The letter came from Lord Elmscott and urged me to visit him in town.
"Come!" he wrote. "To the dust of Leyden you are superadding the mould of c.u.mberland. Come and brush yourself clean with the contact of wits!
There is much afoot that should interest you. What with Romish priests and English bishops, the town is in ferment. Moreover, a new beauty hath come to Court. There is nothing very strange in that. But she is a foreigner, and her rivals have as yet discovered no scandal to smirch her with. There is something very strange in that. Such a miracle is well worth a man"s beholding. She hails from the Tyrol and is the widow of one Count Lukstein, who was in London last year. She wears no mourning for her husband, and hath many suitors. I have of late won much money at cards, and so readily forgive you for that you were the death of Ph[oe]be."
The letter ran on to some considerable length, but I read no more of it. Indeed, I understood little of what I had read. The face of Countess Lukstein seemed stamped upon the page to the obscuring of the inscription. I pa.s.sed it across to Jack without a word, and he perused it silently and tossed it back. All that evening I sat smoking my pipe and pondering the proposal. An overmastering desire to see her features alive with the changing lights of expression, began to possess me. The more I thought, the more ardently I longed to behold her. If only I could see her eyes alert and glancing, if only I could hear her voice, I might free myself from the picture of the blank, impa.s.sive mask which she wore in my dreams. That way, I fancied, and that way alone, should I find peace.
"I shall go," I said at last, knocking the ashes from my pipe. "I shall go to-morrow."
"You shan"t!" cried Jack vehemently, springing up and facing me. "She knows you. She has seen you."
"She has never seen me," I replied steadily, and he gazed into my face with a look of bewilderment which gradually changed into fear.
"Are you mad, Morrice?" he asked, in a broken whisper, and took a step or two backwards, keeping his eyes fixed upon mine.
"Nay, Jack," said I; "but unless G.o.d helps me, I soon shall be. He may be helping me now. I trust so, for this visit alone can save me."
"She has never seen you?" he repeated. "Swear it! Morrice! Swear it!"
I did as he bade me.
"What brings her to England?" he mused.
"What kept us wandering about Italy?" I answered. "The fear to return home."
""Twill not serve," said he. "She wears no mourning for her husband."
I wondered at this myself, but could come at no solution, and so got me to bed. That night, for the first time since I left Austria, I slept dreamlessly. In the morning I was yet more determined to go. I felt, indeed, as though I had no power to stay, and, hurrying on my servants, I prepared to set out at two of the afternoon. Udal and two other of my men I took with me.
"Morrice," said Jack, as he stood upon the steps of the porch, "don"t stay with your cousin! Hire a lodging of your own!"
"Why?" I asked, in surprise.
"You talk overmuch in your sleep. Only two nights ago I heard you making such an outcry that I feared you would wake the house. I rushed into your room. You were crouched up among the bed-curtains at the head of the bed and gibbering: "It will touch her. It flows so fast.
Oh, my G.o.d! My G.o.d!""
I made no answer to his words, and he asked again very earnestly:
"The Countess has never seen you? You are sure?"
"Quite!" said I firmly, and I shook him by the hand, and so started for London.
CHAPTER VIII.
I MAKE A BOW TO COUNTESS LUKSTEIN.
In London I engaged a commodious lodging on the south side of St.
James" Park, and with little delay, you may be sure, sought out my cousin in Monmouth, or rather Soho, Square--for the name had been altered since the execution of the Duke. "Twas some half an hour after noon, and my cousin, but newly out of bed, was breakfasting upon a bottle of Burgundy in his nightcap and dressing-gown.
"So you have come, Morrice," said Elmscott languidly. "How do ye? Lord Culverton, this is my cousin of whom I have spoken."
He turned towards a little popinjay man who was fluttering about the room in a laced coat, and powdered periwig which hung so full about his face that it was difficult to distinguish any feature beyond a thin, prominent nose.
"You should know one another. For if you remember, Morrice, it was Culverton you robbed of Ph[oe]be."
"Ph[oe]be?" simpered Lord Culverton. "I remember no Ph[oe]be. But in truth the pretty creatures pester one so impertinently that burn me if I don"t jumble up their names. What was she like, Mr. Buckler?"
"She was piebald," said I gravely, "and needed cudgelling before she would walk."
"And Morrice killed her," added Elmscott, with a laugh.
"Then he did very well to kill her, strike me speechless! But there must be some mistake. I have met many women who needed cudgelling before they would walk, but never one that was piebald."
Elmscott explained the matter to him, and then, with some timidity, I began to inquire concerning the Countess Lukstein.
"What! bitten already?" cried my cousin. "Faith, I knew not I had so smart a hand for description."
"The most rapturous female, pink me!" broke in Lord Culverton. "She is but newly come to London, and hath the town at her feet already. Egad!
I"m half-soused in love myself, split my windpipe!" and he flicked a speck of powder from his velvet coat, and carefully arranged the curls of his periwig. "The most provoking creature!" he went on. "A widow without a widow"s on-coming disposition."
"Ay, but she hath discarded the weeds," said Elmscott
"She is a widow none the less. And yet breathe but one word of tender adoration in her ear, and she strikes you dumb, O Lard! with the most supercilious eyebrow. However, time may do much with the obstinate dear--time, a tolerable phrase, and a _je ne scay quoi_ in one"s person and conversation." He pointed a skinny leg before the mirror, and languished with a ludicrous extravagance at his own reflection.
I had much ado to restrain myself from laughing, the more especially when Elmscott cried, with a wink at me:
"Oh, if you have entered the lists, the rest of us may creep out with as little ignominy as we can. They say that every pretty woman has a devil at her elbow, and "tis most true, so long as Culverton lives."
"You flatter me! A devil, indeed! You flatter me," replied the fop, skipping with delight. "You positively flatter me. The ladies use me--no more. I am only their humble servant in general, and the Countess Lukstein"s in particular."
The remark had more truth in it than Culverton would have cared for us to believe. For the Countess did in very truth use this gossipy t.i.ttle-tattler, and with no more consideration than she showed to the humblest of her servants. However, he was born for naught else but to fetch and carry, and since he delighted in the work, "twas common kindness to employ him.
"Then we"ll drink a health to your success," says Elmscott, pouring out three gla.s.ses of his Burgundy.
"I never drink in the morning," objected Culverton. ""Tis a most villainous habit, and ruins the complexion irretrievably, stap my vitals!"
However, I was less squeamish on the subject of mine, and draining the gla.s.s, I asked:
"Is she come to London alone?"
"She hath a companion, a very faded, nauseous person: a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Durette. She serves as a foil;" and Culverton launched forth into an affected estimation of Countess Lukstein"s charms. Her eyes dethroned the planets, the brightness of her hair shamed the sunlight; for her mouth, "twas a Cupid"s bow that shot a deadly arrow with every word. When she danced, her foot was a snow-flake upon the floor, and the glint of the buckle on her instep, a flame threatening to melt it; when she played upon the harp, her fingers were the ivory plectrums of the ancients.
"You make me curious," I interrupted him, "to become acquainted with the lady."