Complete works of a e w.., p.291
Complete Works of a E W Mason, page 291
The two men walked through by-streets until they came to Piccadilly. The Parson was nerving himself for the meeting, but would not allow that he was in the least degree afraid. ‘A trivial woman would think of nothing but her humiliation and her slight, but Rose is, as you say, of an uncommon spirit, Nick,’ he argued.
Nick, however, preserved a majestic silence, which daunted the Parson, who desired arguments to confute. They were by this time come into Bond Street, and Mr. Kelly, who must be talking, declared with a great fervour, ‘There are no limits to a woman’s leniencies. Black errors she will pardon; charity is her father and her mother; she has an infinity of forgiveness, wherefore with truth we place her among the angels.’ Upon that text he preached most eloquently all the way up Bond Street, past the New Building, until he came to the corner of Frith Street in Soho. In Frith Street, all at once the Parson’s assurance was shown to be counterfeit. He caught at his friend’s arm.
‘Nick,’ said he, in a quavering, humble voice, ‘it is in Frith Street she lives. What am I to do at all? I am the most ignorant man, and a coward into the bargain. Nick, I have done the unpardonable thing. What am I to do now?’
Thus the Parson twittered in a most deplorable agitation. Mr. Wogan, on the contrary, was very calm. It was just in these little difficulties, which require an intimate knowledge of the sex, that he felt himself most at home. He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
‘Nick,’ and George shook the arm he held, ‘sure you can advise me. You have told me so often of your great comprehension of women. Sure, you know all there is to be known about them, at all.’
‘No, not quite all,’ said Wogan, with a proper modesty. ‘But here I think I can help you. Which is the house?’
Kelly pointed it out. A couple of windows shone very bright upon the dark street, a few feet above their heads. Looking upwards they could see the ceiling of the room and the globe of a lamp reflected on the ceiling, but no more.
‘It is in that room she will be sitting,’ whispered the Parson.
‘And waiting for you,’ added Mr. Wogan grimly.
‘And waiting for me,’ repeated the Parson with a shiver.
They both stared for a little at the ceiling and the shadow of the lamp.
‘Now, if the ceiling would only tell us something of her face,’ said Kelly.
‘It would be as well to have a look at her,’ said Wogan. The street was quite deserted. ‘Will you give me a back’?
The house was separated from the path by an iron railing a couple of feet from the wall. The Parson set his legs apart and steadied himself by the railing, while Wogan climbed up and knelt on to his shoulders. In that position he was able to lean forward and catch hold of the sill. His forehead was on a level with the sill. By craning his neck he could just look into the room.
‘Is she there?’ asked the Parson.
‘Yes, and alone.’
‘How does she look? Not in tears? Nick, don’t tell me she’s in tears.’ The Parson’s legs became unsteady at the mere supposition of such a calamity.
‘Make yourself easy upon that point,’ said Wogan, clinging for dear life to the sill, ‘there’s never a trace of a tear about her at all. For your sake, George, I could wish that there was. Her eyes are as dry as a campaigner’s biscuits. Oh, George, I am in despair for you.’
‘Nick, you are the most consoling friend,’ groaned the Parson, who now wished for tears more than anything else in the world. ‘What is she doing?’
‘Nothing at all. She is sitting at the table. George, have you ever noticed her chin? It is a sort of decisive chin, and upon my word, George, it has the ugliest jilting look that ever I saw. She has just the same look in her big grey eyes, which are staring at nothing at all. Keep still, George, or you will throw me.’
For the Parson was become as uneasy as a restive horse.
‘But, Nick, is she doing nothing at all? Is she reading?’
‘No, she is doing nothing but expect you. But she is expecting you. Steady, for if I tumble off your shoulders the noise will bring her to the windows.’
The menace had its effect. Mr. Kelly’s limbs became pillars of marble, and Wogan again looked into the room.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said, ‘I see what she is doing. She is staring at something she holds in her hands.’
‘My likeness?’ cried the Parson hopefully. ‘To be sure it will be that.’
‘I will tell you in a moment. Hold on to the railings, George.’
