“I have been lonely—lonely all my life,” my Lady Dunstanwolde had once said to her sister, and she had indeed spoken a truth.
Even in her childhood she had felt in some strange way she stood apart from the world about her. Before she had been old enough to reason she had been conscious that she was stronger and had greater power and endurance than any human being about her. Her strength she used in these days in wilful3 tyranny, and indeed it was so used for many a day when she was older. The time had never been when an eye lighted on her with indifference4, or when she could not rule and punish as she willed. As an infant she had browbeaten5 the women-servants and the stable-boys and grooms6; but because of her quick wit and clever tongue, and also because no humour ever made her aught but a creature well worth looking at, they had taken her bullying8 in good-humour and loved her in their coarse way. She had tyrannised over her father and his companions, and they had adored and boasted of her; but there had not been one among them whom she could have turned to if a softer moment had come upon her and she had felt the need of a friend, nor indeed one whom she did not regard privately9 with contempt.
A god or goddess forced upon earth and surrounded by mere10 human beings would surely feel a desolateness11 beyond the power of common words to express, and a human being endowed with powers and physical gifts so rare as to be out of all keeping with those of its fellows of ordinary build and mental stature12 must needs be lonely too.
She had had no companion, because she had found none like herself, and none with whom she could have aught in common. Anne she had pitied, being struck by some sense of the unfairness of her lot as compared with her own. John Oxon had moved her, bringing to her her first knowledge of buoyant, ardent13 youth, and blooming strength and beauty; for Dunstanwolde she had felt gratitude14 and affection; but than these there had been no others who even distantly had touched her heart.
The night she had given her promise to Dunstanwolde, and had made her obeisance15 before his kinsman16 as she had met his deep and leonine eye, she had known that ’twas the only man’s eye before which her own would fall and which held the power to rule her very soul.
She did not think this as a romantic girl would have thought it; it was revealed to her by a sudden tempestuous17 leap of her heart, and by a shock like terror. Here was the man who was of her own build, whose thews and sinews of mind and body was as powerful as her own—here was he who, had she met him one short year before, would have revolutionised her world.
In the days of her wifehood when she had read in his noble face something of that which he endeavoured to command and which to no other was apparent, the dignity of his self-restraint had but filled her with tenderness more passionate18 and grateful.
“Had he been a villain19 and a coward,” was her thought, “he would have made my life a bitter battle; but ’tis me he loves, not himself only, and as I honour him so does he honour me.”
Now she beheld20 the same passion in his eyes, but no more held in leash21: his look met hers, hiding from her nothing of what his high soul burned with; and she was free—free to answer when he spoke2, and only feeling one bitterness in her heart—if he had but come in time—God! why had he not been sent in time?
But, late or early, he had come; and what they had to give each other should not be mocked at and lost. The night she had ended by going to Anne’s chamber22, she had paced her room saying this again and again, all the strength of her being rising in revolt. She had been then a caged tigress of a verity23; she had wrung24 her hands; she had held her palm hard against her leaping heart; she had walked madly to and fro, battling in thought with what seemed awful fate; she had flung herself upon her knees and wept bitter scalding tears.
“He is so noble,” she had cried—“he is so noble—and I so worship his nobleness—and I have been so base!”
And in her suffering her woman’s nerves had for a moment betrayed her. Heretofore she had known no weakness of her sex, but the woman soul in her so being moved, she had been broken and conquered for a space, and had gone to Anne’s chamber, scarcely knowing what refuge she so sought. It had been a feminine act, and she had realised all it signified when Anne sank weeping by her. Women who wept and prated25 together at midnight in their chambers26 ended by telling their secrets. So it was that it fell out that Anne saw not again the changed face to the sight of which she had that night awakened. It seemed as if my lady from that time made plans which should never for a moment leave her alone. The next day she was busied arranging a brilliant rout27, the next a rich banquet, the next a great assembly; she drove in the Mall in her stateliest equipages; she walked upon its promenade28, surrounded by her crowd of courtiers, smiling upon them, and answering them with shafts29 of graceful30 wit—the charm of her gaiety had never been so remarked upon, her air never so enchanting31. At every notable gathering32 in the World of Fashion she was to be seen. Being bidden to the Court, which was at Hampton, her brilliant beauty and spirit so enlivened the royal dulness that ’twas said the Queen herself was scarce resigned to part with her, and that the ladies and gentlemen in waiting all suffered from the spleen when she withdrew. She bought at this time the fiercest but most beautiful beast of a horse she had ever mounted. The creature was superbly handsome, but apparently33 so unconquerable and so savage34 that her grooms were afraid to approach it, and indeed it could not be saddled and bitted unless she herself stood near. Even the horse-dealer, rogue35 though he was, had sold it to her with some approach to a qualm of conscience, having confessed to her that it had killed two grooms, and been sentenced to be shot by its first owner, and was still living only because its great beauty had led him to hesitate for a few days. It was by chance that during these few days Lady Dunstanwolde heard of it, and going to see it, desired and bought it at once.
