‘It is after all a very human sort of a world, as worlds go,’ said he. ‘Here’s a man with all his hopes crumbling to grave-dust about him, and the mere prospect of a quarrel with another man whom he has never spoken to, on account of a woman he has a great contempt for, will make all his blood flow quicker.’ For it was evident that, though the Parson no longer cared a straw for Smilinda’s favours, he had not forgiven the man who had supplanted him in them.
At the further end of the street along which they walked, one house threw out into the night a great blaze of light, and a noise of many voices. As Wogan perceived it, a certain improvement upon his plan came into his head.
‘George,’ said he, as he directed his captive towards the house, ‘will you resolve me a theological quandary? Do the doctors of your sect consider as binding a promise given to a person of a different faith?’
‘Assuredly they do,’ cried Kelly. ‘Dr. Hooker plainly writes—’
‘I shall take your word for it, without Hooker’s bond. Next, does your Reverence reckon it immoral to shake an elbow on occasion?’
‘Even the very Puritans, at the height of their power, doubted if they could proceed against dicers by way of the greater excommunication. We read that the Chosen People themselves cast lots — whence I argue for a permitted latitude.’
‘Well, then, we are opposite the doors of Le Queux’s Temple of Hazard; you may hear through the windows how the devout are calling the main. Now I must take your promise, as you say it is binding, to wait here in obedience to your commanding officer. A wise leader will ever send out scouts to inspect a dangerous pass. I shall reconnoitre at Lady Oxford’s: proper precautions should never be neglected, even in a friendly country. If I do not return, or send, in forty minutes by your watch, you must follow. All will seem safe.’
‘But, Nick, what if they take you? Sure we had best go together.’
‘They will not arrest me alone. You don’t loose your gun at a rabbit when you are stalking a deer. I am not the keeper of secrets, but the King’s mere servant, to give knocks and to take them. I write no letters, and none write them to me. It is Mr. Johnson they will be stalking, if anyone at all, never fear, and they will not shoot at the rabbit whilst Mr. Johnson is out of gunshot. In the meantime, have you any money?’
‘Just enough to pay my chairmen.’
Mr. Wogan turned his pockets inside out.
‘Then here are ten guineas. In my belief our luck must be somewhere, if a man would look for it, and it may very well be lurking in the cavern of a dice-box. Lose or win, if you hear nothing of me, you march forwards and occupy Queen’s Square in forty minutes. It is ten o’clock now. And if you do not join me in forty minutes I walk straight to your lodgings and take my chance.’
‘So be it,’ said Kelly, pocketing Mr. Wogan’s gold, and stepping reluctantly into the house of Le Queux. Mr. Wogan waited until the door closed upon him, and then went on his way alone to Queen’s Square.
He had not displayed the whole face of his purpose to the Parson. It was not merely to reconnoitre that he pushed forward. The Parson might desire an occasion with the Colonel, but Wogan, for Miss Townley’s sake, meant to meet the Colonel first. Betrothed men should not be brawlers, and George was hardly a match for the Colonel.
The Colonel was not, in the nature of things, likely to feel well-disposed towards the Parson. The ballad would have turned that ill-disposition into a genuine hostility. So here was one of the reasons, besides the wish to reconnoitre, why Wogan left his friend behind him in Le Queux’s gaming-rooms. He would be the lightning-conductor; he would pick a quarrel with the Colonel before Mr. Kelly arrived, if by any means that could be brought about.
Mr. Wogan stopped in the shadow a few yards from Lady Oxford’s house, and watched. It was a night of triumph for Lady Oxford. A score or so of link-boys yelled and flashed their torches about the portico; carriages and chairs pressed towards the door. Gentlemen with stars upon their velvet coats, and ladies altogether swaddled in lace and hoops thronged up the steps. But of the possible messengers for whom Mr. Wogan looked, not one was to be seen in any corner. Timidity itself might have slept secure. Only a few ragged loiterers stood about in the roadway on the look-out for a lace handkerchief or a convenient pocket. Wogan crossed the road and joined the throng upon the stairs.
