What? My sweet Lady Standish in tears!
Mistress Kitty Bellairs poised her dainty person on one foot and cast a mocking, somewhat contemptuous, yet good-humoured glance at the slim length of sobbing womanhood prone on the gilt-legged, satin-cushioned sofa.
Tears, said Mistress Kitty, twirling round on her heel to look at the set of her new sacque in the mirror and admire its delicate flowered folds, as they caught the shafts of spring sunshine that pierced into the long dim room from the narrow street. "Tears, my dear, unless you cry becomingly, which I would have you know not one in the thousand can, are a luxury every self-respecting woman ought to deny herself. Now I," said Mistress Kitty, and tweaked at a powdered curl and turned her head like a bird for a last glimpse at the mirror before sinking into an arm-chair and drawing closer to her afflicted friend, "have not shed a tear since I lost my first lover, and that is—I will not say how many years ago. I was a mightily precocious child! When I say a tear, mind you, 'tis a figure of speech. Far be it from me to deny the charm of a pearly drop—just one: enough to gather on the tip of the finger, enough just to suffuse the pathetic eye. Oh, that is not only permissible, 'tis to be cultivated. But such weeping as yours—sobs that shake you, tears that drench the handkerchief, redden the eyes, not to speak of the nose—fie! fie! it is clean against all reason. Come!" with a sudden gentle change of tone, putting her hand on the abased head, where fair curls luxuriated in all their native sunshine, "what is it all about?"
Lady Standish slowly and languidly drew herself into a sitting posture, and raised a countenance marred out of its delicate beauty by the violent passion of her grief. Swimming blue eyes she fixed upon the Mistress Kitty's plump dimpling face.
Alas! she breathed upon the gust of a sigh that was as wet as an April breeze, and tripped up by a belated sob. "Alas! you see in me the most miserable of women. Alas! my heart is broken!"
Here the kerchief, soaked indeed beyond all possible utility, was frantically held to streaming eyes once more.
Mercy! cried the pretty widow, "you could not take on worse if you had the smallpox: you a three-months' wife!"
Ah me! moaned Lady Standish.
So, said Mistress Kitty, "he has been a brute again, has he? Come, Julia, weep on my bosom. What is it now? Did he kiss you on the forehead instead of on the lips? Or did he say: 'Zounds, madam!' when you upset a dish of tea over his waistcoat? Or yet did he, could he, the monster!—nay it is not possible, yet men are so—could he have whispered that Lady Caroline looked—passable last night?"
Lady Standish rose to her feet, crumpled her kerchief in one small hand and faced her friend with tragic passion.
It is useless to blind myself, she said. "Cease to gibe at me, pray, Mistress Bellairs; I must face the truth! My husband loves me no longer. Oh! Kitty, Kitty," dropping from her height of tragedy very quickly and landing on a whimper again, "is it not sad? I have tried, Heaven is my witness, to win him back by the tenderest love, by the most pitiful pleading. He has seen me weep and pine. 'Rob me of your love,' I have told him, 'and you rob me of life.' And he, he—oh, how shall I tell you! As the days go by he is with me less and less. He walks abroad with others. His evenings he gives to strangers—ay, and half his nights—while I may sob myself to sleep at home. I saw him to-day but for two minutes—'twas half an hour ago. He entered here upon me, looking, ah Kitty! as only he can look, the most elegant and beautiful of men. I was singing, piping as a poor bird may to strive and call its mate to the nest. He passed through the room without a word, without a sign; he that used to say 'twas heaven to sit and listen to my voice. 'What!' I exclaimed as he reached the door, 'not a word for poor Julia?' Kitty, at the sound of that cry, wrung from my heart, he turned and frowned, and said—— (Oh, oh, oh.)"
Ha! cried Mistress Kitty, "what said he?" ("Heaven help him," said she aside; "the woman's a fountain.")
He said, sobbed Julia, "'Mayn't a man even go for a stroll?' Oh, had you but heard the cold indifferent tone, you would have understood how it cut me to the heart. I ran to him and laid my hand upon his sleeve, and he said——"
Again grief overcame her.
Well, what said he?
He said—oh, oh—he said, 'Julia don't paw me.'
Mistress Kitty Bellairs, the reigning toast of Bath, the prettiest woman, in the estimation of her admirers, in all England, and the wittiest, laughed low to herself, then rose from her chair, took her tall friend by the shoulders, and walked her up to the mirror.
Look at yourself, said she, "and look at me."
Lady Standish winced. The contrast between her own dishevelled hair, her marbled swollen countenance, her untidy morning gown, and the blooming perfection of the apparition beside her, was more than she could contemplate. Kitty Bellairs—as complete in every detail of beauty as a carnation—smiled upon herself sweetly.
My dear, said she, "I have had thirty-seven declared adorers these three years, and never one tired of me yet. Poor Bellairs," she said with a light sigh, "he had two wives before me, and he was sixty-nine when he died, but he told me with his last breath that 'twas I gave him all the joy he ever knew."
Lady Standish ceased weeping as suddenly as if her tears had been mechanically turned off. She regarded the widow earnestly.
Now, child, said Mistress Bellairs, with all the authority of her twenty-six years, "here we have been four weeks acquainted, and you have more than once done me the honour of saying that you considered me your friend."
'Tis so, said Lady Standish.
Then listen to me. There are three great rules to be observed in our dealings with men. The first rule comprises an extraordinary number of minor details, but briefly and comprehensively it runs thus: Never be monotonous! Second rule: Never let a man be too sure of you! Oh that is a wonderful wise maxim: reflect upon it. Third: Never, never let a man see how—well, how far from lovely you can look! Tush, tush, you are a better-looking woman than I am, but not when you have been blubbering and not when you are fretful.
Lady Standish suddenly sat down as if her limbs could support her no more. She looked up at the ceiling with tear-dimmed eyes.
Pray, said Mistress Kitty inquisitorially ex cathedra, "how many times a day do you tell that unfortunate man that you love him? And, worse still, how many times a day do you want him to say that he loves you? I vow 'tis enough to drive him to cards, or wine, or something infinitely worse that also begins with a w! And, pray, if you spend all you have, and empty your purse, do you think your purse becomes a very valuable possession? 'Tis a mere bit of leather. Nay, nay, keep your gold, and give it out piece by piece, and do not give it at all unless you get good change for it. Oh," cried Kitty, a fine flush of indignation rising scarlet behind her rouge, "I marvel that women should be such fools!—to act the handmaid where they should ever rule as mistress; to cast forth unsought what they should dole out only to the supplicant on bended knee. Hath a man ever had from me an unsolicited avowal? Have I ever thrown the most ardent lover more than a 'perhaps' and 'it may be,' a smile, a dimple, a finger-tip? (What they have stolen I have not given, that is obvious! And, besides, 'tis neither here nor there.) And pray, Lady Standish, since when have you left off putting on rouge and having your hair tired and powdered, and wearing a decent gown of mornings and a modish sacque, and a heel to that pretty foot, a jewel in the ear and a patch beneath the lip?"
Lady Standish had ceased contemplating the ceiling; she was looking at her friend.
But, madam, she said, "this is strange advice. Would you have me coquette with my husband, as if—God forgive me for even saying such a thing—as if I were not wife, but mistress?"
La, you there, said Mistress Bellairs, and clapped her hands, "there is the whole murder out! You are the man's lawful, honest wife, and therefore all tedium and homeliness, all fretful brow and tearful eye. God save us! who shall blame him if he seek a pleasant glint of vice to change him of you?"
There fell a silence. Lady Standish rose indignant, grew red, grew pale, caught a glimpse of herself again in the mirror, shrank from the sight, and crept back to the sofa with a humble and convicted air. Then she cast a look of anguished pleading at Mistress Bellairs's bright unfeeling countenance.
Tell me, she said with a parched lip, "what shall I do?"
Do! cried the widow, rising with a brisk laugh, "get some powder into your hair, and some colour into those cheeks! And when Sir Jasper returns (he left you in tears, he will be sullen when he comes home; 'tis a mere matter of self-defence) let him find you gay, distraite; say a sharp thing or two if you can; tell him you do not need his company this afternoon. Ah, and if you could make him jealous! 'Tis a very, very old trick, but then, you see, love is a very old game, the oldest of all. Make him jealous, my dear, make him jealous and you'll win the rubber yet!"
Jealous! cried the three-months' wife, and all the blood of the innocent country girl leapt to her brow. "Oh, madam, how could that be?"
Look out a beau, nay, two or three, 'tis safer! Talk discreetly with them in the Pump-Room, let them fan you at the ball, let them meet you in Orange-Grove. Or, if you have not spirit enough—and indeed, my sweet life, you sadly lack spirit—start but an imaginary one, merely for the use of your lord and master: I wager you he will rise to the fly.
I am afraid Sir Jasper could be very jealous, said the other uneasily. "I remember before we were wed, when my cousin Harry would ride with me to the meet, oh, how angry Sir Jasper was! He swore he would shoot himself, ay, and he was all for shooting Harry too."
But he was not the less ardent with you on the score of it, I'll warrant him, said the experienced Mistress Bellairs.
Ah, no, said Lady Standish, and her lip trembled over a smile, while the ready water sprang to her eyelashes, and: "Ah, no!" she said again. "Indeed, he loved me then very ardently."
And he'll love you so still if you have but a spark of courage. Get you to your room, said the widow, goodhumouredly, "bustle up and play your part. Where is that woman of yours?"
She pushed Lady Standish before her as she spoke, herself rang the call-bell for the tire-woman, and gave a few pregnant suggestions to that worthy, who advanced all sour smiles and disapproving dips. Then she strolled back into the drawing-room and paused a moment as she slipped on her long gloves. Next she drew a letter from her pocket and began to read it with a thoughtful brow.
No, no, Sir Jasper, she said half aloud, "you're a fine gentleman, and a pretty fellow, you have a neat leg, and an eloquent turn of speech, but I will not have the child's heart broken for the amusement of an idle day."
She took the letter between each little forefinger and thumb as if to tear it, thought better of it, folded it again and thrust it back into its place of concealment.
Presently she smiled to herself, and walked out of the long open window across the little strip of garden, and so through the iron gate into the shady back street.
Sir Jasper Standish halted on the flags of the Royal Crescent in front of his own door and his face darkened. He took a pinch of snuff.
Now! I shall find my lady in tears. What a strange world it is! The girl you woo is as merry as a May day: the wife you wed is like naught but early November. Equinoctial gales and water enough to drown the best spirits that ever were stilled. 'Tis a damp life, said Sir Jasper, "and a depressing."
He sighed as the door was thrown open by the footman, and crossed the hall into the morning-room, where he had left his lady weeping. He beheld a flowered brocade, a very shapely back, and a crisp powdered head outlined against the window, and thought he had come upon a visitor unawares.
I crave ten thousand pardons, quoth he, and swept from his gallant head his knowing three-cornered hat. But slowly the figure at the window turned and he saw his wife's eyes strangely brilliant over two pink cheeks, beneath the snow of her up-piled hair.
Julia! said he in amaze, and stared and stared again. ("And did I doubt my own taste?" thought he to himself. "Why, she is the prettiest woman in Bath!") "Expecting visitors, Julia?" He smiled as he spoke: in another minute that arm, shining pearl-like from the hanging lace of her sleeve, would be round his neck, and those lips (how red they were, and what a curve!) would be upon his. Well, a loving woman had her uses.
No, said Lady Standish to his query. She dropped the word with a faintly scornful smile, and a dimple came and went at the corner of her lip. There was a patch just above the dimple. Then she turned away and looked forth into the still, solemn, grey and green Crescent as before.
Sir Jasper stood bewildered. Then he put his hat upon a table and came up to his wife and placed his arm round her waist.
My sweet life, said he, "your gown is vastly becoming."
Sir Jasper, said Lady Standish, "you do me proud." She slipped from his embrace, sketched a curtesy, and moved to the next window.
