Lady Standish was one of those clinging beings who seem morally and
physically to be always seeking a prop. Before adversity she was
prostrate, and when his lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells was
ushered into her sitting-room, half-an-hour after Sir Jasper's
departure for Hammer's Fields, he found the poor lady stretched all her
length upon the sofa, her head buried in the cushions.
"Dear me," said his lordship, and paused. He was a tall, portly,
handsome gentleman with sleek countenance, full eye, and well-defined
waistcoat. Could human weakness have touched him, he would have felt a
pride in those legs which so roundly filled the silk stockings. But
that human weakness could ever affect the Bishop of Bath and Wells was
a thing that dignitary (and he gave his Maker thanks for it) felt to be
utterly inconceivable.
"Lady Standish," said the Bishop; then he waved his hand to the curious
servants. "Leave us, leave us, friends," said he.
Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of desperate heart-sickness
into a sitting posture and turned her head to look dully upon her
visitor.
"You come too late," she said; "my lord. Sir Jasper has gone to this
most disastrous meeting."
"My dear Lady Standish," said Dr. Thurlow, "my dear child," he took a
chair and drew it to the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand
and held it between his two plump palms. "My dear Lady Standish,"
pursued he in a purring, soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal
with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted soul happened to
belong to the aristocracy and in preference inhabited a young female
body), who did? "I came upon the very moment I received your letter.
I might perhaps have instantly done something to help in this matter,
had you been more explicit, but there was a slight incoherence ... very
natural!" Here he patted her hand gently. "A slight incoherence which
required explanations. Now tell me--I gather that your worthy husband
has set forth upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a duel?"
Lady Standish gave a moaning assent.
"Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men! It is very
reprehensible, but we must not be too hard on young blood. Young blood
is hot! Well, well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear Lady
Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, not a hair of our heads, that
is not counted. Was the, ah--quarrel about cards, or some such social
trifle?"
"It was about me," said the afflicted wife in a strangled voice.
"About you, my dear lady!" The clasp of the plump hand grew, if
possible, a trifle closer, almost tender. Lady Standish was cold and
miserable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a vague feeling of strength
and comfort.
"About me," she repeated, and her lip trembled.
"Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper fight?"
"With Colonel Villiers," said she, and shot a glance of full misery
into the benign large-featured face bending over her.
"Colonel Villiers," repeated the Bishop in tones of the blankest
astonishment. "Not--eh, not--er, old Colonel Villiers?"
"Oh, my lord," cried Lady Standish, "I am the most miserable and the
most innocent of women!"
"My dear madam," cried the Bishop, "I never for an instant doubted the
latter." His hold upon her hand relaxed, and she withdrew it to push
away the tears that now began to gather thick and fast on her
eyelashes. The Bishop wondered how it was he had never noticed before
what a very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what charming eyes she had,
and what quite unusually long eyelashes. It was something of a
revelation to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these days of
rouge and powder.
"And yet," sobbed Lady Standish, "'tis my fault too, for I have been
very wrong, very foolish! Oh, my lord, if my husband is hurt, I cannot
deny 'tis I shall bear the guilt of it."
"Come, tell me all about it," said the Bishop, and edged from his chair
to her side on the sofa, and re-possessed himself of her hand. She let
it lie in his; she was very confiding. "We are all foolish," said Dr.
Thurlow, "we are all, alas, prone to sin." He spoke in the plural to
give her confidence, not that such a remark could apply to any Bishop
of Bath and Wells.
"Oh, I have been very foolish," repeated the lady. "I thought, my
lord, I fancied that my husband's affection for me was waning."
"Impossible!" cried his lordship. But he felt slightly bewildered.
"And so, acting upon inconsiderate advice, I--I pretended--only
pretended indeed, my lord--that I cared for someone else, and Sir
Jasper got jealous and so he has been calling everybody out thinking
that he has a rival."
"Nevertheless," said the Bishop, "he has no rival. Do I understand you
correctly, my dear child? These suspicions of his are unfounded?
