It has always been my fate to suffer most at the hands of my best friends; and now it was to be my dearest, my little sister, who was to shoot her arrow over the house and wound me. In innocence, Heaven forgive her; and, in forgiving, answer to itself for making me the unconscious instrument of its retribution.
It was in the third year of my “minority,” and while in the full zest of my conspiracy with young Roper, that one night we made up a party for Vauxhall Gardens, and crossed from Whitehall Stairs—very merry with French horns and lanterns and a little Roman boy, Ugolino, who sang like an angel—to witness the new picture of a tempest in the cascade house. This we had seen, and were gone for supper into one of the boxes (which Bob called the loose boxes) in a retired corner of the grove, when occurred the contretemps which was to change the whole face of my fortunes. I had observed, without marking them, a couple enter the adjoining booth, and was bawling my part in a catch, while waiting for the chickens and cheesecakes, when a fellow put his head round the partition, and, kissing his dirty hand with a leer, “Beg pardon, leddies,” says he, “but I can supplement that ’ere chaunt with a better”—and immediately, disappearing from sight, began to bang the table beyond and to roar out a filthy ballad.
Roper leapt to his feet—there was a crowd lingering by, attracted by our merriment—and ran round to the front.
“Stop, you sot!” screamed he, “or I’ll nail your ears to the table!”
The fellow ceased dead, and in a moment came staggering out with a furious face. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, and as drunk as David’s sow.
“What, the ’ell,” said he, lurching up his words; “ain’t one song as good as another in this here bordel, mister?”
Bob struck like Harlequin, and the wretch went down. I had once before heard the smack of flesh on flesh, and it made my blood jump.
There was a fine uproar: we had all risen to our feet; and in the midst I observed the girl (we had forgot the creature had a companion) slip out of the box and away, taking advantage of the confusion to mix with the crowd. I just saw her white face melt from me, and gave one gasp, and started in pursuit. My companions called; but I took no notice, and was lost in a moment.
She was making for the Druid’s Walk, unheeding my cries in her blindness. But in a little she began to falter, and then to sway, and I came up with her, and caught her into my arms.
“Patty!” I whispered, frantic, “Patty!”
She looked at me quite dumb and bewildered, the poor thing; and then sighed, and mechanically put her hair back from her temples.
“Patty!” I urged again, “don’t you know me?”
And at that, all of a sudden she had burst into tears, and was clinging to me.
“Is it you, Diana?” she sobbed, “really you at last? O, I have so longed, since we came, and I knew you was here in London! Take me away; don’t let me be carried back.”
She was near choking me with her arms.
“Hush!” I said. “What have they been doing with you? Pish, child! that was never—no, no; with all your softness, you couldn’t be such a fool. Who the deuce was it, then? Now, don’t answer; but come with me where we can talk.”
We were already being accosted and offered genteel squiring. The child held to me, terrified, while I laughed, and convoyed her in safety to the open, where we were lucky to encounter one of my party.
“Is it over?” I asked.
“O, faith!” he answered, quizzing my friend, “the manster’s floored; and Parseus refreshing himself on Roman panch; and here, by my soul, ’s Andrameda come to give thanks to her presarver.”
“Well,” I said, “Andromeda’s in better hands for the present; so you must e’en take us where we can talk private, while you mount guard.”
He looked mightily astonished; but, obeying, conducted us to the farthest limits of the grounds—where was little company but the keepers, put to restrain interlopers from the fields beyond—and there set us on a seat, and withdrew. And the moment we were alone, I took the girl and held her at arm’s length.
She was the same as ever, though her figure grown a thought too full for perfection, perhaps. But there were the soft, bashful eyes, and the naïve face, too white under its dark hair, that I loved so well.
“So,” I said, nodding my head, “we meet again, like the town and country mice. And are you still under her dominion, you little brown frump?”
She could not have enough of wondering, and fondling me, and weeping; but her inarticulateness filled me with a horrible foreboding.
“What!” I cried, giving her a little shake; “don’t tell me, miss, that—but, no, I won’t hear it! ’Tis grotesque beyond reason.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
I looked searchingly into her eyes.
“No,” I said, reassured; “there are the same unborn babies there. But who, then, was that brute you ran from?”
She put her arms round my neck.
“He—he is a groom of madam’s, and high in favour with her because a good Catholic. She bids me listen to him; and—and I don’t know what she means, Diana, or what he means. He is a coarse and violent man—sometimes. But she forces me into his company, and to see the town together. And O, Diana! I am almost sure he drinks too much.”
I burst into a laugh.
“You should be whipped for the slander, child. But I suspect the truth. We don’t run but from those we have a partiality for. Watch Moll and Meg at dragging-time in the fairs.”
She cried “Diana!” and, looking up horrified into my face, read its mockery, and, gasping out, “I am very unhappy,” fell away from me.
“You poor little creature!” I cried, fiercely moved by her distress; “if you don’t know what madam means, I do. ’Tis the way with the quality to pension off their discarded fancies on Jack or Molly.”
She showed by her manner that she did not understand me, but my indignation would not let me explain. Moreover, I was too satisfied with my own solution to wish it contradicted.
“Never mind,” I said, stamping my foot. “Tell me everything—every word.”
Then it all came out in a flood: How, since my removal, madam had visited more and more upon her innocent head the trespasses of her poor little friend and sister; how this habit, vindictive at the best, had grown into a very fury of spite (which I laughed much to hear about) when de Crespigny’s wandering fancy had begun (as it inevitably had) to turn from the hop-pole, which had invited it to be wreathed about itself, to the ripe little sapling growing so snug beside; how, in her jealousy, my lady had driven her below stairs, and at last made her altogether consort with the servants as her proper peers, who had only been lifted by her generosity out of the gutter; how, not content with this, literal, debasement, she had thought further to soil her by forcing upon her the reversion of her tipsy cavaliere servente (as, anyhow, I chose to think him), a tyranny which had at last driven the soft little creature to despair and rebellion. So she told me all, though with less force and conviction, poor simplicity, than I have chosen to put into her relation.
“And you was gone—and how did you escape, Diana?—and I hated Mr. de Crespigny as much as I hate this one—and it all makes no difference, and I don’t know how I can bear it longer,” she cried, in a breath.
“Very well, then,” I said, and looked sternly at her. “You must find the courage to run away.”
I had thought that the very suggestion would make her faint; but instead, to my surprise, a rose of colour flew to her pale cheeks.
“Yes,” she whispered. “If I only knew where!”
O, fie on madam! She must have been a cruel task-mistress, indeed!
“There!” I said, “you naughty little thing! But confess to me first what you have heard tell about your sister.”
“What does that matter,” she murmured, hanging her head, “when nothing in the world can ever alter my love for you?”
I took her in my arms, and touched her little simple toilette into shape here and there.
