Whiteladies

“Mademoiselle has reason,” said Giovanna. “It is very fine to be English. One can feel so that one is more good than all the world! As soon as I can speak well enough, I shall say so too. I am of no nation at present, me – Italian born, Belge by living – and the Belges are not a people. They are a little French, a little Flemish, not one thing or another. I prefer to be English, too. I am Austin, like all you others, and Viteladies is my ’ome.”

This little speech made the others look at each other, and Herbert laughed with a curious consciousness. Whiteladies was his. He had scarcely ever realized it before. He did not even feel quite sure now that he was not here on a visit, his Aunt Susan’s guest. Was it the others who were his guests, all of them, from Miss Susan herself, who had always been the ‘Squire, down to this piquant stranger? Herbert laughed with a sense of pleasure and strangeness, and shy, boyish wonder whether he should say something about being glad to see her there, or be silent. Happily, he decided that silence was the right thing, and nobody spoke for the moment. Giovanna, however, who seemed to have taken upon her to amuse the company, soon resumed:

“In England it is not amusing, the Winter, M. Herbert. Ah, mon Dieu! what a consolation to make the garlands to build up the arch! Figure to yourself that I was up at four o’clock this morning, and all the rooms full of those pretty aubépines, which you call May. My fingers smell of it now; and look, how they are pricked!” she said, holding them out. She had a pretty hand, large like her person, but white and shapely, and strong. There was a force about it, and about the solid round white arm with which she had tossed about the heavy child, which had impressed Herbert greatly at the time; and its beauty struck him all the more now, from the sense of strength connected with it – strength and vitality, which in his weakness seemed to him the grandest things in the world.

“Did you prick your fingers for me?” he said, quite touched by this devotion to his service; and but for his shyness, and the presence of so many people, I think he would have ventured to kiss the wounded hand. But as it was, he only looked at it, which Reine did also with a half-disdainful civility, while Everard peeped over her shoulder, half laughing. Miss Susan had pushed her chair away.

“Not for you altogether,” said Giovanna, frankly, “for I did not know you, M. Herbert; but for pleasure, and to amuse myself; and perhaps a little that you and mademoiselle might have de l’amitié for me when you knew. What is de l’amitié in English? Friendship – ah, that is grand, serious, not what I mean. And we must not say love – that is too much, that is autre chose.”

Herbert, charmed, looking at the beautiful speaker, thought she blushed; and this moved him mightily, for Giovanna was not like a little girl at a dance, an ingénue, who blushed for nothing. She was a woman, older than himself, and not pretty, but grand and great and beautiful; nor ignorant, but a woman who knew more of that wonderful “life” which dazzled the boy – a great deal more than he himself did, or any one here. That she should blush while she spoke to him was in some way an intoxicating compliment to Herbert’s own influence and manly power.

“You mean like,” said Reine, who persistently acted the part of a wet blanket. “That is what we say in English, when it means something not so serious as friendship and not so close as love – a feeling on the surface; when you would say ‘Il me plait’ in French, in English you say ‘I like him.’ It means just that, and no more.”

Giovanna shrugged her shoulders with a little shiver. “Comme c’est froid, ça!” she said, snatching up Miss Susan’s shawl, which lay on a chair, and winding it round her. Miss Susan half turned round, with a consciousness that something of hers was being touched, but she said nothing, and her eye was dull and veiled. Reine, who knew that her aunt did not like her properties interfered with, was more surprised than ever, and half alarmed, though she did not know why.

“Ah, yes, it is cold, very cold, you English,” said Giovanna, unwinding the shawl again, and stretching it out behind her at the full extent of her white arms. How the red drapery threw out her fine head, with the close braids of black hair, wavy and abundant, twined round and round it, in defiance of fashion! Her hair was not at all the hair of the period, either in color or texture. It was black and glossy and shining, as dark hair ought to be; and she was pale, with scarcely any color about her except her lips. “Ah, how it is cold! Mademoiselle Reine, I will not say like– I will say de l’amitié! It is more sweet. And then, if it should come to be love after, it will be more natural,” she said with a smile.

