CHAPTER x.x.xIX
WHICH IS A QUADRUPLE CHAPTER
I
My lady Betty opened the bedroom door and sneezed violently:
"Aunt Bee," she gasped, "O!"
"Heavens, child, how you pounce on one!" cried Lady Belinda, starting and dropping her powder puff. "What is"t?"
"Snuff, aunt--O!"
"Snuff--O Lord! Where? Who?"
"Your Colonel--Cleeve, aunt--O!"
"Colonel Cleeve? Here again? O Heavens!" cried Lady Belinda, flushing.
"He"s been waiting below and sprinkling me with his dreadful snuff this half-hour and more, as you know very well, aunt!"
"Indeed miss, and how should I know?" cried Lady Belinda indignantly, stealing a glance at her reflection in the mirror.
"You saw him come a-marching up the drive of course, dear aunt. O he uses the dreadfullest snuff I vow--"tis like gunpowder--and scatters it broadcast! "And pray how"s your lady aunt?" says he, sprinkling it over the window-seat and me. "O sir, in excellent health I thank you,"
says I, "twixt my sneezes. "I trust she finds herself none the worse for her walk last night, the air grows chill toward sunset," says he through a brown cloud. "Indeed sir," I choked feebly, "aunt enjoys the evening air hugely." "Then," says he, speaking like Jove in the cloud, "I"m bold to hope that she perhaps--this afternoon----" "I"ll go and see," I gasped, and staggered from the room strangling. "Tis a dear, shy soul, aunt, for all his ogreish eyes and gruff voice."
"Betty!" exclaimed Belinda clasping her hands, "when I think of him downstairs and our poor, dear Charles abovestairs I could positively swoon----"
"Nay, aunt, the Colonel"s presence here is Charles" safeguard surely, and the Colonel"s a true soldier, a dear, gentle man "spite all his bloodthirsty airs and ferocious eyes----"
"Do you think them so--so fierce, Betty?" questioned Lady Belinda wistfully.
"Go down and see for yourself, aunt."
Lady Belinda crossed to the door, but paused there, fumbled with the latch and then, all at once, sobbed, and next moment Betty had her close in her arms.
"Why, aunt!" she whispered. "My dear, what"s your grief?"
"O Betty!" whispered Lady Belinda, trembling in those strong young arms, "O my dear I"m--so--old----"
Betty"s eyes filled and stooping she kissed that humbly bowed head:
"Aunt Belinda," she murmured, "Love is never old, nor ever can be. If Love hath come to thee when least expected, Love shall make thee young.
Thy years of waiting and unselfish service these have but made thee more worthy--would I were the same. There, let me dry these foolish tears, so. Now go, dear, go down and may"st thou find a joy worthy of thy life of devotion to thy Betty who loveth thee and ever will. I"ll upstairs to Charles!"
II
"Now look"ee Bet," my Lord of Medhurst was saying five minutes later, "I"ll not endure it another week--I"ll not I say. To lie mewed up here, to creep out like a very thief--"tis beyond my endurance----"
"And mine too, Charles--almost," sighed Betty. "To have to live a hateful lie, to be forced to meet one I despise, to endure his looks, his words, his touches--O!"
"G.o.d forgive me, Bet--I"m a beast, a graceless, selfish beast!" cried his lordship, clasping her in his arms. "When I think of all you"ve done for me I could kick this d.a.m.ned carca.s.s o" mine--forgive me! But ha!" his lordship chuckled boyishly, "Deuce take me Bet, but I avenged you to some extent last night. I sat on the wall, Bet, as coyly as you please and true to a minute along comes my gentleman and kisses my hand and I more demure and shy than e"er you were. "Betty," says he, low and eager, "by heaven, you"re more bewitching than ever to-night!" His very words, Bet, as I"m a sinner!" Here my lord chuckled again, laughed and finally fell to such an ecstasy of mirth that he must needs gag and half-choke himself with his handkerchief, while Betty laughed too and thereafter gnashed white teeth vindictively:
"What more?" she questioned, her eyes bright and malevolent.
"Why then, Bet, the fool falls to an amorous ecstasy--pleads for a taste o" my lips--d.a.m.n him! and finally catches me by the foot and falls to kissing that and I bursting with laughter the while! So there he has me by the foot d"ye see and I nigh helpless with suppressed joy, but when I wished to get away he did but hold and kiss the fiercer. So Bet, I--full of prudish alarms as it were--bestowed on him--a kick!"
Here his lordship found it necessary to gag himself again while Betty, leaning forward with hands clasped, watched him gleefully.
"You kicked him!" she repeated. "Hard?"
"Fairly so--enough to send his hat flying, and Bet, as luck would have it who should chance along at that precise moment but Major d"Arcy and----"
Uttering an inarticulate cry my lady sprang to her feet.
"Did he see--did he see?" she demanded breathlessly, "Charles--O Charles--did he see?"
"Begad, I fear he did--why Bet--Betty--good G.o.d--what is it?" For, covering her face, Betty had cowered away to the wall and leaned there.
"What will he think!" she murmured. "O what will he think of me?"
My lord stood speechless awhile, his delicate features twitching with emotion as he watched her bowed form.
"Betty dear," said he tenderly at last, "doth it matter to thee--so much?"
"Charles!" she cried, "O Charles!" and in that stricken cry and the agony of the face she lifted, he read her answer.
"Dearest," said he after awhile, clasping his arm about her, "here is no cause for grief. I"ll go to him in--in these curst floppy things--he shall see for himself and I"ll tell him all----"
"No!" said she rising and throwing up proud head. "I"ll die first! We will go through with it to the end--n.o.body shall know until you are safe--none but you and I and Aunt Belinda. To speak now were to ruin all. So, my Charles, whatsoe"er befall you shall not speak--I forbid it!"
"Forgive me, Bess," he pleaded, "wilt forgive me for jeopardising thy--thy happiness so?"
"Aye to be sure, dear boy!" she answered, kissing him. "Only now I must go!"
"Go, Betty?"
"To him!" she sighed. "I must find out--just how and what he thinks of me."
"Gad"s my life, Bet!" sighed his lordship ruefully as he followed her to the door, "I do think thou wert ever the braver of the two of us."
III
"Consequently Tom, dear lad," the Major was saying as he walked the rose-garden arm in arm with the Viscount, "feeling for thee as I do and because of the years that have but knit our affections the closer, I am bold to ask thee what hath moved thee to run so great a risk o" thy life--a life so young and promising."