Colonel Villiers started to his feet with a growl like that of a tiger aroused from slumber.
"Zounds!" he exclaimed. "An insult."
"How!" cried Jasper, turning upon him and suddenly noticing the sandy hue of his friend's bushy eyebrows. "You, good God! You? Pooh, pooh, impossible, and yet.... Colonel Villiers, Sir!" cried Sir Jasper, in awful tones, "did you write this letter? Speak! Yes or no, man! Speak, or must I drag the words from your throat?"
Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled Colonel Villiers.
"Stafford, Stafford," he spluttered, "you are witness. These are gross affronts, affronts which shall be wiped out."
"Did you write that letter? Yes or no!" screamed Sir Jasper, shaking the offending document in the Colonel's convulsed countenance.
"I?" cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jasper's hand with a furious blow, "I? I write such brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now, damn you body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me such a question?"
"No," said Sir Jasper, "of course not! Ah, I am a fool, Villiers. Forgive me. There's no quarrel between us! No, of course it could not be you! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty years! Gad, I am going mad!"
"Why, man," said Stafford, as soon as he could speak for laughing, "Villiers has not so much hair on all his head as you hold in your hand there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with your wig, and let your bald pate proclaim its shining innocence."
The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this time black in the face. Panting as to breath, disjointed as to speech, his fury had nevertheless its well-defined purpose.
"I have been insulted, I have been insulted," he gasped; "the matter cannot end here. Sir Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red-haired man, sir. I shall send a friend to call upon you."
"Nay, then," said Sir Jasper, "since 'tis so between us I will even assure myself that Tom has spoken the truth and give you something to fight for!" He stretched out his hand as he spoke, and plucked the wig from Colonel Villiers' head.
Before him indeed spread so complete an expanse of hairless candour, that further evidence was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that lingered behind the Colonel's ears, if they had once been ruddy, shone now meekly silver in the candle-light.
"I thank you," said Sir Jasper, "that is sufficient. When you send your friend to call upon me, I shall receive him with pleasure." He handed back the Colonel's wig with a bow.
The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand instinctively fumbled for his sword. But remembering perhaps that this was eminently a case for pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, clapped it on defiantly, settled it with minute care, glared, wheeled round and left the room, muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous a nature as to defy recording.
Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another thought. He fell into his chair again and spread out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter.
"Confusion!" said he. Who can it be? "Tom, you scamp, I know your hair is brown. Thou art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if I do not kill him I shall go mad!"
Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears rolled from his eyes as he gasped:
"Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this is the best joke I have known for years. Oh, Lord, the bald head of him! Oh, Jasper, 'tis cruel funny! Stab me, sir, if I have known a better laugh these ten years!) Nay, nay, I will help thee. Come, there's his Lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, for I have seen him in the water. Gad, he was like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it be he, think you? They have a way, these divines, and Lady Standish has a delicate conscience. She would like the approval of the Church upon her deeds. Nay, never glare like that, for I will not fight you! Have you not got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! there is O'Hara, he is Irish enough and rake enough and red enough. Oh, he is red enough!"
"O'Hara," cried Sir Jasper, struck.
There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley in the hall, and the servant announced Mr. Denis O'Hara.
"Talk of the devil," said Stafford.
Sir Jasper rose from his armchair with the air of one whose enemy is delivered into his hands.
The Honourable Denis O'Hara, son and heir of Viscount Kilcroney in the peerage of Ireland, entered with a swift and easy step, and saluted airily. He had a merry green eye, and the red of his crisp hair shone out through the powder like a winter sunset through a mist.
"Sir Jasper," said he, "your servant, sir. Faith, Tom, me boy, is that you? The top of the evening to ye."
Uninvited he took a chair and flung his careless figure upon it. His joints were loose, his nose aspired, his rich lace ruffles were torn, his handsome coat was buttoned awry; Irishman was stamped upon every line of him, from his hot red head to his slim alert foot; Irishman lurked in every rich accent of his ready tongue.
Sir Jasper made no doubt that now the Lothario who had poached on his preserves, had destroyed his peace, had devastated his home, was before him. He turned to Stafford and caught him by the wrist.
"Tom," whispered he, "you will stand by me, for by my immortal soul, I will fight it out to-night!"
"For God's sake, be quiet," whispered the other, who began to think that the jealous husband was getting beyond a joke. "Let us hear what the fellow has got to say first. The devil! I will not stand by to see you pink every auburn buck in the town. 'Tis stark lunacy."
"But 'tis you yourself," returned Sir Jasper, in his fierce undertone—"you yourself who told me it was he. See, but look at this curl and at that head."
"Oh, flummery!" cried Stafford. "Let him speak, I say."
"When you have done your little conversation, gentlemen," said Mr. O'Hara good-naturedly, "perhaps you will let me put in a word edgeways?"
Sir Jasper, under his friend's compelling hand, sank into a chair; his sinews well-nigh creaked with the constraint he was putting upon himself.
"I have come," said Denis O'Hara, "from me friend Captain Spoicer. I met him a whoile ago, fluttering down Gay Street, leaping like a hare with the hounds after him, by St. Patrick! 'You're running away from someone, Spoicer,' says I. And says he, 'I'm running away from that blithering madman Sir Jasper Standish.' Excuse me, Sir Jasper, those were his words, ye see."
"And what, sir," interrupted Sir Jasper in an ominous voice—"what, sir, may I ask, was your purpose in walking this way to-night?"
"Eh," cried the Irishman, "what is that ye say?"
"Oh, go on, O'Hara," cried Stafford impatiently, and under his breath to Standish, "Faith, Jasper," said he, "keep your manners, or I'll wash my hands of the whole matter."
"Oh, is that the way with him," said O'Hara, behind his hand to Stafford, and winked jovially. "Well, I was saying, gentlemen, that to see a man run, unless it be a Frenchman, is a thing that goes against me. 'Why, what did he do to you?' said I (meaning you, Sir Jasper). 'Oh,' says me gallant Captain, 'I went to him with a gentlemanly message from a friend and the fellow insulted me so grossly with remarks about my hair, that sure,' says he, 'tis only fit for Bedlam he is.' 'Insulted you,' says I, 'and where are you running to? To look for a friend, I hope,' says I. 'Insults are stinking things.' 'Sure,' says he, 'he is mad,' says he. 'Well, what matter of that?' says I. 'Sure, isn't it all mad we are more or less? Come,' says I, 'Spoicer, this will look bad for you with the ladies, not to speak of the men. Give me the message, me boy, and I will take it; and sure we will let Sir Jasper bring his keepers with him to the field, and no one can say fairer than that.'"
Sir Jasper sprang to his feet.
"Now, curse your Irish insolence," he roared; "this is more than I would stand from any man! And, if I mistake not, Mr. O'Hara, we have other scores to settle besides."
"Is it we?" cried O'Hara, jumping up likewise. "'Tis the first I've heard of them—but, be jabers, you will never find me behind hand in putting me foot to the front! I will settle as many scores as you like, Sir Jasper—so long as it is me sword and not me purse that pays them."
"Draw then, man, draw!" snarled Sir Jasper, dancing in his fury. He bared his silver-hilted sword and threw the scabbard in a corner.
