Fareham

“ Lord Fareham described the shining lights of that brilliant court with a caustic tongue; but he was more indulgent to the follies of the Palais Royal and the Louvre than he had been to the debaucheries of Whitehall.
“There is a grace even in their vices,” he said. “Their wit is lighter, and there is more mind in their follies. Our mirth is vulgar even when it is not bestial. I know of no Parisian adventure so degrading as certain pranks of Buckhurst’s, which I would not dare mention in your hearing. We imitate them, and out-herod Herod, but we are never like them. ”

“ Fareham paused on the threshold of the gallery, watching her, and then went slowly back, bent down to take the hand that had dropped at her side, and pressed his lips upon it, silently, respectfully, with a kind of homage that had become strange of late years to Barbara Palmer. Adorers she had and to spare, toadeaters and flatterers, a regiment of mercenaries; but these all wanted something of her—kisses, smiles, influence, money. Disinterested respect was new.
“I thought you were a Puritan, Lord Fareham.”
“I am a man; and I know what it is to suffer the hell-fire of jealousy.” ”

“ Ma très chère, that silence is natural. There are but two things Fareham loves—the first, war; the second, sport. If he cannot be storming a town, he loves to be killing a fox. This fireside life of ours—our books and music, our idle talk of plays and dances—wearies him. You may see how he avoids us—except out-of-doors.”
“Dear Hyacinth, forgive me!” Angela began, falteringly, leaving her embroidery frame and moving to the other side of the hearth, where she dropped on her knees by her ladyship’s chair, and was almost swallowed up in the ample folds of her brocade train. ”

“ Wherries of various weights and sizes filled one spacious boathouse, and in another handsome stone edifice with a vaulted roof Lord Fareham’s barge lay in state, glorious in cream colour and gold, with green velvet cushions and Oriental carpets, as splendid as that blue-and-gold barge which Charles had sent as a present to Madame, a vessel to out-glitter Cleopatra’s galley, when her ladyship and her friends and their singing-boys and musicians filled it for a voyage to Hampton Court. ”

“ I can answer for Lady Fareham’s right feeling in that matter.”
“The husband takes a leaf out of Hyde’s book, and forgets that what may be passed over in the Lord Chancellor, and a man of prodigious usefulness, is intolerable in a person of Fareham’s insignificance.”
“Nay, sir, insignificance is scarcely the word. I would as soon call a thunderstorm insignificant. The man is a volcano, and may explode at any provocation.”
“We want no such suppressed fires at Whitehall. Nor do we want long faces; as Clarendon may discover some day, if his sermons grow too troublesome.” ”

“ She has never been one of my intimates. If I were often at Whitehall, I should have to be friends with her. But Fareham is jealous of Court influences; and I am only allowed to appear on gala nights—perhaps not a half-dozen times in a season. There is a distinction in not showing one’s self often; but it is provoking to hear of the frolics and jollities which go on every day and every night, and from which I am banished. It mattered little while the Queen-mother was at Somerset House, for her Court ranked higher—and was certainly more refined in its splendour—than her son’s ragamuffin herd. ”

“ She stood beside the horse, straight and firm, with her hand on the pommel, and sprang lightly into the saddle as Fareham’s strong arm lifted her. Yet she could but notice that his hand shook as he gave her the bridle, and arranged the cloth petticoat over her foot.
Not a word was spoken on either side as they rode out at the gate and through the village of St. Nicholas, beautiful in the moonlight. Such low crumbling walls and deeply sloping roofs of cottages squatting in a tangle of garden and orchard ”

“ Nothing could have been more cordial than Lady Fareham’s welcome to her sister, nor were it easy to imagine a life more delightful than that at Chilton Abbey in that autumnal season, when every stage of the decaying year clothed itself with a variety and brilliancy of colouring which made ruin beautiful, and disguised the approach of winter, as a court harridan might hide age and wrinkles under a yellow satin mask and flame-coloured domino. ”

