A Lady of Quality Part 6

Anne plucked up just enough of her poor spirit to raise her eyes to the brilliant ones that mocked at her.

"With such gentlemen, sister," she said, "is it like that I have aught to do?"

Mistress Clorinda dropped her hand and left laughing.

"'Tis true," she said, "it is not; but for this one time, Anne, thou lookest almost a woman."

"'Tis not beauty alone that makes womanhood," said Anne, her head on her breast again. "In some book I have read that-that it is mostly pain. I am woman enough for that."

"You have read-you have read," quoted Clorinda. "You are the bookworm, I remember, and filch romances and poems from the shelves. And you have read that it is mostly pain that makes a woman? 'Tis not true. 'Tis a poor lie. I am a woman and I do not suffer-for I will not, that I swear! And when I take an oath I keep it, mark you! It is men women suffer for; that was what your scholar meant-for such fine gentlemen as the one you have just watched while he rode away. More fools they! No man shall make me womanly in such a fas.h.i.+on, I promise you! Let them wince and kneel; I will not."

"Sister," Anne faltered, "I thought you were not within. The gentleman who rode away-did the servants know?"

"That did they," quoth Clorinda, mocking again. "They knew that I would not receive him to-day, and so sent him away. He might have known as much himself, but he is an arrant popinjay, and thinks all women wish to look at his fine shape, and hear him flatter them when he is in the mood."

"You would not-let him enter?"

Clorinda threw her graceful body into a chair with more light laughter.

"I would not," she answered. "You cannot understand such ingrat.i.tude, poor Anne; you would have treated him more softly. Sit down and talk to me, and I will show thee my furbelows myself. All women like to chatter of their laced bodices and petticoats. That is what makes a woman."

Anne was tremulous with relief and pleasure. It was as if a queen had bid her to be seated. She sat almost with the humble lack of case a serving-woman might have shown. She had never seen Clorinda wear such an air before, and never had she dreamed that she would so open herself to any fellow-creature. She knew but little of what her sister was capable-of the brilliancy of her charm when she chose to condescend, of the deigning softness of her manner when she chose to please, of her arch-pleasantries and cutting wit, and of the strange power she could wield over any human being, gentle or simple, with whom she came in contact. But if she had not known of these things before, she learned to know them this morning. For some reason best known to herself, Mistress Clorinda was in a high good humour. She kept Anne with her for more than an hour, and was dazzling through every moment of its pa.s.sing. She showed her the splendours she was to s.h.i.+ne in at the birth-night ball, even bringing forth her jewels and displaying them. She told her stories of the house of which the young heir to-day attained his majority, and mocked at the poor youth because he was ungainly, and at a distance had been her slave since his nineteenth year.

"I have scarce looked at him," she said. "He is a lout, with great eyes staring, and a red nose. It does not need that one should look at men to win them. They look at us, and that is enough."

To poor Mistress Anne, who had seen no company and listened to no wits, the entertainment bestowed upon her was as wonderful as a night at the playhouse would have been. To watch the vivid changing face; to hearken to jesting stories of men and women who seemed like the heroes and heroines of her romances; to hear love itself-the love she trembled and palpitated at the mere thought of-spoken of openly as an experience which fell to all; to hear it mocked at with dainty or biting quips; to learn that women of all ages played with, enjoyed, or lost themselves for it-it was with her as if a nun had been withdrawn from her cloister and plunged into the vortex of the world.

"Sister," she said, looking at the Beauty with humble, adoring eyes, "you make me feel that my romances are true. You tell such things. It is like seeing pictures of things to hear you talk. No wonder that all listen to you, for indeed 'tis wonderful the way you have with words. You use them so that 'tis as though they had shapes of their own and colours, and you builded with them. I thank you for being so gracious to me, who have seen so little, and cannot tell the poor, quiet things I have seen."

And being led into the loving boldness by her grat.i.tude, she bent forward and touched with her lips the fair hand resting on the chair's arm.

