"My Lord," clamoured Captain Spicer at the
door, "the coach is waiting and we have but
half an hour to reach Bathwick Meadows.
Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the
meeting?"
Lord Verney sprang to his feet. The words,
the impatient raps penetrated to his dizzy brain
with sudden conviction.
"Heavens!" cried he, and glanced at the
clock, and made a leap for the door.
"And will you go," said the stranger, "without
having seen my face?"
He ran back to her and then back to the door
again, distracted, as you may see a puppy dog
between two calls. Finally he came back to the
lady with a new and manly dignity upon him.
"I must go," he said. "Would you show
yourself as kind as you seem, madam, remove
your mask that I may see you before I go."
Outside Captain Spicer was dancing a sort of
hornpipe of impotent impatience, and filling the
air with shrill strange oaths.
Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy
very composedly on one side by the merest
touch of her hand, then she went over to the
door, unlocked it and admitted Captain Spicer,
green and sweating.
"I am coming, Spicer," cried Lord Verney
desperately, and made a plunge for his hat and
cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: "Oh
cruel!"
Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and
looked at the clock.
"It will not take you, you know," said she,
"more than five minutes to drive down to the
Bathwick ferry, therefore if you start in three
you will still have twenty-six to spare. My
Lord Verney, will you give me those three
minutes?"
Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again,
his face glowing with a dark flush.
"Oh," cried he, like a school-boy, "for God's
sake, Spicer, wait outside."
"Nay," said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself
under her mask, "nay, I have need of Captain
Spicer."
Lord Verney's face fell,
"Come hither," said she, and took him crestfallen
by the hand and brought him to the table,
where lay the writing materials he had been
using but a little while ago. "Here," said she,
"is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and
write, write," she said, and tapped his shoulder;
"write, sir--thus:--
/#
'Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Joseph Standish that he
understands the grounds of the quarrel between them to lie
in a gross misconception of Lord Verney's feelings for Lady
Standish.'
#/
"Write, write!" She leaned over him, dictating.
Half spell-bound, yet protesting incoherently,
he began to cover the page with his awkward
scrawl.
"Quick," said she. "(Child, how do you
spell quarrel?) Never mind, on with you:--
/#
'Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from
presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady
Standish, he has never addressed more than three words to
her or as many glances at her in his-life; that his whole
heart is given to another lady, the only woman he has ever
loved and ever will love.'"
#/
The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney's
fingers. He started and turned round on his
chair to graze in amaze into the countenance of
his mysterious visitor, and again was at once
attracted and foiled by her mask.
"Surely you would not contradict a lady?"
she whispered in his ear; "haste, we have but
one minute more. Here, give me the pen, I
will finish." She snapped the quill from his
hand, her curls touched his cheek as she bent
forward over him to the page. Swiftly her
little hand flew:--
/#
"If upon this explanation Sir Jasper does not see his way
to retract all the offensive observations he made to Lord
Verney, Lord Verney will be ready to meet him as arranged
without an instant's delay. The truth of all these statements
is guaranteed by the woman Lord Verney loves."
#/
She seized the sheet and folded it.
"Now, Captain Spicer," said she, "take your
coach and hie you to Sir Jasper's house, and
if you bring back an answer before the clock
strikes, I will let you take off my mask, and that
will save you from dying of curiosity and, also,
give you something to tattle about for the next
month. Oh, you will find Sir Jasper," she said;
"he is a seasoned hand, and does not, like your
virgin duellist, make it a point of honour to
bring his high valour to the rendezvous twenty
minutes before the time."
Within his meagre body Captain Spicer
carried the soul of a flunkey. He would have
given worlds to rebel, but could not.
"So long as it is not a put-off," said he.
"Not even for a fair one's smile could I barter
a friend's honour."
Kitty held the letter aloft tantalizingly and
looked at the clock.
"If you won't be the bearer," said she, "I
will send it by the chairman, and then you will
never know what is in it. Moreover," said she,
and smiled archly, "if Sir Jasper apologises to
Lord Verney, which, upon receipt of this letter,
I make no doubt he will, you can take his place,
you know, and will not be done out of a gallant
meeting."
