“Well, you are condemned,” he said drily; and at that I found my wits.
“Condemned?” I cried. “By whom? Why, my lord, how can you, being of
the Court party and in Opposition, condemn an anti-papish tract?”
“That is all very well,” he said acridly; “but the stone once set
rolling against a house, who knows who may be included in the ruin?”
I knew very well, of course, to what he referred; for had he not been
subsidised by his sister (and during the time, too, when he had
figured hottest against Catholic emancipation) into overlooking the
establishment by her, in the very heart of his estate, of that
community of Sisters whose complicity in my abduction I was bent upon
exposing? And was I not aware, too, that the appointment he coveted to
a vacant garter trembled at the moment in the balance of such
revelations? O, I held some strings, my friend, you may believe!
though at present I had the opposite to any inducement to pull this
particular one.
“Why, Nunky!” I cried, “is not this, your succour and protection of
madam’s poor victim, the best proof of your orthodoxy?”
He regarded me grimly, but with some shadow of returning good-humour.
“That’s true enough,” he said, “so long as you use _me_, if at all,
for no worse than to point the moral of _her_ damnation.”
“Why should I not? ’Tis my interest to, at least.”
“Ha!” he said; “there you speak. And stap me if I love you the less
for it.”
He took a turn or two, and came back grinning.
“They’re damn clever, Di: there, I’ll admit they’re damn clever! But
’tis a perilous game you play, my girl; and you’ll do well to take
care you play it to none but your own interests.”
He went off again, and returned.
“Harkee!” he said; “there’s Beltower’s whelp, and--and I don’t care a
fig for your predilections. Work your oracle as you will; only be
faithful to me, and you won’t suffer for’t in the end.”
He finished in such spirits that he was moved to show me a letter he
had received from his sister but a few days before. In it she
upbraided him for his treachery,--of which she only recently had
certain information--in converting his capture of me to such infamous
account; and called upon him, as he valued his soul, to turn his
Jezebel adrift again to her merited deserts.
“_Enfin_,” I said, handing him back the effusion, “for a respectable
lady she shows a vigorous vocabulary. She writes in London, I see.”
He chuckled like a demon.
“She writes in hell, and bites the more viciously for her roasting.
’Tis that fellow has led her here, dancing after some new fancy of
his; and, by God, she’s paid for her stubbornness, and must vent her
spite on someone.”
“Well,” I said, “tell her so from me; and that, for my part, I’d
rather be Jezebel than what came to lap her blood.”
At which he neighed, vowing he’d take me at my word.
XXII.
I RUN ACROSS AN OLD FRIEND
It has always been my fate to suffer most at the hands of my best
friends; and now it was to be my dearest, my little sister, who was to
shoot her arrow over the house and wound me. In innocence, Heaven
forgive her; and, in forgiving, answer to itself for making me the
unconscious instrument of its retribution.
It was in the third year of my “minority,” and while in the full zest
of my conspiracy with young Roper, that one night we made up a party
for Vauxhall Gardens, and crossed from Whitehall Stairs--very merry
with French horns and lanterns and a little Roman boy, Ugolino, who
sang like an angel--to witness the new picture of a tempest in the
cascade house. This we had seen, and were gone for supper into one of
the boxes (which Bob called the loose boxes) in a retired corner of
the grove, when occurred the _contretemps_ which was to change the
whole face of my fortunes. I had observed, without marking them, a
couple enter the adjoining booth, and was bawling my part in a catch,
while waiting for the chickens and cheesecakes, when a fellow put his
head round the partition, and, kissing his dirty hand with a leer,
“Beg pardon, leddies,” says he, “but I can supplement that ’ere chaunt
with a better”--and immediately, disappearing from sight, began to
bang the table beyond and to roar out a filthy ballad.
Roper leapt to his feet--there was a crowd lingering by, attracted by
our merriment--and ran round to the front.
“Stop, you sot!” screamed he, “or I’ll nail your ears to the table!”
The fellow ceased dead, and in a moment came staggering out with a
furious face. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, and as drunk as
David’s sow.
“What, the ’ell,” said he, lurching up his words; “ain’t one song as
good as another in this here bordel, mister?”
Bob struck like Harlequin, and the wretch went down. I had once before
heard the smack of flesh on flesh, and it made my blood jump.
There was a fine uproar: we had all risen to our feet; and in the
midst I observed the girl (we had forgot the creature had a companion)
slip out of the box and away, taking advantage of the confusion to mix
with the crowd. I just saw her white face melt from me, and gave one
gasp, and started in pursuit. My companions called; but I took no
notice, and was lost in a moment.
She was making for the Druid’s Walk, unheeding my cries in her
blindness. But in a little she began to falter, and then to sway, and
I came up with her, and caught her into my arms.
“Patty!” I whispered, frantic, “Patty!”
She looked at me quite dumb and bewildered, the poor thing; and then
sighed, and mechanically put her hair back from her temples.
“Patty!” I urged again, “don’t you know me?”
And at that, all of a sudden she had burst into tears, and was
clinging to me.
“Is it you, Diana?” she sobbed, “really you at last? O, I have so
longed, since we came, and I knew you was here in London! Take me
away; don’t let me be carried back.”
She was near choking me with her arms.
“Hush!” I said. “What have they been doing with you? Pish, child! that
was never--no, no; with all your softness, you couldn’t be such a
fool. Who the deuce was it, then? Now, don’t answer; but come with me
where we can talk.”
We were already being accosted and offered genteel squiring. The child
held to me, terrified, while I laughed, and convoyed her in safety to
the open, where we were lucky to encounter one of my party.
“Is it over?” I asked.
“O, faith!” he answered, quizzing my friend, “the manster’s floored;
and Parseus refreshing himself on Roman panch; and here, by my soul,
’s Andrameda come to give thanks to her presarver.”
“Well,” I said, “Andromeda’s in better hands for the present; so you
must e’en take us where we can talk private, while you mount guard.”
He looked mightily astonished; but, obeying, conducted us to the
farthest limits of the grounds--where was little company but the
keepers, put to restrain interlopers from the fields beyond--and there
set us on a seat, and withdrew. And the moment we were alone, I took
the girl and held her at arm’s length.
She was the same as ever, though her figure grown a thought too full
for perfection, perhaps. But there were the soft, bashful eyes, and
the naïve face, too white under its dark hair, that I loved so well.
“So,” I said, nodding my head, “we meet again, like the town and
country mice. And are you still under her dominion, you little brown
frump?”
She could not have enough of wondering, and fondling me, and weeping;
but her inarticulateness filled me with a horrible foreboding.
“What!” I cried, giving her a little shake; “don’t tell me, miss,
that--but, no, I won’t hear it! ’Tis grotesque beyond reason.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.