Men of pleasure, and of roguery to boot, were not, in King Charles’s
time, much concerned as a rule over the logical consequences of their
pranks. They took the day improvidently, like the grasshopper--“nicked
the glad moments as they passed”--and gave little thought to the
reckonings of the morrow. The “unities,” in any comedy they enacted,
were of less moment to them than the general spirit of frolic, and so
long as the situations afforded entertainment, they bestowed small
thought on the _dénouement_. In the making or the marring of an
intrigue the fun was in the process, and they seldom looked beyond to
count the costs. So, when Hamilton conceived his plot, he had not, one
must understand, foreseen any definite conclusion for it. It was
enough that what he was proposing to himself served the immediate
purpose of his amiable villainy.
As to that, his business was to make absolute the estrangement between
these two; whence his crafty counsel to the Earl, who had not failed
to rise to that insidious bait. He knew very well that, in spite of
all that had happened, any genuinely contrite advances on the
husband’s part would be sure to be met halfway by the wife, who was
really a reasonable and forgiving little creature; wherefore it was
necessary for him to convince her, timely and by ocular demonstration,
of the vanity of any lingering hopes she might be entertaining of
remorse and repentance on the part of a delinquent spouse. It was
never to be supposed for a moment that she would answer to that test
of jealousy in the manner he had professed to predict; it would be
certain, on the contrary, to alienate the last of her consideration
from one who could so wantonly and callously abuse it. She would turn
from the heartless creature in a final disgust--to seek, according to
all the rules of intrigue, consolation of the nearest sympathy;
whereon it would remain only for him, her cousin and confidant, to
reap the fruits of the emotional situation he had so cunningly
engineered.
That was his hope and belief; but his plan yet lacked completeness.
The deception he had contrived was but half a deception so long as it
missed its counterpart. How to provide that must be his next
consideration.
As he pondered, he heard a light step behind him, and turned to see
the lady herself. She had come in very softly, and now stood before
him, a rather piteous expression on her face. Her right arm,
ostensibly the maltreated one, rested in a sling--black, that there
might be no mistake about it--and, as long as she remembered, she
winced when it was touched.
“Cousin,” she said, “I am very unhappy. What have I done to be so
abused?”
“I’ faith, I know not,” said he, smiling; “unless it was you spoke
before his face of a kissing in which he had no share.”
“I spoke but in play. I am an honest wife.”
“Don’t cry your goods too loud, Kate, or men may question them. The
soundest wares need the least recommendation.”
“I am, I say; and if I were not, how should it affect him that hates
me so?”
“Nay, you go too far.”
“Indeed, he said as much--that I was distasteful to him.”
“Did he say that?”
She set her teeth.
“And shall unsay it; or I will never speak word to him again?”
“So? I’m sorry, on my word, cousin.”
“Did you not quarrel with him?”
“For what he did to you?”
“Yes. You could not know what he’d said.”
“We had words, I confess.”
“About what? Is he jealous of _you_?”
“What if he were, Kate?”
She clenched her little left fist in wrathful glee.
“Is he? I could love to believe it.”
“Why?” He looked at her eagerly.
“To make him suffer for me what I’ve suffered for him.”
“Jealousy?”
“He would not hate me then.”
The face of the arch-plotter fell.
“I see you love him through all,” he said sourly.
“Why should I not love him?” she answered. “He is my husband.”
Hamilton pulled himself together. “This faith,” he thought, with an
acid thrill, “is worth converting.”
“Why indeed?” said he. “Well, I don’t know if he’s jealous of me or
not; but if that’s your recipe for curing him, we two might make a
plausible conspiracy of it. Shall we rehearse the business now, Kate?”
He put a persuasive hand on her arm. She bethought herself, and
squeaked out.
“You hurt me, cousin”--and she backed a little. “A play like ours is
only make-believe.”
“But sure,” said he, “the best actors are those who, even in
rehearsal, try to realize their parts to the life.”
He approached her again, offering to put his arm about her, and at
that she, forgetting her injury, whipped her little fist out of its
sling, and delivered him a sound box of the ear with it.
“There!” she said.
“Emphatically there,” he answered, holding his palm to the suffering
auricle. “You cat!”
She bridled like one, her eyes glittering. He pointed a derisive
finger at the dangling sling.
“Hadn’t you better put off that pretence?”
“O!” she said, and thrust her hand again into the loop.
“Now,” said he, “you may find another instrument for your purpose. I’m
done with you.”
Her brow puckered, and her lip went down.
“You’re never going to abandon me in my trouble?” she said.
