In the white moonlight Sir Jasper Standish paced up and down the cobble-stoned yard with as monotonous a restlessness as if he had been hired this night to act the living sign at the Bear Inn, Devizes.
Each time he passed the low open window of the inn parlour, in which sat Mr. Stafford by the dim yellow light of two long-tongued tallow candles, the baronet would pause a moment to exchange from without a few dismal words with his friend. The latter, puffing at a long clay pipe, endeavoured in the intervals to while away the heavy minutes in the perusal of some tome out of mine host's library—a unique collection and celebrated on the Bath Road.
Tom Stafford, said Sir Jasper, for the twentieth time, "how goes the hour?"
Damned slowly, friend, said Stafford, consulting with a yawn the most exact of three watches at his fob. "To be precise, 'tis two minutes and one third since I told you that it wanted a quarter of midnight."
Sir Jasper fell once more to his ursine perambulation, and Stafford, yawning again, flicked over a page. He had not reached the bottom of it, however, before Sir Jasper's form returned between him and the moonlight.
What, said the injured husband, "what if they should have taken another road?"
Then, cried Stafford, closing his book with a snap between both his palms, tossing it on to the table and stretching himself desperately, "I shall only have to fight you myself for this most insufferably dull evening that you have made me spend, when I was due at more than one rendezvous, and had promised pretty Bellairs the first minuet."
It shall be pistols, said Sir Jasper, following his own thoughts with a sort of gloomy lust, "pistols, Tom. For either he or I shall breathe our last to-night."
Pistols with all my heart, said Stafford, stopping his pipe with his little finger. "Only do, like a good fellow, make up your mind—just for the sake of variety. I think the last time we considered the matter, we had decided for this"—describing a neat thrust at Sir Jasper's waistcoat through the window with the long stem of his churchwarden. "There's more blood about it, Jasper," he suggested critically.
True, murmured the other, again all indecision. "But pistols at five paces——."
Well—yes, there's a charm about five paces, I admit, returned the second with some weariness, dropping back again into his chair. "And we can reload, you know."
If I fall, said Sir Jasper, with the emotion which generally overtakes a man who contemplates a tragic contingency to himself, "be gentle with her. She has sinned, but she was very dear to me."
She'll make a deuced elegant widow, said Stafford, musingly, after a little pause, during which he had conjured up Lady Standish's especial points with the judgment of a true connoisseur.
You must conduct her back to her home, gulped Sir Jasper, a minute later, slowly thrusting in his head again. "Alack, would that I had never fetched her thence.... Had you but seen her, when I wooed and won her, Tom! A country flower, all innocence, a wild rose.... And now, deceitful, double-faced!"
'Tis the way of the wild rose, said Stafford, philosophically. "Let you but transplant it from the native hedgerow, and before next season it grows double."
Here the speaker, who was always ready with a generous appreciation of his own conceits, threw his head back and laughed consumedly, while Sir Jasper uttered some sounds between a growl and a groan.
The volatile second in waiting wiped his eyes.
Go to, man, cried he, turning with sudden irascibility upon his friend, "for pity's sake take that lugubrious countenance of thine out of my sight. What the devil I ever saw in thee, Jasper, to make a friend of, passes my comprehension: for, of all things, I love a fellow with a spark of wit. And thou, lad, lackest the saving grace of humour so wofully, that, in truth, I fear—well—thou art in a parlous state: I fear damnation waits thee, for 'tis incurable. What! in God's name cannot a man lose a throw in the game of happiness and yet laugh? Cannot a husbandman detect a poacher on his land and yet laugh as he sets the gin? Why," cried Mr. Stafford, warming to his thesis, and clambering lightly out of the window to seat himself on the outer sill, "strike me ugly! shall not a gentleman be ever ready to meet his fate with a smile? I vow I've never yet seen Death's head grin at me, but I've given him the grin back—split me!"
Hark—hark! cried Sir Jasper, pricking his strained ear, "d'ye hear?"
Pooh! said Mr. Stafford, "only the wind in the tree."
Nay, cried Sir Jasper; "hush man, listen!"
An unmistakable rumbling grew upon the still night air—a confused medley of sounds which gradually unravelled themselves upon their listening ears. It was the rhythmical striking of many hoofs, the roll of wheels, the crack of a merciless whip.
Faith and faith, cried Stafford, pleasantly exhilarated, "I believe you're right, Jasper; here they come!"
The moonlight swam blood-red before Sir Jasper's flaming eye. "Pistols or swords?" questioned he again of himself, and grasped his hilt as the nearest relief, pending the decisive moment.
Out slouched a couple of sleepy ostlers, as Master Lawrence, mine host, rang the stable bell.
Betty, the maid, threw a couple of logs on the fire, while the dame in the bar, waking from her snooze, demanded the kettle, selected some lemons, and ordered candlesticks and dips with reckless prodigality.
*****
Mistress Kitty, peering out of the carriage window, her shoulder still turned upon the unhappy and unforgiven swain, hailed the twinkling lights of the Bear Inn with lively eyes.
While the chaise described an irreproachable curve round the yard, her quick glance had embraced every element of the scene. Sir Jasper's bulky figure, with folded arms, was leaning against the post of the inn door, awaiting her approach—retribution personified—capriciously illumined by the orange rays of the landlord's lantern. Out in the moonlight, shining in his pearl gray satin and powdered head, all silver from crest to shoe-buckle, like the prince of fairy lore, sat Stafford on his window-ledge, as gallant a picture to a woman's eye, the widow had time to think, as one could wish to see on such a night.