I do not know if it was her beauty, to which women are, I think, almost more susceptible than men, vulgar prejudice notwithstanding – or perhaps it was something ingratiating and sweet in her smile; but Reine’s suspicions and her coldness quite unreasonably gave way, as they had quite unreasonably sprung up, and she drew nearer to the stranger and opened her heart unawares, while the young men struck in, and the conversation became general. Four young people chattering all together, talking a great deal of nonsense, running into wise speculations, into discussions about the meaning of words, like and love, and de l’amitié! – one knows what a pleasant jumble it is, and how the talkers enjoy it; all the more as they are continually skimming the surface of subjects which make the nerves tingle and the heart beat. The old room grew gay with the sound of their voices, soft laughter, and exclamations which gave variety to the talk. Curious! Miss Susan drew her chair a little more apart. It was she who was the one left out. In her own house, which was not her own house any longer – in the centre of the kingdom where she had been mistress so long, but was no more mistress. She said to herself, with a little natural bitterness, that perhaps it was judicious and really kind, after all, on the part of Herbert and Reine, to do it at once, to leave no doubt on the subject, to supplant her then and there, keeping up no fiction of being her guests still, or considering her the head of the house. Much better, and on the whole more kind! for of course everything else would be a fiction. Her reign had been long, but it was over. The change must be made some time, and when so well, so appropriately as now? After awhile she went softly round behind the group, and secured her shawl. She did not like her personal properties interfered with. No one had ever done it except this daring creature, and it was a thing Miss Susan was not prepared to put up with. She could bear the great downfall which was inevitable, but these small annoyances she could not bear. She secured her shawl, and brought it with her, hanging it over the back of her chair. But when she got up and when she reseated herself, no one took any notice. She was already supplanted and set aside, the very first night! It was sudden, she said to herself with a catching of the breath, but on the whole it was best.

I need not say that Reine and Herbert were totally innocent of any such intention, and that it was the inadvertence of their youth that was to blame, and nothing else. By-and-by the door opened softly, and Miss Augustine came in. She had been attending a special evening service at the Almshouses – a thanksgiving for Herbert’s return. She had, a curious decoration for her, a bit of flowering May in the waistband of her dress, and she brought in the sweet freshness of the night with her, and the scent of the hawthorn, special and modest gem of the May from which it takes its name. She broke up without any hesitation the lively group, which Miss Susan, sore and sad, had withdrawn from. Augustine was a woman of one idea, and had no room in her mind for anything else. Like Monsieur and Madame de Mirfleur, though in a very different way, many things were tout simple to her, against which many less single-minded persons broke their heads, if not their hearts.

“You should have come with me, Herbert,” she said, half disapproving. “You may be tired, but there could be nothing more refreshing than to give thanks. Though perhaps,” she added, folding her hands, “it was better that the thanksgiving should be like the prayers, disinterested, no personal feeling mixing in. Yes, perhaps that was best. Giovanna, you should have been there.”

“Ah, pardon!” said Giovanna, with a slight imperceptible yawn, “it was to welcome mademoiselle and monsieur that I stayed. Ah! the musique! Tenez! ma sœur, I will make the music with a very good heart, now.”

“That is a different thing,” said Miss Augustine. “They trusted to you – though to me the hymns they sing themselves are more sweet than yours. One voice may be pleasant to hear, but it is but one. When all sing, it is like heaven, where that will be our occupation night and day.”

“Ah, ma sœur,” said Giovanna, “but there they will sing in tune, n’est ce pas, all the old ones? Tenez! I will make the music now.”

