Sir Jeoffry,who had watched her as she queened it amongst rakes and fops and honest country squires and knights,had marked the vigour with which they plied her with an emotion which was a new sensation to his drink-bemuddled brain.So far as it was in his nature to love another than himself,he had learned to love this young lovely virago of his own flesh and blood,perchance because she was the only creature who had never quailed before him,and had always known how to bend him to her will.
When the chariot rode away,he looked at her as she sat erect in the early morning light,as unblenching,bright,and untouched in bloom as if she had that moment risen from her pillow and washed her face in dew.He was not so drunk as he had been at midnight,but he was a little maudlin.
"By God,thou art handsome,Clo!"he said."By God,I never saw a finer woman!""Nor I,"she answered back,"which I thank Heaven for.""Thou pretty,brazen baggage,"her father laughed."Old Dunstanwolde looked thee well over to-night.He never looked away from the moment he clapped eyes on thee.""That I knew better than thee,Dad,"said the beauty;"and I saw that he could not have done it if he had tried.If there comes no richer,younger great gentleman,he shall marry me.""Thou hast a sharp eye and a keen wit,"said Sir Jeoffry,looking askance at her with a new maggot in his brain."Wouldst never play the fool,I warrant.They will press thee hard and 'twill be hard to withstand their lovemaking,but I shall never have to mount and ride off with pistols in my holsters to bring back a man and make him marry thee,as Chris Crowell had to do for his youngest wench.
Thou wouldst never play the fool,I warrant--wouldst thou,Clo?"She tossed her head and laughed like a young scornful devil,showing her white pearl teeth between her lips'scarlet.
"Not I,"she said."There thou mayst trust me.I would not be found out."She played her part as triumphant beauty so successfully that the cleverest managing mother in the universe could not have bettered her position.Gallants brawled for her;honest men fell at her feet;romantic swains wrote verses to her,praising her eyes,her delicate bosom,the carnation of her cheek,and the awful majesty of her mien.In every revel she was queen,in every contest of beauties Venus,in every spectacle of triumph empress of them all.
The Earl of Dunstanwolde,who had the oldest name and the richest estates in his own county and the six adjoining ones,who,having made a love-match in his prime,and lost wife and heir but a year after his nuptials,had been the despair of every maid and mother who knew him,because he would not be melted to a marriageable mood.
After the hunt ball this mourning nobleman,who was by this time of ripe years,had appeared in the world again as he had not done for many years.Before many months had elapsed,it was known that his admiration of the new beauty was confessed,and it was believed that he but waited further knowledge of her to advance to the point of laying his title and estates at her feet.
But though,two years before,the entire county would have rated low indeed the wit and foresight of the man who had even hinted the possibility of such honour and good fortune being in prospect for the young lady,so great was Mistress Clorinda's brilliant and noble beauty,and with such majesty she bore herself in these times,that there were even those who doubted whether she would think my lord a rich enough prize for her,and if,when he fell upon his knees,she would deign to become his countess,feeling that she had such splendid wares to dispose of as might be bartered for a duke,when she went to town and to court.
During the length of more than one man's lifetime after,the reign of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs was a memory recalled over the bottle at the dining-table among men,some of whom had but heard their fathers vaunt her beauties.It seemed as if in her person there was not a single flaw,or indeed a charm,which had not reached the highest point of beauty.For shape she might have vied with young Diana,mounted side by side with her upon a pedestal;her raven locks were of a length and luxuriance to clothe her as a garment,her great eye commanded and flashed as Juno's might have done in the goddess's divinest moments of lovely pride,and though it was said none ever saw it languish,each man who adored her was maddened by the secret belief that Venus'self could not so melt in love as she if she would stoop to loving--as each one prayed she might--himself.
Her hands and feet,her neck,the slimness of her waist,her mantling crimson and ivory white,her little ear,her scarlet lip,the pearls between them and her long white throat,were perfection each and all,and catalogued with oaths of rapture.
"She hath such beauties,"one admirer said,"that a man must toast them all and cannot drink to her as to a single woman.And she hath so many that to slight none her servant must go from the table reeling."There was but one thing connected with her which was not a weapon to her hand,and this was,that she was not a fortune.Sir Jeoffry had drunk and rioted until he had but little left.He had cut his timber and let his estate go to rack,having,indeed,no money to keep it up.The great Hall,which had once been a fine old place,was almost a ruin.Its carved oak and noble rooms and galleries were all of its past splendours that remained.All had been sold that could be sold,and all the outcome had been spent.The county,indeed,wondered where Mistress Clorinda's fine clothes came from,and knew full well why she was not taken to court to kneel to the Queen.That she was waiting for this to make her match,the envious were quite sure,and did not hesitate to whisper pretty loudly.
