The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“No wonder then, if Josepha be one of the richest women in England. Who is the richest man, Antony?”

“I am, Annie! I am! Thou art my wife and there is not gold enough in England to measure thy worth nor yet to have made me happy if I had missed thee.” What else could a wise and loving husband say?

In the meantime Katherine and Harry had been gladly received by Lady Jane, who at once asked Harry to stay and dine with them.

“What about my street suit?” asked Harry.

“We have a family dinner this evening and expect no one to join us. De Burg may probably call and he may bring his sister with him. However, Harry, you know your old room on the third floor. I will send Leyland’s valet there and he will manage to make you presentable.”

These instructions Harry readily obeyed, and soon as he had left the room Lady Jane asked – “Where did you pick him up, Kitty? He is quite a detrimental in father’s opinion, you know.”

“I picked him up in a weaving room in the locality called Spitalfields. He was working there on a Jacquard loom.”

“What nonsense you are talking!”

“I am telling you facts, Jane. I will explain them later. Now I must go and dress for dinner, if you are expecting the De Burgs.”

“They will only pay an evening call, but make yourself as pretty as is proper for the occasion. If De Burg does not bring his sister you will not be expected to converse.”

“Oh, Jane dear! I am not thinking, or caring, about the De Burgs. My mind was on Harry and of course I shall dress a little for Harry. I have always done that.”

“You will take your own way, Kitty, that also you have always done.”

“Well, then, is there any reason why I should not take my own way now?”

She asked this question in a pleasant, laughing manner that required no answer; and with it disappeared not returning to the parlor, until the dinner hour was imminent. She found Harry and Lady Jane already there, and she fancied they were talking rather seriously. In fact, Harry had eagerly seized this opportunity to try and enlist Jane’s sympathy in his love for Katherine. He had passionately urged their long devotion to each other and entreated her to give him some opportunities to retain his hold on her affection.

Jane had in no way compromised her own position. She was kind-hearted and she had an old liking for Harry, but she was ambitious, and she was resolved that Katherine should make an undeniably good alliance. De Burg was not equal to her expectations but she judged he would be a good auxiliary to them. “My beautiful sister,” she thought, “must have a splendid following of lovers and De Burg will make a prominent member of it.”

So she was not sorry to see Katherine enter in a pretty, simple frock of flowered silk, pale blue in color, and further softened by a good deal of Valenciennes lace and a belt and long sash of white ribbon. Her hair was dressed in the mode, lifted high and loosely, and confined by an exquisite comb of carved ivory; the frontal curls were pushed behind the ears, but fell in bright luxuriance almost to her belt. So fair was she, so fresh and sweet and lovely, that Leyland – who was both sentimental and poetic, within practical limits – thought instantly of Ben Jonson’s exquisite lines, and applied them to his beautiful sister-in-law:

Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you smelt of the bud of the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or tasted the bag of the bee,
O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

And then he felt a decided obligation to his own good judgment, for inducing him to marry into so handsome a family.

It was a comfortable mood in which to sit down to dinner and Harry’s presence also added to his pleasure, for it promised him some conversation not altogether feminine. Indeed, though the dinner was a simple family one, it was a very delightful meal. Leyland quoted some of his shortest and finest lines, Lady Jane merrily recalled childish episodes in which Harry and herself played the principal rôles, and Katherine made funny little corrections and additions to her sister’s picturesque childish adventures; also, being healthily hungry, she ate a second supply of her favorite pudding and thus made everyone comfortably sure that for all her charm and loveliness, she was yet a creature

Not too bright and good,
For human nature’s daily food.

They lingered long at the happy table and were still laughing and cracking nuts round it when De Burg was announced. He was accompanied by a new member of Parliament from Carlisle and the conversation drifted quickly to politics. De Burg wanted to know if Leyland was going to The House. He thought there would be a late sitting and said there was a tremendous crowd round the parliament buildings, “but,” he added, “my friend was amazed at the dead silence which pervaded it, and, indeed, if you compare this voiceless manifestation of popular feeling with the passionate turbulence of the same crowd, it is very remarkable.”

“And it is much more dangerous,” answered Ley-land. “The voiceless anger of an English crowd is very like the deathly politeness of the man who brings you a challenge. As soon as they become quiet they are ready for action. We are apt to call them uneducated, but in politics they have been well taught by their leaders who are generally remarkably clever men, and it is said also that one man in seventeen among our weavers can read and perhaps even sign his name.”

“That one is too many,” replied De Burg. “It makes them dangerous. Yet men like Lord Brougham are always writing and talking about it being our duty to educate them.”

“Why, Sir Brougham formed a society for ‘The Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’ four or five years ago – an entirely new sort of knowledge for working men – knowledge relating to this world, personal and municipal. That is how he actually described his little sixpenny books. Then some Scotchman called Chambers began to publish a cheap magazine. I take it. It is not bad at all – but things like these are going to make literature cheap and common.”