Mistress Clorinda fixed her fine eyes upon her in a new way.

"I' faith, it doth not seem fair, Anne," she said. "I should not like to change lives with thee. Thou hast eyes like a shot pheasant-soft, and with the bright hid beneath the dull. Some man might love them, even if thou art no beauty. Stay," suddenly; "methinks-"

She uprose from her chair and went to the oaken wardrobe, and threw the door of it open wide while she looked within.

"There is a gown and tippet or so here, and a hood and some ribands I might do without," she said. "My woman shall bear them to your chamber, and show you how to set them to rights. She is a nimble-fingered creature, and a gown of mine would give almost stuff enough to make you two. Then some days, when I am not going abroad and Mistress Margery frets me too much, I will send for you to sit with me, and you shall listen to the gossip when a visitor drops in to have a dish of tea."

Anne would have kissed her feet then, if she had dared to do so. She blushed red all over, and adored her with a more wors.h.i.+pping gaze than before.

"I should not have dared to hope so much," she stammered. "I could not-perhaps it is not fitting-perhaps I could not bear myself as I should. I would try to show myself a gentlewoman and seemly. I-I am a gentlewoman, though I have learned so little. I could not be aught but a gentlewoman, could I, sister, being of your own blood and my parents' child?" half afraid to presume even this much.

"No," said Clorinda. "Do not be a fool, Anne, and carry yourself too humbly before the world. You can be as humble as you like to me."

"I shall-I shall be your servant and wors.h.i.+p you, sister," cried the poor soul, and she drew near and kissed again the white hand which had bestowed with such royal bounty all this joy. It would not have occurred to her that a cast-off robe and riband were but small largesse.

It was not a minute after this grateful caress that Clorinda made a sharp movement-a movement which was so sharp that it seemed to be one of dismay. At first, as if involuntarily, she had raised her hand to her tucker, and after doing so she started-though 'twas but for a second's s.p.a.ce, after which her face was as it had been before.

"What is it?" exclaimed Anne. "Have you lost anything?"

"No," quoth Mistress Clorinda quite carelessly, as she once more turned to the contents of the oaken wardrobe; "but I thought I missed a trinket I was wearing for a wager, and I would not lose it before the bet is won."

"Sister," ventured Anne before she left her and went away to her own dull world in the west wing, "there is a thing I can do if you will allow me. I can mend your tapestry hangings which have holes in them. I am quick at my needle, and should love to serve you in such poor ways as I can; and it is not seemly that they should be so worn. All things about you should be beautiful and well kept."

"Can you make these broken things beautiful?" said Clorinda. "Then indeed you shall. You may come here to mend them when you will."

"They are very fine hangings, though so old and ill cared for," said Anne, looking up at them; "and I shall be only too happy sitting here thinking of all you are doing while I am at my work."

"Thinking of all I am doing?" laughed Mistress Clorinda. "That would give you such wondrous things to dream of, Anne, that you would have no time for your needle, and my hangings would stay as they are."

"I can think and darn also," said Mistress Anne, "so I will come."

CHAPTER VII-'Twas the face of Sir John Oxon the moon shone upon

From that time henceforward into the young woman's dull life there came a little change. It did not seem a little change to her, but a great one, though to others it would have seemed slight indeed. She was an affectionate, house-wifely creature, who would have made the best of wives and mothers if it had been so ordained by Fortune, and something of her natural instincts found outlet in the furtive service she paid her sister, who became the empress of her soul. She darned and patched the tattered hangings with a wonderful neatness, and the hours she spent at work in the chamber were to her almost as sacred as hours spent at religious duty, or as those nuns and novices give to embroidering altar-cloths. There was a brightness in the room that seemed in no other in the house, and the lingering essences in the air of it were as incense to her. In secrecy she even busied herself with keeping things in better order than Rebecca, Mistress Clorinda's woman, had ever had time to do before. She also contrived to get into her own hands some duties that were Rebecca's own. She could mend lace cleverly and arrange riband-knots with taste, and even change the fas.h.i.+on of a gown. The hard-worked tirewoman was but too glad to be relieved, and kept her secret well, being praised many times for the set or fas.h.i.+on of a thing into which she had not so much as set a needle. Being a shrewd baggage, she was wise enough always to relate to Anne the story of her mistress's pleasure, having the wit to read in her delight that she would be encouraged to fresh effort.

