CHAPTER IVPEACE AND CATSPAWS
A moremodest, decorous life than that in Edgware Row could scarcely be, setting aside the initial impropriety. The past fell away from her like a nightmare that daylight effaces and a young wife nestling in her husband’s shelter could scarcely be more domestic than Emma. True, there came the reports of the little Emma from Hawarden and there were her small bills to be paid as a reminder, but Greville did this without comment, and who, thought her mother, could feel the existence of that pretty little innocent to be criminal, look at it how you would! That was hardly Greville’s point of view. He was apt to consider any allusion to the child a lapse of taste and to repel it.
And certainly there was plenty else to occupy her thoughts. Emma kept the accounts, for a curry and a soup were more good Mrs. Cadogan’s accomplishment than writing and ciphering. The accounts were perhaps not on the most scientific principle, but they served and were duly laid before the master every Monday. Here we have the day account for 29th October, 1784:
Wherefrom we can deduce no guilty splendours, but a healthy appetite for bread and butter, and a promise kept to Greville to be straitened in that fairest virtue, charity. The gloves too, even multiplying the sums somewhat in view of the value of money a hundred and forty years gone by; such gloves would scarcely have pleased the consummate Mrs. Wells or her sisterhood. One must own to a slight disproportion in her milliner’s bill, for “Mrs. Hackwood, £4—12—6” stares us in the face. Yet let the censorious remember it was the end of October, winter approaching, and velvet more suitable than straw, and ask himself what he supposes the hats that adorn the brow of beauty to-day cost their happy possessors. No, Greville had nothing to complain of on the score of extravagance. It is said the household expenses did not amount to more than £100 a year or thereabouts, and that Emma received but £30 a year for all her adornments.
He had certainly reason to thank his cook and housekeeper alike. It enabled him to take her education in hand more seriously than he had at first intended, and as it proceeded his interest grew. His love also? That must be judged on the consequences.
“It is time for us to start for Cavendish Square, Emma, and the hackney coach waits,” says Greville, alert and clean-shaven, one bright May morning. “Romney is to study you for Circe to-day. Bring the white robe he desired.”
A fair dishevelled head looks round the door with dismay in its eyes.
“What, not ready yet? ’Tis most inconsiderate in you, especially when you are aware the coachman charges for his time. I hate unpunctuality.”
“Oh, but I was doing the flowers, Greville. You said you liked a vase on the dining-table. You don’t suppose I can be in two places at once.”
She has got the wordvasecorrectly now, but it does not mollify her lord.
“Leave those flowers instantly. How long will you take to arrange your hair and make yourself suitable?”
“Twenty minutes; I can’t do it under. And what’s more, I won’t try.”
“Twenty minutes! Do you consider no one’s time of value but your own?”
The head retreats, and steps are heard on the stairs and a clear impertinent voice chanting:
Should he upbraid I’ll own that he prevail,And sing as sweetly as the nightingale.
Should he upbraid I’ll own that he prevail,And sing as sweetly as the nightingale.
Should he upbraid I’ll own that he prevail,
And sing as sweetly as the nightingale.
No simple ballad now, but trills and shakes in the purest soprano imaginable; art decorating nature. And every trill and roulade, as he reflects indignantly, she owes to Charles Greville and to him alone. It was like a handful of bright spring water flung in his distinguished face.
Greville never acted hurriedly. He wrote a few words, folded and sealed them, went out to the hackney coachman and, desiring him to take the note to Mr. Romney in Cavendish Square, paid and dismissed him. The coach rolled slowly away and Greville sat down to read his magazine. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes passed; twenty-five. There was a noise of hurrying footsteps overhead, the opening and shutting of drawers, the click of the wardrobe door he knew so well, Mrs. Cadogan’s heavy weight pounding up the stair to the rescue. He turned another leaf and made a few notes. Half an hour.
Presently a rush downstairs; a flying figure in white with straw hat and ribbons, May herself in colour and bloom bursting impetuous into the room.
“Oh, it shall never happen again, Greville. Never, I swear.”
“It certainly never shall!” said he, placing his marker in the page and laying it down.
“Good Lord! What’s gone with the coach?” cried Emma, running to the window.
“The coach is nearing Cavendish Square with an intimation to Romney that the sitting won’t take place. And, though I did not mention it to Romney, no further sittings will take place unless I meet with a humble apology and very different conduct. What! is his valuable time to be wasted and mine also for your insufferable impertinence? Fie, Emma!”
She grew pale with angry emotion. Never was a face that more faithfully reflected her moods. She could not hide them if she would.
“What! you’ve sent the coach away for a few dirty minutes like that? You’re a cruel man, so you are! And me that loves sitting for my pictures. I was doing the flowers to please you and this is my thanks. I’ll have you know I’m not a slave if Iaman unhappy girl that has to endure every kind of hard usage. You’re a grand gentleman and I’m nothing, but I wouldn’t treat you like that. I’ll not see you again this day!”
She tore off her hat, her lawn cloak, and flung them on the floor. She dashed into the next room and tearing the flowers out of the vase flung them into the garden. Finally, upstairs with her like a whirlwind and Circe is heard to bang her door and lock it.
