The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival
Page 9
CHAPTER IX.
THE SANDS RUN DOWN.
The household in St. James's Square bowed themselves before the newLady Kilrush, and made obeisance to her, as the wheat-sheaves boweddown to Joseph in his dream. The butler remembered his master's firstwife, a pretty futile creature, always gadding, following the latestcraze in modish dissipations, greedy of pleasure and excitement. It hadbeen no surprise to him when she crept through the hall door in thesummer gloaming, carrying her jewels in a handbag, to join the loverwho was waiting in a coach and four round the corner. It was only herhusband who had been blind--blind because he was indifferent.
To the household this strange marriage was a matter for profoundsatisfaction.
"Her ladyship desires to retain your services, and will make no changesexcept on your recommendation," Mr. Thornton told the late lord'shouse-steward and business manager, with a superb patronage; butwithout any authority from Antonia, who sat in a stony silence when hetalked about plans for the future, and of all the pomps and pleasuresthat were waiting for his beloved girl after a year of mourning.
"Oh, why do you talk of servants, and horses, and things?" sheexclaimed once, with an agonized look. "Can't you see--don't youunderstand--that I loved him?"
"I do understand. Yes, yes, my love. I can sympathize with yourgrief--your natural grief--for so noble a benefactor. But when youryear of widowhood is past, my Tonia will awaken to the knowledge of herpower. A beauty, a fortune, a peeress, and a young widow! By Heaven,you might aspire to be the bride of royalty! _And_ a temper!" mutteredThornton, as his daughter rose suddenly from her chair and walked outof the room, before he had finished his harangue.
It was only when there was a question of the funeral that the new LadyKilrush asserted herself.
"His lordship will be buried in the family vault at Limerick," shesaid decisively. "Be kind enough to make all needful arrangements, Mr.Goodwin. I shall travel with the funeral _cortege_."
"My dearest Tonia--so remote a spot, so wild and unsettled acountry," pleaded Thornton. "Would it not be wiser to choose a nearerresting-place, among the sepulchres of the noble and distinguished; as,for instance, at St. Paul's, Covent Garden?"
Antonia did not answer, or appear to have heard, the paternalsuggestion. Her father would scarcely let her out of his sight duringthese long days in the darkened house. She could only escape from himby withdrawing to her own room, where Sophy was in attendance upon her;the strange and stately bed-chamber with an amber satin bed, whosecurtains had shaded the guilty dreams of the runaway wife.
The bishop made her a stately visit on the second day of her solitude,and tried to convert her to Anglican Christianity in an hour's affableconversation, addressing himself to her benighted mind in the simplestforms of speech, as if she had been an ignorant child. She heard himpolitely; but he could not lure her into an argument, and he knew thatthe good seed was falling on stony ground.
When he was leaving her she gave a heart-broken sigh, and said--
"I want to believe in a life after death, for then I should hope to seehim again. But I cannot--I cannot! I have been trying ever since--thatnight"--speaking of it as if it were a long way off--"but I cannot--Icannot!"
The bishop sat down again, and quoted St. Paul to her for a quarter ofan hour; but those sublime words could not convince her. The cynic'sblighting sneer had withered all that womanhood has of instinctivepiety--of upward-looking reverence for the Christian ideal. There is nofire so scathing, no poison so searching, as the light ridicule of amaster-mind. The woman who had been educated by Voltaire could not findhope or comfort in the great apostle's argument for immortality. Wasnot Paul himself only _trying_ to believe?
"Dear lady, if I send you Bishop Butler's 'Analogy'--the mostconvincing argument for that future life we all long for--will youpromise me to read it?"
"I will read anything you please to send me, my lord; only I cannotpromise to believe what I read."