The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

by M. E. Braddon

  CHAPTER VI.

  A WOMAN WHO COULD SAY NO.

  Lord Kilrush allowed nearly a month to elapse before he reappeared inRupert Buildings. He had absented himself in the hope that Antoniawould miss his company; and her bright smile of welcome told him thathis policy had been wise. She had, indeed, forgotten the sudden gustof passion that had scared her by a suggestion of strangeness in thefriend she had trusted. She had been very busy since that evening. Herfather's play was in rehearsal, and while Thornton spent his days atDrury Lane and his nights at "The Portico," she had to do most of hismagazine work, chiefly translations of essays or tales by Voltaire orDiderot, and even to elaborate such scraps of news as he brought herfor the _St. James's, Lloyd's,_ or the _Evening Post,_ all which papersopened their columns to gossip about the town.

  "What the devil has become of Kilrush?" Thornton had ejaculated severaltimes. "He used to bring me the last intelligence from White's and theCocoa Tree."

  He had called more than once in St. James's Square during the interval,but had not succeeded in seeing his friend and patron. And now Kilrushreappeared, with as easy a friendliness as if there had been no breakin his visits. He brought a posy of late roses for Antonia, the onlyoffering he ever made her whom he would fain have covered with jewelsricher than stud the thrones of Indian Emperors.

  "'Tis very long since we have seen your lordship," Tonia said, as heseated himself on the opposite side of the Pembroke table that wasspread with her papers and books. "If my father had not called at yourhouse and been told that you were in fairly good health we should havefeared you were ill, since we know we have done nothing to offend you."

  Her sweet simplicity of speech, the directness of her lovely gaze smotehim to the heart. Still--still she trusted him, still treated him asif he had been a benevolent uncle, while his heart beat high with apassion that it was a struggle to hide. Yet he was not without hope,for in her confiding sweetness he saw signs of a growing regard.

  "And was I indeed so happy as to be missed by you?"

  "We missed you much--you have been so kind to my father, bringing himthe news of the town; and you have been still kinder to me in helpingme with your criticism of our comedy."

  "'Twas a privilege to advise so intelligent an author. I have been muchoccupied since I saw you last, and concerned about a cousin of mine whois in a bad way."

  "I hope he is not ill of the fever that has been so common of late."

  "No, 'tis not a bodily sickness. His fever is the Methodist rant. Hehas taken the new religion."

  "Poor man!" said Tonia, with good-humoured scorn.

  She had heard none of the new preachers; but all she had been told, orhad read about them, appealed to her sense of the ridiculous. She hadbeen so imbued with the contempt for all religious observances, thatshe could feel nothing but a wondering pity for people whose thoughtsand lives could be influenced by a two-hours' sermon in the open air.To this young votaress of pure reason the enthusiasm of crowds seemed afanatical possession tending towards a cell in Bedlam.

  "Unhappily, the disease is complicated by another fever, for thefellow is in love with a simpering piece of prettiness that he and hismother have picked out of a Moorfields' gutter; and my apprehension isthat this disciple of Evangelical humility will forget that he is agentleman and marry a housemaid."

  "Would you be very angry with him?"

  "Yes, Miss Thornton; and he would feel the consequences of my anger tohis dying day--for, so far as my fortune goes, I should leave him abeggar."

  "Has he no fortune of his own?"

  "I believe he has a pittance--a something in the funds left him byan uncle on his father's side. But his mother's estate is at her owndisposal; she is a handsome woman still, and may cheat him by a secondmarriage."

  "Do you think it so great a crime for a gentleman to marry hisinferior?"

  "Oh, I have old-fashioned notions, perhaps. I think a man of goodfamily should marry in his own rank, if he can't marry above it. Heshould never have to apologize for his wife, or for her kindred. 'Tisa foolish Irish pride that we Delafields have cherished; but up tothis present hour there is not a label upon our family tree that I amashamed to recall."

  "I think my father told me that your lordship's wife was a duke'sdaughter."

  "My wife was a----"

  He had started to his feet at Tonia's speech, in angry agitation. Hehad never been able to forgive the wife who had disgraced him, orto think of her with common charity, though he had carried off hismortification with a well-acted indifference, and though it was tenyears since that frail offender had come to the end of her wandering ina cemetery outside the walls of Florence.

  "Miss Thornton, for God's sake let us talk of pleasant things, not ofwives or husbands. Marriage is the gate of hell."