Oh, she thought, "how we are going to enjoy ourselves at last!"
And being too true an artist to consider her mere personal convenience upon a question of effect, she resolved to defer the crisis until the ripe moment, no matter at what cost. Accordingly, even as O'Hara cried out, in tones of surprise and disgust: "Thunder and turf! my darling, if there isn't now that blethering ox, Sir Jasper!" Mistress Kitty instantly covered her face with her lace and swooned away on the Irishman's breast.
Sir Jasper charged the coach door. "Blethering ox!" he bellowed. "I'll teach you, sir, what I am! I'll teach that woman—I'll, I'll——"
Here Stafford sprang lightly to the rescue.
For Heaven's sake, said he, "think of our names as gentlemen; let it be swords or pistols, Jasper, or swords and pistols, if you like, but not fistycuffs and collaring. Be quiet, Jasper! And you, sir," said he to O'Hara, as sternly as he could for the tripping of his laughter, "having done your best to add that to a gentleman's head which shall make his hats sit awry for the remainder of his days, do you think it generous to give his condition so precise a name?"
O hush, cried O'Hara, in too deep distress to pay attention either to abuse or banter, "give me room, gentlemen, for God's sake. Don't you see the lady has fainted?"
With infinite precaution and tenderness he emerged from the chay with his burden, elbowing from his path on one side the curious and officious landlord, on the other the struggling husband.
Oh, what have I done at all! cried the distracted lover, as the inertness of the weight in his arms began to fill him with apprehension for his dear. "Sure, alanna, there's nothing to be afraid of! Sure, am I not here? Och, me darling, if——"
But here Sir Jasper escaped from his friend's control. "I'll not stand it," cried he. "'Tis more than flesh and blood can endure. Give her up to me, sir. How dare you hold her?" He fell upon O'Hara in the rear and seized him, throttling, round the neck.
I'll dare you in a minute, ye mad divil! yelled O'Hara, in a fury no whit less violent than that of his assailant. Thus cried he, then choked.
In the scuffle they had reached the parlour.
Oh, Jasper, Jasper, in the name of decency! protested Stafford, vainly endeavouring to pluck the baronet from the Irishman's back. "And you, Denis lad, I entreat of you, cease to provoke him. Zooks, my boy, remember he has some prior claim—what shall I say? some little vested interest——"
I'll stuff him with his own red hair! asseverated Sir Jasper, foaming at the mouth as, under a savage push from O'Hara's elbow he fell back, staggering, into Stafford's power.
Prior claims—vested interest is it! Some of you will have to swallow those words before I'll be got to swallow anything here, swore Denis O'Hara, almost gaily, in the exaltation of his Celtic rage. "Sure, 'tis mad, I know ye are, lepping mad, Sir Jasper, but ought you not to be ashamed of yourself before the lady? She's quivering with the fright.... Lie here, my angel," said he, vibrating from the loudest note of defiance to the tenderest cooing. "Lie here; there's not a ha'porth to frighten ye, were there fifty such twopenny old crazy weathercocks crowing at you!"
So saying, he deposited his burthen tenderly in the leather-winged arm-chair by the fire-place, and turned with a buoyant step towards Sir Jasper.
Come out, said he, "come out, sir. Sure, leave him alone, Tom, 'tis the only way to quiet him at all. Sure, after our little game the other night, wasn't he that dove-like, poor fellow, a child might have milked him?"
The quivering form in the chair here emitted a scale of hysterical little notes that seemed wrung from her by the most irrepressible emotion. And:
Oh, oh, exclaimed Mr. Stafford, unable, in the midst of his laughter, to retain any further grip upon his friend.
My darling, once more began the solicitous O'Hara, turning his head round towards the arm-chair, but:
Judas! hissed Sir Jasper, and furiously interposed his bulk between the Irishman and his intention.
Faith, cried Stafford, "can't you cover that head of yours, somehow, O'Hara? I vow the very sight of it is still the red rag to the bull.... The bull, aha!"
Ha! ha! ha! broke in, this time uncontrolled, the merriment from the chair.
The three men were struck into silence and immobility.
Then, on tip toe, Mr. Stafford approached and peeped round the wing of the arm-chair. He looked, and seemed blasted with astonishment; looked again and made the rafters ring with his sonorous laugh, till the apprehensive landlord in the passage and the trembling dame in the bar were comforted and reassured by the genial sound.
The high feminine trill of Mistress Kitty's musical mirth rang in sweetly with his.
Oh, Kitty Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs! gasped Mr. Stafford, shook his finger at her, felt blindly for a support, and rolled up against Sir Jasper.
The baronet straightway fell into an opportunely adjacent chair and there remained—his legs extended with compass stiffness, his eyes starting with truly bovine bewilderment—staring at the rosy visage, the plump little figure, that now emerged from the inglenook.
Oh dear, oh dear! faintly murmured Stafford. And with a fresh breath he was off again. "Aha ha ha! for an ox, my Jasper, thou hast started on a lovely wild goose chase—as friend O'Hara might say." While:
Mercy on us! rippled the lady. "I protest, 'tis the drollest scene. Oh, Sir Jasper, Sir Jasper, see what jealousy may bring a man to!"
Musha, it's neither head nor tail I can make of the game, said O'Hara, "but sure it's like an angel choir to hear you laugh again, me darling."
The guileless gentleman approached his mistress as he spoke, and prepared to encircle her waist. But with a sudden sharpness she whisked herself from his touch.
