Her Season in Bath: A Story of Bygone Days

When Graves was gone, Griselda pulled the little table towards her; and, taking a small key from her chatelaine, unlocked the box.

"Yes," she thought, "it is as Graves says, I have nothing in the world but these jewels. It seemed till to-day that I had no one in the world to care for me; but now I think he does care for me. He is not like those gay, foolish men who treat women as if they were dolls to be dressed up, or puppets to move at their bidding. No, he is of another sort, I think." And the swift blush came to her fair cheek. "What if he loves me! It would be sweet to be taken from this hollow existence – dressing and dancing, and looking out for flattery and admiration. If he were near, that dreadful man would not dare to talk to me as he does – he would not dare if I were not an orphan; and my only protector – that silly creature who drives me nearly wild with her folly – Well, let me hope better times are coming. Now for the jewels."

The box was lined with cedar, and as the cover was raised a faint, sweet odour of cedar mingled with otto of roses came with a message from the past. Through the dim haze of long years that scent recalled to Griselda a room, where a tall dark man had sat by the embers of a fire, the box before him, and some words which the fragrance mysteriously seemed to bring back.

"It was her wish, and the child must go." The child! What child? – and whither did she go? It was herself – it must have been herself – the man meant.

Then it was all haze again. The light that had penetrated the mists of the past, and brought the scene before her, was obscured once more.

That man must have been her father; but she had no memories of him either before or after that day, which had risen like a phantom before her, called up by the faint sweet scent of the old jewel-box.

The necklets were very fair to look at – one of pearls, with a diamond clasp, and initials on the gold at the back, which were her dead mother's. No, she could not sell that; but there were heavy ear-drops of solid gold, and a set of gold buttons – these would surely fetch something. The amethyst necklace, with its lovely purple hue, had never belonged to her mother; and she put it, with the gold buttons and ear-rings, into a small leather box, and was pressing down one of the compartments, when a drawer flew open she had never noticed before. In the drawer were some diamond ornaments and rings; a piece of yellow paper was fastened to one of the rings:

"Deserted by the husband I trusted, I, Phyllis Mainwaring, leave to my only child, Griselda, these diamonds. I place them out of sight, safe from dishonest hands. When I left him to get bread he knew nothing of them, or he would have sold them. They are my poor darling's only inheritance, and I leave them secure that one day she will find them. Let her take with them her unhappy mother's blessing."

This was indeed a discovery. Griselda had always remembered that this box had stood in her room at Longueville House. She remembered her uncle bidding her bring it to him, and that he placed in it the trinkets left to her by her grandmother, but never had anyone suspected the existence of the diamonds. No one knew, that when the man whom she had married was running through her little fortune, the unhappy wife had, in her despair, converted a few hundreds into diamonds, and hidden them away from all eyes in that old jewel-box.

Griselda's eyes filled with tears. She pressed the bit of paper to her lips, and, wholly unconscious of the worth of those precious stones, she closed the drawer again upon that unexpected discovery, and, putting the small box safely in the drawer of the bureau, she took her violin from its case, and tried to wake from it the music which lay hidden in it. As she played – imperfectly enough, yet with the ear of a musician – her spirit was soothed and comforted; and these verses, written in a thin, pointed hand, were dropped into Lady Miller's vase that evening with no name or cypher affixed, and the mystery of the author was not solved:

WAITING"Loveliest strains are lying,Waiting to awake,Till a master's handShall sweetest music make."Life's best gifts are waitingTill a magic powerCalls them from their hiding,In some happy hour."Brightest hopes are watchingFor their time of bliss,When a kindred spiritGreets them with a kiss."Dreams of purest joysShadows still remain,Till the day-star rises,And loss is turned to gain."Sadness, grief, and sorrow,Like clouds shall pass away,If only we in patience waitTill dawns the perfect day."

"This author may claim a wreath," Lady Miller said, "but perhaps she likes best to be uncrowned."

There was endless discussion as to the author of what seemed to be considered a poem of unusual merit, and one and another looked conscious, and blushed and simpered, for no one was unwilling to take the honour to herself. Lady Betty was sure it was only the dear Marchioness who could have written them, only she was too modest to declare herself.

