Lady Standish was one of those clinging beings who seem morally and physically to be always seeking a prop. Before adversity she was prostrate, and when his lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells was ushered into her sitting-room, half-an-hour after Sir Jasper's departure for Hammer's Fields, he found the poor lady stretched all her length upon the sofa, her head buried in the cushions.
Dear me, said his lordship, and paused. He was a tall, portly, handsome gentleman with sleek countenance, full eye, and well-defined waistcoat. Could human weakness have touched him, he would have felt a pride in those legs which so roundly filled the silk stockings. But that human weakness could ever affect the Bishop of Bath and Wells was a thing that dignitary (and he gave his Maker thanks for it) felt to be utterly inconceivable.
Lady Standish, said the Bishop; then he waved his hand to the curious servants. "Leave us, leave us, friends," said he.
Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of desperate heart-sickness into a sitting posture and turned her head to look dully upon her visitor.
You come too late, she said; "my lord. Sir Jasper has gone to this most disastrous meeting."
My dear Lady Standish, said Dr. Thurlow, "my dear child," he took a chair and drew it to the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand and held it between his two plump palms. "My dear Lady Standish," pursued he in a purring, soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted soul happened to belong to the aristocracy and in preference inhabited a young female body), who did? "I came upon the very moment I received your letter. I might perhaps have instantly done something to help in this matter, had you been more explicit, but there was a slight incoherence ... very natural!" Here he patted her hand gently. "A slight incoherence which required explanations. Now tell me—I gather that your worthy husband has set forth upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a duel?"
Lady Standish gave a moaning assent.
Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men! It is very reprehensible, but we must not be too hard on young blood. Young blood is hot! Well, well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear Lady Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, not a hair of our heads, that is not counted. Was the, ah—quarrel about cards, or some such social trifle?
It was about me, said the afflicted wife in a strangled voice.
About you, my dear lady! The clasp of the plump hand grew, if possible, a trifle closer, almost tender. Lady Standish was cold and miserable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a vague feeling of strength and comfort.
About me, she repeated, and her lip trembled.
Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper fight?
With Colonel Villiers, said she, and shot a glance of full misery into the benign large-featured face bending over her.
Colonel Villiers, repeated the Bishop in tones of the blankest astonishment. "Not—eh, not—er, old Colonel Villiers?"
Oh, my lord, cried Lady Standish, "I am the most miserable and the most innocent of women!"
My dear madam, cried the Bishop, "I never for an instant doubted the latter." His hold upon her hand relaxed, and she withdrew it to push away the tears that now began to gather thick and fast on her eyelashes. The Bishop wondered how it was he had never noticed before what a very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what charming eyes she had, and what quite unusually long eyelashes. It was something of a revelation to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these days of rouge and powder.
And yet, sobbed Lady Standish, "'tis my fault too, for I have been very wrong, very foolish! Oh, my lord, if my husband is hurt, I cannot deny 'tis I shall bear the guilt of it."
Come, tell me all about it, said the Bishop, and edged from his chair to her side on the sofa, and re-possessed himself of her hand. She let it lie in his; she was very confiding. "We are all foolish," said Dr. Thurlow, "we are all, alas, prone to sin." He spoke in the plural to give her confidence, not that such a remark could apply to any Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Oh, I have been very foolish, repeated the lady. "I thought, my lord, I fancied that my husband's affection for me was waning."
Impossible! cried his lordship. But he felt slightly bewildered.
And so, acting upon inconsiderate advice, I—I pretended—only pretended indeed, my lord—that I cared for someone else, and Sir Jasper got jealous and so he has been calling everybody out thinking that he has a rival.
Nevertheless, said the Bishop, "he has no rival. Do I understand you correctly, my dear child? These suspicions of his are unfounded? Colonel Villiers?"
Colonel Villiers, cried she, "that old stupid red-nosed wretch! No, my lord, indeed, there is no one. My husband has my whole heart!" She caught her breath and looked up at him with candid eyes swimming in the most attractive tears. "Colonel Villiers!" cried she. "Oh, how can you think such a thing of me? But my husband will not believe me; indeed, indeed, indeed I am innocent! He was jealous of Lord Verney too, and last night fought Mr. O'Hara."
The Bishop smiled to himself with the most benign indulgence. His was a soul overflowing with charity, but it was chiefly when dealing with the foibles of a pretty woman that he appreciated to the full what a truly inspired ordinance that of charity is.
My dear child, if I may call you so, knowing your worthy mother so well, you must not grieve like this. Let me feel that you look upon me as a friend. Let me wipe away these tears. Why, you are trembling! Shall we not have more trust in the ruling of a merciful Heaven? Now I am confident that Sir Jasper will be restored to you uninjured or with but a trifling injury. And if I may so advise, do not seek, my dear Lady Standish, in the future to provoke his jealousy in this manner; do not openly do anything which will arouse those evil passions of anger and vengeance in him!
Oh, indeed, indeed, she cried, and placed her other little hand timidly upon the comforting clasp of the Bishop's, "indeed I never will again!"
And remember that in me you have a true friend, my dear Lady Standish. Allow me to call myself your friend.
Here there came a sound of flying wheels and frantic hoofs without, and the door-bell was pealed and the knocker plied so that the summons echoed and re-echoed through the house.
Oh, God! screamed Lady Standish springing to her feet, "they have returned! Oh, heavens, what has happened? If he is hurt I cannot bear it, I cannot—I cannot!" She clasped her head wildly and swayed as if she would have fallen. What could a Christian do, a gentleman and a shepherd of souls, but catch her lest she fall? Half mad with terror she turned and clung to him as she would have clung to the nearest support.
Have courage, he purred into the little ear; "I am with you, dear child, have courage."
So they stood, she clasping the Bishop and the Bishop clasping her, patting her shoulder, whispering in her ear, when Sir Jasper burst in upon them.
It was his voice that drove them apart, yet it was neither loud nor fierce, it was only blightingly sarcastic.
So! said he.
What was it Stafford had said: "There's the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He's red, as red as a lobster, from top to toe! They have a way, these divines." Oh, Stafford knew doubtless: all Bath knew! Sir Jasper cursed horribly in his heart, but aloud only said: "So!"
Lady Standish flew half across the room to him with a joyful cry, but was arrested midway by his attitude, his look. The Bishop said "Ahem," and "ahem" again, and then said he:
I rejoice, I rejoice, Sir Jasper, to see you return unscathed. Lady Standish has been greatly distressed.
And you, said Sir Jasper, drily, "have been consoling her."
To the best of my poor power, said the Bishop, and felt, he knew not why (if indeed it were possible for him to feel that way!) a shade uncomfortable.
Sir Jasper closed the door and bowed.
I think, said he, "I ought to crave pardon for this intrusion."
Oh Jasper! cried my lady.
Her husband turned towards her for a second. She wilted beneath his eye and sank into a chair.
Oh, Sir Jasper, said she, floundering. "The Bishop has been very kind. I have been so unhappy about you."
I see, said Sir Jasper, "that his lordship has been very kind. His lordship, as I said, has been administering consolation."
Here all at once his stoniness gave way. He walked towards the Bishop and bent a ghastly face close to the florid uneasily smiling countenance.
My Lord, said Sir Jasper, "your cloth will not protect you."
Sir! ejaculated the divine.
Your cloth will not protect you! repeated Sir Jasper in that voice of strenuous composure that seems to tremble on a shriek. "Oh, shepherd, you!"
Sir! cried the Bishop, "do you mean to insinuate——"
I insinuate nothing, cried the other and sneered. "So madam," he turned again to his wife, "this is your choice, eh? You were always a pious woman, were you not? You would like to have the approval of the Church upon your acts, would you not?" Indescribable was the sarcasm upon his lip.
Really, said the Bishop, "I am seriously annoyed." He looked reproachfully at Lady Standish. "Madam," said he, "I came to you, as you know, in pure charity, in unsuspecting friendship. I was not prepared for this."
Ha, ha, said Sir Jasper with a hideous laugh. "No, sir, I have no doubt you were not prepared for this. Pure, ha—unsuspecting—this is pleasant! Be silent, madam, these groans, these crocodile tears have no effect upon me. Come, my Lord Bishop, your sanctimonious airs cannot take me in. Have I not read your letter? Oh, you have got a very fine head of hair, but I know ... there is a curl missing! Ha, Julia, you should take better care of your love-tokens."
I vow, said Dr. Thurlow, majestically, "that your behaviour, your words are quite beyond my poor comprehension.—Madam, I pity you from my heart!—Sir Jasper, sir," folding his arms fiercely, "your servant. I wish you good-morning." He strode to the door, his fine legs quivering with indignation beneath their purple silk meshes.
No! said Sir Jasper, and seized him roughly by the skirts. "No, you do not escape me thus!"
How now! cried the Bishop, the veins on his forehead swelling, and the nostrils of his handsome Roman nose dilating. "Would you lay hands upon the Lord's anointed? Let go my coat, Sir Jasper!"
He struck at Sir Jasper's retaining hand with his own plump fist clenched in a fashion suggestive of pulpit eloquence.
Ha! you would, would you? exclaimed Sir Jasper, and leaped at the Episcopal throat.
The next instant, to his intense astonishment, Sir Jasper found himself in an iron grip; lifted into the air with an ease against which all his resistance was as that of a puppet; shaken till his teeth rattled, and deposited on the flat of his back upon the floor.
Oh, help, help, help! screamed Lady Standish.
Really, said the Bishop, "I don't know when I have been so insulted in my life. 'Tis the whole Church, sir, the Church of England, the State itself, that you have assaulted in my person!"
He stood glaring down on the prostrate foe, breathing heavy rebuke through his high dignified nose.
You have committed blasphemy, simony, sacrilege, rank sacrilege, thundered Dr. Thurlow.
Sir Jasper gathered himself together like a panther, and sprang to his feet; like a panther, too, he took two or three stealthy steps and, half crouching, measured the muscular Bishop with bloodshot eyes, selecting the most vulnerable portion of anatomy. He panted and foamed. The air was thick with flying powder.
Lady Standish flung herself between them.
In mercy, my lord, she cried, "leave us—leave us!"
Here the door opened and butler and delighted footmen burst into the room.
The Bishop turned slowly. The grace of his vocation prevailed over the mere man.
May heaven pardon you, he said. "May Heaven pardon you, sir, and help you to chasten this gross violence of temper. And you, madam," said he, turning witheringly upon the unfortunate and long-suffering lady, "may you learn womanly decorum and circumspection!"
You shall hear from me again, growled Sir Jasper, murderously—"Toombs," cried he to the butler with a snarl, "show the Bishop the door!"
