CHAPTER VII
Duringthe winter of 1758 Vienna society found one of its most interesting subjects of small talk in the affairs of Sir Gavin Hamilton and his son, Lieutenant Gavin Hamilton, of the Jascinsky Regiment of Hussars. Of course, all sorts of variations were given to the story, the plain, unvarnished truth being the version seldomest heard and least believed. Although England had withdrawn from her alliance with the Empress Queen, and the King of Prussia had secured an English alliance and an English subsidy of nearly seven hundred thousand pounds, it was the policy of Kaunitz to treat the English in Vienna in a conciliatory manner. There were only a few of them, chiefly gentlemen of fortune like Sir Gavin Hamilton, who had a fancy for what was then, next to Paris, the gayest city of continental Europe, and who took advantage of the permission to remain until the actual outbreak of hostilities in the spring. Nowhere was the spirit of resistance toFrederick’s aggressions so determined as in Vienna, and it was the belief both of the great Chancellor and his imperial mistress that it would be well for Englishmen of rank and standing to note the undaunted front with which the Court of Vienna met misfortunes, and prepared to redeem them. Sir Gavin was distinctly unpopular; but that, which would have been a reason with most men for leaving Vienna at the earliest feasible moment, was reason enough to keep him there until the last possible hour. He had an unshakable self-possession, and it gave him a cynical amusement to show himself when the world expected him to take himself off; to smile and be at his ease when other men would have been miserably ill at ease; to calmly ignore the attitude of others when it did not coincide with his own attitude. He appeared punctually at the next weekly levee of the Empress Queen, after he had been dropped out of the window by his son, and bore with perfect composure the sly smiles and covert gibes to which his adventure gave rise. Only on one point did he change. Twice had he met Gavin, and each time the slur cast upon Lady Hamilton had been resented in a way against which he was practically defenceless. All the sneers and jeers in the worldwere helpless against a young man with such fine, powerful arms and legs as Gavin’s, and who had no scruple whatever in using them. Sir Gavin saw, therefore, the absolute impossibility of conveying any slight upon Lady Hamilton in her son’s presence without being made not only odious, but ridiculous; and, like Gavin, he knew perfectly well that no place and no company would give him security, when the occasion rose, from the just resentment of the son of the woman he had so injured.
Gavin, deep in learning the duties of his new position, yet lost not a moment in trying to get his mother to Vienna. The journey would be long and expensive, and it would require rigid economy for both of them to live on his hussar’s pay; yet his affectionate heart yearned to have her with him. Madame Ziska and her husband, and St. Arnaud, who knew the world well, pointed out other reasons why it was desirable that Lady Hamilton should come to Vienna.
“It is your great opportunity,” said St. Arnaud one evening when they all sat together in Madame Ziska’s apartment. “There is no doubt that the Empress Queen will receive your mother as Lady Hamilton, and it will carry great weight in your contest for your rights.”
“Especially will it be so,” added Kalenga, who was a man of much sense, “if she is received as Lady Hamilton while Sir Gavin Hamilton is here. It will be plain that there could be no deception about it, and that the Empress Queen knew the exact status of the case. Therefore, I recommend you to make every effort and every sacrifice to get your mother to you at the earliest moment. When the campaign opens in the spring, you will be obliged to leave Vienna. You should have her here before you are ordered away.”
“And I,” said St. Arnaud, “through my connections in France, can arrange for her to start and have money advanced to her.”
“And I,” chimed in Madame Ziska, “can lend you a few ducats to help her out.”
The ever-ready tears filled Gavin’s eyes.
“Why should I have such friends? I think it must be my mother’s blessing that brings them. But, oh, me! I do not know where in Paris my mother can now be found. The last letter that reached me was in the summer. She may have changed her quarters since then.”
“Never mind,” cried St. Arnaud encouragingly. “It is not likely that she did not take stepsto have her whereabouts known, and the King’s police can find her, anyhow.”
