Parson Kelly
by A. E. W. Mason · English · Gutenberg #38684 · 623,199 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Parson Kelly
Author: A. E. W. Mason
Andrew Lang
Release date: January 27, 2012 [eBook #38684]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38684
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARSON KELLY ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
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2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
[Frontispiece: "BUT I AM GRIEVED I HAVE NO VIRGIL." P. 160]
PARSON KELLY
BY
A. E. W. MASON
AND
ANDREW LANG
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1899
_Copyright, 1899_,
By Longmans, Green, And Co.
* * *
_All rights reserved_
First Edition, September, 1899
Reprinted October, 1899
University Press
John Wilson And Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
TO THE
BARON TANNEGUY DE WOGAN
_The Representative of a House illustrious for its Antiquity:_
_In Prosperity splendid: in Exile and Poverty gay_
_and constant: of Loyalty unshaken;_
Is Dedicated
_This Narrative, founded on the deeds of his Ancestor_,
The Chevalier Nicholas De Wogan.
A. E. W. M.
A. L.
PREFACE
The authors wish to say that the proceedings of Lady Oxford are
unhistorical. Swift mentions a rumour that there was such a lady, but
leaves her anonymous.
CONTENTS
Chapter
I. The Parson expresses Irreproachable Sentiments at the
Mazarin Palace.
II. Mr. Wogan refuses to Acknowledge an Undesirable
Acquaintance in St. James's Street.
III. Mr. Wogan instructs the Ignorant Parson in the Ways of
Women.
IV. Shows the Extreme Danger of knowing Latin.
V. A Literary Discussion in which a Critic, not for the
first time, turns the tables upon an Author.
VI. Mr. Nicholas Wogan reminds the Parson of a Night at the
Mazarin Palace.
VII. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has a word to say about
Smilinda.
VIII. Mr. Kelly has an Adventure at a Masquerade Ball.
IX. Wherein the Chivalrous Mr. Kelly behaves with Deplorable
Folly.
X. What came of Mr. Kelly's Winnings from the South Sea.
XI. The Parson departs from Smilinda and learns a number of
Unpalatable Truths.
XII. The Parson meets Scrope for the Third Time, and what came
of the Meeting.
XIII. Of the Rose and the Rose-Garden in Avignon.
XIV. Of the Great Confusion produced by a Ballad and a Drunken
Crow.
XV. At the Deanery of Westminster.
XVI. Mr. Wogan acts as Lightning Conductor at Lady Oxford's
Rout.
XVII. Lady Oxford's 'Coup De Theatre'.
XVIII. Wherein a New Fly discourses on the innocence of the
Spider's Web.
XIX. Stroke and Counter-stroke.
XX. Mr. Scrope bathes by Moonlight and in his Peruke.
XXI. In which Mr. Kelly surprises Smilinda.
XXII. An Eclogue which demonstrates the Pastoral Simplicity of
Corydon and Strephon.
XXIII. How the Messengers captured the wrong Gentleman; and of
what Letters the Colonel burned.
XXIV. Mr. Wogan wears Lady Oxford's Livery, but does not remain
in her Service.
XXV. How the Miniature of Lady Oxford came by a Mischance.
XXVI. Mr. Wogan Traduces his Friend, with the Happiest
Consequences.
XXVII. How, by keeping Parole, Mr. Kelly broke Prison.
XXVIII. Mr. Wogan again invades England, meets the elect Lady,
and bears witness to her Perfections.
PARSON KELLY
CHAPTER I
THE PARSON EXPRESSES IRREPROACHABLE SENTIMENTS
AT THE MAZARIN PALACE
"What mighty quarrels rise from trivial things!"
So wrote Mr. Alexander Pope, whom Nicholas Wogan remembers as a
bookish boy in the little Catholic colony of Windsor Forest. The line
might serve as a motto for the story which Mr. Wogan (now a one-armed
retired colonel of Dillon's Irish Brigade in French Service) is about
to tell. The beginnings of our whole mischancy business were trivial
in themselves, and in all appearance unrelated to the future. They
were nothing more important than the purchase of a couple of small
strong-boxes and the placing of Parson Kelly's patrimony in Mr. Law's
company of the West. Both of these events happened upon the same day.
It was early in February of the year 1719, and the streets of Paris
were deep in snow. Wogan, then plotting for King James's cause, rode
into Paris from St. Omer at ten o'clock of the forenoon, and just
about the same hour Parson Kelly, plotting too in his way, drove
through the Orleans gate.
A few hours later the two men met in the Marais, or rather Nicholas
Wogan saw the skirts of Kelly's coat vanishing into an ironmonger's
shop, and ran in after him. Kelly was standing by the counter with a
lady on either side of him, as was the dear man's wont; though their
neighbourhood on this occasion was the merest accident, for the Parson
knew neither of them.
'Sure it's my little friend the lace merchant,' said Wogan, and
clapped his hand pretty hard on the small of his friend's back, whom
he had not seen for a twelvemonth and more. Kelly stumbled a trifle,
maybe, and no doubt he coughed and spluttered. One of the ladies
dropped her purse and shuddered into a corner.
'_Quelle bete sauvage!_' murmured the second with one indignant eye
upon Nicholas Wogan, and the other swimming with pity for Mr. Kelly.
'Madame,' said Wogan, picking up the purse and restoring it with his
most elegant bow, 'it was pure affection.'
'No doubt,' said Kelly, as he rubbed his shoulder; 'but, Nick, did you
never hear of the bear that smashed his master's skull in the
endeavour to stroke off a fly that had settled on his nose? That was
pure affection too.'
He turned back to the counter, on which the shopman was setting out a
number of small strong-boxes, and began to examine them.
'Well, you must e'en blame yourself, George,' said Nick, 'for the mere
sight of you brings the smell of the peat to my nostrils and lends
vigour to my hand.'
This he said with all sincerity, for the pair had been friends in
county Kildare long before Kelly went to Dublin University, and took
deacon's orders, and was kicked out of the pulpit for preaching
Jacobitism in his homilies. As boys they had raced bare-legged over
the heather, and spent many an afternoon in fighting over again that
siege of Rathcoffey Castle which an earlier Nicholas Wogan had held so
stoutly for King Charles. The recollection of those days always played
upon Wogan's foolish heartstrings with a touch soft as a woman's
fingers, and very likely it now set George Kelly's twanging to the
same tune; for at Wogan's words he turned himself about with a face
suddenly illumined.
'Here, Nick, lay your hand there,' said he and stretched out his hand.
'You will be long in Paris?'
'No more than a night. And you?'
'Just the same time.'
He turned again to the counter, and busied himself with his boxes in
something of a hurry, as though he would avoid further questioning.
Wogan blew a low whistle.
Maybe we are on the same business, eh?' he asked. 'The King's
business?'
'Whisht, man,' whispered Kelly quickly, and he glanced about the shop.
'Have you no sense at all?'
The shop was empty at the moment, and there was no reason that Wogan
could see for his immoderate secrecy. But the Parson was much like the
rest of the happy-go-lucky conspirators who were intriguing to
dislodge the Elector from the English throne--cautious by fits and
moods, and the more often when there was the less need. But let a
scheme get ripe for completion, and sure they imagined it completed
already, and at once there would be letters left about here, for all
the world to read, and a wink and a sly word there, so that it was
little short of a miracle when a plot was launched before it had been
discovered by those it was launched against. Not that you are to
attribute to Mr. Wogan any superior measure of reticence. On the
contrary, it is very probable that it was precisely Mr. Wogan's tongue
which George Kelly distrusted, and if so, small blame to him. At any
rate, he pursed up his lips and stiffened his back. Consequence turned
him into a ramrod, and with a voice pitched towards the shopman:
'I am still in the muslin trade,' said he, meaning that he collected
money for the Cause. 'I shall cross to England to-morrow.'
'Indeed and will you now?' said Wogan, who was perhaps a little
contraried by his friend's reserve. 'Then I'll ask you to explain what
these pretty boxes have to do with the muslin trade?'
'They are to carry my samples in,' replied Kelly readily enough; and
then, as if to put Wogan's questions aside, 'Are you for England,
too?'
'No,' said Wogan, imitating Mr. Kelly's importance; 'I am going to
visit my Aunt Anne at Cadiz; so make the most of that, my little
friend.'
Wogan was no great dab at the cyphers and the jargon of the plots, but
he knew that the Duke of Ormond, being then in Spain, figured in the
correspondence as my Aunt Anne. It was now Kelly's turn to whistle,
and that he did, and then laughed besides.
'I might have guessed,' said he, 'for there's a likely prospect of
broken heads at all events, and to that magnet you were never better
than a steel filing.'
'Whisht, man,' exclaimed Wogan, frowning and wagging his head
preposterously. 'Is it yourself that's the one person in the world to
practise mysteries? Broken heads, indeed!' and he shrugged his
shoulder as though he had a far greater business on hand. Kelly's
curiosity rose to the bait, and he put a question or two which Wogan
waived aside. The Parson indeed had hit the truth. Wogan had no
business whatsoever except the mere fighting, but since the Parson was
for practising so much dignified secrecy, Wogan would do no less.
To carry the joke a step further, he turned to the counter, even as
Kelly had done, and examined the despatch-boxes. He would buy one, to
convince Kelly that he, too, was trusted with secret papers. The boxes
were as like to one another as peas, but Wogan discovered a great
dissimilitude of defects.
'There's not one of them fit to keep a mouldy cheese in,' said he,
tapping and sounding them with his knuckles, 'let alone--' and then he
caught himself up with a glance at Kelly. 'However, this perhaps may
serve--but wait a little.' He felt in his pockets and by chance
discovered a piece of string. This string he drew out and carefully
measured the despatch-box, depth and width and length. Then he put the
tip of his thumb between his teeth and bit it in deep thought. 'Well,
and it must serve, since there's no better; but for heaven's sake, my
man, clap a stouter lock on it! I could smash this with my fist. A
good stout lock; and send it--wait a moment!' He glanced towards Kelly
and turned back to the shopman. 'I'll just write down where you are to
send it to.'
To Kelly's more complete mystification he scribbled a name and an
address on a sheet of paper, and folded it up with an infinity of
precautions.
'Send it there, key and all, by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.'
The name was Mr. Kelly's, the address the inn at which Mr. Kelly was
in the habit of putting up. Wogan bought the box merely to gull Kelly
into the belief that he, also, was a Royal messenger. Then he paid for
the box, and forthwith forgot all about it over a bottle of wine.
Kelly, for his part, held his despatch-box in his hand.
'Nick, I have business,' said he as soon as the bottle was empty, 'and
it appears you have too. Shall we meet to-night? Mr. Law expects me at
the Mazarin Palace.'
'Faith, then I'll make bold to intrude upon him,' said Nicholas, who,
though Mr. Law kept open house for those who favoured the White Rose,
was but a rare visitor to the Mazarin Palace, holding the financier in
so much awe that no amount of affability could extinguish it.
However, that night he went, and so learned in greater particular the
secret of the Parson's journey. It was nine o'clock at night when
Wogan turned the corner of the Rue Vivienne and saw the windows of the
Mazarin Palace blazing out upon the snow. A little crowd shivered and
gaped beneath them, making, poor devils! a vicarious supper off the
noise of Mr. Law's entertainment. And it was a noisy party that Mr.
Law entertained. Before he was half-way down the street Wogan could
hear the peal of women's laughter and a snatch of a song, and after
that maybe a sound of breaking glass, as though a tumbler had been
edged off the table by an elbow. He was shown up the great staircase
to a room on the first floor.
'Monsieur Nicholas de Wogan,' said the footman, throwing open the
door. Wogan stepped into the company of the pretty arch conspirators
who were then mismanaging the Chevalier's affairs. However, with their
mismanagement Wogan is not here concerned, for this is not a story of
Kings and Queens and high politics but of the private fortunes of
Parson Kelly. Olive Trant was playing backgammon in a corner with Mr.
Law. Madame de Mezieres, who was seldom absent when politics were
towards, graced the table and conversed with Lady Cecilia Law. And
right in front of Mr. Wogan stood that madcap her sister, Fanny
Oglethorpe, with her sleeves tucked back to her elbows, looking
gloriously jolly and handsome. She was engaged in mincing chickens in
a china bowl which was stewing over a little lamp on the table, for,
said she, Mr. Law had aspersed the English cooks, and she was minded
to make him eat his word and her chicken that very night for supper.
She had Parson Kelly helping her upon the one side, and a young French
gentleman whom Wogan did not know upon the other; and the three of
them were stirring in the bowl with a clatter of their wooden spoons.
'Here's Mr. Wogan,' cried Fanny Oglethorpe, and as Wogan held out his
hand she clapped her hot spoon into it. 'M. de Bellegarde, you must
know Mr. Wogan. He has the broadest back of any man that ever I was
acquainted with. You must do more than know him. You must love him, as
I do, for the broadness of his back.'
M. de Bellegarde looked not over-pleased with the civility of her
greeting, and bowed to Wogan with an affectation of ceremony. Mr. Law
came forward with an affable word. Olive Trant added another, and
Madame de Mezieres asked eagerly what brought him to Paris.
'He is on his way to join the Duke of Ormond at Cadiz,' cried Kelly;
'and,' said this man deceived, 'he carries the most important
messages. Bow to him, ladies! Gentlemen, your hands to your hearts,
and your knees to the ground! It's no longer a soldier of fortune that
you see before you, but a diplomatist, an ambassador: His Excellency,
the Chevalier Wogan;' and with that he ducked and bowed, shaking his
head and gesticulating with his hands, as though he were some
dandified court chamberlain. All the Parson's diplomacy had been
plainly warmed out of him in his present company. Mr. Law began to
laugh, but Fanny Oglethorpe dropped her spoon and looked at Wogan.
'The Duke of Ormond?' said she, lowering her voice.
'Indeed? and you carry messages?' said Miss Olive Trant, upsetting the
backgammon board.
'Of what kind?' exclaimed Madame de Mezieres; and then, in an instant,
their pretty heads were clustered about the table, and their mouths
whispering questions, advice, and precautions, all in a breath. 'It's
at Bristol you are to land?' 'The Earl Marischal is for Scotland?'
'You carry 5,000 barrels, Mr. Wogan?' meaning thereby stands of arms.
And, 'You may speak with all confidence,' Miss Oglethorpe urged, with
a glance this way and that over her shoulders. 'There are none but
honest people here. M. de Bellegarde,' and she looked towards the
French spark, blushing very prettily, 'is my good friend.'
Mr. Wogan bowed.
'It was not that I doubted M. de Bellegarde,' he replied. 'But 'faith,
ladies, I have learnt more of the prospects of the expedition from
your questions than ever I knew before. I was told for a certain thing
that heads would be broken, and, to be sure, I was content with the
information.'
At that Mr. Law laughed. Kelly asked, 'What of the despatch-box,
then?' The ladies pouted their resentment; and Mr. Wogan, for the
first and last time in his life, wore the reputation of a diplomatist.
'A close man,' said M. de Bellegarde, pursing his lips in approval.
'But sped on an unlikely venture,' added Mr. Law, getting back to his
backgammon. 'Oh, I know,' he continued, as the voices rose against
him, 'you have grumblings enough in England to fill a folio, and so
you think the whole country will hurry to the waterside to welcome
you, before you have set half your foot on shore. But, when all is
said, the country's prosperous. Your opportunity will come with its
misfortunes.'
But Madame de Mezieres would hear nothing of such forebodings; and
Olive Trant, catching up a glass, swung it above her head.
'May the Oak flourish!' she cried.
Fanny Oglethorpe sprang from her seat. 'May the White Rose bloom!' she
answered, giving the counter-word. The pair clinked their glasses.
'Aye, that's the spirit!' cried the Parson. 'Drink, Nick! God save the
King! Here's a bumper to him!'
He stood with his face turned upwards, his blue eyes afire. 'Here's to
the King!' he repeated. 'Here's to the Cause! God send that nothing
ever come between the Cause and me.' He drained his glass as he spoke,
and tossed it over his shoulder. There was a tinkling sound, and a
flash of sparks, as it were, when the glass splintered against the
wall. George Kelly stood for a moment, arrested in his attitude, his
eyes staring into vacancy, as though some strange news had come of a
sudden knocking at his heart. Then he hitched his shoulders. 'Bah!' he
cried, and began to sing in a boisterous voice some such ditty as
Of all the days that's in the year,
The tenth of June's to me most dear,
When our White Roses do appear
To welcome Jamie the Rover.
Or it may have been
Let our great James come over,
And baffle Prince Hanover,
With hearts and hands in loyal bands,
We'll welcome him at Dover.
It was not the general practice to allow the Parson to sing without
protest; for he squeezed less music out of him than any other Irishman
could evoke from a deal board with his bare knuckles. When he sang,
and may Heaven forgive the application of the word in this
conjunction, there was ever a sort of mortal duello between his voice
and the tune--very distressing to an audience. But now he sang his
song from beginning to end, and no one interrupted him, or so much as
clapped a hand over an ear; and this not out of politeness. But his
words so rang with a startling fervour; and he stood, with his head
thrown back, rigid in the stress of passion. His voice quavered down
to silence, but his eyes still kept their fires, his attitude its
fixity. Once or twice he muttered a word beneath his breath, and then
a hoarse cry came leaping from his mouth.
'May nothing ever come between the Cause and me, except it be
death--except it be death!'
A momentary silence waited upon the abrupt cessation of his voice:
Wogan even held his breath; Miss Oglethorpe did not stir; and during
that silence, there came a gentle rapping on the door. Kelly looked
towards it with a start, as though there was his answer; but the
knocking was repeated before anyone moved; it seemed as if suspense
had hung its chains upon every limb. It was Mr. Wogan who opened the
door, and in stalked Destiny in the shape of a lackey. He carried a
note, and handed it to George Kelly.
'The messenger has but this instant brought it,' he said.
Kelly broke the seal, and unfolded the paper.
'From General Dillon,' he said; and, reading the note through,
'Ladies, will you pardon me? Mr. Law, I have your permission? I have
but this one night in Paris, and General Dillon has news of importance
which bears upon my journey.'
With that he took his hat, and got him from the room. Fanny Oglethorpe
sprang up from her chair.
'Sure, my chicken will be ruined,' she cried. 'Come, M. de
Bellegarde,' and the pair fell again to stirring in the bowl, and with
such indiscriminate vigour that more than once their fingers got
entangled. This Mr. Wogan observed, and was sufficiently indiscreet to
utter a sly proposal that he should make a third at the stirring.
'There is no need for a third,' said Miss Oglethorpe, with severity.
'But, on the other hand, I want a couple of pats of butter, and a
flagon of water; and I shall be greatly obliged if Mr. Wogan will
procure me them.' And what with that and other requests which chanced
to come into her head, she kept him busy until the famous supper was
prepared.
In the midst of that supper back came Mr. Kelly, and plumped himself
down in his chair, very full of his intelligence. A glass or two of
Mr. Law's burgundy served to warm out of his blood all the reserve
that was left over from the morning.
'We are all friends here,' said he, turning to Miss Oglethorpe.
'Moreover, I need the advantage of your advice and knowledge. General
Dillon believes that my Lord Oxford maybe persuaded to undertake the
muslin trade in Britain.'
'Lord Oxford,' exclaimed Miss Oglethorpe, with a start, for Oxford had
lain quiet since he nearly lost his head five years agone. 'He is to
collect the money from our supporters?'
'It is the opinion that he will, if properly approached.'
Mr. Law, at the top of the table, shook his head.
'It is a very forward and definite step for so prudential a
politician,' said he.
'But a politician laid on a shelf, and pining there,' replied George.
'There's the reason for it. He has a hope of power,--_Qui a bu,
boira!_ The hope grows real if we succeed.'
'I would trust him no further than a Norfolk attorney,' returned Mr.
Law; 'and that's not an inch from the end of my nose. He will swear
through a two-inch board to help you, and then turn cat in pan if a
Whig but smile at him.'
