Miss Fanshawe

“ Does your power extend to men? Or do you rule only over simple girls? Miss Langton is under my protection, and, till you can bend me to your will, she shall remain so."
Fanshawe turned calmly, and fixed his eyes on the stranger. "Retire, sir," was all he said.
Ellen almost shuddered, as if there were a mysterious and unearthly power in Fanshawe's voice; for she saw that the stranger endeavored in vain, borne down by the influence of a superior mind, to maintain the boldness of look and bearing that seemed natural to him. ”

“ I think he would place too high a value upon his merits to question the certainty of their success—don't you?" said the young lady.
"Well, no; I don't think so. He is not an unreal person; I know him, and I know that his good opinion of himself is humbled, and that he adores with an entire abandonment of self the being whom he literally worships."
"Very adoring, perhaps, but rather—that's a great dog like a wolf-hound in that panel, and it has got its fangs in that pretty stag's throat," said Miss Fanshawe, breaking into a criticism upon the carving. ”

“ The females withdrew out of ear-shot to give place to a more legitimate comforter than themselves.
"What know you respecting my purpose?" inquired Fanshawe, bending towards her.
The woman gave a groan--the usual result of all efforts at consolation-- for the edification of the company, and then replied in a whisper, which reached only the ear for which it was intended. "I know whom you come to seek: I can direct you to them. Speak low, for God's sake!" she continued, observing that Fanshawe was about to utter an exclamation. ”

“ Oh, I know that there will be happiness in such a lot, from these and a thousand other sources!"
The animation with which Ellen spoke, and, at the same time, a sense of the singular course to which her gratitude had impelled her, caused her beauty to grow brighter and more enchanting with every word. And when, as she concluded, she extended her hand to Fanshawe, to refuse it was like turning from an angel, who would have guided him to heaven. But, had he been capable of making the woman he loved a sacrifice to her own generosity, that act would have rendered him unworthy of her. ”

“ He saw and interpreted Ellen's look and attitude of entreaty, though the words with which she sought to soften the ruthless heart of her guide became inaudible ere they reached the height where Fanshawe stood. He felt that Heaven had sent him thither, at the moment of her utmost need, to be the preserver of all that was dear to him; and he paused only to consider the mode in which her deliverance was to be effected. Life he would have laid down willingly, exultingly: his only care was, that the sacrifice should not be in vain. ”

“ I never told any one but you why I bought that picture; it isn't a lithograph, but painted, or drawn, or whatever they call it, with chalks, and it cost five guineas; and no one but you ever heard me mention Miss Fanshawe's name, except the people at Cardyllian, and then only as I might mention any other, and always with respect."
"What does it signify?" interrupted Cleve, in the middle of a forced yawn. "I'm tired to-day, and cross—don't you see; and man delights not [Pg 180] me, nor woman neither. ”

“ Ellen would fain have resisted; but though the tears hung as heavy on her eyelashes, between shame and anger, as the dew upon the leaves, she felt compelled to accept the arm that he offered her. But the stranger, who, since Fanshawe's approach, had remained a little apart, now advanced.
"You speak as one in authority, young man," he said. "Have you the means of compelling obedience? ”

“ With as ill mien and tone as I could express, I told a fellow I found in the Office that I desired a pass for Paris, to go to my husband. 'Woman, what is your husband, and your name?' 'Sir,' said I, with many courtesies, 'he is a young merchant, and my name is Ann Harrison.' 'Well,' said he, 'it will cost you a crown:'—said I, 'That is a great sum for me, but pray put in a man, my maid, and three children.' All which he immediately did, telling me a malignant would give him five pounds for such a pass. ”

“ Had the character of Ellen Langton's mind been different, there might, perhaps, have been danger to her from an intercourse of this nature with such a being as Fanshawe; for he was distinguished by many of those asperities around which a woman's affection will often cling. But she was formed to walk in the calm and quiet paths of life, and to pluck the flowers of happiness from the wayside where they grow. ”

