Chapter IV: Part 4

"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?"

SCENE XIV

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."

* * * * *

SCENE XV

"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."

SCENE XVI

"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 _rôle_ 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."

SCENE XVII

"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."

SCENE XVIII

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!"

SCENE XIX

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?"