"If you please, my lady," said Mistress Megrim, "I should like to quit
your ladyship's service."
"How?" cried Lady Standish, waking with a start out of the heavy sleep
of trouble, and propping herself upon her elbow, to gaze in blinking
astonishment at the irate pink countenance of her woman. Lady Standish
looked very fair and young, poor little wife, with her half-powdered
curls of hair escaping in disorder from the laces of her nightcap, and
her soft blue eyes as full of uncomprehending grief as a frightened
baby's.
Mistress Megrim gazed upon her coldly and her old-maid's heart hardened
within her.
"No, your ladyship," said she, with a virtuous sniff, "I shouldn't feel
as I was doing my duty to her ladyship, your mother, nor to my humble
self, were I to remain an hour longer than I could help, the Handmaid
of Sin."
"Oh, dear," said Lady Standish, letting herself fall back on her
pillows with a weary moan, "I do wish you'd hold your tongue, woman,
and allow me to rest! Pull the curtain again; oh, how my head aches!"
"Very well, my lady," ejaculated Megrim, all at once in a towering
passion. "Since you're that hardened, my lady, that a sign from Heaven
couldn't melt your heart--I allude to that man of God, his lordship the
Bishop (oh, what a holy gentleman that is!); and, my lady, me and
Mistress Tremlet saw him out of the pantry window as he shook the dust
of this House of Iniquity from his shoes; if that vessel of
righteousness could not prevail with your ladyship, what hopes have I
that you'll hear the voice of the Lord through me?"
"Megrim, hold your tongue," said her mistress in unwontedly angered
tones, "pull the curtains and go away!"
With a hand that trembled with fury Mistress Megrim fell upon the
curtains and rattled them along their pole. Then she groped her way to
Lady Standish's bedside and stood for some seconds peering malevolently
at her through the darkness.
"I wouldn't believe it, my lady," she hissed in a ghastly whisper,
"although indeed I might have known that such a gentleman as Sir Jasper
would never have taken on like that if he hadn't had grounds. But
you've mistaken your woman, when you think you can make an improper
go-between of me! Oh," cried she, with a rigid shudder, "I feel myself
defiled as with pitch, that these fingers should actually have touched
sich a letter!"
"For goodness sake," moaned the lady from her pillows, "what are you
talking about now?"
"My lady," said Megrim sepulchrally, "when that minx with her face
muffled up in a hood, came and had the brazen boldness to ask for me
this morning, saying she had some lace of your ladyship's from the
mender's, and that it was most particular and must be given into my
hands alone, my mind misgave me. 'Twas like an angel's warning. The
more so as there isn't a scrap of your ladyship's lace as has been to
the mender's since we came here."
"Mercy, Megrim, how you do ramble on! I can't make head or tail of
your stupid story." Even a dove will peck.
"Ho, do I, my lady! Can't you indeed? Perhaps your ladyship will
understand better when I tell her, that that same bold thing had no
lace at all--but a letter. 'Give it to your mistress,' says she, 'in
secret, and for your life don't let Sir Jasper see it.'"
"Well, give it to me," said Lady Standish, "and hold your tongue, and
go and pack your trunks as soon as you like."
"Ho, my lady," cried the incorruptible Megrim, with an acid laugh, "I
hope I know my Christian duty better. I brought the letter to my
master, according to the Voice of Conscience. And now," she concluded,
with a shrill titter, "I'll go and pack my trunks."
Yet she paused, expecting to enjoy Lady Standish's outburst of terror
and distress. There was no sign from the bed, however, not even a
little gasp. And so Mistress Megrim was fain to depart to her virtuous
trunks without even that parting solace.
Meanwhile, with the pillow of her spotless conscience to rest upon, and
deadened to fresh disturbances by the despairing reflection that
nothing for the present could make matters much worse between her and
her husband, Lady Standish, without attempting to solve the fresh
problem, determinedly closed her weary eyes upon the troubles of the
world and drifted into slumber again.
* * * * *
"I shall catch them red-handed," said Sir Jasper.
This time all doubt was over: in his hand lay the proof, crisp and
fluttering. He read it again and again, with a kind of ghastly joy.
Unaddressed, unsealed, save by a foolish green wafer with a cupid on
it, the document which Mistress Megrim's rigid sense of duty had
delivered to him instead of to his guilty wife, was indited in the
self-same dashing hand as marked the crumpled rag that even now burned
him through his breast-pocket like a fly-blister.
