by Andrew Lang
CHAPTER XIII
OF THE ROSE AND THE ROSE-GARDEN IN AVIGNON.
Life is not wholly the lopsided business that some would have youesteem it. Here was the Parson paying, with a sword-thrust of thefirst quality, for a love-affair that was dead already; over andended. That was bad, but, to balance his accounts, the Parson waked upfrom his swoon in Dr. Townley's house, with the Doctor's beautifuldaughter, Rose, to be his nurse-tender. Lady Oxford had caused hisduel with Scrope, to be sure, but she had thereby, as it were, casthim straight into the girl's arms, and in that very condition whichwas likely to make her most tender to him. Carry the conceit a littlefarther, and you'll see that here was Mr. Kelly, through herladyship's behaviours, imprisoned in the hands of one of those verycreatures which she was ever persuading him to avoid: namely, thatterrible monster a girl, and she very young, frank, and beautiful.When the Parson came to his senses, he called Dr. Townley to his side,and telling him who he was, and how that, being a friend of Mr.Wogan's, he knew the doctor from hearing his daughter call the dogHarlequin, he continued:
'You were at Preston with my friend, and I therefore have the lessreluctance in asking a service of you beyond those you have alreadydone me;' and he began to tell the Doctor of the expected messengerfrom Spain whom he was to meet on the boulevard.
But the Doctor interrupted him.
'Mr. Wogan is indeed my friend, though I have seen nothing of himthese past six years; and his name is a passport into our friendship,as my daughter will assure you. So, Mr. Kelly, such kindness andhospitality as we can show you you may count upon; but--well, I had mysurfeit of politics at Preston. I have no longer any faith in yourcause, in your King. I do not think that he will come before thecoming of the Coquecigrues. I am, indeed, leaving Avignon in a fewmonths, and hope for nothing better than a peaceful life in somevillage of my own country under the King who now sits on the throne.
This he said very kindly, but with a certain solemnity which quiteclosed Mr. Kelly's lips; and so, giving him a sleeping potion, theDoctor left the room. In spite of the potion, however, the Parsonmade but a restless night of it, and more than once from under hishalf-closed lids he saw the doctor come to his bedside; but towardsmorning he fell into something of a sleep and woke up in the broaddaylight with a start, as a man will who has something on his mind. Ina minute or two Mr. Kelly remembered what that something was. He gotout of his bed, and, holding the door open, listened. There was nosound audible at all except the ticking of a clock in the parlourbelow. Mr. Kelly drew on his clothes carefully, so as not to disarrangethe bandages of his wound, and, taking his shoes in his hand, creptdown the stairs. It was a slow, painful business, and more than once hehad to sit down on the steps and rest. He glanced into the parlour ashe passed, and saw, to his great relief, that it was only half pasteight in the morning. What with fomentations and bandages Mr. Kellyhad kept the tiny household out of bed to a late hour, and so no onewas astir. He drew back the bolt and slipped out of the house.
Half an hour later, Dr. Townley came into the bedroom and found itempty. He scratched his head to ease his perplexity, and then wiselytook counsel with his daughter.
'There was a man he expected to come for him,' he said. 'He was veryurgent last night that I should see to it. But I cut him short, and sodo not know where they were to meet with each other.'
At that moment the clock in the parlour struck nine.
'I know!' cried Rose on a sudden, and dragged her father off to theboulevard outside the Porte du Rhone, where they discovered Mr. Kellysitting bolt upright on his bench, with a flushed red face andextraordinarily bright eyes, chattering to himself like a monkey.
The Parson lay for a week after that at death's door, and it neededall Dr. Townley's skill and Rose's nursing to keep him out of thegrave. Meanwhile the Duke of Ormond's messenger arrived from Corunna,and kicked his heels on the boulevard until Mr. Kelly recovered hissenses and summoned Mr. Philabe to his aid. Mr. Philabe the nextmorning took Kelly's place on the bench, and that day the moneychanged hands and the messenger started back post-haste to Corunna. AtCorunna he told the story of the Parson's misfortune in more than onecafe, and so it came shortly to Wogan's ears, who put in with his shipat that port in order to give up his command.
