that shameless woman was brought to her, and she was 
 carried swooning to her chamber. And then she was 
 sullen, and the King threatened her, and sent away all 
 her Portuguese, save one ancient waiting woman. I 
 grant you they were ugly devils, fit to set in a field 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 65 
 
 to frighten crows; but Catherine loved them. Royal 
 treatment for a Christian Queen from a Christian King! 
 Could the Sophy do worse? And presently the poor 
 lady yielded (as most women will, for at heart they are 
 slavish and love to be beaten), and after holding herself 
 aloof for a long time — a sad, silent, neglected figure where 
 all the rest were loud and merry — she made friends 
 with the lady, and even seemed to fawn upon her." 
 
 "And now I dare swear the two women mingle their 
 tears when Charles is unfaithful to both; or Catherine 
 weeps while Barbara curses. That would be more in 
 character. Fire and not water is her ladyship's element." 
 
 "Ah, Denzil, 'tis a curious change; and to have lived 
 to see Buckingham murdered, and Strafford sacrificed, 
 and the Rebellion, and the Commonwealth, and the 
 Restoration, and the Plague, and the Fire, and to have 
 skirmished in the battles of Parliaments and Princes, 
 t'other side the Channel, and seen the tail of the Thirty 
 Years' War, towns ruined, villages laid waste, where 
 Tilly passed in blood and fire, is to have lived through 
 as wild a variety of fortunes as ever madman invented 
 in a dream." 
 
 Denzil lingered at the Manor, urged again and again 
 by his host to stay over the day fixed for departure, 
 and so lengthening his visit with a most willing sub- 
 mission till late in June, when the silence of the night- 
 ingales made sleep more possible, and the sunset was so 
 late and the sunrise so early that there seemed to be no 
 such thing as night. He had made up his mind to 
 plead for a hearing in the hour of farewell; and it may 
 have been as much from apprehension of that fateful 
 
I 66 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 hour as even from the delight of being in his mistress's 
 company that he acceded with alacrity when Sir John 
 desired him to stay. But an end must come at last to 
 all hesitations, and a familiar verse repeated itself in his 
 brain with the persistent iteration of cathedral chimes 
 
 "He either fears his fate too much, 
 Or his desert is small, 
 Who fears to put it to the touch, 
 And win or lose it all." 
 
 Sir John pushed him towards his fate with affectionate 
 urgency. 
 
 "Never be dastardised by a girl's refusal, man," said 
 the Knight, warm with his morning draught, on that last 
 day, when the guest's horses had been fed for a journey, 
 and the saddle-bags packed. "Don't let a simpleton's 
 coldness cow your spirits. The wench likes you; else 
 she would scarce have endured your long sermons upon 
 weeds and insects, or been smiling and contented in 
 your company all these weeks. Take heart of grace, 
 man; and remember that though I am no tyrannical 
 father to drag an unwilling bride to the altar, I have all 
 a father's authority, and will not have my dearest wishes 
 baulked by the capricious humours of a coquette." 
 
 "Not for worlds, sir, would I owe to authority what 
 love cannot freely grant " 
 
 "Don't chop logic, Denzil. You want my daughter; 
 and by God you shall have her! Win her with pretty 
 speeches if you can. If she turn stubborn she shall have 
 plain English from me. I have promised not to force 
 her inclination; but if I am driven to harsh measures 
 'twill be for her own good I am severe. Ventregris! 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 67 
 
 What can fortune give her better than a handsome and 
 virtuous husband?" 
 
 Angela was in the garden when Denzil went to take 
 leave of her. She was walking up and down beside a 
 long border of June flowers, screened from rough winds 
 by those thick walls of yew which gave such a com- 
 fortable sheltered feeling to the Manor gardens, while in 
 front of flowers and turf there sparkled the waters of a 
 long pond or stew, stocked with tench and carp, some 
 among them as ancient and as greedy as the scaly 
 monsters of Fontainebleau. 
 
 The sun was shining on the dark green water and 
 the gaudy flower-bed, and Angela's favourite spaniel was 
 running about the grass, barking his loudest, chasing 
 bird or butterfly with impotent fury, since he never 
 caught anything. At sight of Denzil he tore across the 
 greensward, his silky ears flying, and barked at him as 
 if the young man's appearance in that garden were an 
 insufferable impertinence; but, on being taken up in one 
 strong hand, changed his opinion, and slobbered the 
 face of the foe in an ecstasy of affection. 
 
 "Soho, Ganymede, thou knowest I bear thee a good 
 heart, plaything and mere pretence of a dog as thou 
 art," said Denzil, depositing the little bundle of black- 
 and-tan flossiness at Angela's feet. 
 
 He might have carried and nursed his mistress's 
 favourite with pleasure during any casual sauntering 
 and random talk; but a man could hardly ask to have 
 his fate decided for good or ill with a toy spaniel in his 
 arms. 
 
 "My horse is at the door, Angela, and I am come 
 to bid you good-bye," he said in a grave voice. 
 
I 68 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 The words were of the simplest; but there was 
 something in his tone that told her all was not said. 
 She paled at the thought of an approaching conflict; for 
 she knew her father was against her, and that there 
 must be hard fighting. 
 
 They walked the length of flower border and lawn 
 in silence; and then, when they were furthest from the 
 house, and from the hazard of eyes looking out of 
 windows, he stopped suddenly, and took her unresisting 
 hand, which lay cold in his. 
 
 "Dearest, I have kept silence through all those blessed 
 days in which you and I have been together; but I 
 have not left off loving you or hoping for you. Things 
 have changed since I spoke to you in London last 
 winter. I have a powerful advocate now whose plead- 
 ing ought to prevail with you — a father whose anxious 
 affection urges what my passionate love so ardently 
 desires. Indeed, dear heart, if you will be kind, you 
 can make a father and lover happy with one breath. 
 You have but to say 'Yes' to the prayer you know 
 of " 
 
 "Alas! Denzil, I cannot. I am your true and faith- 
 ful friend. If you were sick and alone — as his lordship 
 was — I would go to you and nurse you, as your friend 
 and sister. If you were poor and I were rich, I would 
 divide my fortune with you. I shall always think of 
 you with affection — always take pleasure in your society, 
 if you will let me; but it must be as your sister. You 
 have no sister, Denzil — I no brother. Why cannot we 
 be to each other as brother and sister?" 
 
 "Only because from the hour when your beauty and 
 sweetness began to grow into my mind I have been your 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. l6Q 
 
 lover, and nothing else — your adoring lover. I cannot 
 change my fervent hope for the poor name of friend. I 
 can never again dare be to you what I have been in 
 this happy season last past, unless you will let me be 
 more than I have been." 
 
 "Alas!" 
 
 Only that one word, with a sorrowful shake of the 
 graceful head, covered with feathery ringlets in the 
 dainty fashion of that day, so becoming in youth, so 
 inappropriate to advancing years, when the rich pro- 
 fusion of curls came straight from Chedreux, or some of 
 his imitators, and baldness was hidden by the spoils of 
 the dead. 
 
 "Alas!" 
 
 No need for more than that sad dissyllable. 
 
 "Then I am no nearer winning this dear hand than 
 I was at Fareham House?" he said heartbrokenly, for he 
 had built high hopes upon her kindness and willing 
 companionship in that Arcadian valley. 
 
 "I told you then that I should never marry. I have 
 not changed my mind. I never can change. I am to 
 be Henriette's spinster aunt." 
 
 "And Fareham's spinster sister?" said Denzil. "I 
 understand. We are neither of us cured of our malady. 
 It is my disease to love you in spite of your disdain. 
 It is your disease to love where you should not. Fare- 
 well!" 
 
 He was gone before she could reply. The livid 
 anger of his face, the deep resentment in his voice, 
 haunted her memory, and made life almost intolerable. 
 
 "My sin has found me out!" she said to herself, as 
 she paced the garden with the rapid steps that indicate 
 
I7O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 a distempered spirit. "What right has he to pry into 
 the depths of my mind, and ferret out all that there is 
 of evil in my nature? Well, he goes the surest way to 
 make me hate him. If ever he comes here again, I will 
 run away and hide from all who know me. I would 
 rather be a farm-servant, and rise at daybreak to work 
 in the fields, than endure his insolence." 
 
 She had to bear worse pain before Denzil had 
 ridden far upon his journey; for her father came to the 
 garden to seek her, eager to know the result of his 
 protege's wooing. 
 
 "Well, sweetheart," he began, taking her to his 
 bosom and kissing her. "Do I salute the future Lady 
 Warner?" 
 
 "No, sir; I am too well content with the name I in- 
 herit to desire any other." 
 
 "That is gracefully said, che'rie ; but I want to see 
 my ewe lamb happily wedded. Has thy sweetheart 
 stolen away without finding courage to ask the question 
 that has been on the tip of his tongue for the last six 
 weeks?" 
 
 "He has been both importunate and impertinent, sir, 
 and he has had his answer. I hope I may never see 
 him again." 
 
 "What! you have refused him? You must be mad!" 
 
 "No, sir; sober and sane enough to know when I 
 am happy. I told you before this gentleman came here 
 that I did not mean to marry. Surely I am not so un- 
 loving a daughter that I must be driven to take a hus- 
 band, because my father will not have me." 
 
 "Angela, it is for your own safety and welfare I 
 would see you married. What have you to succeed to 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 7 I 
 
 when I am gone? An impoverished estate, in a country 
 that has seen such rough changes within a score of 
 years that one dare scarcely calculate upon a prolonged 
 time of safety, even in this sequestered valley. God 
 only knows when cannon-balls may tear up our fields, 
 and bullets whistle through the copses. This Monarchy, 
 restored with such a clamorous approval, may endure 
 no longer than the Commonwealth, which was thought 
 to be lasting. His Majesty's trivial life and gross extra- 
 vagance have disgusted and alarmed some who loved 
 him dearly, and have set the common people question- 
 ing whether the rough rule of the Protector were not 
 better than the ascendency of shameless women and 
 dissolute men. The pageantry of Whitehall may vanish 
 like a parchment scroll in a furnace, and Charles, who 
 has tasted the sours of exile, may be again a wanderer, 
 dependent on the casual munificence of foreign states; 
 and in such an evil hour," continued the Knight, his 
 mind straying from the contemplation of his daughter's 
 future to the memory of his own wrongs, "Charles 
 Stuart may remember the old puts who fought and 
 suffered for his father, and how scurvy a recompense 
 they had for their services." 
 
 He reverted to Denzil's offer after a brief silence, 
 Angela walking dutifully by his side, prepared to suffer 
 any harshness upon his part without complaining. 
 
 "I love the young man, and he would be to me as 
 a son," he said; "the comrade and support of my old 
 age. I am poor, as the world goes now; have but just 
 enough to live modestly in this retreat, where life costs 
 but little. He is rich, and can give you a handsome 
 seat near your sister's mansion; and a house in London 
 
172 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 if you desire one; less splendid, doubtless, than Fare- 
 ham's palace on the Thames , but more befitting the 
 habits and manners of an English gentleman's wife. 
 He can give you hounds and hawks, your riding-horses, 
 and your coach-and-six. What more, in God's name, 
 can any reasonable woman desire?" 
 
 "Only one thing, sir. To live my own life in peace, 
 as my conscience and my reason bid me. I cannot 
 love Denzil Warner, though of late I have grown to like 
 and respect him as a friend and most intelligent com- 
 panion. Your persistence is fast changing friendship 
 into dislike; and the very name of the man would 
 speedily become hateful to me." 
 
 "Oh, I have done!" retorted Sir John. "I am no 
 tyrant. You must take your own way, mistress. I can 
 but lament that Providence gave me only two daughters, 
 and one of them an arrant fool." 
 
 He left her in a huff, and had it not been for an 
 astonishing event, which convulsed town and country, 
 and suspended private interests and private quarrels in 
 the excitement of public affairs, she would have heard 
 much more of his discontent. 
 
 The Dutch ships were at Chatham. English men- 
 of-war were blazing at the very mouth of the Thames, 
 and there was panic lest the triumphant foe should sail 
 their fire-ships up the river to London, besiege the 
 Tower, relight the fire whose ashes were scarce grown 
 cold, pillage, slaughter, destroy — as Tilly had destroyed 
 the wretched Provinces in the religious war. 
 
 Here, in this sheltered haven, amidst green fields, 
 under the lee of the Brill, the panic and consternation 
 were as intense as if the village of St. Nicholas were 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 73 
 
 the one spot the Dutch would make for after landing; 
 and, indeed, there were rustics who went to the placid 
 scene where the infant Thame rises in its cradle of 
 reed and lily, half expectant of seeing Netherlandish 
 vessels stranded among the rushes. 
 
 The Dutch fleet was at Chatham. Ships were being 
 sunk across the Medway, to stop the invader. 
 
 Sheerness was to be fortified. London was in arms; 
 and Brill remembered its repulse of Hampden's regi- 
 ment with a proud consciousness of being invincible. 
 
 The Dutch fleet saved Angela many a paternal 
 lecture; for Sir John rode post-haste towards London, 
 and did not return until the end of the month. 
 
 In London he found Hyacinth, much disturbed 
 about her husband, who had gone as volunteer with 
 General Middleton, and was in command of a cavalry 
 regiment at Chatham. 
 
 "I never saw him in such spirits as when he left 
 me," Lady Fareham told her father. "I believe he is 
 ever happiest when he breathes gunpowder." 
 
 Sir John's leave-taking had been curt and moody, 
 for Angela's offence rankled deep in his mind; and it 
 was as much as he could do to command his anger, 
 even in bidding her good-bye. 
 
 "Did I not tell you that we live in troubled times, 
 and that no man can foresee the coming evil, or how 
 great our woes and distractions may be?" he asked, 
 with a gloomy triumph. "Whoever thought to hear De 
 Ruyter's guns at Sheerness, or to see the Royal Charles 
 led captive ? Absit omen ! Who knows what destruction 
 may come upon that other Royal Charles, for whose 
 
174 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 safety we pray morning and night, and who lolls across 
 a basset-table, perhaps, with his wantons around him, 
 while we are on our knees supplicating the Creator for 
 him? Who knows? We may have London in flames 
 again, and a conflagration more fatal than the last, thou 
 obstinate wench, before thou art a week older, and 
 every able-bodied man called away from plough and 
 pasture to serve the King, and desolation and famine 
 where plenty now smiles at us. And is this a time in 
 which to refuse a valiant and wealthy protector, a lover 
 as honest as ever God made; a pious, conforming 
 Christian, of unsullied name; a young man after my 
 own pattern; a fine horseman and a good farmer; one 
 who loves a pack of hounds and a well-bred horse, a 
 flight of hawks and a match at bowls, better than to 
 give chase to a she-rake in the Mall, or to drink him- 
 self stark mad at a tavern in Covent Garden with 
 debauchees from Whitehall?" 
 
 Sir John prosed and grumbled to the last moment, 
 but could not refuse to bend down from his saddle and 
 kiss the fair, pale face that looked at him in piteous 
 deprecation at the moment of parting. 
 
 "Well, keep a brave heart, Mistress Wilful. Thou 
 art safe here yet awhile from Dutch marauders. I go 
 but to find out how much truth there is in these panic 
 rumours." 
 
 She begged him not to fatigue himself with too long 
 stages, and w T ent back to the silent house, thankful to 
 be alone in her despondency. She felt as if the last 
 page in her worldly life had been written. She had to 
 turn her thoughts backward to that quiet retreat where 
 there would at least be peace. She had promised her 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 75 
 
 father that she would not return to the Convent while 
 he wanted her at home. But was that promise to hold 
 good if he were to embitter her life by urging her to a 
 marriage that would only bring her unhappiness? 
 
 She had ample leisure for thought in one summer 
 day of a solitude so absolute that she began to shiver 
 in the sultry stillness of afternoon, and scarce ventured 
 to raise her eyes from her embroidery frame, lest some 
 shadowy presence, some ghost out of the dead past, 
 should hover near, watching her as she sat alone in 
 scenes where that pale spirit had been living flesh. The 
 thought of all who had lived and died in that house — 
 men and women of her own race, whose qualities of 
 mind and person she had inherited — oppressed her in 
 the long hours of silent reverie. Before her first day of 
 loneliness had ended, her spirits had sunk to deepest 
 melancholy; and in that weaker condition of mind she 
 had begun to ask herself whether she had any right to 
 oppose her father's wishes by denying herself to a suitor 
 whom she esteemed and respected, and whose filial 
 affection would bring new sunshine into that dear father's 
 declining years. She had noted their manner to each 
 other during Denzil's protracted visit, and had seen all 
 the evidences of a warm regard on both sides. She 
 had too complete a faith in Denzil's sterling worth to 
 question the reality of any feeling which his words and 
 manner indicated. He was above all things a man of 
 truth and honesty. 
 
 She was roaming about the gardens with her dog 
 towards noon in the second day of her solitude, when 
 across the yew hedges she saw white clouds of dust 
 rising from the high-road, and heard the clatter of hoofs 
 
I76 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and roll of wheels — a noise as of a troop of cavalry — 
 whereat Ganymede barked himself almost into an apo- 
 plexy, and rushed across the grass like a mad thing. 
 
 A great cracking of whips and sound of voices, 
 horses galloping, horses trotting, dust enough to whiten 
 all the hedges and greensward! Angela stood at gaze, 
 wondering if the Dutch were coming to storm the old 
 house, or the county militia coming to garrison it. 
 
 The Manor Moat was the destination of that clamor- 
 ous troop, whoever they were. Wheels and horses 
 stopped sharply at the great iron gate in front of the 
 house, and the bell began to ring furiously, while other 
 dogs, with voices that resembled Ganymede's, answered 
 his shrill bark with even shriller yelpings. 
 
 Angela ran towards the gate, and was near enough 
 to see it opened to admit three black-and-tan spaniels, 
 and one slim personage in a long flame-coloured broca- 
 telle gown and a large beaver hat, who approached with 
 stately movements, a small, pert nose held high, and 
 rosy upper lip curled in patrician disdain of common 
 things, while a fan of peacock's plumage, that flashed 
 sapphire and emerald in the fierce noonday sun, was 
 waved slowly before the dainty face, scattering the 
 tremulous life of summer that buzzed and fluttered in 
 the sultry air. 
 
 In the rear of this brilliant figure appeared a middle- 
 aged person in a grey silk gown and hood, and a negro 
 page in the Fareham livery, a waiting- woman, and a tall 
 lackey, so many being the necessary adjuncts to the 
 Honourable Henrietta Maria Revel's state when she went 
 abroad. 
 
 Angela ran to receive her niece with a cry of 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 77 
 
 rapture, and the tall slip of a girl in the flame-coloured 
 frock was clasped to her aunt's heart with a ruthless 
 disregard of the beaver hat and cataract of ostrich 
 plumage. 
 
 " Prends garde d'abimer mon chapeaii, p'tite tante," 
 cried Henriette, "'tis one of Lewin's Nell Gwyn hats, 
 and cost twenty guineas, without the buckle, which I 
 stole out of father's shoe t'other day. His lordship is so 
 careless about his clothes that he wore the shoes two 
 days and never knew there was a buckle missing, and 
 those lazy devils his servants never told him. I believe 
 they meant to rook him of t'other buckle." 
 
 "Chatterer, chatterer, how happy I am to see thee! 
 But is not your mother with you?" 
 
 "Her ladyship is in London. Everybody of import- 
 ance is scampering off to London; and no doubt will be 
 rushing back to the country again if the Dutch take the 
 Tower; but I don't think they will while my father is 
 able to raise a regiment." 
 
 "And mademoiselle" — with a curtsy to the lady in 
 grey — "has brought you all this long way through the 
 heat to see me?" 
 
 "I have brought mademoiselle," Henriette answered 
 contemptuously, before the Frenchwoman had finished 
 the moue and the shrug which with her always pre- 
 ceded speech; "and a fine plague I had to make her 
 come." 
 
 "Madame will conceive that, in miladi's absence, it 
 was a prodigious inconvenience to order two coaches, 
 and travel so far. His lordship's groom of the chambers 
 is my witness that I protested against such an outrageous 
 proceeding." 
 
 London Pride. II. 12 
 
178 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Two coaches!" exclaimed Angela. 
 
 "A coach- and-six for me and my dogs and my 
 gouvernante , and a coach-and-four for my people," ex- 
 plained Henriette, who had modelled her equipage and 
 suite upon a reminiscence of the train which attended 
 Lady Castlemaine's visit to Chilton, as beheld from a 
 nursery window. 
 
 "Come, child, and rest, out of the sun; and you, 
 mademoiselle, must need refreshment after so long a 
 drive." 
 
 "Our progress through a perpetual cloud of dust 
 and of succession of narrow lanes did indeed suggest the 
 torments of purgatory; but the happiness of madame's 
 gracious welcome is an all-sufficient compensation for our 
 fatigue," mademoiselle replied, with a deep curtsey. 
 
 "I was not tired in the least," asserted Henriette. 
 "We stopped at the Crown at Thame and had straw- 
 berries and milk." 
 
 " You had strawberries and milk, mon enfant. I have 
 a digestion which will not allow such liberties." 
 
 "And our horses were baited, and our people had 
 their morning drink," said Henriette, with her grown-up 
 air. "One ought always to remember cattle and ser- 
 vants. May we put up our horses with you, auntie? 
 We must leave you soon after dinner, so as to be at 
 Chilton by sunset, or mademoiselle will be afraid of 
 highwaymen, though I told Samuel and Peter to bring 
 their blunderbusses in case of an attack. Ma'amselle 
 has no valuables, and at the worst I should but have to 
 give them my diamond buckle, and my locket with his 
 lordship's portrait." 
 
 Angela's cheeks flushed at that chance allusion to 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 79 
 
 Fareham's picture. It brought back a vision of the 
 Convent parlour, and she standing there with Fareham's 
 miniature in her hand, wonderingly contemplative of the 
 dark, strong face. At that stage of her life she had 
 seen so few men's faces; and this one had a power in it 
 that startled her. Did she divine, by some supernatural 
 foreknowledge, that this face held the secret of her 
 destiny? 
 
 She went to the house, with Henriette's lissom form 
 hanging upon her, and the grey governess tripping 
 mincingly beside them, tottering a little upon her high 
 heels. 
 
 Old Reuben had crept out into the sunshine, with a 
 rustic footman following him, and the cook was looking 
 out at a window in the wing where kitchen and ser- 
 vants' hall occupied as important a position as the 
 dining-parlour and saloon on the opposite side. A hall 
 with open roof, wide double staircase, and music gallery, 
 filled the central space between the two projecting wings, 
 and at the back there was a banqueting-chamber or ball- 
 room, where in more prosperous days, the family had 
 been accustomed to dine on all stately occasions — a 
 room now shabby and grey with disuse. 
 
 While the footman showed the way to the stables, 
 Angela drew Reuben aside for a brief consultation as to 
 ways and means for a dinner that must be the best the 
 house could provide, and which might be served at two 
 o'clock, the later hour giving time for extra preparation. 
 A capon, larded after the French fashion, a pair of 
 trouts, the finest the stream could furnish, or a carp 
 stewed in clary wine, and as many sweet kickshaws as 
 cook's ingenuity could furnish at so brief a notice, Nor 
 
 12* 
 
l8o LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 were waiting- woman, lackey, and postillions to be 
 neglected. Chine and sirloin, pudding and beer must 
 be provided for all. 
 
 "There are six men besides the black boy," sighed 
 Reuben; "they will devour us a week's provision of 
 butcher's meat." 
 
 "If you have done your housekeeping, tafite, let me 
 go to your favourite summer-house with you, and tell 
 you my secrets. I am perishing for a tete-a-tete! Ma'am- 
 selle" — with a wave of the peacock fan — "can take 
 a siesta, and forget the dust of the road, while we con- 
 verse." 
 
 Angela ushered mademoiselle to the pretty summer- 
 parlour, looking out upon a geometrical arrangement of 
 flower-beds in the Dutch manner. Chocolate and other 
 light refreshments were being prepared for the travellers; 
 but Henrietta's impatience would wait for nothing. 
 
