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Mad Barbara

<div><h1>VIII</h1></div> Set a thief to catch a thief, and a woman to unravel the character of a woman. Such was the aphorism my Lord Gore had bestowed in confidence upon Hortense when he had bequeathed Anne Purcell’s daughter to the Italian’s cleverness. If there were anything beneath that sullen and lethargic surface, Hortense would discover it, and perhaps resurrect the girl’s instinct to laugh and live. Few guests met in the painted salon that summer evening: three girls of Barbara’s age, an elderly knight with sharp, humorous eyes, a sentimental widow, and Hortense. The windows were open toward the park, where dull, rain-ladened clouds shut out the stars. A few shaded candles in sconces along the walls made a glimmering twilight in the room, and in one corner a little brazen lamp burned perfumed oil, so that the air was richly scented. A girl stood singing beside the harpsichord when Anne Purcell and her daughter entered the salon. Hortense herself was accompanying the song, while those who listened were like figures in a picture, each with a shadowy individuality of its own. There was an atmosphere of opulence and sensitive refinement about the scene. The breeze of youth had been banished and the salon made sacred to musing maturity. Hortense excelled in the art of welcoming a friend. Even the flowing lines of her figure could put forth an intoxicating graciousness that fascinated women as well as men. She suggested infinite sympathy, yet infinite shrewdness. Strangers might have mistrusted her if she had shown only the one or the other. My Lady Anne looked commonplace beside Hortense. Her smile had a crude affectation of good-will that did not completely conceal latent distrust and jealousy. The Englishwoman was there with a purpose, and a purpose is often one of the most difficult things on earth to smother. It was in the daughter that Hortense discovered a vacant unapproachableness, a callous apathy that piqued her interest. The girl was not gauche, despite her silence. It was as though her individuality refused to mingle with the individuality of others. Hortense disposed of my lady by setting her to chat with the grim old gentleman in the big periwig, whose interest in life gravitated between the latest piece of learned gossip he might pick up at the meetings of the Royal Society and the lighter, more glittering gossip of Whitehall. My lady could at least satisfy him in the lighter vein. The three girls were given a pack of cards and a table in a corner; the sentimental widow—some new book. Hortense herself drew Barbara aside toward one of the windows, as though she was the one person whom she chose to actively amuse. The prelude between them resembled a game of chess in which one player made tentative moves to which the other blankly refused to respond. A series of challenges provoked nothing but monosyllabic answers. Hortense had no difficulty, as a rule, in persuading even dull or frightened people to talk. There were the many mundane topics to be invoked when necessary: clothes, music, books, men, amusements—and other women. “Mère de Dieu!” she confessed to herself, at last, “the child is impenetrable. There is a magic spring in every mortal. I have not touched it—here—as yet.” She studied Barbara with the easy air of the woman of the world who does not betray the glance behind the eyes. “And who is your great friend—in England, cara mia? We women must always have a confidential mirror, though it does not always tell us the truth. When I was quite young I used to write down all my thoughts and adventures in a book. Some of us make friends with our own souls—in our diaries.” Barbara looked at her as though all the Italian’s subtle suggestiveness beat on nothing more intelligent than the blank surface of a wall. “Do you keep a diary, madam?” Hortense laughed. “Oh, life is my diary, and then—I write on the faces of those I meet.” “Do you—how?” “You must guess my meaning.” “I can never guess anything.” “How dull! Have you travelled much—with your mother?” “My mother?” “Yes. Is she not charming? so young—and Junelike! She should promise you a long youth.” “I do not care whether she does or not.” “Then you have not learned to envy her?” “What have I to envy?” Hortense paused, with a momentary gleam of impatience in her eyes. “Has the child any enthusiasm? Let us try her on another surface. Do you remember your father, cara mia?” Barbara’s eyes met the Mancini’s with a sudden intense stare. “My father?” “He was a great scholar, was he not?” “Yes.” “Books become such friends to us! Did he teach you—at all?” “Oh, sometimes. He was very patient. How dark the sky looks!” Hortense smiled. She had a suspicion that she was no longer fumbling in the dark. She had touched the girl beneath her apathy and her reserve. “Have you your father’s books—still?” “They are in the library—covered with dust.” “Why do you not keep the dust away by reading them. You could fancy yourself talking with him when you turned the pages he had turned.” “Could I?” Hortense became silent suddenly, her face turned with an expression of sadness toward the night. “Of course. It is in our memories that we live again. The past may become a kind of religion to us.” She did not look at the girl, but her brilliant and sensitive consciousness waited for impressions. Barbara remained motionless, with stolid, morose face. “What clever things you think