'Besides,' added Miss Oglethorpe, and she rested, her chin
thoughtfully upon her hands. As she spoke, all the eyes in that
company were turned on her. 'Besides,' and then she came to a stop,
and flushed a little. 'Lord Oxford,' she continued, 'was my good
friend when I was in England.' Then she stopped again. Finally she
looked straight into M. de Bellegarde's eyes, and with an admirable
bravery: 'Some, without reason, have indeed slandered me with stories
that he was more than my friend.'
'None, Madame, who know you, I'll warrant,' said M. de Bellegarde, and
gravely lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it.
'Well, that's a very pretty answer,' said she in some confusion. 'So
Mr. Kelly may know,' she went on, 'that I speak with some authority
concerning my Lord Oxford. It is not he whom I distrust. But he has
lately married a young wife.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Law, and 'Oh!' cried Mr. Wogan, with a shrug of his
shoulders. 'If a lady is to dabble her tender fingers in the pie--'
'And what of it, Mr. Wogan?' Madame de Mezieres took him up coldly.
'Yes, Mr. Wogan, what of it?' repeated Olive Trant hotly, 'provided
the lady be loyal.' In an instant Mr. Wogan had the whole nest
swarming about his ears, with the exception of Fanny Oglethorpe. It
was intimated to him that he had a fine preposterous conceit of his
sex, and would he be pleased to justify it?
Madame de Mezieres hinted that the ability to swing a shillelagh and
bring it down deftly on an offending sconce did not comprise the whole
virtues of mankind. And if it came to the test of dealing blows, why
there was Joan of Arc, and what had Mr. Wogan to say to her? Mr. Wogan
turned tail, as he always did when women were in the van of the
attack.
'Ladies,' he said, 'I do not think Joan of Arc so singular after all,
since I see four here who I believe from my soul could emulate her
noblest achievements.'
But Mr. Wogan's gallantry went for very little. The cowardice of it
was apparent for all that he bowed and laid his hand on his heart, and
performed such antics as he thought likely to tickle women into good
humour.
'Besides,' put in Lady Cecilia, with a soothing gentleness, 'Mr. Wogan
should know that the cause he serves owes, as it is, much to the good
offices of women.'
Mr. Wogan had his own opinions upon that point, but he wiped his
forehead and had the discretion to hold his tongue. Meanwhile Fanny
Oglethorpe, who had sat with frowning brows in silence, diverted the
onslaught.
'But it is just the loyalty of Lady Oxford which is in question. Lady
Oxford is a Whig, of a Whig family. She is even related to Mr.
Walpole, the Minister. I think Mr. Kelly will have to tread very
warily at Lord Oxford's house of Brampton Bryan.'
'For my part,' rejoined Mr. Law, 'I think the Chevalier de St. George
would do better to follow the example of Mr. Kelly and my friends
here.'
'And what is that?' asked Wogan.
'Why, scrape up all the money he can lay hands on and place it in my
company of the West.'
Mr. Wogan was not well pleased to hear of his friend's speculation,
and, when they left the house together, took occasion to remonstrate
with him.
'How much have you placed?' he asked.
'All that I could,' replied George. 'It is little enough--the remnant
of my patrimony. Mr. Law lent me a trifle in addition to make up a
round sum. It is a very kindly man, and well disposed to me. I have no
fears, for all the money in France dances to the tune he fiddles.'
'To his tune, to be sure,' grumbled Wogan; 'but are you equally
certain his tune is yours? Oh, I know. He is a monstrous clever man,
not a doubt of it. The computation of figures--it is the devil's own
gift, and to my nose it smells damnably of sulphur.'
Mr. Wogan has good occasion to reflect how Providence fleers at one's
apprehensions when he remembers the sleepless hours during which he
tossed upon his bed that night, seeing all the Parson's scanty savings
drowned beyond redemption in the China seas. For no better chance
could have befallen Kelly than that Wogan's forebodings should have
come true. But the venture succeeded. Fanny Oglethorpe made a fortune
and married M. de Bellegarde. Olive Trant, the richer by 100,000
pistoles, became Princess of Auvergne. Do they ever remember that
night at the Hotel de Mazarin, and how Parson Kelly cried out almost
in an agony as though, in the heat of passion, he surmised the future,
'May nothing come between the Cause and me'? Well, for one thing the
money came. It placed in his hands a golden key wherewith to unlock
the gates of disaster.
CHAPTER II
MR. WOGAN REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE AN
UNDESIRABLE ACQUAINTANCE IN
ST. JAMES'S STREET
Mr. Wogan left Paris early the next morning without a thought for the
despatch-box that he had sent to Kelly, and, coming to Cadiz, sailed
with the Spaniards out of that harbour on the tenth of March, and into
the great storm which dispersed the fleet off Cape Finisterre. In
company with the Earl Marischal and the Marquis of Tullibardine, he
was aboard one of those two ships which alone touched the coast of
Scotland. Consequently, he figured with better men, as Field-Marshal
Keith, and his brother the Ambassador, and my Lord George Murray, in
that little skirmish at Glenshiel, and very thankful he was when the
night shut black upon the valleys and put its limit to the attack of
General Wightman's soldiers from Inverness. A council of war was held
in the dark upon a hill-side, whence the fires of General Wightman's
camp could be seen twinkling ruddily below, but Wogan heard little of
what was disputed, for he went to sleep with his back against a
boulder and dreamed of his ancestors. He was waked up about the middle
of the night by the Earl Marischal, who informed him that the
Spaniards had determined to surrender at discretion, and that the
handful of Highlanders were already dispersing to their homes.
'As for ourselves, we shall make for the Western Islands and wait
there for a ship to take us off.'
'Then I'll wish you luck and a ship,' said Wogan. He stood up and
shook the dew off his cloak. 'I have friends in London, and I'll trust
my lucky star to get me there.'
'Your star's in eclipse,' said the Earl. 'You will never reach London
except it be with your legs tied under a horse's belly.'
'Well, I'm thinking you have not such a clear path after all to the
Western Islands! Did you never hear of my forefather, Thomas Wogan,
that rode with twenty-eight Cavaliers through the heart of Cromwell's
England, and came safe into the Highlands? Sure what that great man
could do with twenty-eight companions to make him conspicuous, his
degenerate son can do alone.'
Mr. Wogan began his journey by walking over the hill, near to the top
of which his friends had been driven off the road to Inverness by the
English fire, which was very well nourished. He made his way to Loch
Duich, as they call it, and so by boat round Ardnamurchan, to a hamlet
they call Oban. There he changed his dress for the Campbell black and
green, and, joining company with a drove of Rob Roy's cattle from the
Lennox, travelled to Glasgow. His Irish brogue no doubt sounded a
trifle strange in a Highland drover, but he was in a country where the
people were friendly. At Glasgow he changed his dress again for a
snuff-coloured bourgeois suit, and so rode into England by the old
Carlisle and Preston route, which he had known very well in the year
1715.
Wogan was at this time little more than a lad, though full-grown
enough to make a man and a good-sized boy into the bargain, and the
exploit of the Cavalier Thomas Wogan, as it had prompted his design,
so it exhilarated him in the execution. He went lightly on his way,
weaving all manner of chivalric tales about his ancestor, to the great
increase of his own vanity, bethinking him when he stopped for an hour
at a wayside inn that here, too, perhaps Thomas Wogan had reined in
his horse, and maybe had taken a draught from that very pint-pot which
Nicholas now held to his lips. Thus the late burst up the hill-side
above the Shiel was quickly robbed of its sting, and by the time that
he had reached London he was so come to a pitch of confidence in the
high destinies of the Wogan family that, after leaving his horse in
the charge of Mr. Gunning, of Mussell Hill, whom he knew of old as a
staunch friend of George Kelly's, and borrowing from him a more
suitable raiment than his stained travelling dress, he must needs walk
down St. James's Street with no more disguise than the tilting of his
hat over his nose, and the burying of his chin in his cravat.
Soon Mr. Wogan's confidence and, with his confidence, his legs were
brought to a sudden check. For when he was come half-way down the hill
he saw the figure of one Captain Montague in the uniform of the Guards
turn the corner out of Ryder Street and walk towards him. Wogan had
met the officer before on an occasion of which he did not wish at this
particular moment to be reminded. He wheeled about, took a step or
two, and so came again to a halt. Was it known, he asked himself, that
he had sailed from Cadiz and landed in Scotland? If so, and it was a
most likely conjecture, then for Wogan to be straggling about St.
James's Street was egregious impertinence, and the sooner he got under
shelter the better for his neck. Now Wogan's destination was the
lodging of George Kelly, not five hundred yards away, in Bury Street.
But to reach that lodging it would be necessary for him to turn about
again and face the Captain. Would the Captain know him again? Wogan
debated the question, and finding no answer, asked himself another.
What would Thomas Wogan have done under the like contingency? The
answer to that was evident enough. Wogan turned about on the instant,
cocked his hat on the back of his head, took his chin out of his
cravat, twirled his cane, whistled a tune and sauntered past the
Captain, looking him over as if he were so much dirt. The Captain
stopped: Wogan felt his heart jump into his throat, whistled a bit
louder, and twirled his cane a trifle ferociously. Over his shoulder
he saw the Captain draw his brows together and rub a check with the
palm of his hand like a man perplexed. The Captain took a step towards
Wogan, and stopped again. Wogan sauntered on, expecting every moment
to hear his name called, and a clattering run, and then to feel a
heavy hand close upon his shoulder. But no voice spoke, no steps
clattered on the pavement. Wogan reached the corner and spied up St.
James's Street as he turned. The Captain was still standing in the
attitude of perplexity; only, instead of smoothing his cheek, he had
tilted his peruke aside and was scratching his head to ease the labour
of his recollections. At the sight of him the ancestor and his
twenty-eight Cavaliers rode clean out of Mr. Wogan's mind. 'Sure,
Thomas wouldn't have done it, but Nicholas will,' said he, and kicking
up his heels he ran. He ran along Ryder Street, turned into Bury
Street, raced a hundred yards or so up the cobbles, and thundered on
the door of Kelly's lodging. Here and there a head was poked from a
window, and Mr. Wogan cursed his own noisiness. It seemed an age
before the door was opened. Fortunately it was Mrs. Barnes, Kelly's
landlady, in person, and not her serving-woman, who stood in the
entrance.
'Is the Parson in London?' says Wogan. 'Say that he is, Mrs. Barnes,
and say it quick.'
'Why, it's Mr. Wogan!' cries she.
'Whisht, my dear woman!' answered Wogan, pushing through the doorway.
'It's Mr. Hilton. There's no Wogan anywhere in England. Remember that,
if you please.'
Mrs. Barnes slammed the door in a hurry.
'Then you are in trouble again,' said she, throwing up her hands.
'Well, there's nothing unusual in that,' said he. 'Sure man is born to
it, and who am I that I should escape the inheritance?' and he opened
the door of Mr. Kelly's sitting-room. He saw the figure of a man
bending over the table. As the door was thrown open, the figure
straightened itself hurriedly. There was a sound of an iron lid
clanging down upon a box, and the sharp snap of a lock. George Kelly
turned and stood between the table and the door, in a posture of
defence. Then--
'Nick!' he cried, and grasped his friend's hand. The next moment he
let it go. 'What brings you here?' he exclaimed.
'My ancestor,' said Wogan, dropping into a chair. ''Twas his spirit
guided me.'
'Then take my word for it,' cried George, 'if there's a Bedlam beyond
the grave your ancestor inhabits it.'
Wogan made no reply in words at first. But he rose stiffly from his
chair, bowed to Kelly with profuse ceremony, took his hat, and with
his hat a step towards the door. Kelly, on the other hand, shut the
door, locked it, put the key in his pocket and leaned his back against
the panels. Wogan affected to see nothing of these actions, but spoke
in a tone of dignity like a man taking his leave.
'Such insults as you are pleased to confer on me,' said he, 'no doubt
I deserve, and I take them in all Christian meekness. But when my
ancestor Thomas Wogan, God rest his soul for ever and ever, rode with
twenty-eight Cavaliers from Dover to Scotland through the thick of his
bloodthirsty foes to carry the succour of his presence to the friends
of his blessed Majesty of sacred memory King Charles the Second, it
was not, I'd have you know, Mr. Kelly, in order that his name should
be bespattered after he was dead by a snuffling long-legged
surreptitious gawk of a parson who was kicked out of his Dublin pulpit
with every circumstance of ignominy because his intellect didn't
enable him to compose a homily.'
At this point Wogan drew a long breath, which he sorely needed. It was
not at all truth that he had spoken, as he knew--none better. The
Parson was indeed stripped of his gown because he preached a very fine
homily on the text of 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,'
wherein he mingled many timely and ingenious allusions to the
Chevalier. Nor was there any particular force in that epithet
'surreptitious,' beyond that it had an abusive twang. Yet it was just
that word at which Mr. Kelly took offence.
'Surreptitious,' said he, 'and if you please what is the meaning of
that?'
And then surveying Wogan, he began of a sudden to smile.
'Ta-ta-ta,' he said with a grimace.
'It is a pretty though an interjectional wit,' replied Wogan in a high
disdain, falling upon long words, as was his fashion on the rare
occasions when he cloaked himself with dignity.
'Faith,' continued George, with the smile broadening over his face,
'but it is indeed the very picture of Christian meekness,' and then,
breaking into a laugh, 'Will you sit down, you noisy firebrand. As for
Thomas Wogan--be damned to him and to all his twenty-eight Cavaliers
into the bargain!'
Mr. Wogan will never deny but what the man's laugh was irresistible,
for the Parson's features wore in repose something of clerkly look.
They were cast in a mould of Episcopal gravity; but when he laughed
his blue eyes would lighten at you like the sun from a bank of clouds,
and the whole face of him wrinkled and creased into smiles, and his
mouth shook a great rumbling laugh out of his throat, and then of a
sudden you had come into the company of a jolly man. Wogan put his hat
on the table and struggled to preserve his countenance from any
expression of friendliness.
'It is the common talk at the Cocoa Tree that you sailed from Cadiz.
It is thought that you were one of the remnant at Glenshiel. Oh, the
rumour of your whereabouts has marched before you, and that you might
have guessed. But see what it is to know no Virgil, and,' shaking a
minatory finger,
'Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum.'
Mr. Wogan bowed before Latin like a sapling before the wind. He seated
himself as he was bid.
'And you must needs come parading your monstrous person through the
thick of London, like any fashionable gentleman,' continued George.
'What am I to do with you? Why couldn't you lie quiet in a village and
send me news of you? Did you meet any of your acquaintance by chance
when you came visiting your friend Mr. Kelly? Perhaps you passed the
time of day with Mr. Walpole--' and as he spoke the name he stopped
abruptly. He walked once or twice across the room, shifting his peruke
from one side of his head to the other in the fluster of his thoughts.
Then he paused before Wogan.
'Oh, what am I to do with you?' he cried. 'Tell me that, if you
please.' But the moment Wogan began,
'Sure, George, it's not you that I will be troubling for my
security'--Kelly cut in again:
'Oh, if you have nothing better to say than that, you say nothing at
all. It is dribbling baby's talk,' and then he repeated a question
earnestly. 'Did you see anyone you knew, or rather did anyone that
knows you see you?'
'Why,' replied Wogan meekly, 'I cannot quite tell whether he knows me
or not, but to be sure I ran into the arms of Captain Montague not
half a dozen yards from the corner of Ryder Street.'
'Montague!' exclaimed Kelly. Wogan nodded.
'The man who fought against you at Preston siege?'
'The same.'
''Tis a pity you were at so much pains to save his life in that
scuffle.'
'Haven't I been thinking that myself?' asked Wogan. 'If only I had
left him lying outside the barricades, where he would have been surely
killed by the cross-fire, instead of running out and dragging him in!
But it is ever the way. Once do a thoroughly good-natured action and
you will find it's the thorn in your side that will turn and sting
you. But I am not sure that he knew me,' and he related how the
Captain had stopped with an air of perplexed recollection, and had
then gone on his way. Kelly listened to the account with a certain
relief.
'It is likely that he would not remember you. For one thing, he was
wounded when you carried him in, and perhaps gave little heed to the
features of his preserver. Moreover, you have changed, Nick, in these
years. You were a stripling then, a boy of fifteen, and,' here he
smiled and laid a hand on Wogan's shoulder, 'you have grown into a
baby in four years.'
Then he took another turn across the room. 'Well, and why not?' he
said to himself, and finally brought his fist with a bang upon the
table. 'I'll hazard it,' said he. 'I am not sure but what it is the
safest way,' and, drawing a chair close to Wogan, he sat himself down.
'It was the mention of Mr. Walpole set me on the plan,' he said. 'You
heard in Paris that Lady Oxford is a kinsman of his. Well, I go down
to Lord Oxford's in two days. It is a remote village in the north of
Herefordshire. You shall come with me as my secretary. 'Faith, but I
shall figure in my lord's eyes as a person of the greatest
importance.'
Mr. Wogan resisted the proposal as being of some risk to his friend,
but Kelly would hear of no argument. The plan grew on him, the more he
thought of it. 'You can lie snug here for the two days. Mrs. Barnes is
to be trusted, devil a doubt. You can travel down with me in safety. I
am plain Mr. Johnson here, engaged in smuggling laces from the
Continent into England. And once out of London there will be little
difficulty in shipping you out of the country until the affair's blown
over.'
So it was arranged, and Kelly, looking at his watch, says--
'By my soul, I am late. I should have been with my Lord of Rochester
half-an-hour since. The good Bishop will be swearing like a dragoon.'
He clapped his hat on his head, took up his cane, and marched to the
door. His hand was on the knob, when he turned.
'By the way, Nick, I have something which belongs to you. 'Twas sent
to my lodging in Paris by mistake. I brought it over, since I was sure
to set eyes on you shortly.'
'Ah,' said Nick. 'Then you expected me, for all your scolding and
bullying.'
'To speak the honest truth, Nick,' said Kelly, with a laugh, 'I have
been expecting you all the last week.'
He went into his bedroom, and brought out the strong-box which Wogan
had purchased in Paris.
'Sure there was no mistake,' said Wogan. 'I sent it to you as a reward
for your discretion.'
'Oh, you did. Well, you wasted your money, for I have no need for it.'
'Nor I,' replied Wogan. 'But it has a very good lock, and will serve
to hold your love-letters.'
Kelly laughed carelessly at the careless words, and laid the box aside
upon his scrutore. Many a time in the months that followed Wogan saw
it there, and the sight of it would waken him to a laugh, for he did
not know that a man's liberty, his honour, his love, came shortly to
be locked within its narrow space.
CHAPTER III
MR. WOGAN INSTRUCTS THE IGNORANT PARSON IN
THE WAYS OF WOMEN
Mr. Wogan then remained for two days closeted in his friend's
lodgings, and was hard put to it to pass the time, since the Parson,
who acted as secretary and right-hand man to Bishop Atterbury, was
ever dancing attendance upon his lordship at Bromley or the Deanery of
Westminster. Wogan smoked a deal of tobacco, and, knitting his brows,
made a strenuous endeavour to peruse one of George Kelly's books--a
translation of Tully's _Letters_. He did, indeed, read a complete
page, and then being seized with a sudden vertigo, such as from his
extreme youth had prevented him from a course of study, was forced to
discontinue his labours. At this juncture Mrs. Barnes comforted him
with a greasy pack of cards, and for the rest of that day he played
games of chance for extraordinary stakes, one hand against t'other,
winning and losing millions of pounds sterling in the space of a
single hour. By bedtime he was sunk in a plethora of wealth and an
extremity of destitution at one and the same time; and so, since he
saw no way of setting the balance right, he bethought him of another
plan. On the morrow he would write out a full history of his
ancestors, as a memorial of their valour and a shame to the men of
this age.
