J 
 
THE PORTRAIT 
 
THE PORTRAIT 
 
 BY 
 
 ^FORD MADOX HUEFFER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A\ ENGLISH GIRL" ETC. 
 
 ,» i». ) t.-> 
 
 METHUEN & GO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. 
 
 LONDON 
 
THE PORTRAIT 
 
 BY 
 
 FORD MADOX HUEFFER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AN ENGLISH GIRL" ETC. 
 
 METHUEN & GO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. 
 
 LONDON 
 
First Published in igio 
 
THE PORTRAIT 
 
 PART I 
 
 BUT the white satin, sir . . ." Mr, Boodle said 
 from the floor where he knelt, rolling up 
 his stuffs. " You have to remember my credit, sir, 
 if not your own, and to wear white satin at your 
 entry upon the Town ! . . ." 
 
 In a blue silk dressing-gown, with a white cloth 
 knotted in turban fashion about his shaven head, 
 Mr. Bettesworth held before his face the book of the 
 opera The Island Princess, in which he was reading, 
 and made no answer to the tailor. The tailor 
 appealed to Mr. Roland Bettesworth, who, his legs 
 crossed, and already dressed, leaned against the side 
 of the tall window and played with his sword-knot. 
 
 " It will be known to the Quality," Mr. Boodle 
 said, " that Mr. Bettesworth has his trousseau and 
 his toilet of me, and I protest that to appear upon 
 the Town in white satin, unless one is to marry on 
 the morrow " 
 
 " Friend Boodle," Mr. Roland Bettesworth said 
 from the window, " my brother will wear the white 
 I 
 
 MAlO 
 
 3i>t>625 
 
2 • '* THE PORTRAIT 
 
 s'atlfi.'* • Spare your' breath, and send it home before 
 noon." 
 
 Mr. Boodle finished rolling his patterns up in his 
 apron, and rising to his feet, he sighed — 
 
 " To be sure there is only one button-hole to 
 sew. It shall be here by noon," he said. His large 
 spectacles hung sideways over his nose ; the breast 
 of his snuff-coloured, linsey-woolsey coat was decor- 
 ated with an innumerable multitude of pins. He 
 had a piece of chalk above his right ear ; his tape- 
 measure hung from his breeches' pocket to a level 
 with his shins ; and his feet, in black slops, shuffled 
 unhappily when he went out of the door. Mr. 
 Roland ran out and overtook him on the great 
 stone landing. He caught him by the opening of 
 the waistcoat and pushed him almost behind a 
 shoulder-high, red granite pedestal, upon which 
 stood a white marble Susannah drawing her 
 garments about her with one hand and modestly 
 extending the other towards the beholder. Having 
 the tailor well pinned in here, Mr. Roland Bettes- 
 worth planted his legs apart, pushed his black, 
 three-cornered hat back on his head, and stood with 
 his arms akimbo. 
 
 " The necessary, Brother Snip," he said ; " unpouch 
 the Jacobuses, the Carroluses, the Moidores, the 
 Shekels." 
 
 Cowering behind the statue, the little tailor gave 
 vent to grunts and gasps of despair and want of 
 comprehension. 
 
 " Why, if you had read as many old plays, 
 Brother Snip, as my brother Bettesworth, you would 
 know that these are gold coins, and gold coins I 
 
THE PORTRAIT 3 
 
 will have of you. Guineas, broad guineas, as the 
 present Age has it. But what's in a name ? " 
 
 Again the tailor squeaked. 
 
 " — Now, here was our compact. When, being 
 bearleader to my brother Bettesworth, I commended 
 to him your shears, I was to have half your bill and 
 you were to double each of the items on it. Now 
 you have an order for three hundred and twenty- 
 six guineas, and I will have one hundred and sixty- 
 one and a half Now ! Instantly ! Precipidado ! " 
 
 " But, sir," the tailor said, " the amount of my bill 
 against you is more than that. I was minded to 
 keep this money, and then you will be honourably 
 out of my debt." 
 
 Mr. Roland threw his head back and laughed. 
 
 " Honourably, quotha," he said. " For the two 
 thieves that we are that is a fine word. No, sirrah, 
 understand first this one simple thing : I will have 
 one hundred and sixty-one and a half guineas from 
 thee, and then I will discourse upon the point of 
 honour." 
 
 Mr. Boodle sighed, " But how can I tell, my 
 master, that the Worshipful, your brother, will pay 
 my bill?" 
 
 " Why, goodly Snip, my brother, as you well 
 know, owns half of Salisbury Plain ; and though he 
 had been as profligate as I, since he came into this 
 fortune but the last month as ever was, surely you 
 will not think it is all dissipated now ? Consider, 
 too, this monstrous house, and all these crabbed 
 pictures of our ancestors. Egad ! if I had the 
 selling of them " 
 
 " You would pay my bill," the tailor said. 
 
4 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Damme, Snip ! if thou should'st see one maravedi 
 of it," the young man answered. 
 
 The tailor took a Httle wooden snuff-box from his 
 skirt pocket and lapped snuff from his thumb with 
 his dry nostrils. 
 
 " If this coat is to be finished by noon," he said, 
 " your Mastership must let me be gone home." 
 
 " But my one hundred and sixty-one and a half 
 guineas ? " Mr. Roland said. 
 
 "... I will give you a bill of six months for it, 
 and you shall get it discounted where you will." 
 
 Mr. Roland rested his hand on his sword-hilt, and 
 wagged his scabbard beneath the skirt of his blue 
 coat. 
 
 " Oh, damme ! " he said again, " that will never 
 do." 
 
 " It is all that will be done," the tailor answered. 
 
 ** Then shall I denounce your bill to my brother, 
 and you lose his custom ! " 
 
 "Then shall I tell Mr. Bettesworth," the tailor 
 said, " that you have bidden me charge him double 
 so that you might have half. Then your Wor- 
 ship would lose the ordering of your brother's 
 purchases." 
 
 " Oh, I am not so assured of that," Mr. Roland 
 answered. " My Squire brother is the oddest, 
 crabbedest, most obstinate, most egregious creature 
 that ever was known. When you think you have 
 him in one place, up he starts in another. When 
 you think he would act, he will sit as still as a pig. 
 So that I tell you, friend Snip, that if you should 
 advise him this moment that I am set to take this 
 reasonable perquisite, it is all one that he might 
 
THE PORTRAIT 5 
 
 say : * Beggarly tailor, shall a younger son not exist 
 upon the superfluity of his elder ? Get thee hence, 
 thou Starveling ! ' And so he would thrust a thou- 
 sand pounds into my bosom and bid me spend it at 
 the tables. Sir, he is a very unaccountable person. 
 And if he had not made the Grand Tour when he 
 was three-and-twenty, — because my uncle was seized 
 with the whimsy to travel, — if he had not made the 
 Grand Tour seven years ago, my brother would 
 have been as musty a rustic as ever was Squire 
 Cranky in the play. Now this whimsy of a white 
 coat, can you explain that, friend Snip ? " 
 
 "... Unless it be that his mistress have bid him 
 wear it, to tease him." 
 
 " Nay, he has no mistress," Mr. Roland answered, 
 " — or none in the Town. He may have fathered 
 half the brats on Salisbury Plain for aught I know. 
 Your cold-eyed men are often given that way. But 
 no, I will tell you how it is. When he was in Italy 
 there was a painter called Perugio, or Graccho, or 
 some such name, and this painter, being monstrously 
 the mode at Rome, was able to force all the cox- 
 combs and madams that came to see his work to 
 put on white dominoes that he lent them. This he 
 did because he said the high colours of their coats 
 killed the low colours on his cloths. Now to-day 
 the Worshipful, the head of my house, is minded to 
 visit the paintings of one Hitchcock, which I have 
 told him are monstrous fine. And he has said that 
 he will make it the mode to do as much honour to 
 our English Correggio as ever Italy can show to 
 hers. So he will go in white, and nothing shall 
 stop him. For he is what it is the mode to call a 
 
6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 ' Character,' even as his and my uncle was before 
 him. Did you ever hear tell of my uncle Bettes- 
 worth, Snip ? " 
 
 Mr. Boodle rubbed his hand gently on his chin, 
 " Cocklaw Bettesworth," he said ; " I carried clothes 
 home to him thirty years ago, before he went into 
 the country for ever. It was a sad loss to the 
 gaiety of the Town." 
 
 "The gaiety of the Town," Mr. Bettesworth 
 ejaculated. " Gaiety, quotha ! that's a brave word 
 for the surliest, sour-facest, rampiest old rustic uncle 
 that ever cut a younger brother out of his will." 
 
II 
 
 MR. ROLAND BETTESWORTH was 
 younger than Mr. Bettesworth by some six 
 years. With a younger son's portion he had lived 
 upon the Town mostly by means of post-obits. 
 But upon the reading of his uncle's will, three months 
 before, it was found that everything went to Mr. 
 Bettesworth ; and no one in the world could have 
 been more chapfallen than Mr. Roland on the day of 
 that ceremony. 
 
 It took place in the Manor-house of Winterbourne, 
 on Salisbury Plain. Mr. Roland had not seen this 
 house nor his brother in the last six years, for his 
 uncle would neither let the younger son come down 
 from Town nor the elder go up to it. The uncle 
 having attempted to drive his coach up the steps of St. 
 Paul's whilst the Te Deum Service was being held 
 after the battle of Wagenau, and having been 
 forcibly prevented by William the Third's order 
 and by William the Third's Bodyguard — the uncle 
 having arrived at the conclusion that this was his 
 right as Lord of the Courts-Baron of Winterbourne, 
 of Bassett, of Pitt Minima, and of Cheveril St. 
 Francis. The most learned jurists have since denied 
 this claim, which was revived by his nephew, the 
 present Mr. Bettesworth, the decision being that the 
 
8 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 right which was granted by Henry the Third had 
 been to ride one horse and lead three up the steps 
 of the Church of St, Paul in the village of Ludger, 
 the words of the deed being : " Ecclesics sancti Pauli 
 apud Lugd" — Squire Bettesworth had turned his 
 coach right round from the steps of St. Paul's and 
 had driven down to Winterbourne, vowing that he 
 would never come back to London unless the King, 
 with his own hand, should lead his coach horses up 
 the steps of St. Paul's during a Te Deum Service. 
 This had never occurred ; and, indeed, Mr. Bettes- 
 worth being a troublesome person both at Court and 
 in the Parliament House, there seemed to be no 
 reason why it should. Mr. Bettesworth had never 
 in those thirty years returned to the Town of 
 London. Once, having made a bet with the Earl 
 of Pembroke that he would purchase from the Pope 
 a picture by Raphael that hung in the Sistine 
 Chapel, Mr. Bettesworth had set out by way of 
 Southampton to take his nephew upon the Grand 
 Tour. The Sistine Madonna he had been unable to 
 purchase, but he had brought back a lady called 
 Poppasa, who was declared to have been the 
 mistress of Pope Innocent Xll ; and since then he 
 had insisted that all his man-servants, down to his 
 stable-lads, should be arrayed in the garb of the 
 Halberdiers of St. Peter's. Poppaea, whether or no she 
 had been the mistress of the Pope, was certainly the 
 making of Mr. Bettesworth's heir. She was a large, 
 wise, dark woman ; and having once settled down at 
 Winterbourne it seemed as if she became a part of 
 the house itself. She grew fatter and fatter, and 
 more and more idolent ; and she was the one person 
 
THE PORTRAIT 9 
 
 who could curb the passions of young Mr. Bettes- 
 worth. She said to him one day, and she repeated 
 it many times : " Caro mio, you will always be a 
 headstrong maniac. Cultivate, then, a coldness of 
 manner." She taught him, indeed, in actual fact, to 
 count forty before he spoke if he felt himself in any 
 way agitated, " For," she said, " a man in anger 
 is always ridiculous, and it is ridicule mostly that 
 you will have to avoid in this world. Now, your 
 actions will always be ridiculous. They will be 
 chivalrous, obstinate, high-flown, tyrannous, or what 
 you will. And what you have to achieve is the 
 doing of these ridiculous actions in a manner that 
 is not ridiculous. Cultivate, then, reserve. Act after 
 long pauses. Speak after long pauses. If it is 
 possible, you will, during these pauses, reflect and 
 take a more prudent course. If that is not possible 
 you will at least have the appearance of having acted 
 and spoken after reflection, and that is always con- 
 fusing to an adversary, if there be any adversary to 
 deal with." 
 
 So that under the care of this lady, who was more 
 than an aunt to him, during seven years the young 
 Squire had grown to be thirty. He could fence; he 
 could dance ; he could read a great many Italian 
 novels, English plays, and law books. He rode 
 well to hounds ; could use a hawk upon the Plain ; 
 and he was, above all, learned in the lives of painters 
 and in the phraseology of pictures, which he had 
 studied with assiduity and passion during his Italian 
 journey. He had, it is true, a proper opinion of the 
 worth of the Bettesworths of Winterbourne Longa. 
 Winterbourne Longa lies in a hollow ; he had to 
 
lo THE PORTRAIT 
 
 climb long and weary hills before he could even see 
 land that would not be one day his own. And from 
 the tops of those downs how many weathercocks of 
 churches could he not see, — villages where, when 
 on a Sunday he came out of church, the inhabitants 
 would kneel down until he was past them. He was 
 tall, erect and fair, aquiline nosed, rather sharp 
 jawed, and of that very symmetrical comeliness which 
 is to be found more particularly amongst the Anglo- 
 Saxons of the West of England. As a young man 
 he had been rather slight of figure, but when he was 
 rising thirty he rode already thirteen stone without 
 the saddle. He spoke Italian as well as English ; 
 he was an assiduous dancer in the Assemblies of the 
 City of Salisbury ; the Earl of Pembroke liked his 
 company and he imagined that when at last he 
 should come to his own he would dictate the tastes 
 and fashions of London Town much as he imagined 
 his uncle had done before him. And he thought 
 that once his foot was in the stirrup he would assert 
 the claim to drive up the steps of St. Paul's more 
 successfully, because more tactfully, than his uncle 
 had done. In the meantime he hunted much. He 
 had a very excellent strain of game-cocks of his own 
 breeding ; he paid some attention to the lands and 
 needs of his uncle's tenants, and imagined that he 
 paid a great deal ; and he was fond of lecturing his 
 dependents on the duties of their stations. 
 
 It would have been more difficult for him to step 
 into his uncle's shoes had that hard-swearing, broad- 
 faced, bulky figure not lain for more than six months 
 before its burial in paralytic silence in a room full 
 of bleeding-basins and lancets. And his uncle's 
 
 tC^I^B&AAiaflHHCriUES£&>i^^ 
 
THE PORTRAIT ii 
 
 stroke occurring just ten days before Michaelmas, 
 the young Squire had upon his hands the full 
 authority to renew leases, to preside at the Audit 
 dinners and at the Courts, where the Copyholders 
 rendered suit and service. This had, indeed, given 
 him a still stronger sense of the immense authority 
 that God had placed in his hands. He imagined 
 himself about to become the third or fourth richest 
 Commoner in England, and he knew himself to be 
 vastly wealthier than the Herberts, — all this wealth 
 and power being set upon that firmest of all bases, 
 the land, the very Earth itself 
 
 The reading of the will took place in the great 
 dancing-hall of the Manor-house. The attorneys 
 and their clerks sat at a table covered with green 
 cloth. Beside them, immediately on the one side, 
 sat the Signora Poppaea, now very fat and with 
 gouty fingers, dressed in a great black panniered 
 dress, with a large black fan, and a formidable black 
 cap that rose to nearly a foot above her head. 
 Behind her stood the new Squire in a black coat, 
 with a mourning sword, his hair tied by immense 
 black ribbons ; and just beside her chair stood 
 Roland, hat in hand, dressed like his brother. On 
 the other side of the table were some poor 
 Bettesworths from Yeovil, and all behind them 
 stood a large crowd of bare-headed tenantry, of 
 stewards, of water-bailiffs, of parsons, and of the 
 other humble dependents. They were kept in their 
 place in a half-moon ring by the servants who, still 
 habited like Halberdiers of the Pope of Rome, 
 exhibited no other sign of mourning than immense 
 streamers of black hanging from huge battle-axes at 
 
12 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 the head of their pikes. Mr. Bettesworth regarded 
 this last exotic display of his late uncle's eccentricity 
 with a certain haughty disfavour. He had an idea 
 that it rendered him ridiculous to stand in this ring 
 of retainers, attired for all the world like beef-eaters. 
 Indeed, seeing the world very much through the 
 Signora Poppaea's eyes, the whole ceremony appeared 
 to him to be of a barbarous and grotesquely antique 
 kind. 
 
 A small lawyer arose from the table and, making 
 three bows, stood before him, holding out in front of 
 his spectacles the long vellum strip with the air 
 and attitude of a town-crier announcing a sale by 
 auction. 
 
 " Give him a bell," Roland whispered, " and let 
 him cry : • O yez ! O yez ! O yez ! ' " 
 
 And so, declaring him to be sound body and 
 mind, old Mr. Bettesworth's voice spoke from the 
 grave. Young Mr. Bettesworth was his sole heir : 
 Poppaea was left the use of the Dower House at 
 Berwick St. James, and one hundred pounds where- 
 with to purchase a portrait either of the late Pope 
 Innocent XII or of Squire Bettesworth himself, 
 according to which of the two mates, upon reflection, 
 she preferred. Poppaea smiled pleasantly. The 
 largest sum that had been conferred upon any 
 bona-roba since 1610 had been settled upon her 
 when she left Rome under Mr. Bettesworth's 
 protection. So that the poor Bettesworths on the 
 other side of the table, unaware of this fact, were 
 able to smile maliciously, until these in turn were 
 brought up by the mention of their names, coupled 
 in each case with a sum, larger indeed than they 
 
THE PORTRAIT 13 
 
 had expected, but accompanied by a condition or a 
 comment which made him or her for the moment 
 the laughing-stock of the whole assembly. Miss 
 Lavinia Bettesworth of Cuddesdon, a lacrymose 
 spinster of fifty, got up, indeed, to whisper to the 
 attorney's clerk. 
 
 Must she indeed use this two thousand pounds as 
 her wedding portion, or in the alternative for the 
 purchase of handkerchiefs to be wept into on the 
 deaths of her successive spaniels ? She was sure, 
 she said, that she could not use so many hand- 
 kerchiefs as two thousand pounds' worth in the 
 whole of her life ; and as for husbands, she detested 
 the creatures ! 
 
 Mr. Roland Bettesworth laughed with the rest, 
 but as the reading of the will went on his face grew 
 longer and longer ; and then they came to the 
 words : " Item, to my nephew Roland Bettesworth I 
 do give and bequeath the sum of one shilling in 
 lawful English money to dispose of as he will, and 
 the sum of twenty shillings wherewith to purchase a 
 spyglass the better to see the life of London." 
 
 Mr. Roland Bettesworth became of a deadly 
 pallor. He grinned stiffly, and muttered : " A 
 hit ! The old boy has made a hit ! " For his 
 quarrel with his uncle had been that he had gone 
 up to London Town to see the life of it. He heard 
 no more of the reading of the will, but stood, white 
 and pallid, looking down at the ground, and a long 
 time afterwards the Halberdiers cleared the large 
 room. 
 
 The Signora Poppaea sat large and inert; only 
 her black eyes twinkled and moved. From the 
 
14 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 dining-room, of which the door stood open behind 
 their backs, in the centre of the great wall there 
 came a clink of glasses and the sound of many- 
 voices. The poorer Bettesworths were regaling 
 themselves. Mr. Bettesworth stood erect, his eyes 
 looking straight in front of him. Tall windows 
 showed the lawns of the not very large garden 
 bounded by a high brick wall ; an immense yew-tree 
 towered up very close to the house and darkened the 
 windows at the lower end of the hall. 
 
 " You are thinking," the Signora said in Italian, 
 " that now, at last, you will cut that tree down ? 
 Tell me, how does it feel to be in power ? Will you 
 chase me, the parasite, from this house ? and what 
 will you do with that poor wretch there ? " 
 
 Mr. Roland Bettesworth did not understand the 
 Italian tongue. Mr. Bettesworth bent slowly down, 
 and raising the Signora's hand upon his white 
 fingers put it gracefully to his lips. 
 
 " You have been the saving of this house from 
 much shame," he said, " for you have curbed many 
 of the worst extravagancies and follies of my uncle, 
 and the man that I am I owe to you. Therefore it 
 is my intention that you shall come with me to 
 London, and there live in any grandeur of condition 
 that shall be to your mind " 
 
 " Oh, po-wow-wow ! " Mr. Roland said. " Whilst 
 you kichi-kichi I must get myself ready to take 
 purses on the high road. I thank God that I have 
 a good horse and a pair of pistols in my holsters ; 
 and for a visor, may I not cut holes in my mourning 
 band ? " 
 
 He cocked his hat under his arm, snapped his 
 
THE PORTRAIT 15 
 
 heels together, bowed ceremoniously to Mr, 
 Bettesworth, and said — 
 
 " Squire brother, I felicitate you upon the eleven 
 months and eighteen days by which you preceded 
 me to the world." 
 
 " Why, I am six years older than you," Mr. 
 Bettesworth said, 
 
 " Oh, a fico for niceties of reckoning," Mr. Roland 
 said, " Had it been of two hours, sure, it would 
 have been all one. You would still have rolled in 
 your coach, and I should still have popped my head 
 in at the window with the barkers at your nose, and 
 so relieved your purse of its great weight," 
 
 " There are easier ways of lightening my purse," 
 the Squire said gravely. " Think of some of them." 
 
 " — What ! shall I put your name to a bill ? " 
 
 The Signora Poppaea regarded them indulgently 
 with her kind eyes, 
 
 " What should I do in your London," she said ; " a 
 poor, fat old woman that hobbles on a stick ? No, 
 if your Worship will trust me not to steal your 
 silver " 
 
 The Squire opened his mouth impatiently to 
 speak, but the old lady interrupted him — 
 
 " Count forty before you speak. I am talking 
 ironically of stealing your spoons, and I know you 
 are very vexed that I will not come with you to 
 London Town. But that I will not come is certain, 
 for, in the first place, I am too old to learn new 
 manners ; and in the second place, as you know, I do 
 not think it justice that great Signers should live 
 in idleness, eating up in the Metropolitan City the 
 rents that are wrung from the earth by their 
 
1 6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 sweating hinds, and leaving no supervisor and no 
 dispenser of charities upon their domains." 
 
 " I will have your company and your advice in 
 London," the Squire said petulantly. " I will have 
 it ; I desire it ; I need it." 
 
 " Let us consider now the case of this young man, 
 your brother," the Signora said, " for I am very 
 determined not to come with you to London, but 
 will stay here to administer this house, where I am 
 very comfortable. That from time to time you will 
 need advice in larger matters, such as matters of the 
 heart, I can well believe. For that purpose you 
 may come down here to receive my advice if you 
 will have it. But in such matters as what clothes 
 you should choose, or what company you should 
 seek, I could help you very little — or rather, not 
 at all. This much is determined and settled. Now, 
 what will you do for your brother, since your uncle 
 has very badly treated him ? " 
 
 The Squire walked across the hall to close the 
 door upon the feasters. Having reached the punch- 
 bowl, they were making very loud noises. He came 
 slowly back ; his head hung down, whilst he re- 
 flected. 
 
 " Hark'ee, Roland," he said, " you are a man of 
 fashion ? " 
 
 " Of a very poor fashion as the cat jumps," 
 Roland said. " You have got all the gold I should 
 have had." 
 
 " How many years shall I live ? " the Signora 
 asked in Italian. " Let us say ten. Then for ten 
 years you must provide for this brother of yours. 
 When I die he shall have all I have." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 17 
 
 A spasm of jealousy passed over the Squire's face. 
 
 " You like him better than you like me," he said. 
 
 " It is not liking, but justice," she said. " My 
 fortune should help you very little, such as it is ; 
 but such as it is it came from your uncle, who has 
 used this young man very badly." 
 
 Bettesworth said : " Well, well ! " but the young 
 man burst in — 
 
 " Hark'ee, brother, and you Signora. This is 
 cursed ill-breeding to jabber in that lingo while my 
 neck is in the noose. If there is any money for 
 me, let me have it. If not, let me go." 
 
 " I am minded to instal myself in Bettesworth 
 House in London," the Squire said. 
 
 " Then I must pack from there, too ? " Roland 
 asked bitterly, for he lived in three rooms of the 
 great Bettesworth House that was in Golden 
 Square. 
 
 " There is no need until I marry," Bettesworth 
 answered. 
 
 " And when will you marry ? " Roland asked. 
 
 " When I find a wife," the Squire said, and 
 Roland ejaculated : " Oh ! " He had thought that 
 his brother's intention had been to marry the 
 Signora Poppaea. 
 
 " Now tell me," the Squire said, " do you know 
 a man of some fashion who is all that a man of 
 fashion should be, who eats grossly, cocks his wig 
 on the wrong side, hems when he should not hem, 
 and does all things ill ? So you know of such a 
 man and is he to be hired ? " 
 
 Roland Bettesworth, who as yet knew his brother 
 very little, raised his eyebrows. 
 
1 8 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Do you need a running footman ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, I seek a tutor in the ways of the Town," 
 the Squire answered gravely. 
 
 Roland pushed his wig on one side and scratched 
 the back of his head. 
 
 " Are you minded to become such a bear, brother," 
 he said, " as was our worthy uncle, who set all 
 London by the ears with his brawHngs ? " 
 
 " It is for that reason that I would have such a 
 man always before my eyes," Bettesworth said, " the 
 better to avoid his example." 
 
 " But, brother . . ." Roland began. 
 
 The Signora blinked with enigmatic amusement. 
 
 " I am determined upon this," Mr. Bettesworth 
 said grimly, " for I will know what to avoid still 
 more than what to do, and this was the expedient 
 of the Spartans. Surely such a man can be found. 
 Is not Tom Rakes such an one ? " 
 
 Roland Bettesworth, having shrugged his shoulders 
 minutely, addressed himself seriously to the matter. 
 
 " You may find fifty," he said, " by sending a 
 crier round Golden Square. Tom Rakes is such 
 an one, but he is it only by will and in low 
 companies. He is a cully and a bully, a cheat 
 and a braggart, when he likes ; but in the society of 
 his betters he is very well behaved." 
 
 " Then he will be of no use to me," the Squire 
 said, " for I am his better. Yet I have seen him 
 comport himself very ill at our Assemblies at 
 Salisbury." 
 
 " Oh, your Assemblies at Salisbury ! " Roland 
 Bettesworth said ironically. 
 
 " Well, I am anxious to learn, brother," the 
 
THE PORTRAIT 19 
 
 Squire said. " Are our Assemblies at Salisbury 
 utterly contemptible ? Could one not mention 
 them without raising laughter in a fashionable 
 rout ? " 
 
 " Oh, brother, brother," young Bettesworth said, 
 " all this is much too raw. Your Salisbury 
 Assemblies may be very well, — they may be 
 monstrous well near Salisbury, — but if you mention 
 them in Town it must be only in such a way as 
 that, in giving a toast, you should say : ' Here's to 
 the fine eyes of Maria that shot the fatal dart 
 through me in the Salisbury Assembly, where I 
 was by accident owing to the breaking of my 
 coach-wheel.' Or, again, you might say, that at 
 the Salisbury Assembly, where you went out of 
 duty to your tenantry, you observed a monstrous 
 ridiculous lady who said : ' Tee-hee ! ' and was sick 
 with a surfeit of macaroons. But as for hired 
 bullies, riformados, returned captains that never 
 trailed a pike nor smelt saltpetre, why, if you will 
 go in the Park when the fashion is there, if you 
 will throw up a sheet of paper with your desire 
 writ upon it, a hundred will start out of the ground 
 before it touches earth. But if it is not a hired 
 bully you desire, but only a poor person of quality 
 who is gross and oafish and to be hired, why I 
 commend you to Jack Williamson, who is brother 
 to the Squire of Crawley. It is true that he is 
 kept by Sir John, the husband of our cousin, Lady 
 Eshetsford, to be made a butt of. Jack Williamson 
 can do nothing well, nor say anything but folly, so 
 that in the course of a day he will three times 
 upset his cup of clary on Cousin Polly's gown and 
 
20 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 twice fall over her ladyship's lap-dog. But I will 
 wager Sir John keeps him so straitened that you 
 may easily buy him to be your butt, or a foil to 
 show off the handsomeness of your person, or 
 whatever it is that you desire him for. And Sir 
 John will part with him, I think, not very unwill- 
 ingly, for he maintains him only to plague his wife, 
 whom the goodly knight cannot abide. But liow 
 will all this save me from taking purses on the 
 highway ? " 
 
 " And our cousin Polly ? " the Squire asked. 
 " How does she stand in the world of fashion ? " 
 
 " Oh, Lady Eshetsford is — Lady Eshetsford ! 
 She is at the head of the Ton ; to be commended 
 by her for your figure or your address is to be a 
 made man with all women of quality. She has 
 a laughing mouth and a drooping eye, and, for all 
 she wields a fan with the best of them, she is said 
 to have so tender a heart that she does more for 
 her husband than most husbands care to have done 
 for them." 
 
 " And her husband does not affect her ? " 
 
 " Oh, her husband is one of your rake-helly 
 Parliament men who squanders his substance in 
 brothels, beats watchmen, and returns home at two 
 in the morning — if he return at all — with a crowd 
 of choice spirits like Jack Williamson and my Lord 
 Pomain, to howl in her ladyship's antechamber 
 and wake her from her sleep. Sir John desires to 
 spoil her ladyship's beauty, he says, but he succeeds 
 ill. He had once great lands in Hampshire, but I 
 think they are all gone save such as are entailed, 
 and his wife's jointure, which is a pretty penny." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 21 
 
 " And how stands our cousin affected to you ? " 
 the Squire asked. 
 
 " Oh, Polly likes me well enough," Mr. Roland 
 answered. " She has said that, had I your inherit- 
 ance, I should be the prettiest young fellow about 
 
 the Town. And her ward Maria In short, I 
 
 have my place at Polly's table four days a week, if 
 I have not elsewhere to eat." 
 
 He spoke with an unaffected negligence. Mr. 
 Bettesworth asked in Italian, of the Signora Poppaea : 
 " Do you think my brother speaks truth ? " And 
 the Signora answered : " He has all the air of it. 
 But to test him you must surely wait until you 
 come to Town to see for yourself." 
 
 " But I design to put this poor fool out of his 
 agony," the Squire said. 
 
 " I have nothing against it," the Signora answered. 
 " Only count forty before your generosities as before 
 your angers." 
 
 The Squire stood still and silent, as if he were 
 reflecting. And suddenly Roland Bettesworth 
 broke out — 
 
 " Curse me, brother ! if you were not my brother 
 I would run you through the vitals. This is the 
 very damn'dest bad breeding, and you are not so 
 much my brother neither ; for though we were 
 begot by one father, yet you have so robbed and 
 cozened me, and fawned upon my uncle and back- 
 bitten, that here I stand, a broken man, with ten 
 times your parts. You are only a poor rustic, 
 trained to do no more than hallo after any four- 
 footed creature that will do you the compliments to 
 flee before you. You have no parts ; you have no 
 
22 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 presence ; you cannot so much as twirl a cane in 
 the approved manner. In short, you have gained a 
 great inheritance by remaining a rustic brute. If I 
 had stayed like you, training my nose to the scent 
 of a hare, I might have shared my uncle's inherit- 
 ance, but had remained a booby. Now, I am the 
 elegantest blood upon the Town — ask Polly Eshc.s- 
 ford if that is not so. And I thank God, though I 
 have not a maravedi in my fob, that I am not such 
 an one as thou, brother of mine." 
 
 The Squire crooked his hat under his arm and 
 bowed minutely. 
 
 " Brother Roland," he said, " if your plain-speaking 
 be equalled by your elegance, then, indeed, you may 
 well be the elegantest young blood upon the Town ; 
 and the whole manner and course of your future 
 livelihood, in so far as it is in my hands, and if you 
 will not liefer take the road, depends upon this, that 
 you be the mirror of modes. But hark'ee, Tom, if 
 this be not so, an ensigncy in a marching regiment 
 shall be all that falls to your part from the purse of 
 me. But if Polly Eshetsford endorse " 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Polly will endorse all that and more," 
 Roland Bettesworth grumbled between. his teeth. 
 
 " Then I will take you," the Squire began, " as 
 my master of horse, as my steward, as my major- 
 domo — as anything you will save my brother. 
 For I am certain there is very little brotherly love 
 between us." 
 
 Roland pulled out from the table the little 
 tabouret stool upon which the attorney had been 
 sitting, and for the first time sat down. 
 
 " This would call for a great deal of reflection," 
 
THE PORTRAIT 23 
 
 he said ; " but with the devil behind me what the 
 devil else can I do ? " 
 
 " To take the road would be a freer life," his 
 brother said maliciously. 
 
 " Till it ended at the end of a confining rope," 
 Roland answered. " How would you like to have 
 it said that a Bettesworth had adopted High 
 Toby ? " 
 
 " It would only enhance the rumour of my great 
 possessions as showing that I had all," Mr. Bettes- 
 worth retorted, " and get me the more adulation." 
 
 Roland bent down to pluck a small white feather 
 from his black silk stockings. 
 
 " As a man of broad acres," he said, " I am of no 
 account. But when it comes to bear-leader am I 
 not the most eminent that you should find ? Your 
 need of me, then, is as great as mine of you." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Bettesworth said, " if you will 
 haggle, haggle. If you will leave it in my hands, 
 leave it in my hands. Or if you will haggle and 
 state your highest price, then I will double it. In 
 short, you shall share my purse to the reasonable 
 extent of the cost of living of a young man upon 
 the Town. And this engagement shall continue 
 between us until such times as I think fit to 
 marry." 
 
 " Then it is set to me," Mr. Roland said, *' to 
 impede by all the means I can your marrying any 
 woman." 
 
 " That risk I will take," said Mr. Bettesworth, with 
 a grim humour. He squared his shoulders and 
 stood erect, blond and masculine. " If it comes to 
 a rivalry between you and me, I think I may bear 
 
24 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 my part. But if you marry before me, you shall 
 have a suitable settlement." 
 
 " So that it ends in a race between thee and me, 
 brother," Mr. Roland said, " as to who first shall 
 find a yoke-fellow." 
 
Ill 
 
 AT three in the afternoon of the day when Mr. 
 Boodle sent home the white satin suit, Mr. 
 Bettesworth and Mr. Roland Bettesworth sat at 
 dinner with their cousin, Lady Eshetsford, and her 
 ward, Maria Trefusis. The room was very tall and 
 white, the windows very tall with large square panes. 
 The lackey, in his blue livery, wore a large bouquet 
 of pinks in his button-hole, and carried in the dishes. 
 The maid who served them had very short skirts, 
 very high-heeled shoes, stockings with clocks, and a 
 very bare throat over which was knotted a hand- 
 kerchief of lawn. 
 
 " You have come from viewing Mr. Hitchcock's 
 pictures," Lady Eshetsford said in a high and 
 studied company voice. She held her elbows close 
 to her waist and moved stiffly above her hips. " And 
 you have not seen ' Celia in her Arbour ' ! That is 
 to go to Venice and not to have seen the Campanile. 
 It is the talk of the Town ; it is the buzz of the 
 Town. Mr. Hitchcock, now, will pay his rent, for 
 he has been a tenant of ours this many year, and 
 not a farthing of his money has our steward fingered." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Roland answered, " in the two 
 hours we were in the rooms I all the while bathed 
 myself in the charms of that most delectable of 
 
26 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 creatures," — he bowed to Lady Eshetsford and 
 muttered, " Save one," but he shot a long glance at 
 Maria Trefusis, which Lady Eshetsford did not miss, 
 — " but my brother," he continued, " is one of the 
 Cognoscenti. Those two hours he spent over a 
 three-four of canvases, with the artist at his side, 
 and his increasing-glass, and his tape-measure." 
 
 Lady Eshetsford raised her eyes at her elder 
 cousin. 
 
 " A new mode," she said. " La ! what will the 
 Cognoscenti be doing next ! " 
 
 Pausing before he spoke, Mr. Bettesworth uttered 
 gravely — 
 
 " It is no new mode, madam, but a series diversion 
 I have set myself — none other than to discover 
 the secrets of the chiaroscuro of the ancient masters. 
 I hold a theory that in the case of nearly all their 
 finest pieces shadow is to light in the proportion 
 of two to one, and I have various other theories 
 with which I will not weary you. But I made 
 measurements of many hundreds of canvases when 
 I was in Italy, and I have much evidence to support 
 me. It was upon these measurements that I was 
 engaged in Mr. Hitchcock's rooms this morning, and 
 that is how I came not to attain to a sight of the 
 piece you so belaud." 
 
 "La!" Lady Eshetsford said. "To be sure, I 
 have the fellow of it somewhere in this house. It 
 is a cloth called ' Celia Reading,' but it is a very 
 small one, Stay, where is it now ! " 
 
 She pressed her fingers to her forehead. " It was 
 offered me this last week as ever was, by the 
 painter, either as an act of homage or as in view of 
 
THE PORTRAIT 27 
 
 the rent which he does not pay for the house in 
 Ashford, where his wife and children live. But you 
 shall see it," she said with affected briskness. 
 " Maria, go look in my closet. Trott, go you and 
 seek it in the blue chamber. Partridge, you to my 
 anteroom, for I may have left it there." 
 
 And the three being suddenly gone, she leaned 
 without any languor or haste across the table, and 
 said, very business-like and with her voice natural, 
 to Mr. Roland — 
 
 " Sir, give me the billet that you have been seek- 
 ing all day to slip into Maria's hands." 
 
 Roland threw himself back in his chair and 
 laughed. 
 
 " So your ladyship has seen all those little feints," 
 he said. " The one with the hat behind my back ? " 
 
 " And the one with the fan," her ladyship said. 
 " And the glances and the squeezed hands." 
 
 Lady Eshetsford of Ashford — formerly a Miss 
 Douglas of Blair Gowrie — had been twenty-eight 
 when she married Sir John, the small-pox having 
 attacked her thus late in life. But having passed 
 through that ordeal unscathed, she was a very 
 marriageable woman, and she was now thirty-two to 
 her husband's forty-five. She had brought him a 
 matter of ten thousand a year in lands which he 
 could not hypothecate, and she was accounted the 
 ruler of the modes and the sharpest tongue about 
 the Town. At twenty-eight she had had, indeed, 
 a laughing mouth and a laughing eye, as Mr. 
 Roland Bettesworth had said. At thirty-two she 
 had, under pressure from a detesting and brutal 
 
28 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 husband, acquired an air of abstraction, of self-con- 
 tainment, and of power. Very tall, dark, with hair 
 that was always powdered to a grey-white, the 
 natural red upon her cheek-bones made her black 
 eyes and red lips add an agreeable sympathy of red, 
 white, and black. She wore at that moment a 
 rather long skirt of grey silk, from which the over- 
 skirt of pink rose-embroidery upon white satin 
 draped back, somewhat in the mode of a curtain 
 drawing up on each side before scenery. This rose- 
 embroidered satin came up in the jabot of her waist, 
 so that grey-haired, grey-skirted, red-cheeked and 
 rose-clad, mocking, but with quite firm intonation, 
 as she reached across the small dining-table to take 
 the note from her ineligible cousin, she made against 
 the white of the panelling such a symphony of greys 
 and pinks and whites as she very well knew how 
 to calculate. And because she so well knew how 
 to calculate these things she could make or mar 
 any young man upon the Town. To be permitted 
 to hold her fan was sufficient to make you eligible 
 for an heiress with five thousand pounds. To have 
 been understood to have enjoyed her more intimate 
 favours was sufficient to let young Tom Wyndham, 
 penniless as he was, make a match with the daughter 
 of the Duke of Leeds. Leaning across the table, 
 she had secured the little twisted note which had 
 been intended by Roland Bettesworth for her ward, 
 Maria. But suddenly, heralded by a splitting 
 thump upon the white panels, and by the raucously 
 shouted words — 
 
 " So I've claret in store 
 Then in peace I've . . ." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 29 
 
 through the opening door, Sir John Eshetsford 
 stumbled into the room. His three-cornered hat, 
 together with his wig, sat over the right eye of his 
 flushed countenance ; one tail of his long blue coat 
 was torn off, so that it hung, dangling, from a shred 
 of gold lace before his knees, 
 
 "... and in peace I jog on to the devil." 
 
 He finished his snatch of song. His one eye, that 
 could be seen, lit up incredulously and joyfully. 
 " The devil ! " he said. " In truth I have jogged on 
 to the devil, and I feel his horns. They sprout, 
 they sprout, on my own forehead." 
 
 His voice had in it both irony and liquor. 
 
 " So," he said, " I am come in time to see my 
 lady's gallant hand my lady a billet. It is well 
 my wig is over my eye or I should see two billets." 
 
 He rolled paunchily towards the table. Lady 
 Eshetsford leaned perfectly motionless, her extended 
 hand holding the white note very visibly in her 
 fingers. Her face was expressionless ; she remained 
 dumb, and suddenly she tossed the note at Sir 
 John's feet. In his effort to pick it up his hat and 
 wig fell on to his toes ; but unsteadily, and with a 
 shaking hand, he untwisted the little note. His 
 shaven head revealed a large cicatrice, the effect of 
 a blow he had received from a pike in a scuffle 
 with the watch four nights before. Swaying on 
 his legs, he held the note a long way from his eyes 
 and attempted, with great difficulty, to read it aloud. 
 He had got as far in a muzzy voice as, " Adorable 
 charmer and angel" when in the tall doorway 
 behind him there appeared at once the figure of 
 
30 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Maria Trefusis — and, peering round the door-post, 
 with a red face and chestnut wig, that of Jack 
 Williamson, his bully, who was on his hands and 
 knees because he was too drunk to stand. Tall, 
 erect, her blonde and burnished hair unpowdered, 
 Maria was a figure all in white, and she held one 
 hand up and listened, her startled blue eyes passing 
 from face to face. 
 
 " * Be at the Buttery window a little after twelve of 
 night, ' " Sir John read out with a beery ferocity. 
 " Had ever man more damned damning proof of 
 his own cuckolding ? ' / think your house will be 
 abed by then, and if the old bull . . . ' " 
 
 Sir John peered round from face to face with a 
 liquorish sagacity. " The old bull is myself," he 
 said, and he lightly touched his forehead as if he 
 expected to find it wet. " * / have news,' " he read 
 on, " ' not so good as I had expected, nor yet so bad as 
 at one time seemed . . . '" 
 
 Sir John abandoned the reading of the note, which 
 was very troublesome to him since he was no 
 scholar. " News ! " he exclaimed. " News not so 
 bad nor yet so good. I'fackins, here's bad news, 
 for my lady has played me false ; here's good news, 
 for now I will have a bill of divorce, and that is 
 the best news I have had this four year." 
 
 Her ladyship, motionless, threw over her shoulder 
 at him the words — 
 
 " Then you will go starve. Sir John, for you have 
 nothing but my jointure." 
 
 " By God, no ! " Sir John shouted, " I will have 
 the divorce and your jointure too. If that be not 
 the law, I am a Parliament man, and will get the 
 
THE PORTRAIT 31 
 
 law changed. I married your ladyship for your 
 jointure, and your jointure I will have. I have 
 had four years of the cursedest, growlingest life with 
 a measly, whining, nagging clog on my ankles. 
 Now," and he waved the note in the air, " I hold 
 the means to be a free man." 
 
 Walking like a pigeon on account of her very 
 high heels, Maria, her hand lifted too, went swiftly 
 past her guardian, and pulled the note from his 
 unresisting fingers as she passed. She had been 
 flushing and paling, and she slipped quickly to the 
 other side of the table behind the two Bettesworths. 
 Roland had an amused grin round the corners of 
 his mouth, but upon the brows of Mr. Bettesworth 
 there descended, with every word of the Knight, a 
 deeper and deeper frown. 
 
 " What you make with my letter I do not know, 
 Sir John," Maria said. Sir John was wavering 
 more than ever on his feet. 
 
 " Your letter, heyday ! " he said. " Minx 1 
 Strumpet ! " And then suddenly an inspiration 
 came through his puzzlement. 
 
 "Ha! a plot," he said. "I am not to be 
 plotted ; nor no such plot shall shield my lady from 
 the weight of my arm and the law — the law will 
 be heavy enough, but my arm more so. But first, 
 I will have the letter back, and beat thee for 
 plotting." 
 
 Grown suddenly ferocious, he staggered swiftly 
 behind his wife, round the table, and was brought 
 up before the risen figure of Mr. Bettesworth in his 
 white satin. 
 
 " Ho, a white cockatoo ! " he exclaimed, and he 
 
32 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 staggered back. " Out of the way, Pander ! Here 
 is my wife well furnished with a minx for a pimp 
 and a white knight for a go-between. But I will 
 have my sword about all your backs ..." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth did not speak ; he was counting 
 forty. Mr. Roland Bettesworth leaned back on 
 his chair, tilting the forelegs off the ground. He 
 had his hands in his fob pockets, his coat-tails swept 
 the floor. In spite of the discovery of his intrigue 
 with Maria Trefusis he was grinning ironically. 
 
 " This is what it is to take other men's billets, 
 my Lady Polly," he said. " And," thought he, " if 
 a man may not come to it by the Buttery window 
 an ardent flame will find out how to go down a 
 chimney." 
 
 A deep and all-covering flush was upon the 
 face of Maria Trefusis. She looked upon the ground 
 and twisted the note between her fingers. She 
 hated the disclosure. She dreaded her aunt's 
 tongue in the privacy that would come afterwards. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth's white figure, with the set face 
 and the moving lips, gave Sir John the idea that 
 here was a man tremulous with fear. His nose had 
 been pressed almost against Mr. Bettesworth's, and 
 he staggered a pace and a half back to give himself 
 room. His hand, with the muddied ruffles, fumbled 
 at the torn skirt of his coat for his sword-head. 
 His eyes blazed with the fury of a bully opposed 
 to a coward ; his red cheeks grew more inflamed. 
 
 " By God ! I will cut off" all your ears," he shouted. 
 " I will slit your nostrils, as we did with the tailor's 
 apprentice last night." He had by then found his 
 sword-hilt, and wrenching at the handle, much as a 
 
THE PORTRAIT 33 
 
 man does with a corkscrew, for the blade was rusty, 
 he succeeded at last in drawing. Mr. Williamson, 
 his long periwig sweeping the ground, having tried 
 three times without success to assume an erect 
 posture, had navigated the table behind Lady 
 Eshetsford's back upon all-fours. And, with some- 
 what of the aspect of a spaniel, he leered at Mr. 
 Bettesworth from beside his employer's bulging calves. 
 
 " Ay, slit noses, cut off ears ! " he babbled, with a 
 cheerful grin. " We're mohocks still if we cannot 
 stand." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth's grey steel came out from the 
 thin black scabbard with what seemed to Sir John 
 an extraordinary suddenness — with a suddenness so 
 extraordinary that he felt upon his wrist the sharp 
 pain of the touch of a light sword before his muddled 
 brain had realised that he faced an adversary. His 
 point dropped to the floor, and, beginning with his 
 nose, a green pallor turned his features to a sem- 
 blance of verdigrised copper. 
 
 " Must a man be betrayed in his own house," he 
 said, with sarcasm and fear in his tones, " and then 
 put to the arbitrament of swords ? This is contrary 
 to all precedent. Guilt and flight go hand in hand." 
 
 " Not when poltroonery will not pursue," Lady 
 Eshetsford said, with a bitter contempt. 
 
 " Oh, now the bitch bays," Sir John answered. 
 " Wait you, madam, till your gallants be gone ! " 
 
 He drew his head back like a child from an 
 extended spoon of medicine ; the fine point of Mr. 
 Bettesworth's sword seemed to tickle his Adam's 
 apple. And Mr. Bettesworth trusted himself to speak. 
 
 " On your knees. Knight," he said, with a cold 
 3 
 
34 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 fury. "If you raise a hand, if you breathe a 
 word . . ." 
 
 Sir John, reeling to the rear, sat down upon the 
 back of Mr. Williamson, who was crawling hind- 
 ways towards the door. He had been put to so 
 many more disagreeable usages, that merely to 
 afford a seat to his patron seemed to him com- 
 paratively agreeable, and as long as he could he 
 supported the burden. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth approached nearer, and repeating, 
 " On your knees ! " held again his point to the 
 Knight's throat. Sir John brushed it away petulantly 
 as if it had been a wasp. 
 
 " A pretty pass," he said, " that a wronged 
 husband should adopt the attitude proper to an 
 erring wife ! " 
 
 At this, first Mr. Williamson's arms and then his 
 thighs gave way beneath him, and Sir John subsided 
 on to the ground like a general whose horse is 
 killed beneath him. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth twisted away with his point Sir 
 John's sword, that had fallen to the ground. It 
 dropped near the window with a rusty jingling. 
 
 " I perceive," he said, with a cold humour, " that 
 you can never rise to your knees, so you shall swear 
 sitting." 
 
 " Swear ! " said the Knight. " Good Lord, swear ! " 
 
 " You shall swear that you shall never raise your 
 hand to your wife ; you shall never come into her 
 presence without abjectly craving permission, and 
 your bullies and companions never at all. Her name 
 shall never be on your lips in taverns and at your 
 drunken debauches. You shall never share her bed." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 35 
 
 " Damn it all ! " the Knight said, " will you 
 take my place ? What whorson knave are you to 
 come into my house and dictate how a knight shall 
 live with his wife ? " 
 
 " I am my lady's cousin, and, in descent from 
 my uncle, trustee and the head of my family, and I 
 am the best swordsman of the West of England," 
 Mr. Bettesworth answered. " I take it upon me to 
 alleviate her lot." 
 
 Sir John's jaw fell. Maria's eyes had grown wider 
 and wider with admiration behind Mr. Bettesworth's 
 white back. 
 
 " Heaven be praised ! " she exclaimed. " Here is 
 a Saint George come to us at last ! " 
 
 " The family ! " Sir John cried out, with a note of 
 woe. " I have been dreading her plaguy family 
 this three year. May not a man use his wife's body 
 and dissipate her fortune in what wise he will, but 
 a pesky parcel of black-browed families shall burst 
 in on him with swords and cries 1 I have dreaded 
 this, but I was safe whilst the uncle lived. He was 
 a fellow after my own heart. I am a Parliament 
 man, Knight of the Shire and Gustos Rotulorum, and 
 shall a family " 
 
 " Swear ! " Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 
 " Shall I knock upon my wife's door before I 
 enter, like a lackey ? " Sir John asked. " What if 
 she is in the room with the cupboards where I keep 
 my liquors ? Shall I not get drunk when I will in 
 my own house ? " 
 
 " You shall not knock at a door like a lackey, but 
 you shall send the lackey before you to ask if your 
 presence shall be pleasing to her ladyship. And 
 
36 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 into my cousin's presence you shall never come when 
 you are drunk." 
 
 " Then, to be sure, if I am to wait till my presence 
 is pleasing to her, and till I am sober, I shall never 
 come into her presence again. For she has puked 
 at me ever since we were married a fortnight, and 
 I have not been sober since Christmas was a twelve- 
 month." 
 
 " Swear ! " Mr. Bettesworth remarked. 
 
 " This indeed," Sir John said, gazing, fuddled, at 
 the ground, " is divorce a mensd et toro, save that it 
 leaves my wife free and me in nowise. And yet I 
 am not sorry to be rid for ever of her haughty and 
 mewling voice. Yes, I swear it ; so she will leave 
 me my ease I will leave her hers. For if she hate 
 me as heartily as I hate her, this will be the first 
 thing that I have done to pleasure her since we were 
 married." 
 
 " Then get you gone till you be sober," Mr. 
 Bettesworth said. 
 
 " ' Then fareivell for ever my honey, my dear' " the 
 Knight chanted, " for I mean to be drunk all the 
 rest of the year." He shouted out : " Ho, Part- 
 ridge ! you and Thomas come bear me to my 
 bed." 
 
 " Sir John," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I trust that 
 you, as a Parliament man and as a Knight of the 
 Shire, will observe your oath. Nor, indeed, do I 
 doubt of it. But of this you may be certain, that 
 if you cause so much as a frown to darken my Lady 
 Eshetsford's brow, my sword shall be here again at 
 your throat and then it shall not stop outside your 
 skin." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 37 
 
 " Oh, ay, your sword," Sir John mumbled. " That 
 is the way of the world. To corrupt a man's wife 
 and then " 
 
 His face became suddenly of a deep purple; he 
 threw up his hands. From the sword-wrist that 
 Mr. Bettesworth had scratched, blood had been 
 running down on to the Knight's red knuckles. A 
 vein that the sword-point had injured had burst 
 under the pressure of his passion. There issued 
 suddenly a pulsing stream of blood which fell over 
 his shoulder and coat. And after a long pause he 
 opened his eyes and gazed malignantly at Mr. 
 Bettesworth. 
 
 " Ay," he said, " I think by that scratch you 
 have done what you would not have done, having 
 saved my life. So that you shall not for many 
 years stand in my shoes." 
 
 He leered maliciously up at his wife. 
 
 " Ay, madam," he said, " that was very surely a 
 stroke of apoplexy, and had your spark or gallant 
 or lover, or spark's brother or gallant's brother or 
 lover's brother — or whatever he is — not let my 
 blood by scratching me near the wrist, I should as 
 like as not be dead meat by now." 
 
 He stood up upon his legs, the relief from pressure 
 of blood having sobered him. 
 
 " Your sword is a tricky instrument," he said to 
 Mr. Bettesworth. " It cuts both ways, letting out 
 life or death as the case may be." 
 
 Mr, Bettesworth said : " Sir, your very humble 
 servant." And, still gripping his arm above the 
 punctured wrist, Sir John cursed his way out of the 
 room. He pushed two footmen aside, and when he 
 
38 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 came to where his hat and wig lay on the floor, 
 kicked them furiously against the skirting-board. 
 Mr. Williamson had reached the door two minutes 
 sooner. Partridge, the lackey, took his place by the 
 sideboard again. The maid, with a basin and a 
 cloth, removed from the polished floor the drops of 
 Sir John's blood. Tom the footman ceremoniously 
 recovered and carried off Sir John's sword, and 
 Maria took her place again by Lady Eshetsford's side. 
 
 " You have not found the picture ? " Lady 
 Eshetsford said to Maria. Her voice was still 
 touched with the scorn that she had felt for Sir 
 John, but she controlled it so that it attained again 
 to its company falsetto, and she stiffened her move- 
 ments as etiquette demanded. " Now I remember, 
 I had it placed in the north attic where the servants 
 do not sleep." 
 
 She turned to Mr. Bettesworth, who also had 
 resumed his place at the table, and sat very formal 
 and erect. 
 
