A Lady of Quality<br />Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bicke by Frances Hodgson Burnett (world of reading .TXT) đ
- Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
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âAnd youâdid notââ cried out Anne, and raised upon her elbow, her breast panting, but her eyes growing wide with light as from stars from heaven. âOh, sister loveâthanks be to Christ who died!â
The duchess rose, and stood up tall and great, her arms out-thrown.
âI think âtwas God Himself who did it,â she said, âthough âtwas I who struck the blow. He drove me mad and blind, he tortured me, and thrust to my heartâs core. He taunted me with that vile thing Nature will not let women bear, and did it in my Geraldâs name, calling on him. And then I struck with my whip, knowing nothing, not seeing, only striking, like a goaded dying thing. He fellâhe fell and lay thereâand all was done!â
âBut not with murderous thoughtâonly through frenzy and a cruel chanceâa cruel, cruel chance. And of your own will blood is not upon your hand,â Anne panted, and sank back upon her pillow.
âWith deepest oaths I swear,â Clorinda said, and she spoke through her clenched teeth, âif I had not loved, if Gerald had not been my soulâs life and I his, I would have stood upright and laughed in his face at the devilâs threats. Should I have feared? You know me. Was there a thing on earth or in heaven or hell I feared until love rent me. âTwould but have fired my blood, and made me mad with fury that dares all. âSpread it abroad!â I would have cried to him. âTell it to all the world, craven and outcast, whose vileness all men know, and see how I shall bear myself, and how I shall drive through the town with head erect. As I bore myself when I set the rose crown on my head, so shall I bear myself then. And you shall see what comes!â This would I have said, and held to it, and gloried. But I knew love, and there was an anguish that I could not endureâthat my Gerald should look at me with changed eyes, feeling that somewhat of his rightful meed was gone. And I was all distraught and conquered. Of ending his base life I never thought, never at my wildest, though I had thought to end my own; but when Fate struck the blow for me, then I swore that carrion should not taint my whole life through. It should notâshould notâfor âtwas Fateâs self had doomed me to my ruin. And there it lay until the night; for this I planned, that being of such great strength for a woman, I could bear his body in my arms to the farthest of that labyrinth of cellars I had commanded to be cut off from the rest and closed; and so I did when all were sleepingâbut you, poor Anneâbut you! And there I laid him, and there he lies to-dayâan evil thing turned to a handful of dust.â
âIt was not murder,â whispered Anneââno, it was not.â She lifted to her sisterâs gaze a quivering lip. âAnd yet once I had loved himâyears I had loved him,â she said, whispering still. âAnd in a woman there is ever somewhat that the mother creature feelsââthe hand which held her sisterâs shook as with an ague, and her poor lip quiveredââSister, Iâsaw him again!â
The duchess drew closer as she gasped, âAgain!â
âI could not rest,â the poor voice said. âHe had been so base, he was so beautiful, and so unworthy loveâand he was dead,ânone knowing, untouched by any hand that even pitied him that he was so base a thing, for that indeed is piteous when death comes and none can be repentant. And he lay so hard, so hard upon the stones.â
Her teeth were chattering, and with a breath drawn like a wild sob of terror, the duchess threw her arm about her and drew her nearer.
âSweet Anne,â she shudderedââsweet Anneâcome backâyou wander!â
âNay, âtis not wandering,â Anne said. ââTis true, sister. There is no night these years gone by I have not remembered it againâand seen. In the night after that you bore him thereâI prayed until the mid-hours, when all were sleeping fastâand then I stole downâin my bare feet, that none could hear meâand at last I found my way in the black darkâfeeling the walls until I reached that farthest door in the stoneâand then I lighted my taper and oped it.â
âAnne!â cried the duchessââAnne, look through the tower window at the blueness of the skyâat the blueness, Anne!â But drops of cold water had started out and stood upon her brow.
âHe lay there in his graveâit was a little black place with its stone wallsâhis fair locks were tumbled,â Anne went on, whispering. âThe spot was black upon his browâand methought he had stopped mocking, and surely looked upon some great and awful thing which asked of him a question. I knelt, and laid his curls straight, and his hands, and tried to shut his eyes, but close they would not, but stared at that which questioned. And having loved him so, I kissed his poor cheek as his mother might have done, that he might not stand outside, having carried not one tender human thought with him. And, oh, I prayed, sisterâI prayed for his poor soul with all my own. âIf there is one noble or gentle thing he has ever done through all his life,â I prayed, âJesus remember itâChrist do not forget.â We who are human do so few things that are nobleâoh, surely one must count.â
The duchessâs head lay near her sisterâs breast, and she had fallen a-sobbingâa-sobbing and weeping like a young broken child.
âOh, brave and noble, pitiful, strong, fair soul!â she cried. âAs Christ loved you have loved, and He would hear your praying. Since you so pleaded, He would find one thing to hang His mercy on.â
She lifted her fair, tear-streaming face, clasping her hands as one praying.