And with this she went straight to the piano, uninvited, unbidden, and began a Te Deum out of one of Mozart’s masses, the glorious rolling strains of which filled not only the room, but the house. Giovanna scarcely knew how to play; her science was all of the ear. She gave the sentiment of the music, rather than its notes – a reminiscence of what she had heard – and then she sang that most magnificent of hymns, pouring it forth, I suppose, from some undeveloped instinct of art in her, with a fervency and power which the bystanders were fain to think only the highest feeling could inspire. She was not bad, though she did many wrong things with the greatest equanimity; yet we know that she was not good either, and could not by any chance have really had the feeling which seemed to swell and tremble in her song. I don’t pretend to say how this was; but it is certain that stupid people, carnal and fleshly persons, sing thus often as if their whole heart, and that the heart of a seraph, was in the strain. Giovanna sang so that she brought the tears to their eyes. Reine stole away out from among the others, and put herself humbly behind the singer, and joined her soft voice, broken with tears, to hers. Together they appealed to prophets, and martyrs, and apostles, to praise the God who had wrought this deliverance, like so many others. Herbert, for whom it all was, hid his face in his clasped hands, and felt that thrill of awed humility, yet of melting, tender pride, with which the single soul recognizes itself as the hero, the object of such an offering. He could not face the light, with his eyes and his heart so full. Who was he, that so much had been done for him? And yet, poor boy, there was a soft pleased consciousness in his heart that there must be something in him, more than most, to warrant that which had been done. Augustine stood upright by the mantelpiece, with her arms folded in her sleeves, and her poor visionary soul still as usual. To her this was something like a legal acknowledgment – a receipt, so to speak, for value received. It was due to God, who, for certain inducements of prayer, had consented to do what was asked of Him. She had already thanked Him, and with all her heart; and she was glad that every one should thank Him, that there should be no stint of praise. Miss Susan was the only one who sat unmoved, and even went on with her knitting. To some people of absolute minds one little rift within the lute makes mute all the music. For my part, I think Giovanna, though her code of truth and honor was very loose, or indeed one might say non-existent – and though she had schemes in her mind which no very high-souled person could have entertained – was quite capable of being sincere in her thanksgiving, and not at all incapable of some kinds of religious feeling; and though she could commit a marked and unmistakable act of dishonesty without feeling any particular trouble in her conscience, was yet an honest soul in her way. This is one of the paradoxes of humanity, which I don’t pretend to understand and cannot explain, yet believe in. But Miss Susan did not believe in it. She thought it desecration to hear those sacred words coming forth from this woman’s mouth. In her heart she longed to get up in righteous wrath, and turn the deceiver out of the house. But, alas! what could she do? She too was a deceiver, more than Giovanna, and dared not interfere with Giovanna, lest she should be herself betrayed; and last of all, and, for the moment, almost bitterest of all, it was no longer her house, and she had no right to turn any one out, or take any one in, any more forever!

“Who is she? Where did they pick her up? How do they manage to keep her here, a creature like that?” said Herbert to Everard, as they lounged together for half an hour in the old playroom, which had been made into a smoking-room for the young men. Herbert was of opinion that to smoke a cigar before going to bed was a thing that every man was called upon to do. Those who did not follow this custom were boys or invalids; and though he was not fond of it, he went through the ceremony nightly. He could talk of nothing but Giovanna, and it was with difficulty that Everard prevailed upon him to go to his room after all the emotions of the day.

“I want to know how they have got her to stay,” he said, trying to detain his cousin that he might go on talking on this attractive subject.

“You should ask Aunt Susan,” said Everard, not shrugging his shoulders. He himself was impressed in this sort of way by Giovanna. He thought her very handsome, and very clever, giving her credit for a greater amount of wisdom than she really possessed, and setting down all she had done and all she had said to an elaborate scheme, which was scarcely true; for the dangerous point in Giovanna’s wiles was that they were half nature, something spontaneous and unconscious being mixed up in every one of them. Everard resolved to warn Miss Susan, and put her on her guard, and he groaned to himself over the office of guardian and protector to this boy which had been thrust upon him. The wisest man in the world could not keep a boy of three-and-twenty out of mischief. He had done his best for him, but it was not possible to do any more.

While he was thinking thus, and Herbert was walking about his room in a pleasant ferment of excitement and pleasure, thinking over all that had happened, and the flattering attention that had been shown to him on all sides, two other scenes were going on in different rooms, which bore testimony to a kindred excitement. In the first the chief actor was Giovanna, who had gone to her chamber in a state of high delight, feeling the ball at her feet, and everything in her power. She did not object to Herbert himself; he was young and handsome, and would never have the power to coerce and control her; and she had no intention of being anything but good to him. She woke the child, to whom she had carried some sweetmeats from the dessert, and played with him and petted him – a most immoral proceeding, as any mother will allow; for by the time she was sleepy, and ready to go to bed, little Jean was broad awake, and had to be frightened and threatened with black closets and black men before he could be hushed into quiet; and the untimely bon-bons made him ill. Giovanna had not thought of all that. She wanted some one to help her to get rid of her excitement, and disturbed the baby’s childish sleep, and deranged his stomach, without meaning him any harm. I am afraid, however, it made little difference to Jean that she was quite innocent of any evil intention, and indeed believed herself to be acting the part of a most kind and indulgent mother.