"Mock modesty I call it!" said Lady Miller, who was a bright, jovial woman, and had nothing of the grace or sentimental air which the verse-makers of those days wore as their badge.

Not a single person thought of taxing Griselda with the verses, so quiet had she been in these assemblies, seldom expressing any opinion as to the poems of other people. Griselda was not in the charmed circle of the élite of Parnassus, who had a right to wear one of Lady Miller's laurel crowns, and yet the verses, such as they were and poor as they may seem to us, were superior to the bouts rimés on a "buttered muffin," which, report says, were once dropped into the Roman vase at Batheaston.

At the time of which I write, Lady Miller's sun was declining. Scarcely two years later, she died at the Clifton Hot Wells, at a comparatively early age. But in her day her reputation spread far and wide; and some of the contributions, notably one from Sheridan's able pen, were full of real, and not, as was too often the case, affected feeling.

This reunion to which Lady Betty and Griselda went on this December night was not one of the Fairs of Parnassus which were held every Thursday. It was a soirée, to which only a select few – such as marchionesses, and embryo duchesses, and future peeresses – were bidden.

Lady Miller's health was failing, though she tried to hide it; and even now a cough, which was persistent, though not loud, prevented her from reading the effusions which were taken haphazard from the vase, dressed with its pink ribbons, and with crowns of myrtle hanging from it. Six judges were generally chosen to decide on the best poems, and the authors were only too proud to come forward and kneel to receive the wreath from the hand of this patroness of les belles lettres.

How old-world this all seems to us now! and how we think we can afford to sneer at such folly and such deplorably bad taste as the poems then thought worthy display! "Siren charms" and "bright-eyed enchantress," "soft zephyrs" and "gentle poesies," might be the stock expressions always ready to lend themselves to rhymes, with a hundred others of the like nature. But these reunions had their better side; for reading verses was better than talking scandal, and apostrophes to bright eyes and ladies' auburn locks better than the discussion of the last duel or elopement, which, in the absence of "society papers," were too apt to form the favourite topic of the beau monde.

Lady Miller may have won her myrtle crown for attempting to set the minds and brains of her friends at work, even if only to produce doubtful bouts rimés where sense was sacrificed to rhyme, and sound triumphed over subject.

We have our Lady Millers of to-day, although there are no pink-ribboned vases in which contributors drop their poetical efforts.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE TRACK

Griselda had been much surprised at the applause which followed the reading of her verses. They were called for a second time, and elicited great praise.

"They are vastly pretty, and full of feeling!" exclaimed Lady Betty the next morning. "I declare, Griselda, you are without an atom of sentiment; you sat listening to them with a face like a marble statue. It is well for you that you are not a victim to sentiment as I am. I vow I could weep at the notion of the sorrowful soul who wrote those impassioned couplets which were read before the five stanzas, so much admired. Ah!" Lady Betty continued, with a yawn – for it was her yawning-time between her first and second visit to the Pump Room – "ah! it is well for some folks that they are callous. I am all impatience to get a copy of those rhymes for Lord Basingstoke; and —entre nous, ma chère, entre nous– when do you propose to accept Sir Maxwell Danby's suit? He formally asked my permission to address you. It would be a good match, and – "

"I have not the slightest intention, Aunt Betty, of listening to Sir Maxwell Danby's proposal."

Griselda always gave Lady Betty that title when angry.

"Oh! how high and mighty we are! But I would have you to know, miss, I cannot afford to keep you for ever. I am now embarrassed, and a dun has been here this very morning; so I advise you not to overlook Sir Maxwell Danby's offer."

"If there were not another man in the world I would not marry Sir Maxwell," Griselda said, rising. "I will consider other matters, and tell you of my decision."

"You silly child! Where are you going, pray?"

"To my own chamber."

"You must be powdered for the ball to-night. I promised Sir Maxwell he should have his opportunity at my Lady Westover's dance. Perkyns is coming at four o'clock. You must be powdered. It is not the mode to appear in full toilette, with your hair as it was dressed last night. That gold band may suit some faces, but not yours. Do you hear, miss?"

"I hear," Griselda said; "and I repeat I do not go with your ladyship to Lady Westover's ball."

"The minx! – the impudent little baggage! You shall repent your saucy words. But you'll come round, see if you don't, if you hear that pale-faced fellow Travers is to be of the company. Yes; go and ask his old mother about it – go!"