 " This painter, Hitchcock," she said, " is a man to 
 whom I have long tried to be a patroness. But he 
 has none of the tricks of his trade. He is not one 
 to sit at your levee whilst your hair is being dressed, 
 along with the musicians and poets and man- 
 milliners and pedlars of virtu. But here in London 
 he inhabits God knows what garret, and he has a 
 little house on my land at Ashford where he keeps 
 a wife and two buxom daughters. He is very 
 round and very snuffy, his wig is as often as not 
 back part to the front, and there depends always 
 from his pocket a muddle of painter's rags." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 39 
 
 " I have seen the man," Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 " He has a mind very full of the secrets of his Art. 
 I have never met one who seemed more cautious or 
 secretive. I must needs be very haughty before he 
 would suffer me to approach his pieces with my 
 measure." 
 
 " But now I think his fortune is made," Lady 
 Eshetsford said. " Half the Town will be buying of 
 his pictures, and I hear that he is to be appointed 
 Painter to the Dilettante Society. So he will paint 
 so many portraits a year. For the Dilettante 
 Society, though they are a drunken and roistering 
 crew, and professed atheists, yet have this virtue, that 
 they present each one his portrait to the Society 
 upon their elections." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I am very 
 sorry to hear you speak thus of this Society, for 
 this morning a very civil gentleman — Sir Francis 
 Dashwood — waited upon me and informed me that 
 I was made a member, and would have me to dine 
 there upon Sunday night." 
 
 " Then you shall see for yourself," Lady 
 Eshetsford said. " And, indeed, it is so much in 
 the mode of the time to be debauched and an 
 atheist, that you will be no more than a man of 
 good manners if you blaspheme and are for ever in 
 your cups." 
 
 " I trust," Mr. Bettesworth said, " that I shall 
 never be anything that shall not please your 
 ladyship." 
 
 " And I trust," her ladyship said, " that I never 
 shall be anything but what shall be invariably 
 pleased with Mr. Bettesworth." 
 
IV 
 
 AT a very long table, between his brother and 
 Mr. Jack Williamson, who for the time being 
 was reasonably sober, Mr. Bettes worth sat listening 
 to an oration from a gentleman arrayed in a red 
 cassock — a parody of a preacher's gown. The 
 table held forty men, nearly all of them young, and 
 nearly all of them at that stage sober, though one 
 young gentleman was pouring a bottle of claret 
 over his forehead in the vain attempt to reach his 
 mouth. The many-coloured line of coats in which 
 blue predominated, — though there were some of 
 purple, and the President wore a long gown of 
 scarlet and ermine like a peer's robes, — the several 
 sashes of the most noble Order of the Garter, the 
 profusion of gold lace, the enormous dress-wigs 
 minutely curled and falling behind and in front of 
 the shoulders, all these things gave to the speaker's 
 audience an air of distinction, of decorum, and of 
 solemnity, that madly enhanced the effect of his 
 blasphemous oration. It was as if the House of 
 Peers sat to hear a sermon against the rights of 
 the blood. The speaker had taken for his text : 
 " And they heard the voice of the Lord God zvalking 
 ill the garden in the cool of the day," and from that 
 starting - point he proceeded to cast a polished 
 
THE PORTRAIT 41 
 
 ridicule upon the story of the Creation, He 
 mingled it with equally polished obscenities. Sir 
 Francis Dashwood, afterwards Lord le Despencer, 
 was at that date twenty-eight. The most striking 
 of his features were his large violet eyes, that had 
 dark rims round the irises. And his very long, 
 soft, and almost curling eyelashes gave to his glance 
 a shrinking and feminine tenderness, even at 
 moments when, as now, he most displayed hardi- 
 hood and effrontery. He was reputed to be the 
 most cynically wrong-living young man upon the 
 Town, but he very seldom indulged in liquor to an 
 excess or committed public outrages against the 
 Law, such as were then the fashion, for he preferred 
 to observe and to find humour in the gross excesses 
 of his companions. 
 
 The Dilettante Society, of which he was a founder, 
 and of which he was certainly the most moving 
 spirit, was made up of men mostly young, whose 
 qualification was that they should have made the 
 Grand Tour, or that they should at least have 
 visited Italy and have seen its masterpieces. A 
 taste for the Arts of Painting and Sculpture being 
 then one of the distinguishing marks of the 
 aristocracy and gentry, the Society had for its 
 avowed aim the promotion of those Arts. How 
 exactly it proposed to promote them was a matter 
 of some vagueness. Perhaps it came most near to 
 this object in that its members, by a social inter- 
 course, revived the memories and the dissipations of 
 the days when, under the guardianship of complacent 
 and compliant tutors, they had found Italy so 
 pleasant. 
 
42 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth, with his somewhat tenacious mind 
 was coldly but yet earnestly set upon honouring 
 the Arts of his native country. At the very out- 
 set the manners and aspect of the company 
 conveyed a distinct chill to him. It is true that 
 round the walls, between the candle sconces, there 
 were hung several Italian pictures. The gavel in 
 the President's hand and the goblet before him were 
 of silver chased by Benvenuto Cellini. But the 
 very nature of the minutes of the last meeting, that 
 were read by the Secretary from a book bound in 
 scarlet morocco — their nature, and still more the 
 comments with which they were received by 
 members of the Club, — as, for instance : " Resolved 
 that the compliments of the Society be particularly 
 presented to Mr. Bland, along with the information 
 that the Society desires that he should be damned," 
 which elicited from the Duke of Norfolk and the 
 Honourable Simon Harcourt a volley of remarks 
 as to the said Mr. Bland's womenkind, — together 
 with the mock solemnity of Secretary, President, 
 Introducer of Guests, and Very Grand Master, — all 
 these things induced in Mr. Bettesworth a feeling of 
 choler and dislike. 
 
 He sat, therefore, listening to Sir Francis Dash- 
 wood's sermon with a growing irritation. Sir 
 Francis had waited upon him with his deferential 
 air, his soft and polished manner, and his shrinking 
 eyelashes. Mr. Bettesworth had imagined that this 
 Society was one of serious-minded noblemen intent 
 upon — as Sir Francis said — the promoting of the 
 Fine Arts in England. So that, finding himself in 
 this company of rather lewd men, amongst whom, 
 
THE PORTRAIT 43 
 
 hitherto, no word of the Fine Arts had yet been 
 uttered, Mr. Bettesworth felt a sudden and profound 
 distrust of his Introducer. He imagined that 
 Sir Francis, with his fine smile and ironical manner, 
 had come merely to fool him, had tricked him — 
 taking advantage of his inexperience in the Town's 
 ways — into coming to a drinking table under the 
 pretence that it was a learned Society. " For," as 
 he said to himself, " if he had said to me this was a 
 boosing-ken or a blasphemy shop I should certainly 
 have come, to see the world. But thus to have 
 deceived me is surely an affront over which subse- 
 quently he will make merry with his friends." 
 
 In this, however, Mr. Bettesworth did his Intro- 
 ducer an injustice. Sir Francis and the Society 
 considered that merely to meet together as Cogno- 
 scenti and men of birth was in itself very greatly to 
 honour any Art. And if the meetings themselves 
 witnessed no particular actions other than those of 
 eating and drinking, that was, as it were, their 
 recompense for the labours of coming together at 
 all. For to dine was surely as meritorious an act 
 of patronage as to permit one's name to be printed 
 on the dedication page of a book. 
 
 The dinner was done, the bottles passed on, the 
 waiters went round the walls snuffing the candles, 
 and amidst incessant jeers and laughter Sir Francis 
 commenced his peroration — 
 
 " Mr. President, my Lords and Gentlemen, so 
 much for Creation and the Garden and Eve, and all 
 the rest. But we have seen now upon the Town — 
 and I think there is no man here so backward as 
 not to have seen it — a created garden and a created, 
 
44 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 serpentless Eve such as no seven days that the 
 world has ever seen, did, could, or shall create. 
 Had the Archangel who bears the name of the 
 Supreme Raphael descended from heaven and used 
 one of his pinion feathers for a brush, he could 
 never have given us such beauty, he could never 
 have given us such grace, he could never have 
 limned for us such flowing limbs, such a languishing 
 look, or such shining ringlets. The painter has 
 chosen to clothe his Eve : thus he shows that 
 though innocent she has knowledge of good and 
 evil . . ." At this juncture such a babble of appre- 
 ciative shouts arose from his audience that Sir 
 Francis's voice was lost. He drank a glass of wine, 
 wiped his lips, smiled, and continued formally : 
 " Gentlemen, it is my privilege — and no prouder 
 privilege has been conferred upon any layman 
 since the King of Spain was permitted to hold the 
 brushes of the great Velasquez — it is my privilege 
 to propose that a new office of this Society be 
 created — that of Painter to the Society of Dilet- 
 tante, and that the Painter of ' Celia in her Arbour ' 
 be forthwith elected to that office." 
 
 There was a great uproar of assent whilst this 
 resolution was being put to the meeting, and then 
 the Secretary and the Introducer — the one in a 
 white burnous with a Moor's turban, the other in 
 sea-green with a sash of gold cloth — having retired 
 momentarily through the door at the end of the 
 hall, dragged in the painter Roger Hitchcock, whom 
 they had kept locked up in a little anteroom. 
 
 A short, paunchy man of maybe fifty, he had 
 great spectacles, a very wrinkled face, and a rather 
 
THE PORTRAIT 45 
 
 ironic expression. His old snuff-coloured coat was 
 very baggy in the pockets ; from one of them 
 there depended a long paint-rag. Led by the hand 
 to the top of the table, he was stood beside the 
 President to receive the message of his election, and 
 he remained blinking at the lines of faces intently 
 and with no sign of perturbation, very much as if 
 he were taking a professional interest in their aspect 
 and seeking to take notes in his memory for a 
 future picture. The President, with his fine clear 
 features, turned sideways to the old painter, ad- 
 dressed him in terms of eulogy and welcome. 
 Mr. Hitchcock received them with little half-im- 
 patient bobs, and, the speech being ended, he sat 
 down, very business-like, in the chair that was placed 
 for him on the President's right hand. There began 
 immediately an enormous tumult, during which the 
 President whispered in the painter's ear. As a 
 result, Hitchcock was upon his legs again, leaning 
 his knuckles upon the table, and holding in one hand 
 the soiled paint-rag, which he had mistaken for his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said in a little, penetrating voice, 
 that he appeared to snap off into short lengths, 
 " this honour is none of my seeking ; making speeches 
 is none of my trade. I was brought here by 
 physical force. Sir Francis Dashwood, the Duke 
 of Norfolk, and Mr. Simon Harcourt burst in on me 
 in my painting-room and forcibly abducted me . . ." 
 He took a pinch of snuff, waiting for the laughter 
 and cheers to subside, then, still sniffing, he continued 
 composedly — 
 
 " Dining and dinners have never entered into my 
 
46 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 life. They and painting, I have always held, will 
 never agree. But if I am to be hauled here by 
 main force I must needs relent. I am sensible that 
 you have done me a great honour, but I think it is 
 rather to the beauty of my sitter that you have 
 paid a tribute than to the beauty of my performance. 
 Therefore you will not find me unduly puffed up, 
 for I know very well you would rather have that 
 lady sitting at this table than mine own self, and I 
 consider myself to be her deputy only." 
 
 He waved his paint-rag in the air, wiped his nose 
 with it, and sat down suddenly. 
 
 " By God ! a mighty insolent speech," Sir Francis 
 Dashwood said to Mr. Bettesworth across the face 
 of Mr. Jack William.son. " Did ever painter so speak 
 to an assembly of gentlemen ? " 
 
 " Why, Sir Francis," Mr. Bettesworth answered 
 coldly, " if the man were indeed dragged here to 
 be made a butt of I think he has spoken very 
 moderately, and the insolence is ours of this 
 Society." 
 
 Sir Francis gazed at him with his large and 
 feminine eyes, his lips smiling. 
 
 " A hit," he said languidly. " I admit that I am 
 hit, for mine was the inspiration to drag the painter 
 here. But you will perceive this is the first thing 
 the Society has done towards promoting the cause 
 of the Fine Arts." 
 
 " I think it would have been better," Mr. Bettes- 
 worth said, " to have left it undone." 
 
 Mr. Simon Harcourt, a pale young man with a 
 particularly large chestnut wig, called at this point, 
 from the bottom of the table — 
 
THE PORTRAIT 47 
 
 " Name, name ? I move that Mr. Hitchcock be 
 ordered to disclose the name of his ' Celia.' " 
 
 And the Duke of Norfolk echoed : " Ay, let us 
 have the name for a toast." 
 
 " Her name, my lord," Mr. Hitchcock said dryly, 
 " is Celia." 
 
 " Ay, but her name in the flesh," the Duke 
 said. 
 
 " That I have forgotten," the painter answered. 
 
 "Oh, will you keep her all to yourself?" Mr. 
 Simon Harcourt called out. " I thought you had 
 a wife and family ? " 
 
 " Well, they are hidden down in the country," the 
 painter said. 
 
 Sir Francis said, " Oh ! oh ! oh ! " and then rose 
 to his feet. 
 
 " Mr. President," he said, " I move that the offer 
 of the Painter to the Society be accepted, and that 
 instead of himself this lady be given a perpetual seat 
 at the table." 
 
 " I second that," Mr. Harcourt called out ; " and 
 I will be the one to fetch her here." 
 
 " And I will have the housing of her," the Duke 
 of Norfolk said. 
 
 " No, by God ! " Dashwood said, " she shall be 
 mine." 
 
 A gentleman in a scarlet coat said, from the 
 bottom of the table — 
 
 " Why, she must fall to the highest bidder." 
 
 " Then it is certain we must have her name," the 
 Secretary said. 
 
 "That you never shall from me," the painter 
 answered pleasantly. 
 
48 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Then we must go find her," Mr. Simon Harcourt 
 exclaimed. 
 
 The gentleman in the red coat cried hilariously : 
 " Brava ! I bet Mr. Harcourt a thousand pounds 
 against a thousand that I will be the first to find 
 her, provided the painter will keep his mouth shut." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt cried : " Done ! " And then : " I bet 
 the Duke of Norfolk two thousand pounds against 
 two thousand that I will be the one to fetch her 
 here." 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk said calmly : " Done ! " and 
 added, in his low, distinct voice : " I will bet Sir 
 Francis Dashwood three thousand pounds that I 
 will have the housing of her." 
 
 A moment of perturbation moved Sir Francis's 
 mobile eyebrows. He was tacitly challenged, in the 
 face of all that Assembly, to excede the Duke of 
 Norfolk both in the amount of his wager and in the 
 feat he should undertake. Then the smile came 
 back to his lips, his glance fell upon Mr. Bettesworth. 
 
 " I will bet Mr. Bettesworth four thousand pounds," 
 he said, with his calm, clear voice, " that if she be 
 of approved and virtuous life, whosoever she be, if 
 she be not already married, I will marry this lady." 
 
 A very strong anger was in Mr. Bettes worth's 
 heart. He cried out — 
 
 " I will bet each of the four gentlemen who has 
 already betted five thousand pounds apiece that I 
 myself will find, fetch, house, and marry this lady, 
 subject to the proviso that Sir Francis Dashwood 
 has made, each and all of us to be bound by their 
 promise of honour not to question Mr. Hitchcock, 
 and Mr. Hitchcock to bind himself to give no clue." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 49 
 
 There was a little buzz of subdued conversation 
 round the table, and then Mr. Roland Bettesvvorth 
 said : " By God ! a cool bet, brother, when you have 
 not seen the picture." 
 
 " Not seen the picture ! " Sir Francis exclaimed, 
 his eyes opening wider. " Oh ! " 
 
 He appeared to reflect for a moment, his glance 
 upon the tablecloth, and then he said, " Well, we 
 have all taken your bet. Let it be inscribed in the 
 minutes of this Society, and we will put our names 
 to it. But there must be a term agreed upon," 
 
 " Oh, surely there must be a term agreed upon," 
 the Duke of Norfolk said. " It might last twenty 
 years. I should not wish to have the housing of a 
 wrinkled and toothless creature. Let us say six 
 months." 
 
 " Your Grace," Mr. Bettesworth said, " let us 
 make it one month, and let us have a committee of 
 inquiry into all other matters before we begin. I 
 would wish to invite all the gentlemen who have 
 betted to drink a dish of coffee at my house to- 
 morrow, in the afternoon." 
 
CROUCHING in the darkness, under the 
 garden wall of Ashford House, Mr. Roland 
 Bettesworth threw up several times an iron hook, 
 which had attached to it a stout cord. The hook 
 caught at last in the cheveux de frise that crowned 
 the wall, and, with a heavy cloak over his arm, 
 with some difficulty he commenced the ascent of 
 the rope, which was knotted at intervals to give 
 him a foothold. At the top of the wall, swinging 
 by one hand, he contrived with the other to cast 
 his cloak over the spikes. Arrived on the top, he 
 sat himself down complacently upon the cloak. 
 He let the rope down upon the other side of the 
 wall, and sat peering into the thick darkness. The 
 leaves of an aspen rustled perpetually in the faint 
 wind ; a nightingale began to sing high up in the 
 dusky obscurity, and suddenly a small, clear voice 
 said from below — 
 
 " This has cost me two paduasoy mantuas." 
 Mr. Roland swiftly descended his rope and 
 landed in a bed of flowers. In the thick dark- 
 ness he could hardly perceive more than the loom 
 of two figures and the faint white disks of two faces. 
 " Why, I will buy the two mantuas back from 
 the excellent Trott for five guineas," he said, and 
 
THE PORTRAIT 51 
 
 he waded through the high flowers till his feet 
 touched the gravel of the walk. " Maria, ador- 
 able charmer ! " he exclaimed, and held out his arms. 
 " Trott, you perceive, is here," Maria Trefusis 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Angel of light," he said, " can you not trust 
 yourself with me ? " 
 
 " In the dark," she answered, " I would rather 
 trust myself to you and Trott. What is your 
 very great news ? " 
 
 "My brother, Mr. Bettesworth," Roland said, 
 " has betted a round twenty thousand pound that 
 he will marry the lady who was the model for 
 ' Celia in her Arbour.' " 
 
 Maria Trefusis said : " Oh ! oh ! oh ! " and in 
 the darkness the maid Trott tittered. 
 
 " Now," said Mr. Roland,' " how may I best 
 turn this to account? Twenty thousand pound is 
 a round sum, and from it, win or lose, if the matter 
 be skilfully handled, there should be some pickings 
 for me — and for the excellent Trott," he added. 
 
 In the dark Trott appeared profoundly, and in 
 silence, to consider the matter. 
 
 '* I do not see how my brother can win the 
 
 bet," Mr. Roland continued. " Or, indeed, he 
 
 cannot win the bet, the lady being married, but I 
 
 very much desire that he should continue for a 
 
 long time in the search, for so long as he continues 
 
 I seeking he will remain unmarried, and so long as 
 
 j he remains unmarried, but no longer, I shall retain 
 
 I my post about his person and my comfortable 
 
 honorarium. And with a few lucky casts of the 
 
 dice. . . . Oh, rapture ! " 
 
52 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " You will never gain enough by the dice to 
 marry me upon," Maria said. " You have been 
 making the attempt too long." 
 
 " The more likely that Fortune will smile. The 
 luck must change if one keeps at it long enough. 
 Fortune's a woman, to be won by wooing." 
 
 " Fortune's a jade," Maria said, " that loves not 
 empty purses." 
 
 " I can give you but four minutes more," Trott said. 
 " Sir John's nurse may call to me at any moment 
 for sherry whey or posset, or who knows what." 
 
 " Sir John's nurse ! " Mr. Roland exclaimed. 
 
 " Sir John is very ill," Maria answered. " Ever 
 since your brother confronted him — how like a 
 lion he was ! — Sir John has kept his bed. They 
 say he babbles and clutches at the bedclothes. 
 And these should be bad signs." 
 
 " Then ! " Mr. Roland exclaimed. 
 
 " Then," Maria answered. 
 
 " This will need very careful reflecting upon. I 
 had not thought of this." 
 
 " I can give you no more time," Trott said 
 remorselessly. 
 
 *' Oh, a quarter of an hour — ten minutes — only 
 five," Mr. Roland said. 
 
 But the maid answered : " You must back into 
 the house, mistress. My place suits my taste too 
 well for me to lose it." 
 
 " Lord ! what a thing these servants be ! How 
 smooth and fawning before the public eye ; how 
 tyrannous in private ! For there is not a woman 
 of the world but has her secrets, and needs private 
 letter-carriers and the like." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 53 
 
 " Madam," the girl said, " if you gave more time 
 to courtship, or the business in hand, and less to 
 sentiments upon things in general, you would get 
 more said." 
 
 " Well, I am coming," Maria said. She began 
 to move away, and then came back. 
 
 " Mr. Roland Bettesworth," she said, " I do not 
 think that I am any more minded to marry you, 
 but I will keep secret in the matter of the portrait. 
 And for Trott, you must buy her secrecy as best 
 you may." 
 
 " Not minded to marry him ! " Trott exclaimed. 
 " What has the poor gentleman done ? " 
 
 " Oh, I know very well," Maria answered, " that 
 you have found my secret meetings with Mr. Roland 
 Bettesworth a source of profit, and that you have 
 cut short this meeting in order to make a second 
 out of it. But if a woman may love, a woman 
 may withdraw her love, and I am minded to with- 
 draw mine." 
 
 Mr. Roland fell upon one knee on the garden- 
 path, and, though he found the stones cruel 
 to his knee, he protested valiantly of broken 
 hearts. 
 
 " Oh, I know very well," Maria said, " you are 
 practised in lamentations. You have five other 
 flames that I know of, and how many others ? 
 Sukey Tremaine has shown me your billets to her, 
 and there are the same doves and Cupid's arrows, 
 and tresses and ringlets and despairing sighs, as 
 there are in all of mine." 
 
 " Jealousy ! " Mr. Roland exclaimed. " I 
 swear ! " 
 
54 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Oh, do not swear," she answered. " I know you 
 will say I am the only one. I could say it all for 
 you, with the fitting gestures and apostrophes. So 
 I am not jealous. But you may think, if you like, 
 that I have seen a man that I like better. I will 
 be a sister to you." 
 
 Mr. Roland answered : " One kiss ! " She 
 dwindled away into the darkness, and he rose to 
 his feet exclaiming : " The devil, and I have to 
 climb back over this weary wall ! " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth rose very betimes on the morrow. 
 He neglected his levee of tradesmen, poets, and 
 musicians, and having permitted himself to be dressed 
 with haste, if with care, he sat for some time reflect- 
 ing. The buzz of half-awe which his incursion 
 into the betting of the night before had created 
 filled him with a secret satisfaction. The monstrous 
 nature of the bet was sufficient to ensure for him a 
 great measure of distinction. And if the task set 
 him was a hard one, and the search appeared a little 
 insane, he was undertaking it in very good company. 
 Moreover, the search and the undertaking were, on 
 his part, so much the bolder in that he had never 
 seen the picture itself. He was, however, going to 
 rectify that omission very immediately, and having 
 drunk his cup of morning chocolate he took his 
 stick and his hat and set out for the Argyle Rooms, 
 where Mr. Hitchcock's pictures were being shown. 
 He had the pleasure of seeing Sir Francis Dashwood, 
 very light, debonair, and smiling, holding a little 
 lace handkerchief in his hand, run down the high, 
 rounded steps into the street, and walk away in the 
 
THE PORTRAIT 55 
 
 opposite direction beside a sedan-chair carried by 
 two porters in Sir Francis's own livery. It occurred 
 to him that, like himself, Sir Francis was attempting 
 to refresh his memory with a careful study of the 
 picture. 
 
 Mr. Hitchcock was alone in the first room, 
 small, square and low, lit from above, and hung 
 round with landscapes, and portraits of gentlemen 
 in red coats, and ladies with small busts and 
 very decollete shoulders. Mr. Hitchcock was 
 smiling his sardonic, inscrutable smile ; his spectacles 
 were down on the bottom of his nose. In the 
 palette on his thumb he had a formidable array of 
 brushes. 
 
 " You are come to measure more pictures ? " Mr. 
 Hitchcock asked. 
 
 " No, I am come to measure my wit against Sir 
 Francis Dashwood's," Mr. Bettesworth answered. 
 
 The old painter laughed. 
 
 " You must rise very early to do that," he 
 answered. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth moved past him into the farther 
 room. Here there were hung hunting-pieces, flower- 
 pieces, and sea-scapes. He ran them all over with 
 his eye. He could see no picture containing a 
 woman of any kind. In the wall immediately 
 facing him there was, however, a blank space. He 
 turned his head over his shoulder and asked of the 
 painter : " Where is ' Celia in her Arbour ' ? " and the 
 old man smiled a not very mirthful smile. 
 
 " Sir Francis," he said, " bought that piece of me 
 this morning, and carried it off in a sedan-chair." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth counted forty before he spoke. 
 
VI 
 
 MR. BETTESWORTH found Lady Eshetsford 
 still at her toilet, in a flowing bedgown of 
 white and silver and pink, her dark hair as yet 
 unpowdered. She was much gayer, she spoke in 
 a voice more natural, her motions were more 
 sinuous, her hands more free. She sat to a Chinese 
 table of greenish-yellow olive-wood, from the centre 
 of which there rose a tall mirror framed in silver. 
 Let into the table-top were twelve small cells con- 
 taining a profusion of little articles, patch-boxes in 
 French porcelain, powder-dredgers in English silver- 
 ware, pomanders in silver gilt, and a number of 
 little golden keys. Lady Eshetsford was just dis- 
 missing a small milliner with a huge band-box. 
 Trott, with her demure face and downcast eyes, 
 stood behind the mirror, and, obedient and silent, 
 Maria was at her guardian's side. 
 
 " No, I will buy no more silks," Lady Eshetsford 
 was saying to the milliner as Mr. Bettesworth was 
 admitted, " — or not for some days yet." And then 
 she threw back her head and laughed and laughed 
 and laughed. " Here is our wagcrer," she said. 
 " Have you come to seek clues here ? " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth, who had dressed with an un- 
 usual care in a plum -coloured coat with a waistcoat 
 
 56 
 
THE PORTRAIT 57 
 
 of Spitalfields brocade, on which were figured 
 primroses and columbines in their natural colours, 
 nerved himself to an assurance of dignity. To 
 have displayed confusion then would have been to 
 have let all be lost. He cocked his hat beneath 
 his arm and made a courtly, stiff obeisance. 
 
 " Truly, madam," he said, " to what better place 
 could I come to seek for a clue ? " 
 
 Lady Eshetsford dropped her dark eyes, and 
 meditatively rubbed the edge of her hand-mirror 
 against her lower lip. She murmured, " Hem ! " 
 and then, " No, truly, you could have come to no 
 better place." 
 
 Long and apprehensive glances passed between 
 Trott and Maria. 
 
 " Assuredly I stand in need of help," Mr. 
 Bettesworth said. And he told them of how Sir 
 Francis Dashwood had taken away the portrait. 
 Lady Eshetsford's lips pursed up into a little 
 whistle, but before she could speak Partridge entered 
 the room. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " there are three gentlemen 
 of the undertaking persuasion upon the doorstep. 
 One of them is recommended by Doctor Bobus, one 
 by Sir William Ratcliffe, and the other by no one 
 at all — but happening to pass this way, and seeing 
 by the doorstep two of his brothers of the Scutcheon 
 and Hearse, he very nimbly ascended and knocked 
 upon the door." 
 
 " Partridge," Lady Eshetsford said, " I will in no 
 way be disturbed either by tradesmen or friends for 
 the rest of this morning." 
 
 " Madam," Partridge said, knowing his lady had 
 
58 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 a taste for the comic, " I understood that such was 
 the case, but Messrs. Sable and Mowlem are pleased 
 to be very importunate for an interview with your 
 ladyship. For they say that should Sir John have 
 a very long illness, and unfortunately decease at its 
 end, they, or whichever of them your ladyship 
 chooses to perform the obsequies, could save your 
 ladyship a matter of two crowns a day if your 
 ladyship should now commission them instead of 
 waiting till hereafter — the two crowns a day being 
 the fee they would charge for a watcher to wait out- 
 side the house and bring news of the decease." 
 
 " The unconscionable vultures," Lady Eshetsford 
 said. " Bid the porter whip them from the door." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Partridge said, " this is the mere 
 custom of the trade and trick of the physicians and 
 chirurgeons and apothecaries. For your ladyship 
 must know that whenever one of these has a patient 
 of distinction as to whose recovery he entertains 
 grave doubts, he confides his misgivings to one of 
 these Sable gentry, receiving in return a handsome 
 honorarium. Then the undertakers set watchers to 
 watch upon the house, and the fee for the watching, 
 as your ladyship has heard, is charged to the relict. 
 But in this case Doctor Bobus and Sir William 
 Ratcliffe, having been called into consultation, had 
 each recommended a different and several under- 
 taker. Now it happened that they met upon the 
 doorstep, and having fallen to fisticuffs upon the 
 point of precedence, the third gentleman, who had 
 dogged the footsteps of one of them, ran nimbly up 
 the steps and was in at the door before the porter 
 could say no." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 59 
 
 Lady Eshetsford looked pensively at the ground, 
 and motioned with her hand for Partridge to 
 withdraw. 
 
 " Sir John is very ill," Lady Eshetsford said. 
 " Poor brute, I think he will never upset a watch- 
 box again." 
 
 " I should not have thought your ladyship would 
 have wept much," Trott, the maid, commented. 
 
 " Nor shall I," Lady Eshetsford answered ; " but 
 if you have fought with a stalwart foe for a matter 
 of years, surely you will give him the honours of 
 war to the extent of a pensive moment ? " 
 
 Maria turned her blue eyes upon Mr. Bettes- 
 worth's face, and said, with her rather piping 
 intonation — 
 
 " Sir John has never held up his head since 
 the baiting you gave him last Thursday as ever 
 was." 
 
 " Why, I should be sorry to have been the cause 
 of his death," Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 
 " Oh, for sure, your Honour is not the cause ot 
 his Worship's death," the maid commented. " Your 
 Honour let his blood and so saved him. Till 
 Friday he was only crestfallen, but it was on 
 Friday that Mr. Jack Williamson, his jackal, came 
 to him and said he would no longer serve as 
 companion to such a lily-livered quake-jaw. From 
 outside the door I heard him speaking in high 
 tones, and Sir John kept silent all the time and 
 stared at his toes, that stuck up through the sheet. 
 And when Mr. Williamson said that he would to 
 all the mohocks of the Town tell the tale of his 
 Worship's cowardice and of the oaths he took, 
 
6o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Sir John groaned once very lamentably and then 
 was silent." 
 
 " This Mr. Williamson came into my service on 
 Friday night," Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 
 " That was the great grief of Sir John," Lady 
 Eshetsford commented. " I should not much affect 
 your Mr. Williamson." 
 
 " Truly, I do not much affect him," Mr. Bettes- 
 worth answered, " but I retain him as an example 
 to be avoided. And so Sir John is sick to death 
 of grief?" 
 
 " Oh, not of grief ! " Lady Eshetsford exclaimed. 
 
 " His nurse," the maid said, " fell asleep on Friday 
 night, and Sir John, who had been docked of all 
 liquor, crept downstairs to the cellar, where he knew 
 there was a small anker of brandy. And, as is 
 surmised, bearing this in his arms to stow it under 
 his bed, he fell on the great staircase, and so split 
 his skull where before it had been split by the 
 watchman's pike-stave. So that unless we put it 
 down that his desire for liquor was caused by his 
 grief — which we may in no wise do, since he has 
 not been sober these two years, save last Thursday, 
 that was when he lay abed — your Worship need in 
 no wise consider that Sir John's blood is upon your 
 hands. For if he die, he will die like the Worshipful 
 knight he is, in his own bed." 
 
 " Well, I am very glad of it," Mr. Bettesworth 
 said. 
 
 Lady Eshetsford considered for a moment. 
 " Touching the portrait ..." she said. And then, 
 " You, Maria, and you, Trott, go and wait behind the 
 door of my anteroom ;" and when, with preternaturally 
 
THE PORTRAIT 6i 
 
 grave faces, the ward and the maid had disappeared 
 behind a little white door whose handle and furnish- 
 ings were of chased silver-gilt, she said, with a certain 
 earnestness — 
 
 " Mr. Bettesworth, to be frank with you, I know 
 very well who the model for the portrait was ; as 
 you know, the painter is a protege and a tenant of 
 my own, and since — nay, do not deny it ! — I have 
 singular cause to be grateful to you, I will, if you 
 wish it, reveal to you this secret." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth counted forty before he answered, 
 and when he spoke he spoke very slowly. He had 
 been considering what course Lady Eshetsford and 
 allj persons of proper spirit would wish him to 
 pursue. 
 
 " No," he said at last. " I do not think — though 
 I have no claim at all upon the gratitude of your 
 ladyship — that I will ask this favour of you. For," 
 he continued, " if we consider this wager from the 
 moral point of view, it was to be one of some 
 difficulty, and I should run upon equal terms with 
 my competitors. Now, although in the terms of 
 the wager nothing was said as to your ladyship, it 
 was very expressly said that none of us should hold 
 communication with the painter — and that I take 
 to include such other persons as Mr. Hitchcock's 
 confederates." 
 
 " But," Lady Eshetsford interrupted, " it cannot 
 be said that Francis Dashwood has not held com- 
 munication with the painter, since he purchased 
 and subtracted the picture from under your very 
 nose." 
 
 " That, madam," Mr. Bettesworth retorted, " is a 
 
62 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 matter of setting his wit against mine. My own 
 remissness alone let me tell him that I had never 
 seen the portrait ; his readiness it was that let him 
 see that if he could purchase and take the portrait 
 away I should be very much at a loss — as indeed 
 I am. I may take it that he has asked no questions 
 of Mr. Hitchcock, so that in that sense he has had 
 no communication with him " 
 
 " In short," Lady Eshetsford said, " you are deter- 
 mined, quixotically, to have no advantage over any 
 of your rivals." 
 
 " I will have none," he returned, " save such that 
 God has given me in my parts and wits. Thus, 
 supposing Sir Francis Dashwood or the Duke of 
 Norfolk being hot upon the scent, I should pass 
 their chariot standing in an inn-yard, I would not 
 scruple to remove a lynch-pin, so that a quarter of a 
 mile farther on, their wheel coming off, they should 
 be cast into a ditch and so lose much time. For 
 that I take to be much of a muchness with Sir 
 Francis purchasing the picture. Or, again, since, as 
 I hear. Sir Francis is a very good swordsman, I 
 myself being no indifferent one, I should make no 
 scruple, should he and I both have found the lady, 
 to fight a duel with him, so that either by my 
 proving myself the more skilful of the two I should 
 make progress in the lady's affections, or by my 
 killing him he should be put out of the way for 
 good." 
 
 " Very strange creatures you men are," Lady 
 Eshetsford said. " You would rather have a man's 
 death upon your soul than ask a question from 
 your cousin ! " 
 
THE PORTRAIT 63 
 
 " Cousin," Mr. Bettesworth said, " the point is not 
 one of such a nicety as should escape one of your 
 ladyship's discernment. For the wager Sir Francis, 
 the Duke, Mr. Simon Harcourt, and myself have set 
 ourselves, is to achieve a feat of no mean difficulty. 
 So that if, fortuitously and by hazard, I have 
 stumbled at the very outset upon a possibility of 
 easy solution, and one which, I take it, is not so 
 open to my competitors, I am determined that I 
 will not take advantage and thus beg the issue." 
 
 " And I am not certain," Lady Eshetsford said, 
 " that I do not applaud you for taking this course, 
 though I am sure that any woman would have more 
 sense. But I take it that I would rather have you 
 a foolish but manlike man, than a womanly but 
 cunning and well-advised one." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I hope I shall 
 be able to prove to you that I am not a foolish man, 
 but merely a man of honour. For we have passed 
 our words, all of us, that we will none of us ask 
 questions of this painter." 
 
 " But I am not this painter," Lady Eshetsford said. 
 
 " Nevertheless, it must be manifest to your lady- 
 ship's perspicacity that you and certain members of 
 your family are, as it were, in one corporation with 
 Mr. Hitchcock " 
 
 "God forbid," Lady Eshetsford said, "that I 
 should be put upon a level with the painter ! " 
 
 " But in this particular matter " Mr. Bettes- 
 worth answered. 
 
 " God forbid," she interrupted him again, " that 
 in this particular matter, or in any other matter, 
 I should ever be in any corporation with any 
 
64 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 painter, poet, maker of music, or all such beggarly 
 creatures ! I have heard of a gentleman or two who 
 have written plays. But a painter — Heaven forfend ! " 
 
 " This is very much beside the mark," Mr. Bettes- 
 worth said. " The matter in hand " 
 
 " The matter in hand," she interrupted him, " is 
 neither here nor there. If you will you may kiss 
 my hand and go, for I will not be bombarded with 
 long speeches as to the customs or habits of the 
 animal called man." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I foresee that 
 should your husband die I shall very willingly lose 
 this twenty thousarvd pounds." 
 
 " Sir," she answered, " I will take to my soul the 
 flattering unction that you would willingly lose a 
 sum of money, but that you should lose a heavy 
 wager laid against so many men — that I do not 
 believe you will find so easy." 
 
 " Madam," he said, and he raised her hand to his 
 lips, " I have never in my life met one so charming, 
 so " 
 
 " Sir," she answered him, " I will wager all I 
 possess, and such small sums of my husband's 
 fortune as he has not dissipated," — a little malicious 
 smile went round her lips, — " I will wager all that, 
 that if ever you find this lady you will deem her 
 just so charming, and so all the other adjectives in 
 nature as ever you will come to bestow on me. Ay, 
 and you will be just as eager to marry her as ever 
 you could be to marry me." 
 
 " Polly," Mr. Bettesworth said, and catching her 
 hand he sought to draw her towards him, " you 
 know this lady that I do not, but " 
 
THE PORTRAIT 65 
 
 She laughed, and drew her hand, without any 
 petulance, from his. 
 
 " Cousin," she said, " be sure the goods are on the 
 market before you seek to buy. Sir John still lives." 
 
 " But give me hope," he answered. 
 
 " Oh, hope ! " she laughed ; " that is a cheap 
 gift. Yet if Sir John have proved a very poor 
 husband to me, it is all the more reason that I 
 practise wifely virtues towards him. In short, I 
 would have you go, that Trott may finish dressing 
 me, and that I may go see that the nurse have not 
 given Sir John sour milk in place of sherry whey 
 and Scotch ale in lieu of tar water." 
 
 Outside the large door that opened on to the 
 landing, Mr. Bettesworth had his shoulder touched 
 by Maria Trefusis. " Mr. Bettesworth," she whis- 
 pered languishingly, " if my aunt have not told 
 you who was the original of ' Celia in her Arbour ' 
 I will tell you, so you will but be grateful to me." 
 
 " Child," Mr. Bettesworth answered, " that is a 
 matter between your guardian and myself. I do 
 not desire the information." Her eyes followed him 
 despairingly as he went down the broad stone stair- 
 case, whose tall walls were decorated with frescoes 
 by Sir Thomas Thornhill. Tall, shiny, and in 
 colours like brown soup and the coppery red of a 
 dim sun seen through a fog, they represented on the 
 one hand Bacchus and Ariadne on a large sofa, 
 and, upon the other, Ariadne deserted and with 
 her hair unbound, waiting, to the strains of the 
 conch, held by a supremely ugly Triton with a long 
 beard. 
 5 
 
VII 
 
 BETTESWORTH HOUSE was the largest 
 possessed by any commoner in London. It 
 stood in Golden Square, and had been built by Mr. 
 Bettesworth's uncle in the reign of James II. Most 
 of the rooms were very tall and light, but the largest 
 and tallest of the rooms was the banqueting hall, 
 a vast piece whose roof was supported by Ionic 
 marble columns, and whose walls were decorated by 
 marble busts, for the most part purely imaginary, of 
 Bettesworth's ancestors. Thus the Bettesworth who 
 was a judge in the days of Elizabeth bore in his 
 effigy long curls such as had enhanced the beauty 
 of Charles II. 
 
 Except on days when there was banqueting, and 
 when long, temporary tables were set up, the floor 
 of this room was bare and tiled ; and it was here 
 that Mr. Bettesworth deemed proper to receive the 
 Duke of Norfolk, Sir Francis Dashvvood, Mr. Simon 
 Harcourt, and the gentleman in the red coat. This 
 last, it appeared, was a Major Penruddock of the 
 west, who, having served with distinction under 
 King William the Third in the Low Countries, had 
 lately succeeded his elder brother in very consider- 
 able estates. 
 
 The company arrived in the order that has been 
 
 66 
 
THE PORTRAIT 67 
 
 named, the Duke bringing a Mr. Robert Howard ; 
 Sir Francis Dashwood, a Mr. Cecil Dashvvood ; and 
 the two others, two gentlemen whose names did 
 not occur in the course of the proceedings. Mr. 
 Bettesworth was supported by Mr. Jack Williamson, 
 whilst his brother, Mr. Roland, sat at a table to 
 write down the minutes. The others disposed them- 
 selves rather stiffly upon high-backed chairs that 
 were placed across the hall. The voices echoed in 
 solemn whispers round the walls, and when one of 
 them moved his chair so that its legs squeaked upon 
 the marble tiling, the high sound was repeated 
 hollowly from several points in the room. 
 
 His Grace of Norfolk made them a formal speech. 
 He said that they were met upon an occasion that 
 was probably unparalleled in the chronicles of their 
 ancestors. In the first place, the wager was very 
 high ; in the second, it was to be doubted if so 
 many gentlemen of high birth had ever taken part 
 together in such an enterprise, — at any rate since the 
 Dark Ages, when, as fables told them, the Knights 
 of King Arthur's Round Table had set out upon 
 the quest of the mythical and barbarous Holy Grail. 
 It had, therefore, been thought convenient and 
 proper that they should meet together that day to 
 discuss of the terms upon which they would set 
 out upon their search, and the conditions which they 
 would observe. 
 
 Conscious that he would speak before a critical 
 audience, the Duke had prepared his speech with 
 great care. He had an agreeable voice ; his manner 
 was composed, and he made graceful gestures with 
 his right hand, his left being supported by a tall 
 
68 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Malacca cane with a great knob of amber for the 
 head. 
 
 The undertakings of the various contestants, he 
 said, were well known : Mr. Penruddock had under- 
 taken to find the lady who had served for model 
 to the painter of " Celia in her Arbour " ; Mr. Simon 
 Harcourt had wagered that he would fetch her to 
 the dinner of the Dilettante Society ; he himself had 
 wagered that he would house and maintain her ; 
 Sir Francis Dashwood had wagered that he would 
 marry her if she were of chaste life and good 
 reputation ; Mr. Bettesworth had wagered them 
 twenty thousand pounds between them that he 
 would do all these four things in spite of them all, 
 subject, of course, to Sir Francis Dashwood's proviso 
 concerning the marriageability of the lady. 
 
 The Uuke looked at Mr. Bettesworth, who, in his 
 capacity of host, sat facing the row of chairs, very 
 stately, his hand supported by a cane even longer 
 than the Duke's, his chestnut wig falling upon his 
 shoulders. As to Mr. Roland Bettesworth, his curls 
 fell on to the paper upon which he wrote down with 
 difficulty as much as he could of the Duke's speech. 
 He was, in the ordinary way, no great penman, and 
 holding his head on one side and low down to the 
 paper, his lips followed carefully each motion of the 
 pen as it scratched forward. 
 
 " Mr. Bettesworth," the Duke said, with a sort of 
 formal deference, " we may take it that should the 
 lady not prove eligible for marriage — either because 
 of irregularities in her former life or because of the 
 fact that she is already married — we may take it 
 that although that part of the wager is null and 
 
THE PORTRAIT 69 
 
 void the fact shall not of necessity void the other 
 portions of the wager ? " 
 
 " I fail, your Grace," Mr. Bettesworth said, " to 
 see how the occasion could arise. Before the lady 
 could be married she must be at first, at the very 
 least, found and fetched, and if I fail in either of 
 these particulars I shall have failed in the whole 
 wager. Whereas if I succeed in them, the marriage 
 coming at the last, it shall be open to me either to 
 marry her, or, in the event of my deeming her not 
 marriageable, I shall be content to lay the matter 
 before this company to decide whether my aversion 
 from her be warrantable under the terms of the 
 wager." 
 
 " You are aware, Mr, Bettesworth," the Duke asked, 
 " that if you ask this company to decide in your 
 favour you will be asking us to declare that we shall 
 lose each this wager and a large sum of money ? " 
 
 " I am aware of it," Mr. Bettesworth said, " and 
 am content to rely upon your honourable decisions." 
 
 The Duke turned his curls round to look at the 
 assembly. He uttered a dubious " Hum ! " and 
 Mr. Roland Bettesworth tittered above his writing. 
 
 " The terms of this wager are very singular," 
 the Duke continued contemplatively. " Thus Mr. 
 Penruddock," and he bowed ceremoniously to the 
 composed man in the red coat, who wore his own 
 red hair powdered and tied in a knot behind, — " Mr. 
 Penruddock has wagered Mr. Simon Harcourt a 
 thousand pounds that he will find this lady. Now, 
 if he loses, he will lose this thousand pounds to 
 Mr. Penruddock. But if Mr. Bettesworth fail in 
 any one particular, Mr. Penruddock, though he have 
 
70 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 failed to find the lady, will nevertheless win five 
 thousand pounds of Mr. Bettesworth, and thus 
 be four thousand pounds in pocket. Mr. Simon 
 Harcourt, on the other hand, has betted myself 
 two thousand pounds that he will fetch the lady. 
 If he fail in this he will have lost two thousand 
 pounds to me. But supposing Mr. Penruddock to 
 have found the lady, Mr. Bettesworth must therefore 
 of necessity have failed ; thus Mr. Harcourt will have 
 lost three thousand pounds to myself and Mr. 
 Penruddock, whilst he will win five thousand pounds 
 from Mr. Bettesworth, being thus " 
 
 The Duke was musing on very agreeably to him- 
 self when Sir Francis Dashwood said — 
 
 " My Lord Duke, there are many questions to be 
 asked, and I think most of us is scholar enough to 
 make these calculations for himself, or if he cannot 
 the results themselves will enlighten him." 
 
 The Duke ceased his musings with some dignity. 
 
 " What questions does Sir Francis desire to ask ? " 
 he said. 
 
 " In the first place," Sir Francis answered, with 
 his devious and ironic smile, " touching the article 
 of fetching the lady. How are we to understand 
 that this is to be carried out ? " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth answered that he would fetch 
 the lady from the place where he should find her 
 and let her sit in the chair next the President 
 where the painter had sat — subject to the pro- 
 viso that the Society should be willing to receive 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Simon Harcourt said : " Agreed to that ; 
 that the lady's assent to sitting at the dinner shall 
 
THE PORTRAIT 71 
 
 be deemed equivalent to her sitting there, for I think 
 the rules of the Society will not permit of petticoats 
 at the board." 
 
 " And next," Mr. Penruddock said, from the 
 farthest seat in the hall, " as to the term to be set 
 upon this adventure ? '"' 
 
 " Oh, it shall not be a very long space," the 
 Duke of Norfolk said languidly. " For my part, I 
 would not have it be a term in years, for it would 
 not be to my taste to have — if I succeed — the 
 housing of a toothless hag." 
 
 " And touching the word ' housing, ' Mr. Bettes- 
 worth ? " Sir Francis asked. The delicate fringes 
 on his eyelids quivered, for he was about to 
 utter an impertinence. " Are we to take it that 
 this lady must be your mistress before you marry 
 her ? " Mr. Bettesworth flushed hotly but did not 
 speak. 
 
 " Oh, come," the Duke of Norfolk said, " a 
 gentleman cannot marry his mistress ; " and Mr. 
 Penruddock uttered a loud, " No ! no ! " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth remained perfectly silent. Sir 
 Francis retained the smile about the corners of his 
 lips. Mr. Roland Bettesworth whispered to Mr. 
 Jack Williamson, who was close beside him, " I 
 think my brother will fly at Dashwood's throat. 
 Get between them." 
 
 Most of the other gentlemen leaned forward, 
 their lips slightly parted, and the Duke of Norfolk 
 toyed with the tassels of his cane. At last Mr. 
 Bettesworth spoke with a cold formality, his eyes 
 remained fixed upon Sir Francis, but he spoke to the 
 rest of the company — 
 
72 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Gentlemen, if in the course of this adventure 
 there should arise between any two of the parties 
 an occasion for an affair of honour, and one gentle- 
 man should slay or seriously injure the other, what 
 shall be the agreement ? " 
 
 Mr. Roland Bettesworth turned, with his arm 
 over the back of his chair — 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, " the case of death is provided 
 for. In the customary usage it voids all wagers, 
 but in the case of disablement ..." 
 
 Mr. Simon Harcourt, a dark-featured, placid man, 
 with cunning eyes, a blue coat without much gold 
 lace, a hooked nose and a rather short wig, leaned 
 back in his chair with his legs crossed. He asked, 
 somewhat as a barrister will ask the opinions of a 
 judge, slightly closing his eyes, and very much at 
 his ease — 
 
 " What would Mr. Bettesworth propose in the 
 case of disablement ? " 
 
 " Oh, in the case of disablement," Mr. Bettesworth 
 said, with a rather haughty disdain, " we must always 
 undertake to abstain from pursuit for the period 
 that the poor devil shall lie abed, that period of 
 extension to be added to the time allotted to the 
 pursuit." 
 
 Sir Francis whispered to his brother Cecil, " By 
 God ! it will come to swords between this man and 
 me. 
 
 " Then," his brother answered, " you had better 
 give him little occasion for some months to come 
 or I shall step into the title. And do you practise 
 diligently, or take lessons from Stechetti, in the 
 interim, for though this man has been in London 
 
THE PORTRAIT 73 
 
 scarcely a week, he has already killed Sir John 
 Eshetsford." 
 
 " Eshetsford ! Eshetsford ! " Sir Francis mused. 
 " By God, Eshetsford ! " 
 
 " I hear," his brother continued, " that Mr. Bettes- 
 worth run him through the bowels after a furious 
 fight lasting thirty-five minutes. Sir John having 
 taken him inflagrante with my lady." 
 
 " Then, by God ! " Sir Francis said, " we have 
 lost our twenty thousand pounds to Mr, Bettes- 
 worth." 
 
 One of Mr. Bettesworth's lackeys, in a green suit 
 with a bouquet of white roses at his breast, came 
 deferentially up the hall behind the pillars, bearing 
 under his left arm a square, flat package in 
 green baize, and in his right hand a small note. 
 He approached Mr. Bettes worth from behind, and 
 said that the note was very urgent. Mr. Bettes- 
 worth opened it and read — 
 
 " My aunt begs me to write to you that it is not 
 expected Sir John can live another half -hour. As 
 you cannot go on with your assembly after his death, 
 but must proi'ogue it, she bids me send you this, that 
 may aid you in your deliberations. It is what we 
 sought for vainly the other night. If you have any 
 commands for me, I am not your odious brother s but 
 thi7ie, Maria " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth slowly withdrew from its green 
 baize coverings the stretched cloth of a picture. It 
 showed the overhanging branch of a tree with leaves 
 rather brown but very umbrageous. Upon a green 
 and mossy bank there sat a maiden in a white 
 
74 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 flowered gown ; her very high waist was tied with 
 broad pink ribbons that fell into her lap. An empty 
 basket lay at her feet, her wide straw hat was slung 
 from her arm by more pink ribbons, her dark brown 
 hair, in a somewhat studied disorder, was loosely 
 coiled in a knot at the crown of her head, and one 
 escaped tress fell down her cheek on to her bosom. 
 But Mr. Bettesworth, at the very moment that he 
 uttered an expression of delight uttered one also of 
 dismay. The outline of the face was a clean, clear 
 oval, but the contents a blank of white canvas. There 
 were no features, there were no pencillings of eye- 
 brows, there were no lips, and the blankness seemed 
 stony and obdurate. The painter, after having made 
 his picture of inanimate objects, must have transferred 
 them into a larger canvas, omitting to limn his sitter's 
 features, perhaps because she had not much time 
 in which to be at his disposal. Mr. Bettesworth re- 
 flected, as was his wont, and then slowly he turned 
 the canvas round to the audience that was before him. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " this is all of ' Celia in her 
 Arbour ' that we are like to see. I will give you the 
 equal privilege with myself." 
 
 There arose from the audience many queries, such 
 as : " How now, what does this mean ? Can we 
 not go see the picture when we will ? This is a 
 hoax ! Have you scraped the features a-purpose ? " 
 
 Sir Francis Dashwood stood up from his seat and, 
 facing them all, took with deliberation a pinch of 
 snuff, coolly shaking out his lace ruffles. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " Mr. Bettesworth knows 
 what I think none of you know, that I have stolen 
 a march upon you all. This morning I purchased 
 
THE PORTRAIT 75 
 
 the picture of ' Celia in her Arbour ' ; it is now in my 
 strong-room, and neither Mr. Bettesworth nor any 
 one of you shall see it again till our search is ended. 
 Mr. Bettesworth sought to make himself my 
 equal in the matter, but you see he has been 
 frustrated." 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk leaned forward in his chair 
 and looked at the ground seriously. Mr. Simon 
 Harcourt threw himself back, called out : " A catch ! 
 A catch ! " and laughed uproariously. Mr. Penrud- 
 dock rose cholerically from his chair, but the Duke 
 said negligently— 
 
 " This is a small matter. We can all of us re- 
 member very well those features." He screwed up 
 his eyes with the air of a connoisseur and gazed at 
 the blank space on the canvas. " That is mislead- 
 ing," he said. " In the picture the face is much 
 more round." 
 
 " No, no ; it was longer, for sure," Mr. Simon 
 Harcourt said, *' and the tresses were much more 
 black." 
 
 " I am certain they could not have been more 
 black," Mr. Penruddock said. " On the contrary, 
 they had on them the glow of burnished gold ; 
 black tresses could not go with the blue eyes that 
 the picture had." 
 
 " But the eyes of the picture were between grey 
 and brown," Mr. Simon Harcourt called out. " I 
 am certain of that, for I remarked to Lady Deep- 
 castle that the eyes were the very spit of her 
 own." 
 
 " But my Lady Deepcastle's eyes are as sloes, a 
 jetty black," the gentleman said who had come with 
 
t6 the portrait 
 
 Mr. Penruddock. " She is Cornish Hke us : all 
 Cornish eyes are black." 
 
 " No," Mr. Penruddock said, " some of them, like 
 my own, are a deep blue ; and the eyes of the portrait 
 were blue." 
 
 " At any rate," Mr. Robert Howard said from be- 
 hind the Duke of Norfolk, " we can be agreed upon 
 it that the nose was a trifle crooked, for his Grace, 
 with his exquisite taste, remarked upon it when he 
 saw the picture." 
 