That very night St. Arnaud wrote a packet of letters, to be dispatched by the next post to France. Only after they were gone did he tell Gavin that he had directed his friends in Paris, not only to find Lady Hamilton, but to supply her with everything needful for her comfort in making the long journey. More than that, he went next day to Prince Kaunitz, and laying before him the facts in the case, got a specific promise from him that the Empress Queen would receive Lady Hamilton on her arrival. And he and Gavin, in whatever company they found themselves, took pains to announce the coming arrival of Lady Hamilton. The presence of Sir Gavin made a very pretty complication, and conjecture ran riot in Vienna society as to what he would say and do when the catastrophe came. Sir Gavin discounted it all by saying and doing nothing whatever. Bets were freely made as to the date when Sir Gavin would be driven to flight. The Chancellor, Kaunitz, hearing it talked of one evening in the Empress Queen’s antechamber, took a pinch of snuff, and coolly poising it between his thumb and forefinger, remarked:
“Sir Gavin Hamilton will remain in Vienna as long as he is not wanted. The day we appear to wish him to stay he will take post for Berlin or London or the devil. Yesterday I achieved the greatest diplomatic stroke of my career. Sir Gavin came to see me at the Chancellery, and inquired whether he could have permission to remain in Vienna, if he so desired, beyond the time stipulated in his passport. I was on the alert at once. I knew, whatever he supposed my wishes were, that would he not do. Therefore, I answered him in such a manner that he did not and cannot find out whether his presence here is pleasing or displeasing to her Imperial Majesty’s government. That is what I call a diplomatic triumph.”
And Kaunitz dramatically waved his jewelled hand and lace-trimmed handkerchief in the air.
“But the wife he repudiates is coming,” suggested a pert maid of honour. Kaunitz shook his head.
“No such trifle as that, my dear lady, will move Sir Gavin Hamilton. Englishmen are obstinate, but Sir Gavin Hamilton has an obstinacy as tall and as wide and as deep as the cathedral of St. Stephen.”
On a snowy day in February, about the timethat Lady Hamilton was expected, St. Arnaud sat alone in his apartment. He was hard at work over some details of his regiment; for the remnants of it had been got together, and with the new recruits it could make a tolerable showing in numbers. Below he could hear the Kalenga children romping—Madame Ziska was away at the palace giving the dancing lesson to the little archdukes and archduchesses, and Kalenga, the most devoted of fathers, allowed his children much more indulgence than their mother. They grew so noisy presently that when St. Arnaud heard the grinding of wheels before the door, he said to himself:
“Thank heaven, Madame Ziska is come, and they will now be quiet.”
But, looking out of the window, he saw it was not Madame Ziska who was descending from the carriage, but a lady in black, whose slightness and youthfulness of figure made it seem impossible that she should be the mother of a son as old as Gavin Hamilton.
St. Arnaud returned to his work, until he heard steps ascending the stairs, and Freda’s childish voice saying:
“The gentlemen are out, but I can show you toLieutenant Gavin’s room—that is what we call him.”
The door opened and Lady Hamilton entered.
The youthfulness of her figure was not fulfilled in her face. Sorrow and want had done their work there; they had clouded, though not destroyed her delicate beauty. Her dark eyes were Gavin’s eyes, but her hair, once a deep brown, was plentifully streaked with gray. Her complexion, extremely fair, had not the red glow of youth, and her fine, straight features were thin and marked. But however much she had the signs of having suffered, she was now palpitating with joy, and her pallor was that of overpowering emotion. Her eyes rested upon St. Arnaud, then quickly searched the room.
“He is not here—my son—” she said, trembling as she spoke.
“No, madam,” replied St. Arnaud, rising, “but he will be here very shortly.”
Lady Hamilton advanced to the middle of the room, and placing her hand on St. Arnaud’s arm, said:
“I know well who you are—my son’s friend and best benefactor. I am almost glad that Gavin is not here, for I did not know how much it would agitate me to meet him.”