Griselda shut the door with a sharp bang, which made Lady Betty call loudly for her salts, and brought Graves from the inner room.

"Such impudence! I won't stand it – the little baggage! She shall marry Sir Maxwell Danby, or I wash my hands of her."

Graves calmly held the salts to her mistress's nose: they were strong, and Lady Betty called out:

"Not too near! Oh! oh! I am not faint;" and immediately went off into hysterical crying, which, for obvious reasons, was tearless.

Meanwhile, Griselda had gone to her room; and, putting on a long black pelisse and a wide hat with a drooping feather, set well over her eyes, she left the house, carrying in a large satchel, which was fastened to her side, the box containing the jewels she wanted to sell.

At first she thought she would go to consult Mrs. Travers in her difficulty. She was determined to run no risk of meeting Sir Maxwell Danby; and if Lady Betty persisted in backing up his suit, she would leave her; but where, where should she go?

An open door in King Street attracted her, and she saw Mr. and Miss Herschel passing in, each carrying some favourite and precious musical instrument. They were in all the bustle of removal, doing this, as they did everything else, with resolute determination to be as earnest as possible in accomplishing their purpose.

Miss Herschel, in her short black gown and work-a-day apron with wide pockets and her close black hood, did not see, or if she saw did not recognise, Griselda. She was giving directions to her servant, enforced with many strong expressions; and as she went backwards and forwards from the door to a cart lined with straw, she was wholly unconscious of anyone standing by.

Griselda could not help watching, with interest and admiration, the swift firm steps of this able and practical woman, as she went about her business, intent only on clearing the house in Rivers Street, and filling the house in King Street, as quickly as possible.

"She is too busy to speak to me now," Griselda thought.

Mr. Herschel now came hurriedly out, exclaiming:

"The two brass screws, Lina, for the seven-foot mirror! They are missing!" and then he disappeared in the direction of the house they were leaving.

Fortunately it was a bright winter noon, and everything favoured the flitting, which was accomplished in a very short time. But we who have in these days any experience of removals – and happy those who have not that experience – know how patience and temper are apt to fail, as the hopeless chaos of the new house is only a degree less hopeless than that of the old house we are leaving. We have vans, and packers, and helpers at command, unknown in the days of Mr. and Miss Herschel; for at the close of the last century few, indeed, were the removals from house to house. As a rule, people gathered round them their "household gods," and handed them down to their children in the house where they had been born and brought up. Removal from one part of England to another was not to be thought of at that time, when roads were bad and conveyances rare, and a distance of twenty miles more difficult to accomplish than that of two or three hundred in our own time. Mr. Herschel's reason for taking the house in King Street was that the garden behind it afforded room for the great experiment then always looming before him – the casting of the great mirror for the thirty-foot reflector.

Griselda passed on without even getting a smile of recognition from Miss Herschel, so thoroughly engrossed was she with the business in hand; and a sense of loneliness came over her, as she said to herself:

"How could I expect Miss Herschel to recognise me, especially in this thick pelisse and hat? I must not expect my concerns to be of importance to her or to anyone."

And as this thought passed through her mind, she became conscious that to someone, at least, her concerns were of importance; for Leslie Travers had seen her from the window of his mother's house, and had thrown his cloak over his shoulders without delay, and, with his hat looped up at one side in his hand, advanced, saying:

"This is a happy chance! I am anxious to see you; and, if you will, I would fain tell you more of a visit I paid to the poor people in Crown Alley. It is a pitiable case!"

"And I want to see them," Griselda said, "and to help the child with the angelic face. I have in my bag the trinkets I spoke of. Will you take me at once to a shop in the Abbey Churchyard, and inquire for me the price they will fetch? I want also," she said hurriedly, "to consult you, or rather your mother, as to what I should do. I cannot – I cannot live any longer with Lady Betty, unless she promises to protect me from the man I detest!"

Leslie Travers's face kindled with delight.

"Come at once to my mother, at No. 14 in this street. She will be proud to receive you," he said eagerly.

"I must not act hastily," Griselda said. "I left Lady Betty in anger this morning; but I have reason to be angry."

