When Mistress Kitty had sipped half a glass with great show of relish and rakishness, and Lady Standish, under protest, had sucked a few spoonfuls; when Lady Maria, stuck in the middle of her fourth helping, protested that she really could not finish the tumbler and forthwith began to show signs of incoherence and somnolence; when O'Hara broke into snatches of song, and Lord Verney began to make calf's eyes afresh at the lost Mistress Kitty; when Sir Jasper, hanging round his wife's chair, showed unequivocal signs of repentance and a longing for reconciliation: when Stafford himself became more pointed in his admiration of Mistress Kitty and a trifle broader in his jests than was quite consistent with his usual breeding, the little widow deemed it, at last, time to break up the party.
There was a vast bustle, a prodigious ordering and counter-ordering.
"Never mind me," whispered Stafford, ever full of good humour and tact, into Sir Jasper's ear, "take your wife home, man, I'll sleep here if needs be."
"Not a foot," asserted O'Hara, apparently quite sober, and speaking with the most pleasant deliberation in the world, "not a foot will I stir from this place, so long as there is a lemon left."
"The cursed scoundrel," cried Lord Verney, babbling with fury as he returned from the stables, "the scoundrel, Spicer, has driven off with my curricle!"
"Then shall we be a merry trio to drink daylight in," said Stafford, and cheered.
"Come,dearLady Maria," said Kitty. "I shall take care of you. I will give you a seat in my chaise; we shall drive home together."
"Certainly, my dear, certainly," mumbled the Dowager. "Who is that remarkably agreeable person?" she requested to know of Stafford in her prodigiously audible whisper. "My dear," she turned again to Kitty, "I like you wonderfully. I cannot quite remember your name, my dear, but we will go home together."
"Dear,dearLady Maria!" cried Mistress Kitty, honey sweet. "My Lord Verney, give your arm to your revered relative—mind you lead her carefully," she said, with all the imps in her eyes dancing, "for I fear Mr. Stafford's cordial has proved a little staggering—after the night air! And warn her ladyship's attendant to be ready to escort us back in my carriage."
Then, taking advantage of Sir Jasper's absence—that gentleman might even then be heard cursing his sleepy servants in the yard—Mistress Kitty ran over to Lady Standish, who stood wistful and apart at the inglenook.
"My dear," she murmured, "the game is now in your hands."
"Ah, no!" returned the other. "Oh, Kitty, you have been an evil counsellor!"
"Is this your gratitude?" retorted Kitty, and pinched her friend with vicious little fingers. "Why, woman, your husband never thought so much of you in his life as he does to-day! Why, there has never been so much fuss made over you since you were born. Are these your thanks?"
"Oh, for the moment when I can fly to his bosom and tell him all! My foolish endeavour to make him jealous, my sinful pretence that he had a rival in my heart!"
"What?" exclaimed the widow, and her whisper took all the emphasis of a shriek. "Fly to his bosom? Then I have done with you! Bring him to his knees you mean, madam. Tell him all? Tell him all, forsooth, let him know you have made a fool of him, all for nothing; let him think that you had never had an idea beyond pining for his love; that no other man ever thought of you, that he has never had a rival, never will have one, that you are merely his own uninteresting Julia whom nobody wants. Why, Lady Standish, 'tis laying down the arms when the battle is yours. Sheer insanity! Prodigious, prodigious!" cried Mistress Kitty. "Is it possible that you and I are of the same sex?"
Bewildered, yet half convinced, Lady Standish listened and wondered.
"Be guided by me," whispered Kitty again. "Indeed, my dear, I mean well by you. Keep your secret if you love your husband. Keep it more preciously than you would keep jour youth and your beauty; for I tell you 'tis now your most valuable possession. Here," said she, and took a letter from her famous bag and thrust it into Julia's hands, "here is what will bring him to his knees! Oh, what a game you have upon this drive home if you know how to play it!"
"What is this, now?" cried Lady Standish.
"Hush!" ordered Kitty, and clapped her friend's hand over the letter. "Promise, promise! Here comes your lord!"
