Kitabı oku: «The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival», sayfa 9
"Indeed, madam, I have never blamed you or Providence for that romantic incident. Will your ladyship sit under our favourite tree, where my wife and I have been sitting, or would you prefer to be within doors?"
"Oh, the garden by all means. I adore a garden; and yours is the prettiest for its size I have ever seen, except the rose-garden at Kilrush Abbey, which I dare swear you know."
"My aunt's garden? Yes. I was just old enough to remember her leading me by the hand among her rose trees. She died before my fourth birthday, and I have never seen Kilrush House since her death."
"'Tis vastly at your service, sir, with all it can offer of accommodation, if ever you and your lady care to occupy it for a season."
They were moving slowly towards the apple tree as they talked, Lucy Stobart hanging her head as she crept beside her husband, ashamed of her shrewish outburst, for which she expected a lecture by-and-by, and shedding a penitential tear or two behind a corner of her muslin apron.
"We shall not trespass on your ladyship's generosity. We have framed our lives upon a measure that would make Kilrush House out of the question."
"We are not rich enough to live in a great house," snapped Lucy, sinning again in the midst of her repentance.
"Say rather that we have done with the things that go with wealth and station, and have discovered the happiness that can be found in what fine people call poverty."
Nursemaid and baby had disappeared from the little lawn. Antonia took the seat Mr. Stobart indicated on the rustic bench; but her host and his wife remained standing, Lucy puzzled as to what she ought to do, George too much troubled in mind to know what he was doing.
"Mrs. Stobart, and you, sir, pray be seated. Let us be as friendly as we can," pleaded Antonia. "Be sure I came here in a friendly spirit. Pray be frank with me. I know nothing but what I read in the St. James's Evening Post. Is it true that you were once your cousin's acknowledged heir?"
"No, madam, it is not true. I was but his lordship's nearest relation."
"And he would have inherited his lordship's fortune if he had not married me," said Lucy, with irrepressible vehemence. "Sure you know 'twas so, George! And I can never forgive myself for having cost you a great fortune. And then Lord Kilrush must needs make a much lower marriage – on his death-bed, to spite you, for my father had never been – "
Her husband clapped his hand over her lips before she could finish the sentence. Antonia started up from the bench, pale with indignation.
"Lucy, I am ashamed of you," said George. "Go indoors and play with your baby. You do not know how to converse with a lady. I beg you to forgive her, madam, and to think of her as a pettish child, who will learn better behaviour in time."
"I can forgive much, but not to hear it said that Kilrush had any other motive than his love for me when he made me his wife. I loved him, sir – loved him too dearly to suffer that falsehood for an instant. No, Mrs. Stobart, don't go," as Lucy began to creep away, ashamed of her misconduct. "You must hear why I came, and what I have to say to your husband. I came as a friend, and I hoped to find a friendly welcome. I came to do justice, if justice can be done, but not to apologize for a marriage which was prompted by love, and love alone."
"Be patient with us, madam, and you may yet find us worthy of your friendship," said Stobart, gently. "But first of all be assured that we ask nothing from your generosity. We assert no claim to justice, not considering ourselves wronged."
"You think differently from your wife, Mr. Stobart."
"Oh, madam, cannot you see that my wife is a wayward child, who has never learnt to reason? To-night, on her knees at the foot of the Cross, she will shed penitential tears for her sins of pride and impatience."
"Pray, sir, do not talk of sin. 'Twas natural, perhaps, that your wife should think ill of me."
"Oh, madam, 'twas for his sake only that I was angry," protested Lucy, with streaming eyes. "Satan gets the better of me when I remember that he was disinherited for marrying me; and I thought you had come here to triumph over him. But, indeed, I covet nobody's fortune, and am content with this dear cottage, where I have been happier than I ever was in my life before."
"Let us be friends, then, Mrs. Stobart," Antonia said, with a graciousness that completely subjugated the contrite Lucy, whose murmured reply was inaudible, and who sat gazing at the visitor in a rapture of admiration.
