Barbara Rebell

“ But Barbara's charm, so far at least, seemed of the soul rather than of the body, and, recognising this fact, Madame Sampiero had at first felt disappointed, for her own experience—and in these matters a woman can only be guided by her own personal experience—was that in this world beauty of body counts very much more in obtaining for those who possess it their heart's desire than does beauty of soul.
The mistress of Chancton Priory had hesitated painfully before allowing Doctor McKirdy to write the letter which had bidden Barbara Rebell come to England. ”

“ Rebell never made the slightest allusion to her husband, and yet for six long years—those formative years between nineteen and five-and-twenty—Pedro Rebell must have been, and in a sense rarely allowed to civilised man, the master of this delicate, sensitive woman, and, when he so pleased, her lover. Who else save the half-Spanish West Indian planter could have brought that shadow of fear into Barbara's eyes, and have made her regard the passion of love, as Berwick had very soon divined she did regard it, as something which shames rather than exalts human nature? ”

“ My father often says what a pity it is that so many women have given up wearing plain habits and top hats," Lucy spoke with pretty sincere eagerness——
"She is a really nice girl," decided Barbara to herself; and Oliver also looked at his old friend Lucy very cordially. To his mind both young women looked exactly right, that is, exactly as he liked each of them to look—Lucy Kemp perhaps standing for the good serviceable homespuns of life, Barbara Rebell for those more exquisite, more thrilling moments with which he had, as yet unconsciously, come to associate her. ”

“ The woman in her delighted in the easy triumph of this other woman, more particularly because at first she had not credited Barbara Rebell with the possession of feminine charm.
In this matter Boringdon showed Madame Sampiero how wrong she had been, and not he only, but many others also had at once come under her spell. And then, as is nearly always the way with those women who inspire sudden passions, Mrs. Rebell's charm was not, in its essence, one of sex. ”

“ And yet the first meeting of Boringdon and Barbara Rebell fell out in such wise that it led to a curiously sudden intimacy, bred of something between pity and indignation on her side and gratitude on his.
[pg 133]
CHAPTER VII.
"She whom I have praised so, Yields delight for reason too: Who could dote on thing so common As mere outward-handsome woman? Such half-beauties only win Fools to let affection in." Wither.
Mrs. Rebell was sitting by her god-mother's couch, pouring out tea. ”

“ What could Barbara Rebell know of men—of such men as James Berwick and Oliver Boringdon? She dowered them with virtues and qualities, with unselfish impulses and powers of self-restraint, which would have brought a Galahad to shame. She knew enough of a certain side of life to recognise and shrink from such coarseness as was not the saving grace of Mrs. Turke. She realised that that type of mind must see evil in even the most innocent tie between a man and a woman, but on such minds she preferred not to dwell. She knew how close had been the affection between her mother and Madame Sampiero. ”

“ A gleam of amused pleasure flashed across Madame Sampiero's trembling lips and wide open blue eyes: she realised that a little thought, a little trouble, would transform her god-daughter, if not into a beauty, then into a singularly distinguished and attractive-looking young woman.
Like most beautiful people, Barbara Sampiero had always been generous in her appreciation of the beauty of others, and she would have been pleased indeed had Richard Rebell's daughter turned out as lovely as had been her mother,—lovely with that English beauty of golden hair and perfect colouring. ”

“ To-day, for the first time for many years, Madame Sampiero could have dispensed with the presence of James Berwick at the Priory. Of all men he was the most fastidious in the matter of women's looks. A first impression, so Barbara's godmother reminded herself, counts so much with a man, and what James thought now of Barbara Rebell would be sure to be reported at once at Fletchings. ”

“ During the long, solitary journey home—if, indeed, England was home—there had been time for deep misgiving, for that quick examination of conscience which, in a sensitive, over-wrought nature, leads to self-accusation, to a fear of duty neglected. Barbara Rebell was but now emerging from what had been, and that over years, the imprisonment of both body and soul. Physically she had become free, but mentally she still had often during the last five weeks felt herself to be a bondswoman. ”

