SCENE III

Sir Jasper came striding back to the house. In the morning-room he passed his wife without a word.

"Sir Jasper," quoth she, and shot out a timid hand. "Oh, Sir Jasper, will you not listen to me? This is the most terrible mistake. Sir Jasper, I swear I am true to you, not only in deed but in every inmost thought."

"Do not swear, madam," said he, and shut the door in her face.

Ten minutes later he sallied forth again. She heard his steps ring out: they sounded very desperate. She sat on the pink-striped settee in a misery too deep this time for tears. How puerile, how far away, seemed the morning's storm. She sat with her hands locked and her eyes starting, revolving terrible possibilities, and fruitless plans for preventing them. Dinner was served in vain. Her ladyship's woman brought her a dish of tea. This poor Julia drank, for she felt faint and weary. Then a sudden thought struck her.

"'Tis Mistress Bellairs who made the mischief," she thought, "now she must mend it." She dashed off a despairing note to the lady and dispatched her black page with all possible celerity.


"I have followed your advice, to my undoing. You told me to make Sir Jasper jealous; I tried to make him jealous, and succeeded far too well. He fancies there is something between me and Lord Verney. Poor young man, I have spoken to him but three times in my life! There will be a duel and they will both be killed. Come to me, dear Mistress Bellairs, and see what is to be done, for I am half dead with fear and anguish."


The dusk was falling when, with incredible celerity, the sedan-chair of Mistress Bellairs rounded the corner at a swinging pace; her bell-like voice might be heard from within rating the chairmen with no gentle tone for their sluggishness.

"'Tis snails ye are—snails, not men. La! is there one of you that is not a great-grandfather? It is not, I would have you know, a coffin that you are carrying, but a chair. Oh, Gad, deliver me from such lazy scoundrels!"

In a storm she burst open the door; in a whirlwind tore through the passage. Lady Standish's obsequious footmen she flounced upon one side. Into that afflicted lady's presence she burst with undiminished vigour.

"So," said she, "these are fine goings on! And why Lord Verney, may I inquire?"

"Oh, Mistress Bellairs," ejaculated her friend, with a wail, "'tis indeed terrible. Think of Sir Jasper's danger, and all because of my folly in listening to your pernicious advice."

"My advice!" cried Mistress Kitty. "My advice—this is pretty hearing! Here, where is that woman of yours, and where are those stuffed owls you keep in the hall. What is the use of them if they do not do their business? Light up, light up—who can speak in the dark?" She ran from one door to another calling.

"Oh, dear," sighed Lady Standish, and leant her distraught head against the cushions.

"Come, come," cried Mistress Bellairs, heedless of the presence of footmen with tapers, and lady's-maid with twinkling curl paper. "Sit up this minute, Julia, and tell me the whole from the beginning. It is no use your trying to extenuate, for I will know all that has happened."

But before her friend, whose back was beginning to stiffen under this treatment, had had time to collect her thoughts sufficiently for a dignified reply, Mistress Kitty herself proceeded with great volubility:

"And so, madam, not content with having a new young husband of your own, you must fix upon Lord Verney for your manoeuvres. Why, he has never so much as blinked the same side of the room as you. Why, it was but yester-night he vowed he hardly knew if you were tall or short. Put that out of your head, my Lady Standish, Lord Verney is not for you. Oh, these country girls!"

Lady Standish rose, quivering with rage.

"Be silent, madam," she said, "your words have neither sense nor truth. I was ill-advised enough to listen to your unwomanly counsels. I tried to deceive my husband, and God has punished me."

"Ah," said Mrs. Kitty, "deceit is a very grievous sin. I wonder at you, that you must fix upon Lord Verney. Oh, Julia!" here her voice grew melting and her large brown eyes suffused. "You had all Bath," she said, "and you must fix upon Lord Verney. The one man I thought ... the one man I could have.... Oh, how did you dare? Nay! It is a blind," she cried, flaming again into indignation and catching her friend by the wrist. "There was more in your game than you pretend, you sly and silken hypocrite! If he is killed, how will you feel then?"

"Oh," exclaimed Lady Standish, "cruel woman! Is this your help? Sir Jasper killed!"

"Sir Jasper? Sir Fiddle!" cried Mistress Kitty, with a fine scorn. "Who cares for Sir Jasper? 'Tis my Harry I think of. Oh, oh!" cried the widow, and burst into tears.

Lady Standish stood confounded.

"What!" cried she, "you love Lord Verney?"

"'Tis the only man of them," sobbed Kitty, "who does not pester me with his devotion—the only one who does not come to my call like a lap-dog. If I look at him he blushes for bashfulness, and not for love; if his hand shakes it is because he is so sweetly timid, not because my touch thrills him. I had set my heart," said Mistress Kitty through her clenched teeth—"I had set my heart upon Lord Verney, and now you must needs have him ki—ki—killed before I have even had time to make him see the colour of my eyes."

