Project Gutenberg's The Bath Comedy, by Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Bath Comedy Author: Agnes Castle Egerton Castle Release Date: December 23, 2017 [EBook #56227] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATH COMEDY *** Produced by Al Haines The Bath Comedy By Agnes & Egerton Castle Authors of 'The Pride of Jennico,' &c. London Macmillan and Co., Limited 1900 All rights reserved GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. Dedicated to our Sister Mrs. Francis Blundell of Crosby ("M. E. Francis") who, over the MS. of this frivolous drama, was the first to give us the kindly criticism of laughter Contents PREFACE SCENE I. SCENE II. SCENE III. SCENE IV. SCENE V. SCENE VI. SCENE VII. SCENE VIII. SCENE IX. SCENE X. SCENE XI. SCENE XII. SCENE XIII. SCENE XIV. SCENE XV. SCENE XVI. SCENE XVII. SCENE XVIII. SCENE XIX. SCENE XX. SCENE XXI. SCENE XXII. SCENE XXIII. SCENE XXIV. SCENE XXV. Preface The Royal Crescent— "Open we here on a Spring day fine..." the first scene of this Bath Comedy. The precise year, however, may not be given. A sufficient reason for reticence in the matter of exact date will be found in the unfortunate predicament of the then Bishop of Bath and Wells: undoubtedly a most mortifying episode in the life of an invariably dignified Divine. Now there were several Bishops of Bath and Wells during the second half of the 18th century, and this trifling lack of circumstantiality will do away with the least trace of scandal. The second half of the century, however, is admitted. The fact, indeed, would be revealed at once to the curious in the matter, by the mention, on the one hand, of the King's Circus (which dates from the last years of second George), and on the other by the reference to Bathwick Meadows as a solitary site and still fitted at the time to an honourable meeting, whereas it has been known as a place of popular resort (under the name of Sydney Gardens) since the year 1795. A few other points, again (should anyone think worth his while to consider so trifling a question), might serve to fix within a few lustres the date of Mrs. Kitty Bellairs' cantrips as they affected, among other things, Lady Standish's domestic happiness, Mr. O'Hara's connubial hopes, and my Lord Verney's sentimental education. It may be noticed, for instance, that the gentlemen wear their swords. That was, as most people know, a distinction strenuously denied them so long as the immortal Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Richard Nash, reigned as King of Bath. Now, his autocratic rule came to an end before George the Third was King. As another landmark it will be recalled that the notorious and indecorous encounter between Richard Brinsley Sheridan and that unpleasant personage, Captain Matthews, was the last duel with swords fought in the Kingdom: and it was fought in 1772. Furthermore, our Captain Spicer (whether veraciously or not) claims to have been a favoured pupil of the famous Angelo—and such a perfecting course in the noble art could not have been acquired before the early sixties. Then, again, there is still a good deal of powder in our actors' head-dress. The slippers of our actresses are still delicious and high-heeled: the sandal of the nineties has not yet made its dreadful appearance. And the ladies visard, if not so universal as it once had been, is still an accepted institution. It will suffice, in short, to say of our characters (if once more we may be allowed to paraphrase some of Mr. Austin Dobson's dainty verses) that They lived in that past Georgian day, When men were less inclined to say That "Time is Gold" and overlay With toil their pleasure.... Those were, on the whole, rather more joyous times than our own, and more different than the mere lapse of one century seems to account for. The gentlemen then, dressed almost as handsomely, prinked and plumed themselves as elaborately, as the ladies. Gallantry in both senses and ready wit were their most precious claim: a fight was considered a full remedy to a slight, a sharp epigram to an injury. Heavy drinking was held an indispensable accompaniment to good-fellowship; and love-making was a far suppler art than seems known to this more earnest century—a pastime for "the quality," something on par with the gambling passion. "Virtue" not modesty, was woman's fair fame. A forcible abduction would at a pinch be argued as an undeniable compliment. Life ran like a dance then, with merry, tapping heels and light-hearted interchange of partner: those old-world days were much younger than ours. So much for the times, and for the characters. For scenery we have this gem among prosperous towns. The grey stone city of wealthy, sedate residences, arranged with noble architectural effect in broad straight streets, wide open squares, parades, terraces, crescents; tier upon tier on the slope of a hill down to the water's edge; set serenely in a wooded valley, with much green in perspective beyond the lazy, slowly winding Avon. Indeed, of its kind, Bath is unique among the cities of Europe: deprived as it is, by modern conditions, of its former social attractions, it is still one of the most beautiful. Like so many very old towns, it has had a long Roman existence; its luxurious baths and other remains testify to its splendour when it was known as Aquae Solis. It filled, also, an important place in the land as a Mediaeval Borough, wall-girt and defensible: of that period the Abbey Church, the "Lantern of England" remains a handsome bequest. But, on the surface at least, there is now nothing to recall vividly any older past than the days of periwig, of powder and patches, of "wine and walnut" wit. Its characteristic charm, one which, happily, the present age has had little power to efface, is par excellence that of the 18th Century; for it was in early and middle Georgian years that, with a strange suddenness "The Bath" became an accepted centre of fashion and pleasure, and assumed its special physiognomy of leisure, wealth and exclusiveness. This old-world air still hangs about the residential part of the Town and