Truth to tell, I desired nothing so much as to be gone and be out of
this imbroglio; and the woman, whom madam had called Monterey,
twitching my sleeve and whispering me, I followed her, and slipped out
as quickly as I could through the door by which we had entered. Even
so we were not a moment too soon, if I was to retreat unseen. For as
the curtain dropped behind me I heard a man's voice in the room I had
left, and the woman with me chancing to have the lamp, which she had
lifted from the table, in her hand at the instant--so that the light
fell brightly on her face--I was witness of an extraordinary change
which passed over her features. She grew rigid with rage--rage, I took
it to be--and stood listening with distended eyes, in perfect
forgetfulness of my presence; until, seeming at last to remember me,
she glanced from me to the curtain and from the curtain to me in a
kind of frantic uncertainty; being manifestly torn in two between the
desire to hear what passed, and the desire to see me out that I might
not hear. But as, to effect the latter she must sacrifice the former,
it did not require a sage to predict which impulse, curiosity incited
by hatred or mere prudence, would prevail with a woman. And as the
sage would have predicted so it happened; after making an abortive
movement as if she would place the lamp in my hands, she stealthily
laid it on the table beside her, and making me a sign to wait and be
silent, bent eagerly to listen.
I fancy that it was the mention of her own name turned the scale; for
that was the first word that caught my ear, and who that was a woman
would not listen, being mentioned? The speaker was her mistress, and
the words "What, Monterey?" uttered in a voice a little sharp and
raised, were as clearly heard as if we had been in the room.
"Yes, madam," came the answer.
"Well," my lady replied with a chuckle, "I do not think that you are
the person who ought to----"
"Object? Perhaps not, my lady mother," came the answer. The speaker's
tone was one of grave yet kindly remonstrance; the voice quite strange
to me. "But that is precisely why I do," he continued. "I cannot think
it wise or fitting that you should keep her about you."
"You kept her long enough about you!" madam answered, in a tone
between vexation and raillery.
"I own it; and I am not proud of it," the new-comer rejoined. Whereat,
though I was careful not to look at the woman listening beside me, I
saw the veins in one of her hands which was under my eyes swell with
the rage in her, and the nail of the thumb grow white with the
pressure she was placing on the table to keep herself still. "I am
very far from proud of it," the speaker continued, "and for the matter
of that----"
"You were always a bit of a Puritan, Charles," my lady cried.
"It may be."
"I am sure I do not know where you get it from," madam continued
irritably, stirring in her chair--I heard it crack, and her voice told
the rest. "Not from me, I'll swear!"
"I never accused you, madam."
That answer seemed to please her, for on the instant she went off into
such a fit of laughter as fairly choked her. When she had a little
recovered from the paroxysm of coughing that followed this, "You can
be more amusing than you think, Charles," she said. "If your father
had had a spark of your humour----"
"I thought that it was agreed between us that we should not talk of
him," the man said gravely, and with a slight suspicion of sternness
in his voice.
"Oh, if you are on your high horse!" madam answered, "the devil take
you! But, there, I am sure that I do not want to talk of him, poor
man. He was dull enough. Let us talk of something livelier, let us
talk of Monterey instead; what is amiss with her?"
"I do not think that she is a fit person to be about you."
"Why not? She is married now," my lady retorted. "D'ye know that?"
"Yes, I heard some time ago that she was married; to Mr. Bridges'
steward at Kingston."
"Matthew Smith?"
"Yes."
"And who recommended _him_ to my husband, I should like to know?"
madam answered in a tone of malice. "Why, you, my friend."
"It is possible. I remember something of the kind."
"And who recommended him to you? Why, she did: in the days when you
did not warn people against her." And madam chuckled wickedly.
"It is possible," he answered, "but the matter is twelve years old,
and more; and I do not want to----"
"Go back to it," madam cried sharply. "I can quite understand that.
Nor to have Monterey about to remind you of it--and of your wild
oats."