"Heaven defend us!" cried Stafford, in vain endeavouring to come between the two.
"Sure, you must not contradict him," cried O'Hara, unbuckling his belt rapidly, and drawing likewise with a pretty flourish of shining blade. "'Tis the worst way in the world to deal with a cracked man. Sure, ye must soothe him and give in to him. Don't I know! Is not me own first cousin a real raw lunatic in Kinsale Asylum this blessed day? Come on, Sir Jasper, I'm yer man. Just pull the chairs out of the way, Tom, me dear boy."
"Now sir, now sir!" said Sir Jasper, and felt restored to himself again as steel clinked against steel. And he gripped the ground with his feet, and knew the joy of action.
"Well, what must be, must be," said Stafford philosophically, and sat across a chair; "and a good fight is a good fight all the world over! Ha! that was a lunge! O'Hara wields a pretty blade, but there is danger in Jasper's eye. I vow I won't have the Irish boy killed. Ha!" He sprang to his feet again and brandished the chair, ready to interpose between the two at the critical moment. O'Hara was as buoyant as a cork; he skipped backwards and forwards, from one side to another, in sheer enjoyment of the contest. But Sir Jasper hardly moved from his first position except for one or two vicious lunges. Stafford had deemed to see danger in his eye; there was more than danger—there was murder! The injured husband was determined to slay, and bided his time for the fatal thrust. The while, O'Hara attacked out of sheer lightness of heart. Now his blade grazed Sir Jasper's thigh; once he gave him a flicking prick on the wrist so that the blood ran down his fingers.
"Stop, stop," cried Stafford, running in with his chair, "Sir Jasper's hit!"
"No, dash you!" cried Sir Jasper. And click, clank, click, it went again, with the pant of the shortening breath, and the thud of the leaping feet. Sir Jasper lunged a third time, O'Hara waved his sword aimlessly, fell on one knee, and rolled over.
"Halt!" yelled Stafford. It was too late. Sir Jasper stood staring at his red blade.
"You have killed him!" cried Stafford, turning furiously on his friend, and was down on his knees and had caught the wounded man in his arms the next second.
"Devil a bit," said O'Hara, and wriggled in the other's grasp, too vigorously indeed for a moribund, found his feet in a jiffy and stood laughing with a white face and looking down at his dripping shirt. "'Tis but the sudden cold feel of the steel, man! Sure I'm all right, and ready to begin again! 'Tis but a rip in the ribs, for I can breathe as right as ever." He puffed noisily as he spoke to prove his words, slapped his chest, then turned giddily and fell into a chair. Stafford tore open the shirt. It was as O'Hara had said, the wound was an ugly surface rip, more unpleasant than dangerous.
"Let us have another bout," said O'Hara.
"No, no," said Stafford.
"No, no," said Sir Jasper advancing and standing before his adversary. "No. Mr. O'Hara, you may have done me the greatest injury that one can do another, but gad, sir, you have fought like a gentleman!"
"Ah!" whispered O'Hara to Stafford, who still examined the wound with a knowing manner, "'tis crazed entoirely he is, the poor dear fellow."
"Not crazed," said Stafford rising, "or if so, only through jealousy.—Jasper, let us have some wine for Mr. O'Hara, and one of your women with water and bandages. A little sticking plaister will set this business to rights. Thank God, that I have not seen murder to-night!"
"One moment, Stafford." said Jasper, "one moment, sir. Let us clear this matter. Am I not right, Mr. O'Hara, in believing you to have written a letter to my wife?"
"Is it me?" cried O'Hara in the most guileless astonishment.
"He thinks you are her lover," whispered Stafford in his ear. "Zooks, I can laugh again now! He knows she has got a red-haired lover, and says he will kill every red-haired man in Bath!"
"Sure I have never laid eyes on Lady Standish," said O'Hara to Sir Jasper, "if that is all you want. Sure, I'd have been proud to be her lover if I'd only had the honour of her acquaintance!"
"Mr. O'Hara," said Sir Jasper, "will you shake hands with me?"
"With all the pleasure in loife!" cried the genial Irishman. "Faith, 'tis great friends we will be, but perhaps ye had better not introjuce me to ye'r lady, for I'm not to be trusted where the dear creatures are concerned, and so 'tis best to tell you at the outset."
The opponents now shook hands with some feeling on either side. The wound was attended to and several bottles of wine were thereafter cracked in great good-fellowship.
"There is nothing like Canary," vowed O'Hara, "for the power of healing."
*****
It was past midnight when, on the arm of Mr. Stafford, Denis O'Hara set out to return to his own lodgings.
The streets were empty and the night dark, and they had many grave consultations at the street corners as to which way to pursue. If they reeled a little as they went, if they marched round King's Circus, and round again more than once, and showed a disposition to traverse Gay Street from side to side oftener than was really required by their itinerary, it was not, as O'Hara said, because of the Canary, but all in the way of "divarsion."
"Sir Jasper's a jolly good fellow," said Lord Kilcroney's heir as he propped himself against his own door-post, and waggled the knocker with tipsy gravity. "And so are you," said he to Stafford. "I like ye both." Here he suddenly showed a disposition to fall upon Stafford's neck, but as suddenly arrested himself, stiffened his swaying limbs and struck his forehead with a sudden flash of sobriety. "Thunder and 'ouns," said he, "if I did not clean forget about Spoicer!"
He was with difficulty restrained by Stafford (who, having a stronger head, was somewhat the soberer), with the help of the servants who now appeared, from setting forth to repair his negligence. By a tactful mixture of persuasion and force, the wounded gentleman was at length conducted to bed, sleepily murmuring:
"Won't do at all—most remiss—affair of honour—never put off!" until sleep overtook him, which was before his head touched the pillow.
Meanwhile Sir Jasper sat, with guttering candles all around him, in the recesses of an armchair, his legs extended straight, his bandaged wrist stuffed into his bosom, his head sunk upon his chest, his spurious flash of gaiety now all lost in a depth of chaotic gloom. Dawn found him thus. At its first cold rays he rose sobered, and could not have said whether the night had passed in waking anguish or in hideous nightmare. He looked round on the cheerless scene, the blood-stained linen, the empty wine-glasses with their sickening reek, the smoking candles, the disordered room; then he shuddered and sought the haven of his dressing-room, and the relief of an hour's sleep with a wet towel tied round his throbbing head.
Mistress Bellairs was up betimes. In truth she had slept ill, which was a strange experience for her. What her thirty-seven lovers had never had the power to wring from her—a tear and a sleepless night—this had she given to the one man who loved her not.
She was tortured with anxiety concerning the danger which her caprice (or, as she put it, Lady Standish's inconceivable foolishness) might have brought upon Lord Verney. At daybreak she rang for her maid, and with the eight o'clock chocolate demanded to be posted with all the news of the town. She was of those who possess the talent of making themselves served. The chocolate was to the full as perfumed and creamy as ever, and Miss Lydia was bursting with tidings of importance, as she stood by her lady's couch.
"Well, Lydia, well?" cried her mistress, sharply.
"Oh, lud, ma'am, the whole town's ringing with it! My Lady Standish has been found out. There, I for one never trust those solemn prudes that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, and their mouths pursed like cherries. You would not be so proper if there was not a reason for it, I always think."