Never had Lucy's eyes beheld so handsome a woman, or such a hat, with its black ostrich feathers, clasped at the side by a diamond buckle that flashed rainbow light in the sunshine. The glancing sheen of the pale grey gown, the long gloves drawn to the elbow under deep ruffles of Flemish lace, the diamond cross sparkling between the folds of Cyprus gauze that veiled the corsage, the tout-ensemble of a fine lady's toilette, filled Mrs. Stobart with wonder. Wholly unconscious of the impression she had made on the wife, Antonia addressed herself to the husband with an earnest countenance.
"I am thankful to find you do not accuse Lord Kilrush of injustice," she said. "But as his kinsman, you may naturally have expected to inherit some part of his wealth; and I therefore beg you to accept a fourth share of my income, which is reckoned at twenty thousand pounds. I hope that with five thousand a year your wife will be able to enjoy all the pleasures that fortune can give."
"Oh, Georgie!" exclaimed Lucy, breathless with a rapturous surprise.
Her husband laid his hand on hers with a caressing touch.
"Hush, my dearest," he said; and then in a graver tone, "Your offer is as unexpected as it is generous, madam; but I will not take advantage of an impulse which you might afterwards regret, and of which the world you live in would question the wisdom. Be sure I do not envy you my kinsman's fortune. If I ever stood in the place of his heir I lost that place two years before he died. He told me plainly that he meant to strike my name out of his will. I hoped for nothing, desired nothing from him."
"But sure, sir, nobody loves poverty. I have tasted it, and know what it means; and since I have enjoyed all the luxuries of wealth I own that it would distress me to go back to the two-pair parlour of which the evening papers love to remind me."
"True, madam; for in your world pleasure and money are inseparable ideas. When I left that world – at the call of religion – I renounced something far dearer to me than fortune. I gave up a soldier's career, and the hope to serve my country, and write my name upon her register of honourable deeds. Having made that sacrifice, I have nothing to lose, except the lives of those I love – nothing to desire for them or for myself, except that our present happiness may continue."
"But if I assure you that your acceptance of my offer would ease my conscience – "
"Nay, madam, your conscience may rest easy in the assurance that we are content – "
"I do not think your wife is content, Mr. Stobart. She received me just now as an enemy. Let me convince her that I am her friend."
"You can do that in a hundred ways, madam, without making her rich, which would be to be her enemy in disguise."
"Sure, your ladyship, I was full of sinfulness and pride when I spoke to you so uncivilly," Lucy said, in a contrite voice. "Mr. Stobart is a better judge of all serious matters than I am. I should never be clever if I lived to be a hundred, in spite of the pains he takes to teach me. And if he thinks we had best be poor, why, so do I; and this house is a palace compared with the hovel I lived in before he took me away from my father and mother."
"You hear, Lady Kilrush, my wife and I are of one mind. But to prove that 'tis for no stubborn pride that I reject your generous offer, I promise to appeal to your kindness at any hour of need, and, further, to call upon you once in a way for those charitable works in which the men I most honour are engaged. There is Mr. Whitefield's American Orphanage, for example – "
"Oh, command my purse, I pray you, sir. I rejoice in helping the poor – I who have known poverty. I will send you something for your orphans to-night. Let me assist all your good works."
"'Tis very generous of your ladyship to help us; for I doubt your own religious views scarcely tally with those of my friends."
"I have no religious views, Mr. Stobart. I have no religion except the love of my fellow-creatures."
"Great Heaven, madam, have the undermining influences of a corrupt society so early sapped your belief in Christ?"
"No, sir, society has not influenced me. I have never been a believer in Christianity as a creed, though I can admire Jesus of Nazareth as a philanthropist, and grieve for him as a martyr to the cruelty of man. I was taught to reason, where other children are taught to believe; to question and to think for myself, where other children are taught to be dumb and to stifle thought."
Stobart gazed at her with horror. Mrs. Stobart listened open-mouthed, astonished at the audacity which could give speech to such opinions.
"Oh, madam, 'tis sad to hear outspoken unbelief from the lips of youth. I doubt you have suffered the influence of that pernicious writer whose pen has peopled France with infidels."
"If, sir, you mean Voltaire, you do ill to condemn the apostle of toleration, to whom you and all other dissenters should be grateful."