 "I have not driven along these detestable roads to 
 taste your chocolate," she protested. "I have a world 
 to say to you: en attendant, mademoiselle, you will con- 
 sider everything at your disposal in the house of my 
 grandfather, jnsqa' a deux henres." 
 
 She sank almost to the ground in a Whitehall curtsy, 
 rose swift as an arrow, tucked her arm through Angela's, 
 and pulled her out of the room, paying no attention to 
 the governess's voluble injunctions not to expose her 
 complexion to the sun, or to sit in a cold wind, or to 
 spoil her gown. 
 
 "What a shabby old place it is!" she said, looking 
 critically round her as they went through the gardens. 
 "Pm afraid you must perish with ennui here, with so 
 few servants and no company to speak of. Yes" — con- 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. l8l 
 
 templating her shrewdly, as they seated themselves in a 
 stone temple at the end of the bowling-green — "you are 
 looking moped and ill. This valley air does not agree 
 with you. Well, you can have a much finer place when- 
 ever you choose. A better house and garden, ever so 
 much nearer Chilton. And you will choose, won't you, 
 dearest?" nestling close to her, after throwing off the 
 big hat which made such loving contact impossible. 
 
 "I don't understand you, Henriette." 
 
 "If you call me Henriette I shall be sure you are 
 angry with me." 
 
 "No, love, not angry, but surprised." 
 
 "You think I have no right to talk of your sweet- 
 heart, because I am only thirteen — and have scarce left 
 off playing with babies — I have hated them for ages, 
 only people persist in giving me the foolish puppets. I 
 know more of the world than you do, auntie, after being 
 shut in a Convent the best part of your life. Why are 
 you so obstinate, ma che'rie, in refusing a gentleman we 
 all like?" 
 
 "Do you mean Sir Denzil?" 
 
 "Sans doute. Have you a crowd of servants?" 
 
 "No, child, only this one. But don't you see that 
 other people's liking has less to do with the question 
 than mine? And if I do not like him well enough to 
 be his wife " 
 
 "But you ought to like him. You know how long 
 her ladyship's heart has been set on the match; you 
 must have seen what pains she took in London to have 
 Sir Denzil always about you. And now, after a most 
 exemplary patience, after being your faithful servant for 
 over a year, he asks you to be his wife, and you refuse, 
 
1 82 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 obstinately refuse. And you would rather mope here 
 with my poor old grandfather — in abject poverty — mother 
 says 'abject poverty' — than be the honoured mistress of 
 one of the finest seats in Oxfordshire." 
 
 "I would rather do what is right and honest, my 
 dearest. It is dishonest to marry without love." 
 
 "Then half mother's fine friends must be dishonest, 
 for I dare swear that very few of them love their 
 husbands." 
 
 "Henriette, you talk of things you don't know." 
 
 "Don't know! Why, there is no one in London 
 knows more. I am always listening, and I always re- 
 member. De Malfort used to say I had a plaguey long 
 memory, when I told him of things he had said a year 
 ago." 
 
 "My dear, I love you fondly, but I cannot have you 
 talk to me of what you don't understand; and I am 
 sorry Sir Denzil Warner had no more courtesy than to 
 go and complain of me to my sister." 
 
 "He did not come to Chilton to complain. Her 
 ladyship met him on the way from Oxford in her 
 coach. He was riding, and she called to him to come 
 to the coach door. It was the day after he left you, 
 and he was looking miserable; and she questioned him, 
 and he owned that his suit had been rejected, and he 
 had no further hope. My mother came home in a rage. 
 But why was she angry with his lordship? Indeed, she 
 rated him as if it were his fault you refused Sir Denzil." 
 
 Angela sat silent, and the hand Henriette was clasp- 
 ing grew cold as ice. 
 
 "Did my father bid you refuse him, aunt?" asked 
 the girl, scrutinising her aunt's countenance, with those 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 183 
 
 dark grey eyes, so like Fareham's in their falcon 
 brightness. 
 
 "No, child. Why should he interfere? It is no 
 business of his." 
 
 "Then why was mother so angry? She walked up 
 and down the room in a towering passion. 'This is 
 your doing,' she cried. "If she were not your adoring 
 slave, she would have jumped at so handsome a sweet- 
 heart. This is your witchcraft. It is you she loves — 
 you — you — you!' His lordship stood dumb, and pointed 
 to me. 'Do you forget your child is present?' he said. 
 'I forget everything except that everybody uses me 
 shamefully,' she cried. 'I was only made to be slighted 
 and trampled upon.' His lordship made no answer, but 
 walked to the door in that way he ever has when he is 
 angered — pale, frowning, silent. I was standing in his 
 way, and he gripped me by the arm, and dragged me 
 out of the room. I dare venture there is a bruise on 
 my arm where he held me. I know his fingers hurt me 
 with their grip; and I could hear my lady screaming 
 and sobbing as he took me away. But he would not 
 let me go back to her. He would only send her women. 
 'Your mother has an interval of madness,' he said; 'you 
 are best out of her presence.' The news of the Dutch 
 ships came the same evening, and my father rode off 
 towards London, and my mother ordered her coach, and 
 followed an hour after. They seemed both distracted; 
 and only because you refused Sir Denzil." 
 
 "I cannot help her ladyship's foolishness, Papillon. 
 She has no occasion for any of this trouble. I am her 
 dutiful, affectionate sister; but my heart is not hers to 
 give or to refuse." 
 
184 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "But was it indeed my father's fault? Is it because 
 you adore him that you refused Sir Denzil?" 
 
 "No — no — no. My affection for my brother — he 
 has been to me as a brother — can make no difference 
 in my regard for anyone else. One cannot fall in love 
 at another's ordering, or be happy with a husband of 
 another's choice. You will discover that for yourself, 
 Papillon, perhaps, when you are a woman." 
 
 "Oh, I mean to marry for wealth and station, as 
 all the clever women do," said Papillon, with an upward 
 jerk of her delicate chin. "Mrs. Lewin always says I 
 ought to be a duchess. I should like to have married 
 the Duke of Monmouth, and then, who knows, I might 
 have been a Queen. The King's other sons are too 
 young for me, and they will never have Monmouth's 
 chance. But, indeed, sweetheart, you ought to marry 
 Sir Denzil, and come and live near us at Chilton. You 
 would make us all happy." 
 
 "Ma tres chere, it is so easy to talk — but when thou 
 thyself art a woman " 
 
 "I shall never care for such trumpery as love. I 
 mean to have a grand house — ever so much grander 
 than Fareham House. Perhaps I may marry a French- 
 man, and have a salon, and all the wits about me on 
 my day. I would make it gayer than Mademoiselle de 
 Scudery's Saturdays, which my governess so loves to 
 talk of. There should be less talk and more dancing. 
 But listen, p'tite ta?ite, 3> clasping her arms suddenly 
 round Angela's neck, "I won't leave this spot till you 
 have promised to change your mind about Denzil. I 
 like him vastly; and I'm sure there's no reason why you 
 should not love him — unless you really are his lordship's 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 85 
 
 adoring slave," emphasising those last words, "and he 
 has forbidden you." 
 
 Angela sat dumb, her eyes fixed on vacancy. 
 
 "Why, you are like the lady in those lines you made 
 me learn, who 'sat like patience on a monument, smil- 
 ing at grief.' Dearest, w 7 hy so sad? Remember that 
 fine house — and the dairy that was once a chapel. You 
 could turn it into a chapel again if you liked, and have 
 your own chaplain. His Majesty takes no heed of what 
 we Papists do — being a Papist himself at heart, they 
 say — though poor wretches are dragged off to gaol for 
 worshipping in a conventicle. What is a conventicle? 
 Will you not change your mind, dearest? Answer, an- 
 swer, answer!" 
 
 The slender arms tightened their caress, the pretty 
 little brown face pressed itself against Angela's pale, 
 cold cheek. 
 
 "For my sake, sweetheart, say thou w T ilt have him. 
 I will go to see thee every day." 
 
 "I have been here for months and you have not 
 come, though I begged you in a dozen letters." 
 
 "I have been kept at my book and my dancing 
 lessons. Mademoiselle told her ladyship that I was a 
 monster of ignorance. I have been treated shamefully. 
 I could not have come to-day had my lady been at 
 home; but I would not brook a hireling's dictation. 
 Voyons, p'tite tante, tu seras miladi Warne?\ Dis, dis, 
 que je te fasse mourir de baisers." 
 
 She was almost stifling her aunt with kisses in the 
 intervals of her eager speech. 
 
 "The last word has been spoken, Papillon. I have 
 
I 86 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 sent him away — and it was not the first time. I had 
 refused him before. I cannot call him back." 
 
 "But he shall come without calling. He is your 
 adoring slave," cried Henriette, leaping up from the 
 stone bench, and clapping her hands in an ecstasy. 
 "He will need no calling. Dearest, dearest, most ex- 
 quisite, delectable auntie! I am so happy! And my 
 mother will be content. And no one shall ever say you 
 are my father's slave." 
 
 "Henriette, if you repeat that odious phrase I shall 
 hate you!" 
 
 "Now you are angry. Gud, what a frown! I will 
 repeat no word that angers you. My Lady Warner — 
 sweet Lady Warner. I vow 'tis a prettier name than 
 Revel or Fareham." 
 
 "You are mad, Henriette! I have promised nothing." 
 
 "Yes, you have, little aunt. You have promised to 
 drop a curtsy, and say 'Yes' when Sir Denzil rides this 
 way. You sent him away in a huff. He will come 
 back smiling like yonder sunshine on the water. Oh, I 
 am so happy! My doing, all my doing!" 
 
 "It is useless to argue with you." 
 
 "Quite useless. 77 n'y a pas de quoi. Nous sommes 
 d' accord. I shall be your chief bridesmaid. You must 
 be married in her Majesty's chapel at St. James's. The 
 Pope will give his dispensation — if you cannot persuade 
 Denzil to change his religion. Were he my suitor I 
 would twist him round my fingers," with an airy gesture 
 of the small brown hand. 
 
 There is nothing more difficult than to convince a 
 child that she pleads in vain for any ardently desired 
 object. Nothing that Angela could say would reconcile 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 87 
 
 her niece to the idea of failure; so there was no help 
 but to let her fancy her arguments conclusive, and to 
 change the bent of her thoughts if possible. 
 
 It wanted nearly an hour of dinner-time, so Angela 
 suggested an inspection of the home farm, which was 
 close by, trusting that Henriette's love of animals would 
 afford an all-sufficient diversion; nor was she disap- 
 pointed, for the little fine lady was quite as much at 
 home in stable and cowshed as in a London drawing- 
 room, and spent a happy hour in making friends with the 
 live stock, from the favourite Hereford cow, queen of 
 the herd, to the smallest bantam in the poultry-yard. 
 
 To this rustic entertainment followed dinner, in the 
 preparation of which banquet Marjory Cook had sur- 
 passed herself; and Papillon, being by this time seriously 
 hungry, sat and feasted to her heart's content, discussing 
 the marrow pudding and the stewed carp with the acumen 
 and authority of a professed gourmet. 
 
 "I like this old-fashioned rustic diet," she said con- 
 descendingly. 
 
 She reproached her governess with not doing justice 
 to a syllabub; but showed herself a fine lady by her 
 complaint at the lack of ice for her wine. 
 
 "My grandfather should make haste and build an 
 icehouse before next winter," she drawled. "One can 
 scarce live through this weather without ice," fanning 
 herself, with excessive languor. 
 
 "I hope, dear, thou wilt not expire on the journey 
 home." 
 
 The coaches were at the gate before Papillon had 
 finished dinner, and Mademoiselle was in great haste 
 to be gone, reminding her pupil that she had travelled 
 
100 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 so far against her will and at the hazard of angering 
 Madame la Baronne. 
 
 "Madame la Baronne will be enraptured when she 
 knows what I have done to please her," answered Papil- 
 lon, and then, with a last parting embrace, hugging 
 her aunt's fair neck more energetically than ever, she 
 whispered, "I shall tell Denzil. You will make us all 
 happy." 
 
 A cloud of dust, a clatter of hoofs, Ma'amselle's 
 screams as the carriage rocked while she was mounting 
 the steps, and with much cracking of whips and swear- 
 ing at horses from the postillions who had taken their 
 fill of home-brewed ale, hog's harslet, and cold chine, 
 and, lo, the brilliant vision of the Honourable Henrietta 
 Maria and her train vanished in the dust of the summer 
 highway, and Angela went slowly back to the long green 
 walk beside the fish-pond, where she was in as silent a 
 solitude, but for a lingering nightingale or two, as if she 
 had been in the palace of the sleeping beauty. If all 
 things slumbered not, there was at least as marked a 
 pause in life. The Dutch might be burning more ships, 
 and the noise of war might be coming nearer London 
 with every hour of the summer day. Here there was a 
 repose as of the after-life, when all hopes and dreams 
 and loves and hates are done and ended, and the soul 
 waits in darkness and silence for the next unfolding of 
 its wings. 
 
 Those hateful words, "your adoring slave," and all 
 that speech of Hyacinth's which the child had repeated, 
 haunted Angela with an agonising iteration. She had 
 not an instant's doubt as to the scene being faithfully 
 reported. She knew how preternaturally acute Henriette's 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. I 89 
 
 intellect had become in the rarified atmosphere of her 
 mother's drawing-room, how accurate her memory, how 
 sharp her ears, and how observant her eyes. Whatever 
 Henriette reported was likely to be to the very letter 
 and spirit of the scene she had witnessed. And Hya- 
 cinth, her sister, had put this shame upon her, had 
 spoken of her in the crudest phrase as loving one whom 
 it was mortal sin to love. Hyacinth, so light, so airy a 
 creature, whom her younger sister had ever considered 
 as a grown-up child, had yet been shrewd enough to 
 fathom her mystery, and to discover that secret attach- 
 ment which had made Denzil's suit hateful to her. 
 "And if I do not consent to marry him she will always 
 think ill of me. She will think of me as a wretch who 
 tried to steal her husband's love — a worse woman than 
 Lady Castlemaine — 'for she had the King's affection be- 
 fore he ever saw the Queen's poor plain face. His 
 adoring slave!" 
 
 Evening shadows were around her. She had wandered 
 into the woods, was slowly threading the slender cattle 
 tracks in the cool darkness; while that passionate song 
 of the nightingales rose in a louder ecstasy as the quiet 
 of the night deepened, and the young moon hung high 
 above the edge of a wooded hill. 
 
 "His adoring slave," she repeated, with her hands 
 clasped above her uncovered head. 
 
 Hateful, humiliating words! Yet there was a keen 
 rapture in repeating them. They were true words. His 
 slave — his slave to wait upon him in sickness and pain; 
 to lie and watch at his door like a faithful dog ; to follow 
 him to the wars, and clean his armour, and hold his 
 horse, and wait in his tent to receive him wounded, and 
 
I gO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 heal his wounds where surgeons failed to cure, wanting 
 that intensity of attention and understanding which love 
 alone can give; to be his Bellario, asking nothing of him, 
 hoping for nothing, hardly for kind words or common 
 courtesy, foregoing woman's claim upon man's chivalry, 
 content to be nothing — only to be near him. 
 
 If such a life could have been — the life that poets 
 have imagined for despairing love! It was less than a 
 hundred years since handsome Mrs. Southwell followed 
 Sir Robert Dudley to Italy, disguised as a page. But 
 the age of romance was past. The modern world had 
 only laughter for such dreams. 
 
 That revelation of Hyacinth's jealousy had brought 
 matters to a crisis. Something must be done, Angela 
 told herself, and quickly, to set her right with her sister, 
 and in her own esteem. She had to choose between 
 a loveless marriage and the Convent. By accepting one 
 or the other she must prove that she was not the slave 
 of a dishonourable love. 
 
 Marriage or the Convent? It had been easy, con- 
 templating the step from a distance, to choose the Con- 
 vent. But when she thought of it, to-night, amid the 
 exquisite beauty of these woods, with the moonlit valley 
 lying at her feet, the winding streams reflecting that 
 silvery light, or veiled in a pale haze — to-night, in the 
 liberty and loveliness of the earth, the vision of Convent 
 walls filled her with a shuddering horror. To be shut 
 in that Flemish garden for ever; her life enclosed within 
 the straight lines of that long green alley leading to 
 a dead wall, darkened over by flowerless ivy. How 
 witheringly dull the old life showed, looking back at 
 it after years of freedom and enjoyment, action and 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 9 I 
 
 variety. No, no, no! She could not bury herself alive, 
 could not forego the liberty to wander in a wood like 
 this, to gaze upon scenes as beautiful as yonder valley, 
 to read the poets she loved, to see, perhaps, some day 
 those romantic scenes which she knew but as dreams — 
 Florence, Vallombrosa — to follow the footsteps of Milton, 
 to see the Venice she had read of in Howell's Letters, 
 to kneel at the feet of the Holy Father, in the City of 
 Cities. All these things would be for ever forbidden to 
 her if she chose the common escape from earthly sorrow. 
 
 She thought of her whose example had furnished the 
 theme of many a discourse at the Convent, Mazarin's 
 lovely niece, the Princess de Conti, who, in the bloom of 
 early womanhood, was awakened from the dream of this 
 life to the reality of Heaven, and had renounced the 
 pleasures of the most brilliant Court in the world for 
 the severities of Port Royal. She thought of that sublime 
 heretic Ferrar, whose later existence was one long prayer. 
 Of how much baser a clay must she be fashioned when 
 her too earthly heart clung so fondly to the loveliness of 
 earth, and shrank with aversion from the prospect of a 
 long life within those walls where her childhood had been 
 so peaceful and happy. 
 
 "How changed, how changed and corrupted this 
 heart has become!" she murmured, in her dejection, 
 "when that life which was once my most ardent desire 
 now seems to me worse than the grave. Anything — 
 any life of duty in the world, rather than that living 
 death." 
 
 She was in the garden next morning at six, after a 
 sleepless night, and she occupied herself till noon in 
 going about among the cottagers carrying those small 
 
I92 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 comforts which she had been in the habit of taking them, 
 and listening patiently to those various distresses which 
 they were very glad to relate to her. She taught the 
 children, and read to the sick, and was able in this round 
 of duties to keep her thoughts from dwelling too per- 
 sistently upon her own trouble. After the one o'clock 
 dinner, at which she offended old Reuben by eating 
 hardly anything, she went for a woodland ramble with 
 her dogs, and it was near sunset when she returned to 
 the house, just in time to see two road-stained horses 
 being led away from the hall door. 
 
 Sir John had come home. She found him in the 
 dining parlour, sitting gloomy and weary looking before 
 the table where Reuben was arranging a hasty meal. 
 
 "I have eaten nothing upon the road, yet I have but 
 a poor stomach for your bacon-ham," he said, and then 
 looked up at his daughter with a moody glance, as she 
 went towards him. 
 
 "Dear sir, we must try to coax your appetite when 
 you have rested a little. Let me unbuckle your spurs 
 and pull off your boots, while Reuben fetches your 
 easiest shoes." 
 
 "Nay, child, that is man's work, not for such fingers 
 as yours. The boots are nowise irksome — 'tis another 
 kind of shoe that pinches, Angela." 
 
 She knelt down to unbuckle the spur-straps, and while 
 on her knees she said — 
 
 "You look sad, sir. I fear you found ill news at 
 London." 
 
 "I found such shame as never came before upon 
 England, such confusion as only traitors and profligates 
 can know; men who have cheated and lied and wasted 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 93 
 
 the public money, left our fortresses undefended, our 
 ships unarmed, our sailors unpaid, half- fed, and mutinous; 
 clamorous wives crying aloud in the streets that their 
 husbands should not fight and bleed for a King who 
 starved them. They have clapped the scoundrel who 
 had charge of the Yard at Chatham in the Tower — but 
 will that mend matters? A scapegoat, belike, to suffer 
 for higher scoundrels. The mob is loudest against the 
 Chancellor, who I doubt is not to blame for our un- 
 readiness, having little power of late over the King. Oh, 
 there has been iniquity upon iniquity, and men know 
 not whom most to blame — the venal idle servants, or 
 the master of all." * 
 
 "You mean that men blame his Majesty?" 
 
 "No, Angela. But when our ships were blazing at 
 Chatham, and the Dutch triumphing, the cry was 'Oh, 
 for an hour of old Noll!' Charles has played his cards 
 so that he has made the loyalest hearts in England wish 
 the Brewer back again. They called him the Tiger of 
 the Seas. We have no tigers now, only asses and 
 monkeys. Why, there was scarce a grain of sense left in 
 London. The beat of the drums calling out the train- 
 bands seemed to have stupefied the people. Everywhere 
 madness and confusion. They have sunk their richest 
 argosies at Barking Creek to block the river; but the 
 Dutch break chains, ride over sunken ships, laugh our 
 petty defences to scorn." 
 
 "Dear sir, this confusion cannot last." 
 
 "It will last as long as the world's history lasts. Our 
 humiliation will never be forgotten." 
 
 "But Englishmen will not look on idle. There must 
 be brave men up in arms." 
 
 London Pride. IF. 1 3 
 
194 
 
 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Oh, there are brave men enough — Fairfax, Ingoldsby, 
 Bethell, Norton. The Presbyterians come to the front 
 in our troubles. Your brother-in-law is with Lord 
 Middleton. There is no lack of officers; and regiments 
 are being raised. But our merchant-ships, which should 
 be quick to help us, hang back. Our Treasury is empty, 
 and half the goldsmiths in London are bankrupt. And 
 our ships that are burnt, and our ships that are taken, 
 will not be conjured back again. The Royal Charles 
 carried off with insulting triumph! Oh, child, it is not 
 the loss that galls; it is the dishonour!" 
 
 He took a draught of claret out of the tankard which 
 Angela placed at his elbow, and she carved the ham 
 for him, and persuaded him to eat. 
 
 "Is it the public misfortune that troubles you so sadly, 
 sir?" she asked, presently, when her father flung himself 
 back in his chair with a heavy sigh. 
 
 "Nay, Angela, I have my peck of trouble without 
 reckoning the ruin of my country. But my back is 
 broad. It can bear a burden as well as any." 
 
 "Do you count a disobedient daughter among your 
 cares, sir?" 
 
 "Disobedient is too harsh a word. I told you I would 
 never force your inclinations. But I have an obstinate 
 daughter, who has disappointed me, and well-nigh broken 
 my spirit." 
 
 "Your spirit shall not rest broken if my obedience 
 can mend it, sir," she said gently, dropping on her knees 
 beside his chair. 
 
 "What! has that stony heart relented! Wilt thou 
 marry him, sweetheart? Wilt give me a son as well as 
 
PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 1 95 
 
 a daughter, and the security that thou wilt be safe and 
 happy when I'm gone?" 
 
 "No one can be sure of happiness, father; it comes 
 strangely, and goes we know not why. But if it will 
 make your heart easier, sir, and Denzil be still of the 
 same mind " 
 
 "His mind is a rock, dearest. He swore to me that 
 he could never change. Ah, love, you have made me 
 happy! Let the fleet burn, the Royal Charles fly Dutch 
 colours. Here, in this quiet valley, there shall be a 
 peaceful household and united hearts. Angela, I love 
 that youth! Fareham, with all his rank and wealth, has 
 never been so dear to me. That black visage repels 
 love. But Denzil's countenance is open as the day. I 
 can say 'Nunc Dimittis' with a light heart. I can trust 
 Denzil Warner with my daughter's happiness." 
 
 3* 
 
I96 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 
 
 Denzil received the good news by the hands of a 
 mounted messenger in the following forenoon. 
 
 The Knight had written, "Ride — ride — ride!" in the 
 Elizabethan style, on the cover of this letter, which con- 
 tained but two brief sentences — 
 
 "Womanlike, she has changed her mind. Come 
 when thou wilt, dear son." 
 
 And the son-in-law-to-be lost not an hour. He was 
 at the Manor before nightfall. He was a member of 
 the quiet household again, subservient to his mistress in 
 everything. 
 
