Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
--TROILUS & CRESSIDA III. 3.
That same evening in the small house in the parish of Soho, Michael sat
beside an old woman whose wrinkled, toil-worn hand he held tenderly in
his own.
Life had dealt hardly with her, unaccustomed toil and a rough life had
done their work. Her sensibilities were blunted, almost extinct save
one--her love for her son.
Obediently she had left her Kentish village, her miserable cottage, and
ungrateful garden, to come to London when first he bade her so to do.
She had exchanged her rough worsted kirtle for a gown of black silk,
soft and pliable to the touch. This she had done to please Michael, not
because she cared. It was many, many years since last she had cared.
Humbly acceding to his wish she had lived in the house in Soho Square,
allowing herself to be tended by servants, she who awhile ago had
been scrubbing her own floors. To please him she had accepted all the
comforts, all the luxuries which he gave her. As for herself she had no
need of them.
Then when he went away and she was all alone in the big house, save
for the army of mute and obedient servants round her, she had wept not
a little because she did not see her son. She knew not whither he had
gone, and when she asked any of the servants they gave no definite
answer, only seemed more mute, more obedient than before.
But she did not complain. Michael was oft wont to go away like this, to
the wars mayhap; soon he would return all in good time and she would
see him again. Not the faintest echo from the great world outside
reached the lonely house in Soho Square; but then it had not reached
the Kentish village either, so old Mistress Kestyon was quite satisfied.
To-night Michael had returned. She was over-glad to see him. It seems
he had not been wounded in the wars, for which she was over-glad. He
would not let her out of his sight, even when a visitor came desiring
speech with him.
The visitor was Rupert Kestyon; the name hardly reached the feeble
intelligence, and the face conveyed no meaning. The old dame was quite
happy, however, for Michael sat beside her, holding her hand in his.
She did not understand much of what went on between the two men. They
were cousins, so Michael had said when first the young man entered and
he himself went forward to greet him and warmly took his hand.
"You see me shamed before you, Coz," he said gravely. "You know that
had I had the control of my fate, I should be watching you now from the
height or depth of another world--"
"You sent for me," said Rupert, in no way responding to the other's
cordiality. "I presume 'tis because you have something to say to me of
more importance than excuses for your happening to be alive."
"Nay! There is nothing more important than that just now, Coz,"
retorted the other quietly. "I sent for you because a chance of word
from your servant to mine revealed to me the fact that you were in
London. You came, no doubt, to see me hanged. A beautiful woman of whom
you, Coz, were never worthy, hath decided that I shall live."
The word that Rupert uttered in response brought an ugly frown on
Michael's brow.
"Cousin," he said sternly, "in your own interest I pray you cease this
wanton talk. I would have you know that I mean well by you."
He drew from out his pocket the paper that had the seal of His Holiness
the Pope attached to it and handed it to Rupert, who with a savage oath
took it from him.
"Here, Coz," he said, "is the papal dispensation which good M. Legros
gave into my hands when I parted from him at Westminster Hall. The
civil law of England will not take long in setting you free. What money
can accomplish, that it shall do to expedite your case. My word on it!
The lady will not defend it and the nullity of your marriage shall be
pronounced ere the first bud appears on the chestnut trees."
"A free man and yet a beggar," murmured Rupert moodily.
"Nay, nay, Cousin, why should you look on me as your enemy? Have I ever
acted as such? My mother, alas, is here as a proof that you and yours
were enemies to me, but I, not to you, 'pon my honour. I have no need
of great riches. The hundred and twenty thousand pounds with which you
gambled a year ago are yours, Cousin. Let us call them a loan which you
made me, and wherewith Fate hath worked its will for us. I give them
to you freely and with all my heart. You are not a beggar, you see,
and are free to marry whom you choose. You are still the cousin of, if
not the actual Earl of Stowmaries; many a pretty woman with taste and
ambition will--an I mistake not--smile on you. Life is full of joys yet
for you, Cousin, and Mistress Peyton will relent."
While he thus spoke lightly, almost gaily, the frown of moodiness fled
from Rupert Kestyon's brow. He could not help but be gratified at his
cousin's generosity, even though his heart no longer turned toward the
faithless beauty whose callousness had killed in him all love for her.
But there were plenty of pretty women yet in England, thank God, and a
man well-born and well-connected could cut a very fine figure in London
society these days on one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. In the
far-off days in old Virginia he had been quite glad of as many pence.
He was quite manly enough to thank his cousin warmly. But before he
went, he told Michael the news that had been all over London for some
day before the trial, namely, that beautiful Mistress Peyton had
finally decided to bestow her hand and fortune and her heart--on John
Ayloffe.
Good Cousin John! Confronted with beggary and the irretrievable loss
of that £12,000, he had bethought himself of the only plan whereby the
latter goodly sum could, after all, find its way into his own pocket.
The money with the lady was his only chance, and we are told that he
took it boldly, even contriving not to make too wry a face when the
capricious beauty--realising that Cousin John was her only hope of
matrimony now that her name had been so plentifully bespattered with
ridicule--decided to bestow her £20,000, her house and her person, on
the one man who would accept.
Cousin John became exceedingly fat after his marriage, for he led a
life of ease and comfort even though his former merry haunts knew him
no more.