A Lady of Quality [69]
knew she had never reached.
At midnight, having just made obeisance before Royalty retiring, she felt that at length he had drawn near and was standing at her side.
"To-night," he said, in the low undertone it was his way to keep for such occasions, knowing how he could pierce her ear--"to-night you are Juno's self--a very Queen of Heaven!"
She made no answer.
"And I have stood and watched you moving among all lesser goddesses as the moon sails among the stars, and I have smiled in thinking of what these lesser deities would say if they had known what I bear in my breast to-night."
She did not even make a movement--in truth, she felt that at his next words she might change to stone.
"I have found it," he said--"I have it here--the lost treasure--the tress of hair like a raven's wing and six feet long. Is there another woman in England who could give a man a lock like it?"
She felt then that she had, in sooth, changed to stone; her heart hung without moving in her breast; her eyes felt great and hollow and staring as she lifted them to him.
"I knew not," she said slowly, and with bated breath, for the awfulness of the moment had even made her body weak as she had never known it feel before--"I knew not truly that hell made things like you."
Whereupon he made a movement forward, and the crowd about surged nearer with hasty exclamations, for the strange weakness of her body had overpowered her in a way mysterious to her, and she had changed to marble, growing too heavy of weight for her sinking limbs. And those in the surrounding groups saw a marvellous thing--the same being that my Lady Dunstanwolde swayed as she turned, and falling, lay stretched, as if dead, in her white and silver and flashing jewels at the startled beholders' feet.
* * *
She wore no radiant look when she went home that night. She would go home alone and unescorted, excepting by her lacqueys, refusing all offers of companionship when once placed in her equipage. There were, of course, gentlemen who would not be denied leading her to her coach; John Oxon was among them, and at the last pressed close, with a manner of great ceremony, speaking a final word.
"'Tis useless, your ladyship," he murmured, as he made his obeisance gallantly, and though the words were uttered in his lowest tone and with great softness, they reached her ear as he intended that they should. "To-morrow morning I shall wait upon you."
Anne had forborne going to bed, and waited for her return, longing to see her spirit's face again before she slept; for this poor tender creature, being denied all woman's loves and joys by Fate, who had made her as she was, so lived in her sister's beauty and triumphs that 'twas as if in some far-off way she shared them, and herself experienced through them the joy of being a woman transcendently beautiful and transcendently beloved. To-night she had spent her waiting hours in her closet and upon her knees, praying with all humble adoration of the Being she approached. She was wont to pray long and fervently each day, thanking Heaven for the smallest things and the most common, and imploring continuance of the mercy which bestowed them upon her poor unworthiness. For her sister her prayers were offered up night and morning, and ofttimes in hours between, and to-night she prayed not for herself at all, but for Clorinda and for his Grace of Osmonde, that their love might be crowned with happiness, and that no shadow might intervene to cloud its brightness, and the tender rapture in her sister's softened look, which was to her a thing so wonderful that she thought of it with reverence as a holy thing.
Her prayers being at length ended, she had risen from her knees and sat down, taking a sacred book to read, a book of sermons such as 'twas her simple habit to pore over with entire respect and child- like faith, and being in the midst of her favourite homily, she heard the chariot's returning wheels, and left her chair, surprised, because she had not yet begun to expect the sound.
"'Tis my sister," she said,
At midnight, having just made obeisance before Royalty retiring, she felt that at length he had drawn near and was standing at her side.
"To-night," he said, in the low undertone it was his way to keep for such occasions, knowing how he could pierce her ear--"to-night you are Juno's self--a very Queen of Heaven!"
She made no answer.
"And I have stood and watched you moving among all lesser goddesses as the moon sails among the stars, and I have smiled in thinking of what these lesser deities would say if they had known what I bear in my breast to-night."
She did not even make a movement--in truth, she felt that at his next words she might change to stone.
"I have found it," he said--"I have it here--the lost treasure--the tress of hair like a raven's wing and six feet long. Is there another woman in England who could give a man a lock like it?"
She felt then that she had, in sooth, changed to stone; her heart hung without moving in her breast; her eyes felt great and hollow and staring as she lifted them to him.
"I knew not," she said slowly, and with bated breath, for the awfulness of the moment had even made her body weak as she had never known it feel before--"I knew not truly that hell made things like you."
Whereupon he made a movement forward, and the crowd about surged nearer with hasty exclamations, for the strange weakness of her body had overpowered her in a way mysterious to her, and she had changed to marble, growing too heavy of weight for her sinking limbs. And those in the surrounding groups saw a marvellous thing--the same being that my Lady Dunstanwolde swayed as she turned, and falling, lay stretched, as if dead, in her white and silver and flashing jewels at the startled beholders' feet.
* * *
She wore no radiant look when she went home that night. She would go home alone and unescorted, excepting by her lacqueys, refusing all offers of companionship when once placed in her equipage. There were, of course, gentlemen who would not be denied leading her to her coach; John Oxon was among them, and at the last pressed close, with a manner of great ceremony, speaking a final word.
"'Tis useless, your ladyship," he murmured, as he made his obeisance gallantly, and though the words were uttered in his lowest tone and with great softness, they reached her ear as he intended that they should. "To-morrow morning I shall wait upon you."
Anne had forborne going to bed, and waited for her return, longing to see her spirit's face again before she slept; for this poor tender creature, being denied all woman's loves and joys by Fate, who had made her as she was, so lived in her sister's beauty and triumphs that 'twas as if in some far-off way she shared them, and herself experienced through them the joy of being a woman transcendently beautiful and transcendently beloved. To-night she had spent her waiting hours in her closet and upon her knees, praying with all humble adoration of the Being she approached. She was wont to pray long and fervently each day, thanking Heaven for the smallest things and the most common, and imploring continuance of the mercy which bestowed them upon her poor unworthiness. For her sister her prayers were offered up night and morning, and ofttimes in hours between, and to-night she prayed not for herself at all, but for Clorinda and for his Grace of Osmonde, that their love might be crowned with happiness, and that no shadow might intervene to cloud its brightness, and the tender rapture in her sister's softened look, which was to her a thing so wonderful that she thought of it with reverence as a holy thing.
Her prayers being at length ended, she had risen from her knees and sat down, taking a sacred book to read, a book of sermons such as 'twas her simple habit to pore over with entire respect and child- like faith, and being in the midst of her favourite homily, she heard the chariot's returning wheels, and left her chair, surprised, because she had not yet begun to expect the sound.
"'Tis my sister," she said,