The Parson, when he was informed of the notable design, quoted a scrap
of Latin to the effect that it would be something more than a brazen
proceeding. Wogan, however, was not to be dissuaded by any tag of
rhyme, and getting up before daylight, since he had but this one day
for the enterprise, was at once very busy with all of Kelly's
spluttering pens. He began with the founder of the family, the great
Chevalier Ugus, who lived in the time of my little Octavius Caesar, and
was commissioned by that unparalleled monarch to build the town of
Florence. 'Ugus,' wrote Mr. Wogan in big round painful letters with a
flourish to each, and, coming to a stop, woke up George Kelly to ask
him in what year of Our Lord Octavius Caesar was born into this weary
world. 'In no year of Our Lord,' grumbled George, a little churlishly
to Wogan's thinking, who went back to his desk, and taking up a new
pen again wrote 'Ugus.' Thereupon he fell into a great profundity of
thought; so many philosophic reflections crowded into his head while
he nibbled his pen, as he felt sure must visibly raise him in the
estimation of his friends. So, taking his candle in one hand and his
pen in the other, he came a second time to Kelly's bedside and sat him
down heavily upon his legs, the better to ensure his awakening. It is
to be admitted that this time the Parson sat up in his bed, and swore
with all the volubility of a dragoon or even of my Lord Bishop of
Rochester. But Wogan smiled amiably, knowing when he communicated his
thoughts how soon those oaths would turn to cries of admiration.
'It is a very curious thing,' said Wogan, shifting himself a little so
that Kelly's shins should not press so sharply, 'how the mere inking
of one's fingers produces speculation. Just as great valorous deeds
are the consequence of swords,' here he paused to snuff the candle
with his fingers, 'so great philosophic thoughts are the consequence
of pens. Put a sword in a man's hand! What does he want to do but cut
his neighbour right open from the chine to the ribs? Put a pen between
his fingers, on the other hand, and what does he want to do but go
away by himself and write down great thoughts?'
'Then, in Heaven's name, why don't you do it?' cried George.
'Because, my friend,' replied Wogan, 'out of the great love I bear for
you, I shall always, always communicate my thoughts first of all to
you.' Here the Parson groaned like a man giving up the ghost, and
Wogan continued:
'For instance, you have doubtless heard of my illustrious forbear the
Chevalier Ugus.' At this Kelly tried to turn on his side; but he could
not do so, since his legs were pinned beneath Wogan's weight. 'The
Chevalier Ugus,' repeated Wogan, 'who built and beautified the city of
Florence to the glory of God in the reign of the Emperor Octavius. How
many of the English have loitered in the colonnades, and feasted their
eyes upon the cathedral, and sauntered on the bridges of the Arno? How
many of them, I say, have drawn profitable thoughts and pleasurable
sensations from the edifices of my great ancestor? And yet not one of
them--if poor Nicholas Wogan, his degenerate son, were to poke his
nose outside of Mrs. Barnes's front door--not one of them but would
truss him hands and heels and hang him up to derision upon a nasty
gibbet.'
So far Wogan had flowed on when a sigh from Kelly's lips brought him
to a pause. He leaned forward and held the candle so that the light
fell upon Kelly's face. Kelly was sound asleep.
'To be sure,' said Wogan in a soft voice of pity, on the chance that
Kelly might be counterfeiting slumber, 'my little friend's jealous of
my reflective powers,' and going back to his chair wrote 'Ugus' a
third time with a third pen; and then, in order to think the more
clearly, laid his hand upon the table and closed his eyes.
It was Mrs. Barnes's hand upon his shoulder, some three hours
afterwards, which roused him from his so deep reflections, and to a
man in Wogan's course of life the shoulder is a most sensitive member.
She took the paper, whereon the great name was thrice inscribed, very
daintily between her forefinger and thumb, as though she touched
pitch; folded it once, twice, thrice, and set it on the mantelshelf.
There Mr. Kelly, coming into the room for breakfast, discovered it,
hummed a little to himself like a man well pleased, and turned over
the leaf to see what was written t'other side.
'That is all,' said Wogan, indifferently.
'And it is a very good night's work,' replied Kelly, with the politest
gravity, 'not a letter--and there are precisely twelve of them in
all--but is writ with scrupulous correctness. Such flourishes, too,
are seldom seen. I cannot call to mind that ever I saw a _g_ so
pictorially displayed. Ugus--Ugus--Ugus--' and he held the paper out
at arm's length.
'I went no further with my work,' explained Wogan, 'because I
reflected--'
'What, again?' asked the Parson in a voice of condolence.
'That the mere enunciation of the name Ugus gives an epitome of the
Wogan family.'
'Indeed, it gives a history in full,' said the Parson.
'It comprises--'
'Nay, it conveys--'
'All that need be known of the Wogan family.'
'All that need be known, indeed, and perhaps more,' added George with
the air of a man turning a compliment Mr. Wogan was sensibly
flattered, and took his friend's words as an apology for that
disrespect which he had shown towards Thomas Wogan two days before,
and the pair seated themselves to breakfast in the best of good
humour.
'We start at nine of the evening,' said George. 'I have commanded a
sober suit of grey cloth for you, Nick, since you cannot squeeze into
my coats, and it should be here by now. Meanwhile, I leave you to Mrs.
Barnes's attentions.'
Of these attentions Mrs. Barnes was by no means sparing. For the buxom
widow of the bookseller, who, to her credit be it said, had her full
share of good looks, joined to an admirable warmth of heart a less
adorable curiosity. With the best intentions in the world for her
lodgers' security, she was always prying into their secrets. Nor did
she always hold her tongue outside her own doors, as Mr. Kelly had
bitter reason afterwards to know. In a word, she had all the
inquisitiveness of her class, and sufficient wiles to make that
inquisitiveness difficult to parry. Not that Nicholas Wogan was at all
troubled upon this score, for if there was one quality upon which the
good man prided himself, it was his comprehension of the sex. 'Woman,'
he would say with a sententious pursing of the lips and a nod of the
head; and again 'woman,' and so drop into silence; as who should say,
'Here's a nut I could show you the kernel of were I so disposed.'
This morning, however, Mrs. Barnes made no demand upon Wogan's
cunning. For she took the paper with the thrice iterated Ugus which
the Parson had replaced upon the mantelshelf, and, with the same
gingerly precautions as she had used in touching it before, dropped it
into the fire.
'And why that?' asked Wogan.
Mrs. Barnes flung out at him in reply.
'I have no patience with you,' she cried. 'What's Ugus, Mr. Wogan?
Answer me that,' and she struck her arms akimbo. 'What's Ugus but one
of your cypher words, and you must needs stick it up on your
mantelshelf for all the world to see?'
'It's no cypher word at all,' replied Wogan with a laugh.
'What is it then?' said she.
'My dear woman, the merest mare's nest,' said he.
'Oh, you may "dear woman" me,' cried she, and sat herself down in a
chair, 'and you may laugh at a woman's fears; but, good lack, it was a
bad day when Mr. Kelly first found a lodging here. What with his
plottings here and his plottings there, it will be a fortunate thing
if he doesn't plot us all into our graves.'
'Whisht,' interrupted Wogan. 'There are no plots at all, any more than
there's sense in your talk.'
But the woman's eloquence was not so easily stemmed.
'Then if there are no plots, why is Mr. Kelly "Mr. Johnson," why is
Mr. Wogan "Mr. Hilton"; and why, oh why, am I in danger of my life and
liberty, and in peril of my immortal soul?'
'Sure you are bubbled with your fears, answered Wogan. 'It is
sufficiently well known that since Mr. George Kelly ceased to minister
to souls he has adopted the more lucrative profession of a lace
merchant. There's some secrecy no doubt in his comings and goings, but
that is because he is most honourably engaged in defrauding the
revenue.'
'A pretty lace merchant, upon my soul,' said she, and she began to
rock her body to and fro. The sight alarmed Nicholas Wogan, since he
knew the movement to be a premonition of tears. 'A lace merchant who
writes letters in Latin, and rides in the Bishop of Rochester's coach,
and goes a-visiting my Lord Oxford in the country. Thirteen shillings
have I paid for letters in one day. Laces, forsooth! It is hempen
ropes the poor gentleman travels in, and never was a man so eager to
fit them to his own neck.' And, at the affecting prospect which her
words called up, the good woman lifted her apron to her eyes and
forthwith dissolved into tears. Sobs tore her ample bosom, her soft
frame quivered like a jelly. Never did Mr. Wogan find his intimate
knowledge of the sex of more inestimable value. He crossed the room;
he took one plump hand into his left palm and gently cherished it with
his right. The tears diminished to a whimpering. He cooed a compliment
into Mrs. Barnes's ear, 'A little white dove of a hand in a brown
nest, my dear woman,' said he, and affectionately tweaked her ear.
Even the whimpering ceased, but ceased under protest! For Mrs. Barnes
began to speak again. Wogan, however, kissed the tearful eyes and
sealed them in content.
'Hoity-toity, here's a set out,' he said, 'because my Lord Oxford
wants a pair of Venice ruffles to hide his gouty fingers, or a new
mantilla for his new spouse,' and so, softly chiding her, he pushed
her out of the room.
At nine o'clock to the minute the chaise drove up to the door. Mr.
Kelly took a stroll along the street to see the coast was clear; Mrs.
Barnes was in two minds whether to weep at losing her lodgers, or to
smile at their prospects of security, and compromised between her
emotions by indulging them alternately; and finally the two friends in
burgess dress entered the chaise and drove off. Mr. Wogan thrust his
head half out of the window, the better to take his fill of the cool
night air, but drew it back something of the suddenest at the corner
where Ryder Street debouches into St. James's.
'Sure the man's a spy,' said he, flinging himself back. Parson Kelly
leaned cautiously forward, and under an oil-lamp above the porch of a
door he saw Captain Montague. The Captain was standing in an
indecisive attitude, tapping with his stick upon the pavement and
looking up and down the street.
'I doubt it,' returned Kelly. 'I have ever heard he was the most
scrupulous gentleman.'
'But he's a Whig. A Whig and a gentleman! But it's a contradiction in
terms. Whigging is a nasty insupportable trade, and infects a man like
a poison. A Whig is a sort of third sex by itself that combines all
the failings of the other two.'
However, this time it was evident that Captain Montague had taken no
note of Nicholas Wogan. He could not but reflect how it was at this
very spot that he had come upon the captain before, and mighty glad he
was when the lights of Knightsbridge had sunk behind them, and they
were driving betwixt the hedgerows. Then at one spring he jumped to
the top of his spirits.
'George, what a night!' cries he. 'Sure I was never designed to live
in a house at all, but to be entirely happy under the blue roof-tree
of the sky. Put me out on a good road at night and the whole universe
converses with me on the most familiar terms. Perhaps it's a bush that
throws out a tendril and says, "Smell that, you devil, and good luck
to you." Or, maybe it's the stars that wink at me and say, "Here's a
world for you, Nick, my little friend. Only wait a moment, and we'll
show you a bit of a moon that'll make a poet of you." Then up comes
the moon, perhaps, in a crescent like a wisp of fire, and, says she,
"It's all very well here, Nicholas, but take my word for it, I can
show you as good on the sea and better. For you'll have all this, and
the hiss of the water under your lee besides, and the little bubbles
dancing on the top." But what troubles you, George?'
But Kelly made little or no reply, being sunk in the consideration of
some difficulty. For two days he remained closeted with his trouble,
and it was not until they had got to Worcester that he discovered it.
They changed horses at the 'Dog and Turk' and drove through the town
under the Abbey clock.
'It is five minutes to twelve,' said Wogan, looking at the clock.
'Yes,' said Kelly with a sigh, 'the face is very plain to read.' Then
he sighed again.
'Now, if the clock were a woman,' said he, 'it might be half-past four
and we still thinking it five minutes to twelve.'
'Oh, is it there you are?' said Wogan.
'Why, yes,' replied Kelly. 'Lord Oxford, do you see, Nick, is a
half-hearted sort of trembler--that we know and are ready for him. But
what of my lady?'
Wogan crossed his legs and laughed comfortably. Here was matter with
which he could confidently deal.
'Well, what of her?' he asked.
'You heard what Fanny Oglethorpe said. She is a kinswoman of Mr.
Walpole's. How shall we be sure of her at all? A woman, Nick, is a
creature who walks in the byways of thought. How shall an obtuse man
follow her?'
Wogan took a pinch of snuff.
'It is very well, George,' said he, 'that I took this journey with
you. I'll make your conduct plain to you as the palm of my hand. In
the first place, there was never a woman yet from Cleopatra downwards
that cared the scrape of a fiddle for politics. 'Twas never more than
a path that led to something else, and is held of just as small
account as the road a girl dances down when she goes to meet her
lover. Look at Fanny Oglethorpe, Olive Trant, and the rest of them in
Paris! D'you think it's the Cause they ever give a thought to? If you
do you're sadly out, my friend. No; what troubles their heads is
simply that the Chevalier is a romantical figure of a man, and would
look extraordinarily well with a gold crown on the top of his periwig.
Now I'm wagering it will be just the same with my Lady Oxford. You
have all the qualifications down to your legs, and let my lady once
take a liking to your person she will gulp your politics without a
grimace.'
Mr. Kelly turned a startled face towards his instructor.
'You would have me pay court to her?' says he.
'Just that,' says Wogan, imperturbably. 'Keep your politics for my
lord and have a soft word ready for my lady. Pen her a delicate ode in
Latin. To be sure the addresses of an erudite man have something
particularly flattering to the sex. Or drop out a pretty compliment on
her ear.'
'Oh, on her ear?' said Kelly, beginning to smile. 'Of what sort?'
'Faith, George, but you exasperate me,' said Nick. 'Isn't there an
infinity of images you could use? For instance--,' said he, and hummed
a little.
'Well, for instance!' said Kelly, urging him on.
'For instance,' returned Wogan, 'you can speak of its functions--'
'I understand. I am to tell her that it is a very proper thing for a
woman to sit and listen to other people.'
'Tell her that,' cries Wogan, lifting up his hands, 'and you will be
drubbed down the staircase pretty quick! No. Tell her there is never a
poet laureate in the world would print a single one of his poems if he
could treasure his music within her ear.'
'Ah,' says Kelly. 'That is a compliment of quite a different kind,'
and he repeated it three times to commit it to memory. 'But one, Nick,
will not suffice. I must have more sayings about her ear.'
'And you shall,' says Wogan. 'You can speak of its appearance.'
'Of its appearance?'
'And fit a simile to it.'
'Give me one,' said Kelly.
'You can say her ear is like a rosy shell on the sea-banks.'
Mr. Kelly began to laugh outright.
'Sure,' said he, 'I might as well tell her at once her hair is sandy.'
'Oh, she will not examine your words so nicely. She will just perceive
that you intend a compliment.'
'And take me for a very impertinent fellow.'
'George' said Wogan, 'for a parson you are a man of a most unnatural
modesty.' In which remark Wogan did his friend no more than the merest
justice. For he had nothing in common with that usual foible of the
young chaplains and tutors who frequent the houses of the great.
To listen to them over a bottle you would think them conquerors of all
hearts, from the still-room maid to my lady and her daughters. But Mr.
Kelly was in a different case. The Bishop of Rochester himself gave
him the character of being prudent and reserved beyond his years. And
perhaps it was by reason of that very modesty that he slid insensibly
into the thoughts of more women than he knew of. Of these, however,
Lady Oxford was not one.
It was about three in the afternoon of the next day when the chaise
drove up to the door of the great house at Brampton Bryan. The Parson
and Nicholas Wogan had barely stepped into the hall before an inner
door opened and my lady came forward to greet them. She was for her
sex uncommonly tall, and altogether of a conquering beauty, which a
simple country dress did but the more plainly set forth. For, seeing
her, one thought what a royal woman she would look if royally attired,
and so came to a due appreciation of her consummate appearance.
Whereas, had she been royally attired, her dress might have taken some
of the credit of her beauty. She stood for a second between the two
men, looking from one to the other as though in doubt.
'And which is Mr. James Johnson? 'said she, with a sly emphasis upon
the name.
'I am,' said George, stepping forward, 'and your Ladyship's humble
servant.'
She gave him a smile and her hand. Mr. Kelly clicked his heels
together, bent over the hand and kissed it reverentially.
The lady sighed a quick little sigh (of pleasure) as she drew her hand
away.
'I have taken the liberty, your Ladyship,' said Kelly, 'to bring my
secretary, Mr. Hilton, with me,' and he waved a hand towards Wogan.
'Mr. Hilton,' she returned, 'is very welcome. For, indeed, we hear too
few voices in the house.' She bowed very graciously, but she did not
give her hand to Mr. Wogan. 'Gentlemen,' she continued, 'my lord bids
me make you his apologies, but he lies abed. Else would he have
welcomed you in person.'
'Your Ladyship,' said Kelley, 'if we come at an inopportune time--'
'By no means,' interrupted Lady Oxford. 'My lord is troubled with the
gout, but the fit is passing. And if for a couple of days my poor
hospitality will content you--'
'Your Ladyship,' protested Kelly, but that was all he said. Now, to
Mr. Wogan's thinking, here was as timely an occasion for a compliment
as a man could wish. And since Mr. Kelly had not the tact to seize it,
why, his friend must come to his help. Accordingly,
'So might the holy angels apologise when they open the gates of
Paradise,' said Wogan with his hand on his heart, and bowed. As he
bowed he heard some stifled sounds, and he looked up quickly. My lady
was crimson in the face with the effort to check her laughter.
'Mr. Hilton is too polite,' said she instantly, with an elaborate
courtesy, and turned again to Kelly with some inquiries about his
journey. Wogan was shown up the stairs before the inquiries were
answered. The staircase ran round the three sides of the hall up to a
landing on the fourth, and as Wogan came to the first turn he saw Lady
Oxford cross to the great wood fire which was burning on the hearth;
when he came to the second he saw that the Parson had crossed too and
stood over against her; when he reached the third turn, my lady was
seated toasting a foot at the blaze; when he reached the landing, Mr.
Kelly had drawn up a chair.
Wogan leaned for a moment over the balustrade. It was a very small
foot with an admirably arched instep; Mr. Wogan had seen the like in
Spain. Well, very likely she only thrust it out to warm it. The
firelight coloured her face to a pretty rose hue, sparkled in her dark
eyes, and searched out the gold threads in her brown hair. Mr. Wogan
was much tempted to whisper a reminder to his friend concerning her
ear. But he resisted the temptation, for after all it seemed there
would be little to do about my lady's politics.
CHAPTER IV
SHOWS THE EXTREME DANGER OF KNOWING LATIN
An hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all the
talking that one of them did, there might have been present only the
two whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that Lady
Oxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary,
but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt to
say in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keep
his tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slip
from him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford was
young, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of the
gout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course to
course, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latest
tittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley and
Mr. Pope were still the best of friends.
'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, looking
up with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits and
a wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, being
sister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to the
Elector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over the
water.
'Without doubt,' returned Lady Oxford. 'Lady Mary is my bosom friend.
The dear malicious creature! What is her latest quip? Tell me, Mr.
Johnson, I die to hear it. Or rather whisper it. It will be too
deliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think,
should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and a
tap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake where
the sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at all
clumsy--how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But they
gain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'
It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, and
Kelly's face fell.
'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be considered
clever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'
'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt you
have brought her some of your laces and brocades from France,
Mr.--Johnson.' She paused slyly upon the name.
Kelly glanced quickly at her, their eyes met, and the lady laughed.
There could be no doubt that she knew something of Kelly's business.
Indeed, she would hardly have asked him for the fashionable gossip at
all had she taken him for just what he represented himself to be.
Wogan put his foot on his friend's pretty heavily, and, he knows not
how, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made a
moan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.
'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring a
bottle of salts.
'No,' she replied with a smile on her lips and her eyes full of tears,
'but your secretary has dropped a blot on the wrong paper.'
'Your ladyship,' cried Wogan in an extremity of confusion, 'it was the
most miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, the
consequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained, making the
matter worse.
'Oh, and in what battle was Mr. Johnson's secretary wounded?' she
said, taking him up on the instant.
'In a struggle with the Preventive men,' replied Wogan hurriedly, and
he too broke off with a wry face, for Mr. Johnson was warning _him_
and with no less vigour. Before he knew what he was doing Wogan had
stooped down and begun to rub his leg. Lady Oxford's smile became a
laugh.