The Bishop smiled. He wheeled upon them all a stately back, and with short deliberate steps withdrew, taking his cane from the footman with a glassy look that petrified Thomas, and refusing Mr. Toombs' proffered ministrations as he might have waved aside a cup of poison. "Vade retro Satanas," he seemed to say; and so departed, leaving his pastoral curse voicelessly behind him.
How beautiful you are! said Lord Verney.
He was sitting on a stool at Mrs. Bellairs' feet. She had abandoned to him one plump taper-fingered hand. The gay little parlour of the Queen Square house was full of sunshine and of the screeching ecstasy of Mistress Kitty's canary bird.
How beautiful you are! said he; it was for the fourth time within the half-hour. Conversation between them had languished somehow.
Kitty Bellairs flung a sidelong wistful look upon her lover's countenance. His eyes, gazing upwards upon her, devoured her beauty with the self-same expression that she had found so entrancing earlier in the day. "Deep wells of passion," she had told herself then. Now a chill shade of misgiving crept upon her.
His eyes are like a calf's, she said to herself suddenly.
*****
How beautiful—— thus he began to murmur once again, when his mistress's little hand, twitching impatiently from his grasp, surprised him into silence.
Oh dear! a calf in very truth, thought she. "Baah—baa ooh.... What can I have seen in him? 'Twas a sudden pastoral yearning....!"
May I not hold your hand? said he, shifting himself to his silken knees and pressing against her.
Yet he was a pretty boy and there was a charm undoubted in the freshness of this innocence and youth awakening to the first glimmer of man's passion.
Delightful task—— she quoted under her breath, and once more vouchsafed him, with a sweep like the poise of a dove, her gentle hand.
As it lay in his brown fingers, she contemplated it with artistic satisfaction and played her little digits up and down, admiring the shape and colour of the nails, the delicate dimples at the knuckles. But Lord Verney's great boy's paw engulfed them all too quickly, and his brown eyes never wavered from their devout contemplation of her countenance.
How——
Mistress Kitty sprang to her feet.
I vow, she cried, "'tis my hour for the waters, and I had clean forgot them!"
She called upon her maid:
Lydia, child, my hat!—Lord Verney, if it please you, sir, your arm as far as the Pump Room. ("At least," she thought to herself, "all Bath shall know of my latest conquest")
She tied her hat ribbons under her chin.
How like you the mode? said she. And, charmed into smiles again by the rosy vision under the black plumes, she flashed round upon him from the mirror. "Is it not, perhaps, a thought fly-away? Yet 'tis the latest. What says my Verney?"
The poor youth vainly endeavoured to discriminate and criticise.
It is indeed a very fine hat, said he ... "and there seem to be a vast number of feathers upon it." He hesitated, stammered. "Oh, what care I for modes! 'Tis you, you——"
What are you staring at, girl? cried Mistress Bellairs sharply, to her Abigail. "Out with you!"
Well, my Verney? said she. "Mercy, how you look, man! Is anything wrong with my face?"
She tilted that lovely little piece of perishable bloom innocently towards him as she spoke. And the kiss she had read in his eyes landed with unprecedented success upon her lips.
Why, who knows? thought she, with a little satisfied smile, as she straightened her modish hat. "There may be stuff in the lad, after all!"
She took his arm. Dazed by his own audacity, he suffered her to lead him from the room. They jostled together down the narrow stairs.
How beautiful you are! said he; and kissed her again as they reached the sombre dark-panelled vestibule.
Fie! said she with a shade of testiness and pushed him back, as her little black page ran to open the door.
The kiss, like his talk, lacked any heightening of tone—and what of a lover's kiss that shows no new ardour, what of a vow of love that has no new colour, no fresh imagery? But the trees in Queen Square were lightly leafed with pale, golden-green. The sunshine was white-gold, the breeze fresh and laughing; the old grey town was decked as with garlands of Young Love.
He is but new to it, she argued against her fleeting doubts, "and he is, sure, the prettiest youth in all Bath."
Love and Spring danced in Mistress Kitty's light heart and light heels as she tripped forth. And Love and Spring gathered and strove and sought outlet in Verney's soul as inevitably, and irresistibly, and almost as unconsciously as the sap in the young shoots that swayed under the caress of the breeze and amorously unfurled themselves to the sunlight.
*****
The Pump Room was cool and dim after the grey stone street upon which the young year's sunshine beat as fierce as its youth knew how. The water droned its little song as it welled up, faintly steaming.
Listen to it, quoth Mistress Kitty. "How innocent it sounds, how dear it looks!"
With a smile she took the glass transferred to her by Verney, and: "Ugh!" said she, "how monstrous horrid it tastes, to be sure! 'Tis, I fear," she said, again casting a glance of some anxiety at her new lover's countenance, "a symbol of life."
Yet, said he, "these waters are said to be vastly wholesome."
Wholesome! cried Mistress Kitty, sipping again, and again curling her nose upwards and the corners of her lips downwards, in an irresistibly fascinating grimace. "Wholesome, my lord! Heaven defend us! And what is that but the last drop to complete their odiousness! Wholesome, sir? I would have you know 'tis not for wholesomeness I drink." She put down her glass, undiminished save by the value of a bird's draught. "Do I look like a woman who needs to drink waters for 'wholesomeness?'"
Indeed, no, floundered he in his bewildered way.
There are social obligations, said she, sententiously. "A widow, sir, alone and unprotected, must conform to common usage. And then I have another reason, one of pure sentiment."
She cocked her head and fixed her mocking eye upon him.
My poor Bellairs, said she, "how oft has it not been my pleasure and my duty to fill such a glass as this and convey it to his lips? In his last years, poor angel, he had quite lost the use of his limbs!"
Lord Verney had no answer appropriate to these tender reminiscences; and Mistress Kitty, having, it seemed, sufficiently conformed to the usage of Bath, as well as sacrificed to the manes of the departed, turned briskly round, and, leaning against a pilaster, began to survey the room.
La! how empty! quoth she. "'Tis your fault if I am so late, my lord. Nobody, I swear, but that Flyte woman, your odious Spicer, sir—ha, and old General Tilney. Verily, I believe these dreadful springs have the power of keeping such mummies in life long after their proper limit. 'Tis hardly fair on the rest of the world. Why, the poor thing has scarce a sense or a wit left, and yet it walks! Heaven preserve us! why, it runs!" she cried suddenly with a little chirp, as the unfortunate veteran of Dettingen, escaping from the guiding hands of his chairman, started for the door with the uncontrolled trot of semi-paralytic senility.
And that reminds me, said Mistress Kitty, "that Sir George is most particular that I should walk five minutes between every glass. Here comes your estimable aunt, Lady Maria, and her ear-trumpet, and the unfortunate Miss Selina. I protest, with that yellow feather she is more like my dear dead Toto than ever.
Was that your pet name for your husband? murmured Lord Verney, in a strangled whisper.
Fie, sir! cried the widow. "My cockatoo—I referred to my cockatoo." She sighed profoundly. "I loved him," she said.
He looked at her, uncertain to which of the lamented bipeds she referred.
Selina, cried Lady Maria, in the strident tones of the deaf woman persuaded of her own consequence (the voice of your shy deaf one loses all sound in her terror of being loud)—"Selina, how often must I tell you that you must clip in my glass yourself! Who's that over there? Where are my eyeglasses? Who's that, did you say? Mistress Bellairs? Humph! And who's she got with her in tow now? Who did you say? Louder, child, louder. What makes you mumble so? Who? Verney—Lord Verney? Why, that's my nevvy. Tell him to come to me this minute. Do you hear, Selina, this minute! I won't have him fall into the net of widow Bellairs!"
The cockatoo top-knot nodded vehemently. Poor Miss Selina, agitated between consciousness that the whole Pump Room was echoing to Lady Maria's sentiments and terror of her patroness, took two steps upon her errand, and halted, fluttering. Lord Verney had flushed darkly purple. Mistress Kitty hung with yet more affectionate weight upon his arm and smiled with sweet unconsciousness. For the moment she was as deaf as Lady Maria.
The latter's claw-like hand had now disengaged a long-stemmed eyeglass from her laces.
'Tis indeed, she pronounced in her commanding bass, "my nevvy Verney with that vile Bellairs!—-Nevvy! Here, I say!—Selina, fool, have you gone to sleep?"
An echo, as of titters, began to circle round the Pump Room. The painted face of Lady Flyte was wreathed into a smile of peculiar significance, as she whispered over her glass to her particular friend of the moment, Captain Spicer. This gentleman's pallid visage was illumined with a radiance of gratified spite. His lips were pursed as though upon a plum of superdelicious gossip. He began to whisper and mouthe. Young Squire Greene approached the couple with an eager ear and an innocent noddy face that strove to look vastly wise.
I assure you, mouthed the Captain. "Was I not there?"
In his bedroom? cried Lady Flyte, with a shrill laugh.
Lady Maria's cockatoo crest rose more fiercely. It seemed to Kitty Bellairs as if she heard the old lady's jaws rattle. It was certain that in her wrath she squawked louder than even the late lamented Toto. Then Mistress Kitty, who, to say the truth, began to find the scene a little beyond enjoyment, felt the young arm upon which she leaned stiffen, the young figure beside her rear itself with a new manliness.
Pray, Mistress Bellairs, said my Lord Verney, he spoke loudly and, to her surprise, with perfect facility, even dignity, "will you allow me to introduce you to my aunt, Lady Maria Prideaux?—Aunt Maria," said he, and his voice rang out finely, imposing a general silence, "let me present Mistress Bellairs. This lady has graciously condescended to accept me as her future husband. I am the happiest and the most honoured of men."
The last sentence he cried out still more emphatically than the rest, and then repeated it with his eye on Kitty's suddenly flushed cheek, almost in a whisper and with a quiver of strong emotion.
The astounded Mistress Kitty rose from her deep curtesy with a swelling heart.
The dear lad, she said to herself. "The dear, innocent chivalrous lad!"
There was almost a dimness in her brilliant black eye. Her emotion was of a kind she had never known before: it was almost maternal.
Under stress of sudden genuine emotion, the wit of intrigue in the cleverest woman falls in abeyance. Mistress Bellairs found no word out of the new situation.
Lady Maria's deafness had increased to an alarming extent.
Gratified, I'm sure, she mumbled, stuck out her dry hand and withdrew it before Mistress Bellairs had time to touch it.
My future wife, bawled the budding peer, in his aged relative's ear.
It was curious to note how old Lady Maria seemed suddenly to have become. Huddled in herself she nodded vacantly at her nephew.
Thank ye for asking, child, said she, "but the waters try me a good deal."
Lord Verney attempted another shout in vain.
So Sir George says, remarked my lady.
'Tis the very eye of my poor dear Toto, thought Mistress Bellairs.
Lord Verney looked round in despair. Miss Selina thought him monstrous handsome and gallant, and her poor old-maid's heart warmed to the lover in him. She approached Lady Maria and gently lifted her trumpet.