  "Sure, my lord, there must be happy marriages."

  "Enough to serve as baits to hook fools. I grant you there aremarriages that seem happy--nay, I will say that are happy--but 'tis notthe less a fact that to chain a man and woman to each other for lifeis the way to make them the deadliest enemies. The marriage bond wasinvented to keep estates together, not to bind hearts."

  Tonia listened with a thoughtful air, but gave no sign of assent.

  "Surely you must agree with me," he continued--"you who have beentaught to take a philosophical view of life."

  "I have never applied my philosophy to the subject; but my comedy endswith a happy marriage. I should be sorry to think that 'twas like afairy tale, and that there are no lovers as noble as Dorifleur, nowomen as happy as Rosalia."

  "It _is_ a fairy tale, dear madam; 'tis the unlikeness to life thatcharms us. We go to the play on purpose to be deluded by picturesof impossible felicity--men of never-to-be-shaken valour, women ofincorruptible virtue, shadows that please us in a three-hours' dream,and which have no parallels in flesh and blood."

  "For my own part I am disinterested, for 'tis unlikely I shall evermarry."

  "Do not. If you would be virtuous, remain free. It is the bond thatmakes the dishonour."

  Antonia looked at him with a puzzled air, slow to follow his drift. Hesaw that he had gone too far, and was in danger of displeasing her.

  "What curious creatures women are!" he thought. "Here is an avowedinfidel who seems inexpressibly shocked because I decry the marriageceremony. What formalists they are at best! If they are not in fear ofthe day of judgment they tremble at the notion of being ill-spoken ofby their neighbours. I'll warrant this sweet girl is as anxious to keepher landlady's good opinion as George Whitefield is to go to heaven."

  He talked to her of the comedy. It was to be acted on the followingMonday.

  "I have secured a side-box, and I count upon being honoured with thecompany of the joint authors," he said.

  Tonia's eyes sparkled at the thought of her triumph. To have her wordsspoken by David Garrick--by the lovely Mrs. Pritchard--to sit unseen inthe shadow of the curtained side-box, while her daydreams took form andsubstance in the light of the oil lamps!

  "My father and I will be proud to have such good places," she said. "Weusually sit at the back of the pit when Mr. Garrick is kind enough togive us a pass. Father has given me a silk gown from Hilditch's in thecity, the first I have had."

  "If you would suffer me to add a pearl necklace," cried Kilrush,thinking of a certain string of Oriental pearls which was almost anheirloom, and which he remembered on his mother's neck forty years ago.He had taken the red morocco case out of an iron coffer not long since,and had looked at the ornament, longing to clasp it round Tonia'sthroat. The hands that held the case trembled a little as he imaginedthe moment when he should fasten the diamond clasp on that exquisiteneck.

  "You are too generous, sir. I take gifts from no one but my father,except, indeed, the roses you are so kind as to bring me."

  "Happy roses, to win acceptance where pearls are scorned! The necklacewas my mother's, and has been wasting in darkness for near half acentury. She died before I went to Eton. Would you but let me l
end itto you--only to air the pearls."

  "No, no, no; no borrowed finery! I should hate to play the daw inpeacocks' feathers."

  "You are a contradictory creature, madam; but you would have to be morecruel and more cutting than a north-east wind before I would quarrelwith you."

  His lordship's visits now became more frequent than at first; and Toniareceived him with unvarying kindness, whether he found her alone or inher father's company. Her calm assurance was so strangely in advance ofher years and position that he could but think she owed it to havingmixed so little with her own sex, and thus having escaped all taintof self-consciousness or coquetry. She listened to his opinions withrespect, but was not afraid to argue with him. She made no secret ofher pleasure in his society, and owned to finding the afternoons orevenings vastly dull on which he did not appear.

  "I should miss you still more if I had not my translating work," shesaid; "but that keeps me busy and amused."

  "And you find that old dry-as-dust Voltaire amusing!"

  "I never find him dry as dust. He is my father's favourite author."

  The comedy was well received, and Thornton was made much of by Mr.Garrick and all the actors. No one was informed of Antonia's share inthe work, or suspected that the handsome young woman in a yellow silksacque had so much to do with the success of the evening. Patty Lestertriumphed in her brief but effective _role_ of a tomboy younger sister,an improvement on the conventional confidante, and was rapturouslygrateful to Mr. Thornton, and more than ever reproachful of Antonia fordeserting her.