The reason for this change in Wogan's condition was simple enough.Sufficient arms and ammunition had now been collected at Bilboa, andit was become urgent that the plans for the rising of the soldiers inEngland, and the capture of the Tower of London, should be takenearnestly in hand. The Duke of Ormond, who was to land in the West,was supposed a great favourite with the English troops, but it wasnone the less necessary that their favour should be properly directed.To that end Mr. Talbot, Tyrell, and Nicholas Wogan, amongst others,were deputed to travel into England, ready for the moment of striking.Nick was to have the rank of a colonel, and was bidden to repair toParis by a certain date, where he was to take his instructions fromGeneral Dillon and the Earl of Mar. Now that date gave him half a weekor so of leisure, and he knew of no better use to which he could putit than in stopping at Avignon, which lay directly in his path toParis.
But before he reached the olives of Provence Mr. Kelly wasconvalescent and much had happened. How it had happened Mr. Wogan onlydiscovered by hints which the Parson let slip unconsciously. ForGeorge had a complete distaste for the sensibilities, and, after all,a true man, even in the company of his closest friend, never does morethan touch lightly upon the fringe of what he holds most sacred. Hesaid that he was recovered of two fevers at one and the same time, andby the same ministering hands, and so was come forth into a sweet,cool life and a quiet air. His affairs, whether of stocks in theMississippi scheme or of the Great Business, went clean out of hismind. His heart was swept and garnished like the man's in the Parable,and almost unawares a woman opened the door and stepped in, bringingwith her train seven virtues, as of modesty, innocence, faith,cheerfulness, youth, courage, and love--qualities no better nor nofairer than herself.
How did it begin? Why, at the first there would be a smiling face atthe doorway to wish him a good morning, or if he had slept ill a sweetlook of anxious fear which would make up for a dozen sleepless nights.When he could get up from his bed and come into the parlour, the dogHarlequin, and Rose, and he became children and playfellows together,for the brute had been taught a hundred pretty tricks that would makea dying man laugh; until at length the girl grew familiar, and wasseated at the very hearth and centre of his affections, where hermemory remains enshrined.
Mr. Kelly spoke frankly of the matter only once in Mr. Wogan'shearing, and that was many years afterwards, and then he was notspeaking of the matter at all. It was Lady Mary Wortley who set him onto it one night.
For she quoted a saying of some sage or another. 'In a man,' said she,'desire begets love, and in a woman love begets desire.'
'And that is true,' said Kelly. 'I do think the steadfast andhonourable passions between our sex and women are apt to have theirbeginnings on the woman's side, and then, being perceived and mostgratefully welcomed, light up as pure a flame in the heart of a man.For otherwise, if a man sees a woman that she is fair, as King Davidsaw Bathsheba, and so covets her, his appetite may in the end turn tolove or may not. But if his eyes are first opened to an innocentwoman's love, he being at best a sinful creature, he is then stirredwith a wonderful amazement of grateful tenderness which never can passaway, but must endure, as I hold, even after death.' Which was allvery modish and philosophical, and meant--well, just what anyone whohad visited Avignon in February of the year '22 might have seen withhalf an eye. Rose was in love with the Parson and the Parson knew it,and so fell in love with Rose.
Mr. Wogan reached Avignon in the afternoon. The Doctor's house stood astone's throw from the Palace of the Emperor Constantine, with alittle garden at the back which ran down to the city wall. The top ofthe wall was laid out as a walk with a chair or two, and there Woganfound the Parson and Rose Townley. It was five years and mo
re sinceWogan had seen Rose Townley, and she was grown from a child to awoman. He paid her a foolish compliment, and then the three of themfell into an awkward silence. Mr. Wogan asked Kelly for a history ofhis wound, and then:
'So 'twas Scrope. Lady Mary was right when she warned me we had notseen the last of him. 'Faith, George, it was my fault. For, d'ye see,if I had not been so fond of my poetry I should have made my accountwith the gentleman at the gates of Brampton Bryan Manor, and you wouldnever have been troubled with him at all.'
"Brampton Bryan?" asked Rose. "Where is that?"
Mr. Kelly made no answer, and perhaps Wogan's remark was not thediscreetest in the world. Miss Rose would not forget that name,Brampton Bryan. At all events, the three of them fell to silence oncemore, and Mr. Wogan knew that he was trespassing and that he wouldhave done better to have journeyed straight to Paris. Rose, however,came to the rescue and made him tell over again, as he had told heroften before, his stories of the march to Preston. But, whereas beforeshe had listened to them with a great enthusiasm and an eagerness formore, now her colour came and went as though they frightened her, andshe would glance with a quick apprehension towards the Parson.