"I scorn the championship of an infidel. I am no more a dissenter than the Wesleys or George Whitefield. I have not ceased to belong to the Church of England because I follow heaven-born teachers sent to startle that Church from a century of torpor. They have not ceased to be of the Church because bishops disapprove their ardour and parish priests exclude them from their pulpits."
"Oh, sir, I doubt not that you and those gentlemen are honest in your convictions. 'Tis my misfortune, perhaps, that I cannot think as you do."
"If you would condescend to hear those inspired preachers you would not long walk in the darkness that now encompasses you; for sure, madam, God meant you to be among the children of light, one of His elect, awaiting but His appointed hour for your redemption. Oh, after that new birth, how you will hate the life that lies behind! With what tears you will atone for your unbelief!"
His earnestness startled her. His strong voice trembled, his dark grey eyes were clouded with tears. Could any man so concern himself about the spiritual welfare of a stranger? She had grown up with a deep-rooted prejudice against professing Christians. She expected nothing from religious people but harshness and injustice, self-esteem and arrogance, masked under an assumption of humility. This man talked the jargon she hated, but she could not doubt his sincerity.
"Alas! madam, my heart aches for you, when I consider the peril of your soul. With youth and beauty, wealth, the world's esteem – all Satan's choicest lures – what safeguard, what defence have you?"
"Moi!" she answered, rising suddenly, and looking proud defiance at him, remembering that heroic monosyllable in Corneille's "Medea." "Oh, sir, it is on ourselves – on the light within, not the God in the sky – we must depend in the conflict between right and wrong. Do you think a creed can help a man in temptation, or that the Thirty-Nine Articles ever saved a sinner from falling?"
He was silent, lost in admiration at so much spirit and beauty, such boldness and pride. His own ideal of womanly grace was gentleness, obedience, an amiable nullity; but he must needs own the triumphant charms of this bold disputant, who was not afraid to confess an impiety that shocked him. He had known many Deists among his own sex; but the wickedest women he had met in his unregenerate days had been like the devils that believe and tremble.
"I have stayed over long," said Antonia, resuming the easy tone of trivial conversation, "and I have my woman waiting for me at the inn. Good day to you, Mrs. Stobart, and pray remember we are to be friends. I hope your husband will bring you to dine with me in St. James's Square."
"I know not if it would be wise to accept your ladyship's polite invitation," Stobart answered, "though we are grateful for the kindness that inspires it. I have an inward assurance that I am safest in keeping aloof from the world I once loved too well. My life here holds all that is good for my soul – all that my heart can desire."
"But is your religion but a passive piety, sir? Do you follow the doctrine of the Moravians, who abjure all active righteousness, and wait in stillness for the coming of faith? Do you do nothing for Christianity?"
"Indeed, madam, he works like a slave in doing good," protested Lucy, eagerly. "Mr. Wesley has given him a mission among the poorest wretches at Lambeth. He has set up a dispensary there, and schools for the children, and a night class for grown men. He toils among them for many hours three or four days a week. I tremble lest he should take some dreadful fever, and come home to me only to die. He goes to the prisons, and reads to the condemned creatures, and comes home broken-hearted at the cruelty of the law, at the sinfulness of mankind. What does he do for religion? He gives his life for it – almost as his Redeemer did!"
"You teach me to honour him, madam, and to honour you for so generously defending him against my impertinence. Pray forgive me, and you too, Mr. Stobart. I have allowed myself great freedom of speech; and if you do not return my visit I shall be sure you are offended."
"We shall not suffer you to think that, madam," Stobart answered gravely.
He insisted on escorting her to her carriage, and in the walk of nearly a mile they had time for conversation. He suffered himself for that brief span to acknowledge the existence of mundane things, and talked of Handel's oratorios, Richardson's novels, and even of Garrick and Shakespeare. He handed Lady Kilrush to her carriage, and saw her drive away from the inn door, a radiant vision in the afternoon light, before he went back to the cottage, and the adoring young wife, and the yearling baby, and a dish of tea, and the story of Eve and the Serpent.
The next day's post brought him an enclosure of two bank bills for five hundred pounds each, and one line in a strong and somewhat masculine penmanship.
"For your poor of Lambeth, and for Mr. Whitefield's orphans.
"ANTONIA KILRUSH."
CHAPTER XI.