Greville, with the bell, serenely summons Mrs. Cadogan, curtseying and affrighted.
“Have the goodness to inform Mrs. Hart that I go to London and stay this night and possibly longer with her Grace the Duchess of Argyll. I shall need no dinner until further notice.”
He collects such possessions as he needs and departs with more than usual stateliness, and Mrs. Cadogan pounds upstairs the moment the door closes after him and rattles the handle of Circe’s retreat.
“Let me in, Emy. ’Tis me, no one else. He’s gone, more like an ice stature than a man. Oh, Emy, you’ll pull down the house over our heads with your rages and follies. Let me in, I tell you. What man d’ye suppose will stand such tantrums, and you that owe him the very bread we eat. And little Emma the same!”
Silence. Mrs. Cadogan waxes eloquent at the key-hole.
“He’s off to London to stay with his duchesses and the like and he’ll want no dinner until he orders it again, and for all you know he’ll never come back!”
“Let him stay away then!” says a muffled tragic voice, evidently from the depths of the pillow. “You won’t need to fry the fish for dinner. That’s all the difference.”
“You fool, you!” says the pursy old lady outside and begins slowly to retreat to the stair-head, making her departure as noisy as possible that she may be recalled.
In a moment the door was open and Emma in crumpled white gown and loosened hair framed in it, a hand on either jamb.
“Where did he say he was going?”
“To some duchess. I don’t know who. Yes, Gargyle, or something.”
“Then I’m going out too. I shall go to Romney’s. Give me the basket.”
With furiously flushed cheeks, she began smoothing her hair and the rumples from her dress, a bitter sense of slighting contempt spurring her to defiance. She would not eat, would not delay, would have a hackney coach, and so off with her to Cavendish Square and Romney.
You are to imagine her entering that home of her delight with a softly falling footstep, for it came upon her always with the calm experienced in leaving busy streets behind and breathing the dim quiet of a church with shapes of silent beauty in jewelled window and faint gold, illuminated only by steadfast altar lights. This was her paradise, her church, for this girl of the people was a true believer of the religion of beauty; its priestess also, for she protested its creed in every lovely movement, in delicious voice and melting attitudes, and often winged hearts higher than they knew as they watched her. She was no priestess like the heavy-lidded women who served dark goddesses in Assyrian or Egyptian temples to snare men’s souls in the bird-lime of the pit; yet, for all this, she brought men infallibly to her level when they loved her; dyed them, all but Greville, of her own colour, and whether that level was in the heights or the depths, let the reader judge as this history unrolls. Certainly, two, the greatest, thanked God they had known her, whatever the loud-mouthed world might say. And of these, one was Romney.
The studio was large, and full of light as clear and thin as water from the tall north window. He sat bending over a table with his back to her, as though making some sketch-note that had suddenly struck his fancy. He did not hear the door open, but when her foot touched the bare floor, he said without moving, “Emma! Come in, child,” and went quietly on with his work.
She set down the little basket which carried cakes of her own making and butter and fresh eggs from the farm beyond the Green, and, coming up behind him, put her hand on his shoulder to see his dream shape itself on paper, until her hair brushed his ear. She knew well that as you never wake a child suddenly from sleep, so it must also be with such as Romney.
He took no heed of her—so deep was their harmony—but with the hand on his shoulder, worked peacefully on.
It was herself, of course; for all that time, submerged in the loveliness and charm of her, he scarcely had another thought. He was making a study in wash for the Circe—the cave, the rocks, a hint of the gracious figure emerging like light from the womb of darkness; the chaotic beginning of the lovely world to be.
Not a word between them. The big old clock in the corner ticked solemnly, the silent figures on the easels pursued their dreams, the noise of traffic outside had sunk into a lulling murmur, and though she could no more have worded it than have flown, the eternal peace of Art stole into her heart and made her quarrel with Greville a transient impertinence. “You were born for better things than that,” an inward voice said, coming from the quiet, and her very soul assented.
After awhile he pushed the paper away and looked up at her, his glance still dull with abstraction. A plain rugged face of strongly marked features and powerful jaw; the extinguished-looking eyes heavy with the melancholy that was to drown him later, and the mouth of the dreamer—whether in tone or colour—passionately sensitive as her own. Their eyes beheld each other a moment, and then hers dropped as she fell on her knees beside him, and put her head on his knee.
“Dear Mr. Romney, I’m ashamed of myself. I am, indeed. You make me what I should be, all beauty and wonder, scarce treading the earth, and I so far below it. Only this very morning I wasted your precious time and didn’t come because of a miserable quarrel with Greville. You painted me as Serena, and I’m all tumult and folly; not worth your notice.”
“Why, what’s o’clock?” he asked, feeling for his big repeater. His dialect matched her own, for Romney too was a child of the people. “I didn’t know, child; the time went. Two hours late! Well, well, not wasted anyhow. It’s shaping, it’s shaping. Just stand there in front a minute, and put up your left arm—so!—arresting, commanding. You’re a witch, reversing the spell that turned men into beasts. The other arm hangs down. Take my mahl-stick in your hand for a rod, pointing downwards, the magic gone out of it.”