He had carried it off boldly enough at the Deanery, and in the street with Kelly, but, as he walked on alone, the fumes of the Florence wine escaped from the seat of his reasoning faculties. His logic did not seem so conclusive, and he felt an ugly double-edge on some of his arguments. Thus, the plot had certainly been discovered, yet Kelly had not been pounced upon. This might be a generosity of Mr. Scrope’s (who had behaved as handsomely before), but again, what if Mr. Kelly’s first suspicions were true? What if Lady Oxford had learned something? What if this rout were intended to enable her to savour her revenge for the ballad? The thing was not beyond Wogan’s power of belief, and the more he gazed on this perspective, the less he enjoyed it. Under her roof, however, for the sake of her own credit, Kelly and he must be safe from arrest. Besides it might be that her Ladyship was ignorant of the ballad. Reflecting on these doubts, and thankful for this tender mercy, Wogan’s heart was ill at ease, though he put on a face of brass. The chatter which buzzed at his inattentive ears seemed the most impertinent thing in the world. At each step a flowered petticoat swung against his legs, or a fan, held by a hand in a perfumed glove, knocked against his elbow, and somehow the fine gentlemen and ladies in their fine clothes seemed to him at that moment as incongruous as a nightmare. Scraps of gossip of which he took no note at the time, for no reason whatever stuck in his mind, and he remembered them quite clearly afterwards; how that Lady Holderness was sunk in all the joys of love, notwithstanding she wanted the use of her two hands by a rheumatism; and Mrs. Hervey, revenue from such bagatelles as honour and reputation, had taken to herself two most fascinating lovers, and all the envy of her sex. A shrill lady behind Mr. Wogan’s shoulder was proposing a general act for divorcing all the people of England, so that those who pleased might marry again, whereby many reputations which stood in dire peril would be saved from exposure. Mr. Wogan had much ado not to shout ‘Hold your tongues, will you? Here, maybe, is life and death in the balance.’
He had got about half-way up the stairs when the shrill voice changed its tune, and now Mr. Wogan pricked up his ears.
‘You have heard the new ballad? Oh, the sweetest, most malicious thing. You must certainly hear it. Smilinda, the Parson, and the Colonel. You know who Smilinda is? The Parson and the Colonel make a guess easy.’ She quoted a line or two. ‘It appears that the Parson has consoled himself with Rose, and snaps his fingers at Smilinda. Who wrote it? No one but Smilinda’s dear friend, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, that I will wager. ’Tis the most ingenious thing; and most ingeniously given to the town just at the time when it will sting most. Poor Smilinda.’ The voice went off into a giggle, in the midst of which Mr. Wogan distinguished a name — Lord Sidney Beauclerk’s. Mr. Wogan would hardly have heeded the name had he not heard it again twice before he reached the stairhead, and each time in that same conjunction with the Parson and the Colonel, and the malicious aptness of the ballad. Even then he gave but scanty heed to Lord Sidney Beauclerk, for the knowledge that the ballad was indeed become the common talk occupied his thoughts, and so thoroughly, that it was the nearest thing imaginable but he gave his name as Mr. Wogan to the lackey who announced him.
Mr. Hilton, however, was announced, and Mr. Hilton stepped through the great doorway into the room, and made his bow. At the first he was sensible only of a great blaze of light spotted here and there with the flames of candles; of a floor polished like a mirror, of a throng of misty faces, a hubbub of voices, and a gorgeous motley of colours like the Turkish bazaars Lady Mary was used to describe. Then the faces grew distinct. Mr. Wogan noticed one or two of the honest party, who, knowing his incognito, threw a startled glance at him, and like the rats fro
m the sinking ship, scuttled away as soon as his eyes met theirs.
He looked around him for Lady Oxford. He could not see her in the crowd which ebbed and flowed about the floor. There were card tables set against the walls; doubtless she would be seated at one of them. He glanced down the line of tables to his left. He did not see Lady Oxford, but his attention was seized by one particular table. It stood empty; a few packs of cards waited upon it for the players to handle, but by some strange chance it stood empty. It was the one vacant table in the room.
Mr. Wogan was an Irishman, and now and again had his visionary moments, though he said little about them. As he looked at that one empty table a queer sort of fancy crept into his head, and, to be frank, struck something of a chill into his veins. It came upon him slowly that the table was not in truth empty at all; that in the midst of this velvet company, all jewels and compliments, there sat at this table a grey shrouded figure which silently awaited its player.
Mr. Wogan was roused by a touch on his elbow.
‘Mr. Hilton?’