'And the battles are to be fought all over again,' she said, claspingher hands on her knees, and then plied Wogan for more details. Sheshivered at the thought of wounds and cannon-balls and swords, yet shemust know to the very last word all that was to be described of them.So, until the sun sank behind the low green hills of the Cevennes, andthe Rhone at their feet, in that land of olives, took on a pure olivetint. Then she rose and went into the house to prepare the supper,leaving the two friends together; and it presently appeared that RoseTownley was not the only one who was frightened.
The Parson watched her as she went down the garden, brushing the pinkblossoms from the boughs of a peach tree or two that grew on the lawn.There was an old moss-grown stone sundial close to the house; shepaused for a moment beside it to pick up a scarf which was laid on thetop and so passed through the window, whence in a moment or two alamp-light shone. The Parson seemed sunk in a reverie.
'I am afraid, Nick,' he said slowly. 'I am afraid.'
'What! You too?' exclaimed Wogan. 'Afraid of the wars?'
'The wars--no, no,' replied Kelly scornfully dismissing theinterpretation of his fears, and then following out his own train ofthoughts, 'you have known her a long time, Nick?'
'Six years.'
'I would that I too had known her six years ago,' said the Parson witha remorseful sigh.
'She has changed in those six years.'
'How?'
'Why, she has grown a foot, and grown a trifle shy.'
'Ah, but that's only since--' began the Parson with a nod, and came toa sudden stop. Rose's shyness was the outcome of her pride. She wasshy just because she knew that she loved a man who had breathed noword of love to her. Mr. Kelly sat for a little longer in silence.Then,
'But I am afraid, Nick,' he repeated, and so went down into the houseleaving Nick in some doubt as to what he was afraid of.
The Parson repeated his remark the next morning after breakfast. Mr.Wogan was smoking a pipe upon the wall; the Parson was walkingrestlessly about as he spoke.
'I am afraid,' said he, and looks towards the house. As soon as helooked, he started. So Wogan looked too. Rose Townley had just comefrom the window and was walking across the lawn more or less towardsthem with an infinite interest and attention for everything except thetwo figures on the city wall.
'She comes slowly,' said Kelly in a great trepidation, as though hehad screwed up his courage till it snapped like a fiddle-string. 'Sheis lost in thought. No doubt she would not be disturbed,' and heglanced around him for means of escape. There was, however, only oneflight of narrow steps from the wall down to the garden; and if hedescended that he would be going to meet her.
Wogan laughed. 'She comes very slowly,' said he. 'No doubt she saw youfrom the window.'
'It is plain she did not,' replied the Parson, 'for, as you say, shecomes very slowly.'
'The vanity of the creature!' cried Wogan. 'D'ye think if she saw youshe would run at you and butt you in the chest with her head?'
'No,' says Kelly quickly. 'I do not. But--well, if she saw us here shewould at the least look this way.'
'Would she?' asked Wogan. ''Faith, my friend, you'll have to go toschool again. Your ignorance of the ways of women is purelymiraculous. She does not look this way, therefore she does not knowyou are here! She looks to every other quarter; observe, she stops andgazes at nothing with the keenest absorption, but she will not lookthis way. Oh, indeed, indeed, my simple logician, she does not knowyou are here. Again she comes on--in this direction, you'll observe,but how carelessly, as though her pretty feet knew nothing of the paththey take. See, she stops at the dial. Mark how earnestly she bendsover it. There's a great deal to observe in a dial. One might think itwas a clock and, like herself, had stopped. There's a peach tree she'scoming to. A peach tree in blossom. I'll wager you she'll findsomething very strange in those blossoms to delay her. There, shelifts them, smells them--there's a fine perfume in peach blossoms--shepeers into them, holds them away, holds them near. One might fancythey are the first peach blossoms that ever blossomed in the world.Now she comes on again just as carelessly, but perhaps thecarelessness is a thought too careful, eh? However, she does not lookthis way. Watch for her surprise, my friend, when she can't but seeyou. She will be startled, positively startled. Oh, she does not knowyou are here.'
The girl walked to the steps, mounted them, her face rose above thelevel of the wall.
'Oh,' she cried, 'Mr. Kelly!' in an extremity of astonishment. Woganburst out into a laugh.