She looked so bewitching so forlorn, his heart could not help
softening to her.
“If I do not,” he said, “it must be on softer terms than yet.”
“Was my hand so hard?” she pleaded penitently.
“’Tis for the lips, not the ear to decide,” said he. “Give it me, if
you would hear kinder news of it.”
She hung back a little, then reluctantly acquiesced. He mouthed the
flushed palm, till she snatched it away.
“Be good, please,” she said.
“It blushes for its naughty deed,” he declared. “But it is forgiven.”
“Now,” she said, “will you not be serious and give me good advice?”
“That is not always palatable, you know.”
“It is the way with healing drugs.”
“Ah! If it might only heal!”
He sighed, and shook his head, with a look of commiseration.
“What do you mean?” she asked, alarmed--“that there is no cure
possible?”
“I’m sorry for you, in truth I am,” he said despondently, “if you
still love him as you admit, and I wish I could think that your policy
of silence, or your policy of jealousy, or your policy of anything in
the world would bring Philip Stanhope to his senses. But, alack, my
dear! I fear ’tis all thrown away upon him, and that his inconstancy
is irreclaimable. Why, at this very moment, while you are calculating
a means to his reformation, he is, to my knowledge, scheming to have
to his house here a country fancy of his, one Molly Davis, whom he
calls his cousin.”
She heard and stiffened.
“A country fancy!”
“O! I breathe no wrong of her,” he said; “and she may be his
cousin--left-handed--for all I know. A sprightly wench, at least, that
somehow met and tickled his humour; and he’ll have her to stay with
him on that plea of kinship. But it’s for you to question him, if you
will.”
“_I!_” The white scorn of her! the lifted lip, and wrinkle in the
little nose! “Did you not hear me say I had sworn never to speak to
him again?”
“Conditionally, that was.”
“No longer. Never, and never, and never. In this house! Before my very
face. O, it cannot be true!”
“Well, perhaps he only jested.”
She moved, and, forgetting her sling again, put a fierce young hand on
his sleeve. “You called her his fancy.”
“A man may fancy in a woman more or less than she desires. It may be
her wit, when she’d give the world it were her face.”
“Is she witty, then?”
“No doubt he thinks so.”
“And ugly?”
“Betwixt and between.”
“You have seen her?”
“More or less.”
“I only asked of her face.”
“It was a bad light. She lies at an inn in the town called ‘The
Mischief.’”
“She lies well. Well, thank you, cousin.”
Her features relaxed in a wonderful way. One might have thought her
suddenly convinced and at ease. With a sigh that seemed to dissipate
all her scruples, she chassé’d a retreating step or two, and twirled,
and dropped a little mocking curtsey to the gentleman.
“I must go now,” she said. “You have been very entertaining, Signor
George, and--and there is no cure for blindness like----”
“Like what?”
“Like seeing, you know.”
His brows went up, perplexed. “Have I been so whimsical?”
“Infinitely, I assure you--the drollest, most diverting
cousin--tra-la-la!”
“But sympathetic, I hope, Kate?”
“O, believe me, that isn’t the word for it--tra-la-la!”
“You know you can always depend upon me for help and advice?”
“O, _most_ disinterestedly!”
His jaw seemed to stick as he opened it to answer. She laughed, as she
turned her back on him.
“Ah!” he breathed out. “I see you’ll make it up with Philip yet.”
With a stamp of her foot, she flared round on him in a final spasm of
anger.
“You dare to say so! I tell you, once and for all, that from this
moment it is eternal silence between us.”
He watched her, from under lowered lids, and with a furtive smile on
his lips, sweep from the room, then twitched up his shoulders to a
noiseless laugh. To make certain of her fixed resolution--that was why
he had provoked her to that last retort. Now at length it should be
safe for him to act. If only that dubious manner of hers had left him
with more conviction as to his own ultimate profit in the matter! But
like enough it had been mere coquetry.
He left Whitehall shortly, and made his way to “The Mischief” Inn,
where he found Mrs. Davis bored to death over her confinement to her
room, and in a very fractious mood.
“Have you come to take me away?” she said. “You called yourself my
friend.”
“Why, so I am,” he answered. “What have I done to disprove it?”
“You’ve done nothing, sure; and that’s what.”
“Didn’t I pay your reckoning?”
“O! it’s true you opened the trap door; but you must go and tie me by
the tail first.”
He laughed.
“’Twas to keep my country mouse from the gib-cats. No reflection on
her.”
