Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Indice da Obra Atual Anterior: V - Morning Letters Seguinte: VII - The Defeat of the Favourite
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CAPÍTULO VI
“Fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.”
FOUR hours later Lady Cairnsmuir sat at luncheon with her daughter. Not a trace of the emotion to which she had so lately yielded in the privacy of her chamber appeared in her countenance now; she was all serene indifference and languid hauteur, and the sharp brine of those passionate tears that had dimmed my Lady’s beautiful eyes such a little while ago had dissolved beneath the tender influence of Hungary water, and been dissipated wholly by the mild persuasions of Messieurs Piesse and Lubin.
Ella, dallying with the hot-house strawherries on her plate, was first to break a silence which, having been maintained since the exit of the butler, had already endured five minutes.
“Mamma, shall you go to the Opera to-night? It is to be Roberto il Diavolo, and Fräulein Adelheide Stern is to play Alice. There will be a wonderful cast.”
“You can go, Ella; your papa will take you, no doubt; but I shall stay at home. My head aches to-day.”
“Dear mamma! How sorry I am! The Duchess’s rooms were overcrowded last night. But you really must see this new prima donna soon. Beatrix Llewellyn tells me that she was absolutely ravishing last night in Faust – so wonderfully näive and child-like – Goethe’s Gretchen herself, par excellence. Miss Brabazon, who brought the Fräulein out, you know, mamma, was quite triumphant. They say such a perfect Marguerite has never been seen on the stage before – Beatrix raves about her, I assure you.”
“Indeed? Here comes your papa, Ella; just in time for you to complete your operatic arrangements.”
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My Lady took a second glass of château d’Yquem, and leaned back in her embroidered chair, her whole attitude and expression amazingly suggestive of a fashionable study to be entitled Nil Admirari. There was a step upon the soft, heavy carpeting of the corridor without, a singular step, that spoke as plainly as a Voice of Pride, and Greatness conscious of its own dignity, the step of a man who was accustomed to find others waiting for him, and who had never hurried himself for the convenience of anybody else. Just exactly as his steps prognosticated him, came the noble Earl into the room where the two ladies sat at lunch, entering with head erect and military regular gait, as though he were walking in a procession. In very truth it was a Funeral One, and he had been Chief Mourner in it for a long time. People who had seen the Earl once or twice, spoke of him as a very remarkable man indeed, a man of blue blood and ancient pedigree, who knew his honours and bore them without a blush; people who knew him very well regarded him as an abominable egotist, egregiously insatiable of homage and habitually impervious to sorrows and desires that did not personally affect himself. But he had a grief of his own nevertheless, a grief that stung him deeply under the mask of his proud reserve, and the world in which he moved understood the fact tacitly, and laid many of his sins to its account. For Lord Hubert of Cairnsmuir was destined to be the last of his house, the earldom and the estate bequeathed to him through a long line of noble ancestry, that dated their origin, if not their title, from the times of the Danes and Saxons, must pass away at his death; for the present Earl had no son, and his daughter was debarred by her sex from the enjoyment of her father’s inheritance. That the name of Cairnsmuir should perish! That it must be blotted out of the roll of the Peerage! That he, ill-fated wretch that he felt himself! should be destined to end in his own person so illustrious, so ancient a house, to sink in oblivion a title that had a prouder sounding than the name of any reigning family; to alienate for ever a heritage that his ancestors had held intact for more than seven centuries! He stood alone, the sole living representative of the Cairnsmuir stock, and his only child was a
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daughter! And my Lady – how did she bear to know all this? Did the iron enter into her delicate soul or disturb the equal serenity of her fashionable languor at times? If it did, no one ever saw a sign of it upon the calm proud forehead or in the deeps of these black mysterious eyes, eyes that betrayed not a trace of emotion when other women might have shrieked, or wept, or fainted, eyes that seemed always looking steadfastly upon some picture of the past, regardless of the living moving scenes about her in the present. Most of my Lady’s acquaintances were of opinion that she was very greatly to be pitied, and that, notwithstanding her beauty, position, and wealth, there were few women who had stronger claims to compassion than she. Her father, the late Baron Arisaig, had been an unfortunate man: and his Baroness during the last years of their married life was the victim of a pathetic lunacy that had its origin in unavailing regret and unmerited self-reproach, for the mother of Dolores, like Dolores herself, had never borne an heir. Arisaig and his wife had been seven years childless, when at length heaven took note of their affliction, and gave them hopes of enjoying a share in that rich gift that is so seldom wanting in the homes of the poor. So the bonfires were made ready on the moors, and the village barns were cleared for dancing, and ale was brewed by gallons to celebrate the advent of the tiny lordling that had so long been desired in vain. But when the birth-hour came, it was no heir but a daughter that the Baroness brought into the world, and the Baron when he heard the tidings, stood silent as a man may stand who is suddenly smitten in the face by the friend whom he has gone out to meet and to welcome.