“You are very desperate, in truth, child. What do you say—will you risk all, and come and be my duenna? You are older than I, sure, and shall defend your little sister from slander. I will get the earl to consent, if you will say yes.”
She seemed beyond answering, but could only cling to me in a kind of frenzied rapture.
“And I will make a fine bird of my Jenny Wren,” I said, still busy with her; “for she has a thousand pretty little modest graces which will do me a vast credit in the dressing. You shall keep your natural hair, miss, for powder, since the tax, is not à la mode with the best; but a gentleman’s arm—le cas échéant—would never go round this waist by three inches.”
I peeped, with a smile, into her face.
“O, if I only dared!” she sighed.
“Sir Benjamin,” I cried, rising instantly, “escort us to the gates, please, and call a coach.”
An hour later I broke upon his lordship’s privacy.
“Nunky,” I cried, “I want permission for a new toy, please.”
He looked up askew. He was in the hands of his valet.
“I have been taking thought for my reputation,” I said, “and desire a duenna.”
He screwed out a laugh and an oath.
“I’ll have no old hags about.”
“’Tis a young hag but a little older than myself. Will you let me?”
“No, I won’t.”
“It will please me.”
“No.”
“It will spite Lady Sophia to death.”
“Curse it, you viper! I’ll think about it.”
“Very well. I’ll bring her to be introduced.” And, before he could remonstrate, I was gone.
We found him in demi-toilette when I returned, dragging my reluctant baggage with me, like a lamb to the slaughter. She was as terrified as if ’twere for him I coveted her, and not for myself. He started, seeing her, and came and put his hand on her shoulder.
“Well, I vow,” said he, “’tis a toy for a king. Whence come you, child? From my sister? She was wise to dismiss you, egad!”
I have ruled myself all my life to be none but Fortune’s mistress. Let who will question it, the gift of fine clothes has never bought my independence. Honesty, as the little plant of that name tells us, may go dressed in satin. And, as with me, so would I have it with my sister.
I was not long in discovering that I had erred in bringing her to Berkeley Square, though I will not, for her sake, detail the processes of my enlightenment. Let it suffice to say that the nobleman, my guardian, was not exactly intellectual. He was one of those who, like Tony Lumpkin, reckon beauty by bulk; and in that respect, it is certain, Patty could more than fill my place with him. She had no notion, of course, dear innocent, that she was being invited to do so. She was all blindness and affection; but that made it none the less my duty to save her the consequences of her own simplicity, seeing how it was I had unwittingly brought it imperilled. The worldly may sneer and welcome. That I did preserve her, and at the last cost to myself, is the only proof needed of that same disinterested honesty which in the beginning had welcomed her, without a selfish second thought, to its arms.
Now, the moment I realised my mistake, I set myself to combat its results. I think I may say I gave my lord some mauvais quarts d’heure. He, for his part, when I thought it time to throw off the mask, did not spare me insult and brutality. In very disdain I will not report the quarrel. And all the while the silly child its subject trembled apart, in an atmosphere she felt but could not understand, while the shepherdess and the butcher disputed for her possession.
At length came the climax. One day, at the end of a furious scene, he told me roundly that he had had enough of me, and that it would be well for me to agree to commute my proposed settlement for—for what? A sum that was less than a valet’s pension. I refused it; I refused everything. Let that at least speak in my vindication. He assured me that in that case I had nothing further to expect from him. The dotard! Did he laugh when I told him, perfectly quietly, that I quite understood that the debt was mine, and that I should pay it? Did he still count himself the better tactician, when I affected to be terrified over my own rashness, and to slink away from him to lament and reconsider?
I went straight to my bedroom, where for an hour or two I sat writing. At the end, I despatched two letters, one to the World, one to Mr. Roper, who lived hard by, and whose reply I set myself to await with what philosophy I could muster. It came in a little; and then, singing, I sought out Patty, in the pretty boudoir that was hers of late. She flew to greet me, and coaxed me to a couch. The moment we were seated, I hushed her head into my breast.
“Patty,” I whispered, “do you love the earl?”
I could feel her breath stop, then recover itself in wonder.
“He is so good to us, Diana—like a father. And I had always lived in such terror of his mere name. How easily we may be deceived.”
“Yes, child,” I answered. “How easily—how easily.”
Her pulses answered to my tone, I could feel again. She slipped upon her knees before me, and clasping her hands looked up, dumbly questioning, into my face.
“You are so simple, ma mignonette; I hardly know how to tell you,” I began pitifully.
“Tell me! O, what, Diana? I am frightened.”
“I wish you to be. Patty”—I took her two entreating hands into one of mine, and with the other made a significant gesture—“all this—these little costly gifts—has it never occurred to you, child, that they are bribes”— I stopped.
“To me?” she whispered, with a whole heart of astonishment.
“To your honour, child.”
“To—?”
She gulped, and turned as pale as death.
“He has promised to show you his Richmond cottage?”
“Yes.”
“To-night?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Never mind. I know. You must not go.”
“How can I help it? Diana!”
She sunk down before me, quite helpless and unnerved.
“Patty,” I said, “you have never ceased to love and trust your sister?”
“Never, never—you are before all the world to me. Diana! You will find a way!”
“If you are strong—yes. I have been alert and watchful, child, while you never knew it. But he did; and he means to separate us; to rid himself of the watch-dog, that he may seize the lamb. He has but this moment told me I must go—with what coarseness and insult I will not soil your ears by repeating. If you love your honour, as I love and have sacrificed myself to save it, you must come with me.”
“I will come”—she rose hurriedly to her feet. “How can I ever repay you, sister? The old, wicked man! At once—Diana! let us fly at once!”
“Hush! We must be circumspect. You don’t know— There, child, I will die to save you.”
She clung to me, in a gush of silent tears. Hastily I instructed her—it was necessary in escaping to leave no trail—in my plan. It was that, in an hour’s time, she should order out her barouche (there was one put at her disposal), and, having driven to Grosvenor Gate, alight and dismiss it, as if with the intention to walk in the park. Thence she was to make her way on foot to Mrs. Trix’s toy-shop in Piccadilly, and, having asked very privately to be shown into the parlour, await me there, in whatever company she should find.
She obeyed, heedful, in her panic, to the last details. Luckily, my lord, being gone abroad to his lawyers, there were no prying eyes to criticise her. No sooner was she driven off than—having collected into a stocking all our jewels, and whatever money I could lay hands on, which I hung from my waist out of sight—I stole forth by the back way into the stables, and thence to the street, where I found a hackney coach, and drove after my friend.