“So to keep her from the cats you set a dog on her. A nice one I owe
you for that beast of a landlord.”
“Well, he’s called off, and here am I to redeem my word. Will you come
with me?”
“Where to?”
“To the tailor and the haberdasher first of all. Will that suit you?”
“Very well--if another pays.”
“So? That’s settled, then. We must have you dressed to the part.”
“What part?” She affected, perhaps felt, a passing perturbation, but
it served for no more than to add a thrill to her voice. And then,
suddenly, her eyes brightened. “Have you got me a London engagement,
George?” she said--“perhaps in the King’s theatre!”--and she clasped
her hands rapturously.
“Why,” said he, “an engagement, true enough; but ’tis on the human
stage.”
Her lip fell dolefully.
“O, curse that!”
“Mrs. Moll,” he said, “I shall be obliged if you will study to express
your feelings less epigrammatically.”
“What’s that?” she said.
“Why, in your case, ’tis another word for cursing.”
“I only know of one other,” said she; “but I’ll damn it with all my
heart, if that likes you better.”
“I like neither one nor t’other: ’tis to turn to ‘bitter-sweets’ those
cherry-seeming lips of yours, and make poison of their nectar.”
She was sitting at the table, her elbows propped on it, her chin on
her fists, and, so disposed, she put out her tongue at him.
“Gingumbobs!” she said; and that was all.
“And, in short,” said he, rising--for he too was seated--“I think I’ll
say good day to you.”
Sobered at once, she jumped to her feet, and intercepted him. “What
have I said, sure? Don’t never mind a silly wench. I’ll do what you
want of me--there!”
He stood arrested, but as if unwillingly.
“I doubt your capacity, child; or your art to curb your tongue. A fig
for that when Moll is Moll; but once she shapes herself to my designs,
good speech must go with good looks.”
She seemed as if she would cry.
“George, I’ll curb it. I did but jest with you. Haven’t I learned my
speaking parts, and said them to the letter, too, without one extra
oath?” She was stroking his arms up and down; her fingers wandered to
his hands, and gave themselves softly to that refuge; her lifted eyes
were full of azure pain. “Tell me what you desire of me,” she said
with pretty wooing.
“Why, discretion first and last,” he answered. “Have you got it?”
“Haven’t I! Why, look how particular I can be in the choice of my
friends.”
“You’ll have to play a double part.”
“Twice tenpence is two and sixpence, George. It ought to pay me.”
“It ought and shall, if you’re clever. Help me to bring about a thing
I much desire, and your fortunes, as I promised, shall be made my
care.”
He questioned the young uplifted face. Her hands were still held in
his.
“Was the _thing_ born a girl?” she said. He laughed, but did not
answer, and she seemed to muse, her lids lowered. “What a pretty
gentleman you are, George!” she said absently, by and by. “I never
guessed at first, when you came that unhandsome off the road, what
fine clothes could make of you. Why are you going to take me to the
haberdasher’s?”
“To prink you out for great company, child.”
She looked up breathlessly.
“Not the King’s!”
“All in good time,” he said--“if you please me.”
“Well,” she said, looking down again, “I’ll do my best--saving my
honour. Will that please you?”
“Faith,” says the gentleman coolly, “if you save it at the expense of
another’s.”
She drew back a little.
“Not a woman’s?”
“Never fear, Mrs. Moll. ’Tis your pretty rogue’s face and your ready
impudence I wish for a bait, and they’d catch no woman, believe me.
Come, are you prepared to engage them in my service?”
She primmed her lips, holding up a finger.
“Discretion,” she said. “I’ll answer when I’m told.”
He nodded, and, leading her apart from betraying keyholes, seated
himself and pulled her to a chair beside him.
“Now,” said he, “give me your little lovely ear, while I whisper in
it.”
She sat at attention like a mouse, while he spoke his low-voiced
scheme to her. Mischief, intelligence, secret laughter waited on her
lips and eyes as she leaned to listen, sometimes shaking her curls,
sometimes whispering the softest little “yes” or “no.” And when at
last it was all said, she jumped to her feet with a laugh that was
like glass bells, and clapped her hands merrily, while her companion
sat, one arm akimbo, regarding her with a pleasant waiting expression.
“Well,” he said; “you’ll do it?”
She strutted, assuming the grand air, and swept a curtsey.
“I am my lord Chesterfield’s most obliged,” she said throatily.
Hamilton rose with a grin.
“You will, I can see,” said he. “It’s really simple if you will only
bear in mind this main assurance--_they are not on speaking terms, and
each will think the other has invited you_.”