“ Yet on Fareham’s appearance at Whitehall Lady Castlemaine distinguished with a marked civility, and even condescended, smilingly, as if there were no cause of quarrel, to inquire after his wife.
“Her ladyship is as pretty as ever, though we are all growing old,” she said. “We exchanged curtsies at Tunbridge Wells the other day. I wonder how it is we never get further than smiles and curtsies? I should like to show the dear woman some more substantial civility. She is buried alive in your stately house by the river, for the want of an influential friend to show her the world we live in.” ”

“ Fareham opened the door for her, as she went out, regal in port and air. She had moved him to compassion, even while she owned herself a wanton. To love passionately—and to see another preferred! There is a brotherhood in agony, that brings even opposite natures into sympathy. He passed into the gallery, a long low room, hung with modern tapestries, richly coloured, voluptuous in design. ”

“ I asked Fareham only yesterday why he went to Court, if his Majesty’s company is thus distasteful to him. ‘It is not to his company I object, but to his principles,’ he answered, in that earnest fashion of his which takes the lightest questions au grand serieux. ‘I see in him a man who, with natural parts far above the average, makes himself the jest of meaner intellects, and the dupe of greedy courtesans ”

“ In spite of that sullen downward gaze she was conscious of Fareham’s lingering.
“Why do you stay, my lord?” she asked, without looking up. “If your purse is heavy there are friends of mine yonder who will lighten it for you, fairly or foully. I have never made up my mind how far a gentleman may be a rogue with impunity. If you don’t love losing money you had best eat a good supper and begone.”
“I thank you, madam. I am more in the mood for cards than for feasting.” ”

“ But if it come not yonder,” pointing to Whitehall, which was immediately above them, for their boat lay close to the King’s landing-stage—“if, like the contagion, it stays in the east and only the citizens suffer, why, vive la bagatelle! We—and our concubines—have no part in the punishment. We, who call down the fire, do not suffer it.”
Spellbound by that strange spectacle, Fareham stood and gazed, and Angela was afraid to urge him to take the boat on to Fareham House, anxious as she was to span those few hundred yards of distance, to be assured of her sister’s safety. ”

“ Fareham said, moving away, but a dazzling hand on his sleeve arrested him.
“Oh, your respects will keep; he has Miss Stewart giggling at his elbow. Strange, is it not, that a woman with as much brain as a pigeon can amuse a man who reckons himself both wise and witty?”
“It is not the lady who amuses the gentleman, madam. She has the good sense to pretend that he amuses her.”
“And no more understands a jest than she does Hebrew.” ”

“ One of Lady Sarah’s parties took place at full moon, not long after the visit to Deptford, and Lord Fareham’s barge was again employed, this time on a nocturnal expedition up the river to the fields near the haunted Abbey, to carry Hyacinth, her sister, De Malfort, Lord Rochester, Sir Ralph Masaroon, Sir Denzil Warner, and a bevy of wits and beauties—beauties who had, some of them, been carrying on the beauty-business and trading in eyes and complexion for more than one decade, and who loved that night season when paint might be laid on thicker than in the glare of day. ”

“ A table in the stern was spread with a light collation, which gave an excuse for the display of parcel-gilt cups, silver tankards, and Venetian wine-flasks. A miniature fountain played perfumed waters in the midst of this splendour; and it amused the ladies to pull off their long gloves, dip them in the scented water, and flap them in the faces of their beaux.
The distance was only too short, since Lady Fareham’s friends declared the voyage was by far the pleasanter part of the entertainment. ”

“ It would go about that Lady Fareham was quite out of fashion if I were content to see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentleman or two with their ill-dressed wives, at my sister’s marriage. London is the only decent place—after Paris—to live in; but the country is a peacefuller place in which to die.”
A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised her sister’s face with increased concern. ”

“ At Chilton Abbey the sisters were rarely alone. Papillon was almost always with them; and De Malfort spent more of his life in attendance upon Lady Fareham than at Oxford, where he was supposed to be living. Mrs. Lettsome and her brother were frequent guests; and coach-loads of fine people came over from the court almost every day. Indeed, it was only Fareham’s character—austere as Clarendon’s or Southampton’s—which kept the finest of all company at a distance. Lady Castlemaine had called at Chilton in her coach-and-four early in July ”

