XONiDOM y<. :^-> ^^■■:& VI|*i^ 1^ € 3s: m •^i nes SrE^erton Castle iSl: ii li' iliiiil r o Incomparable Bellairs "Bf ^mes SrEgerton Castle THE STAR DREAMER THE PRIDE OF JENNICO THE SECRET ORCHARD THE BATH COMEDY THE HOUSE OF ROMANCE 'By Egerton Castle YOUNG APRIL THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY CONSE(iUENCES MARSHFIELD the OBSERVER SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE . ENGLISH BOOK- PLATES • THE JERNING- HAM LETTERS • LE ROMAN DU PRINCE OTHON J/ LONDON' * THE »tj:"- ncomparal Bdlairs ^^ Sp Egerton Castle NeiD Tork Frederick i^.Siokes Company VublisKers Copyright, igoj, by P. F. Collier & Sen Copyright, igoj, by Egerton Cattle Copyright, igo^, by Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights rtser'ved This edition published in November, 1903 To Who, by his delicate art, has made all that is shapely and charming in the Eighteenth Century live again for us, as with a fragrance of old Pot-Pourri and a rustle of brocades no loom holds now the secret of; as, with a lost grace, to the dance of little high heels stilled long ago and the measures of a forgotten music /w/d^/C^O J t/0 TO THE READER yj SS UME that we are friends. Assume .yj- A common taste for old costume^ — Old pictures^ — books. Then dream us sitting - Us two — in some soft lighted room. Silent at firsts in time we glow ; Discuss '•'■eclectics" high and low; Inspect engravings^ ^twixt us passing The fancies ^ Detroy, Moreau. And so we fall to why and how The fragile figures smile and bow ; Divine^ at lengthy the fable under . Thus grew the *■'■ scenes" that follow now. (From Proverbs in Porcelain. Austin Dobson.) CONTENTS TITLE-PAGE bj Fred Pegram PAGE TO THE READER viii FRONTISPIECE The acknowledged ^ueen of Bath .... xii By Fred Pegram INTRODUCTORY Concerning Kitty xiii The Prologue xxii THE SCENES / The Bridegroom Reject / // Grey Domino JO III To the Tune of Little Red Heels ... g6 IV Rachel Peace 14.7 V The Little Lover 195 VI The Black Lace Mask 239 The acknowledged .^ueen of Bath " /tDVENTURES: it has been said, /J '' co7ne to the advent2t7'02Ls'' — 'Tisa ^ JL glib enough saw. but yon may see the truth of it any day, if you care to watch in the Theatre of Life. And adveiitures come not only to the darer of perils by flood ajid field, to the player with fii^e and wielder of the sword's argument, but also to the bold taker of shares in the perpettial lottery of Love. Ln the pretty game of "'Love and Hazard^' as well as in the sterner one of War, 'tis your fine decisive spirit which rules circumstance and leads the oambler unscathed amid pitfalls where the timid, or even the merely prudent, are like to leave life or limb. Love — the chief adventure of life, some maintain — comes to the lovely, to the lovable, as sure as mountain stream to lake ; and to such as are in love with love, love adventures " come not single spies but in battalions.^' [ xiii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Nevertheless^ let the heai't be pure, let even the taste be but fastidiotis, then will these same aclve7itures link yoic a chap let of jewelled memories — to be retold smiling, i7i the m,ore sedate Jiours of life. Mist7'ess Kitty Bel lairs, " Incomparable Bcllairs',' as, in an eiithtisiastic moment she had bee7i proclaimed by Air. Stafford — that fi^ie connoisseur if ever there lived 07ie ! — had, among her unnumbered lovable qtiali- ties, paramount, a 7nost fastidious daintiness. Hence, no doubt, the delicate colour afid the fragrance of that chap let of tender triumphs, of sweet C7'ises and emotions, of unexhausted romances which, already in this, the I'osy lustre of her young tzuenties, she could draw through the fingers of inemory. " Aly dear^' {she is recorded to have said to her weeping friend. Lady Standish) "/ have had thirty-seven declared adoi'crs these three years, a^id never one tired of me yet ! — Poor Bellairs ! " {as she pursued on that occasiofi, zuith a light sigh), " he had two wives before me aiid he zvas sixty-nine whe7i [ xiv ] CONCERNING KITTY he died, btU he told me ivith his dying breath that 'twas I gave him all the joy he ever knew. The boast would have been a pretty one on any fair woman s lips, but 'twas the prettier on Kitty s that it was true to the letter. Wedded, in her innocent teens, to a won- drous wealthy Nabob — an excellent gentle- 7nan withal, who had requested the little Beauty, in a phrase that held humour as well as pathos, " to condescend to be his widow " — Kitty had been released after not too many years of faithful compajtionship and solicit- ous care spe7tt at the zuatcrs of Bath and else- where. Released with two easy tears and a clear conscience ; experienced but not embit- tered, and by no means inconsolable ; released, in short, to all the delights of a charming world. So much for " Poor Be Hairs I " " These three years " referred to the period of brilliant young widozvhood during which Kitty had become the acknowledged Queen of Bath — during which, also, innumerable had been the atte77ipts to provide her with a happy consort. But if Kitty the girl had submitted to a marriage de convenance, Kitty the woman, in [xv] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS the ripeness of her beauty^ had no mind to deal with Love otherwise than as her slave. Tints, at the particular date at which we take up these episodes^ she had already collected a variety of experieiices of the heart, which, although inconclicsive, had not bee7i devoid of sweetness to her^ nor of pride. It would be unseejjily perhaps, at such a stage of Jier life, to draw a parallel between mistress Bellairs and the celebrated Made- moiselle dc I'Enclos, who was awarded the filial crown of feminine glory iii a passionate declaration d amour a7id an offer of marriage on her seventieth birthday. But, ivhatever the Fates might have in reserve for the fcture Kitty, she had already this Tnnch in common with the much beloved Ninon, that she never lost the devotion of one of her ma?ty rejected lovers. Some may have ascended only a step or tiuo of her throne ; some others {as in the case of my Lord Verney and that of Mr. OLIara, whose love-chase formed the main theme ^y the Bath Comedy), may have all but stepped into the thro7ie itself. But every one, on retu7'7iing to level g7'ound, sedulously re- su77ied his post of coiirtier a7id still had it in [ -^vi ] CONCERNING KITTY his soul to sing to Kitty, in Herrick's words to his Anthea: Bid me to live aJid I will live Thy protestant to be. . . . Bid that heart stay, and it will stay To honour thy decree. The disposal of so precious a thing as Mistress Bellairs hand — a prize certainly held as high in her own estimation as in that of her '''' protestaitts " — was naturally a matter of 9nuch concerti, of serious con- sideration. It was not of Kitty that could be said: " The woinan who deliberates is lost.'' Her deliberation was exquisite. It was subtilised by ambitions of happiness, of satis- faction beyo7id the usual ineasure of woman- hood. On the other hand, she had a secret tcnreadiness to think the world well lost for love. In truth, along the easy road of a quite satisfactory life, turning points should be ap- proached with caution : the new path may, of course, lead to an ejzchanting prospect ; but again . . . In short the question of a second marriage was fraught with anxieties, b [ xvii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Meanwhile V was clean acrainst Nature that such treas2ires {and, tipon such a theme, it would little Jit us to mention mere wealth of gold otherwise than as a further plcasi7tg cir- cumstance) that such treasures of loveliness should re77iain long without a legitimate master. Therefore, after she had shaken off her enfangleinent with the far too solonn Lord Verney, and further, had trampled with adorable little feet upon the far too mercurial Mr. O Haj'as inextino-ttishable devotion — all in the diplomatic manner set forth in the Bath Comedy — the tinsolved problem had become a main topic and one of prodigious interest in the gayer world at the Sp7'ings. The latest candidate is now Mr. Staffo7'd. He has his recommendations — V is a favozir- ite with man and woman, an admitted wit ; a spark with a fine head and a good leg ; a rake with a mighty delicate conception that life is to be tasted and not greedily devoured — tJie LaugJmig Philosopher of Beaux. And it is at the point of Kitty s formal engagement to this silvery gentleman that we propose to take up with her fresh journey towards matrimony. [ xviii ] CONCERNING KITTY In this Sentiine7ital Proo;ress — which is all of the Bath Road — we shall vteet with many of the actors of yesteryear s Bath Comedy. Amo7ig the^n^ Mr. O' Hara, inipccunions as ever and as ever btioyed up with disinter- ested devotion. Miss Lydia, the widow's own W07nan, still addicted to secret interference in her niistress's affairs. Master Lawrence {whose little boy drezu szuh amazing clever portraits), ge7iial host of the Bear Inn. My Lord Verney only looms in the background : a memory and a zvarning ; but his lordship, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, has a weighty part towards the jotirneys end. Crook-eyed Captain Spicer also, the Icd-captain and fas h- ionable bear-leader, darts in and oict, among the company : not to his ozun advancement, it must be owiied, biit {iii a way as indirect as his vision) to the promotion of the more intportant travellers' happiness. And, as in all journeys, new personalities appear at the various stages — a lovely one among them, Rachel Peace; another, less easily described. Lord Mandeville ; and the youthful iiigenuous figtire of one Mr. fernigan of Costessy. Shape our course for a chosen harbour as carefully as we list, we are always at the [xix] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS mercy of the accident of other lives tJian ours. Kitty, the iviperioiis and mtich-obcyed, confidently believed, of course, that she held the guiding thread of her own voyage in her own pretty hands. Bnt we, behind the scefies, looking around her life, fi^id many causes {quite undreamed of by her pretty head) which brotighf, say, her to this halt and to yonder turning, and at last to that final haven which, certes, had been well out of her oj^iginal reckon- ing ; we find, in short, the birth of all these winds of Fate — and V is in a singularly unexpected quarter. On a certain torrential 7iight of September, my Lord Mandcville, a nobleman of wide repute in Town, sought refuge, and the relaxa- tion of an idle hour, in the gree^i-room of " the Little Theatre " {then leased by the cele- brated Mr. Foote to some travelliiig co7?zpany). N'oiv, nothing could be 7nore piirely personal than what happened that evening to his lord- ship, who at the time, moreover, was as totally unk7iozvn to Mistress Bellairs as she to him. And yet it remains certain that 7ione of the events which had such a marked iufiucnce upon her matrimonial destiny would have come to pass, if {while 7inconscious Mistress [xx] M CONCERNING KITTY -,1 Kitty was discussing weddi^ig fal-lals with her tire-ivoinan in Queen Sgzcare, Bat/i), my Lord Mandcville had not had, as we said, aiz empty evening to Jill, in the neighbourhood of the Hay market, Londo7i. " Incomparable Bellairs',' being our leadi7ig lady in the cojjzpany, the chief role must ever fall to her ; yet in this opening episode, the cojisequences of which will later on so greatly co7icern her, she actiially appears neither in person nor in spirit. For this reason we will relate it apart and, under the name, if you will, of The Heart of Mandeville, call it: The Prologue. [ '^xi ] A ! your lordship," cried Miss Peggy Pommeroy, turning her celebrated blue eyes roguishly upon Lord ^:=lI IMandeville. They sat together upon the striped sofa in the green-room ; she, for his entertainment, passing comments on each actor and actress who lingered in the vicinity of the mirror, awaiting the call, or hurried through to the curtain. His lordship listened, all insolent lanofuor. At rare intervals a little snort would escape him — his nearest approach to laughter. And, if he were moved to such expressions of amusement, it was not so much with Miss Pommeroy, as at her. Yet it was all glory for Peggy to have him beside her, the most notorious roue upon the Town, and the most fastidious. There were ladies, and great ladies too, as she was aware, who [ xxii ] ^The heart of MANDEVILLE^ would lightly have given all their admirers for Lord Mandeville's indolent notice. What mattered it that she well knew, in her heart, how empty was this conquest; well knew that not a smile or a frown in her whole repertory had really the power to charm him ; that he but lolled at her side because, having drifted into the green-room, this weeping autumn night, he was simply too lazy to move again and pulled her curls with no more emotion than he played with the seals at his fob ? The others knew naught of all this ; and it was enough for Peg. Oh, how her great eyes shone and ogled ; how arch was she and how coy ! How her ripe lips smiled and how loud (as each new comer entered the room) they rebuked some unex- istent ardour! Of all passions, vanity is perhaps that which, gratified, affords the most complete and lasting satisfaction. Peg's bosom swelled with triumph as she noted the impression produced upon her colleagues — how the Noble Father frowned and strutted with fresh zest as he passed ; how her dear rival, feigning to examine the position of a patch, sought to catch his lordship's eye in the mirror, and failed. [ xxiii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS *' La ! your lordship," cried Peggy, very loud and shrill, " I vow I must not listen when you say such things ! " Lord Mandeville opened his heavy lids a little wider for an instant, and almost hesi- tated on speech. It would have been hard indeed for Miss Pommeroy to have listened, for he had not uttered anything more audi- ble than a grunt these five minutes. But Miss de Vyne (the dear rival) could not be aware of this ; and the glance of furious envy that she darted at her friend as she flounced out of the room filled the young lady with ecstasy. She had moreover suc- ceeded beyond her intention. For, just before Miss de Vyne's exit, Mr. Montagu Mortemar had made his entrance : and, for the first time in his life, he seemed to be- come really aware of Peggy Pommeroy's existence. Now, of all men on earth, the First Com- edy Lady most admired the Tragic Leading Gentleman. Before the native grandeur of his pale brow all the coronets in the world were lustreless in her sight: but to show him with what high-placed friends she could on occasions consort — that was truly a mo- ment worth living for ! [ xxiv ] ^ The heart OF MANDEVILLE ^ Mr. Mortemar's part was done for the night: he had just been conclusively stabbed, had gulped forth his last blessing and his last curse, and his corpse had duly been carried away by lamenting retainers. He was stalking down the length of the room, at his best tragedy manner, when the arch cry struck his ear. He started, turned ; ele- vated one eyebrow to anguish, depressed the other to menace. His hand was on his hip. — If anyone could have thought him more noble than he thought himself, it was Peggy Pommeroy. — Perceiving, however, the iden- tity of Miss Pommeroy 's admirer, a change came over him. With a sleekins^ of his whole attitude, he bowed profoundly and approached. " We are honoured to see your lordship among us ! I trust, my lord, you will permit me to recall myself to your lordship's recol- lection: — I had the honour of meeting your lordship at the Three Tuns'' " Had you," said his lordship. He tilted his head further back on the sofa cush- ions to gaze at Mr. Mortemar; and wished vaguely that " the mummer would stop smiling." The tragedian's fingers trembled round [ XXV ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS his snuff-box. His lordship's affability was great : did it justify the happy recipient in offering a pinch ? " Your lordship has seen my ' Altamont ' to-night? Connoisseurs are kind enough to tell me that they prefer it to Davy's. But poor little Davy — " he paused. Lord Man- deville was yawning outrageously. " Oh — Davy ..." echoed Miss Pommeroy with great contempt, running a fervid glance over Altamont's fine proportions. The room had begun to fill about them : the Tragedy was over, the Farce would begin anon. The First Villain — in private life an irrepressibly jovial soul — clapped his late victim brutally on the back, crying: "What cheer, my buck! Curse me if ever we did the business finer than to-night ! " A wan smile curled Mr. Mortemar's lips : "We . . .!" Mrs. Macnamara, — this evening " Zcnobia, wife of the Mountain CJiief^' in brocade and powder, progressed towards the centre of the room, surrounded by " Mountain Maidens " in tiffany and straw hats. She was thinking ardently of supper, but, at sight of Peggy and her lounging Lord, halted with marked disapproval. [ xxvi ] n The heart OF MANDEVILLE And still the company grew larger, be- tween the two plays. Many accepted patrons strolled in from the side-boxes — Mr. Stafford, fine, bright and clean-cutting as his own ready sword, doomed (as was already known behind the scenes) to approaching matri- mony, but taking the life of London Town with renewed gallantry for his last fling. After him, Captain Spicer, that noted guide of youth. No one could tolerate the crea- ture, yet he knew everyone, he went every- where. The name of his whilom regiment was a mystery ; but there was little mystery about his present occupation. He had a military eye for a country recruit — a cele- brated gift for drilling the bumpkin in the manoeuvres of the world ; and if, at the end of a campaign, the gallant instructor's pock- ets were heavy and his recruit's correspond- ingly light, why it showed that the latter's education was complete. To-night, Captain Spicer's oblique vision shone with unusual triumph and there was a glow on his bloodless cheek: he had in tow a stout young gentleman from the city of Norwich, whose late father had been re- puted as of fabulous wealth. They had each [ xxvii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS under their belts perhaps more Burgundy than could be carried with orrace. "Ah, my lord," cried Stafford, "the even- ing to you ! " His eye was roving round the room as he spoke. — " I vow, Miss Pom- meroy, your blue eyes are more prodigious large than ever ! " " They need be," retorted the girl with her impudent ogle, " to take in so many fine bucks together." Her rolling orbs lingered on Mortemar — But he was adamant. Then she shot a sidelonsj leer towards his lord- ship, to see if he were any way stirred. But still his lordship sat yawning, the image of weariness. " Will Mr. Stafford have a pinch ? " quoth Mortemar, with his best leg and his super- lative flourish. He was desperately proud of his snuff-box (which, he was fond of hint- ing, was a tender memento from an enam- oured lady of quality). With the tail of his eye on Mandeville, he began to work up to the anecdote : " Do I see you notice this little trinket.-^ ... A curious history, sir — " "Gad, Mr. Mortemar is that you .f* No snuff, I thank you, sir — 'Tis a fad of mine, but, to my thinking, there 's but one fashion of enjoying rapee." [ xxviii ] IIThe heart of mandeville " And what is that ? " eagerly asked the young gentleman from Norwicli. Stafford wheeled, and measured the recruit with a haughty eye. " From a little white wrist, my good fel- low," he answered at length. " He who has thus tasted his pinch " he broke off. " Put a pinch on my wrist," Miss Pom- meroy was crying with a giggle ; and, her eyes on Stafford, thrust forth that plump member. " Do, Mr. Mortemar," said Stafford, "and Captain Spicer's new friend, can practise. But recommend him to shut his mouth." Then he turned airily to Mrs. Macnamara. " My dear madam," said he, " I vow I have been thrilled ! Zenobia . . . Zenobia is a magnificent performance. Zenobia, with her bevy of maidens — " He swept a smiling glance along the self conscious row: black eyes, grey eyes, sly eyes, innocent eyes gave him back his handsome look with interest. And yet his gaze wandered like that of one seekinor. " 'T was a si2:ht to make an old man young, and — " " And a young gentleman ? " put in Mrs. Macnamara with a jolly fat laugh — On the boards she outdid Mrs. Siddons ; but behind [ xxix ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS the scenes she was plain Bridget Macnamara, with a good-natured heart, an easy moraHty and a zest for meals. " A young gentleman, if you mean me, ma'am," said Tom Stafford, " wished he had twenty hearts . . . and as many purses." " Oh, fie, sir, who talks of purses ! " " Merely as a means of expressing the feeling of a true heart, Ma'am," said Stafford, with his most engaging smile. " But, by- the-way, do I not miss one of the bewitching mountain maidens ? " "Oh, Mr. Stafford, sir — " she menaced with her massive fins^er. " The creature with the voice, Mrs. Mac- namara." " The creature with the voice — ? Why — he means my new pupil, girls ! " said Mrs. Macnamara delighted. The days were long gone by when the light in a young man's eye could hold any personal meaning for her: but she had not lost her sympathy with love. A shrug and a look of scorn now passed among the listening damsels, as you may see the wind ruffle the cornfields : this butterfly gentleman in silver brocade had but a poor taste after all ! But Mrs. Macnamara had [ XXX ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE caught Miss de Vyne by the arm, and whis- pered in her ear: " The child has never had one bit of fun since she came to us. Go tell her that I want her. Mind, my dear, / want her. Bid her here instantly." She nodded and smiled, as the messenger whisked away. " You 'd never believe it, sir, that girl — (oh you 've got an eye, Mr. Stafford, you 've noticed her ! ) — now mark my words, that girl will be the greatest actress on the stage one of these fine days, or my name is not Bridget Macnamara." " Why, the thing 's a Quaker ! " cried the pertest of maidens, interrupting her con- versation with the young gentleman from Norwich to throw the denunciation over her shoulder. "A Quaker ! " echoed Stafford, more in- terested than ever. " Who 's a Quaker ? " hiccouQrhed the younsf gentleman from Norwich. " Quakers . . . ecod, we grow 'em fine, at Norwich ! " "Do Quakers ever kiss.'^" inquired Lord Mandeville, raising his lazy voice. " Yes — on the sly," said Peggy, tartly. " Neither in public, nor on the sly, Miss Pommeroy," put in the matron, with some [ xxxi ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS severity — (Peggy was not of her favourites) — " has my pupil ever known any such familiarities — poor child!" concluded the lady, half to herself, with a sudden relapse from dignity. " Pasitively quite a phenamenan ! " lisped Captain Spicer. " I declare," cried a gentleman in plum- colour — "a shocking state of affairs! — Where is the young lady, that this omis- sion may instantly be rectified ? " And he laughed in delight at his own wit. " It would take a better man than you. Sir Thomas, I 'm thinking," said Mrs. Mac- namara with her fat laugh. " By gum, is it a wager ? " cried Captain Spicer's recruit. This youth was beginning to have vague glimmers of a fast gentleman's duties in London Town. " Ecod, if it 's for kissing: a Quaker, I 'm on for it . . . We know how to deal with 'em, at Norwich ! " He winked offensively; then, of a sudden, kissed the nearest maiden with a smack, and was instantly paid back by a swinging box on the ear. " Mr. Staffard, sir," cried Captain Spicer, " are you for a wager ? " (When was Tom Stafford not for a wager, even with so un- [ xxxii ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE congenial a taker as Captain Spicer? He would almost as soon have refused a duel !) " And you, my Lard ? " ^ " If any one is wagering, I '11 wager," said his lordship. " Perhaps someone will kindly tell me what it is about." •"Tis who shall kiss the Quaker," said Captain Spicer, waggishly. " Gentlemen, gentlemen ! " clucked Mrs. Macnamara in some fluster. "Nay," said Mr. Stafford, "the bet, as I take it, is won by him whom the lady her- self shall choose for favour." " Why, certainly," said Spicer, with one severe orb on his pupil. " I trast we 're all gentlemen here. Shall each stake ten guineas ?" " I '11 have no tricks played with my young ladies," said " Zenobia." " Tricks ! " exclaimed Stafford. " My dearest madam, it shall be a fair field and no favour — the gentle Beauty shall choose as freely as young Paris himself . . . amongst us divinities, ha ! " His ironical eye swept from the insignificance of Sir Thomas to Lord Mandeville's pallid indolent mask; from Spicer's green visage to the red vacuity of the young gentleman from Nor- '^ [ xxxiii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS wich. And he had an agreeable conscious- ness of the charming figure cut by one Tom Stafford among these assorted rivals. " If kissing goes by favour . . ." thought he, and smiled. " Well, well," said the placable matron, "indeed, I 'm never one to spoil sport — and a kiss never hurt anybody, to my thinking. But, hush, hush ! " she warned, finger on lip. A tall, slender girl came quickly in, her draperies fluttering. She had evidently been interrupted in her disrobing, for her soft brown hair had been almost brushed clear of powder and was coiled in a careless knot at the back of her head. The paint had been washed from her cheek. — A very windflower she looked, white and fragile and yet with a certain woodland strength of her own, amid these high coloured stage-flowers. She seemed very tall, in the long lines of her plain stuff dress ; and her throat merged like a flower-stem from the violet folds of the mantle she had thrown across her shoulders. Lord Mandeville prodded Miss Pomme- roy, and then pointed, with his large white forefinger: " Who is that .? " he said suddenly. [ xxxiv ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE "That!" echoed Miss Peggy, with huge scorn. " That," she cried with her coarse giggle, " why that 's the Quaker your lordship has wagered to kiss ! " The new comer looked neither to the right nor to the left, she went straight to Mrs. Macnamara. " You sent for me, madam," said she. Mr. Stafford had been right: hers was a voice indeed — low-pitched and tender-noted, it seemed to murmur to the heart and yet reached in distinctness to the further recesses of the room. Such a voice alone, in an actress, is genius. " By gum ! " suddenly shouted the young gentleman from Norwich. He was never overcome by shyness, and now, with a stiff lining of Burgundy, felt himself a match for any fine fellow of the company. He elbowed his way between a Beau in puce and the in- dignant Miss de Vyne. " By gum !" he cried and slapped his thigh : " if it 's not Rachel Peace ! " " Rachel Peace," said Lord Mandeville to himself, as if the sound liked him. " Captain Spicer," cried Stafford, with sharpness, " keep your cub in order, I pray you ! [ XXXV ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^^ The blood had rushed in a lovely tide to the brow of Racliel Peace ; but she kept her eyes steadily on Mrs. Macnamara s face and stood, wrapt in a gentle dignity more closely still than in the folds of her violet cloak. There was something of a scufHe between Captain Spicer and his young friend, which resulted in the latter's momentary silence. But his mouth was already open for the pas- sage of his next explosive contribution to the dialogue. " Rachel, my dear," said the good-natured Mrs. Bridget, " I '11 not have you hiding away in this fashion when there's laughter, and compliments, and all the things young people like, waiting for you. Here is a friend of mine wants to be introduced — " " If anything could make me prouder," interrupted Stafford in his pleasant high-bred tones, " than the title of friend, which Mrs. Macnamara so obligingly bestows upon me, it would be, madam," he bowed deep before the girl, " to have the honour of knowing one whose voice — too seldom lifted to-night — has moved this heart in such unwonted fashion." He laid his hand upon his fine brocaded waistcoat. The girl's glance deepened and [ xxxvi ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE kindled, as she listened to him. Her sensi- tive face quivered. She looked from him to her protectress and seemed to hesitate be- tween a guileless pleasure and a timid dis- trust. Lord Mandeville suddenly rose from his seat beside the now sulky Peg and stood gazing at Miss Peace as upon something un- known, undreamed of: his heavy lidded eyes wide open at last. " Hark to him ! " Mrs. Macnamara laughed, pointing at Stafford. " He 'd talk the birds off the trees!" " Ah ! " cried that gentleman, " if I could but talk this lady — and yourself — to my poor table to-night . . . !" " Table ? " quoth she, a glitter in her eye. " A trifle of supper, with my unworthy self as host — ? " " Well," responded Mrs. Bridget comfort- ably, " I 'm not the one to say nay. Supper is always a good thing. We'll come, eh, Rachel ? " All the light had fled from the girl's face. She shrank back. " Indeed, sir ... I beg you, madam, let me retire. I cannot sup with this gentleman." " Hoity-toity! " cried madam, as the vision of capon and Sillery faded from her mental [ xxxvii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS gaze. 'T is a vast pity, my dear, that you will wear these airs ! Oh, forget that you were once a Friend, Rachel Peace, and for Lord's sake be friendly ! " Once more the girl shifted her eyes from Mrs. Macnamara to Mr. Stafford and then back again. Something, perhaps, in the suppressed eagerness of the gentleman's watchful look ; something, it might be, of self-betrayal in the dame's greedy lips and her meaning glances, seemed to strike her with horror: she stepped back as if a precipice opened at her feet. " Indeed," she said quickly, " I must go home." Her eyes were like a frightened child's. Lord Mandeville caught sight of them, and suddenly there was a throbbing within his breast. Now, this was strange, for it was as well known to himself as to everyone else, that he possessed no heart. Rachel turned, wrapping her mantle about her; blindly she was seeking an escape, when, at a whisper from Captain Spicer, the young gentleman from Norwich sprang forward playfully to bar her way. " Dost thee not remember me, Friend ? " cried he, and thrust his grinning face close to hers. [ xxxviii ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE She looked from him in dissfust and her eye then fell on Sir Thomas, who, at the other side of her, had advanced with skip and jump and a series of inane bows. He had but a vapid mind, this little baronet, a poor taste in garments and a feeble command of attitude ; nevertheless, he had been born a gentleman — with another bow, he fell away forthwith. But an undaunted spark was he of Nor- wich: " Ecod ! " he pursued, in light and elegant tones of banter. " Is there so much hurry, my dear ? By gum, but old Master Peace made a fine to do after you, at Norwich ! . . . What will thee give me," he cried, charmed with his humour, " not to betray the secret ? " Rachel's face was white; but, with a sudden gathering of strength and dignity, she turned upon him in grave composure. " I am sorry," she said — and her wonder- ful voice vibrated through the room, " but I have no speech to hold with thee, Friend. There is no secret for thee to keep and there- fore naught thou canst do for me. Nor is there aus^ht I can offer thee." Her answer in that same Quaker phraseol- [ xxxix ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS ogy, with which she had been thus insolently baited, her delicate serious air, held strange rebuke for one who could feel it. Mr. Stafford lifted the single eye-glass that hung from a ribbon round his neck, to look at her with ever deepening interest. Lord Mande- ville came a pace nearer. The young gentle- man from Norwich thought the little silence that had fallen on the room could betoken nothing but a flattering attention centred on his next move. He caught Rachel by the elbow. " What," he cried, "naught.? Naught for me? Shall I not have the Kiss of Peace.'* " He paused to look round for admiration. "Captain Spicer," exclaimed Mr. Stafford with an air of nausea, "that animal of yours is not fit to be let loose ! " Rachel stood like a statue. Peg Pomme- roy had clapped her hands with a loud laugh, echoed by some of the other girls from the different corners whither, with their admirers, they had retreated. Stimulated by the sound of this applause Captain Spicer's pupil lurched forward towards the Quaker's dis- dainful face. "Unhand her, sir!" deeply ordered Mrs. Macnamara. [xl] The heart OF MANDEVILLE Lord Mandeville had taken two long steps. Without a word he extended his arm. His great white hand closed upon the nape of the youth's neck ; it was a fine grip. The youth's wig yawned over his cropped head. " Ow! " he cried, and this was all he had breath to cry: he was swung violentl}^ backwards, shaken like a rat in the jaws of a terrier, and then released with a twist that sent him plunging into Captain Spicer's lean waist- coat. The gentlemen of the Little Theatre were prodigiously impressed by my lord's neatness of action. The ladies screeched, or tittered, according to their disposition. Lord Mande- ville and Rachel Peace looked upon each other's faces and minded no other in the room. " Madam," he said, bowing before her with a profounder respect than he had ever shown a duchess, "you wish to retire: my coach is at the door — " Her grave and searching eye darkened with a deep reproach. "Madam," he went on earnestly, as he read her thought, " I shall be honoured if you condescend to make use of it and my horses and servants. — I purpose to return on foot." Mr. Stafford stood watching with that [xli] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS smile of his that was at once so genial and so cynical. He saw her, after this single hesi- tation, lay her slender hand in acquiescence upon Lord Mandeville's wrist. " God help the girl ! " thought he. " She s fled from the arms of the bear cub into the lion's jaw. Gad ! I 've never seen Mandeville so taken. 'Tis a pale child, when all's said and done . . . but, stab me, how she moves! " His ex- perienced eye kindled as he marked the inim- itable grace with which this unknown actress paused, to curtsey before Mrs. Macnamara, and then passed on, still led by Lord Mande- ville, towards the door. Here, however, they were arrested by a roar — the young gentleman from Norwich had recovered from his sudden giddiness and found his breath once more. " Ecod ! " he was crying ; " I will have blood for this ! " His stout red face looked so exceeding comic without the shade of his wig that Stafford was seized with laughter. But Captain Spicer, whose usually astute intellect had been to-night somewhat troubled by the fumes of the bottle, now grasped the situation with a return of sobered wits. A quarrel with Lord Mandeville! His fool of a recruit [ -^lii ] ^ The heart OF MANDEVILLE ^ could come but poorly out of any such pass, and the gallant Captain's deeply interested exchequer could allow of no such risk. " Blood?" he echoed shrilly. "No, sir, no blood here, but marrow-bones ! " He caught the youth sharply by the shoulder : " Are you mad.-^" he hissed in his ear. "Don't you know who 't is you 're talking to? 