He looked at her a moment as she melted slowly into the attitude he desired. Instinctively she poised herself on the ball of the left foot, a pose of wonderful strength and lightness, the lifted hand arresting the pressing beasts.
“You lovely creature!” he said softly, with a kind of tender awe. Then, thinking aloud, went on, “No, but the face! Not right. Depress the chin a little; the eyes level and strong; but—no—I’ll tell you the story. The woman in the goddess betrays her because her lover leaves her. She’s frightened, for her own power means nothing to her beside him. He has conquered her, for all she’s a goddess. The heavenly thing obeys the earthly, but with majesty. Can you do it?”
“I know,” she cried, “I know!” and steadied like marble on the instant, her features composing themselves into calm. No sorrow, a solemn awe, a noble shame, a deep immortal regret that darkened the eyes and locked the lips in eternal silence; and so stood Divinity by the waters of oblivion she may not stoop to drink forever.
He looked at her, rapt, his hands idle on the table, absorbing her passionately. Not an eyelash flickered until he released her with a long sigh, and then, as it were, floated up to the surface of common things once more.
“There was never any one like you, never will be!” he said slowly. “You know, you feel without telling. You’re the thing you seem. Who told a girl like you how goddesses look when they have lit on earth and find themselves betrayed?”
She smiled and shook her head. That was a secret to herself, but she knew her nature responsive as Æolian strings to a breeze; never a vibration passed over her from man or thing but waked its sister-echo in her heart.
“I think often you’d have been a great actress,” he said in his slow way, as she got the papers off the table, laying them neatly on the ground to be replaced exactly in the same order. She went to the corner cupboard where he kept his loaf, set the kettle on the shabby little stove, and while it heated, fixed the saucepan beside it and got out her eggs and butter and cakes, and, full of deft housewifely cares, spread his scanty cups and spoons on the table, and made ready the little meal for two; and put the teapot on and the steaming eggs, and so set him down and herself beside him and was ready for talk.
He watched her, fascinated. Those studio meals were not infrequent and always they were his delight. He was to remember them with an ache nothing could cure when she had taken her beauty and kindness to a land strange and far, where she was the adored of many but to none the star of hope, the golden Dawn she had become to him. But to-day was to-day, and the future veiled, and he smiled as she pulled up the cracked chair, too uncertain for his weight, and perched herself on the edge.
“Two eggs for each of us!” says she. “And those cakes, Mr. Romney, they’re fine! We got the recipe, mother and me, from an old Scotchie that came from Edinburgh. They just melt in your mouth as crisp as fritters. And then I’ll mend that hole in your sleeve if you’ll slip off your coat. And I’ll tell you my troubles.”
The soothing sunshine of her presence! He ate mechanically at first and then with keen enjoyment. Indeed, the little saucepan went on again, but this time for scrambled eggs with a flick of the sauce he kept to season his daily mutton chop when time failed him for the chophouse.
“Food for the gods!” he called it, and left the plate so clean that she declared she might almost spare herself the trouble to wash it up. And then she whipped off his coat and set to with her needle.
“There’s never a thing you do but what makes a picture!” he said with eyes that could not be satisfied. “Now—the way you sit, the light falling on the curls above your ear—ah, well! The troubles, child, the troubles. What are they?”
“My temper, as usual,” says she, stitching for dear life. “Mr. Romney, I can scarce look you in the face for fear you’ll despise the fool that can govern herself no more than a child. I do improve—God knows I try hard enough—but still ’twill out when Greville or another vexes me, even though I know I pull down my shelter with my own hands. And for nothing that matters a brass farthing! To-day I was late and he flung it in my face, any man would, and I must needs answer back, and off he went to his grand friends.”
Watching, he saw a tear splash on the brass button of his coat, but said nothing. He let her unpack her heart.
“I often fear it won’t last forever.” Her voice was quivering now. “For it’s three years, and that’s a long time for a man’s heart though but a day to a woman’s. He said, when we began, that he never knew a woman clever enough to keep a man that was tired of her. Mr. Romney, is he tired of me?”
Down went the coat on her knee, and two swimming eyes invited his judgment as that of heaven, two trembling hands extended to receive sentence.
“Child, how can I tell?” the Mentor answered tenderly. “To me it seems that your infinite variety mocks the very wordtire, but indeed I know not these men of fashion who love themselves so well that there’s but little room for a woman’s face in their heart. But you should not vex him without cause. Greville loves his ease. Even my bat’s eyes can see that far. But that he can throw such a jewel away I’ll never credit till I see it.”
She shook her head disconsolate.
“I’m the most ungrateful girl on earth. I know it. Sure he sent me to the sea and I ill, when he was off to his uncle’s new estates at Milford. And he let me have little Emma with me, and not a grumble out of him over my bills, which was wonderful indeed, though heaven knows I kept them as low as low! And yet in spite of it, I can’t always hold my miserable tongue, though I love him with all my heart and soul and shall forever.”