 "There are some words that must needs be spoken 
 before we are agreed," Angela said, when they found 
 themselves alone for the first time, in the garden, on the 
 morning after his return, and when Denzil would fain 
 have taken her to his breast and ratified their betrothal 
 with a kiss. "I think you know as well as I do that it 
 is my father's wish that has made me change." 
 
 "So long as you change not again, dear, I am of all 
 men the happiest. Yes, I know 'tis Sir John's wooing 
 that won you, not mine. And that I have still to 
 conquer your heart, though your hand is promised me. 
 Yet I do not despair of being loved in as full measure 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 1 97 
 
 as I love. My faith is strong in the power of an honest 
 affection." 
 
 "You may at least be sure of my honesty. I pro- 
 fess nothing but the desire to be your true and obedient 
 wife " 
 
 "Obedient! You shall be my empress." 
 
 "No, no. I have no wish to rule. I desire only to 
 make my father happy, and you too, sir, if I can." 
 
 "Ah, my soul, that is so easy for you. You have 
 but to let me live in your dear company. I doubt I 
 would rather be miserable with you than happy with any 
 other woman. Ill-use me if you will; play Zantippe, and 
 I will be more submissive than Socrates. But you are 
 all mildness — perfect Christian, perfect woman. You 
 cannot miss being perfect as wife — and " 
 
 Another word trembled on his lips; but he checked 
 himself lest he should offend, and the speech ended in 
 a sob. 
 
 "My Angela, my angel!" 
 
 He took her to his heart, and kissed the fair brow, 
 cold under his passionate kisses. That word "angel" 
 turned her to ice. It conjured back the sound of a 
 voice that it was sin to remember. Fareham had called 
 her so; not once, but many times, in their placid days 
 of friendship, before the fiery breath of passion had 
 withered all the flowers in her earthly paradise — before 
 the knowledge of evil had clouded the brightness of the 
 world. 
 
 A gentle peace reigned at the Manor after Angela's 
 betrothal. Sir John was happier than he had been since 
 the days of his youth, before the coming of that cloud 
 no bigger than a man's hand, when John Hampden's 
 
I98 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 stubborn resistance of a thirty-shilling rate had brought 
 Crown and People face to face upon the burning 
 question of Ship-money, and kindled the fire that was 
 to devour England. From the hour he left his young 
 wife to follow the King to Yorkshire Sir John's existence 
 had known little of rest or of comfort, or even of glory. 
 He had fought on the losing side, and had missed the 
 fame of those who fell and took the rank of heroes by 
 an untimely death. Hardship and danger, wounds and 
 sickness, straitened means and scanty fare, had been 
 his portion for three bitter years; and then had come 
 a period of patient service, of schemes and intrigues 
 foredoomed to failure; of going to and fro, from Jersey 
 to Paris, from Paris to Ireland, from Ireland to Cornwall, 
 journeying hither and thither at the behest of a shifty, 
 irresolute man, or a passionate, imprudent woman, as 
 the case might be; now from the King to the Queen, 
 now from the Queen to this or that ally; futile errands, 
 unskilful combinations, failure on every hand, till the 
 last fatal journey, on which he was an unwilling attendant, 
 the flight from Hampton Court to Titchfield, when the 
 fated King broke faith with his enemies in an unfinished 
 negotiation. 
 
 Foreign adventure had followed English hardships, 
 and the soldier had been tossed on the stormy sea of 
 European warfare. He had been graciously received at 
 the French Court, but only to feel himself a stranger 
 there, and to have his English clothes and English 
 accent laughed at by Gramont and Bussy, and the 
 accomplished St. Evremond, and the frivolous herd of 
 their imitators; to see even the Queen, for whom he 
 had spent his last jacobus, smile behind her fan at his 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 1 99 
 
 bevues, and whisper to her sister-in-law while he knelt 
 to kiss the little white hand that had led a King to ruin. 
 Everywhere the stern Malignant had found himself out- 
 side the circle of the elect. At the Hotel de Rambouillet, 
 in the splendid houses of the newly built Place Royale, 
 in the salons of Duchesses, and the taverns of courtly 
 roysterers and drunken poets, at Cormier's, or at the 
 Pine Apple, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where it was all 
 the better for a Christian gentleman not to understand 
 the talk of the wits that flashed and drank there. 
 Everywhere he had been a stranger and aloof. It was 
 only under canvas, in danger and privation, that he lost 
 the sense of being one too many in the world. There 
 John Kirkland found his level, shoulder to shoulder with 
 Conde and Turenne. The stout Cavalier was second to 
 no soldier in Louis' splendid army; was of the stamp of 
 an earlier race even, better inured to hardship than any 
 save that heroic Prince, the Achilles of his day, who to 
 the graces of a modern courtier joined the temper of an 
 ancient Greek. 
 
 His daughter Hyacinth had given him the utmost 
 affection which such a nature could give; but it was the 
 affection of a trained singing-bird, or a pug-nosed 
 spaniel; and the father, though he admired her beauty, 
 and was pleased with her caresses, was shrewd enough 
 to perceive the lightness of her disposition and the 
 shallowness of her mind. He rejoiced in her marriage 
 with a man of Fareham's strong character. 
 
 "I have married thee to a husband who will know 
 how to rule a wife," he told her on the night of her 
 wedding. "You have but to obey and to be happy; 
 for he is rich enough to indulge all your fancies, and 
 
200 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 will not complain if you waste the gold that would pay 
 a company of foot on the decoration of your poor little 
 person." 
 
 "The tone in which you speak of my poor little 
 person, sir, can but remind me how much I need the 
 tailor and the milliner," answered Hyacinth, dropping 
 her favourite curtsy, which she was ever ready to practise 
 at the slightest provocation. 
 
 "Nay, petite chatte, you know I think you the 
 loveliest creature at Saint Germain or the Louvre, far 
 surpassing in beauty the Cardinal's niece, who has 
 managed to set young Louis' heart throbbing with a 
 boyish passion. But I doubt you bestow too much care 
 on the cherishing of a gift so fleeting." 
 
 "You have said the word, sir. 'Tis because it is so 
 fleeting I must needs take care of my beauty. We poor 
 women are like the butterflies and the roses. We have 
 as brief a summer. You men, who value us only for our 
 outward show, should pardon some vanity in creatures 
 so ephemeral." 
 
 "Ephemeral scarce applies to a sex which owns 
 such an example as your grandmother, who has lived to 
 reckon her servants among the grandsons of her earliest 
 lovers." 
 
 "Not lived, sir! No woman lives after thirty. She 
 can but exist, and dream that she is still admired. La 
 Marquise has been dead for the last twenty years, but 
 she won't own it. Ah, sir, c'est un triste supplice to 
 have been! I wonder how those poor ghosts can bear 
 that earthly purgatory which they call old age? Look 
 at Madame de Sable, par exemple, once a beauty, now 
 only a tradition. And Queen Anne! Old people say 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 201 
 
 she was beautiful, and that Buckingham risked being 
 torn by wild horses — like Ravaillac — only to kiss her 
 hand by stealth in a moonlit garden; and would have 
 plunged England in war but for an excuse to come 
 back to Paris. Who would go to war for Anne's haggard 
 countenance nowadays?" 
 
 Even in Lady Fareham's household the Cavalier soon 
 began to fancy himself an inhabitant too much; a dull, 
 grey ghost from a tragical past. He could not keep 
 himself from talking of the martyred King, and those 
 bitter years through which he had followed his master's 
 sinking fortunes. He told stories of York and of 
 Beverley; of the scarcity of cash which reduced his 
 Majesty's Court to but one table; of that bitter affront 
 at Coventry; of the evil omens that had marked the 
 raising of the Standard on the hill at Nottingham, and 
 filled superstitious minds with dark forebodings, remind- 
 ing old men of that sad shower of rain that fell when 
 Charles was proclaimed at Whitehall, on the day of his 
 accession, and of the shock of earthquake on his 
 coronation day; of Edgehill and Lindsey's death; of the 
 profligate conduct of the Cavalier regiments, and the 
 steady, dogged force of their psalm-singing adversaries; 
 of Queen Henrietta's courage, and beauty, and wilful- 
 ness, and her fatal influence upon an adoring husband. 
 
 "She wanted to be all that Buckingham had been," 
 said Sir John, "forgetting that Buckingham was the King's 
 evil genius." 
 
 That lively and eminently artificial society of the Rue 
 de Touraine soon wearied of Sir John's reminiscences. 
 King Charles's execution had receded into the dim grey 
 
202 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 of history. He might as well have told them anecdotes 
 of Cinq Mars, or of the great Henri, or of Moses or 
 Abraham. Life went on rapid wheels in patrician Paris. 
 They had Conde to talk about, and Mazarin's numerous 
 nieces, and the opera, that new importation from Italy, 
 which the Cardinal was bringing into fashion; while in 
 the remote past of half a dozen years back the Fronde 
 was the only interesting subject, and even that was worn 
 threadbare; the adventures of the Duchess, the conduct 
 of the Prince in prison, the intrigues of Cardinal and 
 Queen, Mademoiselle, yellow-haired Beaufort, duels of 
 five against five — all — all these were ancient history as 
 compared with young Louis and his passion for Marie 
 de Mancini, and the scheming of her wily uncle to marry 
 all his nieces to reigning princes or embryo kings. 
 
 And then the affectations and conceits of that elegant 
 circle, the sonnets and madrigals, the "bouts-rimes," the 
 practical jokes, the logic- chop ping and straw- splitting of 
 those ultra-fine intellects, the romances where the 
 personages of the day masqueraded under Greek or 
 Roman or Oriental aliases, books written in a flowery 
 language which the Cavalier did not understand, and 
 full of allusions that were dark to him; while not to 
 know and appreciate those master-works placed him out- 
 side the pale. 
 
 He rejoiced in escaping from that overcharged at- 
 mosphere to the tavern, to the camp, anywhere. He 
 followed the exiled Stuarts in their wanderings, paid 
 his homage to the Princess of Orange, roamed from 
 scene to scene, a stranger and one too many wherever 
 he went. 
 
 Then came the hardest blow of all — the chilling dis- 
 
"QUTTE OUT OF FASHION." 203 
 
 illusion that awaited many of Charles's faithful friends, 
 who were not of such political importance as to com- 
 mand their recompense. Neglect and forgetfulness were 
 Sir John Kirkland's portion; and for him and for such 
 as he that caustic definition of the Act of Indemnity 
 was a hard and cruel truth. It was an Act of Indemnity 
 for the King's enemies and of oblivion for his friends. 
 Sir John's spirits had hardly recovered from the bitter- 
 ness of disappointed affection when he came back to the 
 old home, though his chagrin was seven years old. But 
 now, in his delight at the alliance with Denzil Warner, 
 he seemed to have renewed his lease of cheerfulness 
 and bodily vigour. He rode and walked about the 
 lanes and woods with erect head and elastic limbs. He 
 played bowls with Denzil in the summer evenings. He 
 went fishing with his daughter and her sweetheart. He 
 revelled in the simple rustic life, and told them stories 
 of his boyhood, w T hen James was King, and many a 
 queer story of that eccentric monarch and of the rising 
 star, George Villiers. 
 
 "Ah, what a history that was!" he exclaimed. "His 
 mother trained him as if with a foreknowledge of that 
 starlike ascendency. He was schooled to shine and 
 dazzle, to excel all compeers in the graces men and 
 women admire. I doubt she never thought of the mind 
 inside him, or cared whether he had a heart or a lump 
 of marble behind his waist-band. He was taught neither 
 to think nor to pity — only to shine; to be quick with his 
 tongue in half a dozen languages, with his sword after 
 half a dozen modes of fence. He could kill his man in 
 the French, or the Italian, or the Spanish manner. He 
 was cosmopolitan in the knowledge of evil. He had 
 
20\ LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 every device that can make a man brilliant and danger- 
 ous. He mounted every rung of the ladder, leaping 
 from step to step. He ascended, swift as a shooting 
 star, from plain country gentleman to the level of princes. 
 And he expired with an ejaculation, astonished to find 
 himself mortal, slain in a moment by the thrust of a ten- 
 penny knife. I remember as if it were yesterday how 
 men looked and spoke when the news came to London, 
 and how some said this murder would be the saving of 
 King Charles. I know of one man at least who was 
 glad." 
 
 "Who was he, sir?" asked Denzil. 
 
 "He who had the greatest mind among Englishmen 
 — Thomas Wentworth. Buckingham had held him at a 
 distance from the King, and his strong passionate temper 
 was seething with indignation at being kept aloof by 
 that silken sybarite — an impotent General, a fatal coun- 
 sellor. After the Favourite's death there came a time of 
 peace and plenty. The pestilence had passed, the war 
 was over. Charles was happy with his Henriette and 
 their lovely children. Wentworth was in Ireland. The 
 Parliament House stood still and empty, doors shut, 
 swallows building under the eaves. I look back, and 
 those placid years melt into each other like one long 
 summer. And then, again, as 'twere yesterday, I hear 
 Hampden's drums and fifes in the lanes, and see the 
 rebels' flag with that hateful legend, 'Vestigia nulla re- 
 trorsum,' and Buckinghamshire peasants are under arms, 
 and the King and his people have begun to hate and 
 fear each other." 
 
 "None foresaw that the war would last so long or 
 end in murder, I doubt, sir," said Angela. 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 205 
 
 "Nay, child; we who were loyal thought to see that 
 rabble withered by the breath of kingly nostrils. A 
 word should have brought them to the dust." 
 
 "There might be so easy a victory, perhaps, sir, 
 from a King who knew how to speak the right word at 
 the right moment, how to comply graciously with a just 
 demand, and how to be firm in a righteous denial," 
 replied Denzil; "but with Charles a stammering speech 
 was but the outward expression of a wavering mind. 
 He was a man who never listened to an appeal, but 
 always yielded to a threat, were it only loud enough." 
 
 The wedding was to be soon. Marriages were patched 
 up quickly in the light-hearted sixties. And here there 
 was nothing to wait for. Sir John had found Denzil 
 compliant on every minor question, and willing to make 
 his home at the Manor during his mother's lifetime. 
 
 "The old lady would never stomach a Papist 
 daughter-in-law," said Sir John; and Denzil was fain to 
 confess that Lady Warner would not easily reconcile her- 
 self with Angela's creed, though she could not fail of 
 loving Angela herself. 
 
 "My daughter would have neither peace nor liberty 
 under a Puritan's roof," Sir John said; "and I should 
 have neither son nor daughter, and should be a loser by 
 my girl's marriage. You shall be as much master here, 
 Denzil, as if this were your own house — which it will 
 be when I have moved to my last billet. Give me a 
 couple of stalls for my roadsters, and kennel room for 
 my dogs, and I want no more. You and Angela may 
 introduce as many new fashions as you like; dine at 
 two o'clock, and sip your unwelcome Indian drink of 
 an evening. The fine ladies in Paris were beginning 
 
206 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 to take tea when I was last there, though by the faces 
 they made over the stuff it might have been poison. I 
 can smoke my pipe in the chimney-corner, and look on 
 and admire at the new generation. I shall not feel my- 
 self one too many at your fireside, as I used sometimes 
 in the Rue de Touraine, when those strutting Gallic 
 cocks were quizzing me." 
 
 There were clouds of dust and a clatter of hoofs 
 again in front of the floriated iron gate; but this time it 
 was not the Honourable Henriette who came tripping 
 along the gravel path on two-inch heels, but my Lady 
 Fareham, who walked languidly, with the assistance of 
 a gold-headed cane, and who looked pale and thin in 
 her apple-green satin gown and silver-braided petticoat. 
 
 She, too, came attended by a second coach, which 
 was filled by her ladyship's French waiting- woman, Mrs. 
 Lewin, and a pile of boxes and parcels. 
 
 "I'll wager that in the rapture and romance of your 
 sweethearting you have not given a thought to petticoats 
 and mantuas," she said, after she had embraced her 
 sister, who was horrified at the sight of that painted 
 harridan from London. 
 
 Angela blushed at those words, "rapture and 
 romance," knowing how little there had been of either in 
 her thoughts, or in Denzil's sober courtship. Romance ! 
 Alas! there had been but one romance in her life, and 
 that a guilty one, which she must ever remember with 
 remorse. 
 
 " Come now, confess you have not a gown ordered." 
 
 "I have gowns enough and to spare. Oh, sister! 
 have you come so far to talk of gowns? And that odious 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 20"J 
 
 woman too! What brought her here?" Angela asked, 
 with more temper than she was wont to show. 
 
 "My sisterly kindness brought her. You are an un- 
 grateful hussy for looking vexed when I have come a 
 score of miles through the dust to do you a service." 
 
 "Ah, dearest, I am grateful to you for coming. But, 
 alas ! you are looking pale and thin. Heaven forbid that 
 you have been indisposed, and we in ignorance of your 
 suffering." 
 
 "No, I am well enough, though everyone assures 
 me I look ill; which is but a civil mode of telling me I 
 am growing old and ugly." 
 
 "Nay, Hyacinth, the former we must all become, 
 with time; the latter you will never be." 
 
 "Your servant, Sir Denzil, has taught you to pay 
 antique compliments. Well, now we will talk business. 
 I had occasion to send for Lewin — my toilet was in a 
 horrid state of decay; and then it seemed to me, know- 
 ing your foolish indifference, that even your wedding 
 gown would not be chosen unless I saw to it. So here 
 is Lewin with Lyons and Genoa silks of the very latest 
 patterns. She has but just come from Paris, and is full 
 of Parisian modes and Court scandals. The King posted 
 off to Versailles directly after his mother's death, and 
 has not retuned to the Louvre since. He amuses him- 
 self by spending millions on building, and making 
 passionate love to Mademoiselle la Valliere, who en- 
 courages him by pretending an excessive modesty, 
 and exaggerates every favour by penitential tears. I 
 doubt his attachment to so melancholy a mistress will 
 hardly last a lifetime. She is not beautiful; she has a 
 halting gait; and she is no more virtuous than any other 
 
208 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 young woman who makes a show of resistance to enhance 
 the merit of her surrender." 
 
 Hyacinth prattled all the way to the parlour, Mrs. 
 Lewin and the waiting-woman following, laden with 
 parcels. 
 
 "Queer, dear old hovel!" she exclaimed, sinking 
 languidly upon a tabouret, and fanning herself ex- 
 haustedly, while the mantua-maker opened her boxes, 
 and laid out her sample breadths of richly decorated 
 brocade, or silver and gold enwrought satin. "How 
 well I remember being whipped over my horn-book in 
 this very room! And there is the bowling green where 
 I used to race with the Italian greyhound my grand- 
 mother brought me from Paris. I look back, and it 
 seems a dream of some other child running about in 
 the sunshine. It is so hard to believe that joyous little 
 being — who knew not the meaning of heart- ache — 
 was I." 
 
 "Why that sigh, sister? Surely none ever had less 
 cause for heart-ache than you?" 
 
 "Have I not cause? Not when my glass tells me 
 youth is gone, and beauty is waning? Not when there 
 is no one in this wide world who cares a straw whether 
 I am handsome or hideous? I would as lief be dead as 
 despised and neglected." 
 
 " Sorella mia , questa donna ti ascolta ," murmured 
 Angela; "come and look at the old gardens, sister, 
 while Mrs. Lewin spreads out her wares. And pray 
 consider, madam," turning to the mantua-maker, "that 
 those peacock purples and gold embroideries have no 
 temptations for me. I am marrying a country gentle- 
 man, and am to lead a country life. My gowns must 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 200, 
 
 be such as will not be spoilt by a walk in dusty lanes, 
 or a visit to a farm-labourer's cottage." 
 
 "Eh, gud, your ladyship, do not tell me that you 
 would bury so much beauty among sheep and cows, and 
 odious ploughmen's wives and dairy-women. A month 
 or so of rustic life in summer between Epsom and Tun- 
 bridge Wells may be well enough, to rest your beauty — 
 without patches or a French head — out of sight of your 
 admirers. But to live in the country! Only a jealous 
 husband could ever propose more than an annual six 
 weeks of rustic seclusion to a wife under sixty. Lord 
 Chesterfield was considered as cruel for taking his 
 Countess to the rocks and ravines of Derbyshire as Sir 
 John Denham for poisoning his poor lady." 
 
 "Chut! tu vas un pen trop loin, Lewin!" remon- 
 strated Lady Fareham. 
 
 "But, in truly, your ladyship, when I hear Mrs. 
 Kirkland talk of a husband who would have her waste 
 her beauty upon clod-polls and dairy-maids, and never 
 wear a mantua worth looking at " 
 
 "I doubt my husband will be guided by his own 
 likings rather than by Mrs. Lewin's tastes and opinions," 
 said Angela, with a stately curtsy, which was designed 
 to put the forward tradeswoman in her place, and which 
 took that personage's breath away. 
 
 "There never was anything like the insolence of a 
 handsome young woman before she has been educated 
 by a lover," she said to her ladyship's Frenchwoman, 
 with a vindictive smile and scornful shrug of bloated 
 shoulders, when the sisters had left the parlour. "But 
 wait till her first intrigue, and then it is 'My dearest 
 Lewin, wilt thou make me everlastingly beholden to thee 
 
 London Pride. II. 1 4 
 
2IO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 by taking this letter — thou knowest to whom?' Or, in 
 a flood of tears, 'Lewin, you are my only friend — and 
 if you cannot find me some good and serviceable woman 
 who would give me a home where I can hide from the 
 cruel eye of the world, I must take poison.' No in- 
 solence then, mark you, Madame Hortense!" 
 
 "This demoiselle is none of your sort," Hortense 
 said. "You must not judge English ladies by your 
 maids of honour. Celles la sont des drolesses, sans foi 
 ni loi." 
 
 "Well, if she thinks I am going to make up linsey 
 woolsey, or Norwich drugget, she will find her mistake. 
 I never courted the custom of little gentlemen's wives, 
 with a hundred a year for pin-money. If I am to 
 do anything for this stuck-up peacock, Lady Fareham 
 must give me the order. I am no servant of Madame 
 Kirkland." 
 
 Alone in the garden, the sisters embraced again, Lady 
 Fareham with a fretful tearfulness, as of one whose over- 
 strung nerves were on the verge of hysteria. 
 
 "There is something that preys upon your spirits, 
 dearest," Angela said interrogatively. 
 
 "Something! A hundred things. I am at cross 
 purposes with life. But I should have been worse had 
 you been obstinate and still refused this gentleman." 
 
 "Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?" asked her 
 sister, with a sudden coldness. 
 
 "Chi lo sa? One has fancies! But my dearest sister 
 has been wise in good time, and you will be the hap- 
 piest wife in England: for I believe your Puritan is a 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 211 
 
 saintly person, the very opposite of our Court sparks, 
 who are the most incorrigible villains. Ah, sweet, if 
 you heard the stories Lewin tells me — even of that 
 young Rochester — scarce out of his teens. And the 
 Duke — not a jot better than the King — and with so 
 much less grace in his iniquity. Well, you will be 
 married at the Chapel Royal, and spend your wedding 
 night at Fareham House. We will have a great supper. 
 His Majesty will come, of course. He owes us that 
 much civility." 
 
 "Hyacinth, if you would make me happy, let me be 
 married in our dear mother's oratory, by your chaplain. 
 Sure, dearest, you know I have never taken kindly to 
 Court splendours." 
 
 "Have you not? Why, you shone and sparkled like 
 a star, that last night you were ever at Whitehall, Henri 
 sitting close beside you. 'Twas the night he took ill of 
 a fever. Was it a fever? I have wondered sometimes 
 whether there was not a mystery of attempted murder 
 behind that long sickness." 
 
 "Murder!" 
 
 "A deadly duel with a man who hated him. Is not 
 that an attempt at murder on the part of him who de- 
 liberately provokes the quarrel? Well, it is past, and 
 he is gone. For all the colour of the world I live in, 
 there might never have been any such person as Henri 
 de Malfort." 
 
 Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to 
 stifle, but could not. 
 
 "Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being 
 miserable when you have so little cause for sadness?" 
 
 "Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and 
 
 14* 
 
2 12 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 robbed of the only friend who brought gaiety into my 
 life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? A 
 traitor, I know — like the rest of them. They are all 
 traitors. But he would have been true had I been 
 kinder, and trusted him." 
 
