"You are too weak to stay,Anne,"her ladyship said."'Twould be better that you should retire.""I am weak,"the poor thing answered,in low tones--"but not too weak to stay.I am always weak.Would that I were of your strength and courage.Let me sit down--sister--here."She touched the divan's cushions with a shaking hand,gazing upward wearily--perchance remembering that this place seemed ever a sort of throne none other than the hostess queen herself presumed to encroach upon.
"You are too meek,poor sister,"quoth Clorinda."'Tis not a chair of coronation or the woolsack of a judge.Sit!sit!--and let me call for wine!"She spoke to a lacquey and bade him bring the drink,for even as she sank into her place Anne's cheeks grew whiter.
When 'twas brought,her ladyship poured it forth and gave it to her sister with her own hand,obliging her to drink enough to bring her colour back.Having seen to this,she addressed the servant who had obeyed her order.
"Hath Jenfry returned from Sir John Oxon?"she demanded,in that clear,ringing voice of hers,whose music ever arrested those surrounding her,whether they were concerned in her speech or no;but now all felt sufficient interest to prick up ears and hearken to what was said.
"No,my lady,"the lacquey answered."He said that you had bidden him to wait.""But not all day,poor fool,"she said,setting down Anne's empty glass upon the salver."Did he think I bade him stand about the door all night?Bring me his message when he comes.""'Tis ever thus with these dull serving folk,"she said to those nearest her."One cannot pay for wit with wages and livery.They can but obey the literal word.Sir John,leaving me in haste this morning,I forgot a question I would have asked,and sent a lacquey to recall him."Anne sat upright.
"Sister--I pray you--another glass of wine."My lady gave it to her at once,and she drained it eagerly.
"Was he overtaken?"said a curious matron,who wished not to see the subject closed.
"No,"quoth her ladyship,with a light laugh--"though he must have been in haste,for the man was sent after him in but a moment's time.'Twas then I told the fellow to go later to his lodgings and deliver my message into Sir John's own hand,whence it seems that he thinks that he must await him till he comes."Upon a table near there lay the loaded whip;for she had felt it bolder to let it lie there as if forgotten,because her pulse had sprung so at first sight of it when she came down,and she had so quailed before the desire to thrust it away,to hide it from her sight."And that I quail before,"she had said,"I must have the will to face--or I am lost."So she had let it stay.
A languishing beauty,with melting blue eyes and a pretty fashion of ever keeping before the world of her admirers her waxen delicacy,lifted the heavy thing in her frail white hand.
"How can your ladyship wield it?"she said."It is so heavy for a woman--but your ladyship is--is not--""Not quite a woman,"said the beautiful creature,standing at her full great height,and smiling down at this blue and white piece of frailty with the flashing splendour of her eyes.
"Not quite a woman,"cried two wits at once."A goddess rather--an Olympian goddess."The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to disparage her ethereal charms.She lifted the weapon with a great effort,which showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the sweet tracery of blue veins upon it.
"Nay,"she said lispingly,"it needs the muscle of a great man to lift it.I could not hold it--much less beat with it a horse."And to show how coarse a strength was needed and how far her femininity lacked such vigour,she dropped it upon the floor--and it rolled beneath the edge of the divan.
"Now,"the thought shot through my lady's brain,as a bolt shoots from the sky--"now--he LAUGHS!"She had no time to stir--there were upon their knees three beaux at once,and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and rummaged,had not God saved her!Yes,'twas of God she thought in that terrible mad second--God!--and only a mind that is not human could have told why.
For Anne--poor Mistress Anne--white-faced and shaking,was before them all,and with a strange adroitness stooped,--and thrust her hand below,and drawing the thing forth,held it up to view.
"'Tis here,"she said,"and in sooth,sister,I wonder not at its falling--its weight is so great."Clorinda took it from her hand.
"I shall break no more beasts like Devil,"she said,"and for quieter ones it weighs too much;I shall lay it by."She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf.
"It was ever heavy--but for Devil.'Tis done with,"she said;and there came back to her face--which for a second had lost hue--a flood of crimson so glowing,and a smile so strange,that those who looked and heard,said to themselves that 'twas the thought of Osmonde who had so changed her,which made her blush.But a few moments later they beheld the same glow mount again.A lacquey entered,bearing a salver on which lay two letters.One was a large one,sealed with a ducal coronet,and this she saw first,and took in her hand even before the man had time to speak.
"His Grace's courier has arrived from France,"he said;"the package was ordered to be delivered at once.""It must be that his Grace returns earlier than we had hoped,"she said,and then the other missive caught her eye.