“Light no bonfires,” said he, “ring no bells and let there be no dancing; this is a day of mourning and not of joy. And as for the child, I will have her named Dolores, for she is a cause of sorrow and bitterness.” So the unwelcome little daughter was christened accordingly, and her mother, shocked and terrified at the awfulness of the disappointment, lost her reason little by little as the years went by and brought no second birth to gladden the dismal home at Arisaig Towers. And the heartbroken old Lord, widowed thus before his wife’s death,
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consigned the poor Lady to professional care, and spent his days wandering restlessly about the Continent, carrying with him his daughter. But though they travelled together they seldom met, for Dolores was always relegated to the companionship of her governess, and it was said that Lord Arisaig scarcely knew by sight the face of the child whose birth had brought such desolation to his falling house. And when at the age of twenty-three, Dolores Arisaig married the young Earl of Cairnsmuir, society predicted for her a new era of happiness and a career of unchequered success and brilliant fortune. But the malison of the House of Arisaig stuck fast to the Countess of Cairnsmuir, and it was her fate to bring upon her husband the self-same disaster she had brought her father. Through her untoward advent the title and lands of Arisaig had passed already to a collateral relative, for the unhappy Baron and his Lady was gathered now to their long rest with their fathers beneath the very Feet of God in the Eternal City of the Seven Hills, and another Pharaoh who knew not Joseph and served strange gods had arisen as master of Arisaig Towers. For the old Lord had been a Catholic and a Conservative like all his ancestors, and the new man who had taken his place was one of the modern English patriots, a creature to whom the name of the Holy Father was as the name of Satan, who detected the smell of sulphur and brimstone in the aroma of incense, who had always voted on the Radical side of the House, hated mediævalism, monks, and music, and loved all manner of changes and revolutions, designating them as Measures of Progress. But even such a successor as this was impossible to the Cairnsmuir peerage, for that could descend only in a direct line; and heirs male had never yet been wanting in the family for seven hundred years and more. Twenty lords of Cairnsmuir had held their court in the old mansion, and been carried one after another to sleep where all their ancestors were laid in the Vault of the Family Chapel, with its carven motto and coronet in the stone above the low entrance, and sons or brothers or nephews had never yet lacked to weep at the burials and assist at the anniversary requiems but now the long chain seemed destined to be be broken at last, for the twenty-first Earl of Cairnsmuir has no living brother, and Dolores Arisaig
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inherited her dead mother’s curse. So that it is very easy to understand what a large and formidable skeleton was kept in the domestic cupboard of Lord Hubert, and to trace the source of the gloom and jealous restlessness that characterized his face and habitually distinguished the style of his conversation.
It was strong upon his countenance now, that light of melancholy pride, and his features, composed and immobile beneath its baneful glow, resolute in their inflexible grandeur, pathetic in their silent endurance looked strangely like the rigid features of a dead man, illumined by the lurid glare of the funeral fire that was destined to obliterate them for ever! Ah, inevitable flames of a maledictory Fate! Ah, devoted corpse of an ancient family!
Cairnsmuir, entering my Lady’s presence with that statuesque step and gloomy visage, was not altogether unsuggestive of Don Giovanni’s marble Visitor, and had the hour only been supper instead of luncheon-time, and the costume of Lord Hubert a trifle less conventional, the ghostly idea would have been greatly improved and assisted. His wife, regarding him with her customary placidity as he lowered himself like a tombstone into the seat beside her, repeated Ella’s eulogistic rhapsody upon the excellence of Fräulein Stern’s histrionic powers, and blandly expressed a hope that the Earl would find himself at liberty to accompany his daughter that evening to the representation of Roberto il Diavolo. Cairnsmuir hesitated, and possessed himself of the sauterne. Of course, if Ella desired his services he was always ready to act as her cicerone to the Opera or wherever else she pleased, – here he bowed gravely to his daughter; but the fact was, that – ah – Sir Godfrey Templar had met him at the Carlton that morning, and had talked of looking in after dinner. And Lord Hubert, under the impression that the ladies had nothing on the cards for that night, had promised his friend a little music and coffee. Making this announcement Cairnsmuir twirled the stem of his wineglass between his first and second finger in a nervous manner, and glanced at the Countess, not in expectation of receiving her consent to the arrangement he proposed, but in search apparently of some
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evidence to the effect that she understood his design and was prepared to assist in its accomplishment. My Lady answered the mute appeal by a downward sweep of her black-fringed eye-lids, and immediately addressed herself to Ella in the interests of the paternal amendment.
“Never mind the Fräulein to-night, dear. You can see her at any time, you know; and this is quite the beginning of the season. I am charmed to hear that Sir Godfrey – these strawberries please Ella – is coming to see us. No doubt he will bring some more of his delightful curiosities from the East, and be full of these quaint oriental anecdotes and legends which are so very like the Arabian Nights.”
Cairnsmuir caught at this directly.