“ And so little does even the tenderest and most intelligent love bridge the gulf between any two of us, that Madame Sampiero, taking note of the downcast eyes, thought Barbara absorbed in some happy vision of dreams come true.
A good and noble deed, even if it takes the unusual form of supreme personal self-abnegation, often has a far-reaching effect, concealed, and that for ever, from the doer. How amazed James Berwick would have been to learn that one result of his renunciation had been to broaden, to sweeten Madame Sampiero's whole view of human nature! ”

“ Was it a sure instinct which warned him that Barbara's love for him, even if it contained every element the natural man seeks to find in his mate, was so far governed by conscience that she would never be really content and unashamed so long as they were outside the law? More, if Boringdon were right, if Pedro Rebell were indeed dying, and Barbara became in time James Berwick's wife, would she ever forget, would she ever cease to feel a pang of pain and remorse in, the fact of this episode, and of the confession which would—which must—follow after? ”

“ The physical state others might have regarded with repugnance and horror produced no such effect on Barbara's mind and imagination. All the tenderness of a heart long starved, and thrown back on itself and on the past, was now beginning to be lavished on this paralysed woman who had made her so generously welcome, and who, she intuitively felt, was making so great and so gallant a stand against evil fortune.
Even to-night Mrs. Rebell, coming into the room, had been struck by the mingled severity and splendour of Madame Sampiero's appearance. ”

“ Of the man for whom he was now waiting, Berwick had long ago ceased to be jealous. He felt ashamed to remember that he had ever been so; nay, he now understood from Barbara that Boringdon liked Lucy Kemp. Was she not just the sort of girl whom he would have expected such a man as Oliver to choose for a wife? As to Barbara Rebell, of course Boringdon had liked to be with her,—had been perhaps, if all the truth were known, caught for a moment by her charm, as who could help [pg 326] being? ”

“ It was in this mood, being at the moment out of love with love, that Berwick had come back this autumn to Sussex and to Chancton Priory. It was in this same mood that he had first met Barbara Rebell, and had spent with her the evening of which he was afterwards to try and reconstitute every moment, to recall every word uttered by either. He had been interested, attracted, perhaps most of all relieved, to find a woman so different from the type which had caused him so much distress, shame, and—what was perhaps, to a man of his temperament, worse—annoyance. ”

“ Had it not been that thoughts of Madame Sampiero, and of the duty she owed to the paralysed woman, restrained her, she would have been tempted to open the railway carriage door and step out into the rushing wind, and so end, for ever, the conflict in her mind.
There are women, more women than men, who are born to follow the straight way,—to whom crooked [pg 354] paths are full of unknown terrors. Such a woman was Barbara Rebell. ”

“ The youngest girl present at the Halnakeham Castle ball could probably have taught Mrs. Rebell more than she now knew of the ways of men—almost, it might be said, of the ways of love. Her father had had the manhood crushed out of him by his great misfortune. Barbara, as child and girl, had reverenced—not the chill automaton, caring only for the English papers and a little mild play, which Richard Rebell had become in middle life,—but the attractive early image of him sedulously presented to her by her mother. She had had no brothers to bring young people to the many homes of her girlhood. ”

“ Rebell suddenly laughed. "Oh Barbara," she said, "how fond you have always been of making plans, of looking forward! Surely this is rather premature?"
Madame Sampiero smiled. "English people," she said, quickly, "don't give half enough thought to the future. But, Adela, I was not only thinking of my Julia, but also of your little Barbara. Richard cannot mean her always to lead a cloistered life. In eight years she will be grown-up, eager to see something of the world. Where could she make her début so delightfully as at the Tuileries? ”