Pray, sir, she said, "remember how we stand to each other! If I laugh 'tis with relief to know myself safe."
Safe? he echoed with sudden awful misgiving.
Aye, said she, and spoke more tartly for the remorseful smiting of her own heart, as she marked the change in his face. "You would seem to forget, sir, that you have carried me off by violence—treacherously seized me with your hired ruffians." Her voice grew ever shriller, as certain rumours, which her expectant ears had already caught approaching, now grew quite unmistakable without, and hasty steps resounded in the passage. "Oh, Mr. O'Hara, you have cruelly used me!" cried the lady. "Oh, Sir Jasper, oh, Mr. Stafford, from what a fate has your most unexpected presence here to-night thus opportunely saved me!"
At this point she looked up and gave a scream of most intense astonishment: for there, in the doorway, stood my Lord Verney; and, over his shoulder, peered the white face of Captain Spicer, all puckered up with curiosity.
O'Hare drew himself up. He had grown all at once exceedingly still.
Mr. Stafford, gradually recovering from his paroxysms, had begun to bestow some intelligent interest upon the scene. There was a mist of doubt in his eyes as he gazed from the victimised, but very lively, lady to her crestfallen "violent abductor," and thence to the gloomy countenance of the new-comer on the threshold. There seemed to be, it struck him, a prodigious deliberation in Mistress Kitty's cry and start of surprise.
What is my pretty Bellairs up to now? Well, poor Irish Denis, with all his wits, is no match for her anyhow, and, faith, she knows it, thought he. Aloud he said, with great placidity: "Fie, fie, this is shocking to hear!" and sat, the good-humoured Chorus to the Comedy, on the edge of the table, waiting for the development of the next scene. Sir Jasper, wiping a beaded brow and still staring, as if by the sheer fixing of his bloodshot eye he could turn these disappointing puppets into the proper objects of his vengeance, was quite unable to follow any current but the muddy whirl of his own thoughts.
Lord Verney alone it was, therefore, who rose at all to Mistress Kitty's situation.
Are you the scoundrel, then, said he, marching upon O'Hara, "who dared to lay hands upon an unprotected lady in the very streets of Bath?"
Monstrous! remarked Captain Spicer behind him. Then jogging his patron's elbow, "'Twas well spoke, Verney, man. At him again, there's blood in this."
Mr. O'Hara looked steadily at Lord Verney, glancing contemptuously at Captain Spicer, and then gazed with long, full searching at the beguiling widow.
She thought to scent danger to herself in the air; and, womanlike, she seized unscrupulously upon the sharpest weapon in her armoury.
Perhaps, she said, with an angry, scornful laugh, "Mr. O'Hara will now deny that he and his servants attacked my chairmen in the dark, threw me, screaming with terror, into his carriage, and that his intention was avowedly to wed me by force in London to-morrow."
All eyes were fixed on the Irishman, and silence waited upon his reply. He had grown so pale that his red head seemed to flame by contrast. He made a low bow.
No, Kitty, said he, in a very gentle voice, "I deny nothing." Then sweeping the company with a haughty glance. "This lady," said he, "has spoken truth; as for me, I am ready to meet the consequences of my conduct."
His eye finally rested once more on Lord Verney. The latter grew white and then scarlet; while Spicer whispered and again jogged.
Of course, blustered the youth, and wished that he had the curious digestion of his contemporaries, that his stomach did not so squeamishly rebel at the prospect of a dose of steel, "of course, sir, you must be aware——"
It shall be swords, interrupted the irrepressible Spicer; "and gad, sir, what my noble friend will have left of your body I will myself make mince of this night! Aye, sir," said the Captain, beginning to squint as was his wont under excitement, and slapping his bony chest; "I will fight you myself, sir."
Fight you! exclaimed O'Hara, suddenly stung into magnificent contempt. "Fight you, sir?" he ran a withering eye over the grasshopper anatomy of the toady as he spoke, "you, sir, you, the writer of that dirty note this morning, bidding me apologise—apologise!" cried Denis, with his most luscious brogue, "to the man, Sir Jasper there, for having insulted you on the subject of your miserable mealy head—fight you, sir? Sure, rather than fight you," said Mr. O'Hara, searching for the most emphatic asseveration conceivable, "I'd never fight again for the rest of my life! But I'll tell you what I'll do for you: next time you thrust that ugly face of yours within the reach of me arm Oi'll pull your nose till it's as long as your tongue, and as slender as your courage, damme!"
Oh, gad! what a low scoundrel, murmured Captain Spicer, withdrawing quickly several paces, and with an intensified cast in his eye; "'tis positive unfit for a gentleman to speak to him!"
Now, my lord? said O'Hara, resuming his easy dignity.
But that her comedy should drift into tragedy was none of Mistress Kitty's intentions. Briskly stepping between the laboriously pugnacious Verney and the poor Irishman, whose eye (for all his present composure) shone with the lust of the fray, she thus addressed them collectively and in turn:
Shame, shame, gentlemen, I protest! Is it not enough that a poor woman's heart should be set a-fluttering by over-much love, must it now go pit-a-pat again for over-much hate? My Lord Verney, think of your mother. Think of her, of whose declining years you are the sole prop and joy; recall to mind those principles of high morality, of noble Christian duty, which that paragon of women so sedulously inculcated in you! Her voice quivered on the faintest note of mockery. "Oh, what would that worthy lady's feelings be, were you to be brought home to her—a corse! What, ah what indeed! would your feelings be if, by some accident," here she shot involuntarily what was almost the suspicion of a wink in the direction of O'Hara, "you had to answer for the life of a fellow-creature before to-morrow's dawn? Why, you could never open your Bible again without feeling in your bosom the throbbing heart of a Cain!" She stopped to draw breath.
