Part 30 (2/2)
”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 ba.s.set.”
”It will be very long before I play ba.s.set 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 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 trans.m.u.ted to coa.r.s.eness 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 Precieuses 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 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 shamefully she had been imitated by the spurious middle-cla.s.s 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 abstractions; 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 refres.h.i.+ng 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 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 princ.i.p.al 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 s.h.i.+ne out, twinkling and dancing like stars reflected in running water, and it stamps its little foot upon the stage in a comic pa.s.sion-and-nous verrons. It sold oranges in the pit, folks tell me, a year ago. It may be selling sinecures and captaincies in a year or two, and putting another s.h.i.+lling in the pound upon land.”
”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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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?” asked Hyacinth, s.n.a.t.c.hing a favourite fan from Sir Ralph, who was teasing one of the Blenheims with African feathers that were almost priceless.
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