'T is the famous Lard Mandeville, you booby. You must apalagize." " Apologise ..." cried the unhappy young gentleman. " I ? Apologise. . . ? " " He 's had too mach wine, my lard. Why, what a sight the fallow is ! — Where 's your wig, sir. You are making a laughing-stack of yourself — and of me ! " Here the irate Captain plucked the wig from one of the actors, who was convulsing Miss Peggy by some merry antic with the same. He clapped it fiercely on his pupil's poll; with so much disregard to symmetry, however, that the cue came to the front and effectively choked further protest. Rachel's lips broke into a delicious smile. Mandeville, who could not move his eyes from her face, even for one contemptuous glance towards his victim — although he had halted to hear what this latter might have to [ xliii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS say in the way of further challenge — pro- ceeded again unmoved towards the door. He had once more ceremoniously taken the Quakers hand. As the panels closed upon them, Stafford fell likewise into sudden gravity upon the memory of Rachel's smile. " By heaven," he said to himself, " Mande- ville is a connoisseur: the creature is exquisite ! " " So, gentlemen," said he aloud, cheerfully, as he turned once more to the company, " we have lost the wager." "You, at least, rtiade but a poor race for it, Mr. Stafford," said hungry Mrs. Macnamara in dudgeon. Then: "And you, girls," she cried with asperity, " shame on you to be loitering like this ! Some of you will be called in a minute. Miss Pommeroy, you're for the curtain, if you please." Captain Spicer and his recruit from Nor- wich were wrangling in a corner. And, presently, the young gentleman was observed to shed tears : Spicer had actually threatened to abandon him. " What would become of you, if I did not keep my eyes on you ! " rated the Captain. " Captain Spicer's eyes are more useful than most people's," said Stafford, sooth- [ xliv ] ^ The heart OF MANDEVILLE ^^ ingly: "he can see both sides of things at once. And 'tis a prodigious advantage, sir." The slope of the Hayrnarket was being scoured by the rain of a September tempest. The gutters were rushing streams, the black roofs dripping. Foul old London was pure for an hour; the moist air vivifying. Rachel, on Lord Mandeville's arm, halted involun- tarily under the porch, " Oh," she cried, " how fresh, how clean, after that scent, that heat of the green- room ! . . . Oh," she added, breathing deep, " if it were not for my art ! " The exclama- tion seemed to have escaped her. Quickly she recollected herself and turned to him. " Nay," she said now, "it is raining still. I pray you, call me a sedan and keep your coach, sir." And, for the first time that evening. Lord Mandeville in his turn smiled. " A little rain will not hurt me," he said gently. " Nay, nay, 't is I pray you. My running footman shall escort you — you shall tell him yourself where you wish to be driven. I do prefer to walk." If she had a lingering doubt of him, it [xlv] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS then vanished. She stepped into his coach, the Quaker girl, as the Queen into her state carriage. And it pleased him to bend before her, as before majesty itself. ]3ut he paused at the coach window, looking in upon her lingeringly, and could not bring himself to g-'ive the si2:nal for drivingr on. The li2:ht from the footman's link and the lamps of the portal fell full upon her face. — He thought his eyes had never beheld anything so fair. " How come you," he said after a while, " how come you, Rachel Peace, on the boards of a Play-House.?" The soft eyes, fixed upon his, shone as through a mist of tears they would not shed. Her lips quivered. He tightened his hand upon the ledge of the coach window to keep back the mad impulse of seizing her to his breast. " Oh, I have done wrong, I know%" she said. " I fear I have broken my father's heart. But I cannot go back — I cannot!" A sudden passion shook her; she wrung her slender hands. "Sir," she cried, " I have no mother ... I cannot think that God meant that we should live such lives — God who made all the things beautiful and crave us [ xlvi ] ^The heart of MANDEVILLE r^ eyes to see, lips for laughter. Oh, you in the world, who see in the odd ways of Quakers nothing but food for jest . . . could you but know the long tragedy of a Quaker home to the young soul, — I believe it might rather draw your tears ! " Lord Mandeville, though he had a sense of humour of his own, found nothing comic that he, of all men, should be selected for this confidence. .And truly there must have been, even in his silence, some strange quality of sympathy; for, after a pause, the girl, with the thrill of unshed tears in her golden voice, went on : " But, I could have borne it. My father is a just man ; and, though mere justice is cold comfort, I could have borne to bide with him — had he been content that I should do so." She shuddered and fell silent. " He wanted to wed you, against your will," said Mandeville, by some quick intui- tion of an indignant mind leaping at her story. " Oh," she answered quickly, " it was to a worthy man — a Friend of great stand- ing among us, of many virtues. My father meant well, doubtless. But I — it would [ xlvii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS have been a crime ! Sir, I was forced to break the Commandment and disobey my father, for I carry in my heart another Com- mandment, and it I could not violate." The passion had come back upon her. Her velvet eye flashed, and the gathering- tears suddenly fell and rolled down her cheeks. Mandeville leaned in, and whis- pered : " You could not wed where you did not love ? " " Verily, I would rather die." " And, verily, it is well said," he answered. And there was no mockery, but a deep earnestness, in his echo of her asseveration. " And so," he added, after a pause, " poor Quaker dove, your white wings have taken you among all these painted birds, these jays and peacocks — these Pommeroys, these de Vynes and Mortemars " — Once again there came a silence between them. Then, glanc- ing down, he said suddenly and with a change of tone: "'Twas the easiest flight, perhaps, and doubtless " " Nay, nay," she interposed, " do not so mistake me. I would hold it shame, now, having taken my life into my own hands, did I not employ it, for I believe Heaven [ xlviii ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE meant me so to do. — Sir, I know I have my talent, and I will not bury it : now that I am free I would use it. Mrs. Mac- namara has been kind to me ... in her way. ... I knew her daughter at home. I am already earning a small salary, and she " Rachel hesitated a moment and an arch smile crept on her lip, " she in- structs me." " She ! " said Mandeville, with his short loud laugh. Once more he gazed deeply on the girl in his coach ; but, this time, it was with a new point of view. Every inflection of her voice, from passion to pathos, from earnestness to delicate mirth, lingered in his ear like to the strains of music. He remem- bered her rare gesture, the grace of her every movement. Beneath his gaze, even now as she sat silent, watching him, the shadows of her thoughts were passing upon her countenance as the clouds over a clear lake — - — Ranting, strutting old Macnamara, teach her ! " 'T is you," he cried suddenly, " shall teach the world ! " As he spoke, he meant a lordly promise. The Earl of Mandeville had powerful interest in most worlds . . . But she caught his words only as an encouragement to the artist; d [ xlix ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ and such a beautiful gratitude leaped to her face that he bit his tongue over the coarse proffer of patronage which would have spoilt all. " Oh, sir, if you think something of my gifts, then shall I hope. But, indeed, I had but a poor part to-night — " She had had a part — and he had not seen her! He had sat by Miss Peggy Pommeroy, all that precious time, won- derins: that life could hold so much tedium. Had there ever been such a waste of an evening! As he leaned into the coach the rain pattered on his back, hissed into the torches of the linkmen, striped in long slants and snake-lines the farther windows of the coach. P^rom gutter and cobble-stone, roof and pave- ment, ranq; out the sons: of the rain. Ever and anon would come a flying gust and all the lights of torch and lantern would bend, burn blue and madly dance. Lord Man- deville's horses stamped and shivered and shook the harness. But his lordship him- self had no thoucrht but to marvel on the snowdrop beauty of the face of Rachel Peace when the lights and shadows played on it. All at once his silence and his brooding t» The heart OF MANDEVILLE eye seemed to frighten her — she drew back, with a look that woke him too from his dream. He instantly moved from the window. " You would go home," he said, formally. " Madam, I wish you good-night." At this, in her woman's way, her heart seemed to smite her that, by unworthy appre- hension, she had wronged one so generously courteous. " Nay," said she, eagerly arresting him, " one word more. — Friend, may I not know by what name to remember thee ? " Then, she blushed and begged him excuse her for that, in spite of all her self-school- ing, the old language still came easiest to her tongue. He broke in abruptly, vowing it was the sweetest he had ever heard ; then interrupted himself, afraid of his own vehemence. Here was a flower that scarce could withstand a touch: he caught back at his highest air of ceremony. " Madam, I have to crave your pardon. I am remiss indeed not to have introduced myself. My name is Mandeville." He drew himself up and bowed ; then, looking at her, saw, half piqued and half amused, that the [li] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS name of which Ens^land thought so much had no meaning in her ear. " I am/' he went on, with a sort of awkwardness, yet proudly too, '' Lionel Hill-Dare, Earl of Mandeville." And he added with emphasis : " at your service." " My lord, I did not need the sound of your name nor the sight of the coronet on your coach, to tell me that you are great and noble. Amongst us, Friends, the outward show is little, but the deeds of the generous heart are much . . . Good- night, my lord." Her white lingers now clasped the window- frame where his own had rested. He ex- tended his hand. " Will you then not say : ' Good-night . . . Friend?'" At this she smiled, that smile of exquisite archness that had already bereft him of his senses. " Good-night, Friend, and thank thee ! " said she, and laid her slim cool hand in his. He stooped and kissed it. As he stood, his back against the grimy [ lii ] The heart OF MANDEVILLE ^ pillars of the Theatre porch, and watched his coach clattering up the Haymarket, the red torch leaping as the footman ran beside it, all through the downpour, his whole being was aglow. — Lord Mandeville the rozie had found something in himself he had not known he possessed ; and, as his coach rounded the corner and was lost to his sight this thing that he had discovered, behold ! 't was gone from him. She was carrying it away with her. He had given it — nay, had flung it into her pretty hands, this hitherto unknown possession of Lord Mandeville — his heart. When Mr. Stafford emerged from the Theatre, he absolutely started to see the motionless figure leaning against the pillar. For once, his knowledge of the world was at fault ; for once, events had prepared for him a genuine surprise. A sharp exclamation escaped him. Lord Mandeville turned his dreaming eyes, saw the amazed countenance and read the thought behind it. " Sir," said he, and took his hat from his head with a certain orrandeur of oresture that he could assume at times, " I beg to inform [ "ii ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS you, and kindly yourself pass the news to your companions, that I have not won the washer." He turned, replaced his hat, and, pensively, walked away in the rain. [liv] HEN Mistress Bellairs, the toast of Bath " for wit and beauty " — and one of the richest matches in the kingdom besides — con- sented to marry Mr. Stafford, it was a nine days' wonder. True, he was a prodigious buck and her name had been connected with that of many a less eHgible suitor. Nevertheless, " Why does she do it ? " was the question on every lip. And, indeed, it was the question that the pretty little widow was asking herself as she sat warming her slippered foot before a cosy wood fire on the eve of her wedding day. The reason she had given to the world at large, "that it had become absolutely neces- sary for her to have a protector," had taken in nobody — least of all herself. [■] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Kitty Bellairs was right well capable of taking care of herself and, moreover, enjoyed the process. The reason she had given to Miss Lydia, her tire-woman (a personage, by the way, who highly disapproved of the in- tended alliance) had been received by that respectfully irate damsel with a sniff that spoke volumes of scepticism. "The poor fellow, Lydia! He is so des- perately enamoured : I had not the heart to say him nay." "Yes, ma'am. There's others besides yourself have always told me he was a feeling gentleman." Mistress Bellairs averted her head from the challenging flame of Lydia's eye. She knew all about the little French milliner in Quiet Street; she did not choose to have the story again. And now, surveying in a melancholy manner the toes of her small pointed shoes in the flickering firelight, with the dusk of the October evening pressing close round her, she could find no excuse for her own folly. Upon one side or the other she could scarce plead entraincment. She had been flattered by Mr. Stafford's persistent besieg- ing, and yet piqued by feeling how little real [2] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^1 passion she had been able to inspire. The moment when, in due form, he had laid his hand and heart at her feet had been one of rosy triumph : from Lydia upwards, how many a female well-wisher had dinned into her ear that Stafford had no serious inten- tions ! She had cut out the little milliner in Quiet Street. And yet — was it possible that Kitty Bellairs was giving up liberty, money, and something finer and closer, for such an advantage } Her friends had freely prophesied that it would be with this engagement of hers as with one or two others ; those with my Lord Verney and Mr. Denis O'Hara (Lord Kil- croney's only son) for instance; and bets circulated freely in Pump and Assembly rooms upon Mr. Stafford's chances of being jilted like his predecessors. But " Beau Stafford," despite the most genial laugh in the whole of the west country, had (or so Mistress Kitty fancied) a cold eye. She shuddered a little as she thought upon it now. Yes, she was almost afraid of him ! • ••••••• Someone came stumbling into the room and fell on the floor at her feet. Her hand was seized and mumbled over with kisses, [3] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ and the firegleams danced on a red curly head, insufficiently powdered. Kitty smiled and her black eye softened. This Denis O'Hara, this impoverished mad- cap Irishman — with him she had once been as near marriage as now with Mr. Stafford ! And if an ingrained prudence had made her, at the eleventh hour, prorogue the ceremony sine die, she had nevertheless beheld its ap- proach with little of that dismay which now filled her soul. " Kitty, you 've broken my heart on me ! Kitty, Kitty, I never thought you'd let it go so far. Is there no hope at all, asthorcf* Is it bent you are on going to the bitter end } Sure, then, I don't care what becomes of me, and the sheriff's officers that are after me this minute may have me at long last, and devil mend them ! " Unfortunate Denis ! But for that last de- spairing admission, who knows into what rashness Kitty might not have been tempted, in this twilight mood 1 But the sheriff's officers — cela donnait fzirieusement apenser ! She let her little taper fingers rest for a second caressingly within his. " Don't be so foolish," she said. Though her voice was tender, in her heart she [4] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ thought — " What a pity he should be so impossible — a scattercash, a money sieve ! " " Foolish ! " exclaimed the lover with a break in his voice. " Say mad, and you '11 be nearer the mark." Then he cast him- self flat on the hearthrug and shed such heart-broken tears that Kitty's own eyes caught the infection. And he, rising to his knees, on a sudden, saw the pearly drops upon her cheek. Very little pearls they were — quite seed pearls, if the truth must be told — but so precious in her lover's estimation that he had to gather them with reverence and wonder upon his lips. " Don't cry, Kitty, dear ! " said he, forget- ting his huse sorrow at the sight of her but- terfly grief. " Sure, I 'm not worth it ! I was not fit to be your husband, my darling, though it 's the love of the world I 'd have given you. Ned Stafford's a good fellow — blast him! — and it 's careful he '11 be with your money on you." Kitty gave a tiny sob. It was very, very hard on poor Denis: there was perhaps no one that was better able to judge of the mag- nitude of his loss than she herself. The sound of that sob drove a wave of blood [5] ^:iNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ to O'Haras giddy head. Pie clasped her fiercely to his breast. " Ah, but by the Lord, we were near it once ! Ah, Kitty, why, in God's name " He finished his sentence with his lips upon hers. Kitty's heart beat quick as a fluttering bird ; an agitation overpowering, yet not unpleasant, seized hold of her. Even now, if only But, as abruptly as he had seized her, the impulsive Irishman loosened his grasp, sprang to his feet and dashed to the door: " The night of your wedding will be Denis O'Hara's last day upon earth." " Fudge ! " cried Kitty, in a sudden fit of exasperation. Denis flung himself out of the room. With the touch of those soft lips flaming into his soul he did not dare trust himself another instant in her presence ; believed, indeed, that he had already sinned beyond forgiveness. When will a man, even the most practised in the science of love, ever really learn how to deal with a woman's heart ? " Fool ! " said Mistress Bellairs to her- self as the sound of his retreating steps died away in the passage. " I vow I shall [6] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ go on with it now . . . and 'tis his own fault ! " • • •«••• • Mr. O'Hara rushed bHndly into the vesti- bule and into the arms of Miss Lydia who had but just turned away from closing the hall door. She caught him by the wrists with small bony hands. " For your life, sir," said she in an impor- tant whisper, " you must not leave the house ! " Drunk with his despair he stared at her. " They ve seen you go in," she went on. " F'ront and back doors are watched." "Oh, that!" said Denis O'Hara, and tossed his head. " Sure, what do I care ? Ah, my little Lydia, it s to be married to- morrow she is, and I '11 not survive it ! And what odds is it to me once I 'm dead and done with it, if I 'm in quod in the morninof? " " She 's not married yet," suggested the maid. Again O'Hara stared at her; then his whole countenance became irradiated. "Why, Lydia!" She put her finger to her lip, looked round cautiously, and whispered in his ear: [7] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS " Come with me." Like a lamb (as he said when subse- quently describing the scene) the Hon. Denis O'Hara suffered himself to be led to Miss Lydia's own virginal bower. She locked the door, and they were alone. A compromising situation ! But (as Denis said) nothing could have been more virtuous, at that moment, than the pair of them. " Oh, alanna! " said he, catching her trim waist, " if you 've put a spoke in the wheels of that most ill-considered alliance, it's more than my life I '11 owe you. What have you got to tell me, darling.'^ " he went on eagerly. " It's broken off already, maybe.'' And the little devil — God bless her! — only playing with my poor heart, as usual? Or" — for Lydia had shaken her head — " will she do it to-night, or will she fail him at the church door.?" " None of these things, as far as I know, are likely to occur this time." " What, then, in the name of wonder ? " "I place my trust in Providence," said Miss Lydia, piously casting up her eyes. " Ah, it 's a fool you 're making of me ! " cried Mr. O'Hara in an angry voice, as he turned away in disappointment. [8] The bridegroom REJECT " I should n't like to speak ill of the dead," retorted Lydia acidly; "and, indeed, if all your man says is true, your late respected mother was a very elegant lady — but if you've been made a fool, Mr. O'Hara, sir, it is not I that am responsible ! " The worst of Denis, as he was fond of admitting, was that he could never resist a joke. Sore at heart as he was, and impudent as were the girl's look and words, he burst into appreciative laughter. Such humour indeed must be suitably rewarded. And if Mr. O'Hara's guineas were scarce, he was always provided with a kiss for a pretty woman. " Will you remember, sir, where you are!" cried Lydia, struggling like a kitten, all her claws out, yet with no intention of scratching. " And in what better place could I be ? " cried the gallant gentleman. But the next minute, overcome once more by his misery, he broke off abruptly, sank in a chair an'd looked round with haggard eye. Miss Lydia lived near the rose. She had literally, indeed, a good deal of the scent of the rose about her, for she considered herself entitled to the common use of her mistress's [9] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^i flacons. She had, moreover, assimilated many of Kitty's little ways ; and her room was as dainty as the lady's own, with many pretty belongings hallowed by previous use. Mr. O'Hara groaned softly. Miss Lydia whisked round upon him, rubbing her lip with a business-like hand and showing a colour like a cherry in each cheek. " Now, look you, Mr. O'Hara, sir," said she, bustling, " this is no time for philander- ings . . . nor for groans either. You don't wish my mistress to be married to-morrow. Neither do I. I have my reasons. A man, that 's as good as married already ! It shan't be and it can't. There 's they that have the right to claim him at the altar. Hush ! " Kitty's voice was ringing from below in clear call for Lydia. O'Hara clasped his hands in some anxiety of mind and cast a look at the window; but the damsel, after a momentary pause, proceeded calmly in a rapid undertone : " And there 's no time for questions cither. Enough that I 'd as soon the sheriff s men did not get you to-night. My lady might want you yet — and I might want you. There, there, be quiet, I tell you ! You '11 not rue it, if you do as I bid you at once." [,o] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ She began to move about the room, dehb- erately busy ; opened a press here, a drawer there, took out sundry garments ; considered, selected, put back, talking the while with perfect imperturbability. " The puce silk pelisse which my lady bought when she was after Lord Verney, and thought to look sober for the dowager and my Lady Maria. Neither of us ever wore it. It is a little too good, perhaps ; but there, it's such a quiet colour! The bonnet we wore, second mourning, for old Bellairs. It got rained on, too ! 'T will suit beautifully. The kerchief. Eh ? " She paused and ran her eye over the young man's petrified figure. " A skirt ? " she said. " A skirt — what the mischief ! " She seized an ancient damask petticoat and measured it against him. He looked at his own long protruding legs — and a slow grin spread itself upon his face. The call bell at the head of the bed rang with a peremptory jerk. Lydia glanced at it side- ways and proceeded : "'Tis the devil you're so tall! Stay — I have the very thing." She rushed to the press, plunged into its depths and emerged, shaking a voluminous ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^^ garment of shot purple and copper hue that made a o-reat crackHng. " Cook's best," she stated briefly. " I prom- ised to put a bit of braid on it for her. Poor servants, sir — ^we have to do each other a good turn now and again. 'T is not that she 's so much taller than myself, but she takes it up in breadth." The bell rang again, a double peal this time. The Abigail did not even turn her head. " I '11 request you to take off that coat. Yes, sir, and your waistcoat, too." She slipped a wadded skirt from her chosen heap over his head, and exclaimed at the size of his waist. Snips and stitches had to come in aid. But no sooner had she clothed him in "cook's best" than the lively damsel anathematised his leanness. " No more on you," she exclaimed, once more at work for bare life, " than on one of your own Irish red herrings ! How in the world ? Well, there, then we must just stuff, I suppose ! There 's all my mistress's stockings that I was packing for her — she'll not need them, I'll take care of that; but you '11 have to give them back to me — Drat that bell ! " [I.] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ In a twinkling Mr. O'Hara found him- self seated before the dressing-table, Lydia's hands busy in the thick curls of his hair. " Cook favours a plain style," quoth Lydia. "Mercy!" cried Mr. O'Hara, suddenly waking up and wincing, " what a fright you 're making of me, child." " Do you want your beauty to be recog- nised about the streets } " said Miss Lydia in her dry way. And as she spoke she smeared a dab of pomade on either side of the bandeaux and surveyed her handiwork with much satisfaction. "Now," quoth she, "for your face. I hope I can paint a face with any tire- woman in England. Some of the eye-brow- brown mixed with the rouge, as near cook's own tone as I can get it, and as little eye- brow as possible." Her hands flew. O'Hara fell into a dream ; there was something soothing in the manipulation. Then, upon a sudden thought : " Did you ever use these implements on your mistress's face?" he asked. And, as Lydia told him " yes," with a sharp, sidelong glance, she saw him kiss the old ^: INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ hare's-foot as it passed his lips and laughed half scornfully, half pityingly. • ••••••• Mrs. Bellairs' negro boy had been knock- ing at Miss Lydia's door for full five minutes, and shrilly clamouring, before, with a flounce and a whisk, she admitted him. " Have n't you been taught better," she cried, tweaking his wool with practised fin- gers, " than to disturb ladies in their con- versation? " " Missus," began the boy, whimpering ; then broke off to stare aghast at the huge, forbidding female who now rose and ad- vanced upon him. As he met the gaze of a pair of mad, light eyes, dancing in the candle light out of the raddled and haggard face, Pompey gave a howl and fairly took to his heels. " A body may n't have her own aunts visit her, next ! " growled Lydia after him, through the open door, tying on her outer garments as she spoke with jerky energy. " This way, Aunt Eliza, dear, and mind the step." O'Hara, smothering laughter till he grew purple under the paint, followed, in outer meekness, his bustling guide. As they [h] <^' ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ passed the parlour door, it was suddenly flung open : " Upon my word, miss,"cried Kitty, "and this is pretty behaviour! Pray, where may you have been, the while I have been calling till I was hoarse, and ringing till my arm ached?" " Ringing, ma'am !" echoed the innocent Abigail. " Did you indeed ? The bells in this house — they're a scandal! My Aunt Eliza, ma'am, from Wales, of whom, you '11 remember, I 've often told you. My poor mother's only sister." Lydia gave her fa- vourite sniff, which this time signified pathos. Rarely had she more thoroughly enjoyed a situation. " She arrived to see me, unex- pected, this evening — and if you'll allow me, I should like, with your permission, to go out for half-an-hour." The gleam in Lydia's eyes somewhat marred the humility of this request. There was a certain point, Mistress Kitty knew, bevond which she did not dare q-q in her dealings with her confidential maid. She tossed her head discontentedly: "Not more than half-an-hour, then." As she was turning away her careless eye glance fell upon Lydia's aunt, became fixed and widened with amaze. The huge figure in [15] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS cook's best, modestly drooped its head till the plumes that had mourned for "old Bellairs " fell forward unrecognised over the shaded countenance; and "Aunt Eliza" began a series of spasmodic dips, faithfully copied from the countrywomen in the market place of Bath. Mrs. Bellairs whisked back into the parlour and slammed the door. How dared Lydia have such extraordinary belongings ? Lydia nipped her relative's arm with exceeding sharpness as they emerged on Queen Square. " Now don't be more of a fool than you can help . . . and for Gracious sake " (her nails nearly met in his flesh) "don't take strides like that. Don't turn your head — there are your men under the trees opposite." Fortunately the square was sparsely lit, and the wits of the sheriff's ofificcrs none of the keenest. The bulky female who minced along with nodding feathers was only stared at in stupid amusement and allowed to go by unmolested. " Where are you bringing me to, darling.? " whispered O'Hara hoarsely as they rounded the dangerous corner. And his arm, irre- pressible still, despite disguise, began to [■6] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ creep round the sprightly figure. " I hope it 's not far; for much as I love the petticoats, they don't take kindly to me this way at all." " I 'm bringing you to a friend," answered the other with stern repression. " It 's not likely she '11 want to be bothered with you, for she 's in trouble herself, but " — she halted, while suspicion and vindictiveness glistened in her eye — "you'll have to give me your word, sir, that there will be no philandering in that house to-night. If not, I wash my hands of you. I 'm not going to have had all this bother for nothing.'' " I give you my word, I '11 be as good as gold," solemnly declared O'Hara, awake once more to the graver issues of the venture. Too well did he know the power of the tire- woman in her mistress's councils. " Then you '11 keep to your room, and behave, till you hear from me again. And here we are now." It was the end of Quiet Street. O'Hara stared at the round jutting bow-window, lit up behind its lace curtains, and barely restrained himself from whistling aloud. " Ned Stafford's little French milHner ! " The plot was thickening. [17] " INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS A small, slim thing, of squirrel-like nimble- ness and brightness of eye, this same Madame Esrlantine. But the brioht crlance to-night was dim, and the olive cheek tear- roughened, as the lady came herself to the door to answer the knock. Leaving the aunt from Wales unceremoni- ously in the narrow passage, Lydia darted upon her friend and drew her into the shop; whence the sound of a long whispered colloquy, broken by little explosions, some- times of laughing, sometimes of crying, penetrated to the listener's ear. At last Lydia returned, very tight and determined. " I shall be here about ten o'clock to- morrow," she said as she passed O'Hara; then added in a fierce whisper: " You may take off your disguise, so long as you don't hang out of the window. And please to remember, sir, to be careful with cook's best paduasoy and my mantle, unless you wish me to repent of my good nature." " Vill you come dis vay, please, me lady?" said Madame Eglantine, beckoning to him, while between their swollen lids her black eyes shot a gleam of such mirth and mischief at him that he was hard set to keep his promise of " behaviour." [.8] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^^ Keep it, however, he did ; met with an unmoved gravity the sudden friendliness with which the pretty Frenchwoman laughingly surveyed him so soon as they were alone together in the neat garret allotted to him ; met with the same stolid irresponsiveness her fresh change of mood, when, wiping the corner of her pretty eye with her lace apron, she hinted, with head engagingly on one side, that heaven knew s/ie had no desire to be making pleasantry, and that nobody's heart could be more completely broken than her own. Mr, O'Hara was not aware how greatly his solemn demeanour added to the comi- cality of his appearance ; nor did Madame Eglantine herself seem to realise it, for there was very little amusement in the petulant look she finally flung upon him, and in the dry manner in which she remarked : " that she would deransfe monsieur no lono-er and would send up his supper, in due course." " Pity ! " thought the gentleman to him- self, as the door closed upon the wave of a tempestuous petticoat. "Sure it wouldn't have done a ha'p'orth of harm to anyone, if me and that darling little soul had deludered our troubles for a while by a smile and a [>9] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS tear together. But, there, I 've given me word. God help Lydia's husband ! I fear she's the born old maid!" He took an impatient turn up and down the room, then suddenly catching sight of his countenance in the little square of glass hanging on the wall, seized a candle and drew near to gaze. " Faith," he laughed, " I 'm the holy show, and that 's the truth ! " Suddenly the eyes gazing into the mirror became fixed, the grinning countenance over- spread with a deep gravity. Full a minute or so Mr. O'Hara remained motionless, con- templating some inward vision. He passed a forefinger dubiously over his chin, then, lost in reflection, he walked over to the little bed and sat down on the edge of it. A small, sharp, charity girl staggered in with a tray and stared with cunning eyes at the stran2:e fissure. " Look here, child," said O'Hara suddenly, " I '11 give you a whole crown piece . . . next week, if you'll bring me a jug of hot water to-morrow morning, and if you can beg, borrow or steal a razor for me at the same time — and, stop, a packet of face-powder." [20] li The bridegroom REJECT ^ If it had been his own wedding morn instead of that of Mr. Stafford, the Hon. Denis O'Hara could not have bestowed more care upon the shaving of his handsome chin. It was a ha2:2:ard face that looked into the glass, still strangely crowned by feminine bandeaux of hair: for Mr. O'Hara, having his own reasons for desiring to pre- serve Lydia's handiwork undamaged, had spent the night, not in bed, but in uneasy dozing upon a high chair. This business accomplished, he next pro- ceeded to set to rights the embarrassing gar- ments — a somewhat uncertain proceeding, attended by a good deal of fumbling with unfamiliar hooks and eyes, and a good deal of subdued cursing. When the stiff ker- chief had been refolded across his artificially buxom figure, Mr. O'Hara stationed himself once ao-ain before the mirror. And now all the experience culled behind the scenes — in ladies' boudoir or the playhouse — was brought to bear upon the situation. With the aid of the packet faithfully pro- vided by the serving maid, and a great deal of friction, he succeeded in producing a truly interesting pallor. An artistic loosening of Lydia's coiffure, with a cloud of powder, [21] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS next created such an improvement that Mr. O'Hara, surveying himself knowingly, was pleased to observe that he would not have made such an ill-looking female after all ! And, when his labours were crowned by the nodding plumes and a gracefully-disposed lace veil : " I defy anyone," he cried joyfully, " to say I don't look the image of respectability — for once." Then he pulled his flexible mouth into lines of woe. " Afiflicted respectability," he added, with approval. All the chimes and church clocks of the old grey town were ringing out eight in the morning when O'Hara, with the most genteel gait imaginable, emerged from the doors of the little milliner and directed his steps towards a ladies' chocolate-house oppo- site the Abbey. There he spent his last white piece on a cup of coffee, and took great satisfaction in the fact that his appear- ance evoked but a passing curiosity. " They think I am just a fine figure of a woman," he told himself, with an inward chuckle. ["] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ Punctually upon the chime of a quarter to eleven, a coach, drawn by a shining pair of horses, halted with important clatter at the Orange Grove entrance of the Abbey. My Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells stepped out, followed by an attendant Canon ; was received in due state by several minor dig- nitaries and conducted into the vestry. It was a bright gusty morning and his skirts fluttered against his handsome purple legs as they moved in dignity from coach to porch. A noble-looking prelate — Kitty Bellairs could not have been married in Bath by any lesser personage — and, this morning, filled with the condescending ur- banity of one ready to rejoice with those who rejoiced ! No sooner had he crossed the threshold than the Abbey bells set up a mad clangour of chimes. " Quite a notable event this, Mr. Selwyn," said the Bishop, affably addressing the Dean. " Indeed so, my lord," quoth the Dean, a pretty mouse-grey man, rubbing his hands till they almost crackled. " The Abbey is full of our most elegant visitors." "The lady — ah — is possessed of con- siderable — ah — personal attractions." [^3] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS " It is so reputed, my lord." " And I believe," said the Bishop, " of no mean fortune." " Vastly rich, they say, my lord." " Then," said his lordship waggishly, " the bridegroom is indeed (as our fashion- able youths might say) a lucky dog." Before the Dean, the Canon, and the minor clerics had at all mastered their ap- preciation of this episcopal sally there came a loud knocking at the door — and, upon the verger proceeding to open it, a colloquy ensued outside which soon became of so earnest a nature as to attract the Dean's attention. "What is this, Jenkinson .? " " Please, Mr. Dean, sir, there 's a lady demanding to see his lordship in private. I 've told her, sir, it 's quite impossible ; his lordship is robing." "But I must see his lordship — 'tis most urgent." The strained, high-pitched voice smote the Dean with furtlier amazement. " I must see his lordship! " And the lady, pushing open the door with remarkable ease against the efforts of the verger, made good her footing inside the reverend circle. Dean and Canon fell back The bridegroom REJECT in some dismay before the imposing female figure that entered among them with this sweeping energy, but the prelate frowned and advanced sternly to meet her. " This intrusion, madam " The lady rolled upon him (from over the folds of a voluminous handkerchief) an eye laden with so much tragedy that the Bishop was instantly impressed. "Your lordship," said she, sinking her high note of distress into one that matched the expression of her gaze, "had I waited but five minutes later to seek you it would have been too late ; a crime " "How now!" exclaimed his lordship, quick to seize the inference, " do you mean, madam? — tut, tut, 'tis impossible. This marriage ? " " Alas ! " cried the new-comer with a stifled sob and buried her face more completely. This was a case of genuine distress or Dr. Thurlow had little knowledge of an unhappy world. An agitated hand plucked him by his lawn sleeve as he advanced still closer to the weeping unknown. " Your lordship, the bride is arriving." There was another jangle of joy-bells. The stranger moaned. [^5] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^S K *' The bride must wait then, sir," said the Bishop, and looked rebukingly round upon the curious faces that pressed nearer. "Stand back, gentlemen," he commanded. " I must speak a few words with this lady in private." " Upon my word," whispered the Canon to the Dean as, slightly huffed, they withdrew, " this is an odd business." " It bodes ill," quoth the Dean, wagging his little head till the powder ficw, " for the ' lucky dog's ' marriage to-day ! " " Pooh ! " said the Canon, as he propped his burly form against the great carved oak press. " That creature, that grenadier of a woman — an adventuress, I '11 warrant ! " "An adventuress! I am not so sure. Watch her now, Mr. Selwyn. 'T is some weighty story she pours into his lordship's ear. And mark you his countenance." "She has a fine pair of eyes and knows how to roll them," whispered the Canon drily. Then they nudged each other; but the meaning smiles faded from their countenance as the mysterious stranger's voice was raised in broken accents, and the pathetic an- nouncement : " Six living, your lordship, and [26] The bridegroom REJECT one underground ! " was delivered in tones audible enough to reach all their ears. These tones were of rich Irish quality. The Bishop also raised his voice, shocked out of his first impulse of discretion. " Fie, fie ! This is a terrible scandal. It is a pity that matters should have been allowed to go so far." " Sure I only crossed last night. And a terrible tossinsr " "Tut, tut! To the point, madam! If, indeed, a previous marriage ceremony has really taken place " " In Ballybrophy Church, your lordship, nine years ago next Patrick's Day, as sure as I am a living wo " The Bishop extended his pastoral hand with a deprecating gesture and turned to beckon to his subordinates. His counte- nance was seamed with lines of care, yet bore an expression of not altogether ungrati- fied importance. " Mr. Dean," he said gravely, " I see no help for it : we must request Mr. Stafford's presence here immediately." As he spoke, the joy-bells, which had been but faintly jangling the last few minutes, suddenly fell into silence ; and, after a dead [^7] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS little pause, the solemn chimes gave forth the hour of eleven. • ••• •••• Mistress Bellairs had been waiting some time in vain for the officiating clergy, before the eyes of all fashionable Bath, and by the side of a slightly anxious bridegroom. She had arrived at the Abbey in none too good a humour; and for every second of delay accumulated fresh vials of resentment against the innocent partner of her discom- fiture. But when this latter was fetched away from the altar steps by a solemn-faced gentleman in a surplice and the subdued amazement of her guests broke into loud whispers and titters, her fury grew almost unbearable. Miss Lydia, screened behind a monument (sufficiently near the altar to keep a keen eye upon the progress of events) had not been so sensible of the flight of time ; for she was engaged in animated discussion with her companion — a small woman whose dark, tear-stained face was almost hidden under a hood. " I tell you," she was repeating impatiently for about the twentieth time, " you 've nothing to be afraid of. Lord, Madame Eglantine, [28] I The BRIDEGROOM REJECT >8^ don't be such a fool ! 