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps, Mr. Square-Toes? You know it is the case!" was the vivid
answer. "For otherwise, as I like the woman, and now, at all events,
she is married--what is against her?"
"I do not trust her," was the measured answer. "And, madam, in these
days people are more strait-laced than they were; it is not fitting."
"That for people!" my lady cried with a reckless good humour that
would have been striking in one half her age. "People! Odds my life,
when did I care for people? But come, I will make a bargain with you.
Tit for tat. A Roland for your Oliver! If you will give me your Anne I
will give you my Monterey."
"My Anne?" he exclaimed, in a tone of complete bewilderment.
"Yes, your Anne! Come, my Monterey for your Anne!"
There was silence for a moment, and then "I do not at all understand
you," he said.
"Don't you? I think you do," she answered lightly. "Look you,
'When William king is William king no more.'
Now, you understand?"
"I understand, my lady, that you are saying things which are not
fitting for me to hear," the man answered, in a tone of cold
displeasure. "The King, thank God, is well. When he ails, it will be
time to talk of his succession."
"It will be a little late then," she retorted. "In the meantime, and
to please me----"
He raised his hand in protest. "Anything else," he said.
"You have not yet heard what I propose," she cried, her voice shrill
with anger. "It is a trifle, and to please me you might well do it.
Set your hand to a note which I will see delivered in the proper
quarter; promising nothing in the Prince's life-time--there! but only
that in the event of his death you will support a Restoration."
"I cannot do it," he answered.
"Cannot do it?" she rejoined with heat. "Why not? You have done as
much before."
"It maybe: and been forgiven for it by the best master man ever had!"
"Who feels nothing, forgives easily," she sneered.
"But not twice," he said gravely. "The King----"
"Which King?"
"The only King I acknowledge," he answered, unmoved. "Who knows,
believe me, so much more than you give him credit for, that it were
well if your friends bethought them of that before it be too late. He
has winked at much and forgiven more--no one knows it better than
I--but he is not blinded; and there is a point, madam, beyond which he
can be as steadfast to punish as your King. If Sir John Fenwick,
therefore, who I know well, is in England----"
But at that she cut him short, carried away by a passion, which she
had curbed as long as it was in her impetuous nature to curb anything.
"Odds my life!" she cried, and at the sound of her voice uplifted in a
shriek of anger, the woman listening beside me raised her face to
mine, and smiled cruelly--"Odds my life, your King and my King! Kings
indeed! Why, mannikin, how many Kings do you think there are! By G--d,
Master Charles, you will learn one of these days that there is but one
King, sent by God, one King and no more, and that his yea and nay are
life and death! You fool, you! I tell you, you are trembling on the
edge, you are tottering! A day, a week, a month, at most, and you
fall--unless you clutch at the chance of safety I offer you! Sign the
note! Sign the note, man! No one but the King and Middleton shall know
of it; and when the day comes, as come it will, it shall avail you."
"Never, madam," was the cold and unmoved answer.
So much I heard and my lady's oath and volley of abuse; but in the
midst of this, and while she still raged, my companion, satisfied I
suppose with what she had learned, and assured that her lady would not
get her way, twitched my sleeve, and softly taking up the lamp, signed
to me to go before her. I obeyed nothing loth, and regaining the small
ante-room by which I had entered, found the man Smith awaiting us.
When they had whispered together, "I'll see you home, Mr. Taylor,"
said he, somewhat grimly. "And to-morrow I will call and talk
business. What we want you to do is a very simple matter."
"It is simply that my lady's son is a fool!" the woman cried,
snappishly.
"Well," he said, smiling, "I should hardly call my Lord Shrewsbury
that!"
The woman screamed and clapped her hand to his mouth. "You babbling
idiot!" she cried, in a passion. "You have let it out."
He stood gaping. "Good lord!" he said.
"You have let it out with a vengeance now!" she repeated, furiously.
He looked foolish; and at last, "He did not hear," he said.
"Hear? He heard, unless he is deaf!" she retorted. "You may lay your
account with that. For me, I'll leave you. You have done the mischief
and may mend it."