George did as he was bid, and Wogan, still holding to the window-sill very cautiously, stood up on his friend’s shoulders. George, however, seemed quite insensible to Mr. Wogan’s weight.
‘It will be my likeness,’ he repeated to himself. ‘I had it done for her by Mr. Zincke. I was right, Nick; she has forgiven me altogether.’
Mr. Wogan’s head was now well above the window-sill, and he looked downwards upon Rose, who sat at the table.
‘Yes, it’s a likeness,’ said Nick.
‘I told you. I told you,’ said the Parson. The man began to wriggle with satisfaction. ‘You are wrong, Nick. You know nothing at all about women, after all. Come down, you vainglorious boaster.’ It seemed he was about to cut capers with Mr. Wogan on his shoulders.
‘Wait,’ said Nick suddenly, and hitched himself higher.
‘Nick, she will see you.’
‘No, she’s occupied. George!’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Lady Oxford’s miniature she is staring at, and not yours at all.’
The Parson grew quite stiff and rigid.
‘Are you sure?’ he whispered, in an awe-stricken voice.
‘I can see the diamonds flashing. ‘Faith my friend, but I had done better to have let you throw them into the sea at Genoa.’
A groan broke from the Parson.
‘Why didn’t you, Nick? What am I to do now?’
‘I can see the face. ’Tis the miniature of her ladyship that you gave out to be Queen Clementina’s. Did you ever meet Gaydon, George?’ he asked curiously.
‘Gaydon?’ asked Kelly. ‘What in the world has Gaydon to do with Rose?’
‘Listen, and I’ll inform you. He told my brother Charles a very pretty story of the Princess Clementina. It seems that when she escaped out of her perils and came to Bologna to marry the Chevalier, who had, just at the moment when he expected his bride, unaccountably retired into Spain, she stayed at Bologna, and so, picking up the gossip of the town, expressed a great desire to visit the Caprara Palace. ’Twas there the lady lived who had consoled the Chevalier in his anxieties. No doubt he never expected the Princess to get out of the Emperor’s prison. But Charles got her out, and here was she at Bologna. To be sure, the Princess was a most natural woman, eh? And when she came to the Caprara Palace she asked to be shown the portrait of the Princess de la Caprara. That was more natural still. Gaydon describes how she looked at the portrait, and describes very well. For sure Rose is looking at Lady Oxford’s in just the same way.’
‘That’s good news, Nick,’ said Kelly, grasping at a straw of comfort. ‘For the Princess Clementina forgave.’
‘Ah, but there’s a difference I did not remark at the first. I remember Gaydon said the Princess turned very red, while your little friend Rose, on the contrary, is white to the edge of her lips. Sure, red forgives, when white will not. George,’ and Mr. Wogan ducked his head beneath the window-ledge, ‘she is coming to the window! For the love of mercy don’t move, or she will hear!’
George pressed himself close to the railings. Wogan hunched himself against the wall in the most precarious attitude. Would she open the window? Would she see them? Both men quaked as they asked themselves the question, though they had come thither for no other purpose but to see her and be seen of her. Wogan threw a glance over his shoulder to where the light of the window fell upon the road. But no shadow obscured it.
‘Sure, she’s not coming to the window at all,’ said Nick.
‘Oh, Nick,’ whispered the Parson, ‘you made my heart jump into my throat.’
Wogan drew his head up level with the window again, and again ducked.
‘She is standing looking towards the window with the likeness in her hand,’ and he scrambled to the ground, where the pair of them stood looking at one another, and then to the house, and from the house down the street. Wogan was the first to find his tongue.
‘It is a monstrous thing,’ said he, and he thumped his chest, ‘that a mere slip of a girl should frighten two grown men to death.’
Mr. Kelly thumped his chest too, but without any assurance.
‘Nick, I must look for myself,’ he said.
Footsteps sounded a little distance down the street, and sounded louder the next moment. A man was approaching; they waited until he had passed, and then Mr. Kelly climbed on to Wogan’s shoulders, and in his turn looked into the room.
‘Nick!’ he whispered in a voice of awe.
‘What is she doing?’