'T is all as easy as kissing. Ought n't I to know my mistress's mind? Why, I tell you she 's only longing for the excuse — for any excuse. If he 'd given her a pretext no bigger than the black of my nail she 'd jump at it. She does not really want to be married, no more to him than to anyone. And if you work your bit of scandal " " Ah, Miss Lydia," said the little French- woman, trembling from head to foot, " I shall be know and I shall be ruin ! " "Ruined, you mean-spirited thing! cried Lydia in angry despair. " Is that what you're thinking on at the last moment.? And will you let your beau be snapped away when you can keep him by stretching out your hand .'^ Well, I declare, I 'm prodi- gious sorry I ever took all this trouble about you. If you 'd even had the sense to keep an eye on Mr. O'Hara, as I told you — him as I meant to have ready to snatch her off in her coach as soon as we had scored the first trick. A nice fool I was to trust either of you ! Ruined, you little French zany, why, how could you be ruined ? All you have to do is to keep your hood over your face and whisper in the lady's ear; she won't [29] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS be so anxious to show your little muzzle to the world. " " The bell have stop ! " interrupted the Frenchwoman suddenly. Lydia craned a long neck round the monument. Presently she turned back, bursting with excitement. " I declare," she cried, " something 's up ! They 've fetched Mr. Stafford away from the very altar. And there 's the bride all alone. Well ! " Then, as such born generals gen- erally are, she was seized with the inspiration of the emergency. " Now is your moment!" she whispered, gripping Madame Eglantine fiercely. " Go and tell your story in my mistress's ear ; and, if this wedding goes on, I 'm a Dutchwoman ! Tell her he 's promised you marriage, mind . . . We must stretch a point sometimes." ••••• • • When Denis O'Hara saw Mr. Stafford's puzzled face following in the wake, of the usher's jDortentously set countenance, he had reached that staw of what he would himself have described as "devilment," in which a man becomes quite reckless of consequences. No sooner had the bridegroom crossed the threshold of the vestry than he flung himself [30] 1 The bridegroom REJECT headlong upon the beruffled bosom, and the mad mirth he had so long suppressed broke out in hysterical gasps and sobs. Clutched in a strangulating embrace, over- whelmed by the suddenness of the attack and the physical weight of the demonstrative lady, by the noise of her distress and the volume of her silks and laces, Mr. Stafford for once lost his cool head, staggered and turned pale. Rolling a wild eye round for ex- planation and help he met the Bishop s gaze fixed upon him with searching reprobation. "A most painful scene !" said his lordship. " But, thank Providence, a crime has been timely averted — and the sweet confidence of so virtuous and trusting a lady as Mis- tress Bellairs has not been abused beyond repair." " Crime — confidence ! " ejaculated the bridegroom. "What in ?" He made a struQ^CTJe to relieve himself from the octopus-like embrace ; but, owing to his reluctance to put forth his strength against a woman, only succeeded in produc- ing a momentary relaxation followed by a yet more loving clasp. Denis felt that speech was imperatively demanded of the injured wife ; but, aware that his first words must [31] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS inevitably betray him, he was forced to re- strict himself to moaning endearments. The dhwnement could not have been de- layed but for an unforeseen development. Mr. Stafford was not one likely to be long deserted by his wits; the colour had come back to his cheeks, and assurance to his voice, when next he spoke: " Will someone kindly tell me who this person is supposed to be } " The Bishop inflated his high nostril still higher with a scornful snort. "If you deny your wife's identity, sir — " he began, when Mr. Stafford interrupted him with a fierce laugh of dawning com- prehension. "My wife!" he cried. "Oho! Aha!" And with little of their previous forbearance, his hands laid hold of the muscular wrists that displayed such unfeminine strength. " Let me see what sort of face this wife of mine carries upon her remarkably fine figure ! " There was a scuffle, the struggle of two well-matched men. O'Hara's one idea was to postpone the revealing vision of his coun- tenance ; and while resisting, therefore, with all his might, he kept boring his head into ^ The bridegroom REJECT i| Stafford's chest, much to the detriment of the mourning bonnet. " Mercy," exclaimed the Bishop, " he will kill her! Gentlemen, secure the ruffian — call the watch ! " But the Canon, heedless of the episcopal command, cried to the Dean in a fit of sporting enthusiasm : " Gad, sir, I '11 back the petticoats — she '11 have him down to a certainty ! " It was at this juncture that Fate inter- vened. So many strange things seemed to happen this morning that Mistress Kitty's wedding ofuests beheld with more amusement than sur- prise how, immediately after the mysterious removal of the bridegroom, a small, cloaked woman, who kept her face concealed, crept to the bride's side and began to whisper in her ear. But after a brief colloquy, in which Mis- tress Bellairs had vouchsafed every token of indignation and astonishment, it was felt that matters had gone beyond a jest when she suddenly sprang to her feet, clutched the becloaked woman by the wrist and marched with her towards the vestry, a perfect tornado 3 l33 ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ of white lace, pearl-pink brocade and waving white plumes. Miss Lydia now likewise emerged from the background and, with the audible cry : "What is this — my poor mistress ? Oh! I must to her aid ! " (which, having a taste for the drama, she contrived to deliver in the best style of the " devoted attendant,") rushed in the bride's wake. Those who had staked their money on Stafford's chance began to look rueful, while there was proportionate triumph with those who had freely betted that there would again be no marriage of Kitty Bellairs. The wrath of Mistress Bellairs (which was genuine) and her astonishment that there should be anyone else with a claim upon the man she had come forth herself to marry (which was well-feigned), merged into one overwhelming stupefaction when, bursting into the vestry, she discovered Mr. Stafford struggling in the embrace of yet another woman. But little Madame Eglantine, who had made closer acquaintance with the shot silk and the brown mantua, instantly grasped the situation ; and on the spot she determined to [J4j ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ make the most of it for her own ends, well realising that, whatever the issue, her small personality must sink into safe insignifi- cance. "Ah, del!'" she cried, quite as dramati- cally as Miss Lydia, " but this is not to believe one's eyes ! " She ran forward, flinging off her cloak. " Let him go, madame, let him go ! " she commanded shrilly, and herself laid hold of Stafford with clawing hands. " He is neither of yours nor of Madame Bellairs: he is mine by all the promises a man of honour can make ! " Assaulted from this unexpected quarter, Mr. Stafford loosened his grasp of O'Hara with such abruptness that the gentleman, unable to recover his balance and hampered by his petticoats, stumbled and fell face forward on the floor. Madame Eglantine profited by the opening to fling herself in her turn upon the bridegroom's bosom. The Bishop, who, finding his orders unheeded, had been actually hesitating on the brink of personal interference, was now seized v/ith the full tide of that choler which is not only constitutional with gentlemen of his rufous complexion, but which was here [35] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS imperatively demanded of the outraged dig- nity of the Church. His red eyebrows arched above his haughty, protuberant eye. His tense muscles quivered as he stood looking from the trim little body clinging to Stafford's repellent arms to the ungainly figure stretched upon the floor. He cried in a voice of thunder: " This is the most disgusting spectacle I — I " Words failed him. " Mr. Selvvyn, my coach ! " As he turned, repudiating with a Jove-like sweep the now superfluous lawn, his eye fell upon Kitty. " My dear lady," said he, " my dear child ! " — and it was beautiful to see how the ten- derness of the shepherd for his afflicted lamb struggled with his righteous anger against the prowling wolf. " I will not insult you by asking you if you still desire Mrs. Bellairs whisked round upon him with something: of the movement of a kitten, dashing on one side the smelling salts which Lydia — very anxious to get her mistress out of the way before she should discover the identity of the aunt from Wales — was offi- ciously offering. The bride's eyes literally shot sparks. [J6] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ii " I will not," pursued the Bishop, " insult you, by explaining to you that this marriage cannot now proceed. You have my fullest sympathy. May I offer you a seat in my carriage .f* You will thus avoid the further unpleasantness " Kitty's cheeks were flaming under her rouge. " Certainly not, my Lord Bishop ! " she exclaimed. " I will have some explanation of this odious business first, and am sur- prised you should not also consider it your duty " " My jurisdiction, madam," cried he, inter- rupting her in his turn with equal acerbity, " does not extend — I am thankful to say — over the conduct of all the profligates," here he flung a withering glance upon the un- fortunate Stafford, who had but just suc- ceeded in freeing himself from Madame Eglantine and was regarding her reproach- fully, " nor of all the unfortunate females," here his lordship's eyes were averted in dis- taste from the still prostrate O'Hara who deemed that utter collapse was now his only resource, "who flock to this city of Bath. But," proceeded Dr. Thurlow, turning to the clerics and speaking in a tone that made [J7] lilNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ of the observation a command, " I leave it to Mr. Dean to see that the fullest investio^a- tion be carried through." And thereupon he moved to the door and was lost to sight. "The fullest investigation!" sniffed Mis- tress Bellairs, no whit impressed. "I should think so indeed. Leave me alone, Lydia, I will not come away. Mr. Stafford, sir, I had heard rumours, but I refused to* believe them. That person, I presume, is your Madame Clandestine — Eglantine — -or whatever the name may be ... it matters little to me. But who — who — } Oh, will one of you reverend gentlemen," said the bride, and even in her anger she did not forget her pretty smile, " have the goodness to turn over the creature on the f^oor.?" No sooner had these awful words fallen upon the ears of the prostrate Denis, than, gathering his limbs together, he sprang to his feet and made one wild leap for an exit. The bonnet, in which the late Mr. Bellairs had been mourned, fell upon one side, revealing a disordered red head. The brown silk mantua was dashed from broad shoulders. "O'Mara, as I live!" cried Stafford. "I knew it ! " And with a curse, the like of [38] ' ^ The bridegroom REJECT M which the Abbey walls could never have echoed before, he dashed in pursuit. "Yoicks! Gone away!" cried the sporting Canon. And — quite demoralised by the unexpected course of events — he gathered up his robes and was for joining in the run, when the little Dean arrested him with such a scandalised hand and such a heartfelt cry of horror, that he returned to a sense of the proprieties and called fie upon the sacrilege and the disgrace as wrathfully as the Bishop himself might have done. In the confusion Madame Eglantine dis- creetly vanished. Suffocating, Mrs. Bellairs fell upon a chair; but finding at least one offender ready to her vengeance, she gave up the idea of a swoon. "So, /AaJ is your aunt from Wales .'^ " she began, and it was balm to see the impreg- nable Lydia for once bite her nail and flounder in explanation, her consciousness of guilt in one direction preventing her from exculpating herself where she was really innocent. But the next instant the urgency of the situation made Mrs. Kitty realise that she must defer the congenial task of morally flaying the offending tire-woman to a more ^ appropriate moment, and meanwhile gather [39] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS all her bright wits together to extricate her- self with honour. She must be the first to laugh at what was ridiculous, and turn the discomfiture of the bride completely over to the bridesfroom. Promptly she sent the verger round to the church for Sir Jasper Standish, Colonel Villiers, my Lord Markham, Mr. Foulks and two or three other Bath notabilities, and was ready to receive them as they presented themselves — variously condoling, curious and important — in her gayest, most fasci- nating manner. Very soon they left her again to join the rest of the guests. But so artfully pregnant had been the few sentences she had ad- dressed to them that it was immediately made known to the eager congregation that not only were they still expected to the feast at Nassau House (which had been lent by the owner for this auspicious occasion), although no wedding would take place that morning — or, indeed, was ever likely to take place between Mr. Stafford and Mrs. Bellairs — but that Mistress Bellairs was in the highest spirits. And, in whispers, it passed like wildfire from mouth to car, that, beyond doubt, the wily little widow herself [40] H The bridegroom REJECT M had not been altogether guiltless of the hitch which had thus disposed of Mr. Stafford's hopes. " Tell them I expect their congratulations just the same," had said Kitty with her archest dimple. It was a sight to make the gods smile to see Mr. O'Hara, followed by a hooting crowd, advance in kangaroo leaps down Orange Grove towards the shelter of Nassau House, tearing at bodice and skirt as he went, with such furious fingers that "cook's best paduasoy " and the kerchief and Kitty's little rolled-up stockings soon strewed the path of his flight. Mr. Stafford, in his un- hindered swiftness, promptly caught him up. "O'Hara, stop, you scoundrel!" panted he, now at white heat of passion, in the fugitive's ear. O'Hara halted on the instant and wheeled round — a stranger spectacle than ever, with long legs emerging from Lydia's short quilted petticoat, with white-smeared face and feminine coiffure surmounting his own ruffled shirt. In one second his quick eye ascertained that Kitty was not in sight and he brought it then gaily back upon his [4.] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS pursuer. For the first time in his life, per- haps, Mr. Stafford was shaken by anger. Choking, he flung out both arms with so menacing a gesture that O'Hara leaped aside with an answering glint in his own green gaze which spelt danger. " Easy now ! " cried he. " From a gentle- man to a frentleman ! " "Gentleman!" echoed the other, with scathing emphasis. " Well, I am a lady no longer, anyhow," said Denis, leaping out of the petticoat. There was a shout of mirth from the fore- runners of the crowd that had begun to assemble about them. " By your leave, friends ... by your leave!" cried a husky voice. And a dingy- looking individual, breaking through the ad- miring circle at a hard trot, advanced upon O'Hara with outstretched hand. He was followed by a panting satellite. "Thunder and Moses!" ejaculated Mr. O'Hara, and flung the petticoat with a dexterous movement over the head of the first sheriff's officer, while with a thrust of his now unhampered leg, he neatly tripped up the second. Then, calling over his shoulder: "We'll finish our conversation [42] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^^ in the house, Mr. Stafford," was off at full speed again. With the assistance of a pair of borrowed swords, obligingly supplied by the major- domo (for Nash's draconian edict against the wearing of steel within the liberties of Bath was still in full force), Mr. O'Hara and Mr. Stafford "finished their conversation " in the further corner of Nassau House gardens. With so much promptitude indeed that, by the time the last group of guests had mi- grated from the Abbey to the panelled din- ing-room, Mr. P'Hara's arm had already been neatly bound up by Mr. Stafford himself, and the latter had seen his first fury of anger melt away with the running of his friend's hot blood. Now, it might be that the little devils he had marked in Kitty's eyes during that ten minutes' purgatorial waiting in the Abbey had filled the bridegroom's soul with doubt. It might be — as some of his friends would have it — that Mr. Stafford's matrimonial intentions had hardly been more steadfast than Mistress Bellairs' own, and that he had been as discomfited as she herself to see matters drift so far (having proposed to her [43] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS merely because it was the genteel thing for a buck of Bath to be engaged to " incom- parable Bellairs,") Or it might be, again, that there is no man who, when it comes to the point, does not feel the nuptial state as one su2:^estive of a noose and himself as something of a victim. At any rate there can be no doubt that when Beau Stafford presently sought the company it was with a front of unfeigned placidity, not to say satis- faction — a satisfaction no whit dimmed by finding Mistress Bellairs enthroned at the head of the table, more indisputably " Queen of Bath" than ever — not a man among her guests who did not hang upon her least smile, not a woman who did not fix her with eyes of envy. He met the jocular greeting and the witty bantering, more or less pointed, more or less broad, of his friends with an unmovedly good-humoured eye ; and, demanding the place which would have been his by rights, took seat at Kitty's left with a magnificent assurance. The little lady, uncertain whether to keep up her first ro/e of resentment towards him, or openly to display the sense of relief which was not only fairly well-founded but best [44] The bridegroom REJECT calculated to save her dignity, was surprised into quite naturally gracious smiles. Thus they sat together, bride that would never be wife of his, bridegroom that would never be her husband. The situation was quaint enough to please a woman who, above all things, was a foe to banality ; who, in the heart of her, could never resist a gentle- manly audacity, and who admired the cour- age of one capable of thus meeting such evil fortune. Mr. O'Hara, in a pale blue wedding coat (provided extempore by the genial master of Nassau House), his right arm in a comfort- able sling, hereupon rose from his seat and lifted his glass in his left hand. " Ladies and gentlemen," said he, the mad joyousness of the moment leaping forth irre- pressibly from eyes and lips, " let us, in all haste, drink the health of her who still, God bless her, remains Kitty Bellairs, to the hope of every bachelor heart among us ! And (if there 's a drop to spare) let us not forget our friend yonder on her left, who, if he 's not the happy man he ought to be — I mean he might have been — But there 's a crumb of comfort — a crumb of comfort I say, in every bitter draught ■" [45f INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS At this point the speaker who, between a complexity of emotions, the loss of some good blood and the gain of some generous wine, had not quite his usual mastery of eloquence, was not sorry to find his voice drowned in general laughter. Then, no sooner had the hubbub subsided a little, than the bridegroom reject himself, mimicking with some humour the consecrated manner of the brand-new husband on such occasions, claimed the attention of the table : " Mr. O'Hara, sir," said he, " ladies and gentlemen, it is with a prodigious sense of gratitude that I rise to return thanks for myself, and for my wife that was to be but IS not "Nor ever will be, amen!" put in the irrepressible O'Hara, and tilted another glass to his lips. " For your very friendly acclamations," pursued Stafford unmoved. " Had that knot been tied to-day, which, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr. O'Hara so feelingly observes, would have made me the happy man that I am not, I might have hesitated to take so much upon myself as to venture to answer for her. For I have noticed, ladies, that an accomplished wife generally likes to [46] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ speak both for herself and her husband, which is a vastly proper state of affairs. Of course, dear friends, you are all fully aware that I stand before you a heart- broken man." The delicately ironic tone, the sweet, curl- ing smile with which he pronounced these words, summoned back all the little devils to Kitty's eyes. Her vanity was beginning to smart. Was it possible, could it be possible, that he was not utterly heart-broken ? " Nevertheless," resumed Mr. Stafford, after an effective pause, "as my valued friend has just remarked, ' there is a crumb of comfort in every draught.' I am not, as a rule, per- haps, fond of a crumb in my cup ; but I can- not deny its consolatory presence to-day. Had I been made the happy man I hoped to be, why, I should now have nothing left to hope for." The clamour which had been oratherinor about him became uproarious. He waited resignedly till he could make himself heard again. " As matters have fallen out," he con- cluded, " I can still blissfully aspire with the best of you." He turned with his courtly bow, took [47] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Kitty's little hand and raised it to kiss. Then he sat down smiling. Kitty averted her head with crimsoning cheeks and lips fiercely held from trembling under proud little teeth. Under cover of the general laughter, whispered he to her: " And are you very angry with me, my pretty wife that is not to be ? " She looked at him for a second or two, hesitatino: : hatins^ him for not beinsf in greater despair, yet admiring him exceed- ingly. " Confess," he went on in tender tones, " confess, Kitty, you have never liked me half so well ? " "And confess, sir," said she, flashing, " that you are vastly happier than if that ceremony had taken place." Her mouth quivered, but the demons in her eyes suddenly vanished as if they had been put to flight by a pair of melting little cupids. " Nay," said he, " but when you look at me so, I can regret nothing." " I vow," she cried with apparent irrele- vancy after a long pause, tossing her head, " I must settle poor dear O'Hara's debts: [48] ^ The bridegroom REJECT ^ 'twould be a thousand shames, after this, were he allowed to spend the night in the sponging house !" " By your leave, madam," interrupted Stafford quickly, "but I think I owe it to him to pay at least the half." He looked at the triumphant O'Hara with an unmistakable tenderness while she tossed her head and sipped at her beaker. Then they looked at each other and laughed. But Kitty's laughter quavered a little. [49] II. AM pale to-night "— Mrs. Bellairs, the hare's-foot poised in one plump, dimpled hand, bent forward to ex- amine her pretty face in the mirror — "A shade more on the left, eh, Lydia ? " " Never a touch more, ma'am," decided the maid, and from her mistress's hand un- ceremoniously culled the little foot that had once padded so blithely over green turf. "I vow," cried the lady, "I'm looking a perfect fright ! " " Well, ma'am," began Lydia sardonically, " I would not let that disturb me, since you are to go masked." Miss Lydia was in a less placid mood than usual, and she was not one who could suppress altogether a feeling of ill-temper. [so] GREY DOMINO There were fresh matrimonial projects float- ing in the air of which she disapproved. Her position as confidential maid to a rich and fascinating young widow was a source of so much profit as well as pleasure, so many discreet guineas as well as discreet kisses came her way in that capacity, that she had little desire to change these conditions, even for the sake of calling her mistress " My Lady Countess ; " for such was the scheme that had come within the range of practical contemplation, since Mrs. Bellairs' return from Bath to her town residence in Mayfair. "Why, girl," said Kitty Bellairs, baulked of the compliment she had the right to ex- pect, " we unmask before supper. Surely any fool knows that ! " Lydia tossed her head and set out the patch-box with a bang. Kitty sighed languorously, with a sudden change of mood, and flung a bird-like glance at Lydia's irate reflection in the psyche — a pretty mirror, this : garlanded with golden roses, held up by peeping cupids, meet, in- deed, to receive so coquettish an image as that of " incomparable Bellairs," as the widow had been dubbed at Bath by one of its noted sparks. [5-] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^I "Ah! child," said the lady, "happy you, who will never know the troubles and anx- ieties with which a lonely woman has to meet in the great fashionable world ! " Lydia sniffed. " I want a protector sadly, my good girl. (There 's that quilted petticoat . . . and the square of Mechlin with the hole in it, where young my Lord Verney, oaf as he is, trod on my skirts in the Pump Room. 'T is a beautiful bit of lace ; you can have it for yourself. 'Twill make you very fine among the other tire-women.) Ah! 'tis a weighty decision. My heart is all of a flut- ter. . . . Give me a thimbleful of ratafia." Miss Lydia poured out the desired restora- tive in the same disapproving silence. " Take some yourself, child." " No, thank you, ma'am." Ratafia had long ceased to be a treat to Lydia: famil- iarity breeds contempt. " It 's apt to make the nose red, ma'am." The lady put down her half-sipped glass, flung an anxious glance upon her pearly nose tip in the mirror, and then broke into justifiable rage : " How dare you, miss ? Go to the devil, you ungrateful, unpleasant girl ! " " La! ma'am, he would not have me as a GREY DOMINO present; neither me nor you, for all he comes so often here." " What in Heaven's name do you mean, Lydia ? " "It don't seem as if Heaven could ever have had anything to say to it, ma'am, one way or another." " Gracious power, the creature will drive me mad ! Who is it wants neither you or me? And what is it Heaven can have nothing to do with ? " " Why, the devil, ma'am, or the nearest approach to him that walks London this moment, meaning my Lord Mandeville. His heart 's not really in it, nor ever will be. And if Heaven has anything to say to him, why, I am willing to " "Lydia!" cried Mistress Kitty, in a fury. Then she seized the first missile to her hand and flung it at the girl's head. Lydia dodged with the adroitness acquired by long habit ; calmly picked up the silver curling tongs and began to ply them mechanically, as she surveyed her mistress with disapprov- ing eyes. Kitty had turned back to her mirror, and now set her small teeth in a smile of defiance. [53] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ " My Lord Mandeville not want Kitty Bellairs ! We shall see ! " The little fierce smile broadened into triumph. " We shall see ! " Presently the eyes swam back into the languor that had provoked Miss Lydia, and the widow pondered. Lydia broke the silence by observing in a detached manner: " There are several gentlemen sitting waiting in the blue room." " Already ! " Mistress Bellairs snatched at her jewelled watch and fell into a fresh flutter. " Good Gracious, woman, do you know the time, and how long 'twill take me to drive from Mayfair to Elm Park House with the roads a foot in mud ? Come here, you gaby ! Put the Paris knot on the left ! . . . That curl's too long! The patches now — quick ! Where is the box ? Call yourself a tire-woman ! " The prettiest fingers in Bath — which some who passed as judges now swore were the prettiest fingers in London — groped for the silver and tortoiseshcll box. One charming digit, with a black star on its tip, hovered tentatively round the dainty face. It was a critical moment: even Lydia held [54] GREY DOMINO her breath. But the little hand-fell back into the silken lap, its mission unaccomplished. " Is Mr. Stafford amon^ these gentle- men.''" she asked suddenly, turning her eyes all weighted with anxiety, towards Lydia. " Mr. Stafford, Mr. O'Hara, Sir George Payne — in scarlet, ma'am — and Mr. Mild- may — in sky-blue," responded the latter glibly. There was quite a jingle as Lydia frisked round ; four guineas at that moment were keeping snug company in her inner hang- ing pocket. To the credit of these modish orentle- men (m whose number she felt safety) there was also printed in Lydia s memory tablets a very pretty compliment from Mr. Stafford, w^ho had the art of neatly placing these assets, and a kiss or two from Mr. O'Hara (really, she had had to box his ears). As for the other two gentlemen they were obviously new to it. But one principle she had made clear to their inexperience, to wit that he who would sit in the lavender parlour (next to the young widow Bellairs' dressing-room door) must know how to pay for such privilege. [55] ^^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^I "Tom Stafford!" ejaculated the widow. " He is positively the only man who knows how to pitch a patch. Admit him, instantly, instantly ! " She drew her silken wrapper over the falling laces upon her bosom ; then on further thought: "And Mr. O'Hara, too," she added, " the dear creature has taste." " And Sir George ? " queried Lydia, her hand on the door knob. " Sir George ! Did you not say the zany was in scarlet! I marvel at you, Lydia — and I in rose-pink! " " Mr. Mildmay } " " Let him languish ! " Lydia went forth with alacrity: — "Mrs. Bellairs will see Mr. Stafford and Mr. O'Hara, if they will be kind enough to step this way," said she with a cherry-mouth to the waiting clients. How demure was Lydia ! " Yes, Sir George, I did inform my mistress of your presence — Yes, Mr. Mild- may, sir, I '11 mention it again by-and-by. At least, if I get the chance. I '11 do my best, Sir George. This way, please." Mr. O'Hara and Mr. Stafford, faithful adorers, knew the way well enough. Kitty's pink-hung, becupided, bccushioned sanctum [56] GREY DOMINO with its atmosphere of Parma-powder and flowers — the fragrance of a pretty woman's dainty vanities — was deliciously famihar to both. Mr. Stafford inhaled it like a con- noisseur. O'Hara drew audibly a passionate breath of rapture. " Glory be to God, Kitty," he cried, " but it 's the beauty of the summer dawn you 've got this winter night!" He seized his beloved's right hand, and there could be no mistake about the fact that he saluted it. " A rose ! " exclaimed Stafford, advancing with short, dainty steps to bow over the lady's left wrist, negligently extended in his direction, and touch it with a butterfly kiss. "A rose.? — a hundred roses, a heaven of roses ! " Kitty shifted velvet eyes for a second from the contemplation of her image in the mirror to that of her handsome swains as they ap- peared over her shoulders. A little shiver of pleasure passed over her person as she dropped her glance back to her own reflec- tion. She coquetted with it for a second or two, drawing up a pretty throat, tilting an impudent chin, sweeping long black lashes downwards to peep through them as she [57] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS slowly moved her head from one side to the other. " Oho, Tom, my boy ! " cried O'Hara, " and when did you ever see a rose with such a pair of eyes ? " " And when did a cold, empty sky wear such a smile ? " retorted Stafford in a light tone that contrasted with the Irishman's fervour. "Come, come!" cried Kitty briskly; "do you think I have time to-night for this sort of thing? You've been admitted on busi- ness, my friends. Now, Stafford, what say you" — lifting up the patch again — "shall it be under the left eye ? O'Hara, keep quiet, or out you must go ! " Mr. Stafford sat down on a gilt-leg stool and worked it forward very respectfully to as close proximity as circumstances would allow; then, folding his arms, he threw a deep air of gravity into his looks as he con- templated the visage which the widow turned with equal seriousness for his inspection. There was a moment of throbbing silence, while O'Hara gnashed his teeth. Presently the oracle delivered itself. " Such eyes as yours, dear Kitty," he said in his soft, well-bred voice, " need no finger- [58] GREY DOMINO post to draw attention to them. They are beacons that claim instant admiration by their own flame." (" Ah, now ! listen to him! Talk of my metaphors!" muttered O'Hara.) "But the dimple that comes with your heavenly smile and goes with your — your gentle melancholy " — (Lydia sniffed) — "that dimple, Kitty, which peeps and vanishes like a star in our night, it would not be amiss to make the world mind- ful of it. As who should look and read: ad astra ! " Kitty turned eagerly back to the glass. " Perhaps you are right," said she. Stafford half rose from his seat. " Stay, too low! — too high ! Oh, Kitty, have a care — nay, this frown will never do; I must see a smile, or I cannot guide. Stop, stop ! " He laid his hand over hers. A sudden vision in the glass of O'Hara's countenance behind her, lowering under his powdered red hair — and the desired smile flashed on the lady's lips. " Now ! " cried Stafford. He shot out a long finger, and gently but firmly pressed its tip just by the side of the dimple. When he withdrew it, Kitty smiled again. [59] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSi! " A stroke of genius," said she. And Stafford, stepping back and contem- plating her with his head on one side, as- sented in satisfied tones : " I have been heaven-inspired." Mr. O'Hara's comment, which placed Mr. Stafford's proper habitation in quite another region and further expressed a desire to hasten his home-going, passed unheeded by the two consultants. " Now for the domino ! " cried Mistress Bel lairs gaily, preparing to rise. " Nay, nay!" exclaimed Stafford, arresting her. " Two are the mode of the Town, this year, Kitty." " Two, the mode ? " echoed she. " Aye, surely. One patch on the face, dearest Bellairs, and one on the throat — for whomsoever has a handsome shoulder. It has been the rage ever since Miss Rachel Peace, of Sadler's Wells, appeared last month in the ' Stratagem,' and Lord Mandeville swore out loud, in my Lady Trefusis's box, that she had the fairest shoulders " Kitty started as if the words had covered a little stab. Miss Lydia turned round with an interested air. " And has this Rachel Peace, in your [60] GREY DOMINO opinion, my good man, anything so wonder- ful about her ? A pasty baggage, I thought her — and thin in the collar-bone. . . . Where did she wear that patch ? " " Oh, Kitty," said Stafford, with his pleas- ant laugh, "ask me not about Rachel Peace, for I vow, whatever I have seen of other women, I forget to-night. I could not tell you the exact spot where Miss Rachel Peace wore the patch ; but, methinks, I could de- cide where it best would become Mistress Kitty, so that he who saw it will carry the memory of it to his grave." " Well, be quick ! " snapped she. He pushed back his chair a pace or two, and surveyed her critically. The unwonted excitement which possessed Mrs. Bellairs, that usually self-satisfied little lady, this evening, had brought fresh sparkles to her eye and a flush to her cheek that shamed its rouge. Beneath the folded laces, the fair bosom was heavin^ with shortened O breath. It may be that Mr. Stafford prolonged his contemplation a few seconds longer than was required. It was a talent of this mercurial gentleman to seem most respectful where he was most audacious : so that things were per- [6.] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS mitted to him with smiles that micjht have been denied with frowns. He delivered judgment: " Here, where runs that little vein, azure rivulet through a fair field of snow — where the lovely shoulder falls into this little valley, planned by Cupid himself under Venus' own eyes — where " " That will serve, sir," said Kitty, whisk- ing round and, with the unerring swoop of genius, planting a dainty black star in the faint curve of the white shoulder thus poeti- cally indicated. Then she turned again to flash her triumph at Stafford. He clapped his hands, half with that mockery that never left him, half in genu- ine admiration : " Perfect ! the last touch ! Ah, 't is rightly named : L' assassme ! " '' L' assassme r' She caught the word with a happy laugh, and then, her eye once again on her mirror, regarded the effect of the patch musingly. " Why, madam," said Stafford, with a sudden dry gravity, " and pray what fresh assassination are you plotting for to-night.? " Mr. O'Hara had been no unmoved witness of these delicate proceedings. Only a ripe [62] GREY DOMINO experience of her temper, when interfered with, had prevented him a score of times from flinging himself between his privileged rival and the complacent lady. His dumb show of fury, the clenched hand thrust out and withdrawn, the mute apostrophising of Kitty, the mute cursing of his friend, had, how^ever, somewhat relieved his overcharged feelinos while affordino; much amusement to Lydia. Now, however, he deemed the time come to recall his personality to the widow's fickle mind. " By me soul," he cried, running forward and flinging himself on his knees, " if it 's assassination she wants, I 'm ready for her. Sure she 's done me to death a thousand times, but here 's a heart that will be ready to die again as often as she pleases." Kitty cast a glance of good-humoured scorn on the gay, reckless face upturned to the light. In spite of its gaiety and reck- lessness, there was passion in the red-brown eye, a mad passion which gratified her — little as she now thought of gratifying it. Her glance shifted quickly back to Stafford's countenance. " I cannot say," this gentleman was stat- ing, " like our volatile friend, that I am ready [6j] ^illNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSil to die more than once. But, as Mistress Bellairs has the keeping of my heart, she knows that it is hers to break once and for ever, should she so please." Looking on him, Kitty considered. Was that cold grey gaze of his capable of one spark of real emotion ? Should she ever bring this slippery, polished courtier in true earnest to her feet? It certainly was to her credit that Kitty's discarded bridegrooms should immediately have resumed their posts as adorers, with- out loss, it seemed, of faith, hope or charity in their capricious goddess. But with a return to London life, Kitty's horizons and ambitions had been widening. She nibbled her little finger pensively, then flung out both her hands. "And are ye men of sport, and would you have me strike again what 's dead already, O'Hara.? — or slay what's tame, Stafford.? Oh, fie!" "Denis, my lad, up with you!" cried Stafford with his jovial laugh, striking the kneeling O'Hara on the shoulder. "Our Kitty has higher game for her pretty bow and arrow than out-of-pocket you or humble untitled me." [64] GREY DOMINO The dimple peeped in Kitty's cheek ; she kicked off a tiny Spanish slipper. " My shoes, Lydia," she commanded, unconcerned. The Honourable Denis made a wild plunge on all fours to snatch the dainty objects from Lydia's hands and have the placing of them upon the little foot in its pink silk stocking, of which he had had a brief, entrancing vision. But Mistress Bellairs thwarted him by a dexterous movement. And as she rose, duly shod, clapping her heels with a con- quering air, O'Hara, still squatting on the floor, fell back upon the consolation of rap- turously kissing a discarded slipper. Over a dress of tiffany embroidered with roses, of a splendour that baffled description, the lady now slipped on a dream of a domino, all rosy satin and fragrant lace ; and while Lydia spread out the great hood before delicately drawing it over the high-massed powdered curls. Mistress Bellairs was fain to shoot another glance of sweet vanity at Mr. Stafford — -just to read in his eyes how entrancing she looked. But he shook his head at her. " I am sorry for you, my dear ! " " What is the meaning of that, sir ? " s [65] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS " Only, my dearest life, to see so fair a huntress bent on so bootless a chase!" Here Lydia's sniff was fraught with so much meaning that, in a double fury, Mis- tress Kitty wrenched herself loose from her woman's hands and stamped her foot at Mr. Stafford. "You are monstrous impertinent, sir — and, besides, monstrous ignorant of what you are talking about ! " " Madam, his lordship is still the willing prize of another bow . . . Kitty, Kitty, you will point your little arrows in vain, for once." The more serious turn the conversation had taken had arrested Mr. O'Hara's atten- tion. He dropped the slipper he had been melodramatically apostrophising and began to listen with a serious countenance. " I '11 have you know, dear Kitty," pursued Mr. Stafford in his gentle tone, " that this same Mandeville is bound hand and foot, heart and purse, to one Rachel Peace — whilom Ouaker, now fair rcneofade and actress at Sadler's Wells, and a pretty piece likewise — pardon the quip! He's mad in love. Mad jealous too. He '11 beat a man if he applaud her not enough, and he '11 beat a [66] GREY DOMINO man if he applaud her too well — Egad, I believe, did she but know how to play her cards, she'd be his countess yet!" Kitty gave a start — her face contracted by a spasm of fury. But, quickly restraining herself, she shrugged her shoulders with a smile as of one who disdains to argue, picked up her mask from the table and feigned a mighty interest in the glow of her eyes be- hind it in the glass. Lydia, who had listened with malicious approval to Mr. Stafford's discourse, received his last remark with a cough and an involun- tary shake of the head. " Lud, but these fine gentlemen be fools ! " she thought. " He wants to put my mistress off, and sets her on with as good as tally-ho ! " But Mr. Stafford went on. He was, per- haps, not such a fool as the worldly-wise Lydia believed ; he perhaps found pleasure of a sort in this delicate baitinor of one who had baited him so lonQ-. " And, sweet Kitty, I '11 have you know that when a man is as far gone in love as this same Mandeville, any other woman, be she as fair as Venus, is no more to him than the veriest hag." There are limits to the endurance even of [67] illNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ a pretty woman's pride. That Kitty Bellairs should live to be told, by a man, that, by any possibility, she " And I '11 have you know, sir — you who think yourself so well posted in the news of the Town — that my Lord Mandeville and Mistress Peace have not been on speaking terms these ten days, and that his lordship has been courting me steadily these six. I '11 have you know, sir, that his lordship is in sad need of fortune, in sad need of settled life ; in fine, sir, of such a wife as your humble servant; and that this masked ball, which you are pleased to-night to grace with your company, is given, sir, by his lordship's sister, Lady Flo, in honour of Mistress Bellairs," — the lady's flowery silks and satins billowed round her as she swept an annihilating curt- sey — " and I '11 have you know, sir, that this same masque, in my honour, is to no other end than that his lordship may finally con- clude matters with a lady of his own world, worthier of his attentions than this play- actress. My Lord Mandeville commissioned his sister to find him beauty, and money, and wit, sir. I leave it to you to say if she has succeeded." " 'Pon my soul ! " interrupted the Irish [68] GREY DOMINO gentleman, with sudden explosion. " He '11 be content with no less ! It 's the devil's own impudence he 's got ! A carrot-headed, empty-pursed rake of a fellow, with the tenv per of old Nick, if all accounts be true ! " " If you say another word, O'Hara," said Kitty summarily, over her shoulder, " Lydia will show you the door." Silence fell on the instant, and Kitty flounced her triumph upon the real offender. "So, sir," she resumed, " you see." " Beauty, money — and wit," repeated he, in a kind of muse. " Yes, Mr. Stafford," affirmed Kitty, with a smile and a wriggle ; " and my Lady Flora could think of no one better." " Indeed," said he, " I am not surprised." His voice and look were so silky-soft that Mistress Bellairs deemed him completely vanquished and, womanlike, proceeded to roll the prostrate foe in the dust. "And so, my good friend, you need no longer fear for me a bootless chase, for the quarry is to my hand to lay low, if I please. And I myself have chosen the form of enter- tainment for to-night, for it is my pleasure to give his lordship further proof of my wit behind the mask before permitting him to . [69] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ claim as his own — well, what you think, sir, will seem no better to him than that of the veriest hag." Now Mr. Stafford sighed and Mistress Kitty broke off. There was something dis- concerting about his air. She looked sharp inquiry at him. " Let us go, my dearest madam," he said in a melancholy tone. " You '11 drive me mad," said she. " What is it now ? My coach has been waiting this hour to escort yours." Again she stamped her foot. " You have my most earnest wishes," said he, turning up his eyes and sighing once more. " Mr. Stafford," she stormed, " I '11 have your meaning, for this is more than I can endure." " My Lord Mandeville will be waiting in vain for beauty, wit, and money." She caught him by the wrist and shook him. Then he fixed his eyes upon her for the first time that evening bereft of their danc- ing mockery. " Kitty," said he, " you left one thing out of your calculations." " And pray what may that be ? " " You 've never really known anything of it yet, though I vow you 've seen it oft [70] GREY DOMINO enough ; and 't is something, my dear, that, when once you know it, you '11 let all the world go by, just for the sake of it. Lord Mandeville knows it, and that is why, for all your wit and all your beauty and all your money, you '11 not meet your match in him." Kitty drew back, her lips curling in scorn. " And this marvellous something.'^ " " 'T is but Love; my dear lady." She had known what he was going to say. And yet it enraged her when he had said it. And so did the groan with which O'Hara echoed the word. " My pelisse, Lydia ! " she cried sharply. " My fan, girl. I verily believe I shall turn lunatic myself, if I listen to these lunatics a moment longer. Call up the footmen ! " Yet, as Mr. Stafford was, facile princeps, one of the finest beaux in town, she was fain to accept his hand as far as the coach ; were it only for the effect upon the gentlemen hopelessly waiting in the ante-room. Mr. O'Hara caught the maid by the arm as she would have followed her mistress. " By heaven, this is bad news for me ! And since when, Lydia, has your divine mistress fixed her heart upon that devil.?" " Her heart ! " sneered Lydia, and tossed [7>] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ her head, she being of Mr. Stafford's opinion on the matter. " Lydia, me darling, if that Mandeville comes here after her, think of me and poison his tea for him, and I '11 give you the finest diamond necklace in the world — if I have to go to the road for it." He was desperately in earnest. There were beads of anguish on his brow and a grey pallor upon his gallant comeliness. Yet, as he slid his arm imploringly round the girl's waist, and felt how slim and trim it was, he could not help giving it a tender squeeze, for its own sake. "Get along with you!" cried Lydia, with a vigorous push, which landed him on the other side of the door. Left alone, she stood in deep reflection. Then she shook herself, and began folding and putting away her mistress's garments with sharp movements which betrayed much inner irritation. All at once she paused. A large pictorial card of invitation, ele- gantly engraved by Mr. Bartolozzi, request- ing Mrs. Bellairs' presence at Lady Flora Dare-Stamer's mansion at Elm Park that evening, caught her attention. " La ! she 's forgotten the ticket." [7i] ^ GREY DOMINO ^ As she spoke the word, half aloud, a sudden gleam leapt into her eye, succeeded by a slow, malicious smile. Lydia nodded her head, as if in answer to some inner suggestion ; and, slipping the card into the bosom of her 2:own and, snatch- mg a cloak, straightway left the house. " Though your lordship does not dance, I trust he sups," said the little pink domino. Lord Mandeville, lying back so languidly on the settee that his head reposed on the back of it and his legs stretched to quite insolent length before him, turned a lazy eye upon the small rosy mask who sat very upright by his side. These two had drawn apart into a deserted boudoir and, through wide-open double doors, looked forth on the brilliant throng, ever shifting with ever changing effect in the great ball-room beyond. Out there, all was noise with music and high voices and laughter, all was movement, white light and flashing colour. Here within, there was a padded stillness, an artful pink-wax dimness — a small silence, just for two. Lord Mandeville yawned without taking [7J] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS the trouble to raise the large white hand that lay inert upon his knees. (" Not even O'Hara," thought Mistress Kitty, '' has better teeth ; not even Stafford has a better leg ! ") And that languid eye of his roamed from the tip of a pink shoe artfully peeping, to vi^here the parting folds of the pink domino first be- trayed an entrancing vision of the fall of an exquisite waistline and next the rise of a still more exquisite bosom, a pearly peep of which was triumphantly ridden by a tiny black star. Resting his gaze at leisure on the round, saucy chin, just clear of the hanging lace of the mask, his lordship drawled at length : " I don't mind supping, if you sit beside me, rosy unknown." Here he lifted one of his inert hands with so indifferent a gesture that Kitty was quite surprised to find it, next, clasping her waist — and pretty tightly too. Her heart gave a leap. Did he guess . . . ? Bah ! Men were all alike! Diseno:a<>in^4] LITTLE RED HEELS of the weighty bag. The highwayman gave a despairing howl as he suddenly realised that the fruit of his long day's work was finally reft from him. He made a wild clutch at his rival when the latter rose to his feet : but his fingers, in the dark, struck against cold steel. " Give it up, man ! " came those laughing tones that from the very first had filled him with hatred and yet superstitious fear. " Give it up, brother of the High Toby, unless you 've got another pair of heirlooms to match your nose." The man had staggered up. Nothing but shadows were they now to each other in the universal blackness ; but each could hear the other's breathing. O'Hara's was caught with exultant laughter; the highwayman's was stertorous with impotent fury. To emphasise his remarks, then, Denis playfully drew the captured pistol from his belt and clicked the lock meaningly. And upon this there was a crash as of some wild animal plunging into cover, a stumbling rush of feet, sounds of flight, quickly carried away on the wings of the wind. As O'Hara stood listening, the blast fled by him over the hill and left a deep inter- INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS lude of silence in which he could catch no sound but Red Beauty's soft, inquisitive breathing: at his elbow. He sent a loud laugh after the retreating knight, then he weicfhed the bao^ in his hands. "Three hundred guineas, they said! I'd have been lucky if I 'd got the half of it in the Old Country! . . . That's back to Kitty! She will have had time to miss me, not time to replace me. Glory be to God ! " cried Denis O'Hara. But now, being a man of money, a man of worth, Mr. O'Hara became mighty cautious. The first thing to be done was to distribute the rouleaux among his various pockets and cast the now limp recipient into the roadside ditch. The next was to decide upon his own movements. Restrainino:, thouc^h not without a sigh, his natural inclination, which was London wards, he turned Red Beauty's head towards Speenhamland, near Newbury, the nearest halt, and was for mounting once more, when he paused. "There's the poor comrade yonder," quoth he, " whom we must not leave in extremity, if he 's not past help. We owe him that, colleen." And leading the mare, he retraced his steps once more. Red Beauty [126] LITTLE RED HEELS^ craned her neck and drew deeper breaths of sympathy over the body of her fallen brother. " Aye," said O'Hara, after a second's examination, "stone dead. His heart 's broke, my colleen, and well for it. And if I 've left my mark on Copper-nose, 't is no more than he deserves." But it was high time that Denis O'Hara should place himself, his borrowed steed, and captured wealth under shelter. The snow- storm was gathering and the winds on these high, bleak lands came charged with stinging flakes. " We '11 take it steady, but easy and cautious, love," said he, once more swinging himself into the saddle. At the door of The famous inn in Speenhamland That stands below the hill. And rightly called " The Pelican," From its enormous bill (as a wit of the period sang of that excellent house of entertainment), came a red-haired traveller upon a red-coated mare, both some- what the worse for a difficult journey in the dark through a settled snowstorm. [ 127 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Perished though he was, O'Hara, whose soft heart had ached over the fate of the highwayman's steed, would be content to- night to let no one see to his mare except himself. Having, therefore, seen her rubbed down to his own satisfaction, seen her at last stand in the best stall up to her belly in golden straw; having coaxed her to her feed with a warm mash, and satisfied himself that the capricious lady had really a good appetite in spite of some coquetting, he passed into the hostelry. Here he was not an unknown oruest. The length of the " Pelican's " bill was no deter- rent to him : when he had a guinea, he spent it with the delightful ease of the impecunious, where another would haggle over a shilling. Thus it was with the familiarity of the inti- mate that, cocking his hat so as to conceal the loss of the curl, upon which he desired no question, he marched straight from the stable into the kitchen, where he knew he would find a roaring sea-coal fire, for the comforting of the chilled and sodden outer man ; where he would furthermore be able to choose on the spot the particular refresh- ment that seemed best suited for the cheer- ins: of the inner. [128] '& ^ LITTLE RED HEELS ^ Now, the first object that met his airy glance, as he advanced into the rosy circle flung out by the glowing hearth, was the dubious post-boy of the yellow chaise, shovel- ling rabbit-pie into his own anatomy with as much gusto as might the most honest of Britons. The next instant, he beheld, seated in an attitude of utmost dejection, supporting an elaborately curled wig upon a limp fist, no less interesting a person than the whilom owner of the guinea rolls. So unexpected was the encounter, Newbury having been the declared destination of the yellow chaise, that for the moment it had the remarkable effect of depriving Mr, O'Hara of speech. Suddenly, however, interrupting mine host upon the eulogy of spiced veal-pie and wood- cock on toast to follow, he strode up to the table and tapped it with his riding-whip in front of Spicer's disconsolate, plucked, and now useless, pigeon. " Have we not met before, sir } " Mr. Huggins looked up with a dismal, unillumined eye, and evidently failed to recognise the speaker. The post-boy became more absorbed than ever in his supper. "Surely," went on Mr. O'Hara, "you are the traveller whom I encountered this after- 9 [129] |§|INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS|^ noon. Some little misadventure, 1 under- stand, had just befallen you." " Little misadventure ! Aye, sir, I had just been robbed — all I had ! " said the poor youth, with dull, unconscious irony. The landlord had followed O'Hara's move with some curiosity. " I 've offered the young man to make him a present of supper and bed," he here ob- served in tones of important philanthropy, " but he declines to partake." Mr. O'Hara wheeled round upon him with some sternness. A man is never more dis- posed to rebuke his neighbour as when his own conscience is slightly uncomfortable. "And pray, Mr. Landlord, how comes it that you have stationed this young gentleman in the kitchen with his own post-boy.'' " The landlord entered into a prodigious state of surprise and discomfiture. He plumed himself — indeed, with some truth — on having an instinct for a gentleman; and knew that brocade and lace did not suf- fice to the making of one. He stammered a hasty apology, turning from the discon- solate youth in his rich City garb to the mud-spattered, plain-coated Irishman, whose genial, clean-cut face was just now as haughty [ 130] LITTLE RED HEELS as ever any English peer's could be. He had not known. It was a strange story. It was very clear the young gentleman (Mr. Huggins was promoted ! ) could not pay shot. And Captain Spicer (who had gone to bed in the best room upstairs, with every attention for his wound) Captain Spicer, whom probably Mr. O'Hara knew, had warned the landlord that he disclaimed all pecuniary responsibility. "Captain Spicer!" ejaculated O'Hara, with such a twist of contempt on his lips that mine host of the " Pelican " perceived that he was here on the wrong track, and quickly abandoned it. " If he had known that the Honourable Mr. O'Hara, son of that well- known and admirable nobleman my Lord Kilcroney, took an interest " Again O'Hara cut him short. With an impatient wave of his hand, " That '11 do ! " cried he. " Had you known Mr. Huggins's consequence, you 'd have stripped your breast bare for him — would you not, you old Peli- can, you } " Mr. Huggins, on his side, hearing of the consequence of his interpellator; was no whit less obsequiously moved than his grudging host. [131] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS " The Hon. Mr. O'Hara! " quoth he, rising to his feet and making a series of City legs. " I am honoured, sir, vastly honoured." Then, with a return of his first bleat: "Your friend, sir. Captain Spicer, has abandoned me." Thereupon ensued a rambling statement, in which the tedium of a silversmith's life, the relief of Aunt Matilda's legacy, were intermingled with lamentations upon the hard fate that had overtaken him : the pros- pect of an immediate return to desk and grind. O'Hara stood gazing at him in his un- wontedly cogitative mood. "Sure," he was thinking, " it would be doing an owl of that kidney no good turn to give him back the money. . . . What would the green-goose do with it but make an ass of himself — and him that already ? " Aloud he bade the landlord serve up supper for two in the parlour, and then, informing Mr. Huggins that he would expect him in a cjuarter of an hour, turned away abruptly to avoid the gratitude that overcame the young cit. • ••••••• A genial meal loosens the tongues of even uncongenial companions ; and Mr. O'Hara [ 132] LITTLE RED HEELS was not of the kind to make any guest of his feel the inferiority of social station. Never- theless, had the post-boy been but a more lively sort of rascal, the Irishman would no doubt have preferred his society to that of the little vulgar, pasty-faced clerk. After a bumper or two, a kind of sparkle had come to the latter's watery eye. And, freed from his first hampering assumption of fine manners, he began to let his tongue wag with all its native impudence and folly. Between the picking of the last woodcock bone and the cracking of the first walnut, Mr. O'Hara was made the recipient of his innermost confidences. " Young Calico 's a rip, begorrah ! of the first water — first gutter water ! The cock of the tavern, the buck of Cheapside wenches!" Upon this summary of his guest, Mr. O'Hara — a silk handkerchief tied over his mutilated curl — leant back in his chair and surveyed him through half-closed lids with something of pity mixed with his contempt. "And by goles ! " Mr. Huggins was say- ing, as he reached unceremoniously for the bottle, " I can give you as good a song, though I say it, as any lad of ours among the ' Harmonious Owls.' " [ ^33 1 INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS "Harmonious Owls?" inquired O'Hara, tickled as was his wont by any picturesque combination of words. " Aye, my boy ! — Honourable sir, I mean — 'tis our club in Little Britain. A set of fellows, oh ! they could show you a bit of life! We meet o' Saturday nights. Aye, and there 's the ' Bleeding Cross- Bones,' down Knightrider Lane. That is a club ! There 's play at ' the Bones,' sir, I tell you," said Mr. Huggins, leaning forward and speaking in a husky whisper. " I won nine guineas there, one night. At single sitting, sir. " Thunder and turf ! say you so? " " I could give you a bit of a new song that took them mightily among the Howls — the Owls, I should say." Mr. O'Hara sat quickly up in his chair and flung out a forbidding hand, as Mr. Huggins uplifted a dismal voice and car- olled : — " Oh, where is the harm of a little kiss — One, one, only one ? And what can the heart " "Peace!" cried the Irishman with loud authority, slapping the table with his open [>J4] ^ LITTLE RED HEELS ^ hand. And as the other stared, open- mouthed, round-eyed : " 'T is my infirmity, sir," proceeded Denis more civilly. " Music, somehow, turns my wine sour on me. It comes, Mr. Huggins, doubtless, from an error in my upbringing; my head was not made early enough. I 'm obliged to con- centrate, sir, to give my attention to the bottle." While gravely dealing out this farrago, which had the desired effect of completely nonplussing the young man, Mr. O'Hara's wits were busy upon a little scheme sug- gested by a chance boast of his companion. One might, after all, get an hour or two of entertainment out of the back-street buck, if 't were true he was such a rufifler at the dice and the cards. " And if this jot-down- nought-and-carry-one has, as he says, swept the mighty sum of nine guineas from his fellow 'prentices, he 's as good a chance of winning his three hundred from me!" There was a quaintness about the idea that pleased Mr. O'Hara prodigiously. And, indeed, he would not have been O'Hara had not the temptation of putting all his fortunes to the hazard again been irresistible. " Upon my soul ! " he exclaimed suddenly. [•35] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ " but you 're a young gentleman of pro- digious accomplishment! And what, Mr. Huggins, may I inquire, is your favourite game ? " " Why," cried the clerk, " I am reckoned, sir, dangerous at piquet. And there are many, sir, who had rather be my partner at whist. But w^hen the humour is on me to play high," said Master Huggins, tossing down the end of his glass with a knowing turn of wrist, "then nothing, to my mind, comes up to faro; though basset, indeed, and ombre, and lanterloo, and quinze, are reck- oned fair games, and also lansquenet, quadrille, and " " Nay," said O'Hara, breaking the chain, " I am with you. Faro is a pretty game — between gentlemen. Faro 's the game ! What say you to a deal or two ? " " By goles ! " cried the clerk, and a greedy joy spread over his countenance, " but you 're a gentleman after my own heart ! " Then he suddenly clapped his hands against his pockets, and his jaw dropped. "Ud's bones! I was forgetting! Cleaned out! Unless you will throw with me for my but- tons — silver, on my honour, and a pretty fancy " [■36] ^ LITTLE RED HEELS ^ " Oh, pooh, Mr. Huggins ! " cried O'Hara, " between gentlemen ! Sir, your misadven- ture might have occurred to anyone — to anyone of your constitutional modesty. You 've learned that 't is a mistake to be at all backward in coming forward when the call is pistols, that 's all ! I shall be charmed to oblige you, sir, by the loan of a few pieces. The note of hand of so well known a person as yourself is as good as the Bank, I 've no doubt. Shall it be, to begin with, a trifle of ten ? " " Oh, make it a guinea, sir," said the dash- ing cit in superior tones. " Now, here 's a lad of spirit ! " cried O'Hara, breaking into loud laughter. " By my father's last bottle, sir! I like your humour! " He swept a clear space on the table as he spoke, and spread thereupon, in shining array, ten of Verney's guineas. " I 'm a bad arithmetician," he went on ; "I 've not had your education, and it comes easier to me to reckon in gold coin. — Will you hold the bank, or shall I ? " Gog and Magog ! How their bold, 'pren- tice son kept up the credit of City valour and [ 137] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^i pledged his own that winter night, at the " PeHcan," Speenham, on the Bath road ! At first, indeed, he won ; and all that were left of my Lord Verney's thirty guineas found themselves heaped in a pile by the side of his glass. And Mr. O'Hara (enjoying him- self hugely) began to see the moment when he would have surreptitiously to break one of those rouleaux that lay so snug in his pockets. But it seemed fated that Aunt Matilda's legacy was not to benefit her gay young dog of a nephew ; for, from the moment when it was likely to come once more into action, the luck turned. And first my Lord Ver- ney's guineas found their way back to Mr. O'Hara's side of the table. Then a bun- dle of L O. U.'s began to grow beneath that gentleman's elbow — the earlier ones neatly engrossed in Mr. Muggins's most clerkly hand, those succeeding growing wilder and wilder as that gentleman's spirits ap- proached desperation. They called for more wine ; they called for fresh candles. Rouleau by rouleau, the travelled gold passed de jure into the pockets where it already reposed de facto. "Your luck's bitter bad, my young friend. [138] ^LITTLE RED HEELS^ Have you ever tried, at the ' Bleeding Bones,' what the turning of your coat will do for you ? 'T is a practice you may on occasion see at White's." It took the muddled wits of the city-bred youth a full minute to grasp the purport of this advice. When, however, he had done so, he carried it out with such tipsy precipi- tation, and the figure he cut when the change was at last effected and he sat down once more, clad in the bright red lining, was so exquisitely comic, that Mr. O'Hara fell into inextinguishable laughter. " Glory be to God," said he. " If that does not propitiate the Fates ! Why, 't is a little Lord Mayor you 're destined to be, and no mistake ! " " Paroly ! I '11 go paroly ! " cried the future Lord Mayor in a thick voice, falling once more upon his cards with a froglike plunge. "Devil mend you!" muttered O'Hara to himself. " You 'd go St. Paul's and the Bank of England on the value of a lock of your hair! Here has the green calf lost his Aunt Matilda's legacy twice, and he '11 double or quits me with never a stiver to stake ! But, by the Lord! I'll do it — and win my [ ^39] i^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS XiZ chances with Kitty for the third time! ' There 's luck in odd numbers,' says Rory O'More ! " And aloud : " Done with you, my gay punter ! " The cards were shuffled and a2:ain dealt upon the table. And Mr. Huggins gazed, horror-struck. Then, in the silence, Mr. O'Hara poured himself the last glass and tossed it down. For a " head that had not been made early," his had a wonderful capacity for re- maining on the intelligent side of exhilara- tion through a very mighty potation. But then (as he would explain to the neophyte) "you can get through a deal of claret with the help of a bottle of port." And he was always careful to top up with the more generous fellow. "God bless you, Kitty!" said he, in his soul, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, as the final mellow drop ran down his throat. " I shall have a sight of your pretty face the day after to-morrow." " And now, sir," he asked, " how do we stand with regard to each other ? " Mr. Huggins started from his sodden trance of horror. The words had fallen upon him like buckets of cold water. The [ ho] LITTLE RED HEELS m I. O. U.'s lay spread out in eloquent array. There was a rapid, merciless little calculation. " I take it, sir," said O'Hara, dropping his pencil, "that you owe me some six hundred guineas. Or will you kindly verify ! " Verify ! The clerk flung out his arms upon the table, dropped his head over them, and gave vent to a bellow of utter misery. Six hundred guineas! With the three hundred of which he had been robbed, nine hundred ! What a sum for a City youth, worth at highest calculation some fifty shillings a week! He had the vaguest notions of the manner in which such a debt might be enforced in the high circles to which his opponent belonged — whether by prison, or, yet more awful contingency, by pistols! Mr. O'Hara rose from his seat and walked over to the fireplace. From that point of vantage, warming his coat-tails, he gazed philosophically, though not unbenevolently, upon the prostrate and howling youth. "Begorrah! the poor little cur! 'tis the voice of a bullock he 's got ! " After a moment or two he approached the table once more and tapped the young gam- bler sharply on the shoulder. Then, without [hi] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ a word, gathering together the valuable auto- graphs, held them up solemnly before the youth's staring eyes ; and then, still in silence, but with a certain air of ceremony, crushed them into a tight ball, which he finally flung into the fire. The clerk sprang to his feet, uncertain, trembling, scarcely daring to interpret the action to his own relief, so unspeakable did that relief appear. Upon this Mr. O'Hara spoke in the most mellifluous yet doctoral accents that it is possible to conceive. " Let this be a lesson to you, young man. For the future be content with the humble lot which Providence has marked as your own. Devote yourself to the low virtues of your state in life, and refrain from endeavour- ing to improve yourself by imitating the high vices of your betters. Another than myself, Mr. Huggins, be assured of it, would not have " He paused impressively and waved his hand towards the fire. The little cit — no very attractive spectacle in his turned coat, with his pale, puffy, red- eyed face — here fairly broke down and burst into tears. But they were tears of the grateful and the shamed. O'Hara stalked over to the table with a magisterial gait [ ir- ] LITTLE RED HEELS which admirably concealed a slight ten- dency to waver, collected his loose gold into a pile, then, slipping the greater part into his pocket, slammed down in front of the ever more bewildered youth five ringing golden pieces. " There, young man ! " quoth he, " take these, and also take the coach to-morrow back to London. Eat humble-pie when you get there. And for the future, sir, beware of wine and the company of your superiors, of fashionable captains, and the Bath road. Reserve yourself for the Harmonious Bones and the ale tankards. Not a word, sir ! " Upon which he pointed to the door with so decided a gesture that, not unlike the cur to which he had been compared, the would-be Macaroni crawled away without either the wit or the courage to utter an- other word. Had he been able to see through the solid wood, after he had drawn it between himself and his singular entertainer, Mr. Huggins probably would have been more puzzled than ever. For Denis O'Hara, propped against the table, was swinging from side to side, a prey to paroxysms of laughter. O'Hara, moralist ! Delicious pleasantry ! [■43] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS It was, after all, not before the sunset of the second day that Mr. O'Hara, on Red Beauty, rode into the rumour, the stir and smoke of Town, from the still and lonely, clean-breathing country road. With his temporary sense of wealth there had come over him a temporary sense of caution. The going was bad after the snow ; it was not in him to push the dear, faithful mare ; and he was determined, moreover, to risk no encounter that might jeopardise his renewed hopes. It was late, therefore, before (in a toilet of sufificient elegance, his hair recoiffed a la Catogan to hide the loss of his curl) he found himself once again in Mayfair between the two link- extinguishers of Kitty Bellairs's house in Charles Street. A sedan was waitins: outside and there were lights within. He was emboldened to knock, and, to his bliss, was admitted, though upon conditions. " Mistress Bellairs was this very moment about to leave for Lady Wharton's rout," said the footman ; " he would inquire whether she would receive." " Nay," said Denis, his heart beating [ '44 ] LITTLE RED HEELS thick, and slipped one of his hard-won guineas into the ready hand, " do not announce me, friend: I will see for myself." He sprang up the stairs four at a time and then paused without the lavender parlour. And there he stood, the silly fellow, breathing short, trembling, before he could summon self-control enough to knock on the white-and-gold panel. " Gracious sakes ! " cried Kitty's treble within. " 'T is I, darling — Kitty, darling, 't is I ! " cried the most ridiculous, hoarse voice in all the world. " Who } " came the query, crystal-clear and silver-sharp within. (Bellairs Incom- parable was musical even in querulousness ; delicious in all her butterfly moods.) " I really believe, ma'am," came Lydia's vibrant tone, with a bold giggle, " that 't is Mr. O'Hara back again, if you please ! " And, "O'Hara!" echoed the lady within. And surely, surely, there was a ring of joy in the cry ! And O'Hara, opening the door, heard the song of her silken skirt, the patter of her little red heels, as, surprised into unwary graciousness, she actually ran to meet her [ H5 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS faithful adorer — those saucy little red heels that had been sweetly dancing through his thoughts these five long days! " Mercy ! " cried the lady, " what have you done with your hair ? " [.46] IV *^T had been said of George Lionel Hill-Dare, Earl Mandeville, that he had never loved nor spared a woman. But that was before he met Rachel Peace — the young and lovely actress who, with her dove-like, Quaker ways and her passionate voice, had taken London's heart by storm. Her, Mandeville both loved and spared, until the hour struck — inevitable hour — when he would spare no longer; and the pretty walls of her false paradise were shat- tered by the man who refused to remain content any longer with what so sweetly contented the woman. He demanded rather than begged that she should give up every- thing for him, offering her in exchange all a gentleman could offer — all, except his [■47] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS name ! Then the pride of Quaker purity (ingrained in every fibre of her being, despite her flagrant renunciation of her ancestors' tenets) flamed up in her against him with that new pride to which her apprenticeship to Art and work had given rise. She would surrender neither honour nor calling. And it was in bitter anger they had quarrelled and parted. The parting to Rachel had been like the tearing asunder of her heart-strins^s. And when she heard rumours of the possible marriage of his lordship with the fabulously rich and beautiful widow, Mrs. Bellairs, she could endure it no longer, and took the first opportunity that offered to call him back to her side. Indeed, she herself went in search of him, a doing the remembrance of which would have made her blush into her pillows at night till her dying day had it not been for succeeding events — consequences of her own act, which changed the whole current of her existence, and brought poor Rachel quickly beyond the province of her maidenly blushes. For some fancied slight to her, Mandeville had challenged Mr. Stafford and in the [14S] RACHEL PEACE ensuing recontre he had been dangerously- wounded. Then, woman-like, Rachel did what she had before refused with such scorn. She flew to his side, casting away all thought of name or fame. And when, after a rapid convalescence, he was ordered seclusion and quiet, she accompanied him to one of his country mansions. For, then, things were so with her that to leave him would have been worse than death. • ••••••• It was full winter at Alston Wood. The world had set for storm, both within and without. Lord Mandeville was not of those who make life or love easy; and with the killing of those two prides of hers which Rachel Peace had sacrificed to him there had come upon her another sort of pride — shy, sensitive, ready to take alarm at a look or a shadow. And thus she had withdrawn to her rooms after a day of cross-purposes, and left him alone to spend his evening as best he might. But alone Lord Mandeville did not intend to spend it. Hitherto, out of consideration for her he had asked no guest inside his doors. But now, with characteristic disregard of the evil [H9] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS weather, he had sent for his neighbour, Sir Everard Cheveral, of Bindon — as good com- pany, for all his threescore years, as any man in England. The roads were clearly bad going, this night; the guest was evi- dently delayed, and the impatience of soli- tary waiting was soon irksome to the young man. There was a lordly anger upon him and a restless fire of mischief in his blood, born of his returning vigour and of the small scope that the quiet country life had offered lately to his teeming energy. He sat in the library before the log-fire — a bumper of Burgundy at his elbow, a volume of Wycherley's plays at his feet, where it had slid from his knee. As he gazed upon the leaping flames and heard the wind grumble round the house, scold and mutter in the chimney, he frowned as he recalled the recent quarrel with Rachel. Yet, even as he frowned, he smiled. He was wroth, in his masterful way, that she should have defied and eluded him (with a dignity that left him hopelessly in the wrong); and yet it was with a secret pleasure that he dwelt upon the memory of the way in which her slow-moving eyes had first burned with a passionate fire and then brimmed with the [■5°] RACHEL PEACE tears that her pride refused to release; the way in which her tender Hp had curved scorn and quivered reproach. This sensi- tive instrument was his, and he would play on it as he