"Lydia," said Mistress Bellairs, "do not be a fool. Go on; what has Lady Standish been found out in, pray?"
"Oh, ma'am," said Lydia, "it ain't hard to guess. 'Tis what a woman's always found out in, I suppose. But, lud, the shamelessness of it! I hear, ma'am," she came closer to her mistress and bent to whisper, almost trembling with the joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, "I hear, ma'am, Sir Jasper found Colonel Villiers there yesterday afternoon. Oh, ma'am, such goings on!"
"Pshaw!" said Mistress Kitty.
"Well, they're going to fight, anyhow," cried the girl, "and Sir Jasper tore off the Colonel's wig and beat him about the face with it, ma'am, and the Colonel's been like a madman ever since, and he vows he will shoot him this morning."
Mistress Bellairs gave a sigh of relief.
"Let them shoot each other," said she, sinking back on her pillows and stirring her chocolate calmly. "I do not find the world any better for either of them."
"But that is not all, ma'am, for poor Sir Jasper no sooner had he thrashed the Colonel, than he finds Mr. Denis O'Hara behind the curtains."
"Denis O'Hara!" exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, sitting up in amaze. "You're raving!"
"No, ma'am, for I have it from Mr. O'Hara's own man; and did not he and Sir Jasper fight it out then and there, and was not Mr. O'Hara carried home wounded by the Watch!"
"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the lady.
"And that is not all, ma'am," said the maid.
"You frighten me, child."
"There is Captain Spicer too, whom you can't a-bear, and Lord Verney."
"Lord Verney!" cried Mistress Kitty.
"Ay, ma'am; he and Sir Jasper are going to fight this morning. Sir Jasper's going to fight them all, but Lord Verney is to be the first, for Sir Jasper found him kissing Lady Standish yesterday at noon; the others were later on. So it's my Lord comes first you see, ma'am."
"La, girl," cried Mistress Bellairs with a scream, and upset her chocolate, "going to fight this morning? 'Tis not true!" Her pretty face turned as white as chalk under its lace frills.
"Yes, ma'am," pursued the maid, gabbling as hard as she could. "Yes, ma'am, first there's Lord Verney. Sir Jasper, they say, behaved so oddly to Captain Spicer who brought the first challenge, that Lord Verney sent another by a chairman this morning. And then Colonel Villiers. Of course, as Mr. Mahoney says (that's Mr. O'Hara's man, ma'am), Sir Jasper is safe to kill Lord Verney, and Colonel Villiers is safe to kill Sir Jasper. But if the Colonel do not kill Sir Jasper, then Sir Jasper will fight Captain Spicer! La! ma'am, the chocolate's all over the bed."
"Oh, get out of that, you silly wench," cried Mistress Bellairs, "let me rise! There is not a moment to lose. And where is Sir Jasper supposed to fight my Lord Verney? (Give me my silk stockings, useless thing that you are!) I don't believe a word of your story. How dare you come and tell me such a pack of nonsense? But where are they supposed to fight? Of course you must have heard the hour?" She was pulling silk stockings over her little arched foot, and up her little plump leg as fast as her trembling hands would obey her.
"I do not know where, ma'am," said the maid demurely, "but the Colonel is to meet Sir Jasper in Hammer's Fields at noon, so I suppose my Lord Verney and he will be fighting about this time."
"Oh, hold your tongue," cried her mistress; "you're enough to drive one mad with your quacking!"
Not a dab of rouge did the widow find time to spread upon pale cheeks, not a dust of powder upon a black curl. The pretty morning hood was drawn round a very different face from that which it usually shaded; but who shall say that Kitty, the woman, running breathless through the empty streets with the early breeze playing with her loose hair, was not as fair in her complete self-abandonment, as the fashionable lady, powdered, painted, patched and laced, known under the name of Mrs. Bellairs? Her small feet hammered impatiently along, her skirts fluttered as she went. She would not wait for a coach; a chair would have sent her crazy.
At the turning of the Crescent, another fluttering woman's figure, also hooded, also cloaked, also advancing with the haste that despises appearances, passed her with a patter and a flash. They crossed, then moved by the same impulse halted with dawning recognition.
"Mistress Bellairs!" cried Lady Standish's flute-like voice.
"Julia Standish!" screamed Mistress Bellairs. They turned and caught at each other with clinging hands.
"Oh, heavens," said Mistress Bellairs, "is what I hear true? Is that devil Sir Jasper going to fight Lord Verney this morning? Why, Verney's but a child; 'tis rank murder. You wicked woman, see what you have done!"
"Ah, Mistress Bellairs," cried Julia, and pressed her side, "my heart is broken."
"But what has happened, woman, what has happened?" cried Kitty, and shook the plaintive Julia with a fierce hand.
"Sir Jasper will not see me," sobbed Julia, "but I have found out that he is to meet my Lord Verney in an hour in Bathwick Meadows. There have been messages going backwards and forwards since early dawn. Oh, Heaven have pity on us!"
"Where are you going?" cried Kitty, and shook her once more.
"I was going to Lord Verney to plead for my husband's life," said Lady Standish, and the tears streamed down her face like the storm-rain upon lily flowers.
"The Lord keep you," cried Mistress Bellairs with feelings too deep for anger; "I believe you are no better than an idiot!"
The most heroic resolves are often the work of a second! "Now go back home again, you silly thing," said Kitty. "'Tis I—yes, Lady Standish, you do not deserve it of me—but I will sacrifice myself! I will prevent this duel, I will go to my Lord Verney!"
"You," said Julia, and wondered, and but half understood the meaning of the words.
"Go home, go home," said Mistress Kitty, "and I tell you that if I do not make Lord Verney fail at the meeting, my name is not Kitty Bellairs!"
Lady Standish hesitated, and meekly bowed her head, turned and began to retrace her steps, her slim figure bending and swaying as if the fresh morning wind were too stern for her.
Mistress Bellairs looked at her watch.
"Did she say an hour?" murmured she to herself. "Then, ten minutes before the looking-glass, and ten minutes to get to my Lord's lodgings, and I will find him about to start. 'Tis his first affair of honour, poor boy, and he is sure to be as early at it as a country cousin to a dinner-party."
The sun broke out from a cloudy sky, and Mrs. Bellairs shook herself and felt her spirits rise. A dimple peeped in either cheek.
"After all," said she as she tripped along, and the dimples deepened as the smile broadened, "who knows? 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good."
*****
My Lady Standish returned home. The servants stared at her curiously as she crossed the hall. Mistress Tremlet, the housekeeper, passed her with pursed lips. Her own maid, she knew, was dissolved in tears and plunged in Doctor Persel's discourses against heresy. White as new fallen snow was her conscience, nevertheless she felt herself smirched in the eyes of all these people. Yet she cared not.
Outside Sir Jasper's dressing-room she listened. She could hear him stamp about as he made his toilet, and curse his man. She put out her hand to knock, but the memory of his stern repulse to her last appeal robbed her of all courage.
"I will not go in upon him," thought she, "but when he comes out I will speak."
"These swords," said Sir Jasper within, "I will take in the carriage. I expect Mr. Stafford and a friend to call for me in half-an-hour. Do you understand, sirrah! And hark ye, where are the pistols?"
