Читать книгу Mad Barbara - Warwick Deeping - Страница 12

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For a girl to maintain her dignity in some such assemblage as that at the house of Hortense, she needed a glib tongue, an easy temper, and no prejudices with regard to the inviolate sanctity of her lips or cheek. The gentlemen of fashion had renounced the central superstition of Chivalry, while retaining some of its outward pageantry and splendor. Cynics and worldlings, they had no real reverence for woman, no belief in her honor, and little consideration for her name. She was merely a thing to be coveted, to be maligned, or to be made, perhaps, the butt of the bitterest and most unmanly ridicule. How mean and utterly contemptible those splendid gentlemen of the court could be, Anne Hyde had learned in the days before she became a duchess. So many noble fellows conspiring to swear away a woman’s honor, and fabricating unclean lies about her, in the belief they would please a prince.

Barbara remained isolated by the window, studying the scene with an expression of sulky scorn. It was her first glimpse of the gadflies of the court; their methods of attack and of torture were to her things unknown. Many of the men had prematurely aged features, harsh skins, and unhealthy eyes. Some two or three were palpably the worse for wine. And despite their rich clothes and the beauty of mere surface refinement, they brought an atmosphere of unwholesome insolence into the Italian’s salon—an insolence that made such true aristocrats as John Evelyn despair of the courts of kings.

The Mancini had drawn the mock bishop aside, and they were talking together with ironical little smiles and gestures. Barbara met Hortense’s eyes across the room. The man in the silk cassock glanced also in the same direction, and Barbara had the sudden sense of being under discussion.

The majority of the men were drinking wine at a side table, talking loudly and without an atom of restraint, as though they were in a tavern and not in the salon of a great lady. My Lord Gore and his son were the centre of a little group; the brown face of the sea-captain contrasting with the whiter skins of the idlers about town. He was glancing about the room, as though tired of being penned up in a corner by a party of fops with whom he had no sympathy. More than once his eyes met those of Barbara Purcell. They appeared to be the only two people in the room who chafed instinctively at their surroundings.

A loud voice at the door of the salon, strident and harsh, overtopped the babbling of the crowd. Heads were turned in the direction; periwigs bowed; slim swords cocked under velvet coat-tails. The commotion hinted at the entry of some great captain in the campaign of pleasure. The knot of many-colored figures fell apart, and a big man in black and silver stalked forward to salute Hortense.

It was Philip of Pembroke, the most outrageous and hot-headed aristocrat in the kingdom, a man whose own friends treated him as they would have treated an open powder-mine, and whose very friendship was often the prelude to a quarrel. Few people had the nerve to sit near him at table, for an argument was his great joy, and his method of debate was so fierce and fanatical that his arguments very frequently took the form of wine bottles and dishes, or any forcible persuader that came to hand. He would quarrel with any one, anywhere, on any topic, and appeared to cherish the conviction that the whole world had conspired to contradict him. Lean, ominous, with a fierce, intent, brown face, his sharp, snapping jowl made him appear more like a mad fanatic than a sane and stately English peer. The marvel was that a man with such a face should waste even his madness on irresponsible brawls and outrages. It was like some fierce Egyptian monk playing insane tricks in Christian Alexandria.

He saluted Hortense with his usual air of restless-eyed and explosive abruptness. She had assumed her utmost graciousness, her full feminine fascination. My lord stared at her for a moment in his queer, distrustful way, and then turned to the figure in the silk cassock.

“Well, you dull dog, how are we to be amused to-night?”

Tom Temple adopted a tone of the blandest deference.

“We have founded a mission, my lord, for the conversion of unkissed females.”

“Damnation, boy, there are none!”

“My Lord of Pembroke is a great authority.”

“Am I? Who told you that? I should like to talk with him a minute. Where are your converts, eh? By my soul, I don’t see many!”

The bishop made an unctuous gesture with his open hands.

“There are an innocent few, my lord.”

“Three pinafores and two aprons! Who’s that there—old Purcell’s widow? She is as plump as a fat hen! And the one there by the window, who’s she?”

Tom Temple appealed to Hortense.

“Anne Purcell’s daughter.”

“A sour, scratch-your-face looking wench! Zounds, Tom, begin your mission there! Go and kiss her, or I’ll knock your head against the wall.”

He laughed, as though hugely tickled, while the majority of the men, who had been listening, exchanged glances, and divided their curiosity between the girl by the window, my Lord Pembroke, and Bishop Tom.