I found her, as I had hoped, with Mr. Roper. He looked mighty serious over our escapade, but informed me that he had loyally attended to my instructions, and procured us a lodging, as for two country ladies who had come up to view the sights, in as distant a part of the town as he could compass on short notice. We went out immediately by a side door, and, having all got into a coach that was in waiting, were driven to Holborn, where we alighted, and thence, for precaution, walked to a quiet house in Great Coram Street, near the Foundlings, where our handsome escort left us, promising to call, at discretion, in a few days, and recommending us in the meanwhile to lie as close as rabbits in a furrow.
He was as good as his word, coming in a week later, after dark, with a face as long as a lawyer’s writ.
“Well, madam,” he said, “you have cut the ground from under your own feet with a vengeance.”
I laughed.
“You have been reading ‘Angélique’s’ Last Testament?”
“Pray the Fates it may not be so indeed,” he said gravely; and, pulling a paper out of his pocket, began to refer to it.
“Why, do you not know,” said he, “that others besides our Volpone are reported interested in that strange disappearance of a one-time heir-presumptive to Volpone’s own title?”
“Perfectly.”
“And yet you go and put your head into the lion’s mouth?”
“I would do more to expose a villain. I would go all lengths to right an injured man. He is no more mad than I am.”
“That seems probable.”
He unfolded a second paper from the other, and pointing silently to a paragraph, handed it to me.
“The king” (I read from the Gazette) “has bestowed the vacant garter upon the newly created Marquis of Synge;” and a little lower down: “It is stated that the Earl of Herring has been relieved, at his own request, of all offices which he held under the Crown. His lordship is understood to have long contemplated a complete retirement from public life.”
I shrieked with laughter. I danced about the room, waving the paper over my head. The noise I made brought up one of two gentlemen who lived below. He put his head in at the door, with a leer and a grin: “O, a thousand pardons!” said he; “I thought you was alone, and that something had happened”—and he vanished.
“He thought something had happened!” groaned Bob dismally; and, taking the paper from me, he read out elsewhere: “His Majesty’s final decision is supposed not unconnected with the esclandres of a certain notorious lady, which have exercised the public curiosity for some time past, and which culminated on Saturday sennight in an attack too obvious in its direction to be overlooked.”
I heard, glistening.
“Well, I told him I recognised my debt, and should pay him,” I said.
Bob folded the papers, and returned them to his pocket. His mouth and eyes were set in a kind of suffering smile.
“You may know best how to play your hand for yourself,” he said. “God preserve your partner, that’s all.”
“What have you to fear?”
“Your prudence, first of all—not a very trustworthy asset, if one may judge by your apparent confidence in your fellow-lodgers.”
“O! him that looked in!” I said. “I will answer there with my life.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, that is the point,” said he. “Do you quite realise what you have done, Diana?”
“O, quite!”
“Well, that is a comfort. It gives me a sort of confidence in my future. So long as I can be played as live-bait for your capture, I shall be spared, no doubt.”
He came up to me, and spoke very earnestly—
“Do you understand? He will try to trace you through me. If he succeeds”—
“There is an end of both of us,” I said cheerfully.
“Well,” he answered, with admiration, “you are a game little partlet. But remember, at least, that revenge which evokes retribution misses the best half of itself. For that reason, if for no other, I must keep away from you. This visit to-night, even—I only dared it after infinite precautions. If you want me, write: I will risk some means to see you. For the rest, live close as death, till some of this, at least, is blown over. Your friend, the pretty simpleton, where is she?”
“In bed and asleep.”
“Keep her there. Make a dormouse of her. My Lady Sophia is nosing for her tracks, as my lord her brother for yours. Did you suppose she would acquiesce quietly in the abduction of her handmaid? I tell you, she has got wind of the truth; and there has been tempest in the house of Herring. Keep her close. Above everything, cut all further communication with the World—as you love yourself, and me a little, perhaps, Diana.”
“As I love the truth,” I said; and went up and kissed him.
“Ah!” he sighed, “that is very pretty. But, believe me, the truth, as represented by His Majesty, wishes your love at the devil before it meddled in his family affairs.”
You know the truth, mon ami—that the face which looked in at my door was the face of my father. O, heavens, the reunion, so wonderful, so pathetic! and the sequel, so interesting! Truly, through our living fidelities do the gods chastise our worldliness.
We had not been a day in the house when I ran across him in a passage. He was, it appeared, one of two gentlemen who lodged below. He was plainly, almost shabbily dressed; bloated a little; prematurely aged: but I knew him instantly. Though eleven years had gone since my childish eyes had last acknowledged and adored him, the instinct of nature was too sure to be deceived. I gasped, I trembled, as he stood ogling me; finally I threw myself into his arms.
“Papa!” I cried; “papa!”
“Hey!” he responded; “is that all?”
“Do you not remember your little Diana?” I implored, in an ecstasy of emotion.
“Wait,” he said, and put a hand to his forehead. “It may be on my notes. I’ve a damned bad memory.”
The door of a room hard by stood open. He led me in, closed it, and seated himself officially at a table.
“Now,” he said, “what mother?”
The shock, my friend! I had remembered him so strong and gallant—wicked, if you will; but then I had always pictured myself the cherished pledge of his wickedness. And now, it appeared, I was only one of a large family. Without a word, I turned my back upon him.
“Don’t go,” he said, disturbed at that. “What name did you say?”
I confronted him once more, sorrow and disdain battling in my face.
“I said Diana.”
“Of course,” he answered, beating his forehead; “the child of”—
After all, it was a long lapse of time. I told him my mother’s name.
“She was my one real love,” he said, shedding tears. “I recall her among the peats of Killarney as if it were to-day. When she died (she is dead, isn’t she?) I buried my heart in her grave. I have never known a moment’s happiness since. Speak to me of her, Dinorah.”
He followed me up a little later, when Patty was sitting with me, and peeped round the door.
“May I—daughter Di?” he said. I believe he had really in the interval been looking among his notes, or letters, and with such benefit to his memory that he felt secure, at least, in that monosyllabic compromise. Blame my fond heart, thou fripon. I was softened even in my desperate disillusionment by this half recognition. With a father, fashionable and well-connected, possibly rich, to safeguard my interests, I need no longer fear the light.
Receiving no answer, he sidled himself into the room, and to a sofa, on which he sat down. Patty, dropping her work, looked at him with all her might of astonishment.
“And is this dear child your sister?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered; “from the very first.”
“Twins?” he exclaimed. “I am very sure there is no such entry.”
He sat frowning at the carpet for a little. Then, “Wait,” he said. “It is my misfortune to serve small beer.” And with these enigmatic words laid himself down and fell asleep.
With his first snore, Patty flew over to me.
“Who is it?” she whispered, frantic.
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”
“Father?” she said.
“Hush!” I answered; “yes.” And would say no more till he woke.
He came to himself presently, in a properer sense of the word. During the interval I had been curiously observing his condition. It was very different in seeming from that of the spark of eleven years since. It showed an assumption of finery, it is true; but the trappings were tawdry and soiled, and the materials cheap.
