Lady Barbara

“ The aged housekeeper arose and opened to the stranger, and the figure of a man, whose complexion was deeply bronzed, and who was richly clad in a foreign costume, with a poniard at his girdle, appeared under the rays of Barbara's lantern. Her first impulse was one of terror, but the stranger reassured her, and stated that he desired to see me at once on matters relating to my holy calling. Barbara invited him upstairs, where I was on the point of retiring. The stranger told me that his mistress, a very noble lady, was lying at the point of death, and desired to see a priest. ”

“ Why, she was terribly shocked at first, especially at Sister Barbara's leaving off her nun's dress; but then Father William upholds her in it, and even Father Barnaby says it may be just as well so long as she is out of her convent, and so long as she is such an old woman. Sister Barbara laughed well at that, and so did your father, for you see she is a fine lady even now and as graceful and comely as a willow tree. Many an older and plainer woman has been married. But I must say she is far pleasanter in the house than poor, dear Anne. ”

“ Nonsense, Barbara! Allow you to go along the high road by yourself at eleven o’clock at night? What are you thinking of?”
He gave Barbara his arm, and they pursued their way. “How late Lady Isabel will think you!” observed Barbara.
“I don’t know that Lady Isabel has returned home yet. My being late once in a while is of no consequence.”
Not another word was spoken, save by Barbara. “Whatever excuse can I make, should papa come home?” Both were buried in their own reflections. “Thank you very greatly,” she said as they reached her gate, and Mr. Carlyle finally turned away. ”

“ After a few moments of my lady's amiable and kindly conversation, Barbara entered from the room behind, and with her Lord Carford. He wore a disturbed air, which his affected composure could not wholly conceal; her cheek was flushed, and she seemed vexed; but I did not notice these things so much as the change which had been wrought in her by the last [Pg 96] four years. She had become a very beautiful woman, ornamented with a high-bred grace and exquisite haughtiness, tall and slim, carrying herself with a delicate dignity. ”

“ BARBARA. It's too melancholy. You get saved, Cholly; and you'll pass hence, my brother, without making such a fuss about it.
LADY BRITOMART. Really, Barbara, you go on as if religion were a pleasant subject. Do have some sense of propriety.
UNDERSHAFT. I do not find it an unpleasant subject, my dear. It is the only one that capable people really care for.
LADY BRITOMART [looking at her watch] Well, if you are determined to have it, I insist on having it in a proper and respectable way. Charles: ring for prayers. [General amazement. Stephen rises in dismay] .
LOMAX [rising] Oh I say! ”

“ That mother of his don’t know how to manage him. She’s another breed.”
“Yes,” said the questioner, “the mistress is a lady, she is, and gentle like the squire who’s gone. But how did they get such a one as Master Anthony?”
“Don’t know,” replied Bess; “but father says that when he was a boy in the Fens, they’d have told that the fairy folk changed him at birth. Any way, I like him well enough, for he suits me.”
Barbara went back to her sitting-room, where not long afterwards the boy came to her. ”

“ We march to-morrow! In a few days we will be in the field—we shall be in the thick of it!"
"Oh, you are so fortunate, Cary!" responded Barbara. "Think what it must be to be just a woman, and have to stay at home gnawing one's heart, while others have the glorious joy of fighting for freedom!"
"Only one thing I need to make me happy as I go, sweet lady!" said he, his voice tender, passionate, caressing. "It is bitter to leave you. ”

“ Getting admission to her room nowadays is attended with all the formalities of the Masonic ritual, and she goes about with ink on her fingers and ink on her nose. I suppose she is fired by the ambition of the Banbury Cross lady in making ‘music wherever she goes.’ Poor little Barbara; she’s taking herself so very seriously, these days! She feels that she must gush forth a stream of living water for thirsty mankind, forgetting, dear little lass, that she is not a spring yet, but only a rain-barrel. ”

“ So I must go to the drawingroom.
LADY BRITOMART [offended] Well, go. [He starts for the door] . And remember this, Adolphus [he turns to listen] : I have a very strong suspicion that you went to the Salvation Army to worship Barbara and nothing else. And I quite appreciate the very clever way in which you systematically humbug me. I have found you out. Take care Barbara doesn't. That's all.
CUSINS [with unruffled sweetness] Don't tell on me. [He goes out] .
LADY BRITOMART. Sarah: if you want to go, go. Anything's better than to sit there as if you wished you were a thousand miles away. ”

“ In her own country she had learned to weave a coarse kind of lace, and when she heard her lady describe the delicate texture of the spiders’ webs, she drew forth some flaxen threads, and wove them into meshes resembling somewhat the drapery which Barbara had so admired. This was all that was wanting to give purpose and definiteness to Barbara’s vague fancies.
They who look with most pleasure on a finished work, are oft-times most easily wearied with tracing the slow footsteps of the patient laborer. ”

“ His Highness has not said a word to me on the subject. There is your prim Barbara smiling. Ah! you too, I suppose, will soon be saluted as Mistress or Dame Hays. Fie, fie, Barbara! I thought you had better taste. But never mind, I will not say a word to his disparagement—no, nor suffer one of the court curs to growl at Crisp when he visits the buttery at Whitehall or Hampton. What have you done with the Lady Zillah?"
"So please you, madam," replied Barbara, "the Rabbi would not be separated from his daughter. He seems to think her only safe under his own eye. ”

“ That she, in her supremacy of beauty and splendour, a fortune sparkling in either ear, the price of a landed estate on her neck—that she, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, should have driven in a windowless coach through dusty lanes, eating dirt, as it were, with her train of court gallants on horseback at her coach doors, her ladies in a carriage in the rear, to visit a person of Lady Fareham’s petty quality, a Buckinghamshire Knight’s daughter married to a Baron of Henry the Eighth’s creation! ”