'What is it?' asked Rose.
'Sure, Mr. Kelly will tell you,' said Wogan, and he strolled to theend of the walk, turned, walked down the steps and so left themtogether.
'What was it amused Mr. Wogan?' asked Rose of Kelly as soon as Woganhad vanished. The Parson left the question unanswered. He balancedhimself on one foot for a bit then on the other, and he began at theend, as many a man has done before.
'I can bring you nothing but myself,' said he, 'and to be sure myselfhas battered about the world until it's not worth sweeping out of yourwindow.'
'Then I won't,' said she with a laugh. The laugh trembled a little,and she looked out over the river and the fields of Provence with eyeswhich matched the morning.
'You won't!' he repeated, and then blundered on in a voice of intensecommiseration. 'My dear, I know you love me.'
It was not precisely what Rose expected to hear, and she turnedtowards the Parson with a look of pride. 'And of course I love youtoo,' he said lamely.
'You might almost have begun with that,' said she with a smile.
'Was there need?' he asked. 'Since I thought every blade of grass inyour garden was aware of it.' Then he stood for a second silent.'Rose,' said he, savouring the name, and again 'Rose,' with a happysort of laugh. But he moved no nearer to her.
Rose began to smile.
'I am glad,' said she demurely, 'that you find the name to yourliking.'
'It is the prettiest name in the world,' cried he with enthusiasm.
'I am much beholden to my parents,' said she.
'But, my dear,' he continued, 'you put it to shame.'
The girl uttered a sigh which meant 'At last!' but Mr. Kelly was inthat perturbation that he altogether misunderstood it.
'But you mustn't believe, my dear, it's for your looks I love you,' hesaid earnestly. 'No, it's for your self; it's for the shiningperfections of your nature. Sure I have seen good-looking women beforeto-day.'
'I have no doubt of that,' she said, tapping with her foot on thepavement.
'Yes, I have,' said he. 'But when I looked at them 'twas to note thecolour of their eyes or some such triviality, whereas when I look atyour eyes, it's as though a smiling heart leaned out of them as from awindow and said, "How d'ye do?" Sure, my dear, I should love you noless if you had another guess nose,
and green eyes.' (He reflectivelydeformed her features.) 'It's your shining perfections that I am on myknees to.'
'Are you?' she interrupted with a touch of plaintiveness. He wasstanding like a wooden post and there was at the least a couple ofyards between them.
'Just your shining perfections. 'Faith, you have the mostextraordinary charm without any perversity whatever, which is a puremiracle. I am not denying,' he continued thoughtfully, 'that there'ssomething taking in perversity when it is altogether natural, but, tobe sure, most women practise it as though it were one of the finearts, and then it's nothing short of damnable--I beg your pardon,' heexclaimed waking up of a sudden. 'Indeed, but I don't know what I amsaying at all. Rose,' and he stepped over to her, 'I have no prospectswhatever in the world, but will you take them?'
Well, she did. Mr. Kelly had come to his meaning in a roundaboutfashion enough, as he acknowledged that same day to Nicholas Wogan.
'Upon my conscience, but I made a blundering ass of myself,' said he.
'You would,' said Wogan. 'My dear man, why didn't you tell me of yourintention and I would have written you out a fine sort of speech thatyou could have got by heart?'
'Sure I should have stammered over the first sentence and forgot therest,' said Kelly with a shake of the head. 'To tell the truth, thelittle girl has sunk me to such a depth of humility and diffidencethat I find it wonderful I said anything at all.' Then he grew silentfor a minute or so. 'Nick,' said he secretly, drawing his chair atrifle closer. 'There's a question troubles me. D'ye think I shouldtell her of My Lady Oxford?'
'It would be entirely superfluous,' replied Wogan with decision,'since the thing's done with.'
'But is it?' asked Kelly. 'Is it, Nick? Look you here. We thought itwas done with a year ago, and up springs Mr. Scrope at Avignon. Mr.Scrope does his work and there's not the end of it. For I am carriedhere and so my very betrothal is another consequence. It is as thoughher ladyship had presented me to Rose. Well, how are we to know it'sdone with now? If it ends here it is very well. But, d'ye see, Nick,it was after all not the most honourable business in the world, and amI to make this great profit out of it? Well, perhaps my fears confusemy judgment. I am all fears to-day, Nick,' and he stopped for a momentand clapped his hand into his pocket.