Colonel Villiers?"
"Colonel Villiers," cried she, "that old stupid red-nosed wretch! No,
my lord, indeed, there is no one. My husband has my whole heart!" She
caught her breath and looked up at him with candid eyes swimming in the
most attractive tears. "Colonel Villiers!" cried she. "Oh, how can
you think such a thing of me? But my husband will not believe me;
indeed, indeed, indeed I am innocent! He was jealous of Lord Verney
too, and last night fought Mr. O'Hara."
The Bishop smiled to himself with the most benign indulgence. His was
a soul overflowing with charity, but it was chiefly when dealing with
the foibles of a pretty woman that he appreciated to the full what a
truly inspired ordinance that of charity is.
"My dear child, if I may call you so, knowing your worthy mother so
well, you must not grieve like this. Let me feel that you look upon me
as a friend. Let me wipe away these tears. Why, you are trembling!
Shall we not have more trust in the ruling of a merciful Heaven? Now I
am confident that Sir Jasper will be restored to you uninjured or with
but a trifling injury. And if I may so advise, do not seek, my dear
Lady Standish, in the future to provoke his jealousy in this manner; do
not openly do anything which will arouse those evil passions of anger
and vengeance in him!"
"Oh, indeed, indeed," she cried, and placed her other little hand
timidly upon the comforting clasp of the Bishop's, "indeed I never will
again!"
"And remember that in me you have a true friend, my dear Lady Standish.
Allow me to call myself your friend."
Here there came a sound of flying wheels and frantic hoofs without, and
the door-bell was pealed and the knocker plied so that the summons
echoed and re-echoed through the house.
"Oh, God!" screamed Lady Standish springing to her feet, "they have
returned! Oh, heavens, what has happened? If he is hurt I cannot bear
it, I cannot--I cannot!" She clasped her head wildly and swayed as if
she would have fallen. What could a Christian do, a gentleman and a
shepherd of souls, but catch her lest she fall? Half mad with terror
she turned and clung to him as she would have clung to the nearest
support.
"Have courage," he purred into the little ear; "I am with you, dear
child, have courage."
So they stood, she clasping the Bishop and the Bishop clasping her,
patting her shoulder, whispering in her ear, when Sir Jasper burst in
upon them.
It was his voice that drove them apart, yet it was neither loud nor
fierce, it was only blightingly sarcastic.
"So!" said he.
What was it Stafford had said: "There's the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
He's red, as red as a lobster, from top to toe! They have a way, these
divines." Oh, Stafford knew doubtless: all Bath knew! Sir Jasper
cursed horribly in his heart, but aloud only said: "So!"
Lady Standish flew half across the room to him with a joyful cry, but
was arrested midway by his attitude, his look. The Bishop said "Ahem,"
and "ahem" again, and then said he:
"I rejoice, I rejoice, Sir Jasper, to see you return unscathed. Lady
Standish has been greatly distressed."
"And you," said Sir Jasper, drily, "have been consoling her."
"To the best of my poor power," said the Bishop, and felt, he knew not
why (if indeed it were possible for him to feel that way!) a shade
uncomfortable.
Sir Jasper closed the door and bowed.
"I think," said he, "I ought to crave pardon for this intrusion."
"Oh Jasper!" cried my lady.
Her husband turned towards her for a second. She wilted beneath his
eye and sank into a chair.
"Oh, Sir Jasper," said she, floundering. "The Bishop has been very
kind. I have been so unhappy about you."
"I see," said Sir Jasper, "that his lordship has been very kind. His
lordship, as I said, has been administering consolation."
Here all at once his stoniness gave way. He walked towards the Bishop
and bent a ghastly face close to the florid uneasily smiling
countenance.
"My Lord," said Sir Jasper, "your cloth will not protect you."
"Sir!" ejaculated the divine.