Sir Jasper passed his hand across his brow. That was Julia, Julia his wife, sure enough; and yet, faith, it was a woman he did not know!
You are mightily interested in the Crescent, said he, with some humour.
My lady shrugged her shoulders.
I believe you were vexed with me this morning, love, said he.
I, vexed? said she. "Nay, why should I be vexed?" and then she tapped her foot and looked at the clock. "These servants grow monstrous unpunctual," she said; "are we not to dine to-day?"
He glanced down at the tapping shoe, its little pointing toe and curving heel. 'Twas a smart shoe, and boasted a diamond buckle in a knot of rose-coloured ribbon.
Egad! said he, "I doubt if there is another foot in Bath that could slip into that case."
And Sir Jasper was a connoisseur! His opinion of himself, his faith in his own discrimination (which had waned sadly these last days) began to rise again, not disagreeably. He smirked. My Lady Standish, who, after a way that only women can practise, seemed absorbed in the contemplation of the empty Crescent the while she was intent upon each shade of expression upon her husband's countenance, felt a sudden glow of confidence in her own powers that she had never known before. The game she had started with a beating heart and a dry throat began to have a certain charm of its own. Was it so easy really? Was a man so lightly swayed? There was contempt in the thought, and yet pleasure. Was all a woman's loving heart to count for so little, and a pretty gown, a new shoe, a coquettish manner for so much? Ah, there was bitterness in that! But yet the immediate result of this new method: that look in his eye, that softening of his lip, it was too sweet to be forborne. Kitty was right!
Sir Jasper took her hand.
It wants, said he, "full half-an-hour to dinner-time, love. Nay, do not draw your hand away. You are vexed with me? I left you weeping, 'twas unkind."
Weeping? said Julia, and her heart fluttered to her throat, so that she could hardly speak, and Kitty's maxims kept dancing before her eyes as if written in letters of fire. "Make him jealous—oh, if you make him jealous you will win the rubber yet!"
If I wept, said she, "must my tears have been for you?"
How now? said Sir Jasper, and dropped the little hand that struggled so gently yet determinedly to be free.
Oh, dear me, said Lady Standish, "how droll you men are!" She shrugged her shoulders and laughed affectedly. Like all budding actresses she over-did the part. But Sir Jasper was too much stirred, too much bewildered to be critical. Moreover his armour was not without vulnerable joints, and with a wanton word she had found one at the first pass.
How now? said he. "Madam, and what might that mean?"
Lady Standish trilled the bar of a song, and again directed her attention to the view.
Julia, said her husband in a deep voice. "Julia," he repeated with a threatening growl of passion.
Sir? she said, and tilted her little head.
Who then were your tears for, if they were not for me? What signify these manners? What do these insinuations mean? By Jupiter, I will have the truth! His face flushed, the veins on his temples swelled, his nostrils became dilated.
Lady Standish lifted the hanging lace of her sleeve with one hand and examined it minutely.
I would rather, she said, and her voice shook, "I would rather you did not question me, Sir Jasper." Then she flashed upon him in anger, swift and lovely, as he had never seen her flash before. "You go your own way free enough," she said. "These last three weeks you have not spent one evening in my company, and half your days are given to others of whom I know nothing, Oh, I am not complaining, sir! I did complain, but that is over. I was wrong, for I see adversities have their advantages." Here she smiled. (Had the man but known how near she was to tears!) "Your neglect leaves me free."
Free! cried Sir Jasper, and choked. "Free! Good heavens, free! What in the name of God do you mean? Free, madam?"
Sir Jasper, said Lady Standish, looking at him very earnestly, "you will never hear me ask again whose society it is you find so much more attractive than your wife's."
Indeed, cried Sir Jasper, and hesitated upon a gust of anger, at a loss in which direction to drive it forth.
No, said my lady, "and I expect the same good taste from you. 'Tis not too much to ask. Indeed you should rejoice if I have found consolation for your absence."
He broke out with a fearful oath, and almost leaped upon her.
Consolation! He plunged his hands into his powdered hair, and quivered into silence for the very impotence of words.
I said 'if,' said she. She was surprised to find how readily the words came to her; and yet her hands were clammy with fright, and her breath ran short between her rouged lips. "Let us leave it at the 'if.'"
She turned to the window and leant against it, drew her kerchief and fanned herself.
Passing along the railings opposite the Crescent, not twelve yards distant, a tall, slender young gentleman of attractive appearance, though very dark in complexion, caught sight of her lovely glowing face, stared first in unconscious admiration, then with recognition, and finally, blushing swarthily, saluted with some appearance of agitation. Lady Standish, aware that her husband had approached close behind her, and hearing in every creak of his satin coat the flattering emotion of his senses, felt herself driven more and more by the unknown demon of mischief that had taken possession of her. She fluttered her little handkerchief back at the young gentleman with a gesture that almost indicated the wafting of a kiss.
Death and damnation, cried Sir Jasper, "before my very eyes!"
He seized her by the wrist and flung her down upon the settee. "Nay," he cried, "there may be husbands that would put up with this, but I am not of them. So that is the Consoler! That is the Beau for whom you prink yourself with such fine feathers, whom you lie in wait for at the window to make signals to and smirk at! Oh, my innocent country daisy! Faugh! I might have known you were too fond—hypocrite!" He dashed at the window and burst its fastenings.
Hey! you, you my Lord Verney, a word with you! Sir Jasper was already foaming at the mouth.
The slim gentleman paused, surprised.
Oh, heavens! cried Lady Standish, "what have I done? Sir Jasper! my husband!" She threw herself upon him. "Sir Jasper, what do you suspect? Oh, heavens!" She was half fainting and scarce could articulate a coherent word. "It was all to tease you. It was but the sport of an idle moment. Oh, I implore you, believe me, believe me!"
Ay, deny! cried he. "Deny what I have seen with my own eyes! Let me go, madam." He thrust her aside, and, bareheaded, dashed down the stairs and out of the house towards Lord Verney, who, with a bashful, yet a pleasant smile, began to retrace his steps.
'Tis a fair day, Sir Jasper, said he courteously, and then became aware of Sir Jasper's convulsed face, and noted that Lady Standish, whom but a moment before he had beheld all smiling beauty, now clung despairingly to the window-post, her countenance ghastly behind her rouge.
Lord Verney was a shy young man.
Ah—ah, good morning, said he, bowed politely, and turned with celerity.
Sir Jasper flung a look of infinite derision and contempt towards his wife.
You have chosen, it seemed to say, "a pretty hare!" Then he arrested the slim swift figure with an aggressive shout:
Stand—stand, Lord Verney—Lord Verney—a word with you.
The youth stopped, wheeled round, and:
I am at your service, said he. A certain pallor had replaced the ingenuous young blushes upon his cheek, but into his eye there sprang a fine spark of spirit.
Sir Jasper marched upon him and only halted when his six feet of sinewy bulk were within a yard of the stripling's willowy shape. His hot red-brown eyes shot fire and fury, death and annihilation upon the innocent young peer. His full lips endeavoured to sneer, but rage distorted them to a grimace through which his white teeth shone forth ferociously.
Come, come, we understand each other, said he; "will you walk with me? There is no time like the present and a couple of friends are easy to come by."
'Tis vastly well, said Lord Verney with an attempt at dignity that betrayed the boy in every line of him. Then all at once colour flushed into his face again, and his rigid demeanour was broken up. "Come, devil take it all, Sir Jasper," said he, "and what is it about?"
Sir Jasper threw bloodshot eyes upwards.
This fellow, quoth he, appealing to Heaven—"oh! this pretty fellow! You want reasons, my Lord Verney?"
Lord Verney blushed and stammered. Gad, he'd like to know what he had done. He was at Sir Jasper's disposition, of course, but before drawing swords on a man——
Sir Jasper uttered a sound which was between a groan and a roar. He indicated with sweeping gesture the figure of Lady Standish strained in anguish watching, clinging still to the window-post. Then he hissed:
I know!
Sir Jasper!
I know, I tell you, repeated Sir Jasper, "let that suffice."
Good heavens, gasped Lord Verney, "here is some most grievous mistake. Do you mean, sir—am I to understand, Sir Jasper—? 'Tis monstrous." White dismay and crimson confusion chased each other across his candid brow. "Surely you do not mean me to understand that Lady Standish has any connection with this extraordinary scene?"
Sir Jasper's trembling hand was furiously uplifted, then blindly sought his sword hilt, and then dropped in impotent disgust at his side.
My lord, said he, "Lady Standish is the pearl of womanhood, I would have you know it! There never breathed a female more virtuously attached to her husband and her duty—I would have you know it!" His face was quite horrible to look at in its withering sarcasm. "My quarrel with you, sir, is—" He paused and cast a roving eye upon the young gentleman, who now began to show unequivocal signs of fear. A jealous husband, a contingency that may have to be met any day—but a raving maniac! ...
'Tis the shape of your leg that mispleases me, sir. You have a vile calf, I cannot endure that so offensive an outline should pass and repass my windows.
I understand, Sir Jasper, yes, yes, said Lord Verney soothingly, backing as he spoke and casting nervous eyes round the empty street. "And so, good-morning."
He bowed and turned.
Rat! cried Sir Jasper, and shot forth a clutching hand.
I will bear it in mind, cried Lord Verney. "Good-morning, good-morning!"
He was fleeing away on a swift foot.
Rat! Rat! screamed the enraged baronet, starting in pursuit. But his passion made him clumsy. He stumbled, lurched, struck his foot against a stone, fell upon his knee and rose in another mood: one of darkling sullen determination for revenge.
Lord Verney was a timid young man. Had it been with anyone else that this scene in the Royal Crescent had taken place all Bath would have known within the hour that Sir Jasper Standish had been seized with sudden lunacy. But Lord Verney was of those who turn a word over three times before they speak and then say something else. Moreover, he was not sure that he himself had cut a brilliant figure in the amazing duologue, so he held his tongue upon it.
As the day grew, however, he began to have a curious recollection of Lady Standish's lovely smiling greeting and of that little gesture with the white handkerchief, which had almost seemed like the blowing of a kiss (here his very ears would grow hot), then of Sir Jasper's inexplicable wrath, and of the stricken figure by the window! Could it be? Twas impossible! Nay, but such things had been. When the dusk fell he made up his mind and sought the counsels of that fashionable friend who was kind enough to pilot his
Sir Jasper came striding back to the house. In the morning-room he passed his wife without a word.
Sir Jasper, quoth she, and shot out a timid hand. "Oh, Sir Jasper, will you not listen to me? This is the most terrible mistake. Sir Jasper, I swear I am true to you, not only in deed but in every inmost thought."
Do not swear, madam, said he, and shut the door in her face.
Ten minutes later he sallied forth again. She heard his steps ring out: they sounded very desperate. She sat on the pink-striped settee in a misery too deep this time for tears. How puerile, how far away, seemed the morning's storm. She sat with her hands locked and her eyes starting, revolving terrible possibilities, and fruitless plans for preventing them. Dinner was served in vain. Her ladyship's woman brought her a dish of tea. This poor Julia drank, for she felt faint and weary. Then a sudden thought struck her.
'Tis Mistress Bellairs who made the mischief, she thought, "now she must mend it." She dashed off a despairing note to the lady and dispatched her black page with all possible celerity.
I have followed your advice, to my undoing. You told me to make Sir Jasper jealous; I tried to make him jealous, and succeeded far too well. He fancies there is something between me and Lord Verney. Poor young man, I have spoken to him but three times in my life! There will be a duel and they will both be killed. Come to me, dear Mistress Bellairs, and see what is to be done, for I am half dead with fear and anguish.
The dusk was falling when, with incredible celerity, the sedan-chair of Mistress Bellairs rounded the corner at a swinging pace; her bell-like voice might be heard from within rating the chairmen with no gentle tone for their sluggishness.