“And you that I thought was modelling yourself on Serena in the poem!” said Romney, with the ghost of a smile. “I don’t think you’ll ever rival that lady, somehow, and for my part I don’t wholly wish you should. But Greville likes ease, and to see his pupil do him honour. Teaching and lecturing’s his master passion and every time you kick over the traces you disparage his own method to him. That’s more than half the trouble.”
“I know, I know! And, sure, to please God and Greville is my only aim. Oh, Mr. Romney, if we could see a little ahead, if we could know what’s coming! He’ll turn his poor Emma off one day, and then—”
“Then she’ll know there’s a man smudges paint on canvas would rather starve than she should want! But I think better of Greville’s discrimination. You sit down here presently and write him a pretty letter, and I’ll send it to the big house he’s at, and it will bring him back to-morrow. But don’t anger him again. What is it but to stick a knife in your own breast?”
She told him he was right, and resumed her stitching, and he watched her with his heart in his eyes—his divine lady, his child, his muse; all and one, and more that he could never put in words. If Laura possesses Petrarch, and Dante, Beatrice, to the end of time, so most surely does Emma possess the man who will not let her die, who with strong magic caught and fixed ghost after ghost of her beauty upon canvas to make the world eternally her lover.
When he resumed the coat and she had gravely considered the effect, head on one side appraising, she got his pen and paper, and sat down to her task. She wrote with ease now, and though the spelling was still deplorable the hand was no worse than many a woman of quality’s.
She had been strongly moved that day, always indeed strongly moved herself with the picture of her griefs, and as she wrote the tears were so thick in her eyes that the letters swam before them.
“O my dearest Greville, don’t think on my past follies, think on my good, little as it has been. O Greville, when I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of gratitude that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in view, which I am determined to practice, and that is evenness of temper. For endead I have thought so much of your amiable goodness when you have been tried to the utmost that I will, endead I will manege myself and try to be like Greville. There is nothing like bying expearance. O Greville, think on me with kindness. Think on how many happy days weeks and years—I hope—we may yett pass. And endead, did you know how much I love you, you woud freely forgive me any passed quarrels. I have done nothing but think of you since, and O Greville, did you but know when I so think, what thoughts, what tender thoughts, you would say ‘Good God, and can Emma have such feeling sensibility? No, I never coud think it. But now I may hope to bring her to conviction, and she may prove a valluable and amiable whoman!’ True, Greville, and you shall not be disappointed. I will be everything you can wish.”
“O my dearest Greville, don’t think on my past follies, think on my good, little as it has been. O Greville, when I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart is so full of gratitude that I want words to express it. But I have one happiness in view, which I am determined to practice, and that is evenness of temper. For endead I have thought so much of your amiable goodness when you have been tried to the utmost that I will, endead I will manege myself and try to be like Greville. There is nothing like bying expearance. O Greville, think on me with kindness. Think on how many happy days weeks and years—I hope—we may yett pass. And endead, did you know how much I love you, you woud freely forgive me any passed quarrels. I have done nothing but think of you since, and O Greville, did you but know when I so think, what thoughts, what tender thoughts, you would say ‘Good God, and can Emma have such feeling sensibility? No, I never coud think it. But now I may hope to bring her to conviction, and she may prove a valluable and amiable whoman!’ True, Greville, and you shall not be disappointed. I will be everything you can wish.”
Her own pathos had moved her to such a pitch by this time that she could write no more and was forced to borrow Romney’s handkerchief to dry her streaming eyes before she could sign and fold the letter.
“It’s all true, every word of it, and I don’t expect ever to be happy more, but, oh, Mr. Romney, did you but know howgoodI feel at this moment!” said she, when the missive was despatched. “Never, never can I so burst out again. ’Tis the blessed quiet in this dear place that aids me, and your friendly presence. And now I must go. Wish me forgiven, for without his love life is death to me and I would not ask to draw another breath.”
She meant it to the full and her sweet face was like Congreve’s “Mourning Bride,” until by good fortune, as Romney took her to the door to call a coach for her, a Punch and Judy show came along the square, and she must needs delay to see the antics, and very shortly was crying for laughter as whole-heartedly as she had cried upstairs for sorrow.
The little crowd laughed with her, she leading with abandon that would have driven Greville mad had he seen it, and Romney laughing behind her with joy to see her cheered. Those two children of the people were much at home with each other and with the people. Punch never held a merrier assembly. As she turned finally to go Romney called her back a moment.
“Gavin Hamilton was here this morning and told me he hears Sir William’s coming back from Naples to see to the estates his wife left him. You may as well tell Greville, in case it’s news to him.”
She assented lightly, never guessing that Destiny, with the smile ironic masked in triviality, was at her heels again, and went off to Edgware Row at last gay as a lark and confident of forgiveness; sure in this happy world all must be well; and Greville would be pleased to know his uncle was coming. No censorious uncle he, but a sympathetic friend and with an eye for beauty keen as Greville’s own. She promised herself an unbending elderly admirer. Romney remained alone to think of her angelic kindness and dear ways, and to touch and retouch his sketch while the light lasted. He went forth then to his solitary chophouse. As for herself, Greville was still sternly absent on her return, but her good consoling mother had made a comfortable little roast of lamb for supper and jam tarts to follow, and if the evening was not perfect bliss, at least it was mighty endurable, and the jam tarts excellent to the appetite of twenty healthy years.