 " His Grace's taste is too exquisite," Mr. Simon 
 Harcourt laughed, " for I will swear that it was the 
 straightest nose that ever I saw, and slightly tilted 
 at the point." 
 
 " No, by God ! " Mr. Penruddock called out, " the 
 nose was markedly aquiline. I remarked it at the 
 time, for it was the sole defect of the picture." 
 
 They had all crowded round the cloth which Mr. 
 Bettesworth held before him, resting the top of it 
 beneath his chin. An old servant in the livery of 
 the Eshetsfords advanced slowly behind their backs 
 and up the hall ; the tears were streaming down his 
 wrinkled face. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " my master. Sir John, died 
 at five minutes past the hour in a godly manner, 
 praying forgiveness from all whom he had injured." 
 
PART 11 
 
 I 
 
 IT was fully ten days later, towards seven, on a 
 very wet evening, that Mr. Bettesworth and his 
 small company of riders dropped their reins on their 
 horses' necks in the inn-yard at Ashford. The 
 performance of Sir John's obsequies, in which, being 
 Lady Eshetsford's nearest male relative, he had 
 performed such important duties as deciding where 
 the scutcheons should be hung on the front of the 
 house, holding the principal cords of the coffin-cloth, 
 and making a compact with Sir John's heir for the 
 hiring of the house by Lady Eshetsford, had so long 
 delayed him. Sir John's heir, his nephew and the 
 fifth baronet, was a poor man from Acryse in Kent, 
 and it appeared likely that when the tangle of Sir 
 John's affairs should be unravelled there would be 
 little or nothing for Sir Thomas. Indeed, the 
 Manor of Ashford, which had once been Sir John's, 
 had passed into his lady's hands as against money 
 advanced by her to him, and it was certain that 
 Ashford House in London would have gone the 
 same road but for Sir John's demise. 
 
 The Manor of Ashford and Ashford House itself 
 were so much to Lady Eshetsford's taste that, 
 
78 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 possessing the one, she very much desired to pass 
 her widowhood in the other. Thus, after bargaining 
 spread over three days, it had been decided that 
 until the house could be inventoried, valued, and the 
 affairs of Sir John unravelled, Lady Eshetsford 
 should continue to dwell there as Sir Thomas's 
 tenant ; and in the meantime, for the period of her 
 strict seclusion, Mr. Bettesworth put at her disposal 
 his own house at Winterbourne Longa. And it 
 was not until he had seen her set off in her coach 
 drawn by eight horses, attended by twelve armed 
 servants, that Mr. Bettesworth had permitted himself 
 to set about the very urgent business of pursuing his 
 search for the fair unknown. 
 
 To Lady Eshetsford, in the shrouded anteroom, 
 where she waited for her coach to draw up to the 
 door, he had said, with a tremor of passion in his 
 voice — 
 
 " Bid me abandon this search, which is a folly 
 undertaken upon a too sudden impulse ;" but, hooded 
 all round, her face in deep black, and with her 
 travelling mask in her hand ready to put on, she 
 laughed at him ironically. 
 
 " Sir," she said, " you did not, as you should have, 
 count forty before you made this wager, and now 
 you would, without counting forty, abandon it upon 
 a too sudden impulse." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " it is conceded 
 between us that this wager is a folly." 
 
 " Sir," she answered, " it is not conceded between 
 us that this wager is a folly, but if it were " 
 
 " Madam, it is a folly," Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 " And I am certain that if the Signora Poppa:a had 
 
THE PORTRAIT 79 
 
 been with me here in this Town she would not have 
 let me fall into it. And having recognised its folly 
 it would be in me a renewal of the folly to continue 
 in it when I so much more desire " 
 
 "Cousin," Lady Eshetsford said, "the Signora 
 Poppaea might have prevented you from laying this 
 wager, but for my part I would have urged you to 
 it, for I think it is one very proper for a gentleman 
 to have made ; and I am very certain (I am as 
 certain of this as that death shall follow life) that if 
 upon better acquaintance you shall make me the 
 offer of your hand, I will not accept the offer until 
 you shall have found the original of this picture. 
 For certainly you shall taste and try before you 
 buy. And I tell you that this lady will prove in 
 every way my equal, whether in graces, in accom- 
 plishments, in stature, or in eligibility of marriage. 
 If I did not know that this was so, surely I would 
 be the first to bid you abandon this search ; but I am 
 certain that she will be every bit as much to your 
 taste as I. In short, I will not marry you till you 
 have found her." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth said — 
 
 " Madam, you have said, ' If upon better ac- 
 quaintance I will make you the offer of my hand.' 
 Madam, here, now, and without more acquaintance 
 I make you that offer." 
 
 " Sir," Lady Eshetsford said, " I think it was the 
 Signora Poppsea who enjoined upon you that at any 
 crucial moment of your life before speaking you 
 should count forty." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth said — 
 
 " Oh ! from whom have you heard that ? " 
 
8o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 She smiled her mocking smile — 
 
 " Perhaps it was from your brother Roland," she 
 answered, " or perhaps from the Signora Poppaea." 
 
 " You have been in communication with the 
 Signora ? " he asked. 
 
 " How," she answered, " should one take up one's 
 quarters with a body of servants in a house that a 
 lady reigns over and not be in communication with 
 that lady? And how, since that lady's chief occupa- 
 tion of mind is with you, should she not communicate 
 about you ? " 
 
 For a moment Mr. Bettesworth had a sense of 
 dismay at the thought that these women, who were 
 both potent, mysterious, and inscrutable, should lay 
 their heads together to influence his destiny, but he 
 stiffened his back and said — 
 
 " Madam, I have had the honour to offer you my 
 hand." 
 
 " And, sir," she said, " I have had the honour to 
 point out to you that before making me that offer 
 you have not counted to that number of forty." 
 
 " But this is folly," he said. 
 
 " It is the only condition upon which I will listen 
 to you," she laughed. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth swallowed in his throat, and then, 
 accepting the inevitable, he stood in silence, his lips 
 moving. From the street there began a prodigious 
 clatter of hoofs and of wheels — 
 
 " You are too late," Lady Eshetsford said. " My 
 coach is at the door." 
 
 She smoothed down her skirt, set her visor to her 
 face, and was moving towards the entry. 
 
 He caught her with great violence in his arms. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 8i 
 
 and, pulling down the mask, he covered her face 
 with burning kisses. She forced herself gently free 
 after a decent interval. 
 
 " Sir," she said, " before committing that action too, 
 you should have counted forty." 
 
 He followed her towards the door, half stretching 
 out his arms, with an ineffectual gesture, protesting 
 that he hoped he had not ruined his cause by his too 
 great passion. 
 
 " Sir," she said, " before venturing that too, should 
 you not have counted forty ? " 
 
 She affixed her mask to her face, so that she 
 appeared rather grim and sibylline. 
 
 " Sir," she said, " if you desire to win me — 
 although it is too much flattery, but I must needs 
 believe it since you say so — the way to do it is 
 to persevere in this search." 
 
 " You would imply," he said, " that to abstain 
 would be to show a want of courage and persever- 
 ance. You would have me acquit myself like a 
 man." 
 
 " Why, there is that, too," she said, " but there 
 are sundry reasons." 
 
 Her coach before the door was of green picked 
 out in gold. It was covered with packages to the 
 very roof, and the large springs behind were hung 
 with hampers of food. She took with her two cooks, 
 and eight armed horsemen who bore portmanteaux 
 before and behind their saddles ; two led horses 
 bore her bedding, so that she and Maria might sleep 
 in the coach if the inns on the road proved not to 
 her liking ; but the silver housings had been removed 
 6 
 
82 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 from the furniture of her horses because she was in 
 mourning, and the hammer-cloths were all of black. 
 Trott, the maid, sat already in the coach ; Maria 
 had gone down the steps, avoiding the importunities 
 of Mr. Roland, who had been superintending the 
 stowing of the packages, and without another word 
 spoken Lady Eshetsford disappeared into the body, 
 the door being held open and closed by Mr. Jack 
 Williamson. With a prodigious clatter upon the 
 cobbles, with shouts from postilions and a great 
 cracking of the bewigged driver's whip, the coach, 
 heaving and swaying its shoulders, got into a pro- 
 cessional motion. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth and his brother remained upon 
 the steps, motionless, their hats in their hands ; but 
 when the coach, turning the corner, displayed the 
 white face of Maria Trefusis leaning forward, Mr. 
 Williamson raised the triangle of his hat high above 
 his head and uttered shrill cheers. Beneath his 
 chagrin Mr. Bettesworth noted that it was ill- 
 mannered and gross to cheer the departing. He 
 drew his heels smartly together, clapped on his hat, 
 that let out a cloud of powder from his hair, and 
 said — 
 
 " Gentlemen, we set out for Ashford this after- 
 noon. We will lie to-night at Blackheath." 
 
II 
 
 BY God ! " Mr. Simon Harcourt burst into the 
 ordinary room to say to Mr. Penruddock, 
 " he has come down with a posse, with a whole 
 army of men." 
 
 Mr. Penruddock was walking up and down the 
 long, dim room. The dusk had fallen, the rain 
 pattered on the widow-panes. Over each of the four 
 dark doorways a stag's head branched its shadowy 
 horns up towards the shadowy ceiling. In the centre 
 of a very long table were set a couple of bottles of 
 claret, a couple of glasses, a couple of packs of cards. 
 Above them a three-branched candlestick of plate 
 sent out feeble rays into the obscurity. Their 
 researches for the day being over. Major Pen- 
 ruddock and Mr. Harcourt had been minded to pass 
 the rainy evening over the green cloth ; and later, 
 with a pair of foils. 
 
 "He? Who?" Mr. Penruddock asked. "His 
 little Grace of Norfolk ? " 
 
 " No, neither my cousin Norfolk nor yet Sir 
 Francis, but Bettesworth. I have seen him get 
 down from his horse. I think we shall be discom- 
 fited." 
 
 But whereas Mr. Harcourt was cunning, Mr. 
 Penruddock was composed, having learned self- 
 
84 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 possession in the course of polite but tedious 
 campaigns in the Low Countries. 
 
 '• Why," he said, " I think I would rather have 
 him near us than far away." He sat down at the 
 table, poured out a glass of wine, smelt it, held it to 
 the light, drank it, set his elbows on the green cloth 
 and his chin upon his hands. " Now, let us hold a 
 council of war," he said. " This is a matter of no 
 small complication." He motioned with his hand 
 for Mr. Harcourt to sit opposite him, and whilst that 
 gentleman walked round the table, a long distance, 
 sending the shadow of his wig travelling all round 
 the dim walls, Mr. Penruddock, in full candlelight, 
 took a pack in his hands and began searching them 
 leisurely for the Court cards. He laid the four kings 
 before him, and tapped them with a long finger-nail. 
 
 " Now observe," he said, " this affair is a very 
 complicated one ; it will be all the better for a 
 demonstration. In this matter there are four of us. 
 Let us say that I, who am the ruddiest of all, am 
 the king of hearts ; now let us say that you, who 
 are dark and roundish, are the king of clubs. Now 
 in this particular quest of ours you and I are fast 
 foes, for I have wagered that I will find our Celia, 
 you wagering that I shall not. Here, now, is the 
 king of spades ; let him represent the Duke of 
 Norfolk, who is dark and spare. Between his thin 
 Grace and myself there is no essential hostility at all. 
 For I am to find the lady and his Grace is to house 
 her ; and since, before she is found she cannot be - 
 housed, I can very properly aid his Grace. You, 
 on the other hand, are the fast foe of his Grace as 
 well as of myself, for you have betted Norfolk that 
 
THE PORTRAIT 85 
 
 you will, and he that you will not, fetch this lady 
 to London. You, on the other hand, may well 
 be friendly with Sir Francis Dashwood — for Sir 
 Francis has wagered only that he will marry her, 
 and your bringing her to Town will aid and in no 
 way impede his design. Therefore — " and Major 
 Penruddock took the four Court cards up again — 
 " the king of hearts, myself, and the king of spades, 
 being his Grace of Norfolk, are united by our 
 several and common interests into one quarrel 
 against the king of clubs, which is you, and the king 
 of diamonds, whom we will style Sir Francis 
 Dashwood — though Sir Francis is not fair enough to 
 
 be a diamond man. Now " and Mr. Penruddock 
 
 poured out another glass of claret, drank it slowly, 
 and surveyed with contentment the two pairs of 
 cards. 
 
 " Oh, well made plan, man of camps and marches," 
 Mr. Harcourt laughed ; " but so much had made 
 itself manifest even to my intelligence. Is it not 
 known to both of us that in this game I play not 
 only my own hand, but represent also Sir Francis ; 
 and do you not hold an actual commission to watch 
 events for the Duke of Norfolk ? But the point is 
 that here is come Mr. Bettesworth, with an immense 
 army of men, ready to scour the whole country-side, 
 where you and I have been kicking our heels with 
 no achievement more than the bedevilling of a few 
 serving-wenches." 
 
 In the course of his leisurely search of the pack 
 Major Penruddock had come upon the ace of spades. 
 He laid it down upon the table before him and 
 surveyed it solemnly. 
 
86 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Why, we have achieved more than that," he said. 
 " Let us survey the whole situation." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt threw himself back in his chair ; 
 his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and the tails of his 
 coat drooped upon the sanded floor, 
 
 " Oh, la ! " he said, " you are for ever reviewing 
 the situation. This is the sixteenth time you have 
 reviewed it in the sennight that we have been 
 here." 
 
 Mr. Penruddock gazed obdurately at the card 
 beneath his nose. 
 
 " It is a habit pursued by all cautious gentlemen," 
 he said. " It aids my mind to perceive the new 
 aspects of things and it avoids haste." 
 
 " Certainly it avoids haste," Mr. Harcourt said ; 
 " for we have done nothing, and I am sick to death 
 of this mouldering hole." 
 
 " My friend," the Major said, with a slightly grim 
 imperturbability, " it was not I who desired you 
 to dog my footsteps. I discovered for myself, from 
 the woman who kept his lodgings, that Mr. Hitchcock 
 paints all his set pieces here in Ashford, painting 
 portraits only in London Town." 
 
 " Major," Mr. Harcourt said, " if you discovered 
 it, so did all of us. For each of us bribed the 
 woman who keeps Hitchcock's lodgings ; and so, no 
 doubt, this Bettesworth has done. It called for no 
 uncommon sagacity," 
 
 " Nevertheless," the Major answered, " I was the 
 first upon the field, and you have dogged my foot- 
 steps in a manner that no man less patient would 
 have suffered. And what we have discovered so 
 far I have discovered." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 87 
 
 " But I was always at your back and heard your 
 questions," Mr. Harcourt laughed. 
 
 The Major leaned half across the table. 
 
 " Sir, I am a patient man," he said ; " that, I 
 think, is an approved fact. But, nevertheless, the 
 time has come to review the situation." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt gave a loud groan. " Oh, you will 
 be at it," he said. 
 
 " Sir," the Major repeated formally, " if I do not 
 give myself that pleasure I shall give myself the 
 pleasure of running you through the waistcoat." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt leaned back in his chair, quite 
 motionless. " Oh, then, hold your review," he said. 
 *' I had rather you did that than that I should see 
 my vitals decorating the floor." 
 
 The Major hem.med with grim satisfaction. " It 
 is well that that is determined," he said. " Now, 
 attend." He pitched the ace of spades on to Mr. 
 Harcourt's black satin breeches. " This ace of 
 spades shall stand for Mr. Bettesworth. Now, 
 though the four kings are divided into two parties, 
 yet, as against the ace, they are all united. Now, 
 Mr. Harcourt," — the Major pointed a stiff forefinger 
 at Mr. Harcourt's waistcoat, as if to remind him that 
 there the blade would go in, — " since this is a matter 
 of combined motion I will take it upon me — 'for I 
 have had practice in directing operations — to be 
 your commander in this matter. Imprimis, you 
 shall no longer follow me about, for I am not of a 
 mind to let you be hostile to me. On the contrary, 
 you shall transfer your hostility to Mr. Bettesworth 
 and shall follow his operations. 
 
 Mr. Harcourt held his head on one side. 
 
88 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Gadzooks ! " he said, " will you transfer me to a 
 plaguy, ruffling swashbuckler, who kills his man a 
 week and goes ringed round with bullies ? This is 
 the merest inhumanity." 
 
 " If it would be more humane to dispatch you 
 myself," Mr. Penruddock said, " you have your 
 choice." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt played with one of his ringlets. 
 " Well, it is a choice," he said ironically. 
 
 The Major tapped the tablecloth with his nail. 
 " It is manifest," he said, " nay, it is even in a 
 manner egregious, that by that very pleasure of your 
 company which has saved you hitherto from affairs 
 of the sword you will be enabled to save yourself 
 from any rough encounter with Mr. Bettesworth. 
 But that is your affair. Mine is that you should 
 take your orders from me as your commander. 
 And this you may do the more readily since thus 
 you will be working for the good of us all." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt grimaced slightly. Being small, 
 round, of a full habit of body, and with no reach in 
 the arm, he was one of those men who by adroitness 
 of tongue, ready apologies, and by one or two 
 definite exhibitions of the white feather, had hitherto 
 avoided any duel ; whilst his distinguished position 
 at Court, his considerable wealth, and the amount of 
 patronage he had at his disposal had prevented his 
 incurring any serious obloquy. 
 
 " Sir," he said, with a mixture of effrontery and of 
 self-contempt, " as a member of His Majesty's Privy 
 Council, I take precedence and rank before a general. 
 But since I am very convinced that your commander- 
 ship will prosper the affairs of our small army, I 
 
THE PORTRAIT 89 
 
 place myself willingly in your hands. What are 
 your commands ? " 
 
 Major Penruddock began to speak with a concise- 
 ness that had in it a touch of ferocity — 
 
 " Hitherto you have attached yourself to my 
 person. What precisely your motive may have 
 been I shall not stay to inquire. For it is obvious 
 that since I have come upon traces of this lady you 
 cannot very well prevent my finding her, and thus 
 losing your bet. Perhaps, however, your intention 
 was to stab me in the back, or to rid yourself of me 
 by some hired bully when I had found, or all but 
 found, her." 
 
 The Major squared his shoulders and looked at 
 Mr. Harcourt. Mr. Harcourt brushed his knee, with 
 an elegant wave of his ruffled hand. 
 
 " You will not, I presume," he said, " immediately 
 proceed to my execution if by pleading ' not guilty ' 
 to this intention I seem to decry the excellence of 
 your deductions. But you should give me credit 
 for the sense to know that one does not with 
 immense ease disembarrass oneself of a swordsman 
 as skilful or of one so determined as yourself. So 
 that such a motive was no part of my scheme." 
 
 The Major grunted with martial satisfaction. 
 
 " My scheme, in short, was very simple," Mr. Har- 
 court continued. " It was no more than to follow 
 you till you found my lady Celia, if possible to get 
 before you, — but in any case to use such seductions 
 as I possessed in order to the carrying of her off to 
 the Town. But as a man of peace, and a gold-stick 
 in waiting upon His Majesty, I could not allow 
 violence to form any part of my schemes." 
 
90 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " His Majesty is well served if there is no danger 
 of strife," the Major said ; " and I am glad, for Mr. 
 Bettesworth's sake, that your disposition is not 
 more formidable — for my orders are that you 
 attend upon Mr. Bettesworth with the same assiduity, 
 and in the same intention, as you have hitherto 
 bestowed upon me ; with this proviso, that you 
 shall report to me every step that Mr. Bettesworth 
 makes towards discovery, and that in case he should 
 find the lady with any sudden expedition you shall 
 send, hot-foot, a messenger to find me." 
 
 " But," Mr. Harcourt said, " if the discovery be 
 already made it shall be too late for your purpose, 
 and you will have lost your wager." 
 
 " Not so," Major Penruddock answered, " for I 
 wagered only to find her, not to be the first that 
 should do so. So that if I come upon her in Mr. 
 Bettesworth's arms you will pay me one thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt's eyebrows went up and his mouth 
 down. 
 
 " But it is implied in the terms of the wager that 
 you should be the first to make the discovery, 
 otherwise you would win in any case, and without 
 effort. Why, it would be sufficient supposing you 
 should meet her walking in the Mall after she has 
 married Sir Francis, and is patent to all the 
 world." 
 
 " Sir," the Major said, " I shall certainly win in 
 any case, and that meeting will be sufficient. In 
 all the meetings we have had, if you will give 
 yourself the trouble to read the minutes of them, 
 you shall not make the discovery of any word of 
 
THE PORTRAIT 91 
 
 first finding. Of all this company of adventurers 
 I am the only one that cannot lose, for if I meet 
 her in the Park, or wear a favour at her wedding, 
 I win the thousand pounds of you. If we all of 
 us fail to find her, I lose, it is true, a thousand 
 pounds to you. But I win five thousand from Mr. 
 Bettesworth." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt looked at Major Penruddock with 
 his mouth open. 
 
 " And it was you who designed this wager," he 
 said. 
 
 " Surely it was I who designed this wager," the 
 Major said. " I have, you see, gained some skill 
 in these things by my experience in the wars, which 
 taught me the trick of reviewing the situation." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt rose from his chair and, bowing 
 ceremoniously to the Major, said, with his hand 
 over his heart — 
 
 " Sir, in future I will go to school to you, and I 
 hold the lesson that I have learnt cheap at the 
 thousand pounds that I hope to have the honour 
 of paying you." 
 
 The Major rose, and ceremoniously returned his 
 interlocutor's salute. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " I trust that now it is apparent 
 to your senses that our interests are the same, and 
 that you will join with me in prosecuting this 
 search. We may leave to Mr. Bettesworth as much 
 as we will of the labour of finding the lady, and 
 when that is accomplished I will set about aiding 
 you to wrest her from him, which will enable you 
 to take her up to London. This, you perceive, will 
 be to my interest, since, by precluding Mr. Bettes- 
 
92 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 worth from performing that function, he will lose 
 the whole of his wager." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt struck his heels smartly together. 
 
 " Major," he said, " with your aid promised I feel 
 that I have the Duke of Norfolk's guineas already 
 in my pocket, clinking harmoniously alongside of 
 Mr. Bettes worth's." 
 
 The voice of Mr. Jack Williamson, loud and 
 elated, burst upon them, and the fat host, bearing 
 before him two flickering candles in plated sticks, 
 preceded Mr. Bettesworth's party into the room. 
 
 " Ho, bully boys, bully boys ! " Mr. Williamson 
 exclaimed. " Now shall we eat rich and rare." 
 He gave a standing leap on to the long table, and 
 stood brandishing his whip above his head. " Ha ! " 
 he said to Mr. Bettesworth and Mr. Roland, who 
 followed him into the room, " neither of you could 
 do that after our long ride. You are as stiff when 
 you get down from your beasts as a French soldier 
 after a night in a ditch." 
 
 " I hope I shall be preserved from doing it before 
 the rest of the company," Mr. Bettesworth said 
 coldly. 
 
 " Ho, company ! Damn company ! " Mr. William- 
 son answered. " It's a poor heart and a poor 
 company that will keep a man from rejoicing." 
 
 In the dim light Mr. Bettersworth had failed to 
 recognise the occupants of the other end of the 
 room, but Mr. Penruddock came up from the other 
 side of the table. 
 
 " Why, Squire," he said, " have you come to set 
 at naught all our efforts ? As the man in the play 
 says : ' We are like the poor badger who, having 
 
THE PORTRAIT 93 
 
 with great labour scratched his earth, presently comes 
 the fox and drives him out of it.' " 
 
 " Stinks him out of it," Mr. Bettesworth corrected 
 him ; " that is what the man in the play says. But 
 I hope I shall so little stink you out of this place 
 that you will be pleasuring me with your company 
 at supper, and that soon. For I intend to lie this 
 night at my cousin's." 
 
 " There we may felicitate you," Mr. Harcourt 
 said, " for this is a foul and stinking place to lie 
 in. I wish the devil had all inn-keepers by the 
 legs ! " 
 
Ill 
 
 THEY were supping, upon the whole, pleas- 
 antly and harmoniously, save that Mr. Jack 
 Williamson had too great an itch to sing. Worn 
 as he was with a week of solitude in the compan- 
 ionship of the too austere Major Penruddock, 
 Mr. Harcourt welcomed with great cheer the 
 companionship of Roland Bettesworth, who brought 
 down the latest talk of the Town. Nay, upon the 
 news that old Lord Sauchiburn, being at that date 
 sixty-nine, had been inveigled into making a 
 marriage with Betty Frisk when he was drunk 
 overnight, and had gone nearly mad with vexation 
 on the morrow morning — at this gloriously mirth- 
 making news Mr. Harcourt threw his arms round 
 Mr. Roland's neck and kissed him upon both cheeks. 
 Major Penruddock and Mr. Bettesworth, upon the 
 other hand, felt pleasure in discoursing on their 
 estates, for they were both new land-owners and had 
 schemes, — Mr. Bettesworth for improving the appear- 
 ance of Winterbourne by planting shade trees which 
 he would have in groves, and Mr. Penruddock for 
 enlarging the profits of his home-farm by feeding 
 his sheep upon a root called the neep, or turnip, 
 which he had found in the Low Countries. They 
 were thus in a pleasant frame of mind, only 
 
THE PORTRAIT 95 
 
 Mr. Williamson being driven, by comparative neglect, 
 to troll portions of ballads from The Island Princess, 
 an opera which was then all the talk of the Town, 
 when Mr. Bettesworth was interrupted by a whisper 
 in his ear from the serving- man whom he had sent 
 to announce that that night he would lie at Ashford 
 Manor-house. It had been a wet journey, and the 
 rain dripped from the servant's black cloak on to 
 the floor. Mr. Bettesworth's face expressed anger 
 and cold disgust. He said aloud — 
 
 " Bid her ladyship's steward attend me here." 
 
 There came in a very large, pompous, and solid 
 man of perhaps fifty, dressed all in black, and his 
 figure protruding far in front of his backbone as a 
 very full sail before the mast. 
 
 "You tell me, Mr. Steward," Mr. Bettesworth 
 said, " that you have received no letter from Lady 
 Eshetsford to announce my arrival and bid you 
 attend to my comfort ? " 
 
 The steward bowed himself as supply as his 
 large stature would allow. 
 
 " Your Worship," he said, " I have hitherto 
 received no letter. Doubtless to-morrow it will 
 arrive." 
 
 Standing very erect and haughty, with his back 
 to the lights and to his own silver on the tablecloth, 
 Mr. Bettesworth took from his breast-pocket a letter 
 which Lady Eshetsford had written very hastily 
 before her departure in the coach — 
 
 " On your life, Chuckel, see that not a crease is in the 
 bedclothing of my cousins, and entreat them as if they 
 were the King and his brother." It was signed 
 " M. E.," and Mr. Bettesworth had retained it because 
 
96 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 it was the first scrap of her handwriting that he 
 had held. He surrendered it, therefore, with some 
 displeasure into Mr. Chuckel's hands, for it seemed 
 to him disagreeable that her handwriting, having 
 about it, as it were, some of the savour of her 
 personality, should be touched by or fall under the 
 eyes of this person of mean extraction, of dull 
 intelligence, and of pomposity of manner. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " this should be sufficient to allay 
 any suspicions you may have formed ; if, indeed, my 
 port and presence have not been sufficient to remove 
 them." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel's face was normally of an extreme 
 and pallid whiteness, resembling nothing so much as 
 boiled rice. He wore, moreover, his own hair, which 
 was as white as if it had been bleached, though he 
 could not have been much turned of forty-five. To 
 his cautious face his agate blue eyes, with a touch 
 of a cast, formed a centre of vivid colour, of a slight 
 savour of treachery and of mistrustfulness. They 
 seemed, indeed, to wander over the assembly whilst 
 his mind took in the significance of the letter. 
 
 " Your Worship," he said in a peculiar falsetto 
 voice, that lapsed into gruffness at unexpected 
 moments, " if your Worship be indeed her lady- 
 ship's cousin " 
 
 " If ! " Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed haughtily. 
 
 Mr. Chuckel inclined himself deprecatingly, and 
 extended one very fat, white hand, upon which a 
 large ring of opaque red stone made a point of 
 colour. His eyes glanced for an instant at Mr. 
 Bettesworth, who, very erect, extremely fair, with 
 a high colour caused by riding in the rain, and 
 
THE PORTRAIT 97 
 
 very haughty, kept, from his blue eyes, a darkling 
 glance fixed upon the steward. 
 
 " Your Worship," Mr. Chuckel said, " God forbid 
 that one in my station should hinder and trouble 
 one of so great a name as Mr. Bettesworth. To 
 that end your Worship will do me justice to observe 
 that I have hastened to throw myself at your 
 Worship's feet ; and I trust, confidently, that your 
 Worship will do me the other justice to remember 
 that, inasmuch as a very great trust is placed in me, 
 thus a reasonable measure of caution should by my- 
 self be displayed. I pray you to commend me for 
 this to her ladyship upon the occasion of your 
 next meeting." 
 
 " Mr. Chuckel," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I shall 
 speak of you as I find you on better acquaintance ; 
 for you will understand that I am come here, 
 amongst other things, to bid you render some 
 account of your stewardship during the last 
 year." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel's blue eyes, with a slight cast in 
 them, winced very appreciably. 
 
 " But, sir," Mr. Bettesworth continued, " I make 
 no doubt that you have very honourably discharged 
 your trust ; and certainly you are to be commended 
 for having thus displayed a caution in my reception, 
 for which I bear you no grudge. So that I beg 
 you will do me the favour to drink a glass of wine 
 with my master of the horse, whom you will find in 
 another room ; and that you will then return to the 
 Manor-house to make fitting preparations for myself 
 and my companions to-morrow, for to-night I think 
 it is already too late for you to do this without 
 7 
 
98 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 inconvenience. So, commending you to my ser- 
 vants, who will inform you of the things which I am 
 the most likely to need, I have the honour to wish 
 you a very good-night." 
 
 " Your Worship," Mr. Chuckel said, " I am your 
 Worship's very humble and obedient servant, and I 
 would like your Worship to understand with what 
 pleasure I anticipate your coming to-morrow, and 
 with what trustfulness your presence has inspired 
 me, when I point out that I shall surrender, without 
 scruple, the keys of my charge ; though, to be sure, 
 the letter which your Worship has done me the 
 honour to place in my hand speaks merely of her 
 ladyship's cousins, and affords no mark of identifica- 
 tion of your Worship as a cousin." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt at this moment blurted out — 
 
 "Oh, as for that " But the Major touched 
 
 him suddenly on his arm, without, however, uttering 
 any words. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth, having his back to Mr. Harcourt, 
 did not observe the interruption ; but, with his eyes 
 on the two gentlemen who were facing him on the 
 farther side of the table, Mr. Chuckel continued — 
 
 " I say this merely that your Worship, commend- 
 ing me for having shown caution in the first part, 
 shall not discommend me for the lack of it in the 
 sequel. For, to tell the truth, one has only to look 
 at your Worship's open countenance, high carriage, 
 and reserved demeanour " 
 
 " Friend Chuckel," Mr. Bettesworth said, " to 
 accuse you of lack of caution after you have seen 
 me would be to decry my own looks. Prithee, 
 begone, and let me set about the finishing of my 
 
THE PORTRAIT 99 
 
 supper. Your compliments are very windy fare to 
 an empty stomach." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel withdrew with a soft and sliding 
 step which was remarkable in one of his proportions. 
 
 " Why, the fellow should be a dancing-master," 
 Mr. Williamson exclaimed before Mr. Chuckel was 
 out of earshot. 
 
IV 
 
 ASHFORD MANOR-HOUSE presented a 
 heavy and overpowering front of grey stone, 
 with a cupola, a very heavy stone cornice, heavy flat 
 pillars being let into the wall between the three 
 stories of square windows. A very broad flight of 
 stone steps led down from a portico as tall as the 
 porch of Ashford Church, descending the terrace by 
 a gentle slope that, for the rest of its extent, was 
 covered with lawn grass, on to a semicircular stretch 
 of lawn that had the radius of the long front of the 
 house itself Three avenues of chestnut radiated 
 from this lawn, going out into the distance towards 
 the Romney Marsh, and along the balustrade of the 
 terrace were set at intervals stone vases alternating 
 with stone cupids. This front of the house had 
 been built comparatively lately — that is to say, in 
 the youth of Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect who 
 wrote the monstrously appreciated play called The 
 Provoked Wife. Sir John Brute, indeed, the 
 husband of the Provoked Wife, was said by the 
 Town to have been drawn from Lady Eshetsford's 
 husband. And a certain verity was apparent in 
 this rumour in that, during the reconstruction of 
 Ashford Manor-house, Mr. Vanbrugh had been, of 
 necessity, much with the family of Sir John. On 
 
THE PORTRAIT ibi 
 
 the other hand, Sir John had been rhame'd to Lady 
 Eshetsford but four years, whilst the front of the 
 Manor-house was already fourteen years old. But 
 then, The Provoked Wife was first produced nine 
 months after Sir John's death. 
 
 Mr. Vanbrugh's heavy hand had converted the 
 old building — ^it had been erected by Francis 
 Eshetsford, the founder of the family, a notorious 
 informer, diplomat, and spoiler of monasteries of 
 Henry Vlll's time — had converted the old, long, 
 low brick front into the heavy pile of stone that 
 now, like a cliff, confronted the fresh May sun. 
 But Mr. Vanbrugh's achievement, the Eshetsford 
 money beginning to feel a strain shortly after the 
 accession of the late Sir John, had stopped short 
 before it reached the very considerable rear of the 
 building. This had been added to the oldest 
 portion of the house by Philip Eshetsford, who had 
 materially aided Lord Burleigh in his successful 
 counterplots against the Jesuits, and in bringing 
 about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. It 
 consisted of three wings, the two outer ones being 
 the longer, of red brick, and thus forming in outline 
 the letter " E," the initial of the Queen's name. Of 
 dark red brick, with long, low, diamond-paned 
 windows that cockled in their leads and reflected 
 what sun they got at odd angles, the rear portion of 
 Ashford Manor-house was an unconscionable tangle 
 of small rooms, offices, with granaries under the 
 roof, with stillrooms, maids' rooms, secret passages, 
 and pantries. So that one might have lived for a 
 year in the front rooms of the pile with other 
 families entirely unsuspected at another end of the 
 
102 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 holism. In ' tnaking, indeed, his tour of the state 
 rooms, Mr, Bettesworth tired before reaching these 
 warrens, and he assented readily enough to Mr. 
 Chuckel's proposition that he should not go down 
 the long, dark, winding passage that, protected as it 
 was by a wicket-gate to exclude the dogs, gave 
 access only to the servants' rooms and to those in 
 which Mr. Chuckel and his family resided. It con- 
 sorted much more with Mr. Bettesworth's humour 
 to lodge himself in the tall state room on the right 
 of the portico, where the windows were twenty 
 feet high, the white marble chimneypiece, rising to 
 the ceiling, carved with cherubs and grape-vines. 
 Here were hung portraits by Lely and Vandyck, and 
 pictures of still life by a local painter called 
 Cornelius Smith, of Dutch extraction. Mr. Bettes- 
 worth announced his intention on that day week to 
 examine in that room Mr. Chuckel's accounts and 
 tallies, and to interview the more important tenants. 
 In the seven days that intervened he was, he said, 
 minded to take a careful view of the estate, and to 
 estimate what it should be likely to produce. This 
 appeared to him, in private, an excellent way of 
 searching over the ground for the original of " Celia 
 in her Arbour," 
 
 And as soon as he had finished his survey of the 
 house, he walked leisurely down the long ornamental 
 water that stretched from the end of the grass 
 lawn straight out to where, beyond a high wall and 
 some few house-roofs, the tower of Ashford Church, 
 with its four gilded vanes, rose up towards the sky. 
 A fresh day had succeeded the rain of the night 
 before. Mr, Bettesworth walked slowly beside the 
 
THE PORTRAIT 103 
 
 water ; the attentive steward, his hat in his hand, 
 walked a quarter of a pace behind him, turning 
 always his toes out like a dancing-master. The 
 water was broad, straight, and slightly stagnant ; 
 lazy carp sunned themselves on the still surface, and 
 patches of water crowsfoot, like brown lace, with tiny 
 white blossoms here and there, broke up the surface, 
 and in one place completely covered the water from 
 bank to bank — as with a half-submerged net. 
 
 At Mr. Bettesworth's slight frown Mr. Chuckel 
 hastened to explain that it was the custom of the 
 place for the dykers to come from the marsh on the 
 Monday succeeding Whit Sunday, and then, as part 
 of their suit and service, to clear out the weeds by 
 means of a long chain to which were attached the 
 blades of scythes. It was an old custom that had 
 been handed down from the monks to whom the 
 land had belonged. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth said that if it was an old custom 
 it was no doubt a good one, but he would have con- 
 sidered it better to have had the brushing done 
 earlier in the year ; since towards Whitsuntide most 
 of the carp were spawning, and the disturbance 
 must destroy many eggs and young fry. 
 
 Mr. Chuckel replied that the fish were accounted 
 to be of no value for the pot, since the river Stour 
 flowed through another portion of the estate and 
 had in it a large supply of excellent, well-flavoured 
 fish. These carp were, he said, of a great age and 
 tameness, so that the}^ were accustomed to come for 
 food when Lady Eshetsford called them. About 
 half-way down the water, beyond the straight lines 
 of the avenue, the trees of the park, oaks and 
 
104 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 thorn-bushes, grew very thick and umbrageous ; 
 and towards the end there rose on either side 
 long clumps of copper beeches appearing very- 
 tall and solid. At the far end of the water was a 
 circular temple or kiosk of solid stone, all round, but 
 with a domed roof of glass. The legend was, 
 Mr. Chuckel said, that Sir Anthony Eshetsford, who 
 had much added to the Manor during the days of 
 the Commonwealth at the expense of his Loyalist 
 neighbours, had built and inhabited this circular 
 dwelling. The reason he had given for its rotundity 
 was, namely, that being convinced, upon the glorious 
 Restoration, of the error of his former ways, in his 
 immense contrition he had builded this refuge all 
 circular so that the Evil One should not catch him 
 in a corner. But most people said that he had 
 built it without windows so that no person from 
 the outside should see him practising the Black 
 Arts, and circular so as to consort with magicians' 
 circles and secret debaucheries. There was said 
 to be an underground passage connecting it with 
 a house in the town where his mistresses used to 
 reside. 
 
 Behind the little grey and weather-beaten temple, 
 so overshadowed by trees as almost to evade the 
 eye, was the stretch of the tall park wall. It was 
 formed at this part by the backs of the houses of 
 the town, but only one window gave on to the long 
 and lush grass of the park. At the moment a 
 little company of five deer was standing, their heads 
 all towards the white mullions of the window, their 
 pale hides glimmering and ghostly in the deep 
 shade of the trees. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 105 
 
 " In that kiosk now, your Worship," Mr. Chuckel 
 said, "the man Hitchcock, the painter, paints his 
 pictures, and in that house he dwells. Her lady- 
 ship has had all the other windows that were upon 
 the houses on the wall blocked up, save only that 
 one ; for she much favours the painter, though he is 
 an idle, surly man, who pays no rent for his house 
 and has a pleasant word for very few. But when 
 her ladyship is here she practises very often to sit 
 with Mr. Hitchcock, and she will feed the deer with 
 apples and cakes from that window, so that they 
 may come near and that Mr. Hitchcock may paint 
 them." 
 
 " And Mr. Hitchcock," Mr. Bettesworth said, " is 
 not now in his house ? " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Chuckel answered, " he is a man of 
 so very secret a nature that one knows neither 
 whether he is in his house or whether he is in 
 London, or how he passes his days or what his 
 paintings be like. But his wife and daughters be 
 always here, and are quiet and sensible bodies 
 enough, and that is all there is to Mr. Hitchcock." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth gazed at the not very distant 
 deer. He approached a little nearer, and, perceiving 
 a gate to the left, he observed that Mr. Hitchcock's 
 was, from that point, the sixth roof in the park 
 wall. 
 
 " Sir," he said to Mr. Chuckel, " I will now relieve 
 you of the trouble of my company." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel's pallid features fell. 
 
 " Your Worship," he said, " I trust I have done 
 myself no ill service by speaking of this painter as 
 I have found him to be ; for maybe your Worship, 
 
io6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 like her ladyship, is affected with admiration for 
 the pictures of this man. So that I would have 
 you observe that I have said nothing against Mr. 
 Hitchcock's pieces, — which, indeed, I have never 
 seen, — for that would be to decry your Worship's 
 and Lady Eshetsford's taste, which God forbid ! " 
 
 " I have made," Mr. Bettesworth said, " no com- 
 ments upon what you have observed regarding this 
 great man. Very truly it has been said that a 
 prophet has no honour in his own country." 
 
 " But how, your Worship," Mr. Chuckel said, with 
 lamentation in his tone, " should one have known 
 that this man is a great man ? It is inexplicable. 
 Here for the last week have been two gallants from 
 Town poking and prying into all sorts of little 
 places to discover — what ? Nothing less than some 
 wench who sat to Mr. Hitchcock for one of his 
 canvases. It is said in the neighbourhood that 
 she has been recognised by her features to be 
 some great heiress that was stolen by gipsies, and 
 these two gentlemen — of the topmost quality, I 
 am assured by those of the Turk's Head — these 
 two gentlemen desire to carry her off and marry 
 her. But I have never heard of any maiden that 
 has sat to this man, nor yet has my daughter, who 
 goes very often to converse with the daughters of 
 this Mr. Hitchcock ; though she does it much against 
 my will, for I do not favour this acquaintance. But 
 my daughter is an arrant baggage, who heeds neither 
 God nor her father." 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said slowly, " I regret 
 that your family should cause you distress, and I 
 will do my best to alleviate your misfortunes. I 
 
THE PORTRAIT 107 
 
 will myself interrogate your daughter, and speak 
 to her with all the sternness I can command." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel positively shrank six steps back. 
 
 " Oh, sir ! " he exclaimed, and stood with his 
 mouth wide open. 
 
 " Friend," Mr, Bettesworth exclaimed, " this will 
 give me no trouble at all, for I am accustomed on 
 my own terrain, — and I think it is the duty of every 
 owner of much land, since he stands in the place of 
 the King, who stands for God, — to reprimand all such 
 unruly limbs, who might otherwise become pestilent 
 members of the Commonwealth, to whom I stand 
 as the father and lord." 
 
 " But, your Worship ! " Mr. Chuckel exclaimed. 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I have the honour 
 to wish you a very good morning, for I wish to be 
 by myself, to enjoy my uninterrupted thoughts and 
 to discover the beauties of this sylvan spot." 
 
 " But pray, your Worship," Mr. Chuckel said, 
 " let me accompany you and point out to you from 
 where prospects may be seen to the best advantage ; 
 and I will have your Worship remember, if your 
 Worship perceive any imperfection in the upkeep 
 of this domain " 
 
 " Mr. Chuckel," Mr. Bettesworth said coldly, " I 
 am minded to observe these things for myself 
 Later, you shall account to me for them. For the 
 present, I will no more prevent you in the perform- 
 ance of your duties." 
 
 He touched the front corner of his hat lightly 
 with the head of his cane, and strode determinedly 
 through the tree-trunks to the left towards the gate 
 in the wall. Mr. Chuckel, his head bowed, his hat 
 
io8 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 drooping over his eyes, walked very slowly in the 
 direction of the house. 
 
 Mrs. Chuckel, a dark, heavy-jawed, untidy woman 
 of forty or so, lay upon a sofa in the long, low, and 
 rather dark Elizabethan room at the extreme end 
 of the easternmost wing of the Manor-house. She 
 was reading a volume of a novel, of which the 
 other twelve were piled on the floor beside her. 
 Upon a little table lay her snuff-box, open and 
 ready for her thumb ; a large table was covered 
 with chintzes, over which there sprawled a dress of 
 white muslin printed with red roses. The leaded 
 windows looked out upon a little kitchen garden ; 
 her eyes were very intent upon her book. The 
 door was thrust violently open, so that it rattled 
 against the wall, but she hardly so much as elevated 
 her eyebrows. Mr. Chuckel stooped in at the low 
 door, his hat crushed over his eyes, his face hard 
 with passion. " Olivia," he said, " we must pack 
 and run for it. The devil has come down from 
 Town and my accounts are to be scrutinied." 
 
 Mrs. Chuckel did not so much as lower her 
 book, but, still reading, said indifferently — 
 
 " I have prophesied that this would come," and 
 she yawned. 
 
 At the head of her sofa, in a dark corner against 
 the window, there stood a ponderous bureau, and 
 to this Mr. Chuckel strode with the gait of a mad- 
 man. He pulled out the supports and slammed 
 open the lid itself, with three separate reports as 
 sharp as pistol-shots, and sitting down he began 
 to pull papers in showers from the pigeon-holes 
 
THE PORTRAIT 109 
 
 and to throw them behind him, so that they fell or 
 floated into all parts of the room. 
 
 " You will be wanting Lydia to gather those up," 
 Mrs. Chuckel continued, " and upon her refusal you 
 will be fit to murder her again. Heigh-ho, this is a 
 very pleasant family ! " 
 
 Mr. Chuckel, in his black clothes, with his rice- 
 white face, now sat still, his face leaning upon his 
 hands. 
 
 " The cursedest luck ! " he muttered. " The 
 cursedest luck ! " 
 
 " Spouse," Mrs. Chuckel said, " if you must needs 
 sup with the devil you should take to yourself a 
 longer spoon. I have always said you were too 
 much of a fool to play the villain with address." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel smote the back of his palm upon 
 the desk-lid. " God help me," he said, " if I had 
 but ten days more ! " 
 
 Mrs. Chuckel laid her book into her lap. " How 
 shall a lady read with you a-grunting there ? " she 
 said. She moved the cushion behind her head and 
 settled down more luxuriously. " How should ten 
 days help you ? " she said. 
 
 " Ten days or thereabouts," he answered gloomily. 
 " For I have put all the money that I borrowed of 
 Sir John's into the purchase of three luggersful of 
 French silks that should be here then or thereabouts. 
 And if but one of them escape the Preventives there 
 shall be three times my borrowings to draw as 
 soon as the goods shall reach Canterbury. But 
 now " — and Mr. Chuckel's voice came shrill with a 
 vile rage — " this cursed, cold upstart, arrogant with 
 his ' God damn you ' air, this playsharper, this loud 
 
no THE PORTRAIT 
 
 bully, this wench humbler, this bench hopper, this 
 fan-tearing masque flarer " 
 
 " Husband," Mrs. Chuckel said, " 'tis a very nice, 
 noble, fantastical gentleman, and made me a grand, 
 courtly bow upon the terrace this very morning." 
 
 " — and he will see my papers this day sen- 
 night, and upon my saying that they would take 
 long to prepare, says he, curse him ! ' I will even 
 help you to prepare them myself,' in his lacka- 
 daisical manner. For, quotha, he has had much 
 practice in the careful scrutining of accounts of great 
 estates. I do not believe that this is a grand gentle- 
 man. Grand gentlemen are more negligent. This 
 is a lawyer's pimp ; this is a spy of the Pretender." 
 
 " Spouse," Mrs. Chuckel said, " this is a very high, 
 lordly, and noble personage, upon a romantical 
 errand such as only can be read of in novels and 
 romances." 
 
 " To hang me," Mr. Chuckel said bitterly. 
 
 " Nay, spouse," Mrs. Chuckel answered. " To 
 hang you were only the plain duty of a Christian 
 man, about which there would be nothing romantical 
 nor fitted for novels by whatever pen. But here 
 we shall see two arrays of gallant gentlemen set one 
 against another in hostile battles ; and there will be 
 swordmanship and affrays and love-trysts, and more 
 murders and ravishings than in ten of your Spanish 
 Friar. Would God it were Lydia they would 
 abduct, for then our fortunes would be made." 
 
 " Please God," Mr. Chuckel said, " that too much 
 reading of foolish garbage has addled your weak 
 brains, so you must to a Bedlam, and I shall be well 
 rid of you." 
 
THE PORTRAIT iii 
 
 Mrs, Chuckel folded her hands languidly in her 
 lap. " Can it be that you have not heard of the 
 wager of twenty thousands pounds ? " she said. 
 " All the world is a-talk of it in London." 
 
 " Beast, begone ! " Mr. Chuckel exclaimed. 
 
 Mrs. Chuckel leaned farther back upon her 
 cushions. " Why, it is the only way you may be 
 saved from a halter," she said, " if Major Penruddock 
 or Mr. Harcourt should, upon an affair of honour, 
 slay this Mr. Bettesworth ; though, to be sure, I pray 
 they may not, Mr. Bettesworth being so heroical 
 that he should well rid himself of six opponents 
 with the mere lightning of his glance." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel suddenly stood up. " What is this ? " 
 he exclaimed. " Are you certain that Mr. Bettes- 
 worth is in a wager with these gentlemen ? " 
 
 " The newest news-sheets from London speak of 
 nothing else," Mrs. Chuckel answered. " They have 
 come here seeking a great heiress. That is the pity 
 of it, for if it had not been a great heiress they 
 might have taken Lydia or me." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel stood leaning intently forward over 
 his wife. " This is a mad tale," he said ; and then 
 he added slowly, " But these gentlemen are here ! 
 What are we to think of this ? " 
 
 He remained standing before his wife, his head 
 hanging down over his chest. The low, dark room 
 had a close smell of dampness, and a touch of the 
 odour of hartshorn, for a drain from the stables 
 ran just beneath the window in an open gutter 
 against the wall of the house. His meditations 
 were bitter enough, and he cursed himself for having 
 been till lately too timid a villain. For a matter of 
 
112 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 twenty years — ever since he had married his wife — 
 he had been in the employnnent of land-steward in 
 Lady Eshetsford's family, at first in Scotland and 
 later here. Before his marriage he had been an 
 attorney's clerk, who, by means of extorting bribes 
 from his master's clients, had managed, in his free 
 time, to cut a little dash in the parks and at the 
 opera ; for being a tailor's son he could clothe him- 
 self cheaply and with effect. But though he had 
 been so long in control of accounts, and with much 
 money passing between his fingers, his early habits 
 had made him very petty in his peculations. He 
 would take the price of a tree here, or of a few sacks 
 of corn there ; he would write a pound or two off 
 the rent of a farmer, and say that the money had 
 been excused on account of the bad seasons. And 
 since he played cards with the farmers at the 
 Ordinaries, and had habits of private debauchery, 
 he had in all these years amassed no savings at all. 
 But of late, growing intolerably weary of his wife, 
 whom he detested, and of his daughter, who detested 
 him, he had been taking toll more heavily of the 
 estates ; the idea having come into his head of 
 making a plum and of absconding to a part of the 
 country where he would not be known. Sir John, 
 indeed, had become so soaked in brandy and so 
 bemuzzed that there had seemed less fear of de- 
 tection. So that the whole price of Sweet Corner, 
 Stocks, and Gallows' Woods being in his hands at 
 once, Mr. Chuckel had placed it all in the hands of 
 Thomas Wrangsley, the head of the Old Bourne 
 gang of smugglers ; a man much trusted and 
 esteemed in the neighbourhood, where he had 
 
THE PORTRAIT 113 
 
 almost the rank, and considerably more than the 
 wealth, of a small squire ; consorting with the justices, 
 the sheriffs, and even the judges of Assize, for all of 
 whom he turned an honest penny out of the King's 
 pocket The three hundred pounds had been to 
 be invested in silks, brandies, hollands, and laces ; and 
 had the cargo been successfully run, — a thing of 
 which there could be little doubt, since the Preven- 
 tive officers were lazy and Mr. Wrangsley had them 
 well bribed, — Mr. Chuckel stood to gain a matter 
 of six times as much as he had laid out. With 
 that Mr. Chuckel would have been able to live in 
 ease and some luxury at Taunton, in Devonshire, 
 for the rest of his days. But now was come this 
 accursed Bettesworth ! 
 
 If only he could be put out of the way ! If only 
 he could be put out of the way for but a short time, 
 so that, the cargoes being landed and paid for, Mr. 
 Chuckel could restore what he had borrowed from 
 the estate. If only he could be given a good clout 
 over the head, such as should keep him abed for a 
 fortnight ! — and Mr. Chuckel had run over in his 
 mind the names of the poachers, deerstealers, and 
 smugglers of the neighbourhood. But these were 
 all very violent fellows ; and Mr, Chuckel, being by 
 nature a petty thief, dreaded an accidental murder. 
 He had too much fear of ghosts, — a fear accentuated 
 by long dwelling in those dark, rambling, and creak- 
 ing apartments. Indeed, the rice-like pallor of his 
 face was said to have arisen because he had found a 
 ghost of Sir Anthony Eshetsford lying in his bed, 
 smoking a Dutchman's pipe, on the night after his 
 arrival at Ashford Manor-house. But ghosts apart, 
 8 
 
114 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth was very well attended, there being 
 with him his brother and Mr. Williamson, and each 
 of them had a servant — not to mention the man 
 cook, who might also show some fight. To raise a 
 band of smugglers sufficient to overcome all these 
 would be dangerous ; for smugglers had their own 
 form of honour, and could not be trusted, outside 
 their own profession, not to turn informer. So that 
 the information that Major Penruddock and Mr. 
 Harcourt were not the friends, but the rivals, in a 
 wager of Mr. Bettesworth, caused a sudden gleam 
 of furious hope to come into the steward's agate 
 blue eyes. 
 
 The door bounded open before shrill ejaculations 
 of delight ; a young girl whirled into the room and 
 came up against the chintzes on the tables. 
 
 " La ! mother," she exclaimed, " I ha' seen him 
 at Mr. Hitchcock's. If only he would be my 
 lover ! " 
 
 She was shorter than Lady Eshetsford by half 
 an inch, but she had dark eyes full of levity, her 
 upper lip peaked upwards like a bow, her cheeks 
 were very high coloured, the black ringlets fell on 
 to her shoulders, which were bare, because, in the 
 heat of running home across the park, she had 
 pulled off her gaudy red - and - blue neckerchief. 
 She was panting and dancing her feet up and down. 
 In his meditations Mr. Chuckel suddenly smote his 
 thigh and stiffened his back : " By God ! " he said. 
 " By God ! " 
 
 "And, oh!" Lydia exclaimed, "if I only had 
 him for a lover he would be better than either 
 Major Penruddock or Mr. Harcourt ! " 
 
THE PORTRAIT 115 
 
 Mr. Chuckel gazed suspiciously from the girl to 
 his wife. 
 
 " What," he said, " you have been talking of these 
 things already ? " 
 
 " La ! " Lydia said, — she had pulled off her sun- 
 hat and was toying with its knotted strings, — " what 
 else have mother and I to talk about ? " 
 
 The spasm of a frown went over Mr. Chuckel's 
 pallid brow. He had remembered that Mr. Bettes- 
 worth had said that that evening he would talk with 
 this Lydia. He crushed his hat down upon his 
 head. " Understand ye this," he said. " You shall 
 not speak with Mr. Bettesworth alone without my 
 being by, or I will swinge you so that you shall not 
 lie easy abed this fortnight." 
 