"I never got a wink of sleep, dreaming of you, dearest dear, so
soon to be my own at last! The chay shall be drawn by horses such
as Phoebus himself, my darling, would have envied. And, so you
fail me not, we shall soon be dashing through the night--a world of
nothing but happiness and love before us. I could find it in my
heart to bless the poor foolish individual who shall be nameless,
since, had it not been for my lovely one's weariness of him, she
might never have turned to the arms of her own devoted,
RED CURL!
P.S.--I'll have as good a team as there is in England (barring the
one that shall bring us there), waiting for us at the Black Bear,
Devizes. We ought to arrive before midnight, and there shall be a
dainty trifle of supper for your Beautyship--while the nags are
changed. Ah, my dear, _what_ rapture!"
Indescribable were the various expressions that crossed Sir Jasper's
countenance upon the perusal and re-perusal of this artless missive.
Now he gnashed his teeth; now snorts of withering scorn were blown down
the channels of his fine aquiline nose; now smiles of the most deadly
description curled and parted luridly his full lips.
"Ha, ha!" said Sir Jasper, "and perhaps the poor foolish individual may
give you cause for something less than blessings, Master Carrots! And
I think, madam, your beautyship may find at Devizes something harder to
digest than that trifle of supper! Till then, patience!"
He folded the letter, placed it beside its fellow, and once more, with
a sort of bellow, he cried, "_Patience!_"
* * * * *
"Well, Lydia?" said Bellairs. She had but just finished her chocolate,
and looked like a rose among her pillows.
"Well, madam," said Lydia, still panting from her hurried quest, "'tis
safe delivered. I gave it into Mistress Megrim's own hands, and----"
"And can you reckon," said the lady, smiling at the amusing thought,
"upon her bringing it straight to Sir Jasper?"
"Ah, lud, ma'am, yes. I told the sour, ugly old cat, that if her
master caught sight of it, Lady Standish would be ruined. You should
have seen how she grabbed at it, ma'am!"
"Lydia," said her mistress, looking at her admiringly, "I question
whether I'd have risked it myself; you're a bold girl! But there, if
anything fail, you know that rose-coloured pelisse remains hanging in
my closet."
"Never fear, ma'am," said Lydia, smiling quietly to herself, as she
pulled her mistress's long pink silk stocking over her hand, and turned
it knowingly from side to side, looking for invisible damage, "the
pelisse is as good as mine already."
"But, think you, was Sir Jasper at home?" said Mistress Bellairs, after
a few moments' reflection.
"I am sure of that," said Lydia triumphantly, peeling off the stocking.
"I thought it best to go in by the mews, ma'am, and I heard that Sir
Jasper had not left the house since that little--that little affair
with the Bishop, you know, ma'am. But all the night, and all the
morning, he kept William and Joseph (those are the grooms, ma'am) going
backwards and forwards with challenges to the Bishop's lodgings."
"Oh!" cried Kitty, and kicked her little toes under the silk
counterpane with exquisite enjoyment, "and what does the Bishop answer,
I wonder?"
"Sends back the letter every time unopened, ma'am, with a fresh text
written on the back of it. The texts it is, William says, that drive
Sir Jasper mad."
"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Mistress Kitty faintly, rolling about her pillows.
"Child, you'll be the death of me! ... Well, then, to business. You
know what you are to do to-night?"
"No sooner are you gone to the Assembly Rooms this evening, ma'am, than
I take a letter from you for Lady Standish, and this time deliver it
myself to her own hand, and, if needs be, persuade her to follow your
advice, ma'am."
"Right, girl; thou shalt have the gold locket with the Turkey
stones----"
"Thank you, ma'am. Well, then, I'm to scurry as fast as I can to the
corner of Bond Street and Quiet Street, and watch you being carried off
by the gentleman. And then----"
"Be sure you wait till the chaise has well started."
"Yes, ma'am, of course! When you're safely on the London Road, I'll go
and give the alarm at the Assembly Rooms."
"Remember, you ask first for Lord Verney."
"Oh, ay, ma'am. 'My mistress is carried off, is carried off! Help,
help, my lord!' I'll say. Oh, ma'am, I'll screech it well out, trust
me."
"Don't forget," said her mistress, whose mood became every moment
merrier, "don't forget to say that you heard the ravisher mention
London, by Devizes."
"Well, ma'am," said Lydia, "I thought of saying that he first flung you
swooning upon the cushions of the chay; then, stepping in himself,
cried out to the coachman, with an horrible oath, 'If you're not in
Devizes before twelve, I'll flay you with your own whip, and then hang
you with it to the shaft!'"
"Aha, ha, Lydia," laughed her mistress. "I see I must give you a gold
chain to hang that locket upon. But pray, child," she added warningly,
"be careful not to overdo it."