Mr. Stafford, one delighted grin, slid the whole length of the table on which he sat with dangling legs, to get a fuller view of the saucy face: "Incomparable Bellairs," he murmured to himself with keen appreciation, And: "So, ho, my noble friend," thought he, as he shot a glance at the solemn Verney, "now do I know what has closed to you for ever the gates of Paradise."
And you, Mr. O'Hara, resumed the lady, turning her eye, full of indefinable and entrancing subtleties upon the honest gentleman, "would you have me forgive you this night's work? Do not, then, do not force this impetuous young man to an unnecessary quarrel. Allow him to withdraw his challenge. Do that in atonement, sir," said she, with much severity of accent; but her eye said sweetly enough, "Do that for me" and gave further promise of unutterable reward.
Madam, said O'Hara, glancing away as if the sight of her beauty were now more pain than pleasure to him, "'tis for my Lord Verney to speak; I am entirely at his orders. I understand," and here, for all his chivalrousness, he could not refrain him from a point of satire, "I understand, ma'am, that you have given him the right to espouse your quarrels."
Most certainly, said the crimson Verney, who had been monstrously uneasy during his lady's sermon, not only because every word of it hit some tender point of his abnormally developed conscience, but also because of an indefinable sensation that he was being held up to ridicule, "most certainly, sir, it is as Mistress Bellairs's future husband that I find it incumbent—that I find myself forced, reluctantly—no, I mean——" here he floundered and looked round for Spicer, who, however, was ostentatiously turning his back upon the proceedings and gazing at the moon. "In fact," resumed the poor youth, falling back on his own unguided wits, "I have no alternative but to demand satisfaction for an attempt on the honour of the future Lady Verney."
Mercy on us! cried Mistress Kitty, with a shrill indignant little scream. "Oh fie, my lord, who would have deemed you so bloodthirsty? Before heaven," she cried piously, glancing at the raftered ceiling, "before heaven, it would be the death of me, were there to be quarrelling, strife, contention for me—for me! Who am I," she said with the most angelic humility, "that two such gallant gentlemen should stake their lives for me? Rather," said she, "will I give you back your word, my lord. Indeed," this with a noble air of sacrifice, "I feel Providence has but too clearly shown me my duty. Hush, hush, Verney, bethink yourself! How could I ever face your mother (were you indeed to survive the encounter) with the knowledge that I had exposed you to danger; that for me you had loaded your soul with blood-guiltiness!"
She shuddered and looked delicious.
Child, said she meltingly, as Lord Verney faintly protested, "it must be so. I have felt it more than once; you are too young." There was a conviction in her voice that gave no hope of reprieve, and Lord Verney, who had already found out that Mistress Bellairs was too dangerous a delight to pursue with comfort, accepted his sentence with a Christian resignation that did justice to his mother's training.
All, all must now be over between us, said Kitty pathetically, "save a gentle friendship! Your hand, my Lord."
She reached for his clumsy paw with her determined little fingers.
Mr. O'Hara, said she, turning round. "I forgive you. Your hand also, sir."
If the clasp she extended to Verney was purely official, that with which she now seized O Hara's cold right hand was eloquent enough with quick and secret pressure. But, for the first time in his life, perhaps, O'Hara was slow in returning a woman's token.
Shake hands, ordered Mistress Bellairs decisively, and joined the belligerents' palms.
Here Stafford sprang jovially to the assistance of the pretty peacemaker.
Right, right, cried he. "Shake hands on it like good fellows. Fie! who could keep up a feud under those beaming eyes?—Never be downcast, Verney, lad! What did I tell thee, only yesterday, in the Pump Room, about thy halo?—Denis, my boy, I've always loved thee, but now I'll love thee more than ever, if only thou wilt mix us a bowl of punch in right good Irish fashion, so that in it we may drown all enmity and drink good friendship—and above all toast the divine Kitty Bellairs!"
Hurroosh, cried O'Hara, and with a valiant gulp determined to swallow his own bitter disappointment and flood in a tide of warm gaiety the cold ache in his heart. "By all means," cried he, wrung Verney's hand with feverish cordiality, and gave one last sadly-longing look at Kitty and his lovely delusive dream.
Then spinning round upon himself he demanded loudly of the willing landlord, lemons and "the craythur—a couple of bottles, my friend—a bowl of sugar and a trifle of wather—the smaller the kittle the better it boils." And: "Wake up, man," cried he, slapping Sir Jasper on the back so that the powder flew from that baronet's queue. "Sure we're all happy, now."
Where's my wife, sir? said the gloomy husband, springing to his feet fiercely. "I've been made a fool of between you, but all this does not tell me where my wife is! Stafford, man, I see it now: this has been a blind." He struck his forehead. "Ha, yes I have it now, it was a false scent—the villain, the fox is off with her on another road, with his tongue in his cheek, grinning to think of me sitting and waiting for them at Devizes!—Tom, the chaise, the horses! There's not a moment to be lost!"
Devil a horse or chay for me, sir, cried his friend. And nodding at Kitty: "I know when I'm in good company," he pursued, "if you don't.—Sit down, man, there's punch brewing. Your vengeance will keep hot enough, ha, ha, but the punch won't."
Glory be to God, cried O'Hara, staring at Sir Jasper as if he were a natural curiosity, "I've known many a madman, but I never knew one mad enough yet to run away from a punch-bowl!"