'Tis snails ye are—snails, not men. La! is there one of you that is not a great-grandfather? It is not, I would have you know, a coffin that you are carrying, but a chair. Oh, Gad, deliver me from such lazy scoundrels!
In a storm she burst open the door; in a whirlwind tore through the passage. Lady Standish's obsequious footmen she flounced upon one side. Into that afflicted lady's presence she burst with undiminished vigour.
So, said she, "these are fine goings on! And why Lord Verney, may I inquire?"
Oh, Mistress Bellairs, ejaculated her friend, with a wail, "'tis indeed terrible. Think of Sir Jasper's danger, and all because of my folly in listening to your pernicious advice."
My advice! cried Mistress Kitty. "My advice—this is pretty hearing! Here, where is that woman of yours, and where are those stuffed owls you keep in the hall. What is the use of them if they do not do their business? Light up, light up—who can speak in the dark?" She ran from one door to another calling.
Oh, dear, sighed Lady Standish, and leant her distraught head against the cushions.
Come, come, cried Mistress Bellairs, heedless of the presence of footmen with tapers, and lady's-maid with twinkling curl paper. "Sit up this minute, Julia, and tell me the whole from the beginning. It is no use your trying to extenuate, for I will know all that has happened."
But before her friend, whose back was beginning to stiffen under this treatment, had had time to collect her thoughts sufficiently for a dignified reply, Mistress Kitty herself proceeded with great volubility:
And so, madam, not content with having a new young husband of your own, you must fix upon Lord Verney for your manoeuvres. Why, he has never so much as blinked the same side of the room as you. Why, it was but yester-night he vowed he hardly knew if you were tall or short. Put that out of your head, my Lady Standish, Lord Verney is not for you. Oh, these country girls!
Lady Standish rose, quivering with rage.
Be silent, madam, she said, "your words have neither sense nor truth. I was ill-advised enough to listen to your unwomanly counsels. I tried to deceive my husband, and God has punished me."
Ah, said Mrs. Kitty, "deceit is a very grievous sin. I wonder at you, that you must fix upon Lord Verney. Oh, Julia!" here her voice grew melting and her large brown eyes suffused. "You had all Bath," she said, "and you must fix upon Lord Verney. The one man I thought ... the one man I could have.... Oh, how did you dare? Nay! It is a blind," she cried, flaming again into indignation and catching her friend by the wrist. "There was more in your game than you pretend, you sly and silken hypocrite! If he is killed, how will you feel then?"
Oh, exclaimed Lady Standish, "cruel woman! Is this your help? Sir Jasper killed!"
Sir Jasper? Sir Fiddle! cried Mistress Kitty, with a fine scorn. "Who cares for Sir Jasper? 'Tis my Harry I think of. Oh, oh!" cried the widow, and burst into tears.
Lady Standish stood confounded.
What! cried she, "you love Lord Verney?"
'Tis the only man of them, sobbed Kitty, "who does not pester me with his devotion—the only one who does not come to my call like a lap-dog. If I look at him he blushes for bashfulness, and not for love; if his hand shakes it is because he is so sweetly timid, not because my touch thrills him. I had set my heart," said Mistress Kitty through her clenched teeth—"I had set my heart upon Lord Verney, and now you must needs have him ki—ki—killed before I have even had time to make him see the colour of my eyes."
Oh, oh! sighed Julia Standish, still beyond tears.
And:
Oh! sobbed Kitty Bellairs, quite forgetful of red noses and swollen lids.
There was a silence broken only by the sobs of the widow and the sighs of the wife.
Then said Mistress Kitty, in a small, strangled voice: "Let this be a lesson to you never to deceive."
I never told a single lie before, moaned Lady Standish.
Ah! said Kitty, "there never was a single lie, madam. A lie is wed as soon as born, and its progeny exceeds that of Abraham."
The two women rose from their despairing postures, and, mutually pushed by the same impulse, approached each other.
What is to be done now? said Lady Standish.
What is to be done? said Mistress Bellairs.
Let us seek Sir Jasper, said his wife, "and tell him the whole truth."
Kitty, through wet eyelashes, shot a glance of withering scorn upon her friend.
Ay, she said sarcastically, "that would be useful truly. Why, child, let you and me but go and swear your innocence to Sir Jasper, and it will be enough to establish you steeped in guilt in the eyes of every sensible person for the rest of your life. No," said she, "better must be thought of than that. We must act midwife to the lie and start the little family as soon as possible."
I will lie no more, said Lady Standish.
I am told, said Mistress Kitty musingly, "that Lord Verney has learned swordsmanship abroad."
Oh, cruel! moaned the other.
Mistress Kitty paused, bit a taper finger, scratched an arch eyebrow, drew white brows together, pondered deeply. Suddenly her dimples peeped again.
I have it! said she. "'Tis as easy as can be. Will you leave it to me?"
Lady Standish began to tremble. She had wept much, she had not eaten, her heart was full of terror. Faintness she felt creep upon her.
What will you do? she said, grasping after the vanishing powers of reflection with all her failing strength.
Do? said Mistress Bellairs. "First of all, prevent the duel. Will that serve you?"
Oh, yes, cried Julia, and grew livid behind her paint.
She has got the vapours again, thought the other. "What a poor weak fool it is!"
But these vapours came in handy to her plans; she was not keen to restore Lady Standish too promptly. She called her woman, however, and helped her to convey the sufferer to her room and lay her on the couch; then she advised sal volatile and sleep.
Leave it all to me, she murmured into the little ear uppermost upon the pillow; "I will save you."
Lady Standish groped for her friend's hand with her own that was cold and shaking. The ladies exchanged a clasp of confidence, and Mistress Bellairs tripped down to the drawing-room.
Now, said she to herself, "let us see." Sudden inspiration sparkled in her eye. She plunged her hand into the depth of the brocade pocket dangling at her side, drew forth sundry letters, and began to select with pursed lips. There was Sir Jasper's own. Those gallant well-turned lines, that might mean all or nothing, as a woman might choose to take them—that was of no use for the present. Back it went into the brocade pocket. There was a scrawl from Harry Verney declining her invitation to a breakfast party because he had promised (with two "m's") my Lord Scroop to shoot (with a "u" and an "e"). Kitty Bellairs looked at it very tenderly, folded it with a loving touch, and replaced it in its nest. Here was a large folded sheet, unaddressed, filled inside with bold black writing. A crisp auburn curl was fastened across the sheet by an emerald-headed pin.
Most cruel, most beautiful, most kind!
ran the ardent lines,
"most desired, most beloved! Was it last night or a hundred years ago that we met? This is the lock of hair the loveliest hand in all the world deigned to caress. It became upon that moment far too precious a thing for its poor owner. He ventures, therefore, to offer it at the shrine of the goddess who consecrated it. Will she cast it from her? Or will she keep it and let it speak to her, every hair a tongue, of the burning flame of love that she has kindled in this mortal breast? Did I dream, or can it be true?—there was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your lip. I kissed it. Oh, it must have been a dream! One word, fairest:—When may I dream again? Your own and ever your own.
"P.S.—The lock was white before you touched it, but you see you have turned it to fire!
Mistress Kitty read and smiled. "The very thing!" Then she paused. "But has the woman a dimple?" said she. "Has she? Never mind, something must be risked. Now, if I know men, Sir Jasper will spend the whole night prowling about, trying to discover confirmation of his suspicions."
The letter was folded up. "It must seem as if it dropped from my lady's bosom. Here, at the foot of the sofa, just peeping from behind the foot-stool! A jealous eye cannot miss it!"
The deed was done.
She caught up her cloak and hood, glanced cheerfully round the room, satisfied herself that the letter showed itself sufficiently in the candle light to attract a roving eye and, bustling forth, summoned her chair for her departure in a far better humour than that which had marked her arrival.
They could not fight till morning, she said to herself, as she snuggled against the silken sides. "Now heaven speed my plan!" She breathed a pious prayer as her bearers swung her onwards.
For the first time for over a fortnight Sir Jasper returned to the very fine mansion he had taken for the Bath season, before the small hours.
It was about ten o'clock of the evening that his impatient hand upon the knocker sent thunder through the house, startled the gambling footmen in the hall below and the fat butler from his comfortable nook at the housekeeper's fireside and his fragrant glass of punch. The nerves of the elder footman were indeed so shaken that he dropped an ace from his wide cuff as he swung back the door. Breathing hot lemon peel, the butler hurried to receive his master's cloak and cane. The ribbons of Mistress Tremlet's cap quivered over the staircase: the whole household was agog with curiosity, for her ladyship's woman had told them to a tear the state of her ladyship's feelings.
Sir Jasper cursed freely as he entered, struck the younger footman with his cane over the calves for gaping, requested a just Creator to dispose of his butler's soul with all possible celerity, and himself obligingly suggested the particular temperature most suitable to it; then strode he to the drawing-room with the brief announcement that he expected the visit of some gentlemen.
He looked round scowlingly for his wife. The room was empty and desolate in spite of bright chandeliers. He paused with a frowning brow, stood a moment irresolute, then shaped his course for the stairs and mounted with determined foot. In my lady's dressing-room, by one dismal candle, sat her woman, reading a book of sermons. She had a long pink face, had been her ladyship's mother's own attendant; and much Sir Jasper hated her. She rose bristling, dropped him a curtesy eloquent of a sense of his reprobation; and he felt that with every line of the homily she laid by on his appearance she had just damned him as comfortably as he the butler.
Oh, Lud, Lud! (thus she prayed Sir Jasper in a frightful whisper) would he in mercy walk softer? My lady was asleep. Her ladyship had been so unwell, so indisposed, that she, Megrim, had seen the moment when she must send for the apothecary, and have Sir Jasper looked for all over Bath. Sir Jasper did not seem to realise it, but my lady was of a delicate complexion: a tender flower! A harsh look from Sir Jasper, an unkind word, much less cruel treatment, and she would slip through his fingers. Ay, that she would.
Sir Jasper cast a lowering suspicious look around. He glared at the woman, at the corners of the room, at the closed door. He felt his hot jealousy sicken and turn green and yellow within him. He stretched out his hand towards the lock of his wife's door; but Mistress Megrim came between him and his purpose with determined movement, her stout bust creaking in its tight stays.
No, said she, "no, Sir Jasper, unless it be across my dead corpse!" Here she trembled very much and grew red about the eyes and nose.
Pshaw! said Sir Jasper, and walked away down the stairs again and into the empty, lighted drawing-room. First he halted by the window, where Lady Standish had stood and smiled upon Lord Verney. Then he went to her writing-desk, and laid his hand upon the casket where she kept her correspondence, then withdrawing it with a murmured curse, turned to the chair where she sat, and lifted up her bag of silks. But this he tossed from him without drawing the strings. Another moment and his eye caught the gleam of the letter so artfully hidden and exposed by Mistress Bellairs. He picked it up and surveyed it; it bore no address, was vaguely perfumed and fell temptingly open to his hand. He spread the sheet and saw the ruddy curl. Then his eyes read in spite of himself. And as he read the blood rushed to his brain and turned him giddy, and he sank on the settee and tore at the ruffles at his neck. For a moment he suffocated. With recovered breath came a fury as voluptuous as a rapture. He brought the paper to the light and examined the love-lock.
Red! said he, "red!"
He thought of Lord Verney's olive face, and looked and glared at the hair again as if he disbelieved his senses. Red! Were there two of them, a black and a ruddy? Stay; oh! women were sly devils! Lord Verney was a blind. This, this carrot Judas was the consoler! "There was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your lip. I dreamed I kissed it." Sir Jasper gave a sort of roar in his soul, which issued from his lips in a broken groan. The dimple and the patch! Ay, he had seen them! Only a few short hours ago he had thought to kiss that dimple with a husband's lordly pleasure, that dimple, set for another man!
