"He would play some evil trick on her for revenge, I vow," said another lady. "She hath Mistress Anne with her nearly always in these days, as if she would keep him off by having a companion; but "tis no use, follow and badger her he will."
"Badger her!" bl.u.s.tered Sir Chris. "He durst not, the jackanapes! He is not so fond of drawing point as he was a few years ago."
""Tis badgering and naught else," said Mistress Lovely. "I have watched him standing by and pouring words like poison in her ear, and she disdaining to reply or look as though she heard."
My Lady Betty laughed again with a prettier venom still.
"He hath gone mad," she said. "And no wonder! My woman, who knows a mercer"s wife at whose husband"s shop he bought his finery, told me a story of him. He was so deep in debt that none would give him credit for an hour, until the old Earl of Dunstanwolde died, when he persuaded them that he was on the point of marrying her ladyship. These people are so simple they will believe anything, and they watched him go to her house and knew he had been her worshipper before her marriage. And so they gave him credit again. Thence his fine new wardrobe came. And now they have heard the news and have all run mad in rage at their own foolishness, and are hounding him out of his life."
The two ladies made heartless game enough of the anecdote. Perhaps both had little spites of their own against Sir John, who in his heyday had never spoke with a woman without laying siege to her heart and vanity, though he might have but five minutes to do it in. Lady Betty, at least, "twas known had once had coquettish and sentimental pa.s.sages with him, if no more; and whether "twas her vanity or her heart which had been wounded, some sting rankled, leaving her with a malice against him which never failed to show itself when she spoke or heard his name.
A curious pa.s.sage took place between them but a short time after she had told her story of his tricking of his creditors. "Twas at a Court ball and was a whimsical affray indeed, though chiefly remembered afterwards because of the events which followed it-one of them occurring upon the spot, another a day later, this second incident being a mystery never after unravelled. At this ball was my Lady Dunstanwolde in white and silver, and looking, some said, like a spirit in the radiance of her happiness.
"For "tis pure happiness that makes her shine so," said her faithful henchman, old Sir Christopher. "Surely she hath never been a happy woman before, for never hath she smiled so since I knew her first, a child. She looks like a creature born again."
Lady Betty Tantillion engaged in her encounter in an antechamber near the great saloon. Her ladyship had a pretty way of withdrawing from the moving throng at times to seek comparative seclusion and greater ease. There was more freedom where there would be exchange of wits and glances, not overheard and beheld by the whole world; so her ladyship had a neat taste in nooks and corners, where a select little court of her own could be held by a charming fair one. Thus it fell that after dancing in the ball-room with one admirer and another, she made her way, followed by two of the most attentive, to a pretty retiring-room quite near.
"Twas for the moment, it seemed, deserted, but when she entered with her courtiers, the exquisite Lord Charles Lovelace and his friend Sir Harry Granville, a gentleman turned from a window where he seemed to have been taking the air alone, and seeing them uttered under his breath a malediction.
"To the devil with them!" he said, but the next moment advanced with a somewhat mocking smile, which was scarce hidden by his elaborate bow of ceremony to her ladyship.
"My Lady Betty Tantillion!" he exclaimed, "I did not look for such fortune. "Tis not necessary to hope your ladyship blooms in health. "Tis an age since we met."
Since their rupture they had not spoken with each other, but my Lady Betty had used her eyes well when she had beheld him even at a distance, and his life she knew almost as well as if they had been married and she a jealous consort.
But she stood a moment regarding him with an impertinent questioning little stare, and then held up her quizzing-gla.s.s and uttered an exclamation of sad surprise.
"Sir John Oxon!" she said. "How changed! how changed! Sure you have been ill, Sir John, or have met with misfortunes."
To the vainest of men and the most galled-he who had been but a few years gone the most lauded man beauty in the town, who had been sought, flattered, adored-"twas a bitter little stab, though he knew well the giver of the thrust. Yet he steeled himself to bow again, though his eyes flashed.
"I have indeed been ill and in misfortune," he answered, sardonically. "Can a man be in health and fortunate when your ladyship has ceased to smile upon him?"
My Lady Betty courtesied with a languid air.
"Lord Charles," she said, with indifferent condescension, "Sir Harry, you have heard of this gentleman, though he was before your day. In his-" (as though she recalled the past glories of some antiquated beau) "you were still at the University."
Then as she pa.s.sed to a divan to seat herself she whispered an aside to Lord Charles, holding up her fan.
"The ruined dandy," she said, "who is mad for my Lady Dunstanwolde. Ask him some question of his wife?"
Whereupon Lord Charles, who was willing enough to join in badgering a man who had still good looks enough to prove a rival had he the humour, turned with a patronising air of civility.
"My Lady Oxon is not with you?" he observed.
"There is none, your lordship," Sir John answered, and almost ground his teeth, seeing the courteous insolence of the joke. "I am a single man."
