Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  ‘I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,’ she continued, ‘be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which prompts it.’

  ‘Madam,’ returned Kelly, ‘it is very prudent advice. I will be careful to follow it.’

  Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford’s face? Kelly did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event occurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.

  All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat, the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a little in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch, suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck a buffet across the face.

  ‘Your ladyship—’ began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved, Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious glance at his face.

  ‘Sure, ’tis a predecessor to George,’ thought Wogan; and he too turned about.

  Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing, a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows. Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain sinister distinction — stranger, for that he was to the two men at this time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he had seen the man’s eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there; and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had used much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge, and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxford and her guests were discussing the Parson’s good fortune.

  As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat, made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.

  ‘Your ladyship’s most humble and obedient servant.’

  He laid a stress upon the word ‘obedient,’ and uttered it with a meaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shifted her position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand as though she would draw him nearer.

  The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in his expression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.

  ‘Mr. George Kelly,’ he said quietly, and bowed again. ‘The Reverend Mr. George Kelly, I think,’ and he bowed a third time, but lower, and with extreme gravity.

  Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly the stranger turned to him.

  ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,’ and he took a third step. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; he fell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity the attitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no small satisfaction.

  ‘Sure, my unknown friend,’ said he, ‘I think something has tripped you up.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a book from the grass.

  ‘It is,’ said he, ‘a copy of Virgil.’

  CHAPTER V

  A LITERARY DISCUSSION IN WHICH A CRITIC, NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME, TURNS THE TABLES UPON AN AUTHOR

  KELLY FROWNED AT Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.

  ‘Upon my word,’ said he, ‘I find myself for a wonder in the most desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady worthy of her quality, and a poet.’ He tapped the Virgil as he spoke, and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation, he continued in the same strain. ‘The story of Dido’ — the book was open at the soiled pages— ‘and all spluttered with tears.’

  ‘It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,’ interrupted Wogan.

  ‘Tears no less because the night has shed them,’ he replied; ‘and indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it. For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark corner of the Palace, and Æneas was no more than an army chaplain, though he gave himself out for a general.’

  Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker of them.

  ‘It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain. Didn’t he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr. Kelly. O infelix Dido! he burst out, ‘that met with an army chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!’

  He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr. Wogan’s poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.

  ‘Oho,’ says he, ‘another poet,’ and he read out the dedication.

  ‘Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.’

  Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a second about Lady Oxford’s lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of who the stranger was.

  ‘A pretty conceit,’ resumed the latter, ‘though consumption in its effects. Will the author pardon me?’

  He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. ‘It breaks off,’ he added, ‘most appropriately just when the gentleman claims the lady’s obedience. There is generally a break at that point. “At least, that is what I expect,”’ he quoted. Then he looked at each of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces alike proved them to be. ‘Now which is Strephon?’ he asked, with an insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. ‘Is it the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?’

  Kelly’s face flushed darkly.

  ‘The revered clergyman,’ he broke in, and his voice shook a little, ‘would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the honour of your acquaintance.’

  ‘A sermon,’ replied the stranger. ‘I was much moved by a sermon which you preached in Dublin upon the text of “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.”’

  Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.

  ‘And the fighting captain,’ he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit inferior to his questioner’s, ‘would be glad to know when he ever clapped eyes upon your honour’s face, if you please.’

  ‘Never,’ answered the other with a bow. ‘Captain Nicholas Wogan never in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes only for the enemy.’

  Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson’s example and bowed.

  ‘Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our acquaintance?’ said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it.
For only let the outburst come, and the man’s design would of a surety tumble out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.

  ‘No, Mr. Scrope,’ she said calmly, ‘I do not wish to be reminded of our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly, will you give me your arm to the house?’

  The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly cast a glance at Wogan which the ‘fighting captain’ very well understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the avenue.

  ‘A slight thing!’ muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. ‘God, what’s a strong thing, then?’ and at that the passion broke out of him. ‘It’s the Parson now, is it?’ he cried. ‘Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature, with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,’ and with an oath he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.

  ‘Wait a bit, my friend!’ said Wogan.

  ‘Let me go, if you please,’ said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.

  ‘You and I must have a little talk first.’

  ‘It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,’ said Mr. Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.

  Wogan laughed gleefully.

  ‘Why, that’s just the way I would have you speak,’ said he. Mr. Scrope stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past him up the avenue.

  ‘I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,’ he said politely, and took the third step.

  ‘And have you not?’ asked Wogan. ‘I’m thinking, on the contrary, that you took exception to my poetry.’

  ‘Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,’ he replied. ‘But the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.’

  ‘In this case you’re mightily mistaken,’ cried Wogan, and he stamped his foot and threw out his chest. ‘I am my poetry.’

  Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan’s arm.

  ‘Damn!’ said he.

  Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue, Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him. Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan’s shoulder, and so swung him round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man’s elbow, jerked him back, got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer, pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and his eyes opened and shut convulsively.

  ‘Have you had enough, do you think?’ asked Wogan; ‘or shall I fall on you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke inside of him.’

  Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down. He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Wogan.

  Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out of breath.

  ‘Mr. Wogan,’ he said, ‘I do not quite understand. It seems you write love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court her.’

  Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.

  ‘Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There’s the value of my poetry to be argued out.’

  Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan measured it across with his stride.

  ‘A very fitting place for the argument, I think,’ he said, and took off his coat.

  ‘What? In Smilinda’s garden?’ asked Scrope easily. ‘Within view of Smilinda’s windows? Surely the common road would be the more convenient place.’

  ‘Why, and that’s true,’ answered Wogan. ‘It would have been an outrage.’

  ‘No,’ said Scrope, ‘merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest way. At least, I think so,’ and he turned off at an angle, passed through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in the garden-wall.

  ‘You know the grounds well,’ said Wogan.

  ‘It is my first visit,’ replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness, ‘but I have been told enough of them to know my way.’

  He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.

  ‘There is no one within view,’ said Wogan. The road ran to right and left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty fields.

  ‘No one,’ said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.

  ‘Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.’

  Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune — his discomfiture at Lady Oxford’s hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this duel — without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said doubtfully,

  ‘Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other circumstances.’

  ‘I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.’ Scrope shook his head and smiled. ‘Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner die than praise it.’

  He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost imperceptible nod at his coachman.

  ‘That field opposite will do, I think,’ Scrope said, and advanced from the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped forward and passed an arm through Scrope’s just as the latter had set a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for what he needed.

  ‘Now what’s amiss with the poem?’ asked Wogan in a friendly way.

  ‘It is altogether too inconsequent,’ replied Scrope with a sudden irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.

  ‘But my dear man,’ said he, ‘it was not intended for a syllogism.’

  Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new thought had sprung into his brain.

  ‘Mr. Wogan,’ he said, ‘I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on the other hand, why there’s so much time wasted, it is true, but I am in no hurry.’

  There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had insulted the
Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might, since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company meanwhile could do no harm.

  ‘Nor I,’ replied Wogan accordingly. ‘I shall be delighted to confute your opinions.’

  Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a moment.

  ‘There is no reason why we should stand in the road,’ he said, ‘when we can sit in the chaise.’

  ‘Very true,’ answered Wogan.

  Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his pocket. He read the dedication once more:

  ‘Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of wind.’

  ‘Let me point out,’ said he, ‘that you have made the lady run barefoot at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.’

  ‘But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,’ replied Wogan triumphantly.