With lace ruffles neatly turned back from his deft hands, O'Hara began to peel the lemons.
Do you, now said Captain Spicer with an ingratiating chirp. "Do you really care for quite so much peel in the bowl ... ahem?"
The speaker stopped suddenly and seemed to wither quite away under a sudden look from the punch-brewer (who had made a movement as though to put his knife and lemons down and employ his fingers differently) and the next instant found him whispering in Stafford's ear:
You're a man of the world, I know, friend Stafford, said he. "No doubt you will laugh at my over-nice sense of delicacy, but just now, in his ravings, poor O'Hara made a kind of threat, I believe, about pulling my nose. What would you advise me to do in the matter? Look over it, eh?"
Certainly, cried the spark, with a glance of the most airy contempt. "Look over it, as straight as you can. Look over it, by all means, but as you value the symmetry of that ornament to your countenance, Captain Spicer—if I were you I should keep it well-buttered."
*****
With an art of which he alone was master, Captain Spicer hereupon vanished from the company, without being missed.
'Tis an orgy! exclaimed Lady Maria.
Oh, Jasper! sobbed Lady Standish.
'Twould be interesting to know, further trumpeted Lady Maria, "which of these gentlemen is supposed to have run away with the widow Bellairs?"
Oh, Kitty! sobbed Lady Standish.
My God! said Sir Jasper, laying down his reeking glass and hardly believing his eyes.
Mistress Kitty (seated between O'Hara and Stafford at the end of the table, while Lord Verney and Sir Jasper faced each other), continued, unmoved, to sip her fragrant brew and cocked her wicked eye at the newcomers, enjoying the situation prodigiously. She laid an arresting hand upon the cuffs of her neighbours, who, all polite amazement, were about to spring to their feet. "Keep still," said she, "keep still and let Sir Jasper and his lady first have their little explanation undisturbed. Never intermeddle between husband and wife," she added demurely: "it has always been one of my guiding axioms!"
Well, Sir Jasper Standish, these are pretty goings on! cried Lady Maria, "for a three months' husband.... (Hold up, my poor dear Julia!) Profligate!" snorted the old lady, boring the baronet through with one gimlet eye. "Dissolute wretch! highwayman!"
I demand, fluted Lady Standish's plaintive treble (in her gentle obstinate heart she had come to the fixed resolution of never allowing Sir Jasper out of her sight again), "I demand to be taken back to my mother, and to have an immediate separation."
Running away with women out of the streets of Bath!—A lady, (sniff) "supposed to be engaged to my nevvy! Poor deluded boy——"
And my dearest friend!—oh, Jasper! How could you?
Sir Jasper broke in upon his wife's treble with the anguished roar of the goaded: "The devil take me," cried he, "if I don't think the whole world's going mad! I elope with the widow Bellairs, Lady Maria, ma'am? I treacherous, my Lady? Ha!" He positively capered with fury and wounded feeling and general distraction, as he drew the incriminating documents from his breast, and flourished them, one in each hand, under the very nose of his accusers. "What of Red Curl, madam? What of the man who kissed the dimple, madam? What of your lover, madam!"
In his confusion he hurled the last two demands straight in Lady Maria's face, who, with all the indignation of outraged virtue, exclaimed in her deepest note:
Vile slanderer, I deny it!
Here Mistress Bellairs deemed the moment ripe for her delicate interference.
My lovely Standish, she cried, "you look sadly. Indeed I fear you will swoon if you do not sit. Pray Mr. Stafford, conduct my Lady Standish to the arm-chair and make her sip a glass of cordial from the bowl yonder."
Oh, Kitty! cried Lady Standish, and devoured the widow's face with eager eyes to see whether friend or enemy was heralded there.
My dear, whispered Kitty, "nothing could be going better. Sit down, I tell you, and I promise you that in ten minutes you will have Sir Jasper on his knees."
Then running up to Sir Jasper and speaking with the most childlike and deliberate candour:
Pray, Sir Jasper, said she, "and what might you be prating of letters and red curls? Strange now," she looked round the company with dewy, guileless eyes, "I lost a letter only a day or two ago at your house—a," she dropped her lids with a most entrancing little simper, "a rather private letter. I believe I must have lost it in dear Julia's parlour, near the sofa, for I remember I pulled out my handkerchief——"
Good God! said Sir Jasper, hoarsely, and glared at her, all doubt, and crushed the letters in his hand.
Could you—could you have found it, Sir Jasper, I wonder? Mercy on me! And then this morning ... 'tis the strangest thing ... I get another letter, another rather private letter, and after despatching a few notes to my friends, for the life of me, I could not find the letter any more! And I vow I wanted it, for I had scarce glanced at it.
Oh, Mistress Bellairs! cried Sir Jasper. "Tell me," cried he panting, "what did these letters contain?"
La! said she, "what a question to put to a lady!"
For God's sake, madam! said he, and in truth he looked piteous.
Then, step apart, said she, "and for dear Julia's sake I will confide in you, as a gentleman."
She led him to the moonlit window, while all followed them with curious eyes—except Verney, who surreptitiously drank his punch, and slid away from the table, with the fear of his aunt in his heart. And now Mistress Kitty hung her head, looked exceedingly bashful and exceedingly coy. She took up a corner of her dainty flowered gown and plaited it in her fingers.
Was there, she asked, "was there anything of the description of a—of a trifling lock of hair, in the first letter—'twas somewhat of an auburn hue?"