Blast them! blast them! cried Sir Jasper and clenched his hands above his head. The world went round with him, and everything turned the colour of blood. The next instant he was cold again, chiding himself for his passion. He must be calm, calm, for his vengeance. This lock he must trace to its parent head, no later than to-night, if he had to scour the town. He sat down, stretched the fatal missive before him, and sat staring at it.
It was thus that a visitor, who was announced as Captain Spicer, presently found him. Captain Spicer was an elongated young gentleman, had a tendency to visual obliquity and was attired in the extreme of fashion. He minced forward, bowing and waving white hands with delicately crooked fingers.
His respects he presented to Sir Jasper. He had not up to this had the pleasure and honour of Sir Jasper's acquaintance, but was charmed of the opportunity—any opportunity which should afford him that pleasure and honour. Might he, might he? He extended a snuff-box, charmingly enamelled, and quivered it towards his host. Sir Jasper had risen stiffly, in his dull eye there was no response.
You do not, then? said Captain Spicer, himself extracting a pinch and inhaling it with superlative elegance and the very last turn of the wrist. "And right, my dear sir! A vicious habit. Yet positively," said he, and smiled engagingly, "without it, I vow, I could not exist from noon to midnight. But then it must be pure Macabaw. Anything short of pure Macabaw, fie, fie!"
Sir Jasper shook himself and interrupted with a snarl:
To what, sir, do I owe the honour?
I come, said Captain Spicer, "of course you have guessed, from my Lord Verney. There was a trifle, I believe about—ha—the shape of his nether limbs. Upon so private a matter, sir, as his, ahem, nether limbs, a gentleman cannot brook reflection. You will comprehend that my Lord Verney felt hurt, Sir Jasper, hurt! I myself, familiar as I am with his lordship, have never ventured to hint to him even the name of a hosier, though I know a genius in that line, sir, a fellow who has a gift—a divine inspiration, I may say—in dealing with these intimate details! But Gad, sir, delicacy, delicacy!"
Sir Jasper, meanwhile, had lifted the letter from the table, and was advancing upon Captain Spicer, ponderingly looking from the lock of hair in his hand to that young gentleman's head, which, however, was powdered to such a nicety that it was quite impossible to tell the colour beneath.
Sir, interrupted he at this juncture, "excuse me, but I should be glad to know if you wear your hair or a wig?"
Captain Spicer leaped a step back, and looked in amaze at the Baronet's earnest countenance.
Egad! thought he to himself, "Verney's in the right of it, the fellow's mad. Ha! ha!" said he aloud, "very good, Sir Jasper, very good. A little conundrum, eh? 'Rat me, I love a riddle." He glanced towards the door. Sir Jasper still advanced upon him as he retreated.
I asked you, sir, he demanded with an ominous rise in his voice, "if you wore your own hair?" ("The fellow looks frightened," he argued internally—"'tis monstrous suspicious!")
I, cried the Captain, with his back against the door fumbling for the handle as he stood. "Fie, fie, who wears a peruke now-a-days, unless it be your country cousin? He, he! How warm the night is!"
Sir Jasper had halted opposite to him and was rolling a withering eye over his countenance.
His mealy face is so painted, said the unhappy baronet to himself, "that devil take him if I can guess the colour of the fellow." His hand dropped irresolute by his side.
Beads of perspiration sprang on Captain Spicer's forehead.
If ever I carry a challenge to a madman again! thought he.
Your hair is very well powdered, said Sir Jasper.
Oh, it is so, it is as you say—Poudre à la Maréchale, sir, said the Captain, while under his persevering finger the door-handle slowly turned. An aperture yawned behind him; in a twinkling his slim figure twisted, doubled, and was gone.
Hey, hey! cried Sir Jasper, "stop, man, stop, our business together has but just begun."
But Captain Spicer had reached the street-door.
Look to your master, said he to the footman, "he is ill, very ill!"
Sir Jasper came running after him into the hall.
Stop him, fools! cried he to his servants, and then in the next breath, "Back!" he ordered. And to himself he murmured, "'Tis never he. That sleek, fluttering idiot never grew so crisp a curl nor wrote so sturdy a hand, no, nor kissed a dimple! Kissed a dimple! S'death!"
As he stood turning the seething brew of his dark thoughts, there came a pair of knowing raps upon the street-door, and in upon him strode with cheery step and cry the friends he was expecting.
Ah, Jasper, lad, cried Tom Stafford, and struck him upon his shoulder, "lying in wait for us? Gad, you're a blood-thirsty fellow!"
And quite right, said Colonel Villiers, clinking spurred legs, and flinging off a military cloak. "Zounds, man, would you have him sit down in his dishonour?"
Sir Jasper stretched a hand to each; and holding him by the elbows they entered his private apartment and closed the door with such carefulness that the tall footman had no choice but to take it in turns to listen and peep through the key-hole.
Tom, said Sir Jasper, "Colonel Villiers, when I begged you to favour me with this interview, I was anxious for your services because, as I told you, of a strong suspicion of Lady Standish's infidelity to me. Now, gentlemen, doubt is no longer possible, I have the proofs!"
Come, come, Jasper, never be down-hearted, cried jovial Tom Stafford. "Come, sir, you have been too fond of the little dears in your day not to know what tender yielding creatures they are. 'Tis their nature man; and then, must they not follow the mode? Do you want to be the only husband in Bath whose wife is not in the fashion? Tut, tut, so long as you can measure a sword for it and let a little blood, why, 'tis all in the day's fun!"
Swords? gurgled Colonel Villiers. "No, no, pistols are the thing, boy. You are never sure with your sword: 'tis but a dig in the ribs, a slash in the arm, and your pretty fellow looks all the prettier for his pallor, and is all the more likely to get prompt consolation in the proper quarter. Ha!"
Consolation! cried Sir Jasper, as if the word were a blow. "Ay, consolation! damnation!"
Whereas with your bullet, said the Colonel, "in the lungs, or in the brain—at your choice—the job is done as neat as can be. Are you a good hand at the barkers, Jasper?"
Oh, I can hit a haystack! said Sir Jasper. But he spoke vaguely.
I am for the swords, whenever you can, cried comely Stafford, crossing a pair of neat legs as he spoke and caressing one rounded calf with a loving hand. "'Tis a far more genteel weapon. Oh, for the feel of the blades, the pretty talk, as it were, of one with the other! 'Ha, have I got you now, my friend?'—'Ha, would you step between me and my wife? or my mistress? or my pleasure?'—as the case may be. 'Would you? I will teach you, sa—sa!' Now—now one in the ribs! One under that presuming heart! Let the red blood flow, see it drop from the steel: that is something like! Pistols, what of them! pooh! Snap, you blow a pill into the air, and 'tis like enough you have to swallow it yourself! 'Tis for apothecaries, say I, and such as have not been brought up to the noble and gentlemanly art of self-defence."
Silence, Tom, growled the Colonel; "here is no matter for jesting. This friend of ours has had a mortal affront, has he not? 'Tis established. Shall he not mortally avenge himself upon him who has robbed him of his honour? That is the case, is it not? And, blast me, is not the pistol the deadlier weapon and therefore the most suited? Hey?"
Sir Jasper made an inarticulate sound that might have passed for assent or dissent, or merely as an expression of excessive discomfort of feeling.
To business then, cried Colonel Villiers. "Shall I wait upon Lord Verney and suggest pistols at seven o'clock to-morrow morning in Hammer's Fields? That is where I generally like to place such affairs: snug enough to be out of disturbers' way, and far enough to warm the blood with a brisk walk. Gad, 'twas but ten days ago that I saw poor Ned Waring laid as neatly on his back by Lord Tipstaffe (him they call Tipsy Tip, you know) as ever it was done; as pretty a fight! Six paces, egad, and Ned as determined a dog as a fellow could want to second. 'Villiers,' said he, as I handed him his saw-handle, 'if I do not do for him, may he do for me! One of us must kill the other,' said he. 'Twas all about Mistress Waring, you know, dashed pretty woman! Poor Ned, he made a discovery something like yours, eh? Faith! ha, ha! And devil take it, sir, Tip had him in the throat at the first shot, and Ned's bullet took off Tipstaffe's right curl! Jove, it was a shave! Ned never spoke again. Ah, leave it to me; see if I do not turn you out as rare a meeting."
But stay, cried Stafford, as Sir Jasper writhed in his arm-chair, clenched and unclenched furious hands and felt the curl of red hair burn him where he had thrust it into his bosom. "Stay," cried Stafford, "we are going too fast, I think. Do I not understand from our friend here that he called Lord Verney a rat? Sir Jasper is therefore himself the insulting party, and must wait for Lord Verney's action in the matter."
I protest, cried the Colonel, "the first insult was Lord Verney's in compromising our friend's wife."
Pooh, pooh, exclaimed Stafford, recrossing his legs to bring the left one into shapely prominence this time, "that is but the insult incidental. But to call a man a rat, that is the insult direct. Jasper is therefore the true challenger; the other has the choice of arms. It is for Lord Verney to send to our friend!"
Sir! exclaimed the Colonel, growing redder about the gills than Nature and port wine had already made him. "Sir, would you know better than I?"
Gentlemen, said Sir Jasper, sitting up suddenly, "as I have just told you, since I craved of your kindness that you would help me in this matter, I have made discoveries that alter the complexion of the affair very materially. I have reason to believe that if Lord Verney be guilty in this matter it is in a very minor way. You know what they call in France un chandelier. Indeed it is my conviction—such is female artfulness—that he has merely been made a puppet of to shield another person. It is this person I must find first, and upon him that my vengeance must fall before I can attend to any other business. Lord Verney indeed has already sent to me, but his friend, Captain Spicer, a poor fool (somewhat weak in the head, I believe), left suddenly without our coming to any conclusion. Indeed, I do not regret it—I do not seek to fight with Lord Verney now. Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, rising and drawing the letter from his breast—"gentlemen, I shall neither eat nor sleep till I have found out the owner of this curl!"
He shook out the letter as he spoke, and fiercely thrust the tell-tale love-token under the noses of his amazed friends. "It is a red-haired man, you see! There lives no red-haired man in Bath but him I must forthwith spit or plug lest the villain escape me!"
Colonel Villiers started to his feet with a growl like that of a tiger aroused from slumber.
Zounds! he exclaimed. "An insult."
How! cried Jasper, turning upon him and suddenly noticing the sandy hue of his friend's bushy eyebrows. "You, good God! You? Pooh, pooh, impossible, and yet.... Colonel Villiers, Sir!" cried Sir Jasper, in awful tones, "did you write this letter? Speak! Yes or no, man! Speak, or must I drag the words from your throat?"
Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled Colonel Villiers.
Stafford, Stafford, he spluttered, "you are witness. These are gross affronts, affronts which shall be wiped out."
Did you write that letter? Yes or no! screamed Sir Jasper, shaking the offending document in the Colonel's convulsed countenance.
I? cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jasper's hand with a furious blow, "I? I write such brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now, damn you body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me such a question?"
No, said Sir Jasper, "of course not! Ah, I am a fool, Villiers. Forgive me. There's no quarrel between us! No, of course it could not be you! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty years! Gad, I am going mad!"
Why, man, said Stafford, as soon as he could speak for laughing, "Villiers has not so much hair on all his head as you hold in your hand there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with your wig, and let your bald pate proclaim its shining innocence."
The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this time black in the face. Panting as to breath, disjointed as to speech, his fury had nevertheless its well-defined purpose.
I have been insulted, I have been insulted, he gasped; "the matter cannot end here. Sir Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red-haired man, sir. I shall send a friend to call upon you."
Nay, then, said Sir Jasper, "since 'tis so between us I will even assure myself that Tom has spoken the truth and give you something to fight for!" He stretched out his hand as he spoke, and plucked the wig from Colonel Villiers' head.
Before him indeed spread so complete an expanse of hairless candour, that further evidence was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that lingered behind the Colonel's ears, if they had once been ruddy, shone now meekly silver in the candle-light.