CHAPTER VTHE RIFT
Theletter reached Greville at the stately house of her Grace the Duchess of Argyll and was delivered into his hand as he sat with two ladies so beautiful at their different ages that Paris might sooner have devoured his apple, gold though it was, than run the risk of mistake in awarding it to one or the other.
And lest it be believed that the romancer dresses all his ladies in rainbow glories, I point out that the elder was the famous Elizabeth Gunning—the double Duchess, as they called her—who had risen from direst poverty by the victorious attack of her loveliness on the embattled world, to be successively Duchess of Hamilton and Duchess of Argyll, and the younger was Mrs. Crewe, that most fashionable of all beauties, of whom it was said (in a world which knew not Emma!) that she alone equalled or excelled the perfections of Elizabeth Gunning in the days when she took the town by storm; a sweet, sleepy-eyed beauty, gentle persuasion in every look, and a little delicate malice to season the honey with ginger.
The ladies were dressed for a Court and were splendid in satins and jewels. Greville, very much at home in that house, was festooning a chain of diamonds to better advantage about Mrs. Crewe’s shoulders when the letter made its appearance, the Duchess commenting on his fine taste.
“There’s no man I know like you for taste, Greville,” says her gracious Grace. “The Hamiltons are like that. How is it you pick up all these notions? No wonder you’re fastidious.”
He put the letter carefully in his pocket with a spasm of anger that she should dare pursue him there, and stood back to view his work.
“Mrs. Crewe sets it off even better than she did the other fashion. As to my taste, ’tis formed on the antique, and what I’ve done is by no means original. Thus the Roman Empress Faustina disposed her jewels to catch the eyes of her gladiator lovers when she wearied of her philosophic husband! Ah, madam, are not women the same in all ages?”
“They suit themselves to the men, who also don’t change, for all I see. And if the Emperor was as dull as our philosophers to-day, I excuse her Majesty.” Thus the Duchess.
“One may be dull without the excuse of philosophy to advertise it,” replied Mrs. Crewe at the mirror, looking at her long swan’s throat, glorious with diamonds. “Do but think of the Duke of Devonshire. It gives me an indigestion to look at him. It runs in families. ’Tis because Mr. Greville is half Hamilton that he’s such highly instructive company.”
She shot a little ironic glance at him from under long lashes. The lady knew very well that here was one who “could gaze without madness on Amoret’s eyes”—eyes which had settled the fate of not lovers only but of more than one contested election, for she had but to smile upon the happy voters and they were won. Greville hated political women, and she knew it. Hence the little scratch, a pat with velvet paw. But he was stirred to discomfort nevertheless, for Mrs. Crewe was a thermometer for measuring the liking of society, and had a smile graduated to its exact temperature. Could it be possible the great world began to find him a little tedious, a littlearrièré? He was born older than any of them to begin with and had relished a fossil when others were gambling, tripping and soaking, and it was not always easy to conceal that their amusements palled on him. And for the last three years he had permitted himself to drop rather more into obscurity with his delightful pupil than his reason could approve. She was troublesome sometimes, but yet her amazing progress in the graces and accomplishments she owed him and the masters he provided was a daily amusement and interest. And the little house in Edgware Row was absolute comfort. The dish, chosen by himself, and cooked perfectly to his taste, suited his liking and health better than the sumptuous banquets of the great houses, and Emma’s company, which required no tip-toe courtesy or courting, allowed him to stand at ease in a way impossible with the fashionable ladies who welcomed him, perhaps a shade more coldly than formerly. But—if he were dropping out? To be forgotten is a much less easy process than forgetting, and Mr. Greville must be received with acclaim wherever he deigned to show himself. Was his season slipping by? He winced. She was not worth it. No! not a day, not an hour should she stand in his light if he were once persuaded of that. And economize as she would, still his taste for the antique led him into irretrievable expense. That matter, too, was becoming urgent.
He must control his tendency to pontificate. Sir William had warned him of it once half jesting—Sir William, who was twenty years younger for all the remorseless parish register.
He broke up his collegiate calm into smiles on the very fear of disapproval, and executed a little adoration of Mrs. Crewe, yet not enough to compel the Duchess to recall her own age. They discussed the company to appear at the Court, and Mrs. Crewe flung another softly feathered dart.
“Miss Middleton will be there,” says she. “I met Lady Middleton this afternoon—a woman I swallow with difficulty. She detained me a whole ten minutes to hear the story of the latest heart Miss Middleton has strung with the other scalps at her girdle. ‘A most desirable prospect, my dear’—she mimicked the proud mother—‘wealth, devotion; everything but family. The father is Wade, the successful Irish merchant.’ Lord! says I, what signifies family nowadays? If money is not worth a little wading in the mud, what is?”