"You have indeed, if you are forced into the company of a man like Sir Maxwell Danby. From him I would fain protect you. But," he said, checking himself, "I am at your service now about the trinkets, or shall we pay a visit to the poor folks first? It is, I warn you, a sad spectacle – can you bear it? I have questioned Mr. Palmer of the theatre, and he says the man (Lamartine) is a man of genius, but a reprobate. He has for some time made his living on the stage, and when not in drink is a wonderful actor. But he is subject to desperate fits of drunkenness, and on his arrival here from Bristol he broke out in one, and falling down the stairs at the theatre after the second rehearsal, injured himself so terribly that he cannot live."

"And the child! – the sweet, innocent child?" Griselda asked.

"The child is the daughter of a young girl employed about the theatre, whom Lamartine married some years ago. She died of burns from her dress catching fire at the Bristol Theatre, where she was acting and getting a fair living. That is the story. The man is by no means a deserving character. Shall we visit him to-day?"

"Yes," Griselda said; "I wish to see the child."

It was now near the hour when it was fashionable to resort to the baths for the second time before the dinner hour, which was generally at two o'clock; and as Griselda and Mr. Travers passed the Pump Room they met several acquaintances.

It was no uncommon thing for the beaux to conduct the ladies to the baths, drink the water with them, and lounge away an hour or two while the band played; and, one by one, those who had been bathing came, well muffled in wraps, to the chairs waiting to convey them to their apartments.

But eyes, which were by no means kindly eyes, were upon Griselda, and as Sir Maxwell Danby stood at the entrance of the Pump Room he made a low bow, to which Griselda responded with a stately inclination of her head.

"Whither away, my fair lady, with that puppy?" thought he. "Ha! I will be on your scent, and maybe find out something. A silversmith's shop! Ah! to buy the ring, forsooth! Ah! ha!"

"What amuses you, Danby?" asked a man of the same type as Sir Maxwell. "Let me have the benefit of the joke, for I am bored to death dancing attendance on my wife and girls."

"Come down with me, and I will show you the finest girl in Bath and the biggest puppy. They have disappeared within that shop. We may follow."

"What are you turned spy for?" asked his companion.

"Who said I had turned spy?" asked Sir Maxwell angrily. "Please yourself!" and he went down the street, and turned into the jeweller's shop as if by accident just as Griselda had laid her trinkets on the counter and the master of the shop was examining them.

Sir Maxwell retired to the further end of the shop and asked to see some snuff-boxes, where he was presently joined by his friend. Sir Maxwell threw himself into one of his easy attitudes, and, while pretending to listen to the shopman, who had displayed a variety of little pocket snuff-boxes in dainty leather cases, he was taking in the fact that Griselda was selling her necklace and gold ornaments.

As soon as the transaction was over, Sir Maxwell made a sign to his companion, and, leaving all the snuff-boxes, he loftily waved away the master of the shop, who was advancing to inquire which he would prefer, and left in time to see which way Griselda went.

"To Crown Alley – a low place! By Jove! this is a queer notion. And with that jackanapes, too, who sets up for being so pious! We won't follow them further," he said, taking out an elaborately-chased snuff-box and offering it to his friend. "We won't follow them – this is enough."

"You are that fair lady's devoted slave, so report says. What are you about, Danby, to let another get before you? It is not like you!"

"No, it is not like me; you are right, sir. But I am not beaten out of the field yet. Crown Alley, forsooth! haunted by the scum of the theatre! Ah! ha! We must unearth this rat from its hole, and I am the man to do it!"

"You are well fitted for the business, I must say," was the rejoinder, with a laugh.

CHAPTER IX.

WATCHED!

Scenes of poverty and sickness are familiar now to many a good and fair woman, of whom it may be said in the words of the poet Lowell, that

"Stairs, to sin and sorrow known,Sing to the welcome of her feet."

But few indeed were the high-born ladies a hundred and twenty years ago who ever penetrated the dark places where their suffering brothers and sisters lived and died in penury and want.

Class distinction was then rigid, and the sun of womanly tenderness and compassion had not as yet risen on the horizon with healing on its wings.

Thus the two wretched attics, furnished with the barest necessities of life – to which she ascended by dark, narrow stairs – was indeed a new world to Griselda Mainwaring.