St. Arnaud led her tenderly to a chair, saying:
“Remember, you are among friends who honour you and love Gavin.”
The woman, who had borne with stoical composure for twenty years the miseries of a repudiated wife, broke down under these words of kindness. She laid her head upon her arms and sobbed convulsively. Freda, with wide and frightened childish eyes, watched her, while St. Arnaud let her weep unchecked; he saw that it was doing her good. Freda, who was an affectionate child, stole her little hand in Lady Hamilton’s, and asked earnestly:
“Won’t you let me get you some coffee to make you stop crying—and a little piece of bread with it and some cheese?”
Lady Hamilton drew the child to her, and smiling through her tears, called her a dear child. Freda thought the ways of grown people very remarkable.
In a few minutes Lady Hamilton recovered her self-possession—the pains of joy are short-lived—and sat up, her wan face glowing with happiness. And then, just as she and St. Arnaud were talking as if they had known each other forty years, an eager step was heard on the stairs, and Gavin, hisface flushed with exercise, and looking every inch a man and a soldier in his hussar uniform, bounded into the room. St. Arnaud slipped into his own bedroom—the meeting between the mother and son was too sacred for other eyes.
Gavin caught his mother in his arms and strained her to his heart. Both wept—they had shed no tears at parting—and a dozen times Gavin cried: “Mother! my mother!” and Lady Hamilton answered: “My son! my excellent, brave son,” as if the mere repetition of the title each loved gave them joy.
The first rapturous kisses over, mother and son looked at each other with new eyes. When they had parted nearly two years before, Gavin was a boy. He had looked up to his mother for help in every relation of life, and she had been forgetful, as mothers are, of the development of the boy into the man, and had yearned over him in his youth and inexperience much as she had watched over him in his cradle. Now, in the twinkling of an eye, after a separation of two years, their situations were reversed. The mother saw at one glance that here she had a stay and prop—the days of her comfort were beginning. And the son saw that, in the natural evolution of events, he couldnow begin to return to his mother that all-providing care with which she had sheltered his hard and poverty-stricken youth. Lady Hamilton surveyed his tall and well-formed figure with delight. She had never before in her life seen him tolerably well dressed. To keep him decent had taxed all her slender resources; and to see him in all the splendour of his white hussar uniform was a revelation to her.
“I did not know you were so nearly handsome,” she said fondly, kissing his forehead. “But I never before saw you in the guise of a gentleman.”
“Oh, my mother,” cried Gavin, “after I had left you and knew something of the world, I wondered how you, alone and forsaken in a strange country, ever continued to live at all! And to feed and clotheme—what a burden I must have been to you!”
“No burden, but my only joy and hope. Tell me, therefore, my son, have you so lived since we parted that I can still have joy and hope in you? Look me in the face and tell me if you have led a clean life and an upright life, for I know you cannot deceive my eyes, even if you would.”
Gavin looked at her honestly, clearly, unflinchingly.
“I have not been perfect, mother,” he replied. “No one is that, you have always told me; but there is not one hour of my life since we parted that you cannot know all about, if you wish to hear it. Remember, the ways and talk of private soldiers, of whom I was one for two years, are not the ways and talk in which you bred me; but these soldiers were honest, brave fellows, if they were uncouth and coarse. I have felt, however, much more at home in the company which St. Arnaud made possible to me than I ever did among the soldiers; and in one thing, at least, I obeyed your commands”—here Gavin laughed—“I was often ragged and always cold and hungry, but I never was a moment without a piece of soap, a comb, and a razor.”
At which Lady Hamilton smiled and said:
“You are my own true boy. My father and my brothers were always clean and well-shaven, as becomes gentlemen. I don’t know how I should feel toward a son who neglected those things.”
Gavin grew serious enough the next moment, for he said:
“And do you know that my—that Sir Gavin Hamilton is in Vienna?”