'To be sure,' said she, 'and I think Mr. Johnson must have been
wounded too, in just that same way, and in just that same encounter.'
'Faith, madam,' said Kelly, 'the smuggling trade is a hard one. No man
engages in it but sooner or later he gets a knock that leaves its
mark.'
Lady Oxford expressed the profoundest sympathy with a great deal of
disbelief; and when her ladyship left her guests to their wine, they
looked at one another across the table.
'Well,' said Wogan cheerfully, 'if my Lady Oxford is in Mr. Walpole's
interest we have not made the best beginning in the world,' and in a
little he went off to smoke a pipe in the stables.
Kelly withdrew to the great library, and had not been there many
minutes before Lady Oxford came in. It seemed she did not see him at
the first, although he sat bent up over the fire and his shadow huge
upon the walls. Mr. Kelly certainly did not remark her entrance. For
one thing, he was absorbed in his book; for another, the carpet was
thick and the lady's step of the lightest. She went first to the
bookcase, then she crossed the room and shuffled some papers on a
table, then she knocked against a chair, the chair knocked against the
table, and at the noise Kelly looked up. He rose to his feet. Lady
Oxford turned round, started, and uttered a sharp little cry.
'My lady,' began Mr. Kelly.
'Oh, it is you, Mr. Johnson,' she broke in with a hand to her heart,
and dropped into the chair. 'I believe,' she said with a broken laugh,
'I was foolish enough to be frightened. I fancied you had gone with
your friend to the stables,' which was as much as to say that she knew
he had not. Kelly commenced an apology for so disordering her, but she
would not listen to it.
'No,' she said, 'it is I that am to be blamed. Indeed, such stupid
fears need chiding. But in a house so lonely and silent they grow on
one insensibly. Indeed, I have known the mere creak of the stairs keep
me awake in terror half the night.'
She spoke with the air of one gently railing at her own distress, but
shivered a little to prove the distress genuine, and Kelly, as he
looked at her, felt a sudden pang of pity.
'Your place, my lady, is not here,' he cried, 'but in the Mall, at the
Spring Gardens, in the lighted theatres, when even your ladyship's own
sex would pay you homage for outrivalling them.'
'Nay,' she replied, with the sweetest smile of reproof, 'you go too
fast, Mr. Johnson. My place is here, for here my duty lies.' She
looked up to the ceiling with a meek acceptance of the burden laid
upon her fair shoulders. 'But I am not come to disturb you,' she
continued briskly; 'I came to fetch a book to read aloud to my lord.'
At that a sigh half broke from her and was caught back as it were upon
her lips. 'Perhaps, Mr. Johnson,' she said in a well-acted flurry,
'you will help me in the selection?'
'With all the heart in the world,' said he, laying down his volume.
The choice took perhaps longer than need have been, for over each book
there was some discussion. This one was too trivial to satisfy my Lord
Oxford's weighty mind; that other was too profound to suit his health.
'And nothing too contentious, I implore you, lest it throw him into a
heat,' she prayed, 'for my lord has a great gift of logic, and will
argue with you by the hour over the merest trifle.' This with another
half-uttered sigh, and so the martyr sought her lord's bedside. It
appeared, however, that Lord Oxford was sleepy that night, or had no
mind for the music of his lady's voice, for in a very little while she
returned to the library and Mr. Kelly, where Wogan presently found
them discussing in a great animation the prospects of Mr. Law's
ventures.
'You are in for a great stake?' she asked.
'For all I have,' replied Kelly, 'and a little more. It is not a great
sum.'
'But may become one,' said she, 'and will if a friend's good wishes
can at all avail.' And so she wished her guests good night.
The next morning Lord Oxford sent a message that he was so far
recovered as would enable him to receive his visitors that afternoon.
Meanwhile Lady Oxford, after breakfast carried off the two gentlemen
to visit a new orchard she was having planted. The orchard was open to
the south-west, and Kelly took objection to its site, quoting Virgil
in favour of a westerly outlook.
'Ah, but the west wind,' she said, 'comes to us across the Welsh
mountains, which even in the late spring are at times covered deep in
snow. However, I should be pleased to hear the advice of Virgil,' and
the Parson goes off to the library and fetches out a copy.
It was a warm day in April, with the sky blue overhead and the buds
putting out on the trees, and for the most part of that morning Mr.
Kelly translated the Georgics to her ladyship, on a seat under a great
yew-tree, in a little square of grass fenced off with a hedge. She
listened with an extraordinary complaisance, and now and then a
compliment upon the Parson's fluency; so that Mr. Wogan lost all his
apprehensions as to her meddling in the King's affairs. For, to his
thinking, than listening to Virgil, there was no greater proof of
friendship.
Nor was it only upon this occasion that she gave the proof. Lord
Oxford was a difficult man from his very timidity, and the Parson's
visit was consequently protracted. His lordship needed endless
assurances as to the prospects of a rising on behalf of King James,
before he would hazard a joint of his little finger to support it. Who
would take the place of the Royal Swede? Could the French Regent be
persuaded to lend any troops or arms or money, or even to wink? Had
the Czar been approached? Indeed he had, by Wogan's brother Charles.
And what office would my Lord Oxford hold when James III. was crowned?
Each day saw these questions reiterated and no conclusion come to.
Lady Oxford was never present at these discussions; the face of her
conduct was a sedulous discretion. It is true that after a little she
dropped the pretence of laces, and, when the servants were not
present, styled the Parson 'Mr. Kelly.' But that was all. 'These are
not women's matters,' she would say with a pretty humility, and then
rise like a queen and sail out of the room. Mr. Wogan might have
noticed upon such occasions that the Parson hesitated for a little
after she had gone, and spoke at random, as though she had carried off
some part of his mind from affairs with the waft of her hoop. But he
waited on the lady's dispositions and set down what he saw of his
friend's conduct at the time as merely the consequence of an endeavour
to enlist her secrecy and good-will.
These councils with Lord Oxford took place, as a rule, in the
afternoon, his lordship being a late riser, and even when risen
capable only of sitting in a chair, with a leg swathed in a mountain
of flannel. So that, altogether, Mr. Kelly had a deal of time upon his
hands, and doubtless would have found it hang as heavy as Nick Wogan
did, but for the sudden interest he took in Lady Oxford's new orchard.
He would spend hours over the 'Observations on Modern Gardening,' and
then,
'Nick,' he would cry,' there's no life but a country life. One wakes
in the morning, and the eye travels with delight over the green
expanse of fields. One makes friends with the inanimate things of
nature. Nick, here one might re-create the Golden Age.'
'To my mind,' says Nick, 'but for the dogs and horses it would be
purely insupportable. With all the goodwill in the world I cannot make
friends with a gatepost, and I'm not denying I shall be mightily glad
when the wambling old sufferer upstairs brings his mind at last to an
anchor.'
But the Parson was already lost in speculation, and would presently
wake to ask Wogan's opinion as to whether a Huff-cap pear was
preferable to a Bar-land. To which he got no answer, and so, snatching
up his Virgil, would go in search of Lady Oxford. He acquired, indeed,
a most intimate knowledge of apples and pears, and would discourse
with her ladyship upon the methods of planting and grafting as
though he had been Adam, and she Flora, or, rather, our mother Eve,
before the apple was shared between them. For apples the store, the
hayloe-crab, the brandy-apple, the red-streak, the moyle, the
foxwhelp, the dymock-red; for pears the squash pear, the Oldfield, the
sack-pear, never a meal passed but one of these names cropped up at
the table and was bandied about between Kelly and her ladyship like a
tennis-ball. Now all this, though dull, was none the less reassuring
to Wogan, who saw very clearly that Lady Oxford was altogether devoted
to country pursuits, and wisely inferred that while there might result
confusion in the quality of the pears, there would be the less
disorder in the affairs of the Chevalier.
Moreover, her ladyship's inclination towards Mr. Kelly plainly
increased. He translated the whole of the second book of the Georgics
to her, five hundred and forty-two mortal lines of immortal poetry,
and she never winced. Nor did she cry halt at the end of them, but,
thereafter, listened to the Eclogues; and, all at once, their
conversation was sprinkled with Melib[oe]us and M[oe]ris, and Lycidas
and Mopsus, and Heaven knows what other names. Mr. Wogan remembers
very well coming upon them one wet afternoon in the hall when it was
growing dark. The lamps had not been lit, and Kelly had just finished
reading one of the pastorals by the firelight. Lady Oxford sat with
her hands clasped upon her knees, and, as he closed the book,
'Oh for those days,' she cried, 'when a youth and a maid could roam
barefoot over the grass in simple woollen garments! But now we must go
furbelowed and bedecked till there's no more comfort than simplicity,'
and she smoothed her hand over her petticoat with a great contempt for
its finery. Lady Mary Wortley, to whom Wogan related this saying
afterwards, explained that doubtless her ladyship had laced her stays
too tight that morning; but the two men put no such construction on
her words, nor, indeed, did they notice a certain contradiction
between them and Lady Oxford's anxiety for London gossip--the Parson,
because he had ceased to do anything but admire; Wogan, because a
little design had suddenly occurred to him.
It was Lady Oxford's patience under the verses which put it into
Wogan's head. For since she endured to listen to poetry about trees
and shepherds, poetry about herself must be a sheer delight to her.
So, at all events, he reasoned, not knowing that Lady Oxford had
already enjoyed occasion to listen to poetry about herself from Lady
Mary's pen, which was anything but a delight. Accordingly he hinted to
his friend that a little ode might set a firm seal upon her
friendliness.
'Make her a Dryad in one of the trees of her own orchard, d'ye see?'
he suggested; 'something pretty and artful, with sufficient allusions
to her beauty. Who knows but what she may be so flattered as to carry
the verses against her heart; and so, when some fine day she brings
her husband's secrets to Mr. Walpole, she may hear the paper crackling
against her bodice, and turn back on the very doorstep.'
'She will carry no secrets,' replied Kelly with a huff. 'She is too
conscious of her duties. Besides, she knows none. Have you not seen
her leave the room the moment politics are so much as hinted of?'
'True,' said Wogan. 'But what's her husband for except to provide her
with secrets when they are alone to which she cannot listen without
impertinence in company?'
Kelly moved impatiently away. He stood with a foot upon the fender,
turning over the pages of his Virgil.
'You allow her no merit whatsoever,' he said slowly with a great
gentleness.
'Indeed, but I do,' replied Wogan. 'I allow that she will be charmed
by your poetry, and that's a rare merit. She will find it as soothing
as a soldier does a pipe of tobacco after a hard day's fighting.'
'I would not practise on her for the world,' says Kelly with just the
same gentleness, and goes softly out by the door.
Wogan, however, was troubled by no such delicate scruples. An ode must
be written, even if he had to write it himself. He slapped his
forehead as the notion occurred to him. The ode might be dropped as
though by accident at some spot where her ladyship's eyes could not
fail to light on it. Wogan heaved a deep breath, took a turn across
the room, and resolved on the heroical feat. He would turn poet to
help his friend. For two nights he fortified himself with the perusal
of Sir John Suckling's poems, and the next morning took pencil and
paper into the garden. He walked along the terrace, and seated himself
on the bench beneath the yew-tree. Wogan sucked strenuously at his
pencil.
'Strephon to his Smilinda, running barefoot over the grass in a gale
of wind,' he wrote at the top, and was very well pleased with the
title. By noonday he had produced a verse, and was very well pleased
with that, except, perhaps, that the last line halted. The verse ran
as follows:--
Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chide
The wind that wantons with thy hair;
The grass will all his prickles hide
Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.
And, listen, the enamoured air
Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair.
At night the stars are mirrors which reflect
Thine eyes: at least that is what I expect.
Mr. Wogan spent an hour and three pipes of tobacco over his unwonted
exercise, which brought him into a great heat.
Having finished the verse he blew out his cheeks and took a rest from
his labours. It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bright as a
midsummer day. To his right the creepers were beginning to stretch
their green tendrils over the red bricks of the garden wall. To his
left half-a-dozen steps led up to a raised avenue of trees. Wogan
looked down the avenue, noted the border of spring flowers, and a
flash of a big window at the extreme end; and in all the branches the
birds sang. The world seemed all together very good, and his poem
quite apiece with the world. Wogan stretched his arms and kicked out
his feet. His feet struck against something hard in a tuft of grass.
He stooped down and picked it up. It was Kelly's Virgil. The book was
open, and the pages all blotted and smeared with the dew. It had
evidently lain open on the grass by the bench all night. Wogan wiped
the covers dry, and, using it as a desk, settled himself to the
composition of his second verse. He had not, however, thought of an
opening for it before a voice hailed him from behind.
He turned round and saw Kelly coming towards him from the direction of
the orchard, and at that moment the opening of his verse occurred to
him; Strephon offered to Smilinda his heart's allegiance. Wogan set
his pencil to the paper, fearful lest he should forget the line.
'Nick,' cries Kelly, waving a bundle of letters, and starts to run.
Wogan slipped his paper between the leaves of the book; just as he did
so, Strephon, in return for his heart's 'allegiance,' asked for
Smilinda's soft 'obedience.'
'Nick,' cries Kelly again, coming up to the bench, 'what d'you think?'
'I think, 'says Wogan, 'that interruption is the true source of
inspiration.'
'What do you mean?' asked Kelly, looking at Wogan's pencil.
'I mean,' says Wogan, looking at the cover of the book, 'that if I
lived by my poetry, I would hire a man to rap at my door all day
long.'
Kelly, however, had no ears for philosophy.
'Nick,' says he, 'will you listen to me, if you please? I have a
letter from Miss Oglethorpe. It explains--'
'Yes,' interposed Wogan thoughtfully. 'It explains why the best poets
are ever those who are most dunned by their creditors.'
Kelly snatched the Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to the
grass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, and
it was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.
'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with the
grandest news, and you must babble about poets and creditors. Nick,
there'll be few creditors to dun you and me for a bit. Just listen,
will you?'
He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench, and read from his
letter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had been
published in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West the
exclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.
'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livres
to 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it is
we are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbare
devil! We shall be rich before August.'
'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping up
in the contagion of his friend's good spirits..
'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping at
once into the Irish accent.
'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and he
sprang on to the seat.
'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out of
black pearls.'
'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a graving
tool.'
'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' said
Kelly.
'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to his
friend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said he
earnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces of
eight, and doubloons, and guinea-pieces; and all tied up in sacks.'
'What will we do with it?' asked Kelly.
'Why, sit on the sacks,' replied Nick, and then grew silent. He looked
at Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.
'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's a
lizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a step
away from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.
'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not a
farthing of it is mine at all.'
'Now, that's a damned scurvy ungenerous remark,' replied George.
'Haven't I borrowed half of your last sixpence before now?'
Wogan got down from the seat.
'Poverty may take a favour from poverty, George, and 'tis all very
well.'
Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung a
leg to and fro.
'I don't want the money,' said he, with a snort.
'My philosophy calls it altogether an encumbrance,' said Wogan,
sitting down by his side.
Kelly turned his back on Wogan, and stared at the garden-wall. Then he
turned back.
'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan's
thigh. 'We'll give it to the King. He can do no more than spend it.'
'He will certainly do no less.' But they did not give it to the King.
Wogan was sitting turned rather towards the house, and as he looked
down the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and Lady
Oxford come out.
'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and he
rose from his seat.
'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quickly
to the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on the
first step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kelly
stood on the grass at the foot of the steps, and told her of his news.
'The shares,' he ended, 'have risen to double value already.'
It seemed to Wogan that her eyes flashed suddenly with a queer,
unpleasant light, and the hand which was resting idly on the
balustrade crooked like the claws of a bird. He had seen such eyes,
and such a hand, at the pharo tables in Paris.
'It is the best news I have heard for many a day,' she said the next
instant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked by
Mr. Kelly's side towards the bench.
'And what will you do with it?' she asked. It was her first question,
for she was a practical woman.
'In the first flush,' replied Kelly, hesitating as to how he should
put the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it is
sorely needed.'
She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a step
to the seat with her eyes on the ground.
'Oh,' she observed slowly; 'you would give it away.' There was,
perhaps, a trifle of a pucker upon her forehead, perhaps a shade of
disappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. She
clasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens,
her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'the
noblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more such
friends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit of
generosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as if
in prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed the
destination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled George
Kelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from his
appearance, found it very much to his taste.
'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' she
continued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have
risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you
will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which
prompts it.'
'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be careful
to follow it.'
Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kelly
did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event
occurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.
All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat,
the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a little
in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely
over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus
her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch,
suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into
her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed
her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck
a buffet across the face.
'Your ladyship--' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her
gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved,
Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious
glance at his face.
'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turned
about.
Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was
of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing,
a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the
features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows.
Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain
sinister distinction--stranger, for that he was to the two men at this
time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he
had seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there;
and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had
used much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge,
and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxford
and her guests were discussing the Parson's good fortune.
As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat,
made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.
'Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant.'
He laid a stress upon the word 'obedient,' and uttered it with a
meaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shifted
her position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand as
though she would draw him nearer.
The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in his
expression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.
'Mr. George Kelly,' he said quietly, and bowed again. 'The Reverend
Mr. George Kelly, I think,' and he bowed a third time, but lower, and
with extreme gravity.
Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly the
stranger turned to him.
'Ah,' said he, 'Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,' and he took a third
step. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; he
fell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity the
attitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no small
satisfaction.
'Sure, my unknown friend,' said he, 'I think something has tripped you
up.'
'Yes,' said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a book
from the grass.
'It is,' said he, 'a copy of Virgil.'
CHAPTER V
A LITERARY DISCUSSION IN WHICH A CRITIC, NOT
FOR THE FIRST TIME, TURNS THE TABLES
UPON AN AUTHOR
Kelly frowned at Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her
ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in
quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person
entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and
even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of
sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one
somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.
'Upon my word,' said he, 'I find myself for a wonder in the most
desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady
worthy of her quality, and a poet.' He tapped the Virgil as he spoke,
and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a
provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation,
he continued in the same strain. 'The story of Dido'--the book was
open at the soiled pages--'and all spluttered with tears.'
'It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,' interrupted Wogan.
'Tears no less because the night has shed them,' he replied; 'and
indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it.
For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark
corner of the Palace, and AEneas was no more than an army chaplain,
though he gave himself out for a general.'
Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker
of them.
'It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain.
Didn't he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so
sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr.
Kelly. _O infelix Dido!_ he burst out, 'that met with an army
chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!'
He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr.
Wogan's poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.
'Oho,' says he, 'another poet,' and he read out the dedication.
'Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.'
Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a
second about Lady Oxford's lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but
constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His
opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of
who the stranger was.
'A pretty conceit,' resumed the latter, 'though consumption in its
effects. Will the author pardon me?'
He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly
on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which
mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. 'It
breaks off,' he added, 'most appropriately just when the gentleman
claims the lady's obedience. There is generally a break at that point.
"At least, that is what I expect,"' he quoted. Then he looked at each
of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces
alike proved them to be. 'Now which is Strephon?' he asked, with an
insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. 'Is it
the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?'
Kelly's face flushed darkly.
'The revered clergyman,' he broke in, and his voice shook a little,
'would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the
honour of your acquaintance.'
'A sermon,' replied the stranger. 'I was much moved by a sermon which
you preached in Dublin upon the text of "Render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar's."'
Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all
he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He
contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.
'And the fighting captain,' he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit
inferior to his questioner's, 'would be glad to know when he ever
clapped eyes upon your honour's face, if you please.'
'Never,' answered the other with a bow. 'Captain Nicholas Wogan never
in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes
only for the enemy.'
Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought
it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson's example and bowed.
'Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our
acquaintance?' said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There
was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he
put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had
restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it. For only
let the outburst come, and the man's design would of a surety tumble
out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and
prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening
tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the
others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though
some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.
'No, Mr. Scrope,' she said calmly, 'I do not wish to be reminded of
our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight
thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly,
will you give me your arm to the house?'