  "You have taken an aversion to the Piazza," she said with an offendedair.

  "On my honour, no, Patty; but I have been so constantly occupied inhelping my father."

  "I shall scold him for making a slave of you."

  "No, no, you must not. Be sure that I love you, even if I do not go tosee you."

  "But I am not sure. I cannot be sure. You have grown distant of late,and more of a fine lady than you was last year."

  Antonia blushed, and promised to take tea with her friend next day. Shewas conscious of a certain distaste for Patty's company, but still morefor Patty's casual visitors; but the chief influence had been Kilrush'surgent objections to the young actress's society.

  "I aver nothing against the creature's morality," he said; "but sheis a mercenary little devil, and encourages any coxcomb who willsubstantiate his flatteries with a present. I have watched her atthe side-scenes with a swarm of such gadflies buzzing round her. Onmy soul, dear Miss Thornton, 'twould torture me to think of you thecynosure of Miss Lester's circle."

  Tonia laughed off the warning, swore she was very fond of Patty, andwould on no account desert her.

  "I hope you do not think I can value fools above their merits whenI have the privilege of knowing a man of sense like your lordship,"she said, and the easy tone of her compliment chilled him, as all herfriendly speeches did. Alas! would she ever cease to trust him as afriend, and begin to fear him as a lover?

  "It is my age that makes my case hopeless," he thought, musing uponthis love which had long since become the absorbing subject of hismeditations. "If I had been twenty years younger how easily might Ihave won her, for 'tis so obvious she loves my company. She sparklesand revives at my coming, like a drooping flower at a sprinkle ofsummer rain. But, oh, how wide the difference between loving mycompany and loving me! Shall I ever bridge the abyss? Shall I eversee those glorious eyes droop under my gaze, that transcendent formagitated by a heart that passion sets beating?"

  Again and again he found her alone among her books and manuscripts, forThornton, being now flush of money, spent most of his time abroad. Hesported a new suit, finer than any his daughter had ever seen him wear,and had an air of rakish gaiety that shocked her. The comedy seemed agold mine, for he had always a guinea at command. He no longer allowedhis daughter to fetch and carry between him and his employers. She musttrapes no more along the familiar Strand to Fleet Street. He employeda messenger for this vulgar drudgery. He urged her to buy herself newhats and gowns, and to put her toilet on a handsome footing.

  "Sure, so lovely a girl ought to set off her beauty," he said.

  "Dear sir, I would rather see you save your money against sicknessor----"

  She was going to say "old age," but checked herself, with a tenderdelicacy.

  "Hang saving! I had never a miser's temper. Davy shall take our nextplay. You had best stick to Spanish, and find me a plot in De Vega orMoratin, and not plague yourself about scraping a guinea or two."

  'Twas heavenly fine weather and more than a year since Kilrush andAntonia first met at Mrs. Mandalay's ball; and the close friendshipbetween the _blase_ worldling and the inexperienced girl had become aparamount influence in the life of each. The hours Antonia spent in hislordship's company were the happiest she had ever known, and the dayswhen he did not come had a grey dulness that was a new sensation. Thesound of his step on the stair put her in good spirits, and she was allsmiles when he entered the room.

  "I swear you have the happiest disposition," he said one day; "yourface radiates sunshine."

  "Oh, but I have my dull hours."

  "Indeed! And when be they?"

  "When you are not here."

  Her bright and fearless outlook as she said the words showed him howfar she was from divining a passion that had grown and strengthened inevery hour of their companionship.

  They talked of every subject under the sun. He had travelled much, astravelling went in those days; had read much, and had learnt stillmore from intercourse with the brightest minds of the age. He showedher the better side of his nature, the man he might have been had henever abandoned himself to the vices that the world calls pleasures.They talked often about religion; and though he had cast in his lotwith the Deists before he left Oxford, it shocked him to find a youngand innocent woman lost to all sense of natural piety. Her father hadtrained her to scorn all creeds, and to rank the Christian faith nohigher than the most revolting or the most imbecile superstitions ofIndia or the South Seas. She had read Voltaire before she read thegospel; and that inexorable pen had cast a blight over the sacredpages, and infused the poison of a malignant satire into the fountainof living waters. Kilrush praised her independence of spirit, andexulted in the thought that a woman who believed in nothing had nothingto lose outside the region of material advantages, and, convinced ofthis, felt sure that he could make her life happy.

