Lady Barbarity: A Romance

A ROMANCE
BY J. C. SNAITH
AUTHOR OF MISTRESS DOROTHY MARVIN AND FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER
NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1899
Copyright, 1898, 1899, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS.
LADY BARBARITY.
To deny that I am an absurdly handsome being would be an affectation. Besides, if I did deny it, my face and shape are always present to reprove me. Some women I know—we call each other friends—who happen to possess an eyebrow, an elbow, an impertinence, a simper, or any other thing that is observable, I have seen to cast their eyes down at the compliment, and try to look so modest too, that one could tell quite easily that this missish diffidence was a piece of art since it sat so consciously upon ’em, it could not possibly be nature. But furnished as I am with a whole artillery of charms, sure they need no adventitious blushes for their advertisement; indeed, they are so greatly and variously sung that it is quite a common thing for the poets to make an ode or sonnet of ’em every night, and a ballad every morning. The late poor little Mr. Pope was so occupied at times in comparing my eyes to Jupiter, or the evening star that I was fain to correct him for ’t, on the pretext that the heavenly bodies might not like it, they being such exalted things, whilst my Lady Barbarity was but a humble creature in a petticoat. Therefore if you would know the graces of my person I must refer you to the poets of the age; but if you would seek the graces of my mind, in this book you shall discover them, for I could not make it wittier if I tried. I have heard the young beaux speak of certain women of their acquaintancy as being as justly celebrated for their wit as for their beauty, but have yet to hear the old ones say this, since they know that wit and beauty is as rare a combination as is loveliness and modesty. This book will tell you, then, that my wit is in proportion to my modesty.
I returned from town with a hundred triumphs, but my heart intact. The whirl of fashion had palled upon me for a season. I was weary of the fume I had created in St. James’s and the Mall, and I retired to my northern home in the late January of ’46. Sweet High Cleeby, cradle of my joyous girlhood, home of romance and these strange events I now relate, let me mention you with reverence and love. Yet our ancestral seat is a cold and sombre place enough, wrapped in ivy and gray ghostliness. The manor is folded in on every side by a shivering gloom of woods, and in winter you can hear them cry in company with those uneasy souls that make our casements rattle. ’Tis dreary as November with its weed-grown moat; its cawing rooks; its quaint gables of Elizabeth; and its sixteenth-century countenance, crumbling and grim. Besides, it occupies a most solitary spot on the bare bosom of the moors, many a mile from human habitation, a forsaken house indeed where in the winter time rude blasts and the wind-beaten birds are its customary visitors. But the brisk north gales that fling the leaves about it, and scream among the chimneys late at night, had no sooner whipped my cheeks than my blood suddenly woke up and I began to rejoice in my return. The morning after my arrival, when I carried crumbs to the lawn in the hope of an early robin, a frost-breath stung my lips, and at the first bite of it, sure methinks I am tasting life at last. Ten months had I been regaled in town with the cream of everything that is; but it seemed that I must resort to my dear despised old Cleeby for those keen airs that keep the pulses vigorous. London is fine comedy, but in ten months the incomparable Mr. Congreve loses his savour, even for a sinner. Ombre was indeed a lively game; the play adorable; Vauxhall entertaining; wholesale conquest most appetising to feed one’s vanity upon, while to be the toast of the year was what not even the psalm-book of my dearest Prue would venture to disdain. To be courted, flattered, and applauded by every waistcoat west of Temple Bar, beginning with the K——g’s, was to become a mark for envy, and yet to stand superior to it in oneself. But now I was tiring of playing “Lady Barbarity” to coats and wigs, and silver-buckled shoes. This is the name the beaux had dubbed me, “Because” said they, “you are so cruel.”