He sat up with a prodigious yawn, his face, in the midst, lapsing into a watery, paternal smile. But it was evident at once that something of the thread of memory was restored in him; and he began questioning me much more shrewdly and to the point.
“Why, ecod,” said he presently, “was it a fact that the sweep had stole you? If I’d only learnt the truth before Charlie Buckster put a bullet in himself. I’d a double pony on it with the man.”
Then we got on famously. He cried much over his poor lost love, and was so tender with me that he completely won me from my reserve, and I ended by recounting to him the whole tale of my fortunes, even up to the present moment.
“That Herring!” he said: “a fine guardian to my girl! I knew the stoat well in my time. Let him beware, now that she has found her natural protector.”
He swelled with indignation, as I with pleasure.
“You have gifts, presents from him, no doubt,” he said fiercely. “What do you say to my taking them all back, and throwing them in his face?”
“I say, certainly not,” I answered.
“Ah well!” he said, “you have got them, anyhow; and the thought will wring his covetous soul.”
At this moment a great voice roared, “Johnson, you devil!” down below somewhere.
My father got quickly to his feet.
“Ay,” he answered, to my look; “’tis me, Di—the pseudonym I go by. Fact is, child, I’m temporarily under a financial cloud, and forced to eke out a living, while awaiting the moment of my complete restoration to fortune, by service—that is to say, by taking it, hem!”
“By taking service?”
“Exactly. A sort of elegant cicerone and social introducer to a damned old parvenu curmudgeon, who wants to learn at what lowest outlay to himself he can pose as a gentleman. ’Tis tiresome, though in its way amusing; but I really think I shall have to cut the old rascal on his taste in liquor. For a palate like mine, you know—small beer and blue ruin, faugh! You haven’t change for a guinea, my angelic?”
“Johnson!” roared the voice again.
“Coming, sir, coming!” cried my papa; and, seeing me unresponsive, skipped out of the room.
He was with us continually during the fortnight after our arrival; and I had no least idea of the consequences awaiting me, when one afternoon a hastily scribbled note, dated “en route for the Continent,” was delivered at the house door by a porter, and sent up to me. I read it, shrieked, and sank half fainting into a chair.
“I have taken, dear daughter,” it said, “the entire responsibility for our monetary affairs upon my own shoulders. To live on one’s capital is, like the self-eating pelican, to devour the substance of the unborn generations. Seeing how you appeared quite unaccountably callous to the natural claims of your prospective family (for, with your attractions, you cannot hope to escape one), I, as its prospective grandfather, have asserted my prerogative by appropriating our principal to its properest uses of investment. The stocking you will find still reposing in its secret cache behind the hangings of your dressing-table; but you will find it empty. Do not blame me, but console yourself with the conviction that in a few weeks I shall be in a position to return you your principal at least trebled. In the meanwhile, accept the assurances of my love and protection.”
Half dazed with the shock, I tottered, with Patty’s assistance, into our bedroom. It was too true. The desperate wretch, seizing his opportunity by night while we slept, had robbed us of everything. He had left us not a sixpence. We were ruined.
I tore my hair. I uttered cries and imprecations. I cursed Heaven, my own fond gullibility, the cruelty of the fate that would not let me live and be honest. Patty, poor fool, tried to calm me. I drove her away with blows, and, in a reaction to fury, rushed downstairs and into the room of the remaining lodger.
“Where is my money, where are my jewels?” I shrieked. “You are his accomplice. I will swear an information against you unless you tell.”
He was a gross, coarse man, of a violent complexion.
“Ho-ho!” he bellowed; “blackmail is it? Wait, while I call a witness.”
He pulled the bell down, summoning our landlady. When she came, there was an outrageous scene. Quite cowed in the end, I retreated to our apartments, where, however, I was not to be left in peace. Within an hour the harridan appeared with her bill, an extravagant one, which of course I was unable to settle. The next morning, driven forth with contumely, we were arrested at her suit, and carried to a sponging-house. Thence, quite self-collected now in my desperation, I despatched a note to Mr. Roper, who, without delay, good creature, waited upon us. I told him the whole unreserved truth.
“Very well,” he said, “I will quit you of this, child; and, for the rest, find accommodation for you in humbler quarters till you can help yourself. With your genius, that should not be long. You know my circumstances, and that I cannot afford luxuries.”
“I will work my fingers to the bone,” I said, with tears in my eyes.
“Not quite so bad as that,” he answered. “Bones ain’t negotiable assets. Have you ever thought on the stage, now, for a living?”
“I believe, without much study, I could make an actress,” I said.
“With none at all,” said he confidently. “I have a friend in Westley of Drury Lane, and will see if he can put you in the way to a part. I should fear the publicity, i’ faith, but that my lord has taken his grievances to the Continent for an airing, and in the interval we are safe to act.”
Good loyal friend! He found us pretty snug quarters over a little shop in Long Acre, where, keeping to our pseudonym of the Misses Rush, we bided while he negotiated terms for me. He was successful, when once I had been interviewed by the management; and, to cut short this melancholy story, I made my first appearance on the boards as the fairy Primrose in the Christmas masque of the Dragon of Wantley. I had a little song to sing about a butterfly, which never failed to bring down the house; and altogether, I was growing not unhappy in the novelty of the venture, when that, with almost my life, was ended at a blow.
But first I must relate of the most surprising contretemps that ever I was to experience, and which had the strangest and most immediate bearing on my destinies.
I had noticed frequently that the hind legs of the dragon would linger unaccountably, when the absurd monster, on his way off the stage, happened to pass me standing in the wings. This would lead to much muffled recrimination from the forequarters, which, exhausted by their antics, aimed only at getting to their beer; the consequence being that one eventful night, what between the haulings and contortions, the back seam of the creature split, and out there rolled before my eyes—Gogo.
He picked himself up immediately, and stood regarding me silently, with a most doleful visage. My dear, I cannot describe what emotions swept my soul in a little storm of laughter—the astonishment, the pity, the bewilderment! In the midst, too confounded to arrange my thoughts, I turned away, affecting not to recognise him; seeing which, he uttered one enormous sigh, and stumped off to face the battery of the stage-manager’s indignation.
I must have put a world of feeling that night into my little song about the poor butterfly, that was stripped of its wings by a cruel boy, and so prevented from keeping its assignation with the rose, insomuch that it moved a very beautiful lady, who was present in a private box, to send for me that she might thank me in person.