in a singularly haunting way. In those broad streets, calm and silent and almost deserted at most hours, in those high-windowed houses, typical of stateliness and cold elegance rather than of lolling comfort, the very atmosphere seems to this day redolent of "Chippendale" notions. The sordidly plain modern dress of man is painfully incongruous. The rattling cab is a discord. It would be a relief, much more than an astonishment, to note an obvious three-cornered hat, a broad-skirted coat, on one's fellow man, to hear on the flags the regular tramp of Chairmen swinging along some dainty charge deliciously powdered and rouged! The course of an hundred and odd years has obliterated some scenes, and modified all to some extent. Orange Grove has lost, 'tis true, much of its discreet character; and its neighbouring chocolate rooms, so handy to intrigues, are now only memories. The Assembly Rooms are shorn of all fashion. The new Great Pump Room is not quite a replica of the old, though it has retained its general air—but the Crescents, Royal and Lansdowne, the Circus, Gay Street and Queen Square, the Parades, and the flags of Abbey Place, are still for us. At certain hours, if we have the mood, we can readily people them again in our mind's eye with notable guests of "The Bath" in its great days.... Dr. Johnson and my Lord Chesterfield, Pops, Oliver Goldsmith, Sheridan, Smollett, Chatham, Gainsborough, Fanny Burney, according to the fleeting thought—all "faithfuls of the Spa"— Greatness, Literature, Art, mere Fashion—or, again, shall we say Squire Bramble, or Lydia Languish, or Sir Anthony Absolute; or blushing, too ingenuous Evelina...? Why, the place is alive with suggestion! Here a house front, with its carved stone wreaths and urns and bosses, with its pedimented windows or its shell-canopied door (still provided with its long since honorary link- extinguisher) if you look at it enquiringly, seems ready to tell its tale of by-gone life. But, unlike that of so many buildings of a past age, the tale of a house in Bath rarely takes the earnest romantic turn: it is irresistibly a "Comedy," comedy of intrigue and manners, of fashion and all its consequent frivolity (with perhaps just a little pathos, but never beyond the limits of elegance) Comedie à la Française mostly. Je trompe, tu trompes, nous trompons...! In this guise the first stately building at the western extremity of the Royal Crescent, its pilasters, its stone steps, curvetting iron-work, clamoured to tell of Lady Standish's so nearly disastrous experiment on her husband's credulity. The corner house of Gay Street near George Street (opposite the alluring old-book store of Mr. Meehan—the genial Bath Antiquary) proclaimed at all the pores of its crumbling stones, as clearly as if the commemorative tablet had duly been erected, that the warm-hearted Irishman, the Honble. Denis O'Hara, had dwelt there in the year 17—. There is another house, at the southern corner of Queen Square, adorned with Cupid's heads and cornucopiae, which beyond all manner of doubt in that same year was the "lodging" (Fashion spoke of lodgings then!) of the ingenious young widow Bellairs. In the same manner the middle building, facing west, of Pierrepont's Street, one of the most correct in Bath, has still all the conscious air of having sheltered once that most excellent young man, Lord Verney. One of the drawbacks of setting down a comedy in narrative form is the necessary curtailing of all descriptive passages and explanatory ethical disquisitions: in such a frame, pen and ink pictures of scenery, and the rendering of atmosphere, are out of place. Let it therefore be borne in mind that, in this Butterfly Drama, with the exception of the penultimate scene enacted at the Inn in Devizes, the scenery is altogether cast in or about the handsome old grey town; in its lofty- ceiled, polished-floored rooms, rather bare; on its broad pavement, clean and trim and as little crowded as any conventional stage. Of the rest it must be understood that we are in the midst of what has been extolled as "the Bath manner" and that throughout, as was said of another, but world-wide known, Bath Comedy, "Love gilds the scene, and woman guides the plot." A. & E. C. 49 Sloane Gardens, S.W., April, 1900. The Bath Comedy SCENE I "What? My sweet Lady Standish in tears!" Mistress Kitty Bellairs poised her dainty person on one foot and cast a mocking, somewhat contemptuous, yet good-humoured glance at the slim length of sobbing womanhood prone on the gilt-legged, satin-cushioned sofa. "Tears," said Mistress Kitty, twirling round on her heel to look at the set of her new sacque in the mirror and admire its delicate flowered folds, as they caught the shafts of spring sunshine that pierced into the long dim room from the narrow street. "Tears, my dear, unless you cry becomingly, which I would have you know not one in the thousand can, are a luxury every self-respecting woman ought to deny herself. Now I," said Mistress Kitty, and tweaked at a powdered curl and turned her head like a bird for a last glimpse at the mirror before sinking into an arm-chair and drawing closer to her afflicted friend, "have not shed a tear since I lost my first lover, and that is—I will not say how many years ago. I was a mightily precocious child! When I say a tear, mind you, 'tis a figure of speech. Far be it from me to deny the charm of a pearly drop—just one: enough to gather on the tip of the finger, enough just to suffuse the pathetic eye. Oh, that is not only permissible, 'tis to be cultivated. But such weeping as yours—sobs that shake you, tears that drench the handkerchief, redden the eyes, not to speak of the nose—fie! fie! it is clean against all reason. Come!" with a sudden gentle change of tone, putting her hand on the abased head, where fair curls luxuriated in all their native sunshine, "what is it all about?" Lady Standish slowly and languidly drew herself into a sitting posture, and raised a countenance marred out of its delicate beauty by the violent passion of her grief. Swimming blue eyes she fixed upon the Mistress Kitty's plump dimpling face. "Alas!" she breathed upon the gust of a sigh that was as wet as an April breeze, and tripped up by a belated sob. "Alas! you see in me the most miserable of women. Alas! my heart is broken!" Here the kerchief, soaked indeed beyond all possible utility, was frantically held to streaming eyes once more. "Mercy!" cried the pretty widow, "you could not take on worse if you had the smallpox: you a three-months' wife!" "Ah me!" moaned Lady Standish. "So," said Mistress Kitty, "he has been a brute again, has he? Come, Julia, weep on my bosom. What is it now? Did he kiss you on the forehead instead of on the lips? Or did he say: 'Zounds, madam!' when you upset a dish of tea over his waistcoat? Or yet did he, could he, the monster!