“ Lady Fanshawe left her husband, came to London, and lodged in Fleet Street with Lady Boteler, her sister, whose husband, Sir William, was slain at Cropredy Bridge. A pass which she obtained from ‘Colonel Copley, a great parliament man,’ enabled her husband ‘to come and compound for 300l.,’ and until October 1647 they lived together very privately in Portugal Row. They both visited Charles I at Hampton Court, and the king gave Fanshawe ‘credentials for Spain’ and letters for Prince Charles and Queen Henrietta. ”

“ Fanshawe remained silent a moment after his opponent had departed, and, when he next spoke, it was in a tone of depression. Ellen observed, also, that his countenance had lost its look of pride and authority; and he seemed faint and exhausted. The occasion that called forth his energies had passed; and they had left him.
"Forgive me, Miss Langton," he said almost humbly, "if my eagerness to serve you has led me too far. There is evil in this stranger, more than your pure mind can conceive. ”

“ Indeed, my dear, I feel sure you do."
This little speech was admirably characteristic of Mrs. Fanshawe. At one moment she would be finding fault with everybody, at the next she would shower tenderness on them. It mattered nothing to her that only a few hours ago she and Elizabeth had exchanged peculiarly clear-cut and opposed views on the subject of this dance; she was quite capable, a few hours later, of assuming that they were quite in accord about it. She never had the smallest qualms on the subject of her own sincerity, as is the habit of thoroughly insincere people. ”

“ I smiled with satisfaction when Fanshawe told me this.
"Stay with him," I said; "it makes no difference whether or not he knows that you are always close behind him. In fact, I want him to know it; I want to break that man, and I will."
The other incident referred to was a meeting I succeeded in securing between Maillot and Miss Belle—memorable for me as being the first occasion upon which I was favored with a glimpse of Mrs. Fluette.
Sunday afternoon mother and daughter drove up to headquarters in the family carriage. ”

“ The auri sacra fames!" thought Fanshawe with, a sickening heart, looking at the motionless corpse upon the bed, and then at the wretched being, whom the course of nature, in comparatively a moment of time, would reduce to the same condition.
He whispered again, however, putting his purse into the hag's hand. "Take this. Make your own terms when they are discovered. Only tell me where I must seek them—and speedily, or it may be too late."
"I am a poor woman, and am afflicted," said she, taking the purse, unseen by any who were in the room. ”

“ Miss Sheckleton would hear of no further delay—no, not another minute. [Pg 122] Her fear of Sir Booth was profound; so, with a "God bless you, darling," and a very pale face, and—why should there not be?—one long, long kiss, Cleve Verney took his leave, and was gone; and the sailing moon lost herself among clouds, so darkness stole swiftly over the landscape.
Margaret Fanshawe drew her dear old cousin near to her, and in her turn, placing her arms round her neck, folded her close, and Anne Sheckleton could feel the wild throbbing of the young girl's heart close to her own. ”

“ The judgment of the world I have consistently despised, but I had already begun to set a certain value on the good opinion of my entertainer. Beginning with a note of pathos, but soon brightening into my habitual vivacity and humour, I rapidly narrated the circumstances of my birth, my flight, and subsequent misfortunes. He heard me to an end in silence, gravely smoking. ‘Miss Fanshawe,’ said he, when I had done, ‘you are a very comical and most enchanting creature ”

“ Here is the old church chest; but—but suppose the patient—let us call him—knows that the object of his—his ambition is on all accounts the best and noblest he could possibly have set before him. What then?"
"What then!" echoed Miss Fanshawe. "How can any one possibly tell—but the patient, as you call him, himself—what he should do. Your patient does not interest me; he wearies me. Let us look at this carving."
"Do you think he should despair because there is no present answer to his prayers, and [Pg 198] his idol vouchsafes no sign or omen?" persisted Cleve. ”

“ Yet dar’d to live without.’”
[Pg 158] In Miss Mary Russell Mitford’s “Recollections of a Literary Life” are some genial allusions to Miss Fanshawe. “Besides,” wrote Miss Mitford, “her remarkable talent for graceful and polished pleasantry, whether in prose or verse, Miss Catherine Fanshawe was admirable as a letter-writer, and as a designer in almost every style.” Her drawings and etchings met with praise from those capable of judging their merits. ”