“That Templar certainly will,” assented he. “I think he said he had a Persian manuscript to show you. I saw it the other day – most curious thing, blazoned all over with gold and purple; a love story I believe, setting forth the lamentable misunderstandings that are apt to arise from the practice of making and keeping secrets, a moral which can scarcely be intended for the ladies, I presume; and ending with a very curious homily against masculine jealousy in matters appertaining to the tender passion.”
“Which of course,” concluded Ella, smiling archly at her father, “is equally unnecessary to the improvement of the gentlemen. Well, papa I am willing to give up my operatic expedition in favour of antique literature and Sir Godfrey’s conversation. He is a very agreeable companion, and I find it particularly refreshing to pass a few hours now and then in the society of a man who has something else to talk about than the events of the season.”
“Sir Godfrey is charming,” resumed Lady Cairnsmuir, with languid approbation.” To hear him talk is quite as good as going to listen to Speke and Grant or the Rob Roy man, without the trouble of the drive and the inconvenience of sitting in a hot room with a public audience. He’s a very remarkable man I take it, – Sir Godfrey.”
“He is a man of singular observation, rare powers of memory, and wonderful ability for description,” said the Earl judicially, to keep the ball rolling: “and he has used his opportunities of peregrination and
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research to peculiar advantage. Nothing escapes him. He interests himself in many national traits of character and custom that other travellers fail to notice and his general information upon subjects of antiquity and ancient usage is so extensive and profound that it enables him to throw considerable light upon the origin of many oriental and European habits of thought and practice.”
It was my Lady’s turn again now, and she played the card which the Earl had indicated, forthwith, all for the especial behoof and edification of their daughter, who certainly appeared to be no wise displeased by the turn given to the conversation for she heard it with evident interest and some gleaming of exultation in her grey intelligent eyes.
“‘I suppose,” continued Lady Dolores,” that Sir Godfrey’s antiquarian pursuits began in his natural desire to trace the origin and fortunes of his own lineage? How excessively charming it must be to have had one’s ancestors distinguished in the First Crusade!”
“That honour,” observed the Earl with a deprecatory smile directed at Ella, and a stately magisterial wave of his hand,” is comparatively a modern feature in the history of Sir Godfrey’s family. The Templars were in flourishing and conspicuous existence long before Philip or Cœur-de-Lion were heard of. We date from beyond the Conquest, but Sir Godfrey numbers his fathers among the worshippers at Stonehenge.”
At which point in the dialogue there was a brief pause, for both ladies required time to appreciate the import of this last announcement, and Lady Cairnsmuir in particular was immensely struck by it, although there was no fact in Christendom staler to her ears than this identical item in the history of Sir Godfrey’s origin. “Ah,” she murmured at last in a polite state of refined admiration, “how very delightful! And so extremely wealthy, and so remarkably handsome!”
But Ella took exception to this last eulogistic observation. She was young, and her taste for the beautiful had not yet received that amount of culture, nor undergone that degree of scientific training that is necessary to develop feminine appreciation of manly charms. Sir Godfrey being a grand magnificent fellow of some forty years, with a tawny leonine
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beard, and a bald polished foreheard, was very far removed from Ella’s girlish ideal of masculine loveliness. She regarded him as a pleasant acquaintance, and an accomplished gentleman, her chosen favourite among the Earl’s most frequent companions; but the veneration and awe with which his immense knowledge and amazing experience inspired her, utterly precluded in her mind any possible association between him and the attributes of youth and beauty.
Adonis, Endymion, and Narcissus, with their boyish white and red, were far more in her line at present than such riper specimens of manhood as a muscular adventurer like Hercules, or a bronzed explorer like Ulysses, and she observed as much now in deprecating her mother’s adulatory interjection in favour of the travelled Baronet’s outward and visible signs. Whereupon Lady Cairnsmuir smiled a very strange smile, and lightly regretted that the three Graces whom Ella had named as her special heroes had all met such untimely and disastrous ends, in spite of their illustrious admirers.
“Not Endymion at least, mamma,” expostulated the daughter. “If Keats be a trustworthy biographer, Diana was at least more kind than Venus.”
“I doubt the fact;" returned my Lady, still with that strange smile, like the reflexion of a sudden passing moonbeam on a bank of thunder-clouds at night. ”The poets have embellished a sad truth by a pretty fiction. The poor young man in question had probably aspired too high in the amatory line, and being necessarily disappointed, became simply moonstruck. Phebe was too bright and particular a luminary for so humble a lover to attain, and death was as merciful to him as to her. And he is not the last nor the only foolish boy who has cried for the moon and come to grief in consequence of his folly.”
My Lady’s intonation as she uttered these last words was so peculiar that Cairnsmuir involuntarily lifted his eyes to her face; but it was the same face he had always known – serene, haughty, indifferent; even the moony smile itself had passed away, and there was no light now to reveal the blackness of the storm that was gathering in my Lady’s heart.
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Indice da Obra Atual Anterior: V - Morning Letters Seguinte: VII - The Defeat of the Favourite