Lady Maria, glad enough of a diversion, applied it to her ear with unwonted affability.
What is it, my dear? Any sign of the Duchess?
Your nephew, said Miss Selina in modest accents, "your nephew, my Lord Verney, wishes to inform you that he is about to contract a matrimonial alliance with the lady he has just introduced to you."
Miss Selina blushed behind the mouthpiece as she made this announcement. Then she cried: "Oh," with an accent of suffering, for Lady Maria had rapped her over the knuckles with the instrument.
Matrimonial fiddlesticks! said Lord Verney's aunt. "Selina, you're a perfect fool!—Madam," remarked the wraith of the departed cockatoo, inclining her crest with much dignity towards the blooming Kitty, "I wish you good-morning."
There must have been a curious magic in the words, "My future wife," for no sooner had he pronounced them than Lord Verney became several inches taller, a distinct span broader and quite unreasonably older. In fact, from boyhood he had stepped to man's estate. He looked down protectingly at the little woman hanging on his arm. The seriousness of responsibility settled upon his brow.
Ah! Verney, quoth Mr. Stafford, flicking a hot brow, as he dashed in out of the sunshine, powdered with white dust from his walk and still bubbling with laughter. "Ah, Verney, playing butterfly in the golden hours while other fellows toil in the sweat of their brow! Jingo! lad, but you've lit on the very rose of the garden.—Mistress Kitty Bellairs, I kiss your hand."
At this Mistress Kitty felt her future lord's arm press her fingers to his ribs, while he straightened his youthful back.
Mr. Stafford, began he in solemn tones, "this lady——"
But she, knowing what was coming, interrupted ruthlessly.
And pray, Mr. Stafford, quoth she, cocking her head at him with those birdlike airs and graces that were as natural to her as to any mincing dove—Mistress Kitty being of those that begin by making eyes in their nurses' arms, before they can speak, and end in a modish lace nightcap for the benefit of the doctor—"and whence may you come so late, and thus heated?"
Whence? cried Mr. Stafford, and overcome by the humour of his recollections, roused the solemn echoes of the Pump Room by his jovial laugh. "Ah, you may well ask! from the merriest meeting it has ever been my fate to attend. Oh, the face of him in his chair, between his gout and his temper! And fire-eating Jasper all for bullets; and old Foulks' teeth ready to drop out of his head at the indecorousness of it all!—Spicer, man, aha! hold me up.—Oh, madam," cried Mr. Stafford, wiping tears of ecstasy from his eyes and leaning as unceremoniously against Spicer as if the latter's lank figure were a pilaster specially intended for his support—"oh, madam, I could make you laugh had I the breath left for it."
Indeed, cried Mistress Kitty, plunging in again, as it became evident to her that Lord Verney, with the gentle obstinacy that was part of his character, was once more preparing to make his nuptial statement. "Mr. Stafford, please speak then, for in sooth it seems to me a vastly long time since I have laughed."
Gad! you actually make me curious, put in Mr. Stafford's prop.
Oh dear, oh dear! sighed Mr. Stafford, in a fresh fit, "ha, ha! By the way, Verney, weren't you also to have walked with the jealous husband this morning!—Ah, by the same token, and you too, Spicer? Gad. I'm glad you didn't, for if either of you had put lead in him I'd have missed the best joke of the season. Gad, I may say so. He, he, aha-ha, ho, ho!"
Mr. Stafford, said my Lord Verney, as solemn as any owl, while Mistress Kitty, caught by the infection of the genial Stafford's mirth, tittered upon his arm, "I have deeper reason than you think of to rejoice that the absurd misunderstanding was cleared up between Sir Jasper and myself. This lady and I——"
Oh dear, the joke, the joke! cried Mistress Bellairs, with loud impatience, and stamped her little foot.
Oh, my fair Bellairs, gasped Mr. Stafford, "had you but been there to share it with me!"
This lady—— quoth Lord Verney.
I wish indeed I had been! cried she. And in very truth she did.
Mrs. Bellairs, said the determined lover, "has consented to make me the happiest of men."
Eh? cried Mr. Stafford, and stopped on the edge of another guffaw.
Mistress Kitty cast down her eyelids. She felt she looked demure and almost bashful, and she hated herself in this character.
Mr. Stafford was one of the thirty-seven lovers of whom the lady had spoken so confidently, and as such was far from realising the solemn meaning of Lord Verney's announcement.
Ah, madam, cried he reproachfully, "is't not enough to keep me for ever in Hades, must you needs add to my torture by showing me another in Paradise? But, my little Verney," he went on, turning good-naturedly to his young rival, "it is but fair to warn you that you will be wise to pause before getting yourself measured for your halo: the Paradise of this lady's favour is (alack, do I not know it?) of most precarious tenure."
This lady, sir, said Lord Verney, with rigid lips, "has promised to be my wife."
It was fortunate that Mr. Stafford had a prop: under the shock he staggered. Man of the world as he was, the most guileless astonishment was stamped on his countenance.
Oh, how demure looked Mistress Kitty!
Spicer, a trifle yellow, became effusive in congratulations which were but coldly received by his patron.
Ah, Kitty, whispered Mr. Stafford in Mistress Bellairs' shell-like ear, "do you like them so tender-green? Why, my dear, the lad's chin is as smooth as your own. What pleasantry is this?"
Kitty scraped her little foot and hung her head. Mistress Kitty coy! And yon poor innocent with his air of proprietorship—'twas a most humorous spectacle!
I'm sure, Verney, cried Mr. Stafford, "I wish you joy, ha, ha! with all my heart! And you madam, he, he!—forgive me, friends—the thought of Sir Jasper's duel is still too much for me. Ha, ha! Support me, Spicer."
She'll marry him, she'll marry him, cried Spicer with bilious vindictiveness, looking over his shoulder at the couple, as they moved away.
Marry him!—never she! cried Stafford. "Kitty's no fool. Why, man, the little demon wouldn't have me! She loves her liberty and her pleasures too well. Did you not see? She could not look up for fear of showing the devilment in her eye. Cheerily, cheerily, my gallant Captain!" cried the spark, and struck the reedy shoulders that had buttressed him, in contemptuous good-natured valediction. "You need not yet cast about for a new greenhorn to subsist upon."
*****
Mistress Kitty, glancing up at her Calf, found, something to her astonishment and further displeasure, a new expression in his eyes. Ardour had been superseded by an unseasonable gravity.
The creature is a complete menagerie! she thought to herself, indignantly. "I vow he looks like nothing but an owl in the twilight!"
They wandered together from the Pump Room on to the Abbey Flags, and so, slowly, into the cool and shady Orange Grove; and in a sequestered spot they sat them down on a stone bench.
When a man, said he, "has been, as I have, brought face to face, within the space of one short morning, with the great events of existence, Death and Love, how hollow and how unworthy do the mock joys and griefs of Society appear to him!"
Oh la! said she. "You alarm me. And when did you see Death, my lord?"
Why, said he, with his innocent gravity, "had you not intervened, my dearest dear, between Sir Jasper and me, this morning, who knows what might have happened?"
Oh, that! said she, and her lip curled.
Ay, said he, "where should I be now, Kitty? The thought haunts me in the midst of my great happiness. Had I killed Sir Jasper, could I have looked upon myself other than as a murderer?"
Oh, fie, fie, interpolated his mistress impatiently, "who ever thinks of such things in little matters of honour!"
In her heart she told herself that the young man showed a prodigious want of savoir-vivre. In all candour he proceeded to display a still greater lack of that convenient quality.
On the other hand, had I fallen, and that indeed was the more likely contingency, it being my first affair of the kind, I tremble to think in what state my soul would have appeared before its Maker. His voice quivered a moment.
My Lord Verney, cried Kitty, turning upon him a most distressed countenance, "you have no idea how you shock me!"
And indeed he had not.
He took her distress for the sweetest womanly sympathy, and was emboldened to further confidence.
I blush to tell you, he said, "that since I came to this gay Society of Bath, my life has not been all my conscience could approve of. The pious practices, the earnest principles of life so sedulously inculcated in me by my dear mother, have been but too easily cast aside."
Oh dear! cried Kitty in accents of yet greater pain.
When we are married, my dear love, pursued Lord Verney, quietly encircling his mistress's little waist with his arm as he spoke, but, absorbed as he was in his virtuous reflections, omitting to infuse any ardour into his embrace, "we shall not seek the brilliant world. We shall find all our happiness with each other, shall we not? Oh, how welcome my dear mother will make you at Verney Hall! It has always been her dream that I should marry early and settle on the estate."
Little shivers ran down Kitty's spine. "Is it your intention to live with your mother when you are married?" she faltered, and leaned weakly against the inert arm.
Enthusiastically he cried that the best of mothers and he could never be parted long.
Oh, how you will love her! he said, looking fondly at the Kitty of his imagination.
From your tenderest years she sedulously inculcated in you earnest principles and pious practices, did she not? murmured the Kitty of reality, with what was almost a moan.
She did indeed, cried the youth.
Mistress Kitty closed her eyes and let her head droop upon his shoulder.
I fear I am going to have the vapours, said she.
'Tis, maybe, the spring heats, said he, and made as if he would rise.
Maybe, said Mistress Kitty, becoming so limp all at once that he was forced to tighten his clasp. He glanced at her now in some alarm. She half opened bright eyes, and glimmered a languid little smile at him.
At least, thought the widow, "if we must part (and part we must, my Calf and I) we shall part on a sweet moment. What—in a bower, every scent, every secret bird and leaf and sunbeam of which calls on thought of love, and I by his side—he to prate of his mother! An at least he does not bleat of my beauty again, my name is not Kitty!"
She sighed and closed her eyes. The delicate face lay but a span from his lips.
I fear indeed you are faint, said he with solicitude. "My mother has a sovereign cordial against such weakness."
Mistress Bellairs sat up very energetically for a fainting lady.
Your mother... she began with a flash of her eye, then checked herself abruptly. "Adieu, Verney," said she, and stretched out her hand to him.
Adieu! he repeated, all bewilderment.
Ay, said she, "there chimes the Abbey its silly old air. How long have I been with you, sir, alone? Fie, fie, and must I not think of my reputation?"
Surely, as my future wife... said he.
Why then the more reason, she said, cutting him short; "must I not show myself duly discreet? Think of your lady mother! Come, sir, take your leave."
A moment she was taunting; a moment all delicious smiles.
I'll make him bleat! she thought, and stamped her foot upon it.
As far as your door? said he.
Not a step, she vowed. "Come, sir, adieu."
He took her hand; bent and kissed her sedately.
I will, said he, "go write the news to my mother."
Oh go! said she, and turned on her heel with a flounce and was out of his sight, round the corner of an ally, with a whisk and flutter of tempestuous petticoats, before his slow boy's wits had time to claim the moment for the next meeting.