 "Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him 
 more your friend? He was too near as it was. Every 
 thought you gave him was an offence against your hus- 
 band. Would you have sunk as low as those shameless 
 women the King admires?" 
 
 "Sunk — low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle 
 of fame — courted — nattered — poetised — painted. They 
 will be famous for centuries after you and I are for- 
 gotten. There is no such thing as shame nowadays, ex- 
 cept that it is shameful to have done nothing to be 
 ashamed of. I have wasted my life, Angela. There 
 was not a woman at the Louvre who had my com- 
 plexion, nor one who could walk a coranto with more 
 grace. Yet I have consented to be a nobody at two 
 Courts. And now I am growing old, and my poor 
 painted face shocks me w r hen I chance on my reflection 
 by daylight; and there is nothing left for me — nothing." 
 
 "Your husband, sister!" 
 
 "Sister, do not mock me! You know how much 
 Fareham is to me. We were chosen for each other, 
 and fancied we w T ere in love for the first few years, 
 while he was so often called away from me, that his 
 coming back made a festival, and renewed affection. 
 He came crimson from battles and sieges; and I was 
 proud of him, and called him my hero. But after the 
 treaty of the Pyrenees our passion cooled, and he grew 
 too much the schoolmaster. And when he recovered of 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 213 
 
 the contagion, he had recovered of any love-sickness 
 he ever had for me!" 
 
 "Ah, sister, you say these things without thinking 
 them. His lordship needs but some sign of affection on 
 your part to be as fond a husband as ever he was." 
 
 "You can answer for him, I'll warrant." 
 
 "And there are other claims upon your love — your 
 children." 
 
 "Henriette, who is nearly as tall as I am, and thinks 
 herself handsomer and cleverer than ever I was. George, 
 who is a lump of selfishness, and cares more for his 
 ponies and peregrines than for father and mother. I 
 tell you there is nothing left for me, except fine houses 
 and carriages; and to show my fading beauty dressed in 
 the latest mode at twilight in the Ring, and to startle 
 people from the observation of my wrinkles by the bold- 
 ness of my patches. I was the first to wear a coach 
 and horses across my forehead — in London, at least. 
 They had these follies in Paris three years ago." 
 
 "Indeed, dearest?" 
 
 "And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after 
 my own fancy, wilt thou not, ma tres chere?" 
 
 "You forget Denzil's hatred of finery." 
 
 "But the wedding is the bride's festival. The bride- 
 groom hardly counts. Nay, love, you need fear no im- 
 modest footing when you bid good night to the com- 
 pany; nor shall there be any scuffling for garters at the 
 door of your chamber. There was none of that antique 
 nonsense when Lady Sandwich married her daughter. 
 All vulgar fashions of coarse old Oliver's day have gone 
 to the ragbag of worn-out English customs. We were 
 so coarse a nation, till we learnt manners in exile. Let 
 
214 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 me have my own way, dearest. It will amuse me, and 
 wean me from melancholic fancies." 
 
 "Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all 
 particulars." 
 
 After this Lady Fareham was in haste to return to 
 the house in order to choose the wedding gown; and 
 here in the panelled parlour they found the two gentle- 
 men, with the dust of the road and the warmth of the 
 noonday sun upon them, newly returned from Aylesbury, 
 where they had ridden in the freshness of the early 
 morning to choose a team of plough-horses at the fair; 
 and who were more disconcerted than gratified at find- 
 ing the dinner-parlour usurped by Mrs. Lewin, Madame 
 Hortense, and an array of finery that made the room 
 look like a stall in the Exchange. 
 
 It was on the stroke of one, yet there were no signs 
 of dinner. Sir John and Sir Denzil were both sharp set 
 after their ride, and were looking by no means kindly 
 on Mrs. Lewin and her wares when Hyacinth and Angela 
 appeared upon the scene. 
 
 "Nothing could happen luckier," said Lady Fareham, 
 when she had saluted Denzil, and embraced her father 
 with "Pish, sir! how you smell of clover and new-mown 
 grass! I vow you have smothered my mantua with dust." 
 
 Father and sweetheart were called upon to assist in 
 choosing the wedding gown — a somewhat empty com- 
 pliment on the part of Lady Fareham, since she would 
 not hear of the simple canary brocade which Denzil 
 selected, and which Mrs. Lewin protested was only good 
 enough to make his lady a bed-gown; or of the pale 
 grey atlas which her father considered suitable — since, 
 indeed, she would have nothing but a white satin, 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 215 
 
 powdered with silver fleurs de luces, which she remarked, 
 en passant, would have become the Grande Made- 
 moiselle, had she but obtained her cousin's permission 
 to cast herself away on Lauzun. 
 
 "Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a 
 Bourbon Princess a becoming gown for me?" remon- 
 strated Angela. 
 
 "Yes, child; white and silver will better become thee 
 than poor Louise, who has no more complexion left 
 than I have. She was in her heyday when she held the 
 Bastille, and when she and Beaufort were two of the 
 most popular people in Paris. She has made herself a 
 laughing-stock since then. That is settled, Lewin" — 
 with a nod to the milliner — "the silver fleurs de luces 
 for the wedding mantua. And now be quick with your 
 samples." 
 
 All Angela's remonstrances were as vain to-day as 
 they had been on the occasion of her first acquaintance 
 with Mrs. Lewin. The excitement of discussing and 
 selecting the finery she loved affected Lady Fareham's 
 spirits like a draught of saumur. She was generous by 
 nature, extravagant by long habit. 
 
 "Sure it would be a hard thing if I could not give 
 you your wedding clothes, when you are marrying the 
 man I chose for you," she protested. "The cherry- 
 coloured farradine, by all means, Lewin; 'tis the very 
 shade for my sister's fair skin. Indeed, Denzil" — nod- 
 ding at him, as he stood watching them, with that hope- 
 lessly bewildered air of a man in a milliner's shop — "I 
 have been your best friend from the beginning, and, but 
 for me, you might never have won your sweetheart to 
 
2l6 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 listen to you. Mazarine hoods are as ancient as the 
 pyramids, Lewin. Pr'ythee show us something newer." 
 
 It was late in the evening when the two coaches left 
 the Manor gate. Hyacinth had been in no haste to 
 return to the Abbey. There was nobody there who 
 wanted her, she protested, and there would be a moon 
 after nine o'clock, and she had servants enough to take 
 care of her on the road; so Mrs. Lewin and her lady- 
 ship's woman were entertained in the steward's room, 
 where Reuben held forth upon the splendour that had 
 prevailed in his master's house before the troubles — and 
 where the mantua-maker ate and drank all she could 
 get, and dozed and yawned through the old man's re- 
 miniscences. 
 
 The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the 
 quality, who sat about in the sunny garden, or sauntered 
 by the fish pond and fed the carp — and took a dish of 
 the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola 
 at the end of the grass walk. 
 
 Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, 
 and quoted the late Mr. Cowley in praise of rusticity. 
 
 "Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley," she 
 
 cried. 
 
 " 'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, 
 Hear the soft winds, above me plying, 
 With all their wanton boughs dispute.' 
 
 Poor Cowley, he might well love the country, for he was 
 shamefully treated in town — a devoted servant to 
 bankrupt royalty for all the best years of his life, and 
 fobbed off with a compliment when the King came into 
 power. Ah me, 'tis an ill world we live in, and London 
 is the most hateful spot in it," she concluded, with a sigh. 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 2 I J 
 
 "And yet you will have me married nowhere else, 
 sister?" 
 
 "Oh, for a wedding or a christening one must have 
 a crowd of fine people. It would go about that Lady 
 Fareham was quite out of fashion if I were content to 
 see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentle- 
 man or two with their ill-dressed wives, at my sister's 
 marriage. London is the only decent place — after Paris 
 — to live in; but the country is a peacefuller place in 
 which to die." 
 
 A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and 
 Angela scrutinised her sister's face with increased concern. 
 
 "Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from 
 me; and that you are seriously indisposed," she said 
 earnestly. 
 
 "If I am I do not know it. But when one is weary 
 of living there is only one sensible thing left to do — if 
 Providence will but be kind and help one to do it. I 
 am not for dagger or poison, or for a plunge in deep 
 water. But to fade away in a gentle disease — a quiet 
 ebbing of the vital stream — is the luckiest thing that can 
 befall one who is tired of life." 
 
 Alarmed at hearing her sister talk in this melancholy 
 strain, and still more alarmed by her change in her 
 looks, sunken cheeks, hectic flush, fever-bright eyes, 
 Angela entreated Lady Fareham to stay at the Manor, 
 and be nursed and cared for. 
 
 "Oh, I know your skill in nursing, and your power 
 over a sick person," Hyacinth interjected scornfully, and 
 then in the next moment apologised for the little spurt 
 of retrospective jealousy. 
 
 "Stay with us, love, and let us make you happier 
 
2l8 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 than you are at Chilton," pleaded Angela; but Hyacinth, 
 who had been protesting that nobody wanted her, now 
 declared that she could not leave home, and recited a 
 list of duties, social and domestic. 
 
 "I shall not have half an hour to spare until I go 
 to London next week to prepare for the wedding," she 
 said. 
 
 The date had been fixed while they sat at dinner; 
 Sir John and his elder daughter settling the day, while 
 Denzil assented with radiant smiles, and Angela sat by 
 in pale silence, submissive to the will of others. They 
 were to be married on a Thursday, July 19, and it was 
 now the end of June — little more than a fortnight's 
 interval in which to meditate upon the beginning of a 
 new life. 
 
 Mrs. Lewin promised the white and silver mantua, 
 and as many of the new clothes as a supernatural ad- 
 dress, industry, and obligingness, could produce within 
 the time. Hyacinth grew more lively after supper, and 
 parted from her father and sister in excellent spirits; 
 but her haggard face haunted Angela in troubled dreams 
 all that night, and she thought of her with anxiety 
 during the next few days, and most of all upon one 
 long sultry day, the 4th of July, which was the third 
 day she had spent in unbroken solitude since her father 
 and Denzil had ridden away in the dim early morning, 
 while the pastures were veiled in summer haze, on the 
 first stage of a journey to London, hoping, with a long 
 rest between noon and evening, to ride thirty-seven 
 miles before night. 
 
 They were to consult with a learned London lawyer, 
 and to execute the marriage settlement, Sir John vastly 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 210, 
 
 anxious about this business,' in his ignorance of law 
 and distrust of lawyers. They were to stay in London 
 only long enough to transact their business, and would 
 then return post-haste to the Manor; but as they were 
 to ride their own horses all the way, and as lawyers 
 are notoriously slow, Angela had been told not to ex- 
 pect them till the fourth evening after their departure. 
 In the lonely rambles that long summer day, with 
 her spaniel Ganymede, and her father's favourite pointer, 
 for her only companions, Angela's thoughts dwelt ever 
 on the past. Of the future — even that so near future 
 of her marriage — she thought hardly at all. That future 
 had been disposed of by others. Her fate had been 
 settled for her; and she was told that by her submission 
 she would make those she loved happy. Her father 
 would have the son he longed for, and would be sure 
 of her faithful devotion till the end of his days — or of 
 hers, should untimely death intervene. Hyacinth's 
 foolish jealousy would be dispelled by the act which 
 gave her sister's honour into a husband's custody. And 
 for him, that presumptuous lover who had taken so 
 little pains to hide his wicked passion, if in any 
 audacious hour he had dared to believe her guilty of 
 reciprocating his love, that insolent suspicion would be 
 answered at once and for ever by her marriage with 
 Denzil — Denzil who was Fareham's junior by fifteen 
 years, his superior in every advantage of person, as she 
 told herself with a bitter smile; for even while she 
 thought of that superiority — the statuesque regularity of 
 feature, the clear colouring of a complexion warmed 
 with the glow of health, the deep blue of large well- 
 opened eyes, the light free carriage of one who had led 
 
2 20 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 an active country life — even while she thought of Denzil, 
 another face and figure flashed upon her memory — 
 rugged and dark, the forehead deeper lined than years 
 justified, the proud eye made sombre by the shadow 
 of the projecting brow, the cheek sunken, the shoulders 
 bent as if under the burden of melancholy thoughts. 
 
 O God! this was the face she loved. The only face 
 that had ever touched the springs of joy and pain. It 
 was nearly half a year since she had seen him. Their 
 meetings in the future need be of the rarest. She knew 
 that Denzil regarded him with a distrust which made 
 friendship out of the question; and it would be her 
 duty to keep as far aloof from that old time as possible. 
 Family meetings there must be, considering the short 
 distance between Chilton and the Manor, feastings and 
 junketings in company once or twice in the summer, 
 lest it should be thought Sir John and his lordship were 
 ill friends. But Angela knew that in any such social 
 gathering, sitting at the overloaded board, amid the 
 steam of rich viands, and the noise of many voices, she 
 and Fareham would be as far apart as if the Indian 
 Ocean rolled between them. 
 
 Once, and very soon, they must meet face to face; 
 and he would take her hand in greeting, and would kiss 
 her on the lips as she stood before him in her wedding 
 finery, that splendour of white and silver which would 
 provoke him to scornful wonder at her trivial pleasure 
 in sumptuous clothes. Thus once they must meet. 
 Her heart thrilled at the thought. He had so often 
 shunned her, taking such obvious trouble to keep his 
 distance; but he could hardly absent himself from her 
 wedding. The scandal would be too great. 
 
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION." 22 1 
 
 Well, she had accepted her fate, and this dull ach- 
 ing misery must be lived through somehow; and neither 
 her father nor Denzil must ever have occasion to suspect 
 her unhappiness. 
 
 "Oh, gracious Mary, Mother of God, help and sustain 
 me in my sorrow! Guard and deliver me from sinful 
 thoughts. What are my fanciful griefs to thy great 
 sorrows, which thou didst endure with holy patience? 
 Subdue and bend me to obedience and humility. Let 
 me be an affectionate daughter, a dutiful wife, a friend 
 and comforter to my poor neighbours." 
 
 So, and with many such prayers she struggled against 
 the dominion of evil, kneeling meekly in the leafy still- 
 ness of that deep beechwood, where no human eye be- 
 held her devotions. So in the long solitude of the 
 summer day she held commune with heaven, and fought 
 against that ever-recurring memory of past happiness, 
 that looking back to the joys and emotions of those 
 placid hours at Chilton Abbey, before the faintest appre- 
 hension of evil had shadowed her friendship with Fare- 
 ham. Not to look back; not to remember and regret. 
 That was the struggle in which the intense abstraction 
 of the believer, lifting the mind to heaven, alone could 
 help her. Long and fervent were her prayers in that 
 woodland sanctuary where she made her pious retreat; 
 nor was her sister forgotten in those prayers, which 
 included much earnest supplication for the welfare 
 here and hereafter of that lighter soul for whom she 
 had ever felt a protecting and almost maternal love. 
 Years counted for very little in the relations between 
 these sisters. 
 
 The day wore to its close — the most solemn day in 
 
222 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Angela's life since that which she had spent in the 
 Reverend Mother's death-chamber, kneeling in the faint 
 yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from 
 which daylight was excluded. She remembered the 
 detachment of her mind from all earthly interests as she 
 knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughts 
 had mounted heavenward; while now her love clung 
 to this sinful earth. How had she changed for the 
 worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirations of 
 that time! 
 
HIGH STAKES. 22 , 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 HIGH STAKES. 
 
 Angela had eaten her lonely supper, and was sitting 
 at her embroidery frame between nine and ten, while 
 the sounds of bolts and bars in the hall and corridors, 
 and old Reuben's voice hectoring the maids, told her 
 that servants were closing the house before going to 
 bed. Reuben would be coming to her presently, no 
 doubt, to remind her of the lateness of the hour, want- 
 ing to carry her candle to her chamber, and as it were 
 to see her safely disposed of before he went to his 
 garret. She meant, on this occasion, to resist his 
 friendly tyranny, having so little inclination for sleep, 
 and hoping to find peace of mind and distraction in this 
 elaborate embroidery of gold thread and many-coloured 
 silks, which was destined to adorn her father's person, 
 on the facings of a new-fashioned doublet. 
 
 Suddenly, as she bent over the candle to scrutinise 
 the shading of her silks, the hollow sound of hoofs broke 
 upon the silence, and in a minute afterwards a bell 
 rang loudly. 
 
 Who could it be at such an hour? Her father, no 
 doubt; no one else. He had hurried his business through, 
 and returned a day earlier than he had hoped. Or could 
 it be that he had fallen sick in London, and Denzil had 
 come to tell her ill news? Or was it a messenger from 
 
2 24 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 her sister? She had time to contemplate several evil 
 contingencies while she stood in the hall watching 
 Reuben withdraw various bolts and bars. 
 
 The door swung back at last, and she saw a man in 
 high-riding boots and slouched hat standing on the 
 threshold, while in the moonlight behind him she could 
 distinguish a mounted groom holding the bridle of a led 
 horse, as well as the horse from which the visitor had 
 just dismounted. 
 
 The face that looked at her from the doorway was 
 the face which had haunted her with cruel persistency 
 through that long day, chaining her thoughts to earth. 
 
 Fareham stood looking at her for a few moments, 
 deadly pale, while she was collecting her senses, trying 
 to understand this most unlooked-for presence. Why 
 was he here? Ah, no doubt, a messenger of evil. 
 
 "Oh, sir, my sister is ill!" she cried; "I read sorrow 
 in your face — seriously ill — dangerously? Speak, my 
 lord, for pity's sake!" 
 
 "Yes, she is ill." 
 
 "Not dead?" 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 "But very ill? Oh, I feared, I feared when I saw 
 her that there was something amiss. Has she sent you 
 to fetch me?" 
 
 "Yes; you are wanted." 
 
 "Reuben, I must set out this instant. Order the 
 coach to be got ready. And Betty must go with me." 
 
 "You will need no coach, Angela. Nor is there time 
 to spare for any such creeping conveyance. I have 
 brought Zephyr. You remember how you loved him. 
 He is swift, and gentle as the wind after which we 
 
HIGH STAKES. 2 25 
 
 named him; sure of foot, easy to ride. The roads are 
 good after yesterday's rain, and the moon will last us 
 most of our way. We shall be at Chilton in two hours. 
 Put on your coat and hat. Indeed, there is no time to 
 be lost." 
 
 "Do you mean that she may die before I can reach 
 her?" 
 
 "I know not," stamping his foot impatiently. "Fate 
 holds the keys. But you had best waste no time on 
 questions." 
 
 His manner was one of command, and he seemed 
 to apprehend no possibility of hesitation on her part. 
 Reuben ran to his pantry, and came back with a tankard 
 of wine, which he offered to the visitor with tremulous 
 respect, almost ready to kneel. 
 
 "Our best Burgundy, my lord. Your lordship must 
 be dry after your long ride; and if your lordship would 
 care to sup, there is good picking on last Monday's 
 chine, and a capon from madam's supper scarce touched 
 with the carving-knife." 
 
 "Nothing, I thank you, friend. There is no time for 
 gluttony." 
 
 Reuben, pressing the tankard upon him, he drank 
 some wine with an automatic air, and still stood with 
 his eyes fixed on Angela's pallid countenance, waiting 
 her decision. 
 
 "Are you coming?" he asked. 
 
 "Does she want me? Has she asked for me? Oh, 
 for God's sake, my lord, tell me more! Is she danger- 
 ously ill? Have the doctors given her over?" 
 
 "No. But she is in a bad way. And you — you — 
 you — are wanted. Will you come? Ay or no?" 
 
 London Pride. II. 1 5 
 
2 26 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Yes. It is my duty to go to her! But when my 
 father and Denzil come back to-morrow, Reuben must 
 be able to tell them why I went; and the nature of my 
 sister's illness. Were it not so serious that there is no 
 time for hesitation, it would ill become me to leave this 
 house in my father's absence." 
 
 He gave his head a curious jerk at Denzil's name, 
 as if he had been stung. 
 
 "Yes, I will explain; I can make all clear to this 
 gentleman here while you put on your cloak. Bring the 
 black to the door," he called to his man. 
 
 "Will not your lordship bait your horses before you 
 start?" Reuben asked deferentially. 
 
 "No time, fellow. There is no time. How often 
 must I tell you so?" retorted Fareham. 
 
 Reuben's village breeding had given him an exagger- 
 ated respect for aristocracy. He had grown up in the 
 midst of small country gentlemen, rural squires, among 
 whom the man with three thousand a year in land was 
 a magnate, and there had never been more than one 
 nobleman resident within a day's ride of the Manor 
 Moat. To Reuben, therefore, a peer was like a god; 
 and he would have no more questioned Lord Fareham's 
 will than a disciple of Hobbes would have imputed in- 
 justice to Kings. 
 
 Angela returned in a few minutes, having changed 
 her silken gown for a neat cloth riding-skirt and close- 
 fitting hood. She carried nothing with her, being as- 
 sured that her sister's wardrobe would be at her disposal, 
 and having no mind to spend a minute more in prepara- 
 tion than was absolutely necessary. Brief as her toilet 
 was, she had time to consider Lord Fareham's coun- 
 
HIGH STAKES. 2 27 
 
 tenance and manner, the cold distance of his address, 
 and to scorn herself for having thought of him in her 
 reveries that day as loving her always and till death. It 
 was far better so. The abyss that parted them could 
 not yawn too wide. She put a stern restraint upon her- 
 self, so that there should be nothing hysterical in her 
 manner, lest her fears about her sister's health should 
 be mistaken for agitation at his presence. She stood 
 beside the horse, straight and firm, with her hand on 
 the pommel, and sprang lightly into the saddle as Fare- 
 ham's strong arm lifted her. Yet she could but notice 
 that his hand shook as he gave her the bridle, and 
 arranged the cloth petticoat over her foot. 
 
 Not a word was spoken on either side as they rode 
 out at the gate and through the village of St. Nicholas, 
 beautiful in the moonlight. Such low crumbling walls 
 and deeply sloping roofs of cottages squatting in a tangle 
 of garden and orchard; such curious outlines of old 
 brick gables in the better class houses of miller, butcher, 
 and general dealer; orchards and gardens and farm 
 buildings, with every variety of thatch and eaves, huddled 
 together in picturesque confusion; large spaces every- 
 where — pond, and village green, and common, and copse 
 beyond; a peaceful, prosperous settlement, which had 
 passed unharmed through the ordeal of the civil war, 
 safe in its rural seclusion. Not a word was spoken even 
 when the village was left behind, and they were riding 
 on a lonely road, in so brilliant a moonlight that Angela 
 could see every line in her companion's brooding face. 
 
 Why was he so gloomy and so unkind, in an hour 
 when his sympathy should naturally have been given to 
 her? Was he consumed with sorrow for his wife's indis- 
 
 i5* 
 
2 28 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 position, and did anxiety make him silent; or was he 
 angry with himself for not being as deeply distressed as 
 a husband ought to be at a wife's peril? She knew too 
 well how he and Hyacinth had been growing further 
 apart day by day, till the only link between husband 
 and wife seemed to be a decent courtesy and subservience 
 to the world's opinion. 
 
 She recalled that other occasion when they two had 
 made a solitary journey together, and in as gloomy a 
 silence — that night of the great fire, when he had flung 
 off his doublet and taken the sculls out of her hands, 
 and rowed steadily and fast, with his eyes downcast, 
 leaving her to steer the boat as she would, or trusting 
 to the lateness of the hour for a clear course. He had 
 seemed to hate her that night just as he seemed to hate 
 her now, as they rode mile after mile side by side, the 
 groom following near, now at a fast trot, now galloping 
 along a stretch of waste grass that bordered the high- 
 way, now breathing their horses in a walk. 
 
 In one of those intervals he asked her if she were 
 tired. 
 
 "No, no. I have no power to feel anything but 
 anxiety. If you would only be kinder and tell me more 
 about my sister! I fear you consider her in danger." 
 
 "Yes, she is in danger. There is no doubt of 
 that." 
 
