Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ Before she read a word she kissed it passionately a score of times, paying no heed that Anne sate gazing at her; and having kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks warm with the glow of a sweet and splendid passion, her bosom rising and falling in a tempest of tender, fluttering breaths—and ’twas these words her eyes devoured:
“If I should head this page I write to you ‘Goddess and Queen, and Empress of my deepest soul,’ what more should I be saying than ‘My Love’ and ‘My Clorinda,’ since these express all the soul of man could crave for or his body desire. ”

“ Is there a Gerald, Anne?”
“Sister!” cried Anne, affrighted by her strange look—“oh, sister!”
“I have seen heaven,” Clorinda said; “I have stood on the threshold and seen through the part-opened gate—and then have been dragged back to hell.”
Anne clung to her, gazing upwards at her eyes, in sheer despair.
“But back to hell I will not go,” she went on saying. “Had I not seen Heaven, they might perhaps have dragged me; but now I will not go—I will not, that I swear! There is a thing which cannot be endured. Bear it no woman should. Even I, who was not born a woman, but a wolf’s she-cub, I cannot. ”

“ He was the offspring of a great love, of noble bodies and great souls. Did such powers alone create human beings, the earth would be peopled with a race of giants.
Amid the veiled spring sunshine and the flower-scented silence, broken only by the twittering of birds nesting in the ivy, her Grace lay soft asleep, her son resting on her arm, when Anne stole to look at her and her child. Through the night she had knelt praying in her chamber, and now she knelt again. She kissed the new-born thing’s curled rose-leaf hand and the lace frill of his mother’s night-rail. ”

“ Osmonde’s deep eye met hers gently and held it. “My Lord Dunstanwolde is always gracious and warm of heart to his kinsman,” he replied. “Do not let him think me discourteous or ungrateful. In truth, your ladyship, I am neither the one nor the other.”
The eyes of each gazed into the other’s steadfastly and gravely. The Duke of Osmonde thought of Juno’s as he looked at hers; they were of such velvet, and held such fathomless deeps.
“Your Grace is not so free as lesser men,” Clorinda said. “You cannot come and go as you would.” ”

“ She was thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that she was of so high a pride that she could bear herself as though there were no human weakness in her breast, not even the womanly weakness of a heart. How could it be possible that she could treat with disdain this gallant gentleman, if he loved her, as he surely must? Herself she had been sure that she had seen an ardent flame in his blue eyes, even that first day when he had bowed to her with that air of grace as he spoke of the fragrance of the rose leaves he had thought wafted from her robe. How could a woman whom he loved resist him? ”

“ Being rich, of high rank, and no longer an unmarried woman, her position had a dignity and freedom which there was no creature but might have envied. As the wife of Dunstanwolde she had been the fashion, and adored by all who dared adore her; but as his widow she was surrounded and besieged. A fortune, a toast, a wit, and a beauty, she combined all the things either man or woman could desire to attach themselves to the train of; and had her air been less regal, and her wit less keen of edge, she would have been so beset by flatterers and toadies that life would have been burdensome. ”

“ To sit apart and see her idol’s radiance, to mark her as she reigned and seemed the more royal when she bent the knee to royalty itself, to see the shimmer of her jewels crowning her midnight hair and crashing the warm whiteness of her noble neck, to observe the admiration in all eyes as they dwelt upon her—this was, indeed, enough of happiness.
“She is, as ever,” she murmured, “not so much a woman as a proud lovely goddess who has deigned to descend to earth. But my lord does not look like himself. He seems shrunk in the face and old, and his eyes have rings about them. ”

“ One night when she went forth to a Court ball, being all attired in brocade of white and silver, and glittering with the Dunstanwolde diamonds, which starred her as with great sparkling dewdrops, and yet had not the radiance of her eyes and smile, she was so purely wonderful a vision that Anne, who had been watching her through all the time when she had been under the hands of her tirewoman, and beholding her now so dazzling and white a shining creature, fell upon her knees to kiss her hand almost as one who worships.
“Oh, sister,” she said, “you look like a spirit. ”

“ Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees and clinging to her, weeping bitterly.
“Poor heart!” she cried. “Poor, dearest heart!”
Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She started as if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid.
“I have gone mad,” she said. “What is it I do?” She passed her hand across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. “Yes,” she said; “this it is to be a woman—to turn weak and run to other women—and weep and talk. Yes, by these signs I am a woman!” She stood with her clenched hands pressed against her breast. ”

“ Never, ’twas said, had woman done such deeds of gentleness and shown so sweet and generous a wisdom as the great duchess. None who were weak were in danger if she used her strength to aid them; no man or woman was a lost thing whom she tried to save: such tasks she set herself as no lady had ever given herself before; but ’twas not her way to fail—her will being so powerful, her brain so clear, her heart so purely noble. Pauper and prince, noble and hind honoured her and her lord alike, and all felt wonder at their happiness. ”

“ Anne had forborne going to bed, and waited for her return, longing to see her spirit’s face again before she slept; for this poor tender creature, being denied all woman’s loves and joys by Fate, who had made her as she was, so lived in her sister’s beauty and triumphs that ’twas as if in some far-off way she shared them, and herself experienced through them the joy of being a woman transcendently beautiful and transcendently beloved. To-night she had spent her waiting hours in her closet and upon her knees, praying with all humble adoration of the Being she approached. ”

“ Why is it Anne instead of Barbara you are so gracious to?”
“Perchance because I am a vain woman and would be worshipped as you worship me.”
“But you are always worshipped,” Anne faltered.
“Ay, by men!” said Clorinda, mocking; “but not by women. And it may be that my pride is so high that I must be worshipped by a woman too. You would always love me, sister Anne. If you saw me break the law—if you saw me stab the man I hated to the heart, you would think it must be pardoned to me.” ”

“ It was a strange, sweet crimson which flowed over her face, and seemed to give a wondrous deepness to her lovely orbs. She rose as a queen might have risen had a king come to her, but never had there been such pulsing softness in her look before. ’Twas in some curious fashion like the look of a girl; and, in sooth, she was but a girl in years, but so different to all others of her age, and had lived so singular a life, that no one ever thought of her but as a woman, or would have deemed it aught but folly to credit her with any tender emotion or blushing warmth girlhood might be allowed. ”

“ Her heart is so full that she must joy to say her husband’s name as that of one she cannot think without—who is her life as is her blood and her pulses beating. ’Tis a joy to say your name, Gerald, as it will be a joy”—and she looked far out across the sun-goldened valley and plains, with a strange, heavenly sweet smile—“as it will be a joy to say our child’s—and put his little mouth to my full breast.”
“Sweet love,” he cried, drawing her by the hand that he might meet the radiance of her look—“heart’s dearest!” ”

“ In truth, though she was still a proud lady and stately in her ways, there had come upon her some strange subtle change Anne could not understand.
On the day on which the assembly was held, Mistress Anne’s woman brought to her a beautiful robe. ’Twas flowered satin of the sheen and softness of a dove’s breast, and the lace adorning it was like a spider’s web for gossamer fineness. The robe was sweetly fashioned, fitting her shape wondrously; and when she was attired in it at night a little colour came into her cheeks to see herself so far beyond all comeliness she had ever known before. ”

“ Anne lay upon her pillow, her own eyes gazing out through the ivy-hung window of her tower at the blue sky and the fair, fleecy clouds. A flock of snow-white doves were flying back and forth across it, and one sate upon the window’s deep ledge and cooed. All was warm and perfumed with summer’s sweetness. There seemed naught between her and the uplifting blueness, and naught of the earth was near but the dove’s deep-throated cooing and the laughter of her Grace’s children floating upward from the garden of flowers below. ”