ANTONIA'S INITIATION
'Twas the close of the season when Antonia arrived in London, and she left St. James's Square two days after her interview with the Stobarts, on a visit to Lady Margaret Laroche at Bath, where that lady's drawing-rooms in Pulteney Street were open every evening to those worldlings who preferred whist and commerce to Whitefield, and the airy gossip of the beau monde to the heart-searchings of the aristocratic penitents who attended Lady Huntingdon's assemblies. Lady Margaret, familiarly known in the fashionable world as Lady Peggy, was one of those rare and delightful women who, without any desire to revolutionize, dare to think for themselves, and to arrange their lives in accord with their own tastes and inclinations, unshackled by the mode of the moment. Her circle was the most varied and the pleasantest in London and Bath, and she carried with her an atmosphere of easy gaiety which made her an element of cheerfulness in every house she visited. In a word, she had esprit, which, united with liberal ideas and far-reaching sympathies, made her the most delightful of companions as well as the staunchest of friends.
This lady – a distant cousin of Lord Kilrush's – had deemed it her duty to wait upon Antonia; and, finding as much intelligence as beauty, took the young widow under her wing and promised to make her the fashion.
"With so fine a house and so good an income you will like to see people," she said. "You had best spend a month with me at the Bath, where you will meet at least half the great world, and you will grow familiar with them there in less time than 'twould take you to be on curtseying terms in London, where the Court takes up so much of everybody's attention, and politics go before friendship. At the Bath we are all Jack and Peggy, my dear and my love. We eat badly cooked dinners in sweltering parlours, dance or gossip in a mixed mob at the Rooms every night, and simmer together in a witches' cauldron every morning; at least, other people do; but for my own part I abjure all such community in ailments."
At Bath Antonia found herself the rage in less than a fortnight, and had a crowd round her whenever she appeared among the morning dippers or at the evening dance. She was voted the most magnificent creature who had appeared since Lady Coventry began to go off in looks; and the men almost hustled each other for the privilege of handing her to her chair.
She accepted their attentions with a lofty indifference that enhanced her charms. Men talked of her "goddess air;" and in that age of sobriquets she was soon known as Juno and as Diana. She kept them all at an equal distance, yet was polite to all. Her sense of humour was tickled by the memory of those evening walks with her father in the West End streets, when she had caught stray glimpses of fashionable assemblies through open windows. "Was I as perfect a creature then as the woman they pretend to worship?" she questioned; "and, if I was, how strange that of all the men who passed me in the street, there was but one now and then, and he some hateful Silenus, that ever tried to pursue me. But I had not my white and silver gown then, nor the Kilrush jewels, nor my coach and six."
She had a supreme contempt for adulation which she ascribed to her fortune rather than to her charms; and Lady Margaret saw with satisfaction that her protégée's head was not one of those that the first-comer can turn.
"'Tis inevitable you should take a second husband," she said, "but I hope you will wait for a duke."
"There is no duke in England would tempt me, dear Lady Peggy. I shall carry my husband's name to the grave, where I hope to lie beside him."
"'Tis a graceful, romantic fancy you cherish, child; but be sure there will come a day when some warm living love will divert your thoughts from that icy rendezvous."
"Ah, madam, think how inimitable a lover I lost."
"I know he was an insinuating wretch whom women found irresistible; but you are too young to hang over an urn for the rest of your days, like a marble figure in Westminster Abbey. There is a long life before you that you must not spend in solitude."
"While I have so kind a friend as your ladyship I can never think myself alone."
"Alas! Antonia, I am an old woman. My friendship is like the fag end of a lease."
Lady Margaret was the widow of an admiral, with a handsome jointure, and a small neat house in Spring Gardens, where she was visited by all the best people in town, and by all the best-known painters, authors, and actors of the day, who were often to be found at four o'clock seated round her ladyship's dinner-table, and drinking her ladyship's admirable port and burgundy. Temperate herself as a sylph, Lady Peggy was a judge of wines, and always gave the best. She had a clever Scotchwoman for her cook, and a Frenchman for her major-domo, who kept her two Italian footmen in order, and did not think it beneath his dignity to compose a salmi, toss an omelet, or dress a salad on a special occasion, when a genius of the highest mark or a princess of the blood royal was to dine with his mistress.