“ Bannister at Battle, they made ready for Christmas at Furze Farm in country fashion, with a great abundance of food and liquor, with a yule-log the size of a tub, and holly boughs gathered out of the woods. Mrs. Winnie would have quieted the day out of curtesy to her “little lady,” but Barbara would have none of their pleasure spoiled because she wore a black gown for her mother. To cheat the living of their good cheer would not comfort the sleeping dead, and the very kitchen seemed warming itself for the wassail-bowl, and the beef and the pies, and the women with their ribbons. ”

“ She would gladly have missed her evening lesson and supper, but she feared that of the two evils Mademoiselle Thérèse's questions would probably be the worse. Indeed, when in the best of health, that lady's conversation was apt to be wearisome, but when one felt—as Barbara had for the past few days—that bed was the only satisfactory place, and that even harder than it used to be, then mademoiselle's chatter became a penance not easily borne. ”

“ Now, Barbara had no money and a great deal of pride despite her love, so that John Gore, who knew how matters stood with her, had to resort to a lover’s stratagem to fill her purse. He told her a solemn tale of how the lord chancellor managed the affairs of the nation, and how she was her father’s heiress, though the estates were in the lawyers’ hands till the time came for her to step forward and prove herself a very comely young woman without a mad whim in her head, save that whim of loving a sailor. ”

“ To sit on his knee, twining her small fingers in the black curls which fell unshorn upon his shoulders—to look in his great dark eyes as they gleamed with the enthusiasm of that half-poetic nature which is the inheritance of a high-hearted mountaineer—to feel herself nestling like a dove on his broad breast, and clinging to him half in terror, half in delight, as his strong words brought all those fearful shapes vividly before her eyes—these had been Barbara’s pleasures when a little child. ”

“ There is nothing in it that I take pleasure in telling, and to write its history would be to accuse either Barbara or myself. For two days we travelled together, she in her coach, I on horseback. Come to London, we were told that my lord was at Hatchstead; having despatched our borrowed equipage and servant to their mistress, and with them the amount of my debt and a most grateful message, we proceeded on our road, Barbara in a chaise, I again riding. All the way Barbara shunned me as though I had the plague, and I on my side showed no desire to be with a companion so averse from my society. ”

“ Dante and Petrarch were in a few years to think and write. The time had come for a new art."
"I do see the difference between this and those Academy pictures," said Bettina, "even though it is so queer, and painted in such colors."
"And I," "And I," quickly added Barbara and Margery.
"I think those angels' faces are interesting," continued Barbara. "They are not all just alike, but look as if each had some thought of his own. They seem proud of their burden as they hold up the Madonna and Child."
"Oh, nonsense, Barbara! you are putting too much imagination in there," exclaimed Malcom. ”

“ So Barbara for a while bade farewell to those who loved her, bade farewell to Anthony, her heart’s heart. Once more—alone, utterly alone—she laid her on the couch in the great chamber with the translucent dome and was whirled back through nothingness to the hell of earth, there to be born again as the child of the evil woman—that she might save a soul alive. ”

“ But Barbara in her father's home and without fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house; if we would work she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke, Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway, twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. ”

“ Observation, Major, it is art of life. I see Miss Barbara’s eyes red like morning sky and I deduct. I see you shot out and gloomy like evening cloud, and I deduct. I listen at door of Mr. Haswell’s room, I hear him curse and swear like holy saint in Book, and you and Miss Barbara answer him not like saint, though what you speak I cannot hear, and I deduct. Jeekie deduct this—that you make love to Miss Barbara in proper gentlemanlike, ’nogamous, Christian fashion such as your late Reverend Uncle approve, and Miss Barbara, she make love to you with ten per cent. ”

“ The old maid looked at her with a mingling of relief and curiosity, but was much too polite to ask any questions.
"The young man is here," she said, and led the way into the little dining-room, where her mistress was sitting opposite the boy with a very puzzled face, but doing her best to make him take some wine and biscuit. Mademoiselle Viré had always appeared to Barbara as the most courteous woman she had ever met, and, in presence of the frightened, awkward youth, her gracious air impressed the girl more than ever. ”

“ Barbara was still lying like one asleep before the fire when he returned, for she had been so near to death that life seemed to steal back softly and slowly as though still afraid. John Gore had never looked thus at his love before, as a man might look at a sleeping child or at some fair valley under a golden dawn. He saw the faint flush upon her cheeks, the shadowy sweep of the long lashes, the little dark curls of hair falling with such a sheen of sweetness over her forehead, the line of the red mouth, the soft warmth of her skin. ”

“ We can promise that, can't we?"
"Of course, I'll always trust you now, Aunt Hitty, since I've seen your lovely heart!" exclaimed Barbara, with flattering fervour.
"I have failed to realise," continued Mistress Mehitable, "that you are no longer a little girl, but very nearly a grown woman. Many girls are grown women at your age, Barbara, so that I have decided on something that will surprise you. From this time forward, I shift my responsibility for you largely to your own shoulders, and shall hope to be more your friend than your guardian. I hand you over to yourself, Barbara. ”

“ It was still early when John Gore brought the horses to the gate after breakfast and lifted Barbara into her saddle. She wore a plain black riding-habit that morning, a black beaver with a black plume curled round the brim, and a collar of white lace about her throat. The life at Furze Farm had tinted her skin with a brown, pearly haze. She was never a girl for much color, but her lips were red and generous, and her figure more rich in womanliness than of yore. ”

“ Barbara never was a girl of energy, or a seeker after power. She considered obedience as woman's chief duty—duty as a child to the parent—as a wife to the husband; and, perhaps, such was her timidity, had there been time to deliberate, she would have trembled at the bare idea of opposing her father's will, though she would have mourned to the end of her days the result of his madness ”