‘She has thrown Smilinda’s likeness on the ground. She is stamping on it with her heel. She is grinding it all in pieces.’
‘And the beautiful diamonds? Look if she picks them up, George!’
‘No; she pays no heed to the stones. It is the likeness she thinks of. It was in pieces a moment ago; it is all powder now,’ and he groaned.
‘George, it is an ill business. When a woman spurns diamonds you may be sure she is in a mortal fluster. It’s a Gorgon you have to meet — a veritable Gorgon.’
Mr. Kelly slid from Wogan’s shoulders to the ground.
‘What will I do, Nick?’
Nick bit his thumb, then threw his shoulders back.
‘I am not afraid of her,’ said he. ‘No, I am not. I have done nothing to anger or humiliate her. I am not afraid of her at all — not the least in the world. I will go in myself. I will beard her just to show you I am not at all afraid of her.’
‘Will you do that? Nick, you are a friend,’ cried Kelly, who was most reasonably startled by his friend’s heroism.
‘To be sure I will,’ said Nick, looking up at the window. ‘I am not afraid of her. A little slip of a girl! Why should we fear her at all? Haven’t we killed men more than once? Do you wait here, George. If I hold my hand up at the window with my fingers open — so, you may come in. But if I hold up a clenched fist, you had best go home as fast as your legs can carry you. You see, the case is different with you. I have no reason whatever to be frightened at her.’
He knocked at the door, and in a little the door was opened. ‘Not the least bit in the world!’ he stopped to say to Mr. Kelly in the street. Then he stepped into the passage.
CHAPTER XXVI
MR. WOGAN TRADUCES HIS FRIEND, WITH THE HAPPIEST CONSEQUENCES
MR. WOGAN’S TITLE of Hilton was now, thanks to the Flying Post, as familiar as his name; he refused both the one and the other to the servant, and was admitted to Rose Townley without any formalities. Her eyes flashed as they remarked his livery, but she was not in any concern about Mr. Wogan, and asked him no questions. She rose with the utmost coldness, did not give him her hand, and only the bare mockery of a bow, as though her indignation against Mr. Kelly was so complete that it must needs embrace his friend.
‘I thought that he would have plucked up enough courage to come himself,’ said she, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
‘He is a man of the meanest spirit,’ replied Wogan, in a sullen agreement. ‘It is a strange thing how easily one may be misled. Here have I been going up and down the world with him for years, and I never knew him until now, never knew the black heart of him, and his abominable perfidies.’
Rose was taken aback by Wogan’s speech. No doubt she expected a hotch-potch of excuses and arguments on Mr. Kelly’s behalf, which would but have confirmed her in her own opinion; but falling in with her views, he took the words out of her mouth.
‘So,’ she said doubtfully, ‘he has lost your friendship too?’
‘To be sure,’ cried Wogan in a heat, ‘would you have me keep friends with a vile wretch whose thoughts writhe at the bottom of his soul like a poisonous nest of vipers?’
Rose neither answered the question nor expressed any approval of Wogan’s elegant figure describing Mr. Kelly’s mind.
‘Oh,’ said she, ‘then he did not send you to make his peace with me?’
Wogan answered with all the appearances of reluctance.
‘No. In fact the man was coming himself, and with a light heart. He made a great to-do about the infinite fairness and charity of women, which place them equal to the angels, and how you excelled all women in that and other womanly qualities. But I told him, on the contrary, that I knew your spirit, and that you were of too noble a pride to shut your eyes to a slight, and would certainly dismiss him. However, he would not be persuaded, so I slipped away from him and ran here, so that I might warn you against him.’
Rose forgot to thank Mr. Wogan for his zeal on her behalf. Indeed her face, in spite of herself, had lightened for a second; in spite of herself her eyes had sparkled when Wogan spoke of the great faith Mr. Kelly had in her charity.
‘It was more than a slight,’ she said, ‘I could forgive a slight — He would have come himself had not you prevented him.’
‘But he is coming. He would have been here already, but that he paid a visit on the way to Colonel Montague to discover whether Lady Oxford’s letters had been restored to her.’
