Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (347 page)

Mr. Bettesworth remained invisible too, in the fog, a mere centre of deep sounds of breathing. The minister stood silent, reflecting upon the evil that there was in the world. The old woman’s whimpering came from the lit interior of the jail, and from the stone eaves large drops of condensed mist began to fall spattering upon the ground.

Suddenly Mr. Bettesworth said hoarsely, “Come you, be you parson or what you will, show me the way from this place.”

CHAPTER II
.

SIR FRANCIS DASHWOOD was pacing side by side with the Earl of Pembroke upon the green lawn that ran beneath the old windows of Winterbourne Manor-house. It was a June evening, and the men who had been felling the immense cedar that shaded the banqueting hall, having topped and lopped it, had left the great trunk bisecting the garden at right angles to the house and had gone away for the day, since the wood-carts could not come till the morrow morning. Sir Francis had taken up his quarters in the inn at Wilton, but having been waited upon by his lordship of Pembroke, he had been induced to accept the hospitality of Wilton House. Here he had passed his time very agreeably in the company of the several members of the Herbert family that were then in residence. He had paid more than his usual attention to his wardrobe, to his chargers and to their furnishings, and he was agreeably aware that for splendour no man in that county, and for many miles around, outshone him.

And upon Mr. Bettesworth’s lawn, which was contained at one end of the house by a high wall of brick and at the other by a wall hardly less massive formed of yew, which enclosed a clipped garden,

the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Francis paced with prodigious stateliness, one hand each in their breast, and their moulded legs, in their white silk stockings, moving with a sort of prancing gait and a mechanical exactitude. Winterbourne Manor being some four and a half miles by way of the Plain from Wilton House, Sir Francis had been in the way of riding daily to visit the Signora Poppæa and Lady Eshetsford. Sometimes he would ride away from his friends when they hawked the bustard upon the Uplands. He would sigh at intervals with an extreme depth of feeling if, Lady Eshetsford having refused herself, he found himself alone with the Signora Poppæa. Lady Eshetsford was his constant toast at the Earl of Pembroke’s board: he praised without ceasing her black eyes, her mutinous, cherry lips, her alabaster brow, and her nose, which, though it turned up at the point, he compared to that of Carpaccio’s “Venus,” which hung beside the dais in the picture-room at Wilton House. He took, in short, every possible measure that could ensure the news of his passion coming to the ears of its fair object. And having, in this way, laid down what he called his earthworks, he was prepared, so he told his noble companion, that afternoon to lay a desperate and formal siege to her ladyship’s heart.

“But,” the Earl said, and curiosity for the first time overcame his natural politeness; he slightly agitated his amber-wood cane and fluttered the ruffles at his wrist, “I have heard that you have made a great wager to marry another lady, and I am unable to understand why you are not now pursuing that search.”

“My lord,” Sir Francis said, “if I were so ill-bred as to pursue that search, — for, for sure, no man of spirit and breeding would halloo across the world after the mere model of a painter, — if I were so ill-bred as to pursue that search in my own person, instead of leaving the matter, as any gentleman would, to the hands of some trusted agent, nevertheless so fair a quarry as is this beautiful lady would sure affect me. I am more torn by the innumerable arrows that her liquid eyes cast into me than ever was Actæon by Diana’s hounds. And sure your lordship will agree and applaud my taste that bids me throw away a few thousands of guineas in the effort to secure for myself a creature of so exquisite a grace and of a charm so consummate.”

The Earl bowed his head deferentially.

“We all,” he said, “must come to Sir Francis for lessons in the
beau goút
, and my mind is relieved to hear from him an explanation so complete and so satisfactory.”

The Earl, nevertheless, believed not one word of this explanation, for it was said by those members of the company that was enjoying the hospitality of Wilton House, that Sir Francis had shirked his plain duty of going to Ashford out of his fear of Mr. Bettesworth’s sword. It was known in London, and reported there in the country, that a duel between these two gentlemen was an inevitability, since Mr. Bettesworth was enraged against Sir Francis for having carried off and hidden the portrait of Celia; and since Sir Francis, if he had any spirit at all, must, with an equal intenseness, resent the expressions Mr. Bettesworth was said to have used concerning him. It was said, moreover, that Sir Francis was paying court to Lady Eshetsford since, once wedded to her, he would become a member of Mr. Bettesworth’s own family, and that thus a duel would be avoided at the cost of the wager which he abandoned. And these rumours the Earl of Pembroke accepted as gospel truth, though it gave him none the less pleasure to be the companion of one reputed to be so distinguished a wit and one so much the leader of the
ton
and fashion. He had, indeed, at the present moment, his marching orders, which were to lead aside the Signora Poppæa and Maria Trefusis, whilst Sir Francis made formal suit for the hand of her ladyship.

“And doubtless,” he said, “your motive in paying court to her so early after her husband’s death is, that no other bird may have a chop before you at a cherry that will attract so many.”

“Your lordship,” Sir Francis said, “reads my heart as it were a book.”

There advanced to them over the lawn, seemingly in a solid phalanx, the Signora Poppæa, Lady Eshetsford, and Maria Trefusis. The Signora Poppæa limped a little on her right leg; she leaned upon her ebony crook, the point of which went deep into the soft turf. They were all three in black, her ladyship crowned with a tall cap from which a monstrous black veil depended over her shoulders. But Maria’s burnished hair was tied with a black ribbon that permitted her ringlets to descend in the nape of her neck. She and her aunt advanced with a mincing gait which was the complement of the gentlemen’s formal strut. At each step their heads bobbed slightly forward, and the Signora would have imitated them but she hobbled so. The Earl strutted deliberately to meet them, bent forward so that the curls of his dress-wig fell about his face. He addressed the Signora and Maria Trefusis, including them in one whirl of his cane, whose handle he held near his long nose.

