SCENE XVI

"And now, child, what's the town talk?" said Mistress Bellairs.

The nights were chilly, and a log crackled on the hearth. Kitty, in the most charming déshabillé, stretched a pink slippered foot airily towards the blaze.

"La, ma'am," said Miss Lydia, as with nervous fingers she uncoiled one powdered roll and curl after another, "all the morning the gossip was upon Sir Jasper's meeting with Colonel Villiers at Hammer's Fields. And all the afternoon——" she paused and poised a brush.

"All the afternoon? Speak, child. You know," said her mistress piously, "that I had to spend my evening by the side of a dear sick friend."

"Well, ma'am," said the maid, "the talk is all about your own marriage with the young Lord Verney."

"Mercy, girl," cried the lady with a little scream, "you needn't hit my head so hard with those bristles! What's taken you? And what do people think of that?"

"Why, ma'am," said the Abigail, wielding her brush more tenderly, and permitting her irritation to betray itself only in the sharp snap of her voice, "my Lord Verney's man says he pities anyone that will have to go and live with her old la'ship at Verney Hall."

"Ha!" said Kitty, and gave herself a congratulatory smile in the handglass.

"And Mr. Burrell, ma'am, that's Lady Maria's butler, and a wise old gentleman he is, he says the marriage'll never take place, ma'am, for neither his own la'ship, nor the lady at Verney Hall, would allow of it, ma'am."

"Oh, indeed?" exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, stiffening herself, "that's all they know about it! Lydia, you untruthful, impertinent girl, how dare you tell me such a story?"

"I'm sure I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Lydia, sniffing. "I'm sure I up and told Mr. Burrell that if you'd set your heart on wedding such a poor ninny as Lord Verney—I beg pardon, ma'am, I'm sure he'll be a very nice young nobleman, when his beard begins to grow—'twas not likely a deaf old cat like his mistress could prevent him. And I told Lord Verney's man, ma'am—and an impudent fellow he is—that you'd soon teach the dowager her place, once you were mistress in Verney Hall."

"Well, well," said the lady, mollified, "and what says the rest of your Bath acquaintance?"

"Squire Juniper's head coachman says his master'll drink himself to death, as sure as eggs, on the day that sees you another's, ma'am. He's been taking on terrible with Madeira ever since he's heard the news. And the Marquis' running footman, he says 'that Lady Flyte'll have it all her own way with his lordship now, and mores the pity, for,' says he, 'her la'ship's not fit to hold a candle to the widow'; excuse the language, he knows no better, his strength is mostly in his legs, ma'am. And Mr. Stafford's jockey says, ma'am, that in his opinion you're a lady as will never be drove again in double harness."

"Did he say so, indeed!" said Mistress Bellairs, reflectively. "Well, my good creature, and what say you?"

"La!" said the maid, and the brush trembled over her mistress's curls, "I say, ma'am, that if you was to make such a sacrifice, you so young, and lovely, and so much admired, I humbly hopes you might pick out someone livelier than my Lord Verney."

"Now, whom," said Mistress Bellairs, in a tone of good-humoured banter, "would you choose, I wonder? What would you say to the Marquis, Lydia?"

"Oh, ma'am! His lordship is a real nobleman—as the prize-fighters all say—and a better judge in the cockpit, Mr. Bantam, the trainer, says, never breathed, drunk or sober; and no doubt when he's sober, ma'am, he'd make as good a husband as most."

"Well, well, girl, enough of him. What of Mr. Stafford, now?"

"Oh, Mr. Stafford, ma'am, that's a comely gentleman; not one bit of padding under his stockings, and an eye 'twould wheedle the very heart out of one's bosom! And, no doubt, if you ever thought of him, ma'am, you'd see that he paid off the little French milliner handsome. He's a very constant gentleman," said Miss Lydia, with a suspicion of spite.

"Pooh," cried the lady, and pushed her chair away from the fire, "what nonsense you do talk! And pray what thinks your wisdom of Mr. O'Hara?"