There were actually tears in Mistress Kitty's eyes as she struck the gravel with her cane. She rubbed her cherry lips where his kiss had rested with a furious hand.
'Twas positively matrimonial, she cried within herself, with angry double-threaded reminiscence—"the Calf! Did ever woman spend a more ridiculous hour—and in Heaven's name, what's to be done?"
Denis O'Hara appropriately lived in Gay Street. As all the world knows, Gay Street runs steeply from the green exclusiveness of Queen Square, to the lofty elegance, the columnal solemnity of the King's Circus. Being a locality of the most fashionable, Gay Street was apt to be deserted enough at those hours when Fashion, according to the unwritten laws of Bath, foregathered in other quarters.
Towards eight o'clock of the evening of the day after his duel with Sir Jasper, Mr. Denis O'Hara, seated at his open window, disconsolate in a very gorgeous dressing-gown and a slight fever fit, found it indeed so damnably deserted that the sight of a sedan-chair and two toiling chairmen coming up the incline became quite an object of interest to him.
To be sure, thought he, "don't I know it's only some old hen being joggled home to roost, after losing sixpence and her temper at piquet? But what's to prevent me beguiling myself for a bit by dreaming of some lovely young female coming to visit me in me misfortune? Sure it's the rats those fellows are, that not one of them would keep me company to-night! There's nobody like your dear friends for smelling out an empty purse. Musha!" said Mr. O'Hara, putting his head out of the window, "if the blessed ould chair isn't stopping at me own door!"
A bell pealing through the house confirmed his observation.
It's a woman! By the powers, it's a woman! Tim, Tim, ye devil! roared Mr. O'Hara, "come to me this minute, or I'll brain ye."
Conscious of his invalid negligé, he rose in his chair; but, curiosity proving stronger than decorum, was unable to tear himself from his post of vantage at the window.
Oh! the doaty little foot! he cried in rapture, as arched pink-silk instep and a brocade slipper of daintiest proportion emerged, in a little cloud of lace, from the dim recesses of the chair, upon his delighted vision.
He turned for a moment to bellow again into the room:
Tim, you limb of Satan, where are you at all? Sure, I'm not fit to be seen by any lady, let alone such a foot as that!
When he popped his head once more through the window, only the chairmen occupied the street.
It's for the ground floor, of course; for the French marquis, said O'Hara, and sat down, feeling as flat as a pancake.
The next instant a knock at the door sent the quick blood flying to the red head. The "limb of Satan," more generally known as Tim Mahoney, an ingratiating, untidy fellow, with a cunning leer and a coaxing manner, stood ogling his master on the threshold; then he jerked with his thumb several times over his shoulder, and grinned with exquisite enjoyment.
What is it? said O'Hara fiercely.
Tim winked, and jerked his thumb once more.
Speak, ye ugly divil, or by heavens I'll spoil your beauty for you!
Your sisther! cried Tim, with a rumbling subterraneous laugh.
Me sisther, man?
Ay, yer honour, said the scamp, who, as O'Hara's foster-brother, was well aware that his master boasted no such gentle tie. "Sure she's heard your honour's wounded, and she's come to visit you. 'I'm Misther O'Hara's sister,' says she——"
And am I not? cried a sweet voice behind him, "or, if not, at least a very, very dear cousin, and, in any case, I must see Mr. O'Hara at once, and alone."
To be sure, cried O'Hara, eagerly rising in every way to the situation, and leaping forward. "Show in the lady, you villain!—Oh, my darling!" cried the Irishman, opening generous arms, "but I am glad to see ye!—Tim, you scoundrel, shut the door behind you!"
The visitor was much enveloped, besides being masked. But there was not a moment's hesitation in the ardour of Mr. O'Hara's welcome.
Sir, sir! cried a faint voice from behind the folds of lace, "what conduct is this?"
Oh, sisther darling, sure, me heart's been hungering for you! Another kiss, me dear, dear cousin!
Mr. O'Hara! cried Mistress Bellairs, in tones of unmistakable indignation; tore off her mask, and stood with panting bosom and fiery eye.
Tare and ages! exclaimed the ingenuous Irishman. "If it isn't me lovely Kitty!"
Mistress Bellairs, if you please, Mr. O'Hara, said the lady with great dignity. "I am glad to see, sir, that that other passion of which I have heard so much has not interfered with the strength of your family affections."
She sat down, and fanned herself with her mask, and, looking haughtily round the room, finally fixed her gaze, with much interest, upon the left branch of the chandelier.
For a second, Mr. O'Hara's glib tongue seemed at a loss; but it was only for a second. With a graceful movement he gathered the skirts of his fine-flowered damask dressing-gown more closely over the puce satin small clothes, which, he was sadly conscious, were not in their first freshness, besides bearing the trace of one over-generous bumper of what he was fond of calling the ruby-wine. Then, sinking on one knee, he began to pour a tender tale into the widow's averted ear.
And it's the fine ninny ye must think me, Kitty darling—I beg your pardon, darling; ma'am it shall be, though I vow to see ye toss your little head like that, and set all those elegant little curls dancing, is enough to make anyone want to start you at it again. Oh, sure, it's the divine little ear you have, but, be jabers, Kitty, if it's the back of your neck you want to turn on me—there now, if I was to be shot for it, I couldn't help it—with the little place there just inviting my lips.
Keep your kisses for your sister, sir, or your cousin!
What in the world—— And d'ye think I didn't know you?
A likely tale!
May I die this minute if I didn't know you before ever you were out of the ould chair!
Pray, sir, with an angry titter, "how will even your fertile wits prove that?"
Sure, didn't I see the little pink foot of you step out, and didn't I know it before ever it reached the ground?
Lord forgive you! said Mistress Kitty gravely. But a dimple peeped.
He had now possessed himself of her hand, which he was caressing with the touch of the tentative lover, tenderer than a woman's, full of mute cajoling inquiry.
I hope the Lord may forgive me for setting up and worshipping an idol. I believe there's something against that in the commandments, darling, but sure, maybe, old Moses wouldn't have been so hard on those Israelites if they'd had the gumption to raise a pretty woman in the midst of them, instead of an old gilt Calf.
At this word, Mistress Kitty gave a perceptible start.
Oh, dear, said she, "never, never speak to me of that dreadful animal again! Oh, Denis," she said, turning upon him for the first time her full eyes, as melting and as pathetic just then as it was in their composition to look, "I am in sad, sad trouble, and I don't know what to do!"
Here she produced a delicate handkerchief, and applied it to her eyelashes, which she almost believed herself had become quite moist.
Me jewel! cried Mr. O'Hara, preparing to administer the first form of consolation that occurred to him.
Be quiet, said Mistress Kitty testily. "Get up, sir! I have to consult you. There, there, sit down. Oh, I am in earnest, and this is truly serious."
Mr. O'Hara, though with some reluctance, obeyed. He drew his chair as near to the widow's as she would permit him, and pursed his lips into gravity.
You know my Lord Verney, began the fascinating widow.
I do, interrupted the irrepressible Irishman, "and a decent quiet lad he is, though, devil take him, he makes so many bones about losing a few guineas at cards that one would think they grew on his skin!"
Hush, said she. "I can't abide him!"
Mr. O'Hara half started from his armchair.
Say but the word, said he, "and I'll run him through the ribs as neat as——"
Oh, be quiet, cried the lady, in much exasperation. "How can you talk like that when all the world knows he is to be my husband!"
Your husband! Mr. O'Hara turned an angry crimson to the roots of his crisp red hair. Then he stopped, suffocating.
But I don't want to marry him, you gaby, cried Mistress Kitty, with a charming smile.
Her lover turned white, and leaned back against the wing of his great chair. The physician had blooded him that morning by way of mending him for his loss of the previous night, and he felt just a little shaky and swimming. Mistress Kitty's eye became ever more kindly as it marked those flattering signs of emotion.
The noodle, said she vindictively, "mistook the purport of some merely civil words, and forthwith went about bleating to all Bath that he and I were to be wed."
I'll soon stop his mouth for him, muttered Mr. O'Hara, moved to less refinement of diction than he usually affected. "Oh, Kitty," said he, and wiped his pale brow, "sure, it's the terrible fright you've given me!"
Here Mistress Bellairs became suddenly and inexplicably agitated.
You don't understand, said she, and stamped her foot. "Oh, how can I explain? How are people so stupid! I was obliged to go to his rooms this morning—a pure matter of friendship, sir, on behalf of my Lady Standish. Who would have conceived that the calf would take it for himself and think it was for his sake I interfered between him and that madman, Sir Jasper! 'Tis very hard," cried Mistress Kitty, "for a lone woman to escape calumny, and now there is my Lord Verney, after braying it to the whole of Bath, this moment writing to his insufferable old mother. And there is that cockatoo aunt of his looking out her most ancient set of garnets and strass for a wedding-gift. And, oh dear, oh dear; what am I to do?"
She turned over the back of her chair, to hide her face in her pocket-handkerchief. In a twinkling, O'Hara was again at her feet.
Soul of my soul, pulse of my heart! cried he. "Sure, don't cry, Kitty darling, I'll clear that little fellow out of your way before you know where you are."
Indeed, sir, she said, flashing round upon him with a glance surprisingly bright, considering her woe. "And is that how you would save my reputation? No, I see there's nothing for it," said Mistress Kitty with sudden composure, folding up her handkerchief deliberately, and gazing up again at the chandelier with the air of an early martyr, "there's nothing for it but to pay the penalty of my good-nature and go live at Verney Hall between my virtuous Lord Verney and that paragon of female excellence and domestic piety, his mother."
Now, by Saint Peter, cried O'Hara, springing to his feet, "if I have to whip you from under his nose at the very altar, and carry you away myself, I'll save you from that, me darling!"
Say you so? cried the lady with alacrity. "Then, indeed, sir," she proceeded with sweetest coyness, and pointed her dimple at him, "I'll not deny but what I thought you could help me, when I sought you to-night. There was a letter, sir," she said, "which yester morning I received. 'Twas signed by a lock of hair——"
Ah, Kitty! cried the enraptured and adoring Irishman, once more extending wide his arms.
Softly, sir, said she, eluding him. "Let us to business."
But you must understand, said the lady, "that you carry me off against my will."
To be sure, said he. "Isn't poor Denis O'Hara to run away with you merely to save your reputation?"
So if I scream, sir, and give you a scratch or two, you will bear me no malice?
Bear you malice, is it? said he, stopping to kiss each finger-tip of the hand which he contrived somehow should never be long out of his clasp. "Me darling, sure, won't I love to feel your little pearls of nails on my cheek?"
And spare no expense upon chaise or horses, said she.