Greville laughed to hide discomfort. He knew perfectly well what was in the air. He, the fastidious, the condescending, had distinguished Miss Middleton with languid attentions. Of all the heiresses he had scanned during the past three years, she appeared the most desirable, and marriage with her the least unpleasant alternative. And the so-called friends of his circle knew this perfectly and waited expectant, though it would be decidedly more amusing (they owned) to see the gold cup slip from his lip and my fastidious gentleman left in the lurch, if the luck should turn that way.
“I dine there to-morrow and shall hear the news,” he said easily. “Lord, how well you mimic Lady Middleton, madam! Had she no more news for you?”
“Not that will interest you, sir. Why, yes, now I think of it! I had forgot, but no doubt you know it. She said she had met Gavin Hamilton, suddenly back from Italy, and he told her Sir William will be returning shortly. His wife’s death two years ago has given him things to look into here. But no doubt you know this.”
“I shall by next mail, madam, but not yet. Very likely Gavin has a letter in hand for me.”
“ ’Twill be agreeable to see Sir William again,” said the Duchess. “I ever liked him best of my Hamilton relations. He will be well received at Court too. The King never forgets his foster brother.”
She alluded to the fact that Lady Archibald Hamilton, Sir William’s mother, had beenmaîtresse en titreto Frederick, Prince of Wales, George III’s father, a circumstance which had much advantaged Sir William in life.
“I know no one with more agreeable manners,” she added. “In society he has all the graces of a young man, and yet the savants are at home with him. I hope with all my heart he finds a charming wife awaiting him in England. He wants an Ambassadress in that big villa in Naples, and I know no man who could make a more agreeable husband to a sensible woman. He can’t expect to find a saint like your late aunt, Greville, but not many women would refuse a man of his temper. Indeed, I have one in my mind—”
Greville, quivering with uneasiness, begged to hear the name, but she shook her head, laughing.
“No, no. These things are spoiled if told, but I shall throw them together with all the art I can muster.”
“What her Grace decrees is done!” Mr. Greville said, bowing gallantly. “My uncle will be infinitely indebted.”
He waited until the ladies graciously dismissed him, and then betook himself to his club, so lost in thought that Emma’s letter lay totally forgotten in his pocket.
Sir William coming home! Certainly he would be glad personally, but yet the thought was full of unpleasant possibilities. He sat down in a quiet corner as far removed from acquaintances as possible, and classified his thoughts in his own methodic manner.
Lady Hamilton, his aunt, was now two years dead, and in one sense Greville had never since known a perfectly unanxious moment. A saint, as the Duchess said so lightly, she had much to complain of in her gay husband’s gaieties, yet never had complained but bore all with an undeviating sweetness. But he was not the man to be spurred to any emulation by sainthood and in his own heart half blamed her piety for forcing him to seek outside recreation.
It was even more easily found in Naples than elsewhere and especially in a political backwater, as it was at that time, which left even an Ambassador of Great Britain much at a loss to fill up the lazy delicious days of sweet do-nothingness. But there were plenty to help him; a charming and artistic English society; wandering sirens (like my Lady Craven, the delight and ridicule of Horace Walpole) too numerous and worthless to be listed. Nay, it was whispered that the Queen herself, Marie Caroline, sister of the unhappy Marie Antoinette of France, had found Sir William more agreeable than even ambassadors are wont to be to the sovereigns to whom they are accredited.
And this state of affairs suited Greville excellently well. He was attached to his uncle and wished him amusement in all sincerity. His own position was secure in Sir William’s marriage, for it was childless, and Lady Hamilton, his aunt, so deeply attached to himself that with Sir William’s own affection his certainty of heirship to all the couple had to leave was complete. Indeed, Sir William spoke of it openly and gave Greville leave to mention it as a settled fact to any careful father whose heiress he might ask in marriage. And then Lady Hamilton died.
It was a disagreeable shock to Greville in more ways than one. Sir William, little over fifty, handsome, pleasing in the highest degree, hospitable, open-handed, was once more in the market—but there needs no expatiation. The case speaks for itself. And now he was returning to London, the high position of an ambassadress in his hand to offer, the loveliest land on earth as a home, and the rumour of a queen’s love to intensify his fascinations. Why, what young fellow in London could stand against him and his court favour? He would be married and done for, and a little heir next year and more to follow, and he, Greville, would sink into a young-elderly neglected man about town, too poor to keep up with the great steeplechase of fashion, unless—
Unless? Two things. A rich marriage for himself, and decorous or indecorous widowerhood for Sir William. He knew the town quite well enough to know that his chances of the first were diminished instantly an inclination of his uncle’s to marriage became known. Then what and where was the solution of the difficulty? Miss Middleton? That subject next passed in review. He knew that his advances had not been too warmly received, and though it was incredible that any rumour of the Edgware Row establishment could disturb Lord Middleton’s mind, women took fanciful views and a whisper in Lady or Miss Middleton’s ear might have done much harm there. He began to feel very strongly that Emma was a disadvantage, that he had been drifting, that if he desired a wealthy marriage he must return to a handsome house in London and bury himself and his advantages no longer in obscurity. In short, that he must make a complete change in his life. To this must be added the fact that he felt he had amply redeemed his pledges to Emma, and that, though she had become a delightful household companion in many ways, her temper was still troublesome; her tastes, through all the veneer, still apt to be unexpectedly coarse in grain here and there; and last, but far from least, that even such beauty may pall, and that he began to be somewhat tired of her.