‘Lady Oxford’s letters!’ exclaimed Rose, her face flushing again with anger.
‘To be sure,’ said Wogan, ‘you would know nothing of them. It is a fine story — the story of Lady Oxford’s love-letters.’
‘I have no wish to hear it,’ cried Rose sharply, and she turned towards the window. Mr. Wogan took a quick step towards her. If she looked out of the window she could hardly fail to observe the Parson.
‘Nor is it a story that you should hear,’ said Wogan in a soothing voice, ‘though indeed to hear it from Mr. Kelly’s lips would surely make you aware of his devilish sophistries. For he declares that, but for you, Lady Oxford’s love-letters would never have been restored to her, nor would he have gone to prison and put his neck in the noose.’
Rose shivered at those last words and drew in her breath. She turned quickly back to Wogan.
‘But for me?’ she asked. ‘What have I to do with Lady Oxford’s love-letters, or with his danger?’ and her voice softened towards the end of the sentence.
‘Why, Lady Oxford, who knew very well Mr. Kelly’s trade, betrayed him in revenge for a certain ballad wherein your name was mentioned.’
‘Yes,’ interrupted Rose, ‘Lady Mary told me of the ballad.’
‘Well, you heard Mr. Kelly perhaps assure Lady Oxford that he had her brocades in his lodging, and perhaps you remarked her ladyship’s confusion.’
‘Yes. I guessed what the brocades were.’
‘Very well. Mr. Kelly remained with her Ladyship, who informed him that he would be taken outside his door, and his rooms searched. There were papers in his rooms of a kind to bring him into great danger. But there were also Lady Oxford’s letters. The story he will tell you is this, that he meant to use Lady Oxford’s letters as a weapon by which he might save his papers and so himself; but a complete revolution took place in his thoughts. He suddenly understood that he owed it to you that no woman’s name should be smirched by his fault, and that thus he was bound, at the peril of his life, to rescue Lady Oxford’s letters, as he did. A strange chance put it into his hands to burn his own papers, and leave Lady Oxford’s to be seized, in which case he would have been saved, and she lost. But he saved his honour instead, and his love for you helped him to it. He rescued her Ladyship’s letters, his own are in the hands of the Minister.’
Mr. Wogan, who had now secured a most attentive listener, disclosed all that Mr. Kelly had told him of what took place in Ryder Street.
‘This is the story he will tell you. And to be sure, he adds a pretty touch to the pretence. For he went whistling to prison and he says that he whistled because he felt as if you were walking by his side.’
‘But what if it were no pretence at all?’
Mr. Wogan sagely shook his head, though the story had the stamp of truth on it to those who knew the Parson.
‘If he had held you in such respect would he have sent you Lady Oxford’s miniature to wear at Lady Oxford’s rout?’
‘But he did not send it to me for that purpose,’ she cried, ‘he did not even know that I was going to the rout. He gave me the miniature a long time ago, when it would have been very difficult for him to tell me whose it was.’
‘But he told you it was Queen Clementina’s.’
‘No. It was I who guessed at that, and he — did not deny it.’
Here at all events was sophistry, but Mr. Wogan was less indignant at it than his anger with the Parson’s subtleties would lead one to expect.
‘Well,’ said Wogan, ‘I have told you what it was my plain duty to disclose to you.’
At this moment Wogan chanced to look towards the window. He beheld Mr. Kelly’s face pressed against the glass. The man had grown impatient and so had climbed on to the railings. Mr. Wogan broke off with an exclamation he could not repress.
‘What is it?’ said Rose, turning about.
‘Some most beautiful diamonds,’ said Wogan, spreading out his hand to the window. He then dropped on to the floor and began picking up the diamonds which Rose had scattered when she set her foot on the miniature. Rose bit her lips, and flushed, as he held them in his palm. Then he said carelessly:
‘That fine miniature had diamonds set about it. D’ye know, Miss Townley, that miniature would have been at the bottom of the sea long before Mr. Kelly came to Avignon, but for the diamonds about it. ’Twas I held his arm when, having done with her Ladyship, he would also have done with her Ladyship’s present, and I bade him keep it for the value of the jewels.’