"Lud!" cried my Lady Betty, fanning with graceful indifference. ""Twas said you were to marry a great fortune, and all were filled with envy. What become, then, of the fair Mistress Isabel Beaton?"
"She returned to Scotland, your ladyship," replied Sir John, his eyes transfixing her. "Ere now "tis ancient history."
"Fie, Sir John," said Lady Betty, laughing wickedly, "to desert so sweet a creature. So lovely-and so rich! Men are not wise as they once were."
Sir John drew nearer to her and spoke low. "Your ladyship makes a b.u.t.t of me," he said. And "twas so ordained by Fate, at this moment when the worst of him seethed within his breast, and was ripest for mad evil, Sir Christopher Crowell came bustling into the apartment, full of exultant hilarity and good wine which he had been partaking of in the banqueting-hall with friends.
"Good Lord!" he cried, having spoke with Lady Betty; "what ails thee, Jack? Thy very face is a killjoy."
""Tis repentance, perhaps," said Lady Betty. "We are reproaching him with deserting Mistress Beaton-who had even a fortune."
Sir Christopher glanced from Sir John to her ladyship and burst forth into a big guffaw, his convivialities having indeed robbed him of discretion.
"He desert her!" said he. "She jilted him and took her fortune to a Marquis! "Twas thine own fault, too, Jack. Hadst thou been even a decent rake she would have had thee."
"By G.o.d!" cried Sir John, starting and turning livid; and then catching a sight of the delight in my Lady Betty"s face, who had set out to enrage him before her company, he checked himself and broke into a contemptuous, short laugh.
"These be country manners, Sir Christopher," he said. "In Gloucestershire b.u.mpers are tossed off early, and a banquet added turns a man"s head and makes him garrulous."
"Ecod!" said Sir Christopher, grinning. "A nice fellow he is to twit a man with the bottle. Myself, I"ve seen him drunk for three days."
Whereupon there took place a singular change in Sir John Oxon"s look. His face had been so full of rage but a moment ago that, at Sir Chris"s second sally, Lady Betty had moved slightly in some alarm. Town manners were free, but not quite so free as those of the country, and Sir John was known to be an ill-tempered man. If the two gentlemen had quarrelled about her ladyship"s own charms "twould have been a different matter, but to come to an encounter over a mere drinking-bout would be a vulgar, ignominious thing in which she had no mind to be mixed up.
"Lord, Sir Christopher," she exclaimed, tapping him with her fan. "Three days! For shame!"
But though Sir John had started "twas not in rage. Three days carousing with this old blockhead! When had he so caroused? He could have laughed aloud. Never since that time he had left Wildairs, bearing with him the lock of raven hair-his triumph and his proof. No, "twas not in anger he started but through a sudden shock of recollection, of fierce, eager hope, that at last, in the moment of his impotent humiliation, he had by chance-by a very miracle of chance-come again upon what he had so long searched for in helpless rage-that which would give power into his hand and vengeance of the bitterest.
And he had come upon it among chatterers in a ball-room through the vinous babbling of a garrulous fool.
"Three days!" he said, and took out his snuff-box and tapped it, laughing jeeringly. And this strange thing my Lady Betty marked, that his white hand shook a little as if from hidden excitement. "Three days!" he mocked.
"No man of fashion now," said Lord Charles, and tapped his snuff-box also, "is drunk for more than two."
But Sir Christopher felt he was gaining a victory before her ladyship"s very eyes, which always so mocked and teased him for his clumsiness in any encounter of words, wherefore he pressed his point gleefully.
"Three days!" cries he. ""Twas nearer four."
Sir John turned on him, laughing still, seeming in very truth as if the thing amused him.
"When, when?" he said. "Never, I swear!" and held a pinch of snuff in his fingers daintily, his eyes gleaming blue as sapphires through the new light in them.
"Swear away!" cried Sir Christopher; "thou wast too drunk to remember. "Twas the night thou hidst the package in the wall."
Then he burst forth again in laughter, for Sir John had so started that he forgot his pinch of snuff and scattered it.
"Canst see "tis no slander, my lady," he cried, pointing at Sir John, who stood like a man who wakes from long sleep and is bewildered by the thoughts which rush through his brain. "I laughed till I was like to crack my sides." Then to Sir John, "Thou hadst but just left Clo Wildairs and I rode with thee to Ess.e.x. Lord, how I laughed to watch thee groping to find a place safe enough to put it in. "I"m drunk," says thou, "and I would have it safe till I am sober. "Twill be safe here," and stuffed it in the broken plaster "neath the window-sill. And safe it was, for I"ll warrant thou hast not thought of it since, and safe thou"lt find it at the Cow at Wickben still."
Sir John struck one closed hand sudden on the palm of the other.
"It comes back to thee," cried Sir Christopher, with a grimace aside at his audience.