"Oh, oh!" sighed Julia Standish, still beyond tears.

And:

"Oh!" sobbed Kitty Bellairs, quite forgetful of red noses and swollen lids.

There was a silence broken only by the sobs of the widow and the sighs of the wife.

Then said Mistress Kitty, in a small, strangled voice: "Let this be a lesson to you never to deceive."

"I never told a single lie before," moaned Lady Standish.

"Ah!" said Kitty, "there never was a single lie, madam. A lie is wed as soon as born, and its progeny exceeds that of Abraham."

The two women rose from their despairing postures, and, mutually pushed by the same impulse, approached each other.

"What is to be done now?" said Lady Standish.

"What is to be done?" said Mistress Bellairs.

"Let us seek Sir Jasper," said his wife, "and tell him the whole truth."

Kitty, through wet eyelashes, shot a glance of withering scorn upon her friend.

"Ay," she said sarcastically, "that would be useful truly. Why, child, let you and me but go and swear your innocence to Sir Jasper, and it will be enough to establish you steeped in guilt in the eyes of every sensible person for the rest of your life. No," said she, "better must be thought of than that. We must act midwife to the lie and start the little family as soon as possible."

"I will lie no more," said Lady Standish.

"I am told," said Mistress Kitty musingly, "that Lord Verney has learned swordsmanship abroad."

"Oh, cruel!" moaned the other.

Mistress Kitty paused, bit a taper finger, scratched an arch eyebrow, drew white brows together, pondered deeply. Suddenly her dimples peeped again.

"I have it!" said she. "'Tis as easy as can be. Will you leave it to me?"

Lady Standish began to tremble. She had wept much, she had not eaten, her heart was full of terror. Faintness she felt creep upon her.

"What will you do?" she said, grasping after the vanishing powers of reflection with all her failing strength.

"Do?" said Mistress Bellairs. "First of all, prevent the duel. Will that serve you?"

"Oh, yes," cried Julia, and grew livid behind her paint.

"She has got the vapours again," thought the other. "What a poor weak fool it is!"

But these vapours came in handy to her plans; she was not keen to restore Lady Standish too promptly. She called her woman, however, and helped her to convey the sufferer to her room and lay her on the couch; then she advised sal volatile and sleep.

"Leave it all to me," she murmured into the little ear uppermost upon the pillow; "I will save you."

Lady Standish groped for her friend's hand with her own that was cold and shaking. The ladies exchanged a clasp of confidence, and Mistress Bellairs tripped down to the drawing-room.

"Now," said she to herself, "let us see." Sudden inspiration sparkled in her eye. She plunged her hand into the depth of the brocade pocket dangling at her side, drew forth sundry letters, and began to select with pursed lips. There was Sir Jasper's own. Those gallant well-turned lines, that might mean all or nothing, as a woman might choose to take them—that was of no use for the present. Back it went into the brocade pocket. There was a scrawl from Harry Verney declining her invitation to a breakfast party because he had promised (with two "m's") my Lord Scroop to shoot (with a "u" and an "e"). Kitty Bellairs looked at it very tenderly, folded it with a loving touch, and replaced it in its nest. Here was a large folded sheet, unaddressed, filled inside with bold black writing. A crisp auburn curl was fastened across the sheet by an emerald-headed pin.


"Most cruel, most beautiful, most kind!"

ran the ardent lines,

"most desired, most beloved! Was it last night or a hundred years ago that we met? This is the lock of hair the loveliest hand in all the world deigned to caress. It became upon that moment far too precious a thing for its poor owner. He ventures, therefore, to offer it at the shrine of the goddess who consecrated it. Will she cast it from her? Or will she keep it and let it speak to her, every hair a tongue, of the burning flame of love that she has kindled in this mortal breast? Did I dream, or can it be true?—there was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your lip. I kissed it. Oh, it must have been a dream! One word, fairest:—When may I dream again?

"Your own and ever your own.

"P.S.—The lock was white before you touched it, but you see you have turned it to fire!"


Mistress Kitty read and smiled. "The very thing!" Then she paused. "But has the woman a dimple?" said she. "Has she? Never mind, something must be risked. Now, if I know men, Sir Jasper will spend the whole night prowling about, trying to discover confirmation of his suspicions."

The letter was folded up. "It must seem as if it dropped from my lady's bosom. Here, at the foot of the sofa, just peeping from behind the foot-stool! A jealous eye cannot miss it!"

The deed was done.

She caught up her cloak and hood, glanced cheerfully round the room, satisfied herself that the letter showed itself sufficiently in the candle light to attract a roving eye and, bustling forth, summoned her chair for her departure in a far better humour than that which had marked her arrival.

"They could not fight till morning," she said to herself, as she snuggled against the silken sides. "Now heaven speed my plan!" She breathed a pious prayer as her bearers swung her onwards.