"Your cloth will not protect you!" repeated Sir Jasper in that voice of
strenuous composure that seems to tremble on a shriek. "Oh, shepherd,
_you_!"
"Sir!" cried the Bishop, "do you mean to insinuate----"
"I insinuate nothing," cried the other and sneered. "So madam," he
turned again to his wife, "this is your choice, eh? You were always a
pious woman, were you not? You would like to have the approval of the
Church upon your acts, would you not?" Indescribable was the sarcasm
upon his lip.
"Really," said the Bishop, "I am seriously annoyed." He looked
reproachfully at Lady Standish. "Madam," said he, "I came to you, as
you know, in pure charity, in unsuspecting friendship. I was not
prepared for this."
"Ha, ha," said Sir Jasper with a hideous laugh. "No, sir, I have no
doubt you were not prepared for this. Pure, ha--unsuspecting--this is
pleasant! Be silent, madam, these groans, these crocodile tears have
no effect upon me. Come, my Lord Bishop, your sanctimonious airs
cannot take me in. Have I not read your letter? Oh, you have got a
very fine head of hair, but I know ... _there is a curl missing_! Ha,
Julia, you should take better care of your love-tokens."
"I vow," said Dr. Thurlow, majestically, "that your behaviour, your
words are quite beyond my poor comprehension.--Madam, I pity you from
my heart!--Sir Jasper, sir," folding his arms fiercely, "your servant.
I wish you good-morning." He strode to the door, his fine legs
quivering with indignation beneath their purple silk meshes.
"No!" said Sir Jasper, and seized him roughly by the skirts. "No, you
do not escape me thus!"
"How now!" cried the Bishop, the veins on his forehead swelling, and
the nostrils of his handsome Roman nose dilating. "Would you lay hands
upon the Lord's anointed? Let go my coat, Sir Jasper!"
He struck at Sir Jasper's retaining hand with his own plump fist
clenched in a fashion suggestive of pulpit eloquence.
"Ha! you would, would you?" exclaimed Sir Jasper, and leaped at the
Episcopal throat.
The next instant, to his intense astonishment, Sir Jasper found himself
in an iron grip; lifted into the air with an ease against which all his
resistance was as that of a puppet; shaken till his teeth rattled, and
deposited on the flat of his back upon the floor.
"Oh, help, help, help!" screamed Lady Standish.
"Really," said the Bishop, "I don't know when I have been so insulted
in my life. 'Tis the whole Church, sir, the Church of England, the
State itself, that you have assaulted in my person!"
He stood glaring down on the prostrate foe, breathing heavy rebuke
through his high dignified nose.
"You have committed blasphemy, simony, sacrilege, rank sacrilege,"
thundered Dr. Thurlow.
Sir Jasper gathered himself together like a panther, and sprang to his
feet; like a panther, too, he took two or three stealthy steps and,
half crouching, measured the muscular Bishop with bloodshot eyes,
selecting the most vulnerable portion of anatomy. He panted and
foamed. The air was thick with flying powder.
Lady Standish flung herself between them.
"In mercy, my lord," she cried, "leave us--leave us!"
Here the door opened and butler and delighted footmen burst into the
room.
The Bishop turned slowly. The grace of his vocation prevailed over the
mere man.
"May heaven pardon you," he said. "May Heaven pardon you, sir, and
help you to chasten this gross violence of temper. And you, madam,"
said he, turning witheringly upon the unfortunate and long-suffering
lady, "may you learn womanly decorum and circumspection!"
"You shall hear from me again," growled Sir Jasper,
murderously--"Toombs," cried he to the butler with a snarl, "show the
Bishop the door!"
The Bishop smiled. He wheeled upon them all a stately back, and with
short deliberate steps withdrew, taking his cane from the footman with
a glassy look that petrified Thomas, and refusing Mr. Toombs' proffered
ministrations as he might have waved aside a cup of poison. "_Vade
retro Satanas_," he seemed to say; and so departed, leaving his
pastoral curse voicelessly behind him.