“ They must have horses and hounds, gun and spaniel, hawk or rod. I am glad Fareham loves sport. And as for that talk of conspiring, let me not hear it from thee, Hyacinth. ’Tis a perilous discourse to but hint at treason; and your husband is a loyal gentleman who loves, and”—with a wry face—“reveres—his King.”
“Oh, I was only jesting. But, indeed, a man who so disparages the things other people love must needs be a rebel at heart. Did you hear of Monsieur de Malfort while you were at Paris?” ”

“ In this costume she could handle a pair of sculls as freely as a waterman.
When she had put on a little black silk hood, she extinguished her candles, pulled aside the curtain which obscured the open window, and looked out on the terrace. There was just light enough to show her that the coast was clear. The iron gate at the top of the water-stairs was seldom locked, nor were the boat-houses often shut, as boats were being taken in and out at all hours, and, for the rest, neglect and carelessness might always be reckoned upon in the Fareham household. ”

“ It lies at the head of a creek opening into the north-western corner of Portsmouth harbour. The principal industries are the manufacture of sackings, ropes, bricks, coarse earthenware, terra-cotta, tobacco-pipes and leather. Fareham has a considerable trade in corn, timber and coal; the creek being accessible to vessels of 300 tons. Three miles E. of Fareham, on Portsmouth harbour, are the interesting ruins of Porchester Castle, an extensive walled enclosure retaining its Norman keep, and exhibiting in its outer walls considerable evidence of Roman workmanship ”

“ The haut gout of Paris and London was wanting to them.
Lord Fareham had insisted upon leaving London on the third of September, and had, his wife declared, out of pure malignity, taken his family to Fareham, a place she hated, rather than to Chilton, a place she loved, at least as much as any civilised mortal could love the country. Never, Hyacinth protested, had her husband been so sullen and ferocious.
“He is not like an angry man,” she told Angela, “but like a wounded lion ”

“ Kirkland’s lover?”
“A Puritan baronet. One Denzil Warner.”
“There was a Warner killed at Hoptown Heath.”
“His son, sir. A fellow who believes in extempore prayer and republican government; and swears England was never so happy or prosperous as under Cromwell.”
“And the lady favours this psalm-singing rebel?”
“I know not. For all I have seen of the two she has been barely civil to him. That he adores her is obvious; and I know Lady Fareham’s heart is set upon the match.” ”

“ It was late in the afternoon when we returned to the barge, for Mr. Pepys had business to transact with our host, and spent an hour with him in his study, signing papers, and looking at accounts, while Papillon and I roamed about the garden with his lordship, conversing upon various subjects, and about Mr. Evelyn, and his opinions and politics.
“‘The good man has a pretty trivial taste that will keep him amused and happy till he drops into the grave—but, lord! what insipid trash it all seems to the heart on fire with passion!’ Fareham said in his impetuous way, as if he despised Mr. ”

“ They are browner than you, and need a heavier hand with white and red. But you are haggard under all your red. You are not the woman I left in ’65.”
“I am near two years older than the woman you left; and as for paint, there is not a woman over twenty in London who uses as little red and white as I do.”
“What has become of Fareham to-night?” Sir John asked presently, when Hyacinth had picked up her favourite spaniel to nurse and fondle, while Angela had resumed her occupation at an embroidery frame, and a reposeful air as of a long-established domesticity had fallen upon the scene. ”

“ I sing a lyric, a little complete song, but in its entirety."
"But, my dear Potowski," Mrs. Faversham laughed, "a bas-relief or a bust is complete."
"But why," cried the Pole, "why behead a lady? As for a profile, it is destruction to the human face." He turned to Fairfax. "You think I am a pagan. In France they have an impolite proverb, 'Stupid as a musician,' but don't think it is true. We see harmony and melody in everything." ”