My lady was at her toilet upon this brilliant June morning; and as custom permitted the attendance of gentlemen at this function, in the case of married ladies, the hall and staircase leading up to her suite of private apartments were already thronged by a motley crew.
There were dandies, fresh from their own elaborate toilets, reeking of the perfume in which they had bathed themselves, displaying in their own persons all the hues of the rainbow, and all the extravagant fripperies of the day, laughing and jesting together as they mounted the softly-carpeted stairs, their cocked hats under their arms, or descended again after having paid their devoirs to my lady, often cackling with mirth over some bon mot they had heard or uttered. There were chattering French milliners or French hair-dressers, with boxes or bundles of laces, silks, perfumes, or trinkets, wherewith to tempt the fancy of their patroness. There were gaily-dressed pages running to and fro with scented notes; turbaned negro boys carrying a lap-dog or monkey or parrot to the doting mistress, who had suddenly sent for one of her pets. Tire-women pushed themselves through the throng, intent on the business of the toilet, which was such an all-absorbing matter; and the whole house seemed to ring with the loud or shrill laughter and the ceaseless chatter of this motley throng, bent on killing time in the most approved fashion.
Some of the dandies about to depart, who were sipping chocolate from cups of priceless Sèvres china, and talking in their free, loose fashion with each other, kept looking about them as though in hope or expectation, and more than once the name of "Lady Geraldine" was bandied about between them. One young blood asked point blank why she was never to be seen at her mother's toilet. A laugh broke from his companions.
"If it's Lady Geraldine you come to see, you can save yourself the trouble of the visit. They say she was brought up by a Puritan grandmother, who died last year, and left her all her fortune. However that may be, the Lady Geraldine never appears when she can escape doing so. My lady gives way to her. They say she does not care to have a grown-up daughter at her heels, she who might pass for four-and-twenty herself any day, but for that damning evidence. But they say the father is beginning to declare that his daughter is no longer to be kept in the background. I suppose the next thing will be that they will marry her to some young nobleman. Gadzooks! with that face and that fortune – if the fortune be not a clever myth – they ought not to find it a difficult task!"
"I heard it said at the club that Sandford was the favoured suitor for the hand of Lady Geraldine," said one young exquisite, speaking with a lisp and taking snuff.
There was a laugh from the group of men standing by.
"Oh, Sandford is my lady's favourite! They say he is a kinsman; and he amuses her vastly, and gives her all the homage her heart desires. But Lord Romaine may have something to say to that. Sandford is going the pace that kills, and is playing old Harry with his fortune and estate. And as for my Lady Geraldine – well, 'tis said the pretty little Puritan will look at none of us. Split me! but it will be a pretty comedy to watch! The awakening of Aphrodite; isn't that the thing to call it? But Aphrodite is not generally credited with much coyness – ha, ha, ha! Perhaps it is but a pose on the part of the pretty maid. The sweet creatures are so artful in these days, one can never be too cautious." And a roar of laughter answered this sally, caution being about the last quality ever cultivated by the speaker.
Whilst all this was going on within doors, the object of these latter remarks was enjoying a silvan solitude in the most secluded portion of the beautiful old garden.
Far away from the house, far out of earshot of all the fashionable clamour resounding there, set in the midst of a dense shrubbery of ilex and yew, was an arbour – itself cut out of a giant yew-tree – commanding a view of a portion of the river, slipping by its alder-crowned banks, and overlooking a small, square lawn, sunk between high turf walls, in the centre of which stood an ancient moss-grown sundial, whose quaintly-lettered face was a source of unending interest to the fair girl, who had made of this remote and sheltered place a harbour of refuge for herself.
She was seated now just within the arbour, an open book of poetry upon her knee; but she was not reading, for her chin rested in the palm of her hand, as she leaned forward in an unstudied attitude of grace, her elbow on her knee, her wonderful dark eyes fixed full upon the shining river, a dreamy smile of haunting sweetness playing round her lips. At her feet a great hound lay extended, his nose upon his paws, his eyes often lifted to the face of his mistress, his ears pricked at the smallest sound, even at the snapping of a twig. Nobody could surprise the Lady Geraldine when she had this faithful henchman at her side.
The girl was dressed with extreme simplicity for the times she lived in, when hoops were coming in, stiff brocades, laces and lappets, high-heeled coloured shoes, and every extravagance in finery all the rage. True, the texture of her white silk gown was of the richest, and it was laced with silver, and fastened with pearl clasps that must have cost a great sum; but it was fashioned with a simplicity that suggested the rustic maiden rather than the high-born dame. Yet the simple elegance of the graceful, girlish figure was displayed to such advantage that even the modish mother had been able to find no fault with the fashion in which her daughter instructed that her gowns should be cut; and surmises and bets were freely exchanged by the gallants crowding Lord Romaine's house as to whether it were a deep form of coquetry or real simplicity of taste which made the Lady Geraldine differ so much from the matrons and maids about her.
She wore no patches upon her face, though the dazzling purity of her complexion would thereby have been enhanced. And in days when the hair was dressed into tower-like erections, and adorned with powder, laces, ribbons, and all manner of strange fripperies, this girl wore her beautiful waving golden tresses floating round her face in the fashion of the ladies of Charles the Second's reign, or coiled them with careless grace about her head in a natural coronet. With powder or pomatum, wires or artificial additions, she would have nothing to do. She had been brought up in the country by her grandmother, a lady of very simple tastes, who would in no wise conform to the extravagant fashions which had crept in, and were corrupting all the old-time grace and simplicity of female attire.
"Leave those fripperies to the gallants," had been the old lady's pungent remark; "what do we want with powder and periwigs, patches and pomatum?"
She remembered the simple elegance of the court-dresses of the ladies in the Stuart times, and had no patience with the artificial trappings that followed. Moreover, albeit not a Puritan in any strict sense of the word – being a loyal advocate of the Stuart cause – she was a woman of great piety and devotion, and studied her Bible diligently; so that she took small pleasure in the adornment of the person in gaudy clothing, and the broidering of the hair, and in fine array. She taught her granddaughter to think more of the virtue of the meek and quiet spirit, and to seek rather to cultivate her mind, and store it with information and with lofty aspirations, than to give her time and thoughts to the round of folly and dissipation which made up the life of the lady of fashion.
Geraldine was so happy in the care of her grandmother, and felt so little at home with her fashionable mother, that her visits had been few and far between hitherto, until the sudden death of Mrs. Adair six months previously had obliged her to return permanently to her father's roof.
Here she found a state of things which amazed and troubled her not a little, and greatly did