A deep flush rose instantly in Lady Hamilton’spale face. Gavin went on and described his adventure with Sir Gavin Hamilton at the imperial palace and everything connected with him, and especially the possibility that he and Lady Hamilton might meet if Lady Hamilton went to the Empress Queen’s levee, which she, no doubt, would.
“And after her Majesty receives you, mother,” cried Gavin exultingly, “Sir Gavin can no longer insult you by saying you were not his wife.”
“But will her Majesty receive me?”
“Undoubtedly; so Prince Kaunitz has promised St. Arnaud. And I have privately told St. Arnaud that if by any accident or intrigue it is refused, or even delayed, I will resign my commission at once and enlist again as a private soldier. But St. Arnaud will manage it. St. Arnaud has a great family connection in Paris. The Chancellor, Kaunitz, knows all about him—so trust St. Arnaud to do for you what he has done for me. He is the best friend with whom mortal man was ever blessed.”
“I long to see him again. When I arrived I was so overcome and agitated that I scarcely knew what I was saying; but I loved him before I ever saw him. And I love that good Madame Ziska—ah,Gavin, Gavin, how much good there is in the world!”
“Come,” cried Gavin, jumping up. “I hear the carriage at the door—Madame Ziska has returned from the opera-house—and where is St. Arnaud?”
Gavin ran in the other rooms of the apartment, shouting:
“St. Arnaud! Where are you? Come and see my mother;” but St. Arnaud was nowhere to be found. Gavin then escorted his mother to the floor below to meet Madame Ziska and her husband. In all the terrible privations, humiliations, and struggles of twenty years, Lady Hamilton had never lost the best part of her birthright—the air and manner of the high-bred Englishwoman. Her black gown was shabby and her slim hands roughened by the actual toil she had been compelled to do, but she was everywhere at ease, with that serene and graceful unconsciousness which is the mark of a person born to consideration. Madame Ziska, although born and bred in a far humbler position in life than the English gentlewoman, had been gifted with a natural refinement and good sense that was equal to all the advantages of birth and early education; so the two women, on meeting,had every reason to be mutually satisfied with the other.
Gavin very proudly introduced his mother as “Lady Ameeltone”—for he had not yet learned the true pronunciation of his own name—to Madame Ziska and Count Kalenga. Lady Hamilton took both of Madame Ziska’s hands in hers and said earnestly:
“How can I thank you enough for what you have done for my son?”
To which Madame Ziska replied in her more emotional and demonstrative way:
“Oh, madam, he is such a nice lad! And when I saw those two admirable young men that freezing night when we first met, my heart went out to them. At first they did not know whether I was married or a widow. I believe they thought at first I was a widow, they paid me so many gallant compliments, and all the time I was laughing to myself, thinking how their tone would change if they knew I had a husband and four big children snugly tucked away at home.”
“True,” cried Gavin with a grin. “We were sure that Madame Ziska was a young widow, she was so charming, and we felt quite flat when we found she regarded us merely as a coupleof schoolboys to be helped out of a predicament.”
Kalenga then joined in the conversation, and the children were brought in and presented, Freda especially, a pretty, quaint child of thirteen, who had already made friends with Lady Hamilton. When Madame Ziska addressed her as Lady Hamilton, she smiled sadly and said:
“A title has often seemed a mockery to me, when I have been in so great poverty and obscurity for so many years. But it is a part of my son’s heritage, and that is why I hold to it.”
Madame Ziska, the soul of hospitality, proposed that they should all sup together.
“And how vexatious it will be of St. Arnaud if he is not here,” she said. “He must be detained somewhere. As I do not dance to-night, we can put off our supper until eight o’clock, and by that time he will probably be here.”
The afternoon passed only too quickly, Lady Hamilton listening to the adventures of Gavin, and every moment feeling a deeper thankfulness for the man he had become. She herself, accustomed in her youth to the most refined society, had formerly noted with regret many little things in Gavin which it was inevitable that he shouldacquire from the humble associates of his childhood and boyhood. But all these small faults of manners and language seemed to have disappeared. In two short months Gavin had become perfectly fitted for the society to which he was born and entitled.