“ There was always One who hated me—and doomed and hunted me from the hour I lay ’neath my dead mother’s corpse, a new-born thing. I know not whom it was—or why—or how—but ’twas so! I was made evil, and cast helpless amid evil fates, and having done the things that were ordained, and there was no escape from, I was shown noble manhood and high honour, and taught to worship, as I worship now. An angel might so love and be made higher. And at the gate of heaven a devil grins at me and plucks me back, and taunts and mires me, and I fall—on this! ”

“ Poor woman, as she had grown thin and large-eyed in those days gone by, she grew so again. Time in passing had taught her so much that others did not know; and as she served her sister, and waited on her wishes, she saw that of which no other dreamed, and saw without daring to speak, or show by any sign, her knowledge.
The day when Lady Dunstanwolde had turned from standing among her daffodils, and had found herself confronting the open door of her saloon, and John Oxon passing through it, Mistress Anne had seen that in her face and his which had given to her a shock of terror. ”

“ Her height was far beyond the ordinary for a woman; but her shape so faultless and her carriage so regal, that though there were men upon whom she was tall enough to look down with ease, the beholder but felt that her tallness was an added grace and beauty with which all women should have been endowed, and which, as they were not, caused them to appear but insignificant. What a throat her diamonds blazed on, what shoulders and bosom her laces framed, on what a brow her coronet sat and glittered. Her lord lived as ’twere upon his knees in enraptured adoration. ”

“ I must pray Heaven again, and indeed do and will, for humbleness which shall teach me to remember that I am not deity, but mere man—mere man—though I shall hold a goddess to my breast and gaze into eyes which are like deep pools of Paradise, and yet answer mine with the marvel of such love as none but such a soul could make a woman’s, and so fit to mate with man’s. ”

“ Then with a sudden movement her hand was pressed upon her bosom again. “Ah, Anne,” she cried, and in the music of her voice, agony itself was ringing—“Anne, there is but one thing on this earth God rules over—but one thing that belongs—belongs to me; and ’tis Gerald Mertoun—and he is mine and shall not be taken from me, for he is a part of me, and I a part of him!”
“He will not be,” said Anne—“he will not.”
“He cannot,” Clorinda answered—“he shall not! ’Twould not be human.” ”

“ And then her wild thoughts would go so far that she would dream—reddening at her own boldness—of a child who might be born to them, a lordly infant son and heir, whose eyes might be blue and winning, and his hair in great fair locks, and whom she might nurse and tend and be a slave to—and love—and love—and love, and who might end by knowing she was his tender servant, always to be counted on, and might look at her with that wooing, laughing glance, and even love her too. ”

“ He was gazing intently, not at Clorinda, but at the Earl of Dunstanwolde.
“Madam,” he said, “pardon me that I seem to detain you, but—but I look at my kinsman. Madam,” with a sudden fear in his voice, “he is ailing—he sways as he stands. Let us go to him. Quickly! He falls!”
And, in sooth, at that very moment there arose a dismayed cry from the guests about them, and there was a surging movement; and as they pressed forward themselves through the throng, Anne saw Dunstanwolde no more above the people, for he had indeed fallen and lay outstretched and deathly on the floor. ”

“ Clorinda threw her graceful body into a chair with more light laughter.
“I would not,” she answered. “You cannot understand such ingratitude, poor Anne; you would have treated him more softly. Sit down and talk to me, and I will show thee my furbelows myself. All women like to chatter of their laced bodices and petticoats. That is what makes a woman.”
Anne was tremulous with relief and pleasure. It was as if a queen had bid her to be seated. She sat almost with the humble lack of ease a serving-woman might have shown. ”

“ It is too dreary a wilderness, with its tangle of briars and its broken sun-dial.”
“You cannot see the dial from here,” said Anne, coming towards her with a strange paleness and haste. “One cannot see within the garden from any window, surely.”
“Nay,” said Clorinda; “’tis not near enough, and the hedges are too high; but one knows ’tis there, and ’tis tiresome.”
“Let us draw the curtains and not look, and forget it,” said poor Anne. And she drew the draperies with a trembling hand; and ever after while they dwelt in the room they stayed so. ”