She shrank back when the door of the room was opened, and turned away her head from the pitiful sight before her. The sick man was propped up on his miserable bed, the child kneeling by him listening to, and trying to soothe, his incoherent mutterings.

Leslie Travers went in first and touched the child's shoulder.

"I have brought the lady to see you, and to ask what she can do for you."

Instead of answering, Norah held up her hand as if to beg Leslie to be silent, and continued to stroke her father's long thin hands with one of hers, while with the other she pressed the rag of vinegar and water on his burning brow.

Presently the muttering ceased, and the breathing became more regular, and then Norah rose, and said in a low voice:

"Nothing stops his wild talk till I kneel by him and hold his hand, and stroke his forehead; that is why I could not speak, sir." Then the child went up to the threshold of the door where Griselda still stood, and said: "I thought you would come – I felt sure, lady, you would come; but do not be afraid, he is asleep now, and may sleep for an hour."

Griselda felt ashamed of the disgust she could not conceal at what she saw. But the true womanly instinct asserted itself, and pointing to an open door leading into another garret, she said:

"May I go in there?"

"Yes, it is my room; it is where I put the clothes when I have mended them. The queen's gauze veil got torn, and I can mend gauze better than anyone, so Mrs. Betts gave it to me. Mrs. Betts is kind to me." Then seeing Griselda's puzzled look at the heterogeneous mass of finery heaped up on a table supported against the wall, as it was minus one leg, the child explained: "I mend the actresses' dresses. Mrs. Betts is the wardrobe keeper at the theatre, and she has had pity on me, or – or I think we should have starved."

"Well," Griselda said, "I have brought you money to buy food, and surely you want a fire; and where is your bed?"

The child pointed to a mattress in the corner under the sloping angle of the roof, and said:

"I sleep there most nights, but now he is so bad I watch by him."

Griselda opened her sachet and took from it a crimson silk purse.

"Here are two guineas," she said; "get all you want."

Norah clasped her hands in an ecstasy.

"Oh!" she said, "this is what I have prayed for. God has heard me, and it is come. My beautiful princess has come. You are my beautiful princess, and I shall always love you. I will get Brian to buy lots of things; he will be here after school. Does the gentleman know?"

"Yes, he brought me."

"Then I shall love him, too; you are both good. I shall try and make father know you brought the money; but he does not understand much now. Hark! he is calling – he is awake!"

Norah hastened back to her post, and Griselda followed her.

Leslie Travers had been standing by the sick man's bed, and Griselda, ashamed of her feelings of repulsion and shrinking, took her place by his side.

Suddenly a flash of intelligence came into those large dark eyes, and the man started up and gazed at Griselda, repeating:

"Who is she? – who is she?"

"The dear beautiful lady who has brought us all we want. Thank her, father – thank her!"

"Thank her!" he repeated. "Who is she?"

Then an exceeding bitter cry echoed through the rafters of the chamber as if it would pierce the very roof. And with that cry the man fell back on his pillow, saying:

"Phyllis – Phyllis! come back – come back!"

Griselda started towards the door, and Leslie Travers caught her, or she would have fallen down the steep, narrow stairs.

"Take me away – take me away! I cannot bear it! Oh, it is too dreadful! That face – those eyes – that cry!"

"Yes," he said, carefully guiding her downstairs, and shielding her as much as possible from the inquisitive stare of the dwellers in the same house, taking her hand in his, and drawing it into his arm: "You are not accustomed to such sad sights, the poverty and the squalor."

"It was the man who frightened me. What made him call Phyllis – Phyllis! that beautiful sacred name, for it was my mother's?"

"He was raving; he fancied he was on the stage. He will not live many days, and then we will see that the child is cared for."

The "we" escaped his lips before he was aware of it; but the time for reticence was past. He turned into the Abbey, and Griselda made no resistance. Then with impassioned earnestness Leslie Travers told his love, and often as the tale is told, it is seldom rehearsed with more simple manly fervour. For in the reality of his love Leslie Travers forgot all the flowery and fulsome love epithets which were the fashion of the day. He did not kneel at her feet and vow he was her slave; he did not call her by a thousand names of endearment; but he made her feel perfect confidence in his sincerity. This confidence ever awakes a response in the heart of a true woman, and makes her ready to trust her future in his hands who asks to guard it henceforth.