"Pistols!" echoed Lady Standish, and her heart beat to suffocation.
There was a pause.
"Here, Sir Jasper," said the valet then.
"Now, mark what I say," said Jasper impressively. "Lord Markham will call at eleven. Let the curricle be in waiting; tell my Lord that I will meet him five minutes before the half-hour at Hammer's Fields. Forget at your peril! You are to take these pistols there yourself. Stay, tell my Lord Markham that if I am not at therendezvous, 'twill only be because I have not life enough left to take me there, and he must make it straight with Colonel Villiers. Have you understood, rascal? Nay—damn you!—I will give you a letter for my Lord Markham."
"Oh God! oh God!" cried poor Lady Standish, and felt her knees tremble, "what is this now? Another meeting! The Colonel! ... In God's name how comes he upon Colonel Villiers? Why, this is wholesale slaughter! This is insanity! This must be prevented!" She caught her head in her hands. "Sir Jasper's mad," she said. "What shall I do? What shall I do? They will kill him, and I shall have done it. Why now, if Kitty prevents the first duel, cannot I prevent the second? Oh, I am a false wife if I cannot save my husband. Heaven direct me!" she prayed, and to her prayer came inspiration.
There was the Bishop, the Bishop of Bath and Wells! That reverend prelate had shown her much kindness and attention; he would know how to interfere in such a crisis. He was a man of authority. Between them could they not enforce the peace at Hammer's Fields, and could not Sir Jasper be saved in spite of himself, were it by delivering him into the hands of the law?
Lady Standish flew into her room and called the sniffing Megrim.
"Paper and ink," cried she, "and get you ready to run on a message. 'Tis a matter of life and death."
"My Lady," said Megrim primly, "I will serve your Ladyship in all things that are right; but I hope I know my dooty to my Creator; and stoop to connive at irregularities, my Lady, I won't and never will." She had been ready to condemn her master overnight, but the talk in the servants' hall had, as she expressed it, "opened her eyes." And what woman is not ready to judge her sister woman—above all, what maid to condemn her mistress?
Lady Standish stared.
"What means this?" said she. "You shall do as I bid you, Mistress Megrim. How dare you!" cried Lady Standish with a sudden flash of comprehension. "Why, woman, my letter is to the Bishop!"
"Oh," quoth Mistress Megrim, still with reserve, yet condescending to approval, "that is another matter! Shall I," she sniffed, "be stricter than becomes a Christian? Shall I refuse aid to the bruised sinner or to the smoking lamp whose conscience is awakened? May his Lordship be a tower of strength to your Ladyship along the rocky paths of penitence—Amen!"
In ten minutes a fair lady may do much to enhance her fairness. As Mistress Bellairs took a last look at her mirror, while Lydia bustled out to call a hired chair, she bestowed upon her reflection a smile of approval which indeed so charming an image could not fail to call forth. Then she huddled herself in a mysterious and all enveloping cloak, caught up a little velvet mask from the table, and sped upon her errand. She sallied forth as the gallant soldier might to battle, with a beating heart yet a high one.
Lord Verney and Captain Spicer had just finished breakfast at the former's lodgings in Pierrepoint Street, near North Parade. Captain Spicer, babbling ineptly of his own experience as a duellist, of his scorn of Sir Jasper's lunacy, yet of his full determination to slay the vile madman, had done ample justice to his young principal's table. But Lord Verney, his cheek now darkly flushed, now spread with an unwholesome pallor, found it hard to swallow even a mouthful of bread, and restlessly passed from the contemplation of the clock and the setting of his watch to the handling of his pistols, or the hasty addition of yet another postscript to the ill-spelt, blotted farewell epistle he had spent half the night in inditing to the Dowager his mother: "In case, you know..." he had said to his friend, with a quiver in his voice.
Captain Spicer had earnestly promised to carry out his patron's last wishes in the most scrupulous manner.
"My dear Lord," he had said, grasping him by the hand, "rely upon me. Gad, Sir Jasper is a devil of a shot I hear, and of course, he, he! we all know the saying—the strength of a madman. But no sooner has he laid you, Harry, than I vow, upon my honour, I shall hold him at my sword's point. I will revenge thee, Harry, never fear of that. 'Twill be a mighty genteel story, and the world will ring with it. Egad, he will not be the first I have spitted as easy as your cook would spit a turkey. Have I not learnt of the great Angelo Malevolti himself? He, he—'A woman's hand,' he would say, 'and the devil's head!'"
Here Captain Spicer shook out his bony fingers from the encumbering ruffles and contemplated them with much satisfaction.
"Oh, hang you, Spicer, be quiet, can't you!" cried Lord Verney petulantly.
The Captain leant back on his chair and began to pick his teeth with a silver toothpick.
"Pooh, these novices!" said he, as if to himself. "Keep your nerves steady, my Lord, or, stab me, I may as well order the mourning-coach before we start. He, he! 'Tis well, indeed, you have a friend to stand by you!"
A discreet tap was heard at the door, and Lord Verney's impassive new servant (especially engaged on his behalf by the Captain, who indeed, some ill-natured wag had it, shared his wages and perquisites) stood in the doorway.
"There is a lady downstairs, my Lord," he said in his mechanical voice. "She particularly requests to see your Lordship and will take no denial, although I informed her that your Lordship was like to be engaged until late in the morning."
Lord Verney merely stared in amazement; but Captain Spicer sprang up from his chair, his pale eyes starting with curiosity.
"A lady, gad! Verney, you dog, what is this? A lady, Ned? Stay, is she tall and fair and slight?"
"No, sir, she is under-sized, and seems plump, though she is wrapt in so great a cloak I could hardly tell."
"Pretty, man?"
"Cannot say, sir, she wears a mask."
"A mask? He, Verney, Verney, this is vastly interesting! And she won't go away, eh, Ned?"
"No, sir, she must see his Lordship, she said, if only for five minutes."
"Plump, under-sized, masked," ejaculated Captain Spicer in burning perplexity. "Gad, we have ten minutes yet, we will have her up, eh, Verney? Show her up, Ned."
The servant withdrew, unheeding Lord Verney's stammered protest.
"Really, Captain Spicer," said he, "I would have liked to have kept these last ten minutes for something serious. I would have liked," said the lad with a catch in his voice and a hot colour on his cheek, "to have read a page of my Bible before starting, were it only for my mother's sake, afterwards."
The led Captain threw up hand and eye in unfeigned horror.
"A page of your Bible! Zounds! If it gets out, we are the laughing-stock of Bath. A page of your Bible! 'Tis well no one heard you but I."
"Hush!" said Lord Verney, for in the doorway stood their visitor. 'Twas indeed a little figure, wrapt in a great cloak, and except for the white hand that held the folds, and the glimpse of round chin and cherry lip that was trembling beneath the curve of the mask, there was naught else to betray her identity, to tell whether she were young or old, well-favoured or disinherited. But it was a charming little hand, and an engaging little chin.
Lord Verney merely stood and stared like the boy he was. But Captain Spicer leaped forward with a spring like a grasshopper, and crossing his lean shanks, he presented a chair with the killing grace of which he alone was master. The lady entered the room, put her hand on the back of the chair, and turned upon Captain Spicer.