Confusion! exclaimed the baronet, thrust the fateful letters into her hand, and turning on his heel, stamped his foot, muttering furiously: "Curse the fool that wrote them, and the feather-head that dropped them!"
And what of the fool that picked them up and read them? whispered Mistress Kitty's voice in his ears, sharp as a slender stiletto.
She looked him up and down with a fine disdainful mockery.
Why will you men write? said she meaningly. "Letters are dangerous things!"
He stood convicted, without a word.
La! what a face! she cried aloud now. "I protest you quite frighten me. And how is it you are not overjoyed, Sir Jasper? Here is your Julia proved whiter than the driven snow and more injured than Griselidis, and you not at her feet!"
Where is she? said Sir Jasper, half strangled by contending emotions.
Why, there, in that arm-chair in the inglenook.
Mistress Kitty smoothed her restored treasures quite tenderly, folded them neatly and slipped them into the little brocade bag that hung at her waist.
*****
Indeed, Lady Standish, said Mr. Stafford, "a glass of punch will do you no harm."
Punch? echoed Lady Maria—then turning fiercely on her nephew: "What, my Lord!" said she, "would your mother say? Why you are positively reeking with the dissolute fumes!"
My dear Lady Maria, interposed the urbane Stafford, "a mere cordial, a grateful fragrance to heighten the heart after fatigue and emotions, a sovereign thing, madam, against the night air—the warmest antidote! A sip of it, I assure you, would vastly restore you."
I, she said, "I, drink with the profligate and the wanton! The deceiving husband and the treacherous friend!" She gave the fiercer refusal for that she felt so strongly in her old bones the charm of his description.
Pooh, pooh! my dear ladies, if that is all, said Mr. Stafford, "then, by Heaven, let the glass circulate at once! Indeed, your La'ship," turning to Lady Standish, "so far from our good Jasper having anything to say to Mistress Bellairs's presence here to-night, let me assure you that he and I set out alone at an early hour this evening, with no other object but to be of service to your ladyship—whom your anxious husband had been led to believe was likely to come this way ... somewhat—ah—unsuitably protected, as he thought."
Then he bent down and whispered into Lady Standish's pretty ear (which she willingly enough lent to such consoling assurances): "As for your friend," he went on, "our delightful if volatile Bellairs—she came here with a vastly different person to Sir Jasper: poor O'Hara yonder—who's drinking all the punch! She will tell you herself how it happened.... But, gracious stars, my dear Lady Maria, have you not yet been given a glass of the—of Mr. O'Hara's restorative!"
Allow me, cried Kitty, who, having just settled Sir Jasper's business for him, had now freedom to place her energies elsewhere. "Dearest Lady Maria—how sweet of you to join us in our little reconciliation feast!" She took a brimming glass from O'Hara's hands and held it, with a winning smile, for Lady Maria's acceptance.
Madam, responded the matron, scowled, drew her voluminous skirts together and became impenetrably deaf.
Ah, cried the widow in her topmost notes, "Madam, how I should have revered such a relative as yourself! Next to the joy of calling my Lord Verney's mother, my mother, would have been that of calling his aunt, my aunt! But the dream is over. Lord Verney and I can never be more to each other than we are now."
Eh? and the Dowager recovered her hearing. "What's that, what's that, nevvy?"
'Tis, alas, true, said Lord Verney, with great demureness. "Mistress Bellairs has given me back my word."
Forgive me, dear Lady Maria, trilled the widow.
Mercy on us! ejaculated the old lady; then, as if unconsciously, groped for the glass in Mistress Kitty's hand.
Sit down, sit down all! cried Mistress Bellairs. Stafford echoed with a jovial shout. There was a call for a fresh bowl. O'Hara's eyes began to dance, his tongue to resume its glibness. And Lady Maria was surprised to find how long her tumbler took to empty, but, curiously, never failed to be looking the other way when Mistress Bellairs with tenderest solicitude plied the silver ladle in her direction.
I hope, said the ancient lady, now wreathed in smiles, "I hope that Mr. O'Hara's cordial is not really stronger than Madeira wine—which my physician, that charming Sir George, says is all I ought to drink."
Madeira? cried Mr. O'Hara, "Madeira wine is a very fair drink ... it is a fine stirring dhrink. But 'tis apt, I'm afraid, to heat the blood overmuch. Now Claret," he went on, pursuing the thesis, "Claret's the wine for gentlemen—only for the divil of a way it has of lying cold upon the stomach ... after four or five bottles.... Do I hear you say: 'Port,' over there, Tom, me boy? I'll not deny but that Port has qualities. It's strong, it's mellow—but it's heavy. It sends a fellow to sleep, and that's a tirrible bad mark against it; for 'tis near as bad for a man to sleep when he has a bottle going, as when he has a lady coming. Then there's Champagne for you: there's exhilaration in Champagne, 'tis the real tipple for a gentleman when he's alone—in a tête-à-tête—but 'tis not the wine for great company. Now, my dear friends," said O'Hara, stirring his new brew with the touch of a past master, "if you want to know a wine that combines the fire of the Madeira with the elegance of the Claret, the power and mellowness of the Port with the exhilaration of the Champagne—there's nothing in the world can compare to a fine screeching bowl of Brandy Punch!"