“And I heard my own clergyman say that he considered secular teaching of the poor classes to be hostile to Christianity.”

Then Lady Jane remarked – as if to herself – “How dangerous to good society the Apostles must have been!”

Leyland smiled at his wife and answered, “They were. They changed it altogether.”

“The outlook is very bad,” continued De Burg. “The tide of democracy is setting in. It will sweep us all away and break down every barrier raised by civilization. And we may play at Canute, if we like, but – ” and De Burg shook his head and was silent in that hopeless fashion that represents circumstances perfectly desperate.

Leyland took De Burg’s prophetic gloom quite cheerfully. He had a verse ready for it and he gave it with apparent pleasure —

“Yet men will still be ruled by men,
And talk will have its day,
And other men will come again
To chase the rogues away.”

“That seems to be the way things are ordered, sir.”

After Leyland’s poetic interval, Lady Jane glanced at her husband and said: “Let us forget politics awhile. If we go to the drawing-room, perhaps Miss Annis or Mr. Bradley will give us a song.”

Everyone gladly accepted the proposal and followed Lady Jane to the beautiful, light warm room.

It was so gay with flowers and color, it was so softly lit by wax candles and the glow of the fire, it was so comfortably warmed by the little blaze on the white marble hearth, that the spirits of all experienced a sudden happy uplift. De Burg went at once to the fireside. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “how good is the fire! How cheerful, how homelike! Every day in the year, I have fires in some rooms in the castle.”

“Well, De Burg, how is that?”

“You know, Leyland, my home is surrounded by mountains and I may say I am in the clouds most of the time. We are far north from here and I am so much alone I have made a friend of the fire.”

“I thought, sir, your mother lived with you.”

“I am unhappy in her long and frequent absences. My cousin Agatha cannot bear the climate. She is very delicate and my mother takes her southward for the winters. They are now in the Isle of Wight but they will be in London within a week. For a short time they will remain with me then they return to De Burg Castle until the cold drives them south again.”

Lady Jane offered some polite sympathies and De Burg from his vantage ground of the hearth-rug surveyed the room. Its beauty and fitness delighted him and he at once began to consider how the De Burg drawing-room would look if arranged after its fashion. He could not help this method of looking at whatever was beautiful and appropriate; he had to place the thing, whatever it was, in a position which related itself either to De Burg, or the De Burg possessions. So when he had placed the Ley-land drawing-room in the gloomy De Burg Castle, he took into his consideration Katherine Annis as the mistress of it.

Katherine was sitting with Harry near the piano and her sister was standing before her with some music in her hand. “You are now going to sing for us, Katherine,” she said, “and you will help Katherine, dear Harry, for you know all her songs.”

“No, dear lady, I cannot on any account sing tonight.”

No entreaties could alter Harry’s determination and it was during this little episode De Burg approached. Hearing the positive refusal, he offered his services with that air of certain satisfaction which insured its acceptance. Then the songs he could sing were to be selected, and this gave him a good opportunity of talking freely with the girl whom he might possibly choose for the wife of a De Burg and the mistress of his ancient castle. He found her sweet and obliging and ready to sing whatever he thought most suitable to the compass and quality of his voice, and as Lord and Lady Leyland assisted in this choice, Harry was left alone; but when the singing began Harry was quickly at Katherine’s side, making the turning of the music sheets his excuse for interference. It appeared quite proper to De Burg that someone should turn the leaves for him and he acknowledged the courtesy by a bend of his head and afterwards thanked Harry for the civility, saying, “it enabled him to do justice to his own voice and also to the rather difficult singing of the fair songstress.” He put himself first, because at the moment he was really feeling that his voice and personality had been the dominating quality in the two songs they sang together.

But though De Burg did his best and the Leylands expressed their pleasure charmingly and Harry bowed and smiled, no one was enthusiastic; and Ley-land could not find any quotation to cap the presumed pleasure the music had given them. Then Harry seized the opportunity that came with the rise of Katherine to offer his arm and lead her to their former seat on the sofa leaving De Burg to the society of Leyland and his wife. He had come, however, to the conclusion that Katherine was worthy of further attentions, but he did not make on her young and tender heart any fixed or favorable impression. For this man with all his considerations had not yet learned that the selfish lover never really succeeds; that the woman he attempts to woo just looks at him and then turns to something more interesting.

After all, the music had not united the small gathering, indeed it had more certainly divided them. Lord Leyland remained at De Burg’s side and Lady Jane through some natural inclination joined them. For she had no intention in the matter, it merely pleased her to do it, and it certainly pleased Katherine and Harry that she had left them at liberty to please each other.

Katherine had felt a little hurt by her lover’s refusal to sing but he had promised to explain his reason for doing so to Jane and herself when they were alone; and she had accepted this put-off apology in a manner so sweet and confiding that it would have satisfied even De Burg’s idea of a wife’s subordination to her husband’s feelings or caprices.