With such a guide Antonia opened her house to the great world early in November, and her entertainments became at once the top of the fashion. Lady Margaret had instructed her in the whole science of party-giving, and especially whom to invite and whom to leave out.
"'Tis by the people who are not asked your parties will rank highest," she said.
"Sure, dear madam, I should not like to slight any one."
"Pshaw, woman, if you never slight any one you will confess yourself a parvenu. The first art a grande dame has to learn is how to be uncivil civilly. You must be gracious to every one you meet; but you cannot be too exclusive when it comes to inviting people."
"But if I am to look for spotless reputations my rooms will be empty;" and Antonia smiled at the thought of how small and dowdy a crew she could muster were stainless virtue the pass-word.
"You will invite nobody who has been found out – no woman who has thrown her cap over the mill, no man who has been detected cheating at cards. There are lots of 'em do it, but that don't count."
"But, dear Lady Margaret, among the actresses and authors you receive sure there must be some doubtful characters."
"Not doubtful, chérie; we know all about 'em. But their peccadillos don't count. We inquire no more about 'em than about the morals of a dancing bear. The creatures are there to amuse us, and we are not curious as how they behave in their garrets and back parlours. But 'twas not so much reputation I thought of when I urged you to be exclusive. 'Tis the ugly and the dull you must eliminate; the empty chatterers; the corpulent bores, who block doorways and crowd supper-rooms. There's your visiting list, douce," concluded Lady Peggy, handing her a closely written sheet of Bath post. "'Tis the salt of the earth, and if you ever introduce an unworthy name in it out of easy good nature, you deserve to lose all hope of fashion."
To be the fashion, to be one of the chosen few whom all foreigners and outsiders want to see; to be mobbed in the Park, stared at in the playhouse and at the opera; to be imitated in dress, gesture, speech; to introduce the latest mispronunciation and call Bristol "Bristo," – is it not the highest prize in the lottery of woman's life? To be famous as painter, poet, actor? Alas! a fleeting renown. The new generation is at the door. The veteran must give way. But the empire of fashion is more enduring, and having won that crown, a woman must be a simpleton if she do not wear it all her life, and bring the best people in town to gape and whisper round her death-bed.
Antonia's first ball was a triumph. The lofty suites of rooms, the double staircase and surrounding gallery were thronged with rank and beauty; the clothes were finer than at the last birthday, the silver and gold brocades of dazzling splendour; the jewels, borrowed, hired, or owned, flashed prismatic colours across the softer candlelight. The newspapers expatiated on the entertainment, computed the candles by the thousand, the footmen by the score. Lady Kilrush was at once established as a woman of the highest ton; her drawing-rooms were crowded with morning visitors, her tea-table at six o'clock served as a rendezvous for all that was choicest in the world of fashion. Every day brought a series of engagements – breakfasts at Strawberry Hill, where Horace Walpole exercised his most delightful talents for the amusement of so charming a guest; great dinners where the Ministers and the Opposition drank their three bottles together in amity, the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham, Pitt and Fox, Granville and Pulteney, – a galaxy of ribbons and stars; parties at Syon House and at Osterley; excursions to Hampton Court and Windsor, braving the wintry roads in a coach and six, and with half a dozen out-riders as a guard against the hazards of the journey. Lady Kilrush had become one of the most popular women in London, and the only evil thing that was said of her was that she did not return visits as quickly as people expected.
Was she happy in the midst of it all, she who believed only in this brief life and the pleasure or the pain that it holds? Yes. She was too young, too beautiful and complete a creature not to be intoxicated by the brilliancy of her new existence, and the sense of unbounded power that wealth gave her. The novelty of the life was in itself enough for happiness. The London in which she moved to-day was as new to her as Rome had been, and more splendid, if less romantic. Operas, concerts, plays, auctions, picture-galleries, masquerades, ridottos, provided a series of pleasures that surpassed her dreams. Handel and the Italian singers offered inexhaustible delight. She might tire of all the rest – of Court balls and modish drums, of bidding for china monsters, buying toys of Mrs. Chenevix and trinkets of jeweller Deard in Pall Mall – but of music she could never tire, and the more she heard of Handel's oratorios the better she loved them.