—nay it is not possible, yet men are so—could he have whispered that Lady Caroline looked—passable last night?" Lady Standish rose to her feet, crumpled her kerchief in one small hand and faced her friend with tragic passion. "It is useless to blind myself," she said. "Cease to gibe at me, pray, Mistress Bellairs; I must face the truth! My husband loves me no longer. Oh! Kitty, Kitty," dropping from her height of tragedy very quickly and landing on a whimper again, "is it not sad? I have tried, Heaven is my witness, to win him back by the tenderest love, by the most pitiful pleading. He has seen me weep and pine. 'Rob me of your love,' I have told him, 'and you rob me of life.' And he, he—oh, how shall I tell you! As the days go by he is with me less and less. He walks abroad with others. His evenings he gives to strangers—ay, and half his nights—while I may sob myself to sleep at home. I saw him to-day but for two minutes—'twas half an hour ago. He entered here upon me, looking, ah Kitty! as only he can look, the most elegant and beautiful of men. I was singing, piping as a poor bird may to strive and call its mate to the nest. He passed through the room without a word, without a sign; he that used to say 'twas heaven to sit and listen to my voice. 'What!' I exclaimed as he reached the door, 'not a word for poor Julia?' Kitty, at the sound of that cry, wrung from my heart, he turned and frowned, and said—— (Oh, oh, oh.)" "Ha!" cried Mistress Kitty, "what said he?" ("Heaven help him," said she aside; "the woman's a fountain.") "He said," sobbed Julia, "'Mayn't a man even go for a stroll?' Oh, had you but heard the cold indifferent tone, you would have understood how it cut me to the heart. I ran to him and laid my hand upon his sleeve, and he said——" Again grief overcame her. "Well, what said he?" "He said—oh, oh—he said, 'Julia don't paw me.'" Mistress Kitty Bellairs, the reigning toast of Bath, the prettiest woman, in the estimation of her admirers, in all England, and the wittiest, laughed low to herself, then rose from her chair, took her tall friend by the shoulders, and walked her up to the mirror. "Look at yourself," said she, "and look at me." Lady Standish winced. The contrast between her own dishevelled hair, her marbled swollen countenance, her untidy morning gown, and the blooming perfection of the apparition beside her, was more than she could contemplate. Kitty Bellairs—as complete in every detail of beauty as a carnation—smiled upon herself sweetly. "My dear," said she, "I have had thirty-seven declared adorers these three years, and never one tired of me yet. Poor Bellairs," she said with a light sigh, "he had two wives before me, and he was sixty-nine when he died, but he told me with his last breath that 'twas I gave him all the joy he ever knew." Lady Standish ceased weeping as suddenly as if her tears had been mechanically turned off. She regarded the widow earnestly. "Now, child," said Mistress Bellairs, with all the authority of her twenty-six years, "here we have been four weeks acquainted, and you have more than once done me the honour of saying that you considered me your friend." "'Tis so," said Lady Standish. "Then listen to me. There are three great rules to be observed in our dealings with men. The first rule comprises an extraordinary number of minor details, but briefly and comprehensively it runs thus: Never be monotonous! Second rule: Never let a man be too sure of you! Oh that is a wonderful wise maxim: reflect upon it. Third: Never, never let a man see how—well, how far from lovely you can look! Tush, tush, you are a better-looking woman than I am, but not when you have been blubbering and not when you are fretful." Lady Standish suddenly sat down as if her limbs could support her no more. She looked up at the ceiling with tear- dimmed eyes. "Pray," said Mistress Kitty inquisitorially ex cathedra, "how many times a day do you tell that unfortunate man that you love him? And, worse still, how many times a day do you want him to say that he loves you? I vow 'tis enough to drive him to cards, or wine, or something infinitely worse that also begins with a w! And, pray, if you spend all you have, and empty your purse, do you think your purse becomes a very valuable possession? 'Tis a mere bit of leather. Nay, nay, keep your gold, and give it out piece by piece, and do not give it at all unless you get good change for it. Oh," cried Kitty, a fine flush of indignation rising scarlet behind her rouge, "I marvel that women should be such fools!