He gave her a dreadful sofa once, after the success of his
Du Barri memoir, with swollen cushions and soft, receptive lap, and it
seemed to her a miserable thing that there, in her very home, should
flaunt this re-incarnation of a dead old French sinner.
Simply good, convinced that morality is the basis of happiness,
the fact that she and Frederick should draw their sustenance from
guilt, however much purged by the passage of centuries, was one of the
secret reasons of her sadness. The more the memoired lady had
forgotten herself, the more his book about her was read and the more
free-handed he was to his wife; and all that he gave her was spent,
after adding slightly to her nest-egg--for she did hope and believe
that some day people would cease to want to read of wickedness, and
then Frederick would need supporting--on helping the poor. The parish
flourished because, to take a handful at random, of the ill-behavior of
the ladies Du Barri, Montespan, Pompadour, Ninon de l'Enclos, and even
of learned Maintenon. The poor were the filter through which the money
was passed, to come out, Mrs. Arbuthnot hoped, purified. She could do
no more. She had tried in days gone by to think the situation out, to
discover the exact right course for her to take, but had found it, as
she had found Frederick, too difficult, and had left it, as she had
left Frederick, to God.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41