Eh? cried Mr. O'Hara, while a certain vagueness crept into his gaze. "Me dear love, the best that money can produce—that money can produce," said Mr. O'Hara, and his eye rolled under the stress and strain of an inward calculation: ("There's my grandfather's watch; I'm afeared the works are not up to the gold case, but it might run to four guineas. And there's my jewelled snuff-box that the Chevalier gave my father—no dash it, that's gone! There's my silver-hilted sword—I could exchange it for a black one and perhaps five guineas. And there's my three sets of Mechlin...")
While he cogitated, the lady smiled upon him with gentle raillery; then she popped her hand in her pocket and drew forth a well-filled case.
And did you think, said she, laying the case on the table, "that I would have the face to ask a rich lover to elope with me?"
Faith, said he, pursuing now aloud his silent addition, "there's the gold punch-bowl, too! I vowed as long as I'd a drop to mix in it I'd never part with the thing; but, sure, I little guessed what was in store for me—that will make twenty guineas or more. Put up your money, Kitty; I'll not consent to be paid for carrying you off, except," said he, "by your sweet lips."
Now listen, sir, she cried, lifting up her finger, "you're a poor man."
I am that, said he.
And I, said she, "am a rich woman."
Oh! cried he, "Kitty, my darling, and sure that's the last thing in the world I'd ever be thinking of now. When I laid my heart at your feet, my dear, 'twas for your own sweet sake, with never a thought of the lucre. What's money to me," said he, snapping his fingers, "not that, Kitty darling! I despise it. Why," he went on with his charming infectious smile, "I never had a gold piece in my pocket yet, but it burned a hole in it."
She listened to him with a curious expression, half contemptuous, half tender. Then she nodded.
I well believe you, said she. "Come, come Denis, don't be a fool. Since the money is there, and we know for what purpose, what matters it between you and me who puts it down."
Ah, he cried, with a sort of shame, abandoning his light tone for one of very real emotion, "you're an angel! I'm not worthy of you, but I'll try, Kitty, I'll try."
The lady looked slightly embarrassed.
I protest, sir; I cannot have you going on your knees again, she cried sharply, "and it's getting late, and the business is settled, I think."
Leave it to me, said he; "sure, I could do it blindfold."
Have the post-chay at the corner of Bond Street and Quiet Street, 'tis the darkest in Bath, I think.
Ay, and the relay at Devizes, for we'll have to push the first stage.
And after? said she, and looked at him doubtingly.
And after that—London. And sure I know an old boy in Covent Garden that will marry us in a twinkle.
She nibbled her little finger. The rapture evoked on his countenance by this last prospect was not reflected upon hers.
But you forget, said she, "that I am to be abducted against my will, and what will people say if I marry you at the end of the journey without more ado?"
Oh, faith, said he, without a shade of uneasiness, "shouldn't I be a poor fellow if I did not contrive to persuade you on the way? And then, what would the world say if you did not marry me after travelling all night with such a wild Irish devil? Sure," said he, with a wink, "what else could a poor woman do to save her reputation?"
True, said she, musingly, and tapped her teeth.
She tied on her mask once more and drew up her hood, passive, in her mood of deep reflection, to his exuberant demonstrations. At the door she paused and looked back at him, her eyes strangely alluring through the black velvet peep-hole, her red lips full of mysterious promise beneath the black lace fall.
And I never asked, said she, in a melting tone, "after your wound? Does it hurt you? Will you be able, think you, to face the fatigues to-morrow night?"
Ah, I have but one complaint, Kitty, he cried, "and that's my mortal passion for you. And when a man's weak with love," he said, "sure it's then he's the strength of twenty."
Not a step further, said she, "than this door. Think of the chairmen and Bath gossip. Good-night."
And now, child, what's the town talk? said Mistress Bellairs.
The nights were chilly, and a log crackled on the hearth. Kitty, in the most charming déshabillé, stretched a pink slippered foot airily towards the blaze.
La, ma'am, said Miss Lydia, as with nervous fingers she uncoiled one powdered roll and curl after another, "all the morning the gossip was upon Sir Jasper's meeting with Colonel Villiers at Hammer's Fields. And all the afternoon——" she paused and poised a brush.
All the afternoon? Speak, child. You know, said her mistress piously, "that I had to spend my evening by the side of a dear sick friend."
Well, ma'am, said the maid, "the talk is all about your own marriage with the young Lord Verney."
Mercy, girl, cried the lady with a little scream, "you needn't hit my head so hard with those bristles! What's taken you? And what do people think of that?"
Why, ma'am, said the Abigail, wielding her brush more tenderly, and permitting her irritation to betray itself only in the sharp snap of her voice, "my Lord Verney's man says he pities anyone that will have to go and live with her old la'ship at Verney Hall."
Ha! said Kitty, and gave herself a congratulatory smile in the handglass.
And Mr. Burrell, ma'am, that's Lady Maria's butler, and a wise old gentleman he is, he says the marriage'll never take place, ma'am, for neither his own la'ship, nor the lady at Verney Hall, would allow of it, ma'am.
Oh, indeed? exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, stiffening herself, "that's all they know about it! Lydia, you untruthful, impertinent girl, how dare you tell me such a story?"
I'm sure I beg your pardon, ma'am, said Lydia, sniffing. "I'm sure I up and told Mr. Burrell that if you'd set your heart on wedding such a poor ninny as Lord Verney—I beg pardon, ma'am, I'm sure he'll be a very nice young nobleman, when his beard begins to grow—'twas not likely a deaf old cat like his mistress could prevent him. And I told Lord Verney's man, ma'am—and an impudent fellow he is—that you'd soon teach the dowager her place, once you were mistress in Verney Hall."
Well, well, said the lady, mollified, "and what says the rest of your Bath acquaintance?"
Squire Juniper's head coachman says his master'll drink himself to death, as sure as eggs, on the day that sees you another's, ma'am. He's been taking on terrible with Madeira ever since he's heard the news. And the Marquis' running footman, he says 'that Lady Flyte'll have it all her own way with his lordship now, and mores the pity, for,' says he, 'her la'ship's not fit to hold a candle to the widow'; excuse the language, he knows no better, his strength is mostly in his legs, ma'am. And Mr. Stafford's jockey says, ma'am, that in his opinion you're a lady as will never be drove again in double harness.
Did he say so, indeed! said Mistress Bellairs, reflectively. "Well, my good creature, and what say you?"
La! said the maid, and the brush trembled over her mistress's curls, "I say, ma'am, that if you was to make such a sacrifice, you so young, and lovely, and so much admired, I humbly hopes you might pick out someone livelier than my Lord Verney."
Now, whom, said Mistress Bellairs, in a tone of good-humoured banter, "would you choose, I wonder? What would you say to the Marquis, Lydia?"
Oh, ma'am! His lordship is a real nobleman—as the prize-fighters all say—and a better judge in the cockpit, Mr. Bantam, the trainer, says, never breathed, drunk or sober; and no doubt when he's sober, ma'am, he'd make as good a husband as most.
Well, well, girl, enough of him. What of Mr. Stafford, now?
Oh, Mr. Stafford, ma'am, that's a comely gentleman; not one bit of padding under his stockings, and an eye 'twould wheedle the very heart out of one's bosom! And, no doubt, if you ever thought of him, ma'am, you'd see that he paid off the little French milliner handsome. He's a very constant gentleman, said Miss Lydia, with a suspicion of spite.
Pooh, cried the lady, and pushed her chair away from the fire, "what nonsense you do talk! And pray what thinks your wisdom of Mr. O'Hara?"
Lud! ma'am, cried the guileless maiden, "that's the gentleman as was found behind Lady Standish's curtains."
If you were not a perfect idiot, cried the widow, "you would not repeat that absurd tale, much less expect me to believe it. Mr. O'Hara has never even spoken to Lady Standish."
The unusual warmth in her mistress's tone struck the girl's sharp wits. She glanced quickly at the lady's reflection in the glass, and made no reply.
Come, said Mistress Bellairs, "what else have you against him? Is he not handsome, child?"
Why, ma'am, handsome enough for such as like red hair.
And merry, and good company?
Oh, ma'am, none better, as half the rogues in Bath know.
Tush—you mean he is good-natured, I suppose?
He never said 'no' in his life, ma'am, I do believe, to man or woman.
Well, then? cried her mistress testily.
And generous, gabbled Lydia, charmed by the cloud she beheld gathering on the brow reflected in the glass, "open-handed, ma'am. Mr. Mahoney—that queer peculiar servant of his—many a time he's told me, ma'am, that his only way to keep his wages for himself, and seldom he sees the sight of them, is to spend them at once, for his good master is that free-handed, ma'am, he'd give the coat off his servant's back."
I'm quite aware, said the lady loftily, "that Mr. O'Hara's estates in Ireland are slightly embarrassed."
I don't know what they call it, ma'am, cried Lydia shrilly. "It's not a ha'porth of rent the old lord's seen these twelve months. Last year they lived on the pictures. And now it's the plate, I'm told. But, indeed, ma'am, as Mr. Mahoney says, what does it matter to a gay gentleman like Mr. O'Hara? Sure, he's the sort, as he says to me only yesterday, that would come to a fortune on Monday and be sending to the pawnshop on Saturday."
You may go to bed, Lydia, cried Mistress Bellairs, rising hastily; "you've half deafened me with your chatter."
Left alone the little lady sat down by the fire in a melancholy mood.
The sort that would come to a fortune on Monday, and be sending to the pawnshop on Saturday.... I'm afraid it's true. Yet, I believe, he loves me, poor Denis! I vow, she said to herself, "'tis the only one of them all that I could endure. Yes, I could endure Denis, vastly well ... for a while at least. And now," said she, "what's to be done! Oh, I'd be loath to baulk him of the pleasure of running away with me! 'tis the only decent way indeed of breaking with my Lord Verney. And it certainly struck me that Master Stafford was mighty cool upon the matter. I've been too quiet of late, and that odious Bab Flyte thinks she can have everything her own way.... But, I'll be rescued," she said, "at Devizes—I shall have to be rescued at Devizes. My poor dear; he may be happy at least for an hour or two ... as far as Devizes!"
Her brow cleared; the dimples began to play.
We shall see, she smiled more broadly, "if we cannot prod his Calfship into a night trot. 'Twill do his education a vastness of service.... But the poor creature," she reflected further, "is scarce to be depended on. Who knows whether his mother would approve of his breathing the night air.... I must," Mistress Kitty's pretty forehead became once more corrugated under the stress of profound thought—"I must," she murmured, "have another string to my bow, or my sweet O'Hara will marry me after all. Dear fellow, how happy we should be from Monday ... till Saturday! Who? Who, shall it be? ... My Lord Marquis might take the r?le in earnest and spoil my pretty fellow's beauty. Squire Juniper? He would sure be drunk. And Master Stafford? Oh, he may stay with the French milliner for me!"