"Of course, ha, of course!" cried Spicer with
a yellow smile.
Laughing, Mistress Kitty closed the door
behind his retreating figure.
"Now," said she.
"Oh, what have you done, what have you
made me do?" cried Harry Verney in a sudden
agony.
"Hush," said Mistress Kitty. "Did I not
tell you your honour was safe with me? Do
you not believe me?" said she meltingly.
"Ah, Verney!" She put her hand to her
head, and at her touch the mask fell.
He looked at her face, blushing and quivering
upon him, and once more fell on his knee
at her feet.
"Oh, tell me your name!" cried he, pleadingly.
"Why, Lord Verney," she said, "how ungallant!" She
smiled and looked bewitchingly
beautiful; looked serious and reproachful, and
he fell beyond his depths in rapture.
"Why, you know me, you know me well,"
said she, "am I not Mistress Bellairs, Kitty
Bellairs--am I not, Kitty?"
"No, no," cried he, "I never knew you
till this hour, madam, Mistress Bellairs Kitty!
I see you," he cried, "for the first time! Oh,
God, be kind to me, for I love her!"
"And yet," she whispered archly, "they say
that love is blind."
Upon this he kissed her as he had kissed
her beneath the mask; and if anything could
have been sweeter than the first kiss it was
the second.
Ah, love, how easy an art to learn, how hard
to unlearn!
While Harry Verney thus forgot the whole
world, his first duel, and the code of honour.
Sir Jasper sat inditing an answer to his
communication:--
/#
"Sir Jasper Standish has received my Lord Verney's
explanation in the spirit in which it is offered. He is
quite ready to acknowledge that he has acted entirely
under a misapprehension, and begs Lord Verney to receive
his unreserved apologies and the expression of his admiration
for Lord Verney's gallant and gentlemanly behaviour,
together with his congratulations to him and the unknown
lady upon their enviable situation."
#/
Captain Spicer did not offer to supply his
principal's place in the field. Indeed, he
displayed to Sir Jasper, who received him
with the most gloomy courtesy, the extreme
suppleness of his spine, and pressed his
unrivalled snuff upon him with a fluttering and
ingratiating air.
When he returned to Pierrepoint Street he
found the mysterious stranger already in her
sedan, Lord Verney leaning through the window
thereof, engaged in an earnest whispering
conversation. Captain Spicer jocularly pulled him
back by the coat-tails and inserted his own
foolish face instead. The lady was masked
and cloaked as he had left her.
"Madam, I have done your errand," said
he. "It was," said he, "a matter of difficult
negotiation, requiring--ahem--requiring such
tact as I think I may call my own. Sir
Jasper was vastly incensed, one might as well
have tried to reason with a bull. 'But gad,
sir,' said I, 'would I, I, Captain Spicer, come
with this message if it were not in accordance
with the strictest rule of honourable etiquette?' That
floored him, madam----"
Here Mistress Kitty snatched the letter
flickering in his gesticulating hand with scant
ceremony, turned her shoulder upon him, read
it and handed it out to Lord Verney, who
had lost no time in coming round to the
other window.
"Now," said she, "bid the man take me
to the Pump Room." She leaned her head
out and Lord Verney put his close to hers,
and there followed another conclave.
"Madam, madam, I demand the fulfilment
of your promise!" from the other side came
Captain Spicer's clamouring thin voice.--"Verney,
my good fellow, I must request you
to retire, there is a compact between this lady
and me----"
"A compact?" said the mask turning her head.
"Oh, madam, the vision of that entrancing
countenance!"
He strove to unfasten the chair door, when:
"What?" cried she, "and rob you of all
the charm of uncertainty and all the joy of
guessing and all the spice of being able to
take away the character of every lady in
Bath. Oh," she said, "I hope I have been better
taught my duty to my neighbour!" Out went
her head again to Lord Verney; there was
another whisper, a silver laugh. "On men!"
she cried.
Lord Verney skipped round and in his turn
dragged the discomfited Captain out of the
window and restrained him by main force
from running after the retreating chairman and
their fair burden.