  And thus, seeing himself secure of her liking, he flung the fatal dieand declared his love.

  They were alone together in the June afternoon, as they so often were.He had met Thornton at the entrance to the court, trudging off toAdelphi Terrace, to wait upon Mr. Garrick; so he thought himself secureof an hour's _tete-a-tete_. She welcomed him with unconcealed pleasure,pushed aside her papers, took the bunch of roses that he carried herwith her prettiest curtsey, and then busied herself in arranging thenosegay in a willow-pattern Worcester bowl, while he laid down his hatand cane, and took his accustomed seat by her writing-table. They werecabbage roses, and made a great mass of glowing pink above the darkblue of the bowl. She looked at them delightedly, handled them withdelicate touch, fingers light as Titania's, and then stopped in themidst of her pleasant task, surprised at his silence.

  "How pale your lordship looks! I hope you are not ill?"

  He stretched out his hand and caught hers, wet and perfumed with theroses.

  "Antonia, my love, my divinity, this comedy of friendship must end.Dear girl, do you not know that I adore you?"

  She tried to draw her hand from his grasp, and looked at him withunutterable astonishment, but not in anger.

  "You are surprised! Did you think that I could come here day after day,for a year--see you and hear you, be your friend and companion--and notlove you? By Heaven, child, you must have thought me the dullest claythat ever held a human soul, if you could think so."

  She looked at him still, mute and grave, deep blushes dyeing hercheeks, and her eyes darkly serious.

 
"Indeed, your lordship, I have never thought of you but as of a friendwhose kindness honoured me beyond my deserts. Your rank, and thedifference of our ages, prevented me from thinking of you as a suitor."

  He started, and dropped her hand; and his face, which had flushed as hetalked to her, grew pale again.

  "Great God!" he thought, "she takes my avowal of love for an offer ofmarriage."

  He would not have her deceived in his intentions for an instant. He hadnot always been fair and above-board in his dealings with women; but tothis one he could not lie.

  "Your suitor, in the vulgar sense of the word, I can never be,Antonia," he said gravely. "Twenty years ago, when my wife eloped withthe friend I most trusted, and when I discovered that I had been atwelve-months' laughing-stock for the town--by one section supposed thecomplacent husband, by another the blind fool I really was--in thathateful hour I swore that I would never again give a woman the power ofdishonouring my name. My heart might break from a jilt's ill-usage--but_that_, the name which belongs not to me only, but to all of my racewho have borne it in the past or who will bear it in the future--thatshould be out of the power of woman's misconduct. And so to you whomI love with a passion more profound, more invincible than this heartever felt for another since it began to beat, I cannot offer a legaltie; but I lay my adoring heart, my life, my fortune at your feet, andI swear to cleave to you and honour you with a constant and devotedaffection which no husband upon this earth can surpass."

  He tried to take her hand again, but she drew herself away from himwith a superb gesture of mingled surprise and scorn.

  "There was nothing further from my mind than that you could desire tomarry me, except that you should wish to degrade me," she said in avoice graver than his own.

  Her face was colourless, but she stood erect and firm, and had no lookof swooning.

  "Degrade you? Do you call it degradation to be the idol of my life,to be the beloved companion of a man who can lavish all this worldknows of luxury and pleasure upon your lot, who will carry you to thefairest spots of earth, show you all that is noblest in art and nature,all that makes the bliss of intelligent beings, who will protect yourinterests by the most generous settlements ever made by a lover?"

  "Oh, my lord, stop your inventory of temptation!" exclaimed Antonia."The price you offer is extravagant, but I am not for sale. I thoughtyou were my friend--indeed, for me you had become a dear and cherishedfriend. I was deceived, cruelly deceived! I shall know better anothertime when a man of your rank pretends to offer me the equality offriendship!"

  There were tears in her eyes in spite of her courage, in which Romanvirtue she far surpassed the average woman.

  "Curse my rank!" he cried angrily. "It is myself I offer--myself andall that I hold of worldly advantages. What can my name matter toyou--to you of all women, friendless and alone in the world, yourexistence unknown to more than some half-dozen people? _I_ stand ona height where the arrows of ridicule fly thick and fast. Were I tomarry a young woman--I who was deceived and deserted by a handsomewife before I was thirty--you cannot conceive what a storm of ridiculeI should provoke, how Selwyn would coruscate with wit at my expense,and Horry Walpole scatter his contemptuous comments on my folly overhalf the continent of Europe. I suffered that kind of agony once--knewmyself the target of all the wits and slanderers in London. I will notsuffer it again!"