Suddenly the lady's perplexed countenance became illumined. "Sir Jasper?" she said. "Sir Jasper—the very man! The good Julia—I owe it to her to bring matters to an éclaircissement. And, Sir Jasper—oh, he richly deserves a midnight jolt, for 'tis owing to his monstrous jealousy that I am put to all this trouble. 'Twill be a fine thing indeed," thought Mistress Bellairs with a burst of self-satisfied benevolence, "if I can demonstrate to Sir Jasper, once for all, the folly into which this evil passion may lead a man."
If you please, my lady, said Mistress Megrim, "I should like to quit your ladyship's service."
How? cried Lady Standish, waking with a start out of the heavy sleep of trouble, and propping herself upon her elbow, to gaze in blinking astonishment at the irate pink countenance of her woman. Lady Standish looked very fair and young, poor little wife, with her half-powdered curls of hair escaping in disorder from the laces of her nightcap, and her soft blue eyes as full of uncomprehending grief as a frightened baby's.
Mistress Megrim gazed upon her coldly and her old-maid's heart hardened within her.
No, your ladyship, said she, with a virtuous sniff, "I shouldn't feel as I was doing my duty to her ladyship, your mother, nor to my humble self, were I to remain an hour longer than I could help, the Handmaid of Sin."
Oh, dear, said Lady Standish, letting herself fall back on her pillows with a weary moan, "I do wish you'd hold your tongue, woman, and allow me to rest! Pull the curtain again; oh, how my head aches!"
Very well, my lady, ejaculated Megrim, all at once in a towering passion. "Since you're that hardened, my lady, that a sign from Heaven couldn't melt your heart—I allude to that man of God, his lordship the Bishop (oh, what a holy gentleman that is!); and, my lady, me and Mistress Tremlet saw him out of the pantry window as he shook the dust of this House of Iniquity from his shoes; if that vessel of righteousness could not prevail with your ladyship, what hopes have I that you'll hear the voice of the Lord through me?"
Megrim, hold your tongue, said her mistress in unwontedly angered tones, "pull the curtains and go away!"
With a hand that trembled with fury Mistress Megrim fell upon the curtains and rattled them along their pole. Then she groped her way to Lady Standish's bedside and stood for some seconds peering malevolently at her through the darkness.
I wouldn't believe it, my lady, she hissed in a ghastly whisper, "although indeed I might have known that such a gentleman as Sir Jasper would never have taken on like that if he hadn't had grounds. But you've mistaken your woman, when you think you can make an improper go-between of me! Oh," cried she, with a rigid shudder, "I feel myself defiled as with pitch, that these fingers should actually have touched sich a letter!"
For goodness sake, moaned the lady from her pillows, "what are you talking about now?"
My lady, said Megrim sepulchrally, "when that minx with her face muffled up in a hood, came and had the brazen boldness to ask for me this morning, saying she had some lace of your ladyship's from the mender's, and that it was most particular and must be given into my hands alone, my mind misgave me. 'Twas like an angel's warning. The more so as there isn't a scrap of your ladyship's lace as has been to the mender's since we came here."
Mercy, Megrim, how you do ramble on! I can't make head or tail of your stupid story. Even a dove will peck.
Ho, do I, my lady! Can't you indeed? Perhaps your ladyship will understand better when I tell her, that that same bold thing had no lace at all—but a letter. 'Give it to your mistress,' says she, 'in secret, and for your life don't let Sir Jasper see it.'
Well, give it to me, said Lady Standish, "and hold your tongue, and go and pack your trunks as soon as you like."
Ho, my lady, cried the incorruptible Megrim, with an acid laugh, "I hope I know my Christian duty better. I brought the letter to my master, according to the Voice of Conscience. And now," she concluded, with a shrill titter, "I'll go and pack my trunks."
Yet she paused, expecting to enjoy Lady Standish's outburst of terror and distress. There was no sign from the bed, however, not even a little gasp. And so Mistress Megrim was fain to depart to her virtuous trunks without even that parting solace.
Meanwhile, with the pillow of her spotless conscience to rest upon, and deadened to fresh disturbances by the despairing reflection that nothing for the present could make matters much worse between her and her husband, Lady Standish, without attempting to solve the fresh problem, determinedly closed her weary eyes upon the troubles of the world and drifted into slumber again.
*****
I shall catch them red-handed, said Sir Jasper.
This time all doubt was over: in his hand lay the proof, crisp and fluttering. He read it again and again, with a kind of ghastly joy. Unaddressed, unsealed, save by a foolish green wafer with a cupid on it, the document which Mistress Megrim's rigid sense of duty had delivered to him instead of to his guilty wife, was indited in the self-same dashing hand as marked the crumpled rag that even now burned him through his breast-pocket like a fly-blister.
"I never got a wink of sleep, dreaming of you, dearest dear, so soon to be my own at last! The chay shall be drawn by horses such as Phoebus himself, my darling, would have envied. And, so you fail me not, we shall soon be dashing through the night—a world of nothing but happiness and love before us. I could find it in my heart to bless the poor foolish individual who shall be nameless, since, had it not been for my lovely one's weariness of him, she might never have turned to the arms of her own devoted, RED CURL! P.S.—I'll have as good a team as there is in England (barring the one that shall bring us there), waiting for us at the Black Bear, Devizes. We ought to arrive before midnight, and there shall be a dainty trifle of supper for your Beautyship—while the nags are changed. Ah, my dear, what rapture!
"Indescribable were the various expressions that crossed Sir Jasper's countenance upon the perusal and re-perusal of this artless missive. Now he gnashed his teeth; now snorts of withering scorn were blown down the channels of his fine aquiline nose; now smiles of the most deadly description curled and parted luridly his full lips.
Ha, ha! said Sir Jasper, "and perhaps the poor foolish individual may give you cause for something less than blessings, Master Carrots! And I think, madam, your beautyship may find at Devizes something harder to digest than that trifle of supper! Till then, patience!"
He folded the letter, placed it beside its fellow, and once more, with a sort of bellow, he cried, "Patience!"
*****
Well, Lydia? said Bellairs. She had but just finished her chocolate, and looked like a rose among her pillows.
Well, madam, said Lydia, still panting from her hurried quest, "'tis safe delivered. I gave it into Mistress Megrim's own hands, and——"
And can you reckon, said the lady, smiling at the amusing thought, "upon her bringing it straight to Sir Jasper?"
Ah, lud, ma'am, yes. I told the sour, ugly old cat, that if her master caught sight of it, Lady Standish would be ruined. You should have seen how she grabbed at it, ma'am!
Lydia, said her mistress, looking at her admiringly, "I question whether I'd have risked it myself; you're a bold girl! But there, if anything fail, you know that rose-coloured pelisse remains hanging in my closet."
Never fear, ma'am, said Lydia, smiling quietly to herself, as she pulled her mistress's long pink silk stocking over her hand, and turned it knowingly from side to side, looking for invisible damage, "the pelisse is as good as mine already."
But, think you, was Sir Jasper at home? said Mistress Bellairs, after a few moments' reflection.
I am sure of that, said Lydia triumphantly, peeling off the stocking. "I thought it best to go in by the mews, ma'am, and I heard that Sir Jasper had not left the house since that little—that little affair with the Bishop, you know, ma'am. But all the night, and all the morning, he kept William and Joseph (those are the grooms, ma'am) going backwards and forwards with challenges to the Bishop's lodgings."
Oh! cried Kitty, and kicked her little toes under the silk counterpane with exquisite enjoyment, "and what does the Bishop answer, I wonder?"
Sends back the letter every time unopened, ma'am, with a fresh text written on the back of it. The texts it is, William says, that drive Sir Jasper mad.
Oh! oh! oh! cried Mistress Kitty faintly, rolling about her pillows. "Child, you'll be the death of me! ... Well, then, to business. You know what you are to do to-night?"
No sooner are you gone to the Assembly Rooms this evening, ma'am, than I take a letter from you for Lady Standish, and this time deliver it myself to her own hand, and, if needs be, persuade her to follow your advice, ma'am.
Right, girl; thou shalt have the gold locket with the Turkey stones——
Thank you, ma'am. Well, then, I'm to scurry as fast as I can to the corner of Bond Street and Quiet Street, and watch you being carried off by the gentleman. And then——
Be sure you wait till the chaise has well started.
Yes, ma'am, of course! When you're safely on the London Road, I'll go and give the alarm at the Assembly Rooms.
Remember, you ask first for Lord Verney.
Oh, ay, ma'am. 'My mistress is carried off, is carried off! Help, help, my lord!' I'll say. Oh, ma'am, I'll screech it well out, trust me.
Don't forget, said her mistress, whose mood became every moment merrier, "don't forget to say that you heard the ravisher mention London, by Devizes."
Well, ma'am, said Lydia, "I thought of saying that he first flung you swooning upon the cushions of the chay; then, stepping in himself, cried out to the coachman, with an horrible oath, 'If you're not in Devizes before twelve, I'll flay you with your own whip, and then hang you with it to the shaft!'"
Aha, ha, Lydia, laughed her mistress. "I see I must give you a gold chain to hang that locket upon. But pray, child," she added warningly, "be careful not to overdo it."
The livelong day Lady Standish had not beheld the light of her lord's countenance.
Upon their last meeting, his behaviour to the Bishop having roused in her gentle bosom a feeling as nearly akin to resentment as it was capable of harbouring, she would not be (she had resolved) the one to seek him first. She had, therefore, passed the day in her own apartment in writing to her mother, and in practising her last song to the harp—a piece of audacity and independence which she expected would have goaded Sir Jasper into an instant interview with herself.
When the dusk rose, however, and the candles were brought in by the round-eyed handmaid, whose ministrations replaced those of Megrim (the latter was still packing, and seemed like to take some weeks in the process), and the said round-eyed damsel immediately began to inform her mistress that Sir Jasper had set forth in his coach, Lady Standish's small flame of courage began to flicker woefully.
Alone? she asked in white dismay.
Please, my lady, Mr. Bowles was driving, and there was Mr. Thomas behind, my lady.
Pshaw, girl! Did Sir Jasper take any luggage?
Oh yes, my lady; there was his yellow bag, Mr. Toombs says, and a small wooden case.
Heavens! cried Lady Standish, with increasing alarm. "And whither went they?"
Please, my lady, Mr. Toombs says they took the London Road.
Fain would the round-eyed maid have lingered and told more, but Lady Standish waved her hand faintly, and so dismissed her.
An hour later, Lydia, brisk with importance, and sparkling with conscious power, found the much-tried soul sunk in a sort of apathetic weariness of misery.
Mistress Bellairs' love, my lady, and will you read this letter at once?
