第75章 An heir is born(1)

In a fair tower whose windows looked out upon spreading woods,and rich lovely plains stretching to the freshness of the sea,Mistress Anne had her abode which her duchess sister had given to her for her own living in as she would.There she dwelt and prayed and looked on the new life which so beauteously unfolded itself before her day by day,as the leaves of a great tree unfold from buds and become noble branches,housing birds and their nests,shading the earth and those sheltering beneath them,braving centuries of storms.

To this simile her simple mind oft reverted,for indeed it seemed to her that naught more perfect and more noble in its high likeness to pure Nature and the fulfilling of God's will than the passing days of these two lives could be.

"As the first two lived--Adam and Eve in their garden of Eden--they seem to me,"she used to say to her own heart;"but the Tree of Knowledge was not forbidden them,and it has taught them naught ignoble."As she had been wont to watch her sister from behind the ivy of her chamber windows,so she often watched her now,though there was no fear in her hiding,only tenderness,it being a pleasure to her full of wonder and reverence to see this beautiful and stately pair go lovingly and in high and gentle converse side by side,up and down the terrace,through the paths,among the beds of flowers,under the thick branched trees and over the sward's softness.

"It is as if I saw Love's self,and dwelt with it--the love God's nature made,"she said,with gentle sighs.

For if these two had been great and beauteous before,it seemed in these days as if life and love glowed within them,and shone through their mere bodies as a radiant light shines through alabaster lamps.

The strength of each was so the being of the other that no thought could take form in the brain of one without the other's stirring with it.

"Neither of us dare be ignoble,"Osmonde said,"for 'twould make poor and base the one who was not so in truth.""'Twas not the way of my Lady Dunstanwolde to make a man feel that he stood in church,"a frivolous court wit once said,"but in sooth her Grace of Osmonde has a look in her lustrous eyes which accords not with scandalous stories and play-house jests."And true it was that when they went to town they carried with them the illumining of the pure fire which burned within their souls,and bore it all unknowing in the midst of the trivial or designing world,which knew not what it was that glowed about them,making things bright which had seemed dull,and revealing darkness where there had been brilliant glare.

They returned not to the house which had been my Lord of Dunstanwolde's,but went to the duke's own great mansion,and there lived splendidly and in hospitable state.Royalty honoured them,and all the wits came there,some of those gentlemen who writ verses and dedications being by no means averse to meeting noble lords and ladies,and finding in their loves and graces material which might be useful.'Twas not only Mr.Addison and Mr.Steele,Dr.Swift and Mr.Pope,who were made welcome in the stately rooms,but others who were more humble,not yet having won their spurs,and how these worshipped her Grace for the generous kindness which was not the fashion,until she set it,among great ladies,their odes and verses could scarce express.

"They are so poor,"she said to her husband."They are so poor,and yet in their starved souls there is a thing which can less bear flouting than the dull content which rules in others.I know not whether 'tis a curse or a boon to be born so.'Tis a bitter thing when the bird that flutters in them has only little wings.All the more should those who are strong protect and comfort them."She comforted so many creatures.In strange parts of the town,where no other lady would have dared to go to give alms,it was rumoured that she went and did noble things privately.In dark kennels,where thieves hid and vagrants huddled,she carried her beauty and her stateliness,the which when they shone on the poor rogues and victims housed there seemed like the beams of the warm and golden sun.

Once in a filthy hovel in a black alley she came upon a poor girl dying of a loathsome ill,and as she stood by her bed of rags she heard in her delirium the uttering of one man's name again and again,and when she questioned those about she found that the sufferer had been a little country wench enticed to town by this man for a plaything,and in a few weeks cast off to give birth to a child in the almshouse,and then go down to the depths of vice in the kennel.

"What is the name she says?"her Grace asked the hag nearest to her,and least maudlin with liquor."I would be sure I heard it aright.""'Tis the name of a gentleman,your ladyship may be sure,"the beldam answered;"'tis always the name of a gentleman.And this is one I know well,for I have heard more than one poor soul mumbling it and raving at him in her last hours.One there was,and I knew her,a pretty rosy thing in her country days,not sixteen,and distraught with love for him,and lay in the street by his door praying him to take her back when he threw her off,until the watch drove her away.And she was so mad with love and grief she killed her girl child when 'twas born i'the kennel,sobbing and crying that it should not live to be like her and bear others.And she was condemned to death,and swung for it on Tyburn Tree.And,Lord!how she cried his name as she jolted on her coffin to the gallows,and when the hangman put the rope round her shuddering little fair neck.