The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly
cast a glance at Wogan which the 'fighting captain' very well
understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger
recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the
avenue.
'A slight thing!' muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. 'God,
what's a strong thing, then?' and at that the passion broke out of
him. 'It's the Parson now, is it?' he cried. 'Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a
parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the
wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature,
with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,' and with an oath
he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran
the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and
turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.
'Wait a bit, my friend!' said Wogan.
'Let me go, if you please,' said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.
'You and I must have a little talk first.'
'It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,' said Mr.
Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.
Wogan laughed gleefully.
'Why, that's just the way I would have you speak,' said he. Mr. Scrope
stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past
him up the avenue.
'I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,' he said politely, and took
the third step.
'And have you not?' asked Wogan. 'I'm thinking, on the contrary, that
you took exception to my poetry.'
'Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,' he replied. 'But
the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.'
'In this case you're mightily mistaken,' cried Wogan, and he stamped
his foot and threw out his chest. 'I am my poetry.'
Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan's arm.
'Damn!' said he.
Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing
through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too
soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue,
Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him.
Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan's shoulder, and so swung him
round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man's elbow, jerked him back,
got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and
flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the
pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave
and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer,
pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and
a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and
his eyes opened and shut convulsively.
'Have you had enough, do you think?' asked Wogan; 'or shall I fall on
you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my
love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke
inside of him.'
Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to
articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down.
He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned
against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped
his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with
the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.
'Stop!' cried Wogan.
Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard
the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out
of breath.
'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I do not quite understand. It seems you write
love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court
her.'
Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.
'Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There's the
value of my poetry to be argued out.'
Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and
through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and
they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan
measured it across with his stride.
'A very fitting place for the argument, I think,' he said, and took
off his coat.
'What? In Smilinda's garden?' asked Scrope easily. 'Within view of
Smilinda's windows? Surely the common road would be the more
convenient place.'
'Why, and that's true,' answered Wogan. 'It would have been an
outrage.'
'No,' said Scrope, 'merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest
way. At least, I think so,' and he turned off at an angle, passed
through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in
the garden-wall.
'You know the grounds well,' said Wogan.
'It is my first visit,' replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness,
'but I have been told enough of them to know my way.'
He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a
travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.
'There is no one within view,' said Wogan. The road ran to right and
left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty
fields.
'No one,' said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.
'Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at
anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.'
Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for
the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune--his discomfiture
at Lady Oxford's hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this
duel--without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no
the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive
brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He
felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said
doubtfully,
'Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other
circumstances.'
'I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.' Scrope shook his head and smiled.
'Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner
die than praise it.'
He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost
imperceptible nod at his coachman.
'That field opposite will do, I think,' Scrope said, and advanced from
the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for
something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his
pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the
encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped
forward and passed an arm through Scrope's just as the latter had set
a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for
what he needed.
'Now what's amiss with the poem?' asked Wogan in a friendly way.
'It is altogether too inconsequent,' replied Scrope with a sudden
irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.
'But my dear man,' said he, 'it was not intended for a syllogism.'
Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new
thought had sprung into his brain.
'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in
pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the
leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you
some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on
the other hand, why there's so much time wasted, it is true, but I am
in no hurry.'
There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had
insulted the Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides
that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected
characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it
was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might,
since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names
under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not
in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and
if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself
confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his
mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly
kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company
meanwhile could do no harm.
'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute
your opinions.'
Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a
moment.
'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when
we can sit in the chaise.'
'Very true,' answered Wogan.
Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They
sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his
pocket. He read the dedication once more:
'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of
wind.'
'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot
at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes
and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is
severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should
really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied
Wogan triumphantly.
'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case
her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of
wine, which he opened.
'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more
charitable light.'
He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a
couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while
pouring it:
'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the
conversation.'
Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again
to the glasses.
'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare
vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a
spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale
of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's
petticoats.'
'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied
his glass.
'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked
voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her
portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to
his own, which was no more than half empty.
'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a
nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
'Oh, she's a nymph!'
'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment
kirtled up to her knees.'
'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound
discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have
prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only,
unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and
chuckled.
'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in
full glasses.'
He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings
of Smilinda's hair.'
'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said
Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call
her hair catgut.'
Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat
crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was
empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the
dust.
'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He
produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle
brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little
discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to
assist.
'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you
must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered
Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to
get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next
verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper.
He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses,
'is no rhyme to obedience.'
'Allegiance--obedience--obedience--allegiance,' repeated Wogan as
clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the
verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to
say.'
Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his
accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of
admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see
great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's
witticism.
'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he
cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the
Cocoa Tree--though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise.
'Obedience--allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith,
Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.'
He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has
some warmth in his merriment--and some warmth in his bottle too.' He
stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have
tasted--the best joke I have heard--the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he
waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the
next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the
coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped
completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused
forehead.
'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope
stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace
until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again,
and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.
'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.
'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of
the chaise.
'You have forgotten the duel.'
'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'
'Ah, you cheese-curd!--you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I
taking you for a fine man--equal to myself--you chalky cheese-curd!'
He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman
whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll
eat you in your clothes.'
Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he
could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig
fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.
'But listen, the enamoured air
Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled,
he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air
flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance.
With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan
dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little
boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he
cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope
in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in
commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts.
They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and
sent a few parting stones after Wogan's back; in front stretched the
open road. Wogan ran half a mile further, but he was too heavily
handicapped with his three bottles of wine, and Scrope's horses were
fresh. He shouted out one last oath, and then in a final spasm of fury
sat down by the roadside, stripped off his shoe, and springing into
the middle of the road, hurled it with all his might at the retreating
chaise. The shoe struck the top of the hood, balanced there for a
moment, and bounced over on to the seat. Scrope took it up and waved
it above his head.
'The grass will all its prickles hide,
Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'
The driver plied his whip; the chaise whirled out of sight in a cloud
of dust; and the disconsolate Wogan hobbled back to Brampton Bryan
with what secrecy he could.
Mr. Scrope was on his way with the road to London open, were he
disposed to follow it. Mr. Wogan seemed to see his chaise flashing
through the turnpikes, and his sallow cheeks taking on an eager colour
as the miles were heaped behind him.
He knew that Mr. Kelly and Nicholas Wogan were at Lord Oxford's house
at Brampton Bryan. He knew enough, therefore, to throw some disorder
on the Chevalier's affairs were he disposed to publish his news. But
not in that way did he take, at this time, his revenge upon the
Parson.
CHAPTER VI
MR. NICHOLAS WOGAN REMINDS THE PARSON OF A
NIGHT AT THE MAZARIN PALACE
While Wogan pursued in vain a flying foe, Lady Oxford and Parson Kelly
waited in the house for his return, her ladyship in a great
discomposure and impatience, and the Parson more silent than ordinary.
Whatever he may have thought of Scrope's unexpected visit, his pride
forbade him questions.
'The most unfortunate affair,' exclaimed her ladyship distractedly.
'Sure never was a woman so cursed. But indeed I was born under a
frowning star, Mr. Kelly, and so my lord's friends cannot visit him,
but some untoward accident puts them into peril.'
'You need be troubled by no fears on our account,' replied Kelly, 'for
Nick will ensure the fellow's silence before ever he lets him out of
his sight.'
'True,' said she, with a fresh pang of anxiety, 'Mr. Wogan is with him
and will doubtless seek an explanation.'
Kelly smiled, but without any overwhelming amusement.
'Neither,' said he, 'need your ladyship fear that he will listen to
any indiscreet explanation. Words have very little to do with the
explanations which Nicholas favours.'
Lady Oxford remarked the distant stateliness in Kelly's tone and was
in a hurry to retrieve the slip she had made.
'It is just that I mean,' she cried, coming over to Kelly. 'If Mr.
Wogan--kills this man,' and her eyes flashed as though she did in her
heart desire that consummation, 'here at the Park Gates--'
'Believe me,' replied Kelly reassuringly, 'he will omit no proper
ceremony if he does.'
'No, nor will the county justices either,' retorted Lady Oxford, 'and
there are Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan to explain their
presence at Brampton Bryan Manor, as best they can, to a bench of
bumpkins.'
'Again your ladyship is unnecessarily alarmed. For if Mr. Scrope is
now no more, Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan are still Mr.
James Johnson and his secretary Mr. Hilton. No harm threatens Brampton
Bryan Manor from their visit.'
This he said no less coldly, and to cut the conversation short,
stalked with excessive dignity to the door. Lady Oxford was gazing
ruefully down the avenue from the window, when she heard the knob of
the door move under his hand. She turned quickly about.
'It was not of Brampton Bryan Manor I was thinking,' she said
hurriedly, 'nor of our safety. Why, in what poor esteem do you hold
me! Am I then so contemptible a thing?' There was no anger in her
reproach. Rather it melted in a most touching sadness. 'Have I no
friends whose safety troubles me?' she added. At that out came her
handkerchief and fluttered at her eyes. 'Nay, but I thought I had--two
of the noblest.' It was a mere scrap of a handkerchief, and the
greater part of that a lace edging. It would not have sopped up many
tears, but it served her ladyship's turn. For indeed the mere sight of
it convinced Kelly of his monstrous cruelty.
'Your ladyship!' he cried, turning back. 'Tears! And I have caused
them. Faith, I should be hanged for that. Yet they flow for my friend
and me, and I am blessed instead.'
But she would have none of his apologies. She stepped back as he
approached.
'No,' said she, and wiped an imaginary tear-drop from the dryest of
eyes; 'you have asked me for an explanation of Mr. Scrope's coming and
you have a right to ask it.'
'Madam,' expostulated Kelly, 'I was careful, on the contrary, to ask
for no explanation whatever. For I have no right to it.'
'Oh, but you have,' returned her ladyship with asperity; and then up
went her handkerchief again.
'All men,' she said, in a voice most pathetical, 'have a right to ask
any explanation of any woman, at anytime. Women, poor sad creatures,
are suspect from their cradles, and to distrust them is the
prerogative of manhood.' Here she tore away her handkerchief and
lifted her hands in an ardent prayer. 'Oh that some day I might meet
with one single man who would believe us worthy of respect!' She
walked away to the window and said in a low voice, 'With what
friendship would I requite him.'
Thus the unfortunate Mr. Kelly was not merely plunged in remorse, but
brought to see that he had missed the one solitary path which would
have led him into this great lady's friendship.
'Your ladyship,' he implored, 'mistakes my sentiments altogether.'
'Mr. Kelly,' she replied, proudly, 'we will not, if you please, pursue
the matter. You have your explanation and I trust you will allow it to
content you,' and so she sailed majestically out of the room, leaving
Mr. Kelly in that perturbation that he quite failed to notice he had
received no explanation whatever. She dropped her stateliness,
however, when the door was closed behind her, and, hurrying across the
hall, lay in wait behind a shrubbery for Wogan's return. Wogan, on the
other hand, had admirable reasons for avoiding all paths, and so
slipped into the back of the house unseen. Consequently it was not
until half-an-hour later, when Lady Oxford was fairly distracted, that
she discovered him, decently clothed, and urging upon Kelly the
necessity of an immediate retreat. He broke off from his advice as
Lady Oxford entered.
'You have done him no hurt? 'she asked, looking Wogan over from head
to foot in search of a speck of blood, and ready to swoon if she saw
one.
'Not the least in the world,' replied Wogan.
'Nor he you?'
'There was never any likelihood of that.' Wogan had to put the best
face on the matter possible, and since he could not own to the
humiliating truth, why, the necessary lie might just as well redound
to his credit. 'I swore him to secrecy upon his bended knees. He took
the oath on the hilt of this very sword, 'and Wogan hitched forward
his hanger.
A footman at this moment announced that dinner was served.
'Will you give me your hand, Mr. Wogan?' asked Lady Oxford, and
detaining him until Kelly had passed out of the room:
'He gave you doubtless a reason for his coming?' she asked.
'Surely he did,' said Wogen, who was not for admitting any omission on
his own part.
'And what reason?' asked her ladyship.
Mr. Wogan looked at the ground and got a flash of inspiration.
'Why,' said he as bold as brass, 'precisely the same reason which you
gave to my friend George Kelly,' in which answer Wogan hit the literal
truth, although her ladyship looked puzzled, as well she might, and
then flushed a fine crimson.
However, she made up an ingenious story, and that same day hinted
rather than told it with a pretty suggestion of sympathy which quite
melted Mr. Kelly's heart, and threw Wogan into some doubt whether to
believe her or no. Scrope, it appeared, had been at some indefinite
time a secretary to Mr. Walpole, and was entrusted with the keeping of
the good man's accounts. Lady Oxford was then simply Mistress Margaret
Middleton and intimate with her cousin, Mr. Walpole, although since
her marriage, as Mr. Kelly and his friend were requested to note, that
intimacy had entirely ceased. Hence it came about that the rash Scrope
cast longing eyes upon the humble relation of his patron, and was
indeed so carried away by passion that Margaret was forced now and
again to chide him for the forwardness of his demeanour. Also, alas!
he transgressed in a more serious way. For Mr. Walpole's accounts fell
into the saddest disorder; there were sums of money of which no trace
could be found until--well, the deplorable affair was hushed up. Mr.
Scrope was turned off and set down his dismissal to Margaret, who,
gentle soul, would not have hurt a fly. From that time he had not
spared her his resentment, and would go miles out of his way if by any
chance he might fix a slight upon her. Which conduct she most
Christianly forgave, since indeed the poor man's head must needs be
turned.
'Yet he had all the appearances of prosperity,' objected Wogan.
'I fancied that I said that there were large sums missing,' replied
her ladyship.
'Yes, you did indeed say so,' said Mr. Kelly, 'but you avoided the
implication out of your generous pity.'
It is not in truth very difficult to befool a man who does half the
fooling himself. Mr. Kelly was altogether appeased by Lady Oxford's
explanation, which to his friend seemed to explain nothing, but none
the less he readily acknowledged to Wogan the propriety of hurrying
his business to a close.
'To tell the truth,' said Wogan, as soon as her ladyship had
withdrawn, 'I feel my cravat stiffening prophetically about my neck.
My presence does not help you; indeed, it is another danger; and since
we are but a few miles from Aberystwith, I am thinking that I could do
nothing wiser than start for that port to-night.'
The Parson drew figures with his forefinger on the table for a while;
then:
'I would not have you go, he said slowly. 'I will use what despatch I
may; but I would not have you go, and leave me here.'
Kelly was true to his word, and used so much despatch that within two
days he extorted a promise from Lord Oxford to undertake the muslin
trade in England, as the cant phrase went. Possibly he might have won
that same promise before had used the same despatch. But Lord Oxford's
foible was to hold long discourses, and Mr. Pope truly said that he
had an epical habit of beginning everything at the middle. However it
may be, the two men left the Manor on the morning of the third day.
Wogan drove back with the Parson as far as Worcester, who for the
first few miles remained in a melancholy silence, and then burst out
of a sudden.
'To think that she should be mewed up in a corner of Herefordshire,
with no companions but drunken rustics! Mated to an old pantaloon,
too!'
'Sure it was her ladyship's own doing,' murmured Wogan.
'No woman in all London could hold a candle to her. And we distrusted
her--we distrusted her, Nick.' He beat a clenched fist into the palm
of his other hand to emphasise the enormity of the crime. 'Why, what
impertinent fools men are!'
Then he again relapsed into silence and again broke out.
'Damme! but Fortune plays bitter tricks upon the world. 'Tis all very
well to strike at a pair of rascals like you and me, Nick, but she
strikes at those who offend her least. Faith, but I am bewildered.
Here is a woman indisputably born to be a queen and she is a nurse.
And no better prospect when my lord dies than a poor jointure and a
dull Dower House.'
'Oh, she told you that, did she?' said Wogan. 'Sure it was a queenly
complaint.'
'She made no complaint,' said Kelly fiercely. 'She would not--she
could not. It is a woman of unexampled patience.'
He grumbled into silence, and his thoughts changed and turned moodily
about himself.
'Why did I ever preach that sermon?' he exclaimed. 'But for that I
might now have the care of half-a-dozen rambling parishes. Instead of
hurrying and scurrying from one end of Europe to the other, at the
risk of my neck, I might sit of an evening by the peat fire of an inn
kitchen and give the law to my neighbour. I might have a little
country parsonage all trailed over with roses, and leisure to ensure
preferment by my studies and enjoy the wisdom of my Latin friend
Tully. I might have a wife, too,' he added, 'and maybe half a score of
children to plague me out of my five wits with their rogueries.'
He fetched up a sigh as he ended which would have done credit to my
Lady Oxford; and Wogan, seeing his friend in this unwonted pother, was
minded to laugh him out of it.
'And a credit to your cloth you would have been,' says he. 'Why, it's
a bottle you would have taken into the pulpit with you, and a mighty
big tumbler to measure your discourse by. Indeed there would have been
but one point of resemblance between yourself and your worthier
brethren, and that's the number of times you turned your glass upside
down before you came to an end.'
Kelly, however, was not to be diverted from his melancholy. The
picture of the parsonage was too vivid on the canvas of his desires.
And since he dreamed of one impossibility, no doubt he went a step
further and dreamed of another besides. No doubt his picture of the
parsonage showed the figure of the parson's wife, and no doubt the
parson's wife was very like to my Lady Oxford.
Wogan, though he had laughed, was, to tell the truth, somewhat
disturbed, and began to reckon up how much he was himself to blame for
setting Kelly's thoughts towards her ladyship. He had not thought that
his friend had taken the woman so much to heart. But whenever the
Parson fell a dreaming of a quiet life and the cure of souls, it was a
sure sign the world was going very ill with him.
'I would have you remember, George,' said Wogan, 'that not so long ago
I saw you stand up before a certain company in Paris and cry out with
an honest--ay, an honest passion, "May nothing come between the Cause
and me!"
Kelly flushed as his words were recalled to him and turned his head
away. Wogan held out his hand.
'George, am I then to understand that something has come between the
Cause and you?' And he had to repeat the question before he got an
answer. Then Kelly turned back.
'Understand nothing, Nick, but that I am a fool,' he cried heartily,
and slapped his hand into Wogan's. 'True, the Cause, the Cause,' he
muttered to himself once or twice. After all, Nick,' he said, 'we have
got the old man's assurance. My Lord Oxford will lend a hand. We have
not failed the Cause.' And they did not speak again until they drove
into Worcester. Then Kelly turned to Nick with a sad sort of smile.
'Well, have you nothing to say to me? 'said he.
Mr. Wogan could discover nothing to say until he had stepped out of
the chaise at the post-house and was shaking his friend's hand. Then
he delivered himself of the soundest piece of philosophy imaginable.
'Woman,' he said, 'is very much like a jelly-fish--very pretty and
pink and transparent to look at, but with a devil of a sting if you
touch it.'
CHAPTER VII
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU HAS A WORD
TO SAY ABOUT SMILINDA
From Worcester Nicholas Wogan made his way to Bristol, and, taking
passage there on a brigantine bound for Havre-de-Grace with a cargo of
linen, got safely over into France. He travelled forthwith to Paris
that he might put himself at the disposition of General Dillon, and,
being commanded to supper some few days after his arrival by the Duke
of Mar, saw a familiar swarthy face nodding cheerily at him across the
table. The lady was embrowned with the Eastern sun, and, having lost
her eye-lashes by that disease which she fought so manfully to
conquer, her eyes were fierce and martial. It was indeed the face of
the redoubtable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, sister to the Duchess of
Mar, who chanced to be passing through Paris on her travels from
Constantinople. Wogan remembered that Mr. Kelly's rustic friend at
Brampton Bryan had spoken of Lady Mary with considerable spleen. And
since he began to harbour doubts of her rusticity, he determined to
seek some certain information from Lady Mary.
Lady Mary was for a wonder in a most amiable mood, and had more than
one question to put concerning 'Kelly as the Bishop that was to be
when your King came to his own.'
'Why, madam, he has a new friend,' said Wogan.