“ Barbara found the doctor waiting for her in the hall, walking impatiently up and down, his big head thrust forward, his hands clasped behind his back. He was in high good humour, well pleased with the new inmate of the Priory, and impressed more than he knew by Barbara's fragile beauty and air of high breeding. In theory no living man was less amenable to the influence of feminine charm or of outward appearance, but in actual day-to-day life Alexander McKirdy, doubtless owing to the old law of opposites, had a keen feeling for physical perfection, and all unconsciously he abhorred ugliness. ”

“ If the thought of life without Barbara was intolerable, not indeed to be considered,—once she was free from that West Indian brute, his great love must, in the long run, win return,—the thought of existence with no Lucy Kemp as friend was distinctly painful. He, Barbara, and Lucy, would all be happy; and then, not yet, but in some years to come, for she was still so young, his and Barbara's friend would marry some good honest fellow—not Laxton, no, but such a man as he himself had been till Mrs. Rebell came to the Priory, one to whom Lucy's fortune would be useful in promoting a public career. ”

“ And then, as Barbara started and looked at him attentively, he went on slowly, and with a quiet dignity which moved his listener deeply: "Of course you know our story? Sometimes I think there is no one in the whole world who does not know it. There were years, especially after the birth of our little Julia, when I think I may say we both had marriage on the brain. And then, when at last Barbara was free, when Napoleone Sampiero"—his face contracted when he uttered the name—"was dead, she would not hear of it. ”

“ So absorbed was Barbara in her thoughts that she scarcely noticed Mr. Daman, when she crossed him on the broad staircase on her way to her room to get ready for her expedition. The old man, however, had seen the light from a large window beat straight on her absorbed face. For the first time Barbara reminded him of her father, of Richard Rebell, and the reminiscence was not pleasing. Pretty women, he said to himself rather crossly, should study their looks; they owed it to those about them. They ought not to get up too early in the morning and go racing upstairs! ”

“ But alas! that mood had quickly changed; and the interview with Boringdon had reawakened the violent primeval instinct which had slumbered,—only slumbered,—during the illness of Barbara. The knowledge that another man loved her, with an ordinary, natural love by no means free from that element of physical attraction which Berwick himself had been striving, not unsuccessfully, to control in his own heart, had had a curious effect upon him. ”

“ The grim, silent Scottish woman, Madame Sampiero's night attendant, smiled when Barbara came into the room, and Léonie, the French maid, had very early informed her mistress, "Je sens que je vais adorer cette Madame Rebell!" while as for James Berwick, his attitude the more moved and interested Madame Sampiero, because she had never seen him in any relation save in that of her own kind, cool, and attentive guest.
Every nature betrays feeling in a manner peculiarly its own. ”

“ Twice he spoke to Barbara of Lord Bosworth, each time with strange bitterness and dislike. "No doubt his lordship was after seeing Madam?" and, as Barbara hesitated: "Fine I knew it!—but he might just as well go and kill her outright. I've had to tell him so again and again"—
Barbara kept her own counsel, but she could not resist the question, "Then he comes often?"
"Often?—that he does not! He's never been one to put himself out, he's far too high! He just sends for me over to Fletchings, and I just go, though I've felt more than once minded to tell him that I'm not his servant. ”

“ In fancy she saw herself, as in that case she would have been by now, a woman perhaps in years—for Barbara, brought up entirely on the Continent, thought girlhood ended at twenty—but a joyous single-hearted creature, her only past a not unhappy girlhood, and six long peaceful years spent in this beautiful place, well spent too in tending the stricken woman to whom she already felt so close a tie of inherited love and duty. ”

“ Barbara was kneeling by Madame Sampiero's couch, holding the stiff, trembling hands, gazing imploringly into the set face and the wide open eyes, now fixed on her with rather sad speculation and questioning.
"Why should I refuse? Have I not missed you? Ask McKirdy if we have not all missed you, child?"
The muffled tones were even less clear than usual, but Barbara gave a sigh, almost a sob, of relief. "You must insist on my coming back, at once,—at once, Marraine—or they will want to keep me! Some people are coming over to lunch to-morrow, and Miss Berwick will wish me to be there." ”