Of course there would be difficulties with Emma, serious ones, but here he by no means despaired. His own calm good sense and Sir William’s counsel would carry him through and dispose of her comfortably. All justice should be done her short of the unreason of injuring his own career.
This was a matter which he could discuss freely with Sir William and there could be no doubt what his advice would be. The means were the only difficult question, and those could be arranged if two men of experience put their heads together.
All this dismissed, he took out her letter and read it carefully. It did not move him. He thought her bursts of repentance as facile as her tempers. The fact was, and he often reproached her for it, she had too much imagination, and, to Greville, imagination was the last folly, almost the last crime. It meant the unpleasant faculty of seeing things as they are not, of exaggerating every emotion, of leaving the straight highway of fact for endless and perplexing aerial flights that ended in cloud-land and involved unpleasant drops to earth, and bruised every relation in life hopelessly. If she had but plodding good sense Emma would be irresistible. Alas, no!—she would not be Emma.
He tore the letter into small bits for the waste-paper basket, disposed of it, and entered into easy talk with an acquaintance. He would not go home. She needed a lesson and should have it.
As a matter of fact, he neither returned nor wrote for a week, and Emma was seriously frightened. The excuse was simple enough, a letter from Sir William announcing his return and asking Greville to attend to some business connected with his Welsh estates. It could have been done as well from Edgware Row, but for the need of administering a sound lesson, but Greville always pursued his settled way without flinching. Also, there was a dinner at the Middletons.
She was in a state of abject submission when he got back, pale with watching. Indeed, but for Romney’s upholding and the certainty which he gained for her that Greville was still in town, she would have been inclined to tear through the streets to find him anywhere, anyhow, and it took all Romney’s persuasion to induce her to wait quietly.
She sank into a chair pale and sighing, as he entreated her—a deep patient sigh. She was A Forsaken Lady in Dejection at the moment, with drooped head and hanging hands.
“Ah, Mr. Romney, this is the reward for a most tender and passionate love. You know how I have given my whole heart, my whole life; and no woman ever did this but met her reward in cruelty.”
“I thought,” says Romney, blundering, “that you owed him much kindness. Could you not, my dear, fix your mind on that rather than on anger which you yourself owned deserved t’other day, and which I am certain will soon pass?”
“Kindness!” she cried, the blood flowing crimson into lips and cheeks with a sudden return to energy. “Kindness? That’s the way a huckster would calculate it. Food, clothes, and lessons—lessons that I might sing and draw for his diversion. That’s his kindness! And I’ve given him in return beauty not thought despicable, and the love and tender devotion of a true heart. When he had an oppression on the chest, didn’t I poultice him and sit up near a week till I looked like a hag of thirty? Didn’t I cook his broths with my own hands and wouldn’t let my mother touch ’em; didn’t I run his errands and fetch and carry and sweep his room and—”
She flung up her arms with an inspired gesture as she poured on and became a denouncing goddess. Romney stared at her all unconscious of the words, seeing only the Juno look, the offended majesty of the noble attitude. What did it matter what she said so long as she could look like that? He snatched charcoal and paper, and began with swift lines to perpetuate the pose.
Enraged, she darted on the helpless man and seized the paper and tore it across, glaring at him, a beautiful Fury.
“You too!” she cried. “Where’s your sympathy? I that have sat for you hundreds of times and you never asked if I was weary, not so much as once. Men are all the same; a woman’s not flesh and blood to feel and suffer, she’s but a pastime or a slave; or a dog to be driven from the door. Oh, the cruel, hateful world! Some day I’ll stick a knife into my heart and make an end of it.”
Here a sob sent her back to the first pose because she could no longer orate comfortably. She sank again into her chair, and Romney, all trembling sympathetic fear, put out his delicate fibrous hand and clutched hers softly yet strongly, and yearned over her and consoled her with clumsy tenderness and bid her take courage, for though Greville could never, never love her as he loved his child, his inspiration, yet no man having tasted her beauty could ever cast his eye on another. She herself was her security.
“But go back,” he entreated, “and vex him no more, my beloved lady. For sure it only recoils on yourself. For my part, I can love Greville because he brought you to me and so flooded my life with sunshine. ’Tis my belief that one day he’ll marry you if you do but govern yourself. Now be good and go home to be there when he comes, as I swear he will and must.”
So he coaxed and wheedled her and got her back to the normal and into a hackney coach, and so saw her depart; and not an hour too soon, for Greville came back that day, and if all had not been ready for him it would have been a coolness to start with.
But all was in apple-pie order, and she so sweetly humble, with her white dress and soft submissive eyes, that what could he do but open his arms and forgive her, and the more readily because the room was perfumed with flowers, ablanquetteof veal done to perfection for his dinner, with a morsel of fine old cheese to follow and a glass of Sir William’s fine sparkling Burgundy to finish with the biscuits. And Mrs. Cadogan had been at her polishing, and the silver on the table (for Mr. Greville could eat in nothing meaner) was black velvet in the bowls of the spoons and curves of the dish, and the glass sparkled like frost crystals to the summer sunshine outside; and when Emma had cleared the table, mellowed with comfort, he cried.