 Lydia's dark brows came suddenly down into a 
 tense, straight line, her eyes enlarged, her mouth 
 grew rigid with hatred. " An' ye did that," her 
 voice quivered harshly, " an' ye lay a finger on me I 
 will stick your eyes out with my bodkin." 
 
 Mrs. Chuckel raised her eyes contemptuously 
 upon her husband. " Are we to grow virtuous 
 now ? " she said with languid irony. " This last 
 three years you have been growling me to get 
 Lydia off upon some gentleman, but there is no 
 gentleman here rich enough nor fine enough. And 
 now that there comes this Mr. Bettesworth, with his 
 horses and his men, and his glass coaches and houses 
 in London " 
 
 Mr. Chuckel pressed both his hands to his 
 temples. " Was ever man so cursed ? " he said. 
 
 " Mr. Bettesworth is the finest gentleman I have 
 ever seen," Lydia said. " He wore a blue coat, and 
 
ii6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 his sword-head was all of gold, and his ruffles were 
 of finer point than any of my lady's. I ran away 
 at once upon his coming, for I had only on this 
 linsey-woolsey rag, but I will go for the rest of my 
 time in my sprigged silk against my chance meeting 
 him ; and I will put flour in my hair, and cut the 
 roses off the south wall for my bosom, and then I 
 shall be another guess maiden than in this dish-clout 
 of a kitchen wench." 
 
 A bitter sneer came into the mouth and voice of 
 Mr. Chuckel. " This Mr. Bettesworth," he sneered. 
 " How do you know he is Mr. Bettesworth ? For 
 my part I am not certain he is Mr. Bettesworth at 
 all. I have had no letter. I had no letter to 
 announce his approach " 
 
 " Why," Mrs. Chuckel said, " you know very well 
 that the post-messenger was robbed and murdered 
 upon Charing Heath upon the very night before the 
 letter should have reached here." 
 
 " But that is not to say," her husband answered, 
 " that he had a letter." 
 
 " But you had a letter bidding you entreat my 
 lady's cousin well. Would you have us think that 
 this fine gentleman, so lordly in his airs, so gracious 
 in his appearance, is no more than a thief or an 
 impostor or a Papist?" Lydia exclaimed, with a 
 high scorn. 
 
 " For her ladyship's cousin I will not entirely 
 deny him," Mr. Chuckel said ; " but in the first 
 place the letter was very ill-scrawled — worse 
 scrawled than her ladyship even is accustomed to 
 scrawl " 
 
 " Why, it was written in haste, as her ladyship 
 
THE PORTRAIT 117 
 
 was about to step into her coach," Lydia protested 
 highly. 
 
 " — so that," Mr. Chuckel ignored her interruption, 
 " the letter itself may be a cheat. Or, again, her 
 ladyship has many cousins, and some such as her 
 ladyship would not well wish to acknowledge. 
 For they sojourn abroad with the Pretender, and 
 so acquire these high and flowing French airs, and 
 this talk about pictures, such as no honest English 
 gentleman is accustomed to practise " 
 
 His wife spoke with a singular intonation of deep 
 scorn — 
 
 " Who are you to talk of the gentry, who have 
 never spoken to a gentleman but walking backwards, 
 bent double, with your hat brushing the floor ? 
 Now I, who lived amongst them, until the weary 
 day when I married you " 
 
 " Mr. Chuckel spat out at her a " You " of such 
 venom and loathing that she became silent under 
 her rouge. 
 
 " For me," Lydia said, " I will go to London with 
 him if he will take me ; and I will ride in a glass 
 coach, and have footmen to run before and clear the 
 way for me." 
 
 " Why," Mr. Chuckel resumed his sneer, " I doubt 
 if this gentleman dare show his face in London ; and 
 the only coach that you would ride in with him 
 there would be a hangman's cart to Tyburn." 
 
 " Shall he be a knight of the road now ? " Lydia 
 asked, with her nose in the air, and she turned to go. 
 
 " No, I am calling him neither highwayman nor 
 thief, nor yet even footpad. But for impostor or 
 Papist I am not so certain. These are troubled 
 
ii8 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 times, and who shall say what a great gentleman 
 may not be who comes with a great army of men 
 and meets other gentlemen at inns, spreading wild, 
 fantastical tales of searching for heiresses, and 
 wagers." 
 
 " I will fill the brandy flagon," Lydia said, " for, 
 for sure, ye ha' emptied it, though I filled it this 
 morning. And for the rest, I will go hang my silk 
 sprig on a rosemary bush in the sun, that the 
 mustiness may come out, and that it may pleasantly 
 affect Mr. Bettesworth's nostrils." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel waited till she had closed the door 
 upon her retreat, and then spat the word " Bastard ! " 
 after her. 
 
 " Husband," Mrs. Chuckel said, " if you have 
 the courage neither to lay your stick about my 
 daughter's back nor yet to say things to her face, 
 it would comport more with the character of a man 
 to bite your tongue and spare your breath when you 
 are an angered." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel looked down at the floor. " By 
 God ! " he exclaimed, " I think I have this Mr. 
 Bettesworth trapped." 
 
 " God save you," Mrs. Chuckel said, and she 
 began again to read her novel. 
 
M 
 
 V 
 
 R. BETTESWORTH had, indeed, caught a 
 sight of Lydia Chuckel at the house of 
 Mr. Hitchcock, but it had been a glance so short, 
 and so suddenly upon an introduction into a new 
 society, that it had caused him no emotion whether 
 of one kind or another. She had been standing 
 behind the two large, brown-haired daughters of Mr. 
 Hitchcock ; she had worn a grey dress ; she had 
 vanished before the formality of introduction had 
 been performed. But it had intrigued him slightly 
 to observe through the open window, and upon the 
 grass of the park that he faced, the figure of the 
 girl running swiftly in the direction of the house, 
 her neckerchief held in her hand, the wind blowing 
 back her grey skirts. It intrigued him because she 
 had so very soon reached that portion of the park : 
 he had, indeed, not yet finished the necessary com- 
 plimenting to Mrs. Hitchcock upon the looks of 
 her daughters, and yet he remembered to have 
 observed that, although the painter's house had a 
 window giving on to the park, there was no door 
 in the wall at all until you came to the gate, which 
 was a hundred yards or so distant. The girl 
 vanished from the view of the window, and he 
 turned to question Mrs. Hitchcock. They were 
 
I20 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 by then all seated and very formal. The two girls 
 were very raw-boned, brown-haired, and large- 
 mouthed, with great teeth, and kind, sleepy eyes. 
 One of them was sewing at a tambour frame ; the 
 other was adjusting her sewing, fitting the outer 
 edge upon the embroidery canvas as the lid of a 
 bandbox goes on. Mrs. Hitchcock, however, who 
 had been removing brandied cherries from a large 
 stoneware receptacle into more convenient vessels of 
 earthenware, sat with her large hands open upon her 
 lap and smiled maternally at Mr. Bettesworth. With 
 a brown face as large as a warming-pan, the skin 
 netted all over with tiny wrinkles, Mrs. Hitchcock 
 had been a peasant girl when Mr. Hitchcock married 
 her, and a peasant woman she remained. She could 
 not write at all, but she could spell out words of 
 two syllables. She was excellent at preserving 
 fruits and in minding her garden ; she was ever 
 contented, but her fingers were too large for needle- 
 work and her hands too heavy for pastry or cakes, 
 though she made excellent bread because she had 
 so much strength to give to kneading the dough. 
 She was very shrewd ; she was no respecter of 
 persons ; and the only holiday she ever gave herself 
 was at times to go into the hop gardens where she 
 had spent her youth, to tie a few vines in the spring 
 and in the autumn to pick a bushel or so. Indeed, 
 a spray of last year's hops depended from a nail 
 above the portrait of her father, that Mr. Hitchcock 
 had painted whilst he was courting her. This 
 hung above the wooden mantelshelf, between the 
 empty gun-racks ; for Mr. Hitchcock was no sports- 
 man, not even to the extent of a rabbit or two in 
 
THE PORTRAIT 121 
 
 the park of an evening ; nor did he so much as 
 carry a blunderbuss for his protection when he 
 travelled. The room was tall for its rather small 
 size. It contained little furniture save the table 
 of dark polished wood, on which, upon a sheet of 
 paper, stood a stone crock, with the delft pots half 
 filled with brandied cherries. A bureau with a 
 glass front in the upper part, revealing a few china 
 plates and many blue-and-white jars of conserves, 
 stood against the left-hand wall and reached nearly 
 to the ceiling. The walls were panelled all round 
 in large squares and painted a dull blue. The 
 floor was so sedulously waxed that Mr. Bettesworth's 
 chair slid every now and then upon it. The room 
 was rather dark, so that near the window the young 
 ladies must hold their eyes close to their embroidery, 
 by reason of the tall trees that hung right over the 
 house, 
 
 " Bless 'ee, master," Mrs. Hitchcock said, " we 
 told that Mr. Harcourt and that Major Fenruddock, 
 that was here a week ago, that we wouldn't tell 'em 
 
 nowt, but " and she smiled broadly upon him, 
 
 for she dearly loved a fine upstanding man, and 
 Mr. Bettesworth, with his clear complexion, his high 
 features, his oval face, his square shoulders, his blue 
 coat with the gold buttons, golden sword-hilt, and 
 his erect poise as he sat in his tall-backed chair — 
 all these things, as she ran her jovial brown eyes 
 over him, seemed to make him the very figure of 
 a man for her. Moreover, his serious and un- 
 smiling attentions were just what she asked of a 
 man, gentle or simple. " — but I'll tell 'ee this as 
 in a manner of a feavour. We wouldn't tell 'ee 
 
122 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 owt neither. Not for lack of goodwill — for you're 
 by way of being not only her leddyship's cousin, 
 but are civil spoken, unlike the other twain, and 
 have hitherto offered me no bribery to betray my 
 lord and master, which was as much as to say that 
 I was no honest woman, and so to set my back 
 against them. But this I'll tell 'ee. If I would I 
 couldn't, for I know nowt of my master's doings nor 
 ask nowt ; nor yet do I think it my place, being 
 the weaker vessel of the twain, to ask if I should 
 desire to know." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " your ignor- 
 ance surely, if it springs from such motives, is as 
 much to be commended as it incommodes me." 
 
 " Why, thank 'ee, master," Mrs. Hitchcock said 
 cheerfully. " I thought 'ee would say as much, and 
 even so my master is a very secret man. At ten of 
 the clock he will go into his painting room, and we 
 shall not see him, nor hear him, nor smell him — for 
 to say truth he smells always of his paints, which 
 is a smell pleasant enough to me though there be 
 some misHke it. Yes, my master is a very secret 
 man, so that he is even pleased to be pleasant about 
 it, for he has his little quips and rogueries. ' Meary,' 
 will he say to me, ' yo' may tell all the secrets of 
 mine that yo' know. For all that yo' do know could 
 be written down upon a groat, and the writing not 
 so small neither.'" 
 
 " But in what do his secrets consist ? " Mr. 
 Bettesworth asked. 
 
 " Master," Mrs. Hitchcock laughed broadly, " if I 
 knew, would they be secrets from me ? But every 
 man has whimsies after his kind : some seek to be 
 
THE PORTRAIT 123 
 
 proud ; some are mad for money ; one will set his 
 heart upon having the best horse ; and, bless 'ee, my 
 master is set upon not being overlooked. It is 
 a sort of second nature of the man that is like a 
 badger, who cometh out of his hole only o' nights, 
 and looketh over his shoulder to see that he be not 
 observed. But it troubles me nowt, and is no one 
 else's affair." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " surely it is the 
 affair of all the world how so great a man as your 
 husband chooses to live ? " 
 
 Mrs. Hitchcock's enormous mouth opened, her 
 hands fell open at her sides. " Mercy, man ! " she 
 exclaimed. " So great a man as my husband ! 
 What has he done to be called great ? Is it merely 
 sticking little dabs of paint upon cloths ? " 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " Mr. Hitch- 
 cock's name is upon the mouths of every one in 
 London Town ; there is no man that is more spoken 
 of nor looked up to than the painter of * Celia in her 
 Arbour.' " 
 
 Mrs, Hitchcock shook her sagacious head. 
 
 " Why, men will make toys of anything ; and in 
 London Town they have nothing to do but run up 
 and down the streets and gawp at one another, so 
 no doubt they will make a nine days' wonder of 
 my Johnnie." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " when I, and 
 the Lords of Parliament, and half the great men of 
 to-day, are forgotten and in our graves, people will 
 be making books of your husband and you and 
 your daughters." 
 
 " Of us ? " one of the girls tittered. 
 
124 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Surely," Mr. Bettesworth said, " you have sat as 
 models for your father ? " 
 
 " Why, I have sat for drawings of my shoulders 
 now and again," the girl on the right said in an 
 uncontrolled voice, and her sister echoed her tones 
 with — 
 
 " I sat for my ankles, and crouched down once 
 for a picture of Caliban, which was an ugly dwarf." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Bettesworth said, " since your 
 husband has told you that you may reveal his 
 secrets, surely it is asking you to commit no dis- 
 loyalty to ask you what persons in this neighbour- 
 hood have been limned by your husband on his 
 cloths, and more particularly for a picture called 
 ' Celia in her Arbour '?..." 
 
 Mrs. Hitchcock's broad sides shook with merri- 
 ment. " Aye," she said, " I thought you would 
 come to that ; but that is what I cannot tell you, for 
 there is not in this countryside a wench that he 
 could get for love or money that my husband has 
 not tumbled, taking from one a shoulder, from 
 another an arm, from another a breast. And for 
 the picture called * Celia in her Arbour,' why, I have 
 never seen it, and all I can tell you is that I have 
 the best husband in the world, as husbands go, and 
 one that is all the better in that he is not much in 
 the house." 
 
 Towards seven of that evening Mr. Bettesworth 
 called to him Lydia Chuckel. The candles were 
 just lighted in the tall, long room that had the 
 great carved mantelpiece and the pictures by 
 Vandyck, but the sunset was falling in great shafts 
 
THE PORTRAIT 125 
 
 of light across the wide prospect of copsewood and 
 marsh that the tall windows afforded. Because it was 
 chilly, a fire had been lit in the hearth-place, and 
 across the great dogs, w'ith roses of bright brass at 
 their heads, a large log sent up pale flames. Mr. 
 Bettesworth sat on the right of the hearth. He 
 had changed his blue coat for one of grey satin, for 
 he expected that evening a visit from Mr. Harcourt 
 and Major Penruddock. Mr. Roland and Mr. Jack 
 Williamson were playing cards at a little table on 
 the other side of the hearth. They both wore their 
 hats, for they swore the old place was woundily 
 draughty. 
 
 " Child," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I have seen your 
 face before." 
 
 Lydia was in her dress of pink-and-white sprigged 
 silk, her petticoat was of grey satin, her heels were 
 very high, her hair powdered till it was nearly white ; 
 and her cheeks were brilliant, and in her bosom were 
 crushed four red roses. 
 
 " La ! your Worship," she said, " that your Worship 
 can never have done, for I have lived buried in the 
 grave all my life." 
 
 " Then surely I must have been a grave-digger," 
 Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 
 Mr. Roland and Mr. Jack Williamson were 
 devouring her back with their eyes, Mr. Williamson 
 having interrupted the oaths he was uttering 
 because he had just lost twenty-one shillings to 
 Mr. Roland. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth raised his voice to say — 
 
 " I desire to be private with this child." 
 
 Mr. Roland laughed, and Mr. Williamson rose, 
 
126 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 his hat on one side, his waistcoat disordered, swear- 
 ing that this was too much of Fortune that he 
 should first lose his money over cards and then be 
 driven from the place when the first possible girl 
 they had seen that ten days came into the room. 
 But, with the air of discomfited musketeers, he and 
 Mr. Roland lounged discontentedly from the room, 
 Mr. Williamson taking up the cards and vowing 
 that he would have his revenge elsewhere. Mr. 
 Chuckel, however, who had stood till now rigid and 
 silent in his black at Lydia's elbow, for all the 
 world as if he were a serjeant in charge of a 
 prisoner, remained still motionless. 
 
 " Mr. Chuckel," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I said that 
 I would be private with your daughter." 
 
 " But, sir " Mr. Chuckel expostulated. 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " if you suspect that 
 I have designs upon the maid's innocence, I vow 
 that I have none." 
 
 " Still, sir " Mr. Chuckel continued, in an 
 
 extraordinary agitation. 
 
 " I do bid you begone," Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 " At first it was a little matter, but your hesitation 
 arouses my suspicion. Upon another hair's-breadth 
 of waiting I will discharge you from your steward- 
 ship, and seal up your books and papers." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel went with a very obvious reluctance, 
 his feet rubbing on the ground, his head twice 
 making as if it would look over his shoulder. 
 
 "Child," Mr. Bettesworth said to the girl 
 musingly, " I am very sure that I have seen your 
 face and heard your voice before now." 
 
 Lydia stood before him fingering her under- 
 
THE PORTRAIT 127 
 
 skirt, her head hung down in an attitude of 
 shyness. 
 
 " Mayhap 'twere some one Hke me," she said, 
 " I have never been where your Worship has been, 
 for your Worship has never visited here or in any 
 other of my lady's places." 
 
 " Your father has always been in my lady's 
 service ? " Mr. Bettesworth asked. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, and 
 repeated the words " My father ! " with an extra- 
 ordinary expression of hatred and contempt. 
 
 " I hear," Mr. Bettesworth said, " that you are an 
 indifferent bad daughter to Mr. Chuckel. Yet in his 
 reluctance to leave you with me surely he displayed 
 the spirit of a watchful and a protective parent." 
 
 Lydia looked under her eyelashes at Mr. 
 Bettesworth. 
 
 " I know your Worship is jesting," she said. 
 " Mr. Chuckel was afeard that I would let the 
 cat out of the bag. Nay, he knew I would do it 
 if I could to ruin him." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth sat up in his chair, very solemn 
 and formal. In the falling dusk the firelight and 
 the candles played with yellow reflections on the 
 grey satin of his coat. 
 
 " Child," Mr. Bettesworth said, " where is the 
 duty that you owe to your parent and begetter? 
 Not even the lowliest of the beasts would betray 
 its father to ruin. No, not even the cruel tiger 
 nor the abashed jackal. And the Scriptures shall 
 tell you that the relation of daughter to father — 
 nay, even the pious deportment of Iphigenia 
 towards her sire " 
 
128 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Lydia shot another glance at him under her 
 dark eyebrows. 
 
 " Sir," she half laughed, " that would be monstrous 
 well if this man were my father. But I thank 
 God that he is neither parent nor begetter 
 of me." 
 
 In his instinctive maintenance of his dignity 
 Mr. Bettes worth preserved a stiff silence. The 
 flames rustled on the logs, Lydia stood still look- 
 ing downwards, a strong wind blew against the 
 window-panes. And suddenly, with gentle expira- 
 tion of his breath, like a low whistle, Mr. Bettesworth 
 uttered the words : " Polly Eshetsford." 
 
 Lydia suddenly squared her shoulders, lifted her 
 head, and with a gay laugh swept aside all 
 semblance of shyness. 
 
 " I was even wondering," she said, " how long 
 it would take your Worship to discover how it 
 was you deemed you had seen me before." 
 
 " Well, whose child are you ? " Mr. Bettesworth 
 asked. 
 
 " Your Worship and I are by way of being 
 cousins, or nephew and niece. I know not which 
 it is. For her ladyship is my aunt, and you are 
 her first cousin." 
 
 " You are, then, the daughter of Jack Douglas 
 of Blair Gowrie ; " and slowly he adopted a less 
 rigid attitude, relaxing his limbs so that his spine 
 touched the back of the chair and his head rested 
 on the top rail. 
 
 " Why, sit you down, little cousin," he said 
 suddenly. " Let us talk awhile." 
 
 Lydia sat down upon a tall chair. She kicked 
 
THE PORTRAIT 129 
 
 her heels up and down, and her eyes danced with 
 nnerriment. 
 
 " My father always meant to acknowledge me," 
 she said, " but he died, and my lady has always 
 said that she would have me with her up in 
 London Town but that I could not be in the 
 same house with that brute, her husband ; though, 
 la ! I do not see that it could have been worse 
 than being as I am in the same house with this 
 brute, Mr. Chuckel." She broke off, and gazed at 
 Mr. Bettesworth with a pert and adoring expression. 
 " Chuckel," she said, " will work you a mischief." 
 
 " Child, child ! " Mr. Bettesworth uttered re- 
 monstratively. 
 
 " Why," Lydia continued, " he has been robbing 
 the estates this fifteen year, and now he is very 
 deep in debt ; and now, my worshipful uncle, that 
 you may not scrutineer his accounts, he will do a 
 murder upon your Worship if he can." 
 
 " Child," Mr. Bettesworth said, and he lifted 
 himself again into a position of more rigid dignity, 
 " if, as you say, your stepfather has been robbing 
 the estate, that will be detectable and he shall be 
 hanged. But what can such a man do against 
 such a man as I be ? " and by that he had again 
 rendered himself very formal and erect. 
 
 '• Why," Lydia said, with a little impish irrev- 
 erence, " your Worship may be a very great 
 man in the Shires and in London, but this is mid- 
 Kent, and this Chuckel is much in league with 
 smugglers and rough men. Beseech your Worship 
 be careful, for I would not so soon lose so kind 
 and so newly-found an uncle." 
 9 
 
I30 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth regarded her with a sort of 
 stiff indulgence. " Child," he said, " you do not 
 know your world. One word from a man in 
 my position against a man in his would crush 
 him as the foot of a cow will crush a frog in a 
 pond." 
 
 Lydia reflected for a moment. " Maybe your 
 Worship will protect yourself," she said ; and 
 suddenly she jumped up and seated herself on the 
 carved arm of his high chair. 
 
 " Oh, uncle," she said, " you will see to it that 
 I come to London Town now that my lady's 
 husband is dead. I will have a glass coach and 
 fine clothes, and footmen to run before and clear 
 the way, and all that fine ladies have in London 
 Town ! " 
 
 "Child," Mr. Bettesworth said, "no doubt all 
 that is fitting and proper shall be done for you, 
 and love-children to-day are often as well entreated 
 as others. So that if it be proven that you are 
 indeed the child of Jack Douglas " 
 
 " Oh, proven ! " she laughed. " Why, my mother 
 hath a mort of papers and settlements ; and I am 
 the spit of my lady, all the world and your 
 Worship hath a-proved that." 
 
 " Well, I will reflect upon it," he said, " and I 
 will talk of it with Lady Eshetsford when again I 
 see her." 
 
 She was seated on the arm of the chair, and 
 suddenly, leaning sideways, she put one arm round 
 his neck and rested her head on his peruke. 
 
 " Oh, uncle," she said, " take me to London 
 Town at once. To-morrow, — very soon. You are 
 
THE PORTRAIT 131 
 
 the most splendid, the most magnificent, the most 
 generous of men." 
 
 '* Well, I am generous as my duty bids me be," 
 he said. " I will think upon it. Your voice very 
 much resembles that of your aunt." And Mr. 
 Bettesworth fell into musing, which was rendered 
 the more soothing and the more comforting by the 
 presence of this creature whose frank mendacity 
 pleased his vanity, whose kinship to Lady Eshets- 
 ford pleased him since it suggested to him that 
 she was in his neighbourhood. He desired to 
 question Lydia as to Lady Eshetsford — to discover 
 in what chair and in what room she habitually sat, 
 to hear her praises said, and to discover what was 
 her favourite walk in the grounds. But he refrained 
 from asking these questions from a fear of revealing 
 his passion. He was so unused to badinage and 
 irreverence that it did not affect him disagreeably. 
 He felt himself so great a man that Lydia's frank- 
 ness of address and her fingerings of his person 
 arose, it seemed to him, from a mere charming 
 ignorance, from a want of knowledge of polite 
 usages. She was an illegitimate daughter of Lady 
 Eshetsford's brother, but in those days illegitimacy 
 meant no more than the want of acknowledgment ; 
 and if he chose to acknowledge, or if he chose to 
 persuade Lady Eshetsford to take her into her 
 house, there was no reason why he should not 
 regard her as a relation the more. And he 
 imagined the girl acting as kinswoman and 
 companion to his wife. For he had no doubt 
 that Lady Eshetsford would become his wife. 
 If he prosecuted — and he intended to do it — 
 
132 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 his search for the model to Celia with an extreme 
 tenacity, it was only with the intention of showing 
 that he had the power to win the wager, — the wager 
 itself might go. And with the warmth of the fire 
 shed over him, agreeable and soothing, with the 
 girl's head on his own, her feet swinging from 
 the arm of the chair, he began, like Major 
 Penruddock, to review the situation. His tenacity 
 in the search for Celia was only secondary, and 
 supplemented the tenacity of his intention to over- 
 come Lady Eshetsford. It was, as it were, a 
 struggle that he had entered into against her much 
 more than against his rivals in the wager. He 
 intended to find, carry off, imprison, and even to 
 extract a promise of marriage from the phantom 
 model. Then, having the wager won and within 
 his grasp, he would cast her from him by again 
 pressing his suit with Lady Eshetsford. This 
 would prove to her that he was capable of a 
 difficult achievement, and — and that was where 
 the obstinacy of his struggle with her came in 
 — he would by that disprove her accusation. . . . 
 She had said that when found the model for Celia 
 would be to him as desirable in every way as 
 herself 
 
 This he took to mean that his passion for her was 
 of so sudden a growth that it would transfer itself 
 to the first object that came in his way. He could 
 attach no other meaning to her words. But whilst 
 this was in a way a challenge, it might be thought 
 to afford a clue. It must mean that the model for 
 Celia was of equal, or almost equal, rank with them- 
 selves. For Mr. Bettesworth thought that his cousin 
 
THE PORTRAIT 133 
 
 would do him the credit not to imagine that he would 
 find attractive, or make a marriage with, anyone very- 
 much his inferior. It gave him a clue, but, at the 
 same time, it was hardly credible. It was hardly 
 credible that a lady of position would sit to a painter 
 for a set-piece. That she should sit for her portrait 
 would be usual and fashionable. But to sit in a 
 prescribed position holding a hat and a basket, to 
 go before the world as any " Celia " — that could 
 only be done in a moment of recklessness. Yet he 
 seemed to have her word for it that this model was 
 of their condition, and the assurance appeared almost 
 certainly to circumscribe his task. He had made 
 very certain that the picture had not been painted 
 in London. The woman who kept Mr. Hitchcock's 
 lodgings, not having Mrs. Hitchcock's reasons for 
 silence, and being devoured by a curiosity which 
 Mr. Hitchcock's secrecy had rendered only the more 
 furious, had amply assured him that in London Mr. 
 Hitchcock had painted the portraits of persons of 
 quality and the better class of City madams. These 
 he painted at the sitters' houses, bringing them home 
 to finish details of the costumes, and to paint 
 shoulders and hands from models whom he hired. 
 And the woman was more certain of this since, the 
 better to observe the movements of Mr. Hitchcock, 
 and his behaviour towards his models, she had 
 scratched a little hole in the plaster-work of Mr. 
 Hitchcock's garret, and was accustomed, daily, to 
 apply her eye to this . . . 
 
 " Child," Mr. Bettesworth said suddenly, " with 
 what families of quality does my lady visit ? " 
 
 Lydia ran off a string of names : the Knatchbulls, 
 
134 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 the Scotts, my Lord Wyndham, the Lord Mersham, 
 and many others. She added that my lady kept 
 a list of such people for her better remembering, 
 and she fetched the book from a drawer in the table 
 beyond the fireplace. This resourcefulness pleased 
 Mr. Bettesworth. He sat with the volume upon his • 
 knees and ran his fingers down the pages, inquiring 
 of Lydia as to each inscribed name, how many there 
 were in family and what daughters. He came thus 
 upon the names of five families of some quality 
 within a radius of six miles. He judged it unlikely 
 that any lady would have come from farther afield 
 upon so light an errand as to sit to a painter. The 
 rest of his plan of campaign consisted in the send- 
 ing of his servants to make inquiries amongst the 
 families of the farmers and their dependents. Mr. 
 Roland Bettesworth was to inquire of attorneys, 
 physicians, and the like. Mr. Williamson was to 
 address himself to the shopkeepers of the town. 
 He, himself, would call formally on those families 
 that had been marked down as being of eligible 
 birth and possessing daughters of due age. And 
 suddenly Lydia, who was looking towards the un- 
 covered windows, exclaimed — 
 
 " The man Chuckel is looking in upon us ! " 
 Against a translucent and liquid bar of light in 
 the sky Mr. Bettesworth could certainly observe the 
 blot of a dark figure, but the cockling window- 
 glass, lit with many candles from within, reflected, 
 dark and gleaming, a great many confusing undula- 
 tions of light. Without showing perturbation or 
 emotion of any sort, Mr. Bettesworth walked to the 
 tall window. He threw it up, and the cool air of 
 
THE PORTRAIT 135 
 
 the night pervaded the tall room. It was by then 
 a very dusky gloaming. He listened attentively, and 
 caught the overtones of voices. This puzzled and 
 slightly angered him, and he called out to know who 
 they were on the terrace. 
 
 " Egad, Squire," a voice answered him, " we are 
 Simon Harcourt and Major Penruddock." 
 
 "Will you be eavesdropping?" Mr. Bettesworth 
 asked, rather coldly. 
 
 " Why, to be sure we would," Major Penruddock 
 answered gruffly. " We are all set to make what 
 advantage we can, one from another. And, to be 
 sure, how could we tell but that the fair thing you 
 held in your arms " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I call you to mind 
 that the child was not in any arms of mine." 
 
 " Well, then," Major Penruddock said, " the fair 
 thing that held you in her arms. How could we 
 tell that she, herself, was not the very Celia ? " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth answered, " Sir, the child is my 
 
 wife's niece " and then, suddenly checking himself, 
 
 he brought out, with some confusion, " the niece of 
 Lady Eshetsford ! But," he added, with some dis- 
 pleasure, " I had not awaited eavesdropping from 
 men of quality." 
 
 " Sir," Major Penruddock said, " this is, as it were, 
 a war, a campaign. We send out our spies, our 
 vedettes. If your headquarters are not well guarded, 
 that is your affair." 
 
 " But Mr. Chuckel ? " Mr. Bettesworth asked. 
 " Where is Mr. Chuckel ? " 
 
 He could, by that time, make out in the darkening 
 twilight the forms of the two men, one of whom he 
 
136 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 could identify as Major Penruddock, the other of 
 whom must be the Hon. Simon Harcourt. There 
 was a moment's pause before either of them replied, 
 and then Mr. Harcourt said — 
 
 " The steward met us in the doorway. He would 
 have conducted us into the house but, having seen 
 within the window-panes as we appeared, we nimbly 
 ran to get a closer view into your apartment." 
 
 " Nevertheless," Mr. Bettesworth said at a hazard, 
 " I heard his voice talking with you even now." 
 
 " Why," Mr. Harcourt answered, " he was entreating 
 us to come with him and not to spy upon your 
 Worship." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth said " Hem ! " beneath his breath. 
 He set one hand upon the sill and, the window 
 being very tall and the sill very broad, he vaulted 
 suddenly out upon the terrace. In the darkness he 
 came close up to them. " Gentlemen," he said, " I 
 shall have the honour to conduct you into the house, 
 that your spying may be conducted with the more 
 dispatch and comfort. And, for myself, I am very 
 glad to think that these operations are to be under- 
 taken with ungloved hands." 
 
 The five gentlemen, including Mr. Roland and 
 Mr. Jack Williamson, passed an agreeable evening, 
 with supper and cards and wine. 
 
VI 
 
 MR. JACK WILLIAMSON was invaded by an 
 invincible restlessness. It is true that ten 
 minutes before — it being then half-past ten of the 
 following morning — he had received his marching 
 orders from Mr. Bettesworth. He was to visit the 
 wives of the town shopkeepers, and to discover from 
 them how many and which of their daughters had 
 sat as models for the painter of " Celia in her Arbour." 
 Mr. Jack Williamson, however, was the younger 
 brother of the Squire of Crawley, and this, he was 
 accustomed to say, had been the sign of what had 
 ruined him all through life. He meant that he was 
 deficient in initiative. 
 
 " If I'd ha' been a man of parts," he was ac- 
 customed to exclaim, cocking his hat over his right 
 eyebrow, and that more particularly when he was in 
 his cups, " I should ha' pushed my way into the 
 world before my brother ; but what must I do but 
 wait like a lamb and come second. There you 
 have me, Jack Williamson, and nobody's enemy but 
 his own." 
 
 He was invariably wavering except when he 
 had any business in hand, then he would have the 
 persistence of a blood-hound after something else. 
 Nothing would stop him. He was thirty-three. 
 
138 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 He had naturally red hair and blue eyes with a 
 cast in one of them, and upon occasions of state 
 he would wear a suit of rusty blue and chestnut full 
 wig. These and a suit of greasy grey, with grey 
 woollen stockings, and a small sword with a pinch- 
 beck hilt, were all that he possessed in the world. 
 From Mr. Bettesworth he had a pound by the week, 
 and his victuals and housing. He was as bold as 
 a lion when he had a leader, but if you found him 
 alone you might pull his nose three times before he 
 could make up his mind to draw. 
 
 Having had set to him the errand of catechising 
 the Ashford town madams, Mr. Williamson was 
 pervaded by an irresistible desire to do what he 
 called saluting the cherry lips of Lydia Chuckel. 
 He was aware that the neglect of the one task and 
 the performance of the other would alike bring 
 down on his head the cold anger of Mr. Bettesworth. 
 But he had no sooner been dismissed by his 
 employer, with the command to go instantly into 
 the town, than, finding himself in the great hall with 
 its echoing black-and-white marble tiles, its Ionic 
 stone columns, dim light, and antique busts on tall 
 marble plinths, he felt the irresistible impulse not to 
 turn to the left and so out of the front door. He 
 turned, instead, right-handed. 
 
 The hall, with its monuments, ran through the 
 whole breadth of the more modern portion of the 
 building. At the inner end were very tall white 
 doors with silver-gilt handles and finger-plates. 
 And these gave at once on to a very low, rather 
 musty-smelling corridor, with low, leaded windows, 
 black roof beams, and a floor of uneven red brick. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 139 
 
 Through the obscure windows could be seen a dove- 
 cote, a quantity of stable manure, and the hide and 
 offal of a steer that had been killed for their en- 
 tertainment that morning. These lay in the yard 
 formed by two wings of the house. Carried along 
 by the feeling that so inevitably brought him into 
 mischief and misfortunes, Mr. Williamson turned 
 towards the western wing. He pulled open a 
 rusty-hinged wicket-gate at the bottom of some 
 mouldering stairs. At the top of them he entered 
 the western wing, for he remembered to have heard 
 dimly from some one — he had been fuddled for 
 most of the preceding day — that Mr. Chuckel's 
 family inhabited some portion of the rear of the 
 house. The stairs descended as precipitately as 
 they had gone up. They were more worm-eaten ; 
 they smelt of decaying wood, and they went down 
 into an entire obscurity. The bottom step half 
 gave way beneath his tread, and saving himself he 
 fell against a door. It gave way, and he found 
 himself in a long, low kitchen that had a brick floor 
 all in waves like the sea, with sink-water standing 
 in a puddle near the bake-.oven, and suspended from 
 the rafter a quantity of gammons of bacon and of 
 dried pot-herbs. A very ancient woman in a dis- 
 coloured skirt, from which the rags depended, and 
 half naked as to the upper part of her person, her 
 thin hair no more than a grey wisp, her eyes bleared 
 and rheumy with the wood smoke, hung over a 
 crock that depended from an iron rack, and mumbled 
 in time to the bubbling of the water. 
 
 When Mr. Williamson inquired as to the where- 
 abouts of Miss Lydia, she turned her head over her 
 
140 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 shoulder, displayed a single tooth, and with an 
 expression of rage such as is seen upon the features 
 of a huge and disturbed ape, she uttered a single 
 harsh, rattling shriek. As if that had settled the 
 matter, and would protect her from further interrup- 
 tion, she returned her face to her broth and to her 
 mumbling. 
 
 " Stap my vitals, a wise woman I " Mr. Williamson 
 said. " If I had it I would cross her palm with gold." 
 
 He opened a door and came upon a cupboard, 
 empty save for cobwebs. He opened another, and 
 found it full of old horse furniture and of straw 
 that had been carried in by rats. A white-washed, 
 wooden archway, that promised to lead him nowhere, 
 let him round a dark angle into a low passage 
 where the sunlight fell. Through a half-open door 
 he perceived Lydia Chuckel beyond a littered table, 
 sewing at a pink-and-white garment. She was, 
 indeed, in her underskirt and bodice, sewing at 
 her sprigged silk, which the day before had galled 
 her under the armpits. Mr. Williamson, whose 
 tremulous nerves had been rendered more tremulous 
 by the sight of the old woman, rather fell against 
 her door, and found himself incapable of speech. 
 He determined to drink sherry instead of brandy 
 for the rest of the week. Lydia looked up at him 
 with some composure. 
 
 " I cannot come to my uncle," she said, " not for 
 this twenty minutes." 
 
 " Stap my vitals ! " Mr. Williamson panted, " I am 
 not the lackey in this errand. I am the principal. 
 I am not a note-bearer, I am a gentleman of high 
 degree." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 141 
 
 " Sure you have all the air," Lydia said. A 
 cobweb was across his right cheek, and he had 
 collected several more, to drape his battered hat, 
 from the low passages. 
 
 " I am a gentleman," he repeated truculently. 
 " I can feel the smart of Cupid's dart like another. 
 You have the neatest back in Christendom." 
 
 " Sure, your Worship saw only my back last 
 night," Lydia replied. 
 
 " Why, had I been in the mood," he answered, 
 " I had slain Mr. Bettesworth with one thrust of my 
 sword and worshipped you to the face," 
 
 " Well, you are in the mood now it seems," Lydia 
 said. 
 
 But the imaginative effort of his previous speech 
 had once more so taken away his breath that Mr. 
 Williamson could do no more than extend two 
 wavering arms, and exclaim huskily — 
 
 " One kiss 1 " 
 
 Her laugh started him into such an energy that, 
 refraining from an oath to spare his breath, he 
 started to run round the table. She was back over 
 her stool before he could take it in, and suddenly he 
 found his already dim eyes obscured by yards of 
 muslin. She had cast a discarded petticoat, which 
 composedly she seized from the littered table, over 
 his head ; she had carefully dropped her silken gown 
 on to her mother's sofa, to be out of harm's way, and 
 she was round the table and half out of the door 
 before he was well disengaged. He swore then 
 and started to follow her. He observed that she 
 took down a key from a nail in the lime wash 
 of the corridor wall ; she opened a door, and was 
 
142 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 in the stable-yard. He ran lamely in her 
 tracks. 
 
 Mr. Roland Bettesworth stood with his back to 
 his brother in one of the long windows of the great 
 saloon. He, too, had received his marching orders. 
 He was to visit the wives of the physicians, chirur- 
 geons, attorneys, and apothecaries of the town of 
 Ashford. But inasmuch as this class was com- 
 paratively small in the town, there was less haste for 
 his departure. The park spread out below his eyes : 
 three avenues radiating towards the horizon, the 
 central one filled with the ornamental water, and 
 ended by the spire of the church and the cockling 
 roofs of the town. 
 
 " Hang me, brother ! " he said, " but you have a 
 very comfortable way of life. You are always on 
 the top notch of the tally." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth said, " As how, brother ? " 
 
 " Why," Mr. Roland answered, " there you sit 
 always in this draughty, big room, with the big 
 windows every one can look in at. When you go 
 to write a letter you must sit out upon the lawn, as 
 stiff as a ramrod, to a table covered with damask. 
 And you are never in neglige." 
 
 " Why, brother," Mr. Bettesworth answered, " for 
 my part I would be ever en grande tcnnc, and sit as 
 much in public as may be." 
 
 " When there are here more than fourteen small 
 retiring rooms, anterooms, and book-closets ! Give 
 me a little room, a bottle of claret, and a wench ! " 
 
 " Thus you lost Maria ! " Mr. Bettesworth said 
 sardonically. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 143 
 
 " And so you would win Now, who is it, 
 
 brother, you would win ? Nor I have not lost 
 Maria so much by wenching, neither, as by lack of 
 a portion. Maria would take me if I had my ten 
 thousand to put against hers." 
 
 " Why, if you say that," Mr. Bettesworth answered, 
 " to her ; and you shall have your ten thousand 
 pounds upon proof of her consent." 
 
 Mr. Roland said, " Say you so, brother ? " And 
 again : " Say you even so ? " He continued to look 
 out of the window in a pensive silence. His situa- 
 tion very well puzzled him. He could not for the 
 life of him tell where he stood ; he could not openly 
 and bluffly ask his brother what were his intentions. 
 For he stood in an unholy fear of Mr. Bettesworth's 
 peculiar turn of mind. Mr. Bettesworth appeared 
 to him so entirely unreasonable in his resolutions, 
 unaccountable in his actions, and whimsical in his 
 methods of putting them into execution. That his 
 brother had been invaded by the tender passion he 
 considered likely, for Mr. Bettesworth would fall 
 into reveries, would sigh at times in a manner not 
 fitting to his full-dressed dignity, would suddenly 
 catch himself up and with some self-consciousness 
 would resume the matter in hand. And, thought 
 Mr. Roland, if a man so frigid and so watchful in 
 his actions could so permit himself to be overheard 
 and overlooked, this must be a sign of a very con- 
 siderable thirst for some petticoat. Now, if Mr. 
 Bettesworth should marry — for Mr. Roland could 
 not for one moment imagine that his brother would 
 succeed in his quest for the phantom Celia — if Mr. 
 Bettesworth should marry, what would become of 
 
144 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 himself? The promise of the ten thousand pounds 
 upon his marriage with Maria, if it aided him some- 
 what in his deliberations, did not aid him very much ; 
 for the ten thousand pounds were capitally desirable, 
 but Maria, if she were desirable, was by no means 
 an entire necessity to his peace of mind. He would 
 have her as well as any other who had ten thousand 
 pounds to her name. But he was by no means 
 certain that Maria would have him. Had she not 
 seemed to manifest a sudden passion for Mr. 
 Bettesworth himself? Had she not refused to 
 reveal to himself, Mr. Roland Bettesworth, the 
 identity of Celia's original ? So that, supposing 
 Maria refused him, would Mr. Bettesworth also 
 refuse him the ten thousand pounds ? Might he 
 not say Maria or none other? Might he not marry, 
 and turn his brother out of doors, penniless, to beg 
 his bread or trail a pike in Flanders ? Or, on the 
 other hand, might Mr. Bettesworth not himself be 
 enamoured of Maria? Might his offer of the ten 
 thousand pounds be not merely a cruel jest ? And 
 Mr. Roland said to himself that his brother was 
 coldly inhuman. He had a power too arbitrary, he 
 would end by coming a mad original, like his uncle 
 before him. He would become the laughing-stock 
 of counties, and the cause for jeers of whole cities. 
 What Mr. Bettesworth needed, in Mr. Roland's eyes, 
 was a prodigious downfall for his vanity, and to be 
 thoroughly fooled by some woman. But that did 
 not help Mr. Roland in his cogitation. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth was sitting in the chair by the 
 chimney-piece. He had upon his knee Lady 
 Eshetsford's book of addresses. He pretended to 
 
THE PORTRAIT 145 
 
 himself that he was studying his plan of campaign. 
 More actually he was taking pleasure in the sight of 
 his mistress's handwriting. 
 
 "Now," thought Mr. Roland, "if I aid him to 
 succeed in his quest, he may marry the original of 
 Celia and turn me adrift." If, on the other hand, 
 he hindered the search, and Mr. Bettesworth failed, 
 Mr. Roland imagined it exceedingly likely that his 
 brother, disgusted with his first essay to conquer the 
 Town, might very well retire, as his uncle had done, 
 to Winterbourne Longa, never to leave it again. 
 " And what sort of life would that be for me," Mr. 
 Roland thought ruefully, " amongst middens and 
 deserts ? " 
 
 He turned into the room to ask — 
 
 " Brother, you are prodigious eager to win the 
 wager. You imagine that this person mus:t be 
 within a close circuit of this town of Ashford. 
 Why, then, do you not take to yourself the town- 
 crier and dispatch him to the market-place and 
 streets, offering a great reward in money, or even 
 your hand and heart themselves, to this Celia if she 
 will manifest herself?" 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Bettesworth said, " inasmuch as I 
 am a man, with the brains and perceptions of other 
 men, this thought has presented itself to me also, 
 but I have rejected it. Or, to speak truly, I have 
 deferred it. For you will see, upon reflection, that it 
 should be the last in order of my proceedings. For 
 consider how high a value the offer of my hand 
 would appear to possess. Might there not arise 
 a hundred claimants ? How then should I sift 
 between them ? Either I must take them up to 
 
146 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Town to confront Mr. Hitchcock, or I must bring 
 Mr. Hitchcock down here to confront them ; and it is 
 very possible that Mr. Hitchcock might refuse me 
 this service. In any case, there will be a delay 
 resultant, so that this should be only a forlorn hope. 
 We have but three weeks remaining for the prosecu- 
 tion of our search. Now, my plan is to have resort 
 to your friend the bellman only if we have not 
 succeeded otherwise ; and many applicants should 
 overwhelm us, we may take all such as are willing 
 to come up to London with us, to be confronted by 
 Mr. Hitchcock." 
 
 " But, brother," Mr. Roland said, " may not Major 
 Penruddock or Mr. Harcourt come before you with 
 their plan of the bellman ? " 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Bettesworth answered, " it shall be 
 your province to keep your ears very well open for 
 any such attempt upon their part. And immediately 
 upon their doing it you shall run yourself to the 
 crier and bid him make my offer hard upon the 
 heels of theirs. And inasmuch as it shall be to 
 their profit to offer at the most a thousand or two 
 thousand of pounds ; and since my offer, as well as 
 my estate and person, are undoubtedly to be pre- 
 ferred to either of theirs, I do not think we need 
 much doubt the issue." 
 
 Mr. Roland turned again towards the window, 
 moving his hands in his breeches pockets and 
 whistling gently between his teeth. He was envy- 
 ing his brother's kingly complacency, and wondering 
 whether it would be prudent to ask if the promise of 
 ten thousand pounds attached itself to Maria alone, 
 or would include any other lady with a like dowry 
 
THE PORTRAIT 147 
 
 to her back. And suddenly he ejaculated " Ha ! " 
 threw up the window, and, as his brother had done 
 the night before, vaulted out on to the terrace. Mr. 
 Bettesworth, without more haste than he imagined 
 consorted with his dignity, walked across to the 
 window and looked out. His brother was running 
 down the steps. He crossed the lawn, plunged into 
 the alley beside the water, and disappeared amongst 
 the trees, Mr. Bettesworth returned to his chair. 
 He recommenced to peruse Lady Eshetsford's book 
 of addresses. It was full early to go a-visiting, and 
 he was composedly assured that since he was the 
 centre of this affair any participant in mysteries 
 must of necessity return to him and unravel. 
 Besides, he could not imagine that his brother could 
 have any affair of more importance in hand than 
 the pursuit of a random petticoat. Or, possibly, 
 Mr. Roland's horse might have been brought round 
 to the portico steps, and have been seen by him 
 to be running away through the trees. And Mr. 
 Bettesworth, having pressed Lady Eshetsford's hand- 
 writing to his lips, sat in a reverie. 
 
VII 
 
 MAJOR PENRUDDOCK and Mr. Harcourt 
 having, out of a proper spirit of courtesy 
 to their distinguished host, exceeded in his excellent 
 Burgundy the limits of sobriety, had been unable to 
 mount their horses on the preceding night, a very 
 considerable portion of which they had passed under 
 the dining-table ; Mr. Chuckel having considerately 
 loosened their neckcloths, and removed their finer 
 ruffles and laces that they might not suffer, in so 
 far as these ornaments were concerned, from one 
 another's spurs. Major Penruddock, indeed, with 
 the luck or the foresight of an old campaigner, had 
 slept with his head on the stomach of Mr. Jack 
 Williamson ; and having dreamed that he was at the 
 battle of Orulleghem, where the British had made 
 a forced and hurried retreat, he had kicked Mr. 
 Harcourt awake under the impression that he was 
 dealing with one of his subordinates. Mr. Harcourt 
 had in turn awakened Major Penruddock ; so that, 
 having crawled on their hands and knees from under 
 the obscurity of the long tablecloth, they found 
 themselves, towards dawn, in the long dining-room, 
 with the light just beginning to penetrate the 
 shutters along with the sound of birds' voices. The 
 
 light, indeed, was just sufficient to permit them to 
 
 148 
 
THE PORTRAIT 149 
 
 replenish their glasses from the many half-filled 
 bottles that, like a thin forest of pointed trees, 
 covered the table, and to fall asleep once more in 
 relatively comfortable arm-chairs. Mr. Bettesworth 
 had been led, and Mr. Roland Bettesworth carried, 
 to their beds, a fact which Major Penruddock 
 described as damned effeminacy before he fell asleep. 
 They awoke to find themselves alone in the room. 
 Mr. Williamson having been summoned to appear 
 before Mr. Bettesworth, and to receive his marching 
 orders, Mr. Chuckel had leisure to return to these 
 two gentlemen, to shake them, and to offer them 
 each a tankard of small beer and a piece of toast, 
 which was the Kentish fashion of obviating the 
 effects of an overnight's too great indulgence in 
 Kentish fire. With his pallid face and his engrossed 
 manner, Mr. Chuckel aided the languid gentlemen 
 to adjust their costumes. He suggested even that 
 a basin of cold water might be found mightily 
 refreshing by their Worships, but they damned him 
 and his ancestry and stood stretching themselves. 
 
 " Your Worships," Mr. Chuckel said, when he 
 thought that each of them was reasonably awake, 
 " have you so far demeaned yourselves as to 
 give any thought to my humble prayer and 
 proposal ? " 
 
 And it came into their dazed heads that the 
 evening before, on the blue twilight of the terrace, 
 just before Mr. Bettesworth had vaulted from the 
 window, Mr. Chuckel had been making suggestions 
 to them for the betraying of his temporary master. 
 
 " Oh, begone, dog ! " Major Penruddock said. 
 " What sort of a state is a gentleman in of a 
 
150 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 morning to consider of chicanery ? You must come 
 to him when he has a skinful of wine." 
 
 And Mr. Chuckel, with his deep silence and his 
 toes turned out, acknowledged the justice of the 
 remark by withdrawing from the room. 
 
 The morning sunlight streamed obliquely into the 
 windows, striking in the one case upon the bust in 
 black marble of Julius Csesar, and in the other upon 
 a small white marble dolphin that supported a naked 
 baby. Mr. Harcourt stared with his lack-lustre eyes 
 at the Major. 
 
 " Why, before God ! " he said, " we have not 
 consulted upon this swine's proposals." 
 
 Mr. Penruddock glared at Mr. Harcourt with a 
 sleepy ferocity. 
 
 " You are to blame," he said. " I am sure you 
 are to blame ; and you have extracted nothing from 
 this Bettesworth puppy concerning his plans." 
 
 " Major," Mr. Harcourt said, " if you had not 
 begun upon your plaguy long account of Dettingen 
 I might have had the opportunity of worming all his 
 secrets from Mr. Bettesworth." 
 
 The Major displayed a sudden and astonishing 
 placability. 
 
 " Why, to be sure," he said, " when I get upon 
 the subject of that glorious victory I am apt to 
 grow eloquent, and when we consider his glorious 
 Majesty's disposition of the horse upon the 
 wing " 
 
 " Major," Mr. Harcourt interrupted him, " with all 
 due respect for your captaining of our present 
 expedition, it appears to me that the time has come 
 for a consultation as to our present campaign rather 
 
THE PORTRAIT 151 
 
 than a disquisition upon tiiose, however glorious, that 
 have gone before," 
 
 " Why ! " Major Penruddock said, " I am to blame 
 in this, for it was the act of a foolish captain to have 
 left so serious a piece of reconnaissance in the hands 
 of one whom I very well knew to be an intoler- 
 able blabber and a wine-bibber. Therefore, very 
 cordially, I absolve you from your share in this 
 present failure." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt bowed formally to the Major, and 
 the conversational effort having exhausted each of 
 them, they refreshed their senses in a temporary 
 silence. 
 
 " As God's my life," Mr. Harcourt said, " I cannot 
 feel my feet. I will not ride a plaguy beast back 
 into the town." 
 
 " Mr. Harcourt," the Major said gravely, " you 
 are in the right of it. Let us walk a few paces in 
 the air to recover our composure." 
 
 Their hats were laid side by side upon a white 
 satin settee against the inner wall of the room, 
 nevertheless to find them was a matter of some 
 difficulty for these gentlemen. Nor did the open air 
 much restore their faculties. They wandered side 
 by side down the broad stone steps of the terrace ; 
 they were silent ; they were as if in deep reverie, 
 though from time to time one of them would deviate 
 with a slight lurch from the straight path. Thus it 
 appeared to them no more than a part of the 
 general dreamy hallucination — it appeared to them 
 in no wise out of the ordinary or surprising — when 
 a maiden, her dark, half-powdered hair hanging over 
 her shoulders, her petticoat very short, her bodice 
 
152 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 very low, ran past them at a slow pace, laughing, 
 and looking back over her shoulder, to dodge 
 sideways into the avenue of trees that bordered the 
 water path. Presently, with three steps of a run 
 and one of a wheezing halt, Mr. Jack Williamson 
 also passed them and vanished among the trees. 
 They continued their serious promenade, and, grow- 
 ing more vertiginous, neither ventured himself upon 
 the danger of conversation. 
 
 Nevertheless, a rudimentary curiosity led them 
 to follow generally in the direction that had 
 been taken by that nymph and that satyr. They 
 seemed to be in a poppied and agreeable world of 
 romance. The sun shone genteelly, the grass was 
 smooth, the fowls of the air uttered melodies, the 
 carp moved slowly upon the surface of the smooth 
 waters. 
 
 They approached more nearly to the kiosk at the 
 end of the reservoir ; they heard two voices ; they 
 perceived that a door was opened in the lichened 
 stone of the temple. They pushed it more ajar, 
 and huddling sideways, to enter simultaneously, 
 they impeded each other's entrance. Together they 
 receded. By contrast with the sunlight outside 
 this interior was dimmish. It was encumbered by 
 strange objects that stuck up, that leaned against 
 walls, that were dust-covered, that had musty and 
 unusual odours. They staggered together back from 
 the doorway, the eyes of both were round with 
 astonishment, the mouths of both were open. 
 Then — 
 
 " By God, Celia ! " Major Penruddock exclaimed, 
 and he was echoed with — 
 
THE PORTRAIT 153 
 
 " Celia, by God ! " from Mr. Harcourt. 
 