 "O God! she looked so ill when I saw her last, and 
 she talked so wildly. I feared she was in a bad way. 
 How soon shall we be at Chilton, my lord?" 
 
 "My lord! Why do you 'my lord' me?" 
 
 "I can find no other name. We seem to be strangers 
 to-night; but, indeed, names and ceremonies matter no- 
 
HIGH STAKES. 2 29 
 
 thing when the mind is in trouble. How soon shall we 
 reach the Abbey, Fareham?" 
 
 "In an hour, at latest, Angela." 
 
 His voice trembled as he spoke her name, and all 
 of force and passion that could be breathed into a single 
 word was in his utterance. She flushed at the sound, 
 and looked at him with a sudden fear; but his coun- 
 tenance might have been wrought-iron, so cold and 
 passionless and cruelly resolute looked that rough-hewn 
 face in the moonlight. 
 
 "I have a fresh horse waiting for you at Thame," 
 he said. "I will not have you wearied by riding a tired 
 horse. We are within five minutes of the inn. Will 
 you rest there for half an hour, and take some refresh- 
 ment?" 
 
 "Rest, when my sister may be dying! Not a moment 
 more than is needed to change horses." 
 
 "I have brought Queen Bess, another of your 
 favourites. 'Twas she who taught you to ride. She will 
 know your voice, and your light hand upon the bridle." 
 
 They found the Inn wrapped in slumber, like every 
 house or cottage they had passed; but a lantern shone 
 within an open door in the quadrangle round which 
 house and stables were built. One of the Fareham 
 grooms was there, with an ostler to wait upon him, and 
 three horses were brought out of their stable, ready 
 saddled, as the travellers rode under the archway into 
 the yard. 
 
 The mare was excited at finding herself on the road 
 in the clear cool night, with the moonlight in her eyes, 
 and was gayer than Fareham liked to see her under so 
 precious a load; but Angela was no longer the novice 
 
2 30 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 by whose side he had ridden nearly two years before. 
 She handled Queen Bess firmly, and soon settled her 
 into a sharp trot, and kept her at it for nearly three 
 miles. The hour Fareham had spoken of was not ex- 
 ceeded by many minutes when Chilton Abbey came in 
 sight, the grey stone walls pale in the moonlight. All 
 things — the long park wall, the pillared gates, the open 
 spaces of the park, the depth of shadow where the old 
 oaks and beeches spread wide and dark, had a look of 
 unreality which contrasted curiously with the scene as 
 she had last beheld it in all its daylight verdure and 
 homeliness. 
 
 She dropped lightly from her horse, so soon as they 
 drew rein at an angle of the long irregular house, where 
 there was a door, half hidden under ivy, by which Lord 
 Fareham went in and out much oftener than by the 
 principal entrance. It opened into a passage that led 
 straight to the library, where there was a lamp burning 
 to-night. Angela saw the light in the window as they 
 rode past. 
 
 He opened the door, which had been left on the 
 latch, and nodded a dismissal to the groom, who went 
 off to the stables, leading their horses. All was dark in 
 the passage — dark and strangely silent; but this wing 
 was remote from the chief apartments and from the 
 servants' offices. 
 
 "Will you take me to my sister at once?" Angela 
 asked, stopping on the threshold of the library, when 
 Fareham had opened the door. 
 
 A lamp upon the tall mantelpiece feebly lighted the 
 long low room, gloomy with the darkness of old oak 
 wainscot and a heavily timbered ceiling. There were 
 
HIGH STAKES. 23 I 
 
 two flasks of wine upon a silver salver, and provisions for 
 a supper, and a fire was burning on the hearth. 
 
 "You had better warm yourself after your night ride, 
 and eat and drink something before you see her." 
 
 "No, no. What, after riding as fast as our horses 
 could carry us! I must go to her this moment. Can 
 you find me a candle?" — looking about her hurriedly as 
 she spoke. "But, indeed, it is no matter; I know my 
 way to her room in the dark, and there will be light 
 enough from the great window." 
 
 " Stop ! " he cried, seizing her arm as she was leaving 
 the room; "stop!" dragging her back and shutting the 
 door violently. "Your sister is not there." 
 
 "Great God! what do you mean? You told me your 
 wife was here — ill — dying perhaps." 
 
 "I told you a lie, sweetheart; but desperate men will 
 do desperate things." 
 
 "Where is my sister? Is she dead?" 
 
 "Not unless the Nemesis that waits on woman's folly 
 has been swifter of foot than common. I have no wife, 
 Angela; and you have no sister that you will ever care 
 to own. My Lady Fareham has crossed the narrow sea 
 with her lover, Henry de Malfort — her paramour always 
 — though I once thought him yours, and tried to kill him 
 for your sake." 
 
 "A runaway wife! Hyacinth! Great God!" She 
 clasped her hands before her face in an agony of shame 
 and despair, falling upon her knees in sudden self-abase- 
 ment, her head drooping until her brow almost touched 
 the ground. And then, after but a few minutes of this 
 deep humiliation, she started to her feet with a cry of 
 anger. "Liar! villain! despicable, devilish villain! This 
 
2 $2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 is a lie, like the other — a wicked lie! Your wife — your 
 wife a wanton? My sister? My life upon it, she is in 
 London — in your house, busy preparing for my marriage. 
 Unlock that door, my lord; let me go this instant — back 
 to my father. Oh, that. I could be so mad as to leave 
 his protection at your bidding! Open the door, sir, I 
 command you!" 
 
 She seemed to gain in height, and to be taller than 
 he had thought her — he who had so watched her, and 
 whose memory held every line of that slender, graceful 
 figure. She stood straight as an arrow, looking at him 
 with set lips and flaming eyes, too angry to be afraid, 
 trembling, but with indignation, not fear of him. 
 
 "Nay, child," he said gravely, "I have got you, and 
 I mean to keep you. But you have trusted yourself to 
 my hospitality, and you are safe in my house as in a 
 sanctuary. I may be a villain, but I am not a ruffian. If 
 I have brought you here by a trick, you are as much 
 mistress of your life and fate under this roof as you ever 
 were in your father's house." 
 
 "I have but one thing to say, sir. Let me out of 
 this hateful house." 
 
 "What then? Would you walk back to the Manor 
 Moat, through the night — alone?" 
 
 "I would crawl there on my hands and knees if I 
 could not walk; anything to get away from you. Oh, 
 the baseness of it! To vilify my sister — for your own 
 base purposes. Intolerable villain!" 
 
 "Mistress, we will soon put an end to that charge. 
 Lies there have been, but that is none. 'Tis you are the 
 slanderer there." 
 
 He took a letter from the pocket of his doublet, and 
 
HIGH STAKES. 2$$ 
 
 handed it to her. Then he took the lamp from the 
 mantelshelf and held it while she read. 
 
 Alas, it was her sister's hand. She knew those 
 hurried characters too well. The letter was blotted with 
 ink and smeared as with tears. Angela's tears began to 
 rain upon the page as she read: — 
 
 "I have tried to be a good woman and a true wife 
 to you, tried hard for these many years, knowing all the 
 time that you had left off loving me, and but for the 
 shame of it would have cared little, though I had as 
 many lovers as a maid of honour. You made life 
 harder for me in this year last past by your passion for 
 my sister, which mystery of yours, silent and secret 
 as you were, these eyes must have been blind not to 
 discover. 
 
 "And while you were cold in manner and cruel of 
 speech — slighting me ever — there was one who loved 
 and praised me, one whose value I knew not till he 
 left this country, and I found myself desolate without 
 him. 
 
 "He has come back. He, too, has found that I was 
 the other half of his mind; and that he could taste no 
 pleasure in life unshared by me. He has come to claim 
 one who ever loved him, and denied him only for 
 virtue's sake. Virtue! Poor fool that I was to count 
 that a woman's noblest quality! Why, of all attributes, 
 it is that the world least values. Virtue! when the 
 starched Due de Montausier fawns upon Louise de la 
 Valliere, when Barbara Palmer in de facto Queen of 
 England. Virtue ! 
 
 "Farewell! Forget me, Fareham, as I shall try to 
 forget you. I shall be in Paris perhaps before you 
 
234 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 receive this letter. My house in the Rue de Touraine 
 is ready for me. I shall dishonour you by no open 
 scandal. The man I love will but rank as the friend 
 I most value, and my other friends will ask no questions 
 so long as you are silent, and do not seek to disgrace 
 me. Indeed, it were an ill thing to pursue me with your 
 anger; the more so as I am weak and ailing, and may 
 not live long to enjoy my happiness. You have given 
 me so little that you should in common justice spare 
 me your hate. 
 
 "I leave you your children, whom you have affected 
 to love better than I; and who have shown so little con- 
 sideration for me that I shall not miss them." 
 
 "What think you of that, Angela, for the letter of a 
 she-cynic?" 
 
 "It is blotted with her tears. She wrote in sorrow, 
 despairing of your love." 
 
 "She managed to exist for a round dozen years 
 without my love — or doubting it — so long as she had 
 her cavaliere servante. It was only when he deserted 
 her that she found life a burden. And now she has 
 crossed the Rubicon. She belongs to her age — the age 
 of Kings' mistresses and light women. And she will be 
 happy, I dare swear, as they are. It is not an age of 
 tears. And when the fair Louise ran away to her Con- 
 vent the other day, in a passion of penitence, be sure 
 she only went on purpose to be brought back again. 
 But now, sweet, say have I lied to you about the lady 
 who was once my wife?" he asked, pointing to the letter 
 in her hand. 
 
 "And who is my sister to the end of time; my sister 
 
HIGH STAKES. 235 
 
 in Eternity: in Purgatory on in Paradise. I cannot cast 
 her off, though you may. I will set out for Paris to- 
 morrow, and bring her home, if I can, to the Manor. 
 She need trouble you no more. My husband and I can 
 shelter and pity her." 
 
 "Your husband!" 
 
 "He will be my husband a fortnight hence." 
 
 "Never! Never, while I live to fling my body between 
 you at the altar. His blood or mine should choke your 
 marriage vows. Angela, Angela, be reasonable. I have 
 brought you out of that trap. I have cut the net in 
 which they had caught you. My love, you are free, and 
 I am free, and you belong to me. You never loved 
 Denzil Warner, never would love him, were you to live 
 with him a quarter of a century. He is ice, and you are 
 fire. Dearest, you belong to me. He who made us both 
 created us to be happy together. There are strings in 
 our hearts that harmonise as concords in music do. We 
 are miserable apart, both of us. We waste, and fade, 
 and torture ourselves in absence; but only to breathe 
 the same air, to sit, silent, in the same room, is to be 
 happy." 
 
 "Let me go!" she cried, looking at him with wild 
 eyes, leaning against the locked door, her hands clutch- 
 ing at the latch, seeming neither to hear nor heed his im- 
 passioned address, though every word had sunk deep 
 enough to remain in her memory for ever. "Let me 
 go! You are a dishonourable villain! I came to 
 London alone to your deserted house. I was not afraid 
 of death or the plague then. I am not afraid of you 
 now. Open this door, and let me go, never to see your 
 wicked face again!" 
 
236 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Angela, canst thou so play fast and loose with 
 happiness? Look at me," kneeling at her feet, trying to 
 take her hands from their hold on the latch. "Our fate 
 is in our power to-night. The day is near dawning, 
 and at the stroke of five my coach will be at the door 
 to take us to Bristol, where the ship lies that shall carry 
 us to New England — to a new world, and liberty; and 
 to the sweet simple life that will please my dear love 
 better than all the garish pleasures of a licentious court. 
 Ah, dearest, I know thy mind and heart as well as I 
 know my own. I know I can make thee happy in that 
 fair new world, where we shall begin life again, free 
 from all old burdens; and where, if thou wilt, my 
 motherless children can join us, and make one loving 
 household. My Henriette adores you; and it were 
 Christian charity to rescue her and her brother from 
 Charles Stuart's England, and to bring them up to an 
 honest life in a country where men are free to worship 
 God as He moves them. Love, you cannot deny me. 
 So sweet a life waits for us; and you have but to lay 
 that dear hand in mine and give consent." 
 
 "Oh, God!" she murmured. "I thought this man 
 held me in honour and esteem." 
 
 "Do I not honour you? Ah, love, what can a man 
 do more than offer his life to her he loves " 
 
 "And if he is another woman's husband?" 
 
 "That tie is broken." 
 
 "I deny it. But if it were, you have been my sister's 
 husband, and you could be nothing to me but my 
 brother. You have made sisterly affection impossible, 
 and so, my lord, we must be strangers; and, as you are 
 a gentleman, I bid you open this door, and let me 
 
HIGH STAKES. 237 
 
 make my way to some more peaceful shelter than your 
 house." 
 
 "Angela!" 
 
 He tried to draw her to his breast; but she held 
 him off with outstretched arm, and even in the tumult 
 of his passion the knowledge of her helplessness and his 
 natural shame at his own treachery kept him in check. 
 
 "Angela, call me villain if you will, but give me a 
 fair hearing. Dearest, the joy or sorrow of two lives lies 
 in your choice to-night. If you will trust me, and go 
 with me, I swear I will make you happy. If you are 
 stubborn to refuse — well, sweetheart, you will but send 
 a man to the devil who is not wholly bad, and who, 
 with you for his guardian angel, might find the way to 
 heaven." 
 
 "And begin the journey by a sin these lips dare not 
 name. Oh, Fareham," she said, growing suddenly calm 
 and grave, and with something of that tender maternal 
 manner with which she had soothed and controlled him 
 while he had but half his wits, and when she feared he 
 might be lying on his deathbed, "I would rather believe 
 you a madman than a villain; and, indeed, all that you 
 have done to-night is the work of a madman, who follows 
 his own wild fancy without power to reason on what he 
 does. Surely, sir, you know me too well to believe that 
 I would let love — were it the blindest, most absorbing 
 passion woman ever felt — lead me into sin so base as 
 that you would urge. The vilest wanton at Whitehall 
 would shrink from stealing a sister's husband." 
 
 "There would be no theft. Your sister flings me to 
 you as a dog drops the bone he has picked dry. She 
 had me when I was young, and a soldier — with some 
 
238 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 reflected glory about me from the hero I followed — and 
 rich and happy. She leaves me old and haggard, with- 
 out aim or hope, save to win her I worship. Shall I tell 
 you when I began to love you, my angel?" 
 
 "No, no; I will listen to no more raving. Thank 
 God, there is the daylight!" as the cold wan dawn 
 flickered across the room. "Will you let me beat my 
 hands against this door till they bleed?" 
 
 "Thou shalt not harm the loveliest hands on earth," 
 seizing them both in his own. "Ah, sweet, I began to 
 love thee before ever I rose from that bed of horror 
 where I had been left to perish. I loved thee in my 
 unreason, and my love strengthened with each hour of 
 returning sense. Our journey, I so weak, and sick, and 
 helpless — was a ride through Paradise. I would have 
 had it last a year; would have suffered sickness and 
 pain, aching limbs and parched lips, only to feel the 
 light touch of this dear hand upon my brow 'twixt sleep 
 and waking; only to look up as I awoke, and see those 
 sweet eyes looking down at me. Ah, dearest, my heart 
 arose from among the dead, and came out of the tomb 
 of all human affections to greet thee. Till I knew you 
 I knew not the meaning of love. And if you are stub- 
 born, and will not come with me to that new world, 
 where we may be so happy, why, then I must go down 
 to my grave a despairing wretch that never knew a 
 woman's love." 
 
 "My sister — your wife?" 
 
 "Never loved me. Her heart — that which she calls 
 heart — was ever Malfort's and not mine. She gave me 
 to know as much by a hundred signs and tokens which 
 read plain enough now, looking back, but which I scarce 
 
HIGH STAKES. 239 
 
 heeded at the time. I believed her chaste, and she was 
 civil, and I was satisfied. I tell you, Angela, this heart 
 never beat for woman till I knew you. Ah, love, be not 
 stone! Make not our affinity an obstacle. The Roman 
 Church will ever grant dispensation for a union of 
 affinities where there is cause for indulgence. The 
 Church would have had Philip married to his wife's 
 sister Elizabeth." 
 
 "The Church holds the bond of marriage indis- 
 soluble," Angela answered. "You are married to my 
 sister; and while she lives you can have no other wife." 
 
 Her brow was stern, her courage unfaltering; but 
 physical force was failing her. She leant against the 
 door for support, and she no longer struggled to with- 
 draw her hands from that strong grasp which held them. 
 She fought against the faintness that was stealing over 
 her senses; but her heavy eyelids were beginning to 
 droop, and there was a sound like rushing water in her 
 ears. 
 
 "Angela — Angela," pleaded the tender voice, "do 
 you forget that afternoon at the play, and how you wept 
 over Bellario's fidelity — the fond girl-page who followed 
 him she loved; risked name and virtue; counted not the 
 cost, in that large simplicity of love which gives all it 
 has to give, unquestioning? Remember Bellario." 
 
 "Bellario had no thought that was not virtue's," she 
 answered faintly; and he took that fainter tone for a 
 yielding will. 
 
 "She would not have left Philaster if he had been 
 alone in the wilderness, miserable for want of her love." 
 
 Her white lips moved dumbly, her eyelids sank, and 
 her head fell back upon his shoulder, as he started up 
 
24O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 from his knees to support her sinking figure. She was 
 in his arms, unconscious — the image of death. 
 
 He kissed her on the brow. 
 
 "My soul, I will owe nothing to thy helplessness," he 
 whispered. "Thy free will shall decide whether I live 
 or die." 
 
 Another sound had mingled with the rushing waters 
 as her senses left her — the sound of knocking at a distant 
 door. It grew louder and louder momently, indicating 
 a passionate impatience in those who knocked. The 
 sound came from the principal door, and there was a 
 long corridor between that door and Fareham's room. 
 
 He stood listening, undecided; and then he laid the 
 unconscious form gently on the thick Persian carpet — 
 knowing that for recovery the fainting girl could not lie 
 too low. He cast one agitated glance at the white face 
 looking up at the ceiling, and then went quickly to 
 the hall. 
 
 As he came near, the knocking began again, with 
 greater vehemence, and a voice, which he knew for Sir 
 John's, called — 
 
 "Open the door, in the King's name, or we will 
 break it open!" 
 
 There was a pause; those without evidently waiting 
 for the result of that last and loudest summons. 
 
 Fareham heard the hoofs of restless horses trampling 
 the gravel drive, the jingle of bit and chain, and the 
 click of steel scabbards. 
 
 Sir John had not come alone. 
 
 "So soon; so devilish soon!" muttered Fareham. 
 And then, as the knocking was renewed, he turned and 
 left the hall without a word of answer to those outside, 
 
HIGH STAKES. 2\\ 
 
 and hastened back to the room where he had left Angela. 
 His brow was fixed in a resolute frown, every nerve was 
 braced. He had made up his mind what to do. He 
 had the house to himself, and was thus master of the 
 situation, so long as he could keep his pursuers on the 
 outside. The upper servants — half a dozen coach-loads 
 — had been packed off to London, under convoy of 
 Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbock. The under servants — 
 rank and file — from housemaids to turnspits, slept in a 
 huge barrack adjoining the stables, built in Elizabeth's 
 reign to accommodate the lower grade of a nobleman's 
 household. These would not come into the house to 
 light fires and sweep rooms till six o'clock at the earliest; 
 and it was not yet four. Lord Fareham, therefore, had 
 to fear no interruption from his own people. 
 
 There was broad daylight in the house now; yet he 
 looked about for a candle; found one on a side-table, in 
 a tall silver candlestick, and stopped to light it, before 
 he raised the lifeless figure from the floor and lifted it 
 into the easiest position for carrying, the head lying on 
 his shoulder. Then, holding the slender waist firmly, 
 circled by his left arm, he took the candlestick in his 
 right hand, and went out of the room with his burden, 
 along a passage leading to a seldom-used staircase, 
 which he ascended, carrying that tall, slim form as if it 
 had been a feather-weight, up flight after flight, to the 
 muniment room in the roof. From that point his journey, 
 and the management of that unconscious form, and to 
 dispose safely of the lighted candle, became more diffi- 
 | cult, and occupied a considerable time; during which 
 interval the impatience of an enraged father and a be- 
 trothed husband, outside the hall door, increased with 
 
 London Pride. II. 10 
 
242 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 every minute of delay, and one of their mounted fol- 
 lowers, of whom they had several, was despatched to 
 ride at a hand-gallop to the village of Chilton, and rouse 
 the Constable, while another was sent to Oxford for a 
 Magistrate's warrant to arrest Lord Fareham on the 
 charge of abduction. And meanwhile the battering upon 
 thick oaken panels with stout riding-whips, and heavy 
 sword-hilts, and the calling upon those within, were re- 
 peated with unabated vehemence, while a couple of 
 horsemen rode round the house to examine other inlets, 
 and do picket duty. 
 
 The Constable and his underling were on the ground 
 before that stubborn citadel answered the reiterated 
 summons; but at last there came the sound of bolts 
 withdrawn. An iron bar dropped from its socket with a 
 clang that echoed long and loud in the empty hall, the 
 door opened, and Fareham appeared on the threshold, 
 corpse-like in the cold raw daylight, facing his besiegers 
 with a determined insolence. 
 
 "Thou most infernal villain!" cried Sir John, rushing 
 into the hall, followed closely by Denzil and one of the 
 men, "what have you done with my daughter?" 
 
 "Which daughter does your honour seek? If it be 
 she whom you gave me for a wife, she has broken the 
 bond, and is across the sea with her paramour?" 
 
 "You lie — reprobate! Your wife had doubtless busi- 
 ness relating to her French estate, which called her to 
 Paris. My daughters are honest women, unless by your 
 villainy, one, who should have been sacred, as your 
 sister by affinity, should bear a blighted name. Give 
 me back my daughter, villain — the girl you lured from 
 her home by the foulest deceit!" 
 
 
HIGH STAKES. 243 
 
 "You cannot see the lady to-day, gentlemen; even 
 though you threaten me with your weapons," pointing 
 with a sardonic smile to their drawn swords, "and out- 
 number me with your followers. The lady is gone. I 
 am alone in the house to submit to any affront your 
 superior force may put upon me." 
 
 "Our superiority can at least search your house," 
 said Denzil. "Sir John, you had best take one way and 
 I another. I doubt I know every room and passage in 
 the Abbey." 
 
 "And your yeoman's manners offer a handsome re- 
 turn for the hospitality which made you acquainted with 
 my house," said Fareham, with a contemptuous laugh. 
 
 He followed Denzil, leaving Sir John to grope alone. 
 The house had been deserted but for a few days, yet 
 the corridors and rooms had the heavy atmosphere of 
 places long shut from sunshine and summer breezes; 
 while the chilling hour, the grey ghostly light, added 
 something phantasmal and unnatural to the scene. 
 
 Denzil entered room after room — below stairs and 
 above — explored the picture-gallery, the bed-chambers, 
 the long low ball-room in the roof, built in Elizabeth's 
 reign, when a wing had been added to the Abbey, and 
 of late used only for lumber. Fareham followed him 
 close, stalking behind him in sullen silence, with an un- 
 alterable gloom upon his face which betrayed no sudden 
 apprehensions, no triumph or defeat. He followed like 
 doom, stood quietly on one side as Denzil opened a 
 door; waited on the threshold while the searcher made 
 his inspection, always with the same iron visage, offering 
 no opposition to the entrance of this or that chamber; 
 only following and watching, silent, intent, sphinx-like; 
 
 16* 
 
244 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 till at last, fairly worn out by blank disappointment, 
 Denzil turned upon him in a sudden fury. 
 
 "What have you done with her?" he cried, desperately. 
 "I will stake my life she has not left this house, and by 
 Him who made us you shall not leave it living unless I 
 find her." 
 
 He glanced downward at the naked sword he had 
 carried throughout his search. Fareham's was in the 
 scabbard, and he answered that glance with an insult- 
 ing smile. 
 
 "You think I have murdered her, perhaps," he said. 
 "Well, I would rather see her dead than yours. So far 
 I am in capacity a murderer." 
 
 They met Sir John in Lady Fareham's drawing-room, 
 when Denzil had gone over the whole house, trusting 
 nothing to the father's scrutiny. 
 