“I’ll take you to Ranelagh for an evening’s enjoyment. Put on your prettiest gown and your blue hat, and my girl shall see the world and the world see her.”
She flew upstairs, when the time came, all fire and joy, for this was a rare treat and proved her fully restored to favour. It was the golden sceptre extended to the fainting Esther. It cannot be said she made herself beautiful, for God had done that for her once and for all, but Greville exclaimed at her charming air as she came downstairs in a considered hat that made her eyes look dark azure and her cheeks pink carnations. Mrs. Cadogan, too, clasped her hands in delight and, being accommodated with a glass of port, watched them smiling out of sight.
Yet it had been better if that enchanting pleasure had never been embarked on, for look what happened!
Ranelagh, dim and beautiful save where earthly lights matched their rose and golden jewels against the silver flood of moonlight; Ranelagh, with shy secret walks where beauties far from shy might wander with happy lovers and exchange a perilous kiss ere they came upon another pair similarly engaged round the corner; Ranelagh, with gay little tables set in open boxes so brilliantly lit that here the moonlight was vanquished and a torrent of rainbow light poured upon the handsomest toilettes available and the bright eyes and laughing lips of the London ladies.
They toured the gardens with all the discretion of a long married couple observing the indiscretions of less fortunate people, and Greville turned a neat point or two for her consideration as to the good breeding of reserve in public, and then having engaged a box for supper, left her, thinking he caught sight of the artist Gavin Hamilton and resolved to introduce him to the Secret Beauty and have the usual congratulations on his good fortune. Who but Emma! Giddy with the lights and music, the just finished song of the prima donna of the evening, the softly muted notes of the string orchestra, she sat well forward in the box to survey the passing crowd in its gay kaleidoscope of colour. She leaned her arms on the edge, she turned her face this way and that, looking for Greville, wondering what kept him, and fully conscious that many faces turned in her direction, and men and women alike looked up at the lovely stranger—alone, equivocal, surely approachable! At least it could be hoped so. The orchestra struck up again, this time in the gay strain “Batti, batti,” her last lesson, her latest triumph. Heavens, what a coincidence! Irresistible! Leaning out still, she began to sing, softly at first, terrified at her own daring and the listening faces, then louder, clearer, clearer, as the conductor caught the bright soprano and, beckoning the orchestra with his stick, sent them back to the accompaniment. Instantly she saw his intention and sprang to her feet on the impulse, ardent and flushed. She that had never sung with an orchestra before! She whose sole audience had been Greville, Romney, her master, or a chance friend. And now, now, London was listening, or so it seemed to her excited fancy. She could hear her own voice mounting, soaring divinely in the delicious music. Louder, louder, clearer, clearer, sure that silver note touched the very stars, and the people were still as death to hear this new nightingale and the orchestra softened and softened to give her room, and—Greville returned.
On the last phrase, and as the listeners broke out in thunders of clapping, he returned, little guessing what voice embroidered the night with silver. And as he looked at the box it was Emma, crimsoning to the plaudits, bowing as though to the manner born, her fair hands crossed on her heart.
In a pale fury that subdued him to the utmost deliberation he walked into the box and beckoned her to come to the back.
“Let us instantly go away,” said he.
Conscious of her enormities, she faltered.
“Did I do wrong, Greville? I didn’t know. I thought to see you pleased with my success.”
“Pleased!” Not another word did he utter. Supper was served and he cast not a glance upon it, but paid the bill and walked out with Emma trembling at his heels, leaving who would to eat it.
It was a descent from such Olympian dignity that later he must needs explain how she had erred, for it was impossible for her to see it without assistance. To her it was as natural to break into song as it is to a bird, and enchanting to enchant others. What? Surely God made beautiful voices and beautiful faces for the common joy. “And I knew I could do it better than Ceritelli!” she added, quaking.
“You acted with your usual want of consideration—your usual lack of taste and breeding.” His words were drops of sleet on a hot cheek. “It convinces me, what I have long since thought, that there is not nor ever can be any community of feeling between us. I have trained you now for near four years, and yet the moment I leave you you can expose yourself to the public view in a place where any woman with a rag of decency left must be circumspect. And there you draw every eye upon you and make yourself a spectacle for every coarse fellow or bad woman that cares to look and listen. If your own good feeling don’t show you the horror of such a proceeding I may talk for ever in vain. So I shall say no more. I despair of you.”
Later, when cowed, she besought his forgiveness, he accorded it dangerously.
“I forgive you because you are so coarse in fibre that you can never learn. I do but waste breath. It is not your fault; after a fashion. Yes. I forgive you. But to say that I can forget is impossible. These things shape my view of your character, in which I own myself mistaken from the beginning.”
She dared say no more, and the episode passed into silence, but it is not too much to say that from that hour Emma’s fate was fixed, though her lord and master would take his own time to announce his decision. And as little did she think as he that Sir William Hamilton, whose coming now drew near, was to be the very arbiter of that fate.