Eight o’clock came, and Kalenga’s chair had just been wheeled up to the comfortable supper-table, when St. Arnaud appeared. Madame Ziska covered him with reproaches for deserting them on that, of all afternoons.
“Wait, madam,” mysteriously said St. Arnaud. “I have not been forgetful of Lady Hamilton, though I presume she thought I vanished into thin air when I disappeared so suddenly. I have been to see Prince Kaunitz at the Chancellery. The Chancellor has been to see the Empress Queen, and has just given me this.”
St. Arnaud drew from his pocket an elaborately sealed letter, with the imperial arms, addressed to “The Lady Hamilton.” It was a letter from the Court Chamberlain commanding the attendance of Lady Hamilton at the next weekly levee of the Empress Queen, on the following Tuesday evening.
Gavin jumped up, snapped his fingers, danced, laughed, embraced St. Arnaud a dozen times.
“Now,” he cried, “we will see what Sir Garvan Ameeltone”—with infinite contempt—“will do when her Majesty receives Lady Ameeltone!”
Lady Hamilton, more accustomed than Gavin to the society of the great, was deeply gratified, but not, like him, highly elated; and when he spoke of his father in a tone that indicated so much hatred and contempt, she flashed him a look that reduced him to silence at once. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking the earnest gratitude of the few words, straight from her heart, with which she thanked St. Arnaud. It was, indeed, a long step toward her rights to be received by a great and virtuous sovereign in the very presence, as it were, of the man who had vainly tried to repudiate her.
It was an evening of great happiness to them all. Madame Ziska and Kalenga had become so attached to Gavin and St. Arnaud that whatever made them happy, the husband and wife shared thoroughly. Lady Hamilton found in Kalenga so much patience under misfortune, and so much affection and appreciation of his wife, that she honoured him with all her heart. When she saw their mutual devotion, she could not but think with vain regret: “Had Sir Gavin Hamilton so treatedme, I should have been the happiest woman in the world.”
Next morning a very great and important subject came up, of which only Lady Hamilton and Madame Ziska realized the true significance. This was the gown that Lady Hamilton was to wear to the imperial levee. Gavin tried to settle it at once by saying:
“Go to the shops and buy the handsomest gown you can find. I can pay for a part of it, and St. Arnaud will lend me the rest.”
“Thank you, no,” replied his mother, smiling. “It would not be in good taste that I should appear handsomely dressed, even if you had the money, which you have not. It is much better that my dress should be as simple as circumstances will allow. Therefore, I shall wear a plain black satin gown. When I was presented, in my girlhood, to the King and Queen of England, I wore a very simple gown, for my parents were not rich people for their station in life. I think I cannot do better than follow their plan now, although they have long since been taken from me.”
The days could not go fast enough for Gavin between then and Tuesday. The only thing that marred his happiness was the possibility that SirGavin Hamilton would not be present to witness the triumph of the woman he had so ill used and insulted. True, Sir Gavin did not mean to be at the levee, for he heard in due time of the arrival of his wife, and knew that the Empress Queen would receive her. But he had no notion of being driven from Vienna by her presence, and sardonically concluded that Lady Hamilton would be as anxious to avoid him as he would be to avoid her.
Tuesday evening came, and Gavin and St. Arnaud, dressed in their court uniforms, awaited Lady Hamilton’s appearance from her room. With only little Freda to assist her, Lady Hamilton was making her toilet. Presently the door opened, and Freda, with a candle in each hand, came out, looking solemn beyond expression, and putting the candlesticks on the table, gazed with grave admiration at Lady Hamilton, who followed her.
Gavin caught his breath with admiration when his mother came full into the circle of light. He had never thought of her as a beautiful woman, only as the dearest woman in the world. He had seen only in her large, dark eyes the mother love shining for him. He had only felt in her raresmiles the sympathy with him that made her smile sometimes in the midst of her hard lot. And he had never seen her dressed except in the plainest and, often, in the shabbiest manner.