'I'll confess to you a very childish thing,' said he. 'Look!' and outof his pocket he drew a pistol.
'What's that for?' asked Nick.
'It's loaded,' replied Kelly. 'I went up to my room, after the littlegirl had taken me, and loaded it and slipped it into my pocket,' andhe began to laugh, perhaps something awkwardly. 'For, you see, sinceshe prizes me, why I am grown altogether valuable.' He put back thepistol in his pocket. 'But don't misunderstand me, Nick. The new fearsare quite overbalanced by a new confidence. Sure, it's not the futureI am afraid of.'
'I understand,' said Wogan gravely. 'It's what's to come.'
'Yes, that's it,' said Kelly.
Being afraid, and being a man of honour, Kelly did nothing, saidnothing on the head of his old love affair, and trembled withapprehension of he knew not very well what. A path of flowersstretched before him, but a shadow walked on it, a tall, handsomeshadow, yet unfriendly. It is Mr. Wogan's firm belief, based onexperience, that a woman always finds everything out. The onlyquestions are, when, and how will she take it? Sometimes it is aletter in the pocket of an old coat which the dear charitable creatureis giving to a poor devil of a chairman. Sometimes it is a glance at arout, which she shoots flying. Now it is a trinket, or a dead flowerin a book, or a line marked in a poem, but there is always a trail ofthe past, and woman never misses it.
George's wooing seemed as flowery as the meadows about Avignon, whitewith fragrant narcissus, or as the gardens purple with Judas trees inspring. Rose was all _parfait amour_, and, in her eyes, Mr. Kelly wasa hero, a clerical Montrose, or a Dundee of singular piety. Wogan hasknown women more zealous for the Cause, such as her Grace ofBuckingham, or Madame de Mezieres, who had ever a private plot of herown running through the legs of our schemes, like a little dog at arout, and tripping us up. To Miss Townley George was the Cause, andthe Cause was George, so that, in truth, she was less of a Jacobitethan a Georgite.
There never had been such a George as hers for dragons. Why did hefight Mr. Scrope? She was certain it was all for the Cause! Indeed,that _casus belli_, as the lawyers say, proved a puzzle. Why, in fact,did the Parson come to be lying on the flags, in receipt of asword-thrust of the first quality? George was the last man to brag ofhis services, but he was merely obliged to put the sword-thrust downto his credit with the Cause. His enemy had been a Whig, a dangerousspy, which was true, but not exactly all the truth, about as much ofit as a man finds good for a woman.
Rose clasped her hands, raised her eyes to Heaven, and wondered thatit did not better protect the Right. What other deeds of arms had herwarrior done? She hung on George imploring him to speak of deadly'scapes, and of everything that it terrified her to hear. Mr. Kelly,in fact, had never drawn sword in anger before; he was, by profession,a man of peace and of the pen. If ever he indulged a personalambition, it would have been for a snug Irish deanery, and hecommunicated to Miss Townley a part of his favourite scheme, forleisure, a rose-hung parsonage, and Tully, his Roman friend.
But the girl put this down to his inveterate modesty, remarked by allEurope in his countrymen.
'Nay, I _know_ you have done more,' she said one day alone with him ina bower of the garden. 'You have done something very brave and verygreat, beyond others. You helped to free the Queen from the Emperor'sprison at Innspruck!'
'I!' exclaimed Mr. Kelly in amazement. 'What put that notion into theprettiest head in the world? Why, it was Nicholas's brother Charles,with other Irish gentlemen, Gaydon, Misset, and O'Toole, who did thatfeat; the world rings of it. I was in Paris at that time.'
'Then you did something greater and braver yet, that is a secret forState reasons, or else, why does the King give you such richpresents?'
Mr. Kelly blushed as red as the flower after which his lady was named.
'Now,' he thought, 'how, in the name of the devil, did she hear of thebox the King gave me, and I gave to Lady Oxford?'
That trinket was lying on Lady Oxford's table, but the face behind themirror was now that of a handsomer man than either his Majesty, or Mr.Kelly, or Colonel Montague. Kelly knew nothing about that, but heblushed beautifully when Miss Townley spoke of a rich royal present.
'You blush,' cried the girl, before he could find an answer. 'I knowyou are hiding something, now.' (And here she added to his pleasurewithout taking anything from his confusion), 'Tell me why you blush tofind it fame?'