âAnd Iâand I,â she criedââhave I not built a temple on his grave? Have I not tried to live a fair life, and be as Christ bade me? Have I not loved, and pitied, and succoured those in pain? Have I not filled a great manâs days with bliss, and love, and wifely worship? Have I not given him noble children, bred in high lovingness, and taught to love all things God made, even the very beasts that perish, since they, too, suffer as all do? Have I left aught undone? Oh, sister, I have so prayed that I left naught. Even though I could not believe that there was One who, ruling all, could yet be pitiless as He is to some, I have prayed Thatâwhich sure it seems must be, though we comprehend it notâto teach me faith in something greater than my poor self, and not of earth. Say this to Christâs self when you are face to faceâsay this to Him, I pray you! Anne, Anne, look not so strangely through the window at the blueness of the sky, sweet soul, but look at me.â
For Anne lay upon her pillow so smiling that âtwas a strange thing to behold. It seemed as she were smiling at the whiteness of the doves against the blue. A moment her sister stood up watching her, and then she stirred, meaning to go to call one of the servants waiting outside; but though she moved not her gaze from the tower window, Mistress Anne faintly spoke.
âNayâstay,â she breathed. âI goâsoftlyâstay.â
Clorinda fell upon her knees again and bent her lips close to her ear. This was death, and yet she feared it notâthis was the passing of a soul, and while it went it seemed so fair and loving a thing that she could ask it her last questionâher greatestâknowing it was so near to God that its answer must be rest.
âAnne, Anne,â she whispered, âmust he knowâmy Gerald? Must Iâmust I tell him all? If so I must, I willâupon my knees.â
The doves came flying downward from the blue, and lighted on the window stone and cooedâAnneâs answer was as low as her soft breath and her still eyes were filled with joy at that she saw but which another could not.
âNay,â she breathed. âTell him not. What need? Wait, and let God tell himâwho understands.â
Then did her soft breath stop, and she lay still, her eyes yet open and smiling at the blossoms, and the doves who sate upon the window-ledge and lowly cooed and cooed.
* * * * *
âTwas her duchess sister who clad her for her last sleeping, and made her chamber fairâthe hand of no other touched her; and while âtwas done the tower chamber was full of the golden sunshine, and the doves ceased not to flutter about the window, and coo as if they spoke lovingly to each other of what lay within the room.
Then the children came to look, their arms full of blossoms and flowering sprays. They had been told only fair things of death, and knowing but these fair things, thought of it but as the opening of a golden door. They entered softly, as entering the chamber of a queen, and moving tenderly, with low and gentle speech, spread all their flowers about the bedâlaying them round her head, on her breast, and in her hands, and strewing them thick everywhere.
âShe lies in a bower and smiles at us,â one said. âShe hath grown beautiful like you, mother, and her face seems like a white star in the morning.â
âShe loves us as she ever did,â the fair child Daphne said; âshe will never cease to love us, and will be our angel. Now have we an angel of our own.â
When the duke returned, who had been absent since the day before, the duchess led him to the tower chamber, and they stood together hand in hand and gazed at her peace.
âGerald,â the duchess said, in her tender voice, âshe smiles, does not she?â
âYes,â was Osmondeâs answerââyes, love, as if at God, who has smiled at herselfâfaithful, tender woman heart!â
The hand which he held in his clasp clung closer. The other crept to his shoulder and lay there tremblingly.
âHow faithful and how tender, my Gerald,â Clorinda said, âI only know. She is my saintâsweet Anne, whom I dared treat so lightly in my poor wayward days. Gerald, she knows all my sins, and to-day she has carried them in her pure hands to God and asked His mercy on them. She had none of her own.â
âAnd so having done, dear heart, she lies amid her flowers, and smiles,â he said, and he drew her white hand to press it against his breast.
* * * * *
While her body slept beneath soft turf and flowers, and that which was her self was given in Godâs heaven, all joys for which her earthly being had yearned, even when unknowing how to name its longing, each year that passed made more complete and splendid the lives of those she so had loved. Never, âtwas said, had woman done such deeds of gentleness and shown so sweet and generous a wisdom as the great duchess. None who were weak were in danger if she used her strength to aid them; no man or woman was a lost thing whom she tried to save: such tasks she set herself as no lady had ever given herself before; but âtwas not her way to failâher will being so powerful, her brain so clear, her heart so purely noble. Pauper and prince, noble and hind honoured her and her lord alike, and all felt wonder at their happiness. It seemed that they had learned lifeâs meaning and the honouring of love, and this they taught to their children, to the enriching of a long and noble line. In the ripeness of years they passed from earth in as beauteous peace as the sun sets, and upon a tablet above the resting-place of their ancestors there are inscribed lines like these:â
âHere sleeps by her husband the purest and noblest lady God eâer loved, yet the high and gentle deeds of her chaste sweet life sleep not, but live and grow, and so will do so long as earth is earth.â
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