  He was pacing the room, which was too small for the fever of hismind. To be refused without an instant's hesitation, as if he hadtried to make a queen his mistress! To be scorned by Bill Thornton'sdaughter--Thornton, the old jail-bird whom he had helped to get outof prison--the fellow who had been sponging on him more or less for ascore of years, most of all in this last year!

  He looked back at his conquests of the past. How triumphant, how easythey were; and what trumpery victories they seemed, as he recalled themin the bitterness of his disappointment to-day.

  Tonia stood by the open window, listening mechanically to the rollof wheels which rose and fell in the distance with a rhythmicalmonotony, like the sound of a summer sea. Kilrush stopped in his angryperambulation, saw her in tears, and flew to her side on the instant.

  "My beloved girl, those tears inspire me with hope. If you wereindifferent you would not weep."

  "I weep for the death of our friendship," she answered sorrowfully.

  "You should smile at the birth of our love. Great Heaven! what is thereto stand between us and consummate bliss?"

  "Your own resolve, my lord. You are determined to take no second wife;and I am determined to be no man's mistress. Be sure that in all ourfriendship I never thought of marriage, nor of courtship--I neverangled for a noble husband. But when you profess yourself my lover, Imust needs give you a plain answer."

  "Tonia, surely your soul can rise above trivial prejudices! You whohave boldly avowed your scorn of Churchmen and their creeds, who haveneither hope of heaven nor fear of hell, can you think the tie betweena man and woman who love as we do--yes, dearest, I protest you loveme--can you believe that bond more sacred for being mumbled by apriest, or stronger for being scrawled in a parish register? By Heaven,I thought you had a spirit too lofty for vulgar superstitions!"

  "There is one superstition I shall ever hold by--the belief that thereare honest women in the world."

  "Pshaw, child! Be but true to the man who adores you, and you will bethe honestest of your sex. Fidelity to her lover is honour in woman;and she is the more virtuous who is constant without being bound. NanceOldfield, the honestest woman I ever knew, never wore a wedding-ring."

  "I think, sir," she began in a low and earnest voice that thrilled him,"there are two kinds of women--those who can suffer a life of shame,and those who cannot."

  "Say rather, madam, that there are women with hearts and women without.You are of the latter species. Under the exquisite lines of the bosom Iworship nature has placed a block of ice instead of a heart."

  A street cry went wailing by like a dirge, "Strawberries, ripestrawberries. Who'll buy my strawberries?"

  Kilrush wiped the cold dampness from his forehead, and resumed hispacing up and down, then stopped suddenly and surveyed the room,flinging up his hands in a passionate horror.

  "Good God! that you should exist in such a hovel as this, while mygreat empty house waits for you, while my coach-and-six is ready tocarry us on the road to an Italian paradise! There is a villa atFiesole, on a hill above Florence. Oh, to have you there in the springsunshine, among the spring flowers, all my own, my sweet companion,_animae dimidium meae,_ the dearer half of my soul. Antonia, if you areobstinate and reject me, you will drive me mad!"

  He dropped into a chair, with his head averted from her, and hid hisface in his hands. She saw his whole frame shaken by his sobs. She hadnever seen a man cry before, and the spectacle unnerved her. If shecould have yielded--if that stubborn pride of womanhood, which was herarmour against the tempter, could have given way, it would have been atthe sight of his tears. For a moment her lot trembled in the balance.She longed to kneel at his feet, to promise him anything he could askrather than to see his distress; but pride came to the rescue.

  Choking with tears, she rushed to the door.

  "Farewell, sir," she sobbed; "farewell for ever."

  She ran downstairs to the bottom of the house, and to Mrs. Potter'sparlour behind the kitchen, empty at this hour, where she threwherself upon the narrow horsehair sofa, and sobbed heart-brokenly.Yet even in the midst of her weeping she listened for the familiarstep upon the stairs above, and for the opening and shutting of thestreet door. It was at least ten minutes before she heard Kilrush leavethe house, and then his footfall was so heavy that it sounded like astranger's.