London Pride, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [book recommendations website txt] 📗

the poor woman was sent to die of _ennui_ and rheumatism in a castle among the Irish bogs, where her citizen husband had set up as a landed squire.

The fine company discussed all these foul stories with gusto, insinuating much more than they expressed in words. Never until to-day had they spoken so freely of De Malfort in Lady Fareham's presence; but the story had got about of a breach between Hyacinth and her admirer, and it was supposed that any abuse of the defaulter would be pleasant in her ears. And then, he was ruined and gone; and there is no vulture's feast sweeter than to banquet upon a departed rival's character.

Hyacinth listened in dull silence, as if her sensations were suddenly benumbed. She felt nothing but a horrible surprise. Her lover--her platonic lover--that other half of her mind and heart--with whom she had been in such tender sympathy, in unison of spirit, so subtle that the same thoughts sprang up simultaneously in the minds of each, the same language leapt to their lips, and they laughed to find their words alike. It had been only a shallow woman's shallow love--but trivial woes are tragedies for trivial minds; and when her guests had gradually melted away, dispersing themselves with reciprocal curtsies and airy compliments, elegant in their modish iniquity as a troop of vicious fairies--Hyacinth stood on the hearth where they had left her, a statue of despair.

Angela went to her, when the stately double doors had closed on the last of the gossips and lackeys, and they two were alone amidst the spacious splendour. The younger sister hugged the elder to her breast, and kissed her, and cried over her, like a mother comforting her disappointed child.

"Don't heed that shameful talk, dearest. No character is safe with them. Be sure Monsieur de Malfort is not the reprobate they would make him. You have known him nearly all your life. You know him too well to judge him by the idle talk of the town."

"No, no; I have never known him. He has always worn a mask. He is as false as Satan. Don't talk to me--don't kiss me, child. You have smeared my face horribly with your kisses and tears. Your pity drives me mad. How can you understand these things--you who have never loved any one? What can you know of what women feel? There, silly fool! you are trembling as if I had hit you," as Angela withdrew her arms suddenly, and stood aloof. "I have been a virtuous wife, sister, in a town where scarce one woman in ten is true to her marriage vows. I have never sinned against my husband; but I have never loved him. Henri had my heart before I knew what the word, love meant; and in all these years we have loved each other with the purest, noblest affection--at least he made me believe my love was reciprocated. We have enjoyed a most exquisite communion of thought and feeling. His letters--you shall read his letters some day--so noble, so brilliant--all poetry, and chivalry, and wit. I lived upon his letters when fate parted us. And when he followed us to England, I thought it was for my sake that he came--only for me. And to hear that he was her lover--hers--that woman! To know that he came to me--with sweetest words upon his lips--knelt to kiss the tips of my fingers--as if it were a privilege to die for--from her arms, from her caresses--the wickedest woman in England--and the loveliest!"

"Dear Hyacinth, it was a childish dream--and you have awakened! You will live to be glad of being recalled from falsehood to truth. Your husband is worth fifty De Malforts, did you but know it. Oh, dearest, give him your heart who ought to be its only master. Indeed he is worthy. He stands apart--an honourable, nobly thinking man in a world that is full of libertines. Be sure he deserves your love."

"Don't preach to me, child! If you could give me a sleeping-draught that would blot out memory for ever--make me forget my childhood in the Marais--my youth at St. Germain--the dances at the Louvre--all the days when I was happiest: why, then, perhaps, you might make me in love with Lord Fareham."

"You will begin a new life, sister, now De Malfort is gone."

"I will never forgive him for going!" cried Hyacinth, passionately. "Never--never! To give me no note of warning! To sneak away like a thief who had stolen my diamonds! To fly for debt, too, and not come to me for money! Why have I a fortune, if not to help those I love? But--if he was that woman's lover--I will never see his face again--never speak his name--never--from the moment I am convinced of that hellish treason--never! Her lover! Lady Castlemaine's! We have laughed at her, together! Her lover! And there were other women those spiteful wretches talked about just now--a tradesman's wife! Oh, how hateful, how hateful it all is! Angela, if it is true, I shall go mad!"

"Dearest, to you he was but a friend--and though you may be sorry he was so great a sinner, his sins cannot concern your happiness----"

"What! not to know him a profligate? The man to whom I gave a chaste woman's love! Angela, that night, in the ruined abbey, I let him kiss me. Yes, for one moment I was in his arms--and his lips were on mine. And he had kissed her--the same night perhaps. Her tainted kisses were on his lips. And it was you who saved me! Dear sister, I owe you more than life--I might have given myself to everlasting shame that night. God knows! I was in his power--her lover--judging all women, perhaps, by his knowledge of that----"

The epithet which closed the sentence was not a word for a woman's lips; but it was wrung from the soreness of a woman's wounded heart.

Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister's arms.

"You saved me!" she cried, hysterically. "He wanted me to go to Dover with him--back to France--where we were so happy. He knelt to me, and I refused him; but he prayed me again and again; and if you had not come to rescue me, should I have gone on saying no? God knows if my courage would have held out. There were tears in his eyes. He swore that he had never loved any one upon this earth as he loved me. Hypocrite! Deceiver--liar! He loved that woman! Twenty times handsomer than ever I was--a hundred times more wicked. It is the wicked women that are best loved, Angela, remember that. Oh, bless you for coming to save me! You saved Fareham's life in the plague year. You saved me from everlasting misery. You are our guardian angel!"

"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 ladyship so late.

Her ladyship 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 ladyship'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 ladyship, there was never such a business as mine for surprises. I was putting on my cloak to step out with your ladyship's letter, when a coach, with a footman in the royal undress livery, sets down at my door, and one of the Duchess'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 fashions----"

"And employs your rival, Madame Marifleur----"

"Marifleur! If your ladyship 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 ladyship is in such good spirits," said the milliner, wondering at Lady Fareham's flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes.

They were brilliant with a somewhat glassy 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 clusters 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 muff.

"I made so bold as to bring your ladyship some patterns of Italian silks which only came to hand this morning," she said. "There is a cherry-red that would become your ladyship to the T."

"Make me a gown of it, my excellent Lewin--and good night to you."

"But sure your ladyship 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 ladyship."

"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.

"Chérie, 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 friendship 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,