—to act the handmaid where they should ever rule as mistress; to cast forth unsought what they should dole out only to the supplicant on bended knee. Hath a man ever had from me an unsolicited avowal? Have I ever thrown the most ardent lover more than a 'perhaps' and 'it may be,' a smile, a dimple, a finger-tip? (What they have stolen I have not given, that is obvious! And, besides, 'tis neither here nor there.) And pray, Lady Standish, since when have you left off putting on rouge and having your hair tired and powdered, and wearing a decent gown of mornings and a modish sacque, and a heel to that pretty foot, a jewel in the ear and a patch beneath the lip?" Lady Standish had ceased contemplating the ceiling; she was looking at her friend. "But, madam," she said, "this is strange advice. Would you have me coquette with my husband, as if—God forgive me for even saying such a thing—as if I were not wife, but mistress?" "La, you there," said Mistress Bellairs, and clapped her hands, "there is the whole murder out! You are the man's lawful, honest wife, and therefore all tedium and homeliness, all fretful brow and tearful eye. God save us! who shall blame him if he seek a pleasant glint of vice to change him of you?" There fell a silence. Lady Standish rose indignant, grew red, grew pale, caught a glimpse of herself again in the mirror, shrank from the sight, and crept back to the sofa with a humble and convicted air. Then she cast a look of anguished pleading at Mistress Bellairs's bright unfeeling countenance. "Tell me," she said with a parched lip, "what shall I do?" "Do!" cried the widow, rising with a brisk laugh, "get some powder into your hair, and some colour into those cheeks! And when Sir Jasper returns (he left you in tears, he will be sullen when he comes home; 'tis a mere matter of self-defence) let him find you gay, distraite; say a sharp thing or two if you can; tell him you do not need his company this afternoon. Ah, and if you could make him jealous! 'Tis a very, very old trick, but then, you see, love is a very old game, the oldest of all. Make him jealous, my dear, make him jealous and you'll win the rubber yet!" "Jealous!" cried the three-months' wife, and all the blood of the innocent country girl leapt to her brow. "Oh, madam, how could that be?" "Look out a beau, nay, two or three, 'tis safer! Talk discreetly with them in the Pump-Room, let them fan you at the ball, let them meet you in Orange-Grove. Or, if you have not spirit enough—and indeed, my sweet life, you sadly lack spirit—start but an imaginary one, merely for the use of your lord and master: I wager you he will rise to the fly." "I am afraid Sir Jasper could be very jealous," said the other uneasily. "I remember before we were wed, when my cousin Harry would ride with me to the meet, oh, how angry Sir Jasper was! He swore he would shoot himself, ay, and he was all for shooting Harry too." "But he was not the less ardent with you on the score of it, I'll warrant him," said the experienced Mistress Bellairs. "Ah, no," said Lady Standish, and her lip trembled over a smile, while the ready water sprang to her eyelashes, and: "Ah, no!" she said again. "Indeed, he loved me then very ardently." "And he'll love you so still if you have but a spark of courage. Get you to your room," said the widow, goodhumouredly, "bustle up and play your part. Where is that woman of yours?" She pushed Lady Standish before her as she spoke, herself rang the call-bell for the tire-woman, and gave a few pregnant suggestions to that worthy, who advanced all sour smiles and disapproving dips. Then she strolled back into the drawing-room and paused a moment as she slipped on her long gloves. Next she drew a letter from her pocket and began to read it with a thoughtful brow. "No, no, Sir Jasper," she said half aloud, "you're a fine gentleman, and a pretty fellow, you have a neat leg, and an eloquent turn of speech, but I will not have the child's heart broken for the amusement of an idle day." She took the letter between each little forefinger and thumb as if to tear it, thought better of it, folded it again and thrust it back into its place of concealment. Presently she smiled to herself, and walked out of the long open window across the little strip of garden, and so through the iron gate into the shady back street. SCENE II Sir Jasper Standish halted on the flags of the Royal Crescent in front of his own door and his face darkened. He took a pinch of snuff. "Now! I shall find my lady in tears. What a strange world it is! The girl you woo is as merry as a May day: the wife you wed is like naught but early November. Equinoctial gales and water enough to drown the best spirits that ever were stilled. 'Tis a damp life," said Sir Jasper, "and a depressing." He sighed as the door was thrown open by the footman, and crossed the hall into the morning-room, where he had left his lady weeping. He beheld a flowered brocade, a very shapely back, and a crisp powdered head outlined against the window, and thought he had come upon a visitor unawares. "I crave ten thousand pardons," quoth he, and swept from his gallant head his knowing three-cornered hat. But slowly the figure at the window turned and he saw his wife's eyes strangely brilliant over two pink cheeks, beneath the snow of her up-piled hair. "Julia!" said he in amaze, and stared and stared again. ("And did I doubt my own taste?" thought he to himself. "Why, she is the prettiest woman in Bath!") "Expecting visitors, Julia?" He smiled as he spoke: in another minute that arm, shining pearl-like from the hanging lace of her sleeve, would be round his neck, and those lips (how red they were, and what a curve!) would be upon his. Well, a loving woman had her uses. "No," said Lady Standish to his query. She dropped the word with a faintly scornful smile, and a dimple came and went at the corner of her lip. There was a patch just above the dimple. Then she turned away and looked forth into the still, solemn, grey and green Crescent as before. Sir Jasper stood bewildered. Then he put his hat upon a table and came up to his wife and placed his arm round her waist. "My sweet life," said he, "your gown is vastly becoming." "Sir Jasper," said Lady Standish, "you do me proud." She slipped from his embrace, sketched a curtesy, and moved to the next window. Sir Jasper passed his hand across his brow. That was Julia, Julia his wife, sure enough; and yet, faith, it was a woman he did not know! "You are mightily interested in the Crescent," said he, with some humour. My lady shrugged her shoulders. "I believe you were vexed with me this morning, love," said he. "I, vexed?" said she. "Nay, why should I be vexed?" and then she tapped her foot and looked at the clock. "These servants grow monstrous unpunctual," she said; "are we not to dine to-day?" He glanced down at the tapping shoe, its little pointing toe and curving heel. 