“In the cut garden,” he said, “there is upon a catalpa tree a singular growth or excrescence as to which I would gladly have your opinion; and yours, madam. Her ladyship it will interest less, since all her passion is of the Town.”

“Very prettily dismissed, your lordship,” Lady Eshetsford said; “I shall yet, under your excellent tuition, see Maria upon the straw among a parcel of cows.”

The Signora took the Earl’s arm, upon which she leaned with more weight than the habits of elegant society would have prescribed. “But,” she said, “if your lordship will abduct me you must needs afford me support.” And the three moved off towards the little arch cut in the wall of yew, Maria indicating with her fan the tops of the trees and clouds in the sky, so as to assume with her body such poses as she had been taught were correct for an engaging young lady of her station in life.

Lady Eshetsford and Sir Francis walked formally, and side by side, in front of the long gallery. Sir Francis was fuming because the Earl had so indelicately separated the party. “Madam,” he said, “these hawbucks are ever homely.”

“Very few have the advantages of Sir Francis,”

Lady Eshetsford answered; “but I find his lordship well favoured enough.”

Sir Francis clapped his hat over his heart and groaned, “Unhappy me!” But her ladyship was not in any way minded to afford him an easy opening.

“Have you lost your wager, that you groan?” she asked.

With his hat still over his heart, Sir Francis stepped before her and faced her. He extended one of his hands to her, and fell gracefully to his knee.

“Madam,” he said, “who cares about a wager when a charmer so adorable is nigh?”

Lady Eshetsford extended her black fan over her lips and laughed down at him.

“Such a hot flame,” he continued, “consumes me that unless you quench it with the dews of your compassion—”

“Why, I will weep over you if you will,” her ladyship mocked him. “But be composed; this is only summer lightning, where there is a great appearance of flame and no heat. You will not die of it, poor man.”

“Madam,” he said, “summer lightning is of the summer, which is a pleasant season. You shall make my life all one summer.”

“Why, so I will, by leaving it alone,” Lady Eshetsford said; “for with my late husband I lived always in such a storm as was as cold as winter and as bitter as the sea.”

“Madam,” Sir Francis said, “such is my passion—”

“Why, your passion is such as it is,” Lady Eshetsford said. “But such as it is it is of a very rapid growth. I think it subsists only since your great wager was made.”

Sir Francis, playing his cool game, winced his long eyelashes, and with a circumspect smile he regarded the grass. He imagined that he had already sufficiently prepared his ground, and that some of his many groans and sighs, uttered in public places since he had come down to that neighbourhood, must have reached her ladyship’s ears. He imagined her, therefore, to be prepared to hear of his passion. But he had very little idea of what make of a woman her ladyship was. He was therefore undecided whether to continue talking of his love, or whether to urge upon her the fitness and convenience of the union, the parity of their births and stations. He remembered, however, that Lady Eshetsford had the reputation of a nimble wit, and he was rising from his feet with the intention of pursuing a campaign less ardent, when Lady Eshetsford said —

“It astonishes me that though we have met in assemblies and routs this four year and more you have never importuned me with attentions, nor so much as pursued me with challenging glances.

Yet, no sooner is this wager made—”

“Madam,” Sir Francis said, “the just laws of Society, the fact that your husband lived—”

“Sir Francis,” Lady Eshetsford mocked him, “I have yet to hear that the fact that their husbands lived protected Mrs. Good, or Mrs. Marshal, or Lady Type from pursuit by you.”

“Madam,” Sir Francis started forward to exclaim, “not one of them was such a miracle of chastity, of virtue, of rectitude, as is Lady Eshetsford.”

“Sir Francis,” she laughed at him, “I marvel that what you so much admire in women you should so seek to undo. And if you adore me so much for my virtue, I would have you none the less in admiration that I am no fool, as these other women were. In short, what have you to offer me?”

“Madam, my hand,” Sir Francis said.

“It is to your credit that you do not say your heart as well; and,” she answered gaily, “that is all the credit I can see for you in this matter.”

Sir Francis displayed very little perturbation.

“Madam,” he exclaimed, “surely the report of the passion that I have entertained for a long while for you must have reached your ears?”

“Surely,” she said, “the servants at Wilton House have reported that for the last nine days I have been your toast. But the springe is set too openly in the sight of this woodcock. What have you to offer me?”

“Madam,” he said, “my hand, my lands, my name, the protection of my right arm.”

“Sir Francis,” she laughed, “I have a name as good; I have lands as good; and, since the making of the wager, I have had the offer of an arm that I think will protect me far better. And he who made this offer, in making it was willing to lose his wager, to abandon his search, and to be written down a fool.”

For the first time Sir Francis frowned.

“Lady Eshetsford,” he said,
“
have not I, too, abandoned this search? Is not, therefore, my devotion as great?”

Lady Eshetsford held her black fan over her lips and began to titter. She laughed to measure, meaningly, and under control; so that he felt as if she were turning to ridicule his bearing and his clothes. He pivoted swiftly upon his heels and walked the extent of the lawn to where the felled cedar obstructed its length. He abandoned his formal pace, hardly turning out his toes at all, but walked with his head bent down, his curls falling across his face. The trunk of the fallen cedar tree was so bulky that when he came up to it it was of the height of his chin, and he stayed with his face to it, pushing with his cane at the pieces of bark that had fallen off upon the turf and spoiled the formality of the ordered lawn. Having so reflected for the space of a whole minute, he turned, business-like, and strode back to her ladyship.

“Madam,” he said, “if you consider that the purchase of this portrait was an action discreditable—”