liked : draw from it harmony or discord, since all it brought forth was music to him. But meanwhile he was alone, and impa- tient of loneliness. He began to pace the room, unbarred a shutter and looked into the night. All was black, save where the snow, already heaped against the window- ledge, dead white, caught the candle gleam. He threw a curse upon the skies and one upon Cheveral's ancient bones, then came back to add a log or two to the furious hearth. Had it not been that the snowfall was so thick without as to mufiie sifjht and sound, even from a little distance, his watching eyes and ears would have been even then rejoiced by the plod and thud of straining horses, the roll of coach-wheels and the slow progress of a bobbing lantern up the lime avenue. But, presently, as he stood with his back to the fire, toasting his handsome calves, the hail of a human voice rose distinct above the clamouring wind. Mandeville started from [151] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ his musing ; a mischievous smile twisted his lips. " Poor old Cheveral," he thought cynically, " nothing but a due appreciation of Alston's cellars (and a right sense of the honour of an invitation from my noble self) would have brought him from his own snug chimney- corner to-nii^ht ! " Then, as the call rose louder, closer and more insistent, his lordship, in a hospitable hurry, pealed his bell and stood in the hall, bustling the eager servants, before even the travellers without had reached the haven of the porch. " Most excellent Cheveral . . ." he was be- ginning jovially, as the two folds of the great outer door wheeled noiselessly back under the ministration of a pair of brisk footmen ; but the words were cut short on his lips by sheer amazement. Instead of the tall, thin shape he had expected to see, there met his gaze something soft, round and fluffy, not unlike a human white bird puffed out with cold and petulance, that was poised but a second on his threshold and then fluttered in towards him, shaking snowy plumes. A few crisp snowflakes flew like dove feathers in the air. Then this mass of white [>5^] RACHEL PEACE fur, marabout, lace and wadded silk, resolved itself into a much wrapped up little lady. " By the Lord Harry!" cried Mandeville, delighted. "Madam — your most devoted, most honoured " Again he broke off; from under thrust- back hood a small, round face had peeped out upon him, bright and rosy from the cold air — a pair of lustrous, dark eyes, a dim- pling smile. But, even as he looked, the pretty smile directed towards him had be- come fixed in a dismay as sudden as his own. " Mistress Bellairs ! " he cried, with his dark frown. "Lord Mandeville!" she ejaculated in a tone of primmest discontent. The last person in very truth which either had desired to see ! Mistress Bellairs had undoubtedly been placed by the nobleman in the incredible and almost odious position of being almost jilted — she who had hitherto reserved to hei'self an exclusive right in such transactions. As for Lord Mandeville, that this particular lady of the world — towards whom, indeed, his conscience was not alto- gether easy — his sister's chosen friend, the very impersonation, as it were, of the desirable social existence his friends desired for him ; [153] iS INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS that Mrs. Bellairs, in short, should find him in rural retreat, en pariie fine with his poor Rachel ... it seemed a piece of spite as evil as ever fate could show a gentleman ! And he fiercely resented it. " 'T is a trick of my dear family," was his next thought. And that brow of his that could lower to such purpose grew yet more thunder-black. But there was no mistaking the genuine- ness of Mistress Kitty's own annoyance; she turned, a perfect whirlwind of fluff and fury, upon the two figures that had followed in her wake. The first was a bemufiled damsel with "Confidential Maid" proclaimed in every step of her pert advance and in every fold of her smart attire. Her pretty little nose was pinched with the cold, iher sharp eyes roved with squirrel-like curiosity from side to side. She laid on her mistress's cloak a possessive hand, that was, however, sharply thrust on one side, while the lady poured the vials of her wrath upon the third traveller. This was a tall man, who stood stamping his great riding boots free of the snow, beating his numbed hands against his sides, and cursing the cold in a brogue so genial as to rob his language of all indecorum. [■54] RACHEL PEACE "Mr. O'Hara," said Mrs. Bellairs, "how could you, how dared you, bring me to this house } " " Why, Kitty darling ? " cried the startled gentleman. "Sir!" " Madam, I should say. Sure, the word keeps slipping out, my jewel. Why, whose house is it at all } " " A house, sir," cried Kitty, stamping her foot in her turn, "where I will not be insulted by stopping another instant!" The great doors had been closed behind the speakers during this brief dialogue, and an agreeable warmth was beginning to steal throuQ:h their benumbed limbs. Nevertheless, Mr. O'Hara responded with the greatest alacrity : " Insulted, is it } Why, then, that 's easily remedied. Open the door again, you fellows ; the lady's going back into her coach ! " Upon his gesture the lackeys once more flung the doors wide, and a whistling blast rushed eddying into the hall, bearing the ice of death upon its wings. Mr. O'Hara extended his becuffed wrist with a fine air of breeding. " And if we are lost in the black snow [155] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS together," said he radiantly, " it 's not I that will complain ! " Mrs. Bellairs cast but one look at the gulf without, where the bleak night was pointed with the cruel gleams of the falling snow. Then she shuddered. " Lydia ! " she moaned faintly, and de- manded a chair — for a swoon was her im- mediate intention. Her cavalier tipped the faintest suspicion of a wink to the host, who stood sardonically awaiting their decision, and that fastidious nobleman's heart was instantly won over to him for ever. His lordship waved his hand. " Let coach and cattle be taken round to the stables, the luggage brought in," he ordered. The doors flew to once more. And Lord Mandeville, eager to secure so entertaining a companion as this Mr. O'Hara promised to be, without the concomitant awkwardness of his companion's society, addressed himself with great presence of mind to Mrs. Bellairs, whose damask cheek precluded any anxiety, even in the breast of the devoted Irishman, as to the condition of her heart's action. " Madam," said he, " it is my grief that my presence here should be regarded by you as an insult. Nevertheless, it is my joy, and a [•56] RACHEL PEACE source of thankfulness, that my house should afford you shelter from the storm. Pray allow me to induce you to make use of the one, while avoiding the other. A suite of rooms will be prepared for you ; and, I assure you, you shall receive every attention without being exposed to meet the object of your displeasure. Let the housekeeper be called." Mistress Kitty disengaged herself from her attendant's perfunctory support, and, opening fabulous eyelashes, vouchsafed upon the speaker the glimmer of a most insolent eye. "The housekeeper "she murmured. " Heaven grant a respectable person." And forthwith deemed it safest to relapse into fresh symptoms of syncope. Lord Mandeville gave a short laugh like a snort. " Little cat!" thought he. " Mercy! but what an escape I 've had ! " In a very little while the fair traveller, lean- ing upon the arm of her maid, was consigned over to the charge of an apple-blossom-faced, white-curled old lady, the innocent serenity of whose expression bore a finer witness to respectability than could the sourest prudery. To look at Mrs. Comfort's countenance and [ IS7 ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSil yet refuse belief in the candour of her soul was sheer impossibility. Kitty Bellairs went, lamb-like, in her wake to " the saffron chamber," cheered by her host's parting promise of a cup of Mrs. Comfort's own apple-posset before that supper which was to be served to her anon — in state and privacy. The last assurance, by the way, delivered with the air of superfine civility, fell something less than agreeably on the lady's ear: such is the inconsequence of " little cats ! " Left to themselves, the two gentlemen measured each other with a mutually apprais- ing eye ; then each, with approval in his mien, bowed to the other. " I have not heard the name of my hospitable entertainer, but I could make a good guess, I 'm thinking," said Mr. O'Hara, ''Lord Mandeville?" " No other, sir," said the peer. " I my- self, I believe, have the honour of seeing Mr. O'Hara. Any relation to my Lord Viscount Kilcroney .?" "His own son, no less!" responded the other jovially. " Sole heir of his House and Name, to the family debts, and the best cellar between Cork and Derry — and that will be drunk to the last bottle before the old boy [158] RACHEL PEACE thinks of leaving this world for a better one . . . more power to him!" " I am delighted," said Mandeville. And, in sooth, he looked it. The restless devil within him was rapidly becoming an un- wontedly jovial one. He caught O'Hara by the arm and marched him into the warm library, with its fragrance of old books and burning wood. " Faith, and I 'm delighted too ! " said Denis, wheeling round to the blaze. " Sure there 's not another man in the Kingdom that has done me such a good turn as yourself ! " The earl raised his red eyebrows, uncon- sciously haughty. How had he done Mr. O'Hara a turn of any kind ? " Sure, by your inconceivable folly," said Denis. " Had n't you the offer of a king's morsel, my lord, and have n't you left it to " " I trust, my good sir, to one so apprecia- tive as yourself. But I need n't ask — 't is as good as a honeymoon journey. Lucky dog !" said his lordship with a lurch towards the h-ishman as he stood dividing the heavy tails of his great coat. " Lucky ! You never made a greater mis- take in your life. It 's as much as she '11 do as [■59] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS to let me squeeze the tip of her little finger. And sure I dare n't even do that for fear of hurting the tender creature." O'Hara paused and flung a misgiving glance upon Lord Mandeville's countenance. " I 'm thinking," he went on, "it's but little acquaintance you had with Mrs. Bellairs, after all." " Very little," the other hastened to assure him. Tiger of jealousy as he could be him- self, he was sharp enough now in his turn to read the lover's thought. O'Hara flung himself into a big armchair, and stretched out each slim leg in its snow- sodden boot to the hearth's blaze. Steam was beginning to rise about him. " If you think now she 'd even let me sit beside her in the coach ! " he resumed in a grumbling tone. " I 've been riding by the window, in the devil's own weather, these two days. By the powers, but I thought this blessed night every minute would be our next ! What with my poor chestnut going lame on me, out of contrariness, and our being in the ditch twice (I scored there, though, for had n't I the pulling of my little darling out of the snow.?); and what with her squealing at me througli the window, and asking me where we were, and me not [160] RACHEL PEACE knowing a foot, barring that it was the top of the winter with us and the middle of supper- time, and the post-boys bawling hellfire — though even that couldn't warm a bone of us ... I '11 tell you, my lord, when I saw those lamps of yours gleaming out through the storm each side of your gates, it was as good as an angel's beacon. Faith, and that was the comical part of it, too ! — for the gates were flung open for us before I 'd time to let a yell, as if we had been expected." " I am expecting a friend to-night," inter- polated Lord Mandeville. " Well, I could conceive a worse death for a man," pursued Mr. O'Hara reflectively, "than to fall asleep in the snow, with his arm around Kitty Bellairs — though she'd have scratched my eyes out first, most likely, and as long as she 'd a bit of breath left would have vowed it was my fault entirely. Noth- ing would serve her, you see, but to Bath she must return, after — after " O'Hara paused and sought for an elegant expression — "after your lordship's display of aberra- tion, as I said, and that last little affair of delicacy with Tom Stafford. She could n't find her pleasure in town at all. And, of " [ i6i ] ISINCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ course, I had to go too ; for there are too many gentlemen of the road, on the way, favoured by these dark nights — as anyone would know." He flung open his coat as he spoke, and carelessly relieved himself of a brace of pistols, which he handled one after the other in so knowing: a manner that Lord Mande- ville, whose eyes rested upon him with amuse- ment, broke out into his odd laugh. " I vow," he cried, " anyone might take you for ' the Captain ' himself, Mr. O'Hara." A singular little stillness fell over the Irishman at these words, and his dancing eye gazed suddenly into vacancy. Then, after an appreciable pause, he echoed Man- deville's laugh with a slow, spectral note. " By the Lord Harry ! " said the latter to himself, " this is even better than I thought. When we get some Burgundy into him, there will be rare fun. I almost wish I liad left old Cheveral in peace." Aloud he cried to his guest that he must change his wet garments, and then they would make a night of it. • •••■• • • But, as Lord Mandeville and Mr. O'Hara sat once more before the kindly logs, with the generous bottle between them, in utmost [.62] ^ RACHEL PEACE M good fellowship, it was not of lawless deeds on heath and crossways that the mercurial visitor's wine-loosened tongue was disposed to wag, but rather upon the superlative attraction of his chosen fair. At the first bumper he was gently dithyrambic ; at the second, enthusiastic ; at the third, positively defiant. " By my soul," he declared, " I 'm amazed at you ! I am, indeed, my lord. Why, now, d 'ye mean to tell me you ever met anyone with a little pair of hands like hers ? " " Too plump and dimpled to my taste," quoth the Earl, languidly, from the depths of his leather cushions. He was imbibing quite as steadily as his companion, but the current of his blood was of the kind that runs deep without noise, and not to foam and bubble. " Little bits of dousrh ! I like to feel the nerve in a w-oman's hands." " Dough !" ejaculated O'Hara. "Dough, her hands } Ah, then I pity you ! It 's be- cause you never got the sight of that little foot of hers. Oh," he went on, rolling maudlin eyes to the ceiling, " in a pink silk stocking you could n't help thanking Heaven for it, even if it trod on your heart." Lord Mandeville slowly tilted his glass [ 163 ] i^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ from side to side to let the ruby catch the blaze and feast his eyes before he feasted his palate. " It was clad in cherry colour when I was gratified with that spectacle," said he then, and proceeded, between reflective gulps : " Something of a want of taste in those stockings, with their splashing clocks! If I remember rightly, that's what finally decided me. Dumpy, my good sir, dumpy! Now, I have in my mind "s eye a slender arch, all breeding, like the neck of a racehorse." " Dumpy, my lord . . . ! " O'Hara set his glass with a smack on the table and turned a fierce glance upon the speaker. To prate of a want of taste, forsooth ! Why, blood had been shed for less than so flagrant an instance of it than Lord Mandeville had just displayed himself. But, fortunately, recollecting that to this same defect in his host he himself owed his present hopeful position in Kitty's retinue, Mr. O'Hara found his ferocity suddenly merging into tenderness. *' Sure, glory be to God," he cried. " He knew what He was doing when He made you that way ! He had me in His Eye. Why, murther, man, talk of arches ? I, for [164] RACHEL PEACE one, could never get beyond my Kitty's smile. That 's arch enough for you, and to spare. With those doaty little teeth — it 's too regular they are — and the dimple to beat all ! Tare and ages! It's all up with me when she sets that dimple ! " He grasped the decanter, poured out a fresh bumper, held it solemnly aloft: "To Kitty Bellairs!" he cried. "The fairest lady that ever stepped this earth. The angel of my thoughts. To Kitty Bel- lairs — the smallest hand and foot in the land, the roundest waist, and the most dis- tracting dimple 1 Won't you drink, my lord?" Lord Mandeville hoisted himself erect in the lazy depth of his chair, filled himself likewise a fresh beaker with white, languid hands; then he, too, raised his glass and looked long and steadfastly at the Irishman. The red gleam was in his auburn eyes. He was in that frame of mind when a man will not be content with the usual routine of life, when the fire in his veins demands some relief in extraordinary action. If to danger, so much the better ! As for O'Hara, with every nerve in him tingling in the reaction after the cold, he was [■65] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS in that most delightful condition possible to the Celtic race — best described, in his own words, as spoiling for a fight. " A toast, so be it ! " said Lord Mandeville at last, dropping back into that cold inso- lence of manner which he had so far doffed in his intercourse with his unexpected guest. " A toast, then ; I drink to her, before whom all other women are dowds and sluts. To the tall, white lily, to my girl, one kind shy look of whose gentle eyes is worth all the favours of ready widows. Won't you drink, Mr. O'Hara?" Both men rose to their feet, and each with a hand on his 2:1 ass stood o;larino- at the other, like a challenfjino: doof — dancine: blue eyes fixed on lurid brown ones. Upon this tense silence, this breathless pause of prepa- ration, in which, between the gusts of wind without, the very ticking of Mandcville's great watch and the soft sighing collapse of the wood ash under the red logs could be heard, the door was flung open and the foot- man announced : "Sir Everard Cheveral, my lord." For yet an appreciable space of time neither man would be the first to shift his defiant g;ize ; a space of time long enough ['66] RACHEL PEACE for that connoisseur of life, Sir Everard, to take in the situation. Then with his short note of laughter, which seemed always so much more expressive of mockery than of mirth, Lord Mandeville removed his fingers from his glass stem and turned to greet his guest. " By the Lord Harry ! " cried he, " but this is vastly good of you Sir Everard ! " Yet even while he shook hands he was rolling back a red eye, like a sullen dog's, towards O'Hara. The latter with his thumbs now thrust in the pockets of his embroidered waistcoat, stood all gay impatience for the fun to begin again, his slim feet sketching a jig step that may have been the last ex- pression of the war-dance of some savage ancestor. " Pray, my dear lord," said Sir Everard, while his thin chiselled lips curved into a slight smile, "have I interrupted? I under- stood by your note your lordship was alone. And now it seems as if I came a bad third." " Then, faith," called Denis O'Hara, " You 're like to be made into a good second in a minute ! " Again Lord Mandeville laughed. His unbidden visitor's humour liked him vastly. [167] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Under their high-set brows the new comer's keen light eyes looked curiously from one to the other. This gentleman was an old beau of tlie most exquisite order, sub- jecting his elegance to his years with uner- ring taste. An antique cameo on his finger; rare Mechlin falling over the attenuated wrist ; a fragrance of scented powder about the still plentiful, but silvering hair ; a har- mony of delicate sober colouring round the lean figure, held erect now, with somewhat conscious effort, by him who had once been known as " young Adonis " — his personality was one which could not fail to create an immediate impression. United as it was to an imperturbable judiciousness and a sly wit, it gave him authority as well as popularity in those hic^h circles which his fastidiousness allowed him alone to frequent. " A second ! " said he. " Fie, fie, I hope not — I trust not. My friend, Lord Mande- \illc, is the last man I know to have scandal under his roof-tree. Your guest is pleased to be waggish, Mandeville. A relative, per- haps? Will you not present me.^" " No relative," said the master of the house, who, with all that singularity of de- meanour which led him to be regarded as an [i6S] RACHEL PEACE eccentric, had nevertheless a pretty close re- gard for such ceremony as he deemed be- coming to his rank, and could be v^xy grand seigneur when he chose. " No relative, Sir Everard, but a traveller whom the storm has thrown into the first harbour on his road, and whom I feel most honoured in being privileged to entertain — Mr. O'Hara, eldest son of Lord Kilcroney." " Indeed, indeed," quoth Sir Everard, each ejaculation marked by a bow, and these most subtly measured to the courtesy rank of the recipient. " I have had the favour of the acquaintance of my Lord Kilcroney — in his day." " And a divil of a day it was, sir," said the irrepressible Denis, pulling out the lining of his waistcoat pockets, and then slapping them to emphasise their emptiness. " But there is certainly a resemblance between you and my Lord Mandeville, hence my mistake," said the old Baronet, decorously ignoring the filial expression of feeling. " A kind of kinship in the colour of the hair," responded O'Hara. " The same lovely auburn, sir, especially my own. And I was just beginning to find out an interest- ing similarity of the colours of our tempers [169] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ when your agreeable presence was an- nounced." Thus the Honourable Denis, neatly en- deavouring to bring back things to their previous footing. But Lord Mandeville flung back his head and laughed again. And in this third outburst there was some- thing so genial and appreciative that the Irishman heard in it with regret the death knell of his pretty quarrel. " As pretty a quarrel," he said mournfully to himself, "as ever I saw on the brew." And sure enough his lordship's next words were those of conciliation : " The presence of my excellent friend. Sir Everard, is always beneficial," quoth he, "but never was more opportune than to-night. Come over to the fire, Cheveral, and discuss that Burgundy while we wait for supper. Mr. O'Hara and I were about to drink a toast — or, rather, to be quite accurate, I was endeavouring to persuade Mr. O'Hara to drink mine, while he very properly thought I should drink his." " Indeed," said the old gentleman, sink- ing gratefully into his chair and extending his fine old hand, with its little tremble, for the beaker Mandeville was hospitably filling. [ 170] RACHEL PEACE i| He knew as much now of what had taken place as if he had been present at the whole scene. " But why not each drink to his own . . . lady and let me drink to both?" "Well, you see," said O'Hara insinuat- ingly, a lingering hope beginning to sparkle in'^his eye, "we had just a trifle of difference about which is best worth the bumper." " He likes the rose pompon, and I love the tall lily," put in Mandeville ; and he flung a half mocking look on O'Hara, as who should say: "No use, my friend, it takes two to make a quarrel." " And so," he continued, " as Sir Everard wisely says, let us agree each to flavour his cup with the flower he finds most fragrant; while he, old roue as he is, combines the bouquet ! " " To Kitty, the Queen of them all ! " cried O'Hara, drowning his last flare of defiance in a draught so cool, so rich, so subtly strong, that it had been worthy to toast Aphrodite herself. " To Rachel, the one woman for me," said Lord Mandeville in a quiet voice, and drank likewise. The older man watched a second with an amusement half cynical, half melancholy. " To the two most lovely ladies," he said [■71] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ then, and uplifted his glass. After a few sips, however, he put it down. But the young men emptied their cups without a pause, as if the draught had been love itself, and drew a long breath. Then cried O'Hara boisterously, as the liquor tingled through his veins: "What, Sir Everard, shirking already — and with such a spur to the drink!" " Why, sir, no. Yet 't were sin," said the epicure, " to pull at such nectar as a horse at a trough. Gentlemen, gentlemen, you should let it lie on the tongue, and think as it slides down. Why, my good sirs, there 's sunshine in that juice. The very sunshine and breeze of France. Aye, aye, and the spirit of lost youth ! " He gazed at the purple in his glass and let his fingers play round the rim ; then he raised it aloft once more. " Old age has few joys," said he, " and therefore is a miser to them — I linger, my dear young friends, over the pleasure that is already gone from you. And now I can still drink to those two lovely ones, whose faces and forms this precious liquid helps me to picture, though it is unlikely these ancient eyes shall ever behold them." [ 172] RACHEL PEACE " Miser indeed," exclaimed Lord Mande- ville, "and poor philosophy, good sir! For we can down with another brimmer while you stint with the first." And suiting the action to the word, he refilled O'Hara's glass and his own. " Hooroosh ! " cried the Irishman, and the first ceremony was repeated, if possible, with increased zest. It was fortunate that Earl Mandeville was noted for his strong head in this hard drink- ing age. As for Lord Kilcroney's heir, his life was spent in such constant state of exhil- aration of one kind or another that, while his friends declared he was rarely drunk, his enemies vowed he never was sober. Never- theless, it must be owned that after this last libation neither of the gallant lovers was quite in possession of his usual deliberate- ness of judgment. Upon Sir Everard's rather plaintive dedi- cation, O'Hara cried exuberantly: " Sure, the darlings are in the house this minute and it would be a poor case if you don't get a sight of them both to-morrow! " And his imprudent remark was instantly capped by Mandeville's cool suggestion: " To-morrow ? Why not to-night } " [173 ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ At this, however, even O'Hara stared a second and hesitated. He did not think anything Vv'ould lure his Kitty in dudgeon from her virtuous retreat. But the red glow had returned to Mande villa's eye and was burning steadily. " By the Lord Harr)^" he cried, " we are a pair of dullards, recreant knights!" " Idjits," suggested O'Hara, suddenly catching fire without as yet, any clear notion of his host's trend. "And Cheveral here — old lady killer as he is still — would have a right to walk in and cut us out," pursued Mandeville. "What! our two pretty birds each moping in its cage upstairs and we proposing to sup below without them ! We '11 have them down." " The rose and the lily to grace the table," interrupted Cheveral, whose clear, moderated tones were in contrast to the feverish utter- ances of the other two. " Unfortunately, if my experience goes for anything, the bloom of these flowers sometimes suffers from " But Mandeville cut in, in hot pursuit of his mad idea: "And Cheveral, first connoisseur in Europe, shall play the Paris and bestow the apple." [■74] RACHEL PEACE " Faith, and I 've no fear," ejaculated O'Hara with a grimace. " If only I can coax my little Venus to come for judgment." " Then," answered the Earl, " if she does not, you will be voted vanquished, my friend, and have to drink my toast. The lover whose lady refuses his summons is shown a fool. There 's the challenge, sir." " It never shall be said that Denis O'Hara refused a challenge, be it cup, kiss, or sword !" " A moment ago, young men," said Sir Everard, lifting his ivory hand with a little rebuking gesture, " I found myself envying your youth. But, 'pon my soul, I begin to think old age has its compensations ; at least it will feel less foolish when it wakes up in the morning, I '11 warrant." " You '11 be envying my youth again, in a short while," retorted Mandeville brutally, as he flung himself in the chair before the escritoire and plunged a long-feathered quill into the ink. " A letter ! " cried O'Hara. " By jabers, a letter ! By the powers, that 's a mighty fine idea ! " He stood on the hearth-rug with his head on one side, nibbling his little finger. All at once he smiled blandly, struck his forehead, [■75] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS and cut one of his eccentric capers. Then, stepping gaily on his toe, as if in the opening measure of a minuet, he advanced towards his host. " After you, my lord," said he, " with that pen . . . Oh, take your time — only be as quick as you can ! " Lord Mandeville glanced up, with a twitch of lip and eyebrow that gave him a curious resemblance to a snarlincf hound. Then he dashed the pen down on the velvet cloth and folded the sheet. His letter of summons to Rachel Peace seemed by no means so diffi- cult as O'Hara's proposed epistle to Mrs. Bellairs. Yet, if O'Hara wrote slowly and often paused for reflection, the delighted smiles that succeeded each other on his ingenuous countenance bore witness to self- approval. Kitty, darling, that red-headed fox of a fellow, Mandeville, has got some notion into his poll (and it 's half Burgundy) to ask you down to supper with us to-night. I know it's not you that would be accepting such an invitation from the likes of him — but this is to warn \'ou, Kitty, darling. If you love me you '11 say nay, of course. I would not have you come down to be stared at, if it was for the Kinf{ himself 'i> ['76] RACHEL PEACE As Mr. O'Hara read over this lucubration, with an even broader grin, Lord Mandeville, measuring the hearth-rug from end to end with impatient step, briefly inquired if he were ready, and hardly waited for the answer to ring the bell. " Have this letter conveyed to Mistress Peace," he ordered. " Convey this note to Mistress Bellairs, and you '11 mightily oblige me," said O'Hara insinuatingly, his dulcet tone contrasting with Lord Mandeville's peremptoriness. "And by the way," he added, "John, my son, Thomas, James, or whatever your god- parents called you, you might inform Mis- tress Bellairs that his lordship begs she will honour him at supper to-night. Just a little formality," he added, turning to answer Man- deville's inquiring stare. The latter shrugged his shoulders ; he seemed suddenly to have lost his jovial humour. Sir Everard Cheveral sighed a little, then philosophically finished his glass of Burgundy by slow sips. • ••••*• Lord Mandeville was one of those masters who are always well-served, and who, if they [ 177 ] gllNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ are more feared than loved by their servants, are more admired even for their eccentrici- ties than others would be for their virtues. The few orders he had given that evening had been carried out with such zest that both his guests halted with surprise and admiration before the sight of the gaily illuminated dininor-room, the flash of the silver, the rarity of the greenhouse blooms. " We will not sit," said Lord Mandeville, " till the ladies appear." Then turning on the major-domo — "Inform the ladies," he ordered, " that we await them here." There followed an anxious pause. Half weary, half entertained, Sir Everard Cheveral, who had long ceased to be able to take much interest in his own affairs, and was therefore dependent upon those of others for most of the zest of life, leaned against the mantel- piece and waited, placidly enough. Which- ever way expectation terminated, it was sure to prove dramatic to the observer. But O'Hara, for all that he had been so smiling a scribe, was nervous. His frame of mind betrayed itself in aimless jokes, rest- less, interrupted gestures. He was now sit- ting, now standing, now feigning with pointed finger a fencing pass at the waistcoat of ['78] RACHEL PEACE some pictured Mandeville ancestor, now ap- praising a particularly wooden-eyed ances- tress and shaking his head in rueful criticism. Mandeville himself had taken his post near the door and, with head bent forward, hands clasped behind his back and legs wide apart, stood listening, his brow growing ever blacker as the expected sounds delayed their approach. At last there was a stir among the attend- ants without, and a rustle of trailing silks. Mandeville raised his head sharply. The young men looked at each other, once more exchanging glances of defiance. Then the two folds of the door were flung open, and, as in a frame — bepowdered, bepatched, be- jewelled, with little head high held, conscious of its own incomparable daintiness ; in her low-bosomed gown of pearl satin a ramages de roses ; diamonds flashing on cobweb laces with each breath of the triumphant yet fluttered breast, flashes repeated by those teeth O'Hara had lauded, and by those eyes, languorous yet brilliant, that might have filched an Emperor's crown — stood Kitty! As fair an apparition, certes, as had ever graced the old manor-house. " Mistress Bellairs," said the butler solemnly into the charged silence. [179] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS " Damn me ! " cried Sir Everard to him- self, startled from his nonchalance. " As Mandeville prophesied, this is like to make a man regret his youth." O'Hara clapped his hands together with a wild shout of exultation. " Venus herself ! " Then, suddenly, he lifted his finger as if in anger. " Ah, Kitty, Kitty, this is a pretty trick! " But he could not for the life of him keep the wild delight from eye or toe. Shooting one fierce look back at the two other men, Lord Mandeville advanced, with his grand air, took Kitty's little hand, and first bent over it with some phrase of high- flown, if somewhat superficial, gratitude; then he formally presented Sir Everard Cheveral, who had advanced to his elbow. After this ceremony, while Kitty beamed on the new admirer, whose reputation was not unknown to her, the host stood in the door-way, watch- ing the empty passage in that sort of patience which is so much more dangerous than any outburst of passion. In spite of the flutter of triumph in which she had made her entree, Kitty carried nevertheless a certain delicate shyness about her to-night, which robbed her position of anything over-bold and rendered her quite [ i8o] RACHEL PEACE adorable in O'Hara's eyes. So that, forget- ting his victory, he stood contemplating her with fatuous eyes while she responded with her prettiest grace to Sir Everard's old-fash- ioned courting. The butler, who had been uneasily watch- ing his master, now approached him with much discretion and some mystery. " May it please your lordship," he mur- mured, " Mistress Peace begs to be excused." Lord Mandeville went livid and then crimson, the veins on his neck and brow starting like whipcords. " My tablets ! " he said ; and, when they were brought, wrote a line. " Give this with your own hands to Mistress Peace." The old servant, as he hurried away, shook his head several times over the folded note : he knew his master well, knew all the signs of coming storm in that stormy personality. " 'T will be as bad a one as ever we have seen," thought he. And, in some manly corner of his soul untouched by servitude, he pitied the poor soft-voiced young lady. " And now," cried Lord Mandeville, " we '11 to the table ! " " Aha ! " cried O'Hara. But the other went on with a look that cut ^^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ short the Irishman's cheer as effectually as if he had struck him on the mouth : " I expect another fair sfuest. But ladies like to make the men wait and languish. And, by the Lord Harry, we '11 not accept the situation to-night ! Mistress Bellairs, will you honour me by taking the seat at my right hand ? " " Faith," whispered O'Hara to Cheveral, as he neatly skipped into the seat on the further side of Kitty, " his lordship's smile is enough to turn everything sour in the house this blessed moment ! But I '11 have the toast out of him all the same." Sir Everard glanced across the table at his host's face, deadly white once more, and shook his head much as the old butler had done. There was a hint of something almost tragic in the air, which made him fear that the evening might not end with the mere out-pouring of wine. He glanced compas- sionately at handsome reckless O'Hara, and saw him in his mind's eye at the point of Mandeville's furious blade; and he almost l)ut up a warning hand as the Irishman now made a loud demand upon the Earl's attention. " Never put off your best intentions, my lord," O'Hara cried. " There 's that little [182] RACHEL PEACE ceremony we were discussing a while ago, just clamouring to be gone through (and in as pretty a voice as ever sat by your side at this table, or at any other) and I challenge you to prove the contrary ! " " Your metaphors are a trifle mixed," answered Lord Mandeville with a sneer. " But without troubling about your grammar, sir, I would point out that, in England at least, toasts are not drunk at table before bread is broken." Mistress Kitty shifted her bird-like glance from her host to the vacant chair on his left. An intuition of what had taken place had already begun to dawn in her quick brain. And to her, who in all the world dreaded nothing so much as dulness, who had seized with avidity the first chance of escape from the solitude of her chamber — a solitude which her own temper had imposed upon her — came the conclusion that the nisfht would be entertaining. " ' Let him whose summons is not obeyed be shown a — ' hem, hem ! " persisted Mr. O'Hara in a hisfh sinor-sonor, leanins: back in his chair, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. " The very devil 's in the boy!" said Sir Everard testily to himself. [183] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Lord Mandeville, who was bendino: for- ward, both his hands on the table, in no reassuring attitude, here suddenly started and turned his gaze sharply towards the door. Without pompous announcement of serv- ant, without self-assertive tap of heel, or rustle of gown, Rachel Peace entered upon them. Lord Mandeville leaped to his feet, took a few hasty steps towards her, and then abruptly halted. Sir Everard, with the stiff and slow movement of old age, rose like- wise, fumbling for the ribbon of his glasses. O'Hara sat as if transfixed, a succession of emotions sweeping over his countenance — amazement, admiration, vexation, and then a deep compassion. Mistress Bellairs remained likewise mo- tionless, opening wide eyes and pinching a small mouth, waiting for her opportunity. She had been quite prepared for this meet- ing, for the whereabouts of so celebrated a favourite as Rachel Peace had naturally been the talk of the town. " 1 have come as you bade me," said Rachel, in a low, toneless voice. And Lord Mandeville stood staring at her [■84] RACHEL PEACE and could find no word with which to re- ceive her. In his first letter he had thus commanded : " Love, I have guests to supper. Come down. Be beautiful. Wear your pearls and the grey gown I like." So wrote he, condescendingly, expressing his lordly