 Major Penruddock ceremoniously drew his sword, 
 and with a formal and rather prancing movement 
 stepped across the sill of the studio. The shock 
 of discovery, he thanked God, had very expeditiously 
 cleared his brain. He said — 
 
 " I claim, in having found Madam Celia, to have 
 gained my portion of the wager." 
 
 Mr. Williamson, perceiving a naked blade, had, 
 as a first impulse, the motion to draw ; but having 
 his sword out, he found some difficulty in dis- 
 covering words appropriate to the situation. Never- 
 theless, a sort of dim indignation forced from 
 him — 
 
 " God help me, wasn't it I who found her ? " 
 
 Lydia, with her hands behind her back, pulling 
 at the strings of her stomacher, threw out a paralys- 
 ing peal of gay laughter. 
 
 Mr. Williamson felt that he was a very ill-used 
 man. With halting steps and a strong disinclination 
 for running, he had pursued Miss Chuckel round a 
 stable-yard, through an overgrown herb garden, into 
 an untended maze of holly trees. He saw her white 
 garments through the spines of such a bush. She 
 was waiting, laughing, and undetermined as to 
 upon which side to brush past him, just outside 
 his asthmatic grasp. He was panting, and his 
 chest rustling, when suddenly she appeared to come 
 to a determination. She set off at a slow trot 
 towards a gap in the holly hedge, looking backwards 
 over her shoulder as a dog does to ensure that it is 
 being followed. 
 
154 1'HE PORTRAIT 
 
 Lydia Chuckel had indeed arrived at the resolu- 
 tion of her life — at the resolution that ultimately 
 turned her into the famous Mrs. Thynne about 
 twenty years later — the Mrs. Thynne of whose 
 following, enormous and composed of panting 
 gallants and beaux, Mr. Jack Williamson was so 
 exactly prophetic. It was mainly because, even in 
 the enclosed gardens, the air had in it a slight bite 
 for her uncovered shoulders and lightly clad limbs. 
 She thought, in fact, that it was too cold to be out 
 of doors without a dress, and Mr, Jack Williamson 
 could not obviously afford her sufficient running 
 exercise. Dark, hisouciante, not quite tall enough as 
 yet for what was then considered perfect symmetry, 
 Lydia Chuckel, with her charms and her moods, was 
 no more than a savage, with the gifts of a savage 
 and a savage's intuition. She had already realised 
 that to pass herself off as " Celia " would be to 
 ensure for herself a great many advantages. Where 
 Celia's dress was she knew very well, and her histrionic 
 instinct made her thirst to assume for a time the 
 pensive role of a gentle charmer beneath umbrageous 
 boughs, but she was very loath ; she had sufficient 
 of the savage's intuitive fear to avoid going direct 
 to Mr. Bettesworth and saying, " I am Celia," for 
 when the fraud — if it were a fraud — was discovered 
 this would mean that the immediate wrath of Mr. 
 Bettesworth would shower straight over her shoulders, 
 whereas if the discovery could be made by another 
 — and who better than Mr. Jack Williamson ? — if the 
 discovery of herself in the pink-and-white frock, with 
 the hair drooping upon the shoulders, the broad pink 
 ribbon strings and the little strawberry frail — if this 
 
THE PORTRAIT 155 
 
 discovery could be made, proclaimed, asseverated 
 and reasseverated by Mr. Williamson . . . she 
 would need neither to affirm nor to deny. She 
 could say that, La ! she didn't know. She could 
 feign an animated, a childish, a charming im- 
 becility, an attractive feminine ignorance of Mr. 
 Hitchcock's work. She could say that she had sat 
 to him so many times, and for the life of her she 
 couldn't remember whether she had sat for " Celia in 
 her Arbour." She had sat certainly for "Celia at her 
 Dressing-table," " Celia at her Mantua-maker's," at the 
 Gipsies' encampment, and at the attempted abduc- 
 tion. But for the rest . . . la ! she couldn't tell ! 
 By the time when she was unmasked — if she was to 
 be unmasked — she would be able to act this little 
 scene with the most absolute naturalness. She 
 tingled, indeed, to her finger-ends with the desire 
 to be given the opportunity to act this little scene. 
 She would be able to say that they had seen her, 
 that they had taken their own conclusion, that she 
 had made no claims. And by that time she hoped 
 to have established such a dominion over Mr. 
 Bettesworth's affections that . . . 
 
 She tripped slowly along, her shoulders shining, 
 her curls patting upon them like shaken clusters of 
 grapes. She ran slowly enough, not to make hope 
 die in the heart of Mr. Williamson, who panted 
 behind, and fast enough to keep well out of his hot 
 grasp. At her first starting from the house, she had 
 taken from the nail the key of Mr. Hitchcock's 
 pavilion, for she was accustomed to shut herself up 
 there amongst the deserted easels and dusty stuffs 
 to read her mother's novels by the hour, to rouge 
 
156 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 her cheeks and paint her eyes before the mirror in 
 which Mr. Hitchcock was accustomed to view the 
 canvas upon his easel, and to consume secret stores 
 of sweetmeats that she stole from her mother and 
 from Mrs. Hitchcock's open cupboards. 
 
 Slipping with perfect self-possession and a 
 tranquil mind by Mr. Harcourt and Major 
 Penruddock, she passed obliquely across them and 
 into the trees in order to afford them a more 
 favourable view of her person, and in the long line 
 of the tree-trunks she dropped to a walk in order to 
 permit them the more easily to follow her. This 
 was not so much because she intended that they 
 should identify her as Celia, but because she desired 
 to be pursued, to have her limbs admired and her 
 person coveted. It was this position of affairs, this 
 clear panorama, which Mr. Roland Bettesworth had 
 observed when, uttering his ejaculation, he had 
 vaulted through the window on to the flagstones of 
 the terrace. 
 
VIII 
 
 LYDIA increased her pace so as to reach the 
 kiosk a full twenty yards in front of Mr. 
 Williamson. She should, indeed, have made the 
 distance greater, since the lock was rusted and the 
 key turned with difficulty. But in delaying, in 
 order to attract the attentions of Major Penruddock 
 and Mr. Harcourt, she had lost more space than had 
 entered into her precise calculations. The garment 
 in which Celia had sat hung over an easel, and she 
 had it over her head and the stuff was obscuring her 
 view when already Mr. Williamson stumbled' over 
 the threshold. Thus he had her in his arms before 
 her face actually emerged from the rather dusty 
 material. She drew her head back, and then, 
 bringing it swiftly forward, her forehead smote hard 
 and like a battering-ram upon the poor gentleman's 
 jaw. He staggered back from her, holding his hand 
 to his lip and protesting, since most of the impetus 
 had been taken out of him by his long run, that this 
 was monstrous ill-usage. He had, indeed, in his 
 muzzy brain the idea that so considerable an 
 exertion had entitled him in all morality to some 
 sort of reward. But Lydia's head emerged from 
 above the pink-and-white, and her first words were — 
 " Beast, I am meat for your masters ! " 
 
158 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 She was very angry, but more angry at her own 
 slight miscalculation than at Mr. Williamson's desires, 
 which, in a sense, did him credit and were only 
 her due. 
 
 " Obscene hog ! " she continued. " You are like 
 a new puncheon when it sweats. You are like a 
 brandy anker that has been started on the beach." 
 
 She was thrusting her arms into her sleeves, and 
 with sinuous motions of her body was jerking her 
 dress into its places. And Mr. Williamson, 
 recognising a master mind, became at once once 
 more a servant. He was looking at her with his 
 mouth still open, awaiting instructions and advice 
 as to how they stood one to another, when Mr. 
 Harcourt and Major Penruddock wedged themselves 
 in the doorway. And the only actual satisfaction 
 came to him when, seeing Major Penruddock 
 re-enter with his sword drawn, he himself felt at 
 liberty to draw his own rather rusty and rather 
 notched blade. It had seen so much service against 
 night-watchmen, tailors' apprentices, and belated 
 citizens in the night streets of London, that he felt 
 it to be a trusted companion, a comforting factor in 
 a too bewildering situation. 
 
 " Sir," Major Penruddock said, " we claim the 
 person of this lady, and since you are outnumbered, 
 we being two to one," — and he looked out into the 
 sunlight, where Mr. Harcourt, at the sight of swords, 
 appeared rather wavering and indefinite, — " since we 
 are two to one, you may very honourably surrender." 
 
 Mr. Williamson looked appealingly at Lydia 
 Chuckel. She was still pulling tight the laces at 
 her back ; behind her head, on one corner of a 
 
THE PORTRAIT 159 
 
 square easel, hung the broad straw hat of Celia, the 
 pink ribbons depending almost to the floor ; at the 
 other corner was the strawberry frail, also with its 
 pink ribbons. Her dark hair, which had come 
 unsnooded, dropped on to one side down her cheek 
 and fell on to her shoulder. She gave, however, no 
 sign to Mr. Williamson, and, awaiting it, he stood 
 irresolute, his sword drooping. He mumbled as if 
 he were addressing himself, or as if he expected to 
 find Major Penruddock a fair-minded interlocutor, 
 that it seemed to him that he had been the first to 
 find the girl, and that she was, in consequence, his 
 property. 
 
 " Sir," Major Penruddock said, " the matter is 
 very simple, since, unless instanter you surrender 
 this lady into my charge, I will slit your throat from 
 ear to ear under the jaw-bone." 
 
 " Oh, if it is a matter of slitting ears " Mr. 
 
 Williamsom mumbled. 
 
 The threat brought illumination to his thoughts, 
 and he looked first at Major Penruddock's blade and 
 then at his own, which was much heavier. " I shall 
 split your sword into shilders at the first blow," he 
 mused. 
 
 " I shall withdraw it and run it through your 
 windpipe," Major Penruddock answered. " Besides," 
 — and he beckoned with his hand behind his 
 back to Mr. Harcourt, — " Mr. Harcourt, if he be not 
 man enough to meet you face to face, will woundily 
 pink your back whilst I engage you before." 
 
 " That will be met by setting my back against 
 the wall," Mr. Williamson said. 
 
 In a gingerly fashion Mr. Harcourt had followed 
 
i6o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 his leader's command, and had crept in at the door. 
 
 " Besides " Mr. Williamson said, and with a 
 
 sudden motion he seized a large sackcloth of gamboge 
 from the painter's table in his left hand, with a dex- 
 terity that, learnt as it was in tavern brawls, was un- 
 expected by the Major, whose education was solely 
 of the camps. With an outward swing of his hand 
 Mr. Williamson discharged the bag with a forcible 
 exactness upon Mr. Harcourt's protuberant waistcoat, 
 and the air was filled with yellow fumes, in the midst 
 of which Mr. Harcourt lay doubled up and groaning 
 in the corner. And quite quickly, in the midst of 
 an enormous crash of palettes, of palette-knives, of 
 colour bladders that hopped and rolled about the 
 Major's feet, Mr. Williamson had overset the painter's 
 table and stood behind it in between the four legs. 
 His hat and wig had fallen off, and a great deal 
 of the yellow dust decorated his right shoulder. 
 " Besides," he continued, panting, but with some 
 composure, " your reinforcements are disabled and 
 I am entrenched. You cannot strike my throat, for 
 the table will protect me ; whilst with my broad- 
 sword, by God ! I will split you to the chin if you 
 come within reach ! The lady is mine ! " 
 
 " In any case," Major Penruddock grumbled 
 between his teeth, " you shall not, nor she neither, 
 have any exit from this door, and I have won my 
 bet from Mr. Harcourt." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt had arisen in his corner. He was 
 powdered yellow from head to foot, but he gasped 
 gallantly — 
 
 *' No, by God ! that point must be brought before 
 a tribunal of the club." 
 
THE PORTRAIT i6i 
 
 " Why, by God ! " the Major growled, " unless you 
 concede it now you die upon the spot." 
 
 " Then," Mr. Williamson commented, from his 
 entrenchment behind the table, above which only 
 his blotched face and bleared eyes gazed with a 
 ferocious happiness, " whilst your sword is engaged 
 with your ally's guts, mine will be upon your 
 buttocks." 
 
 There was, at that moment, as if from behind Mr. 
 Williamson's back, the report as if of a demi-culverin. 
 Mr. Harcourt leapt into the air ; from the doorway 
 there came the voice of Mr. Roland Bettesworth. 
 
 " How ! " he said with a clear and composed 
 amazement ; and then, as his eye took in the dis- 
 orderly contents of the room, " Will you assassinate 
 our dear bully. Jack ? " 
 
 Because Mr. Roland Bettesworth had been given 
 the task of visiting outlying physicians, and farriers 
 who resided in lonely farms, he had, as a precaution, 
 already got himself a pair of pistols whose muzzles 
 were of formidable dimensions, and with one of these, 
 with great deliberation, he covered the waistcoat of 
 Major Penruddock. 
 
 " Major," he said, " I shall be pleased to oblige 
 you later in any convenient spot, but this place is 
 too confined ; and, for the moment, I am your master, 
 so that unless you lower your point, call a truce, and 
 explain this mele^, I swear by the body of Christ 
 there shall not be an inch of the wall behind you 
 left undecorated by your vitals ! " 
 
 The Major had learned already, by frequent 
 experience, how to surrender with the honours of war 
 gracefully before overwhelming force. He inserted 
 
1 62 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 the point of his sword in between two boards of the 
 floor, as if he had been putting it into a cork, to 
 show that he disarmed himself. 
 
 " Why," he said, and he moved his hand towards 
 the interior of the room, " since I have found this 
 lady " 
 
 " But I call you to witness," Mr. Harcourt ex- 
 plained, " that the Major was not the first to find 
 her " 
 
 " No, by God ! " Mr. Williamson grunted, " I 
 found her, and I have protected her from these 
 bloody ravishers like a true mohock." 
 
 He stood up, whereas before he had been crouch- 
 ing, and leant with his arms crossed as if over a 
 garden wall. 
 
 " They was two to one, but I ha' cullied 'em. I 
 ha' coloured 'em, too ; and if there be a reward, it 
 shall be mine who found Celia." 
 
 " But this lady," Major Penruddock began stoutly, 
 " should be given the option of with whom she will 
 go, for this is a Christian land, and we are no 
 Papishers to whom the ravishing of virgins is a daily 
 occupation. God save the King and the Protestant 
 succession ! " 
 
 " Your loyalty," Mr. Roland said in his clear 
 tones, " shall no doubt be of service to you ; but even 
 where and what is this lady ? " 
 
 Mr. Williamson sprang round on his heels. He 
 poured forth oaths as a volcano pours forth lava. 
 Mr. Harcourt brushed the ochre from his eyes. 
 Major Penruddock's jaw fell. 
 
 " Upon my soul ! " Mr. Roland said, " my brother's 
 wine is more potent than who would have thought. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 163 
 
 For here upon the morrow morning you have seen, 
 tousled, and fought for a Celia who is no more than 
 a vision of the grape." 
 
 He looked at them with his cool and ironic grin, 
 and waved his hand round the circular studio. 
 There were in it three easels of different shapes ; 
 against the wall a brown chest of oak, such as those 
 within which carpenters keep their tools ; the inverted 
 table with the muddle of rags, paint-bladders, and 
 knives; and the bare walls. Mr, Williamson kicked 
 violently on the inner side of this piece of furniture. 
 It toppled slowly over, and the four legs pointed 
 mournfully to the skylight. " By God ! " he said 
 mournfully, " she was a vision, and she has flown up 
 to heaven ! " 
 
 Their lethal weapons seemed to have been 
 rendered so innocuous by this shock that Mr. Roland 
 ventured himself in amongst them. 
 
 " Surely," he said, " she must have slipped out 
 through the door, yet I never saw her and I was 
 on the outside." 
 
 Mr. Harcourt gesticulated helplessly towards the 
 inner apex of the circular room. 
 
 " Down there 1 " he said. " Down there ! Did 
 you not hear the trap-door slam ? " 
 
 " I thought it was a culverin," Mr. Roland said. 
 He strode, grinning and unconcerned, across the 
 floor. He had no cause for vexation. " Why, 
 here is a ring ! " He bent, jerked, and there came 
 up a square piece of the flooring. 
 
 " You damned oaf ! " Major Penruddock said to 
 Mr. Harcourt. " Could you not have called out ? " 
 
 Mr. Harcourt muttered, " No, nor could you 
 
1 64 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 neither if you had such a meal as I," and he spat 
 yellow drops upon the floor. 
 
 Mr, Roland handed his pistol to Jack Williamson. 
 " Keep you the opening," he said. " I will descend." 
 
 There went down a comfortable flight of stone 
 steps into a long stone passage, through which there 
 fell from above, about half-way, a beam of broad 
 light barred by a grating. Mr. Roland Bettesworth 
 skimmed lightly along. He was laughing con- 
 sumedly to himself, for here was the underground 
 passage by which Sir Anthony Eshetsford of the 
 Revolution had been accustomed to visit his con- 
 cubines whilst he was supposed to be in the act of 
 prayer. Stone steps went up at the end, and a 
 door led him into a white-washed closet full of 
 crocks upon shelves, and decorated as to the ceiling 
 with hams and festoons of black puddings. He 
 pushed the door ajar and stood in the presence of 
 Mrs. Hitchcock, who was pouring green gooseberries 
 from an apron into a stoneware crock, and with her 
 two daughters who were sewing at their embroidery 
 tambours. 
 
 He pulled off his hat, and flourishing it, asked — 
 
 " Madam, has Mistress Celia passed this way ? " 
 
 Mrs. Hitchcock grinned all over her enormous 
 brown face. " Ye'll be coming down the chimney 
 like the boo-boys next," she said. " Such a coil 
 about a Celia ! Young gentleman, who are you ? " 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Roland said, " I am Mr. 
 Bettesworth's brother. I pray your pardon for 
 alarming you." 
 
 " Alarming ! " Mrs. Hitchcock laughed. " Says 
 Lydia to me : ' They will be a-following and 
 
THE PORTRAIT 165 
 
 a-hitching and a-fitching after me, but do ye, Mrs. 
 Hitchcock, not tell 'em nowt save it be Mr. 
 Bettesworth's man ; ' and hot-foot she is run to 
 Mr. Bettesvvorth, so 'ee may spare your capers and 
 eat a brandied cherry." 
 
 Mr. Roland reflected that, if Lydia Chuckel were 
 indeed running to his brother, the longer the Major 
 and Mr. Harcourt were entertained by Mr. Williamson 
 at the pistol's mouth the safer would be her transit. 
 He sat down, therefore, upon one of the four dark 
 chairs that slid upon the polished floor, and, deposit- 
 ing his hat on the ground by his side, took the 
 spare end of the elder daughter's silk from the table. 
 
 " Young lady," he said, " let us play at cat's- 
 cradle for kisses, for this town could afford no 
 felicity greater than the touching of your swansdown 
 fingers." 
 
 The two large girls giggled, and nudged each 
 other. 
 
 Major Penruddock and Mr. Harcourt waited an 
 interminable age before the muzzle of Mr. Williamson's 
 pistol. They discoursed upon their plight, and cursed 
 each other with freedom ; but at last, subterraneous 
 and awfully booming, there welled into the small 
 place from the passage the words — 
 
 " Release the prisoners, Jack, and come and 
 drink." 
 
 It was Mr. Roland calling from the buttery 
 door. 
 
 " Gentlemen, I have the honour," Mr. Williamson 
 said. " Put your tails between your legs and 
 skulk." 
 
1 66 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 The Major and Mr. Harcourt stepped out into 
 the sunlight. 
 
 " We may debate on Mr. Chuckel's plan," Mr. 
 Harcourt said ; " for, war having failed us, there 
 remains nothing but the art of the fox." 
 
IX 
 
 MR. BETTESWORTH sat for so long in his 
 chair that he outpassed the time suited for 
 his dignity, and entered a period of almost angry 
 impatience. Finally he pulled the long, pink satin 
 ribbon that set in motion the large bell specially 
 allotted to Mr. Chuckel. The steward, who had 
 indeed been listening at the keyhole, permitted a 
 respectable interval to elapse, and then, with an air 
 half-way between assurance and extreme nervous- 
 ness, presented himself in the tall doorway. 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " will you afford me 
 information as to any occurrences in the avenue ? " 
 
 A singular agitation overcame Mr. Chuckel. He 
 had expected no occurrences in the avenue ; he 
 knew of none. 
 
 "My brother," Mr. Bettesworth said, "half an 
 
 hour ago leapt suddenly through the window. Since 
 
 I cannot imagine that he was overtaken by the fate 
 
 of the Gadarene swine, I can only speculate that 
 
 something of an unusual character took place within 
 
 his purview." He continued, with a shade more of 
 
 disfavour in his voice : " It appears to me that, as 
 
 my lady's steward, it is your business either to know 
 
 of or to foresee any occurrences in her park." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel, with almost trembling lips, brought out 
 '67 
 
1 68 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 such phrases as that on account of Disloyalists, 
 Papists, and Jacobites those were very troublous 
 times ; that on account of smugglers and the law- 
 less, that was a troubled region. But for the life 
 of him he could not understand what, upon that 
 bright May morning, could have occurred to 
 disturb the serenity of the unruffled lawns, or to 
 cause a young gentleman suddenly to jump out of 
 a window. 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I see no reason 
 why smugglers, Papists, or Jacobites should be 
 introduced into this matter ; and the course to be 
 pursued, it appears to me, is that I should make 
 investigations which should have been your work." 
 He added curtly the three words, '* Attend on 
 me," and having found his hat and stick, he pro- 
 ceeded with a very great stiffness to walk across 
 the great room, through the large hall whose 
 black-and-white marble tiles echoed their footsteps, 
 and down the broad stone steps on to the circular 
 lawn. Mr. Bettesworth's frame of mind, as far as it 
 regarded the steward, was one of cruel, godlike con- 
 tempt ; he considered himself as Olympian Jove 
 showing disfavour to a worm. Mr. Chuckel, on the 
 other hand, followed Mr. Bettesworth in a state of 
 lamentable perturbation. He kept a distance of 
 perhaps four feet, and he bowed automatically as was 
 his habit, with his eyes well upon the golden galoons 
 and tassels of Mr. Bettesworth's blue back. The black 
 tie of Mr. Bettesworth's wig moved in the breeze, 
 the skirts of his coat were too stiffened with gold 
 lace to do more than just to move with the rhythm 
 of his stiff footsteps. And if, Mr. Chuckel thought, 
 
THE PORTRAIT 169 
 
 he could only hold out till nightfall ; if he could 
 only keep Mr. Bettesworth unsuspecting till that 
 night, when Mr. Bettesworth was to return, at the 
 Turk's Head, the visit of Major Penruddock and 
 the Hon. Simon Harcourt 1 He regarded Mr. 
 Bettesworth's back with a black hatred. Then, he 
 thought, he would have this abominably arrogant 
 man, at any rate for a time, in his own clutches. 
 He would have him disabled, fooled, humiliated, and 
 shut up for as long as it would take for a mes- 
 senger to reach the Secretary of State in London, 
 and to return. He would have his cargoes of French 
 silks and brandies run, sold in Canterbury, and the 
 money in his strong-box, all ready to make his 
 accounts square with all the rent-rolls, all the under- 
 wood tallies, and all the Copy-holders' services. Mr. 
 Bettesworth might rave, Mr. Bettesworth might 
 even cause my lady to dismiss him, but he 
 would have made his profits ; and, in the matter 
 of accounts, he would be safe from the hangman. 
 But what in the name of the devil this new coil 
 could be ; what could have caused that whelp, 
 Mr. Roland, to jump out of the window — that 
 passed him to imagine. Could Mr. Stareleigh have 
 precipitated matters in a panic ? — Could Major 
 Penruddock or Mr. Harcourt have acted suddenly 
 on his information ? Or could Mr. Bettesworth, 
 believing the information that Lydia undoubtedly 
 had given him the night before — could Mr. 
 Bettesworth be decoying him out in the park to 
 have him suddenly arrested, to demand his keys of 
 him, to shut him up, whilst with his cold and dia- 
 bolical persistence Mr. Bettesworth investigated his 
 
170 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 accounts ? Then, indeed, everything was lost ! And 
 suddenly he uttered a sort of choked wail — they 
 were continuing their slow promenade beside the 
 water, Mr. Bettesworth had his hat beneath his arm ; 
 he was walking with his hand a little below the head 
 of his long cane, so that it gave him the air of a gold- 
 stick in waiting. He stopped and pivoted round on 
 his heels — 
 
 " What is it you are pleased to perceive ? " he said 
 coldly. 
 
 Mr. Chuckel, whose face had turned from a rice- 
 white to an ashen grey, stuttered — 
 
 " Your Worship, nothing ! Nothing in the 
 world ! " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth coldly ignored these asseverations. 
 He swept his eye inexorably over the surface of the 
 water, over the trunks of the trees on the opposite 
 bank, over what was visible of the lawn, the terrace, 
 and the house front. His cold stare came back to 
 the trees on the right-hand side, and then, deliber- 
 ately, he said, " Ah ! " and stepped amongst the 
 trees of the avenue. His remorseless eyes had per- 
 ceived what Mr. Chuckel's had before him — the 
 extreme end of a gown whose wearer was other- 
 wise hidden from them. In advancing towards it 
 Mr. Bettesworth uttered no word at all, and Mr. 
 Chuckel followed him, clenching and unclenching 
 his hands in impotent fury and dismay. He could 
 understand nothing, and the first thing that came 
 into his muddled mind when they had a full sight 
 of Lydia was a question as to where in this world 
 his stepdaughter had procured this dress that he had 
 never seen upon her ? 
 
THE PORTRAIT 171 
 
 Lydia Chuckel had been seated in a genuine 
 pensiveness on the gnarled and spreading bole of 
 one of the small thorn-trees that grew in under the 
 oaks of the park, and, becoming aware of the ap- 
 proach of Mr. Bettesworth, she maintained the 
 attitude for the sake of an effect that delighted her. 
 The strawberry frail was at her feet, she held in her 
 hand the broad pink ribbons of the immense 
 garden-hat that lay in her lap. And all her 
 actress' soul bubbled with delight at the thought 
 that she must present exactly the appearance of 
 " Celia in her Arbour." 
 
 Having escaped from Mrs. Hitchcock's by the 
 front door, she had run as fast as she could to the 
 park gates, and then in a bee-line through the trees 
 towards the house — she had meant to throw herself 
 at Mr. Bettesworth's feet, and to implore protection 
 from the dangerous men who, with lethal weapons, 
 had sought to carry her off. She imagined that 
 she would thus present to Mr. Bettesworth, if not 
 the exact picture of " Celia in her Arbour," at least 
 a very convincing one of Celia in distress. But 
 even to her small sparrow's soul Mr. Bettesworth 
 seemed a personality somewhat minatory and alarm- 
 ing. She had treated him with playful disrespect, 
 but she had done it all the time with a concealed 
 trepidation. 
 
 Thus, having nearly run herself out of breath, 
 and aware that she might reach Mr. Bettesworth 
 more hot, flushed, and tousled than beauty in distress 
 altogether demanded, she had sat down upon this 
 mossy bole to let her complexion recover its normal 
 pink and white, and give herself time for reflection. 
 
172 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 It was all, after all, simply a matter of terms. She 
 was by then undoubtedly launched upon the career 
 of Celia. Mr, Williamson had sworn to it ; Major 
 Penruddock had confirmed the oaths by his actions ; 
 Mr, Harcourt had obviously not a doubt of the 
 matter. But she was not so certain of Mr. Bettes- 
 worth ; and of Mr. Roland she was very dubious 
 indeed, Mr, Bettesworth she knew to be im- 
 mensely rich. She knew, also, that he was pledged 
 by a very heavy wager — the London Mercury said 
 it was a wager of at least a hundred thousand 
 guineas — to carry off the original of Celia. So 
 that to Mr. Bettesworth, if he accepted her as Celia, 
 she would obviously be worth a good round sum. 
 But, on the other hand, Mr. Harcourt and Major 
 Penruddock presented also the appearance of men 
 of fashion and of wealth. One of them the journals 
 stated to be a man of very broad acres in the West. 
 The other was at least a member of His Majesty's 
 Privy Council, with enormous patronage at his dis- 
 posal, and means enough at least to permit him to 
 engage upon this enormous wager. 
 
 She sat upon her mossy bole and, pensive, with 
 a mournful and romantic air, with her eyelids 
 drooping, her mouth contemplative and tender, the 
 dark locks falling upon her shiny shoulders, with an 
 air of virginal reverie, she addressed herself to her 
 reflections. It seemed to her probable that Major 
 Penruddock and Mr. Harcourt together must be 
 worth at least as much as Mr. Bettesworth alone, 
 and in her small soul she felt a greater kinship to 
 either Mr. Harcourt or Major Penruddock than to 
 Mr. Bettesworth. If Mr. Bettesworth was the more 
 
THE PORTRAIT 173 
 
 shining figure, he was also much more serious. 
 She had hardly seen him smile — she could not 
 imagine that he could laugh or give way to any 
 intemperateness. Major Penruddock she had heard 
 to swear, and to give way to passion. Mr. Harcourt 
 had a pleasant ogle in the corner of his dark eyes. 
 And it occurred to her — she felt it rather than 
 thought it out — that to be the mistress of Mr. 
 Bettesworth would be an affair of intolerable dul- 
 ness. She wanted lights, riot, and abandonment ; 
 and at the thought of Mr. Bettesworth her flower- 
 like lips drooped, and her dark, uncandid eyes grew 
 shadowed. Besides, Mr. Harcourt and Major Pen- 
 ruddock were already convinced that she was the 
 original of Celia: Mr. Bettesworth remained to be 
 convinced. And he must be convinced in a manner 
 so overwhelming that she could reap an enormous 
 and immediate reward, so that when Mr. Bettes- 
 worth himself became intolerable, or discovered the 
 cheat — if it was a cheat — she could upon the 
 instant abandon him for a life more gay, and one in 
 which she could be her own mistress. An absolute 
 and overwhelming belief! . . . 
 
 And Mr. Bettesworth, approaching through the 
 trees that made, as it were, aisles, arches, and even 
 frames, around him and the small, changing inter- 
 stices of bright landscape, exclaimed suddenly the 
 one word " Celia 1 " whilst at the same moment, 
 behind his back, Mr. Chuckel cried out : " By 
 Heaven, Lydia ! " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth imagined that in a flash he 
 understood the perfidy of Mr. Chuckel — all the 
 
174 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 stutterings, the perturbation, and the reluctance to 
 come out of the house. The mutterings about 
 Papists, smugglers, Jacobites, and the lawless, had 
 been merely false suggestions to throw him off the 
 track. Chuckel, it came to him convincingly, had 
 sold the secret to his rivals. His brother, when 
 he had leapt through the window, must have seen 
 Celia on the way to some rendezvous to which 
 Mr. Chuckel, using his brutal authority, must have 
 coerced his stepdaughter. 
 
 " Believe me," he said to Lydia, " you have nothing 
 to fear from this man Chuckel or any other man." 
 
 The words threw Mr. Chuckel into an extra- 
 ordinary state of agitation. He imagined that 
 without doubt Mr. Bettesworth had his men waiting 
 amongst the trees to arrest him. There could be 
 no other construction to be put on it. 
 
 And suddenly, with a hissing expiration of the 
 breath, he flung his hat violently upon the turf, and 
 dashing from behind Mr. Bettesworth's back he ran 
 away into the open, across the broad stretches of 
 sunlight towards the park gate. It appeared to 
 Mr. Bettesworth that Mr. Chuckel must be running 
 to warn his confederates. In his habitual caution, 
 however, he did not set to work to question his 
 new-found Celia. He had gazed so often and so 
 searchingly upon the faceless sketch for the picture 
 that he could have no doubt that this indeed was 
 the Celia he sought. There was the very dress 
 itself, of a lilac white shade, worked with little 
 sprigs of pink silk isolated and in lines. The throat 
 was bare, the broad collar falling right away from 
 the aperture to well beyond the shoulders in a 
 
THE PORTRAIT 175 
 
 drooping line that suggested at once freshness and 
 modesty. The very folds of the skirt had been 
 preserved in the ridges and monticules, since the 
 stuff had been starched and ironed into the precise 
 radiations that Mr. Hitchcock needed. The little 
 basket was there at Celia's feet, of a straw-work so 
 delicate and minute that it resembled the fineness 
 of a cream-jug ; the broad hat, slung from her bare 
 arm by great pink ribbons, resembled in the straight 
 flow of its lines a great, pale palm-leaf; and the 
 left arm, to which the hat hung, crossed her bosom 
 and her heart, the left depending so that the small, 
 plump hand rested half hidden in a fold of the 
 stiff dress. And looking at her face he perceived 
 that it would exactly fill the outline of the space 
 that had been left white and blank upon his canvas. 
 
 It filled up a void ; it afforded him an intense 
 satisfaction for his curiosity and an irresistible con- 
 viction. He removed his hat from beneath his arm, 
 and, extending it to some six inches in a lateral 
 direction from his right hip, exclaimed — 
 
 " Madam, I have the honour to salute Celia in an 
 Arbour." He glanced up at the thorn-tree upon 
 whose bole she was resting. If it had not spread 
 above her so brown and so umbrageous as the foliage 
 that Mr. Hitchcock had given to his picture, he was 
 nevertheless well content. For he was aware that 
 painters must beautify natural objects, and that such 
 trees as you shall see in paintings are neither upon 
 the earth nor in the seas. But shadow fell across 
 her, which was of itself enough to complete the 
 resemblance ; though behind her, inartistically, nature 
 had spread a sward of green all blazing with sua- 
 
176 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 light, across which there stepped slowly a herd of 
 pale deer, their coats seeming to focus and to 
 reflect the light ; and in lieu of the broad ray 
 that Mr. Hitchcock had sent to illumine his 
 sitter's features and form, a single beam filtered 
 through the thorn-leaves and played, shivering 
 tenuously, upon the bright filaments of her dark 
 hair, upon her bare shoulder, and to be reflected 
 upwards upon the brown ovals of her left cheek. 
 
 " La ! Mr. Bettesworth," she said, " how can you 
 be so certain that I am Celia ? To be sure, I do 
 not know it my own self." 
 
 "But!" Mr. Bettesworth said, "do you not know 
 what cloths you have sat for ? " 
 
 Her face expressed a guileless and charming 
 stupidity. 
 
 " And how should I ? " she said. " Here sit I, 
 and there standeth he, peaking and squinting at 
 my face over his glasses and through 'em, and then 
 with an underlook. And 'a painteth and 'a hath un's 
 paintings framed, always its back to me, so how 
 should I know if I be Celia or not Celia, for I have 
 never seen his pieces ? But I go to him through a 
 tunnel that stretcheth from the pot-room to the 
 temple, and I sit monstrous still, nor may I so much 
 as gawp nor yawn be the fit never so strong. And 
 old Mr. Hitchcock is for all the world like a badger 
 or a hedgehog at the bottom of a burrow, and it is 
 all my life is worth to speak to him. So he will 
 growl and spit, but when he comes out again he will 
 stick comfits in my mouth and buss me, and be for 
 all the world like old Tom the plough-horse when 
 he is turned into the cloverfield." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 177 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth placed his hat that was so 
 loaded with gold lace upon the gold lace that 
 covered his heart. He inclined himself in a formal 
 manner, and said, with a carefully built up reverence 
 of tone — 
 
 " Madam, I have to beg of you that you will 
 accept, firstly, my escort up to London ; then hospi- 
 tality ; thirdly, my invitation to dine with the Right 
 Honourable the Society of the Dilettanti ; and 
 fourthly, my hand in marriage." 
 
 The large straw hat dropped to the ground, the 
 virginal mouth fell wide apart, the left hand clenched 
 itself suddenly over the heart, 
 
 " God help me ! " she exclaimed, " you will make 
 a fine lady of me ! Shall I have little patches cut 
 like a coach and four horses, with the coachman's 
 whip and four horses on my right cheek ? " 
 
 The multitudinous prospect, and this realization 
 of incredible ambitions in tiny matters, overwhelmed 
 her for a moment. She started to her feet, her 
 hands half stretched out as if in invocation ; her 
 mouth still fell open. " But after all, why not ? " she 
 suddenly resumed. '* Am I not livelier and comelier 
 than any washed-out City madam ? I do not need 
 your dyes and your cosmetics for my cheeks, nor 
 your eye-brights nor your lip salves. And there is 
 a hundred thousand or more pounds to gain by it. 
 And I thought you must affect me from the first ! " 
 And suddenly she cast herself upon him, her hands 
 clasping upon the tie of his wig, from which the 
 powder disengaged itself and filtered in a little cloud 
 into the sunlight. 
 
 " Oh, my benefactor ! " she exclaimed. " Will I 
 
178 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 marry you ? Why, I would marry ten of you and 
 eight more for luck ! " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth, moving his head stiffly back, 
 attempted to disengage himself, and to explain that 
 the offer of marriage should be accompanied by a 
 forfeit if he failed to perform the undertaking ; but 
 she clung to him so that for the moment he could 
 not get his breath. The dark face of the Signora 
 Poppaea, her blinking, ironic, and amused expression, 
 came before his eyes. Once more he regretted 
 that he had forgotten her prescription. He wished m 
 he had counted forty before he had spoken ; he 
 wished he had more exactly rounded off his speech 
 
 I 
 
PART III 
 
 I 
 
 MR. BETTESWORTH displayed upon his 
 features no marked triumph or elation, 
 when, to eat supper with Major Penruddock and 
 Mr. Harcourt, he entered the inn-yard of the Turk's 
 Head. But the yard, in the falling dusk, appeared 
 to be unusually filled with men who were not horse- 
 men ; a pike gleamed in the lantern-light beneath 
 one gallery, and a couple of musket-barrels beneath 
 another. From a certain subdued buzz that went 
 up upon his arriving, Mr. Bettesworth imagined 
 that the town had heard of his wager, as of his 
 success, and was applauding his victorious entry. 
 But the noise was hushed with whispers, and he 
 rode through a silence to the inn-door. He had 
 dressed himself with more than usual care, so that 
 the light, falling upon him from within, revealed him 
 beneath his riding-cloak, which was cast back upon 
 one shoulder, as a scintillation of gold lace, of purple 
 velvet, of white ruffles ; and, beneath his hat, his hair 
 was powdered till it was a snowy white. Behind 
 him Mr. Roland was very gay in scarlet and gold ; 
 and even Mr. Williamson shone in a riding-suit of 
 blue and silver, which Mr. Bettesworth had presented 
 
i8o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 to him from his own wardrobe in satisfaction at his 
 discovery and defence of Celia. The host bowed 
 more double than ever before him ; the servants 
 crowded into the dim, flagged hall to peer over each 
 other's shoulders at his erect and engrossed figure. 
 He observed that when his eyes lit upon them the 
 faces of the wenches expressed as much fear as 
 admiration. One of them, standing in the shadow 
 of a fat cook, gave a little scream, which she stifled 
 at once with the corner of her apron. 
 
 Gratified by these sights and sounds, Mr. 
 Bettesworth entered a small room at the end of 
 the passage. He wore an air of modest satisfaction, 
 which he had carefully studied before his glass for 
 some three-quarters of an hour before setting out 
 upon his expedition. His blond features were com- 
 posed and serene ; his lips were even pressed to- 
 gether, as if he came to announce news that was grave 
 rather than triumphant. With an equal gravity 
 Major Penruddock greeted them. Mr. Harcourt, on 
 the other hand, whilst bowing, averted his glance. 
 The cloth was laid and the candles lighted, but as 
 yet no meats were upon the board. They stood 
 and conversed as to the weather, as to the incon- 
 venience of town dress for riding in the country, as 
 to how the Major and Mr. Harcourt felt after last 
 night's wine. And Mr, Bettesworth, whilst lament- 
 ing that a too great press of business had prevented 
 his waiting upon them before they had taken their de- 
 parture, very earnestly pressed upon them the praises 
 of a pill invented by a Doctor Johns of Salisbury, 
 which was sovereign for dispelling the humours of the 
 morning after a night spent with the juice of the grape. 
 
THE PORTRAIT i8l 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth had very seriously enjoined upon 
 Mr. Williamson that he should keep his mouth shut 
 and display no undue elation. His intention was, 
 when the cloth should be removed, and the time for 
 toasting arrived, to give them that of Celia herself. 
 Then he would display to them her consent in 
 writing to go with him to Town, to accept his 
 hospitality, to be present at a dinner of the 
 Dilettante Society, and, finally, to take his hand in 
 marriage. This letter he had had to write with his 
 own hand, for Lydia could do no more than make the 
 merest of pothooks, with her tongue following round 
 her lips the motions of her pen. 
 
 But once in the company of his equals, Mr. 
 Williamson's obedience dissolved. He was unable 
 to resist grinning at Major Penruddock, making a 
 hideous grimace at Mr. Harcourt's averted features, 
 and winking with contortions of his whole face at 
 Mr. Roland, who stood with him behind his brother. 
 And it was evident to Mr. Bettesworth that the 
 contest of the morning had left a certain stiffness 
 between all these gentlemen. Only Mr. Roland, 
 who, with his gallant inso?{ciance, was disengaging a 
 strand of his coat lace from the hilt of his sword, 
 seemed entirely at his ease. 
 
 But then, Mr. Bettesworth reflected, that was not 
 difficult, since it was Mr. Roland who had held his 
 horse-pistol to the Major's stomach, a remembrance 
 that might well make both the Major and Mr. 
 Harcourt experience unpleasant emotions. He im- 
 agined that these would disappear before the first 
 taste of venison and the first bottle of Burgundy. 
 His quick ear caught, too, the sound of many and 
 
1 82 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 heavy footsteps on the flags outside the door. There 
 came an occasional thump as of a heavy body or 
 a metal-bound staff. Mr. Bettesworth interpreted 
 these signs as meaning that the two gentlemen, 
 acknowledging their failure, had ordered unusual 
 preparations to be made for his entertainment. 
 They were acknowledging defeat in a spirit of 
 generosity, and he was to be saluted as a conquering 
 hero. This filled him with satisfaction, and the more 
 so in that he would be able to announce to them 
 that by not carrying out his marriage with Lydia 
 Chuckel, he would be forfeiting the reward for his 
 wager and retaining only the glory of success. And 
 he began suddenly to wonder how Lady Eshetsford 
 could have assured him that he would find the 
 original of Celia in every wit as desirable as herself 
 He could give Lady Eshetsford credit^ for a critical 
 taste ; he must now believe her to be as modest as 
 she was noble. For if Lydia were, indeed, as she 
 might be called, a small replica of her aunt by blood 
 — if her eyes, her lips, her chin, her cheeks, her hair 
 were, indeed, exactly her aunt's, she was a small 
 piece, she had quick little motions, and none of the 
 pigeon-like parade and grace of Lady Eshetsford's 
 grand manner. She used her firm, white teeth upon 
 sweetmeats like a little ape or a grinning negro boy. 
 And Mr. Bettesworth, having settled in his mind 
 that when this matter of the wager was at rest he 
 would send Lydia down to Winterbourne Longa to 
 be at the instruction of the Signora Poppaea — having 
 settled this, Mr. Bettesworth fell into a sudden 
 reverie upon the charms of Lady Eshetsford. He 
 stood in a silence unconventional but impressive. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 183 
 
 In the small room the candles burnt motionless, and 
 with long flames, above the tablecloth. The noises 
 from without increased, so that there appeared to be 
 an army of cooks ready to do their duties. Major 
 Penruddock gazed over his shoulder as if with an 
 angry hint to Mr. Harcourt ; and Mr. Harcourt, his 
 face very pale, avoided the Major's eye. 
 
 And suddenly Mr. Jack Williamson burst out 
 with a horse-laugh — 
 
 " I will get me a suit of canary yellow. I am 
 of the same complexion as Mr. Harcourt, and this 
 colour, as I saw this morning, admirably becomes 
 him." 
 
 At this reference to the encounter of the morn- 
 ing Mr. Bettesworth scowled upon his retainer. It 
 appeared to him that this must cause at least an 
 instant challenge between all the four gentlemen. 
 And suddenly the Major, tired of frowning and 
 blinking at his ally, said roundly — 
 
 " Mr. Harcourt, I think you have a message to 
 communicate to Mr. Bettesworth." 
 
 " But, surely," Mr. Bettesworth said, almost 
 cordially, for he felt at peace with his kind, 
 " business will wait till after supper ? " 
 
 " We shall eat," Major Penruddock said grimly, 
 " with the better appetite if this is first dispatched." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth replied that he was at Mr. 
 Harcourt's service. 
 
 He walked stiffly to the door, Mr. Harcourt 
 waiting upon him with a mien in which pallor and 
 efirontery were equally mingled. 
 
 Major Penruddock opened the door very smartly, 
 and smartly closed it behind them. For the 
 
1 84 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 moment there was a dead silence. The Major 
 stood with his back to the door, his arms crossed 
 akimbo. And suddenly there went up a huge 
 outcry. It was compounded of cries, oaths, 
 shuffling of footsteps, and the shrieks of women. 
 It shook the candles in their sockets ; it reverberated 
 through the whole small room ; it swelled to 
 enormous proportions ; it took the aspect of multi- 
 voiced cheers in the hundred echoes of the stone- 
 flagged hall. And then, slowly, it died down ; it 
 receded ; it became a sustained buzz, rising now and 
 again, and again falling to a level. 
 
 " Gentlemen," Major Penruddock said to his 
 guests, " God be thanked, the country is saved, and 
 the town of Ashford may sleep in its beds to-night. 
 The Jacobite Duke of Berwick is taken ! " 
 
II 
 
 WHEN the door closed behind him, the first 
 thing that assailed Mr. Bettesworth was, 
 in an almost impenetrable darkness, the stench of 
 humanity. And then hands that seemed to be all 
 thumbs, and to be of enormous weight, were laid 
 upon him. This outrage affected him as if it were 
 something incredible. An enormous and bewilder- 
 ing noise went up ; there was hardly any light in 
 a passage packed with human beings like cattle in 
 a stack-yard, and all crying out. His hands were 
 pinned to his side by the bodies of other men, his 
 questions were inaudible in their outcry. It was 
 all so utterly beyond belief, and beyond imagination, 
 that his senses seemed to refuse their functions. 
 Accustomed to command, he was in the grip of a 
 force whose very nature was unknown to him. 
 Accustomed to think at his leisure, he had suddenly 
 nothing to think of He was used to being solitary 
 in large rooms, to thinking himself godlike and 
 set apart from the common herd ; he found himself 
 suddenly in the dark, pressed up against the vilest 
 creatures, who offended his every sense. His 
 stomach turned within him. He saw, as if in 
 silhouettes, the cock of hats, the gleam of pikes, 
 and the faces of men inspired by panic and by 
 
 i8s 
 
1 86 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 execration. He was jammed against a wall so 
 that his spine seemed to be compressed ; a hard 
 object smote him upon the mouth, and his lips and 
 chin suddenly grew wet ; the ribbon being torn 
 from his queue, locks of hair fell across his face. 
 He became blind ; his wrists were pinioned by 
 hands behind his back ; he was pushed forward, 
 hurtling against other men's bodies ; and the in- 
 tolerable babel of voices swelled and swelled. 
 
 He had, at last, a sensation of standing solitary. 
 Gyves, he realized, were clapped upon his wrists. 
 Then his wig was pulled back from over his eyes. 
 He was breathless, he was enraged beyond measure ; 
 an enormous ball seemed to gather in his throat, so 
 that he choked. 
 
 Mr. Justice Stareleigh and Mr. Justice Wyndham 
 Bestwell stood with their heads together in the 
 extreme inner corner of the Ordinary Room. Mr. 
 Bestwell was so tiny and so jaundiced in the face 
 that he resembled a yellow dwarf. Mr. Stareleigh, 
 who kept harriers, had a face the colour of his 
 copper horn ; his wig was knotted and tasselled like 
 a coachman's, his stomach resembled a bag-pudding, 
 and his legs were so bandy that a full foot and 
 a half of wainscoting showed between his knees, 
 Mr. Bestwell kept the gilt knob of his cane per- 
 petually beside his mouth. He talked incessantly 
 in a high, outraged voice, leaning his mouth to Mr. 
 Stareleigh's ear and gesticulating with his left hand, 
 so that he resembled a soldier in the smoke of 
 battle. Mr. Bettesworth was stood in the centre 
 of the long room, between four fat and agitated 
 
THE PORTRAIT 187 
 
 men holding enormous pikes and unlit horn-lanterns. 
 His hands were manacled behind his back, his blue 
 coat was torn from neck to knee, his gold lace 
 hung in shreds all over the garment ; his sword 
 was gone, his scabbard broken, his wig lay at his 
 feet ; and from his broken lip there ran down a 
 stream of black blood that dripped upon his neck- 
 ruffles and his waistcoat. And upon him all the 
 faces in the room were turned with looks of panic, 
 of execration, of savage joy, and of leering cruelty. 
 The crowd at the bottom of the room was kept in 
 place by one of the Ordinary tables. There were 
 men of all shapes and sizes — smugglers lacking 
 eyes, farmers with wigs of horsehair, drawers in 
 their shirt-sleeves, an apothecary with a black patch 
 over his eye, a farrier who had brought his sledge- 
 hammer with which to protect himself; and shaking 
 Ben, a palsied wretch dressed in fragments of fishing- 
 net knotted together with string, one of the shoulders 
 entirely bare and begrimed with cow-dung, his face 
 expressing a leering joy, his right hand brandishing 
 a marrow-bone which, in the confusion, he had 
 stolen from the kitchen. 
 
 All these faces expressed a panic-stricken joy at 
 the arrest of a public enemy, and a malignant regret 
 that he had been taken out of their hands, so that 
 they could not tear him limb from limb. 
 
 And so stunned was Mr. Bettesworth by the 
 blows that he had received, and so unthinkable to 
 him was his position, that he found no word at all 
 to say. It was as if, for the moment, he had been 
 visited by a stroke of apoplexy. He did not even 
 understand that he had been arrested on a warrant 
 
1 88 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 from the two Justices. It would have been im- 
 possible for him to imagine that he could be 
 arrested ; rather his mind ran dimly on riots and 
 seditious tumults. He imagined himself in the 
 hands of bandits, — possibly of a band of smugglers 
 who would hold him for ransom, — and he tried to 
 look round to see how Mr. Harcourt had fared. 
 But at his first inclination to make a movement his 
 guards seized his shoulders with airs of extraordinary 
 emotion, and shouted in his ears ferocious threats. 
 He remembered, indeed, Lydia Chuckel's warnings 
 of the night before ; he remembered, too, Mr. 
 Chuckel's perturbation of the morning ; and at that 
 moment Mr. Chuckel himself, pushing out from the 
 crowd of wretches at the bottom of the room, crossed 
 his line of vision, and, hatless and perspiring, ran 
 to the top of the room and began to whisper to the 
 ill-assorted pair who were continuing their excited 
 but smothered colloquy. Mr. Bettesworth imagined 
 that these two must be the head of the gang of 
 smugglers, and that Mr. Harcourt must have heard 
 them ; but almost immediately afterwards — his clothes 
 a little ruffled by the pressure of the crowd, but 
 grinning obliquely — Mr. Harcourt passed him also, 
 and when he was level with Mr. Bettesworth he 
 held his handkerchief to his face to hide a spasm 
 of laughter. Then slowly something of a revela- 
 tion came to Mr. Bettesworth's mind, and having 
 now an object upon which it could fittingly vent 
 itself, rage arose in Mr. Bettesworth's heart. He 
 remembered that the night before Mr. Harcourt 
 and the Major, to his own knowledge, had been in 
 secret conclave with Chuckel upon the terrace. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 189 
 
 Mr. Harcourt, too, with his constrained manner, had 
 accompanied him out of the room, and had done it 
 at the bidding of Major Penruddock, It appeared 
 to him absolutely plain that these two, in conjunction 
 with the defaulting steward, had taken advantage 
 of the lawlessness and inaccessibility of that place 
 to call upon the smugglers and desperadoes to 
 remove him, at any rate for a time. The like had 
 been done even in his own Wiltshire, and in the 
 town of Wilton, not so many years ago, and Kent 
 was renowned for its lawlessness. It had its colonies 
 of Jesuits ; it had many refugees from the wrath 
 of the law in other countries ; its smugglers were 
 notorious, its highwaymen the most formidable that 
 England produced ; it was infested with French and 
 Jacobite spies. Thus it appeared to him to be 
 certain that he had been captured by one or the 
 other kind of outlaw. 
 
 A measure of silence fell upon the room when 
 it was observed that Mr. Justice Bestwell was 
 leaving the little group of four to approach the 
 prisoner. He walked in a singular and prancing 
 manner, kicking up his lean knees and swaying his 
 cane for all the world like a drum-major. His 
 coat-skirts and his hat were alike of enormous 
 dimensions, so that he had the air of being pressed 
 down into the floor. He pressed the porcelain 
 apple that formed the head of his cane to the side 
 of his jaw, and asked, in an extraordinary, perturbed 
 manner, if Mr. Bettesworth had anything to say. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth had some difficulty in speaking, 
 for his lip was very much contused, and his breath 
 came with such rage through his nostrils that he 
 
ipo THE PORTRAIT 
 
 was in danger of bursting a blood-vessel. It was 
 the sight of Mr. Harcourt's laughter that had so 
 unnerved him. And that he might not render 
 himself ridiculous by imprecations and by threats 
 that, for the moment, he had no power to put into 
 execution, he remained stark silent and reflected. 
 This silence threw the little Justice into an intoler- 
 able panic. 
 
 "If you will not speak," he said, "we must put 
 you to the torture." He turned his head over his 
 shoulder and squeaked — 
 
 " He ! brother Stareleigh, must he not be put to 
 the torture ? " 
 
 Mr. Stareleigh's bandy knees trembled so much 
 that he, too, had a difficulty in finding utterance. 
 
 Mr. Harcourt said, with his humorous, per- 
 suasive manner — 
 
 " Oh, come ! This is no trial. This is only a 
 capture. You have no right to make him plead if 
 he will not. Let him be taken away and clapped 
 up, and there an end of it." 
 
 Having counted forty, Mr. Bettesworth spoke — 
 
 " Sir," he said to Mr. Bestwell, who quivered at 
 the sound of his voice, " upon this outrage against 
 my person I have no comments to make, but when 
 I am rescued Mr. Harcourt will know what he has 
 to await. As for yourself, I will say this : that 
 I will use every penny that I possess to get you 
 hanged. And if the Government cannot come at 
 you, I will raise men to do it, even though it should 
 be five troops of horse." 
 