But while Giovanna was playing with the child, Reine stole into Miss Susan’s room to disburden her soul, and seek that private delight of talking a thing over which women love. She stole in with the lightest tap, scarcely audible, noiseless, in her white dressing-gown, and light foot; and in point of fact Miss Susan did not hear that soft appeal for admission. Therefore she was taken by surprise when Reine appeared. She was seated in a curious blank and stupor, “anywhere,” not on her habitual chair by the side of the bed, where her table stood with her books on it, and where her lamp was burning, but near the door, on the first chair she had come to, with that helpless forlorn air which extreme feebleness or extreme preoccupation gives. She aroused herself with a look of almost terror when she saw Reine, and started from her seat.

“How you frightened me!” she said fretfully. “I thought you had been in bed. After your journey and your fatigue, you ought to be in bed.”

“I wanted to talk with you,” said Reine. “Oh, Aunt Susan, it is so long – so long since we were here; and I wanted to ask you, do you think he looks well? Do you think he looks strong? You have something strange in your eyes, Aunt Susan. Oh, tell me if you are disappointed – if he does not look so well as you thought.”

Miss Susan made a pause; and then she answered as if with difficulty, “Your brother? Oh, yes, I think he is looking very well – better even than I thought.”

Reine came closer to her, and putting one soft arm into hers, looked at her, examining her face with wistful eyes – “Then what is it, Aunt Susan?” she said.

“What is – what? I do not understand you,” cried Miss Susan, shifting her arm, and turning away her face. “You are tired, and you are fantastic, as you always were. Reine, go to bed.”

“Dear Aunt Susan,” cried Reine, “don’t put me away. You are not vexed with us for coming back? – you are not sorry we have come? Oh, don’t turn your face from me! You never used to turn from me, except when I had done wrong. Have we done wrong, Herbert or I?”

“No, child, no – no, I tell you! Oh, Reine, don’t worry me now. I have enough without that – I cannot bear any more.”

Miss Susan shook off the clinging hold. She roused herself and walked across the room, and put off her shawl, which she had drawn round her shoulders to come upstairs. She had not begun to undress, though Martha by this time was fast asleep. In the trouble of her mind she had sent Martha also away. She took off her few ornaments with trembling hands, and put them down on the table.

“Go to bed, Reine; I am tired too – forgive me, dear,” she said with a sigh, “I cannot talk to you to-night.”

“What is it, Aunt Susan?” said Reine softly, looking at her with anxious eyes.

“It is nothing – nothing! only I cannot talk to you. I am not angry; but leave me, dear child, leave me for to-night.”

“Aunt Susan,” said the girl, going up to her again, and once more putting an arm round her, “it is something about —that woman. If it is not us, it is her. Why does she trouble you? – why is she here? Don’t send me away, but tell me about her! Dear Aunt Susan, you are ill, you are looking so strange, not like yourself. Tell me – I belong to you. I can understand you better than any one else.”

“Oh, hush, hush, Reine; you don’t know what you are saying. It is nothing, child, nothing! You understand me?”

“Better than any one,” cried the girl, “for I belong to you. I can read what is in your face. None of the others know, but I saw it. Aunt Susan, tell me – whisper – I will keep it sacred, whatever it is, and it will do you good.”

Miss Susan leaned her head upon the fragile young creature who clung to her. Reine, so slight and young, supported the stronger, older woman, with a force which was all of the heart and soul; but no words came from the sufferer’s lips. She stood clasping the girl close to her, and for a moment gave way to a great sob, which shook her like a convulsion. The touch, the presence, the innocent bosom laid against her own in all that ignorant instinctive sympathy which is the great mystery of kindred, did her good. Then she kissed the girl tenderly, and sent her away.

“God bless you, darling! though I am not worthy to say it – not worthy!” said the woman, trembling, who had always seemed to Reine the very emblem of strength, authority, and steadfast power.