'Twas a smart shoe, and boasted a diamond buckle in a knot of rose-coloured ribbon. "Egad!" said he, "I doubt if there is another foot in Bath that could slip into that case." And Sir Jasper was a connoisseur! His opinion of himself, his faith in his own discrimination (which had waned sadly these last days) began to rise again, not disagreeably. He smirked. My Lady Standish, who, after a way that only women can practise, seemed absorbed in the contemplation of the empty Crescent the while she was intent upon each shade of expression upon her husband's countenance, felt a sudden glow of confidence in her own powers that she had never known before. The game she had started with a beating heart and a dry throat began to have a certain charm of its own. Was it so easy really? Was a man so lightly swayed? There was contempt in the thought, and yet pleasure. Was all a woman's loving heart to count for so little, and a pretty gown, a new shoe, a coquettish manner for so much? Ah, there was bitterness in that! But yet the immediate result of this new method: that look in his eye, that softening of his lip, it was too sweet to be forborne. Kitty was right! Sir Jasper took her hand. "It wants," said he, "full half-an-hour to dinner-time, love. Nay, do not draw your hand away. You are vexed with me? I left you weeping, 'twas unkind." "Weeping?" said Julia, and her heart fluttered to her throat, so that she could hardly speak, and Kitty's maxims kept dancing before her eyes as if written in letters of fire. "Make him jealous—oh, if you make him jealous you will win the rubber yet!" "If I wept," said she, "must my tears have been for you?" "How now?" said Sir Jasper, and dropped the little hand that struggled so gently yet determinedly to be free. "Oh, dear me," said Lady Standish, "how droll you men are!" She shrugged her shoulders and laughed affectedly. Like all budding actresses she over-did the part. But Sir Jasper was too much stirred, too much bewildered to be critical. Moreover his armour was not without vulnerable joints, and with a wanton word she had found one at the first pass. "How now?" said he. "Madam, and what might that mean?" Lady Standish trilled the bar of a song, and again directed her attention to the view. "Julia," said her husband in a deep voice. "Julia," he repeated with a threatening growl of passion. "Sir?" she said, and tilted her little head. "Who then were your tears for, if they were not for me? What signify these manners? What do these insinuations mean? By Jupiter, I will have the truth!" His face flushed, the veins on his temples swelled, his nostrils became dilated. Lady Standish lifted the hanging lace of her sleeve with one hand and examined it minutely. "I would rather," she said, and her voice shook, "I would rather you did not question me, Sir Jasper." Then she flashed upon him in anger, swift and lovely, as he had never seen her flash before. "You go your own way free enough," she said. "These last three weeks you have not spent one evening in my company, and half your days are given to others of whom I know nothing, Oh, I am not complaining, sir! I did complain, but that is over. I was wrong, for I see adversities have their advantages." Here she smiled. (Had the man but known how near she was to tears!) "Your neglect leaves me free." "Free!" cried Sir Jasper, and choked. "Free! Good heavens, free! What in the name of God do you mean? Free, madam?" "Sir Jasper," said Lady Standish, looking at him very earnestly, "you will never hear me ask again whose society it is you find so much more attractive than your wife's." "Indeed," cried Sir Jasper, and hesitated upon a gust of anger, at a loss in which direction to drive it forth. "No," said my lady, "and I expect the same good taste from you. 'Tis not too much to ask. Indeed you should rejoice if I have found consolation for your absence." He broke out with a fearful oath, and almost leaped upon her. "Consolation!" He plunged his hands into his powdered hair, and quivered into silence for the very impotence of words. "I said 'if,'" said she. She was surprised to find how readily the words came to her; and yet her hands were clammy with fright, and her breath ran short between her rouged lips. "Let us leave it at the 'if.'" She turned to the window and leant against it, drew her kerchief and fanned herself. Passing along the railings opposite the Crescent, not twelve yards distant, a tall, slender young gentleman of attractive appearance, though very dark in complexion, caught sight of her lovely glowing face, stared first in unconscious admiration, then with recognition, and finally, blushing swarthily, saluted with some appearance of agitation. Lady Standish, aware that her husband had approached close behind her, and hearing in every creak of his satin coat the flattering emotion of his senses, felt herself driven more and more by the unknown demon of mischief that had taken possession of her. She fluttered her little handkerchief back at the young gentleman with a gesture that almost indicated the wafting of a kiss. "Death and damnation," cried Sir Jasper, "before my very eyes!" He seized her by the wrist and flung her down upon the settee. "Nay," he cried, "there may be husbands that would put up with this, but I am not of them. So that is the Consoler! That is the Beau for whom you prink yourself with such fine feathers, whom you lie in wait for at the window to make signals to and smirk at! Oh, my innocent country daisy! Faugh! I might have known you were too fond—hypocrite!" He dashed at the window and burst its fastenings. "Hey! you, you my Lord Verney, a word with you!" Sir Jasper was already foaming at the mouth. The slim gentleman paused, surprised. "Oh, heavens!" cried Lady Standish, "what have I done? Sir Jasper! my husband!" She threw herself upon him. "Sir Jasper, what do you suspect? Oh, heavens!" She was half fainting and scarce could articulate a coherent word. "It was all to tease you. It was but the sport of an idle moment. Oh, I implore you, believe me, believe me!" "Ay, deny!" cried he. "Deny what I have seen with my own eyes! Let me go, madam." He