Sir Jasper had approached them as she spoke; he now bowed confusedly and took his wife's hand. But:
"A word in your ear," said Mistress Kitty, arresting him as they were about to pass out. "A word in your ear, sir. If a man has a treasure at home he would keep for himself, he will do well to guard it! An unwatched jewel, my good sir, invites thieves. Good-night!"
*****
And now in the great room of theBear Innwere left only three: the two gallant gentlemen, O'Hara and Stafford, and Mistress Kitty.
Mistress Kitty's game had been successfully played out; and yet the lady lingered.
"Good night," she began, then shot a glance at Stafford. "I wonder," she said innocently, "if my carriage be ready, and whether Lady Maria is well installed?"
"I will see," said Stafford simply, and vanished.
O'Hara stood by the table, slowly dipping the ladle into the punch and absently pouring the liquor back into the bowl again. She sidled round to him.
"Denis!" said she.
He turned his wildly-bright eyes upon her, but made no answer.
"I'm going back," said she, and held out her hand.
He carefully put down the ladle, took the tips of her little fingers and kissed them. But his hands and his lips were cold.
"Glory be to God," said he, "it's a grand game you played with me ... the Bath Comedy entirely, Kitty."
Then he dropped her hand and took up the punch-ladle again with downcast looks.
"Will you not give me your arm to my carriage?" said she, after a slight pause.
"Ah, Kitty, sure haven't you broke my heart for me ... and has not the punch robbed me of my legs!"
His wild bright eyes were deeply sad as he turned them on her, and he was pale as death.
She drew back quickly, frowned, hesitated, frowned again, and then brightened up once more.
"Then, sir," said she, "when your legs are restored to you, pray let them conduct your heart round to my lodgings, and we shall see what can be done towards mending it."
She dropped him a curtsey and was gone.
As Stafford folded her into the chaise, he whispered:
"If everIhave a chance of running away with you, Kitty, I'll take very good care not to let you know which road I mean to choose!"
*****
As the carriage rolled homewards on the Bath Road, Lady Standish, both hands folded over the mysterious letter, sat staring out of the window with unseeing eyes. The dawn had begun to break upon a cloudless sky; the air was chill and brisk; mists wreathed white scarves over the fields. She felt conscious in every fibre of her being that Sir Jasper was eagerly contemplating her in the cold grey light. Heart and brain were in a turmoil; the anguish, the violent emotions, the successive scenes of the last forty-eight hours passed again before her mind like a phantasmagoria. Partly because of Mistress Bellairs's advice and partly because of a certain womanly resentment, which, gentle as she was, still reared itself within her, she did not even cast a look upon her husband, but sat mutely, gazing at the land. Presently she became aware that he had slid an arm behind her waist. She trembled a little, but did not turn to him.
"Julia," said he, in a muffled uncertain tone, "Julia, I—I have done you injustice." Then, for jealousy is as ill to extinguish as a fire that smoulders, a flame of the evil passion leaped up again with him. "But you must admit," said he, "that I had cause. Your own words, I may say your own confession——"
Lady Standish turned her head, lifted heavy lids and for a moment fixed upon him the most beautiful eyes in the world.
"Nay," said she, "I made no confession." Her tongue trembled upon other protestations, yet Kitty's warning carried the day.
"Tell me," said he, and bent to her, "tell me was it Lord Verney after all?"
Lady Standish again raised her eyes to his face, and could such a thing have been possible in a creature whose very being was all tenderness, he would have sworn that in her gaze there was contempt.
"Sir Jasper," said she, "it never was Lord Verney!" And then she added: "Has there not been enough of this?"
As she spoke she moved her hands and involuntarily looked down at the letter she held. Then she sat as if turned to stone. The letter was in Sir Jasper's writing and addressed to Mistress Bellairs!
"What have you there?" cried he.
"Nay," said she, "I know not, for 'tis not my letter. But you will know." And she held it up to him, and her hand did not tremble, yet was a cold fear upon her. "You wrote it," she said. He stared and his countenance changed, utter discomposure fell upon him.