We had all of us, of course, heard of, and some of us remembered, perhaps, chucking under the chin, the ravishing Mrs. Hart, who, from pulling mugs of beer to the pinks of Drury Lane, had risen to be chère amie to his excellency the British Ambassador at Naples, and, quite recently, his lady. She had lately come to London, à travers tous les obstacles, to be made an honest woman of, and it was she who craved the introduction, to which you may be sure I responded with as much alacrity as curiosity. I could have no doubt of her the moment I entered the box, and made, with becoming naïveté, my little curtsey. She was certainly very handsome, in spite of her twenty-seven years and her large feet, though, I thought, lacking in grace. But her face was beautifully formed, with a complexion of apple-blossoms, and red lips a little swollen with kissing, and, to crown everything, a great glory of chestnut hair. There were tears in her fine eyes as she turned impulsively to address me—
“La, you little darling, you’ve made me cry with your butterflies and things. Come here while I buss you.”
There was a gentleman sitting by her, foremost of two or three that were in the box, and he made room for me with an indulgent smile. He was a genial, precise-looking person, with a star on his right breast, and the queue of his wig reaching down his back in long curls that were gathered into a ribbon. I took him, rightly, to be Sir William, the husband, and made him my demure bow as I passed. His lady gave me a great kiss, in full view of the house, and taking a little jewel from her bosom, pinned it into mine.
“There,” she said, “wear this for Lady Hamilton, in token of the only reel feeling she has come across in your beastly city.”
Sir William put his hand on her arm.
“My dear,” he said.
She fanned herself boisterously. She had been disappointed, everyone knew, in her designs to be received at court, and was to leave England in a few days missing the coveted honour. Somehow she reminded me of the “bouncing chit” that our gentlemen call a champagne bottle—she so gushed and sparkled, and was a little large and loud.
I made my acknowledgments quite prettily, and left the box; and, once got outside, leaned for a moment against the wall, with a feeling of mortal sickness come over me. For, as I retreated, I had come face to face with those seated at the back—and one of them was the Earl of Herring.
Had he recognised me? He had not appeared to lift his eyes, even, as he sat at discussion with his neighbour. And that might be the most deadly sign of all.
I don’t know how I got through the rest of my part. But that night I clung to Patty as if she were my only support in a failing world.
Morning brought some reassurance; and so, for a further evening or two, finding myself still unmolested, I struggled to convince myself that he had not seen, or that I was forgotten, and my fault passed over. But all the time the terror lay at my heart.
On the third evening, as I was entering the theatre, I encountered a poor creature standing by the stage door. I went to him; I almost fell upon his breast in my agitation.
“Gogo!” I said, “Gogo!” and stood dumb and shame-stricken before him.
He threw up his hands with that odd familiar gesture, with that tempestuous sigh which found such an immediate response in my soul.
“Are you not coming in?” I faltered.
He shook his head.
“You are dismissed?”
“I spoiled their dragon for them.”
I burst into tears.
“It was for me, dear. Do you see to what I have come? Forgive me, Gogo.”
“I can’t help myself,” he groaned. “You are my destiny.”
“Gogo, I am frightened; I am in danger. Help me, Gogo.”
The poor fellow smiled.
“In everything but running away, Diana.”
“And that is just where I want your help. Come to me: come and see me to-morrow, Gogo, will you? O, Gogo, will you?”
“Don’t be foolish, Diana. At what time?”
“You know my address?”
“Of course I do.”
“As early as early, then; the moment I am out of bed.”
Strangely comforted, and looking to see if we were alone, I dropped a tiny kiss on his rough cheek, and ran in gaily, wiping my eyes as I went.
That night I sang my little song with renewed feeling, and ended to a burst of applause. As I was standing at the wings, flushed and radiant, a note was put into my hand. I opened it, and read: “You are in danger. Don’t go home.”
I never learned who had sent it; some one, probably, from amongst the few friends I could still number in that wicked household. It had been handed in at the stage door by a messenger, and that was all I could discover. The lights of my triumph were darkened. I knew myself at last hunted—and alone. Why had I not bid my monster wait for me? But it were idle now to moan. Despair gave me readiness. I finished my part quite brilliantly, without a stumble, and chatted gaily, while disrobing, with the poor pretty little coryphée who was my chief friend in the dressing-rooms. By one pretext or another I detained her until we were alone. Then, “Fanny,” I said, “keep mum; but I think it unlikely I shall come here again.”
She looked at me with her large grey eyes. We were much of a figure, and not unlike in features.
“O, Miss Rush!” she whispered. “And I’d ’oped always to ’ave you for a friend.”
“So you shall, Fanny,” I said: “but there are contingencies—you understand?”
Her lip was trembling. I think she wanted to tell me to keep good.
“And so,” I said hastily, “as I have liked you so, I want to exchange little presents with you, as a remembrance, if you will.”
The poor child had often cast admiring eyes on a calash which it was my habit to wear to the theatre, and which was indeed a very becoming thing of crimson velvet and cherry-coloured lining, with a frame of costly fur to the face. It had been given me by Bob, and certainly nothing short of my present desperation would have brought me to part with it; but it was, more than anything I wore of late, associated with me; and necessity has no conscience.
Fanny’s eyes sparkled against her will, as I held the thing out to her.
“O no, miss!” she entreated; “it’s too good for me, and I can’t give you nothing the same in exchange.”
“You shall give me your neckerchief,” I said; and, cutting the discussion short, drove her away at length, with her pretty face in the hood, and tears in her eyes.
I gave her five minutes’ start, then followed her out, with a brain as hot as my heart was shivering. “They must discover their mistake very soon,” I thought, “and will be returning on their tracks.”
However, I reached home, running by byways, in safety; and there, quite unnerved now the terror was passed, threw myself into Patty’s arms and told her everything. She was the sweet, simple counsel and consoler she always was to grief, and distressed me only by some concern she could not help showing for the fate of Fanny.
“You try to make me out a devil,” I cried passionately. “They will let her alone, of course, when they find she isn’t who they want.”
We slept in one another’s arms that night, fearful of every sound in the street. But morning brought the sun and Gogo—though the latter inexcusably late to his appointment—and both were a heavenly joy to me.
I saw at once by his expression that he carried news; but he did not speak.
“Gogo!” I whispered.
He uttered a strange sound, like a wounded beast, and turned his face from me.
“Did you exchange head-dresses with her last night?” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
My heart seemed to stop.
“They said it was your hood. She was jostled by ruffians in the street, it seems, and thrown under the traffic, and killed.”
I fell on my knees before him, shuddering and hiding my face.
“You didn’t mean that, Diana?”
“Before God, no. I thought they would leave her when they found out.”
He gave a heart-breaking sigh, and looked at me for the first time.
“I wouldn’t go near the theatre again, if I was you. They’ll not judge you as—as favourably as I, perhaps.”
“I’ve done with the theatre. Fate is very cruel. No one understands me or believes in me. At least, don’t tell Patty anything of this. I think you will break my heart among you. How did you even know I was threatened?”
“Didn’t you tell me you were in danger?”
I cried out to him in a sudden agony—
“I am in danger. O, Gogo! for God’s sake tell me what I am to do!”