"I would see Lord Verney alone, sir," she said. It was a very sweet voice, but it was imperious. The masked lady had all the air of one who was accustomed to instant obedience.
In vain Captain Spicer leered and languished; the black eyes gleamed from behind the disguise very coldly and steadily back at him. Forced to withdraw, he endeavoured to do so with wit and elegance, but he was conscious somehow of cutting rather a poor figure; and under the unknown one's hand the door closed upon him with so much energy as to frustrate utterly his last bow.
Kitty Bellairs deliberately turned the key in the lock, and put it in her pocket. Lord Verney started forward, but was arrested by the sound of his own name, pronounced in the most dulcet and plaintive tone he thought he had ever heard.
"Lord Verney," said Kitty, flinging back her cloak and hood and allowing her pretty brown curls, and a hint of the most perfect shape in Bath, to become visible to the young peer's bewildered gaze. "Lord Verney," said she, and clasped her hands, "a very, very unhappy woman has come to throw herself upon your compassion."
"Madam," said Lord Verney, "what can I do for you?" His boyish soul was thrilled by these gentle accents of grief; he thought he saw a tear running down the white chin; the rounded bosom heaved beneath its bewitching disorder of lace. He glanced at the clock and back at the suppliant in a cruel perplexity. "Madam," said he, "time presses; I have but a few minutes to give you. Tell me, madam, how can I serve you? To do so will be a comfort to me in what is perhaps the last hour of my life."
The lady gave a cry as soft as a dove's, and as plaintive.
"Oh," said she, "it is true, then, what I heard?" and the white hands were wrung together as in extremest anguish.
"Madam," cried he, with outspread arms, and, though without daring to touch her, drawing closer, so close as to hear the quick catch of her breath and to inhale the subtle fragrance of violets that emanated from her.
"Oh," said she, "it is true!" She staggered and caught at the fastenings of her cloak and threw it open.
"You are faint," he cried, strangely moved; "let me call."
But she caught him by the hand. Her fingers were curiously warm for one seized with faintness, but the touch of them was pleasant to the young man as never woman's touch had been before. Out flew the fellow hand to keep his prisoner, and they clung round his great boy's wrist.
He never knew how, but suddenly he was on his knees before her.
"You are going to fight," said she, "to fight with Sir Jasper. Oh, my God, you do not know, but it is because of me, and if you fight it will break my heart." She leant forward to look eagerly at him as he knelt. Her breath fanned his cheek. Through her mask he saw beautiful black eyes, deep, deep. How white the skin was upon her neck and chin—how fine its grain! What little wanton curls upon her head! What a fragrance of flowers in the air! How he longed to pluck that mask away—and yet how the very mystery lured him, held him!
"Who are you?" said he, in a low quick whisper. "Let me see your face."
She forbade his indiscreet hand with a little shriek.
"No, no, no, you must never see, never know; that would be terrible."
Then he placed both his hands, all unconsciously, upon hers, and then she caught them both and held them, and he felt that her weak grasp was to him as strong as iron.
"Why do you fight?" said she. "Tell me."
He blushed.
"'Tis for nothing, the merest misunderstanding. Sir Jasper is mad, I think."
"Sir Jasper is jealous," breathed she, and nearer came the gaze of the eyes. "Is it true that you love Lady Standish?"
"I?" cried he vehemently, and rapped out a great oath—so eager was he to deny. "I? No! God is my witness. No!"
"Then do not fight," said she.
He wanted to look at the clock; he wanted to spring up and rush to the door; he was conscious that Spicer was knocking gently, and that it was time to go where the conventions of honour called him. The soft clasp held him, and the mysterious eyes. He was a very boy, and had never loved before, and—she was masked!
"Let me advise you," said she. "Believe me, your welfare is dearer to me than you can imagine—dearer to me than I ought to tell you. Believe me, if you give up this duel you will live to be glad of it. Sir Jasper will thank you no later than this very day, as never man thanked man before. And you will make me so happy! Oh, believe me, your honour is safe with me."
"Only let me see your face," said he, while Spicer knocked louder. "I will see her, and kiss her," he thought to himself, "and that will be something to carry to my death."
"How dare you ask it?" she said. "Must I grant your request when you refuse me mine?"
"And if I grant you yours," said he, as his heart beat very fast, "what will you give me?"
"Oh, give," said she, "give! Who cares for gifts? A man must take." Her red lip beneath the mask here became arched so bewitchingly over a row of the whitest teeth in all the world, that Harry Verney, whose head had been rapidly going, lost it and his heart together.
"That is a challenge," said he, as he drew a hand away and lifted it to the mask.
"Ah, traitor!" she cried, and made a dainty start of resistance. His fingers trembled on the soft scented locks.
"You shall not," said she, and bent her head to avoid his touch, so that as he knelt their faces were closer together than ever.
"Oh!" cried he, and kissed her on the chin beneath the mask.
"My Lord," clamoured Captain Spicer at the door, "the coach is waiting and we have but half an hour to reach Bathwick Meadows. Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the meeting?"
Lord Verney sprang to his feet. The words, the impatient raps penetrated to his dizzy brain with sudden conviction.
"Heavens!" cried he, and glanced at the clock, and made a leap for the door.
"And will you go," said the stranger, "without having seen my face?"
He ran back to her and then back to the door again, distracted, as you may see a puppy dog between two calls. Finally he came back to the lady with a new and manly dignity upon him.
"I must go," he said. "Would you show yourself as kind as you seem, madam, remove your mask that I may see you before I go."
Outside Captain Spicer was dancing a sort of hornpipe of impotent impatience, and filling the air with shrill strange oaths.
Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy very composedly on one side by the merest touch of her hand, then she went over to the door, unlocked it and admitted Captain Spicer, green and sweating.
"I am coming, Spicer," cried Lord Verney desperately, and made a plunge for his hat and cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: "Oh cruel!"
Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and looked at the clock.
"It will not take you, you know," said she, "more than five minutes to drive down to the Bathwick ferry, therefore if you start in three you will still have twenty-six to spare. My Lord Verney, will you give me those three minutes?"
Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again, his face glowing with a dark flush.
"Oh," cried he, like a school-boy, "for God's sake, Spicer, wait outside."
"Nay," said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself under her mask, "nay, I have need of Captain Spicer."
Lord Verney's face fell,
"Come hither," said she, and took him crestfallen by the hand and brought him to the table, where lay the writing materials he had been using but a little while ago. "Here," said she, "is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and write, write," she said, and tapped his shoulder; "write, sir—thus:—
'Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Joseph Standish that he understands the grounds of the quarrel between them to lie in a gross misconception of Lord Verney's feelings for Lady Standish.'
"Write, write!" She leaned over him, dictating.
Half spell-bound, yet protesting incoherently, he began to cover the page with his awkward scrawl.
"Quick," said she. "(Child, how do you spell quarrel?) Never mind, on with you:—
'Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady Standish, he has never addressed more than three words to her or as many glances at her in his-life; that his whole heart is given to another lady, the only woman he has ever loved and ever will love.'"
The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney's fingers. He started and turned round on his chair to graze in amaze into the countenance of his mysterious visitor, and again was at once attracted and foiled by her mask.