of!” she said, abruptly. “But the books are nearly all in Latin. I wish I had not eaten so much supper. It always makes me sleepy and stupid.” Hortense turned with a sharpness that contradicted her soft and sympathetic attitude. “Perhaps you would like some wine?” “No, I thank you, madam. Mother made me drink half a jugful before we came. She said that it might make me talk.” Hortense gave her one searching stare. “Either you are very clever or very dull,” she said to herself. “I must try other methods, for I want to see you show yourself. Then—we may understand.” It was possible that the Mancini knew that her salon would not maintain its air of Platonic tranquillity throughout the whole evening. She who queened it for the moment above a galaxy of queens could not be left long uncourted by the courtiers of her King. She was the Spirit of Wit and the Pyre of Passion for that year at least; a fire about which the moths might flutter; a Partisan of Princes; a shrewd, roguish, laughter-loving woman. She was never unwilling that a fashionable rout should storm and take possession of her house, for they came to entertain her with their nonsense and to flatter her pride by attending at her court. A flare of links across the park, and the sound of laughter warned Hortense of a possible invasion. The torches flowed in the direction of her house, with a confusion of voices that betrayed the spirit of the invaders. Barbara, who sat watching the stream of fire, saw the link-boys running on ahead, with the glare of their torches flashing over the grass and upon the trunks of the trees, while behind these fire-flies came a stream of gentlemen in bright-colored cloaks, arguing and laughing, some of them flourishing their swords like sticks. Hortense appealed to her guests. “Alas! my friends, here come the court innocents with all manner of nonsense in their noddles. Shall we stand a siege?” “You will never keep fools out of heaven, madam,” said the Fellow of the Royal Society, with a cynical sniff; “have them in, and let us moralize on the wasted energies of youth.” “And you—my vestals?” The girls at the card-table betrayed no immoderate shyness. “And my Lady Purcell?” “Should a woman be afraid of a boy’s tongue? We can clip it with our wit.” “They are in the court-yard already, the mad children! Let us see what power music may have over them.” And she sat down at the harpsichord and began to play with great unction a dolorous chant that was familiar to serious singers of psalms. Comus and his crew came in right merrily with a superfluity of ironical obeisances and vivid color-contrasts in their clothes. The party was headed by a figure in a black silk gown, with huge lawn ruffles at the wrists, a white periwig, and a big lace bib. Barbara recognized my Lord Gore among the gentlemen, and in the background she caught a glimpse of the brown and imperturbable face of John Gore, his son. Hortense still fingered out her psalm as though ignoring the irruption of the world, the flesh, and the devil into her house. The three girls at the card-table sat with eyes cast down and hands folded demurely in prim laps. The grim old gentleman reclined in his chair, and stared at the intruders with the inimitable assurance of a Diogenes. Barbara remained by the window in isolation, while her mother and the widow were smiling and whispering together in a corner. The gentry of Whitehall appreciated the satirical humor of their welcome. Hortense was laughing at them with that dolorous canticle of hers. “Now, Thomas, where is your wit?” “Prick the bishop’s calves, he has gone to sleep.” They laughed and applauded as the figure in the silk gown moved forward into the room. Mr. Thomas Temple could play a variety of parts. His mimicry excelled in burlesquing the episcopate. “My children, let peace be upon this house.” And he gave them a pompous blessing with upraised hands. Hortense rose from the harpsichord with the assumed fire of a fanatic. “Children of Belial!” “Lady, pardon me, they are already qualifying as saints.” “What sayest thou, Antichrist, thou Red Man of Rome? Woe, woe unto this city when its priests wax fat in purple and fine linen!” The bishop extended reproving hands. “Woman, blaspheme not! We are here to save all souls with the kiss of peace. My children, come hither. Have you been baptized?” The three girls tittered. Hortense stood forward, flinging out one arm with a passionate gesture of scorn. “Behold the book of the beast. Behold the Serpent without a surplice! And you—ye children of iniquity—make way for Thomas with the wine!” There was a shout of laughter as my lord the bishop, picking up his skirts, cut a delighted caper. “Alas, she has bewitched me! St. Sack, where art thou—oh, strengthener of my soul?” A footman bearing a tray with flasks and glasses moved stolidly through the crowd. The mock churchman extended a protecting arm. “Bless you, my son. Blessed are all vintners and tavern-keepers! And you, madam” (he turned to her with a stately obeisance), “our Lord the King of his nobleness hath sent us to unbind your eyes—and to lead you into the paths of light. We will baptize those innocents yonder into the one true church, even the church of Sack—and Sashes. Let all the heathen rejoice for the souls we shall save this day from the pit of prudery. No woman can be saved unless she be kissed. Amen.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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