I thank you, said Sir Jasper, "that is sufficient. When you send your friend to call upon me, I shall receive him with pleasure." He handed back the Colonel's wig with a bow.
The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand instinctively fumbled for his sword. But remembering perhaps that this was eminently a case for pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, clapped it on defiantly, settled it with minute care, glared, wheeled round and left the room, muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous a nature as to defy recording.
Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another thought. He fell into his chair again and spread out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter.
Confusion! said he. Who can it be? "Tom, you scamp, I know your hair is brown. Thou art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if I do not kill him I shall go mad!"
Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears rolled from his eyes as he gasped:
Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this is the best joke I have known for years. Oh, Lord, the bald head of him! Oh, Jasper, 'tis cruel funny! Stab me, sir, if I have known a better laugh these ten years!) Nay, nay, I will help thee. Come, there's his Lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, for I have seen him in the water. Gad, he was like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it be he, think you? They have a way, these divines, and Lady Standish has a delicate conscience. She would like the approval of the Church upon her deeds. Nay, never glare like that, for I will not fight you! Have you not got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! there is O'Hara, he is Irish enough and rake enough and red enough. Oh, he is red enough!
O'Hara, cried Sir Jasper, struck.
There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley in the hall, and the servant announced Mr. Denis O'Hara.
Talk of the devil, said Stafford.
Sir Jasper rose from his armchair with the air of one whose enemy is delivered into his hands.
The Honourable Denis O'Hara, son and heir of Viscount Kilcroney in the peerage of Ireland, entered with a swift and easy step, and saluted airily. He had a merry green eye, and the red of his crisp hair shone out through the powder like a winter sunset through a mist.
Sir Jasper, said he, "your servant, sir. Faith, Tom, me boy, is that you? The top of the evening to ye."
Uninvited he took a chair and flung his careless figure upon it. His joints were loose, his nose aspired, his rich lace ruffles were torn, his handsome coat was buttoned awry; Irishman was stamped upon every line of him, from his hot red head to his slim alert foot; Irishman lurked in every rich accent of his ready tongue.
Sir Jasper made no doubt that now the Lothario who had poached on his preserves, had destroyed his peace, had devastated his home, was before him. He turned to Stafford and caught him by the wrist.
Tom, whispered he, "you will stand by me, for by my immortal soul, I will fight it out to-night!"
For God's sake, be quiet, whispered the other, who began to think that the jealous husband was getting beyond a joke. "Let us hear what the fellow has got to say first. The devil! I will not stand by to see you pink every auburn buck in the town. 'Tis stark lunacy."
But 'tis you yourself, returned Sir Jasper, in his fierce undertone—"you yourself who told me it was he. See, but look at this curl and at that head."
Oh, flummery! cried Stafford. "Let him speak, I say."
When you have done your little conversation, gentlemen, said Mr. O'Hara good-naturedly, "perhaps you will let me put in a word edgeways?"
Sir Jasper, under his friend's compelling hand, sank into a chair; his sinews well-nigh creaked with the constraint he was putting upon himself.
I have come, said Denis O'Hara, "from me friend Captain Spoicer. I met him a whoile ago, fluttering down Gay Street, leaping like a hare with the hounds after him, by St. Patrick! 'You're running away from someone, Spoicer,' says I. And says he, 'I'm running away from that blithering madman Sir Jasper Standish.' Excuse me, Sir Jasper, those were his words, ye see."
And what, sir, interrupted Sir Jasper in an ominous voice—"what, sir, may I ask, was your purpose in walking this way to-night?"
Eh, cried the Irishman, "what is that ye say?"
Oh, go on, O'Hara, cried Stafford impatiently, and under his breath to Standish, "Faith, Jasper," said he, "keep your manners, or I'll wash my hands of the whole matter."
Oh, is that the way with him, said O'Hara, behind his hand to Stafford, and winked jovially. "Well, I was saying, gentlemen, that to see a man run, unless it be a Frenchman, is a thing that goes against me. 'Why, what did he do to you?' said I (meaning you, Sir Jasper). 'Oh,' says me gallant Captain, 'I went to him with a gentlemanly message from a friend and the fellow insulted me so grossly with remarks about my hair, that sure,' says he, 'tis only fit for Bedlam he is.' 'Insulted you,' says I, 'and where are you running to? To look for a friend, I hope,' says I. 'Insults are stinking things.' 'Sure,' says he, 'he is mad,' says he. 'Well, what matter of that?' says I. 'Sure, isn't it all mad we are more or less? Come,' says I, 'Spoicer, this will look bad for you with the ladies, not to speak of the men. Give me the message, me boy, and I will take it; and sure we will let Sir Jasper bring his keepers with him to the field, and no one can say fairer than that.'"
Sir Jasper sprang to his feet.
Now, curse your Irish insolence, he roared; "this is more than I would stand from any man! And, if I mistake not, Mr. O'Hara, we have other scores to settle besides."
Is it we? cried O'Hara, jumping up likewise. "'Tis the first I've heard of them—but, be jabers, you will never find me behind hand in putting me foot to the front! I will settle as many scores as you like, Sir Jasper—so long as it is me sword and not me purse that pays them."
Draw then, man, draw! snarled Sir Jasper, dancing in his fury. He bared his silver-hilted sword and threw the scabbard in a corner.
Heaven defend us! cried Stafford, in vain endeavouring to come between the two.
Sure, you must not contradict him, cried O'Hara, unbuckling his belt rapidly, and drawing likewise with a pretty flourish of shining blade. "'Tis the worst way in the world to deal with a cracked man. Sure, ye must soothe him and give in to him. Don't I know! Is not me own first cousin a real raw lunatic in Kinsale Asylum this blessed day? Come on, Sir Jasper, I'm yer man. Just pull the chairs out of the way, Tom, me dear boy."
Now sir, now sir! said Sir Jasper, and felt restored to himself again as steel clinked against steel. And he gripped the ground with his feet, and knew the joy of action.
Well, what must be, must be, said Stafford philosophically, and sat across a chair; "and a good fight is a good fight all the world over! Ha! that was a lunge! O'Hara wields a pretty blade, but there is danger in Jasper's eye. I vow I won't have the Irish boy killed. Ha!" He sprang to his feet again and brandished the chair, ready to interpose between the two at the critical moment. O'Hara was as buoyant as a cork; he skipped backwards and forwards, from one side to another, in sheer enjoyment of the contest. But Sir Jasper hardly moved from his first position except for one or two vicious lunges. Stafford had deemed to see danger in his eye; there was more than danger—there was murder! The injured husband was determined to slay, and bided his time for the fatal thrust. The while, O'Hara attacked out of sheer lightness of heart. Now his blade grazed Sir Jasper's thigh; once he gave him a flicking prick on the wrist so that the blood ran down his fingers.
Stop, stop, cried Stafford, running in with his chair, "Sir Jasper's hit!"
No, dash you! cried Sir Jasper. And click, clank, click, it went again, with the pant of the shortening breath, and the thud of the leaping feet. Sir Jasper lunged a third time, O'Hara waved his sword aimlessly, fell on one knee, and rolled over.
Halt! yelled Stafford. It was too late. Sir Jasper stood staring at his red blade.
You have killed him! cried Stafford, turning furiously on his friend, and was down on his knees and had caught the wounded man in his arms the next second.
Devil a bit, said O'Hara, and wriggled in the other's grasp, too vigorously indeed for a moribund, found his feet in a jiffy and stood laughing with a white face and looking down at his dripping shirt. "'Tis but the sudden cold feel of the steel, man! Sure I'm all right, and ready to begin again! 'Tis but a rip in the ribs, for I can breathe as right as ever." He puffed noisily as he spoke to prove his words, slapped his chest, then turned giddily and fell into a chair. Stafford tore open the shirt. It was as O'Hara had said, the wound was an ugly surface rip, more unpleasant than dangerous.
Let us have another bout, said O'Hara.
No, no, said Stafford.
No, no, said Sir Jasper advancing and standing before his adversary. "No. Mr. O'Hara, you may have done me the greatest injury that one can do another, but gad, sir, you have fought like a gentleman!"
Ah! whispered O'Hara to Stafford, who still examined the wound with a knowing manner, "'tis crazed entoirely he is, the poor dear fellow."
Not crazed, said Stafford rising, "or if so, only through jealousy.—Jasper, let us have some wine for Mr. O'Hara, and one of your women with water and bandages. A little sticking plaister will set this business to rights. Thank God, that I have not seen murder to-night!"
One moment, Stafford. said Jasper, "one moment, sir. Let us clear this matter. Am I not right, Mr. O'Hara, in believing you to have written a letter to my wife?"
Is it me? cried O'Hara in the most guileless astonishment.
He thinks you are her lover, whispered Stafford in his ear. "Zooks, I can laugh again now! He knows she has got a red-haired lover, and says he will kill every red-haired man in Bath!"
Sure I have never laid eyes on Lady Standish, said O'Hara to Sir Jasper, "if that is all you want. Sure, I'd have been proud to be her lover if I'd only had the honour of her acquaintance!"
Mr. O'Hara, said Sir Jasper, "will you shake hands with me?"
With all the pleasure in loife! cried the genial Irishman. "Faith, 'tis great friends we will be, but perhaps ye had better not introjuce me to ye'r lady, for I'm not to be trusted where the dear creatures are concerned, and so 'tis best to tell you at the outset."
The opponents now shook hands with some feeling on either side. The wound was attended to and several bottles of wine were thereafter cracked in great good-fellowship.
There is nothing like Canary, vowed O'Hara, "for the power of healing."
*****
It was past midnight when, on the arm of Mr. Stafford, Denis O'Hara set out to return to his own lodgings.
The streets were empty and the night dark, and they had many grave consultations at the street corners as to which way to pursue. If they reeled a little as they went, if they marched round King's Circus, and round again more than once, and showed a disposition to traverse Gay Street from side to side oftener than was really required by their itinerary, it was not, as O'Hara said, because of the Canary, but all in the way of "divarsion."
Sir Jasper's a jolly good fellow, said Lord Kilcroney's heir as he propped himself against his own door-post, and waggled the knocker with tipsy gravity. "And so are you," said he to Stafford. "I like ye both." Here he suddenly showed a disposition to fall upon Stafford's neck, but as suddenly arrested himself, stiffened his swaying limbs and struck his forehead with a sudden flash of sobriety. "Thunder and 'ouns," said he, "if I did not clean forget about Spoicer!"
He was with difficulty restrained by Stafford (who, having a stronger head, was somewhat the soberer), with the help of the servants who now appeared, from setting forth to repair his negligence. By a tactful mixture of persuasion and force, the wounded gentleman was at length conducted to bed, sleepily murmuring:
Won't do at all—most remiss—affair of honour—never put off! until sleep overtook him, which was before his head touched the pillow.
Meanwhile Sir Jasper sat, with guttering candles all around him, in the recesses of an armchair, his legs extended straight, his bandaged wrist stuffed into his bosom, his head sunk upon his chest, his spurious flash of gaiety now all lost in a depth of chaotic gloom. Dawn found him thus. At its first cold rays he rose sobered, and could not have said whether the night had passed in waking anguish or in hideous nightmare. He looked round on the cheerless scene, the blood-stained linen, the empty wine-glasses with their sickening reek, the smoking candles, the disordered room; then he shuddered and sought the haven of his dressing-room, and the relief of an hour's sleep with a wet towel tied round his throbbing head.
Mistress Bellairs was up betimes. In truth she had slept ill, which was a strange experience for her. What her thirty-seven lovers had never had the power to wring from her—a tear and a sleepless night—this had she given to the one man who loved her not.
She was tortured with anxiety concerning the danger which her caprice (or, as she put it, Lady Standish's inconceivable foolishness) might have brought upon Lord Verney. At daybreak she rang for her maid, and with the eight o'clock chocolate demanded to be posted with all the news of the town. She was of those who possess the talent of making themselves served. The chocolate was to the full as perfumed and creamy as ever, and Miss Lydia was bursting with tidings of importance, as she stood by her lady's couch.