 "He has stabbed her and dropped her murdered 
 body down a well," cried the Knight, half distraught. 
 "He cannot have spirited her away otherwise. Look at 
 him, Denzil; look at that haggard wretch I have called 
 my son. He has the assassin's aspect." 
 
 Something — it might be the room in which they were 
 standing — brought back to Angela's betrothed the memory 
 of that Christmas night when aunt and niece had been 
 missing, and when he, Denzil, had burst into this room, 
 where Fareham was seated at chess; who, at the first 
 mention of Angela's name, started up, white with horror, 
 to join in the search. It was he who found her then; 
 it was he who had hidden her now; and in the same 
 remote and secret spot. 
 
 "Fool that I was not to remember sooner!" cried 
 Denzil. "I know where to find her. Follow me, Sir 
 
HIGH STAKES. 245 
 
 John. Andrew" — calling to the servant who waited in 
 the hall — "follow us close." 
 
 He rushed along a passage, ran upstairs faster than 
 old age, were it ever so eager, could follow. But Fare- 
 ham was nearly as fast — nearly, but not quite, able to 
 overtake him; for he was older, heavier, and more broken 
 by the fever of that night's work than his colder-tempered 
 rival. 
 
 Denzil was some paces in advance when he reached 
 the muniment room. He found the opening in the 
 wainscot, and the steep stair built into the chimney. 
 Half way to the bottom there was a gap — an integral 
 part of the plan — and a drop of six feet; so that a 
 stranger in hurried pursuit would be likely to come to 
 grief at this point, and make time for his quarry to 
 escape by the door that opened on the garden. Memory, 
 or wits sharpened by anxiety, enabled Denzil to avoid 
 this trap; and he was at the door of the Priest's Hole 
 before Fareham began the descent. 
 
 Yes, she was there, kneeling in a corner, a candle 
 burning dimly on a stone shelf above her head. She 
 was in the attitude of prayer, her head bent, her face 
 hidden, when the door opened, and she looked up and 
 saw her betrothed husband. 
 
 "Denzil! How did you find me here?" 
 
 "I should be a poor slave if I had not found you, 
 remembering the past. Great God, how pale you are! 
 Come, love, you are safe. Your father is here. Angela, 
 thou that art so soon to be my wife — face to face — here 
 — before we leave this accursed pit — tell me that you 
 did not go with that villain, except for the sake of your 
 sick sister — that you were the victim of a heartless lie — 
 
246 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 not a party to a trick invented to blind your father 
 and me!" 
 
 "I doubt I have not all my senses yet," she said, 
 putting her hand to her head. "I was told my sister 
 wanted me, and I came. Where is Lord Fareham?" 
 
 The terror in her countenance as she asked that 
 question froze Denzil. Ah, he had known it all along! 
 That was the man she loved. Was she his victim — and 
 a willing victim? He felt as if a great gulf had opened 
 between him and his betrothed, and that all his hopes 
 had withered. 
 
 Fareham was at his elbow in the next moment. 
 "Well, you have found her," he said; "but you shall 
 not have her, save by force of arms. She is in my 
 custody, and I will keep her; or die for her if I am 
 outnumbered ! " 
 
 "Execrable wretch! would you attempt to detain 
 her by violence? Come, madam," said Denzil, turning 
 coldly to Angela, "there is a door on those stairs which 
 will let you out into the air." 
 
 "The door will not open at your bidding!" Fareham 
 said fiercely. 
 
 He snatched Angela up in his arms before the other 
 could prevent him, and carried her triumphantly to the 
 first landing-place, which was considerably below that 
 treacherous gap between stair and stair. He had the 
 key of the garden door in his pocket, unlocked it, and 
 was in the open air with his burden before Denzil could 
 overtake him. 
 
 He found himself caught in a trap. He had his 
 coach-and-six and armed postillions waiting close by, 
 and thought he had but to leap into it with his prey 
 
HIGH STAKES. 247 
 
 and spirit her off towards Bristol; but between the coach 
 and the door one of Sir John's pickets was standing, 
 who the moment the door opened whistled his loudest, 
 and brought Constable and man and another armed 
 servant running helter-skelter round an angle of the 
 house, and so crossing the very path to the coach. 
 
 "Fire upon him if he tries to pass you!" cried Denzil. 
 
 "What! And shoot the lady you have professed to 
 love!" exclaimed Fareham, drawing himself up, and 
 standing firm as a rock, with Angela motionless in his 
 arms. 
 
 He dropped her to her feet, but held her against 
 his left shoulder with an iron hold, while he drew his 
 sword and made a rush for the coach. Denzil sprang 
 into his path, sword in hand, and their blades crossed 
 with a shrill clash and rattle of steel. They fought like 
 demons, Fareham holding Angela behind him, sheltering 
 her with his body, and swaying from side to side in his 
 sword-play with a demoniac swiftness and suppleness, 
 his thick dark brows knitted over eyes that flamed with 
 a fiercer fire than flashed from steel meeting steel. A 
 shriek of horror from Angela marked the climax, as 
 Denzil fell with Fareham's sword between his ribs. 
 There had been little of dilettante science, or graceful 
 play of wrist in this encounter. The men had rushed 
 at each other savagely, like beasts in a circus, and what- 
 ever of science had guided Fareham's more practised 
 hand had been employed automatically. The spirit of 
 the combatants was wild and fierce as the rage that 
 moves rival stags fighting for a mate, with bent heads 
 and tramping hoofs, and clash of locked antlers re- 
 verberating through the forest stillness. 
 
248 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Fareham had no time to exult over his prostrate 
 foe; Sir John and his servants, Constable and underlings, 
 surrounded him, and he was handcuffed and hauled off 
 to the coach that was to have carried him to a sinner's 
 paradise, before anyone had looked to Denzil's wound, 
 or discovered whether that violent thrust below the right 
 lung had been fatal. Angela sank swooning in her 
 father's arms. 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 
 
 The summer and autumn had gone by — an eventful 
 season, for with it had vanished from the stage of politics 
 one who had played so dignified and serious a part 
 there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and 
 in exile. The Nestor and the Ulysses of the Stuart 
 epic had melted from the scene. Down those stairs by 
 which he had descended on his way to so many a 
 splendid festival, himself a statelier figure than Kings or 
 Princes, the Chancellor had gone to banishment and 
 oblivion. "The lady" had looked for the last time, a 
 laughing Jezebel, from a palace window, exultant at her 
 enemy's fall; and along the river that had carried such 
 tragic destinies eastward to be sealed in blood, Edward 
 Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had drifted quietly out of the 
 history he had helped to make. The ballast of that 
 grave intellect was flung overboard so that the ship of 
 fools might drift the faster. 
 
 But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November 
 morning, nobody thought of Clarendon. The business 
 of the day was interesting enough to obliterate all con- 
 siderations of yesterday. The young barristers, who 
 were learning their trade by listening to their betters, 
 had been shivering on their benches in the Common 
 Pleas since nine o'clock, in that chilly corner where 
 
25O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 every blast from the north or north-east swept over the 
 low wooden partition that enclosed the court, or cut 
 through the chinks in the panelling. The students and 
 juniors were in their usual places, sitting at the feet of 
 their favourite Common-law Judge; but the idlers who 
 came for amusement, to saunter about the hall, haggle 
 for books with the second-hand dealers along the south 
 wall, or flirt with the milliners who kept stalls for bands 
 and other legal finery on the opposite side, or to listen 
 on tiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to 
 the quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a famous ad- 
 vocate — these to-day gravitated with one accord towards 
 the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in the Court of 
 King's Bench, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, of Fare- 
 ham, Hants, was to be tried by a Buckinghamshire jury 
 for abduction, with fraud, malice, and violence, and for 
 assault, with intent to murder. 
 
 The rank of the offender being high, and the indict- 
 ment known to involve tragic details of family history, 
 there had been much talk of the cause which was on 
 the paper for to-day; and, as a natural consequence, 
 besides the habitual loungers and saunterers, gossips, 
 and book-buyers, there was a considerable sprinkling of 
 persons of quality, who perfumed the not too agreeable 
 atmosphere with pulvilio and Florentine iris powder, and 
 the rustle of whose silks and brocades was audible all 
 over the Hall. Not often did such gowns sweep the 
 dust brought in by plebeian feet, nor such Venetian 
 point collars rub shoulders with the frowsy Norwich 
 drugget worn by hireling perjurers or starveling clerks. 
 The modish world had come down upon the great Nor- 
 man Hall like a flock of pigeons, sleek, iridescent, all 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 25 I 
 
 fuss and flutter; and among these unaccustomed visitors 
 there was prodigious impatience for the trial to begin, 
 and a struggle for good places that brought into full 
 play the primitive brutality which underlies the polite- 
 ness of the civillest people. 
 
 Lady Sarah Tewkesbury had risen betimes, and, in 
 her anxiety to secure a good place, had come out in her 
 last night's "head," which somewhat damaged edifice of 
 ginger-coloured ringlets and Roman pearls was now 
 visible above the wooden partition of the King's Bench 
 to the eyes of the commonalty in the hall below, her 
 ladyship being accommodated with a seat among the 
 lawyers. 
 
 One of these was a young man in a shabby gown 
 and rumpled wig, but with a fair complexion and tolerable 
 features — a stranger to that court, and better known at 
 Hicks's Hall, and among city litigators, with whom he had 
 already a certain repute for keen wits and a plausible 
 tongue — about the youngest advocate at the English Bar, 
 and by some people said to be no barrister at all, but 
 to have put on wig and gown two years ago at Kingston 
 Assizes and called himself to the Bar, and stayed there 
 by sheer audacity. This young gentleman, Jeffreys by 
 name, having deserted the city and possible briefs in 
 order to hear the Fareham trial, was inclined to resent 
 being ousted by an obsequious official to make room for 
 Lady Sarah. 
 
 "Faith, one would suppose I w T as her ladyship's foot- 
 man and had been keeping her seat for her," he grumbled, 
 as he reluctantly rose at the Usher's whispered request, 
 and edged himself sulkily off to a corner where he found 
 just standing-room. 
 
252 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 It was a very hard seat which Mr. Jeffreys had 
 vacated, and her ladyship, after sitting there over two 
 hours, nodding asleep a good part of the time, began to 
 feel internal sinkings and fmtterings which presaged what 
 she called a "swound," and necessitated recourse to a 
 crystal flask of strong waters which she had prudently 
 brought in her muff. Other of Lady Fareham's particular 
 friends were expected — Sir Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lu- 
 cretia Topham, and more of the same kidney; and even 
 the volatile Rochester had deigned to express an interest 
 in the case. 
 
 "The man was mistaken in his metier/' he had told 
 Lady Sarah, when the scandal was discussed in her 
 drawing-room. "The role of seducer was not within his 
 means. Anyone could see he was in love with the pale 
 sister-in-law by the manner in which he scowled at her; 
 but it is not every woman who can be subjugated by 
 gloom and sullenness, though some of 'em like us tragical. 
 My method has been to laugh away resistance, as my 
 wife will acknowledge, who was the cruellest she I ever 
 tackled, and had baffled all her other servants. Indeed 
 she must have been in Butler's eye when he wrote — 
 
 'That old Pyg — what d'ye call him — malion 
 That cut his mistress out of stone, 
 Had not so hard a hearted one.' 
 
 Even Lady Rochester will admit I conquered without 
 heroics," upon which her ladyship, late mistress Mallett, 
 a beauty and a fortune, smiled assent with all the com- 
 placency of a six-months' bride. "To see a man tried 
 for an attempted abduction is a sight worth a year's 
 income," pursued Rochester. "I would travel a hundred 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 253 
 
 miles to behold that rare monster who has failed in his 
 pursuit of one of your obliging sex!" 
 
 "Do you think us all so easily won?" asked Lady 
 Sarah, piqued. 
 
 "Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If ob- 
 durate to others you have still been kind to me." 
 
 Lady Sarah had nearly emptied her flask of Musca- 
 dine before Masaroon elbowed his way to a seat beside 
 her, from which he audaciously dislodged a coffee-house 
 acquaintance, an elderly lawyer upon whom fortune had 
 not smiled, with a condescending civility that was more 
 uncivil than absolute rudeness. 
 
 "We'll share a bottle in Hell after the trial, mon 
 ami," he said; and on seeing Lady Sarah's look of 
 horror, he hastened to explain that Heaven, Hell, and 
 Purgatory, were the cant names of three taverns which 
 drove a roaring trade in strong drinks under the very 
 roof of the Hall. 
 
 "The King's Attorney-general is prosecuting," an- 
 swered Sir Ralph, replying to a question from Lady 
 Sarah, whose inquiries betrayed that dense ignorance of 
 legal technicalities common even to accomplished women. 
 "It is thought the lady's father would have been glad 
 for the matter to be quashed, his fugitive daughter 
 being restored to his custody — albeit with a damaged 
 character — and her elder sister having run away from 
 her husband." 
 
 "I will not hear you slander my dearest friend," pro- 
 tested Lady Sarah. "Lady Fareham left her husband, 
 and with good cause, as his after-conduct showed. She 
 did not run away from him." 
 
254 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Nay, she had doubtless the assistance of a car- 
 riage-and-six. She would scarce foot it from London to 
 Dover. And now she is leading grand train in Paris, 
 and has taken almost as commanding a place as her 
 friend Madame de Longueville, penitent and retired from 
 service." 
 
 "Hyacinth, under all her appearance of silliness, is 
 a remarkably clever woman," said Lady Sarah, senten- 
 tiously; "but, pray, Sir Ralph, if Mistress Angela's father 
 has good reason for not prosecuting his daughter's lover 
 — indeed I ever thought her an underhand hussy — why 
 does not Sir Denzil Warner — who I hear has been at 
 death's door — pursue him for assault and battery?" 
 
 "Nay, is so still, madam. I question if he be yet 
 out of danger. The gentleman is a kind of puritanical 
 Quixote, and has persistently refused to swear an in- 
 formation against Fareham, whereby I doubt the case 
 will fall through, or his lordship get off with a fine of a 
 thousand or two. We have no longer the blessing of 
 a Star Chamber, to supply state needs out of sinners' 
 pockets, and mitigate general taxation; but his Majesty's 
 Judges have a capacious stomach for fines, and his 
 Majesty has no objection to see his subjects' mis- 
 demeanours transmuted into coin." 
 
 And now the business of the day began, the panelled 
 enclosure being by this time crowded almost to suffoca- 
 tion; and Lord Fareham was brought into court. 
 
 He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and 
 looked ten years older than when Lady Sarah had last 
 seen him on his wife's visiting day, an uninterested 
 member of that modish assembly. His eyes were deeper 
 sunken under the strongly marked brows. The threads 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 255 
 
 of iron-grey in his thick black hair were more con- 
 spicuous. He carried his head higher than he had been 
 accustomed to carry it, and the broad shoulders were 
 no longer bent in the Strafford stoop. The spectators 
 could see that he had braced himself for the ordeal, 
 and would go through the day's work like a man of iron. 
 
 Proclamation was made for silence, and for in- 
 formation, if any person could give any, concerning the 
 misdemeanour and offence whereof the defendant stood 
 impeached; and the defendant was bid to look to his 
 challenges, and the Jury, being gentlemen of the county 
 of Bucks, were called, challenged, and sworn. 
 
 The demand for silence was so far obeyed that there 
 followed a hush within the enclosure of the court; but 
 there was no cessation of the buzz of voices and the 
 tramp of footsteps in the hall, which mingled sounds 
 seemed like the rise and fall of a human ocean, as heard 
 within that panelled sanctuary. 
 
 The lawyers took snuff, shuffled on their seats, nudged 
 each other and whispered now and then, during the 
 reading of the indictment; but among Lady Fareham's 
 friends, and the quality in general, there was a breathless 
 silence and expectancy; and Lady Sarah would gladly 
 have run her hat-pin into a snuffy old Serjeant close 
 beside her, who must needs talk behind his hand to his 
 pert junior. 
 
 To her ladyship's unaccustomed ears that indict- 
 ment, translated literally from the Latin original, sounded 
 terrible as an impeachment in the subterranean halls of 
 the Vehmgericht, or in the most select and secret council 
 in the Venetian Doge's Palace. 
 
 The indictment set forth "that the defendant, Richard 
 
256 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Revel, Baron Fareham, on the 4th day of July, in the 
 1 8th year of our sovereign lord the King that now is, at 
 the parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of 
 Bucks, falsely, unlawfully, unjustly, and wickedly, by un- 
 lawful and impure ways and means, contriving, practis- 
 ing, and intending the final ruin and destruction of 
 Mrs. Angela Kirkland, unmarried, and one of the 
 daughters of Sir John Kirkland, Knight — the said lady 
 then and there being under the custody, government, 
 and education of the said Sir John Kirkland, her father 
 — he, the said Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, then and 
 there falsely, unlawfully, devilishly, to fulfil, perfect, and 
 bring to effect, his most wicked, impious, and devilish 
 intentions aforesaid — the said Richard Revel, Lord Fare- 
 ham (then and long before, and yet, being the husband 
 of Mrs. Hyacinth, another daughter of the said Sir John 
 Kirkland, Knight, and sister of the said Mrs. Angela), 
 against all laws as well divine as human, impiously, 
 wickedly, impurely, and scandalously, did tempt, invite, 
 and solicit, and by false and lying pretences, oaths, and 
 affirmations, unlawfully, unjustly, and without the leave, 
 and against the will of the aforesaid Sir John Kirkland, 
 Knight, in prosecution of his most wicked intent afore- 
 said, did carry off the aforesaid Mrs. Angela, she con- 
 senting in ignorance of his real purpose, about the hour 
 of twelve in the night-time of the said 4th day of July, 
 in the year aforesaid, and at the aforesaid parish of 
 St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of Bucks afore- 
 said, out of the dwelling-house of the said Sir John Kirk- 
 land, Knight, did take and convey to his own house in 
 the county of Oxford, and did then and there detain 
 her by fraud, and did there keep her hidden in a secret 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 257 
 
 chamber known as the Priest's Hole in his own house 
 aforesaid, at the hazard of her life, and did oppose her 
 rescue by force of arms, and with his sword, unlaw- 
 fully, murderously, and devilishly, and in the prosecu- 
 tion of his wicked purpose did stab and wound Sir 
 Denzil Warner, Baronet, the lady's betrothed husband, 
 from which murderous assault the said Sir Denzil Warner, 
 Baronet, still lies in great sickness and danger of death, 
 to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the ruin 
 and destruction of the said Mrs. Angela Kirkland, to the 
 grief and sorrow of all her friends, and to the evil and 
 most pernicious example of all others in the like case 
 offending; and against the peace of our said sovereign 
 lord the King, his crown and dignity." 
 
 The defendant having pleaded "Not guilty," the 
 Jury were charged in the usual manner and with all 
 solemnity. 
 
 "If you find him 'guilty' you are to say so; if you 
 find him 'not guilty' you are to say so, and no more, 
 and hear your evidence." 
 
 The Attorney-General confined himself to a brief 
 outline of the tragic story, leaving all details to be de- 
 veloped by the witnesses, who were allowed to give their 
 evidence with colloquial freedom and expansiveness. 
 
 The first witness was old Reuben, the steward from 
 the Manor Moat, who had not yet emerged from that 
 mental maze in which he had found himself upon be- 
 holding the change that had come to pass in the great city, 
 since the well-remembered winter of the King's execution, 
 and the long frost, when he, Reuben, was last in Lon- 
 don. His evidence was confused and confusing; and 
 he drew upon himself much good-natured ridicule from 
 
 London Pride. II. 1 7 
 
258 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the junior who opened the case. Out of various muddle- 
 headed answers and contradictory statements the facts 
 of Lord Fareham's unexpected appearance at the Manor 
 Moat, his account of his lady's illness, and his hurried 
 departure, carrying the young madam with him on horse- 
 back, were elicited, and the story of the ruse by which 
 Mrs. Angela Kirkland had been beguiled from her home 
 was made clear to the comprehension of a superior but 
 rustic jury, more skilled in discriminating the points of 
 a horse, the qualities of an ox, or the capacity of a 
 hound, than in differentiating truth and falsehood in a 
 story of wrong- doing. 
 
 Sir John Kirkland was the next witness, and the 
 aspect of the man, the noble grey head, fine features, 
 and soldierly carriage, the old-fashioned habit, the fashion 
 of an age not long past, but almost forgotten, enlisted 
 the regard and compassion of Jury and audience. 
 
 "Let me perish if it is not a ghost from the civil 
 wars!" whispered Sir Ralph to Lady Sarah. "Mrs. 
 Angela might well be romanesque and unlike the rest 
 of us, with such a father." 
 
 A spasm of pain convulsed Fareham's face for a 
 moment, as the old Cavalier stood up in the witness- 
 box, towering above the Court in that elevated position, 
 and, after being sworn, took one swift survey of the 
 Bench and Jury, and then fixed his angry gaze upon 
 the defendant, and scarcely shifted it in the whole 
 course of his examination. 
 
 "Now, Gentlemen of the Jury," said the Attorney- 
 General, "we shall tell you what happened at Chilton 
 Abbey, to which place the defendant, under such 
 fraudulent and lying pretences as you have heard of 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 259 
 
 from the last witness, conveyed the young lady. Sir 
 John, I will ask you to acquaint the Jury as fully and 
 straightforwardly as you can with the circumstances of 
 your pursuit, and the defendant's reception of you and 
 your intended son-in-law, Sir Denzil Warner, whose 
 deposition we have failed to obtain, but who could 
 relate no facts which are not equally within your own 
 knowledge." 
 
 "My words shall be straight and plain, sir, to 
 denounce that unchristian wretch whom, until this miser- 
 able business, I trusted as if he had been my son. I 
 came to my house, accompanied by my daughter's 
 plighted husband, within an hour after that villain con- 
 veyed her away; and on hearing my old servant's story 
 was quick to suspect treachery. Nor was Sir Denzil 
 backward in his fears, which were more instantaneous 
 than mine; and we waited only for the saddling of fresh 
 horses, and rousing a couple of grooms from their beds, 
 fellows that I could trust for prudence and courage, be- 
 fore we mounted again, following in that wretch's track. 
 We heard of him and his victim at the Inn where they 
 changed horses, she going consentingly, believing she 
 was being taken in this haste to attend a dying sister." 
 
 "And on arriving at the defendant's house what was 
 your reception?" 
 
 "He opposed our entrance, until he saw that we 
 should batter down his door if he shut us out longer. 
 We were not admitted until after I had sent one of my 
 servants for the nearest Constable; and before we had 
 gained an entrance into his house he had contrived to put 
 away my daughter in a wretched hiding-place, planned 
 for the concealment of Romish Priests or other recusants 
 
 17* 
 
26o LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 and malefactors, and would have kept her there, I believe, 
 tiil she had perished in that foul cavern, rather than re- 
 store her to her father and natural guardian." 
 
 "That is false, and you know it!" cried Fareham. 
 "My life is of less account to me than a hair of her 
 head. I hid her from you, to save her from your 
 tyranny, and the hateful marriage to which you would 
 have compelled her." 
 
 "Liar! Impudent, barbarous liar!" roared the old 
 Knight, with his right arm raised, and his body half out 
 of the box, as if he would have assaulted the defendant. 
 
 "Sir John," said the Judge, "I would be very loath 
 to deal otherwise than becomes me with a person of 
 your quality; but, indeed, this is not so handsome, and 
 we must desire you to be calm." 
 
 "When I remember his infamy, and that vile as- 
 sumption of my daughter's passion for him, which he 
 showed in every word and act of that miserable scene." 
 
 He went on to relate the searching of the house, 
 and Warner's happy inspiration, by which Angela's 
 hiding-place was discovered, and she rescued in a faint- 
 ing condition. He described the defendant's audacious 
 attempt to convey her to the coach which stood ready 
 for her abduction, and his violence in opposing her 
 rescue, and the fight which had well-nigh resulted in 
 Warner's death. 
 
 When Sir John's story was finished the defendant's 
 advocate, who had declined to question the old butler, 
 rose to cross-examine this more important witness. 
 