thrust her aside, and, bareheaded, dashed down the stairs and out of the house towards Lord Verney, who, with a bashful, yet a pleasant smile, began to retrace his steps. "'Tis a fair day, Sir Jasper," said he courteously, and then became aware of Sir Jasper's convulsed face, and noted that Lady Standish, whom but a moment before he had beheld all smiling beauty, now clung despairingly to the window-post, her countenance ghastly behind her rouge. Lord Verney was a shy young man. "Ah—ah, good morning," said he, bowed politely, and turned with celerity. Sir Jasper flung a look of infinite derision and contempt towards his wife. "You have chosen," it seemed to say, "a pretty hare!" Then he arrested the slim swift figure with an aggressive shout: "Stand—stand, Lord Verney—Lord Verney—a word with you." The youth stopped, wheeled round, and: "I am at your service," said he. A certain pallor had replaced the ingenuous young blushes upon his cheek, but into his eye there sprang a fine spark of spirit. Sir Jasper marched upon him and only halted when his six feet of sinewy bulk were within a yard of the stripling's willowy shape. His hot red-brown eyes shot fire and fury, death and annihilation upon the innocent young peer. His full lips endeavoured to sneer, but rage distorted them to a grimace through which his white teeth shone forth ferociously. "Come, come, we understand each other," said he; "will you walk with me? There is no time like the present and a couple of friends are easy to come by." "'Tis vastly well," said Lord Verney with an attempt at dignity that betrayed the boy in every line of him. Then all at once colour flushed into his face again, and his rigid demeanour was broken up. "Come, devil take it all, Sir Jasper," said he, "and what is it about?" Sir Jasper threw bloodshot eyes upwards. "This fellow," quoth he, appealing to Heaven—"oh! this pretty fellow! You want reasons, my Lord Verney?" Lord Verney blushed and stammered. Gad, he'd like to know what he had done. He was at Sir Jasper's disposition, of course, but before drawing swords on a man—— Sir Jasper uttered a sound which was between a groan and a roar. He indicated with sweeping gesture the figure of Lady Standish strained in anguish watching, clinging still to the window-post. Then he hissed: "I know!" "Sir Jasper!" "I know, I tell you," repeated Sir Jasper, "let that suffice." "Good heavens," gasped Lord Verney, "here is some most grievous mistake. Do you mean, sir—am I to understand, Sir Jasper—? 'Tis monstrous." White dismay and crimson confusion chased each other across his candid brow. "Surely you do not mean me to understand that Lady Standish has any connection with this extraordinary scene?" Sir Jasper's trembling hand was furiously uplifted, then blindly sought his sword hilt, and then dropped in impotent disgust at his side. "My lord," said he, "Lady Standish is the pearl of womanhood, I would have you know it! There never breathed a female more virtuously attached to her husband and her duty—I would have you know it!" His face was quite horrible to look at in its withering sarcasm. "My quarrel with you, sir, is—" He paused and cast a roving eye upon the young gentleman, who now began to show unequivocal signs of fear. A jealous husband, a contingency that may have to be met any day—but a raving maniac! ... "'Tis the shape of your leg that mispleases me, sir. You have a vile calf, I cannot endure that so offensive an outline should pass and repass my windows." "I understand, Sir Jasper, yes, yes," said Lord Verney soothingly, backing as he spoke and casting nervous eyes round the empty street. "And so, good-morning." He bowed and turned. "Rat!" cried Sir Jasper, and shot forth a clutching hand. "I will bear it in mind," cried Lord Verney. "Good-morning, good-morning!" He was fleeing away on a swift foot. "Rat! Rat!" screamed the enraged baronet, starting in pursuit. But his passion made him clumsy. He stumbled, lurched, struck his foot against a stone, fell upon his knee and rose in another mood: one of darkling sullen determination for revenge. Lord Verney was a timid young man. Had it been with anyone else that this scene in the Royal Crescent had taken place all Bath would have known within the hour that Sir Jasper Standish had been seized with sudden lunacy. But Lord Verney was of those who turn a word over three times before they speak and then say something else. Moreover, he was not sure that he himself had cut a brilliant figure in the amazing duologue, so he held his tongue upon it. As the day grew, however, he began to have a curious recollection of Lady Standish's lovely smiling greeting and of that little gesture with the white handkerchief, which had almost seemed like the blowing of a kiss (here his very ears would grow hot), then of Sir Jasper's inexplicable wrath, and of the stricken figure by the window! Could it be? Twas impossible! Nay, but such things had been. When the dusk fell he made up his mind and sought the counsels of that fashionable friend who was kind enough to pilot his inexperience through the first shoals and rocks of Bath life. This genetleman's name was Spicer. He called himself Captain: of what regiment no one knew. SCENE III Sir Jasper came striding back to the house. In the morning-room he passed his wife without a word. "Sir Jasper," quoth she, and shot out a timid hand. "Oh, Sir Jasper, will you not listen to me? This is the most terrible mistake. Sir Jasper, I swear I am true to you, not only in deed but in every inmost thought." "Do not swear, madam," said he, and shut the door in her face. Ten minutes later he sallied forth again. She heard his steps ring out: they sounded very desperate. She sat on the pink-striped settee in a misery too deep this time for tears. How puerile, how far away, seemed the morning's storm. She sat with her hands locked and her eyes starting, revolving terrible possibilities, and fruitless plans for preventing them. Dinner was served in vain. Her ladyship's woman brought her a dish of tea. This poor Julia drank, for she felt faint and weary. Then a sudden thought