Hortense had drawn aside, and was bending over Anne Purcell. There may have been a motive in the move. Possibly she did not wish to countenance the joke, and yet desired to profit by the information she might gain thereby.

The bishop looked embarrassed.

“If you will lend me your countenance, my lord—”

“Go and kiss her.”

“On my conscience, sir, but—”

He was drifting perilously near an argument, and the mad peer’s eyes began to sparkle. The crowd settled itself to enjoy the drama.

“Why, my lord bishop is a heretic!”

“The recusant, the Fifth Monarchy maniac! Pull his bibs off!”

Tom Temple found himself in the midst of a dilemma. On the one hand was this silent, swarthy-face girl who looked as unapproachable as a Minerva; on the other, my Lord of Pembroke, ready to explode at the slightest opposition.

“I accept your mandate, my lord.”

“Forward, then, sainted sir; I am the church militant to support the conversion.”

Tom Temple plucked up his impertinence, and approached Barbara with an air of grim solemnity. All eyes were turned in her direction. She found herself the cynosure of this mocking, sneering, mischief-loving crowd.

“My daughter, I am authorized by his Majesty, Pope of Whitehall, and by my Lord Cardinal Pembroke, here, to initiate you into the one true church. Are you, my daughter, in a fit and ready state to be converted?”

Barbara looked the young man straight in the face and said nothing.

“Have you no answer for me, my child?”

My Lord of Pembroke gave him a push from behind.

“To it, Tom, or I’ll convert her myself!”

“My Lord Cardinal, I am ready to abdicate in your favor.”

“Sophist! Kiss her, and have done.”

Tom Temple looked at Barbara and found his expiring impudence unequal to the task. A breeze of cynical laughter swept the room. The three girls had left the card-table, and were standing huddled together, giggling and glancing from Barbara to the gentlemen. Hortense and Anne Purcell had drawn aside toward the harpsichord, while the sentimental widow seemed scared.

“The church militant must intervene!”

My Lord of Pembroke jostled the mock churchman aside and faced Barbara. She had risen and was standing at her full height, an angry color flooding into her face. The peer and the lady looked each other in the eyes.

The man’s cynical yet malicious stare humiliated her, despite her wrath and her defiance. Her glance travelled over the faces that seemed to fill the room. Nowhere did she find a glimmer of pity or resentment. She was just a silly, prudish girl to them; a sulky child to be teased; a thing that piqued their cynical curiosity.

My Lord of Pembroke made her a curt bow.

“You will permit me to receive you into the bosom of our church,” he said.

She flashed a fierce stare at him, and then drew back close to the window. It was then that her eyes met the eyes of some one in the room, some one who had been standing in the background, and who was watching her with intense earnestness. She recognized John Gore. A rush of appeal and of chivalrous sympathy seemed to leap from face to face.

My Lord of Pembroke advanced a step. There was something satanic about his eyes.

“Come, little simpleton.”

He stretched out an arm, and caught her wrist roughly. But she twisted it free.

“Gently, my wild filly; we must break you to harness. Come—now—”

He was shouldered aside abruptly with a vigor that set the whole room gaping at the thunderclap that would follow. A shortish, sturdy man with a brown, imperturbable face had established himself calmly between my lord and Barbara Purcell.

“It seems, my lord, that, since you are all Christians, I am the only heathen in the room.”

The retort came instantly with a sweep of the peer’s arm. John Gore was ready for it, and put the blow aside. Half a dozen gentlemen rushed in and made a human barrier between the pair.

My Lord of Pembroke struggled like a knot of fire half smothered by damp fuel.

“Hold off, fools! Let go my arm, Howard, or by God, I’ll run my sword through you!”

They tried to pacify him, but his violent temper blazed through their words. He looked madman enough as he spat his fury over the shoulders of those who held him back. But for the inevitable steel, the scene might have been ridiculous.

“Will you fight?”

“I am at your service, my lord.”

“Come then, draw! Clear the room. Howard, you are my second.”

Hortense’s voice intervened with imperious feeling.

“Gentlemen, not in my house.”

Stephen Gore had pushed through and stood beside his son.

“Take me, Jack; keep cool, boy; the fool’s mad.”

“In the park, then.”

“Lud! but it’s raining—torrents,” said some one, peering through the window.

“Rain! Who the devil cares for rain? Tell my boys to light their links. Get me my cloak, Howard. Are you ready, sir?”

“Ready, my lord,” said John Gore. “We can use the swords we have. That is my privilege, I believe.”