But to-night she wore her simple black satin robe with the air of a princess. For the first time in twenty years her beautiful white neck and handsome arms were bared to view. Her hair, silver and black mingled, was still abundant, and arranged with singular grace and becomingness. At night the lines of care in her face were not visible; pleasure, from which she had long since parted, had again come to her, and had brought to her cheek a flush like the glow of youth. She wore no jewels—she had none to wear—but her majestic and high-bred beauty needed no ornaments.
Gavin’s first gasp of admiration over, he was strangely silent, while St. Arnaud, with the polished grace of a man of the world, complimented Lady Hamilton upon her distinguished appearance. No woman ever loses her appreciation of a pretty compliment, and as for Gavin, Lady Hamilton was more touched than she would have acknowledged by his admiration. She had asked herself while dressing: “Will he like me in thisguise?” as a young girl questions of her lover. There was no doubt that Gavin liked her in that guise; but when his mother turned to him once more his eyes were full of tears.
“Oh, my mother,” he cried. “To think what youth and beauty were yours when sorrow came to you! To think that I, your child, never before saw you except in the clothes of work and poverty! I feel now as I never felt before the terrible hardship of your lot.”
“But the worst is over,” replied Lady Hamilton; “and remember, I always had you.”
“Yes, to feed and clothe; to eat up all you could earn; to wear out the poor garments you could afford to buy me.”
“At least, all you had was honestly earned. Let us be thankful that you lived at no man’s grudging table and wore no one’s cast-offs. That is why, after so many years of work and poverty, we are still able to take our stand among our equals.”
As Lady Hamilton spoke with so much spirit and dignity, it occurred to St. Arnaud that the man who could desert such a woman must be very perverse or very bad.
St. Arnaud handed Lady Hamilton into the hired carriage that was to take her and Gavin tothe palace, saying he would follow them as soon as he could dispose of some letters he must have ready for the next post to Paris.
As Lady Hamilton and Gavin walked together through the splendid saloons of the Imperial Court none there showed more dignity and composure. Lady Hamilton was the only woman present who wore no jewels, and this absence of ornament made her conspicuous. She was, however, well fitted by her splendid dignity and the calm and unruffled manner of an English gentlewoman to stand the scrutiny of the hundreds of eyes levelled at her. The universal verdict was the same as St. Arnaud’s in respect to Sir Gavin Hamilton. Gavin, resplendent in his gorgeous, white uniform, looked about him with sparkling eyes of triumph, which said plainly to all: “This is my mother. Have I not a right to be proud of her?” Many persons stopped and spoke with them while they were finding their place in line. Among them was Prince Kaunitz. The Chancellor ever had an eye to grace and dignity in a woman, and within a few minutes of being presented to Lady Hamilton he whispered to her and Gavin:
“Will you do me the honour to sup at my house after the levee?”
Lady Hamilton accepted with politeness, and Gavin with a frank delight he could not conceal. These little supper parties at the Chancellor’s house were among the most agreeable and distinguished parties in Vienna. Only a small number of persons, more eminent for talents than rank, and the best among the foreign visitors at Vienna, were asked to them. To be invited once gave theentréeto any of them. Gavin had never been bidden before, and he knew very well that he was indebted to his mother’s personal charm for being invited at all.
When their turn came to be ushered into the presence of the Empress Queen, Lady Hamilton showed to great advantage. Unabashed by Maria Theresa’s splendid presence, she, nevertheless, did homage to so much greatness united with all the attractions of a charming and lovable woman. The Empress Queen’s first remark was to say, with slight but unmistakable emphasis on the words, “Lady Hamilton”:
“I hope, Lady Hamilton, you are pleased with what we have been able to do for your son.”
“More than pleased, your Majesty,” replied Lady Hamilton. “I am deeply and eternally grateful both to yourself and to the Emperor.And if my son ever comes into his inheritance as an English gentleman there will be one Englishman who can never speak or think of your Majesty except with the liveliest gratitude.”