Well, Lydia, well? cried her mistress, sharply.
Oh, lud, ma'am, the whole town's ringing with it! My Lady Standish has been found out. There, I for one never trust those solemn prudes that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, and their mouths pursed like cherries. You would not be so proper if there was not a reason for it, I always think.
Lydia, said Mistress Bellairs, "do not be a fool. Go on; what has Lady Standish been found out in, pray?"
Oh, ma'am, said Lydia, "it ain't hard to guess. 'Tis what a woman's always found out in, I suppose. But, lud, the shamelessness of it! I hear, ma'am," she came closer to her mistress and bent to whisper, almost trembling with the joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, "I hear, ma'am, Sir Jasper found Colonel Villiers there yesterday afternoon. Oh, ma'am, such goings on!"
Pshaw! said Mistress Kitty.
Well, they're going to fight, anyhow, cried the girl, "and Sir Jasper tore off the Colonel's wig and beat him about the face with it, ma'am, and the Colonel's been like a madman ever since, and he vows he will shoot him this morning."
Mistress Bellairs gave a sigh of relief.
Let them shoot each other, said she, sinking back on her pillows and stirring her chocolate calmly. "I do not find the world any better for either of them."
But that is not all, ma'am, for poor Sir Jasper no sooner had he thrashed the Colonel, than he finds Mr. Denis O'Hara behind the curtains.
Denis O'Hara! exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, sitting up in amaze. "You're raving!"
No, ma'am, for I have it from Mr. O'Hara's own man; and did not he and Sir Jasper fight it out then and there, and was not Mr. O'Hara carried home wounded by the Watch!
Mercy on us! exclaimed the lady.
And that is not all, ma'am, said the maid.
You frighten me, child.
There is Captain Spicer too, whom you can't a-bear, and Lord Verney.
Lord Verney! cried Mistress Kitty.
Ay, ma'am; he and Sir Jasper are going to fight this morning. Sir Jasper's going to fight them all, but Lord Verney is to be the first, for Sir Jasper found him kissing Lady Standish yesterday at noon; the others were later on. So it's my Lord comes first you see, ma'am.
La, girl, cried Mistress Bellairs with a scream, and upset her chocolate, "going to fight this morning? 'Tis not true!" Her pretty face turned as white as chalk under its lace frills.
Yes, ma'am, pursued the maid, gabbling as hard as she could. "Yes, ma'am, first there's Lord Verney. Sir Jasper, they say, behaved so oddly to Captain Spicer who brought the first challenge, that Lord Verney sent another by a chairman this morning. And then Colonel Villiers. Of course, as Mr. Mahoney says (that's Mr. O'Hara's man, ma'am), Sir Jasper is safe to kill Lord Verney, and Colonel Villiers is safe to kill Sir Jasper. But if the Colonel do not kill Sir Jasper, then Sir Jasper will fight Captain Spicer! La! ma'am, the chocolate's all over the bed."
Oh, get out of that, you silly wench, cried Mistress Bellairs, "let me rise! There is not a moment to lose. And where is Sir Jasper supposed to fight my Lord Verney? (Give me my silk stockings, useless thing that you are!) I don't believe a word of your story. How dare you come and tell me such a pack of nonsense? But where are they supposed to fight? Of course you must have heard the hour?" She was pulling silk stockings over her little arched foot, and up her little plump leg as fast as her trembling hands would obey her.
I do not know where, ma'am, said the maid demurely, "but the Colonel is to meet Sir Jasper in Hammer's Fields at noon, so I suppose my Lord Verney and he will be fighting about this time."
Oh, hold your tongue, cried her mistress; "you're enough to drive one mad with your quacking!"
Not a dab of rouge did the widow find time to spread upon pale cheeks, not a dust of powder upon a black curl. The pretty morning hood was drawn round a very different face from that which it usually shaded; but who shall say that Kitty, the woman, running breathless through the empty streets with the early breeze playing with her loose hair, was not as fair in her complete self-abandonment, as the fashionable lady, powdered, painted, patched and laced, known under the name of Mrs. Bellairs? Her small feet hammered impatiently along, her skirts fluttered as she went. She would not wait for a coach; a chair would have sent her crazy.
At the turning of the Crescent, another fluttering woman's figure, also hooded, also cloaked, also advancing with the haste that despises appearances, passed her with a patter and a flash. They crossed, then moved by the same impulse halted with dawning recognition.
Mistress Bellairs! cried Lady Standish's flute-like voice.
Julia Standish! screamed Mistress Bellairs. They turned and caught at each other with clinging hands.
Oh, heavens, said Mistress Bellairs, "is what I hear true? Is that devil Sir Jasper going to fight Lord Verney this morning? Why, Verney's but a child; 'tis rank murder. You wicked woman, see what you have done!"
Ah, Mistress Bellairs, cried Julia, and pressed her side, "my heart is broken."
But what has happened, woman, what has happened? cried Kitty, and shook the plaintive Julia with a fierce hand.
Sir Jasper will not see me, sobbed Julia, "but I have found out that he is to meet my Lord Verney in an hour in Bathwick Meadows. There have been messages going backwards and forwards since early dawn. Oh, Heaven have pity on us!"
Where are you going? cried Kitty, and shook her once more.
I was going to Lord Verney to plead for my husband's life, said Lady Standish, and the tears streamed down her face like the storm-rain upon lily flowers.
The Lord keep you, cried Mistress Bellairs with feelings too deep for anger; "I believe you are no better than an idiot!"
The most heroic resolves are often the work of a second! "Now go back home again, you silly thing," said Kitty. "'Tis I—yes, Lady Standish, you do not deserve it of me—but I will sacrifice myself! I will prevent this duel, I will go to my Lord Verney!"
You, said Julia, and wondered, and but half understood the meaning of the words.
Go home, go home, said Mistress Kitty, "and I tell you that if I do not make Lord Verney fail at the meeting, my name is not Kitty Bellairs!"
Lady Standish hesitated, and meekly bowed her head, turned and began to retrace her steps, her slim figure bending and swaying as if the fresh morning wind were too stern for her.
Mistress Bellairs looked at her watch.
Did she say an hour? murmured she to herself. "Then, ten minutes before the looking-glass, and ten minutes to get to my Lord's lodgings, and I will find him about to start. 'Tis his first affair of honour, poor boy, and he is sure to be as early at it as a country cousin to a dinner-party."
The sun broke out from a cloudy sky, and Mrs. Bellairs shook herself and felt her spirits rise. A dimple peeped in either cheek.
After all, said she as she tripped along, and the dimples deepened as the smile broadened, "who knows? 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good."
*****
My Lady Standish returned home. The servants stared at her curiously as she crossed the hall. Mistress Tremlet, the housekeeper, passed her with pursed lips. Her own maid, she knew, was dissolved in tears and plunged in Doctor Persel's discourses against heresy. White as new fallen snow was her conscience, nevertheless she felt herself smirched in the eyes of all these people. Yet she cared not.
Outside Sir Jasper's dressing-room she listened. She could hear him stamp about as he made his toilet, and curse his man. She put out her hand to knock, but the memory of his stern repulse to her last appeal robbed her of all courage.
I will not go in upon him, thought she, "but when he comes out I will speak."
These swords, said Sir Jasper within, "I will take in the carriage. I expect Mr. Stafford and a friend to call for me in half-an-hour. Do you understand, sirrah! And hark ye, where are the pistols?"
Pistols! echoed Lady Standish, and her heart beat to suffocation.
There was a pause.
Here, Sir Jasper, said the valet then.
Now, mark what I say, said Jasper impressively. "Lord Markham will call at eleven. Let the curricle be in waiting; tell my Lord that I will meet him five minutes before the half-hour at Hammer's Fields. Forget at your peril! You are to take these pistols there yourself. Stay, tell my Lord Markham that if I am not at the rendezvous, 'twill only be because I have not life enough left to take me there, and he must make it straight with Colonel Villiers. Have you understood, rascal? Nay—damn you!—I will give you a letter for my Lord Markham."
Oh God! oh God! cried poor Lady Standish, and felt her knees tremble, "what is this now? Another meeting! The Colonel! ... In God's name how comes he upon Colonel Villiers? Why, this is wholesale slaughter! This is insanity! This must be prevented!" She caught her head in her hands. "Sir Jasper's mad," she said. "What shall I do? What shall I do? They will kill him, and I shall have done it. Why now, if Kitty prevents the first duel, cannot I prevent the second? Oh, I am a false wife if I cannot save my husband. Heaven direct me!" she prayed, and to her prayer came inspiration.
There was the Bishop, the Bishop of Bath and Wells! That reverend prelate had shown her much kindness and attention; he would know how to interfere in such a crisis. He was a man of authority. Between them could they not enforce the peace at Hammer's Fields, and could not Sir Jasper be saved in spite of himself, were it by delivering him into the hands of the law?
Lady Standish flew into her room and called the sniffing Megrim.
Paper and ink, cried she, "and get you ready to run on a message. 'Tis a matter of life and death."
My Lady, said Megrim primly, "I will serve your Ladyship in all things that are right; but I hope I know my dooty to my Creator; and stoop to connive at irregularities, my Lady, I won't and never will." She had been ready to condemn her master overnight, but the talk in the servants' hall had, as she expressed it, "opened her eyes." And what woman is not ready to judge her sister woman—above all, what maid to condemn her mistress?
Lady Standish stared.
What means this? said she. "You shall do as I bid you, Mistress Megrim. How dare you!" cried Lady Standish with a sudden flash of comprehension. "Why, woman, my letter is to the Bishop!"
Oh, quoth Mistress Megrim, still with reserve, yet condescending to approval, "that is another matter! Shall I," she sniffed, "be stricter than becomes a Christian? Shall I refuse aid to the bruised sinner or to the smoking lamp whose conscience is awakened? May his Lordship be a tower of strength to your Ladyship along the rocky paths of penitence—Amen!"
In ten minutes a fair lady may do much to enhance her fairness. As Mistress Bellairs took a last look at her mirror, while Lydia bustled out to call a hired chair, she bestowed upon her reflection a smile of approval which indeed so charming an image could not fail to call forth. Then she huddled herself in a mysterious and all enveloping cloak, caught up a little velvet mask from the table, and sped upon her errand. She sallied forth as the gallant soldier might to battle, with a beating heart yet a high one.
Lord Verney and Captain Spicer had just finished breakfast at the former's lodgings in Pierrepoint Street, near North Parade. Captain Spicer, babbling ineptly of his own experience as a duellist, of his scorn of Sir Jasper's lunacy, yet of his full determination to slay the vile madman, had done ample justice to his young principal's table. But Lord Verney, his cheek now darkly flushed, now spread with an unwholesome pallor, found it hard to swallow even a mouthful of bread, and restlessly passed from the contemplation of the clock and the setting of his watch to the handling of his pistols, or the hasty addition of yet another postscript to the ill-spelt, blotted farewell epistle he had spent half the night in inditing to the Dowager his mother: "In case, you know..." he had said to his friend, with a quiver in his voice.
Captain Spicer had earnestly promised to carry out his patron's last wishes in the most scrupulous manner.
My dear Lord, he had said, grasping him by the hand, "rely upon me. Gad, Sir Jasper is a devil of a shot I hear, and of course, he, he! we all know the saying—the strength of a madman. But no sooner has he laid you, Harry, than I vow, upon my honour, I shall hold him at my sword's point. I will revenge thee, Harry, never fear of that. 'Twill be a mighty genteel story, and the world will ring with it. Egad, he will not be the first I have spitted as easy as your cook would spit a turkey. Have I not learnt of the great Angelo Malevolti himself? He, he—'A woman's hand,' he would say, 'and the devil's head!'"
Here Captain Spicer shook out his bony fingers from the encumbering ruffles and contemplated them with much satisfaction.