She stole away, quite hushed and silenced, to her room. What could this be? Not worthy! Was it some religious panic that had seized upon Miss Susan – some horror of doubt and darkness, like that which Reine herself had passed through? This was the only thing the girl could think of. Pity kept her from sleeping, and breathed a hundred prayers through her mind, as she lay and listened to the old clock, telling the hours with its familiar voice. Very familiar, and yet novel and strange – more strange than if she had never heard it before – though for many nights, year after year, it had chimed through her dreams, and woke her to many another soft May morning, more tranquil and more sweet even than this.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Next day was the day of the great dinner to which Miss Susan had invited half the county, to welcome the young master of the house, and mark the moment of her own withdrawal from her long supremacy in Whiteladies. Though she had felt with some bitterness on the previous night the supposed intention of Herbert and Reine to supplant her at once, Miss Susan was far too sensible a woman to make voluntary vexation for herself, out of an event so well known and long anticipated. That she must feel it was of course inevitable, but as she felt no real wrong in it, and had for a long time expected it, there was not, apart from the painful burden on her mind which threw a dark shadow over everything, any bitterness in the necessary and natural event. She had made all her arrangements without undue fuss or publicity, and had prepared for herself, as I have said, a house, which had providentially fallen vacant, on the other side of the village, where Augustine would still be within reach of the Almshouses. I am not sure that, so far as she was herself concerned, the sovereign of Whiteladies, now on the point of abdication, would not have preferred to be a little further off, out of daily sight of her forsaken throne; but this would have deprived Augustine of all that made life to her, and Miss Susan was too strong, too proud, and too heroic, to hesitate for a moment, or to think her own sentiment worth indulging. Perhaps, indeed, even without that powerful argument of Augustine, she would have scorned to indulge a feeling which she could not have failed to recognize as a mean and petty one. She had her faults, like most people, and she had committed a great wrong, which clouded her life, but there was nothing petty or mean about Miss Susan. After Reine had left her on the previous night, she had made a great effort, and recovered her self-command. I don’t know why she had allowed herself to be so beaten down. One kind of excitement, no doubt, predisposes toward another; and after the triumph and joy of Herbert’s return, her sense of the horrible cloud which hung over her personally, the revelation which Giovanna at any moment had it in her power to make, the evident intention she had of ingratiating herself with the new-comers, and the success so far of the attempt, produced a reaction which almost drove Miss Susan wild! If you will think of it, she had cause enough. She, heretofore an honorable and spotless woman, who had never feared the face of man, to lie now under the horrible risk of being found out – to be at the mercy of a passionate, impulsive creature, who could at any moment cover her with shame, and pull her down from her pedestal. I think that at such moments to have the worst happen, to be pulled down finally, to have her shame published to the world, would have been the best thing that could have happened to Miss Susan. She would then have raised up her humbled head again, and accepted her punishment, and raced the daylight, free from fear of anything that could befall her. The worst of it all now was this intolerable sense that there was something to be found out, that everything was not honest and open in her life, as it had always been. And by times this consciousness overpowered and broke her down, as it had done on the previous night. But when a vigorous soul is thus overpowered and breaks down, the moment of its utter overthrow marks a new beginning of power and endurance. The old fable of Antæus, who derived fresh strength whenever he was thrown, from contact with his mother earth, is profoundly true. Miss Susan had been thrown too, had fallen, and had rebounded with fresh force. Even Reine could scarcely see in her countenance next morning any trace of the emotion of last night. She took her place at the breakfast-table with a smile, with composure which was not feigned, putting bravely her burden behind her, and resolute to make steady head as long as she could against any storm that could threaten. Even when Herbert eluded that “business consultation,” and begged to be left free to roam about the old house, and renew his acquaintance with every familiar corner, she was able to accept the postponement without pain. She watched the young people go out even with almost pleasure – the brother and sister together, and Everard – and Giovanna at the head of the troop, with little Jean perched on her shoulder. Giovanna was fond of wandering about without any covering on her head, having a complexion which I suppose would not spoil, and loving the sun. And it suited her somehow to have the child on her shoulder, to toss him about, to the terror of all the household, in her strong, beautiful arms. I rather think it was because the household generally was frightened by this rough play, that Giovanna had taken to it; for she liked to shock them, not from malice, but from a sort of school-boy mischief. Little Jean, who had got over all his dislike to her, enjoyed his perch upon her shoulder; and it is impossible to tell how Herbert admired her, her strength, her quick, swift, easy movements, the lightness and grace with which she carried the boy, and all her gambols with him, in which a certain risk always mingled. He could not keep his eyes from her, and followed wherever she led, penetrating into rooms where, in his delicate boyhood, he had never been allowed to go.