Lady Mary maybe caught a suspicion of uneasiness in Wogan's tone. She
cocked her head whimsically.
'A woman?'
'Yes.'
'Who?'
'My Lady Oxford.'
Lady Mary made a round O of her lips, drew in a breath, and blew it
out again.
'There go the lawn-sleeves.'
Wogan took a seat by her side.
'Why?'
Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders.
'In what esteem is she held?' continued Wogan, 'of what character is
she?'
'I could never hear,' returned Lady Mary carelessly. 'For her friends
always stopped abruptly when they chanced upon her character, and the
rest was merely pursed lips and screwed-up eyes, which it would be the
unfairest thing in the world to translate in her disfavour. Her
character, Mr. Wogan, is a tender and delicate plant. It will not grow
under glass, but in a dark room, where I believe it flourishes most
invisibly.'
Lady Mary seemed ill-disposed to pursue the topic, and began to talk
of her journey and the great things she had seen at Constantinople.
Wogan waited until she came to a pause, and then stepped in with
another question.
'Is Lady Oxford political?'
'Lady Oxford! Lady Oxford!' she repeated almost pettishly. 'Upon my
word, the woman has infected you. You can speak of nothing else.
Political?' and she laughed maliciously. 'That she is, and on both
sides. She changes her party more often than an ambitious statesman.
For politics to my Lady Oxford are just pawns in the great game of
Love.'
'Oh, Love,' exclaimed Wogan, with a recollection of Mr. Scrope. 'Is
Love her quarry?'
'She will play cat to any man's mouse,' returned Lady Mary
indifferently.
'And there are many mice?'
Lady Mary shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. However, Wogan's
appetite for information was only whetted, and to provoke Lady Mary to
speak more freely he made an inventory of Lady Oxford's charms. He
dwelt on her attractions. Lady Mary played with her fan, pulled
savagely at the feathers, opened it, shut it up, while Wogan
discoursed serenely on item--a dark eye, big, with a glint of light in
it like sunshine through a thundercloud. Lady Mary laughed scornfully.
Wogan went on to item--a profusion of blackish-brown hair, very silky,
with a gloss, and here and there a gold thread in the brown; item--a
Barbary shape; item--an admirable instep and a most engaging ankle.
'It would look very pretty in the stocks,' Lady Mary snapped out.
Wogan shook his head with a knowing air.
''Twould slip out.'
'Not if I had the locking of it in,' she exclaimed with a vicious
stamp of the foot, and rose, as though to cross the room.
'I have omitted the lady's most adorable merit,' said Wogan
thoughtfully. Lady Mary was altogether human, and did not cross the
room.
'She has the greatest affection for your ladyship. She spoke of your
ladyship indeed in quite unmeasured terms, and while praising your
ladyship's wit would not have it that one single spark was due to the
cleverness of your ladyship's friends. Upon that point she was most
strenuous.'
Lady Mary sat down again. The stroke had evidently told.
'I am most grateful to her,' she said, 'and when did Lady Oxford show
such a sweet condescension towards me?'
'But a few weeks ago at Brampton Bryan, where she was nursing her
husband with an assiduous devotion.'
'I have known her show the like devotion before, when her losses at
cards have driven her from London.'
'So she gambles?' inquired Wogan. 'Altogether, then, a dangerous
friend for George.'
Lady Mary nodded.
'Particularly for George,' said she with a smile. 'For observe, she is
compact of wiles, and so is most dangerous to an honest man. She is at
once insatiable in her desires, and implacable if they are not
fulfilled. She is always in love, and knows nothing of what the word
means. She is tender at times, but only through caprice; she is never
faithful except for profit or lack of occasion to be anything else.
Coquetry is the abiding principle of her nature, and her virtue merely
a habit of hiding her coquetry. Her mind is larded with affectations
as is her face with paint, and once or twice she has been known to
weep--when tears were likely to deceive a man. There, Mr. Wogan, you
have her likeness, and I trust you are satisfied.'
It was not a character very much to Wogan's liking (Lady Mary, he
learned later, was quoting from a manuscript 'portrait' of her own
designing), though he drew a spice of comfort from the thought that
Lady Mary might have coloured the effigy with her unmistakable enmity.
But events proved that she had not over-coloured it, and even at that
time Lady Oxford had no better reputation than Lady Mary Wortley
attributed to her. The ballad-makers called her gallant, and they did
her no wrong--the ballad-makers of the _ruelles_, be it understood,
not they of the streets, but such poets as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
herself and his Grace Sophia of Wharton.[1] The street-singers knew
not Lady Oxford, who, indeed, was on the top of the fashion, and could
hold her own in the war of written verses. It was in truth to her
ability to give as good as she took in the matter of ballads that she
owed Lady Mary's hostility, who had no taste for the counter-stroke.
There were many such daring Penthesileas of the pen who never gave
each other quarter; but neither Wogan nor the Parson were at this time
in their secrets, although subsequently a ballad, not from Lady Mary's
pen, was to have an astonishing effect upon their fortunes.
---------------------
Footnote 1: Sophia, a nickname of the _Duke_ of Wharton.
---------------------
'Your ladyship can help me to make the best of it, at all events,'
said Wogan. 'Since you have told me so much, will you tell me this one
thing more? Have you ever heard of Mr. Scrope?'
'Scrope? Scrope?' said she casting about in her recollections. Wogan
told her the story of Mr. Scrope's appearance at Brampton Bryan, and
the explanation which Lady Oxford had given to account for it. Lady
Mary laughed heartily.
'Secretary to Mr. Walpole?' she said. 'And how, then, did he come to
hear that mad sermon of Mr. Kelly's at Dublin?'
'Sure I have been puzzled to account for that myself,' says Wogan.
'But who is he? Where does he come from? What brought him to Brampton
Bryan? What took him away in such a mighty hurry? For upon my word I
find it difficult to believe the man's a coward.'
'And you are in the right,' replied her ladyship. 'I know something of
Mr. Scrope, and I will wager it was no cowardice made him run. I doubt
you have not seen the last of Mr. Scrope. It is a passionate,
determined sort of creature. He came to London a year or so agone. It
was understood that he was a country gentleman with a comfortable
estate in Leicestershire. He had laid his estate at Lady Oxford's
feet, before she was as yet her ladyship. Lady Oxford would have it,
and then would have none of it, and married the Earl. Well, he had
been her valet for a season, and, I have no doubt, thought the service
worth any price. She gave him her fan to hold, her gloves to caress,
and what more can a man want? He spent much of his money, and some
whisper that he turned informer afterwards.'
'Oh, did he?' asked Wogan, who was now yet more concerned that he had
let the informer slip through his fingers.
'Yes. An informer for conscience' sake--a gentleman spy. His father
died for Monmouth's affair. He has ever hated the Pretender and his
cause. He is a Protestant and a fanatic.'
Then she looked at Wogan and began to laugh.
'I would have given much to have seen you bouncing down the road after
Mr. Scrope's chaise,' and she added seriously, 'But I doubt you have
not heard the last of Mr. Scrope.'
That also was Wogan's thought. For Lady Mary's story, though vague
enough, was sufficiently clear to deepen his disquietude. Well, Mr.
Wogan would get no comfort by the mere addling his brains with
thinking of the matter, and he thrust it forth of his mind and went
upon his way, that led him clean out of the path of this story for a
while. He was despatched to Cadiz to take charge of a ship, and, in
company with Captain Galloway of the _Resolution_, who was afterwards
seized at Genoa, and Morgan, of the _Lady Mary_, he spent much
fruitless time in cruising on and off the coasts of France, Spain, and
Sweden. It was given out that they carried snuff, or were engaged in
the Madagascar trade. But they took no cargoes aboard but barrels of
powder and stands of arms, and waited on the Rising, which never came.
There were weeks idled away at Morlaix, at Roscoff in Brittany, at
Lisbon in Portugal, at Alicant Bay in Spain, until Wogan's heart grew
sick with impatience. At rare times, when the venture wore a face of
promise, the little fleet would run the hazard of the Channel and
creep along the English coast, from Dartmouth, across the West Bay to
Portland, from Portland on to the Isle of Wight. Mr. Wogan would pace
the deck of his little ketch, _Fortune_, of a night, and as he looked
at the quiet fields lying dark beneath the sky, would wonder how the
world wagged for his friend the Parson, and whether my Lady Oxford was
shaping it or no, until a longing would seize on him to drop a boat
into the water and himself into the boat, and row ashore and see. But
it was not for more than a full twelve months that his longing was
fulfilled, and during those twelve months the harm was done.
CHAPTER VIII
MR. KELLY HAS AN ADVENTURE AT A MASQUERADE
BALL
For the greater part of that year Mr. Kelly simply went about his
business. He travelled backwards and forwards from General Dillon,
Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Mar, in Paris, to the Bishop of Rochester,
in London, and from the Bishop to the others of the five who
mismanaged the Chevalier's affairs in England, Lord Arran, Lord
Strafford, Lord North and Grey, Lord Orrery, and last, though not
least, the Earl of Oxford. Thus business brought him more than once
knocking again at the doors of Brampton Bryan Manor, though he did not
always find her ladyship at home to welcome him. On such occasions he
found the great house very desolate for the want of her footstep and
her voice, and so would pull out his watch and fall to wondering what
at that precise moment she was engaged upon in town.
Thus things dallied, then, until a warm wet night of summer in the
year 1720. Mr. Kelly was in London and betook himself to His Majesty's
Theatre in Drury Lane, where he witnessed a farce which was very much
to his taste. It was entitled 'South-Sea; or the Biter Bit,' and was
happy not merely in its quips, but in the moment of its performance.
For the King, or, as the honest party called him, the Elector, and his
lords had sold out, and were off to Germany with their plunder, and
the stocks were falling by hundreds every week. Mr. Kelly might well
laugh at the sallies on the stage and the wry faces with which the pit
and boxes received them. For he had recently sold out his actions in
the Mississippi scheme at a profit of 1,200 per cent., and had his
money safe locked up at Mr. Child's, the goldsmith. Kelly's, however,
was not a mere wanton pleasure. For the floating of the bubble out of
reach meant a very solid change in the Jacobite prospects. So long as
the South-Sea scheme prospered and all the town grew wealthy, there
would be no talk of changing kings and no chance for Mr. Kelly's
friends. That great and patriotic bishop whom he served, my Lord of
Rochester, had said to him this many a month past, 'Let 'em forget
their politics, let 'em all run mad in Change Alley, and the madder
the better. For the funds will fall and be the ruin of thousands, and
when England is sunk into a salutary wretchedness and discontent, then
our opportunity will come.'
It was altogether, then, in a very good humour that Mr. Kelly left the
theatre. The night was young, and he disinclined for his lodgings. He
strolled across to the Groom Porters, in White Hall, where his spirits
were mightily increased. For taking a hand there at Bassette, in three
deals he won nine rich septlevas, and, for once, did not need the
money, and when he left the Groom Porters his pockets were heavy with
gold, and his head swimming with the fumes of punch.
It is not to be wondered at that those same fumes of punch floated
Lady Oxford into Mr. Kelly's mind. He swaggered up St. James's Street
with her ladyship consequently riding atop of his bemused fancies. It
was a gay hour in St. James's, being then about half past one of the
morning. Music rippled out of windows open on the night. Kelly heard
the dice rattle within and the gold clink on the green cloth; lovers
were whispering on the balconies; the world seemed to be going very
well for those who had not their money in the Bubble, and for no one
better than for Mr. Kelly. He looked about him, if by chance he might
catch a glimpse of his divinity among the ladies of fashion as he
watched them getting into their chairs, pushing their hoops sidelong
before them, and the flambeaux flaring on their perfections. He
imagined himself a Paladin rescuing her from innumerable foes. She was
an angel, a sprite, a Hamadryad, in fact everything tender and
immaterial.
He was roused from these dreams by an illumination of more than
ordinary brilliancy, and looking up saw that he had wandered to the
theatre in the Haymarket. A ragged crowd of pickpockets and the like
was gathered about the portico. Carriages and chairs set down in quick
succession, ladies in dominoes, gentlemen in masks. Mr. Kelly
remembered that it was a night of the masquerades; all the world would
be gathered in the theatre, and why not Lady Oxford, who was herself
the better half of it? Kelly had a ticket in his pocket, pushed
through the loiterers, and stood on the inner rim of the crowd
watching the masqueraders arrive. Every carriage that drew up surely
concealed her ladyship, every domino that passed up the steps hid her
incomparable figure. Mr. Kelly had staked his soul with unruffled
confidence upon her identity with each of the first twelve women who
thus descended before he realised that he was not the only one who
waited. From the spot where he stood he could see into the lobby of
the theatre. Heidegger, M. le surintendant des plaisirs du Roi de
l'Angleterre,
'With a hundred deep wrinkles impressed on his front,
Like a map with a great many rivers upon 't,'
was receiving the more important of his guests. The guests filed past
him into the parterre, Heidegger remained. But another man loitered
ever in the lobby too. He was evidently expecting someone, and that
with impatience. For as each coach or chaise drew up he peered eagerly
forward; as it delivered its occupants he turned discontentedly away.
It is perhaps doubtful whether Mr. Kelly would have paid him any great
attention but for his dress, which arrested all eyes and caused the
more tender of the ladies who passed him to draw their cloaks closer
about them with a gesture of disgust. For he was attired to represent
a headsman, being from head to foot in black, with a crape mask upon
his face and a headsman's axe in his hand. He had carried his
intention out with such thoroughness, moreover, that he had daubed his
doublet and hose with red.
Mr. Kelly was in a mood to be charmed by everything strange and
eccentric, and the presence of this bloodsmeared executioner at a
masquerade seemed to him a piece of the most delicate drollery.
Moreover, the executioner was waiting like Mr. Kelly, and with a like
anxiety. Mr. Kelly had a fellow-feeling for him in his impatience
which prompted him suddenly to run up the steps and accost him.
'Like me, you are doubtless waiting for your aunt,' said the Parson
courteously.
The impulse, the movement, the words had all been the matter of a
second; but the executioner was more than naturally startled, as Mr.
Kelly might have perceived had he possessed his five wits. For the man
leaped rather than stepped back; he gave a gasp; his hand gripped
tight about the handle of his axe. Then he stepped close to Kelly.
'You know me?' he said. The voice was muffled, the accent one of
menace. Kelly noticed neither the voice nor the menace. He bowed with
ceremony.
'Without a doubt. You are M. de Strasbourg.'
The headsman laughed abruptly like a man relieved.
'You and I,' he returned, mimicking Kelly's politeness of manner,
'will be better acquainted in the future.'
Kelly was overjoyed with the rejoinder. 'Here's a devil of a fellow
for you,' he cried, and with his elbow nudged Heidegger in the ribs.
Heidegger was at that moment bent to the ground before the Duchess of
Wharton, and nearly stumbled over her Grace's train. He turned in a
passion as soon as the Duchess had passed.
'Vas you do dat for dam?' he said all in a breath. Kelly however was
engaged in contemplating the executioner. He ran his thumb along the
edge of the axe.
'It is cruelly blunt,' said he.
'You need not fear,' returned the other. 'For your worship is only
entitled to a cord.'
'Oh, so you know me,' says Kelly, stepping close to the executioner.
'Without a doubt,' replied the latter, stepping back, 'Monsieur le
Marchand de dentelles.'
It was Kelly's turn to be startled, and that he was effectually; he
was shocked into a complete recovery of his senses and an accurate
estimation of his folly. He walked to the entrance and stood upon the
steps. The executioner knew him, knew something of his trade. Who,
then, was M. de Strasbourg? Kelly recalled the tones of his voice,
conned them over in his mind, and was not a penny the wiser. He
glanced backwards furtively across his shoulder and looked the man
over from head to foot.
At that moment a carriage drove up to the entrance. Mr. Kelly was
standing on the top of the steps and the face of the coachman on the
box was just on a level with his own. He stared, in a word, right at
it, and so took unconsciously an impression of it upon his mind, while
pondering how he should act with regard to M. de Strasbourg.
Consequently he did not notice that a woman stepped out of the
carriage and, without looking to the right or left, quickly mounted
the steps. His eyes, in fact, were still fixed upon the coachman's
face; and it needed the brushing of her cloak against his legs to
rouse him from his reflections.
He turned about just as she disappeared at the far end of the lobby.
He caught a glimpse of a white velvet cloak and an inch of blue satin
petticoat under a muffling domino. He also saw that M. de Strasbourg
was drawn close behind a pillar, as though he wished to avoid the
lady. As soon, however, as she had vanished he came boldly out of his
concealment and followed her into the theatre. Mr. Kelly began
instantly to wonder whether a closer view of the domino would help him
discover who M. de Strasbourg really was, and entering the theatre he
went up into the boxes.
At first his eyes were bedazzled by the glitter of lights and jewels
and the motley throng which paraded the floor. There was the usual
medley of Chinese, Turks, and friars; here was a gentleman above six
feet high dressed like a child in a white frock and leading strings
and attended by another of very low stature, who fed him from time to
time with a papspoon; there was a soldier prancing a minuet upon a
hobby horse to the infinite discomfort of his neighbours; and as for
the women--it seemed to Mr. Kelly that all the goddesses of the
heathen mythology had come down from Olympia in their customary
neglige.
Among them moved M. de Strasbourg like a black shadow, very
distinguishable. Kelly kept his eyes in the man's neighbourhood, and
in a little perceived a masked lady with her hair dressed in the Greek
fashion. What character she was intended to represent he could not for
the life of him determine. He learnt subsequently that she went as
Iphigeneia--Iphigeneia, if you please, in a blue satin petticoat. To
be sure her bosom was bared for the sacrifice, but then all the ladies
in that assembly were in the like case. She had joined a party of
friends, of whom M. de Strasbourg was not one. For though he kept her
ever within his sight, following her hither and thither, it was always
at a distance; and, so far as Kelly could see, and he did not take his
eyes from the pair, he never spoke to her so much as a single word. On
the contrary he seemed rather to lurk behind and avoid her notice.
Kelly's curiosity was the more provoked by this stealthy pursuit. He
lost his sense of uneasiness in a wonder what the man designed against
the woman. He determined to wait the upshot of the affair.
The night wore away, the masqueraders thinned. The inch of blue satin
petticoat took her departure from the parterre. M. de Strasbourg
followed her; Mr. Kelly followed M. de Strasbourg.
The lobby was crowded. Kelly threaded his way through the crowd and
came out upon the steps. He saw the lady, close wrapped again in her
velvet cloak, descend to her carriage. The coachman gathered up his
reins and took his whip from its rest. The movement chanced to attract
Kelly's eyes. He looked at the coachman, at the first glance
indifferently, at the second with all his attention. For this was not
the same man who had driven the carriage to the masquerade. And then
the coachman turned his full face towards Kelly and nodded. He nodded
straight towards him. But was the nod meant for him? No! Well, then,
for someone just behind his shoulder.
Kelly did not turn, but stepped quietly aside and saw M. de Strasbourg
slip past him down the steps. So the nod was meant for him. M. de
Strasbourg was still masked, but he had thrown a cloak about his
shoulders which in some measure disguised his dress. The mystery
seemed clear to Kelly; the lady was to be forcibly abducted unless
someone, say Mr. James Johnson, had a word to say upon the matter. The
carriage turned and drove slowly through the press of chairs and
shouting link-boys; M. de Strasbourg on the side-walk kept pace with
the carriage. Kelly immediately crossed the road, and, concealed by
the carriage, kept pace with M. de Strasbourg. Thus they went as far
as the corner of the Haymarket, and then turned into Pall Mall.
At this point Kelly, to be the more ready should the lady need his
assistance, stepped off the pavement and walked in the mud hard by the
hind wheels of the carriage. It was now close upon four of the
morning, but, fortunately, very dark, and only a sullen sort of
twilight about the south-eastern fringes of the sky.