"Julia," cried he, "Julia, upon my honour! I swear 'twas nothing, less than nothing, a mere idle bit of gallantry—a jest!" As he spoke he fell upon one knee in the chaise, at her feet.
"Then I may read it?" said she.
"Ah, Julia!" cried he, and encircled her with his arms. She felt the straining eagerness of his grasp, she felt his heart beat stormily. With a sudden warmth she knew that after all his love was hers.
Then she had an inspiration, one worthy of a cleverer woman: but love has his own geniuses. She disengaged herself from his embrace and put the letter into his hand.
"Take it," said she.
"Julia," he cried, and shook from head to foot, and the tears sprang to his eyes, "I never gave her a serious thought. I vow I hate the woman."
"Then tear it up," said Lady Standish, with a superhuman magnanimity that almost turned her faint.
He rose and tore the letter in shreds (quickly, lest she should repent) and flung them out of the window. She watched the floating pieces flutter and vanish. In her secret soul she said to herself:
"Mistress Bellairs and I shall be very good friends at a distance!"
Her husband was kneeling at her feet again. "Angel," cried he pleadingly, and once more she was in his arms; and yet his jealous heart kept growling within him, like a surly dog that will not be silenced. "Julia," said he in her ear, "but one word, one word, my love! Julia, is there anyone, anything between us?"
"Oh, that," she said, and smiled archly, "that, sir, you must discover for yourself." Her head sank on his shoulder as she spoke.
"You torture me!" he murmured. But she knew that he had never kissed her with such passion in all his life before.
*****
As her chaise followed on the road, some hundred yards or so behind Sir Jasper's, Mistress Bellairs, sitting beside Lady Maria (who snored the whole way with rhythmic steadiness) gazed across the livid fields towards the low horizon where the slow fires of dawn were pulsing into brightness. She was in deeply reflective mood.
In her excited, busy brain she revolved many important questions and weighed the gains and losses in her game of "Love and Hazard" with all the seriousness of the gambler homeward bound after a heavy night.
"At least," she thought, with a little sigh, but with some complacency, "I did a vastly good turn to my Lady Standish. But the woman is a fool, if a sweet one, and fools are past permanent mending. I did well," thought she, "to condemn the Calf—there is no doubt of that." She glanced at Lady Maria's withered countenance, unlovely and undignified in her stupor—— "The menagerie would have been the death of me, promptly.... But, my poor O'Hara! How could I ever have called him a cucumber?Therewas love for the taking, now—yet no! Worshipper, vastly well; but husband? not for me, not for me! Bless me," she cried to herself testily; "is a woman to have no choice between mid-winter, green spring, or the dog days? If I ever allow myself to be abducted again, 'twill be with your Man of the World—one with palate enough torelish mewithout wanting to swallow me at a gulp."
She paused in her train of thought to laugh at the recollection of Mr. Stafford's parting speech. "There is an easy heart for you!" she murmured. "A gallant gentleman, with as pretty a wit as O'Hara himself, and every whit as good a leg. Perhaps," thought Mistress Kitty, yawned and grew sleepy; nodded her delicate head; dreamed then a little dream and saw a silver Beau in the moonlight, and woke up with a smile. The spires of Bath Cathedral pierced silver grey through a golden mist; far beneath her gaze, as the chaise began to tip the crest of the great hill, like a silver ribbon ran the river. "Perhaps.... We shall see," said the widow.
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO
********
BY EGERTON CASTLE
Young April.Consequences.The Light of Scarthey.La Bella and Others.Marshfield the Observer.
The Pride of Jennico. [With Agnes Castle.]
The Jerningham Letters. [With portraits and illustrations.]
English Book-plates, ancient and modern. [Illustrated.]
Schools and Masters of Fence, from theMiddle Ages to the XIXth Century. [Illustrated.]
Le Roman du Prince Othon. [A rendering in French ofR. L. Stevenson's Prince Otto.]
Etc.