“I and the Emperor were peculiarly gratified at the refusal of your son and Captain St. Arnaud to accept of their parole when offered it by the King of Prussia. And the marvellous escape they made gave us as much pleasure as it did chagrin to the King of Prussia. These incidents of personal daring are of great value in keeping up the spirits of men engaged in defending us against the perpetual assaults of Prussia.”
Lady Hamilton bowed deeply, and passed on.
It was Gavin’s turn next, and to him Maria Theresa made one of those tactful speeches which, coming from a sincere heart, never failed to win the hearts of others.
“I have had great pleasure in meeting Lady Hamilton. You are fortunate in having such a mother.”
Gavin’s eyes shone so brightly and his face coloured so deeply with pleasure that he was on the point of forgetting what little court etiquette he had learned by dropping on his knee and seizing the Empress Queen’s hands and kissing them violently.Some remnant of self-control saved him, but his air and manner indicated so much joy, pride, and gratitude that a smile went around the whole circle of onlookers, not even excepting the Empress Queen and Emperor.
Lady Hamilton had thought that years of poverty and obscurity would give her a dislike for the brilliant scenes of a court levee. On the contrary, she found herself taking pleasure in a society for which her birth and education originally fitted her. She was haunted, however, by a horror of Sir Gavin Hamilton’s appearance. Great as had been his offences toward her, he was still enough of an object of interest to her to make her dread a possible meeting with him. She once had loved him well, and however deep the resentment she felt toward him, she could never regard him as an object of indifference. Gavin, manlike, could not understand this. He did not seek the places where he would find his father, but he certainly did not avoid him. As he had never known affection for his father, he could well be indifferent to meeting him.
But to Lady Hamilton’s intense relief, Sir Gavin did not appear at the levee that evening. This was not from want of courage, but Sir Gavinrealized that he would be at a hopeless disadvantage. The sympathies of the court and society were with his wife and son, and, besides, he felt perfectly certain that no place or person would restrain Gavin if Sir Gavin failed in respect to Lady Hamilton; so Sir Gavin wisely went somewhere else for the early part of the evening.
Eleven o’clock was the hour when the specially favoured were to assemble at the Chancellor’s splendid house. It had just struck the hour when Gavin escorted his mother up the broad marble stairs of the Chancellery and into a cosy little drawing-room, where a choice company were assembled. St. Arnaud was there before them, and in a moment more Prince Kaunitz came in, with profuse apologies for being later than his guests.
“But I really believe,” he complained, “that the Empress Queen can work twenty-four hours in the day, and she wishes me to do the same. Will you believe it, in the middle of the levee she sent me word that I must look over a batch of dispatches, awaiting me in her closet, and I actually fell asleep over them, as I had been at work since six this morning. After the levee her Majesty came into the closet and shook me with her own hand until I waked. And, confidentially,I may say I did not open my eyes as soon as I might. Then she said in the briskest tone you can imagine: ‘Come, let us to work. We must earn our bread.’ ‘Thank you, madam,’ I replied, ‘I cannot speak for your Majesty, but I know the Emperor and myself have earned at least a month’s bread by the work we have done this day.’ ‘Well,’ said her Majesty, ‘I have spent more hours than either of you in state affairs to-day, and I have likewise given, as I always do, all the attention necessary to the education and training of my ten children.’ ‘The good God has spared me the ten children, madam, but I believe if your Majesty had twenty children to look after, you would still do more work than the Emperor and myself—and we are two of the most persistently industrious men living.’ This made her Majesty laugh, and she said: ‘Poor, good Kaunitz, go home. I have sent the Emperor to bed, and I alone will work at these dispatches.’ I would have stayed at that, but she sent me away after a little. So here I am, late, but glad to get here on any terms.”
The great Chancellor was a charming host, and when they gathered around the supper-table, a small company of the brightest wits in Vienna,he infected every one present with his own gayety and charm. He distinguished Lady Hamilton by his attentions, and it was a small but cherished triumph for Gavin, who counted that among the happiest evenings of his life.