Then the great human love of the creature went down before me. He fondled me, with tears and broken exclamations; he swore himself once more, through all eternity, through sin and sorrow, my bondman.
Presently, without extenuation, I had confessed all to him; and he had forgiven me; had admitted, even, that I had had the reason of a better regard on my side. But as to what had happened to himself during the long interval, he would tell me nothing as yet.
“I am the ex-hind legs of a dragon,” he said, “that was conquered by the Chevalière Primrose, and turned into two-thirds of a prince. I date myself from the translation. The curtain’s down on all that was before.”
Now, when we came to discussing the ways and means for my escape from a desperate situation, my dear resourceful monster was ready with a suggestion at once.
“The Hamilton,” said he, “sails from England in a day or two. She is disposed, by the tokens, to make a pet of you. Why not go to her; relate everything; throw yourself upon her charity, and ask to be conveyed abroad in her suite?”
“Gogo! When?” I cried. It was an inspiration.
“No moment like the present.”
“I will go. But you must come too, to protect me.”
“Of course.”
“And Patty?”
“All three of us together. Pack your box, pay your bill, and be ready while I wait. At the worst, ’tis something gained to shift your quarters and cover your trail.”
I demurred only at the bill; for, indeed, we needed every penny of our ready money. But he settled the matter by paying it himself.
“I have become of a saving disposition,” he said; “and whatever trifle there be, you are its heir. This is only drawing on your reversion”—and, indeed, he valued money at nothing at all. If he could have picked a living from the earth, he would never have been to the trouble of putting a penny in his pocket.
In a little, all being prepared, we took a coach and drove to the Ambassador’s hotel. My lady was fortunately at her toilette, and sent down a surprised message, that, whatever the deuce I wanted, I was to be shown up. I found her, tumbled a little abroad, in the hands of her perruquier, whom she dismissed while she talked to me.
“Why, child,” she said, “what a face! ’Tis as white, I vow, as the wings of your butterfly. Out with your trouble now.”
I threw myself at her feet. I made a clean breast of my story—of the inhuman cruelty of which I was the destined victim; and I ended by imploring her to let me and my friends enjoy the bounty of her protection. She fired magnificently, as I had hoped she would, over the recital. She embraced my cause impulsively and without a thought for possible consequences to herself.
“The infamous old fox!” she cried of my lord; “I was flattered by his attentions, hang him! until I found they was of the worst consequence to me as a lady of position. To think of the old beast wanting to murder you because of a lampoon—pasquinades we call ’em in Italy! La, child! if I answered so to every dig that’s made at me, I’d better turn public executioner at once. Let’s keep our own characters clean against the light being turned on ’em, say I; and, if we don’t, there’s only ourselves to thank. It’s too late to talk of bein’ a lady when the crowner comes to sit on our dirty stockin’s.”
She made me repeat my little song to her, and cried over it again.
“Trot up your friends,” she said, wiping her eyes. “There’s room for you all here till we start for France—or Naples, if you will. Let me see the old devil dare to follow you into this sancshery! We’ll be even with him, gnashin’ his yellow teeth left behind. Go and fetch ’em. I want to see what they’re like.”
And she gave me a tempest of a kiss, and pushed me out at the door.
It is here we encounter that considerable lacuna in the Reminiscences to which reference was made in the “Introductory.” An examination of the MS. shows that the large section—of more than a hundred pages—which related to Mrs. Please’s experiences during the terrific period of the Revolution, and afterwards so far as the year ’98, when the narrative is resumed, was at some time bodily removed, whether with a view to separate publication (of which, however, no proof can be found), or through one of those intermittent panics of conscience to which the lady was subject, there is no evidence to show. While this breach is to be regretted—from her editor’s point of view, at least—it must be said that innumerable contemporary references to Madame “Se-Plaire” enable us in some measure not only to follow the career of that redoubtable adventuress (pace M. le Comte de C——), but to supply to ourselves at least one presumptive reason for her shyness, on reflection, of perpetuating certain of its incidents. However, not to confuse matters, we will take our stepping-stones in the order of their placing.
It appears, then, that Mrs. Please and her friends were conveyed safely in the Ambassador’s entourage, to Paris, where Madame the Ambassador’s wife received, during the few days of her stay in the French capital on her way to Italy, some salve to her hurt vanity in the reception accorded her at the Tuileries by the queen, who took the opportunity to intrust her with a letter to her sister of Naples. Whether elated, indirectly, by the royal condescension, or electrified by the state of the national atmosphere, or for whatever reason, Diana, it appears, decided to remain where she was. She even, there is some reason for believing, sought, in the character of a very loyal little moucharde, to ingratiate herself with the queen, going so far as to imply that Lady Hamilton had taken this delicate means of placing in Her Majesty’s hands a counter-buff to Mr. Pitt, whom Miss Diana had often seen in my lord of Herring’s house in Berkeley Square, and whose sinister designs against France she was quite ready to quote—or invent.
However this may be, it seems certain that Her Majesty was inexplicably so far from being prepossessed by her fair visitor’s fair protégée, that (assuming even that she gave her her countenance at the first) she did not hesitate long in turning upon her the coldest of cold shoulders. We know at least that within a month of her arrival in Paris, Diana (which always equals, be it understood, Diana plus her two inseparables) had established herself, far from the precincts of the court, in very good rooms in a house in the Rue St. Jacques; where with characteristic suddenness and thoroughness she announced her complete conversion to the principles of ultra-republicanism. It must have been about this time, moreover, that she found interest to return to the stage; for in addition to the inclusion of her name in the bill of that stirring melodrama, Les Victimes Cloîtrées, which set all fermenting Paris overflowing, there exists that reference to her in the rather spiteful Reminiscences of Adrienne Lavasse, which, I think, is worth transcribing. “Mademoiselle Please,” says the actress, “was for a little our ingénue at the Français. She was imported from England; but, it must be confessed, had a pretty gift [une belle facilité] for our tongue. One night, after a mêlée in the green-room, she lifts her voice in a furious outcry about her having been ravished of a neckerchief which had been given her by a fellow-comédienne in London, and which, she declares, she would not have parted with for a louis-d’or. But I never observed” (adds the little spitfire) “that she took the trouble to replace it with another; from which it is evident that it was not her modesty that she valued at so high a figure.”
