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 gentleman's
name was Spicer. He called himself Captain: of what regiment no
one knew.