“I know myself in every part,” cried Giovanna gayly. “I have all visited, all seen, even where it is not safe. It is safe here, M. Herbert. Come then and look at the carvings, all close; they are beautiful when you are near.”

They followed her about within and without, as if she had been the cicerone, though they had all known Whiteladies long before she had; and even Reine’s nascent suspicions were not able to stand before her frank energy and cordial ignorant talk. For she was quite ignorant, and made no attempt to conceal it.

“Me, I love not at all what is so old,” she said with a laugh. “I prefer the smooth wall and the big window, and a floor well frotté, that shines. Wood that is all cut like the lace, what good does that do? and brick, that is nothing, that is common. I love stone châteaux, with much of window, and little tourelles at the top. But if you love the wood, and the brick, très bien! I know myself in all the little corners,” said Giovanna. And outside and in, it was she who led the way.

Once again – and it was a thing which had repeatedly happened before this, notwithstanding the terror and oppression of her presence – Miss Susan was even grateful to Giovanna, who left her free to make all her arrangements, and amused and interested the new-comers, who were strangers in a sense, though to them belonged the house and everything in it; and I doubt if it had yet entered into her head that Giovanna’s society or her beauty involved any danger to Herbert. She was older than Herbert; she was “not a lady;” she was an intruder and alien, and nothing to the young people, though she might amuse them for the moment. The only danger Miss Susan saw in her was one tragic and terrible danger to herself, which she had determined for the moment not to think of. For everybody else she was harmless. So at least Miss Susan, with an inadvertence natural to her preoccupied mind, thought.

And there were a great many arrangements to make for the great dinner, and many things besides that required looking after. However distinctly one has foreseen the necessities of a great crisis, yet it is only when it arrives that they acquire their due urgency. Miss Susan now, for almost the first time, felt the house she had secured at the other end of the village to be a reality. She felt at last that her preparations were real, that the existence in which for the last six months there had been much that was like a painful dream, had come out suddenly into the actual and certain, and that she had had a change to undergo not much unlike the change of death. Things that had been planned only, had to be done now – a difference which is wonderful – and the stir and commotion which had come into the house with the arrival of Herbert was the preface of a commotion still more serious. And as Miss Susan went about giving her orders, she tried to comfort herself with the thought that now at last Giovanna must go. There was no longer any pretence for her stay. Herbert had come home. She had and could have no claim upon Susan and Augustine Austin at the Grange, whatever claim she might have on the inmates of Whiteladies; nor could she transfer herself to the young people, and live with Herbert and Reine. Even she, though she was not reasonable, must see that now there was no further excuse for her presence – that she must go. Miss Susan settled in her mind the allowance she would offer her. It would be a kind of blackmail, blood money, the price of her secret; but better that than exposure. And then, Giovanna had not been disagreeable of late. Rather the reverse; she had tried, as she said, to show de l’amitiè. She had been friendly, cheerful, rather pleasant, in her strange way. Miss Susan, with a curious feeling for which she could not quite account, concluded with herself that she would not wish this creature, who had for so long belonged to her, as it were – who had been one of her family, though she was at the same time her enemy, her greatest trouble – to fall back unaided upon the shop at Bruges, where the people had not been kind to her. No; she would, she said to herself, be very thankful to get rid of Giovanna, but not to see her fall into misery and helplessness. She should have an income enough to keep her comfortable.

This was a luxury which Miss Susan felt she could venture to give herself. She would provide for her persecutor, and get rid of her, and be free of the panic which now was before her night and day. This thought cheered her as she went about, superintending the hanging of the tapestry in the hall, which was only put there on grand occasions, and the building up of the old silver on the great oak buffet. Everything that Whiteladies could do in the way of splendor was to be exhibited to-night. There had been no feast when Herbert came of age, for indeed it had been like enough that his birthday might be his death day also. But now all these clouds had rolled away, and his future was clear. She paid a solemn visit to the cellar with Stevens to get out the best wines, her father’s old claret and Madeira, of which she had been so careful, saving it for Herbert; or if not for Herbert, for Everard, whom she had looked upon as her personal heir. Not a bottle of it should ever have gone to Farrel-Austin, the reader may be sure, though she was willing to feast him to-night, and give him of her best, to celebrate her triumph over him – a triumph which, thank heaven! was all innocent, not brought about by plotting or planning – God’s doing, and not hers.