"Surely you would not contradict a lady?" she whispered in his ear; "haste, we have but one minute more. Here, give me the pen, I will finish." She snapped the quill from his hand, her curls touched his cheek as she bent forward over him to the page. Swiftly her little hand flew:—
"If upon this explanation Sir Jasper does not see his way to retract all the offensive observations he made to Lord Verney, Lord Verney will be ready to meet him as arranged without an instant's delay. The truth of all these statements is guaranteed by the woman Lord Verney loves."
She seized the sheet and folded it.
"Now, Captain Spicer," said she, "take your coach and hie you to Sir Jasper's house, and if you bring back an answer before the clock strikes, I will let you take off my mask, and that will save you from dying of curiosity and, also, give you something to tattle about for the next month. Oh, you will find Sir Jasper," she said; "he is a seasoned hand, and does not, like your virgin duellist, make it a point of honour to bring his high valour to the rendezvous twenty minutes before the time."
Within his meagre body Captain Spicer carried the soul of a flunkey. He would have given worlds to rebel, but could not.
"So long as it is not a put-off," said he. "Not even for a fair one's smile could I barter a friend's honour."
Kitty held the letter aloft tantalizingly and looked at the clock.
"If you won't be the bearer," said she, "I will send it by the chairman, and then you will never know what is in it. Moreover," said she, and smiled archly, "if Sir Jasper apologises to Lord Verney, which, upon receipt of this letter, I make no doubt he will, you can take his place, you know, and will not be done out of a gallant meeting."
"Of course, ha, of course!" cried Spicer with a yellow smile.
Laughing, Mistress Kitty closed the door behind his retreating figure.
"Now," said she.
"Oh, what have you done, what have you made me do?" cried Harry Verney in a sudden agony.
"Hush," said Mistress Kitty. "Did I not tell you your honour was safe with me? Do you not believe me?" said she meltingly. "Ah, Verney!" She put her hand to her head, and at her touch the mask fell.
He looked at her face, blushing and quivering upon him, and once more fell on his knee at her feet.
"Oh, tell me your name!" cried he, pleadingly.
"Why, Lord Verney," she said, "how ungallant!" She smiled and looked bewitchingly beautiful; looked serious and reproachful, and he fell beyond his depths in rapture.
"Why, you know me, you know me well," said she, "am I not Mistress Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs—am I not, Kitty?"
"No, no," cried he, "I never knew you till this hour, madam, Mistress Bellairs Kitty! I see you," he cried, "for the first time! Oh, God, be kind to me, for I love her!"
"And yet," she whispered archly, "they say that love is blind."
Upon this he kissed her as he had kissed her beneath the mask; and if anything could have been sweeter than the first kiss it was the second.
Ah, love, how easy an art to learn, how hard to unlearn!
While Harry Verney thus forgot the whole world, his first duel, and the code of honour. Sir Jasper sat inditing an answer to his communication:—
"Sir Jasper Standish has received my Lord Verney's explanation in the spirit in which it is offered. He is quite ready to acknowledge that he has acted entirely under a misapprehension, and begs Lord Verney to receive his unreserved apologies and the expression of his admiration for Lord Verney's gallant and gentlemanly behaviour, together with his congratulations to him and the unknown lady upon their enviable situation."
Captain Spicer did not offer to supply his principal's place in the field. Indeed, he displayed to Sir Jasper, who received him with the most gloomy courtesy, the extreme suppleness of his spine, and pressed his unrivalled snuff upon him with a fluttering and ingratiating air.
When he returned to Pierrepoint Street he found the mysterious stranger already in her sedan, Lord Verney leaning through the window thereof, engaged in an earnest whispering conversation. Captain Spicer jocularly pulled him back by the coat-tails and inserted his own foolish face instead. The lady was masked and cloaked as he had left her.
"Madam, I have done your errand," said he. "It was," said he, "a matter of difficult negotiation, requiring—ahem—requiring such tact as I think I may call my own. Sir Jasper was vastly incensed, one might as well have tried to reason with a bull. 'But gad, sir,' said I, 'would I, I, Captain Spicer, come with this message if it were not in accordance with the strictest rule of honourable etiquette?' That floored him, madam——"
Here Mistress Kitty snatched the letter flickering in his gesticulating hand with scant ceremony, turned her shoulder upon him, read it and handed it out to Lord Verney, who had lost no time in coming round to the other window.
"Now," said she, "bid the man take me to the Pump Room." She leaned her head out and Lord Verney put his close to hers, and there followed another conclave.
"Madam, madam, I demand the fulfilment of your promise!" from the other side came Captain Spicer's clamouring thin voice.—"Verney, my good fellow, I must request you to retire, there is a compact between this lady and me——"
"A compact?" said the mask turning her head.
"Oh, madam, the vision of that entrancing countenance!"
He strove to unfasten the chair door, when:
"What?" cried she, "and rob you of all the charm of uncertainty and all the joy of guessing and all the spice of being able to take away the character of every lady in Bath. Oh," she said, "I hope I have been better taught my duty to my neighbour!" Out went her head again to Lord Verney; there was another whisper, a silver laugh. "On men!" she cried.
Lord Verney skipped round and in his turn dragged the discomfited Captain out of the window and restrained him by main force from running after the retreating chairman and their fair burden.
Lord Markham was a person of indefinite appearance, indefinite age and indefinite manners. He wore an ill-fitting wig, but he had a high reputation as a man of honour. He sat beside Sir Jasper on the front seat, while on the back sat Tom Stafford; and the curricle sped cheerily along through the up-and-down Bath streets out into the country budding with green, down, down the hill, to Hammer's Fields by the winding Avon. Sir Jasper's face bespoke great dissatisfaction with life at large, and with his own existence in particular. Tom Stafford was beginning to feel slightly bored.
"'Tis an early spring," said Lord Markham, in the well-meant endeavour to beguile away the heavy minutes and distract his principal's mind. "'Tis very mild weather for the time of year; and the lambs are forward."
"Ugh!" said Sir Jasper.
"Speak not to him of lambs," whispered Stafford; "do not you see he is all for blood and thunder?"
Then he added maliciously; "There is but one animal in the whole fauna that Sir Jasper takes an interest in at present; and that's not easy, it seems, to find in these purlieus, though we know it does haunt them: 'tis the red dear!" He chuckled, vastly delighted with the conceit.
"Let us hope we shall not have rain," said Lord Markham; "these clouds are menacing."
"Nay, they will hold up for half-an-hour. Enough to serve our purpose," growled Sir Jasper, and tipped the horses with the lash so that they spurned the slope.
"But we shall get wet returning," pleaded the well-meaning Earl, "I said so all along; 'twould have been better to have gone in a coach."
"I vow," cried Sir Jasper with a sudden burst of spleen, "I vow that I have it in my heart to wish that Villiers' ball may speed so well that I may feel neither rain nor shine, coming home again. Home again," said he with a withering smile; "blast it, a pretty home mine is!"
"And a pretty cheerful fellow you are to bring out to a merry meeting," quoth Stafford from the back, "and a nice pair of fools you and the Colonel be, plague on you both! And when you are shot, 'twill be a fine satisfaction to think that your wife can console herself with the owner of the red curl, eh? What are you going to fight old Villiers about, I should like to know?"