How long Mrs. Please continued on the stage at this time (she returned to it again later) is not certain. Probably her engagement was terminated by that famous split in the company, when democratic Talma and Vestris migrated to the Rue de Richelieu, bequeathing the remnant honours of the old house in the Faubourg St. Germain to the royalist Fleury, Dazincourt, and Company. What we do know is that about this critical period a lucky coup in a State lottery established our heroine on her feet, and that thenceforth she flourished. She kept a little salon in those same historic rooms, through which a regular progression of nationalists passed and vanished. There, in their time, were to be seen Brissot, Guadet, Gensonné, the Roman Roland, the handsome Barbaroux, Pétion, Vergniaud, the sweet and indolent, in his ragged coat, Desmoulins, Barrére, Billaud-Varennes, Barras. The order is significant of our lady’s political, or politic, evolution. The life of the State, she came to think, was only to be saved by ruthless amputation; and, unfortunately, the disease was in the head. As the atmosphere thickens, our glimpses of her become rarer and more lurid. She appears once as the proprietress of a sort of Mont de piété, very private and exclusive, in which she amassed good quantity of property, pledged by the proscribed, who never returned to redeem it. Among these, curiously, seems to have been her father, whom, as characteristically as possible, she forgave and attempted to shelter, though without avail, for he was guillotined. It was probably to propitiate the Government for this filial dereliction that she reappeared on the boards, in ’93, in that grotesque monument to the dulness of the Sovereign People, The Last Judgment of Kings; and there, so far as we can trace, ended her connection with the stage.
During all this period, it is only fair to her to say, she seems to have played the inflexible duenna to her little friend and adoratrice, Miss Patty Grant, protecting the child from outside evil and her own kind pliability, and, when she was called away from her side, committing her to the care of that faithful and incorruptible monster, the cripple.
Towards the end of ’93 she appears to have been so far in favour with the powers that she was despatched on a secret propagandist mission to the Neapolitan States—a portentous departure. She was not back in Paris again until the spring of ’95, when she returned to find the Terror overthrown, its “tail” in process of being docked by Sanson, and the jeunesse dorée patrolling the streets.
Not much record of this journey remains, beyond the single weighty fact that it brought her acquainted with the young revolutionary enthusiast, Nicola Pissani, who accompanied her home by way of Tuscany and Piedmont, propagating their gospel of Liberty on the road.
We may perhaps be pardoned for thinking it probable that Mrs. Please, on her return to Paris, would have recanted her extremist views, had it not been for this romantic exalté, to whom, no doubt, she at the time was sincerely attached. It is possible, indeed, that she did persuade him of the necessity of an open recantation, in order that she might consort with him the more safely in those measures which he, and for his sake she, had at heart—the violent establishment of a republic at Naples, to wit. For, for the moment, sanscullotism was out of fashion, and propagandists at a discount. It made no difference to her, apparently, that her former patroness and saviour was heart and soul with the court of Ferdinand. She was of the Roman mettle, and would have sacrificed her own child to Liberty—with Pissani. I swear my heart bleeds for her; for (the truth has to be uttered) that passionate young zealot was no sooner made free of the house in the Rue St. Jacques, than he fell hopelessly entangled in the unconscious meshes of poor blameless, lovable little Patty Grant. And, worse: Miss Grant, without a thought of disloyalty to her friend and sister—who, indeed, persistently, and perhaps justifiably, posed for no more than the Neapolitan’s pious fellow-missionary—yielded her whole sweet soul to him!
Nothing was declared, or came of this at the time. Pissani went back to Naples; the two—he and Diana: not he and another, you may be sure, unless by stealth—corresponded regularly; the march of events proceeded; our heroine managed, no doubt, to console herself, provisionally, for the separation. Perhaps she may have been conscious of an alteration in her friend; a hint of some sad preoccupation; the bright eyes dulling, the white face growing ever a little more white and drawn. If she did, she chose, while biding her time of enlightenment, to attach any but the right reason to the change. She seems to confess, indeed, that she had the suspicion. Like enough, in that case, she indulged it for a perpetual stimulant to her romance, which might have withered without. She was not one to bear tamely her supplanting by another—least of all by the little humble slave of her passions and caprices, of her kisses and disdains. And, in the meantime, the years went over them, while she was studying to ingratiate herself with the Directory, so that presently her house knew again its succession of ministers and deputies—men who came to lighten their leisure with a little interlude of love or wit. And so we reach the crisis.
Naples, about the middle of ’98, was in a last state of ferment. Jacobinism threatened it within and without, the former but awaiting the advance of the French under Championnet to arise and hand over the city to its sympathisers. In September Nelson came sweeping to its sea-gates in his Vanguard; in October General Mack posted from Vienna to take command of its rabble army of resistance; in November its king led another army to Rome, nominally to restore the Pope his kingdom, and, having done some ineffective mischief, returned ingloriously, to find his capital in a state of anarchy. Finally, in December, the whole royal family sneaked on board the Vanguard, and transferred itself pro tempore to Palermo, where it remained until the danger was laid, when it returned to exact a bloody vengeance.
Therewithin lies the whole tragedy of Pissani and a little English maid. Early in the February of that year the man had written, hurried and agitated, to Mrs. Please, to announce that the moment was ripe, the tree of despotism tottering to its fall, to be replaced by the more fruitful one of Liberty; and to urge her to come at once, if she would see consummated the glorious work for which they had both laboured so long and so self-sacrificially. No doubt that he believed in her single-heartedness, as she, in another way, in his. He assured her that she might be, if she would, a second Pucelle. He fired her vanity: he rekindled her passion. With characteristic impetuosity, she broke up her household, and (here figures either her blindness or her imperious self-confidence) prepared to transport it, stock and block, to the scene of her anticipated triumphs. She had no difficulty in procuring passports. Indeed, there is reason to suppose that she was intrusted with despatches for General Berthier, then occupying Rome. At any rate she, in company with Mademoiselle Grant and her inseparable Gogo, embarked at Marseilles for Civita Vecchia; were in the Eternal City before the end of the month; and had thence, travelling again by sea, reached Naples without accident by the middle of March. Here, by preconcerted arrangement (as regarded only herself and the Neapolitan, however) they were met by Pissani, who conducted them in the first instance to a little cabaret in the dark quarters near the Arsenal. And here, from the glooms of that dingy rendezvous, Mrs. Please is pleased to enter again upon her own story.
B. C.
[Note.—To the curious in matters of personal appearance, the following extract from the Roper Correspondence (Hicks & Beach, London, 1832) may be of interest. The passage occurs in a letter—dated Paris, January 1798—from the Hon. Robert Roper to his cousin Lord Carillon, and runs as follows:—
“I have renewed my acquaintance with the Please, who is twenty-seven, and nothing if not the ripe fruit of her promise. Dost remember, Dick, how she was your ‘Long-legged Hebe’? I tell you, sir, she is by Jove out of Leda, a very Helen. She moults her years, like the swan her father its feathers, and is always ready with a virgin bosom of down for the next quilt. The same sprightly insolence; the same perfect irregularity of feature—and conduct; the same zeal in making the interests of others her own—and the profits thereof. Her face retains its pretty moue; her hair has only ripened a little, like corn. She is still slender, as we remember her—in everything now but the essentials; still as pale, with the flawless eyebrows and bob-cherry lips. I would be sentimental; but, alack! she tells me our past is put away in a little bag like lavender. ‘Would you wish the gift of it, sir,’ she says, ‘to lay among your bed-linen? ’Tis grown too scentless for my use. Il n’y a si bonne compagnie qu’on ne quitte.’ O, Dick, to be rebuked for one’s years, and by an immortal! O, Dick, for the time ‘when wheat is green and hawthorn buds appear’! Why may not our feet continue to dance with our hearts? I have a débutante always within my breast, and because I am forty, she must be a wallflower forsooth!