When Mistress Kitty had sipped half a glass with great show of relish and rakishness, and Lady Standish, under protest, had sucked a few spoonfuls; when Lady Maria, stuck in the middle of her fourth helping, protested that she really could not finish the tumbler and forthwith began to show signs of incoherence and somnolence; when O'Hara broke into snatches of song, and Lord Verney began to make calf's eyes afresh at the lost Mistress Kitty; when Sir Jasper, hanging round his wife's chair, showed unequivocal signs of repentance and a longing for reconciliation: when Stafford himself became more pointed in his admiration of Mistress Kitty and a trifle broader in his jests than was quite consistent with his usual breeding, the little widow deemed it, at last, time to break up the party.
There was a vast bustle, a prodigious ordering and counter-ordering.
Never mind me, whispered Stafford, ever full of good humour and tact, into Sir Jasper's ear, "take your wife home, man, I'll sleep here if needs be."
Not a foot, asserted O'Hara, apparently quite sober, and speaking with the most pleasant deliberation in the world, "not a foot will I stir from this place, so long as there is a lemon left."
The cursed scoundrel, cried Lord Verney, babbling with fury as he returned from the stables, "the scoundrel, Spicer, has driven off with my curricle!"
Then shall we be a merry trio to drink daylight in, said Stafford, and cheered.
Come, dear Lady Maria, said Kitty. "I shall take care of you. I will give you a seat in my chaise; we shall drive home together."
Certainly, my dear, certainly, mumbled the Dowager. "Who is that remarkably agreeable person?" she requested to know of Stafford in her prodigiously audible whisper. "My dear," she turned again to Kitty, "I like you wonderfully. I cannot quite remember your name, my dear, but we will go home together."
Dear, dear Lady Maria! cried Mistress Kitty, honey sweet. "My Lord Verney, give your arm to your revered relative—mind you lead her carefully," she said, with all the imps in her eyes dancing, "for I fear Mr. Stafford's cordial has proved a little staggering—after the night air! And warn her ladyship's attendant to be ready to escort us back in my carriage."
Then, taking advantage of Sir Jasper's absence—that gentleman might even then be heard cursing his sleepy servants in the yard—Mistress Kitty ran over to Lady Standish, who stood wistful and apart at the inglenook.
My dear, she murmured, "the game is now in your hands."
Ah, no! returned the other. "Oh, Kitty, you have been an evil counsellor!"
Is this your gratitude? retorted Kitty, and pinched her friend with vicious little fingers. "Why, woman, your husband never thought so much of you in his life as he does to-day! Why, there has never been so much fuss made over you since you were born. Are these your thanks?"
Oh, for the moment when I can fly to his bosom and tell him all! My foolish endeavour to make him jealous, my sinful pretence that he had a rival in my heart!
What? exclaimed the widow, and her whisper took all the emphasis of a shriek. "Fly to his bosom? Then I have done with you! Bring him to his knees you mean, madam. Tell him all? Tell him all, forsooth, let him know you have made a fool of him, all for nothing; let him think that you had never had an idea beyond pining for his love; that no other man ever thought of you, that he has never had a rival, never will have one, that you are merely his own uninteresting Julia whom nobody wants. Why, Lady Standish, 'tis laying down the arms when the battle is yours. Sheer insanity! Prodigious, prodigious!" cried Mistress Kitty. "Is it possible that you and I are of the same sex?"
Bewildered, yet half convinced, Lady Standish listened and wondered.
Be guided by me, whispered Kitty again. "Indeed, my dear, I mean well by you. Keep your secret if you love your husband. Keep it more preciously than you would keep jour youth and your beauty; for I tell you 'tis now your most valuable possession. Here," said she, and took a letter from her famous bag and thrust it into Julia's hands, "here is what will bring him to his knees! Oh, what a game you have upon this drive home if you know how to play it!"
What is this, now? cried Lady Standish.
Hush! ordered Kitty, and clapped her friend's hand over the letter. "Promise, promise! Here comes your lord!"
Sir Jasper had approached them as she spoke; he now bowed confusedly and took his wife's hand. But:
A word in your ear, said Mistress Kitty, arresting him as they were about to pass out. "A word in your ear, sir. If a man has a treasure at home he would keep for himself, he will do well to guard it! An unwatched jewel, my good sir, invites thieves. Good-night!"
*****
And now in the great room of the Bear Inn were left only three: the two gallant gentlemen, O'Hara and Stafford, and Mistress Kitty.
Mistress Kitty's game had been successfully played out; and yet the lady lingered.
Good night, she began, then shot a glance at Stafford. "I wonder," she said innocently, "if my carriage be ready, and whether Lady Maria is well installed?"
I will see, said Stafford simply, and vanished.
O'Hara stood by the table, slowly dipping the ladle into the punch and absently pouring the liquor back into the bowl again. She sidled round to him.
Denis! said she.
He turned his wildly-bright eyes upon her, but made no answer.
I'm going back, said she, and held out her hand.
He carefully put down the ladle, took the tips of her little fingers and kissed them. But his hands and his lips were cold.
Glory be to God, said he, "it's a grand game you played with me ... the Bath Comedy entirely, Kitty."
Then he dropped her hand and took up the punch-ladle again with downcast looks.
Will you not give me your arm to my carriage? said she, after a slight pause.
Ah, Kitty, sure haven't you broke my heart for me ... and has not the punch robbed me of my legs!
His wild bright eyes were deeply sad as he turned them on her, and he was pale as death.
She drew back quickly, frowned, hesitated, frowned again, and then brightened up once more.
Then, sir, said she, "when your legs are restored to you, pray let them conduct your heart round to my lodgings, and we shall see what can be done towards mending it."
She dropped him a curtsey and was gone.