'Troth, isn't my face a mirror, and reflects your rosy one, my Rose?'answered Mr. Kelly, putting on a great deal of the brogue, to make herlaugh. For, if a woman laughs, she is apt to lose sight of her idea.
'I must be told; I cannot trust you to show me how brave you are.'
Mr. Kelly was upon dangerous ground. If he was expected to talk aboutthe box given by the King, and if Rose wished to see, or to know whathad become of it, Kelly had not a fable ready, and the truth he couldnot tell. He made a lame explanation:
'Well, then, I blushed, if I did, for shame that the King has toborrow money to help better men than me.'
'I don't care if he borrowed the money or not, for he could not haveborrowed for a better purpose than to give you--what I have seen.'
Mr. Kelly was pale enough now. What in the wide world had she seen?Certainly not the snuffbox.
'Seen in a dream, my dear; sure the King never gave me anything but mylittle pension.'
'Then you know other kings, for who else give diamonds? Ah, you arecaught! You have the Queen's portrait set with diamonds.'
'The Queen's portrait?' cried Kelly in perplexity. He was comforted aswell as perplexed. 'Twas plain that Rose knew nothing of the royalsnuffbox, now the spoil of Lady Oxford's spear and bow.
'Yes,' cried Rose. 'Whose portrait but the Queen's should it be thatlies on your
table? So beautiful a lady and such diamonds!'
Mr. Kelly groaned in spirit. The snuff-box was not near so dangerousas this new trail that Rose had hit. She had seen, in his possession,the miniature of Smilinda, and had guessed that it was a royal gift;the likeness of the Princess Clementina Sobieska, who had but latelymarried the King.
'I saw it lying on your table the day we brought you home from theseat on the boulevard, when we thought'(here Miss Rose hid her face onher lover's shoulder, and her voice broke) 'that--you--would--die.'
Now was this rose wet with a shower, and when Kelly, like the glorioussun in heaven, had dried these pretty petals, what (Mr. Wogan puts itto the casuists) was the dear man to say? What he thought was to curseNick for holding his hand when he was about throwing Smilinda'spicture into the sea.
What he said was that, under Heaven, but without great personaldanger, he had been the blessed means of detecting and defeating awicked Hanoverian plot to kidnap and carry off from Rome the dearlittle Prince of Wales, and Mrs. Hughes, his Welsh nurse. Thisprodigious fable George based on one of the many flying stories of thetime. It satisfied Miss Townley's curiosity (as, indeed, it was veryapt to do) and George gave her the strictest orders never to breathe aword of the circumstance, which must be reckoned a sacred mystery ofthe royal family. He also remarked that the portrait flattered herMajesty (as painters will do), and that, though extremely pretty andgay, she had not that air of dignity and command, nor was so dark abeauty. 'In fact, my dear,' said George, 'you might wear that portraitat the Elector's Birth Night rout (if you could fall so low) and fewpeople would be much the wiser. These Roman painters are satisfiedwith making a sitter pretty enough to please her, or him.'
George was driven to this flagrant incorrectness because, though MissTownley had not yet seen the Queen's portrait (her father havingchanged sides) she might see one any day, and find Mr. Kelly out.
The girl was satisfied, and the thing went by, for the time. But, onlater occasions, his conscience gnawing him, the good George veryunwisely dropped out general hints of the unworthiness of his sex, andof himself in particular, as many an honest fellow has done. In Mr.Wogan's opinion, bygones ought to be bygones, but it takes two to thatbargain. Meanwhile Miss Rose might make as much or as little of herlover's penitences as she chose, and, indeed, being a lass of gold,with a sense of honour not universal in her sex, and perfectly sure ofhim, she made nothing whatever, nor thought at all of the matter.
But there was another dragon in the course that never yet ran smooth.The excellent surgeon, who had not recovered the fright of Preston,was obdurate. He had no dislike for Mr. Kelly, but a very greatdistaste for Mr. Kelly's Cause. Rose might coax, the Parson mightargue, Wogan might use all his blandishments--the good man was iron.In brief, Kelly must cease to serve the King, or cease to hope forRose. This was a hard choice, for indeed Mr. Kelly could not in honourleave hold of the threads of the plot which were then in his hands.