“She has realised at last la grande passion, she tells me. She is perfectly frank. He is gone elsewhere, and she only waits for his whistle to follow. This to me! She has her little salon, as pretty as a bonbon box, and a dozen of powdered ministers at her feet. The morning after our meeting I breakfasted with her and her friend. You recall the little soft brunette, with the motherly eyes and the caressing bashfulness? She is still with her, the foil, as of old, to her ladyship, and virgin soil to this day, I believe.... Madam took her tea laced with a little eau de vie. There was a curious legless monster in waiting: something between a dumb-waiter and a Covent Garden porter. She defers to him in everything; and he growls.”]
We were landed upon the Mole, not far from the Castel Nuovo, a vast, sullen pile like the Bastille, on whose ruins I had danced. It was a dark and rainy night. Pissani, who had been squatted amongst some boats down by the water, rose, came forward in two or three swift strides, and exclaimed, in an eager, agitated undertone, “Mother of God! You are accompanied?”
I could not see his face, but my heart responded unerringly to the dear remembered tones. I went quickly to him, and put up my hands to his breast.
“Nicola mio—my brother, my comrade!” I whispered, “by all that, next to you, I hold most dear.”
“What? Whom?” he asked, in a low voice of amazement. “Not—?”
“Yes,” I said, “by my servant and my sister. You called and I came, Nicola, ‘bringing my sheaves with me.’”
He was breathing fast, but he did not answer.
“Are you not pleased,” I said, “that I give up everything for you and to you; that I devote my best to the cause—our cause, Nicola; that at the bidding of my brother I have moved my tent into the wilderness? Are you not pleased with me?”
“There is danger in the wilderness,” he muttered. “No, I am not pleased.”
I fell back with a little shiver. “No more for her than for me,” I answered.
“It is not the same,” he said; “it is not the same thing at all.” In an instant he had gripped my wrist. “Send her back into safety. She shall not risk her life here—by God, she shall not!”
And then I think I understood. I was calm as death, and as cold. It had needed but these few words to turn me into stone. My God! all my fervour and self-sacrifice—and this for their reward! I laughed out quite gaily—
“O, mon chéri! in the rain and the dark? Are you mad? Please to convey us to some shelter.”
He hesitated a moment; then beckoned to Patty, who came running like a dog to the whistle. Pissani turned his back as she approached.
“Tell your servant to await your orders here,” he muttered; “and, for you, follow me.”
Patty stole by my side, dumb over her reception. The fool! the little adorable traitress! How would she have chattered, teeth and heart, had she seen my nails, hid under my cloak, dug into the soft palms they were clinched on. Yet I had an admiration for her, even while I crouched to spring. That she, self-obliterating, undemonstrative with men, could all the time have been softly insinuating herself between me and my love! I had not credited her with so much cleverness.
Our sombre patriot led us to a little osteria in a sewer hard by, where the rain beat on a lurid scrap of window, and a mutter of voices from within seemed to mingle in a throaty discussion with a gurgling water-pipe at our feet. There were two or three wine-drinkers revealed as he pushed open the door—strangely respectable folk in these incongruous surroundings. They but glanced up as we entered and passed on by a stone passage to a little remote room, where were a bare table and a single taper glimmering sickly on the wall.
Pissani shut the door and faced us. He was very pale and grim; grown sterner than my memory of him, but still the melancholy, romantic brigand of my heart. For a moment he seemed unable to speak; and in that moment I could see my little sister’s hand shake on the table on which she had leaned it for support. The truth was confessed amongst us all in that silence. And I—I knew it suddenly, instantly, for what I had long suspected but struggled to conceal from myself; knew it for the real solution of this my conscious unconscious caprice in bringing Patty with me. It had been to force it, to satisfy myself of the best or the worst, that I had acted as I had done. That I recognised now. And, after all, I was the first to speak.
“Well, M. Pissani,” I said, “it seems that one of us at least is de trop.”
His mouth twitched with nervousness.
“She cannot help the cause,” he said. “She will only be in the way. What is her use in this pass?”
“Patty,” I said, turning on the child, “M. Pissani does not want you. You can go back.”
She looked at me, the helpless fool. Her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. But Pissani by that was smiling.
“I do not want you, child, I?” he said, in a sick voice, and held out his hands fondly to her across the table. “Ah, but we know better the truth of our hearts! When the battle is won, then, O gentle my love, that betakest thyself to love as the lark to heaven, come to me, as you promised! But not now—not now, when the storm is in the air, and this so dear shrine of my hopes might be struck and violated. You have not changed, you could not change: it is enough, I have seen you. Come now with me, Pattia, and I will take you back to the boat, to my friends, that they may see you secured in Rome until I can send to you and say, ‘It is time, most dear wife, it is time. Return to me, and give thyself to be the mother of patriots!’”
She moved, and gave a little sob. Her response was not to him but to me—to the stunned questioning of my eyes. She had no wit but to utter her whole self-condemnation in it.
“Diana! I did not know! I have not been untrue to you.”
I struck her on the mouth, and she staggered back, with that red lie printed on it for the delectation of her paramour. She clutched at the table, reeled, and sank down beside it moaning. It was too much. My fury had flashed to an explosion in that wicked falsehood.
Pissani, with a sudden and terrible cry at the sight of his mistress’s disgrace, drew a knife from his hip, and leapt like a goat across the table. Stumbling as he alighted, she caught him frantic round the knees, and held him raging and snarling while he stabbed at the air in his frenzy. I stood fallen back a little, white and scornful, but with not a thrill of fear at my heart; and, so standing, saw how, in the thick blindness of his rage, he was yet tender of her in his struggles to free himself. And then in a moment he had fallen upon his knees, the blade yet in his hand, and was kissing and caressing her, moaning inarticulate love into her ear. She tried feebly to repulse him; to drag herself away and towards me. I had always known that she was of the fools who caress the hands that scourge them. But I sprang back, loathing her neighbourhood.
“Don’t come near me,” I cried.
He had kissed the blood from her mouth to his own. He struck the spot there with a furious hand, as he turned on me.
“By this,” he said, “your death or mine!”
I laughed scornfully.
“So brutes revenge themselves on the innocence they have despoiled!”
“It is a lie!” he raged; and, on the word, put a fierce arm about his wife. “Believe it is a lie, thou!”