Oh, hang you, Spicer, be quiet, can't you! cried Lord Verney petulantly.
The Captain leant back on his chair and began to pick his teeth with a silver toothpick.
Pooh, these novices! said he, as if to himself. "Keep your nerves steady, my Lord, or, stab me, I may as well order the mourning-coach before we start. He, he! 'Tis well, indeed, you have a friend to stand by you!"
A discreet tap was heard at the door, and Lord Verney's impassive new servant (especially engaged on his behalf by the Captain, who indeed, some ill-natured wag had it, shared his wages and perquisites) stood in the doorway.
There is a lady downstairs, my Lord, he said in his mechanical voice. "She particularly requests to see your Lordship and will take no denial, although I informed her that your Lordship was like to be engaged until late in the morning."
Lord Verney merely stared in amazement; but Captain Spicer sprang up from his chair, his pale eyes starting with curiosity.
A lady, gad! Verney, you dog, what is this? A lady, Ned? Stay, is she tall and fair and slight?
No, sir, she is under-sized, and seems plump, though she is wrapt in so great a cloak I could hardly tell.
Pretty, man?
Cannot say, sir, she wears a mask.
A mask? He, Verney, Verney, this is vastly interesting! And she won't go away, eh, Ned?
No, sir, she must see his Lordship, she said, if only for five minutes.
Plump, under-sized, masked, ejaculated Captain Spicer in burning perplexity. "Gad, we have ten minutes yet, we will have her up, eh, Verney? Show her up, Ned."
The servant withdrew, unheeding Lord Verney's stammered protest.
Really, Captain Spicer, said he, "I would have liked to have kept these last ten minutes for something serious. I would have liked," said the lad with a catch in his voice and a hot colour on his cheek, "to have read a page of my Bible before starting, were it only for my mother's sake, afterwards."
The led Captain threw up hand and eye in unfeigned horror.
A page of your Bible! Zounds! If it gets out, we are the laughing-stock of Bath. A page of your Bible! 'Tis well no one heard you but I.
Hush! said Lord Verney, for in the doorway stood their visitor. 'Twas indeed a little figure, wrapt in a great cloak, and except for the white hand that held the folds, and the glimpse of round chin and cherry lip that was trembling beneath the curve of the mask, there was naught else to betray her identity, to tell whether she were young or old, well-favoured or disinherited. But it was a charming little hand, and an engaging little chin.
Lord Verney merely stood and stared like the boy he was. But Captain Spicer leaped forward with a spring like a grasshopper, and crossing his lean shanks, he presented a chair with the killing grace of which he alone was master. The lady entered the room, put her hand on the back of the chair, and turned upon Captain Spicer.
I would see Lord Verney alone, sir, she said. It was a very sweet voice, but it was imperious. The masked lady had all the air of one who was accustomed to instant obedience.
In vain Captain Spicer leered and languished; the black eyes gleamed from behind the disguise very coldly and steadily back at him. Forced to withdraw, he endeavoured to do so with wit and elegance, but he was conscious somehow of cutting rather a poor figure; and under the unknown one's hand the door closed upon him with so much energy as to frustrate utterly his last bow.
Kitty Bellairs deliberately turned the key in the lock, and put it in her pocket. Lord Verney started forward, but was arrested by the sound of his own name, pronounced in the most dulcet and plaintive tone he thought he had ever heard.
Lord Verney, said Kitty, flinging back her cloak and hood and allowing her pretty brown curls, and a hint of the most perfect shape in Bath, to become visible to the young peer's bewildered gaze. "Lord Verney," said she, and clasped her hands, "a very, very unhappy woman has come to throw herself upon your compassion."
Madam, said Lord Verney, "what can I do for you?" His boyish soul was thrilled by these gentle accents of grief; he thought he saw a tear running down the white chin; the rounded bosom heaved beneath its bewitching disorder of lace. He glanced at the clock and back at the suppliant in a cruel perplexity. "Madam," said he, "time presses; I have but a few minutes to give you. Tell me, madam, how can I serve you? To do so will be a comfort to me in what is perhaps the last hour of my life."
The lady gave a cry as soft as a dove's, and as plaintive.
Oh, said she, "it is true, then, what I heard?" and the white hands were wrung together as in extremest anguish.
Madam, cried he, with outspread arms, and, though without daring to touch her, drawing closer, so close as to hear the quick catch of her breath and to inhale the subtle fragrance of violets that emanated from her.
Oh, said she, "it is true!" She staggered and caught at the fastenings of her cloak and threw it open.
You are faint, he cried, strangely moved; "let me call."
But she caught him by the hand. Her fingers were curiously warm for one seized with faintness, but the touch of them was pleasant to the young man as never woman's touch had been before. Out flew the fellow hand to keep his prisoner, and they clung round his great boy's wrist.
He never knew how, but suddenly he was on his knees before her.
You are going to fight, said she, "to fight with Sir Jasper. Oh, my God, you do not know, but it is because of me, and if you fight it will break my heart." She leant forward to look eagerly at him as he knelt. Her breath fanned his cheek. Through her mask he saw beautiful black eyes, deep, deep. How white the skin was upon her neck and chin—how fine its grain! What little wanton curls upon her head! What a fragrance of flowers in the air! How he longed to pluck that mask away—and yet how the very mystery lured him, held him!
Who are you? said he, in a low quick whisper. "Let me see your face."
She forbade his indiscreet hand with a little shriek.
No, no, no, you must never see, never know; that would be terrible.
Then he placed both his hands, all unconsciously, upon hers, and then she caught them both and held them, and he felt that her weak grasp was to him as strong as iron.
Why do you fight? said she. "Tell me."
He blushed.
'Tis for nothing, the merest misunderstanding. Sir Jasper is mad, I think.
Sir Jasper is jealous, breathed she, and nearer came the gaze of the eyes. "Is it true that you love Lady Standish?"
I? cried he vehemently, and rapped out a great oath—so eager was he to deny. "I? No! God is my witness. No!"
Then do not fight, said she.
He wanted to look at the clock; he wanted to spring up and rush to the door; he was conscious that Spicer was knocking gently, and that it was time to go where the conventions of honour called him. The soft clasp held him, and the mysterious eyes. He was a very boy, and had never loved before, and—she was masked!
Let me advise you, said she. "Believe me, your welfare is dearer to me than you can imagine—dearer to me than I ought to tell you. Believe me, if you give up this duel you will live to be glad of it. Sir Jasper will thank you no later than this very day, as never man thanked man before. And you will make me so happy! Oh, believe me, your honour is safe with me."
Only let me see your face, said he, while Spicer knocked louder. "I will see her, and kiss her," he thought to himself, "and that will be something to carry to my death."
How dare you ask it? she said. "Must I grant your request when you refuse me mine?"
And if I grant you yours, said he, as his heart beat very fast, "what will you give me?"
Oh, give, said she, "give! Who cares for gifts? A man must take." Her red lip beneath the mask here became arched so bewitchingly over a row of the whitest teeth in all the world, that Harry Verney, whose head had been rapidly going, lost it and his heart together.
That is a challenge, said he, as he drew a hand away and lifted it to the mask.
Ah, traitor! she cried, and made a dainty start of resistance. His fingers trembled on the soft scented locks.
You shall not, said she, and bent her head to avoid his touch, so that as he knelt their faces were closer together than ever.
Oh! cried he, and kissed her on the chin beneath the mask.
My Lord, clamoured Captain Spicer at the door, "the coach is waiting and we have but half an hour to reach Bathwick Meadows. Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the meeting?"
Lord Verney sprang to his feet. The words, the impatient raps penetrated to his dizzy brain with sudden conviction.
Heavens! cried he, and glanced at the clock, and made a leap for the door.
And will you go, said the stranger, "without having seen my face?"
He ran back to her and then back to the door again, distracted, as you may see a puppy dog between two calls. Finally he came back to the lady with a new and manly dignity upon him.
I must go, he said. "Would you show yourself as kind as you seem, madam, remove your mask that I may see you before I go."
Outside Captain Spicer was dancing a sort of hornpipe of impotent impatience, and filling the air with shrill strange oaths.
Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy very composedly on one side by the merest touch of her hand, then she went over to the door, unlocked it and admitted Captain Spicer, green and sweating.
I am coming, Spicer, cried Lord Verney desperately, and made a plunge for his hat and cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: "Oh cruel!"
Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and looked at the clock.
It will not take you, you know, said she, "more than five minutes to drive down to the Bathwick ferry, therefore if you start in three you will still have twenty-six to spare. My Lord Verney, will you give me those three minutes?"
Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again, his face glowing with a dark flush.
Oh, cried he, like a school-boy, "for God's sake, Spicer, wait outside."
Nay, said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself under her mask, "nay, I have need of Captain Spicer."
Lord Verney's face fell,
Come hither, said she, and took him crestfallen by the hand and brought him to the table, where lay the writing materials he had been using but a little while ago. "Here," said she, "is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and write, write," she said, and tapped his shoulder; "write, sir—thus:—
'Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Joseph Standish that he understands the grounds of the quarrel between them to lie in a gross misconception of Lord Verney's feelings for Lady Standish.'
Write, write! She leaned over him, dictating.
Half spell-bound, yet protesting incoherently, he began to cover the page with his awkward scrawl.
Quick, said she. "(Child, how do you spell quarrel?) Never mind, on with you:—
'Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady Standish, he has never addressed more than three words to her or as many glances at her in his-life; that his whole heart is given to another lady, the only woman he has ever loved and ever will love.'"
The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney's fingers. He started and turned round on his chair to graze in amaze into the countenance of his mysterious visitor, and again was at once attracted and foiled by her mask.
Surely you would not contradict a lady? she whispered in his ear; "haste, we have but one minute more. Here, give me the pen, I will finish." She snapped the quill from his hand, her curls touched his cheek as she bent forward over him to the page. Swiftly her little hand flew:—
If upon this explanation Sir Jasper does not see his way to retract all the offensive observations he made to Lord Verney, Lord Verney will be ready to meet him as arranged without an instant's delay. The truth of all these statements is guaranteed by the woman Lord Verney loves.
She seized the sheet and folded it.
Now, Captain Spicer, said she, "take your coach and hie you to Sir Jasper's house, and if you bring back an answer before the clock strikes, I will let you take off my mask, and that will save you from dying of curiosity and, also, give you something to tattle about for the next month. Oh, you will find Sir Jasper," she said; "he is a seasoned hand, and does not, like your virgin duellist, make it a point of honour to bring his high valour to the rendezvous twenty minutes before the time."
Within his meagre body Captain Spicer carried the soul of a flunkey. He would have given worlds to rebel, but could not.
So long as it is not a put-off, said he. "Not even for a fair one's smile could I barter a friend's honour."
Kitty held the letter aloft tantalizingly and looked at the clock.
If you won't be the bearer, said she, "I will send it by the chairman, and then you will never know what is in it. Moreover," said she, and smiled archly, "if Sir Jasper apologises to Lord Verney, which, upon receipt of this letter, I make no doubt he will, you can take his place, you know, and will not be done out of a gallant meeting."
Of course, ha, of course! cried Spicer with a yellow smile.
Laughing, Mistress Kitty closed the door behind his retreating figure.
Now, said she.
Oh, what have you done, what have you made me do? cried Harry Verney in a sudden agony.
Hush, said Mistress Kitty. "Did I not tell you your honour was safe with me? Do you not believe me?" said she meltingly. "Ah, Verney!" She put her hand to her head, and at her touch the mask fell.
He looked at her face, blushing and quivering upon him, and once more fell on his knee at her feet.
Oh, tell me your name! cried he, pleadingly.
Why, Lord Verney, she said, "how ungallant!" She smiled and looked bewitchingly beautiful; looked serious and reproachful, and he fell beyond his depths in rapture.
Why, you know me, you know me well, said she, "am I not Mistress Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs—am I not, Kitty?"
