Part 31 (2/2)
”Ah, dearest, if love could guard you, I might deserve that name--”
It was late in the same evening that Lady Fareham's maid came to her bed-chamber 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 ladys.h.i.+p so late.
Her ladys.h.i.+p 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 impatience.
”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 ladys.h.i.+p'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 ladys.h.i.+p, there was never such a business as mine for surprises. I was putting on my cloak to step out with your ladys.h.i.+p's letter, when a coach, with a footman in the royal undress livery, sets down at my door, and one of the d.u.c.h.ess'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 my credit-though she is a beauty compared with the Queen, who still hankers after her hideous Portuguese fas.h.i.+ons--”
”And employs your rival, Madame Marifleur--”
”Marifleur! If your ladys.h.i.+p knew the creature as well as I do, you'd call her Sally Cramp.”
”I never can remember a low English name. Marifleur 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 ladys.h.i.+p is in such good spirits,” said the milliner, wondering at Lady Fareham's flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes.
They were brilliant with a somewhat gla.s.sy brightness, 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 m.u.f.f.
”I made so bold as to bring your ladys.h.i.+p some patterns of Italian silks which only came to hand this morning,” she said. ”There is a cherry-red that would become your ladys.h.i.+p to the T.”
”Make me a gown of it, my excellent Lewin-and good night to you.”
”But sure your ladys.h.i.+p 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 ladys.h.i.+p.”
”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 friends.h.i.+p 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 cannot go on wors.h.i.+pping 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 pa.s.sion and keep love alive even for an inferior object. The ugly women know this, and make lax morals a subst.i.tute for beauty. An innocent intrigue, a b.u.t.terfly affection like ours, will seldom outlive the b.u.t.terfly'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.
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