Supper was not over nor the guests ready to depart until some time after midnight. Others had come in, and the party grew merrier as the hours flew by. As the final move was made to go, Prince Kaunitz stood up, with a glass of champagne in his hand, and said:
“Before parting, pledge with me the health of a lady who has only lately come to adorn Vienna, but who, we hope, will long remain with us.”
The Prince fixed his smiling glance upon Lady Hamilton, who sat opposite to him. She rose, too, but the smile froze on her lips and she turned deadly pale at the noiseless entrance of a person by a door directly facing her and behind Prince Kaunitz. The Chancellor, not hearing the new arrival, continued with much grace: “The lady whose health I propose is Lady Gavin Hamilton.”
Lady Hamilton’s sudden pallor and agitation had not escaped notice, and a slight movement on the part of the newcomer had attracted every eye to him. The Chancellor, still unhearing, happenedto glance into a tall mirror over the fireplace, opposite him, and in it he saw Sir Gavin Hamilton, standing perfectly cool and composed, his hand on his dress sword, and looking Lady Hamilton full in the eye. She, blanched and trembling, yet undauntedly returned his gaze as she stood. The only change of attitude she made was to lay her hand lightly upon the shoulder of Gavin, who sat next her. But the action was eloquent. It was as if she said, “Here is my charge and my protector in one.”
Gavin’s face had turned scarlet as his mother’s grew white. He sat quite motionless, for once not knowing what to say or do. Many times he had wondered what he should do when his mother and father met, as they were likely to do at any moment after Lady Hamilton’s arrival in Vienna, and he had never yet hit upon any course of action. But he had vauntingly said to himself, “When the time comes I shall do the right thing.” The time had come, and he sat silent and disconcerted and feeling nothing but a furious anger and helplessness.
Lady Hamilton continued to look Sir Gavin calmly in the eye, and the pause grew momentous. A clock ticking in the room seemed a loudnoise, so utter was the stillness. Seconds passed, which seemed minutes, and as Lady Hamilton’s glance remained fixed on Sir Gavin, they seemed to change places. She grew courageous, and the crimson returned to her face; while the fresh colour left his cheeks, and he, this man of iron composure, grew tremulous. The Chancellor, who watched it all, and who enjoyed it from the bottom of his heart—for Kaunitz had an elfish spirit which made him delight in awkwardcontretempsfor others—suddenly spoke in a very cool, soft voice: “Give Sir Gavin Hamilton a glass,” he said to a servant. “He will join us, no doubt, in our homage to Lady Hamilton.”
All there fully expected to see Sir Gavin touch his sword as he replied to Prince Kaunitz. So, indeed, he wished to do; but Lady Hamilton’s steady glance held him as if by mesmeric power. Mechanically and against his own volition he raised the glass handed him by the servant to his lips and drank as the others did. Then, quickly recovering himself, he threw the costly glass on the floor, where it crashed into a hundred pieces, and, turning his back, walked quickly out.
Whatever Lady Hamilton felt, she had managed to retain her self-possession perfectly. Not soGavin. He felt dazed and disconcerted, and but for St. Arnaud’s tactful manner of getting him out of the room would have showed the confusion which reigned in his soul. Prince Kaunitz himself put Lady Hamilton into the carriage. Gavin entered after her, and St. Arnaud, saying he wished a breath of air before going to bed, followed on foot.
Once alone in the carriage with his mother, Gavin clasped her in his arms, saying, “How proud I was of you! And how superior did you appear to the wretch—”
“Hush,” replied Lady Hamilton in a strained voice; and suddenly bursting into tears, she cried: “He was not always like this. I cannot, cannot think that he was always bad. He was a gallant man and a gentleman when I married him.”
Gavin remained silent, amazed and confounded at this revelation of a woman’s secret tenderness, which could survive twenty years of neglect, persecution, and unspeakable humiliation.