No, no, cried he, "I never knew you till this hour, madam, Mistress Bellairs Kitty! I see you," he cried, "for the first time! Oh, God, be kind to me, for I love her!"
And yet, she whispered archly, "they say that love is blind."
Upon this he kissed her as he had kissed her beneath the mask; and if anything could have been sweeter than the first kiss it was the second.
Ah, love, how easy an art to learn, how hard to unlearn!
While Harry Verney thus forgot the whole world, his first duel, and the code of honour. Sir Jasper sat inditing an answer to his communication:—
Sir Jasper Standish has received my Lord Verney's explanation in the spirit in which it is offered. He is quite ready to acknowledge that he has acted entirely under a misapprehension, and begs Lord Verney to receive his unreserved apologies and the expression of his admiration for Lord Verney's gallant and gentlemanly behaviour, together with his congratulations to him and the unknown lady upon their enviable situation.
Captain Spicer did not offer to supply his principal's place in the field. Indeed, he displayed to Sir Jasper, who received him with the most gloomy courtesy, the extreme suppleness of his spine, and pressed his unrivalled snuff upon him with a fluttering and ingratiating air.
When he returned to Pierrepoint Street he found the mysterious stranger already in her sedan, Lord Verney leaning through the window thereof, engaged in an earnest whispering conversation. Captain Spicer jocularly pulled him back by the coat-tails and inserted his own foolish face instead. The lady was masked and cloaked as he had left her.
Madam, I have done your errand, said he. "It was," said he, "a matter of difficult negotiation, requiring—ahem—requiring such tact as I think I may call my own. Sir Jasper was vastly incensed, one might as well have tried to reason with a bull. 'But gad, sir,' said I, 'would I, I, Captain Spicer, come with this message if it were not in accordance with the strictest rule of honourable etiquette?' That floored him, madam——"
Here Mistress Kitty snatched the letter flickering in his gesticulating hand with scant ceremony, turned her shoulder upon him, read it and handed it out to Lord Verney, who had lost no time in coming round to the other window.
Now, said she, "bid the man take me to the Pump Room." She leaned her head out and Lord Verney put his close to hers, and there followed another conclave.
Madam, madam, I demand the fulfilment of your promise! from the other side came Captain Spicer's clamouring thin voice.—"Verney, my good fellow, I must request you to retire, there is a compact between this lady and me——"
A compact? said the mask turning her head.
Oh, madam, the vision of that entrancing countenance!
He strove to unfasten the chair door, when:
What? cried she, "and rob you of all the charm of uncertainty and all the joy of guessing and all the spice of being able to take away the character of every lady in Bath. Oh," she said, "I hope I have been better taught my duty to my neighbour!" Out went her head again to Lord Verney; there was another whisper, a silver laugh. "On men!" she cried.
Lord Verney skipped round and in his turn dragged the discomfited Captain out of the window and restrained him by main force from running after the retreating chairman and their fair burden.
Lord Markham was a person of indefinite appearance, indefinite age and indefinite manners. He wore an ill-fitting wig, but he had a high reputation as a man of honour. He sat beside Sir Jasper on the front seat, while on the back sat Tom Stafford; and the curricle sped cheerily along through the up-and-down Bath streets out into the country budding with green, down, down the hill, to Hammer's Fields by the winding Avon. Sir Jasper's face bespoke great dissatisfaction with life at large, and with his own existence in particular. Tom Stafford was beginning to feel slightly bored.
'Tis an early spring, said Lord Markham, in the well-meant endeavour to beguile away the heavy minutes and distract his principal's mind. "'Tis very mild weather for the time of year; and the lambs are forward."
Ugh! said Sir Jasper.
Speak not to him of lambs, whispered Stafford; "do not you see he is all for blood and thunder?"
Then he added maliciously; "There is but one animal in the whole fauna that Sir Jasper takes an interest in at present; and that's not easy, it seems, to find in these purlieus, though we know it does haunt them: 'tis the red dear!" He chuckled, vastly delighted with the conceit.
Let us hope we shall not have rain, said Lord Markham; "these clouds are menacing."
Nay, they will hold up for half-an-hour. Enough to serve our purpose, growled Sir Jasper, and tipped the horses with the lash so that they spurned the slope.
But we shall get wet returning, pleaded the well-meaning Earl, "I said so all along; 'twould have been better to have gone in a coach."
I vow, cried Sir Jasper with a sudden burst of spleen, "I vow that I have it in my heart to wish that Villiers' ball may speed so well that I may feel neither rain nor shine, coming home again. Home again," said he with a withering smile; "blast it, a pretty home mine is!"
And a pretty cheerful fellow you are to bring out to a merry meeting, quoth Stafford from the back, "and a nice pair of fools you and the Colonel be, plague on you both! And when you are shot, 'twill be a fine satisfaction to think that your wife can console herself with the owner of the red curl, eh? What are you going to fight old Villiers about, I should like to know?"
You do know, growled Sir Jasper, then he exploded. "You goad me, sir; do I want to fight Villiers? Is not this business the merest fooling; sheer waste of time when the real fellow—villain!—has eluded me?" His hold on the reins tightened, he laid on the whip, and the curricle swayed as the horses leaped and plunged.
Really, said Lord Markham, "I wish I had come in a coach."
And: "Hold on," cried Stafford, "hold on, Jasper; we don't all want to leave our bones in this business."
There came a pause in the conversation. They bowled alone a more level road with the wind humming in their ears, and the rhythmic trot of the greys beating a tune. Then Stafford remarked vaguely:
I have a notion there will be no duel to-day at Hammer's Fields, Jasper, that you will be able to return with undiminished vigour to the hunt of the unknown culprit.
How now, cried Sir Jasper fiercely, "have you heard from Villiers? Are they all rats now-a-days? Verney first, then that Spicer, then the Colonel! No, no, the fellow was mad with me, sir; and—gad!—the offence was mine!"
Nevertheless, said Stafford unmoved, "I happen to know that Colonel Villiers' man was sent in all haste for his physician, Sir George Waters, at such an unconscionable hour this morning that Sir George despatched the apothecary in his stead, and the apothecary found our fire-eating Colonel roaring in a fit of the most violent gout 'tis possible to imagine. So violent, indeed, that poor Mr. Wigginbotham was soundly beat by the Colonel for not being Sir George. Villiers' foot is as large as a pumpkin, old Foulks tells me; I had it all from Foulks over a glass of water in the Pump Room this morning, and zooks, sir, his false teeth rattled in his head as he tried to describe to me the awful language Colonel Villiers was using. He's to be Villiers' second, you know, but he swore 'twas impossible, rank impossible, for any man to put such a foot to the ground."
They were rounding the corner of Hammer's Fields as he spoke, and Stafford's eyes roaming over the green expanse of grass rested upon the little group drawn up towards the entrance gate.
Unless, he went on, "the Colonel comes upon crutches. No, zounds! ha, ha! Jasper I will always love you, man, for the capital jokes you have provided of late. Strike me ugly if the old fellow has not come—in a bath-chair!"
Really, said Lord Markham, "this is very irregular. I have never before been privy to a duel where one of the combatants fought in a chair. And I am not sure that I can undertake the responsibility of concluding arrangements in such circumstances."
Blasted nonsense! said Sir Jasper with all his former urbanity of demeanour. He flung the reins to his man as he spoke, and clambered down from the curricle. Stafford had gone before him to the gate and was now stamping from one foot to another in exquisite enjoyment of the situation.
(Ha, ha, ha!) Hello! Morning, Colonel, sorry to see you this way! (Ha, ha!) Have you brought another bath-chair for our man? Oh come, yes. 'Twon't be fair if he do not sit in a bath-chair too! Say, Foulks, you wheel one chair, I'll wheel the other, and we will run them one at the other and let them fire as soon as they please. Gad, what a joke!
Colonel Villiers turned upon his volatile friend a countenance the colour of which presented some resemblance to a well-defined bruise on the third day; it was yellow and green with pain where it was not purple with fury.
Mr. Stafford, sir, these jokes, sir, are vastly out of place. (Curse this foot!) Mr. Foulks, have the kindness to explain.... Major Topham, explain to these gentlemen that I have come out to fight, sir, and that fight I will, by the living jingo! He struck the arm of the chair in his fury, gave his suffering foot a nasty jar and burst into a howl of rage and agony.
Stap me, said Stafford, "I'd as soon fight an old bear! Whisper, Foulks, is he going to shoot in his cage—beg pardon, I mean his chair?"
Such is his intention, said Mr. Foulks, grinning nervously as he spoke, and showing the set of fine Bond Street ivory already referred to by Mr. Stafford. "But it strikes me it is somewhat irregular."
Somewhat irregular? ejaculated Lord Markham; "it is altogether irregular. I decline to have anything to say to it."
Sir Jasper remained standing, gloomily looking at the ground and driving his gold-headed malacca into the soft mud as if all his attention were directed to the making of a row of little tunnels.
What is the difficulty, what is the difficulty? bellowed Colonel Villiers. "You wheel me into position, and you mark the paces, eight paces, Foulks, not a foot more, and you give me my pistol. What is the difficulty—hang me, hang you all, I say! What is the difficulty?"
The combatants will not be equal, suggested Major Topham. "I told Villiers that I will gladly take his place."
No no, no! screamed the old man turning round, and then, "Oh," cried he, and screwed up his face. And then the gout had him with such fury that he gripped the arms of his chair and flung back his head, displaying a ghastly countenance.
I remember, champed old Foulks, "the dear Duke of Darlington insisted upon fighting Basil Verney (that's Verney's father, you know) with his left arm in splints, but as my Lord Marquis of Cranbroke, his Grace's second, remarked to me at the time——"
Oh, spare us the Marquis! interrupted Stafford brutally. "Let us keep to the business on hand, if you please. The whole thing is absurd, monstrous! Look here, Jasper, look here, Colonel, you two cannot fight to-day. How could you be equally matched even if we got another bath-chair for Jasper. We cannot give him the gout, man, and 'twould be too dashed unfair. Gad, Colonel you would shoot too well or too ill, 'twon't do! Come, come, gentlemen, let us make a good business out of a bad one. Why should you fight at all? Here's Jasper willing to apologise. (Yes you are, Jasper, hold your tongue and be sensible for once; you pulled off his wig, you know. Gad, it was not pretty behaviour, not at all pretty!) But then, Colonel, did not he think you had cut him out with his wife, and was not that a compliment? The neatest compliment you'll ever have this side the grave! He was jealous of you, Colonel; faith, I don't know another man in Bath that would do you so much honour, now-a-days."
Oh, take me out of this, cried the Colonel, suddenly giving way to the physical anguish that he had been struggling against so valiantly. "Zounds, I will fight you all some day! Take me out of this. Where is that brimstone idiot, my servant? Take me out of this, you devils!"
Between them they wheeled his chair into the road and his screams and curses as he was lifted into the coach were terrible to hear.
Lord, if he could but call out the gout! cried Stafford. "Look at him, gentlemen! Ha, he has got his footman by the periwig! Oh, 'tis as good as a play, he is laying it on to the fellow like a Trojan! Why, the poor devil has escaped, but his wig is in the Colonel's hands. Ha, ha, he has sent it flying out of the coach! Off they go; what a voice the old boy has got, he is trumpeting like the elephant at the fair! Well, Jasper, what did I say? No duel to-day."
Do not make so sure of that, said Sir Jasper. He was moving towards the curricle as he spoke, and turned a sinister face over his shoulder to his friend.
Oh, cried the latter, and fell back upon Markham, "the fellow's look would turn a churn-full of cream! No, I will not drive back with ye, thankye, Sir Jasper; I will walk. Devil take it," said Stafford, "I don't mind a little jealousy in reason myself; but if I were to drive home in that company, I'd have no appetite for dinner. Come, gentlemen, 'tis a lovely day, let us walk."
So Sir Jasper rolled home alone, and, as his coachman observed a little later as he helped to unharness the sweating horses, "drove them cruel!"