"You do know," growled Sir Jasper, then he exploded. "You goad me, sir; doIwant to fight Villiers? Is not this business the merest fooling; sheer waste of time when the real fellow—villain!—has eluded me?" His hold on the reins tightened, he laid on the whip, and the curricle swayed as the horses leaped and plunged.
"Really," said Lord Markham, "I wish I had come in a coach."
And: "Hold on," cried Stafford, "hold on, Jasper; we don't all want to leave our bones in this business."
There came a pause in the conversation. They bowled alone a more level road with the wind humming in their ears, and the rhythmic trot of the greys beating a tune. Then Stafford remarked vaguely:
"I have a notion there will be no duel to-day at Hammer's Fields, Jasper, that you will be able to return with undiminished vigour to the hunt of the unknown culprit."
"How now," cried Sir Jasper fiercely, "have you heard from Villiers? Are they all rats now-a-days? Verney first, then that Spicer, then the Colonel! No, no, the fellow was mad with me, sir; and—gad!—the offence was mine!"
"Nevertheless," said Stafford unmoved, "I happen to know that Colonel Villiers' man was sent in all haste for his physician, Sir George Waters, at such an unconscionable hour this morning that Sir George despatched the apothecary in his stead, and the apothecary found our fire-eating Colonel roaring in a fit of the most violent gout 'tis possible to imagine. So violent, indeed, that poor Mr. Wigginbotham was soundly beat by the Colonel for not being Sir George. Villiers' foot is as large as a pumpkin, old Foulks tells me; I had it all from Foulks over a glass of water in the Pump Room this morning, and zooks, sir, his false teeth rattled in his head as he tried to describe to me the awful language Colonel Villiers was using. He's to be Villiers' second, you know, but he swore 'twas impossible, rank impossible, for any man to put such a foot to the ground."
They were rounding the corner of Hammer's Fields as he spoke, and Stafford's eyes roaming over the green expanse of grass rested upon the little group drawn up towards the entrance gate.
"Unless," he went on, "the Colonel comes upon crutches. No, zounds! ha, ha! Jasper I will always love you, man, for the capital jokes you have provided of late. Strike me ugly if the old fellow has not come—in a bath-chair!"
"Really," said Lord Markham, "this is very irregular. I have never before been privy to a duel where one of the combatants fought in a chair. And I am not sure that I can undertake the responsibility of concluding arrangements in such circumstances."
"Blasted nonsense!" said Sir Jasper with all his former urbanity of demeanour. He flung the reins to his man as he spoke, and clambered down from the curricle. Stafford had gone before him to the gate and was now stamping from one foot to another in exquisite enjoyment of the situation.
"(Ha, ha, ha!) Hello! Morning, Colonel, sorry to see you this way! (Ha, ha!) Have you brought another bath-chair for our man? Oh come, yes. 'Twon't be fair if he do not sit in a bath-chair too! Say, Foulks, you wheel one chair, I'll wheel the other, and we will run them one at the other and let them fire as soon as they please. Gad, what a joke!"
Colonel Villiers turned upon his volatile friend a countenance the colour of which presented some resemblance to a well-defined bruise on the third day; it was yellow and green with pain where it was not purple with fury.
"Mr. Stafford, sir, these jokes, sir, are vastly out of place. (Curse this foot!) Mr. Foulks, have the kindness to explain.... Major Topham, explain to these gentlemen that I have come out to fight, sir, and that fight I will, by the living jingo!" He struck the arm of the chair in his fury, gave his suffering foot a nasty jar and burst into a howl of rage and agony.
"Stap me," said Stafford, "I'd as soon fight an old bear! Whisper, Foulks, is he going to shoot in his cage—beg pardon, I mean his chair?"
"Such is his intention," said Mr. Foulks, grinning nervously as he spoke, and showing the set of fine Bond Street ivory already referred to by Mr. Stafford. "But it strikes me it is somewhat irregular."
"Somewhat irregular?" ejaculated Lord Markham; "it is altogether irregular. I decline to have anything to say to it."
Sir Jasper remained standing, gloomily looking at the ground and driving his gold-headed malacca into the soft mud as if all his attention were directed to the making of a row of little tunnels.
"What is the difficulty, what is the difficulty?" bellowed Colonel Villiers. "You wheel me into position, and you mark the paces, eight paces, Foulks, not a foot more, and you give me my pistol. What is the difficulty—hang me, hang you all, I say! Whatisthe difficulty?"
"The combatants will not be equal," suggested Major Topham. "I told Villiers that I will gladly take his place."
"No no, no!" screamed the old man turning round, and then, "Oh," cried he, and screwed up his face. And then the gout had him with such fury that he gripped the arms of his chair and flung back his head, displaying a ghastly countenance.
"I remember," champed old Foulks, "the dear Duke of Darlington insisted upon fighting Basil Verney (that's Verney's father, you know) with his left arm in splints, but as my Lord Marquis of Cranbroke, his Grace's second, remarked to me at the time——"
"Oh, spare us the Marquis!" interrupted Stafford brutally. "Let us keep to the business on hand, if you please. The whole thing is absurd, monstrous! Look here, Jasper, look here, Colonel, you two cannot fight to-day. How could you be equally matched even if we got another bath-chair for Jasper. We cannot give him the gout, man, and 'twould be too dashed unfair. Gad, Colonel you would shoot too well or too ill, 'twon't do! Come, come, gentlemen, let us make a good business out of a bad one. Why should you fight at all? Here's Jasper willing to apologise. (Yes you are, Jasper, hold your tongue and be sensible for once; you pulled off his wig, you know. Gad, it was not pretty behaviour, not at all pretty!) But then, Colonel, did not he think you had cut him out with his wife, and was not that a compliment? The neatest compliment you'll ever have this side the grave! He was jealous of you, Colonel; faith, I don't know another man in Bath that would do you so much honour, now-a-days."
"Oh, take me out of this," cried the Colonel, suddenly giving way to the physical anguish that he had been struggling against so valiantly. "Zounds, I will fight you all some day! Take me out of this. Where is that brimstone idiot, my servant? Take me out of this, you devils!"
Between them they wheeled his chair into the road and his screams and curses as he was lifted into the coach were terrible to hear.
"Lord, if he could but call out the gout!" cried Stafford. "Look at him, gentlemen! Ha, he has got his footman by the periwig! Oh, 'tis as good as a play, he is laying it on to the fellow like a Trojan! Why, the poor devil has escaped, but his wig is in the Colonel's hands. Ha, ha, he has sent it flying out of the coach! Off they go; what a voice the old boy has got, he is trumpeting like the elephant at the fair! Well, Jasper, what did I say? No duel to-day."
"Do not make so sure of that," said Sir Jasper. He was moving towards the curricle as he spoke, and turned a sinister face over his shoulder to his friend.
"Oh," cried the latter, and fell back upon Markham, "the fellow's look would turn a churn-full of cream! No, I will not drive back with ye, thankye, Sir Jasper; I will walk. Devil take it," said Stafford, "I don't mind a little jealousy in reason myself; but if I were to drive home in that company, I'd have no appetite for dinner. Come, gentlemen, 'tis a lovely day, let us walk."