 These words, which were plainly audible through- 
 out the room, raised anew a tremendous clamour ; 
 
THE PORTRAIT 191 
 
 so that every fist and every weapon in the room 
 were brandished towards Mr. Bettesworth. For 
 every man there imagined that Mr. Bettesworth 
 was the Duke of Berwick, and that he had near by, 
 in the marshes, a huge troop of Jacobite soldiers 
 who were marching upon the town to set flames to 
 it, to murder all the townsmen, and to establish 
 there the headquarters of King James. And in the 
 midst of this tumult Mr. Bettesworth was dragged 
 away by his guards, pushed through a door into 
 the inn-garden, and so dragged up the street ; 
 whilst a crowd, pouring out of the other entrance, 
 fell over each other's legs in a desperate rush 
 towards the Round House, where Mr. Bettesworth 
 was to be interned. The two Justices of the Peace 
 remained with Mr. Chuckel and Mr. Harcourt, 
 solitary in the large room. 
 
 " Sirs," Mr. Harcourt said, with his simper, " by 
 this night's work you shall have made yourselves 
 the most famous men in England. King George, 
 himself, will shower blessings upon you ; and no 
 doubt you shall be made Knights of the Shire, or 
 Peers of the Realm, and have all the honours that 
 you can stomach." 
 
 " But," said Mr. Bestwell, " what if the Duke be 
 indeed rescued and we all hanged ? It will be many 
 hours before the military arm can come down from 
 Canterbury to strike at the rebels in the marshes. 
 Nay, who knows even where these rebels are ? For 
 some say that they are here and some say they are 
 there." 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Harcourt said, " I think you may very 
 quietly rest in your beds. For upon the news that 
 
192 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 this Duke of Berwick is taken all his forces will 
 vanish in the thin air as if they had never been." 
 
 " Nevertheless," said Mr. Justice Stareleigh, 
 " would it not be a very wise precaution if we should 
 guard well the spot where we He, and call all the able- 
 bodied men that we may to surround our house ? " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Harcourt said, with polite inattention, 
 *' it would be excellent ! Excellent ! " 
 
 He had perceived that Mr. Roland Bettesworth 
 and Mr. Williamson had entered the far end of the 
 room. He looked with apprehension at Mr, 
 Chuckel, at the Justices, and at the open door that 
 led into the dark garden. But immediately behind 
 the two gentlemen came Major Penruddock. Mr. 
 Williamson was laughing consumedly, so that he 
 rolled in his stride. 
 
 " So," he said, " you have taken Old Ramrod for 
 the Duke of Berwick ! Egad, here's a pretty, 
 humorous, drunken pickle ! " 
 
 Mr. Roland, however, was more serious, inasmuch 
 as he expected that when he again found his 
 brother, Mr. Bettesworth would be overcome by a 
 cold and impetuous rage which might well be visited 
 upon all around him. 
 
 " Sirs," he said to the magistrates, " I do not 
 know what you have done to Mr. Bettesworth, but 
 you have been right royally fooled, and it is like to 
 cost you a pretty penny." 
 
 Mr. Bestwell and Mr. Stareleigh both attempted 
 to speak at once ; the one in high tones, the other in 
 very low. They fell silent ; and then Mr. Chuckel, 
 his hard blue eyes seeming to shower contempt and 
 triumph upon Mr. Roland's face, said unctuously — 
 
THE PORTRAIT 193 
 
 " Sir, since this gentleman, Mr. Harcourt, of His 
 Majesty's Private Council, has sworn that this traitor 
 is the Duke of Berwick, and since we have her lady- 
 ship's letter to prove it " 
 
 " Gadzooks ! " Mr. Roland exclaimed, " Her 
 ladyship's letter ! " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Chuckel said, " her ladyship's letter 
 said that this man was her cousin, and sure all 
 the world knows that her ladyship is a cousin to 
 the Duke of Berwick " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Justice Bestwell shrieked suddenly, 
 " I do not know who you may be, or by what 
 authority you question us, but look upon the in- 
 side of this wig." 
 
 Mr. Bestwell had, indeed, rescued Mr. Bettes- 
 worth's wig from the floor ; for being an economical 
 man, and having, moveover, a taste for very large 
 garments, this covering, whose locks would have 
 fallen almost to his buttocks, appeared to him of 
 supreme desirability. He held out the red satin 
 lining towards Mr. Roland. Upon this, that it 
 might be more easily identified when taken to the 
 barber's, there had been embroidered a capital letter 
 " B " in gleaming gold, and above it Mr. Bettesworth's 
 crest, which was a wild-cat rampant. 
 
 "Sir," Mr. Bestwell said, "what should this 
 letter and this device mean but that its owner is the 
 Duke of Berwick ? For Berwick is in Scotland, and 
 the Duke claims to be a royal Duke of Scotland ; 
 and this lion rampant, what is it but the Arms of 
 Scotland, as all may see it upon the Arms of our 
 beloved Lord the King ever since the blessed day 
 of union between the kingdoms ? " 
 13 
 
194 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Roland said, " the beast is a wild-cat." 
 
 " And what," Mr. Bestwell asked triumphantly, 
 " is a lion but a wild-cat ? " 
 
 " And remember," Mr. Chuckel continued, " again, 
 the phrasing of her ladyship's letter where her lady- 
 ship commends me upon my head to look after the 
 comfort of this man as if he were the King or his 
 brother. What is this but to say that this is a 
 Royal personage, come to prepare the way for the 
 king from over the water ? " 
 
 " And," Mr. Bestwell said, " he did utter the most 
 horrible threats of having me hanged ; of raising 
 troops of horse ; of devastating the country. Who 
 could do such things but a usurper ? " 
 
 " Why," Mr. Roland said, " this is a very good 
 hearing, for since this gentleman is so near akin to 
 me, I, also, must be demonstrably a royal Duke, for 
 you have proved it very satisfactorily upon my 
 brother." 
 
 Mr. Justice Stareleigh's mind moved with some 
 slowness if with considerable ferocity. He had by 
 now arrived at the comprehension of the fact that 
 these were strangers. 
 
 " Who be you to question the Justices ? " he 
 rumbled, with a deep fury, from his stomach. " Kiss 
 my wig ! I will show you what Justices be in Kent. 
 I will commit you. I will commit you all, I am 
 in a very committing frame of mind, and will have 
 Habeas-corpus burnt by the town-crier ; " and his 
 voice died away into a rumble of obscene ejacula- 
 tions. 
 
 " Brother Stareleigh," Mr. Justice Bestwell ex- 
 claimed, " I think that is a very fine idea. I think 
 
THE PORTRAIT 195 
 
 you have the right of it. How can we tell that 
 these are not officers of the Duke's force now in the 
 marshes ? " 
 
 Mr. Chuckel commented suddenly — 
 
 " Your Worships, that I would have had all along. 
 For these gentlemen came also with the Duke from 
 I know not where, descending, as it appeared, from 
 heaven, but coming, of a truth, from the King of 
 France's dominions." 
 
 " Ha ! " Mr. Justice Bestwell exclaimed, " let us 
 arrest them at once. Let us send for paper and 
 pens and sign the warrants." 
 
 " My friends," Mr. Roland exclaimed, " we are 
 but two to five, but I think we can let a little blood 
 before you make much pen play." 
 
 Mr. Chuckel slipped slowly behind the fat Justice. 
 Mr. Harcourt, anew, cast glances towards the garden 
 door. Mr. Justice Stareleigh had not yet perceived 
 the tenor of Mr, Roland's remarks, but with a scream 
 of incredulous rage Mr. Bestwell suddenly drew his 
 sword, which was a great deal too large for him. 
 
 " Ho ! " he exclaimed, " shall we be threatened ? 
 Ho ! we are swordsmen, too ! Ho ! I am a match 
 for six Papists and French frogs ! " And at each 
 ejaculation he leapt into the air, feinted towards 
 Mr. Roland's face, and uttered a shrill and ape-like 
 cry of rage. 
 
 " Gentlemen ! gentlemen," Major Penruddock ex- 
 claimed. " I beg your Worships to listen to me." 
 He stepped with a business-like calm between Mr. 
 Roland and the little Justice, whose sword he 
 brushed aside with his hand. " This is a sad 
 misunderstanding," he said. " It is lamentable to 
 
196 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 see gentlemen fall out about follies," He looked 
 gravely upon Mr. Bestwell and gravely upon Mr. 
 Roland. He took a pinch of snuff whilst he 
 marshalled his words, and reflected upon his course 
 of action. To the one he said — 
 
 " Mr. Roland Bettesworth will understand that 
 the inevitable is the inevitable. To pass a night or 
 a day, or many days or a week, in the smelling 
 Round House here, whilst his credentials are being 
 inquired into, would help very little any cause he 
 may have at heart. Yet Mr. Roland must perceive 
 that to utter threats against Justices, or so to act as to 
 cast suspicion upon themselves, must ensure such an 
 incarceration, which I, for my part, am very willing 
 to spare him." He turned with an equal gravity 
 upon the two magistrates, and tapped the lid of his 
 snuff-box. " Your Worships," he said, " I will 
 answer for it with my life that neither of these 
 gentlemen is a friend to the Duke of Berwick or 
 mixed in his vile schemes. Mr. Harcourt will 
 swear to the same thing, and Mr. Harcourt is of 
 His Gracious Majesty's Privy Council." He waved 
 his hat in a manner of introduction. " Your 
 Worships," he said, " this is Mr. Roland Bettesworth ; 
 this, Mr. Jack Williamson ; each of them well known 
 to the Town, in their several ways, as the joviallest 
 and most loyal subject His Majesty has. Each 
 was long since known in the ties of friendship and 
 acquaintance by Mr. Harcourt and myself, and if 
 you have arrested your prisoner upon our evidence, 
 by just such evidence, formally as we render it, you 
 should release these gentlemen. Nay, more, in as 
 far as you may, you should render them amends as 
 
THE PORTRAIT 197 
 
 right-down jovial fellows to be kissed, slobbered 
 over, and feasted." 
 
 Major Penruddock desired no more, now that 
 Mr. Bettesworth was put out of the way, than a 
 couple of hours of freedom of action. His work 
 appeared to him, to all intents and purposes, to be 
 at an end, and he had at once a certain good-nature 
 that made him very undesirous of seeing gentlemen 
 of his own rank mishandled, or of swearing falsely 
 when it would not profit him. Moreover, the arrest 
 of Mr. Bettesworth, though it might cause some stir, 
 would yet be condoned as being all a portion of the 
 wager. But needlessly to cause the incarceration 
 of two gentlemen who profited in no way by the 
 wager itself, would be very much to extend the 
 affair. The Courts of Law mighrt well take cog- 
 nizance of it, and Mr. Penruddock had no desire to 
 employ the greater portion or more of the winnings, 
 which he seemed to feel already in his pockets, upon 
 the payment of an immense fine. He cast about in 
 his mind, whilst he was taking another pinch of 
 snuff, for an expedient that should detain the two 
 gentlemen for the two hours that he needed. He 
 wanted them out of the way for that space of time ; 
 but he observed he had almost converted the 
 Justices to setting them instantly free. 
 
 Mr. Chuckel, however, was by no means so 
 resigned to their liberation. He dreaded, in the 
 first place, their wrath ; and, in the second, that their 
 efforts might ensure the speedy liberation of Mr. 
 Bettesworth. He ventured, therefore, to urge upon 
 the Justices the fact that, for all Major Penruddock 
 and Mr. Harcourt might be well acquainted with 
 
198 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 these two gentlemen, nevertheless these were very 
 treacherous times, and many great lords and others 
 in London had been attainted for plotting with 
 High Churchmen and the king over the water. It 
 was indubitable that these gentlemen had come in 
 the company of the prisoner. What possible errand, 
 then, could have brought them to Ashford if they 
 were not of the Jacobite party ? 
 
 Major Penruddock suddenly bent his brows upon 
 Mr. Chuckel. 
 
 " Sirrah," he growled tumultuously, " have I lived 
 to see the day when a servant, an attorney's clerk, 
 a marrier of kept mistresses, shall set his words up 
 against mine ? " He turned to the Justices. " Your 
 Worships," he said, *' this gentleman's errand, and he 
 will bear me out, is a secret one, but not so very 
 secret neither as that I may not breathe it before 
 discreet ears. We are both upon the same errand. 
 We are after a wench, and that is all there is to it. 
 What the Duke of Berwick's errand to this town 
 was, we know. And since his errand was to this 
 town, and the wench dwells in this town, — nay, more, 
 in the very house of Mr. Chuckel himself, — what more 
 natural than that these gentlemen should become 
 travelling companions, nay, very guests — as Mr. 
 Harcourt and I have been — of the Duke himself." 
 
 At this point Mr. Stareleigh said — 
 
 " They came from nowhere with the Duke of 
 Berwick ! " — not so much because he was offering 
 any objection to the Major's speech, as because it 
 was only at that juncture that this information had 
 reached his brain. 
 
 " Sirs," Major Penruddock said, " I will stake my 
 
THE PORTRAIT 199 
 
 head — nay, I will risk my commission in His 
 Majesty's Army ; and so, I am sure, will Mr. 
 Harcourt risk his upon the King's Privy Council — 
 that these gentlemen have no concurrence in the 
 designs of the Duke of Berwick." 
 
 He frowned at Mr. Harcourt, and that gentleman, 
 although he had no particular inkling of the Major's 
 designs, added obediently, in languid tones — 
 
 *' Why, stap my vitals ! if my old friends Roland 
 Bettesworth and Jack Williamson are concerned in 
 any treason with the Duke of Berwick, I will eat my 
 iron fireback, dogs and all." 
 
 " Nay, more," Major Penruddock said ; " Mr. 
 Harcourt, as a Privy Councillor, is of higher judicial 
 post and authority than any one else in this room, 
 and he will command you by virtue of that position 
 of authority to let these two gentlemen go in peace, 
 and he will hold you absolved from any danger or 
 responsibility that this may cause you." 
 
 " Why, so I will," Mr. Harcourt said. " I will 
 absolve you from all responsibility, and I order you 
 now to set these gentlemen at once at liberty." 
 
 " Why, not so very precipitately, friend Harcourt," 
 the Major said ; " let us make the more absolutely 
 certain of this. Let these gentleman give their 
 parole of honour to remain here three hours — or say 
 till midnight — whilst we make search for the Duke's 
 papers at the Manor-house, and then let them go 
 free." 
 
 He grinned swiftly at Mr. Roland Bettesworth, 
 who exclaimed beneath his breath, " Oh, the rogue ! " 
 and then asked aloud, " But if we will not give this 
 parole?" 
 
200 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Why, sirs," the Major said lightly, " this is the 
 merest formality. But if you will not do it, then it 
 is to be feared that you must to prison until we 
 have completed our search of the Manor-house. 
 For to object to this formality would seem to be, 
 of itself, a prima facie of guilt, though I am very 
 sure that you have no guilt at all. But we have 
 our duties to perform." 
 
 " Why, they are fine, jovial fellows," Mr, Justice 
 Stareleigh exclaimed at this point. " I am sure I 
 never met none so fine, not even when I was in 
 London Town seven years agone ! " 
 
 " Well, you have us trapped ! " Mr. Roland said 
 to the Major. " But what will you do in the three 
 hours of our parole ? " 
 
 " Why," the Major said, with a pleasant smile, " it 
 falls upon me, as a man of arms, to search Ashford 
 Manor-house and, under commission from the hand 
 of Mr. Harcourt, to take from there any person that 
 we may suspect to be treasonably inclined, to be 
 produced and examined in the City of London." 
 
 " By God ! he will take Celia," Mr. Williamson 
 exclaimed, " and all our labours are lost ! " 
 
 " Mr. Williamson," the Major said gravely, " until 
 the troops come from Canterbury, which they shall 
 not do before to-morrow at noon, or I am no judge 
 of troops, I am the military officer of highest 
 command here, and, acting with the warrant of Mr. 
 Harcourt, I will take who I will and when and how." 
 
 " Why, the game is up, bully boy," Mr. Williamson 
 said. " There are a hundred armed men in the inn 
 at this moment." 
 
 " But, Major," Mr. Bestwell interrupted, " what 
 
THE PORTRAIT 201 
 
 dispositions will you make for our safety ? For to 
 your own knowledge there are twenty thousand 
 Jacobites in arms upon the marsh. And we, as 
 Justices, by the eminence of our position, shall be 
 the first whom these blind brutes will attack." 
 
 " Why, it is very true," Major Penruddock said, 
 " that you will be in some danger if they should 
 make a move, though this I hardly expect, inas- 
 much as their leader is clapped up in jail. But the 
 disposition of the land is this : you, Mr. Bestwell, 
 live upon the north-east of the town, and you, Mr. 
 Stareleigh, upon the north-west. I should therefore 
 counsel you to divide such men as you have, — which 
 I understand to be the number of a hundred in 
 arms, — to divide them into two bodies, and to set 
 out for your homes, retaining them for your pro- 
 tection. And for my part, if I perceive any 
 movements during my reconnaissances I will send 
 messengers to you to say that the Jacobites are 
 afoot and that you may flee to the hills. But stay 
 here till midnight with these two gentlemen ; eat 
 the supper that has been prepared for ourselves, 
 crack with them as many bottles of wine as you will, 
 and be merry. And at midnight I will come again 
 and give you news of how all fares to the south-east 
 of the town." 
 
 " Why, I could crack a bottle of wine," Mr. 
 Justice Stareleigh said. " I could crack many 
 bottles of wine. I am very much in the mind for 
 wine and company." 
 
 " But," Mr. Bestwell said, " supposing these 
 Jacobites should march round you and come in 
 upon us while you are gone ? " 
 
202 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Sir," the Major answered, " I have had so much 
 practice of war in the Low Countries that I am a 
 past-master of reconnoitring ; I can so throw out 
 vedettes, scouts, skirmishers, night-posts, and dark 
 horsemen, that I am very certain no Jacobite shall 
 get past me. Nay, you may eat and drink and 
 sleep as sound as if no Jacobite were in Kent — and 
 this were all a dream of them." 
 
Ill 
 
 MR. BETTESWORTH was in a circular, blind, 
 stone cell that was some thirty feet across. 
 The floor was ankle deep in black and stinking straw. 
 A lantern hung from the green and slimy wall, and 
 gave out an odour of rancid oil, and the light was so 
 yellow and dim that it hardly pierced to the end of 
 the cell that faced the iron-studded door. There were 
 no windows, the stone arches of the roof contained 
 no aperture, and the stench of the apartment was 
 so terrible that, upon being thrown into it, Mr. 
 Bettesworth was violently sick. Past his convulsed 
 ears there went a perpetual sound of stertorous 
 breathing, at intervals a whining like the whimpering 
 of a small monkey, and at other intervals words were 
 moaned that resolved themselves into the phrase : 
 " Oh, accursed generation ! " And as, gradually, Mr. 
 Bettesworth's senses reasserted themselves, he per- 
 ceived shapes so hideous that he imagined himself 
 to be in hell. He was still near the door, and at the 
 farther end, upon the straw, was the shape of a young 
 woman half naked, her bare back covered with grime 
 from the floor and with clots of blood. Her head 
 was upon the lap of another, whose matted, grey 
 hair fell across a face begrimed with tears and 
 ancient dirt. Her hands were like claws. They 
 
204 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 groped from time to time at her scalp, and she sent 
 out a feeble whimpering. 
 
 Against the wall, all in black, with his arms 
 crossed and his legs thrust into the straw before him, 
 stood the figure of a man. The lantern-light shone 
 on his dry, long, and twisted features ; his broad- 
 rimmed hat was pulled down upon his eyes, that 
 glittered and stared straight before him. 
 
 " What place is this ? " Mr. Bettesworth asked 
 hoarsely. 
 
 The man groaned, the elder woman whimpered, 
 but the stertorous breathing of the younger ceased for 
 a moment. 
 
 " Have faith," the man groaned hollowly ; 
 " miserable sinner, wretched criminal, find conversion 
 now. Glory ! Glory ! " 
 
 " In the name of God, what place is this ? " Mr. 
 Bettesworth asked again, 
 
 " This is England — a Christian land," the 
 Methodist said with a deep irony. 
 
 " But, sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " is it possible 
 that they should incarcerate so many ? " 
 
 For his mind ran upon the fact that this was 
 some smugglers' cavern, and that he and the others 
 were being held for ransom somewhere in the bowels 
 of the earth. 
 
 The Methodist's eyes glinted round upon the 
 occupants of the confined space. 
 
 " Friend," he said, but with a bitter contempt, 
 " do you call this so many when we are but four ? 
 God help me, we are but a very small consignment, 
 and this place is at a very low ebb. For it is usual 
 to have ten or twelve wretches in this hole ; and if 
 
THE PORTRAIT 205 
 
 you will go up and down the length and breadth of 
 England, you will find thousands of such — nay, tens 
 of thousands and hundreds." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth gazed at him with bewilderment 
 and horror. The prostitute began to breathe again, 
 and the rattling sound of her breath rolled round 
 the moulded stones. 
 
 " A's time has come," the other woman whim- 
 pered, " A's time has come, and I hev' naught but 
 took sticks from Squire's hedge." 
 
 " I do not understand," Mr. Bettesworth said, 
 almost pitifully. " These are all dark sayings." 
 
 " Friend," the Methodist said, " who are you, that 
 you should not understand ; or where do you dwell, 
 that these should be dark sayings to you ? For I 
 tell you that this is England, a Christian land that is 
 like ripe fruit, of a great outward beauty and ruddi- 
 ness, but all rotten within. Yes, within all stinketh ; 
 and again I ask you, who are you that do not under- 
 stand, and that find these sayings dark ? For here, 
 but that the fair seemliness of the surface is neither 
 visible nor in evidence, you have an epitome of all 
 this land. In this harlot, with the death-rattle in her 
 throat, having been beaten at the cart-tail and lying 
 in filth, you have personified the carnal lusts of all 
 the land, which, in spite of all premonitions, persist 
 unto death itself amidst foul stenches and filthy 
 garbage, unto eternal torture. And in this other 
 woman you see those who go scratching upon this 
 teeming earth for the bare portion of a beggar, and 
 to raise a roof of rushes over their heads. Until at 
 the last gasp, with their sides caved in and their 
 bodies naked, you find them thus bewildered in the 
 
2o6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 doings of this world. For upon the one hand, by 
 adherence to virtue, they starve and rot in the straw, 
 and are clapped up for the taking of a few sticks 
 from the hedges of the great ones of this world. 
 And upon the other hand, if they should forsake 
 virtue and toil, and by the sale of their bodies, or 
 the bowing to temporary lusts, they procure the 
 wherewithal to live or the means of oblivion — if 
 so they do, they see that here they end. Now 
 what shall these poor folk do ? — for for the rich there 
 is no account nor hope of salvation, since they take 
 their tolls, a thousand poor folk going to the susten- 
 ance of one such. And they fill their bellies with 
 fat meats, and blind their eyes with gawds and 
 trinkets and the sparkle of gold and the shine of 
 silk. But what shall these poor folk do, since they 
 find in this world ease neither in what is accounted 
 virtue in this world, nor in what is accounted filthi- 
 ness and vice in this world and all the worlds that 
 shall follow ? " 
 
 He moved before the lantern, so that his form 
 cast a blackness upon the whole cell. He caught 
 Mr. Bettesworth by the shoulder and pointed one 
 arm, stiff like a semaphore, to the apex of the 
 place. 
 
 " Filthy sinner," he exclaimed, in a voice that 
 mounted and mounted in tone, " there is but one 
 thing that availeth in this world. Have faith ! 
 Virtue shall not avail you, nor vice shall not stop up 
 your ears. In this England there be three hundred 
 and sixty jails that yawn alike for the one and the 
 other, and that avail nothing. My poor, miserable 
 brother, a flame of fire shall consume all England. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 207 
 
 There shall but one thing avail : instant conversion. 
 Have faith ! Now ! At once ! There is no time ! 
 The flame of fire is coming ! Coming now ! 
 Coming down from Heaven ! Heaven ! ! " 
 
 He shook Mr. Bettesworth by the arm that he 
 had seized, his hand waved over his head. His 
 voice rose higher and higher, into an incoherent 
 scream, and suddenly there mingled with it another 
 scream, so high and so potent that Mr. Bettesworth 
 chafed the skin on his wrists in the effort to tear 
 his hands from the manacles and to thrust them to 
 his ears. From the obscurity that the Wesleyan's 
 figure caused there came invisibly deep pantings 
 and violent rustlings. The screams continued to re- 
 sound and drowned his voice. He bent to peer 
 forward, and the light from the lantern fell over his 
 shoulder. Mr. Bettesworth saw dimly the last 
 motions of a convulsed struggle. The old woman 
 had been thrust backwards against the wall, and 
 crouched like an ape, her arms amongst the straw. 
 The girl lay with her face to them, the hair fallen 
 back, the features begrimed and contused, a thin 
 trickle of black blood running from the corner of the 
 mouth into the black straw. She was absolutely 
 immobile. 
 
 "Merciful God!" Mr. Bettesworth said, "what 
 is this ? " 
 
 The old woman, who had been thrown against the 
 wall by the girl's last struggle, crawled slowly forward 
 with an air of caution, as of one who approaches 
 a dangerous beast. She extended an arm that was 
 grey and lean, like the enlarged claw of a bird, and 
 slowly fumbled into the girl's neck till her hand 
 
208 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 rested on the heart. She said, " Well, well, well ! " 
 and gazed at the lantern with bleared eyes. 
 
 " Merciful God 1 " Mr. Bettesworth repeated, " what 
 is this ? " 
 
 " The harlot is dying or dead," the Methodist 
 said. 
 
 Horror overcame Mr. Bettesworth ; he stammered 
 incoherent things, trying to say, " Shall a Christian 
 soul die thus ? " and " Knock upon the door ! 
 Call out for help ! " and at last, " Will you not send 
 for a chaplain ? There is no wretch so mean — 
 no country so barbarous " 
 
 " Friend," the Methodist said harshly, " I have 
 been now but two years a field-preacher and have 
 been cast but eleven times into jail, and in that 
 time I have seen nine men and women die without 
 the help of a chaplain. They died very well with- 
 out that help, for what can these sluggard and 
 indifferent men do towards the saving of a soul ? " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " that is a matter 
 for the magistrates. It concerns in nowise our 
 condition." 
 
 The preacher had refolded his arms and leant 
 once more against the wall. 
 
 " Prisons in nowise concern us," Mr. Bettes- 
 worth said, " but only the lawless scoundrels who 
 have here shut us in." 
 
 " Friend," the preacher said, " you may well — 
 though it is not the mode — call them lawless that 
 have here imprisoned us. For I am here right 
 against the law, since the Act against Nonconform- 
 ists — even if I were a Nonconformist — is annually 
 suspended, and I have neither brawled nor taken 
 
THE PORTRAIT 209 
 
 purses, nor done aught save preach the Word of God. 
 And of a great majority of the poor people that are 
 cast into jail it is likely that the most part are 
 such as have incurred the ill-will of magistrates 
 rather than the just ire of the law " 
 
 " Sir " Mr. Bettesworth said, " I cannot well hear 
 these doctrines, considering my rank and position 
 in the land ; and it seems to me that, rather than 
 debate upon such matters, we should do what we 
 could to succour the poor wretch that lies there." 
 
 " Friend," the Methodist said, " the harlot is dead ; 
 and if she were not, what could we do to succour 
 her, since your hands are chained behind your back, 
 and there is not, nor will be till the morning, so 
 much as a crock of water in this place ? And as 
 for your position or rank in the country, I do not 
 know what it may be, but if you were even a 
 magistrate it might very well benefit you to know 
 how you send poor wretches to jail for the pick- 
 ing of a few sticks from your hedgerows, because 
 they have incurred your displeasure by being not 
 supple enough in backbone, or because they have 
 taken a hare from the furrow, or a plover from the 
 uplands ; it might very well benefit you to know to 
 what hells it is that you condemn at a nod of your 
 head, and how those fare whose miserable superfluity 
 maintains you in your great halls." 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I am a magistrate 
 of my County." 
 
 " Oh, my poor brother," the Methodist said, " is 
 
 this a place or a time for vainglorious boasting and 
 
 buffoonery ? I have seen others such as you — 
 
 highwaymen and footpads — so talking on the night 
 
 14 
 
2 10 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 they were taken ; but oh, in a very little time they 
 will change you their tune, as the rope comes nearer 
 to their necks. Oh, my sinful brother, it is then, it 
 is then that they will listen to my ministrations 
 that before cast upon me the straw and stones of a 
 prison-yard ! " 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, with a return of 
 spirit, " your talk of prisons and of prison-yards is 
 offensive to me, for this, assuredly, is no prison but 
 a den of thieves, and our business is not so much to 
 debate of things that concern you little, and of 
 which you know less, — for what can you know of 
 the high state of a magistrate, or of the polity of a 
 nation and its laws ? — but rather we should lay our 
 heads together to consider of how we may escape 
 from this place and bring some succour to these 
 poor wretches." 
 
 " Sir," the Methodist said dryly, " your head is 
 softer than your heart, which, I thank God, is softer 
 than in most of your kidney. For thus in the course 
 of our stay here I may bring you to see the light, 
 for I have seldom known a highwayman or a foot- 
 pad who had compassion on such poor dross. But 
 these walls here are nine foot thick, of solid stone, 
 there are no windows or apertures, and before the 
 door doubtless stands an armed guard ; so that I 
 would have you to compose your mind, and set it 
 upon other matters, until the rope claims you for its 
 own." 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Bettesworth said, " your mind rambles, 
 which is pardonable if you have been long here 
 enclosed. But without doubt you will tell me what 
 manner of place this is and where situated, that I 
 
THE PORTRAIT 211 
 
 may consider for myself what chance I have of 
 escape, or how long it shall be before my men may 
 come to my rescue. I beg, therefore, that you will 
 compose your mind and give me a civil answer to 
 these questions. And then, if you be, as I should 
 not wonder, without means to^ obtain redress, when 
 we have come out from the clutches of these villains 
 be sure my purse shall be open to you." 
 
 " Friend," the Methodist said, " for the place, it is 
 the common jail of the town of Ashford ; and for 
 its situation, it standeth at the far end of the market- 
 place, midway between the stocks, the pound, and 
 the ducking-pond." 
 
IV 
 
 MR. JUSTICE STARELEIGH, having bolted 
 an immense plateful of venison and cherry- 
 sauce, and having imbibed a full half-bottle of French 
 brandy, struck his enormous fist upon the table, 
 and addressed to Mr. Roland Bettesworth, who sat 
 opposite him, the words — 
 
 " Sir Robert will drag us all to the devil. To 
 hell with Walpole and peace ! " 
 
 Mr. Roland laughed, and raised his glass. 
 
 " Why, to hell with him with all my heart ! " he 
 repeated. 
 
 Mr. Bestwell, who in spite of his diminutive stature 
 was a trencherman even more formidable than his 
 brother Justice, laid down his knife and fork to say — 
 
 "I am with the young bloods. This peace is 
 ruining us. We have had peace now this twenty 
 year, if I do not mistake. When I was young it 
 was different ; it was all wars, bloody wars. Now 
 we rot and moulder and grow fat Why, I could 
 lead a regiment myself!" 
 
 Mr. Roland was very concerned to keep Mr. 
 Williamson at least half sober. And whilst Mr. 
 Williamson was reaching over with a candle to singe 
 the hind wig of Mr. Stareleigh, Mr. Roland carefully 
 poured fresh water into his brandy. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 213 
 
 " Aye ! " Mr. Bestwell commented, " when I was 
 young — not that I am so very old — I could singe 
 a wig with any blade. Why, I could do it still. 
 I will wager that I singe both your wigs before we 
 rise from the table. I am such a one as few others 
 be. I should be a mohock, there should be no man 
 safe where I should pass." 
 
 " Aye," Mr. Roland said, " we could do with 
 you well in the Town of London. 'Tis grown a 
 deadly quiet place, with too little of frolic and fuss." 
 
 Mr. Stareleigh exclaimed once more : " To hell 
 with Sir Robert Walpole, who will give us all 
 wooden shoes ! " and then fell forward on his plate. 
 
 "Aye," Mr. Bestwell repeated, "Sir Robert will 
 give us all wooden shoes. For whilst here we moulder 
 the French make preparations against us, and exercise 
 themselves in all the arts of war. I have long been 
 certain of this, and if I come to London I will make 
 Sir Robert and the Ministers dance to the tune of 
 ' The Shaking of the Sheets,' for I have warned 
 many, and all and sundry, that this peace would be 
 the ruin of us. What are Frenchmen for but to be 
 warred upon, and Ministers but to find occasions for 
 war ? And here you find flat proof of what I have 
 preached. Sir, there is not one man in this country 
 that would not have a war, and this plaguy Minister 
 is all for peace and the excise." 
 
 Mr. Stareleigh attempted to rise from his plate 
 and to shout " To hell with the excise ! " but, his 
 weight being very considerable, he thought better of 
 the attempt. He babbled the words to the table- 
 cloth ; and, one of his servants having loosened his 
 neckcloth, he slumbered contentedly in that position. 
 
214 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 which he preferred to one under the table. The 
 room was small and panelled. It reeked with the 
 smell of candles, of meats, and of warm brandy- 
 and-water. Mr. Bestwell grew more excited, more 
 marshal, more patriotic. He said that the fact that 
 the Duke of Berwick, with his Jacobite forces, had 
 reached that neighbourhood, was proof of the just- 
 ness of the warnings he had so frequently given, 
 that ever since the treaty of Miinster the French 
 had been preparing forces, and the Jacobites gather- 
 ing together in France. And when Mr. Roland 
 questioned him as to his having any doubts about 
 the identity of the Duke, the little fiery man ex- 
 claimed that to doubt this at all was to be guilty of 
 treason, since he, Mr. Bestwell himself, had so 
 frequently prophesied this incursion. Moreover, it 
 was an act of Providence, for the Ministers must 
 now declare war upon France — and it would be a 
 very bloody war. And when Mr. Roland Bettes- 
 worth suggested that the Duke of Berwick, whom 
 he had once seen, must be a man very much older ; 
 or, in the event of his death, which had been for 
 some months expected, his heir must be a much 
 younger man ; Mr. Bestwell, with an air of friendly 
 superiority, — for he was by this time of opinion that 
 he was in the finest company in the world, — Mr. 
 Bestwell insisted that Mr. Roland did not know the 
 Jacobites. They were men of the most devilish 
 ingenuities, so that they could counterfeit their faces 
 and forge their statures. Nay, they could grow 
 humps and make one leg shorter than the other. 
 And this was for the purpose of plotting and spying 
 in His Majesty's dominion. And, unconsciously, 
 
THE PORTRAIT 215 
 
 Mr. Bestwell aided Mr. Roland in his designs, for 
 being very convinced that the occasion was one of 
 great peril, and called for watchfulness on the parts 
 of magistrates and the like, he heartily concurred in 
 Mr. Roland's plan that they should make a sober 
 night of it. Thus, after the cloth was drawn, no 
 spirits and but a bottle and a half of claret a man 
 were put upon the board. Mr. Bestwell called for 
 a pipe and tobacco, and continued his orationing. 
 The atmosphere grew more cloudy, Mr. Williamson 
 sang ballads to himself, Mr. Roland waited. He 
 learned that the Justices intended next morning to 
 send messengers to the Privy Council to say that 
 they had taken the Duke of Berwick, and to ask 
 whether they should send him under guard to 
 London or whether they should hang him upon the 
 spot. Mr. Bestwell was of opinion that the Privy 
 Council would desire the former alternative, and in 
 that case he would, himself, conduct the Duke to 
 London, where he expected great honours, the very 
 least of which would be that the King should make 
 him a Minister of State. 
 
 It wanted ten minutes of midnight when Major 
 Penruddock threw the door open. He was a little in 
 his cups, having freely tasted of the wine at Ashford 
 Manor-house. His face was flushed, he laughed 
 jovially and struck his high boots with his riding- whip. 
 
 " Ho ! " he exclaimed, " we have taken a very 
 notable woman prisoner, and the Jacobites are in 
 retreat towards the town of Dover." 
 
 Mr. Justice Bestwell started to his feet. " In 
 retreat ! " he exclaimed. " By God, I will pursue 
 them ! " 
 
2i6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 The Major looked at him with a pleasantly 
 sardonic smile. " Pursue them ! " he exclaimed. 
 " Egad ! a famous notion. You have at most 
 a hundred men, and they should be twoscore 
 thousand." 
 
 " Sir," Mr, Bestwell exclaimed, — and by this 
 time, through having observed the rule of sobriety, 
 he was no more than three parts in liquor, — " I 
 would have you know that a hundred of our men 
 of Kent " 
 
 " Sir," the Major replied, " God forbid that you 
 should think me discouraging to you in this most 
 excellent scheme. On the contrary, I am most 
 anxious that you should begone, only I say take 
 with you every man that you can take, — not that I 
 doubt your personal valour, but that you may do the 
 more bloody execution upon those flying traitors." 
 
 In his martial enthusiasm the little Justice had 
 already drawn his sword. " Gentlemen ! " he 
 exclaimed, " for our credit I would the rather have 
 fewer men or none, so the fewer would share in my 
 glory ; but what you say of dispatching as many 
 of these traitors as may be has great weight 
 with me." 
 
 " Mr. Bestwell," the Major said, " I advise you to 
 draw off every man from this town. For myself, 
 I wish I could be of your company, but my plain 
 duty is to stay and guard the prisoners we have 
 taken. But I warrant you this, that you leave 
 this town of Ashford in my safe keeping whilst you 
 sally forth. And you may deliver over to me the 
 keys of your jail — nay, it is your duty to deliver 
 over to me the keys of your jail — so that you 
 
THE PORTRAIT 217 
 
 may take with you the jail wards, who I have 
 observed to be lusty men and well armed with 
 pikes and lanterns." 
 
 Mr. Justice Bestwell, in whom the martial instinct 
 stirred to a preternatural degree, he having avowed 
 all his life that his sole passion was to be up and 
 at them, and to paint the fields with gore, earning 
 blood-besmirched laurels, — Mr. Justice Bestwell, to 
 his credit, wasted, a minute upon attempting to 
 recover his brother Justice from his stupor, but 
 Mr. Stareleigh lay across the tablecloth in an 
 oblivion that was to him an Elysium more fine 
 than could be found in whole groves of laurel 
 bushes ; and Mr. Bestwell, pulling his hat over his 
 eyes and brandishing his sword forward as if inciting 
 troops into the smoke of battle, rushed from the 
 room. 
 
 Major Penruddock burst into peals of laughter. 
 He bent double, he raised himself again, and his 
 face was the colour of his scarlet coat. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " I cannot but laugh." 
 
 " Oh, laugh till you split your guts," Mr. Jack 
 Williamson said, " and there will be the less loss." 
 
 " To think," Major Penruddock continued, " of 
 those poor devils pursuing into the pitchy marshlands 
 — and it's a damned cold, inclement temperature, 
 and blacker than a closed wine-closet — to think of 
 them pursuing in those quagmires a foe that hath 
 no existence." 
 
 " Then there are no Jacobites," Mr. Roland said. 
 
 "Jacobites!" the Major laughed. "Why, there 
 have been none this twenty years ! They are gone 
 and forgotten. If it had not been that Mr. Justice 
 
2i8 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Bestvvell had this bee in his bonnet no such 
 thought would ever have come into my head, and 
 then your brother must have been arrested as a 
 mere highwayman instead of as the Duke of 
 Berwick." 
 
 " My brother will be infinitely obliged to you," 
 Mr. Roland said. 
 
 " Why," the Major laughed, " he has cause to 
 be ; and you too, for, since we had to put you all 
 out of the way, I think it has been monstrous 
 delicately done." 
 
 " Why, for delicacy," Mr. Roland said, " 'tis the 
 prettiest piece of perjury I have ever seen." 
 
 The Major bowed to him. " I have never myself 
 designed anything better," he said. 
 
 " Then it is to you alone that we are indebted ? " 
 Mr. Roland asked. 
 
 " Oh, three heads are better than one," he got 
 his answer. " Mr. Chuckel was very desirous that 
 your brother should be put out of the way, and was 
 ready to act the common informer. Mr. Harcourt 
 remembered, what he has a trick of forgetting, 
 that he is of His Majesty's Privy Council, and so 
 of authority over these Justices. And he was 
 ready to aver that Mr. Bettesworth was a sneak 
 thief. But I had chanced to meet these Justices 
 in the Court Hall, where they were dispatching 
 of harlots and sectarians in clean defiance of the 
 law, but to the greater glory of God. And finding 
 that Mr. Justice Bestwell had this whimsey of 
 Jacobites and French, and Dukes created by James 
 Stewart, I was seized with this monstrous ridiculous 
 idea of having him laid by the heels for the Duke 
 
THE PORTRAIT 219 
 
 of Berwick, though for the life of me I do not know 
 what make of man this Duke may be, nor how old 
 he is, nor what he looks like. But it is all one ; 
 and I have never seen Justices so glad even when 
 they were sentencing poachers to the gallows." 
 
 " And you have done all this to gain three hours 
 with Lydia Chuckel," Mr. Roland said ; " and Lydia 
 Chuckel is now in your possession ? " 
 
 " Sir," the Major said. " I have done all this to 
 gain three hours with Lydia Chuckel, and Lydia 
 Chuckel is now in the possession of Mr. Harcourt 
 and myself, being well out upon the London road 
 and surrounded by a strong body of horsemen," 
 
 Mr. Roland stood wide-eyed, and at last saluted 
 the Major's smirk of triumph with an extraordinar)' 
 peal of laughter. Where Major Penruddock had 
 once bent double. Mr, Roland did it six times, and 
 at last, staggering back on a chair, he shook till he 
 was exhausted. 
 
 " Why, thank God I am not a miller ! " he said. 
 
 The Major, whose jocularity had given way to 
 some imitation, asked, " Sir, even why? " 
 
 " Because," Mr. Roland answered, " you would 
 see so far through my millstones." 
 
 There had come at that moment into the Major's 
 head a consideration that he had not foreseen. It 
 occurred to him that he had taken no precautions 
 to secure Lydia Chuckel in case the Honourable 
 Mr. Harcourt should desire to make an even further 
 rape of her. She was at that moment upon the 
 road, with a rendezvous appointed at the village of 
 Great Chart. And it suddenly occurred to him 
 that Mr. Harcourt might steal a march, and might 
 
2 20 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 progress further, or might deflect into the dark and 
 unsearchable recesses of the Weald that lay very 
 little to the south. It had been his intention to 
 disable Mr. Harcourt and to steal Lydia from him 
 before they could reach London. In that way 
 Mr. Harcourt would have lost his bet to Sir Francis 
 Dashwood, with whom the Major was in alliance, 
 and the Major would procure for himself a desirable 
 mistress, and one calculated, in all the circumstances, 
 to do him credit, and to be for a season the cynosure 
 of all the Town. It was, therefore, under the influence 
 of this unpleasant reflection that the Major spoke 
 with some acerbity. 
 
 " Mr. Roland Bettesworth," he said, " I have no 
 leisure to bandy words with you, and the laugh is 
 all on my side, since, by my action, your brother 
 has lost twenty thousand pounds to me and others. 
 And he, and you his assistants, have become thfe 
 laughing-stocks of the Town, together with these 
 Justices, and some others. And I would recommend 
 you to fetch your brother out from the jail and 
 to addressing himself to hanging of Mr. Chuckel, 
 who would be all the better for it. For this is a 
 task better adapted to the talents of Mr. Bettesworth 
 than the mingling in the society of his equals." 
 
 " Sir," Mr. Roland said, " my brother keeps his 
 money in a very strong box, and he laughs best 
 who laughs the last." 
 
 " Why, you will be unconscionable braggarts ,to 
 the last, you Bettesworths ! " Major Penruddock 
 said. " You make a man's gall rise into his throat. 
 Nevertheless, it shall not be said that Major 
 Penruddock was wanting in magnanimity to a 
 
THE PORTRAIT 221 
 
 fallen foe. I have served enough in the wars for 
 that, and can disregard the puling of the defeated ; 
 so I will bid you stop here a moment or so, that I 
 may bring you the keys of the town jail. And 
 you will have observed that I have done my best 
 to rid this house of able-bodied men, so that you 
 may easily release your brother from his incar- 
 ceration, for to no other end did I suggest that 
 Mr. Bestwell should draw off his forces. And this, 
 I maintain, is the action of a man of magnanimous 
 integrity." 
 
 Major Penruddock swung through the door, the 
 skirts of his scarlet coat flouncing out behind him. 
 Mr. Roland and Mr. Williamson remained for a 
 moment in silence, and then suddenly, as if the effort 
 of imagination needed no word, they drew their 
 swords and placed themselves behind the door, 
 Mr. Williamson peeping through the crack to observe 
 the Major's return along the passage. It was their 
 intention upon his re-entering the room with the 
 keys of the jail to slam the door and pin him 
 with their points at his throat. Extended upon the 
 table, Mr. Stareleigh slumbered peacefully, his snore 
 coming in a gentle cadence. From a distance they 
 could hear the shouts of Mr. Justice Bestwell and 
 the hum of voices of his men. The sounds diminished, 
 drew off, and disappeared ; and Mr. Williamson's 
 breathing, in his excitement, grew as stertorous, if 
 more suppressed, than those of the slumberer, for Mr. 
 Williamson considered that he had a crow to pluck 
 with the Major, and was eager to be at his throat. 
 
 " Will he have failed of getting the keys ? " he 
 asked in a hoarse whisper. And then he swore 
 
2 22 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 violently and sprang into the air. The glass of 
 the window crashed violently inwards. It splintered 
 all through the room. Four candles fell upon the 
 tablecloth, and a bottle half full of wine crashed 
 suddenly into nothing, the liquid splattering in one 
 gout upon the sanded floor. 
 
 " Gentlemen," the voice of Major Penruddock 
 called through the window, " I have made too 
 many campaigns to be so taken in ambush. I 
 laugh, you perceive, the last." 
 
 They heard the clatter of his horse loud upon the 
 cobbles, and diminishing, disappearing. Upon the 
 table lay two immense keys, united by a string 
 that threaded a bullet of lead. 
 
 "By God!" Mr. Williamson exclaimed, "who 
 laughs last ? " 
 
 " Oh, we, we ! " Mr. Roland answered him ; " since 
 this Lydia Chuckel is by no manner of means the 
 original of ' Celia in her Arbour.' " 
 
 Mr. Williamson exclaimed, " The devil ! " 
 
PART IV 
 
 MR. ROLAND BETTESWORTH was swayed 
 by no great feelings of brotherly love. 
 Nevertheless, upon his way to the Round House 
 compassion moved him, and still more the family 
 feeling. It seemed to him disagreeable in the ex- 
 treme that one of them should have been laid open 
 to the possibility of being twitted, or at the least 
 tittered at, upon his entry into an assembly. And 
 compassion came into play with a warm emotion of 
 disgust at the thought of his brother's being mis- 
 handled by a pack of dirty rustic scum. If, in fact, 
 he desired to humiliate his brother as far as he 
 himself was concerned — if he didn't exactly stomach 
 his brother's princely airs towards himself — it dis- 
 gusted him that, if only for a space of three or four 
 hours or so, his brother had not been able to act 
 princely towards all the rest of the world. 
 
 Mr. Williamson having been rendered valiant and 
 uproarious by the contents of a half bottle of 
 Schiedam that he had ravished from the host's 
 parlour of the inn, now entirely denuded of men-folk 
 by the necessities of bloody war — Mr. Williamson was 
 now vocal and martial in the extreme. The houses 
 
2 24 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 of the broad market-place slumbered, shut down and 
 lifeless as if in extreme terror; and with his immense 
 sword drawn and whiffling in the air, Mr. Williamson 
 pursued an uneven course over the cobbles, sur- 
 rounded by a ring of the town dogs, who neglected 
 his more tranquil companion. This appeared to 
 Mr. Williamson to be a matter of such grave in- 
 hospitality that, with imprecations of the most 
 sanguinary, and with a voice of hoarse, but direful, 
 distinctness, he invited the inhabitants to issue forth 
 and have their throats cut. To Mr. Roland the 
 adventure seemed one calling for secrecy and stealth. 
 Nevertheless, to the accompaniment of outrageous 
 and grotesque noise, they passed the pound, the 
 stocks, and the ducking-pond, and came eventually 
 to the Round House itself. There was a sufficient 
 glimmer from a concealed moon to let them find the 
 dark opening into the round stone building ; and by 
 feeling upon the iron-ribbed surface of the door they 
 came upon the keyhole ; and finally, to the sound of 
 rusty janglings and bumps of the leaden bullets 
 upon the surface of the door, the feeble light from 
 a lantern issued forth, together with such a stench 
 that Mr. Roland fell backwards against Mr. 
 Williamson, who had just succeeded in catching 
 upon the flank, with the point of his sword, the 
 most vociferous of the dogs. Mr. Bettesworth came 
 out, an unseeing silhouette against the light, and 
 Mr. Williamson cheered. But at sight of the 
 Methodist's black hat, which, crowHke, appeared 
 round the corner of the archway, Mr. Williamson 
 was seized with a new access of martial ardour, so 
 that he transfixed the hat with his blade. He waved 
 
 I 
 
THE PORTRAIT 225 
 
 it over his head ; he cheered, and his cheering 
 once again aroused the innumerable dogs. Mr. 
 Bettesworth's spirit revived at the contact of the 
 fresh air, and at the sight of the blade held 
 by a man to him indistinguishable amidst the 
 gloom. 
 
 " I do not know," he said, " what inhuman 
 scoundrels you may be, but within here is a woman 
 dying or dead." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Roland said, " whether the woman 
 be dying or dead let us hasten from here." 
 
 For, though he was not very well sure of his 
 ground, he had already imagined for himself that if 
 the magistrates should return and find the nest 
 cracked they might well be arrested all over 
 again. 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Bettesworth said, " if that is you, 
 there are some things to be seen to that I will not 
 hurry away from." 
 
 Mr. Roland desired to send Mr. Williamson with 
 all haste to the Manor-house to arouse Mr. 
 Bettesworth's men, to get out the horses, and to 
 be upon the road. " Brother," he said, " are you 
 wounded ? Are you sick ? Can you walk ? Could 
 you ride ? " 
 
 " Why, I do not know," Mr. Bettesworth answered. 
 " But I am not minded to be gone." 
 
 " Oh, come away ! " Mr. Roland said. " Do you 
 not understand what has been done in your 
 absence ? " 
 
 " I neither know nor care," Mr. Bettesworth said 
 coldly ; " but here there have been enacted three of 
 the grossest cases of miscarriage of justice, and I 
 15 
 
236 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 will burn the nests about these rotten magistrates 
 before I leave this place." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Roland said, " the place to light 
 the slow-match is in London, not here, where they 
 will have you by the heels again. And for the 
 woman, if she be dead she is dead ; if she is dying 
 she is past help. And at the best of it, the Major 
 and Mr. Harcourt have taken Lydia Chuckel and 
 are posting along the London road with her." 
 
 In the darkness, which was now grown thinner 
 to their accustomed eyes, Mr. Bettesworth could be 
 seen to strike his brow. There arose in him a fierce 
 struggle. He desired to overtake and recapture his 
 prize from those who had ravished her from him. 
 The knowledge did not come to him as so very 
 considerable a disturbance, since during his con- 
 versation with Mr. Williams, the Methodist, he had 
 been able to accredit his rivals with the conception 
 and achievement of some such scheme. But he had 
 hardly given them credit for the power to get so 
 speedily into action ; so that hitherto he had set 
 foremost his desire to avenge himself, and to per- 
 form a public office in righting the wrongs done to 
 the Methodist and to the stick-gatherer, and the in- 
 humanity towards the dead prostitute. Mr. Roland 
 had begun again to speak, intending to console his 
 brother with the news that Lydia Chuckel was not 
 the model for Celia ; but when he opened his lips, 
 Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed " Silence ! " in a voice 
 so masculine and terrible that Mr. Roland was at 
 once assured of his brother's bodily welfare, and 
 piqued into a condition the reverse of com- 
 passionate. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 227 
 
 " Why, if the Emperor will be Emperor," he said, 
 " let him sit on his own throne." And seeing that 
 Mr, Bettesworth was determined to count forty, he, 
 none the less determined to be gone from that place, 
 pushed, kicked, and jostled Mr. Williamson to the 
 other side of the stocks, and, by shaking him, reduced 
 him to a condition of some attention. 
 
 His directions were that Mr. Williamson should 
 fetch their three horses from the inn, and, tethering 
 two of them at the park gates, he should gallop with 
 all speed to the Manor-house and waken Mr. 
 Bettesworth's servants, bidding them get on foot 
 and to horse with all the speed they could. For Mr. 
 Roland was determined that at all costs, and under 
 whatever pretext, they should be gone from the town 
 before it awoke from sleep to fury. Mr. Williamson 
 was drunk, but he was so used to action in such a 
 state that, save that he might beat an ostler, if any 
 ostlers were to be found at the inn, he might be 
 trusted to carry out the bringing out of three horses 
 and the awakening of a whole army of men ; whereas, 
 Mr. Bettesworth had but five servants with him. 
 He returned to the jail mouth in time to hear Mr. 
 Bettesworth deliver a formal oration, in the course 
 of which he himself chafed consumedly. 
 
 " I have," Mr. Bettesworth said, " arrived at the 
 following determinations. I have before me the 
 problem of this jail and the problem of Lydia 
 Chuckel." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Roland interrupted, " you have 
 before you the fact that for the moment you are 
 the most ridiculous figure in England, except for 
 the Justices here, who, being of no mortal account, 
 
228 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 will escape with the laughter of the common sort 
 alone." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth chose to take no heed of his 
 brother's speech, and this only the more irritated 
 Mr. Roland. 
 
 " In this jail," Mr. Bettesworth continued, " there 
 were four persons, of whom three were unjustly 
 condemned, and the fourth barbarously done to 
 death. I myself, since I am of the most account, 
 was the most unfairly handled ; for the heavy 
 avenging of that I can wait my leisure. But here 
 is an old woman, having, by the laws of England 
 and the tenure of her hut, the right to pick dry 
 sticks from hedgerows in the parish of Goldwell. 
 She has been cast into jail at the instance of the 
 lord of the Manor of Goldwell for exercising a right 
 that is as indubitably hers as is mine to drive a 
 coach and four up the steps of St. Paul's. For the 
 maintaining of the rights of this old woman, I 
 would, if it were necessary, spend the entire 
 contents of my purse against this lord of the Manor 
 and these Justices, who are in league to grind the 
 faces of the poor." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Roland said, " have you not heard 
 that the water-bailiff of Berwick St. James, of which 
 place you are lord of the Manor, hamstrung the 
 donkey of Simon Tapper because it stood in one 
 of the pools of the Winterbourne, though Simon 
 Tapper had his common rights and water-ingress 
 for his beasts ? " 
 
 Again Mr. Bettesworth ignored his brother's 
 interruption. A slight and drizzling rain began 
 to fall, and, as the fog rolled inwards over the 
 
THE PORTRAIT 229 
 
 marshes to the high ground, the moon was almost 
 obscured. 
 