So much Dr. Townley was at last brought to acknowledge, and thereupona compromise was come to. Mr. Kelly was to go over to England onceagain, on the last chance. The blow was to be struck in this spring ofthe year 1722. If it failed, or could not be struck, Mr. Kelly was towithdraw from the King's affairs and earn his living by writing forthe booksellers, and instructing youth.
The Parson was the more ready to agree to this delay, because of acircumstance with which he was now acquainted. The Doctor and hisdaughter were themselves on the point of returning to England. Mr.Kelly and Rose had no great difficulty in persuading the surgeon thathe would find it more convenient to live in London than in thecountry, of the miseries of which they drew a very pathetic andconvincing picture; and so, being assured that the delay would notmean a complete separation, they accepted the plan and fell to mappingout their lives.
They chose the sort of house they would live in and where, whether inParis or in England: they furnished it from roof to cellar.
'There must be a room for Nick,' said the Parson, 'so that he can comein and out as if to his own house.'
Mr. Wogan had borne his part in persuading Dr. Townley, without athought of the great change which the Parson's marriage meant for him.But these words, and the girl's assent, and above all a certainunconscious patronage in their voices, struck the truth into him withsomething of a shock.
Mr. Wogan escaped from the room, and walked about in the garden. Thesetwo men, you are to understand, had been boys together, George beingby some years the older, and had quarrelled and fought and madefriends again twenty times in a day. Mr. Kelly bore, and would beartill his dying day, a little scar on his cheek close to his ear, wherehe was hit by a mallet which Wogan heaved at him one day that he wasvexed. Wogan never noticed that scar but a certain pleasurabletenderness came over him. His friendship with the Parson had been, asit were, the heart of his boyhood. And in after years it had waxedrather than diminished. The pair of them could sit one on each side ofa fire in perfect silence for an hour together, and yet converseintelligibly to each other all the while. Well, here was Mr. Woganalone in the darkness of the little garden at Avignon now. The Rhonelooked very cold beneath the stars, and the fields entirely desolateand cheerless. Yet he gazed that way persistently, for if he turnedhis head toward the house he saw a bright window across which thecurtains were not drawn, and a girl's fair hair shining gold against aman's black periwig. Mr. Wogan had enough sense to strangle hisjealousy that night, and was heartily ashamed of it the next morningwhen he bade the couple good-bye and set out for Paris.
Mr. Kelly took his leave a few days later, being now sufficientlyrecovered to travel. The precise date was the eighth of April. To partfrom Rose you may well believe was a totally different matter from hisadieus to Smilinda. Nothing would serve the poor girl, who had nominiature and diamonds to give, but to sacrifice what she prized mostin the world after her father and her lover.
'You cannot take me,' she said with a tearful little laugh, 'but youshall take Harlequin, who made us acquainted. That way you will not bealtogether alone.'
Harlequin wagged his tail, and sat up on his hind legs as though hethoroughly approved of the proposal, and Mr. Kelly, to whom the poodlecould not but be an inconvenience, had not the heart to refuse thegift.
George had to give as well as to take, and felt even less blessed ingiving than in receiving. For Miss Rose must have a souvenir of him,too, and what should it be but that inestimable testimony to herlover's loyalty and courage, the Portrait of the Queen! There was noway of escape, and thus, as a memorial of Mr. Kelly's singularattachment to the best of Causes and of Queens, Miss Townley wastreasuring the likeness of the incomparable Smilinda. The ladies, inthe nature of things, could never meet, George reckoned, for thedaughter of the exiled country physician would not appear among theLondon fashionables.
In Paris, on his road to London, Mr. Kelly visited the Duke of Mar,who most unfortunately took notice of the dog, and asked him what hepurposed to do with it.
'My Lord,' replied Kelly, 'when I am on my jaunts Harlequin will finda home with the Bishop of Rochester, whose wife has a great liking fordogs. The poor lady is ill, and, alas, near to her death; the Bishopis fretting under the gout, and his wife's sickness, and thejealousies among the King's friends. Moreover, he is much occupiedwith building his tomb in the Abbey, so that, altogether, their houseis of the gloomiest, and Harlequin may do something to lighten it.'
For the poodle had more accomplishments than any dog that ever theParson had met with, and this he demonstrated to the Duke of Mar byputting him through his tricks. The Duke laughed heartily, andcommended the Parson's kindliness towards his patron. But in truth theParson never did a worse day's work in the whole of his life.