will. The next summons had run in fewer words still : " Rachel, I am waiting." Now, obedient, she stood before him, the soft folds of shimmering grey trailing about her, the ropes of pearls round her white throat. But above this delicate splendour, her face was so marble-white, her sweet eyes so dark with pain, her tender lips folded close upon such sorrow ; and withal she stood in such beauty, such dignity, that Mandeville's wild humour fell from him and he stood abashed. " My lord," said Sir Everard gravely, " will you not introduce me to the lady ? " And, at that, O'Hara got up and drew near them also ; and Kitty sat, her brilliant head alertly poised, knowing that her moment was coming. For a perceptible instant. Lord Mandeville hesitated. Suddenly, as if a gulf had opened before him, he saw into what a pitfall his arrogant wildness had brought the woman he loved. [■85] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ And that little pause was as a dagger struck into Rachel's heart — culminating misery of this hour of misery, final awaken- ing from her impossible dream of happiness ! " Of course, Sir Everard . . . My dear," began Lord Mandeville, pulling himself to- gether, and endeavouring to speak lightly, with white dry lips. But she interrupted him, in the golden voice that in her brief career had charmed fame to her, and that now in its very steadi- ness and sweetness rans: somehow with a deeper pathos than if it had been broken with tears : " Useless this, my lord. I am now of those with whom ceremony is out of place, and you have made me feel it to-night." She turned slowly to the strangers. " Sirs, I am Rachel Peace, who, poor actress as she was, when you may have heard of her first, had then at least a right to all men's respect. To-night she stands before you in satins and jewels, and sees " — her voice faltered, and the blood rushed to her face — "has been made to see at last what she has be- come . . . Madam, I am aware that my presence in your company must be regarded by you as an insult." ['86] RACHEL PEACE Now, these very words had been hovering on the Httle widow's lips, and she had been merely waiting for the right moment to place them herself. But no sooner was she thus addressed by her enemy than she started and looked at her with new eyes ; saw on a sudden how young the creature was, how forlorn, how unprotected, how sad and inno- cent her gaze and pathetic her voice. Then all Kitty's womanly heart melted within her, and the tears rose. Her face worked with the prettiest grimace in the world, "Rachel — Rachel, my girl!" exclaimed Lord Mandeville. O'Hara and Cheveral had fallen back. Worlds would they have given to be able to efface themselves from the scene. Deep es- pecially was O'Hara 's manly shame for his own careless share in it. " Oh, my lord," said Rachel Peace, turn- ing her slow eyes on IMandeville, " and you had pledged me your protection ! " Between the fumes of the wine and the shock of realising suddenly all the baseness into which he had drifted under its influence, the man reeled. He caught for support at the table behind him. Then Rachel Peace unclasped the pearls from her pretty white [187] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS throat, from her slender wrists, and laid them beside him as he stood staring upon her. "Chains of my shame!" she said. And, at that, Mistress Kitty sprang from the table, and ran and caught her in her warm arms and kissed her and cried over her as over a hurt child. '' Come away, poor, poor thing! " said she, "away \vith me! " And Rachel, all her high courage gone at this unexpected touch of human kinship, was led away in her rival's embrace, half fainting, unresisting, to the door. On the threshold, Mistress Bellairs paused to cast, first upon Lord Mandeville, and then upon O'Hara, such a fulminating look of wrath and scorn that each man, struck ac- cording to his different nature, dropped his eyes before it. " I hope you are proud of your night's work, gentlemen ! " " Now, by ," cried Mandeville as the door closed, and made a spring. But Sir Everard laid a heavy hand upon his arm. " Let them be, my lord," he almost ordered. The young man glared upon him, then suddenly turned away to fling himself in [i88] RACHEL PEACE the armchair by the fireside, with his back towards them, his face hidden in his hands. Sir Everard Cheveral returned to his own seat at the table; but, with all the philosophy of his ripe years, he could not find it in him to continue his supper. And, pushing his plate from him, he merely broke a crust be- tween his finofers and finished his o^lass of wine in meditative silence. He had anticipated a tragedy — the shed- ding, probably, of some of this riotous youth- ful blood — as the inevitable end of the evening's work. But the silent tragedy of this broken woman's life he had not antici- pated. And it had moved him more than his egotistical old age was prepared to en- dure. It was, therefore, a most severe eye that he turned upon O'Hara, when, after a lengthy pause, that mercurial gentleman sidled back to his place. Denis's face was quivering with complex emotion. He was bursting with the neces- sity of unburdening himself of some of it. " 'Pon my soul," said he, in a whisper so exquisitely irritating to Cheveral at such a moment that nothing could have made him submit to it but the knowledge that if he refused his ear, Mr. O'Hara would inevitably [189] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSl seek that of Lord Mandeville, '' Ton my soul, sir, Mandeville was not so far wrong: she's a lovely creature, sir, a lovely creature !" " Lord Mandeville was deeply wrong," answered Sir Everard, drawing back a little to rest his glance in yet fuller rebuke upon the speaker, " C3h, as to that," said O'Hara ruefully, driving his hand through his red, unpowdered hair, " we were both wrong — a pair of brutes, sir ! But, sure, it was not us at all but a trick of the Burgundy. 'T is a powerful treacherous wine, that same, and you never know where it will have you. But, whisper now," momentary remorse overcome by a fresh exuberance of lover's pride. " Was n't I riglit? Did you ever see anything so lovely as my darling little Kitty ? Don't I wish she were my darling! Look here now, if she was n't to have her toast after all — just between ourselves, sir, without disturb- ing that poor fellow yonder — it would break my heart, it would be the last drop " The old gentleman's severity of aspect became mollified. He was not proof against the charm of O'Hara's handsome, gallant personality, his wheedling ways, his trans- parent simplicity of heart, [ 190] ^ RACHEL PP:ACE M " If, indeed, you will make it the last drop to-night, sir," said he, with a smile at his own conceit, " I have no objection to joining in your toast. I will drink to Mrs. Bellairs, but not so much to the loveliness of her person, which is very great, but to the loveliness of her heart." He spoke in a low voice, so as not to reach the ear of the brooding man by the fire. But became even more emphatic as he continued: " I will own to you, sir, that when I saw Miss Rachel Peace standing before us in her soft robes and milky pearls, with all the sorrow of the world in her beautiful eyes, I thought indeed that the lily far surpassed the rose. But when Mistress Bellairs ran forward in her womanly pity I thought, sir, I thought " He did not finish the phrase, but there came a mist over his keen eye. And raisinof his Hass, with that slisfht tremble of the hand, he drank a silent toast. Mistress Kitty vowed next morning that nothing would induce her to remain an hour longer under " that man's roof." And after a stormy interview with Mr. O'Hara, in which the latter was rated, threatened with ever- flINCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS lasting displeasure and thereupon forgiven, the little lady and Lydia made unheard-of exertion and were ready close upon noon, having only kept the coach an hour waiting in the snow. Her host stood in the hall as she passed through. His brow was black, his mouth set like steel. He made her a low bow, without attempting to address her ; which politeness, with her little chin high in the air, she returned with a sweeping curtsey. He watched the departure with the same sus- picious eye. " Sure," whispered O'Hara, upon her other side, " he 's half mad. He's been the whole morning pleading at that poor girls door, but she'll give him no sign of life, and I vow he 's afraid that we '11 be lifting her away with us." " So vastly probable," said Mistress Kitty, with some asperity, as she stepped into her travellinc: chariot. t> It was a still day after the night's storm, and a sky of palest blue beautifully envaulted tlie white earth. With hardly a sound over the thick-lying snow they drove down the great lime avenue — in summer a humming [ 192] RACHEL PEACE haunt of shade and sweetness, now, with its great black trunks and giant nests of bare twigs, looking as bleak and melancholy under the white layers as a loveless old age. Mistress Kitty, after snuffing out several cheerful remarks of her Abigail, sat in un- wontedly reflective mood. And, ever and anon, she peered through the window at O'Hara's gallant figure on the dancing bay (provided for him out of his lordship's stables, to replace his own lamed mare) a mount which he sat as might the unsurpassable Mr. Angelo himself. " After all it is something to have the devotion of one who carries so true a heart for the woman he loves," was her caressing thought. As they reached the lodge gates, a muffled figure darted out from the porch into the road and waved a hand imploringly. O'Hara, rec- ognising the face under the hood, called to the coachman to stop. Then he drew back, and Rachel Peace ran to the coach's side and tapped at the glass. Her fair face bore the mark of a bitter night-watch and of many tears. " For God's sake," she cried, as Mistress Bellairs quickly lowered the window, "for ^3 [ 193 ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ God's sake take me with you away from here! I have friends in Bath, I will not trouble you long. Oh, as you are a woman and a true one, take me ! I have slipped out before the dawn, and he believes me still in my room. If I see him again I am lost — more lost than ever," said Rachel with a sob. Miss Lydia sniffed with a mighty signifi- cance, at which her mistress withered her with a glance. "Come in, my dear, come in! " cried Kitty Bellairs, and held out her little warm hands to poor Rachel Peace. [ J94] V " «A COLD night, sir, and a dark." A \ " You say truly, landlord ! " jf=W It was a young voice — so much t^ W so, indeed, as to be still occasion- ally wandering in the debateable land be- tween boy's treble and man's bass — and, as the traveller stepped from cold and the black night into the light and warmth of the inn, he displayed a face and form to match. Master Lawrence, host of "the Bear," Devizes (famed for the genteelest rooms, the softest beds, and the best " library " between London and Bath) ran his eye knowingly over his guest. Experience had taught him to classify at a glance : Here was the young gentleman of fortune upon his first inde- pendent travels, type of wayfarer not the least welcome to the landlord's heart. Very [195] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ young, this one, innocent yet of the grand tour. And wealthy ! Sables to his ro^/ue/atire that would make a lady's eye glisten, watches, ruffle-brooches — all new. In mourning, too. No doubt his own master. Mine host rubbed his hands. "Bedroom, sir? I can fortunately still give you our best set — vacated only this morning by Sir Jasper Standish — with room for your valet, next door ; and supper in half- an-hour. I trust your lordship has not been stopped this dark night ? " " Stopped } " " Aye, there are again some of the snaffling gentry between here and Reading " " Snaffling gentry . . .? Oho !" cried the young gentleman and tried to look knowing, but his eyes were round and vague. " But your lordship's come to the right house ; no fear of information leaking from ' the Bear,' my lord." " I am no lord," said the boy, whose peach- like cheek had turned of a deeper hue, each time the tentative address had grated upon his ear. " Mr. Jernigan of Costessy, if you must know." The landlord bowed, a trifle deeper than he had bowed before. [196] THE LITTLE LOVER " Indeed, sir ! " quoth he as if mightily impressed — for if he did not know the name, which is of the east country, he knew the type of traveller as we have said before. Mr. Jernigan here turned, with a charming bashful consciousness of his own importance, to permit his valet to divest him of his muf- flings. And the landlord chuckled to himself to hear the man, most obviously an old fam- ily retainer, whisper: "Are your feet damp. Master Julian ? " and to mark the petulant annoyance with which the latter whisked himself out of his coat and stood forth, so slim, so comely and so youthful — so very youthful in the dancing light of the great fire. " Have you many people in the house, landlord ? " inquired the traveller in a manner calculated to remove any false impression of juvenility which might have been suggested by old Jonas's absurd solicitude. " Our common rooms are all full, being market day to-morrow ; but for the upper parlours, sir, a few gentlemen, who, like yourself, have found the night too cold to push on to Bath." He paused, jerked out his chin. He was listening. " If I mistake [ 197 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS not, here come other claimants for the far- famed hospitality of 'the Bear.'" Master Lawrence had a neat command of language. Indeed, he was decidedly a man of parts, who had oddly drifted into inn- keeping. If he found a special pleasure in his present avocation it was (as he was fond of saying) because it takes a gentleman to deal rightly with gentlefolks ; and then he would more than hint at the elegant vicissitudes of his past life. To hear the clatter of hoofs, the breezy cry of "House!", the sounds of stable bustle rising in the night, to see mine host hurry to the door with the same mixture of pat- ronage and obsequiousness with which he had himself just been received, filled Mr. Jernigan's bosom with a flutter of expectancy. He lingered by the hearth. All things were pleasingly new to him. Master Lawrence, poised for his bow, had already begun to classify: "Chaise with coat of arms. Post horses, a vast amount of luo;- gage. Lady of fashion — rich lady of fashion. Plague take me to have let the best rooms to that green-sprig . . . Three ladies! Nay, two and a maid. Capons and Sillery, blanc-mange and cakes. Aye, whom have [.98] m THE LITTLE LOVER ^ we here ? A horseman. Bless my soul ! " cried the innkeeper aloud, "if it is not Mr. O'Hara ! " He pulled a grimace between hilarity and anxiety. " This means a thinner cellar to-night. Would I were as sure of a fatter purse ! " But the 2:ood man's brow cleared as a sweet imperious voice issued from the deeps of the chaise, and a little round face, peering out, caught the light from the hospitably ex- tended doors. " Mistress Bellairs!" — Mistress Bellairs, rich, fastidious and lavish, as he knew ; who, wherever she went, was promptly surrounded by a kind of little court. " You are welcome at ' the Bear,' Madam. Allow me to give you a hand. What a night for a lady like you to be on the road ! " As if in dramatic emphasis a wild gust of wind, wet-dabbled with sleet, took up the cue and drove Mistress Kitty Bellairs in at the door like a ball of thistledown. Then Julian Jernigan, watching all agog, saw how this same mocking storm-wind fought with the second traveller as she descended from the chaise. How it tore apart the wings of her cloak, swept fluttering [ 199 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS garments close against the slender swaying limbs, engulphed itself in the secrets of her very hood, to lay bare triumphantly a countenance, pale as a pearl, fair as a flower. And Julian, looking, felt within himself a singular stirring, for it was a countenance beyond the beauty of his dearest dream. And upon the fair surface of his virgin heart the impression was struck with a pang that went beyond joy, fairly into pain. His head swirled as giddily as the smoke in the eddying gusts. When he came to himself the travellers were grouped within a yard of him — all looking towards him. A little lady with kitten face and eyes like brown pansies ; his own bewilderingly lovely lady, with a gaze that looked be- yond him and saw him not; a merry gentle- man, whose red curls shone crisp through faint powdering and whose merry orbs twinkled in a disconcerting manner. And the landlord, although still addressing him- self to the new comers, was obviously talking at him. " If I had had any warning of Mistress Bellairs' honoured arrival," he was saying emphatically, " I should have reserved the best rooms for her. It is not, I protest, five [ 200 ] THE LITTLE LOVER minutes since I promised them to this gentleman." " Sure," cried the man with the merry eyes, "it's the grandest opportunity he's ever had in his life ! " Still giddy from his sudden emotion Mr. Jernigan failed to perceive the drift of these observations. The pansy-eyes first looked reproachful, then shot sparks of anger. But sweetly indifferent were those other eyes — grey violets wet with autumn rain — that looked past him and through him into the fire behind. " I could give the young gentleman a very good bed, all to himself, his only other com- panion would be a distinguished officer " A light broke upon the boy : " My rooms ! " he cried, " Oh, certainly, I am only too glad — Pray, Madam, consider them ab- solutely at your disposal!" Mistress Bellairs had turned a very engag- ing smile upon him ; but as he finished his sentence to her silent companion, she tossed her head ever so slightly: "I thank you, sir," said she. " Did n't I tell you ! " exclaimed the gentle- man whom the landlord had greeted as Mr. O'Hara : " the opportunity of a lifetime ! [201 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS You 're young yet, sir, but if you live to be a hundred, you'll never regret that four-post bed ! " AlthouQ^h of an asre which does not as a rule relish being reminded of its immaturity, Julian Jernigan found something so genial in the speaker's broad smile, that his own lips promptly responded. Mistress Bellairs suddenly paused as she was about to move away. There was no doubt about it: here was an uncommonly comely youth. She had no objection herself to the April of manhood ; and when it smiled like that, when it had such an ingenuously blush- ing cheek and stood withal in so pretty a gentility, she considered it quite worth culti- vating, were it only for a winter evening's entertainment. " Truly," said she, " this is vastly civil ! We are under obligation to you, sir. Per- haps," she added with a half turn of her little capuchine towards her escort, " perhaps the gentleman would give us the privilege of his company at table to-night." Oh, with what an infinity of pleasure! Mr. Jernigan stammered, blushed, could find no suitable words; but his guileless emotion was very eloquent. [ 202 ] THE LITTLE LOVER " We shall be charmed," asserted the lady in a delicate tone of patronage. " And Mistress Bellairs is your hostess's name." She sketched him the curtsey of a woman of quality, expressive of the exact terms she wished to inaugurate. Julian bowed. " Mr. O'Hara, sir." She waved her hand. « Mr. ? " She was poised on the edge of the query like a bird on a twig. And as the young traveller once more gave his name and state he felt he must have exhausted his stock of blushes, yet was not without a tingle of pride in the goodly ring of the old patronymic. And Mistress Bellairs was not without an air of approval herself and the condescension of recollecting that she had acquaintance with certain of his kin. Then: " Mr. O'Hara, son of my Lord Kilcroney, " said she, pro- ceeding with her introductions in good form, " Mr. Jernigan of Costessy." " Delighted to know you, my boy ! " said the merry gentleman with a rich and genial accent that was strange to Julian's ears. " We shall meet then, presently," said Mistress Bellairs. But Mr. Jernigan, whose glance for ever roamed back to the tall lady who stood, so seemingly apart, with sad [203 ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ dreaming eyes fixed upon the fire, now looked acrain towards her, in such evident surprise and expectation, that Mrs. Bellairs followed the direction of his gaze. For a scarce perceptible instant, she hesitated, then flushed : " My friend," said she. " My friend, Miss Rachel." The girl started and shifted her slow eyes from the speaker to the young stranger who bent before her with an air of profound deference. As he rose from his bow, their glances met and he was struck to the heart again: by her beauty as before, but also by something else — by those deeps of sorrow in the violets of her eyes. • •••••• • " I insist on your coming down to supper," said Kitty. The tone of her voice conveyed anger, and so did the stamp of her red heel ; but there was a glimmer as of tears on the edge of her eyelashes. The great, long room was sparsely lit, though Lydia had foraged the inn for candles. There were gulfs of gloom behind the four-post bed. True, the panelled walls and the carpetless boards re- flected the flame of the candles here and there on their high polished surface, but [ 204 ] THE LITTLE LOVER they shone with no more effect than Httle yellow crocuses scattered in a desolate brown garden. Kitty's travelling companion had laid aside her cloak and hood, but shared in none of Mrs. Bellairs' toilet activities. Sitting oppo- site the newly-kindled fire, she was once more gazing before her with hands listlessly folded on her lap. At the petulant address she rose. " Indeed, I pray you to excuse me." " I '11 not excuse you ! You 've scarce taken bite or sup to-day." " I can be served here." " Worse and worse ! The thing 's out of all reason." " Alas, madam, there is but too good reason ! Yourself — yourself " " Myself, what, pray ? " " You could not bring yourself to give my full name to the young gentleman. Oh, you are right : I have cast discredit upon it. I would not cast discredit upon you." Kitty flamed scarlet and the tears brim- ming between her eyelashes suddenly bub- bled over. She made a rush forward and caught the other in a tight clasp. " It was not for that ! " she cried in tones [205] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS that would scream down an inner sense of cuilt. Then, shakinsr her friend and scold- ing passionately : " How dare you say so ! 'Twas for you, 'twas to spare you! Why, Rachel Peace, the celebrated actress, if it got about the house, they would stare us to death! Why, child, who knows or cares about your private misfortune? I, for one, think you 're the purest soul I 've ever met. Oh I you foolish thing, I say you shall not remain here moping ! I '11 not eat a morsel if you don't come down. Nay, Rachel, for love of me ! " Now, when her benefactress said : " For love of me I " Rachel Peace bowed her head meekly; for what could she do but submit.'' " Lydia," cried Mrs. Bellairs, turning sud- denly upon her tirewoman who was whisk- ing garments about and inhaling the air with the most protesting sounds she dared make : " sniff once more . . . and you quit my service at Bath ! " " And pray, yang man, are you aware that this is my room ? Stap my vitals," cried Captain Spicer, "shall not a gentleman have his privacy I " Julian Jernigan lifted his drijDping face r 206 ] ^ THE LITTLE LOVER '^ from the basin where he had been sluicing away in cold water the stain of travel, and turned it, rosy and shining, upon the inter- pellator. Viewing the latter's spindle frame and long bilious countenance with some disfavour, he answered haughtily that the companionship was none of his choice, but the landlord's. " Too bad of the fallow ! " asseverated the Captain closing the door with military clat- ter. " The creature wants a lesson. Rat him! He must be taught how to behave to a gen " He broke off abruptly. Swaggering up to the table, legs well apart, he had caught sight of some of Mr. Jernigan's belongings carelessly thrown upon it — a silver-hilted sword ; a heavy chain with a bunch of seals and a brace of watches, one of these encrusted with gold of three colours and little gems ; a silken purse, agreeably swollen at either end. Such a purse as Captain Spicer had rarely had the privilege of holding in his hand, but of the kind which he benevolently desired to find in the posses- sion of those young favourites of fortune to whom it was his life-vocation to attach him- self, A glitter came into his pale eyes. There was, as we know, a certain obliquity [ 207 ] ^iS INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS of vision connected with these orbs at the best of times. But when their owner be- came excited the peculiarity increased to an alarming extent. Just now, however, it seemed to provide him with the advantage of fixins: the articles on the table and the young gentleman at the wash-hand stand at one and the same time. " Though, indeed," he went on, and had no shame in this ungraduated change from blustering to fawning, " when one is quar- tered with so gallant a companion as your- self, sir, by the Lard, a man would be charl to find grounds for aught but congratala- tion." And while, over the edge of the towel, Julian regarded him with innocent amaze- ment, the astute parasite proceeded: " In the Sarvice, sir? No.^* Strange, you have the military air. On your way back from the Grand Tour, I presume — there is, I see, the fareign dash — No.^* Ah! but you've had your racket in Tawn." And this last impeachment, blushing down to the fine ruffled shirt, parted upon a throat as white and round as a girl's, the poor boy, who felt his lovely youth such a burden, had not the courage to disclaim. [ 208 ] ^THE LITTLE LOVER H "Master Ju," said the old servant, popping in his head unceremoniously at the door, " will I give you a hand with your cue ? " And Mr. Jernigan, of Costessy, felt it incum- bent upon his dignity to dismiss the over- ofBcious valet with a proper and manlike brevity : " When I require you, Jonas, I shall summon you." If Mistress Bellairs had thought Julian Jernigan a pretty youth as he stood, garbed for travelling, in the shadowy fireglow, she thought him ten times more so as he entered her brilliantly lit parlour. With an eye that had something maternal in its appraising, the young widow noted how the colour came and went upon his fair cheek ; how the quick breath fluttered his nostrils, yet how high he held his crested head with its nimbus of pow- dered hair ; how deliberately he moved and yet with how boyish a consciousness of every- body's gaze. "Mr. Stafford — Mr. Jernigan." It was quite a minute before the buzzing blood in Julian's ears subsided sufficiently to enable him to understand w^iat Mrs. Bellairs was saying, as, after mechanically bowing to an unknown gentleman, he took seat between 14 [ 209 ] gnNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ her and the lady whom he knew as Miss Rachel. "Mr. Stafford," quoth Kitty, "is an old friend. He heard of my being on the road to Bath, and started immediately to meet me. I feel prodigious flattered." She extended a white hand towards the gentleman in question. But, having to pass Mr. O'Hara to reach him, the latter seized it and bestowed such tender kisses upon it that positively Mr. Jernigan could not look on, but had to keep his eyes bent on his plate. Through the clamour of laughter and protest there stole upon his consciousness a voice as sweet and low as the sigh of an yEolian harp. " Are you travelling alone ? " Rachel Peace was askino;. He turned to find her lookinor at him with such kindness m her eyes that his heart fluttered. He thought to divine that to her this mockery of love and courtship, in which Mrs. Bellairs seemed to have her being, was as embarrassing as it was to him. Nay, she seemed to shrink from even the proximity of her gallant and handsome neighbour, Mr. Stafford; to have gathered her skirts away, to have shifted her seat as far as possible. A [2,0] ^ THE LITTLE LOVER ^ circumstance which, while it made him wonder a little, he rejoiced at — for did it not bring her into sweet proximity to himself — the fall of her lace, the curve of her grey sleeve now and again brushing his arm and sending thrills of that new joyful pain to his heart. " I have been visiting relatives in the south," confided the youth, " and am now on my way to the Bath, where I am awaited by an uncle." She glanced at the deep black of the sleeve; then she said, with a sigh running through the words: " I, too, am alone." He ventured to look full at the delicate face bending towards him. " Alone ? " he queried, ardent admiration, respectful sympathy in his tone. "Alone!" That she should be alone, and wear that plaintive sorrow of it in her eye ! "Yes," she told him, sinking her voice still lower, " I am only travelling with this lady a little way. She has been very good to me, but we do not belong together." He was not surprised at that. Mis- tress Bellairs was very kind, no doubt, and vastly admired, evidently ; but, compared to [.II] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Her . . . ! His emboldened eye moved quickly from one to the other, betraying his thought. She pressed her lips together and then, drawing a quick breath, laid her finger on his black cuff. " 1 want to tell you something," she said almost inaudibly. " My name is Rachel Peace." His innocent blue 2:aze widened; then he smiled like a delighted child. " What a lovely name, and how it suits you, Madam ! Rachel Peace ! " To his immense discomfiture he spoke the words into a sudden silence and found that, the scene of coquetry opposite having abruptly ceased, he was again the centre of attention. But he did not notice that, beside him, Rachel had cast down her eyes and grown white to the lips. Perhaps Kitty, in spite of her laughter was not above a feminine jDique to find that the pretty boy had positively no eyes for another charming presence. Perhaps she was displeased with her protegee for betraying her own pious fraud. At any rate, she here remarked, with some dryness that doubtless Mr. Jernigan was already familiar with the name. The boy looked bewildered : " lliere is a [ ^^^ ] ^ITHE LITTLE LOVER |1 most respected family of Friends, at Norwich " he began, when feeling the girl start beside him, he stopped, looked at her hesitat- ingly and saw her crimson to the temples. Then Mr. Stafford leaned across the table and spoke: — " The fact is," said he, " we have been unkind, Mr. Jernigan, in not informing you of the privilege you enjoy to-night. Miss Rachel Peace is one of England's most gifted actresses, a lady universally admired and uni- versally respected, and the Prince of Wales himself might well envy you your place beside her." The full white lids of Rachel's eyes were cast down till the long lashes seemed to sweep the cheek. One would have scarce thought she heard, but for the wavering colour and the sensitive trembling of her lips. Mr. O'Hara was thumping the table in vehement approval. " Did n't I tell you ! " said he. " Ah, it 's not everybody, my boy, that can say he sat between Bellairs, who has broken every heart in England, and Peace — who's trampled on all the rest. Keep the secret dark, my dear friend, or we '11 be having a mob in upon us!" [213 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ Kitty bridled. Mr. O'Hara's comparative compliments struck her as clumsy. As for Julian he was frankly bewildered : this dove- grey lady, witli the sad and tender eyes, this fulfilment of all his loveliest presentiments — an actress ! Then had he been throus^h life misled ; then was an actress's calling the most noble, the most soul-inspiring which a woman could follow; then was the play- house the nursery of all beautiful dignity, all white-winged modesty ! But why, upon their praise of her, should she droop her head and wear the pain of the world in her sweet face .'' Into this silence, pregnant with doubt and trouble, everyone welcomed an external diversion — a s^entle scratchinor which was now heard at the door. " Come in ! " cried Kitty petulantly. And as the scratchino^ but continued louder: "Come in!" cried Stafford with all the volume of his sonorous voice, while : " More power to your claw! " exclaimed Mr. O'Hara, a kind of observation with which that o;entle- man made free — much to Julian Jernigan's mystification. But if the scratching had been welcome, the scratcher himself, as he inserted a long [2>4] THE LITTLE LOVER El w\ sallow countenance through the gingerly opened door, was not. " Why, 't is Captain Spicer," said Kitty in tones of disgusted astonishment. " Spoicer, is it.?" ejaculated the Honour- able Denis, and muttered something anent the devil's impudence, between his teeth. " Mr. Spicer, sir," said Stafford with the most deadly politeness, "you are evidently mistaking — this is not the public room ! " But Captain Spicer had made good his footing and was now advancing upon the table with that winning sidle characteristic of his most elegant moments. Once again all Julian's unschooled blood rushed to his cheeks. He felt a sort of responsibility for the appearance of his chance chamber-mate, whose conversation he was now ashamed of having found entertain- ing since this military gentleman was known only in ill-regard by his table companions. " Aha, my young friend ! " said the intruder, menacing him with a waggish finger, " so here is the mysterious lady for whom you denied me your company at sapper. No less a parson than the lavely Kitty. . . . O'Hara, my boy, the tap of the night to you — as you would say yourself." ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ (" The tap of my toe to ye," muttered O'Hara.) " Staff ard, old crony " " This room is a private room, Captain Spicer," said Stafford with his former cruel suavity, while Kitty, after staring with per- fectly expressionless eyes at the Captain's wreathed countenance, suddenly began to address O'Hara with that perfection of in- solence only to be encompassed by a woman of the highest fashion : " The creature had the face to call upon mc in town, nay, I had to get Sir George Payne to turn him out of my box at Covent Garden " Even Captain Spicer, although it was the trade of his life to swallow rebuffs, as a dog swallows crusts in the hope of better morsels, could scarce keep up his smile of assurance before such a reception. His cheeks grew mottled ; he breathed hard ; his eyes squinted more fearfully than ever as they roamed from face to face. All at once they halted : their obliquity drew together and there was a kind of flicker between their white eyelashes. " And pray, my fair Bell airs, how is it we still find you fair Bellairs ? When last I was in Tawn with my Lard Ffarringdon, the warld was ringing with noble news of [2,6] THE LITTLE LOVER approaching wedding-bells, he, he ! Were there other claimants for my Lord Man- deville's ring, eh, Staffard ? " Julian felt a sort of shudder run through the still figure at his side, then a faint movement, as if towards flight. There was a pause, the tension of which oppressed even him who knew nothing. "He, he!" cried Captain Spicer, now giv- ing full vent to a triumphant spitefulness. " Is it passible. . . . Do I behold the beau- teous Thespian, Miss Peace ? Verily, it is even so ... O Peace, Peace, why didst thou leave the Tawn in desalation?" And Julian, who of her fellow-guests was the only one that dared look at Rachel, saw her slowly rear her head upon her long throat and fix a steady eye upon the speaker. " Spicer," said Mr. O'Hara, suddenly springing to his feet, " I '11 give you ten seconds to take your nose out of the reach of my fingers ! " "Open the door, O'Hara!" Stafford was crying at the same instant. " I was reckoned pretty good at football in my day." The cheeks of the led-captain worked as you may see those of an angry toad. Once [ 217 ] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS# ai^ain he looked from right to left choosing the spot where to split his venom. Then : " Ha ! " cried he, forgetting the last rem- nant of his professional prudence in a fresh spasm of malignity. " Pradigious clever move of yours, Mrs. Kitty, to have kidnapped the chief impediment! He-he! I begin to understand, navv, how the vartuous Bellairs finds herself in sach campany ! " Then, twisting round and thrusting his lean chin over Julian's shoulder, offensively close to Rachel's face : " And pray, Miss," said he, " how did you leave my Lord Mandeville ? " Upon this there was a rising in three quarters of the table at once and a sudden scuffle in the midst of which it was hard to discriminate. But Kitty Bellairs, watching with interest, thought to distinguish that he who — dashing back his chair — slapped Captain Spicer across the face with a nap- kin, was Mr. Jernigan of Costessy : while it was Mr. Stafford and Mr. O'Hara who be- tween them hustled the intruder through the door. The fracas once fairly over, however, the little widow felt it incumbent upon her to be seized with a delicate fit of vapours. And [218] iTHE LITTLE LOVER this new excitement so fully occupied the attention of herself and her two cavaliers that it was not until Rachel, rising from her seat, clasped her hands and exclaimed in tones of anguish : " Merciful heavens — where is Mr. Jernigan ? " that, looking round in sur- prise, they perceived the young gentleman's absence. "Oh!" cried Rachel, "he has gone forth to quarrel — a mere lad. — For pity's sake, gentlemen, seek him ! Prevent blood- shed . . . Ah! what have I done that this curse of drawn swords should follow me wherever I go ! " When Mr. Stafford and Mr. O'Hara, to calm the Quaker's distress, and perhaps slightly infected themselves by her alarm, went forth to seek young Mr. Jernigan, they looked for him in vain through hall and parlour. Then, proceeding to his chamber, they were met at the door by old Jonas, who seemed in great anxiety of mind. " Oh, sirs," he cried, " there 's the devil's work going on in here . . . and they 've locked themselves in ! " Then the man's face worked. " He 's the last of the old stock!" said he. [219] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSil " Pooh !" cried Denis, consolingly, " what a pother all this about nothing. Spicer wags his tongue more freely than his sword, I 'II tell you that ! " And, indeed, when they reached the locked door and stood all three, on a sudden impulse, listening, it certainly did seem as if the light- hearted gentleman's opinion were the correct one. For Spicer's voice was grinding on within, evidently on peaceful terms intent ; nay, he was punctuating his discourse by cackling self-applause. O'Hara bent his ear to catch the words : " Stap me, you don't knaw your friends, sir," the gallant Captain was saying. "Come, give me the key, my good lad : by the Lard, I 've no quarrel with you." " But I 've a quarrel with you, sir — " and old Jonas started to hear his little master speak with that new note of manliness, " you have insulted, sir, a lady whom I honour, whom I revere . . ." Here the lad's voice trembled, and Stafford and O'Hara exchanged a smile which was un- consciously tender. — It was as if the ghost of their own dead boyhood rose before them : they had passed that way themselves. And oh, what a long road had they not travelled since! [ 220 ] THE LITTLE LOVERS Xi5\ " Why, rat it all !" cried the Captain then from within, and it could be heard that his sweet humour was growing a trifle sour. " You 're yang, Mr. Jarnigan, or, upan my saul, I should take it ill of you! Why, you yang pappy, I came down into that room, merely to show you what a crew it was you had taken ap with. Bellairs, whom all the men are running away from, dem it, and those two bullies, sir, whom she keeps to fight the runaways ! Why, gad, if you 'd not been so green from the country, my poor friend, you 'd have heard of that Staffard fallow's encounter with my Lard Mandeville. And talking of my Lard and his jilting of poor Kitty, he, he ! brings me to this Rachel Peace — and a pretty piece, he, he! — a basforao-e ! " " What a pestilent tongue it has," said Stafford without, and raised his hand to beat a warning rat-tat on the panels. But O'Hara was too well entertained. " Wait a bit," he urged, " 't is as good as a play and the lad 's giving it to him in fine style ! " And indeed there was a shout from Julian Jernigan. " Silence ! Liar ! " [221 ] j^ilNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSi^ /iiK " Rachel Peace ! Rachel Peace, you booby ! Why all the warld knows she 's my Lard Mandeville's " " Thunder an' ouns ! " exclaimed O'Hara straightening himself with an irrepressible sparkle in his eyes, " but that was a master slap! " There was a pause within, a breathless moment without. Then Captain Spicer's snarl : " Yah — since you will have it 1 " followed by the hiss of the steel sliding from the scabbard like an angry snake. "When a creature's pushed to it, he's dangerous," suddenly exclaimed O'Hara and aimed for the door with a sturdy lurch of his shoulder, but this time it was Stafford who intervened. " Too late now," he said, " they 're at it. If you jog the drinkers' elbows, you may spill the wrong cup. The lad needs all his wits about him — Spicer 's a white-liver, but he 's an old hand." " True," said O'Hara, and fell back. Jonas shifted piteous eyes from one to the other. His lips moved as if repeating to himself: "The last of the old stock!" It was not to be a long wait : even to those [ 222 ] ^ THE LITTLE LOVER i| listeners in suspense without it seemed an appallingly short one. There was a stamp of feet — and they could distinguish the boy's clean spring backwards and forwards, Spicer's slouching shoe and Spicer's reiter- ated cry: " Saha ! Sa-sa ! Have at you!" after the fashion of the practised bully. But from young Julian came never a word. Then the Captain raised a yell of triumph, succeeded by a deadly little silence, into which presently came the sound of a heavy ■fall. The servant moaned like an old dog and Stafford made a sign to O'Hara. Before their united rush the door fell open, and they burst, one on the top of the other, into the room. Spicer, the grin petrified upon his swollen mouth, turned round upon them, still brandishing a blood-stained sword; but, as all three hurried up to the prostrate figure on the floor, the gallant gentleman saw his opportunity and made good his exit without further ado. It seemed such a very small figure, that of the valiant little lover, as it lay all huddled together, that O'Hara with a break in his voice cried out to seize the scoundrel who [223 ] 1^ INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSl^ had murdered a child. But Stafford looking up from where he knelt and drawing out his hand all crimsoned with good Jernigan blood from the ruffled shirt that had been donned this evening over so high a heart, bade him let the carrion go but have a surgeon sum- moned ; the lad was not dead, but he feared the wound was in the lung. ••••••• Two anxious women were waiting in the parlour for the medical verdict when Stafford came in upon them, grave, yet not with that final gravity that leaves no room for hope. " If he wins throufjh the ni^ht, the suro;eon thinks he may yet live," said he. Rachel folded her hands as if in prayer. l»ut Kitty's face fell ; one of those beings made for the sunny side of life, she took trouble with petulance, struggling against it as a bird beats its wings in a trap. " Why did any of you let a little gentleman like him cross swords with such a thing as Spicer ? Why could n't you fight yourselves, cither of you two big men, instead of the child ? Fie upon you ! Or why did he fight at all, and what did he fight for.?" 1 he question was emphasised with that [ ^-u ] §1 THE LITTLE LOVER i| stamp of her little foot so familiar to the devotees of Kitty. Stafford hesitated; he looked at Rachel. Then Rachel raised her lovely heavy eyes : " He fought for me, for my good name," said she. " Is it not so? " And, as Stafford's silence answered for him, she went on, quite calmly, though her lips quivered in bitterness : " I had done less harm, had I remained where you found me, madam. Oh, I am not the less grateful to you that you tried to save me ! But for such as me, you see, there is no saving. My sin will follow me." " Miss Rachel," said Stafford, going up to her and taking her hand — he was a man who had the reputation of a very cold heart under his air of gayest good humour, but Rachel Peace ever after bore his memory in gratitude for his kind touch, his kind look at this moment of her misery. " Miss Rachel — he is asking for you, have you the courage .? " At that, she lifted her head : " Oh, I should be coward, indeed, to think of myself ! " said she. "A rare woman! I always knew it," thought Stafford. 15 [ 225 ] t^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS Rachel stood looking at Julian Jernigan's colourless face ; then, as he opened his languid eyes, bent down and took his hand. " You are not to speak," she said, " I am here to nurse you, and you will soon get well ! " Jonas, struggling with his tears at the foot of the bed, turned his bewildered old gaze upon her as if on the apparition of an angel. And Julian, murmuring something about peace and her being all white like the lilies and its being a happy way to die (which he thought was quite a long speech), turned his head on his pillow and went back to that place of vague dreams which was half swoon, half sleep. Vastly insulted at the meresu2:2:estion that she should betake herself to bed, while Rachel watched the wounded champion, Mistress Kitty elected to spend the night (in monstrous discomfort) on a chair before the fire in her own apartment. Towards that bleak and most weary hour, however, just before the winter dawn, she allowed herself to be beo^uiled downstairs mto Master Lawrence's own cosy library [ 226 ] ^ THE LITTLE LOVER ^^ where he and Mr. O'Hara had passed a not unpleasant time between varied discourse and a noble bowl of spiced wine. (The landlord of " the Bear " had far too exalted a concep- tion of his calling, to think of slumber while guests of qualit}' watched.) "Just the least little thimbleful in the world, Kitty," had whispered the insinuating Denis through the keyhole of her door, " and a toast of your darling little feet at the handsomest fire I 've seen this winter ! " And thus O'Hara's divinity, rather injured, very pettish, somewhat pale, with a pretty mouth ever caught upon a yawn, had con- sented to establish herself before Master Lawrence's handsome fire, to stretch out her darling little feet to the blaze, to sip the fragrance of Mr. O'Hara's offering — al- though with many a little choking grimace and protestation. Master Lawrence had discreetly retired upon her arrival. "By the powers!" said O'Hara. "It's not that I 'm not sorry for the little fellow upstairs, but it 's a poor heart that never rejoices ! " But, alas for the happy lover ! This is a poor world in which a rich heart's rejoicing is never of long duration. Mr. O'Hara, [227] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS was not destined to hold his gallant oppor- tunity more than a minute's span. Into the silence of the night, there came a knocking at the street door, a barking of dogs, a running of feet, an excited parley ; and, be- fore either of the two ensconced in their snug retreat had time to interchange surprise and conjecture. Master Lawrence hurried in. The worthy innkeeper's face was flushed, his manner important. He craved ten thousand pardons, but there was a traveller without: a srentlcman . . . a nobleman. He was not permitted to finish his phrase for here an unceremonious hand thrust him aside, and the traveller in question stood in the doorway ! " So, Mistress Bellairs," cried Lord Mande- ville. " So, madam ! Thus we meet again ! " The noble Earl's address, however, was scarcely as impressive as he could have wished ; he had ridden long and hard and the night was one of exceptional rigour. He could hardly speak for his chattering teeth ; his face was livid and purple in patches; he staggered now upon his numbed limbs ; and, a convulsive shiver seizing him, he was only able further to articulate the name : " Rachel Peace ! " [ 228 ] THE LITTLE LOVER Now O'Hara was a lover himself and full of the largest sympathy towards any suffer- ing member of the brotherhood. "Whisht!" said he soothingly, " not an- other word out of you now, till we get the life into you again." He caught up the steaming bowl of wine on the table and held it boldly to the wayfarer's frozen lips. " Drink, my boy," said he. Though Lord Mandeville, recognising the excellence of this advice, promptly disposed of the whole brew at a draught, his ill-humour was thereby no whit abated. Setting the empty vessel on the table with a clatter he looked once more from Kitty to O'Hara and in his broodino; frown there was somethino- of triumphant fury. Kitty pinched her baby mouth and looked defiance back with right good will. What? Had she once admired this man, had almost consented to bestow on him in marriage her incomparable little self! Heavens, what an escape she had had . . . she who hated ugliness ! "Perhaps," said Lord Mandeville, "you will kindly tell me what you have done with Miss Rachel Peace, whom you carried off from my house, for reasons best known to yourself." [229] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS|i| His face twisted into a sneer as he spoke ; there was a red glare in his eyes. Then, " Where is Rachel? " he cried with a sudden breakdown of self-control, so that the words rangr in a hoarse shout. O " The poor fellow 's as croaky as a crow," said O'Hara to himself, all compassion. " I will trouble you, my Lord," said Mis- tress Kitty, ice externally, internally all a little fire of joy at this opportunity for pay- ing back old scores, " to stop screaming. There s someone dying upstairs " " Someone dying! " repeated Lord Mande- ville. His tired face went ghastly, his jaw dropped, his eye protruded, he made a vague movement with his hands. " No, no," cried O'Hara in quick under- standing, " she 's well, my lord ; alive and well. Kitty, you 've frightened him out of his wits! 'Tis but a poor lad that's been crossing: swords ' Lord Mandcville threw himself into a chair, leaned his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands. " A poor lad ! A poor child," echoed Mis- tress Kitty, taking up the tale, throwing each word at the silent man with as deliberate an intention as if she were aimins: little arrows. [230] THE LITTLE LOVER " A poor child, who has shed his blood, my lord, given his life perhaps, to defend the fair name of Rachel Peace ; that fair name which you have now made such that every rufhan on the road thinks himself entitled to cast his handful of mud at it. Rachel Peace, w " Whom you robbed me of," said his lord- ship, opening his fingers to throw out from between them a red look upon her. " Whom I took pity on," cried she, " whom I gave shelter to, as I would have sheltered a wounded dove — poor dove ! " said Kitty, waxing dithyrambic, "with white wings broken, all maimed and hurt! Ah! my lord, you men have fine sport ! " "Enough, madam! " said Lord Mandeville springing up with so fierce an air that even she quailed before it. "Where is Rachel.? I dare you to keep her from me. She 's in this house, I know. I '11 find her if I have to break into every room. Rachel! Give me back my girl ..." And, seeing (Denis afterwards explained to the outraged Kitty) that, as his lordship was as blind drunk and mad drunk w'ith love as ever a man could be, there seemed nothing for it but to humour him, Mr. O'Hara vol- [231 ] ii INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS|i unteered to conduct him to the chamber where Mr. Stafford was keeping a friendly night watch near the sick-room, and thither to lure Rachel Peace for a few moments from Mr. Jernigan's bedside. As soon as Mistress Kitty had recovered from her stupefaction at Mr. O'Hara's audac- ity, she decided to follow the reprobates upstairs, solely moved (as she told herself) by the benevolent desire of affordinq- Rachel the protection of one of her own sex at such a juncture — and in no manner by curiosity or any desire to keep her pretty fingers in the pie. When she peeped into Mr. Stafford's chamber she found it empty of all save of that gentleman's presence. With his head tilted back on the top of the armchair, an open book on his knee, a guttering candle beside him, he was sound asleep ; little gentle snorts escaped rhythmically from his well-cut nostrils. Scarcely the situation in which a man of elegance would wish to be found by the lady of his heart ! Kitty closed the door again and stood a second in reflec- tion. With Mr. Stafford also she had once been near (very near) matrimony ! Then, gathering her skirts together and [ 232 ] ^THE LITTLE LOVER^ tripping it as softly as her high heels would allow she turned the corner of the passage towards the beckoning of a lamp. Then she started back and held her breath ; she had only just escaped falling into Lord Mandeville's arms. At the same moment a door a little lower down in the long gallery was opened and Rachel Peace came forth. Unseen, Kitty watched. Lord Mandeville with a sound as if some- thing clicked in his throat, made a quick step towards the girl. " O hush ! " said Rachel glancing over her shoulder, as O'Hara now came forth in his turn and closed the sick-room door be- hind him. " Hush ! " said she, " he is awake." Her thoughts were all for the boy. " Rachel ! " said Lord Mandeville in a queer angry, choked voice. She drew close to him that she might bear him away to silence, and he caught her into his arms. Then she seemed to realise what his presence meant and cried: " Oh, why are you here!" with a wail under her breath. And Kitty heard with a strange mixture of feelings the deep tender note in Lord Man- deville's voice as he answered : [ ^33 ] g^ INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS?^ " Because I cannot live without you Rachel . . . Rachel ! " But Rachel had disengaged herself; the man could no more have held her just then than he could have held running waters. " I must go back to the boy," she said. This great, passionate lover who had wrought such havoc in her life, he was to step back now and yield place to the all paramount little lover who 2:ave all and wanted nothing. " I have just a faint hope." She moved a pace or two and stood between the two men. " Indeed, my lord," said O'Hara, " I think you must be content to let her go back to him, for faith I believe her presence alone keeps Death at bay." And Kitt}', watching, guessed how Lord Mandeville's heart was torn by jealous pangs. She had caused many passions, or so she flattered herself, but she had never seen any- thing like this ! But Rachel still paused and hesitated; then with the corners of her sweet mouth trembling downwards, like a chidden child's, she said gently: " He fought for me, poor little lad. Oh, gentlemen, you both know why ! He must n^'t " she paused, her lips quivered piti- [ 234] ^ THE LITTLE LOVER M fully and the words seemed hard to speak. " It would be very kind," she said, " if every one would allow him to believe — would let him die, if he is to die, believing in me — or would wait till he gets well before telling him — the truth." Her voice sank into a whisper. O'Hara turned abruptly away. But Lord Mandeville fell upon his knees before her in the passage and buried his face in her grey skirt. " No, no," said Rachel Peace. She was sitting beside Julian Jernigan's bed and held his cold hand in both hers. " No, you are not going to die. The surgeon is quite con- tent with you this morning. You are going to live." She was smiling at him and he smiled back at her. " I don't think I care," said he. He was unutterably happy with both those lovely hands seeming to uphold his heart. Then, with the quick senses of the wanderer in the borderland, he became aware of other presences in the room. The merry gentle- man with the twinkling eyes, and a stranger to whom Rachel Peace suddenly looked up — as he closely saw and more closely felt — with some strongly stirring emotion. ?§i INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ Lord Mandeville gazed down at Rachel's champion, his mouth twisted into something between a smile and a spasm of pain. He had actually been jealous in his jealous heart, had grudged her with doubt and suspicion, to this boy with the dank yellow curls and the white child's face ! And, as Rachel Peace still looked up, her soft eyes full of wonder, and fear and expectation, Lord Mandeville, bending, took Mr. Julian Jernigan's hands from her clasp. He had a very noble manner when he chose — and, perhaps, under all his wild passions he had something of a noble soul. " Mr. Jernigan," said he, " I will not say to you that I am sorry to see you in such a plight, for indeed, sir, I envy you ! I have heard of your defence of this gentle lady. No man, sir, could shed his blood in a worthier cause. I am proud to make your acquaintance, Mr. Jernigan. And I thank you, in my own name, and that of my affianced wife." How much Mr. Jernigan understood of this speech, how much he only felt, it were hard to say. His breast swelled with a irreat pride, with a great pain and a very high and grand joy. And everything swam before ^i THE LITTLE LOVER him until suddenly he was called back again to the inn-bed, to his wound and to life gen- erally, by Rachel's voice in his ears, and Rachel's tears upon his cheek — aye and by something else, the touch of Rachel's lips upon his brow! And, "Oh, I thank you too!" she was saying, " from my heart I thank you ! " " If you cast me off," said Lord Mandeville, as they two were alone at last and he held Rachel Peace to his heart, "if you cast me off, Rachel, then I am lost indeed." "I — cast thee off!" murmured Rachel, "Ah Lionel — thee knows. . . !" He looked deep, deep into her eyes and read, beyond their joy and hopefulness, the shadow of an inextinguishable sorrow. Her lips would never utter reproach. In her meek and generous soul, indeed, no blame of him could live ; but all the keener did it stab him, this sorrow in her eyes which he knew would be ever there. With what a delicate pride would she not have held her head for his coronet — a little while ago 1 How bridal a heart she would have brought him — a little wliile ago! His poor girl! • •••• ••• [237 ] i^ INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ "Kitty, darling," said O'Hara tentatively, " there s love and marriacfe in the air this morning — don't you feel it?" But Mistress Bellairs was in an unap- proachable and petulant mood. She whisked her hand away from his grasp. " Bah ! " said she, " there 's not one of you creatures that come dangling about me, that knows even the meaning of the word Love, sir. Love!" said she. "Ah, I have seen it at last ! " [238] VI ARELY had Master Thomas Law- rence, the landlord of " the Bear " Inn, Devizes, had the privilege of entertaining so many guests of quality together for so long a period. There was my lord, Earl Mandeville — most cele- brated peer! — who actually honoured "the Devizes " by electing to contract there that marriage which was the amazement of the year. There was Mistress Kitty Bellairs, whose name was famous from one end of the Bath road to the other ; and with her, her young friend, once celebrated as Rachel Peace, the play-actress, now spoken of with bated breath as: My Lady, Countess of Mandeville. And further in the Queen of [ 239 ] i^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSi^ Bath's train were two of her courtiers — Mr. Stafford, a spark as fashionable in Lon- don as at the Springs, and the Hon. Denis O'Hara (son of Viscount Kilcroney), a very irenial srentleman likewise, but one whose distinguished name Master Lawrence rang oftener than his gold. Then there was Mr. Julian Jernigan, of Costessy, a young squire of consequence in the East Country (who had lain grievously wounded after his affair of delicacy under the roof of "the Bear" itself), and the uncle of the same, my Lord Howard, who, from Bath, where he had been drinking the waters, had come in haste to nurse his kinsman. But the life of an inn might serve a par- able for life itself. Here, for these ten days, had this choice company met and feasted and made merry, suffered and watched and prayed; here had Death threatened and Love vanquished ; here had been tears and laughter and kisses. And now, nearly all had gone their divers roads, and their place would be filled by others and the old story go on in the old way. " Here to-day, gone to-morrow ! " moralised Master Lawrence, as he sat in the silence of his " library," puffing at a contemplative [ 240] ^THE BLACK LACE M A S K ^ churchwarden. And, truly Master Lawrence himself felt the stillness oppressive. But upstairs in the best parlour the atmosphere could not have been described as stagnant. Mistress Kitty, ensconced in the window- seat looking out on the slush and drizzle of the market place, was biting the string of gold beads that hung round her neck, and swinging — the seat' was rather high — one dainty foot impatiently among the billows of her silken skirts. Denis O'Hara, faithful adorer, thought he had never seen her look to more distract- ing advantage. She was of the type which a pout becomes. Her eyes showed dark as night, yet bright with a thousand angry little fires, under the white cloud of powdered curls. " And so," said the lady, " Mr. Stafford could not bide another day apart from Madame Eglantine — from that Uttle French magpie of a milliner, even for the sake of courtesy to a lady ! " With some humility, as if he were part guilty; though guilty, in sooth, of nothing but joy at a situation which left him undis- puted chance, Denis O'Hara loyally re- sponded: 16 [ 241 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ "Sure the poor fellow was called off on a matter of law." " Law !" echoed Kitty with a scornful little shriek, "'tis the last thing that his affair is concerned with ; though, indeed" — dropping her gold beads and rearing her figure to angry crectness — " mark my words, he '11 end by marrying the creature, even as my Lord Mandeville, Rachel Peace, the play-actress." " Faith, and I know some one whose pretty little fingers helped to put on that ring," said the Irishman, coming a few paces nearer and speaking in a tone of delicate wheedling. " And much gratitude I am like to get for it ! " This, with a toss of the powdered curls. " Little will my Lady Mandeville think of what she owes to humble Mistress Bcllairs, when she takes the pas of her wherever she goes ! " "Why," said Denis, "you'd be taking the pas of most of them in Bath, yourself, Kitty darling, if you 'd only consent to become my Viscountess," " Your Viscountess, sir.'' " " The poor old gentleman 's very bad, over there in County Derry. And, they write me, the cellar 's getting very low ; the Burgundy's nil done — it's my opinion, and medical [ 242 ] ^THE BLACK LACE M A S K p opinion too, that he '11 go out with the claret ! " "La! 'Tis vastly pathetic," quoth Kitty, and edged a trifle further away upon the window-seat to correspond to Mr. O'Hara's ingratiating approach. "Well and it is that, Kitty," said the latter sturdily. " Sure, he 's the grand old fellow still, and there's not one in the county can hold as many bottles as he can and turn it all into the real old generous Irish blood. I believe he '11 have mortgaged the very oak for his coffin ! But he shared it all, Kitty, he shared it all, and will, till he lies alone." " Prodigious pleasant for you ! " "Ah, it's little I care for the paltry mone3\ There's that in the old name, Kitty, that riches could never buy. And it '11 come to me with the shine on it." "I trust you will find the shine sufficient satisfaction, sir, to make up for an empty pocket." " Would n't I," cried the man, " if I could but share it with you, pulse of my soul ! " He stretched out his arm to clasp her as he spoke, but drew it back before the cold refusal of her eyes. [^43] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^I " La, sir, you do me proud, indeed ! Sharer of your empty pocket? " "No, madam — no, my darling, sharer of the good name and sole possessor of my great love ! " "What is this, Mr. O'Hara?" " It's just this, Kitty; things cannot go on between us as they 've been going this last year. Here, to this very inn, a year ago, I brought you as my promised wife, and here you broke my heart on me by throwing me over at the last moment. And here you told me you 'd mend it again for me. And what have you been doing ever since, Kitty .f* Playing cup and ball with it, God forgive me for saying so, as cruelly as a cat with a mouse. Good God, woman, it 's fiesh and blood you've got here — this is a man, Kitty — and, by the Lord, he 's endured more than human nature can ! I am at the end of my tether." " Pray, sir," said Kitty, " not so loud ! I have a delicate tympanum," She raised her hands to her ears. " I am willing to take you at your word. You 're a man, if you please; though, really, with so much braying, and these complaints about your tether, one should have been inclined to think " [244] iTHE BLACK LACE M A S K t^ >w; " O Kitty ! " said he. Her ears were not so much covered up but that she could hear very well. Her faithful lover's sudden inconvenient outbreak of passion, his tragic tone of reproach, were just the last drops in Mistress Kitty's cup of exasperation. She rose from her seat and flounced into the centre of the room. " I vow," she cried, " you are perfectly in- supportable to-day! Am I not to have a minute's rest from this eternal persecution ? La ! when I saw those creatures depart this morninor I thou2:ht I 'd be free of billing^ and cooing for the rest of my stay." "And I," said O'Hara, with the same un- wonted earnestness and agitation which were so provoking to Mistress Bellairs, " when I saw the look on the faces of those two, as they drove off together, man and wife ; when I saw the light in that fellow Stafford's eye, as he set the nose of his nag for Bath ; aye, Kitty, when I saw that poor lad, Jernigan, go forth, solitary, if you will, but boy as he was, possessing himself and his dignity, and felt my own self left behind, a mere wretched hanger-on — your dog, to be flung a bone to, patted on the head, or kicked out of the way — the wretched bird at the end of a string " [245] IgnNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS " Mercy ! " interrupted the lady, with an acid titter, " quite a menagerie, in fact, to want to call itself a man!" O'Hara fell silent and measured her with a brooding eye. " Well, sir ? " she snapped, when the pause became oppressive. " Well," answered he, " let us have an end of it, my dear." " Oh, by all means," quoth she, all perver- sity : "'tis what I've been longing for this weary hour ! " " It comes to this," he said. He drew close to her and took one of her unwilling little hands in his. This new dominating manner was as unexpected as this new tone. Actually — yes, there could be no doubt of it — he was speaking in hardness, not to say in harshness: " You must take me or leave me. It must be all or nothing ! " "Oh, indeed!" she said, again trying to titter. " A pistol to my forehead, sir.^ Your money or your life! Or rather — " taking herself up with an acute crow of anger, " 't is your money and your life 1 That 's what it amounts to. And what's the dread- ful alternative ? " [246] THE BLACK LACE MASK He dropped her hand. Again there was silence; she did not allow it to stretch out very long. " What are you waiting for } " said she ; " what keeps you ? " " Looking my last on you," said he. She laughed with all her dimples and all her cruel little white teeth, with all the mockery of her brown, pansy eyes. What absurd comedy was this.? How likely, in- deed, that Denis should voluntarily place a span between himself and his beatific vision ! But Mr. O'Hara made a grand bow and turned towards the door. " Pray, sir," cried Kitty after him, " will Lord Kilcroney's generous blood enable you to depart from 'the Bear' without causing Master Lawrence too many tears? That empty pocket you are so unselfishly desirous to share with me might " Denis wheeled upon her; and, at sight of his face, she was positively afraid to say another word. He had grown white to the lips, and his eyes showed queer and dark. She had seen him wear that look once before when she had hurt him to the marrow. A second she hesitated — but again quickly [247 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS drew back. After all, nothing was ever likely to make any permanent difference to that devotion ; and it was so pleasant to her upon its present footing that she had no desire to see it altered. But then to her amazement the door closed between them. " Bah ! What fanfaronade ! " quoth she, and went back to the window-seat. " Master Lawrence," said Mr. O'Hara, "kindly order the saddle on Blue Devil. I am for the road." Master Lawrence stared stupidly from O'Hara's unwontedly grave countenance to the valise which Boots was just depositing on a bench. " For the road ? " he repeated. " But . . . Mistress Bcllairs ? " " I ride alone." " Alone ! " This was stransfe. O " I 'm leaving the rest of my luggage in your charge for the nonce. And I'm in a hurry, landlord. My bill." Mr. O'Hara calling for his bill ! This was strangest of all. So unnatural indeed, that the host began to disclaim: Surely there was no hurry for that ! [248] P^THE BLACK LACE MASKM " Every hurry, friend." And there was something so decided in Mr. O'Hara's tone, so dignified in his air, that Master Law- rence, without venturing upon another word, hastened to give the order to one of liis daughters, whose fingers were as clever at totting up an elegant reckoning as they were in drawing sweet sounds from the spinet. He presently laid the document before his guest, as that gentleman sat astride a chair, moodily fixing the great fire in the hall. The total made so goodly a show to his pro- prietary eye that Master Lawrence antici- pated, with some flurry of mind, the usual end of a practical joke. Mr. O'Hara, how- ever, after a startled glance and a rapid mental calculation, produced his purse with the same abnormal dignity and gloom, and counted out a tale which left him but two guineas to rub against each other. Touched in a landlord's tenderest feelings, moved to pity over his erstwhile jovial client's unwonted melancholy, and also not without that sensation of discomfort which an un- wholesomely virtuous act awakes in its object. Master Lawrence exclaimed : " I am sorry, Mr. O'Hara, sir, to see you in such low spirits ! " [ ^49 ] j^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ O'Hara's only answer was a lugubrious sigh. " Why then," said the landlord, " here comes the stirrup-cup; it has been mixed by Mrs. Lawrence." " Drink it yourself, to our next meeting, our next merry meeting, ha, ha !" cried Denis. His laugh echoed cavernously as he dashed out of the hall. ••■• ••• The little angry human bird, that was Mistress Kitty, perched on the window-seat, swelling with displeasure against an un- appreciative world, beheld, with an inner sinking of the heart and a recrudescence of outer disdain, Mr. O'Hara's horse led forth beneath her windows. " 'Pon honour, he believes that he can frighten me!" thought she, and vowed to blow him the most indifferent farewell kiss when, reckoning upon his recall, he should presently look up at her window. Mr. O'Hara's valise was strapped to the saddle. Kitty flattered herself she laughed, and was quite unaware that her pretty lips were quivering downwards over a sob. Out came Denis, booted to the knee, coated to the ears, his hat pulled down over [250] ^THE BLACK LACE MASK^ his brow — a gloomy figure in the gloomy weather. Up on the impatient horse he sprang; he gathered his reins; Blue Devil struck out his heels; the ostlers fell back. Bare-headed into the drizzle now ran Master Lawrence himself, bowing to the earth — so bowed he only to the guests who had settled their shot. Denis O'Hara and a paid bill ! And Mistress Kitty had told herself that without her aid the spendthrift youth could never escape from the clutches of " the Bear! " She held her breath and bit her lip as she bent eagerly forward. Surely he would look up, surely she would yet catch his eye ! But Denis seemed to be unaware of her window. Reining in the impetuous Blue Devil with one hand, he held aloft with the finger and thumb of the other a couple of shining guineas. With no more palpitating anxiety than her- self did the two ostlers gaze upon them. Then with a laugh that rang up to her, and a sort of diabolic recklessness, Mr. O'Hara sent first one coin then the other spinning high in the air to fall between the two stable-boys. . . . And Kitty knew they were his last pieces. Another moment, at a high splashing trot, he was gone. Kitty burst into tears. INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS The rain had ceased ; but from half- melted snow and soaking hedgerow rose steaming swathes of white mist, behind which the December sun was sinking in sullen red. Leafless shapes of trees like distorted arms upreared themselves, black here and there against this menacing sky, above the shroud- ing vapours. No sound there was save the drip, drip from the streaming bough or the sudden gurgling collapse of ice across the melting rut. A sodden world, a world enveloped in melancholy, meet prospect for a man to look upon who had settled with himself to have done with life ; to have done with it w^ith a vengeance on his neighbour and a challenge to the devil. Denis O'Hara sat upon his horse in the middle of the cross-roads at Kennet Hill ; the ground beneath him rose to a gentle eminence and on every side the sad land fell away, veiled as into some dream of limbo. A little in rear on the right, at the topmost point of the downs and visible from afar — warning much needed, little heeded — rose, against the lurid afterglow of the sky, the gibbet of Alingdown, as usual supplied with a tolerably recent burden, tarred and [252 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK chained. The horseman disdainfully kept his back to it. His coat was turned inside out and showed an evil-looking yellow cloth surface, unlike, indeed, to the garment of a gentleman of such gay habit. Under his hat, the cock of which had been altered, a stolen lace veil, folded into treble thickness and pierced with two jagged holes, formed an impromptu mask. It was throuorh this ominous addition to his toilet that Mr. O'Hara looked out upon the coming night; and at every breath he inhaled, with acrid self-torture, violet memo- ries of Kitty's scented presence. And, as he waited, brooding upon fate, there rose in the dull stillness the piercing sweet note of a little insistent robin, which seemed to mingle with the flower hauntings and set a final seal, with their unconscious cruelty, their tales of past spring joy, upon the lover's bitterness of heart. From the far distance presently came an intermittent rumble, hardly perceptible to the ear. Now the rumble, growing continuous, waxed louder, and the sounds separated into distinctiveness — the clapper of hoofs in the slush, the roll of wheels on an indifferently metalled road, punctuated anon by crack of [ ^53 1 I§l INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSM whip, and anon by creak of harness, anon again by snorting breath of distressed horse- flesh. Mr. O'Hara's attention was aroused. He smiled grimly; drew Blue Devil, whose vain- glorious spirit seemed now to have given place to a most intelligent docility, into the shelter of the hedge ; pulled out his pistol and examined it in the half lis^ht. Some- thing of the old gleam had leaped into his eye — a moment of reckless audacity could not but hold zest. It was a heavy chaise. Its lanterns, already lit, bobbed yellow from afar. At the foot of the hill the horses fell to walking pace: a fat pair, too well nurtured and too little exercised to take kindly to journeying work. O'Hara could hear them labour as they advanced, steam encircled. When the sIuq:- gish roadsters halted at the top of the hill and, snorting, craned their necks, this seemed to the diletta7ite highwayman the correct dramatic cue for action; the right moment to send Blue Devil leaping out of ambush and, wrenching him back on his haunches within a yard of the box, to pop out his barker and cry: "Halt!" in the best ap- [ ^-54 ] ilTHE BLACK LACE MASKi^ proved style of "the High Toby." Although — the cattle being already at a standstill — the adjuration was purely symbolical. The fat servant in black livery who sat beside the fat coachman gave a lamentable howl and hoisted up the blunderbuss he held between his knees. O'Hara wheeled Blue Devil upon his hind legs, described a semi-circle round the chaise to repeat the performance for the benefit of the coachman. Here the blunderbuss went off skywards; and, responding to the intention, Mr. O'Hara (mercifully wide of the human mark) fired his first pistol and extinguished the off lamp. But if the shot had landed in his well- cushioned ribs, he of the blunderbuss could hardly have raised a finer shriek ; though the agility with which he flung himself off the box and started running back in the direction of London, spoke volumes for his soundness of wind and limb. The coachman sat as if paralysed, and the fat horses turned their heads to stare in mild surprise. Between his knees O'Hara felt every fibre of Blue Devil dance with excitement and his own heart leaped in wild exhilaration. His [ "SS ] ^3?INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ only regret was that things should seem to come off so tamely. And this was intensi- fied when the carriage window was put down and a voice inquired the meaning of the dis- turbance in tones which, although ringing in manly sonority, expressed, like the horses, nothing more than a gently scandalised amazement. O'Hara dismounted, slung the reins over his arm, wrenched the remaining lamp from its socket and held it out to examine his cap- ture. Then he broke into a loud laugh. — By the Powers ... no less a person than his right reverend lordship, the Bishop of Bath and Wells! Now this celebrated divine belonQ:ed dis- tmctly to the Church Militant and had, as we know, actually a reputation for muscular as well as spiritual power. Mr. O'Hara put the lantern between his feet, not only for the better enjoyment of the humorous situ- ation, but to have some freedom of action in case further persuasion should be required. But the high Roman nose and the protu- berant eye of Dr. Thurlow shone in the flickering yellow light, it seemed, without emotion of any kind. Mr. O'Hara raised his hat with a flourish. [256] THE BLACK LACE MASK " Little thought I," he cried, speaking with as clipping an accent as he could assume, "that it was your lordship's coach I was calling halt to. But I do not regret it. I would carry out my professional duties as peacefully as you would yours, my lord, did circumstances always permit it. It is never my fault if there is strife upon the road! But the laity, as you know, is often so unreason- able. To the point : a shepherd of souls, sir, such as you, holds the treasures of the Church but in trust for the needy. I will relieve your lordship of any anxiety as to the proper be- stowal of his funds for a while to come." He made every effort as he spoke to keep his speech within the limits of the finest English sarcasm, but was conscious of the escape here and there of a rich Milesian intonation. " Truly, my man," said the Bishop, who had quietly waited for the end of this dis- course, " you seem to have a specious tongue — but I think you are here advancing a proposition which is at least open to discussion." " Oh," cried O'Hara, with a giggle at his own wit, " I make no statement that I cannot support by irresistible argument." 