In Pall Mall the carriages were fewer, but the coachman did not
quicken his pace, doubtless out of regard for M. de Strasbourg, and at
the corner of Pall Mall, where the road was quite empty, he jerked the
horses to a standstill. Instantly M. de Strasbourg ran across the road
to the carriage, the coachman bent over on that side to watch, and Mr.
Kelly, on the other side, ran forward to the box. M. de Strasbourg
wrenched open the door and jumped into the carriage. Mr. Kelly heard a
woman's scream and sprang on to the box. The coachman turned with a
start. Before he could shout, before he could speak, Kelly showed him
a pistol (for he went armed) under the man's nose.
'One word,' said Kelly, 'and I will break your ugly face in with the
stock of that, my friend.'
The woman screamed again; M. de Strasbourg thrust his head out of the
window.
'Go on,' he shouted with an oath, 'you know where. At a gallop! Kill
the horses, they are not mine! Flog 'em to death so you go but fast
enough.'
'To the right,' said Kelly, quietly.
The man whipped up the horses. They started at a gallop up St. James's
Street.
'To the right,' again whispered Kelly.
The carriage turned into Ryder Street, rocking on its wheels. M. de
Strasbourg's head was again thrust from the window.
'That's not the way. Are you drunk, man?--are you drunk?' he cried.
'To the left,' says Kelly, imperturbably, and fingered the lock of the
pistol a little.
The carriage swung into Bury Street.
'Stop,' said Kelly.
The coachman reined in his horses; the carriage stopped with a jerk.
'Where in the devil's name have you taken us?' cried M. de Strasbourg,
opening the door.
Kelly sprang to the ground, ran round the carriage to the open door.
'To the Marchand de dentelles, M. de Strasbourg,' said he with a bow.
'I have some most elegant pieces of _point d'Alencon_ for the lady's
inspection.'
M. de Strasbourg was utterly dumbfounded. He staggered back against
the panels of the carriage; his mouth opened and shut; it seemed there
was no language sufficiently chaotic to express his discomposure. At
last:
'You are a damned impudent fellow,' he gasped out in a weak sort of
quaver.
'Am I?' asked Kelly. 'Shall we ask the lady?'
He peeped through the door. The lady was huddled up in a corner--an
odd heap of laces, silks, and furbelows, but with never a voice in all
the confusion. It seemed she had fainted.
Meanwhile M. de Strasbourg turned on the unfortunate coachman.
'Get down, you rascal,' he cried; 'you have been bribed, you're in the
fellow's pay. Get down! Not a farthing will you get from me, but only
a thrashing that will make your bones ache this month to come.'
'Your honour,' replied the coachman piteously, 'it was not my fault.
He offered to kill me unless I drove you here.'
M. de Strasbourg in a rage flung back to Kelly. He clapped a hand on
his shoulder and plucked him from the carriage door.
'So you offered to kill him, did you?' he said. 'Perhaps you will make
a like offer to me. But I'll not wait for the offer.'
He unclasped his cloak, drew his sword (happily not his axe) and
delivered his thrust with that rapidity it seemed all one motion. Mr.
Kelly jumped on one side, and the sword just gleamed against his
sleeve. M. de Strasbourg overbalanced himself and stumbled a foot or
two forwards. Kelly had whipped out his sword by the time that M. de
Strasbourg had recovered, and a battle began which was whimsical
enough. A quiet narrow street, misty with the grey morning, the
carriage lamps throwing here a doubtful shadow, a masked headsman
leaping, swearing, thrusting in an extreme passion, and, to crown the
business, the coachman lamenting on the box that whichever honourable
gentleman was killed he would most surely go wanting his hire, he that
had a woeful starving family! Mr. Kelly, indeed, felt the strongest
inclination to laugh, but dared not, so hotly was he pressed. The
attack, however, he did not return, but contented himself with
parrying the thrusts. His design, indeed, reached at no more than the
mere disarming of M. de Strasbourg. M. de Strasbourg, however, lost
even his last remnants of patience.
'Rascal!' he cried. 'Scullion! Grasshopper!'
Then he threw his hat at Kelly and missed, and at last flung his
periwig full in Kelly's face, accompanying the present with a thrust
home which his opponent barely parried.
It was this particular action which brought the contest to a grotesque
conclusion quite in keeping with its beginnings. For the periwig
tumbled in the mud, and the coachman, assured that he would get no
stiver of his hire, scrambled down from his box, rushed at a prize of
so many pounds in value, picked it up and took to his heels.
M. de Strasbourg uttered a cry and leaped backwards out of reach.
'Stop!' he bawled to the coachman. The coachman only ran the quicker.
M. de Strasbourg passed his hand over his shaven crown and looked at
the carriage. It was quite impossible to abduct a lady without a
periwig to his head. He swore, he stamped, he shouted 'Stop!' once
more, and then dashed at full speed past Kelly in pursuit.
Kelly made no effort to prevent him, but gave way to his inclination
and laughed. The coachman threw a startled glance over his shoulder
and, seeing that M. de Strasbourg pressed after him, quickened his
pace; behind him rushed a baldheaded executioner hurling imprecations.
The pair fled, one after the other, to the top of Bury Street, turned
the corner and disappeared. Kelly laughed till the tears ran down his
cheeks, and leaned against the carriage.
The touch of the panels recalled him to the lady's presence. The
street was now fairly roused by the clamour. Night-capped heads peeped
from the windows; an indignant burgher in a dressing-gown even
threatened Mr. Kelly with a blunderbuss; and, as he turned to the door
of the carriage, he saw Mrs. Barnes at a window on the second floor
looking at him with an air of the gravest discontent.
'Take me into shelter, good sir, at once, at once,' cried the lady
from out the confusion of her laces, in a feigned tone of the
masquerade.
'With all my heart, madam,' said Kelly. 'This is my door, and my
lodging is at your disposal. Only the street is fairly awake, and
should you prefer, I will most readily drive you to your own house.'
The lady looked out of the window. She was still masked so that Kelly
could see nothing of her face, and she hesitated for a little, as if
in doubt what answer she should make.
'You may make yourself at ease, madam,' said Kelly, believing that she
was not yet relieved of fear; 'you are in perfect safety. Our worthy
friend had to choose between your ladyship and his periwig, of which
he has gone in chase. And, indeed, while I deplore his taste, I cannot
but commend his discretion.'
'Very well,' she replied faintly. 'I owe you great thanks already,
Mr.--' she paused.
'Johnson,' said Kelly.
'Mr. Johnson,' she replied; 'and I shall owe you yet more if you will
drive me to my home.'
She gave him the address of a house in Queen's Square, Westminster.
Kelly mounted on the box, took up the reins, and drove off. He looked
up, as he turned the carriage in the narrow street, towards the second
floor of his lodging. Mrs. Barnes shook her head at him in a terrible
concern.
'I shall write and tell Mr. Wogan,' she bawled out.
'Hush, Mrs. Barnes, have you no sense?' cried Kelly, and he thought
that from within the carriage he heard a stifled peal of laughter.
'Poor woman,' thought he, ''tis the hysterics,' and he drove to
Queen's Square, Westminster, at a gallop.
CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN THE CHIVALROUS MR. KELLY BEHAVES
WITH DEPLORABLE FOLLY
Mr. Kelly did not drive very straight perhaps, but to be sure he had
the streets entirely to himself, and he certainly hit upon Queen's
Square. The house was unknown to him, and he drove through the square
before he found it.
It made an angle at the south corner, and was conspicuous for a solid
family air, and a fine new statue of Queen Anne. Level windows of a
distinguished respectability looked you over with indifference and
said, 'Here's a house you'll take off your hat to, if you please.'
'Faith, but those windows must have shuddered in their sashes when
they saw the Parson driving Madam home at five o'clock of the morning
from a masquerade ball. A sleepy footman opened the door; a no less
sleepy maid yawned in the hall. However, they both waked up to some
purpose when Mr. Kelly jumped down from the box, bade the footman take
the carriage round to the stables, called the maid to attend upon
Madam, and himself opened the carriage door. He opened it quickly with
a thought that Madam might very likely have removed her mask, for he
was not so tipsy but that he was curious to know who it was that he
had befriended. Madam, however, had done nothing of the kind.
'Is my lady ill?' asked the maid, hurrying forward. So Madam was a
woman of title.
'A trifle discomposed, no doubt,' answered Kelly.
My lady said nothing whatever. It seemed she was unwilling to speak in
the feigned voice before her maid, and in the natural voice before Mr.
Kelly. She took his arm, and, leaning on it somewhat heavily, yet
walked with a firm enough step into the hall, as Mr. Kelly could not
but remark.
The maid threw open a door on the right. It gave into a little cheery
room with a wainscot of polished oak, and a fire blazing on the
hearth. My lady did not release Mr. Kelly's arm, and they both stood
in front of the fire, and no doubt found the warmth comfortable enough
after the chill of the morning. Her ladyship, indeed, went so far as
to untie the strings of her domino, and make as though she would turn
it back upon her shoulders. But with a glance at Mr. Kelly, she
changed her mind, and hugged it somewhat closer over her dress than
before.
'Were you at the masquerade, Mr. Johnson?' she asked in a low voice.
Mr. Kelly took the movement and the words together, and set them down
as mere coquetry. Now, coquetry to Kelly at that time was a challenge,
and it was contrary to his principles of honour to remain under such a
provocation from man or woman. So he answered:
'Indeed, your ladyship, I was, to my eternal happiness. I shall dream
of blue satin for a month to come.'
Her ladyship hitched her domino a little tighter still about her neck,
and quickly tied the strings again, but made no other reply to his
sally. The action, while it inflamed his curiosity, put him into
something of a quandary. Was it but another piece of coquetry, he
asked himself, or did she indeed wish to hinder him from discovering
who she was? He could answer neither question, but he felt
constrained, at all events, to offer to take her concealment as a hint
that he should depart. It seemed a pity, for the adventure promised
well.
'Your ladyship,' he said, and at that she gave a start and glanced at
him, 'for so I understand from your maid I may address you,' he added,
'it grows late, the world is getting on to its legs, and your ladyship
has had an eventful night.'
He took a step backwards and bowed.
'No,' said she, in a sharp quick voice, and put out a hand to detain
him. Then she stopped as quickly, and drew in her hand again.
Mr. Kelly had borne himself very prettily in the little affair with M.
de Strasbourg. Madam, in fact, was in the typical attitude of woman.
She knew it was inconvenient to keep him, but for the life of her she
could not let him go, wherefore she found a woman's way out of the
trouble. For she staggered on her legs, and fainted to all appearance
clean away, leaving matters to take their own course and shift for
themselves. She fainted, of course, towards Mr. Kelly, who caught her
in his arms and set her in an arm-chair. The maid, who all this while
had been standing in the doorway, smiled. 'I will run to her
ladyship's dressing-room for the salts,' she said, and so went out of
the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Kelly kneeled by the
lady's side, and taking up her fan, sought to waft her that way back
into the world. She did not stir so much as a muscle, but lay all
huddled up in her domino and mask. Mr. Kelly leaned over her, and so
became aware of a penetrating perfume which breathed out from her
dress. The perfume was bergamot.
Kelly dropped the fan and sat back on his heel. The maid had called
her 'my lady,' and bergamot was Lady Oxford's favourite perfume. What
if it was Lady Oxford he had unwittingly rescued! The possibility
caught his breath away. If that were only true, he thought, why, he
had done her some slight service, and straightway a great rush of
tenderness came upon him, which went some way to sober him. In a
minute, however, he dropped into despondency; for Lord Oxford's house
was in the northern part of the town, as he knew, though he had never
as yet been there, and neither the footman nor the maid were of her
ladyship's household. Yet, if by some miracle the lady might be
Smilinda! She was of the right height. Mr. Kelly looked at her,
seeking vainly to trace out the form hidden under the folds of the
domino. But if it were Smilinda, then Smilinda had swooned.
Mr. Kelly woke to this conclusion with a start of alarm. He clapped
his hand into his pocket, pulled out his snuff-box, opened it quickly,
and held it close beneath her ladyship's nose. The effect of the snuff
was purely magical, for before she could have inhaled one grain of
it--before, indeed, Mr. Kelly's box was within a foot of her face, up
went her hands to the tie-strings of her mask.
So the swoon was counterfeit.
'Madam,' said Kelly, 'you interpret my desires to a nicety. It is your
face I would see, but I did not dream of removing your mask. I did but
offer to revive you with a pinch of snuff.'
She took the box from his hand, but not to inhale the macawba.
'It is for your own sake, Mr. Johnson, that I do not unmask. 'Tis like
that I am a fright, and did you see my face you would take me for a
pale ghost.'
'Madam,' said Kelly, 'I am not afraid of ghosts, nor apt to take your
ladyship for one of those same airy appearances. A ghost! No,' he
cried, surveying her. 'An angel! It is only the angels in Heaven that
wear blue satin petticoats.'
The lady laughed, and checked the laugh, aware that a laugh betrays
where a voice does not.
'Ghost or angel,' she said,' a being of my sex would fain see herself
before she is seen. 'Tis a mirror I seek.' She was still holding Mr.
Kelly's snuff-box. It was open and within the lid a little
looking-glass was set; and as she spoke she turned away and bent over
it with a motion as if she was about to lift her mask.
'Nay,' said Kelly abruptly; he stretched out his hand towards the
snuff-box. 'The glass will be unfaithful, for the snuff has tarnished
it. Madam, I beseech you, unloose that mask and turn your face to me
and consult a truer mirror, your servant's eyes.' He spoke, perhaps,
with a trifle more of agitation than the occasion seemed to warrant.
Madam did indeed turn her face to Mr. Kelly, but it was in surprise at
his agitation, and the mask still hid her face. Mr. Kelly could see no
more than a pair of eyes blazing bright and black through the eyelet
holes.
'You are gallant, I find, as well as brave,' she said, 'unless some
other cause prompted the words.'
'What cause, madam? You wrong me.'
'Why,' said she, 'you still hold out your hand.' Mr. Kelly drew it
away quickly. 'Ah,' she continued, 'I am right. There was a reason.
You would not have me examine your snuff-box too closely.'
In that she was right, for the snuff-box was at once the dearest and
the most dangerous of Mr. Kelly's possessions. It was a pretty toy in
gold and tortoiseshell, with brilliants on the hinges, and had been
given to Mr. Kelly on a certain occasion when he had been presented to
his king at Avignon. For that reason, and for another, he was mightily
loth to let it out of his possession. What that other reason was Madam
very soon discovered.
'It is a dangerous toy,' she said. 'It has perhaps a secret to tell?'
'Madam, has not your mask?' returned Kelly.
'There is a mystery behind the mirror.'
'Well, then, it's mystery for mystery.'
For all that he spoke lightly he was in some uneasiness. For the lady
might not be Smilinda, and her fingers played deftly about the setting
of the mirror, touching a stone here and there. To be sure she wore
gloves, and was the less likely therefore to touch the spring. But
give her time enough--however, at that moment Kelly heard the maid's
footsteps in the hall. He stepped to the door at once and opened it.
'You have the salts?' he asked. 'You have been the deuce of a time
finding them.'
The maid stared at him.
'But her ladyship fainted,' she argued.
'Well,' said he, 'wasn't that why you went for the salts?'
'To be sure,' says she. ''Twas an order to go for the salts.'
She pushed open the door. My lady was still fingering the box. The
maid paid no attention to the box, but she looked at my lady's mask;
from the mask she looked towards Kelly with a shrug of the shoulders,
which said 'Zany' as plain as writing.
Kelly had no thoughts to spare for the maid.
'Madam,' he said, 'here is your maid, to whose attentions I may leave
you.'
He advanced, made a bow, took up his hat, held out his hand for his
snuff-box.
'But I cannot let you go,' she answered, 'without I thank you'--all
the time she was running her fingers here and there for the spring.
Kelly noticed, too, with some anxiety, that while he had gone to the
door she had made use of the occasion to strip off her glove--'and
thank you fitly, as I should have done ere this. But the trouble I was
in has made me backward.'
'Nay, madam,' said Kelly impatiently, and taking a step nearer, 'there
is no need for thanks. No man could have done less.'
Her ladyship's fingers travelled faster in their vain attempt.
'But you risked your life!' said she in admiration.
'It is worth very little,' said he with a touch of disdain; 'and,
madam, I keep you from your bed.'
The maid turned her eyes up to the ceiling, and then Madam by chance
pressed on a diamond which loosed a hidden spring; the glass in the
snuff-box flew down and showed a painting of the Chevalier in
miniature.
'Oh!' cried my lady with a start in which, perhaps, there was a trace
of affectation. Then she turned to the maid and bade her bring some
wine and glasses. She spoke quickly, now forgetting for the moment to
disguise her voice. Mr. Kelly recognized it with absolute certainty.
The voice was Smilinda's.
The maid went out of the door. Kelly looked at the lady, and seeing
that she was seemingly engrossed in the contemplation of the little
picture, stole after the maid.
'Betty!' he called in a whisper.
'Sir? 'she asked, coming to a stop.
He took a crown from his pocket, spun it in the air, and caught it.
'The Margout,' said he, 'will doubtless be more difficult to discover
than the salts,' he suggested.
'It might indeed be necessary to go down to the cellar,' she replied
readily.
'And that would take time,' said Kelly, handing her the crown.
'It would take an entire crown's worth,' said the maid, pocketing the
coin.
Kelly slipped back into the room.
The lady seemed not to have noticed Mr. Kelly's absence, so fondly did
she study the portrait; but none the less, no sooner had he closed the
door than she cried out, not by any means to him but in a sort of
ecstasy, '_Le Roi!_' Then she hid the snuff-box suddenly and glanced
with a shudder round the room. The panic was altogether misplaced,
since there could be no other person in the room except the owner of
the box, who, if her ladyship was guilty for admiring, was ten
thousand times more so for possessing it.
She caught with her hand at her heart when she perceived Mr. Kelly,
then her eyes smiled from out of her mask, as though in the extremity
of her alarm she had forgotten who he was, and so fell back in her
chair with an air of languor, breathing deep and quick.
'Upon my word, I fear, Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'that if I have escaped
one danger by your help I have fallen into another. You seem to me to
be a man of dangerous company.'
'Indeed I find it so when I am with you, madam, since you discover my
secrets and show me nothing of your own,' replied Kelly.
The maid it appears, had no less perversity than her mistress, for
precisely at this moment she rapped on the door, and without waiting
for any answer sharply entered the room, bearing the wine and glasses
on a salver. There was a distance of three yards between Kelly and her
ladyship. The maid measured the distance with her eyes, and her face
showed some disappointment. Her ladyship dismissed her, filled both
the glasses and took one in her hand. Mr. Kelly drained the other, and
the bumper carried off the remnant of his brains.
'You run no danger from my knowing your secret, Mr. Johnson,' said
she, 'for--'
Breaking off her sentence, she turned her head aside, swiftly pushed
up her mask and kissed the portrait in the box, stooping her fragrant
hair over it. Mr. Kelly, speeded by the wine, was this time too quick
for her ladyship. Before she could raise her face he had paid the same
compliment to her lips as she to his Majesty. She lifted her head with
a bewitching air of anger.
'Lady Oxford!' he cried out as if in amazement, since he had bottomed
the mystery for now some time. 'Forgive me, madam, if my hasty loyalty
to my Sovereign prevented me from recognising his latest adherent. The
Cause must now infallibly triumph.'
'Sir,' she began, looking up at him with her eyes melting from anger
to reproach, 'your apology is something graceless. For though my
colour be gone'--it was only the worse or artificial part of her
matchless complexion which the mask had rubbed off--'you yet had time
to know and respect a face you--'and then she came suddenly to a stop,
as she untied the strings of her domino and threw it back from her
shoulders. 'You blame me,' she said pitifully. Her ladyship was a
ready woman, and even went more than half-way to meet an attack. At
Brampton Bryan the talk had been of duty and the charms of a rustic
life; but here the dutiful country wife, violently disarrayed in the
extreme of fashion, had been alone to a masquerade ball and Mr. Kelly
might conceive himself tricked. And so 'You blame me,' she said, 'you
blame me even as you blamed me at Brampton Bryan, and with no more
justice.'