I will not attempt to describe all the company, the best people in that corner of Berkshire, who came from all points, through the roads which were white and sweet with May, to do honor to Herbert’s home-coming. It is too late in this history, and there is too much of more importance to tell you, to leave me room for those excellent people. Lord Kingsborough was there, and proposed Herbert’s health; and Sir Reginald Parke, and Sir Francis Rivers, and the Hon. Mr. Skindle, who married Lord Markinhead’s daughter, Lady Cordelia; and all the first company in the county, down to (or up to) the great China merchant who had bought St. Dunstan’s, once the property of a Howard. It is rare to see a dinner-party so large or so important, and still more rare to see such a room so filled. The old musicians’ gallery was put to its proper use for the first time for years; and now and then, not too often, a soft fluting and piping and fiddling came from the partial gloom, floating over the heads of the well-dressed crowd who sat at the long, splendid table, in a blaze of light and reflection, and silver, and crystal, and flowers.

“I wish we could be in the gallery to see ourselves sitting here, in this great show,” Everard whispered to Reine as he passed her to his inferior place; for it was not permitted to Everard on this great occasion to hand in the young mistress of the house, in whose favor Miss Susan intended, after this night, to abdicate. Reine looked up with soft eyes to the dim corner in which the three used to scramble and rustle, and catch the oranges, and I fear thought more of this reminiscence than of what her companion said to her, who was ignorant of the old times. But, indeed, the show was worth seeing from the gallery, where old Martha, and young Jane, and the good French Julie, who had come with Reine, clustered in the children’s very corner, keeping out of sight behind the tapestry, and pointing out to each other the ladies and their fine dresses. The maids cared nothing about the gentlemen, but shook their heads over Sophy and Kate’s bare shoulders, and made notes of how the dresses were made. Julie communicated her views on the subject with an authority which her auditors received without question, for was not she French? – a large word, which takes in the wilds of Normandy as well as Paris, that centre of the civilized world.

Herbert sat with his back to these eager watchers, at the foot of the table, taking his natural place for the first time, and half hidden by the voluminous robes of Lady Kingsborough and Lady Rivers. The pink gros grain of one of those ladies and the gorgeous white moire of the other dazzled the women in the gallery; but apart from such professional considerations, the scene was a charming one to look at, with the twinkle of the many lights, the brightness of the flowers and the dresses – the illuminated spot in the midst of the partial darkness of the old walls, all gorgeous with color, and movement, and the hum of sound. Miss Susan at the head of the table, in her old point lace, looked like a queen, Martha thought. It was her apotheosis, her climax, the concluding triumph – a sort of phœnix blaze with which she meant to end her life.

The dinner was a gorgeous dinner, worthy the hall and the company; the wine, as I have said, old and rare; and everything went off to perfection. The Farrel-Austins, who were only relations, and not of first importance as county people, sat about the centre of the table, which was the least important place, and opposite to them was Giovanna, who had been put under the charge of old Dr. Richard, to keep her in order, a duty to which he devoted all his faculties. Everything went on perfectly well. The dinner proceeded solemnly, grandly, to its conclusion. Grace – that curious, ill-timed, after-dinner grace which comes just at the daintiest moment of the feast – was duly said; the fruits were being served, forced fruits of every procurable kind, one of the most costly parts of the entertainment at that season; and a general bustle of expectation prepared the way for those congratulatory and friendly speeches, welcomes of his great neighbors to the young Squire, which were the real objects of the assembly. Lord Kingsborough even had cleared his throat for the first time – a signal which his wife heard at the other end, and understood as an intimation that quietness was to be enforced, to which she replied by stopping, to set a good example, in the midst of a sentence. He cleared his throat again, the great man, and was almost on his legs. He was by Miss Susan’s side in the place of honor. He was a stout man, requiring some pulling up after dinner when his chair was comfortable – and he had actually put forth one foot, and made his first effort to rise, for the third time clearing his throat.