As Stafford folded her into the chaise, he whispered:
If ever I have a chance of running away with you, Kitty, I'll take very good care not to let you know which road I mean to choose!
As the carriage rolled homewards on the Bath Road, Lady Standish, both hands folded over the mysterious letter, sat staring out of the window with unseeing eyes. The dawn had begun to break upon a cloudless sky; the air was chill and brisk; mists wreathed white scarves over the fields. She felt conscious in every fibre of her being that Sir Jasper was eagerly contemplating her in the cold grey light. Heart and brain were in a turmoil; the anguish, the violent emotions, the successive scenes of the last forty-eight hours passed again before her mind like a phantasmagoria. Partly because of Mistress Bellairs's advice and partly because of a certain womanly resentment, which, gentle as she was, still reared itself within her, she did not even cast a look upon her husband, but sat mutely, gazing at the land. Presently she became aware that he had slid an arm behind her waist. She trembled a little, but did not turn to him.
Julia, said he, in a muffled uncertain tone, "Julia, I—I have done you injustice." Then, for jealousy is as ill to extinguish as a fire that smoulders, a flame of the evil passion leaped up again with him. "But you must admit," said he, "that I had cause. Your own words, I may say your own confession——"
Lady Standish turned her head, lifted heavy lids and for a moment fixed upon him the most beautiful eyes in the world.
Nay, said she, "I made no confession." Her tongue trembled upon other protestations, yet Kitty's warning carried the day.
Tell me, said he, and bent to her, "tell me was it Lord Verney after all?"
Lady Standish again raised her eyes to his face, and could such a thing have been possible in a creature whose very being was all tenderness, he would have sworn that in her gaze there was contempt.
Sir Jasper, said she, "it never was Lord Verney!" And then she added: "Has there not been enough of this?"
As she spoke she moved her hands and involuntarily looked down at the letter she held. Then she sat as if turned to stone. The letter was in Sir Jasper's writing and addressed to Mistress Bellairs!
What have you there? cried he.
Nay, said she, "I know not, for 'tis not my letter. But you will know." And she held it up to him, and her hand did not tremble, yet was a cold fear upon her. "You wrote it," she said. He stared and his countenance changed, utter discomposure fell upon him.
Julia, cried he, "Julia, upon my honour! I swear 'twas nothing, less than nothing, a mere idle bit of gallantry—a jest!" As he spoke he fell upon one knee in the chaise, at her feet.
Then I may read it? said she.
Ah, Julia! cried he, and encircled her with his arms. She felt the straining eagerness of his grasp, she felt his heart beat stormily. With a sudden warmth she knew that after all his love was hers.
Then she had an inspiration, one worthy of a cleverer woman: but love has his own geniuses. She disengaged herself from his embrace and put the letter into his hand.
Take it, said she.
Julia, he cried, and shook from head to foot, and the tears sprang to his eyes, "I never gave her a serious thought. I vow I hate the woman."
Then tear it up, said Lady Standish, with a superhuman magnanimity that almost turned her faint.
He rose and tore the letter in shreds (quickly, lest she should repent) and flung them out of the window. She watched the floating pieces flutter and vanish. In her secret soul she said to herself:
Mistress Bellairs and I shall be very good friends at a distance!
Her husband was kneeling at her feet again. "Angel," cried he pleadingly, and once more she was in his arms; and yet his jealous heart kept growling within him, like a surly dog that will not be silenced. "Julia," said he in her ear, "but one word, one word, my love! Julia, is there anyone, anything between us?"
Oh, that, she said, and smiled archly, "that, sir, you must discover for yourself." Her head sank on his shoulder as she spoke.
You torture me! he murmured. But she knew that he had never kissed her with such passion in all his life before.
*****
As her chaise followed on the road, some hundred yards or so behind Sir Jasper's, Mistress Bellairs, sitting beside Lady Maria (who snored the whole way with rhythmic steadiness) gazed across the livid fields towards the low horizon where the slow fires of dawn were pulsing into brightness. She was in deeply reflective mood.
In her excited, busy brain she revolved many important questions and weighed the gains and losses in her game of "Love and Hazard" with all the seriousness of the gambler homeward bound after a heavy night.
At least, she thought, with a little sigh, but with some complacency, "I did a vastly good turn to my Lady Standish. But the woman is a fool, if a sweet one, and fools are past permanent mending. I did well," thought she, "to condemn the Calf—there is no doubt of that." She glanced at Lady Maria's withered countenance, unlovely and undignified in her stupor—— "The menagerie would have been the death of me, promptly.... But, my poor O'Hara! How could I ever have called him a cucumber? There was love for the taking, now—yet no! Worshipper, vastly well; but husband? not for me, not for me! Bless me," she cried to herself testily; "is a woman to have no choice between mid-winter, green spring, or the dog days? If I ever allow myself to be abducted again, 'twill be with your Man of the World—one with palate enough to relish me without wanting to swallow me at a gulp."
She paused in her train of thought to laugh at the recollection of Mr. Stafford's parting speech. "There is an easy heart for you!" she murmured. "A gallant gentleman, with as pretty a wit as O'Hara himself, and every whit as good a leg. Perhaps," thought Mistress Kitty, yawned and grew sleepy; nodded her delicate head; dreamed then a little dream and saw a silver Beau in the moonlight, and woke up with a smile. The spires of Bath Cathedral pierced silver grey through a golden mist; far beneath her gaze, as the chaise began to tip the crest of the great hill, like a silver ribbon ran the river. "Perhaps.... We shall see," said the widow.
The End