"Lud! ma'am," cried the guileless maiden, "that's the gentleman as was found behind Lady Standish's curtains."

"If you were not a perfect idiot," cried the widow, "you would not repeat that absurd tale, much less expect me to believe it. Mr. O'Hara has never even spoken to Lady Standish."

The unusual warmth in her mistress's tone struck the girl's sharp wits. She glanced quickly at the lady's reflection in the glass, and made no reply.

"Come," said Mistress Bellairs, "what else have you against him? Is he not handsome, child?"

"Why, ma'am, handsome enough for such as like red hair."

"And merry, and good company?"

"Oh, ma'am, none better, as half the rogues in Bath know."

"Tush—you mean he is good-natured, I suppose?"

"He never said 'no' in his life, ma'am, I do believe, to man or woman."

"Well, then?" cried her mistress testily.

"And generous," gabbled Lydia, charmed by the cloud she beheld gathering on the brow reflected in the glass, "open-handed, ma'am. Mr. Mahoney—that queer peculiar servant of his—many a time he's told me, ma'am, that his only way to keep his wages for himself, and seldom he sees the sight of them, is to spend them at once, for his good master is that free-handed, ma'am, he'd give the coat off his servant's back."

"I'm quite aware," said the lady loftily, "that Mr. O'Hara's estates in Ireland are slightly embarrassed."

"I don't know what they call it, ma'am," cried Lydia shrilly. "It's not a ha'porth of rent the old lord's seen these twelve months. Last year they lived on the pictures. And now it's the plate, I'm told. But, indeed, ma'am, as Mr. Mahoney says, what does it matter to a gay gentleman like Mr. O'Hara? Sure, he's the sort, as he says to me only yesterday, that would come to a fortune on Monday and be sending to the pawnshop on Saturday."

"You may go to bed, Lydia," cried Mistress Bellairs, rising hastily; "you've half deafened me with your chatter."

Left alone the little lady sat down by the fire in a melancholy mood.

"The sort that would come to a fortune on Monday, and be sending to the pawnshop on Saturday.... I'm afraid it's true. Yet, I believe, he loves me, poor Denis! I vow," she said to herself, "'tis the only one of them all that I could endure. Yes, I could endure Denis, vastly well ... for a while at least. And now," said she, "what's to be done! Oh, I'd be loath to baulk him of the pleasure of running away with me! 'tis the only decent way indeed of breaking with my Lord Verney. And it certainly struck me that Master Stafford was mighty cool upon the matter. I've been too quiet of late, and that odious Bab Flyte thinks she can have everything her own way.... But, I'll be rescued," she said, "at Devizes—I shall have to be rescued at Devizes. My poor dear; he may be happy at least for an hour or two ... as far as Devizes!"

Her brow cleared; the dimples began to play.

"We shall see," she smiled more broadly, "if we cannot prod his Calfship into a night trot. 'Twill do his education a vastness of service.... But the poor creature," she reflected further, "is scarce to be depended on. Who knows whether his mother would approve of his breathing the night air.... I must," Mistress Kitty's pretty forehead became once more corrugated under the stress of profound thought—"I must," she murmured, "have another string to my bow, or my sweet O'Hara will marry me after all. Dear fellow, how happy we should be from Monday ... till Saturday! Who? Who, shall it be? ... My Lord Marquis might take the r?le in earnest and spoil my pretty fellow's beauty. Squire Juniper? He would sure be drunk. And Master Stafford? Oh, he may stay with the French milliner for me!"

Suddenly the lady's perplexed countenance became illumined. "Sir Jasper?" she said. "Sir Jasper—the very man! The good Julia—I owe it to her to bring matters to an éclaircissement. And, Sir Jasper—oh, he richly deserves a midnight jolt, for 'tis owing to his monstrous jealousy that I am put to all this trouble. 'Twill be a fine thing indeed," thought Mistress Bellairs with a burst of self-satisfied benevolence, "if I can demonstrate to Sir Jasper, once for all, the folly into which this evil passion may lead a man."