At times it so befell that, when Anne went into the bed-chamber, she found the beauty there, who, if she chanced to be in the humour, would detain her in her presence for a s.p.a.ce and bewitch her over again. In sooth, it seemed that she took a pleasure in showing her female adorer how wondrously full of all fascinations she could be. At such times Anne's plain face would almost bloom with excitement, and her shot pheasant's eyes would glow as if beholding a G.o.ddess.

She neither saw nor heard more of the miniature on the riband. It used to make her tremble at times to fancy that by some strange chance it might still be under the bed, and that the handsome face smiled and the blue eyes gazed in the very apartment where she herself sat and her sister was robed and disrobed in all her beauty.

She used all her modest skill in fitting to her own shape and refurnis.h.i.+ng the cast-off bits of finery bestowed upon her. It was all set to rights long before Clorinda recalled to mind that she had promised that Anne should sometime see her chance visitors take their dish of tea with her.

But one day, for some cause, she did remember, and sent for her.

Anne ran to her bed-chamber and donned her remodelled gown with shaking hands. She laughed a little hysterically as she did it, seeing her plain snub-nosed face in the gla.s.s. She tried to dress her head in a fas.h.i.+on new to her, and knew she did it ill and untidily, but had no time to change it. If she had had some red she would have put it on, but such vanities were not in her chamber or Barbara's. So she rubbed her cheeks hard, and even pinched them, so that in the end they looked as if they were badly rouged. It seemed to her that her nose grew red too, and indeed 'twas no wonder, for her hands and feet were like ice.

"She must be ashamed of me," the humble creature said to herself. "And if she is ashamed she will be angered and send me away and be friends no more."

She did not deceive herself, poor thing, and imagine she had the chance of being regarded with any great lenience if she appeared ill.

"Mistress Clorinda begged that you would come quickly," said Rebecca, knocking at the door.

So she caught her handkerchief, which was scented, as all her garments were, with dried rose-leaves from the garden, which she had conserved herself, and went down to the chintz parlour trembling.

It was a great room with white panels, and flowered coverings to the furniture. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen standing talking and laughing loudly together. The men outnumbered the women, and most of them stood in a circle about Mistress Clorinda, who sat upright in a great flowered chair, smiling with her mocking, stately air, as if she defied them to dare to speak what they felt.

Anne came in like a mouse. n.o.body saw her. She did not, indeed, know what to do. She dared not remain standing all alone, so she crept to the place where her sister's chair was, and stood a little behind its high back. Her heart beat within her breast till it was like to choke her.

They were only country gentlemen who made the circle, but to her they seemed das.h.i.+ng gallants. That some of them had red noses as well as cheeks, and that their voices were big and their gallantries boisterous, was no drawback to their manly charms, she having seen no other finer gentlemen. They were specimens of the great conquering creature Man, whom all women must aspire to please if they have the fortunate power; and each and all of them were plainly trying to please Clorinda, and not she them.

And so Anne gazed at them with admiring awe, waiting until there should come a pause in which she might presume to call her sister's attention to her presence; but suddenly, before she had indeed made up her mind how she might best announce herself, there spoke behind her a voice of silver.

"It is only G.o.ddesses," said the voice, "who waft about them as they move the musk of the rose-gardens of Araby. When you come to reign over us in town, Madam, there will be no perfume in the mode but that of rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we shall breathe but their perfume."