So Sir Jasper rolled home alone, and, as his coachman observed a little later as he helped to unharness the sweating horses, "drove them cruel!"
Lady Standish was one of those clinging beings who seem morally and physically to be always seeking a prop. Before adversity she was prostrate, and when his lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells was ushered into her sitting-room, half-an-hour after Sir Jasper's departure for Hammer's Fields, he found the poor lady stretched all her length upon the sofa, her head buried in the cushions.
"Dear me," said his lordship, and paused. He was a tall, portly, handsome gentleman with sleek countenance, full eye, and well-defined waistcoat. Could human weakness have touched him, he would have felt a pride in those legs which so roundly filled the silk stockings. But that human weakness could ever affect the Bishop of Bath and Wells was a thing that dignitary (and he gave his Maker thanks for it) felt to be utterly inconceivable.
"Lady Standish," said the Bishop; then he waved his hand to the curious servants. "Leave us, leave us, friends," said he.
Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of desperate heart-sickness into a sitting posture and turned her head to look dully upon her visitor.
"You come too late," she said; "my lord. Sir Jasper has gone to this most disastrous meeting."
"My dear Lady Standish," said Dr. Thurlow, "my dear child," he took a chair and drew it to the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand and held it between his two plump palms. "My dear Lady Standish," pursued he in a purring, soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted soul happened to belong to the aristocracy and in preference inhabited a young female body), who did? "I came upon the very moment I received your letter. I might perhaps have instantly done something to help in this matter, had you been more explicit, but there was a slight incoherence ... very natural!" Here he patted her hand gently. "A slight incoherence which required explanations. Now tell me—I gather that your worthy husband has set forth upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a duel?"
Lady Standish gave a moaning assent.
"Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men! It is very reprehensible, but we must not be too hard on young blood. Young blood is hot! Well, well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear Lady Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, not a hair of our heads, that is not counted. Was the, ah—quarrel about cards, or some such social trifle?"
"It was about me," said the afflicted wife in a strangled voice.
"About you, my dear lady!" The clasp of the plump hand grew, if possible, a trifle closer, almost tender. Lady Standish was cold and miserable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a vague feeling of strength and comfort.
"About me," she repeated, and her lip trembled.
"Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper fight?"
"With Colonel Villiers," said she, and shot a glance of full misery into the benign large-featured face bending over her.
"Colonel Villiers," repeated the Bishop in tones of the blankest astonishment. "Not—eh, not—er, old Colonel Villiers?"
"Oh, my lord," cried Lady Standish, "I am the most miserable and the most innocent of women!"
"My dear madam," cried the Bishop, "I never for an instant doubted the latter." His hold upon her hand relaxed, and she withdrew it to push away the tears that now began to gather thick and fast on her eyelashes. The Bishop wondered how it was he had never noticed before what a very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what charming eyes she had, and what quite unusually long eyelashes. It was something of a revelation to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these days of rouge and powder.
"And yet," sobbed Lady Standish, "'tis my fault too, for I have been very wrong, very foolish! Oh, my lord, if my husband is hurt, I cannot deny 'tis I shall bear the guilt of it."
"Come, tell me all about it," said the Bishop, and edged from his chair to her side on the sofa, and re-possessed himself of her hand. She let it lie in his; she was very confiding. "We are all foolish," said Dr. Thurlow, "we are all, alas, prone to sin." He spoke in the plural to give her confidence, not that such a remark could apply to any Bishop of Bath and Wells.
"Oh, I have been very foolish," repeated the lady. "I thought, my lord, I fancied that my husband's affection for me was waning."
"Impossible!" cried his lordship. But he felt slightly bewildered.
"And so, acting upon inconsiderate advice, I—I pretended—only pretended indeed, my lord—that I cared for someone else, and Sir Jasper got jealous and so he has been calling everybody out thinking that he has a rival."
"Nevertheless," said the Bishop, "he has no rival. Do I understand you correctly, my dear child? These suspicions of his are unfounded? Colonel Villiers?"
"Colonel Villiers," cried she, "that old stupid red-nosed wretch! No, my lord, indeed, there is no one. My husband has my whole heart!" She caught her breath and looked up at him with candid eyes swimming in the most attractive tears. "Colonel Villiers!" cried she. "Oh, how can you think such a thing of me? But my husband will not believe me; indeed, indeed, indeed I am innocent! He was jealous of Lord Verney too, and last night fought Mr. O'Hara."
The Bishop smiled to himself with the most benign indulgence. His was a soul overflowing with charity, but it was chiefly when dealing with the foibles of a pretty woman that he appreciated to the full what a truly inspired ordinance that of charity is.
"My dear child, if I may call you so, knowing your worthy mother so well, you must not grieve like this. Let me feel that you look upon me as a friend. Let me wipe away these tears. Why, you are trembling! Shall we not have more trust in the ruling of a merciful Heaven? Now I am confident that Sir Jasper will be restored to you uninjured or with but a trifling injury. And if I may so advise, do not seek, my dear Lady Standish, in the future to provoke his jealousy in this manner; do not openly do anything which will arouse those evil passions of anger and vengeance in him!"
"Oh, indeed, indeed," she cried, and placed her other little hand timidly upon the comforting clasp of the Bishop's, "indeed I never will again!"
"And remember that in me you have a true friend, my dear Lady Standish. Allow me to call myself your friend."
Here there came a sound of flying wheels and frantic hoofs without, and the door-bell was pealed and the knocker plied so that the summons echoed and re-echoed through the house.
"Oh, God!" screamed Lady Standish springing to her feet, "they have returned! Oh, heavens, what has happened? If he is hurt I cannot bear it, I cannot—I cannot!" She clasped her head wildly and swayed as if she would have fallen. What could a Christian do, a gentleman and a shepherd of souls, but catch her lest she fall? Half mad with terror she turned and clung to him as she would have clung to the nearest support.
"Have courage," he purred into the little ear; "I am with you, dear child, have courage."
So they stood, she clasping the Bishop and the Bishop clasping her, patting her shoulder, whispering in her ear, when Sir Jasper burst in upon them.
It was his voice that drove them apart, yet it was neither loud nor fierce, it was only blightingly sarcastic.
"So!" said he.
What was it Stafford had said: "There's the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He's red, as red as a lobster, from top to toe! They have a way, these divines." Oh, Stafford knew doubtless: all Bath knew! Sir Jasper cursed horribly in his heart, but aloud only said: "So!"
Lady Standish flew half across the room to him with a joyful cry, but was arrested midway by his attitude, his look. The Bishop said "Ahem," and "ahem" again, and then said he:
"I rejoice, I rejoice, Sir Jasper, to see you return unscathed. Lady Standish has been greatly distressed."
"And you," said Sir Jasper, drily, "have been consoling her."
"To the best of my poor power," said the Bishop, and felt, he knew not why (if indeed it were possible for him to feel that way!) a shade uncomfortable.
Sir Jasper closed the door and bowed.
"I think," said he, "I ought to crave pardon for this intrusion."
"Oh Jasper!" cried my lady.
Her husband turned towards her for a second. She wilted beneath his eye and sank into a chair.