“It is the very beast I want,” she said, with a gleam in her eye. “It will please me to teach it that there is one stronger than itself.”
She had much use for her loaded riding-whip; and indeed, not finding it heavy enough, ordered one made which was heavier. When she rode the beast in Hyde Park, her first battles with him were the town talk; and there were those who bribed36 her footmen to inform them beforehand, when my lady was to take out Devil, that they might know in time to be in the Park to see her. Fops and hunting-men laid wagers37 as to whether her ladyship would kill the horse or be killed by him, and followed her training of the creature with an excitement and delight quite wild.
“Well may the beast’s name be Devil,” said more than one looker-on; “for he is not so much horse as demon38. And when he plunges40 and rears and shows his teeth, there is a look in his eye which flames like her own, and ’tis as if a male and female demon fought together, for surely such a woman never lived before. She will not let him conquer her, God knows; and it would seem that he was swearing in horse fashion that she should not conquer him.”
When he was first bought and brought home, Mistress Anne turned ashy at the sight of him, and in her heart of hearts grieved bitterly that it had so fallen out that his Grace of Osmonde had been called away from town by high and important matters; for she knew full well, that if he had been in the neighbourhood, he would have said some discreet41 and tender word of warning to which her ladyship would have listened, though she would have treated with disdain42 the caution of any other man or woman. When she herself ventured to speak, Clorinda looked only stern.
“I have ridden only ill-tempered beasts all my life, and that for the mere pleasure of subduing43 them,” she said. “I have no liking44 for a horse like a bell-wether; and if this one should break my neck, I need battle with neither men nor horses again, and I shall die at the high tide of life and power; and those who think of me afterwards will only remember that they loved me—that they loved me.”
But the horse did not kill her, nor she it. Day after day she stood by while it was taken from its stall, many a time dealing45 with it herself, because no groom7 dare approach; and then she would ride it forth46, and in Hyde Park force it to obey her; the wondrous47 strength of her will, her wrist of steel, and the fierce, pitiless punishment she inflicted48, actually daunting49 the devilish creature’s courage. She would ride from the encounter, through two lines of people who had been watching her—and some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park gate—almost awed50 as they looked at her, sitting erect51 and splendid on the fretted52, anguished54 beast, whose shining skin was covered with lather55, whose mouth tossed blood-flecked foam56, and whose great eye was so strangely like her own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph, and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished57. At such times there was somewhat of fear in the glances that followed her beauty, which almost seemed to blaze—her colour was so rich, the curve of her red mouth so imperial, the poise58 of her head, with its loosening coils of velvet59 black hair, so high.
“It is good for me that I do this,” she said to Anne, with a short laugh, one day. “I was growing too soft—and I have need now for all my power. To fight with the demon in this beast, rouses all in me that I have held in check since I became my poor lord’s wife. That the creature should have set his will against all others, and should resist me with such strength and devilishness, rouses in me the passion of the days when I cursed and raved60 and struck at those who angered me. ’Tis fury that possesses me, and I could curse and shriek61 at him as I flog him, if ’twould be seemly. As it would not be so, I shut my teeth hard, and shriek and curse within them, and none can hear.”
Among those who made it their custom to miss no day when she went forth on Devil that they might stand near and behold62 her, there was one man ever present, and ’twas Sir John Oxon. He would stand as near as might be and watch the battle, a stealthy fire in his eye, and a look as if the outcome of the fray63 had deadly meaning to him. He would gnaw64 his lip until at times the blood started; his face would by turns flush scarlet65 and turn deadly pale; he would move suddenly and restlessly, and break forth under breath into oaths of exclamation66. One day a man close by him saw him suddenly lay his hand upon his sword, and having so done, still keep it there, though ’twas plain he quickly remembered where he was.
As for the horse’s rider, my Lady Dunstanwolde, whose way it had been to avoid this man and to thrust him from her path by whatsoever67 adroit68 means she could use, on these occasions made no effort to evade69 him and his glances; in sooth, he knew, though none other did so, that when she fought with her horse she did it with a fierce joy in that he beheld her. ’Twas as though the battle was between themselves; and knowing this in the depths of such soul as he possessed70, there were times when the man would have exulted71 to see the brute72 rise and fall upon her, crushing her out of life, or dash her to the earth and set his hoof73 upon her dazzling upturned face. Her scorn and deadly defiance74 of him, her beauty and maddening charm, which seemed but to increase with every hour that flew by, had roused his love to fury. Despite his youth, he was a villain, as he had ever been; even in his first freshness there had been older men—and hardened ones—who had wondered at the selfish mercilessness and blackness of the heart that was but that of a boy. They had said among themselves that at his years they had never known a creature who could be so gaily75 a
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