“ William Harness,’ were issued by Pickering in 1876. A letter and a poem by her are in Miss Berry's ‘Journal,’ ii. 297–302, and in iii. 526–8 is a poem with the heading ‘The Country Cat docketed by Miss Fanshawe;’ in ‘Murray's Magazine,’ i. 6 (1887) , is printed an extract from one of her letters, describing a dinner party at Sir Humphry Davy's house, at which Byron and Madame de Staël met. A tombstone in Chipstead churchyard to the memory of a farmer bears some lines written by Miss Fanshawe. ”

“ You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her boy.”
“Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre’s this evening?”
“Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a conceited doll it is!”
Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in the vapours. ”

“ And live three times as long.”
It was related by the Rev. William Harness, who did much to make known the merits of Miss Fanshawe’s works, that when the foregoing lines were read to a distinguished admirer of Wordsworth’s poetry, she thought them beautiful, and wondered why the poet had never shown them to her!
Miss Fanshawe’s fame rests on the authorship of the celebrated riddle on the letter H, which has frequently been attributed to Byron, and appeared in more than one edition of his poems. At a party held one evening at the house of her friend, Mr. ”

“ In the single inhabitable apartment were several elderly women, clad evidently in their well-worn and well-saved Sunday clothes, and all wearing a deep grievous expression of countenance. Fanshawe was not long in deciding that death was within the cottage, and that these aged females were of the class who love the house of mourning, because to them it is a house of feasting. ”

“ Janet Willoughby’s smile showed a quick approval.
“That was kind! Thanks for the good intention, but I can’t let you be victimised any more. I want to talk to you myself, and half-a-dozen men have been asking for introductions to the girl with the green sash. You know Mrs Fanshawe, don’t you? Isn’t she charming? She and I are the greatest of chums. I always say she has never succeeded in growing older than seventeen. She is so delightfully irresponsible and impulsive. ”

“ I will come down to the hall just as the big clock strikes.—Ever, V.”
Mr Fanshawe read.
“She’s told me about it,” said Doris; “and I’m going to see you off, and Bob’s coming too.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr Fanshawe, “is it safe?”
“Quite; we won’t make a bit of noise. No one sleeps on our landing but Biddy, and she sleeps in the room with Selina, and nothing wakes her.”
“All right,” said Mr Fanshawe, who, on second thoughts, felt rather pleased that the children’s innocent presence should lend a colour to the thing. “But mind and don’t breathe a word to any one; be in the big hall at two.” ”

“ Captain Fanshawe stared, beamed with an obvious relief, then hastened to defend an absent man. “You’re wrong, you know; really you’re wrong! I don’t call Carew the most attractive fellow you can meet; rather rough manners, don’t you know, but he’s all right—Carew’s all right. You mustn’t judge by appearances, Miss Gifford. Some of the most decent fellows in the Club are in his set. Upon my word, I think he is quite a good sort.” Captain Fanshawe waxed the more eloquent as Claire preserved her expression of incredulous dislike. ”

“ Her acting might not appear at all life-like to her audience, but it seemed real to herself. For years she had, while diligently pursuing paths of complete selfishness, been employed, so to speak, on modelling a figure of herself, that was winning, child-like, and trustingly devoted to the love of others, and now regarding that, with conscious approval, she had come to believe that it was the very image of herself. And Elizabeth felt sure (and again was not mistaken) that Mrs. Fanshawe was even now getting herself into another graceful pose for the reception of Sir Henry. ”

“ Fanshawe had lowered the glasses, and was still gazing in the Oldbourne direction. “No,” he said, “I can’t make out anything with the naked eye. What was it you were going to show me?”
“A good deal more to the left—it oughtn’t to be difficult to find. Do you see a rather sudden knob of a hill with a thick wood on top of it? It’s in a dead line with that single tree on the top of the big ridge.”
“I do,” said Fanshawe, “and I believe I could tell you without much difficulty what it’s called.”
“Could you now?” said the Squire. “Say on.”
“Why, Gallows Hill,” was the answer. ”