 " But," Mr. Bettesworth said, " the case of this old 
 woman also may stand over till I have leisure. 
 There remains that of Mr. Williams, who is a 
 preacher of the sectarian — or possibly it is not 
 a sectarian — order of Methodists. For until this 
 matter can be brought before the Synod of Canter- 
 bury — this association being, as I am assured, but 
 three years old, and its head having left but this 
 month for the Virginias, so that its orthodoxy or 
 non-orthodoxy cannot be settled this three years — 
 until the matter is finally adjudicated upon, it 
 cannot be settled whether this Mr. Williams, who is 
 a student of Oxford and in Holy Orders, being the 
 son of decent parents of this neighbourhood, con- 
 forms, or is more justly a Nonconformist. But let 
 us put it that he is a Nonconformist : none the less 
 the Act against sectarians is annually suspended by 
 Parliament. Therefore his committal at the instance 
 of the parson here is an infringement of the liberty 
 of the subject which I am not minded to pass 
 over." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Roland said, " if you are minded to 
 redress all the wrongs of the town of Ashford, we 
 shall be here till it snows." 
 
 "The case of Mr. Williams," Mr. Bettesworth 
 continued, " will, I doubt not, prove the longest of 
 any, and therefore I must have the more leisure to 
 consider of it. For there enters into it not only the 
 common law, but the canon law, and the point is 
 a very nice one. For if, upon the one hand, he be 
 proved to be Nonconformist, he has committed no 
 
2 30 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 crime ; but if he be proved to be orthodox, then, 
 being in Holy Orders, he has infringed against the 
 Church law by preaching without licence in the 
 parish of a clergyman of the Established Church." 
 
 Mr. Roland said, " O God, O God ! " 
 
 The fog grew thicker. The houses of the market- 
 place disappeared altogether. The stocks and the 
 looming form of the pillory were blotted out. They 
 were invisible one to another ; only a watery ray 
 from the lantern within the jail silhouetted Mr. 
 Bettesworth's legs and cast their shadow upon the 
 mist. And suddenly the voice of the old woman 
 within made itself heard, whimpering for two pennies 
 to lay upon the eyelids of the corpse. 
 
 Mr. Williams said, " Glory to God, who has 
 raised up a strong pillar for us ! I have never 
 heard our case put more concisely." 
 
 " It appears, therefore, to me," Mr. Bettesworth 
 continued, ignoring alike the old woman and the 
 preacher, " that I may best meet this case by taking 
 Mr. Williams as my chaplain, since for the time 
 being his occupation is gone and his money has 
 been stolen from him by the jailer. And the more 
 so, for my most immediate purpose, since, being by 
 birth of this neighbourhood, he has a private and 
 special knowledge of its quaggy and impenetrable 
 roads." 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Roland said, and by this time he 
 was worked into an ironic fury, " you stand here 
 a laughing-stock. You are the most ridiculous and 
 befooled creature in the country. You talk of what 
 you will do, and for what reason you will do it, for 
 all the world as if you were a popinjay prince. But 
 
THE PORTRAIT 231 
 
 I tell you," — and Mr. Roland's voice grew harsher 
 and harsher, — " if you don't take the road at once you 
 will never hold up your head again. But you will 
 be known as the Duke of Berwick, and be listened 
 to by no Councillor and no Council in the kingdom, 
 and be the paltriest creature that " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth had been, by means of his formal 
 speeches, at once proving to himself and them that 
 he could contain his passions, and striving to justify 
 his desire to himself, but his voice shook in his 
 throat, his hands clenched and unclenched, his face 
 was covered with cold sweat ; and at his brother's 
 words there issued from his throat a harsh sound 
 like the bark of a Barbary ape. All the hatred that 
 he felt for the two men who had fooled him, an 
 immense rage that seemed to tie his entrails into 
 knots, cast him as if from a sling upon the blotted 
 shape of his brother. He caught Roland by the 
 throat, he showered down blows upon his face, his 
 eyes felt as if they were bursting from his head, his 
 chest was inflated beyond bearing ; it seemed that 
 in striking Roland he was buffeting the world that 
 would sneer at him. Roland tore himself away with 
 a sudden feint of the shoulders, and when he was 
 a yard or two off he said, with a cool harshness — 
 
 " If you approach a step, I will spit you like 
 a dog." And, automatically, his hands began to 
 rearrange in the darkness the ruffles at his neck. 
 
 " Hark ye," he said coolly, " you may gallop to 
 hell with the preacher at your back, but you shall 
 have no more use of me — no, not till you beg my 
 pardon upon your knees. You will grow into 
 a rustic oaf, a toss-pot, a beaten dog with its tail 
 
232 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 between its legs. Go home and rot, for you will 
 never dare show your face in London Town again." 
 
 He disappeared into the fog, and then fron:i a 
 distance his voice called, " You will find your horses 
 at the park gates." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth remained invisible too, in the 
 fog, a mere centre of deep sounds of breathing. The 
 minister stood silent, reflecting upon the evil that 
 there was in the world. The old woman's whimper- 
 ing came from the lit interior of the jail, and from 
 the stone eaves large drops of condensed mist began 
 to fall spattering upon the ground. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Bettesworth said hoarsely, " Come 
 you, be you parson or what you will, show me the 
 way from this place." 
 
^ 
 
 II 
 
 IR FRANCIS DASHWOOD was pacing side 
 v^^ by side with the Earl of Pembroke upon the 
 green lawn that ran beneath the old windows of 
 Winterbourne Manor-house. It was a June evening, 
 and the men who had been felling the immense 
 cedar that shaded the banqueting hall, having 
 topped and lopped it, had left the great trunk 
 bisecting the garden at right angles to the house 
 and had gone away for the day, since the wood-carts 
 could not come till the morrow morning. Sir 
 Francis had taken up his quarters in the inn at 
 Wilton, but having been waited upon by his lordship 
 of Pembroke, he had been induced to accept the 
 hospitality of Wilton House. Here he had passed 
 his time very agreeably in the company of the 
 several members of the Herbert family that were 
 then in residence. He had paid more than his 
 usual attention to his wardrobe, to his chargers and 
 to their furnishings, and he was agreeably aware that 
 for splendour no man in that county, and for many 
 miles around, outshone him. 
 
 And upon Mr. Bettesworth's lawn, which was 
 contained at one end of the house by a high wall of 
 brick and at the other by a wall hardly less massive 
 formed of yew, which enclosed a clipped garden, 
 
2 34 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Francis paced with 
 prodigious stateliness, one hand each in their breast, 
 and their moulded legs, in their white silk stockings, 
 moving with a sort of prancing gait and a 
 mechanical exactitude. Winterbourne Manor being 
 some four and a half miles by way of the Plain from 
 Wilton House, Sir Francis had been in the way of 
 riding daily to visit the Signora Poppaea and Lady 
 Eshetsford. Sometimes he would ride away from 
 his friends when they hawked the bustard upon the 
 Uplands. He would sigh at intervals with an 
 extreme depth of feeling if, Lady Eshetsford having 
 refused herself, he found himself alone with the 
 Signora Poppaea. Lady Eshetsford was his 
 constant toast at the Earl of Pembroke's board : he 
 praised without ceasing her black eyes, her mutinous, 
 cherry lips, her alabaster brow, and her nose, which, 
 though it turned up at the point, he compared to 
 that of Carpaccio's " Venus," which hung beside the 
 dais in the picture-room at Wilton House. He 
 took, in short, every possible measure that could 
 ensure the news of his passion coming to the ears of 
 its fair object. And having, in this way, laid down 
 what he called his earthworks, he was prepared, so 
 he told his noble companion, that afternoon to lay a 
 desperate and formal siege to her ladyship's heart. 
 
 " But," the Earl said, and curiosity for the first 
 time overcame his natural politeness ; he slightly 
 agitated his amber-wood cane and fluttered the 
 ruffles at his wrist, " I have heard that you have 
 made a great wager to marry another lady, and I 
 am unable to understand why you are not now 
 pursuing that search." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 235 
 
 " My lord," Sir Francis said, " if I were so ill- 
 bred as to pursue that search, — for, for sure, no man 
 of spirit and breeding would halloo across the world 
 after the mere model of a painter, — if I were so 
 ill-bred as to pursue that search in my own person, 
 instead of leaving the matter, as any gentleman 
 would, to the hands of some trusted agent, neverthe- 
 less so fair a quarry as is this beautiful lady would 
 sure affect me. I am more torn by the innumerable 
 arrows that her liquid eyes cast into me than ever 
 was Actseon by Diana's hounds. And sure your 
 lordship will agree and applaud my taste that bids 
 me throw away a few thousands of guineas in the 
 effort to secure for myself a creature of so exquisite 
 a grace and of a charm so consummate." 
 
 The Earl bowed his head deferentially. 
 
 " We all," he said, " must come to Sir Francis for 
 lessons in the heau gozlt, and my mind is relieved 
 to hear from him an explanation so complete and so 
 satisfactory." 
 
 The Earl, nevertheless, believed not one word of 
 this explanation, for it was said by those members 
 of the company that was enjoying the hospitality of 
 Wilton House, that Sir Francis had shirked his 
 plain duty of going to Ashford out of his fear of 
 Mr. Bettesworth's sword. It was known in London, 
 and reported there in the country, that a duel 
 between these two gentlemen was an inevitability, 
 since Mr. Bettesworth was enraged against Sir 
 Francis for having carried off and hidden the 
 portrait of Celia ; and since Sir Francis, if he had any 
 spirit at all, must, with an equal intenseness, resent 
 the expressions Mr. Bettesworth was said to have 
 
2 36 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 used concerning him. It was said, moreover, that 
 Sir Francis was paying court to Lady Eshetsford 
 since, once wedded to her, he would become a 
 member of Mr. Bettesworth's own family, and that 
 thus a duel would be avoided at the cost of the 
 wager which he abandoned. And these rumours 
 the Earl of Pembroke accepted as gospel truth, 
 though it gave him none the less pleasure to be the 
 companion of one reputed to be so distinguished a 
 wit and one so much the leader of the ton and 
 fashion. He had, indeed, at the present moment, 
 his marching orders, which were to lead aside the 
 Signora Poppaea and Maria Trefusis, whilst Sir 
 Francis made formal suit for the hand of her 
 ladyship. 
 
 " And doubtless," he said, " your motive in paying 
 court to her so early after her husband's death is, 
 that no other bird may have a chop before you at 
 a cherry that will attract so many." 
 
 " Your lordship," Sir Francis said, " reads my 
 heart as it were a book." 
 
 There advanced to them over the lawn, seemingly 
 in a solid phalanx, the Signora Poppaea, Lady 
 Eshetsford, and Maria Trefusis. The Signora 
 Poppaea limped a little on her right leg ; she 
 leaned upon her ebony crook, the point of which 
 went deep into the soft turf They were all three 
 in black, her ladyship crowned with a tall cap from 
 which a monstrous black veil depended over her 
 shoulders. But Maria's burnished hair was tied 
 with a black ribbon that permitted her ringlets to 
 descend in the nape of her neck. She and her aunt 
 advanced with a mincing gait which was the 
 
THE PORTRAIT 237 
 
 complement of the gentlemen's formal strut. At 
 each step their heads bobbed slightly forward, and 
 the Signora would have imitated them but she 
 hobbled so. The Earl strutted deliberately to meet 
 them, bent forward so that the curls of his dress-wig 
 fell about his face. He addressed the Signora and 
 Maria Trefusis, including them in one whirl of his 
 cane, whose handle he held near his long nose. 
 
 " In the cut garden," he said, " there is upon a 
 catalpa tree a singular growth or excrescence as to 
 which I would gladly have your opinion ; and yours, 
 madam. Her ladyship it will interest less, since all 
 her passion is of the Town." 
 
 " Very prettily dismissed, your lordship," Lady 
 Eshetsford said ; " I shall yet, under your excellent 
 tuition, see Maria upon the straw among a parcel of 
 cows." 
 
 The Signora took the Earl's arm, upon which she 
 leaned with more weight than the habits of elegant 
 society would have prescribed. " But," she said, 
 " if your lordship will abduct me you must needs 
 afford me support." And the three moved off 
 towards the little arch cut in the wall of yew, Maria 
 indicating with her fan the tops of the trees and 
 clouds in the sky, so as to assume with her body 
 such poses as she had been taught were correct for 
 an engaging young lady of her station in life. 
 
 Lady Eshetsford and Sir Francis walked formally, 
 and side by side, in front of the long gallery. Sir 
 Francis was fuming because the Earl had so in- 
 delicately separated the party. " Madam," he said, 
 " these hawbucks are ever homely." 
 
 " Very few have the advantages of Sir Francis," 
 
238 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Lady Eshetsford answered ; " but I find his lordship 
 well favoured enough." 
 
 Sir Francis clapped his hat over his heart and 
 groaned, " Unhappy me ! " But her ladyship was 
 not in any way minded to afford him an easy 
 opening. 
 
 " Have you lost your wager, that you groan ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 With his hat still over his heart, Sir Francis 
 stepped before her and faced her. He extended 
 one of his hands to her, and fell gracefully to his 
 knee. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " who cares about a wager 
 when a charmer so adorable is nigh ? " 
 
 Lady Eshetsford extended her black fan over her 
 lips and laughed down at him. 
 
 " Such a hot flame," he continued, " consumes me 
 that unless you quench it with the dews of your 
 compassion " 
 
 " Why, I will weep over you if you will," her 
 ladyship mocked him. " But be composed ; this 
 is only summer lightning, where there is a great 
 appearance of flame and no heat. You will not die 
 of it, poor man." 
 
 " Madam," he said, " summer lightning is of the 
 summer, which is a pleasant season. You shall 
 make my life all one summer." 
 
 " Why, so I will, by leaving it alone," Lady 
 Eshetsford said ; " for with my late husband I 
 lived always in such a storm as was as cold as 
 winter and as bitter as the sea." 
 
 " Madam," Sir Francis said, " such is my 
 passion " 
 
THE PORTRAIT 239 
 
 " Why, your passion is such as it is," Lady 
 Eshetsford said. " But such as it is it is of a 
 very rapid growth. I think it subsists only since 
 your great wager was made." 
 
 Sir Francis, playing his cool game, winced his 
 long eyelashes, and with a circumspect smile he 
 regarded the grass. He imagined that he had 
 already sufficiently prepared his ground, and that 
 some of his many groans and sighs, uttered in 
 public places since he had come down to*that 
 neighbourhood, must have reached her ladyship's 
 ears. He imagined her, therefore, to be prepared 
 to hear of his passion. But he had very little idea 
 of what make of a woman her ladyship was. He 
 was therefore undecided whether to continue talking 
 of his love, or whether to urge upon her the fitness 
 and convenience of the union, the parity of their 
 births and stations. He remembered, however, that 
 Lady Eshetsford had the reputation of a nimble wit, 
 and he was rising from his feet with the intention 
 of pursuing a campaign less ardent, when Lady 
 Eshetsford said — 
 
 " It astonishes me that though we have met in 
 assemblies and routs this four year and more you 
 have never importuned me with attentions, nor so 
 much as pursued me with challenging glances. 
 Yet, no sooner is this wager made " 
 
 " Madam," Sir Francis said, " the just laws of 
 Society, the fact that your husband lived " 
 
 " Sir Francis," Lady Eshetsford mocked him, " I 
 have yet to hear that the fact that their husbands 
 lived protected Mrs. Good, or Mrs. Marshal, or Lady 
 Type from pursuit by you." 
 
240 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Madam," Sir Francis started forward to ex- 
 claim, " not one of them was such a miracle of 
 chastity, of virtue, of rectitude, as is Lady Eshets- 
 ford." 
 
 " Sir Francis," she laughed at him, " I marvel 
 that what you so much admire in women you should 
 so seek to undo. And if you adore me so much 
 for my virtue, I would have you none the less 
 in admiration that I am no fool, as these other 
 women were. In short, what have you to offer 
 me?" 
 
 " Madam, my hand," Sir Francis said. 
 
 " It is to your credit that you do not say your 
 heart as well ; and," she answered gaily, " that is all 
 the credit I can see for you in this matter." 
 
 Sir Francis displayed very little perturbation. 
 
 " Madam," he exclaimed, " surely the report of 
 the passion that I have entertained for a long while 
 for you must have reached your ears ? " 
 
 " Surely," she said, " the servants at Wilton 
 House have reported that for the last nine days I 
 have been your toast. But the springe is set too 
 openly in the sight of this woodcock. What have 
 you to offer me ? " 
 
 " Madam," he said, " my hand, my lands, my 
 name, the protection of my right arm." 
 
 " Sir Francis," she laughed, " I have a name as 
 good ; I have lands as good ; and, since the making 
 of the wager, I have had the offer of an arm that I 
 think will protect me far better. And he who 
 made this offer, in making it was willing to lose his 
 wager, to abandon his search, and to be written 
 down a fool." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 241 
 
 For the first time Sir Francis frowned. 
 
 " Lady Eshetsford," he said, " have not I, too, 
 abandoned this search? Is not, therefore, my devo- 
 tion as great ? " 
 
 Lady Eshetsford held her black fan over her lips 
 and began to titter. She laughed to measure, 
 meaningly, and under control ; so that he felt as if 
 she were turning to ridicule his bearing and his 
 clothes. He pivoted swiftly upon his heels and 
 walked the extent of the lawn to where the felled 
 cedar obstructed its length. He abandoned his 
 formal pace, hardly turning out his toes at all, but 
 walked with his head bent down, his curls falling 
 across his face. The trunk of the fallen cedar tree 
 was so bulky that when he came up to it it was of 
 the height of his chin, and he stayed with his face to 
 it, pushing with his cane at the pieces of bark that 
 had fallen off upon the turf and spoiled the formality 
 of the ordered lawn. Having so reflected for the 
 space of a whole minute, he turned, business-like, and 
 strode back to her ladyship. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " if you consider that the 
 purchase of this portrait was an action dis- 
 creditable " 
 
 " Why, no, sure ! " she interrupted him ; " Fortune 
 and alertness were upon your side." 
 
 " And folly and misfortune upon the side of my 
 rival, whosoever he be." 
 
 " Why, Sir Francis," Lady Eshetsford said, 
 " have you not heard that Fortune is a woman, and 
 that, in consequence, women fall to men whom 
 Fortune does not favour? That is the secret of 
 what is called womanly compassion." 
 16 
 
242 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " It is the secret of womanly unwisdom," he 
 answered ; " for is it not better to take the hand of a 
 man whom Fortune favours, than of one " 
 
 " Sir," she said, " a gentleman cannot forward his 
 suit by belittling his rival. So is a woman made, so 
 contrary is she, that she will take the counterpart 
 to you, allege you what you may." 
 
 " If this man Bettesworth " Sir Francis began, 
 
 with disfavour in his tone. 
 
 " Sir Francis," she laughed at him again, " Mr. 
 Bettesworth has the virtue of priority to set against 
 yours of alertness ; you were the first with the 
 picture — he with me. Which of you brought his 
 eggs to the better market ? " 
 
 " I swear," Sir Francis said, " that when I 
 purchased the picture I had no idea of who the 
 original was ; and it was a chance word from 
 Mr. Bettesworth that put me upon the scent. So 
 that, once more, you see how this fool throws away 
 his whole fortune." 
 
 " Why, no," she answered ; " surely if Mr. 
 Bettesworth put you on the scent, the more credit 
 to Mr. Bettesworth. And I would have you observe 
 that you have missed a very fine opening for a 
 compliment, since you might have said that you 
 purchased the picture on account of your passion." 
 
 Sir Francis raised his shrinking eyes steadily to 
 hers. 
 
 " Thus your ladyship knows ? " 
 
 " Why, my ladyship must have known him the 
 first ! " she laughed at him. " It is in the nature of 
 things that one should know of one's own actions. 
 But what is more important is that I know that 
 
THE PORTRAIT 243 
 
 your Worship knew, and so, puff! vanishes your 
 passion into smoke." 
 
 " Why, madam," Sir Francis said, " I trust it is 
 no offence ? " 
 
 She made him a curtsey. 
 
 " Sure, 'tis no offence," she said, " to beg of me 
 to put money into your purse, and to crown your 
 brows with laurel of a successful achievement. 
 And every woman is for sale to the highest bidder." 
 
 " And do I not," he asked, " bid as high as Mr. 
 Bettesworth ? Am I not worth so nearly what he 
 is that the difference should hardly weigh down an 
 apothecary's scale ? " 
 
 " You fall short," she answered " by a hound or 
 two here, by an acre or two there." 
 
 " But shall I not travel a thousand miles or so 
 further in the estimation of the world, and in place 
 and profit ? " 
 
 " Sir," she answered, *' when I said that every 
 woman was for sale to the highest bidder, I did not 
 state what coin the auctioneer set upon his lots." 
 
 For the second time Sir Francis fell upon his 
 knee. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " I have put in my bid, and 
 there is no other bidder. Let me give you earnest 
 of my purchase," and he caught her hand and 
 pressed it to his lips. 
 
 There was a soft sound of hoofs upon the turf 
 beyond the cedar tree. Lady Eshetsford saw the 
 head and nostrils of a yellowish horse, and the 
 figure and hat of a rider who held his whip on 
 high. The horse rose, the figure was obscured ; 
 the beast clumsily topped the brown trunk, with all 
 
244 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 its feet together. It stood for a moment with its 
 nostrils distended downwards, as if it were upon the 
 top of a high bank and felt a panic fear. Then 
 slowly and wearily it subsided to the grass, its 
 forelegs crumpling together so that its near shoulder 
 seemed to come first to the ground. Its rider part 
 fell, part crawled, and part wrenched himself free, 
 and with a slightly staggering gait, but still grasping 
 his whip, ran towards them. The horse seemed to 
 luxuriate for a moment in its recumbent position. 
 Then wrenching its legs and its neck clumsily in 
 the air, it got on its feet and trotted dispiritedly 
 towards the gap in the yew hedge. Its movements 
 were of a fatigue so utter that it seemed hardly to 
 desire to escape. The head of Mr. Williams, the 
 Methodist, gaunt, dishevelled and hatless, peered 
 over the tree-trunk. From his own horse he had 
 prudently descended. Mr. Bettesworth, because he 
 desired to remove from his dress and countenance 
 some at least of the traces of travel and privation 
 that he had gone through, had entered the garden 
 by a postern gate in the walls, in preference to the 
 state entry in front of the Manor, which came by 
 way of a bridge over the little river. He had been 
 almost more cast down than it was possible for a 
 man to be, and he was seeking his home with the 
 instinct of a sick creature. Nevertheless, aware 
 that Lady Eshetsford was beneath his roof, he 
 desired to appear before her at least well washed 
 and in a clean suit. But the sight of Sir Francis 
 Dashwood, kneeling, and in possession of Lady 
 Eshetsford's hand, had roused him to a flicker of 
 delirious fury ; and, not caring in the least that he 
 
THE PORTRAIT 245 
 
 was riding no better than Mr. Jack Williamson's 
 old horse, and that it was very tired with more than 
 ten days of incessant travel hither and thither, he 
 had set the poor beast at the tree-trunk. Its fall 
 had shaken and bewildered him. So that it was 
 not the desire to count forty so much as a sheer 
 lack of words that made him remain for some 
 moments in a ghastly silence. His eyes rolled 
 from the face of Sir Francis Dashwood to that of 
 Lady Eshetsford. The flesh of his face had fallen 
 away, so that his nose was very hooked ; and his skin 
 was gone very brown with weather and exposure. 
 
 A pallor came over the face of Sir Francis. He 
 rose to his feet and attempted to ask how Mr. 
 Bettesworth's health was, and how he had fared in 
 his adventure. But the attempt met with no success, 
 and his voice faltered and fell before he had 
 completed his first sentence. 
 
 And even Lady Eshetsford was seized with a 
 measure of consternation, so haggard was Mr. 
 Bettesworth's mien, and above all his eyes. She 
 could not accuse herself of any wrong in receiving 
 and rejecting the addresses of Sir Francis, but she 
 could have wished that this man in the hour of his 
 misfortune had not found them together, since it 
 must needs, if only for a short time, seem to add 
 to his misfortunes. Thus they all three remained 
 in deep silence. 
 
 And suddenly Mr. Roland Bettesworth came 
 sauntering round the house-end. Having had 
 nothing better to do, Mr. Roland, upon parting from 
 his brother, had ridden straight to Winterbourne, 
 since it appeared to him that the business he had 
 
246 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 most in hand was that of courting Maria Trefusis. 
 For the hatred that, for the time, he felt against his 
 brother had only accentuated his desire to extract 
 money from Mr. Bettesworth's pockets, and he 
 remembered Mr. Bettesworth's promise to provide 
 him with a wedding portion if he secured the hand 
 of Lady Eshetsford's ward. Thus he had taken 
 but four days to reach Winterbourne, and in that 
 house the story of Mr. Bettesworth's misfortunes 
 was at least a week old. For Mr. Roland conceived, 
 with some justice, that the way to wean Maria from 
 her affection for his brother was to hold that 
 formerly princely person up to the ridicule that he had 
 certainly incurred. In her own mind, knowing that 
 Mr. Roland was, when it suited him, a very capable 
 liar, Maria Trefusis reserved, at any rate for the 
 time, her belief in his story. But Lady Eshetsford 
 and the Signora gave it a very good credence. 
 And, upon the whole, they were glad of it. For 
 both these ladies were agreed that Mr. Bettesworth, 
 although he was almost the perfection of a man, yet 
 ran a great danger. Lady Eshetsford considered 
 that godlike as he was — and his name was never 
 off the two ladies' lips — he was uninclined to make 
 great effort, or any effort at all, except upon 
 occasions of heroical prominence. Lady Eshetsford 
 admired immensely the sword-play he had shown 
 against her late husband. Still more did she 
 admire the ready wit with which he had thought 
 out the stipulations that he had imposed, for her 
 protection, upon Sir John. Indeed, for these things 
 she loved him and would be very content to marry 
 him in the end. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 247 
 
 But his wager at the Dilettante Society, which 
 seemed to her a masculine foolishness beyond the 
 folly of most men, a mere piece of contentious 
 boastfulness, a declaration for the sake of notoriety 
 that he would perform a feat for which he was in 
 no way specially adapted, — this she regarded as the 
 product of a tendency to vaingloriousness that might 
 well cause him great troubles in after life. 
 
 The Signora, on the other hand, remembering 
 the eccentricities of his uncle, dreaded that Mr. 
 Bettesworth might become in turn such another, 
 if he should grow accustomed to regard the world 
 as a place which contained no checks for his 
 overbearing will. He was, she was afraid, certain 
 in the end to come up against such an obstacle as 
 that thwarted desire to drive his coach up the steps 
 of St. Paul's Cathedral that had sent Mr. Bettes- 
 worth, the uncle, back for good into the country. 
 Here Mr. Bettesworth, senior, had been an obdurate 
 tyrant to small people entirely under his control. 
 He had been soured, cruel, harsh, and, owing 
 responsibility to no one, he had given to his 
 lightest whims the weight of the decrees of Jove. 
 This fate she feared for Mr. Bettesworth himself. 
 
 Thus both of them welcomed Mr. Roland's 
 narrative. They saw in these circumstances a hope 
 that Mr. Bettesworth might be so chastened by 
 these misfortunes that he should become some- 
 thing resembling an ordinary man. And although 
 both of them, being women, were determined 
 that he should not lose the twenty thousand 
 pounds that he was so ready to throw, 
 as it were, into the gutter ; and although both, 
 
248 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 because they loved him, were determined that he 
 should incur no real ridicule, and that the laugh in 
 the end should be on his side, both rejoiced that 
 the attainment should be at the cost of some 
 suffering. 
 
Ill 
 
 YET at the sight of his attenuated features and 
 shrunken eyelids, Lady Eshetsford felt more 
 of pity than of elation ; but she took it for a sign of 
 distraction that his first words were neither for her- 
 self nor for Sir Francis, but for his brother, who, 
 half turning to retreat, hung nevertheless upon his 
 heel. Without either greeting or salute, Mr. Bettes- 
 worth asked abstractedly — 
 
 " Where are my men ? " 
 
 " Be damned to you if I know ! " Mr. Roland 
 said. " Kicking their heels at Ashford, or hung upon 
 the gallows. All's one to me. I have left your 
 service." 
 
 " And my horse ? " Mr. Bettesworth said. 
 " Who had my horse ? " 
 
 " Why, Jack Williamson had your horse," 
 Mr. Roland answered. " He rode away upon it 
 from the inn. I have a letter from him to say that 
 he is in Maidstone, lying in in great state at an 
 inn under charge of a widow, who he says will 
 marry him." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth commented, but rather as if he 
 were speaking to himself. 
 
 " If I had had my horse I might have overtaken 
 
 them. I came upon their tracks twice ; once that 
 
 249 
 
2 50 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 night at Charing, and once the day after next at 
 Blackheath, but they rode too fast. I could not 
 overtake them. Nor yet have I hanged Chuckel ; 
 his accounts were in order by the time I got 
 back." 
 
 He spoke with such a weariness, as of despair, 
 that Lady Eshetsford was moved to say — 
 
 " You have ridden with neither men nor clothes, 
 nor yet a good horse ? " 
 
 " But," he continued, ignoring her interruption, 
 " I have yet a thing upon me." 
 
 Attracted by the horse, which had run into the 
 garden and was browsing upon the yew hedge, the 
 Earl of Pembroke and Maria Trefusis came out 
 upon the lawn. Maria tittered at sight of Mr. 
 Bettesworth, but upon a glance from his eyes became 
 suddenly stricken with panic. The Earl's eyebrows 
 were arched with curiosity, and then Mr. Bettesworth 
 spoke with a sudden ferocity to Sir Francis. 
 
 " If nothing else is to come of this wager," he 
 said, " yet remains for me a word with you ; and 
 since there are gentlemen present, let us step 
 apart." 
 
 " Be damned if I will make one ! " Mr. Roland 
 said. " You may do your throat-cutting alone until 
 you have made me an apology." 
 
 Sir Francis became disordered in his face. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " Mr. Bettesworth, my lord, this is 
 surely not the time nor the place, nor is there any 
 occasion given that I am aware of " 
 
 The Earl regarded Sir Francis with his features 
 made up to express a desire to be of assistance. 
 
 " Why, Sir Francis," he said, " this lawn, as you 
 
THE PORTRAIT 251 
 
 will observe, is very neatly cut in two by that felled 
 tree-trunk, so that there is a space set apart 
 for gallant conversation. Moreover, I perceive 
 beyond the tree the head of another gentleman, so 
 that there are witnesses enough. And, without doubt, 
 the ladies will go into the house, and warn no 
 servants to interrupt us. I have never seen a time 
 nor occasion more proper." 
 
 " Why," Mr. Bettesworth said harshly, " if he 
 will not step apart, we will commence it here and 
 now." 
 
 Lady Eshetsford was of an exceeding pallor, but 
 because she could not trust herself she did not 
 speak ; nor, indeed, since the occasion was one at 
 once inevitable and proper, had she any desire to. 
 She touched Maria upon the arm, and the two were 
 gone round the house-end. The four men, consider- 
 ing themselves alone, were about to recommence 
 their affair, when, perceiving the Signora Poppaea 
 hobbling very slowly from the cut garden, the three 
 who were actively engaged walked swiftly round the 
 butt of the tree-trunk, for there was between it 
 and the house-wall a space of some three feet. 
 Mr. Roland went quickly towards the Signora, and 
 having hurriedly informed her what was agate, 
 he returned towards the others. He clambered, 
 however, with some nimbleness on to the trunk of 
 the tree, and having picked up a small piece of 
 bark he began to chew it for the sake of its acrid 
 flavour, and to whistle between his teeth. This was 
 to show that he was a spectator, and not a partici- 
 pant. Finally, he slipped into a sitting posture, and 
 sat kicking his heels very contentedly against the 
 
252 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 bark. The Methodist, Mr. Williams, was protesting 
 that, as a minister of God, he could not be a second 
 in a temporal duel. It was his province, he said, 
 to act as assistant in spiritual duels, in which weak 
 souls fought with the strong fiend. 
 
 " Why, you will make a legal witness if anything 
 come of it," the Earl said. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth was stripping off his tarnished 
 coat ; the right breast of his waistcoat was very much 
 torn, having been injured in the affray at Ashford. 
 His coat, however, the Methodist had, to the best of 
 his ability, patched up with needle and thread at the 
 various inns at which they had halted, so that it was 
 not so very bad, Mr. Williams being the son of the 
 chief tailor of Ashford. 
 
 Sir Francis was still complaining that he did not 
 know upon what occasion they were to fight. 
 
 " Sir," the Earl said, " is an excuse ever needed 
 for a fight ? Let us take it that this gentleman is 
 offended because your clothes are in better trim 
 than his. In short, as I am the Earl of Pembroke, I 
 am well satisfied that all things are fittting and 
 proper." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth had thrown his coat over the 
 arm of the attendant Methodist. And having 
 divested himself of his own upper garments, Sir 
 Francis threw them over Mr. Williams' other arm. 
 Mr. Bettesworth had nothing to say, and Sir Francis, 
 being inwardly conscious of a tone of displeasure in 
 the Earl's voice, and conscious that all the reports of 
 his demeanour upon this occasion would come from 
 his lordship, extended his blade in silence. Mr. 
 Bettesworth laid his own along it, and the Earl, 
 
 4 
 
THE PORTRAIT 253 
 
 holding the two together with the grave manner 
 of a connoisseur, declared that there was but half 
 an inch of difference between the two, and that 
 the advantage lay with Sir Francis. Therefore 
 Mr. Bettesworth, if he liked, might cry the encounter 
 off till two blades of equal measure could be 
 fetched. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth muttered hoarsely that a kitchen 
 knife would satisfy him. Nay, he would not delay 
 the encounter if he held nothing more than one 
 blade of a pair of scissors. His voice shook in his 
 throat, and his eyes had grown suddenly bloodshot. 
 It was decreed by the Earl that they should fight 
 after the Hamborough manner. And in their 
 waistcoats and shirt-sleeves of lawn, each with his 
 sword out, the two stood back to back. They 
 each took twenty paces, Mr. Bettesworth walking 
 furiously and kicking out of his way the pieces 
 of bark with which the lawn was covered. Sir 
 Francis, however, paced circumspectly, and with the 
 air of a man deep in reflection. Mr. Williams 
 regarded them with rapt attention. Mr. Roland, 
 perched on the trunk, still kicked his heels and 
 whistled. The Earl rested his hand upon his sword- 
 hilt and waited at attention. It was the rule in 
 this kind of encounter that when the combatants 
 were come each to the end of his allotted paces, 
 they should stand with their swords drawn, each 
 having his back to the other. Upon command to 
 let go, they should turn upon their heels and ap- 
 proach as swiftly or as slowly as it pleased 
 them. 
 
 They stood waiting a full minute by the Earl's 
 
2 54 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 watch, for his lordship said that it was meet they 
 should take their leisure to commend their souls to 
 God. He put up his watch, but took a pinch of 
 snuff, drew his sword, wherewith to strike up their 
 blades if he deemed proper, and reflecting, with 
 pleasure, that this might make a very pretty and pro- 
 longed mel^e, he cried out sharply — 
 
 " Fortune favour the bravest ! Let go ! " 
 Sir Francis came round very smartly, Mr. Bettes- 
 worth more clumsily, for he was stiff with riding, 
 having come thirty-two miles that day upon a poor 
 horse. Sir Francis stepped with a high and mincing 
 gait, but Mr. Bettesworth suddenly ran. His steps 
 were uneven, his mouth open, and a great rage 
 had him by the throat, so that he had no saliva in 
 his mouth. And faced by this fantastic and haggard 
 vision, Sir Francis, who was most used to the con- 
 cealments and the graces, hung back for a moment, 
 though the rules prescribed that once being started 
 neither combatant must halt or deviate by a hair's- 
 breadth from his course towards the other. It ran 
 swiftly through his mind that this was monstrous 
 and unfair, since if he kept his head he might have 
 held his own for five minutes with the swordsman 
 that Mr. Bettesworth was reputed to be ; whereas, if 
 he lost his nerve — and this indecent exhibition of 
 ferocity was sufficient to make any gentleman lose 
 his nerve — he was as good as dead meat. He 
 cursed hurriedly under his breath. His opponent's 
 eyes, set fixedly upon him, seemed to grow as large 
 as teacups ; the opposing sword waved in circles. A 
 sweat came over his face. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Bettesworth's hand seemed to 
 
THE PORTRAIT 255 
 
 plunge forward towards the earth, the sword curved 
 through the air, his shoulder struck the earth, and, 
 supine, with the impetus of his motion he pitched a 
 full yard farther along the turf. With an extra- 
 ordinary hurry of rage he scrambled on to his hands 
 and knees ; he attempted to rise, but with a loud 
 exclamation of pain he sank down again. Having 
 trodden sideways upon one of the pieces of bark, 
 Mr. Bettesworth, in falling, had sprained his 
 ankle. 
 
 " God help me ! " he moaned, " I shall do no more 
 fighting to-day. It is fate that I should appear 
 a fool ! " 
 
 Mr. Williams was bending over him with a 
 deep solicitude ; the Earl choked with visible 
 chagrin. 
 
 " I am very much to blame," he said ; " it was 
 my duty, as second, to have found a fitting place, 
 and this was no fitting place for the encounter." 
 
 Mr. Bettes worth's face had become very pale. His 
 eyes were closed with pain. 
 
 " I think," Sir Francis came near to exclaim, " this 
 day falls to me ? There is no one to meet me. 
 My heart goes out to Mr. Bettesworth with pity, but 
 so it is." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth hissed through his closed teeth. 
 " Prop me up against the tree," he said harshly. 
 " Give me my sword again, and see which of us goes 
 hence ! " 
 
 The Earl exclaimed, " Mr. Bettesworth ! Mr. 
 Bettesworth ! I could not stand by and see this." 
 
 And suddenly Mr. Roland Bettesworth slipped 
 down from the tree-trunk. The Signora Poppaea 
 
256 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 was hobbling slowly around the butt ; and at the 
 upper window that looked down upon them, the 
 sash suddenly grated up. Maria Trefusis was 
 leaning out and laughing. 
 
 Mr, Roland walked leisurely to his brother's back, 
 where he sat upon the turf, " Let be," he said to the 
 Methodist, He put his hands under his brother's 
 armpits and dragged him along the grass. He 
 propped Mr. Bettesworth's back against the trunk, 
 and pushed the hat straight upon his head. 
 
 " Let be," he said, " you ill-fated fool ! They 
 shall not all of them have the laugh of us." 
 
 He stalked slowly over to where Mr. Bettesworth's 
 sword lay upon the turf. When he had it in his 
 hand, he moved the blade gently up and down in 
 the air, balancing it with a look of disfavour. 
 
 " I am astonished," he said to the Earl, " that my 
 brother can do so well with a thing so heavy in the 
 hilt. Nevertheless it must serve my turn, since my 
 blade is six inches longer." 
 
 " I protest," Sir Francis said suddenly, " Is this 
 another quarrel to be fixed on me ? " 
 
 " Why, Sir Francis," the Earl said, " hitherto 
 there has been no quarrel, since your blades have 
 not even touched, and it is the touching of blades 
 that is the very essence of an encounter." 
 
 " Besides," Sir Francis continued, " I have no 
 quarrel with Mr. Roland Bettesworth," 
 
 " Sir Francis," Mr. Roland said, " you have of 
 late very much frequented this house of my family. 
 And you have about you, perhaps upon your hand- 
 kerchief, or upon your stockings, or I know not 
 where, of perfume of orange peel or of ambergris, or 
 
THE PORTRAIT 257 
 
 perhaps it is no perfume at all. But with perfume, 
 or the lack of perfume, you have very much offended 
 my nostrils. And this, sure, is quarrel enough for 
 any gallant man. If you need more quarrel, I will 
 say things more particular, but this should be 
 enough." 
 
 " By my soul, a very handsome speech ! " the 
 Earl of Pembroke said. 
 
 Sir Francis drew his sword again, to show that he 
 was ready to continue the combat, but he grumbled : 
 " I protest this is very like an outlandish shambles, 
 I have never seen so many people of so odd a 
 description upon a field of honour." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth was propped against the tree- 
 trunk ; the Signora Poppaea, having hobbled 
 so far, had gone down upon her knees beside his 
 sprained ankle ; the Wesleyan minister was still 
 burdened with Mr. Roland Bettesworth's outer 
 garments, so that he appeared to stagger beneath 
 his load ; Maria Trefusis was leaning out of the 
 window, with her elbows on the sill and her hands 
 upon her chin ; the Earl was looking up at her and 
 laughing, so that he showed finely his large white 
 teeth. 
 
 " This is a hole and corner to have one's life 
 sought in," said Sir Francis, " You Wiltshire- 
 men are of a band together, like all of the West 
 Country." 
 
 The Earl suddenly spun round upon his heel. 
 
 " Sir Francis," he said, " it will give me 
 pleasure to meet you in the Assembly Rooms at 
 High Wycombe, or in any other town of the East 
 Country you please, with the town-crier sent 
 
 17 
 
258 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 round and none but East Country men present, if 
 you doubt nmy impartiality." 
 
 " My lord," Sir Francis said, " I will talk of your 
 impartiality when I am through with this affair." 
 
 " Oh, paucas palabras ! " Mr. Roland exclaimed, 
 " can we not dig holes in each other's ribs without 
 first letting off all the wind in our bodies ? " 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, get to your places," the Earl 
 exclaimed. 
 
 They stood back to back, and again started out. 
 The Signora had begun to peel the stocking from 
 Mr. Bettesworth's leg. 
 
 " I protest," he exclaimed violently, " this is 
 none of my brother's quarrel, but mine," and he 
 kicked his legs in the attempt to rise. Neverthe- 
 less his head fell back and he groaned. Mr. 
 Williams was disembarrassing himself of the gentle- 
 men's coats, laying them in order upon the tree- 
 trunk, so that he might have his hands free to tear 
 up the handkerchief that the Signora held out to 
 him. 
 
 " Into what a savage race have I fallen," he 
 exclaimed, " and what a man of blood is my 
 benefactor ! " 
 
 The Signora looked up at him with her humor- 
 ous eyes. 
 
 " Friend," she said, " have you passed your early 
 years, like Achilles, in an Academy of the fair 
 sex ? " 
 
 " Why, I am a minister of God," he answered ; 
 " the time has come for repentance and for instant 
 conversion. Have faith." 
 
 " Misericordia ! " the Signora exclaimed, " I come 
 
THE PORTRAIT 259 
 
 from the Holy City, and the proverb has it, ' Go 
 to Rome and lose your faith,' " 
 
 Having torn the handkerchief in half, Mr. 
 Williams, with something of an attempt to clap his 
 heels together, and with something of an attempt to 
 bow, handed her the strips of white linen. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " since you have come from 
 Rome, where faith is lost, it may be a sign that you 
 seek it. I am here that can provide it." 
 
 The Signora looked at him with an amused and 
 gentle incredulity. 
 
 " Reverend sir," she said, " you are attempting a 
 sally, which I had not awaited of you. But I lived 
 five years in the close society of His Holiness 
 Innocent the Fourteenth — may his blessed soul pray 
 for me ! — and if after that you can inculcate into 
 me one scintilla of faith, you will achieve a miracle 
 more astounding than that of St. Diadomene, who 
 converted dung beetles." 
 
 Behind their backs the Earl of Pembroke ex- 
 claimed loudly : " Let go ! And may God have 
 mercy on your souls ! " 
 
 The minister spun round upon his heel, the 
 Signora negligently turned her head. 
 
 The combatants were walking slowly towards each 
 other with both gravity and decorum, and having 
 reached a point at about the middle of their course, 
 with an excess of courtesy each saluted the other, 
 waving their rapiers in a wide curve, and setting the 
 hilts just to their chins. Sir Francis' sword was 
 first down — and, at point, Mr. Roland's followed 
 it. They touched blades, they elevated their left 
 hands. 
 
26o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Almost invisibly, with a sudden pressure, the 
 knight's sword was borne down. Mr. Roland's had 
 the air of being shot upwards by a spring. His 
 point entered the knight's shoulder, just upon the 
 shoulder blade, and with so much force that Sir 
 Francis fell backwards on to one knee. His sword 
 dropped to the ground, and he supported himself 
 with one hand, an expression of extreme pain 
 contorting his mouth. Mr. Roland looked curiously 
 at the point of his sword. 
 
 " I am sorry, my lord," he said, " that I gave you 
 no longer an entertainment, but there has been here 
 too much talk." 
 
 The shrill and joyous voice of Maria exclaimed 
 from the window above — 
 
 " Why didn't 'ee pink un through the heart, 
 Roland ? " 
 
 And Mr. Roland, sure of his ascendancy, waved 
 his hand negligently up at her, whilst the Earl 
 exclaimed, " Oh, fie ! oh, fie ! naughty madam ! " 
 
 Mr. Roland dropped the sword at his brother's 
 feet. 
 
 " If yours was not the arm, yours was the 
 blade," he said, " They shall never laugh at us 
 Bettesworths for swordsmen, whatever they do for 
 fools." 
 
 He took the half handkerchiefs from the Signora's 
 hands. 
 
 " This popinjay has more need of corking than 
 my brother," he said, and going over to Sir Francis, 
 he prepared himself to push strips of torn linen into 
 the wound, that was beginning broadly to discolour 
 the knight's grey brocaded waistcoat. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 261 
 
 " A bloody day ! " the Methodist exclaimed. " A 
 woeful and bloody day ! " 
 
 " Friend," the Signora answered him, " I have 
 seen seven gentlemen contend together for per- 
 mission to pick up my handkerchief, and of them all 
 but three left the room alive ! " 
 
<:J 
 
 IV 
 
 IT was, indeed, from Mr. Williams that they 
 learned all that they were destined to learn of 
 what had happened to Mr. Bettesworth during his 
 progress from Ashford to Winterbourne. Mr. Jack 
 Williamson having been not too drunk to get the 
 horses out of the stable, had been, nevertheless, by 
 far too gone in liquor to distinguish between his 
 own and the horse of his employer, so that he had 
 ridden off into the country with no very clear idea 
 of any destination at all, and had vanished into the 
 night. The Methodist had led Mr. Bettesworth 
 very faithfully through the fog to the park gates, 
 where they found tethered the horse of Mr, Roland 
 himself and the rather sorry yellow nag which had 
 been allotted to Mr. Jack Williamson. 
 
 " My benefactor," the Methodist said, " acted 
 during all this time as if he had had a disordered 
 intellect. Yea, it was as if God had sent into his 
 brain a cloud of smoke, or a bewilderment of 
 vapour." Mr. Bettesworth, it appeared, had forgotten 
 his men and had forgotten his resources. He had 
 consulted the Methodist as to what road it was 
 likely the abductors of Lydia Chuckel would have 
 taken to get to Town. He had to take into account 
 
 that on the one hand they would desire to travel 
 
 362 
 
THE PORTRAIT 263 
 
 with all the expedition they might use ; on the 
 other, they could not take a very direct route, since 
 they would know that Mr. Bettesworth would be 
 very soon released from jail — nay, they themselves 
 had encouraged his release. The London road 
 went through Charing, and for most of its length, 
 even as far as Maidstone, it would be fairly good 
 going. This road they would scarcely take, since 
 they might be very certain to be speedily pursued 
 by Mr. Bettesworth and his men. The only other 
 road that they would be certain of travelling — for 
 ways through the Weald were mere quagmires 
 — was one that made through the village of Great 
 Chart. 
 
 Mr. Williams was unable to account for Mr. 
 Bettesworth's actions — " How could we, being but 
 two, avail against so many ? " Nevertheless they 
 set out as hard as they could lather through the 
 misty uplands and valleys. Perhaps Mr. Bettes- 
 worth was unwilling to lose time waiting for his 
 men ? Perhaps he laid so much to the account 
 of his single arm that he could rid himself of all 
 the abductors ? Or perhaps it was a mere madness, 
 without any definite object as without any calcula- 
 tion. So they rode, through the thick mist that 
 was up to their horses' ears, beneath a moonlight 
 full of black shadows ; a half-mad man upon a 
 spiritless horse, followed faithfully by a half-crazed 
 priest, who was as full of misgivings as of gratitude. 
 To the Methodist Mr. Bettesworth, with his wealth, 
 his rank, and, above all, his assurance, appeared to be 
 a gentleman in the extreme, valuable to a flock 
 already oppressed. Mr. Bettesworth had promised 
 
264 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 to distend his purse-strings till at least their cause 
 was sifted and adjudged orthodox or heretical by 
 Convocation ; and this was more than, either 
 by praying or field-preachings, they had so far 
 achieved. 
 
 At Charing they heard from the pike-keeper that 
 three hours before eight riders, going very fast, had 
 passed through to the westward. They reached 
 Biddenden at dawn, and heard as much again. An 
 hour later Mr. Bettesworth's horse cast a shoe, and 
 when they stopped at a forge they heard just the 
 same tale — that eight riders had passed three hours 
 before, going, however, to the northwards towards 
 Orpington. One of these riders, indeed, had, like 
 them, been delayed by a cast shoe, which the smith 
 declared had been very curiously lost, inasmuch as 
 the nails had had all the appearance of having been 
 wrenched out by force, and the other shoes being 
 very newly put on. This appeared to afford the 
 smith so much reason for conjecture that he dwelt 
 upon it, and every permutation of the chances that 
 can befall horseshoes, — such as inefficient nailing 
 by a previous farrier, nails in themselves lacking or 
 flawed, the sudden striking of a stone ; or even as 
 happened, so it is said, to Sir Greville Bevell in 
 foreign parts, whose horse trode upon a lodestonc 
 and had all its shoes and nails wrenched off at 
 once. 
 
 Having eaten nothing at all by night or day, they 
 came, just three-quarters of an hour later, outside 
 the Good Intent Inn, upon six horses tethered by 
 the head to a rack manger. Four men in Major 
 Penruddock's livery, which was of Cornish yellow 
 
THE PORTRAIT 265 
 
 with black worsted epaulettes, were upon the instant 
 howling to them to stop ; and drawn out from the 
 door by the great noise, his face very hang-dog and 
 his eyes lacking lustre, came the Honourable Simon 
 Harcourt of His Majesty's Privy Council, 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth, so the Methodist said, descended 
 from his beast as if he were falling into the road. 
 He strode up to Mr. Harcourt with his whip raised, 
 uttering blasphemies that Mr. Williams declared to 
 have passed any comfortable imagination of man- 
 kind. Mr. Harcourt, on the other hand, was in a 
 condition of rage quite as lamentable, while his 
 voice was the more shrill, so that through a scene 
 which appeared to be mostly tumult and babel, the 
 Methodist could hear him repeating again and again : 
 " Before God, you may find her, for I have her 
 not." 
 
 And, Mr. Bettesworth being held back by one 
 of the retainers in Major Penruddock's livery, Mr. 
 Harcourt, with an expression of vacuous imbecility 
 remained, his hands deep in his breeches pockets, 
 and his hat upon the back of his head, upon the 
 red brick steps of the inn, gazing at his muddied 
 boots. 
 
 Mr. Harcourt's horse, it appeared, had cast a shoe, 
 as Mr. Bettesworth and Mr. Williams had already 
 heard. Now Mr. Harcourt's charger, Turenne, which 
 Mr. Harcourt had won at lansquenet, in the year 
 1733, from the Marechal de Crequy in Paris, was 
 the apple of Mr. Harcourt's eye, so that with the 
 shoe cast he would not, as any other man would 
 have done, ride forward upon a servant's horse, 
 leaving the servant to follow upon Turenne. But he 
 
2 66 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 must stop at the forge himself to see that Turenne's 
 hoofs were not over-pared, or his nose injured by 
 too tight a twist, so that, leaving the main body of 
 them to progress, he had remained behind at the 
 forge. 
 
 Riding onwards, he had come upon the six 
 servants, four of Major Penruddock's and two of 
 his own, halted at the inn. They gave him word 
 that Major Penruddock and Lydia Chuckel, having 
 been closeted in an upper room, over pots of break- 
 fast ale and a dish of bacon — this being the first 
 meal they had enjoyed since leaving Ashford — 
 Major Penruddock and Lydia Chuckel had ridden 
 forward, bidding the men await Mr. Harcourt there 
 at the inn ; and the dire point was that they had 
 never passed the next turnpike, which was three- 
 quarters of a mile down the road. They must 
 thus, it seemed, have gone away across the trackless 
 country. There was no finding them ! There was 
 not so much as finding any trace of them. Mr. 
 Harcourt knew that Lydia Chuckel was open to 
 bribery, for had not he and the Major, on the 
 night before, succeeded by offering a very high 
 bribe, in which both he and the Major were to 
 share, in making her leave the protection of Mr. 
 Bettesworth. 
 
 " So that we are to imagine," Mr. Williams said, 
 " that by a new treachery of Major Penruddock's — 
 namely, that he himself would pay the whole of 
 the bribe, and doubtless more in addition — this 
 damsel had been induced to go away with the 
 Major alone." 
 
 They were both by this time — and this they 
 
THE PORTRAIT 267 
 
 knew for a fact, Mr, Harcourt having later written 
 it to Mr. Bettesworth at Ashford Manor-house — 
 sheltering at Norfolk House. And thus the Duke 
 claimed, through the aid of Major Penruddock, to 
 have won his part of the wager — which was that 
 he should house the original of " Celia in her Arbour." 
 Major Penruddock claimed to have won his portion 
 of the wager from Mr. Harcourt in that he had 
 found Celia. Mr. Harcourt had lost to the Duke 
 in that he had failed very signally in the attempt 
 to bring her to Town ; and Sir Francis Dashwood 
 having lost to the Duke, had for the moment lost 
 also to Mr. Bettesworth since he had wagered that 
 he would marry Celia. Sir Francis, indeed, might 
 still win his wager by coming to terms with the 
 Duke and Major Penruddock, since he might 
 purchase Lydia Chuckel from these two gentlemen. 
 Still, this was considered unlikely, since it was 
 known that the Major had converted Lydia into 
 his kept mistress with a sealed settlement, the use 
 of a glass coach so long as she remained faithful, 
 and four footmen of her own. 
 
 And after that Mr. Williams reported that he 
 and his benefactor had undertaken incredible 
 voyages. They had gone across country, in one 
 direction and another, until they had reached the 
 outskirts of London itself. But at the point 
 when they had reached the post which marks the 
 limit of the coal and wine dues of the City of 
 London — upon Keston Common, where they had 
 lit off their horses to drink a pot of ale in 
 a low pot-house — Mr. Bettesworth abandoned all 
 
268 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 hope of recovering Lydia. This resokition, Mr. 
 Williams reported, had seemed to shake him as 
 much as sudden conversions of faith had shaken 
 sinners in jails that he had seen. 
 