struck her. "'Tis Mistress Bellairs who made the mischief," she thought, "now she must mend it." She dashed off a despairing note to the lady and dispatched her black page with all possible celerity. "I have followed your advice, to my undoing. You told me to make Sir Jasper jealous; I tried to make him jealous, and succeeded far too well. He fancies there is something between me and Lord Verney. Poor young man, I have spoken to him but three times in my life! There will be a duel and they will both be killed. Come to me, dear Mistress Bellairs, and see what is to be done, for I am half dead with fear and anguish." The dusk was falling when, with incredible celerity, the sedan-chair of Mistress Bellairs rounded the corner at a swinging pace; her bell-like voice might be heard from within rating the chairmen with no gentle tone for their sluggishness. "'Tis snails ye are—snails, not men. La! is there one of you that is not a great-grandfather? It is not, I would have you know, a coffin that you are carrying, but a chair. Oh, Gad, deliver me from such lazy scoundrels!" In a storm she burst open the door; in a whirlwind tore through the passage. Lady Standish's obsequious footmen she flounced upon one side. Into that afflicted lady's presence she burst with undiminished vigour. "So," said she, "these are fine goings on! And why Lord Verney, may I inquire?" "Oh, Mistress Bellairs," ejaculated her friend, with a wail, "'tis indeed terrible. Think of Sir Jasper's danger, and all because of my folly in listening to your pernicious advice." "My advice!" cried Mistress Kitty. "My advice—this is pretty hearing! Here, where is that woman of yours, and where are those stuffed owls you keep in the hall. What is the use of them if they do not do their business? Light up, light up—who can speak in the dark?" She ran from one door to another calling. "Oh, dear," sighed Lady Standish, and leant her distraught head against the cushions. "Come, come," cried Mistress Bellairs, heedless of the presence of footmen with tapers, and lady's-maid with twinkling curl paper. "Sit up this minute, Julia, and tell me the whole from the beginning. It is no use your trying to extenuate, for I will know all that has happened." But before her friend, whose back was beginning to stiffen under this treatment, had had time to collect her thoughts sufficiently for a dignified reply, Mistress Kitty herself proceeded with great volubility: "And so, madam, not content with having a new young husband of your own, you must fix upon Lord Verney for your manoeuvres. Why, he has never so much as blinked the same side of the room as you. Why, it was but yester- night he vowed he hardly knew if you were tall or short. Put that out of your head, my Lady Standish, Lord Verney is not for you. Oh, these country girls!" Lady Standish rose, quivering with rage. "Be silent, madam," she said, "your words have neither sense nor truth. I was ill-advised enough to listen to your unwomanly counsels. I tried to deceive my husband, and God has punished me." "Ah," said Mrs. Kitty, "deceit is a very grievous sin. I wonder at you, that you must fix upon Lord Verney. Oh, Julia!" here her voice grew melting and her large brown eyes suffused. "You had all Bath," she said, "and you must fix upon Lord Verney. The one man I thought ... the one man I could have.... Oh, how did you dare? Nay! It is a blind," she cried, flaming again into indignation and catching her friend by the wrist. "There was more in your game than you pretend, you sly and silken hypocrite! If he is killed, how will you feel then?" "Oh," exclaimed Lady Standish, "cruel woman! Is this your help? Sir Jasper killed!" "Sir Jasper? Sir Fiddle!" cried Mistress Kitty, with a fine scorn. "Who cares for Sir Jasper? 'Tis my Harry I think of. Oh, oh!" cried the widow, and burst into tears. Lady Standish stood confounded. "What!" cried she, "you love Lord Verney?" "'Tis the only man of them," sobbed Kitty, "who does not pester me with his devotion—the only one who does not come to my call like a lap-dog. If I look at him he blushes for bashfulness, and not for love; if his hand shakes it is because he is so sweetly timid, not because my touch thrills him. I had set my heart," said Mistress Kitty through her clenched teeth—"I had set my heart upon Lord Verney, and now you must needs have him ki—ki—killed before I have even had time to make him see the colour of my eyes." "Oh, oh!" sighed Julia Standish, still beyond tears. And: "Oh!" sobbed Kitty Bellairs, quite forgetful of red noses and swollen lids. There was a silence broken only by the sobs of the widow and the sighs of the wife. Then said Mistress Kitty, in a small, strangled voice: "Let this be a lesson to you never to deceive." "I never told a single lie before," moaned Lady Standish. "Ah!" said Kitty, "there never was a single lie, madam. A lie is wed as soon as born, and its progeny exceeds that of Abraham." The two women rose from their despairing postures, and, mutually pushed by the same impulse, approached each other. "What is to be done now?" said Lady Standish. "What is to be done?" said Mistress Bellairs. "Let us seek Sir Jasper," said his wife, "and tell him the whole truth." Kitty, through wet eyelashes, shot a glance of withering scorn upon her friend. "Ay," she said sarcastically, "that would be useful truly. Why, child, let you and me but go and swear your innocence to Sir Jasper, and it will be enough to establish you steeped in guilt in the eyes of every sensible person for the rest of your life. No," said she, "better must be thought of than that. We must act midwife to the lie and start the little family as soon as possible." "I will lie no more," said Lady Standish. "I am told," said Mistress Kitty musingly, "that Lord Verney has learned swordsmanship abroad." "Oh, cruel!" moaned the other. Mistress Kitty paused, bit a taper finger, scratched an arch eyebrow, drew white brows together, pondered deeply. Suddenly her dimples peeped again. "I have it!" said she. "'Tis as easy as can be. Will you leave it to me?" Lady Standish began to tremble. She had