Lady Standish took the letter from the black-mittened hand.
Please my lady, 'tis of the utmost importance, said Lydia, "and I was to wait and see if I could not be of use to you."
Something magnetic in the girl's lively tone gave impetus to Lady Standish's suspended energies. She broke the seal.
My sweet child, wrote Mistress Kitty. "If you want to know what has become of your husband, you will instantly take a chaise and start off for the Black Bear at Devizes.
"Your true friend, K. B.
"Postscriptum.—Do not go alone. Get some old hag (if possible Lady Maria Prideaux) to accompany you. You will find her in the Assembly Rooms. She's as curious as our first mother—you can easily persuade her. This is good advice!
I am much too ill, cried Lady Standish, upon a moan. "Tell your mistress," said she, looking vaguely in Lydia's direction, "that indeed 'tis quite impossible I should do as she suggests."
Very well, my lady, said Lydia cheerfully. "I'm sure I shouldn't trouble myself if I was you. Gentlemen must have their diversions, I always say. If ladies would but shut their eyes a little more, 'twould be for the peace of all parties. Indeed, my lady, though my mistress would be angry to hear me say so, I'd go to bed, for you look sorely tired, and Sir Jasper'll be glad enough to come home bye-and-bye."
Wretched girl, cried Julia, and her eyes flashed, "what dost thou mean?"
La, now! said Lydia, all innocence, "how my tongue do run away with me, to be sure! Why, my lady, what can a poor servant-maid like me know of the goings on of gentles? 'Tis but a few words of gossip here and there."
Oh, merciful heavens, what gossip mean you?
My lady, have a sip of volatile, do! Oh, my mistress would be like to kill me if she knew what I've been saying! 'Poor Julia,' she cried when she got the news. 'Poor Julia, my poor confiding Julia! Oh, the villain, the monster!'
Good God, and whom did she refer to?
Lud, madam, how can I tell? 'It shall not be!' cries my mistress, and down she sits and writes off to you, as if for bare life.
Lady Standish, rising from her seat, rushed to the light, and with starting eyes and bristling hair began to read afresh her fond Kitty's missive.
La, my lady, cried the guileless Lydia, "you're all of a shake! I'd never be that upset about Sir Jasper. Why, if your la'ship'll allow me to say so, all Bath knows how jealous he is of your la'ship; and, certain that shows a husband's affection."
True, cried Julia, "that's true, girl!"
And as for those who say, my lady, that some men are so artful that they put on a deal of jealousy to cover a deal of fickleness, I'd despise myself if I was to pay heed to such mean suspiciousness.
My cloak! cried Lady Standish. "Megrim, Susan!" She flew to the hall. "My cloak, let a post-chaise be ordered immediately!"
If I may make so bold, my lady, said Lydia, retiring gracefully upon the conviction of a well-accomplished errand, "don't forget to take Lady Maria with you, if you can. The gentlemen have such a way of turning tables on us poor women—at least," said the damsel demurely, "so I've heard said. And 'tis a long lonely road, my lady!"
Mistress Bellairs took her departure early.
Attired in unusually sober colours, floating in an atmosphere of chastened, matronly dignity, she had shown herself this evening, thought Lord Verney, quite worthy to be his mother's daughter-in-law.
Monstrous dull, Lady Flyte called the pretty widow's demeanour.
Beyond a gavotte with Lord Verney, she had not danced, but sat for half-an-hour on the chair next to Lady Maria, who presented her with the vision of a shoulder-blade which had seen better days, and an impenetrability of hearing which baffled even Kitty's undaunted energy.
When Verney had tucked her up in her sedan she insisted upon the young peer allowing her to proceed home unescorted.
Indeed, said she, "I pray you, nay, I order you. People talk so in this giddy place, and have you not your aged aunt to wait upon? I am sure," said Mistress Kitty piously, "that your dear mother would wish it thus."
He submitted. He had no doubt that his mother would indeed entirely concur with such sentiments, and blessed his Kitty for her sweet reasonableness.
Good-night, then, she said, thrusting her pretty face out of the window with a very tender and gentle smile.
Good-night, he replied, with his young, gracefully-awkward bow.
She fully expected to hear his footstep pursue the chairman, for she had not been able to refrain from throwing her utmost fascination into that parting look. But nothing broke the silence of the parade save the measured slouching tramp of the bearers.
At once disappointed and relieved, she threw herself back in her seat.
What, not a spark left, said she, "of the fine flame 'twas so easy to kindle this morning! 'Tis the very type of the odious British husband. Let him be but sure of you, and the creature struts as confident of his mastery as the cock among his hens. Lord!" she shuddered, "what an escape I have had! We women are apt to fancy that very young men are like very young peas, the greener, the tenderer, the better; whereas," said the lady, with a sigh, "they are but like young wine, crude where we look for strength, all head and no body, and vastly poor upon the palate."
She sighed again, and closed her eyes, waiting for the moment of the impending catastrophe with a delicate composure.
In truth, Mr. O'Hara conducted the performance with so much brio as to convince Mistress Bellairs that he must have had previous experience of the kind.
At the dark appointed corner the two muffled individuals who, each selecting his own astonished chairman, enlaced him with overwhelming brotherly affection, seemed such thorough-paced ruffians in the dim light, that Mistress Kitty found it quite natural to scream—and even had some difficulty in keeping her distressful note down to the pitch of necessary discretion.
And her heart fluttered with a sensation of fear, convincing enough to produce quite a delightful illusion, when she found herself bodily lifted out of her nest and rapidly carried through the darkness in an irresistibly close and strong embrace.
Oh, oh, oh! cried the lady, in a modulated sequence of little shrieks.
Merciful heavens! she thought to herself, with a great thump of the heart, astonished at her ravisher's silence, "what if it should be someone else after all?"
But the next instant the rich brogue of a tender whisper in her ear dispelled all doubt.
You've forgotten the scratches, my darling, said O'Hara, as he laid her preciously upon the cushions of the chaise.
Here Mr. Mahoney and his comrade—which latter bore a curious resemblance in build and gait to one of the sporting Marquis's own celebrated gladiators—came running up to take their seats. In leaped O'Hara—the coachman lifted his whip, and the team that Phoebus might have envied started up the length of Milsom Street in style.
*****
The chairmen, drawing their breath with some difficulty after their spell of strangulation, stared in amazement at the clattering shadow as it retreated up the steep street; and then back, and in fresh amazement, at the yellow guinea which had been pressed, and now glinted, in the palm of their hands.
Presently a simultaneous smile overspread their honest countenances.
A queer go, said the first, easing and readjusting his necklace. "Lud, the little madam did squeak!"
I'd let them all squeak at the same price, said the other, pocketing his coin, and resuming his place in rear of the sedan. "But come, Bill, we must go report this 'orrible crime. Rabbit me!—what's that?"
A blood-curdling wail had risen out of the night, from his very elbow it seemed. It circled in frightful cadence, and died away in ghost-like fashion.
'T—'tis but a sick cat, I hope, stammered the first chairman, and dived for the chair-poles in marked hurry.
O—o—o—o, moaned the voice, "oh, my mistress!" There was a flutter, a patter, and: "Merciful heavens, you wretches!" cried Mistress Bellairs's devoted woman, emerging like a gust of wind from the blackest shadow of Bond Street and falling upon the nearest chairman with a well-aimed flap of her shawl, followed up by a couple of scratches. "Wretches, monsters, you've let my mistress be carried away! Oh heavens, my unhappy mistress!" cried Lydia, and rent the night with her cries.
*****
Mistress Kitty's chair had no sooner left the precincts of the Assembly Rooms when my Lady Standish's post-chaise came clattering round the corner.
Lord Verney, who was just about to go in again, arrested by curiosity, turned to wonder at a visitor who arrived in so unwonted a conveyance. Recognising Lady Standish he was somewhat abashed and somewhat disconcerted, but felt he could do no less than advance through the crowd of foot and chair men and offer his hand.
O, pray, Lord Verney, said she in a strenuous whisper, "conduct me to your aunt, for I have great need of her help and counsel. Take me to her at once," said the poor lady, in ever-increasing agitation.
They passed through the elegant throng, she unconscious alike of recognition, comment, or titter, he feeling to his boy's marrow, the sensation created by her travelling gear and distraught appearance.
Would I were back at Verney Hall, thought he, and found that this wish had been long gathering in his heart.
No need of an ear-trumpet for Lady Maria now. The dowager recovered her powers of hearing with almost miraculous celerity.
Oh, Lady Maria! said Lady Standish, holding out both her hands. And incontinently she burst into tears. "Oh, Lady Maria, Sir Jasper has left me, I am in sad trouble! I'm told he has gone to Devizes. I must follow him. You are my mother's oldest friend; will you give me the support of your company and protection?"
There was quite a buzz in the interested circle. Lady Maria nodded round, charmed with the situation; bristling with delighted curiosity, she was more like Mistress Kitty's cockatoo than ever.
Poor young thing, poor young thing, she said, patting Lady Standish's hand; "your mother's oldest friend, quite so—quite right and proper to come to me. And so Sir Jasper's left you; so Sir Jasper's gone; and with whom, my dear?"
Lady Maria fondly believed that she spoke these last words in a gentle aside; but never had her sepulchral bass resounded more sonorously. Lady Standish's faint cry of shocked disclaimer was, however, completely drowned in the fresh rumour, lacerated by shrill feminine shrieks, which now arose in the vestibule of the Assembly Rooms and rapidly advanced.
My Lord Verney! My mistress! Where is my Lord Verney? wailed the distraught Lydia, who thoroughly enjoyed her r?le.
A hundred voices took up the cry; the astounding news passed from group to group: "The pretty widow has been carried off!" "Mistress Bellairs has been abducted!" And then, in counter clamour and antiphone: "and my Lady Standish is looking for Sir Jasper!"
Meanwhile, before Lord Verney, dumb and suffocating under a variety of emotions, Lydia wringing her hands and with the most thrilling notes of tragic woe (as nearly copied from Mistress Susanna Cibber as she could remember), narrated her tristful tale.
He flung my unhappy mistress, swooning and shrieking, into the chaise. And 'Drive like the devil,' cries he in a voice of thunder to the coachman. 'I'll flay you with your own whip and hang you to your own shaft,' says he, 'if you're not in Devizes before midnight!'
Devizes! cried Lady Standish with a scream. Hanging on Lydia's utterance, every word of which confirmed the awful suspicion that had entered her heart, she now could no longer doubt the real extent of her misfortune.
Oh, Lord Verney, save my mistress! Lydia's pipe dominated the universal chorus with piercing iteration.
And now Lady Maria's bass struck in again.