'At Brampton Bryan!' exclaimed Kelly suddenly.
'M. de Strasbourg! M. de Strasbourg was Scrope.'
Her ladyship nodded.
'And 'twas he attacked _you_--would have carried you off.'
Her ladyship shivered.
'And I let him go. Curse me! I let him go even as Nick did. But the
third time! Oh, only let the third time come.'
Her ladyship shook her head with the most weariful resignation.
'It will come too late, that third time,' she said; 'too late for me.
I have no husband who can protect me, and no friend so kind as to
serve me in his place.'
'Nay, madam,' cried Kelly, instantly softened by the lonely picture
which her words called up in his mind. She was transfigured all at
once into Una, Andromeda, Ariadne, or any other young woman of great
beauty and virtue who has ever been left desolate to face a wintry
world. 'Believe me, you have one friend whose only aspiration is to
serve you with his life-blood. 'Faith, madam, had you but shown me
your face when first I came to the door of your carriage, I would
never have let M. de Strasbourg run away until I had offered you his
smoking heart on the point of my sword.'
Her ladyship gave the Parson to understand that she had gone to the
ball on the King's service. Had his brain been of its customary
sobriety the adventure would doubtless have surprised him more than it
did. He might have questioned the nature of the service which took her
ladyship to the masquerade. But she had sufficient art to tell him
nothing and persuade him that she told all. Moreover, he had other
matters to engage him.
There is no need to extend more particularly the old story of a young
man's folly with a woman of Lady Oxford's kind. She had sought to hide
who she was, she said, because she dared not trust herself; and the
fact that she was not living in her own house, which was being
repaired, but in one that she had borrowed, with the servants, from a
friend who had gone to the Bath, seemed to make her intention
possible. But Heaven had been against her. Mr. Kelly was readily
beguiled into the sincere opinion that she had fought against her
passion, but that her weakness and his transcendent bravery, of which
she would by no means allow him to make light, had proved her ruin. It
was all in a word set down to gratitude, which was a great virtue, she
suggested. Love, indeed, was just the charge of powder which would
have never flashed--no never--had not gratitude served as a flint and
thrown off the spark.
Well, Mr. Kelly walked home in the dawning of a new day and painted
his thoughts with the colours of the sky. For weeks thereafter he
seemed in his folly to tread on air; and no doubt he had more than
ordinary warrant for his folly. He had a fortune safely lodged with
Mr. Child, the goldsmith; his mistress was no less fair than she
showed fond; and so fond she was that she could not bring herself to
chide the coachman who was discovered the next morning drunk with
drugged wine at a tavern near the Haymarket, whither one of Scrope's
hirelings had lured him. Mr. Kelly was prosperous in the three great
games of life, love, and politics. For he was wholly trusted by the
Bishop, by Lord Oxford and the rest; he took his place in the world
and went and came from France with hanging matter in his valise. The
valise weighed all the lighter for the thought that he was now serving
Lady Oxford as well as the King. She was at this time always in his
dreams. His passion indeed was in these days extreme, a devouring fire
in brain and marrow. He believed her a most loyal conspirator, and, of
course, all that he knew came to her ladyship's ears. But his bliss in
the affection of Lady Oxford quite blinded him to danger, and he
seemed to himself to walk invisible, as though he had the secret of
fernseed.
For a season, then, Mr. Kelly was the happy fool, and if the season
was short--why, is it ever long? Mr. Wogan is not indeed sure that the
Parson has got altogether out of her ladyship's debt, in spite of what
happened afterwards. For when the real morning broke and the true love
came to him, troubles followed apace upon its coming. It is something
to have been a happy fool, if only for a season and though the
happiness ended with the folly.
CHAPTER X
WHAT CAME OF MR. KELLY'S WINNINGS FROM THE
SOUTH SEA
Luck is a chameleon, and in November of that same year 1720, thought
fit to change its complexion. The date, to be precise, was the 17th of
the month. Mr. Wogan can determine on the particular day, for the
reason that Mrs. Barnes carried out her threat, and sent him a
laborious long letter concerning the Parson's moral iniquities. The
letter reached Mr. Wogan in October, who was then cleaning his ship at
Morlaix in Brittany, and what with his fifteen months of purposeless
cruises, felt himself as encrusted with idleness as his ship's bottom
with barnacles. It was just this eternal inactivity which no doubt
induced him to take the serious view of Mrs. Barnes's epistle. 'It is
a most cruel affair,' said he to Mr. Talbot, who was with him, 'and of
the last importance that I should hurry to London and set it
straight.'
'But you are fixed here,' said the Crow, for so Talbot was commonly
called from the blackness of his complexion. 'Can I undertake the
business for you?'
'No,' says Nick, shaking his head very solemn; though maybe his eye
twinkled. Mr. Wogan forgets what point the plot was at then, for since
the black year, 1688, there had been but one plot, though it had
changed and shifted shape like the faces you see in the dark before
you sleep. But he could not hear that anything immediate was intended;
and it would be, therefore, the most convenient occasion to refit his
ketch _Fortune_. He gave orders to that effect, travelled to Paris,
obtained from General Dillon a month's leave to dispose of his own
affairs, and went whistling to London like a schoolboy off on his
holidays. For, to tell the truth, he was not greatly concerned at
George Kelly's backslidings, but on the contrary was inclined to
chuckle over them, and trusted completely to his friend's discretion.
He arrived in London on November 20, and drove boldly to Kelly's
lodging in Bury Street. For the Glenshiel affair had completely blown
over--there had never been more than a rumour that he was there--and
as for the Fifteen, why Mr. Wogan had his pardon like the rest. That
he got for his behaviour to Captain Montagu at Preston; moreover, who
could know the boy Wogan that ran away from Westminster School, and
his task of copying Lord Clarendon's history, in Mr. Hilton, the man
of six feet four in his stockings. He found Kelly's lodgings empty.
'A letter came for him three days ago,' explained Mrs. Barnes, 'and he
set off almost on the instant in an agitation so great that he did not
wait to pack his valise, but had it sent after him.'
'Where to?'
'I do not know,' replied Mrs. Barnes with a sniff of the nose and a
toss of the head, 'and no doubt I am a better woman for not knowing.'
'No doubt, replied Wogan gravely. 'But, Mrs. Barnes, who signed the
letter? Where did it come from?'
'And how should I know that?' she cried. 'Would I demean myself by
reading the letters of a nasty trull? For she's no better for all her
birth, and that's not so high neither.'
'Ah,' says Wogan, 'I see you don't know who signed the letter.'
'And that's truth,' said she, 'but I saw the superscription. As for
the letter, he hid it in his bosom.'
'Well, that's as good as showing the signature. Who carried his valise
after him?'
'Francis Vanlear,' she said, 'the porter who plyed in St. James's
Street and Piccadilly and lodged at the Crown ale-house in Germain
Street.'
Thither Wogan sent for him, and when he was come asked him whither he
had carried the valise.
'To Mr. Gunning's at Mussell Hill,' Vanlear answered, where he had
found a horse ready saddled at the door and 'Mr. Johnson' in a great
fume to be off.
Wogan gave the porter a crown for his trouble and went forthwith to
Mr. Gunning's, whom he had not seen since the occasion of his coming
down from Glenshiel. From Mr. Gunning he learned that Kelly had
undoubtedly taken the Aberystwith road, since he had left the horse he
borrowed at Beaconsfield, and thither had Mr. Gunning sent to fetch
it. Kelly's destination was consequently as clear to Wogan as the
urgency of his haste, and coming back into London he dropped in at the
Cocoa Tree, where he found the story of Lady Oxford and Mr. Kelly a
familiar pleasantry.
He heard of it again that night at Will's coffeehouse in Covent
Garden, and at Burton's in King Street, where Mr. Kelly was very well
known. For, besides being close to Kelly's lodging, it was one of the
houses to which his letters were directed under cover. From Burton's
Wogan came back to Bury Street, and, while smoking a pipe in the
parlour before going to bed, he chanced to notice his strongbox. It
stood on the scrutoire by the side of Mr. Kelly's big Bible, where
Wogan had left it eighteen months before. It was the brother to Mr.
Kelly's strong-box, in every particular but one, and that one a
stouter lock. Wogan remembered that when he had placed the box on the
scrutoire the key was attached to it by a string. Now, however, he
noticed that the key was gone. He was sufficiently curious to cross
the room and try the lock. But the box would not open; it was securely
locked. There were papers too within it, as he found out by shaking
it. Kelly, then, was using the box--but for what purpose? His own box
served for his few political papers. Any other papers that needed the
shelter of a strong box must be love-letters. Here, then, were
amorous, not political epistles. Besides, he was in the habit of
burning all those which had done their work, and the rest which he
needed he carried about in his own dispatch-box.
'Now, I wonder,' said Wogan, tapping the lid, 'I wonder whether a
certain letter, signed--shall we say Smilinda?--and summoning my
friend to Brampton Bryan, is locked up inside you.' Wogan's guess hit
the truth even to the signature, though he was destined to get little
satisfaction from this proof of his sagacity. The letter, he later
learned, lay in box with not a few others in the same handwriting, and
they all ended in the same manner with a request: 'Burn this.' Mr.
Kelly would have been honester had he obeyed it, but, like many a man
when passion gets hold of him, he could not part with them. Faint
whispers breathed, as it seemed, from Heaven, and caught and written
loud in my lady's hand, pure diamonds fetched up from the obscure
mines of a woman's heart, sure he treasured them up beyond all jewels,
and locked them up in Mr. Wogan's despatch-box to his own undoing.
This letter was, (Wogan learned afterwards) the most laconic of them
all, and it was the most momentous. It began, 'My own Strephon,' and
then Strephon was crossed out and again written on the top, and it was
signed 'Smilinda' in a doubtful hand; as though, at first, Brampton
Bryan had recalled to her ladyship the beginning of their affections
with so overpowering a compulsion that she must needs use the names
which were associated with it, and then the dear woman's modesty
timidly crossed them out, and in the end love got the upper hand and
wrote them in again. At least that was a small portion of all the
great meanings which Kelly read in the hesitation of her ladyship's
address. Between the Strephon and the Smilinda there was but one
line--'Come; there is a secret. I have great need of you.' But this
had been quite enough to send Mr. Kelly spurring out into the November
night with such speed that he came to Oxford the next day, where he
found the snow lying very deep. The snow troubled him, no doubt,
because it delayed him, but he took little account of the cold beyond
a sharp pang or two lest Smilinda might have caught a chilblain. For
himself--well, Smilinda had need of him--the great lady turned for
help to the Irish outlaw. Wasn't it always so? Her Majesty throws her
glove to the page, my lord the King Cophetua goes clean daft for a
beggar wench, and the obliging Cupid builds a rickety bridge whereby
the despairing lovers leap into each other's arms.
Smilinda needed him! There was a tune ravished from Heaven! His whole
frame moved to it as the waves to the direction of the moon. It sang
in his blood, his heart beat to it, the hooves of his horse drummed it
out on the road. Even the boughs of the trees whispered the words with
a tender secrecy to the wind, much as the reeds whispered that other
saying, ages ago, which the Queen in the fable had entrusted to them.
And, 'faith, when you come to think of it, there was little difference
in meaning between the two remarks. Smilinda needed Mr. Kelly! It was,
after all, as much as to say 'Mr. Kelly has ass's ears.' He made such
haste that on the evening of the second day after his departure from
London he cantered up the drive of the Manor House.
Lady Oxford met him in the hall, and Mr. Kelly's heart gave a great
jump of pride when he saw her stately figure all softened to an
attitude of expectation.
'I knew you would come,' she said; and, as Mr. Kelly bent over her
hand, she whispered, 'My Strephon,' for all the world as if her
emotion choked her. Then she raised her voice for the servants to
hear: 'My lord is from home, Mr. Johnson, but he has commissioned me
at once to pay you his regrets and to act as his deputy in your
business.'
Mr. Kelly was all impatience to broach his business, but her
ladyship's solicitude would not allow him to speak until he had
supped. She came near to waiting upon him herself, and certainly plied
him with her best wine, vowing that it was ill weather for travellers,
and that if he kept his glass full beside his elbow it was a sure sign
he hated her. This, of course, after the servants had been dismissed.
Mr. Kelly chided her for the thought, and, with a shake of the finger,
quoted her a text: 'We are bidden not to look upon the wine when it is
red,' said he.
'And a very good text, too,' says she; 'so, if you please, shut your
eyes and drink it,' and, coming behind him, she laid her cool hand
upon his eyes and forehead. So Mr. Kelly drank, and the bumper floated
his wits into my lady's haven.
'Now,' says my lady; and, leading the way into her boudoir, she sat
herself down before the fire, and, clasping her hands at the back of
her head, smiled at Mr. Kelly.
'Strephon,' she murmured on a lilt of her voice, and with all the
provocation that witchery could devise. Mr. Kelly was on his knees at
her side in a moment. She laid a white hand upon his breast, and,
gently holding him off:
'Tell me,' says she, 'why I sent for you.'
'Because my Smilinda needed me,' he answered with a laugh of pride.
Her hand caressed his shoulder. She nodded, bit her under lip and
smiled very wisely.
'What is the service Strephon can do?' cried Kelly. 'Is it to lift the
world? Give me but your love and I'll accomplish that.'
Smilinda clapped her hands with delight, like a child.
'It is nothing so important,' said she. 'It is not in truth any
service you can do for me, but rather one that I can do for you.'
Kelly's face lost all its light, and dropped to the glummest
disappointment. He had so nursed that aspiration of doing her some
great service. Through the night, through the day, it had borne him
company. Some great service--that was to be the bridge of Cupid's
building whereby they were to stand firm-footed on equal ground. And
now it was some service Lady Oxford was to do for him. Lady Oxford
noticed the change; it may have been to read the thought which it
expressed, and that the thought touched her to unwonted depths. For
the smile faded from her lips, her eyes became grave, thoughtful,
there was a certain suspense in her attitude.
'Must the woman always owe, the man always pay?' she asked, but in a
broken way, and with almost a repugnance for herself. Indeed, she
barely finished the question, and then, with an abrupt laugh, crossed
to the window, drew aside the curtains, and gazed out upon the
darkness and the glimmering snow.
'A strange, cold world,' she said in an absent voice, 'with a strange
white carpet.' Mr. Kelly in truth had given her a glimpse into a world
yet stranger to her ladyship than that which her eyes beheld--a world
that had an odd white carpet too, though the feet of those who paced
it as often as not were stained--a world of generous impulses and
unselfish devotions. Into this world Lady Oxford was peering with an
uneasy curiosity. Perhaps for a moment she compared it with her own;
perhaps she was caught by it and admired it; but, if so, it was with a
great deal of discomfort. For she dropped the curtain petulantly
across the window, and, coming back to the fire--well, what she would
have said it is impossible to guess, for a gentle tap on the door was
followed by a servant's entrance into the room. He carried a letter on
a salver, and, advancing to Lady Oxford, offered it to her.
Now, Mr. Kelly was standing almost at the centre of the mantelpiece,
Lady Oxford at one end; and they faced one another. So the man
inevitably stopped between them, and, when he lifted up the salver, it
was impossible but that the Parson should observe the superscription.
He recognised the handwriting of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady
Oxford recognised it too, for she flushed as she picked the letter up.
But she flushed deeper as she read it through, and then crumpled it up
and flung it into the fire with an anger which showed very clearly she
would have done the like for Lady Mary were the writer instead of her
letter within reach of her vindictive fingers.
'A strange, incomprehensible creature is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,'
said Lady Oxford with a laugh and a glance at Mr. Kelly. 'The most
whimsical contradiction. She offers you a kindness with one hand and
slaps you in the face with the other. For instance, this letter here.
'Twas written out of pure kindness. It completes the friendliest
service, yet it ends with so rough a jest that but for Strephon's sake
I should be much drawn to reject the service.'
'For my sake? 'asked Kelly.
'Why, to be sure. Lady Mary gave me a piece of news a week ago in
town. It was that news which made me send for you, and she writes now
expressly to confirm it. But, let my Strephon answer me,' and she
asked whether he had yet sent his winnings from the Mississippi to be
used for the King's service.
Now, Mr. Kelly was, after all, a human being. It was all very well in
the first flush of prosperity to propose to scatter his few thousands,
but afterwards he had come to see that they would not go so very far.
Besides, he had now obvious reasons for desiring to cut as agreeable a
figure as he could. At all events the money still remained with Mr.
Child, the goldsmith, and so he told her ladyship, with a little
remorse.
'Then,' she cried in joy,' that chance has come for which Smilinda has
been longing. My presents, Strephon, you have always refused,' which
was true enough; indeed, on the other hand, she had Mr. Kelly's royal
snuff-box and a few of his jewels. 'But now I can make your fortune,
and with yours my own. There's the sweetness of it,' she said, and
clasped her hands on her heart. 'Your fortune, too!'
'My fortune you have made already,' said he, with other compliments
proper to the occasion. But her ladyship was in a practical mood.
'Listen,' says she. 'I am made acquainted that the tide has turned. I
mean, you know, in the Straits of Magellan. The South-Sea stock that
has been falling so long will certainly rise in a week; the Elector is
buying secretly. Lady Mary has it from Mr. Pope, and he at the first
and best hands from Mr. Craggs, the secretary. Mr. Craggs will insert
my name in the next list and your money I shall send to the directors
with my own. You shall be rich, Strephon, on the level of your
merits.'
Mr. Kelly was very well content with his one speculation, but the
evident joy with which Lady Oxford anticipated serving him was worth
more than his thousands.
'My gold shall be in Smilinda's coffers the morning that I get back to
town, 'he said.
'You must go at once,' she exclaimed, 'we must lose no time. Stay. I
will travel with you to-morrow morning if you will favour me with your
company'; and so a new flow of compliments carried the South Sea out
of sight. But a minute or two later Mr. Kelly, chancing to look down
at the hearth, said, quite inconsequently:
'We must not forget to thank Lady Mary.'
Smilinda followed the direction of his eyes, and saw that Lady Mary's
letter had tumbled out of the fire and now lay, half burnt, but the
other half only curled up and scorched. She shivered as though she was
cold, and the better to warm herself knelt down on the hearth-rug.
Then she took up the letter (which Kelly must not see) and carelessly
tossed it into the fire.
'You know Lady Mary,' she said. 'Yes, you told me.'
'I do, indeed,' said Kelly, with a smile.
'I could wish you did not,' said her ladyship with a frown. Smilinda
made it plain that she was jealous. Kelly laughed heartily at the
assumption, which was in truth ridiculous enough.
'Who am I,' said he, 'that I should attract Lady Mary's fancy,'
'You are--my Strephon,' replied Smilinda, with a sigh of exquisite
tenderness.
Kelly argued the matter on other grounds. Smilinda listened to them
all.
'I have no doubt you are right,' she said, with a meek resignation.
'But I remember you spoke very warmly of the friendship you had for
her, and ever since--' here she broke off shyly. 'A weak woman's empty
fears,' she continued,' but they keep her awake at nights. Well, she
must even make the best of them.'
Smilinda lying awake at nights out of jealousy! There was a notion to
convict Mr. Kelly of slow murder. He was on his knees in a moment, and
swore that for the future on earth and in Heaven he would avoid Lady
Mary's company as though she was the devil in person. It was a
confused sort of oath and deprived Mr. Kelly for a time of a very good
friend; but on the other hand it undoubtedly raised a load from Lady
Oxford's anxieties.
She left Brampton Bryan the next morning and travelled with Mr. Kelly
up to London, where the coach set them down at the King's Head in the
Strand. Kelly went straight from the King's Head to the goldsmith and
his money was carried to Queen's Square that same afternoon. It would
seem, however, that Mr. Pope had been choused, for the market fell
from little to nothing. But when the Bubble presently burst into air,
Smilinda burst into tears, and Mr. Kelly was smitten to the heart for
her distress.
'I have ruined thee, my Strephon,' she sobbed. She had covered her
face with her hands and the tears trickled through her fingers.
'Love arms me against
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