Mr. Hilton saw a dapper, young gentleman at his side who looked like nothing so much as a tangle of ribbons swept up from a milliner’s shop.
‘To be sure,’ said Wogan.
‘Her ladyship sits yonder.’
Mr. Wogan looked. Her ladyship sat with her back towards him at the table nearest to that which stood empty. She had been screened from his sight by the young gentleman now at his elbow. As Wogan looked, Lady Oxford turned with an anxious smile and a glance beyond his shoulder. The smile, the glance braced Mr. Wogan. For doubtless her ladyship looked to discover whether the Parson followed in his steps.
He approached Lady Oxford. By her side sat Colonel Montague, black as thunder, and with a certain uneasy air of humiliation, like a man that finds himself ridiculously placed, and yet has not the courage to move. Mr. Wogan was encouraged; he could have wished the Colonel in no other mood. Mr. Wogan suddenly understood that it was himself who was cast to play with the shrouded figure, and the stake was the privilege of crossing swords with Montague.
From the Colonel his eye strayed to a youth who stood by Lady Oxford’s chair, and the sight of him clean took Wogan’s breath away. It was not merely his face, though even in that bright company he shone a planet among stars. Nature, indeed, thought Wogan, must have robbed a good many women of their due share of looks before she compounded so much beauty in the making of one man. But even more remarkable than his beauty was his extraordinary likeness to Wogan’s King. At the first glance Wogan would have sworn that this youth was the King, grown younger, but that he knew his Majesty was at Antwerp waiting for the Blow to fall. At the second, however, he remarked a difference. The youth had the haunting eyes of the Stuarts, only they were lit with gaiety and sparkled with success; he had the clear delicate features of the Stuarts, only they were rounded out of their rueful length, and in place of a sad gravity, were bright with a sunny contentment. Misfortune had cast no shadows upon the face, had dug no hollows about the eyes.
Lady Oxford spoke to this paragon, smiled at him, drooped towards him. The Colonel shifted a foot, set his lips tight and frowned.
Wogan placed a hand upon his guide’s sleeve.
‘Will you tell me, if you please, the name of her ladyship’s new friend?’
The young gentleman stared at Wogan.
‘Let me perish, Mr. Hilton, but you are strangely out of the fashion. Or is it wit thus to affect an ignorance of our new conqueror, for whom women pine with love and men grow sour with envy? But indeed it is wit — the most engaging pleasantry. ‘Twill make your reputation, Mr. Hilton.’
‘It is pure ignorance,’ interrupted Wogan curtly.
‘Indeed? But I cannot bring myself to believe it.’ He stared at Wogan as though he was gazing at one of Dr. Swift’s Yahoos. ‘Slit my weazand if I can. Sir, he is the gold leaf upon the pill of the world. For his sake dowagers mince in white and silver, and at times he has to take to his bed to protect himself from their assiduities.’
‘He has a dangerous face for these times,’ again Mr. Wogan broke in.
‘Blame his grandmother for that, Mr. Hilton; he is of the royal blood. Nell Gwynn of pious memory gave his father birth. Our last Charles was his grandsire; he hath Queen Mary’s eyes. It is Lord Sidney Beauclerk.’
‘I thought as much. He is a very intimate friend of her ladyship’s?’
‘Mr. Hilton, the world is very grossier,’ remarked his guide, with a smirk.
Mr. Wogan could have laughed. He understood why the Colonel looked so black, why the ballad was so maliciously apt, why my Lord Sidney Beauclerk was coupled with the Parson and the Colonel in the common talk. Her ladyship was taking a new lover. Colonel Montague was the crumpled ribbon that has done good service but is tossed into the cupboard to make way for fresher colours. The ballad was apt indeed. Mr. Wogan’s spirits rose with a bound. Sure here was an occasion for picking a quarrel with the Colonel ready to his hand. He bowed very low to her ladyship. Her ladyship went on punting.
Colonel Montague looked at him, and then looked at him again with the same perplexity which Mr. Wogan had found so distasteful one evening in St. James’s Street three years before; but he said nothing. Her ladyship laid down a card and gave Mr. Wogan a hand, which he kissed with proper ceremony.
‘You have come late, Mr. Hilton,’ she said; ‘and you have come, it seems — alone?’