17 [ 257 ] |§^ INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ He had left his second pistol undisturbed in the holster. But, so saying, he presented the empty one in so pointed a manner that the Bishop started back, and Blue Devil, peering over O'Hara's shoulder, gave a nerv- ous snort. " Why," came the Bishop's voice from within the coach, " my friend, almost thou persuadest me! But I could, I fancy, better satisfy you of my conversion to your thesis, were you to lay aside for the moment that overpowering display of logic which tends to confuse the wits of the ordinary thinker, and to let us discuss the matter on even ground." O'Hara laughed afresh. He appreciated the readiness with which Dr. Thurlow had kept up the jesting treatment of the situa- tion ; but at the same time was not without an airy contempt for his want of fight. " Faith, and it 's easy for a clergyman to have a character ! " he thought, as he dropped the nose of his useless weapon from its guard over the coach window. The Bishop's countenance appeared once more in the aperture. He raised in the left hand a large velvet purse which gave out a charming clink. [ ^58 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK! " Remember, sir," he cried protestingly, " that this is robbing the widow and the orphan." " Nay, I 'm near an orphan myself," cried Lord Kilcroney's heir cheerily. "Approach, then," said the Bishop, in so silky a voice that O'Hara might well have paused before obeying. But the reckless Irishman rushed upon his fate with the blindness of those devoted to doom. He never quite knew how it happened, and it was all over ere he had time to think. No sooner had he drawn within reach of the window than he found his wrist seized and turned in a grip so paralysing that the pistol fell from his fingers. A contest ensued, mighty enough to satisfy even his wild blood. The Bishop was in the coach, and if he had undeniable advantage in the first grip, O'Hara's legs were the stronger. But Blue Devil, whether disgusted at the state of affairs or seized with panic, turned the scale to his master's detriment. His pulls upon the rein became so fren- zied that, in a momentary relaxation of Dr. Thurlow's hold, Mr. O'Hara was thrown flat [ 259] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSi on his back in the snow. Yet another second, and he found himself in the pre- dicament of being nailed in that helpless posture with the Bishop's weighty knee upon his chest, and with the further persuasion of a cold rim of steel upon his forehead. In the struggle the second carriage lamp had been extinguished. The murk of night was all around them. And poor Denis, hearing the clack of Blue Devil's rapidly retreating heels growing ever fainter in the distance, realised that he was indeed aban- doned. " Come down, William 1 " called the Bishop to his coachman. "Come down, and help me to secure the ruffian." The Bishop had been very angry all the time, as Denis dreamily realised upon this sudden outburst, for it was as if pent-up thunder broke over his head. " 1 'm afraid to leave the horses, my lord," came the quavering answer. "And, — " " Poltroon ! " rang his lordship's retort, with such fulminating heat that . O'Hara trembled lest it should be communicated to the pistol at his temple. Dr. Thurlow gave a snort like an angry [ 260] ^^THE BLACK LACE MASK bull, and once more devoted his attention to the capture of his thews and muscles. " Up with you, Master Highwayman ! " he ordered, relaxing the pressure of the well- proportioned episcopal knee as he spoke, but maintaining the unpleasant proximity of the pistol mouth, "and into the coach with you ! " Now, as O'Hara rose to his feet, stiff from his fall and the penetrating damp, he felt too firmly convinced of the Bishop's phenomenal muscularity to dream of attempting a fresh tussle with him. But Dr. Thurlow was a man of precaution. A new grip of iron fell upon the amateur highwayman's left elbow from behind ere he had quite recovered his balance, and the disconcerting barrel rim was thrust afresh against his ear in the dark with a crack that made his head ring. " In default of the rope you deserve, sir," said the Bishop, " I must even continue to use the moral 'suasion." Upon this irony, O'Hara in a trice found himself inside the chaise, the door clapped to. "Drive on, WilHam ! " And, as William, nothing loath this time, whipped up the mild horses, the Bishop's bulk was let down upon the cushions in front of his prisoner. [i6i] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ " I should like to see your face, friend ; but, since you have disposed of both my lamps," quoth he, " I must even wait till we reach Devizes." • ••••• *• Mistress Kitty Bellairs had abandoned the elegant solitude of her parlour for the more cheerful bustling atmosphere of the inn hall. Ostensibly she was drawn thither by the sweet sounds of Miss Lawrence's spinet in the "library" beyond the bar, but really she had tripped downstairs because, hearing beneath her windows the arrival of a solitary horseman, she had thought — hoped — it mio^ht be O'Hara. Proportionate was her disappointment to recognise in the new guest the long teeth, the oblique glance and lanky figure of her pet aversion. Captain Spicer. The gallant gentleman who, no doubt, thought the inn clear by this time of all the collateral actors in a certain unpleasant ad- venture, and had come back, it seemed, for the valise he had had, in his precipitation, to leave behind him, appeared no more re- joiced at this meeting with fair Bellairs than she herself. But, after an involuntary start of dismay, he controlled an impulse of re- [ 262 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK treat with some presence of mind and ad- vanced with smirk and flourish of hat, exclaimins: in his ultra-fashionable accents: " Is it passible ! What uncammon stroke of lack to find you still here, Madam! I had feared all the merry company had flawn. Our foolish young friend is quite recovered, I trust — from our little affair of honour." Mistress Kitty had many grudges against Captain Spicer, but his culminating offence was in not being Mr. O'Hara to-night. " I hardly think you would be allowed to go loose, sir," said she over her shoulder, "if Mr. Jernigan had not recovered." From the discreet smile on Master Law- rence's countenance to the titter of the serving maid behind the bar and the sup- pressed guffaw of the ostler at the door, this remark of the lady was so much appreciated as to raise a yet greener tinge upon the Captain's already bilious countenance. No favourite at " the Bear " was the mili- tary gentleman. He was hesitating between fear and malevolence ; and Mistress Kitty, with a shrug, had turned upon her heel to seek retirement once more, when a very un- wontedly medley of sounds directed every- one's attention to the street. The rumbling [263] ^^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS of a coach, the clatter of horses' hoofs at a broken gallop, and loud shouts of "Mur- der!" "Thieves!" and "Fire!" The Bishop's coachman had no sooner found himself within the safe circle of the town than his overcharged feelings escaped control. Dr. Thurlow's objurgations pro- ducing no result, that prelate, to his extreme annoyance, found himself the centre of a rapidly increasing crowd as the chaise drew up before the inn door. Therefore, to escape from the situation, he indomitably seized his highwayman once more by wrist and elbow and propelled him before him into the lobby of " the Bear " Inn. This move was executed with such master- fulness and rapidity that the door had closed before the spectators realised how they had been defrauded — before O'Hara could col- lect sufficient energy of mind or body to offer resistance. Kitty's velvet eyes grew ever wider and rounder as they gazed upon the scene. But when they fell upon the lace-masked figure in its sinister yellow coat, mud-plastered, a sudden gleam of terror awoke in their pansy depths. It w-as fortunate, perhaps, that it should be considered almost an indecency [ ^-64 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK for a lady of quality to appear before the world unrouged, otherwise her pretty cheeks might have challenged attention. The Bishop removed one mighty hand from his prisoner's collar and was about to tear away the black face-cover, when O'Hara turned his head and whispered in the epis- copal ear: " For God's sake, as you 're a Christian, as you 're a gentleman, as you 're a man, my lord, do not let the lady see my face." The Bishop checked his movement, and looked from the speaker to Mistress Bellairs. Kitty's eye was still fixed upon the masked countenance in intense endeavour to pene- trate the disguise. Of course, it was the most absurd thino- in the world. Other people had red hair, and there was nothing to prevent a highwayman having long taper hands, which would show white through their s:rime if he were fair of skin I Into the Bishop's hesitation O'Hara whispered again : " Sure, it was an empty pistol I held at your lordship's head ! " Then a smile distended Doctor Thurlow's well-chiselled lips. " Upon that score we are quits, friend," [265] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS|i he whispered back, " for it was this same empty argument you found so convincing yourself." Then, as the rigid stillness that came over the highwayman's figure betrayed how the shot told, the captor went on, still in his prisoner's ear : " It strikes me you are green at your trade, sir; why, the barrel was still smoking when you held it in at the win- dow ! " O'Hara remained speechless, and the Bishop, now in high good humour with himself, drew the weapon from the deep pocket of his coat, and flung it on the bar. "Yes, Master Lawrence," cried he in a loud voice, " my coach has been stopped, as you see. But, as you see also, the setter of the snare has fallen into his own trap. Nay, I have not yet had time to ascertain the identity of the ruffian. But that ceremony we will postpone till a fitter moment. Ladies," said the Bishop, with a small smile, " must be spared uncomely sights. Keep an eye to the gentleman, you two men. Ah! 'Mistress Bellairs, I believe." He ad- vanced with a very fine grace. "Or. Thurlow," said the lady faintly, then rallied, fluttered her plumes and smiled. [ 266 ] b'THE BLACK LACE MASK O'Hara, drawing a deep breath of relief, realised that he had become the centre of an awe-struck circle. Little as he now cared in his despair who recognised him, so long as Kitty did not, he was far from surmising that there was not one of the inn household that had not already fathomed his secret. A general, silent consternation had fallen upon the gathered establishment. Boots had recognised his legs, Master Lawrence his pistol. The chambermaid was acquainted with the yellow lining of a coat she had herself mended, and, where it was flung open at the neck, she could actually mark the empty space once adorned by that pair of silver buttons which (with a smiling word of greater value) he had presented to her for her pains. Lydia, hanging over the banis- ters, had unerringly discerned the pattern of a mysteriously lost piece of her mistress's black Spanish lace. The very ostlers could have sworn to the clean cut of his knees. All knew, but none spoke. During his ten days' stay he had somehow, in various ways, found a soft corner in everybody's heart; there was a general breath of relief as the Bishop granted reprieve. With a curious unanimity of silence they would [267] j^ INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS have scorned to betray him even to each other. " I can scarcely credit it," cried Mistress Bellairs with a nervous laugh, " that your lordship should actually have been stopped on the road like the common laity." " The gentleman yonder," answered Dr. Thurlow, with a noticeable emphasis on the noun, " endeavoured to persuade me that he had as good a right to my purse as I myself ; but I fancy " — and the Bishop licrhtlv ran either hand over a muscular arm — "that I had somewhat the better of the argument all round." " Oh, we are aware, my lord," retorted Kitty, with her prettiest smile, " that it does not do for a man to pit himself against you, cither morally or physically." Again the Bishop smiled. Facts were indubitable, and he certainly had an un- wonted record for a divine. " I vow," proceeded the lady coquettishly, " 't is most prodigious strange that I should be loitering in the public hall thus! But, indeed, 'tis your lordship must bear the blame I have not the heart of a mouse myself, but I never could resist a tale of valour." [ ^-68 ] ^THE BLACK LACE M A S K ^ She clasped her hands and cast upon him a glance of velvet softness from between half- closed lids. Her cheeks were burning with a lovelier scarlet than hare's-foot had ever spread. His lordship (not an unsusceptible man) was distinctly stimulated. She saw the impression produced — Incom- parable Bellairs ! — and hastened to follow up the advantage. It was so imperative to draw the Bishop away, if anything was to be done for that rufKian of a highwayman, whose hair shone red through his damp powder, whose hands were long and white like a gentleman's. " My supper is about to be served. As I imagine you have not yet ordered yours, may I not have the honour of your lordship's company } " " Dear madam," responded the Bishop, with elegant readiness, " but the time to see to my prisoner " With what unction did the worthy divine roll the words upon his tongue. " Fie ! " she interrupted, " do you put the highwayman before the lady } " " Nay, madam, but duty before pleasure ! " " Nevertheless," answered Kitty pat, " the creature can't spoil by keeping, and my partridges will." [269] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^^ The Bishop laughed gently. A little plump roast partridge in company with a little ])lump lady of virtue, wit and quality — agreeable perspective ! " Why, then " said he. " Your lordship's prisoner," here inter- vened the landlord, " will be as safe in my loft as in the jug itself, and he can be charged in the morning." " I shall hold you warranty, Mr. Lawrence," said the prelate with warning sternness. IVLastcr Lawrence rubbed his hands with a superior smile. " Wife ! " called he into the bar, " conduct his lordship to his apartment." The Bishop moved majestically away in the wake of his buxom hostess. But yet Kitty lingered. Captain Spicer, a forgotten personality in the chimney corner, itching for the revelation of that identity which even he suspected, could now no longer put off the moment of gratified malice. He tiptoed his way round towards the motionless figure, and, suddenly pushing in between the guard of ostlers, extended his bony hand towards a hanging tag of the veilins: lace. Mistress Bellairs, eyes and thoughts still [270] THE BLACK LACE MASK fixed upon the torturing enigma, caught her breath witli what was ahiiost a little cry. She saw the concealing folds jerked upwards for a second, had a vision, swift as lightning, of O'Hara's pale face, and in that instant their glances met. The next the mask was pulled dow^n again into its place ; and, swift as thunder-clap follows flash, retribution de- scended upon the spy. Before he had had time to utter a word. Captain Spicer, struck full upon his grinning jaw, fell like a stone at O'Hara's feet. Dr. Thurlow, who had paused on the first landing to glance over the banisters, smiled to himself, then shrugged his shoulders in scorn. " 'T is the fate of peeping Toms," quoth he. Leaving the damaged gentleman to be carried away between two vastly unsym- pathetic post-boys, Master Lawrence plucked the prisoner by the sleeve. And as O'Hara suffered himself to be led away, in miserable submission, to an improvised lock-up, he heard Kitty cry in a tone of shrill mirth: " Don't neglect my supper, landlord," and the sound fell on his heart like a blow. Master Lawrence went up the creaking- stairs beside the still masked figure without [271 ] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS uttering a single word. But he walked heavily and shook his head from time to time as he thought to himself : " My mind misgave me when he refused the stirrup- cup ! Despite her anxiety for the condition of the partridges, it was after all Mistress Kitty who kept the Bishop waiting. She was closeted with Miss Lydia in such earnest conclave that Mistress Lawrence herself was at last fain to summon her forth. But, when the little lady emerged, it was with such sparkling eyes and happy rose-red cheeks that Dr. Thurlow forgot on the spot his rising sense of injury. Mr. O'Hara had laid aside his mask at last ; he sat on the edge of the pallet-bed — which the post-boys never found too hard for sound sleep — and reviewed the situation with the calmness of despair. Of the royal supper which Master Lawrence had sent up to him, he had scarcely tasted anything but that bottle from his favourite bin. The very delicacy with which his tastes had been studied, reminded him unpleasantly of the condemned man s statutory meal before execution. [272] THE BLACK LACE MASK The deference with which even the ex- tempore guard treated him seemed to savour of the last pity. Death and he had hob- nobbed too often for him to mind much the thought of the bony comrade's final embrace. But now that he had brought the fate upon himself, the thought of that dismal dance on air, of the chain gibbet at the cross-roads, no longer seemed to him to be in the light of a fittincr revenoe on the woman who had slighted him, or of a gallant defiance to an unappreciative world. " Well, God help me ! " said poor Denis. " It 's not that life would be so sweet — and a man can always make a fight for it, and get shot on the quiet. But I '11 not bring trouble on these good creatures here. I '11 wait till they turn the magistrate's dogs on me." A solitary tallow-candle threw more shadow than light in the long bare attic. Ostler Joe, who had been deputed to watch the captive, had tried to raise his spirits by varied accounts of all the gentle- men of the road he had personally known, by highly sympathetic details concerning their last moments, but had at last given up the task; and, after philosophically dis- i8 [ 273 ] jaiNCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS posing himself of O'Hara's disdained repast, he was snoring the snores of the just upon a sack of straw under the dormer. It must have been close upon midnight when there came a sound which, although it had in it something of a patter, something of a scratching, something also of a scurry, was yet quite distinct from the rain, the rats, and the mice. It was accompanied by the creak- ing of boards and approached steadily to halt at close proximity. Then it was resumed with fresh scratching and a sharp scrunch; an unnoticed door at the end of the loft was slowly opened before O'Hara's astonished gaze and a beckoning hand was passed through the aperture. He rubbed his eyes. No, he was not dreaming. (The snores of the ostler now became quite appalling in am- plitude.) O'Hara rose and advanced. His heavy boots and tired feet made a terrible noise — but, heavens, how that ostler slept! With that beckonins: hand before him, which became ever whiter and smaller as he ap- proached it, O'Hara pressed on the length of the garret. When he reached the door the hand laid hold of him suddenly with a nipping grasp, and he was drawn outside in the twinkling of an eye. [ 274] #THE BLACK LACE MASKil Then, to his intense, if unreasoning, dis- appointment, Mr. O'Hara recognised, by the light of a lantern placed on the floor at her feet, the sharp features of Miss Lydia. But the next instant his mercurial spirits leaped from frosty depths to summer heights. What! His little Kitty did care after all whether he walked or hung! Then was life a precious and delightful thing again — a thing to be fought for. Miss Lydia was nothing if not prompt; she left him little time for reflection. Whip- ping up her light, she nipped him once more shrevvishly by the wrist and hurried him along passages and down stairs at a rate that made his brain spin. They reached at length a dull basement room, which, by the faint lantern-shine, from its arrays of brushes, pots, and travel-stained footgear, he identified as " boots' " own dominions. Lydia set her lioht on the table with a bano^. " Off with your coat, sir," she ordered. " Why, me darling ? " "There is no time for conversation, sir; you 've managed your affairs too clever for that. Off with that coat ! It 's not the first time I 've had the dressing of you. And it's another sort of dressing I 'd give you if I had [ 275] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS my way! " She had the coat in her hands by this time, and was rolhng it up with a vindictive energy that gave point to her words. " Now I '11 trouble you for your boots, Mr. O'Hara." " My boots ! " "Your boots. And quick about them ! " She waited acidly. Then, tucking the coat under one arm, seized the desired ob- jects in both hands and staggered with them towards the door. There, to O'Hara's in- tense mystification, her burden was received by some unseen third party. There followed a rapid interchange of whispers, a suppressed guffaw, and Miss Lydia, banging the door, reappeared into the room. Mystification was replaced by stupe- faction in O'Hara's mind, as he now beheld in her hands, not the yellow-lined garment of his infamy, but a handsome, sober roquclaiire which had been packed away in the box left under Mr. Lawrence's charw when he had started on his ill-fated expedition. " You '11 find, I fancy, a pair of boots of your own in that row," said the damsel briefly, " and you 'd look less of a zany if you 'd put them on instead of standing there in your stocking feet." [ ^-76 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK And, as nevertheless he still stood and stared, she herself (dropping apostrophes, sharp as hail, upon fools who could not help themselves and idiots who deserved to be left to their fates) ran to the indicated spot, picked out a pair of ancient top-boots (once, indeed, Mr. O'Hara's) and flung them towards him. In a minute more her will was ac- complished. And there was something so restoring to his confidence and self-esteem, in standing again in the garb of a respected individual, that Denis gave a subdued w^ioop, made a pirouette, and caught Lydia by the waist. The next instant a resounding slap de- scended upon his cheek. The situation w^as delightfully familiar. It really seemed as if the miserable Denis, sitting in the garret and looking forward to the gallows, must have been the mere creation of a nightmare. But Miss Lydia's irate cry promptly dispelled the pleasing fancy- " I '11 have you know, sir, I keep my lips for honest men ! And if it were n't for my mistress " Up went the barometer once more. If it were not for her mistress ! He would have been off into a dream. [277 ] fgi INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ There is a stage of lover's love that seems to be all dreamland. But Lydia was a young person calculated to keep a man's wits awake. She could pinch and she could shake as shrewdly as a north-east wind. " Now mark you, sir," cried she, " there 's rope still a'dangling over your head. And if you don't want to dance on nothing, come next assizes, you '11 be pleased to pay atten- tion to what I 'm saying." " Sure, I 'm listening with all my ears and eyes, darling! " " Your horse has come back, sir. Some beasts has a deal more sense than men. Now when a horse comes back to stable alone it's like enough his rider 's thrown. And unless the rider 's broke his skull (which is too good for some people which is born for other ends), if that rider is n't the greatest gaby between this and Land's End, it's like he'll follow his horse's example and walk back to the nearest shelter." Here she took him by the elbow and con- ducting him to a flight of steps at the further end of the room informed him that they led down into the cellar, where he would find a door giving upon a back street. "And, if then," added she, "you can't find [ ^^78 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK help for yourself, you '11 be past anybody ses. He could hardly keep himself from danc- ing, whistling, whooping in his ever increas- ing exhilaration. To be free, to have a fresh adventure, delicious in audacity and humour, before him ; to be risking his life still, and to know that Kitty cared. Could even an Irish- man invent a better turn of fate ? He snatched a kiss, and, as Lydia whisked away, she dropped him a last superfluous piece of advice, which showed that, after all, even she was rescuing the good-for-nought con amove: " If you could find a good deep puddle, I should advise you to fall down in it, Mr. O'Hara." " Scald me," cried the ostler, with intense astonishment on his grinning face. " 'T is never you, sir! Master Lawrence, Master — House " raising a mighty bellow, then turning again to O'Hara — "Blue Devil's come home, sir. We was afraid some acci- dent . . . ! " The house door was flung wide open, and out popped Master Lawrence's good grey head. [ 279] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRSS "Tis Mr. O'Hara," bellowed the ostler, in desperate excitement. Mr. O'Hara was seized and dragged into the hall by both hands. Before he had time even to begin to narrate the carefully pre- pared account of his mishap in the dark he was borne down by Master Lawrence's effusive flood of greeting. " Forgive me, sir, that I should so presume, but I cannot refrain from shaking you by the hand ! We have been in a prodigious state of anxiety about you, sir. Wife — " in sten- torian shouts — "wife, here is Mr. O'Hara! safe and sound. The women, sir, have been crying their eyes out. When Blue Devil came home riderless, says Mistress Law- rence: 'He's dead, he's gone! I always said,' says she, ' he 's too good to live ! ' We dared not tell the lady," said the excellent man, sinking his voice and still pumping O'Hara's hand up and down. " All daylong she kept asking if Mr. O'Hara 's not back yet. And Mistress Lawrence says: 'Let her have the partridges first.' Ah, here comes Mistress Lawrence herself — Wife," cried the landlord boisterously, " Mr. O'Hara's been telling me all about it. He was thrown in Coombc Common. That horse of Lord [ ^'80 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK Mandeville's, as Mr. O'Hara says, was ever a tricky beast. And that there bit of road by Coombe Hollow, wife, is a nasty one, as Mr. O'Hara truly says. He's had a fall on his back, as you see. Mistress Lawrence. But there, as he says, all 's well that ends well ! " " Dear, dear," said Mistress Lawrence, laughing and crying together. "This has been a night of adventure ! " " Aye, aye," cried the landlord with a fixed eye and a very loud laugh. " His lordship the Bishop (whom you know we expected, sir), he was stopped, sir, on the road, actually stopped ! But, aha ! we 've got the ruffian upstairs safe enough ! " "Aha-ha!" echoed Mr. O'Hara with a similarly fixed eye. " Is that Mr. O'Hara } " cried a shrill pipe, upon the stair. And Miss Lydia, all lace apron and silk flounces, rushed into the hall. " Do not tell me," she cried, " it is Mr. O'Hara! Oh! is he hurt? Has he broken his head or his leg? Oh! what I have gone through this night, seeing him in my mind, lying in his gore, while my poor, unconscious mistress ate partridge with the Bishop!" [281] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS The three turned in speechless admiration to gaze upon the Abigail, who, clasping her hands, let off a half dozen hysterical small shrieks, which formed the culminating point of her own satisfaction. Then she protested, in pathetic accents, that she could not delay an instant before imparting to her mistress the exciting news of the night's anxiety and its happy end ; and was up the stairs again in a twinkle. Seldom had that gifted damsel had oppor- tunities that afforded her finer scope. En- joying herself to the ends of her finger tips, she staggered into the parlour, where Mistress Bellairs and her distinguished guest had arrived at the agreeable stage of post-pran- dial sympathy, when chairs are drawn a little closer to each other, the last o;lass of wine is sipj)ed, a nut nibbled to the accompaniment of mutually appreciated wit and unctuous little laughs. Both looked up with amaze- ment upon Lydia's tempestuous entrance. At least Kitty's large and lovely gaze ex- pressed as intense a surprise as the Bishop's full and haughty eye. "Oh!" cried the handmaid, advancinsr with a series of jerks and still pressing that region of her trim bodice which she believed [ 282 ] ^THE BLACK LACE MASK^ to be the residence of her virginal heart, "O ma'am! can I speak at last, and is the anguish of this night of terror over? Mr. O'Hara 's not dead, ma'am " "What is this?" cried Kitty, rising straight up from her chair, both her little hands in the air — "what does she say? Mr. O'Hara dead?" "Heavens," cried Lydia, "my mistress is swooning ! " and made a dash in time to catch the fair form in her arms. Kitty turned her head so that her face was hidden upon her woman's neck and became alarm- ingly rigid all over. Really, in these days of rouge it was very difficult for a lady of quality to manage her little affairs of the affections with verisimilitude. " La, your lordship, 't is the only man my poor mistress has ever cared for! " exclaimed Miss Lydia. " What a zany am I to have gone and frightened her!" The Bishop had risen to his feet upon a first impulse of anxious concern. But here he suddenly sat down again and remarked drily : " But if the gentleman is not hurt " " Now," cried Lydia, " and I never thought [283] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS of that ! Will your lordship support my lady — for an instant. And I will fetch Mr. O'Hara." No gentleman, be he forty times a bishop, could refuse the tender task. Before he had even time to consider, Dr. Thurlow found the lovely burden in his embrace. Kitty's rigidity relaxed. She sighed faintly and opened her long lashes, very close to his face. What a round frail thing it was ! What a wisp of fragrant lace and soft silken stuff, and withal what a delicate solidity ! "Oh, dear!" said Kitty. "Did they say Mr. O'Hara was dead ? " Her lips trembled, and tears, genuine tears, welled up to those fabulous lashes. Dr. Thurlow deposited her in a chair, a little hastily in spite of his gentleness ; great steps were approaching with headlong rapid- ity in the passage without. He had just time to say with distinct emphasis : " Mr. O'Hara is perfectly safe, my dear madam," when the latter gen- tleman burst into the room. Kitty sprang to her feet and llcw like a bird into his arms. If her vivacity was sorncwhat singu- lar in one just out of a swoon, it was "in- [ 284 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK stinct, at all events, with much sincerity of emotion. Dr. Thurlow contemplated the pair a minute or two with no unbenevolent eye ; then he cleared his throat, and Denis and his Kitty, falling apart, turned flushed and anxious faces upon him. " Madam," said the divine, " I rejoice that your anxiety should have so fai^ourable a termination — Mr. O'Hara, we have met before." He paused a second; and, as the usually glib Irishman seemed unready with a response, the prelate proceeded with a twinkle in his eye. " I will not tax your memory at this auspicious moment. If I remember right, it was ... in Bath." He paused again to bend over Kitty's hand. " I thank you, dear Mistress Bellairs, for a most entertaining evening. And pleas- ure having superseded business, the sterner call now awaits me. I have yet to examine my prisoner." If Lydia ever deserved well of her em- ployer, it was at this crucial moment. " I fear your lordship will get little out of him," she intervened pertly. " They tell me downstairs that the wretch's jaw must be [285] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ either dislocated or broken, for he cannot articulate a single word." " Indeed," said his lordship. And his red eyebrows travelled a perceptible inch higher, " O Bishop, Bishop," cried Kitty in a high, excited voice, menacing him with her finger, " your hand is more mighty even than you wot of ! " The Bishop's glance rested upon her once again with singular expression. Then, with his hand on the door-handle, he turned once more to the Irishman. " Mr. O'Hara must really be quite puz- zled," quoth he, urbanely. " Oh," cried the latter, with a return of his old audacious spirit, " they were telling me something about it in the hall. I hope your lordship will not be hard on the poor devil ! " " I trust that I shall never be hard on anybody," said the divine enigmatically. And then he added with a note of quizzical meanincr : O " You must have had a very bad fall, Mr. O'Hara, to put you into that condition " And as O'Hara, in fresh perturbation, glanced down at his mud-plastered gar- [286] THE BLACK LACE MASK ments, the Bishop made his co7ige and was gone. The post-boy was still aggressively snoring when Master Lawrence conducted his episco- pal guest into the attic chamber. And there, indeed, lay the prisoner, with the identical lace mask gracefully disposed across his ban- daged countenance, wrapped in the identical turned coat. True, the figure within the yellow folds seemed to have shrunk most remarkably since supper-time, and the high- wayman was now groaning in a manner very unlike the stoic calm with which he had pre- viously submitted to the inevitable. Nay, it would even seem as if, at sight of the Bishop, the wretched creature had something^ of im- portance to communicate, for he made efforts to rise upon the pallet, gesticulating and producing strenuous but incoherent sounds. The Bishop remained regarding him in silence for so lengthy a period that Master Lawrence might have been observed to change colour more than once, while he stammered something incoherent about obtaining a warrant the first thing in the mornmg. [287] ^INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS^ But, Dr. Thurlovv turning his full eye upon him, the words instantly died upon the land- lord's lips, and the Bishop smiled in a most disconcerting manner. " Nay," said his lordship then, " send rather for the surgeon. The misguided creature is punished enough and I trust it will be a lesson to him. — Let it be a lesson to you, young man," said he sternly. The ungrateful highwayman howled more dismally than ever as the magnanimous words fell upon his ears. " The darling Bishop ! " cried Kitty when Miss Lydia rushed in with the last astound- ing news. "I vow and declare that I would marry him to-morrow without the least hesitation if " "If what, my jewel.?" said O'Hara. He was holding her very comfortably by the waist. And only a second before, with a countenance of seraphic bliss, amounting almost to imbecility, he had volunteered the statement that he 'd not complain if they did hang him "after that." "If what, pulse of my soul ? " " If I did not feel it my duty to sacrifice my life and look after a perfect gaby who is [ 288 ] THE BLACK LACE MASK^ incapable of taking care of himself," cried the future Lady Kilcroney sharply ; and rapped him over the knuckles with her fan. But she dimpled adorably as she spoke — Incomparable Bellairs! 19 [289] INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS. By Agnes ^ Egerton Castle. Arranged and printed for Frederick A. Stokes Company at The University Press^ Cambridge, U. S. A., in November, MDCCCCIII Comments on ''The Star Dreamer' THE STAR DREAMER "The Star Dreamer" holds us in a tension and leaves us enthralled. — Philadelphia Book News. " The Star Dreamer " is a delightful example of the sunny and winsome books, full of the joy of living, like its authors' "Young April." It has the inde- scribable buoyancy of youth in it. — Chicago Record- Herald. Here is a novel that can- not be too heartily recom- mended. It stands alone, in an atmosphere of its own, in a garden where flower romance and poetry and the old tale of human love, in a light that is mel- low and golden. — New York Mail and Express. "The Star Dreamer" is a model of what a ro- mance should be. Undoubtedly the best book yet written by these authors. — The Athenaum (London). To those who love a romantic story, who delight to lose themselves for the moment in the magic of such a dream world as that of " Young April," this new novel, "The Star Dreamer," will afford unalloyed pleasure. — Milwaukee Free-Press. BY AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE Frederick A. Stokes Cotiipatiy, Publishers Comments on " The Bath Comedy^ Tlje Bath Comedy It is as blithe as a May day when the heart is young. ... — Philadelphia Telegraph. The fantasy is of the daintiest, the humor is of the sunniest, ... A beau- tiful book, beautifully writ- ten. — New I'ork T'ribune. A right merry tale. . . . The narrative is breathless in its interest, and yet so witty and polished that pe- rusal becomes a double pleasure. — Detroit Free- Press. yfgnes &Egerton Castle ^S incident followS upon incident, each touched with the very spirit of comedy, the delight of the reader grows apace, and he feels that he would gladly remain in such company for an indefi- nite period. — Chicago Dial. A sparkling, dancing story . . . like one of Wat- teau's pictures — gay, artificial, yet delightful. — Buf- falo Express. The author of " The School for Scandal" might have written it and his reputation not have suffered seriously thereby. — Chicago Times- Herald, Frederick A. Stokes Company, Publishers 5QUJHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIUTy AA 000 365 543 8 iililii !i(ii(ll1inllli!iHiii!