wept much, she had not eaten, her heart was full of terror. Faintness she felt creep upon her. "What will you do?" she said, grasping after the vanishing powers of reflection with all her failing strength. "Do?" said Mistress Bellairs. "First of all, prevent the duel. Will that serve you?" "Oh, yes," cried Julia, and grew livid behind her paint. "She has got the vapours again," thought the other. "What a poor weak fool it is!" But these vapours came in handy to her plans; she was not keen to restore Lady Standish too promptly. She called her woman, however, and helped her to convey the sufferer to her room and lay her on the couch; then she advised sal volatile and sleep. "Leave it all to me," she murmured into the little ear uppermost upon the pillow; "I will save you." Lady Standish groped for her friend's hand with her own that was cold and shaking. The ladies exchanged a clasp of confidence, and Mistress Bellairs tripped down to the drawing-room. "Now," said she to herself, "let us see." Sudden inspiration sparkled in her eye. She plunged her hand into the depth of the brocade pocket dangling at her side, drew forth sundry letters, and began to select with pursed lips. There was Sir Jasper's own. Those gallant well-turned lines, that might mean all or nothing, as a woman might choose to take them —that was of no use for the present. Back it went into the brocade pocket. There was a scrawl from Harry Verney declining her invitation to a breakfast party because he had promised (with two "m's") my Lord Scroop to shoot (with a "u" and an "e"). Kitty Bellairs looked at it very tenderly, folded it with a loving touch, and replaced it in its nest. Here was a large folded sheet, unaddressed, filled inside with bold black writing. A crisp auburn curl was fastened across the sheet by an emerald-headed pin. "Most cruel, most beautiful, most kind!" ran the ardent lines, "most desired, most beloved! Was it last night or a hundred years ago that we met? This is the lock of hair the loveliest hand in all the world deigned to caress. It became upon that moment far too precious a thing for its poor owner. He ventures, therefore, to offer it at the shrine of the goddess who consecrated it. Will she cast it from her? Or will she keep it and let it speak to her, every hair a tongue, of the burning flame of love that she has kindled in this mortal breast? Did I dream, or can it be true?—there was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your lip. I kissed it. Oh, it must have been a dream! One word, fairest:—When may I dream again? "Your own and ever your own. "P.S.—The lock was white before you touched it, but you see you have turned it to fire!" Mistress Kitty read and smiled. "The very thing!" Then she paused. "But has the woman a dimple?" said she. "Has she? Never mind, something must be risked. Now, if I know men, Sir Jasper will spend the whole night prowling about, trying to discover confirmation of his suspicions." The letter was folded up. "It must seem as if it dropped from my lady's bosom. Here, at the foot of the sofa, just peeping from behind the foot-stool! A jealous eye cannot miss it!" The deed was done. She caught up her cloak and hood, glanced cheerfully round the room, satisfied herself that the letter showed itself sufficiently in the candle light to attract a roving eye and, bustling forth, summoned her chair for her departure in a far better humour than that which had marked her arrival. "They could not fight till morning," she said to herself, as she snuggled against the silken sides. "Now heaven speed my plan!" She breathed a pious prayer as her bearers swung her onwards. SCENE IV For the first time for over a fortnight Sir Jasper returned to the very fine mansion he had taken for the Bath season, before the small hours. It was about ten o'clock of the evening that his impatient hand upon the knocker sent thunder through the house, startled the gambling footmen in the hall below and the fat butler from his comfortable nook at the housekeeper's fireside and his fragrant glass of punch. The nerves of the elder footman were indeed so shaken that he dropped an ace from his wide cuff as he swung back the door. Breathing hot lemon peel, the butler hurried to receive his master's cloak and cane. The ribbons of Mistress Tremlet's cap quivered over the staircase: the whole household was agog with curiosity, for her ladyship's woman had told them to a tear the state of her ladyship's feelings. Sir Jasper cursed freely as he entered, struck the younger footman with his cane over the calves for gaping, requested a just Creator to dispose of his butler's soul with all possible celerity, and himself obligingly suggested the particular temperature most suitable to it; then strode he to the drawing-room with the brief announcement that he expected the visit of some gentlemen. He looked round scowlingly for his wife. The room was empty and desolate in spite of bright chandeliers. He paused with a frowning brow, stood a moment irresolute, then shaped his course for the stairs and mounted with determined foot. In my lady's dressing-room, by one dismal candle, sat her woman, reading a book of sermons. She had a long pink face, had been her ladyship's mother's own attendant; and much Sir Jasper hated her. She rose bristling, dropped him a curtesy eloquent of a sense of his reprobation; and he felt that with every line of the homily she laid by on his appearance she had just damned him as comfortably as he the butler. Oh, Lud, Lud! (thus she prayed Sir Jasper in a frightful whisper) would he in mercy walk softer? My lady was asleep. Her ladyship had been so unwell, so indisposed, that she, Megrim, had seen the moment when she must send for the apothecary, and have Sir Jasper looked for all over Bath. Sir Jasper did not seem to realise it, but my lady was of a delicate complexion: a tender flower! A harsh look from Sir Jasper, an unkind word, much less cruel treatment, and she would slip through his fingers. Ay, that she would. Sir Jasper cast a lowering suspicious look around. He glared at the woman, at the corners of th...