What did I say? cried she triumphantly. "Nevvy, you'd better go to bed! you're well out of her. Julia, my dear, don't faint, we can catch them at Devizes yet. Someone tell that wench to stop that screeching! Julia, come! You've got the chay, I understand. Fortunately, my house is near; we shall just call for Burrell and make him ride behind with his blunderbuss. Child, if you faint I wash my hands of the whole affair. We'll nip them, I tell you, if you'll only brisk up."
I won't faint, said Lady Standish setting her teeth.
*****
Lord Verney suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been grievously injured, and that he was in a towering passion. Spluttering, he demanded vengeance of gods and men. Post-chaise, ho, and pistols, forthwith! "My sword!" cried he, feeling for the blade which, however, according to the regulations enforced by the immortal Master of the Bath Ceremonies, was absent from its natural post on his noble hip in this polite assembly.
Come with me, cried Captain Spicer, clapping his patron on the shoulder in a burst of excitement. "I'll stand to you, of course, lad! You'll want a witness. Gad!" exclaimed the amiable Captain, "we'll have Sir Jasper's liver on the spit before crow of cock!"
The side-rays of the chaise-lamps played on the widow's soft, saucy face, threw beguiling shadows under her eyes, and fleeting dimples round those lips that seemed perpetually to invite kisses.
Cosily nestling in the corner of the carriage, her head in its black silk hood tilted back against the cushions, in the flickering uncertain gleam, there was something almost babyish in her whole appearance; something babyish, too, in her attitude of perfect confidence and enjoyment.
Denis O'Hara, with one arm extended above her head, his hand resting open on the panel, the other hand still clasping the handle of the door, gazed upon the woman who had placed herself so completely in his power, and felt smitten to the heart of him with a tenderness that was well-nigh pain. Hitherto his glib tongue had never faltered with a woman that his lips were not ready to fill the pause with a suitable caress. But not so to-day.
What's come to me at all? said he to himself, as, frightened by the very strength of his own passion, he could find no word at once ardent and respectful enough in which to speak it. And, indeed, "What had come to him?" was what Mistress Kitty was thinking about the same time. "And what may his arm be doing over my head?" she wondered.
How beautiful you are! babbled the Irishman at last.
Mistress Bellairs sat up with an angry start. It was as if she had been stung.
Heavens! cried she, thrusting her little forefingers into her ears. "Mr. O'Hara, if you say that again, I shall jump out of the chay."
Her eyes flashed; she looked capable of fulfilling her threat upon the spot.
Me darling heart, said he, and had perforce to lay his hands upon her to keep her still. "Sure what else can I say to you, with my eyes upon your angel face?"
Apparently the lady's ears were not so completely stopped but that such words could penetrate.
'Tis monstrous, said she in hot indignation, "that I should go to all this trouble to escape from the bleating of that everlasting refrain, and have it buzzed at me," she waxed incoherent under the sense of her injuries, "thus at the very outset!"
My dear love, said he, humbly, capturing the angry, gesticulating hand, "sure me heart's so full that it's just choking me."
She felt him tremble beside her as he spoke.
Now the trembling lover was not of those that entered into Mistress Kitty's scheme of existence. She had, perhaps, reckoned, when planning her escapade, upon being made to tremble a little herself. She had certainly reckoned upon a journey this evening that should be among the most memorable in the annals of her impressions. O'Hara bashful! O'Hara tongue-tied! O'Hara with cold fingers that hardly dared to touch hers! O'Hara, the gay rattler, with constrained lips!
This was an O'Hara whose existence she had not dreamed of, and for whose acquaintance, to say the truth, she had small relish.
What has come to you? she cried aloud, with another burst of petulance.
Faith, said he, "and I hardly know myself, Kitty darling. Oh, Kitty," said he, "'tis vastly well to laugh at love, and play at love; but when love comes in earnest it takes a man as it were by the throat, and it's no joke then."
So I see, said she, with some dryness.
O'Hara clenched his hand and drew a laboured breath.
*****
Straining, slipping now and again, breaking into spurts of trot, to fall into enforced walking pace once more, the gallant team had dragged the chaise to the summit of the great rise at a speed quite unprecedented, yet comparatively slow.
Now the way lay down-hill. The coachman waved his whip. Bounding along the fair road the wheels hummed; the night-wind blowing in through the half-opened window, set Mistress Kitty's laces flapping on her bosom, and a stray curl of Mr. O'Hara's dancing on his pale forehead.
The exhilaration of the rapid flight, the crack of the whip, the mad rhythm of the hoofs, the witchery of the night hour, the risks of the situation, the very madness of the whole enterprise, all combined to set the widow's gay blood delightfully astir, mounting to her light brain like sparkling wine.
What! were all the accessories of the play to be so perfect, and was the chief character to prove such a lamentable failure in his part? What! was she, Kitty Bellairs, to be carried off by the most notorious rake in Bath, only to find him as awkward, as dumb, as embarrassed with the incomparable situation as the veriest greenhorn? "It shall not, and it cannot be," said she to herself. And thereupon she changed her tactics.
Why, said she aloud, with the cooing note of her most melting mood, "I protest one would think, sir, that you were afraid of me."
Aye, Kitty, said he, simply; "and so I am."
Oh, fie! she laughed. "And how have I alarmed you? Think of me," said she, and leaned her face towards him with a smile of archest wit, "not as a stranger, but as a sisther, as a dear, dear cousin."
His eye flamed back at her. Her merry mood was as incongruous to his sudden, storm-serious growth of passion as the gay lilt of a tambourine might be to a solemn chant.
I think of you, he said, and there was a deep thrill in his voice, "as my wife that is to be."
And so saying he fell upon his knees in the narrow space, and tenderly kissed a fold of her lace, as one, from the knowledge of his own fire, afraid of a nearer touch.
The word "wife" had never a pleasing sound in the lovely widow's ears. From neither the past nor the future did it evoke for her an attractive picture.
Coming from those lips, by which it was the very last name she desired to hear herself called, it aroused in her as pretty a fit of fury as ever she had indulged in.
Now, indeed, is the murder out! she cried. "Oh, you men are all alike. As lovers—all fire, capsicums Indian suns! Bottles of Sillery always bursting! Torrents not to be stemmed.... But, lo you! let the lover once fancy himself the husband, let the vision of the coveted mistress but merge into the prospect of the secured wife.... Merciful heavens, what a change! For fire we have ice; for the red, biting capsicum, the green, cool cucumber; for joyous, foaming Sillery, the smallest ale; small ale—nay, toast and water!" cried Mistress Kitty, lashing herself to finer frenzy. "And if the mere sense of your security thus transforms the lover in you, what a pleasing prospect, indeed, lies before the wedded wife! No, thank you, sir," said the lady, and pushed the petrified O'Hara with an angry foot, "I have had one wintry, toast-and-water husband, and that shall be enough for my lifetime. Thank God, it is not too late yet!" she fumed. "I am not yet, sir, Mistress O'Hara."
And in the very midst of her indignation: "This will," she thought, "simplify the parting at Devizes." But no whit was her wrath thereby abated, that the fool should have spoiled her pretty ride.
For a moment, after the angry music of her voice had ceased to ring, there was a breathless silence, broken only by the straining progress of horses and chaise up the sides of another hill. Then O'Hara broke forth into a sort of roar of wounded tenderness, passion, and ire. Flinging himself back upon the seat, he seized her wrist in a grip, fierce, yet still gentle under its fierceness.
How dare ye! cried the man, "how dare ye doubt my love! Sure the flames of hell are cold compared to me this minute. May my tongue wither in my mouth, may it be cut out of my jaws and never speak a word of sense again, may I be struck dead at your feet, Kitty, for the rest of my life, if it's not gospel truth! Listen to my heart," he cried, with yet greater vehemence, pressing her captive hand against his breast, "isn't it Kitty, Kitty, Kitty ... that it's saying? Sure it's nothing but a bell, and your name is the clapper in it! ... And you to be railing at me because it's so much I have to say that never a word can I bring out! Oh," pursued Mr. O'Hara, waxing louder and more voluble still, "sure what could I say, with my heart in my mouth stopping the way? Look at it, you cruel woman; isn't it all yours, and aren't you sticking pins into it for sheer devilment, this minute? God forgive me, that I should say such a thing of an angel! Look at it, now, Kitty! Is that the heart of a cucumber? ... If you had said a love-apple itself.... Och, indeed, it's the real cool cucumber I am, and it's toast and water that's running through my veins like fire! ... Laugh, madam, laugh, it's a grand joke entirely! Make a pin-cushion of the cucumber! See, now, is that small ale that bursts from the wounds? Upon my soul," he cried, arrived at the height of his tempest, "I have a mind to show you the colour of it!"
He reached violently towards the back seat for his sword as he spoke, and Mistress Bellairs, suddenly arrested in her delighted paroxysm, was sufficiently convinced of the strength of his feelings to stop him with clinging hands and clamouring little notes of terror:
O'Hara! madman!—for God's sake, Denis!
Ah! cried he. "It's not hot enough I was for ye. It's the cold husband you're afraid of. Ah, Kitty, you've stirred the sleeping dog, you mustn't complain now if you can't put out the fire!"
So saying, he turned and clasped her in an embrace that left her scarcely breath to scream, had she so wished, and had indeed the kisses which he rained upon her lips allowed her space in which to place a protest.
Her light soul, her easy shallow nature, was carried as it were off its feet in the whirlwind of a passion the mere existence of which, with all her experience, she had never even guessed. To say the truth, so much as she had deemed him vastly too cold, so now she found him vastly too hot. She was a woman of niceties, an epicure in life and love, and nothing met with her favour but the delicate happy mean. This was a revelation, with a warning.
Mr. O'Hara, she gasped, at length released, fluttering like a ruffled dove, all in anger and fear, "such treatment! For a gentleman, sir, you strangely forget yourself." She laid her hand on the window strap. "Not a word, sir, or I will instantly give the order to turn back."
Oh, cried the unhappy lover, and tore at his hair with desperate fingers, filling the ambient air with flakes of powder which shone silvery in the moonlight. "You drove me to it. Ah, don't be frightened of me, my darling; that hurts me the worst of all! I'm quiet now, Kitty."
His labouring breath hissed between his words, and his satin coat creaked under each quivering muscle.
I'm as quiet as a lamb, said he; "sure a baby might put its head in my jaws—the devil's gone out of me, Kitty."
I'm glad to hear it, sir, said she, unappeased. She sat, swelling with ruffled plumes, looking out of the window and biting her lips.
A moon, too, she thought, and the tears almost started to her eyes, for the vexation of the wasted opportunity and the complete failure of a scene so excellently staged. "How wise, oh, how wise I was, to have secured my exit at Devizes!"
I frightened her, thought O'Hara; and in the manly heart of him he lamented his innate masculine brutality and formed the most delicate chivalrous plans for the right cherishing in the future of the dear lady who had confided herself to him.