 "In your tracing of the defendant's journey between 
 your house and Chilton you heard of no outcries of 
 resistance upon your daughter's side?" 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 26 I 
 
 "No, sir. She went willingly, under a delusion." 
 
 "And do you think now, sir, as a man of the world, 
 and with some knowledge of women, that your daughter 
 was so easily hoodwinked; she having seen her sister, 
 Lady Fareham, so shortly before, in good health and 
 spirits?" 
 
 "Lady Fareham did not appear in good health 
 when she was last at the Manor, and her sister was 
 already uneasy about her." 
 
 "But not so uneasy as to believe her dying, and 
 that it was needful to ride to her helter-skelter in the 
 night-time. Do you not think, sir, that the young lady, 
 who was so quick to comply with his lordship's summons, 
 and bustled up and was in the saddle ten minutes after 
 he entered the house, and was willing to go without her 
 own woman, or any preparation for travel, had a strong 
 inclination for the journey, and a great kindness for the 
 gentleman who solicited her company?" 
 
 "Has that barbarous wretch set you on to slander 
 the lady whose ruin he sought, sir?" asked the Knight, 
 pallid with the white heat of indignation. 
 
 "Nay, Sir John, I am no slanderer; but I want the 
 Jury to understand the sentiments and passions which 
 are the springs of action here, and to bear in mind that 
 the case they are hearing is a love story, and they can 
 only come at the truth by remembering their own ex- 
 perience as lovers " 
 
 The deep and angry tones of his client interrupted 
 the silvery-tongued Counsellor. 
 
 "If you think to help me, sir, by traducing the lady, 
 I repudiate your advocacy." 
 
 "My lord, you are not allowed to give evidence or 
 
262 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 to interrupt the Court. You have pleaded not guilty, 
 and it is my duty to demonstrate your innocence. 
 Come, Sir John, do you not know that his lordship's 
 unhappy passion for his sister-in-law was shared by the 
 subject of it; and that she for a long time opposed all 
 your efforts to bring about a proper alliance for her, 
 solely guided and influenced by this secret passion?" 
 
 "I know no such thing." 
 
 "Do I understand, then, that from the time of your 
 first proposals she was willing to marry Sir Denzil 
 Warner?" 
 
 "She was not willing." 
 
 "I would have wagered as much. Did you fathom 
 her reason for declining so proper an alliance?" 
 
 "I did not trouble myself about her reasons. I 
 knew that time would wear them away." 
 
 "And I doubt you trusted to a father's authority?" 
 
 "No, sir. I promised my daughter that I would not 
 force her inclinations." 
 
 "But you used all methods of persuasion. How 
 long was it before July the 4th that Mrs. Angela con- 
 sented to marry Sir Denzil?" 
 
 "I cannot be over precise upon that point. I have 
 no record of the date." 
 
 "But you have the faculty of memory, sir; and this 
 is a point which a father would not easily forget." 
 
 "It may have been a fortnight before." 
 
 "And until that time the lady was unwilling?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She refused positively to accept the match you 
 urged upon her?" 
 
 "She refused." 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 263 
 
 "And finally consented, I will wager, with marked 
 reluctance ? " 
 
 "No, sir, there was no reluctance. She came to me 
 of her own accord, and surprised me by her submission." 
 
 "That will do, Sir John. You can stand down. I 
 shall now proceed to call a witness who will convince 
 the Jury of my client's innocence upon the first and 
 chief count in the indictment, abduction with fraud and 
 violence. I shall tell you by the lips of my witness, 
 that if he took the lady away from her home, she being 
 of full age, she went freely consenting, and with know- 
 ledge of his purpose." 
 
 "Lies — foul lies!" cried the old Cavalier, almost 
 strangled with passion. 
 
 He plucked at the knot of his cravat, trying to 
 loosen it, feeling himself threatened with apoplexy. 
 
 "Call Mistress Angela Kirkland," said the Serjeant, 
 in strong steady tones that contrasted with the indignant 
 father's hoarse and gasping utterance. 
 
 "S'life! the business becomes every moment more 
 interesting," whispered Lady Sarah. "Will he make 
 that sly slut own her misconduct in open court?" 
 
 "If she blush at her slip from virtue, it will be a 
 new sensation in a London law-court to see the colour 
 of shame," replied Sir Ralph, behind his perfumed 
 glove; "but .1 warrant she'll carry matters with a high 
 hand, and feel herself every inch a heroine." 
 
 Angela came into the court attended by her waiting- 
 woman, who remained near the entrance, amid the 
 close-packed crowd of lawyers and onlookers, while her 
 mistress quietly followed the official who conducted her 
 to the witness-box. 
 
264 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 She was dressed in black, and her countenance 
 under her neat black hood looked scarcely less white 
 than her lawn neckerchief; but she stood erect and un- 
 faltering in that conspicuous station, and met the eyes 
 of her interrogator with an untroubled gaze. When her 
 lips had touched the dirty little book, greasy with the 
 kisses of innumerable perjurers, the Serjeant began to 
 question her in a tone of odious familiarity. 
 
 "Now, my dear young lady, here is a gentleman's 
 liberty, and perhaps his life, hanging on the breath of 
 those pretty lips; so I want you to answer a few plain 
 questions with as plain speech as you can command, 
 remembering that you are to tell us the truth, and the 
 whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Come, now, 
 dear miss, when you left your father's house on the 
 night of July 4, in this present year, in Lord Fareham's 
 company, did you go with him of your own free will, 
 and with a knowledge of his purpose?" 
 
 "I knew that he loved me." 
 
 A heart-breaking groan from Sir John Kirkland was 
 hushed down by an usher of the court. 
 
 "You knew that he loved you, and that he designed 
 to carry you beyond seas?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you were willing to leave your father's custody 
 and go with the defendant as his paramour?" 
 
 There was a pause, and the white cheek crimsoned, 
 and the heavy eyelids fell over agonised eyes. 
 
 "I went willingly — because I loved him;" and then 
 with a sudden burst of passion, "I would have died for 
 him, or lived for him. It mattered not which." 
 
 "And she has lied for him — has sworn to a lie — 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 265 
 
 and that to her own dishonour!" cried Sir John, beside 
 himself; whereupon he was sternly bidden to keep 
 silence. 
 
 There was no intention that this little Buckinghamshire 
 gentleman should be indulged, to the injury of a person of 
 Lord Fareham's wealth and consequence. The favour 
 of the Bench obviously leant towards the defendant. 
 
 Fareham's deep tones startled the audience. 
 
 "In truth, your Honour, the young lady has belied 
 herself in order to help me," he said. "I cannot accept 
 acquittal at the cost of her good name." 
 
 "Your lordship has pleaded not guilty." 
 
 "And his lordship's chivalry would revoke that plea," 
 cried the Counsel; "this is most irregular. I must beg 
 that the Bench do order the defendant to keep silence. 
 The witness can stand down." 
 
 Angela descended from the witness-box falteringly, 
 and would perhaps have fallen but for her father's strong 
 grasp, which clutched her arm as she reached the last 
 step. 
 
 He dragged her out of the close-packed court, and 
 into the open Hall. 
 
 "Wanton!" he hissed in her ear, " shameless wanton ! " 
 
 She answered nothing; but stood where he held her, 
 with wild eyes looking out of a white, rigid countenance. 
 She had done what she had come there to do. Per- 
 suaded by Fareham's attorney, who had waited upon her 
 at her lodgings when Sir John was out of the way, she 
 had made her ill-considered attempt to save the man she 
 loved, ignorant of the extent of his danger, exaggerating 
 the potential severity of his punishment, in the illimitable 
 
2 66 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 fear of a woman for the safety of the being she loves. 
 And now she cared nothing what became of her, cared 
 little even for her father's anger or distress. There was 
 always the Convent, last refuge of sin or sorrow, which 
 meant the annihilation of the individual, and where the 
 world's praise or blame had no influence. 
 
 Her woman fussed about her with a bottle of strong 
 essence, and Sir John dragged rather than led her along 
 the Hall, to the great door where the coach that had 
 carried her from his London lodgings was in waiting. 
 He saw her seated, with her woman beside her, support- 
 ing her, gave the coachman his orders, and then went 
 hastily back to the Court of King's Bench. 
 
 The Court was rising; the Jury, without leaving their 
 seats, had pronounced the defendant guilty of a mis- 
 demeanour, not in conveying Sir John Kirkland's daughter 
 away from her home, to which act she had avowed herself 
 a consenting party; but in detaining her in his house 
 with violence, and in opposition to her father and proper 
 guardian. The Lord Chief Justice expressed his satis- 
 faction at this verdict, and after expatiating with pious 
 horror upon the evil consequences of an ungovernable 
 passion, a guilty, soul- destroying love, a direct inspiration 
 of Satan, sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of ten 
 thousand pounds, upon the payment of which sum he 
 would be set at liberty. 
 
 The old Cavalier heard the brief sermon and the 
 sentence, which seemed to him of all punishments the 
 most futile. He had hoped to see his son-in-law sent to 
 the Plantations for life; had been angry at the thought 
 that he would escape the gallows; and for sole penalty 
 
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 267 
 
 the seducer was sentenced to forfeit less than a year's 
 income. How corrupt and venal was a bench that made 
 the law of the land a nullity when a great personage was 
 the law-breaker! 
 
 He flung himself in the defendant's way as he left 
 the court, and struck him across the breast with the flat 
 of his sword. 
 
 "An unarmed man, Sir John! Is that your old-world 
 chivalry?" Fareham asked, quietly. 
 
 A crowd was round them and swords were drawn 
 before the officer could interfere. There were friends of 
 Fareham's in the court, and two of his gentlemen; and 
 Sir John, who was alone, might have been seriously hurt 
 before the authorities could put down the tumult, had 
 not his son-in-law protected him. 
 
 "Sheath your swords, if you love me!" he exclaimed, 
 flinging himself in front of Sir John. "I would not have 
 the slightest violence offered to this gentleman." 
 
 "And I would kill you if I had the chance!" cried 
 Sir John; "that is the difference between us. I keep no 
 measures with the man who ruined my daughter." 
 
 "Your daughter is as spotless a saint as the day 
 she left her Convent, and you are a blatant old fool to 
 traduce her," said Fareham, exasperated, as the Usher 
 led him away. 
 
 His detention was no more than a formality; and as 
 he had been previously allowed his liberty upon bail, he 
 was now permitted to return to his own house, where 
 by an order upon his banker he paid the fine, and was 
 henceforward a free man. 
 
 The first use he made of his freedom was to rush 
 
2 68 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 to Sir John's lodgings, only to hear that the Cavalier, 
 with his daughter and two servants, had left half an hour 
 earlier in a coach-and-four for Buckinghamshire. The 
 people at the lodgings did not know which road they 
 had taken, or at what Inn they were to lie on the way. 
 "Well, there will be a better chance of seeing her 
 at the Manor than in London," Fareham thought; "he 
 cannot keep so close a watch upon her there as in the 
 narrow space of town lodgings." 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 269 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 It was December, and the fields and pastures were 
 white in the tardy dawn with the frosty mists of early 
 winter, and Sir John Kirkland was busy making his pre- 
 parations for leaving Buckinghamshire and England with 
 his daughter. He had come from Spain at the beginning 
 of the year, hoping to spend the remnant of his days in 
 the home of his forefathers, and to lay his old bones in 
 the family vault; but the place was poisoned to him for 
 evermore, he told Angela. He could not stay where he 
 and his had been held in highest honour, to have his 
 daughter pointed at by every grinning lout in hob-nailed 
 shoes, and scorned by the neighbouring quality. He 
 only waited till Denzil Warner should be pronounced 
 out of danger and on the high-road to recovery, before 
 he crossed the Channel. 
 
 "There is no occasion you should leave Buckingham- 
 shire, sir," Angela argued. "It is the dearest wish of 
 my heart to return to the Convent at Louvain, and finish 
 my life there, sheltered from the world's contempt." 
 
 "What, having failed to get your fancy, you would 
 dedicate yourself to God?" he cried. "No, madam. I 
 am still your father, though you have disgraced me; and 
 I require a daughter's duty from you. Oh, child, I so 
 
27O LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 loved you, was so proud of you! It is a bitter physic 
 you have given me to drink." 
 
 She knelt at his feet, and kissed his sunburnt hands, 
 shrunken with age. 
 
 "I will do whatever you desire, sir. I wish no higher 
 privilege than to wait upon you; but when you weary of 
 me there is ever the Convent." 
 
 " Leave that for your libertine sister. Be sure she 
 will finish a loose life by a conspicuous piety. She will 
 turn saint like Madame de Longueville. Sinners are the 
 stuff of which modern saints are made. And women 
 love extremes — to pass from silk and luxury to four- 
 o'clock matins, and the Carmelite's woollen habit. No, 
 Angela, there must be no Convent for you, while I live. 
 Your penance must be to suffer the company of a 
 petulant, disappointed old man." 
 
 "No penance, sir, but peace and contentment; so I 
 am but forgiven." 
 
 "Oh, you are forgiven. There is that about you 
 with which one cannot long be angry — a creature so 
 gentle and submissive, a reed that bends under a blow. 
 Let us not think of the past. You were a fool — but not 
 a wanton. No, I will never believe that! A generous, 
 headstrong fool, ready with thine own perjured lips to 
 blacken thy character in order to save the villain who 
 did his best to ruin thee. But thou art pure," looking 
 down at her with a severe scrutiny. "There is no 
 memory of guilt in those eyes. We will go away to- 
 gether, and live peacefully together, and you shall still 
 be the staff of my failing steps, the light of my fading 
 eyes, the comfort of my ebbing life. Were I but easy 
 in my mind about those poor forsaken grandchildren, I 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 2~j I 
 
 could leave England cheerfully enough; but to know 
 them motherless — with such a father!" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I believe, however greatly Lord Fareham 
 may have erred, he will not prove a neglectful father," 
 Angela said, her voice growing low and tremulous as she 
 pronounced that fatal name. 
 
 "You will vouch for him, no doubt. A licentious 
 villain, but an admirable father! No, child, Nature does 
 not deal in such anomalies. The children are alone at 
 Chilton with their English gouvernante , and the prim 
 Frenchwoman, who takes infinite pains to perfect Hen- 
 riette's unlikeness to a human child. They are alone, 
 and their father is hanging about the Court." 
 
 "At Court! Lord Fareham! Indeed, sir, I think you 
 must be mistaken." 
 
 "Indeed, madam, I have the fact on good authority." 
 
 "Oh, sir, if you have reason to think those dear 
 children neglected, is it not your duty to protect and 
 care for them? Their poor, mistaken mother has aban- 
 doned them." 
 
 "Yes, to play the great lady in Paris, where, when I 
 went in quest of her last July — while thou wert lying sick 
 here — hoping to bring back a penitent, I was received 
 with a triumphant insolence, finding her the centre of a 
 circle of flatterers, a Princess in little, with all the airs 
 and graces and ceremonies and hauteur of the French 
 Blood-royal. When I charged her with being Malfort's 
 mistress, and bade her pack her traps and come home 
 with me, she deafened me with her angry volubility. I 
 to slander her — I, her father, when there was no one in 
 Paris, from the Place Royale to the Louvre, more looked 
 up to! But when I questioned my old friends they 
 
272 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 answered with enigmatical smiles, and assured me that 
 they knew nothing against my daughter's character worse 
 than all the world was saying about some of the highest 
 ladies in France — Madame, to wit; and with this cold 
 comfort I must needs be content, and leave her in her 
 splendid infamy." 
 
 "Father, be sure she will come back to us. She has 
 been led into wrongdoing by the artfullest of villains. 
 She will discover the emptiness of her life, and come 
 back to seek the solace of her children's love. Let us 
 care for them meanwhile. They have no other kindred. 
 Think of our sweet Henriette — so rich, so beautiful, so 
 over-intelligent — growing from child to woman in the 
 care of servants, who may spoil and pervert her even 
 by their very fondness. 
 
 "It is a bad case, I grant; but I can stir no finger 
 where that man is concerned. I can hold no communi- 
 cation with that scoundrel." 
 
 "But your lawyer could claim custody of the chil- 
 dren for you, perhaps." 
 
 "I think not, Angela, unless there was a criminal 
 neglect of their bodies. The law takes no account of 
 souls." 
 
 Angela's greatest anxiety — now that Denzil's recovery 
 was assured — was for the welfare of these children whom 
 she fondly loved, and for whom she would have gladly 
 played a mother's part. She wrote in secret to her sister, 
 entreating her to return to England for her children's 
 sake, and to devote herself to them in retirement at 
 Chilton, leaving the scandal of her elopement to be for- 
 gotten in the course of blameless years; so that by the 
 time Henriette was old enough to enter the world her 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 2J $ 
 
 mother would have recovered the esteem of worthy 
 people, as well as the respect of the mob. 
 
 Lady Fareham's tardy answer was not encouraging. 
 She had no design of returning to a house in which she 
 had never been properly valued, and she admired that 
 her sister should talk of scandal, considering that the 
 scandal of her own intrigue with her brother-in-law had 
 set all England talking, and had been openly mentioned 
 in the London and Oxford Gazettes. Silence about 
 other people's affairs would best become a young miss 
 who had made herself so notorious. 
 
 As for the children, Lady Fareham had no doubt 
 that their father, who had ever lavished more affection 
 upon them than he bestowed upon his wife, might be 
 trusted with the care of them, however abominable his 
 conduct might be in other matters. But in any case 
 her ladyship would not exchange Paris for London, 
 where she had been slighted and neglected at Court as 
 well as at home. 
 
 The letter was a tissue of injustice and egotism; and 
 Angela gave up all hope of influencing her sister for 
 good; but not the hope of being useful to her sister's 
 children. 
 
 Now, as the short winter days went by, and the pre- 
 parations for departure were making, she grew more and 
 more urgent with her father to obtain the custody of 
 his grandchildren, and carry them to France with him, 
 where they might be reared and educated under his own 
 eye. Montpelier was the place of exile he had chosen, 
 a place renowned alike for . its admirable climate and 
 educational establishments; and where Sir John had 
 spent the previous winter, and had made friends. 
 
 London Pride. II. 1 8 
 
2 74 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 It was to Montpelier the great Chancellor had retired 
 from the splendours of a princely mansion but just com- 
 pleted — far exceeding his own original intentions in 
 splendour, as the palaces of new-made men are apt to 
 do — and from a power and authority second only to 
 that of kings. There the grandfather of future queens 
 was now residing in modest state, devoting the evening 
 of his life to the composition of an authentic record of 
 the late rebellion, and of those few years during which 
 he had been at the head of affairs in England. Sir 
 John Kirkland, who had never forgotten his own dis- 
 appointments in the beginning of his master's restored 
 fortunes, had a fellow-feeling for "Ned Hyde" in his fall. 
 
 "As a statesman he was next in capacity to Went- 
 worth," said Sir John, "and yet a painted favourite and 
 a rabble of shallow wits were strong enough to under- 
 mine him." 
 
 The old Knight confessed that he had ridden out of 
 his way on several occasions when he was visiting 
 Warner's sick-bed, in hope of meeting Henriette and 
 George on their ponies, and had more than once been 
 so lucky as to see them. 
 
 "The girl grows handsomer, and is as insolent as 
 ever; but she has a sorrowful look which assures me she 
 misses her mother; though it was indeed of that wretch, 
 her father, she talked most. She said he had told her 
 he was likely to go on a foreign embassy. If it is to 
 France he goes, there is an end of Montpelier. The 
 same country shall not hold him and my daughter while 
 I live to protect you." 
 
 Angela began to understand that it was his fear, or 
 his hatred of Fareham, which was taking him out of his 
 
BR1NGERS OF SUNSHINE. 275 
 
 native country. No word had been said of her betrothal 
 since that fatal night. It seemed tacitly understood that 
 all was at an end between her and Denzil Warner. She 
 herself had been prostrate with a low, nervous fever 
 during a considerable part of that long period of ap- 
 prehension and distress in which Denzil lay almost at 
 the point of death, nursed by his grief- stricken mother, 
 to whom the very name of his so lately betrothed wife 
 was hateful. Verily the papistical bride had brought a 
 greater trouble to that house than even Lady Warner's 
 prejudiced mind had anticipated. Kneeling by her son's 
 bed, exhausted with the passion of long prayers for his 
 recovery, the mother's thoughts went back to the day 
 when Angela crossed the threshold of that house for the 
 first time, so fair, so modest, with a countenance so in- 
 nocent in its pensive beauty. 
 
 "And yet she was guilty at heart even then," Lady 
 Warner told herself, in the long night-watches, after the 
 trial at Westminster Hall, when Angela's public con- 
 fession of an unlawful love had been reported to her by 
 her favourite Nonconformist Divine, who had been in 
 court throughout the trial, with Lady Warner's lawyer, 
 watching the proceedings in the interest of Sir Denzil. 
 
 Lady Warner received the news of the verdict and 
 sentence with unspeakable indignation. 
 
 "And my murdered son!" she gasped, "for I know 
 not yet that God will hear my prayers and raise him up 
 to me again. Is his blood to count for nothing — or his 
 sufferings — his patient sufferings on that bed? A fine — 
 a paltry fine — a trifle for a rich man. I would pay 
 thrice as much, though it beggared me, to see him sent 
 to the Plantations, O Judge and Avenger of Israel! 
 
 18* 
 
276 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Thou hast scourged us with pestilence, and punished 
 us with fire; but Thou hast not convinced us of sin. 
 The world is so sunk in wickedness that murder scarce 
 counts for crime." 
 
 The day of terror was past. Denzil's convalescence 
 was proceeding slowly, but without retrograde stages. 
 His youth and temperate habits had helped his recovery 
 from a wound which in the earlier stages looked fatal. 
 He was now able to sit up in an armchair, and talk to 
 his visitor, when Sir John rode twenty miles to see him; 
 but only once did his lips shape the name that had been 
 so dear, and that occasion was at the end of a visit 
 which Sir John announced as the last. 
 
 "Our goods are packed and ready for shipping," he 
 said. "My daughter and I will begin our journey to 
 Montpelier early next week." 
 
 It was the first time Sir John had spoken of his 
 daughter in that sick-room. 
 
 * "If she should ever talk of me, in the time to come," 
 Denzil said — speaking very slowly, in a low voice, as if 
 the effort, mental and physical, were almost beyond his 
 strength, and holding the hand which Sir John had given 
 him in saying good-bye — "tell her that I shall ever 
 remember her with a compassionate affection — ever hold 
 her the dearest and loveliest of women — yes, even if I 
 should marry, and see the children of some fair and 
 chaste wife growing up around me. She will ever be 
 the first. And tell her that I know she forswore herself 
 in the court; and that she was the innocent dupe of that 
 villain — never his consenting companion. And tell her 
 that I pity her even for that so misplaced affection which 
 tempted her to swear to a He. I knew, sir, always, that 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 277 
 
 she loved him and not me. Yes, from the first. In- 
 deed, sir, it was but too easy to read that unconscious 
 beginning of unholy love, which grew and strengthened 
 like some fatal disease. I knew, but nursed the fond 
 hope that I could win her heart — in spite of him. I 
 fancied that right must prevail over wrong; but it does 
 
 not, you see, sir, not always — not " A faintness 
 
 came over him; whereupon his mother, re-entering the 
 room at this moment, ran to him and restored him with 
 the strong essence that stood handy among the medicine 
 bottles on the table by his chair. 
 
 "You have suffered him to talk too much," she said, 
 glancing angrily at Sir John. "And I'll warrant he has 
 been talking of your daughter — whose name must be 
 poison to him. God knows 'tis worse than poison to 
 me!" 
 
 "Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my 
 daughter abused " 
 
 "It would have better become you, Sir John Kirk- 
 land, to keep away from this house." 
 
 "Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my 
 illness " 
 
 " This, madam, is my farewell visit. You will not be 
 plagued any more with me," said Sir John, lifting his 
 hat, and bowing low to Lady Warner. 
 
 He was gone before she could reply. 
 