 " But, alas ! " Mr. Williams said, " abandoning the 
 idea of carnal triumph, did he seek spiritual peace ? 
 Oh no, oh no ! He turned his mind solely upon 
 revenge, and from that hour onwards spoke but little 
 and seemed to be dead to this world." The only 
 sign, in fact, that Mr. Bettesworth had shown that 
 he knew there were other beings besides himself in 
 the world, was that from that hour they had ridden 
 more slowly, since there was no longer such need 
 for haste, and their poor beasts were tired and 
 trembling. Mr. Bettesworth was determined to 
 have the life of Mr. Chuckel, and then those of 
 Sir Francis Dashwood and of Major Penruddock. 
 Since Mr. Harcourt had been as much fooled as 
 himself, he was content to spare his life. 
 
 Their horses had had thirty hours' rest at Ashford 
 Manor-house, where Mr. Bettesworth had returned 
 to see to the arrest and the hanging of the land- 
 steward. 
 
 At Ashford Manor-house they found, of coherent 
 persons, only Mrs. Chuckel, whom Mr. Williams 
 reported to be a personable woman, showing signs 
 of being ready to listen to his ministrations, had 
 he only had the time to devote to her. Mr. 
 Chuckel, however, had disappeared with a gentle 
 urbanity, informing his wife that he never intended 
 to see her again ; that he hoped to hear that Lydia 
 was hanged for picking of pockets, or whipped at 
 the cart's tail ; and that he intended to live on his 
 
THE PORTRAIT 269 
 
 honourable savings in the West of England until 
 the day of his death. And Mrs. Chuckel was able 
 to inform Mr. Bettesworth that she was convinced 
 — her husband having with success run his three 
 ship-loads of smuggled goods — Mrs. Chuckel was 
 convinced that Mr. Bettesworth would find her 
 husband's accounts in order. The money of his 
 takings to the last penny was to be found in a 
 corner cupboard in their bedroom, the keys of this 
 were in Mrs. Chuckel's keeping ; and his tallies and 
 papers were in the upper drawer of her bureau. 
 So that Mr. Bettesworth had, at any rate upon all 
 the scrutiny that he then had leisure to give to 
 the accounts, no pretence whatever for the arrest 
 of the fugitive. A civil action might lie against 
 him for deserting his post without notice, but, 
 effectively, Mr. Chuckel had escaped scot-free. 
 And at the thought of Mr. Chuckel's urbane 
 defiance, of his jaunty step and his self-satisfied 
 face, such a fever of rage overcame Mr. Bettesworth 
 that he had perforce to spend a night in bed. But 
 upon the receipt of a letter next morning from Mr. 
 Harcourt, giving him the news not only that Lydia 
 Chuckel was with Major Penruddock under the 
 protection of the Duke of Norfolk, but that Sir 
 Francis Dashwood was reported to be paying his 
 court to Lady Eshetsford, Mr. Bettesworth had 
 been seized with so hot a desire to effect the 
 downfall of Sir Francis that he forgot alike Mr. 
 Chuckel, the exposure of the Ashford magistrates, 
 and the avenging of the wrongs of the stick-gatherer 
 and the dead prostitute. They had set out in- 
 continently for Wiltshire, having no luggage, and 
 
2;o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 only a very little money ; but Mr. Bettesworth had 
 borrowed from the estate funds. Mr. Bettesworth's 
 servants having waited at the Manor-house for 
 three days, had set out at their own discretion 
 upon the road to London. 
 
V 
 
 MADAM," the Signora said, "no, very 
 assuredly, I do not think that this 
 medicine has been too strong for Mr. Bettes- 
 worth." 
 
 Lady Eshetsford drew her skirts more high in 
 front of the wood-fire, for though it was by then 
 June, the Winterbourne, still full, ran round the 
 house, and in the evening the mists rose. 
 
 " Why," she said, " you have known him for 
 years longer than I. But it seems to me that Sir 
 Francis will not lie more than three days abed now, 
 and so far I have had not three hours of converse 
 with Mr. Bettesworth." 
 
 " I have not known my benefactor for more than 
 three weeks," Mr. Williams said, " so that I do not 
 know how he was before these troubles, but if ever 
 I have seen a madman, Mr. Bettesworth is one." 
 
 The Signora's boudoir, a tall, dark, panelled room, 
 was filled with odd objects of her former career. 
 Over the chimney-piece was a huge steel engraving 
 of St. Peter's, with three gentlemen in enormous 
 skirted coats pointing with tasselled canes at various 
 portions of the cupola. Flanking this, and glaring 
 at each other, were portraits of the late Mr. Bettes- 
 worth and of the late Pope Innocent xiii. The 
 
272 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 white marble statuette of a stricken deer should 
 have occupied a shelf to itself beside the door, but 
 it was overlaid with books of devotion, and with 
 account books of the Signora's estate and charities. 
 The complete dress of purple paduasoy, that she 
 was in the habit of wearing of a morning, was 
 suspended across a corner of the room, enormous 
 and inflated with a string that passed through the 
 sleeves and was attached to two nails. One of 
 the halberds, still decorated with the long mourning 
 weepers that had been carried by the servants at 
 the late Mr. Bettesworth's funeral, loomed dimly in 
 another corner of the room. 
 
 " This state of mind," Mr. Williams continued, 
 " is one that I have frequently seen in those about 
 to suffer conversion — this moodiness, this paying 
 no attention either to his victuals or to the general 
 conversation. I have seen men like this for several 
 days — nay, for weeks on end — and then suddenly 
 they will spring into the air and cry Glory ! 
 Glory ! " 
 
 The Signora regarded him with a humorous and 
 kindly glance. 
 
 *' No doubt," she said, " Mr. Bettesworth and Lady 
 Eshetsford and myself will find conversion upon 
 the same day, and we shall spring into the air and 
 cry ' Glory ! Glory ! ' which in my case will be a 
 greater miracle than such as I have seen worked 
 by Cardinal Capelone sixteen years ago come 
 Michaelmas," 
 
 " Why, we have worked greater miracles of con- 
 version than this," Mr. Williams said. 
 
 " I don't doubt it," the Signora answered ; " but 
 
THE PORTRAIT 273 
 
 for the moment the point to be considered is which 
 of us three shall beard Mr. Bettesworth ? You, 
 sir, might do it by virtue of your sacred office. 
 Yet it is a matter of doubt whether even here, of 
 a certainty, your office is at all sacred, which I say 
 with no intention of discourtesy, but only as one 
 anxious to discover what may best serve my former 
 pupil." 
 
 " Madam," Mr. Williams said, " for the moment 
 I will willingly waive any claims that I may have 
 to this ministration. For there is about Mr. 
 Bettesworth at the present time an icy humour that 
 I cannot very willingly cope with. He has read 
 more in books of law and of theology ; he has 
 indited more petitions and scrutineered more 
 accounts in these last few days than I had con- 
 ceived had been within the powers of endurance 
 of any mortal man, not upheld by a sacred passion. 
 And this gives me the greater hopes of his con- 
 version, for may not this be the working of a fiend 
 within him ? On the other hand, his preoccupation 
 is mostly of a purely carnal kind. He is seeking 
 revenge, aggrandizement, and the assertion of the 
 temporal law. But this, again, in certain parts of 
 it gives me more hope. For certainly his activities 
 make for the alleviation of the sufferings of the 
 poor, the humble, the oppressed ; such as the stick- 
 picker of Ashford and the dead harlot." 
 
 " For myself," Lady Eshetsford said, " I set little 
 store by stick-pickers and harlots, and the poor and 
 humble. These must fare after their kind. But I 
 think it is a symptom of a beneficent disorder that 
 Mr. Bettesworth applies himself thus diligently to 
 18 
 
274 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 a hard task, and one that he himself alone can 
 undertake." 
 
 The Signora grasped to herself her black ebony 
 crutch, and pulling herself by the arms of the chair 
 out of its deep recesses, she groaned with pain but 
 stood upon her feet. 
 
 " I," she said, " even I myself will go and speak 
 with him, and I do not think that either of you 
 will take this as presumption in me. For upon the 
 one hand, in the presence of Lady Eshetsford he 
 may feel himself moved by shame, mortification, and 
 failure. In the presence of you, Mr. Williams, 
 he might feel anger and disgust. This would not 
 be so much because of your personal properties as 
 because Lady Eshetsford, being on the ton, must 
 remind him of the wager he imagines himself to 
 have lost, and Mr. Williams of his ridiculous plight 
 in the Round House. Whereas I, though I am only 
 an old woman, having remained here in the home of 
 his youth, where I taught him much of all that he 
 knows, may give him emotions of softness, and may 
 bring to his eyes the drops of human contrition." 
 
 Gazing at the fire. Lady Eshetsford was not 
 above grasping at her bosom with a sudden motion 
 of jealousy. 
 
 " I beg," she said coldly, " that you will not " 
 
 The Signora Poppa^a was shuffling her uneasy 
 bulk towards the door. 
 
 " Oh, rest easy," she said, though she could not 
 turn her head ; " that which is yours, whether of 
 revelation or of possession, shall be retained for you ; 
 my province is only to soften and render ductile 
 the wax that is his soul." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 275 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth, too, was gazing at the fire in 
 his great library. It was a tall apartment, as large 
 as the nave of Winterbourne Church, and for the 
 greater part its books were in obscurity, for he had 
 only two candles upon a Chinese lacquered table 
 at his elbow before the fire. His books were 
 divided into such sections as those of Law, Topo- 
 graphy, the Chase, and the History of the Ancients, 
 by tall wooden pillars, upon each of which stood a 
 black marble bust of Caesar, of a Greek, or of a 
 Roman lawgiver, upon plinths of polished granite. 
 
 Upon an easel close to the fire was a cabinet 
 picture by Pompeo Cibboni ; it had a gilt frame, that 
 shone in the light of the candles, and represented 
 the " Rape of Ganymede." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth was in his fullest of dress — a 
 purple velvet long-coat with silver lace, and tight 
 knee-breeches of white satin that shone like opals 
 in the firelight. His wig of chestnut curls was 
 longer than any he had ever worn before. He 
 had regained none of his flesh ; his nose was still 
 sunken and very hooked, though his skin had lost 
 the greater part of its tan, and had the transparency 
 of a bigaroon cherry. His eye gazed at the flames 
 with the blind abstraction of a spaniel's ; he remained 
 perfectly motionless, and suddenly his right hand 
 slipped from his knee and fell open at the side of 
 the chair, with a gesture of weariness, of despair, 
 and of abandonment. 
 
 From the soft, tall gloom behind his back there 
 came the shuffle of slowly dragging feet, the tap 
 of a crutch, and a deep wheezing and laborious 
 breath. He knew very well that the Signora Poppaea 
 
2/6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 was coming to him, but he did not turn his head. 
 She leaned at last heavily, her elbow upon his 
 shoulder. She looked down upon him, blinking 
 with her always humorous eyes. She had the air 
 of one of those immensely fat priests who, their 
 hands clasped across their stomachs, sun themselves 
 on benches beside their presbyteries, and regard 
 with a tolerant amusement the passions, the strivings, 
 and the play of the children in their parishes. 
 
 " My little nephew," she said at last, using an 
 allocution that she had employed many years before, 
 "what have you been doing with your Worship's time?" 
 
 He did not look at her face, he remained silent 
 upon the rustle of the flames, and suddenly he 
 exclaimed, with a violent intonation, " I shall never 
 again go to London Town ; I will live here all my 
 life, as my uncle did before me." 
 
 The Signora wrinkled up the skin around her 
 nose. " Before saying that too," she said, " you should 
 have counted forty ; you would have fared very much 
 better if you had always paid heed to that admoni- 
 tion of mine." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth swore savagely, alike at the 
 follies that his precipitancy had urged him into, 
 and because, having unguardedly moved his sprained 
 ankle, he had experienced a very severe twinge of 
 pain. " Let me be explicit," he exclaimed ; " it is 
 not because I fear to face laughter or ridicule that 
 I will no more go to London. It is because, having 
 been once made to appear ridiculous, my voice will 
 not have its proper weight in assemblies and places 
 where the Quality congregate." 
 
 " My friend," the Signora said amiably, " you are 
 
THE PORTRAIT 277 
 
 half lying, and you know that you are half lying, 
 for you care very little for London that your voice 
 should have weight in assemblies on account of 
 your gravity or your knowledge ; and you would 
 rather have won this wager than have written one 
 of the treatises of Demosthenes, so that you fear 
 ridicule and the laughter of impertinent girls more 
 than if you had lost half your estate." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth continued to look at the fire and 
 to reflect. 
 
 " Why, I believe," he said, " that I would rather 
 have paid away half my estate than that this should 
 have happened. I have an enormous superfluity 
 yet that shall now avail me little in the society of 
 my equals." 
 
 " Yet," the Signora said, " the way to encounter 
 these circumstances is to meet them to the face. 
 You had far better go to London, and by the 
 sobriety of your bearing, and the dignity of your 
 carriage, the gravity of your pursuits, and your 
 eager championing of the cause of virtue and the 
 arts, so bear yourself as to become a considerable 
 figure, than thus to retire like a fool or Achilles to 
 your tent, having of yourself only the recollection 
 of failure and rout." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth smote himself upon the thigh. 
 " No, by God ! neither will it be so," he exclaimed ; 
 " for I will make about the ears of some people 
 such a buzz as they will think thirty hornets' nests 
 have been thrown into their bedroom windows." 
 He rose to his feet with a swiftness of motion 
 remarkable in him, and walked with a gingerly 
 rapid step, cherishing his injured ankle, into the 
 
278 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 shadows and hid in an end of the room. He 
 returned bearing a black portfolio bulging with 
 papers. The Signora had settled herself down 
 into his chair, and he stood before her once more, 
 making his back very erect in front of the fire 
 which his broad purple coat-tails almost entirely 
 obscured. 
 
 " When this memorial shall reach the King's 
 Privy Council," he said, " some persons shall rue 
 the day when they first heard my name." 
 
 The Signora smiled with her enigmatic aloofness. 
 " Your eyes are very feverish and your voice is like 
 a rasp," she said. " I think you are not very certain 
 that His Majesty's Council will not treat your 
 memorials as the ramblings of a negligible idiot," 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth swallowed in his throat with rage, 
 but she held out her fat and trembling white hand 
 in a gesture that had always controlled him. " Why, 
 calm yourself," she said. " I do not say that you 
 are a negligible idiot. But it is as well to consider 
 what may be the worst that may befall you." 
 
 " If they shall not hear me," Mr. Bettesworth said, 
 " and if they will not do as I desire, then I will 
 spend every penny I possess to bring down this 
 Ministry, for they will be treating me worse than 
 ever my uncle Bettesworth was treated." 
 
 " Little nephew," the Signora exclaimed, " your 
 uncle Bettesworth was not ill-treated ; he was a 
 foolish old man who would have upset all the 
 channels of public life had he succeeded in his 
 first attempt, and if you will not question your 
 conscience rather than your passions you will be 
 just such another, and all the world may be very 
 
THE PORTRAIT 279 
 
 glad that you chain yourself up here like a sulky 
 bear." 
 
 " But shall I not," Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed 
 hotly, " take my revenge upon those who have 
 injured me?" 
 
 He held the portfolio open before his breast, 
 " Here," he said, and he fumbled out a sealed 
 packet, " is instructions to my lawyer to swear an 
 information against Major Penruddock and Mr. 
 Harcourt for perjury and conspiracy. They shall 
 not easily escape under a fine of ten thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 He turned over more papers, and extended 
 towards her a thin white packet of great 
 dimensions. 
 
 " Here is a memorial to the Privy Council 
 against the Justices of Ashford." 
 
 " And what will you do against the Justices of 
 Ashford ? " she said. " Since they acted upon sworn 
 informations and complaints, I think that not 
 even the King's Privy Council, with all the bribes 
 you can bestow upon their secretaries, their foot- 
 men, and whores, could behave so unjustly as to 
 inconvenience these Justices in your instance." 
 
 " Why," Mr. Bettesworth said, " I have considered 
 that ; but what can be the administration of justice 
 in that County when upon the instance of such 
 men as those two, and a land-steward, they should 
 arrest such a man as me for the Duke of Berwick ? 
 Is it not well known that the Duke of Berwick 
 is of the age of seventy and a dotard ; and could 
 any but a maniac imagine that forty thousand 
 French troops could land and progress to within 
 
2 8o THE PORTRAIT 
 
 a mile of the town of Ashford without creating 
 such a din as should arouse half the County of 
 Kent ? Yet it is to such fools that the administra- 
 tion of justice is nowadays confided." 
 
 " For the administration of justice I care very 
 little, or nothing at all," the Signora answered ; 
 " but that you, having been befooled, should 
 advertise yourself to the whole world as a fool of 
 the most immense dimensions, that would appear 
 to me to be to throw the cracked pot after the 
 spilt rice. These Justices would seem to me to be 
 such simple rustics that it would be best to leave 
 them to their folly, rather than to go clamouring 
 about them to the King and his Court ; and for 
 these two gentlemen, since they are your equals, 
 not by amercements and fines, but by your sword 
 you should be revenged upon them." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth turned over his papers again, 
 and came upon three other letters. 
 
 ** Here," he said, " are cartels that I have written 
 to those two and to the Duke of Norfolk, bidding 
 them to meet me half-way between this town and 
 London, or in any better place thirty miles outside 
 the City that they shall elect to find convenient. 
 You perceive that I have left no stone unturned 
 towards the complete avenging of these insults." 
 
 The Signora slowly shrugged her immense 
 shoulders until they came up beyond her ears. 
 " For myself," she said, " I leave to you the 
 question of avenging this ridicule; of the Courts of 
 male honour I know nothing, they seem to me to 
 be confused, perplexed, and turbid. But it appears 
 to me that if you should kill all these three 
 
THE PORTRAIT 281 
 
 gentlemen you shall be none the less of a fool, 
 since they have tricked you." 
 
 " Signora," Mr. Bettesvvorth said, " of these 
 matters you can know nothing or very little." 
 
 She held her head upon one side, as if she 
 were balancing it ; her black eyebrows arched 
 very high, as if in a sort of judicial superciliousness. 
 " I have said," she uttered in tones of remarkable 
 and fluting precision, " that of such matters I know 
 nothing or very little, but if I were you I would 
 set to work in a very different manner." 
 
 " In the name of God what ? " he exclaimed 
 petulantly. 
 
 " Why," she said, " if they have covered you 
 with ridicule, cast upon them ridicule still more 
 huge. If they deem themselves to have tricked 
 you, prove to them that they have overreached 
 themselves. Make them to be borne away upon 
 such a tide of ludicrosity that your mischances shall 
 be washed out and forgotten, in such a way as the 
 blood from three Christian throats, if you cut them, 
 could never achieve." 
 
 In turn he shrugged his shoulders rather wearily. 
 " This might be very well," he said, " but it is idle 
 preaching to a beggar to buy golden trappings for 
 a horse that he does not possess. How should I 
 cast ridicule upon all these men, who hold com- 
 plete in their hands all the picture cards of the 
 pack ? " 
 
 She worked her lips as if she were chewing a 
 succulent morsel. 
 
 " Did you never," she observed, and she lowered 
 her voice to gain a dramatic effect, " consider that 
 
282 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 after all it was not yet proven that this natural 
 niece of my lady's was the model for Celia ? " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth turned his back upon her with 
 a petulant motion. 
 
 " This is childishness," he said. " Why else should 
 they have been so eager to take possession of 
 her?" 
 
 " But why," she said subtly, " should you be so 
 modest ? and God knows that it is not like you to 
 imagine that these gentlemen have had granted 
 to them by the Almighty an especial perspicacity 
 in the discovery of concealed damsels." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth pivoted round as quickly as 
 he could upon his injured foot. 
 
 " My own eyes " he exclaimed. 
 
 There came from the shadow by the farther 
 portal a sound of surprised tittering. The invisible 
 door closed upon them, and over the tiled floor 
 there came the hard footsteps of an elated man. 
 
 Mr. Roland appeared in the light of the candles. 
 He wore very enormous riding-boots, which, as the 
 fashion of the year was, were turned over at the 
 'top with red morocco. 
 
 " Mr. Bettesworth," he said in a tone of trucu- 
 lent sternness, " you owe me ten thousand pounds, 
 for Maria Trefusis has consented to make me the 
 happiest of men." 
 
 A spasm of jealous anger contracted Mr. 
 Bettesworth's eyebrows. He stood in silence for 
 a minute ; and, since Mr. Roland was not minded 
 to wait until his brother should have counted 
 forty, he continued : " This I do not ask as a 
 favour but as a debt. You promised me, at 
 
THE PORTRAIT 283 
 
 Ashford Manor-house, that upon my marriage 
 with Maria you would set against the ten thousand 
 of her dowry ten thousand for mine. Until you 
 struck me I served you with a great fidelity, 
 using my sword in your interest, and releasing you 
 from the jail. So that I make no bones nor 
 false pride in making this just demand of you, nor 
 do I abate one jot of my anger against you." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth had very perceptibly ceased 
 counting, and yet there came no word from him. 
 Mr. Roland approached still nearer into the ring 
 of light, his face working with anger and concern. 
 
 " Sure you will not refuse me this," he muttered ; 
 but by then he was come within reach of the 
 Signora's chair, and, raising her hand, she delayed 
 him with a slight pressure upon his chest. 
 
 " Why, go away ! " she said. " We were debating 
 much more important matters." 
 
 " But, by God ! " Mr. Roland shouted, " I will have 
 this money. For I am tired of being a slave and 
 tending horses, and being treated to blows." 
 
 His mouth worked itself upwards and to one side 
 with a grin of malice. " Maria was affected by your 
 princely airs," he exclaimed, " to give me the slip. 
 She thought she had never seen so fine a gentleman 
 till she saw you upon the turf. Since then she has 
 done nothing but laugh at you. You could have 
 heard her laughing outside the door." 
 
 The Signora attempted to hush him with little 
 hisses as if he had been a child. But suddenly, his 
 face very rigid and calm, Mr. Bettesworth spoke — 
 
 " If you will send for Lawyer Chase from Wilton," 
 he said, " the settlements shall be made out this 
 
284 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 night. I think you have served me with all the 
 devotion that brother can await from brother — and 
 with a little more — for the sake of your name and 
 yourself." 
 
 Mr. Roland stood very rigid, tapping his whip 
 upon his great boot. He looked at his brother with 
 a certain rigidity in his blue eyes ; he moved his left 
 foot as if to turn and go. 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Bettesworth said painfully, " my 
 ankle is very stiff, so that I think I should kneel 
 with difficulty. Yet I remember that at Ashford 
 you said you would never be friends with me again 
 till I had offered you an apology kneeling. But if 
 you will take the obeisance as offered figuratively 
 and in the spirit, I ask your pardon now." 
 
 Mr. Roland clasped his crop to his side. " Why, 
 brother," he said, " when I think of the matter again 
 I will figure you to myself as kneeling to me, and 
 that shall afford me all the more gratification." 
 
 He considered for a moment, and then began 
 again — 
 
 " I will not say that I am under any obligation 
 to you, for what you have done was no more than 
 my due. But this I will say, that you seem to be 
 under the dominion of a set of women who keep you 
 as it were upon a hot griddle. They are fooling 
 you, I warn you, for their own ends, and this Lydi^ 
 Chuckel " , 
 
 " Brother," Mr. Bettesworth said in a soft voice, 
 " I will take it as a kindness if you will go with no 
 more words ; and if you will not, I will command you 
 to do so." 
 
 Mr. Roland pressed his hat down over his eyes. 
 
THE PORTRAIT 285 
 
 I " Why," he said, " I was minded to do you the 
 I best turn that has been done you since our uncle 
 i did you the favour of dying, but if you will not have 
 ' it so — and this is the second time that I have 
 1 attempted to do you this service — why, there is 
 no more to it than ' Your servant ! ' " 
 
 He lifted his hat ironically and swung away out 
 !| of the room, clinking his spurs together with the 
 I, gait that that year was fashionable. He stopped at 
 ;! the door to say to the Signora, raising his voice 
 :; because of the distance — 
 
 " I made inquiries just now at Wilton, and Sir 
 :: Francis Dashwood is out of his bed to-day. This 
 1 signifies that since, by the conditions of the wager, 
 ?: the days of his illness were days of suspension, there 
 i| are still four days more in which to win it." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth carefully watched his closing of 
 ! the door until the crack of light from outside had 
 ■ vanished, and then suddenly, with his whole face 
 I distorted, he burst into a fit of ungovernable rage. 
 
 And when he grew coherent, " It was but three 
 ; weeks ago," he said, with a bitter scorn, " that that 
 i wench doted upon my shoe-buckles." 
 
 " Why, it rejoices my ears to hear you swear 
 
 \ oaths," the Signora said placidly. " For it makes 
 
 i you the less to resemble a marble monument. But 
 
 must you have every woman in the world to be in 
 
 love with you ? " 
 
 He shri%ged his shoulders, and said " Pish ! " 
 many times. 
 
 " Friend," the Signora said, " such as Maria's is the 
 nature of the frivolous brain of the world. To some 
 you seem cast down, and they will laugh at you. 
 
 r 
 
 w 
 
2 86 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 To others you are not cast down at all ; but the 
 world will appraise you at your seeming value." 
 
 " Not cast down ! " he exclaimed, with a hideous 
 bitterness. "Is there one thing that I have 
 attempted that I have not failed in ? I find 
 Celia ; she is raped away from me. I am be- 
 devilled by magistrates, and you say I must not even 
 have revenge on them. I detect in fraud and theft 
 a land-steward, and he saves himself from under my 
 very grasp. I go to fight a duel with a man whose 
 life is in my hands as that of a kitten — and I must 
 trip and fall as if I had not the use of my feet. 
 What then remains for me but to immure myself 
 amongst my people here, who must tremble at my 
 smallest frown ? Aye," and he contorted his visage 
 into a hideous grimace and crushed his nails into 
 his palm, " if one of my hinds or tenants here so 
 much as smiles behind my back, he shall be ruined 
 utterly and for ever. For here I am the King, and 
 it will be easy." 
 
 The Signora pulled out her black snuff-box and 
 reflectively took a pinch of the brown dust, which 
 she held between finger and thumb, shaking the 
 superfluity back into the receptacle. 
 
 " Little nephew," she said, " there is the whole of 
 you. You will always be a king amongst men as if 
 you had the powers of a god, but only where it is 
 easy. You will have the lives of men who are in your 
 hands impotent as kittens. You will have vengeance 
 on poor, tricked magistrates by the expenditure of a 
 small amount of your immense superfluity. Why, 
 when you go to seek a model for Celia you will 
 take up the first ringleted girl who can trick you 
 
THE PORTRAIT 287 
 
 with a gown and a sash. And you are for ever 
 thinking of your great dignity as if you had a divine 
 right, as if God Almighty and the blessed Virgin, 
 and all the little Saints whirled round your head in 
 a cloud of glory. But I tell you, little nephew, as I 
 have told you often before, that this is great folly. 
 You are a man whom Fortune has favoured beyond 
 most others, and without effort of yours ; but 
 if you will be of any avail on this earth, or 
 amass credit from any save panders and parasites, 
 and girls with empty heads, you must achieve this 
 credit at the cost of some effort of your own. Why, 
 there have been a thousand princes in Italy of ten 
 times as great wealth as yourself ; they lived negli- 
 gible, they squandered their fortunes, and their very 
 names are obliterated save upon old monuments. And 
 if it were only this I would say yet that it might be 
 very well, since it is the common lot of mortality to 
 be forgotten ; but remember your uncle, who in his 
 youth, I have heard, was a personable, jovial, and 
 kindly man, yet consider how, before he died, his 
 death was prayed for by all the countryside. The 
 poor are a small matter, and not very much to be 
 considered, but it is better to have their prayers than 
 their curses ; just as it is better to live a sober life 
 than that of a frantic maniac. And when I look 
 upon what you have already achieved, I perceive 
 nothing at all save only that you have promised to 
 redress injuries wrought upon a mad priest, a picker- 
 up of sticks, and a woman of the town, — and even 
 these promises you have not yet redeemed. Since 
 you have come to your estate you have done nothing 
 but order a few suits of clothes and make a mad 
 
2 88 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 wager, whereas it is I that have kept down your 
 proud land-steward, that have rendered your charities 
 to your sundry little churches, and have seen to it 
 that the river here did not overflow when the great 
 rains were. So that you are nothing and have 
 achieved nothing, and are tearing out your heart 
 about a grief that need have no existence. For, 
 having set your hand to a wager, it is necessary 
 for the honour of your house and name that you 
 should continue it to the best of your abilities ; 
 nevertheless, here you skulk in your tent, though, as 
 you have heard your brother say, four days of time 
 remain to you in which you might win it." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth shook his head with a patient 
 sadness. 
 
 " Why," he said, " let that folly be at an end if 
 you will. What should I achieve in four days, who 
 have done nothing in the best part of a month ? But 
 I will do even as you will ; that is to say, I will live 
 as goodly as I can here where I am, and control my 
 stewards, and give charity to the churches, and see to 
 it that the rivers do not overflow their bounds when 
 the cattle are in the water pastures." 
 
 He spoke with an undertone of contempt, as if 
 these were no duties for the man of spirit that he 
 had been. " With your aid," he continued, " I shall 
 do all these very well." 
 
 The Signora shook her head, of which the double 
 chin and the great pendent cheeks rubbed flaccidly 
 upon her collar-bone. 
 
 " Why, I am a very old woman," she said, " very 
 fat, very lame, very much touched in the wind ; I 
 shall not remain to guide you very long. I think I 
 
THE PORTRAIT 289 
 
 j could guide you better than another, for I have so 
 long studied your temper and observed your moods. 
 But if I cannot give you the best, I will attempt to 
 provide for you that which in my estimation comes 
 next; but to have it you must go again to London, 
 and that to-morrow." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth said, with a touch of weary 
 resignation, " I have said that I will not go again to 
 London, and go I will not. I am in this more deter- 
 mined than is the mariner's needle toward the Pole." 
 
 The Signora smiled at his waistcoat buttons. 
 
 " A very little piece of iron," she said, " will deflect 
 that needle from its allegiance ; " and fumbling in her 
 stomacher, which she could not look down upon, she 
 succeeded in extracting a small billet folded to 
 resemble a necktie. She untwisted it tranquilly, 
 her fat hands lying upon her lap. 
 
 " My friend," she said, " it is very well that you 
 should give attention to the matters of your estate. 
 Nevertheless it is the custom of the country, which 
 should be observed, and it scoureth off rust from the 
 brain, which should be avoided, that great lords 
 should pass a portion of their times in the metro- 
 politan city of their country, and that they should 
 take to themselves helpmeets and raise children 
 that shall not be brutish." 
 
 She had by now untwisted the note until it was a 
 flat sheet of paper. She held it out to him. 
 
 " If you are not any longer minded to curse alike 
 
 ''the Tritons of the seas and the little minnows of the 
 
 river pools — if, in short, the advice of an old woman 
 
 always more ready to laugh than to weep may weigh 
 
 with you," she said, — " I would have you read this." 
 
 19 
 
290 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth cast his eyes along the lines, 
 suddenly clutched his brows, and with deliberation, 
 but with his eyes staring, snuffed the two candles. 
 He had read the words — 
 
 " Lydia Chuckel is not the true ' Celia,' which 
 am only I. And, for my part, I am ready to dine 
 with Mr. Bettesworth at the dinner of the Dilettante 
 Society, which shall be given next Sunday, in four 
 days." 
 
 The letter was signed " Celia." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth's mouth had become exceedingly 
 dry, so that his tongue seemed to rasp and hiss when 
 he uttered the words, " What significance has this ? " 
 
 The Signora had clasped her crutch, and was 
 making motions with her elbows and knees to hoist 
 herself from her deep chair. Leaning over her lap, 
 she wheezed jovially — 
 
 " Why, without doubt Celia has been smitten by 
 your fine eyes. She has selected you from among 
 the others to reward with her laurels." 
 
 When she was half out of her chair, and bent 
 nearly double, she paused to grunt. " But this I 
 know, that this is the true Celia, and this I advise 
 you, to follow her advice." 
 
 She was by now up to her feet, and leaning on 
 her crutch, panted a little with the exertion. 
 
 " But what shall I think ? — what shall I say ? — how 
 act ? " Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed, holding out his 
 hands to detain her. She waddled, however, 
 laboriously away, and when he followed her she 
 pressed him back with the end of her fan. 
 
 " Why," she said, " I have fostered you enough. 
 I have been the best friend that ever you had. But 
 
THE PORTRAIT 291 
 
 I will not advise you as to how you should act in 
 any given instance, and I never have. In that your 
 inclinations and your heart must be your guide. Stay 
 here in the shadows and reflect." She shuffled from 
 the room with an engrossed determination, waving 
 her hands before her as if they had been the flappers 
 of a young duck, to constrain him to silence. Mr. 
 Bettesworth began to pace up and down in the vast 
 and shadowy apartment, halting a little over his 
 sprained ankle. Caesars regarded him with immobile 
 features, the tiers of books disappeared into the 
 obscurity. Once he approached the candles and, 
 bending down, read the letter over again. Expres- 
 sions of suspicion, of dejection, of elation, of timidity, 
 and of pride crossed and recrossed his face. He 
 grasped the letter firmly in his hand and squared 
 his shoulders, and the light from the candles gave to 
 his curls a little border as of filaments of fire. 
 
VI 
 
 HIS eyes when he looked round upon Lady 
 Eshetsford had in them again something of 
 the human. She advanced very slowly, with a face of 
 almost supernatural gravity. Her arms were closed 
 over her closed fan ; her body above the hips swayed 
 in the approved fashion ; and at each step her black 
 widow's cap, that towered over her head like the 
 central one of the Prince of Wales' feathers, nodded 
 formally. 
 
 " Madam " Mr. Bettesworth stuttered, and then 
 
 he became silent, in order to regain control over 
 himself. She regarded him with a grave scrutiny — 
 there was hardly a fold round the corners of her 
 lips. 
 
 " Sir," she said, " I understand that you have for 
 the second time been perusing the intricacies of my 
 steward's accounts, and that you now have the man 
 ripe for hanging." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth made a little gesture with his 
 right hand ; he erected himself to the fullest height 
 that he could assume. 
 
 " Madam," he said, and he extended towards her 
 the letter that she made no motion to take, " I 
 have to announce to you that I hold in my hands 
 
 the model for the picture of ' Celia in her Arbour,' 
 
 292 
 
THE PORTRAIT 293 
 
 and I have in consequence, for the second time, to 
 make you the offer of my hand, and, still more, of 
 my heart." 
 
 Her arms remaining crossed, with the proper 
 motion of her hand she slowly opened her fan so 
 that it covered her lips, and from its shelter, as if 
 from over the glacis of a fortress, she still re- 
 garded his handsome and glowing costume and 
 scrutinized his face. 
 
 " Cousin," she said, " you are aware that in marry- 
 ing me you will be losing your wager ? " 
 
 He drew himself up still more in his most princely 
 fashion ; he pushed out his padded chest so that 
 he had the appearance of a pouter pigeon, and upon 
 his coat, as if with a radiant iridescence, the silver 
 brocade shone and scintillated with each movement. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " it has been my purpose from 
 the first to win this wager so that it lay within my 
 hand, and then to cast it away as it were a tribute 
 to your charm and to the affection that I have for 
 you ; by making the marriage with you and so 
 forfeiting the rewards of the wager." 
 
 She appeared, still holding the fan before her lips, 
 to settle down into the very earth, and there came 
 from behind her fan a little soft and sibilant sound. 
 Mr. Bettesworth would have considered that it was 
 a titter, but since his curls in his obeisance were 
 upon a level with the paste buckles of his white 
 satin breeches he was unable to scrutinize her 
 features. 
 
 " A compliment so considerable," said Lady 
 Eshetsford, " merits a reward the greatest that I 
 have in my power. Nevertheless," she continued. 
 
294 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " it will be fresh in your memory, or perhaps it will 
 not, that along with my hand, for what it is worth, 
 I made a certain condition — namely, that you should 
 have seen this Celia, whom I consider to be in 
 every part my equal, and that you should have 
 preferred me to her." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth's silvered and shining sleeve 
 came up towards his heart in a gesture as nearly as 
 possible of real passion and irritation. 
 
 " Polly," he said, " I am assured that this Celia is 
 smitten with a passion for me, therefore I can be- 
 lieve that she would be ready to accept my hand. 
 Moreover, I have here a letter from her that assures 
 me that she is ready to partake of a dinner of the 
 Dilettante Society. Now, since I may not very well 
 take her to this dinner without having found her, I 
 may take it that she is willing to discover herself. 
 And since she is willing to go thither with me, I 
 may take it that when she is there I may be said to 
 have fetched her. Thus it is in my power to find, 
 fetch, wed, and in consequence to house her. So 
 that I may in truth say that I have won this wager, 
 but that to attain you I have thrown it away." 
 
 " Friend," she said, " I am not set to deny it ; and 
 indeed, since I have more secret knowledge of this 
 cause than you, I can the more exactly confirm you 
 in the details of it. You have won this Celia, and 
 I hear it from her own lips. Nevertheless the 
 winning of me depended on one condition that I 
 have made " 
 
 He made a little inarticulate expression of im- 
 patience, lifting up his hands towards her. 
 
 " Why," she said, " I am not of such a mulish 
 
THE PORTRAIT 295 
 
 obstinacy as I would have you tied down for ever 
 by my whims ; and if you would assure me — and I 
 take it as a very great honouring of me, and one 
 that fills me with pride and pleasure — if you would 
 assure me that I am the one woman that can confer 
 happiness upon you, why, I very willingly take 
 your assurance, and trust only that your knowledge 
 of your own heart is such that you may be in the 
 right of it. Nevertheless, measure for measure is 
 good merchandise, and if you will not have me 
 upon that condition I would have you have me 
 upon another." 
 
 Minute by minute pride, assurance, and self- 
 satisfaction were reawakening in Mr. Bettesworth. 
 He had been very sufficiently shaken, so that there 
 remained in the recesses of his brain sufficient traces 
 of a species of numbness. These resulted in a sort 
 of timidity before Lady Eshetsford ; thus it was 
 rather in a tone of pleading and prodigality that he 
 brought out the words — 
 
 " Upon any condition that you will, whether of 
 settlements, of place, or of manner of livelihood " 
 
 " Why," she said, " later we will talk of settle- 
 ments and these things, and I warn you that in 
 them I shall show myself of considerable strictness. 
 For it is not that I doubt of your prodigality 
 towards myself, which I am sure would be very 
 enormous, but that I misdoubt your generosity to 
 the rest of the world. I would not have you desist 
 from such attempts as that you should aid this Mr. 
 Williams to prove whether he is orthodox or 
 heterodox, or even that you should aid a picker-up 
 of sticks to prove her right so to dc. Nor, indeed. 
 
296 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 would I have you abstain from asserting by law 
 your own prerogative to drive a coach and pair up 
 the steps of the Metropolitan Church of London. 
 This lasts appears to me to be laudable and fitting 
 in a gentleman : the two former are a sort of mad- 
 ness such as, to all appearances, men must needs 
 burn their fingers with. And men being men, I 
 have very little against it that they should meddle 
 with things that do not concern them. So that 
 against the spending of a reasonable proportion of 
 your substance in such matters I have very little to 
 say, though you would do better, perhaps, to spend 
 it on the making of an Italian garden here, such as 
 they have at Wilton House. But I have heard it 
 reported that you have said that upon the effort to 
 establish the cause of Mr. Williams and some stick- 
 picking drab you will expend even the whole of 
 your estate. And from my knowledge of you, I can 
 perceive that upon some such objects — even though 
 upon those it should not so fall out — you might 
 very well expend enough if not to beggar at least 
 to cripple yourself and me. So I warn you that 
 since this would not aid us to dwell together in such 
 amity as I hope we shall attain to, I warn you 
 that when the time for settlements shall come my 
 lawyers shall be as exacting as if they were the 
 ministers of the States-General negotiating with the 
 King of France ! " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth swept all these considerations 
 aside with one wave of his hand, meaning that on 
 the one part he was ready to throw all that he 
 possessed into Lady Eshetsford's lap, and that on 
 the other he was confident that he could very 
 
THE PORTRAIT 297 
 
 excellently minister to and care for their common 
 interests. 
 
 " We shall live," Lady Eshetsford continued, " for 
 one-third of the year in Bettesworth House in 
 London, letting my house which I hire from Sir 
 John's heirs revert again to them ; and for the other 
 two-thirds of the year we will be for the one half 
 here and for the other half at Ashford Manor-house, 
 this more or less according as where we shall find 
 it the pleasanter to live. But these are not the 
 conditions, neither, that I desire to extract from 
 you." 
 
 " Polly," Mr. Bettesworth interrupted, " do not 
 trouble me any more with your conditions, but take 
 them where you will and how, and tell me no more 
 of it. For the truth is that I have passed through 
 such dark periods that I thought I should not again 
 have the courage to hold up my head to look you 
 in the face or to talk to you of love." 
 
 " Why," Lady Eshetsford said, " you have been 
 very tardy in paying your addresses to me." 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed, and there was a touch of 
 badgered torment in his face, " do not believe that 
 it was more than that I felt too humbled and an 
 object of too much ridicule to come into your 
 presence as a suitor." 
 
 " Well, I will take that to be the reason," she 
 answered. ' 
 
 " Laughter appeared to sound in my ears. I 
 was mocked of all men, it appeared to me. I con- 
 sidered only of how I might revenge myself; I 
 considered only that you too must mock with the 
 rest" 
 
298 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Well, I laughed a little," she said. 
 
 " And," he continued, " if I have now in a short 
 span of time recovered myself sufficiently to have 
 the assurance to pour out my passion to you, I 
 would have you consider that I am still in no 
 condition to meditate upon any other actions or to 
 think upon any other things. So that I know that I 
 have gained you, I will leave to you the making of 
 such conditions as you will, and be assured that I 
 will ratify them ; and if you will pledge my word to 
 other men, why, pledge it ; or if you would expend 
 money, expend it. In short, I will give you, as it 
 were, the power of attorney to do what you will 
 so long as I may do no more than the simple 
 assuring you that you are the most adorable of 
 creatures." 
 
 She took, for the first time, her fan down from her 
 mouth so that he could perceive her slight, mocking 
 smile. 
 
 " That would be very well," she said, " if it 
 were not that the conditions that I prescribe 
 demand at least as much action from you as from 
 me. 
 
 " But consider," he pleaded, " that I am a very 
 weary man." 
 
 " Why, consider," she said, " that you must take 
 the road to-night at midnight, and that I have 
 some work for you to do even before then if you 
 will." 
 
 " My ankle," Mr. Bettesworth said, " will not 
 permit me to ride with any comfort. You are to 
 remember that it is only to-day that for the first 
 time I have walked without a stick." 
 
THE PORTRAIT 299 
 
 " Friend," Lady Eshtsword said, " you are to 
 remember that this is a matter of bargaining for 
 my hand, against which several ankles should not 
 be weighed in the balance. Moreover, it is a matter 
 of fourteen days since you fell." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed, " Fourteen days ! " 
 with a look of extreme astonishment. 
 
 " Your Worship," Lady Eshtsford laughed, " has 
 been so wandering amongst clouds of gloom that 
 you have forgotten the passage of time. Neverthe- 
 less Sir Francis Dashwood has been much earlier 
 cured of his sore wound in the shoulder, for six 
 days ago I saw him ; although he was not fit to go 
 out of doors, he was yet well enough to drive a very 
 hard bargain," 
 
 A spasm of jealousy contracted Mr. Bettesworth's 
 brows. 
 
 " Why," he exclaimed, " if he is well enough to 
 ride, so will I be ; I will ride where you will and 
 when." 
 
 " Cousin," her ladyship answered, " maybe there 
 shall be no necessity for it, for my coach has in it 
 two slung beds, and Maria shall not go to London, 
 and Trott may ride in the rumble." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth passed his hand across his brows. 
 " If," he said, " this be a matter of winning a wager 
 I am very well content to let it go." 
 
 " That am not I," she answered. " For, in the first 
 place, I am not willing to take a man with a lost 
 wager on his back, for it is the nature of men to be 
 cowed when they have failed in the sight of all the 
 world, and a cowed husband is not very much to my 
 taste." 
 
300 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " What made you with Sir Francis Dashwood ? " 
 Mr. Bettesworth muttered. 
 
 " Your Worship," she said, " it was a little matter 
 of purchase of property which, since your Worship 
 was lost in the glooms and vapours, I employed 
 myself upon to pass the time. Moreover, I desired 
 to know how it fared with Sir Francis ; for the time 
 of the wager being suspended only during such time 
 as he could not go abroad, I desired to be advised 
 that he did not sneak into the open air and so steal 
 a march upon the four days that remained to 
 you." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth felt closing round him invisible 
 toils that he had neither the strength nor the desire 
 to escape from. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " but this wager " 
 
 " Moreover," she continued her own speech, " I 
 have had Wilton House very closely watched in the 
 interim, and I have the assurance of the Earl of 
 Pembroke, who is our good friend, that Sir Francis 
 has not set foot out of doors until this morning, thus, 
 by the terms of the wager, from midnight you have 
 ninety-six hours to win it in." 
 
 " Cousin," Mr. Bettesworth said, and for the first 
 time he smiled, " is there any stone that you have 
 left unturned ? " 
 
 " Very few," she answered. "So that if you will 
 marry me within the half-hour, and Mr. Williams is 
 very ready to perform this formality, I do not see 
 why my coach should not be stored, a sufficiency of 
 clothes in our trunks, and the servants ready to take 
 the road by midnight." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed, " In half an hour ! " 
 
THE PORTRAIT 301 
 
 A look of incredulity appeared upon his face, but 
 he remembered himself sufficiently to clasp his hands 
 in rapture. 
 
 " Why," she said, " the marriage should come 
 before the preparations for the journey ; and if we 
 must travel together it is better that, as against evil 
 tongues, we should be first married. That you 
 should go to London alone I am very unwilling, 
 for how should you find Celia there if I be not 
 there to guide you ? and, in short " 
 
 " Polly," he interrupted her, " what could I have 
 to urge against it ? " 
 
 " My friend," Lady Eshetsford said, " this appears 
 to me hardly so much the moment of romantic 
 heroics. More by token that the less we indulge in 
 them now the more there shall remain for the time to 
 come which is always good. But the point that I 
 would ascertain of you is whether a marriage by this 
 Mr. Williams should be a good marriage, for though 
 I do not at all think you would trick me, yet very 
 much attaches to it, and if there is any doubt it 
 would be better to send to the parsonage, though I 
 understand that Parson Blore is usually drunk at 
 this hour ? " 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth wrinkled his brows. " Why," he 
 said, " I think that of that there can be no doubt, for 
 Mr. Williams is in Holy Orders ; and, for the matter 
 of that, I have seen his papers ; and although the 
 doctrines which he had may hereafter prove heretical, 
 yet until parsons and the like are unfrocked such 
 marriages as they make are marriages. For the 
 principle of the law of England as regards the estate 
 of wedlock " 
 
302 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Your Worship," Lady Eshetsford said, " then be 
 it Mr. Williams." 
 
 She approached the little picture by Pompeo 
 Cibboni, that stood upon the easel behind the 
 candle, and having removed it she set it carefully 
 into the recess of Mr. Bettesworth's chair ; then she 
 set the legs of the easel wider apart, doing it in an 
 engrossed manner that checked any questions upon 
 his lips. 
 
 " If you will wait here," she said, " for so long as 
 to give Mr. Williams time to put on a cassock which 
 he has borrowed from Parson Blore, I will be with 
 you again." 
 
 She was away for a full twenty minutes, during 
 all which Mr. Bettesworth sat motionless before the 
 fire. He snuffed the candles once, but otherwise he 
 might as well have been carved out of wax. He 
 felt singularly little of elation ; but, upon the other 
 hand, along with the sense of entire tranquillity he 
 had that of presenting to the world an extremely 
 fine figure. He seemed, in fact, to himself to be 
 almost as perfect, to be almost as semi-divine as he 
 had ever dreamed of being ; at the same time it was 
 as if his heart had forgotten to beat, and he had no 
 desire to make any motions of his limbs at all. He 
 was, in short, Mr. Bettesworth, and that was all there 
 was to it. 
 
 He was aware at last that in the gloom next the 
 door Lady Eshetsford was leading in a square white 
 object. A little later he perceived that this moved 
 upon the two legs of Mr. Williams, Lady Eshetsford 
 was carrying the clergyman's large Prayer-book, and 
 she had him by the elbows to direct him, since his 
 
THE PORTRAIT 303 
 
 face and the greater part of his body were hidden by 
 his burden. Mr. Bettesworth understood nothing, 
 nor did he make any effort to understand. He 
 imagined that her ladyship might have been leading 
 in some sort of portable altar, something connected 
 with the Church, of which he knew little and cared 
 less. They passed indeed very close to him, so that 
 he had to step a little on one side. At last, under 
 the guidance of Lady Eshetsford, Mr. Williams set 
 down his unwieldy burden upon the easel that had 
 held the Pompeo ; Mr. Bettesworth perceived that 
 obviously it was a picture covered by a white cloth. 
 This caused him a minute dissatisfaction, for he had 
 been accustomed to regard the " Rape of Ganymede " 
 as his choicest cabinet picture. Moreover, Mr. 
 Williams' face was exceedingly flushed, and his 
 band was to one side, matters which appeared to 
 Mr. Bettesworth to be wanting in formality and 
 respect ; whilst upon the skirt of his own coat, at the 
 moment when he was to say " I will," he observed 
 four specks of snuff ; these he considered must have 
 been left there by the Signora Poppaea, who, he 
 remembered, had taken snuff twice whilst she had 
 been with him that evening. 
 
 The candles shone, the flames on the hearth 
 rustled, Mr. Williams read the marriage service, but 
 because he was very shortsighted, and he had lost his 
 spectacles during their Odyssey, his nose travelled 
 along the lines of his Prayer-book and they heard 
 almost none of his words. Lady Eshetsford stood 
 with the negligent inattention that it was proper to 
 bestow upon parsons ; and when, having finished the 
 service, Mr. Williams erected his head, and with 
 
304 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 a fanatic lustre beginning to illuminate his black 
 eyes, said that the present was an opportunity 
 upon which he might well indulge himself with 
 a few words, Lady Eshetsford took him up 
 sharply. 
 
 " Mr. Williams," she said, " these doctrines may be 
 very well for the lower orders, and I make no doubt 
 that they are — nay, I wish you every prosperity — 
 but we have very little time to waste, and we are 
 persons of good conscience and well assured of our 
 own minds ; preaching to us would make us no 
 better nor worse." 
 
 Mr. Williams looked with an affecting timidity at 
 the face of Mr. Bettesworth. "Oh, Mr. Williams, 
 you need not doubt that Mr. Bettesworth in all that 
 is proper will perform his promises to you ; nay, he 
 has every reason to regard you with gratitude, and 
 I for him. So that if I should find him inclined to 
 be remiss in them I would myself hold him to it ; 
 but you must see that where matters of importance 
 are on foot such things as orthodoxy and hetero- 
 doxy must stand aside. Nevertheless, as a token 
 of the favour that I hold you in I will give you 
 the privilege that I would grant to but few other 
 men, since it is hardly fitting that you should 
 take that of being the first to kiss the bride, 
 which most country parsons claim, but I will 
 allow you to unveil for me that picture upon the 
 easel ! " 
 
 To remove the draperies upon the picture Mr. 
 Williams must go behind the easel, so that for the 
 time he disappeared. At his operations the cloths 
 appeared slowly to unsettle themselves, there ap- 
 
THE PORTRAIT 305 
 
 peared the shoulder of the gilded frame ; the edge of 
 the cloth seemed to crawl along by inches, then 
 suddenly it dropped all down. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth's body inclined itself forward ; in 
 spite of him his two hands came up in an attitude 
 of discovery. A maiden was sitting at the foot of 
 a tree ; her dress was of greyish-white sprigged 
 with pink silk in lines ; a great hat hung from her 
 left arm by a broad pink ribbon. At her feet lay 
 a little frail in the shape of a cream-jug ; all round 
 her was massed brownish foliage of the colour of 
 soup ; and upon her figure fell, from nowhere in 
 particular, a single ray of light. Beneath the 
 picture the candles threw their light upwards, and 
 as they still waved in the draught of air made 
 by the fall of the cloth the figure wavered and 
 appeared alive. 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth's jaw remained hanging down, 
 his eyebrows arched themselves into an entire 
 incredulity. Mr. Williams emerged from behind the 
 easel and looked up at the picture mystically, whilst 
 he bent down to pick up from the floor the fallen 
 white cloths. 
 
 "This picture, Mr. Williams," Lady Eshetsford 
 said, " is the famous one of * Celia in her Arbour,' 
 which Sir Francis Dashwood was gallant enough to 
 sell to me six days ago." 
 
 Mr. Williams straightened himself, the cloths 
 trailing from his hand. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " 'tis a very excellent portrait 
 of your ladyship ; yet I wonder that the great of this 
 world have so much time to bestow upon vanities 
 thus idle." 
 
3o6 THE PORTRAIT 
 
 " Mr. Williams," Lady Eshetsford said, " if you 
 will write your very excellent lessons down in a 
 book you may set me down at the head of your 
 list of subscribers, but in the meantime, whilst 
 giving you all my thanks, I beg that you will 
 carry these cloths to Mrs. Jakins the house- 
 keeper." 
 
 Mr. Bettesworth recoiled a full three paces from 
 his wife. 
 
 " So that you," he said, " are Celia ? " 
 
 " Why," she answered, " is it then so great a 
 disappointment that your fine eyes have not capti- 
 vated a Celia that is another." 
 
 " But if I have not done that," Mr. Bettesworth 
 said, " then I have achieved nothing, for sure it was 
 only because there seemed to be another Celia who 
 was ready to surrender to me, that either by good 
 fortune or by my proper parts I should have made 
 a conquest and achieved a victory." 
 
 " Nevertheless," Lady Eshetsford said, " you will 
 be the most heroical figure in London in four days' 
 time, for will you not have found, fetched, housed, 
 wedded, and led to a dinner of the Dilettante Society, 
 Celia who has come out of her arbour ? Sure you 
 will be the talk of the Town, and may for nine days 
 or so hold your head higher in every assembly than 
 the victor of Ramillies." 
 
 "But I," Mr. Bettesworth insisted; "you have 
 played with me as if I were a fish upon a hair-line, 
 and here I am." 
 
 " Oh, my friend," Lady Eshetsford said, " take 
 your laurels and wear them, and do not inquire 
 too closely what hand holds the knife that cut 
 
THE PORTRAIT 307 
 
 them, for I think most great victories are like 
 this, and most great victors, if you could search 
 their hearts are much as you are ; for it is nine 
 parts fortune and one of merit, and so the world 
 goes on." 
 
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