‘Madam,’ replied Wogan, with a glance of great sympathy towards the Colonel, and in his softest brogue, ‘men are born to loneliness as the sparks fly upward.’
The Colonel took his meaning, and his face flushed. Wogan’s spirits rose higher. If only Montague was strung to the same pitch of exasperation and injury as the Parson had been in the like circumstances! The supposition seemed probable. Mr. Wogan could have rubbed his hands in sheer content. The Colonel, however, made no rejoinder, and Mr. Wogan had to amuse himself by watching the play.
It was little amusement, however, that Mr. Wogan got; on the contrary, as he watched, his fears returned to him. Her ladyship was evidently in something of a flutter. She did not show her usual severe attention to the game. Now she called her black boy Sambo to bring her fan; now she would pat her spaniel; now she would gaze through the crowd of perruques and laces towards the door. Her smile was fixed even when she paid her losses, and that was not her way, she being a bad loser. She was watching for someone, and that someone without a doubt was Mr. Kelly. Wogan could not but ask himself with what intention she watched. Her ladyship was taking a new lover, and for that reason the ballad struck her hard — if she knew of it. Smilinda was not the woman to forgive the blow. She would assuredly blame Kelly for the ballad — if she knew of it. Had she lured him here to strike back? She turned once more to Mr. Wogan, as though she would put some question to him; but, before she could open her lips, a name was bawled up the stairs, and a sudden hush fell upon the room. The throng in the doorway dissolved as if by magic, and between the doorway and Lady Oxford’s chair a clear path was drawn. The name was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s. Everyone then knew of the ballad and laid it at Lady Mary’s door. Everyone? Mr. Wogan asked himself. Did Lady Oxford know?
Montague frowned and drummed with his knuckles on the table; it was the only sound heard in the room. Then Lord Sidney noisily thrust back his chair, and, stepping past Lady Oxford, stood in the open space between her and the door with a frank boyish championship for which Mr. Wogan at once pitied and liked him.
The name was passed up the stairs from lackey to lackey, growing louder with each repetition. The silence was followed by a quick movement which ran through the room like a ripple across a pool, as each head was turned towards Lady Oxford to note how she would bear herself. She rose, the radiant goddess of hospitality.
‘There is no striving, Colonel Montague, against this run of luck,’ she said, with the most natural ease; ‘but my dear Lady Mary is come to save me from ruin. Mrs. Hewett,’ she turned to her opposite, ‘will you be
tallier to our table? The bank is open to a bidder. No? Ah!’ and she took a step forwards to where her champion was standing apart, his hand on his hip, his face raised, ready to encounter even so dangerous an antagonist as Lady Mary, ‘my Lord Sidney Beauclerk, you are not afraid?’ He looked at her, from her to the door. ‘I am your servant,’ said she, with her eyelids half-closed over her eyes, ‘your grateful servant,’ and she motioned him to the table; ‘for, being a woman, I positively die to hear what new scandal dear Lady Mary has set on foot.’
She spoke with an affectionate compassion for Lady Mary’s foible and an air of innocence which quite took aback the most part of her guests. Mr. Wogan, however, was better acquainted with her ladyship’s resources, and, wishing to know for certain whether Lady Oxford knew of the ballad;
‘I can satisfy your ladyship’s curiosity,’ he said bluntly; and with that the noise of the room sank to silence again. He was still standing by the card-table. Lady Oxford turned about to him something quickly. It may be she was disconcerted, or that anger got the upper hand with her. At all events, for an instant she dropped the mask. She gave Wogan one look; he never remembers, in all the strange incidents of his life, to have seen eyes so hard, so cold, and so cruel, or a face so venomous. In a second the look was gone, and the prettiest smile of inquiry was softening about her mouth. ‘There is a new poem, is there not, from Lady Mary’s kind muse?’ said Wogan.
‘A new poem!’ cried she. ‘Let us hear it, I pray. It would be the worst of ill-breeding had I not knowledge enough to congratulate my friend. The happy subject of the poem, Mr. Hilton?’
Lady Oxford took a step towards him. She was all courtesy and politeness, but Mr. Wogan, while he recognised her bravery, had her look of a second ago very distinct before his eyes, and was in no mood for pity. He bowed with no less courtesy.
‘It is thought to be an allegory,’ he said, ‘wherein the arm of flesh is preferred before a spiritual — Blade.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 279