 The baggage was ready — clothes, books, guns, plate, 
 and linen — all necessaries for. an exile that might last 
 for years, had been packed for the sea voyage; but the 
 trunks and bales had not yet been placed in the waggon 
 
278 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 that was to convey them to the Tower Wharf, where 
 they were to be shipped in one of the orange-boats that 
 came at this season from Valencia, laden with that 
 choice and costly fruit, and returned with a hetero- 
 geneous cargo. At Valencia the goods would be put 
 on board a Mediterranean coasting vessel, and landed 
 at Cette. 
 
 Sir John began to waver about his destination after 
 having heard from Henriette of her father's possible 
 embassy. Certainly if Fareham were to be employed 
 in foreign diplomacy, Paris seemed a likely post for a 
 man who was so well known there, and had spent so 
 much of his life in France. And if Fareham were to be 
 at Paris, Sir John considered Montpelier, remote as it 
 was from the capital, too near his enemy. 
 
 "He has proved himself an indomitable villain," 
 thought the Knight. "And I could not always keep as 
 close a watch upon my daughter as I have done in the 
 last six weeks. No. If Fareham be for France, I 
 am for some other country. I might take her to 
 Florence, and put the Apennines between her and that 
 daring wretch." 
 
 It may be, too, that Sir John had another reason for 
 lingering, after all was ready for the journey. He may 
 have been much influenced by Angela's concern about 
 his grandchildren, and may have hesitated at leaving 
 them alone in England with only salaried guardians. 
 
 "Their father concerns himself very little about them, 
 you see," he told Angela, "since he can entertain the 
 project of a foreign embassy, while those little wretches 
 are pining in a lonely barrack in Oxfordshire." 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 2jg 
 
 "Indeed, sir, he is a fond father. I would wager my 
 life that he is deeply concerned about them." 
 
 "Oh, he is an angel, on your showing! You would 
 blacken your sister's character to make him a saint." 
 
 The next day was fine and sunny, a temperature as 
 of April, after the morning frost had melted. There 
 was a late rose or two still lingering in the sheltered 
 Buckinghamshire valley, though it wanted but a fortnight 
 of Christmas. Angela and her father were sitting in a 
 parlour that faced the iron gates. Since their return 
 from London Sir John had seemed uneasy when his 
 daughter was out of his sight; and she, perceiving his 
 watchfulness and trouble, had been content to abandon 
 her favourite walks in the lanes and woods and to the 
 "fair hill of Brill," whence the view was so lovely and 
 so vast, on one side reaching to the Welsh mountains, 
 and on another commanding the nearer prospect of 
 "the great fat common of Ottmoor," as Aubrey calls 
 it, "which in some winters is like a sea of waters." For 
 her father's comfort, noting the sad wistful eyes that 
 watched her coming in and going out, she had resigned 
 herself to spend long melancholy hours within doors, 
 reading aloud till Sir John fell asleep, playing back- 
 gammon — a game she detested worse even than shove- 
 halfpenny, which latter primitive game they played 
 sometimes on the shovel-board in the hall. Life could 
 scarcely be sadder than Angela's life in those grey 
 winter days; and had it not been for an occasional 
 ride across country with her father, health and spirits 
 must alike have succumbed to this monotony of sad- 
 ness. 
 
 This morning, as on many mornings of late, the sub- 
 
28o LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 ject of the boy and girl at Chilton had been discussed 
 with the Knight's tankard of home-brewed and his 
 daughter's chocolate. 
 
 "Indeed, sir, it would be a cruel thing for us to 
 abandon them. At Montpelier we shall be a fortnight's 
 journey from England; and if either of those dear 
 creatures should fall ill, dangerously ill, perhaps, their 
 father beyond the seas, and we, too, absent — oh, sir, 
 figure to yourself Henriette or George dying among 
 strangers! A cold or a fever might carry them off in 
 a few days; and we should know nothing till all was 
 over." 
 
 Sir John groaned and paced the room, agitated by 
 the funereal image. 
 
 "Why, what a raven thou art, ever to croak dismal 
 prophecies. The children are strong and well, and 
 have careful custodians. I can have no dealings with 
 their father. Must I tell you that a hundred times, 
 Angela? He is a consummate villain: and were it not 
 that I fear to make a bigger scandal, he or I should 
 not have survived many hours after that iniquitous sen- 
 tence." 
 
 A happy solution of this difficulty, which distressed 
 the Knight much more than his stubbornness allowed 
 him to admit, was close at hand that morning, while 
 Angela bent over her embroidery frame, and her father 
 spelt through the last London Gazette that the post had 
 brought him. 
 
 The clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels announced a 
 visit; and while they were looking at the gate, full of 
 wonder, since their visitors were of so small a number, 
 a footman in the Fareham livery pulled the iron ring 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 28 I 
 
 that hung by a chain from the stone pillar, and the bell 
 rang loud and long in the frosty air. The Fareham 
 livery! Twice before the Fareham coaches and liveries 
 had taken that quiet household by surprise; but to-day 
 terror rather than surprise was in Angela's mind as she 
 stood in front of the window looking at the gate. 
 
 Could Fareham be so rash as to face her father, so 
 daring as to seek a farewell interview on the eve of 
 departure? No, she told herself; such folly was im- 
 possible. The visitor could be but one person — 
 Henriette. Even assured of this in her own mind, she 
 did not rush to welcome her niece, but stood as if 
 turned to stone, waiting for the opening of the gate. 
 
 Old Reuben, having seen the footman, went himself 
 to admit the visitors, with his grandson and slave in 
 attendance. 
 
 "It must be her little ladyship," he said, taking his 
 young mistress's view of the case. "Lord Fareham 
 would never dare to show his deceiving face here." 
 
 A shrill voice greeted him from the coach window 
 before he reached the gate. 
 
 "You are the slowest old wretch I ever saw!" cried 
 the voice. "Don't you know that when visitors of im- 
 portance come to a house they expect to be let in? I 
 vow a convent gate would be opened quicker." 
 
 "Indeed, your ladyship, when your legs are as old 
 as mine " 
 
 "Which I hope they never will be," muttered 
 Henriette, as she descended with a languid slowness 
 from the coach, assisted on either side by a footman; 
 while George, who could not wait for her airs and 
 
2)5 2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 graces, let himself out at the door on the off side just 
 as Reuben succeeded in turning the key. 
 
 "So you are old Reuben!" he said, patting the 
 butler on the shoulder with the gold hilt of his riding- 
 whip. "And you were here, like a vegetable, all through 
 the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth?" 
 
 "Yes, your lordship, from the raising of Hampden's 
 regiment." 
 
 "Ah, you shall tell me all about it over a pipe and 
 a bottle. You must be vastly good company. I am 
 come to live here." 
 
 "To live here, your honour?" 
 
 "Yes; sister and I are to live here while my father 
 represents his Majesty beyond seas. I hope you have 
 good stabling and plenty of room. My ponies and 
 Mistress Henriette's Arab horse will be here to-morrow. 
 I doubt I shall have to build a place for my hawks; but 
 I suppose Sir John will find me a cottage for my Dutch 
 falconer." 
 
 "Lord, how the young master do talk!" exclaimed 
 Reuben, with an admiring grin. 
 
 The boy was so rapid in his speech, had such 
 vivacity and courage in his face, such a spring in every 
 movement, as if he had quicksilver in his veins, Reuben 
 thought; but it was only the quicksilver of youth, that 
 Divine ichor which lasts for so brief a season. 
 
 "It made me feel twenty years younger only to hear 
 him prattle," Reuben said afterwards. 
 
 Sir John and his daughter had come to meet the 
 children by this time, and there were fond embracings, 
 in the midst of which Henriette withdrew herself from 
 her grandfather's arms, and retired a couple of paces, in 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 283 
 
 order to drop him the Jennings curtsy, sinking almost 
 to the ground, and then rising from billows of silk, like 
 Venus from the sea, and handing him a letter, with a 
 circular sweep of her arm, learnt in London from her 
 Parisian dancing mistress, an apprentice of St. Andre's, 
 not from the shabby little French cut-caper from Ox- 
 ford. 
 
 "My father sends you this letter, sir." 
 
 "Is your father at Chilton?" 
 
 "No, sir. He was with us the day before yester- 
 day to bid us good-bye before he started upon his 
 foreign embassy," replied Henriette, struggling with her 
 tears, lest she should seem a child, and not the woman 
 of fashion she aspired to be. "He left us early in the 
 afternoon to ride back to London, and he takes barge 
 this afternoon to Gravesend, to embark for Archangel, 
 on his way to Moscow. I doubt you know he is to be 
 his Majesty's Ambassador at Muscovy?" 
 
 "I know nothing but what you told me t'other day, 
 Henriette," the Knight answered, as they went to the 
 house, where George began to run about on an explora- 
 tion of corridors, and then escaped to the stables, while 
 Henriette stood in front of the great wood fire, and 
 warmed her hands in a stately manner. 
 
 Angela had found no words of welcome for her 
 niece yet. She only hugged and kissed her, and now 
 occupied herself unfastening the child's hood and cloak. 
 
 "How your hands shake, auntie. You must be 
 colder than I am; though that leathern coach lets in the 
 wind like a sieve. I suppose my people will know 
 where to dispose themselves?" she added, resuming her 
 grand air. 
 
284 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 "Reuben will take care of them, dearest." 
 
 "Why, your voice shakes like your hands; and oh, 
 how white you are. But you are glad to see us, I 
 hope?" 
 
 "Gladder than I can say, Henriette." 
 
 "I am glad you don't call me Papillon. I have left 
 off that ridiculous name, which I ought never to have 
 permitted." 
 
 "I doubt, mistress, you who know so much know 
 what is in this letter," said Sir John, staring at Fareham's 
 superscription as if he had come suddenly upon an 
 adder. 
 
 "Nay, sir, I only know that my father was shut in 
 his library for a long time writing, and was as white as 
 my aunt is now when he brought it to me. 'You and 
 George, and your gouvernante and servants, are to go to 
 the Manor Moat the day after to-morrow,' he said, 'and 
 you are to give this letter into your grandfather's hand.' 
 I have done my duty, and await your Honour's pleasure. 
 Our gouvernante is not the Frenchwoman. Father dis- 
 missed her for neglecting my education, and walking out 
 after dark with Daniel Lettsome. 'Tis only Priscilla, 
 who is something between a servant and a friend, and 
 who does everything I tell her." 
 
 "A pretty gouvernante!" 
 
 "Nay, sir, she is as plain as a pikestaff; that is one 
 of her merits. Mademoiselle thought herself pretty, and 
 angled for a rich husband. Please be so good as to 
 read your letter, grandfather, for I believe it is about us." 
 
 Sir John broke the seal, and began to read the letter 
 with a frowning brow, which lightened as he read. 
 Angela stood with her niece clasped in her arms, and 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 285 
 
 watched her father's countenance across the silky brown 
 head that nestled against her bosom. 
 
 "Sir, — Were it not in the interests of others, who 
 must needs hold a place in your affection second only 
 to that they have in my heart, I should scarce presume 
 to address you; but it is to the grandfather of my chil- 
 dren I write, rather than to the gentleman whom I have 
 so deeply offended. I look back, sir, and repent the 
 violence of that unhappy night; but know no change in 
 the melancholy passion that impelled me to crime. It 
 would have been better for me had I been the worst 
 rake-hell at Whitehall, than to have held myself aloof 
 from the modish vices of my day, only to concentrate 
 all my desires and affections there, where it was most 
 sinful to place them. 
 
 "Enough, sir. Did I stand alone I should have 
 found an easy solution of all difficulties, and you, and 
 the lady my madness has so insulted, would have been 
 rid for ever of the despicable wretch who now addresses 
 you. 
 
 "I had to remember the dear innocents who bring 
 you this letter, and it was of them I thought when I 
 humbled myself to turn courtier in order to obtain the 
 post of Ambassador to Muscovy — in which savage place 
 I shall be so remote from all who ever knew me in this 
 country, that I shall be as good as dead; and you would 
 have as much compunction in withholding your love and 
 protection from my boy and girl as if they were de facto 
 orphans. I send them to you, sir, unheralded. I fling 
 them into the bosom of your love. They are rich, and 
 
286 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 the allowance that will be paid you for them will cover, 
 I apprehend, all outlays on their behalf, or can be in- 
 creased at your pleasure. My lawyers, whom you know, 
 will be at your service for all communications; and they 
 will spare you the pain of correspondence with me. 
 
 "I leave the nurture, education, and happiness of 
 these, my only son and daughter, solely in your care and 
 authority. They have been reared in over-much luxury, 
 and have been spoiled by injudicious indulgence. But 
 their faults are trivial faults, and are all on the surface. 
 They are truthful, and have warm and generous hearts. 
 I shall deem it a further favour if you will allow their 
 nurse, or \misz-gouver?iante , Mrs. Priscilla Baker, to 
 remain with them, as your servant, and subject to your 
 authority. Their horses, ponies, hawks, and hounds, 
 carriages, etc., must be accommodated, or not, at your 
 pleasure. My girl is greatly taken up with the Arab 
 horse I gave her on her last birthday, and I should be 
 glad if your stable could shelter him. I subscribe my- 
 self, perhaps for the last time, sir, 
 
 "Your obedient servant, and a penitent sinner, 
 
 "Fareham." 
 
 When he had come to the end of the letter, reading 
 slowly and thoughtfully, Sir John handed it to his 
 daughter, in a dead silence. 
 
 She tried to read; but at sight of the beloved writ- 
 ing a rush of tears blinded her, and she gave the letter 
 back to her father. 
 
 "I cannot read it, sir," she sobbed; "tell me only, 
 are we to keep the children?" 
 
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 287 
 
 "Yes. Henceforward they are our children; and it 
 will be the business of our lives to make them happy." 
 
 "If you cry, tante, I shall think you are vexed that 
 we have come to plague you," said Henriette, with a 
 pretty, womanly air. "I am very sorry for his poor 
 lordship, for he also cried when he kissed us; but he 
 will have skating and sledging in Muscovy, and he will 
 shoot bears; so he will be very happy." 
 
288 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 IN A DEAD CALM. 
 
 The great bales and chests, and leather trunks, on 
 the filling whereof Sir John's household had bestowed a 
 week's labour, were all unpacked and cleared out of the 
 hall, to make room for a waggon load of packages from 
 Chilton Abbey, which preliminary waggon was followed 
 day after day by other conveyances laden with other 
 possessions of the Honourable Henriette, or the Honour- 
 able George. The young lady's virginals, her guitar, 
 her embroidery frames, her books, her "babies," which 
 the maids had packed, although it was long since she 
 had played with them; the young gentleman's guns and 
 whips, tennis rackets, bows and arrows, and a mass of 
 heterogeneous goods; there seemed no end to the two 
 children's personal property, and it was well that the old 
 house was sufficiently spacious to afford a wing for their 
 occupation. They brought their gouvernanle, and a valet 
 and maid, the falconer, and three grooms, for whom 
 lodgings had to be found out-of-doors. The valet and 
 waiting-woman spent some days in distributing and 
 arranging all that mass of belongings; but at the end of 
 their labour the children's rooms looked more cheerful 
 than their luxurious quarters at Chilton, and the children 
 themselves were delighted with their new home. 
 
 "We are lodged ever so much better here than at 
 
IN A DEAD CALM. 200, 
 
 the Abbey," George told his grandfather. "We were 
 ever so far away from father and mother, and the house 
 was under a curse, being stolen from the Church in 
 King Henry's reign. Once, when I had a fever, an old 
 grey monk came and sat at the foot of the bed, be- 
 tween the curtains, and wouldn't go away. He sat there 
 always, till I began to get well again. Father said there 
 was nothing there, and it was only the fever made me 
 see him; but I know it was the ghost of one of the monks 
 who were flung out to starve when the Abbey was seized 
 by Cromwell's men. Not Oliver Cromwell, grandfather; 
 but another bad man of the name, who had his head 
 cut off afterwards; though I doubt he deserved the axe 
 less than the Brewer did." 
 
 There was no more talk of Montpelier or exile. A 
 new life began in the old house in the valley, with new 
 pleasures, new motives, new duties — a life in which the 
 children were paramount. These two eager young minds 
 ruled at the Manor Moat. For them the fish-pond 
 teemed with carp and tench, for them hawks flew, and 
 hounds ran, and horses and ponies were moving from 
 morning till twilight; for them Sir John grew young 
 again, and hunted fox and hare, and rode with the 
 hawks with all the pertinacity of youth, for whom there 
 is no such word as enough. For them the happy grand- 
 father lived in his boots from October to March, and 
 the adoring aunt spent industrious hours in the fabrica- 
 tion of flies for trout, after the recipes in Mr. Walton's 
 agreeable book. The whole establishment was ordered 
 for their comfort and pleasure; but their education and 
 improvement were also considered in everything. A 
 Roman Catholic gentleman, from St. Omer, was en- 
 
 London Pride. II. 19 
 
2 gO LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 gaged as George's tutor, and to teach Angela and Hen- 
 riette Latin and Italian, studies in which the niece was 
 stimulated to industry by her desire to surpass her aunt, 
 an ambition which her volatile spirits never allowed her 
 to realise. 
 
 For all other learning and accomplishments Angela 
 was her only teacher, and as the girl grew to woman- 
 hood aunt and niece read and studied together, like 
 sisters, rather than like pupil and mistress; and Angela 
 taught Henriette to love those books which Fareham 
 had given her, and so in a manner the intellect of the 
 banished father influenced the growing mind of the 
 child. Together, and of one opinion in all things, aunt 
 and niece visited and ministered to the neighbouring 
 poor, or entertained their genteel neighbours in a style 
 at once friendly and elegant. No existence could have 
 been calmer or happier, to one who was content to 
 renounce all passionate hopes and desires, all the ro- 
 mantic aspirations of youth; and Angela had resigned 
 herself to such renunciation when she rose from her 
 sick-bed, after the tragedy at Chilton. Here was the 
 calm of the Convent without its restrictions and limi- 
 tations, the peace which is not of this world, and 
 yet liberty to enjoy all that is fairest and noblest in 
 this world; for had not Sir John pledged himself to 
 take his daughter and niece and nephew for the grand 
 tour through France and Italy, soon after George's 
 seventeenth birthday? Father Andrea, who was of Flo- 
 rentine birth, would go with them; and with such a 
 cicisbeo, they would see and understand all the trea- 
 sures of the past and the present, antique and mo- 
 dern art. 
 
IN A DEAD CALM. 20,1 
 
 Lord Fareham was still in the north of Europe ; but, 
 after three years in Russia, had been transferred from 
 Moscow to Copenhagen, where he was in high favour 
 with the King of Denmark. 
 
 Denzil Warner had lately married a young lady of 
 fortune, the only child and heiress of a Wiltshire gentle- 
 man, who had made a considerable figure in Parlia- 
 ment under the Protector, but was now retired from 
 public affairs. 
 
 And all that remained to Angela of her story of 
 impassioned love, sole evidence of the homage that had 
 been offered to her beauty or her youth, was a letter, 
 now long grown dim with tears, which Henriette had 
 given to her on the first night the children spent under 
 their grandfather's roof. 
 
 "I was to hand you this when no one was by," the 
 girl said simply, and left her aunt standing mute and 
 pale with a sealed letter in her hand. 
 
 "How shall I thank or praise you for the sacrifice 
 your love made for one so unworthy — a sacrifice that 
 cut me to the heart? Alas, my beloved, it would have 
 been better for both of us hadst thou given me thyself 
 rather than so empty a gift as thy good name. I hoped 
 to tell you, lip to lip, in one last meeting, all my grati- 
 tude and all my hopeless love; but though I have 
 watched and hung about your gardens and meadows 
 day after day, you have been too jealously guarded, or 
 have kept too close, and only with my pen can I bid 
 you an eternal farewell. 
 
 "I go out of your life for ever, since I am leaving 
 for a distant country with the fixed intention never to 
 
 19* 
 
2g2 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 return to England. I bequeath you my children, as if I 
 left you a rag of my own lacerated heart. 
 
 "If you ever think of me, I pray you to consider the 
 stoiy of my life as that of an invincible passion, wicked 
 and desperate if you will, but constant as life and death. 
 You were, and are, and will be to my latest breath, my 
 only love. 
 
 "Perhaps you will think sometimes, as I shall think 
 always, that we might have lived innocently and happily 
 in New England, forgetting and forgotten by the rabble 
 we left behind us, having shaken off the slough of an 
 unhappy life, beginning the world again, under new 
 names, in a new climate and country. It was a guilty 
 dream to entertain, perhaps; but I shall dream it often 
 enough in a strange land, among strange faces and 
 strange manners — shall dream of you on my death-bed, 
 and open dying eyes to see you standing by my bed- 
 side, looking down at me with that sweetly sorrowful 
 look I remember best of all the varying expressions in 
 the face I worship. — Farewell for ever. F." 
 
 While her son and daughter were growing up at the 
 Manor Moat, Lady Fareham sparkled at the French 
 Court, one of the most brilliant figures in that brilliant 
 world, a frequent guest at the Louvre and Palais Royal, 
 and the brand-new palace of Versailles, where the largest 
 Court that had ever collected round a throne was ac- 
 commodated in a building of Palladian richness in orna- 
 ment and detail, a Palace whose offices were spacious 
 enough for two thousand servants. No foreigner at the 
 great King's court was more admired than the lovely 
 Lady Fareham, whose separation from her black-browed 
 
IN A DEAD CALM. 2g$ 
 
 husband occasioned no scandal in a society where the 
 husbands of beautiful women were for the most part 
 gentlemen who pursued their own vulgar amours abroad, 
 and allowed a wide liberty to the Venus at home; nor 
 was Henri de Malfort's constant attendance upon her 
 ladyship a cause of evil-speaking, since there was scarce 
 a woman of consequence who had not her cavalierc 
 servante. 
 
 Madame de Sevigne, in one of those budgets of 
 Parisian scandal with which she cheered a kinsman's 
 banishment, assured Bussy de Rabutin that Lady Fare- 
 ham had paid her friend's debts more than once since 
 her return to France; but constancy such as De Malfort's 
 could hardly be expected were not the golden fetters of 
 love riveted by the harder metal of self-interest. Their 
 alliance was looked on with favour by all that brilliant 
 world, and even tolerated by that severe moralist, the 
 Due du Montausier, who had been lately rewarded for 
 his wife's civility to Mademoiselle de la Valliere, now 
 Duchess and reigning favourite, by being made guardian 
 of the infant Dauphin. 
 
 Everyone approved, everyone admired; and Hya- 
 cinth's life in the land she loved was like a long summer 
 day. But darkness came upon that day as suddenly as 
 the night of the tropics. She rose one morning, light- 
 hearted and happy, to pursue the careless round of 
 pleasure. She lay down in a darkened chamber, never 
 again to mix in that splendid crowd. 
 
 Betwixt noon and twilight Henri de Malfort had 
 fallen in a combat of eight, a combat so savage as to 
 recall that fatal fight of five against five during the 
 
294 LONDON PRIDE. 
 
 Fronde, in which Nemours had fallen, shot through the 
 heart by Beaufort. 
 
 The light words of a fool in a tavern, backed by three 
 other fools, had led to this encounter, in which De Mal- 
 fort had been the challenger. He and one of his friends 
 died on the ground, while three on the other side were 
 mortally wounded. It would henceforth be fully under- 
 stood that Lady Fareham's name was not for ribald 
 jesters; but the man Lady Fareham loved was dead, and 
 her life of pleasure had ended with a pistol-ball from an 
 unerring hand. To her it seemed the hand of Fate. 
 She scarcely thought of the man who had killed him. 
 
 As her life had been brilliant and conspicuous, so 
 her retirement from the world was not without eclat. 
 Royalty witnessed the solemn office of the Church which 
 transformed Hyacinth, Lady Fareham, into Mere Agnes, 
 of the Seven Wounds; while, seated in the royal tribune, 
 a King's mistress, beautiful and adored, thought of a day 
 when she, too, might bring to yonder altar the sacrifice 
 of a broken spirit and a life that had outlived earthly 
 happiness. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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