London Pride, Or, When the World Was Younger by M. E. Braddon (books to read for beginners TXT) 📖

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 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 delight, 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 civility. 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 countenance 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, 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 direction 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 délicats se nommaient des plaisirs.'"

"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 attractive at six and thirty?"

"Yes, villain; for at my age thou wilt have experience."

"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 Chancellor, and a man of prodigious usefulness, is intolerable 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 shoulders. 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 Buckinghamshire Knight's daughter married to a Baron of Henry the Eighth's creation! And that this amazing condescension—received with a smiling and curtsying civility—should have been unacknowledged by any reciprocal 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 somewhat intimate with your ladyship, he has doubtless given you full particulars of his friendship for my wife. I assure 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 Fareham 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, flames had devoured it—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 afflictions 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 Béarnais, 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 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 Versailles——"

"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 were 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 Condé's sister, with the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Princess Palatine——"

"Are those such good women?"

"Humph! They are ladies. These are