The tormented nobleman, craving for advice and sympathy, lost little
time before he sought out his friend and kinsman, Mr. George Hamilton.
He found that gentleman, who had just returned from a game of
pell-mell with his Majesty, refreshing himself with a pot and sop in
his own chambers, before committing himself and his mid-day toilet to
the hands of his valet. Chesterfield drove out the man incontinent,
and closed the door on him.
“I want a word with you, George,” said he, breathless and
agitated--too disturbed and full of his subject to apologize or
finesse. “It’s all out; I’ve discovered the truth; and, curse me, if
’twere the King himself, I’d bury my sword in his treacherous heart.
As it is----”
Hamilton, his face half hidden by the quart pot, put up an
expostulatory hand, and bubbled amphorically.
“As it is, let me finish my ale.”
“O, you can jest,” cried the other; “but I tell you ’tis no jesting
matter. So he hath wronged me, I’ll have his life, were he twenty
James Stuarts rolled into one.”
George set down the tankard, drained. His eyes gaped a little.
“The Duke of York?”
“Damn him!” cried the Earl. “I always said it was he, but you would
never believe me. And now he hath been to visit her, on what false
pretext I know not, and they have been closeted alone,
together--alone, in her private apartments.”
“When was this?” asked Hamilton, astonished and disturbed enough, for
his part.
“Yesterday afternoon,” replied the other; and he hissed between his
clenched teeth. “And I’ll not forgive the dishonour done to my house,
or spare him though he wore the crown.”
“Nay, coz,” said Hamilton. “Command yourself. How got you this
information?”
“How? Why, from that little cursed, prying, eavesdropping skit, her
friend. And that is not all. ’Twas through ‘Kit’ the meeting came
about--a common pitcher-bawd, who shall pay for it with every bone in
his body broke.”
“Through Kit?”
“Aye; she confessed to him at last. He brought the Duke--was the tool
arranged between them, no doubt. O, what measure can gauge the perfidy
of woman!”
“Who do you say confessed to him?”
“O, a curse on your dullness! Who but Mrs. Davis.”
“What, and to Kate’s collusion in the plot?”
“Of course.”
“Then she lied; and if she lied in one thing, the truth of all is to
question.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, unless you can conceive my cousin as the most
double-faced, artful little villain in the world, Mrs. Davis was lying
to you in pretending that Kate could be a party to this employment of
the creature Kit.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows so little about Kit, that ’twas only the other day
she was charging Kit to you as some probable light of your fancy
before you married her. _She_ thought Kit a woman.”
“Well, she knows better now.”
“But, don’t you see----?”
“I see nothing and know nothing but that my lady has granted the Duke
a secret interview, and that I’ll call them both to account for it.”
“Now, Phil, be reasonable. Even if that’s the case--and I question
it--there can be harmless interviews.”
“Between a Stuart and a beautiful woman? P’sha! And what grounds have
you for questioning it?”
“I’ve told you one. Take it from me--and I had the confession from
Kate’s own lips--she’s as jealous of you and Kit as ever you can be of
Kit and her.”
The shaft went somewhat home. Chesterfield stood glowering and gnawing
his finger.
“Then who the devil _is_ Kit?” he said suddenly.
“Ah!” replied Hamilton. “Who? We are all the gulls, I sometimes think,
of that little scheming hussy, your wife’s friend. But do you mean to
say she actually went so far as to assert that the Duke’s visit was
due to Kit?”
Chesterfield reflected, still devouring his finger.
“Well, now I come to think on’t, she didn’t explicitly, in so many
words, say as much.”
“Perhaps she didn’t mention Kit at all?”
“O, yes, she did! But----”
“But what?”
“Curse it, George!” he burst out in helpless distraction, “she has a
non-committal way, I admit it, of forcing upon one conclusions which
she might say she never meant to suggest. She may have been mocking
me, to lead me astray. I wish she had never come; I wish I had never
consented to the part you laid on me. What hath it all ended in, but
disaster? Whatever the truth of the other charge, there is no blinking
the fact of the Duke’s visit.”
“How do you know? The whole thing may have been a fable to torment
you. From all accounts, you haven’t played a very wooing part with
her.”
“No, I can’t believe it. But anyhow ’tis easy proved. And, though Kit
may prove a legend, I’ll never doubt but that she herself was somehow
instrumental in bringing about this meeting.”
“And yet, you say, she reported on it to you.”
“Aye, a keyhole report.”
“Why, look there. In that case she must be a very arch-traitor--false
to both sides.”
“’Tis like enough. But I’ll have no more of her. I told her in so many
words she must go.”
“You did?”
“Why not? Why not? What have you to say against it?”
“I’m not sure I’ve anything. I think perhaps you did right.”
“O! I’m vastly obliged to you for your condescension.”
“You deserve no consideration, Phil, upon my soul. If you choose to
adopt that tone with me, I’ve done with the matter.”
He was vexed and bothered enough for himself, truth to tell. The visit
of the Duke--if, as he hardly doubted, it had actually taken
place--was a subject for confounding thought. He cared nothing for
Kit’s part in the business, real or pretended; his little cousin’s
attitude towards it was what concerned him. Did that point to
artlessness or design? He had believed, or chosen to believe, that, in
a certain eventuality, he himself had a prescriptive title to “the
most favoured treatment.” He had always, in full confidence, proceeded
upon that supposition; and now, if he had been deceiving himself
throughout? All his elaborate hoax would prove itself waste trouble,
and he might just as well have spared himself the complication. He had
been already, as it was, beginning to question the practical wisdom of
the imposture to which he had subscribed, and to wonder if more direct
means might not have served his purpose better. The reflection,
occurring to him now with aggravated force, inclined him to regard
this difficult and exasperating husband as the source of all his
worry. He was moved to throw prudence to the winds, and take his
unswerving course for the object he had in view. And Chesterfield’s
own temper lent itself immediately to that provocation.
“Consideration! Matter!” said the nobleman, with the loftiest acidity.
“I’ll ask you to bear in mind, George, that the part I requested of
you was sympathy, and not dictation.”
Hamilton had remained seated all this time; he rose now, in a white
fume of anger.
“O, was that it?” he said in answer. “Well, I’ll tell _you_ that I
have never yet felt sympathy with a cuckold, or counted the man who
couldn’t command his wife’s fidelity as deserving less than he got.
’Tis just a question of resourcefulness, in more ways than one; and
the woman who has reason to like her bonds doesn’t strain at them. Now
you may go hang for me; and, as to your damned Duke----”
“Temper, temper!” interrupted the other, quite pale and furious. “Upon
my soul, your manner might almost proclaim you his disappointed
rival.”
The two stood glaring at one another.
“Do you say that deliberately?” asked Hamilton at length.
“What if I do?” retorted the other.
“Then, by God, you’ll provoke me to disprove it.”
“On your kinswoman?”
“I’ll not be insulted for nothing.”
“You shall not be. I’ll see to it. Forewarned is to have my answer
ready to the occasion.”
He smacked his hand to his sword-hilt, and, turning very haughtily,
stalked out of the room. Hamilton, breathing hard, watched his
departure, and presently dropped back into his chair, with a sneering
laugh.
“The sword is the only resource of a fool,” thought he. “The Duke, and
now me--’tis his one solution for everything. But he’ll think better
of it--never give away his cuckoldom so openly. His----” He frowned
heavily, as he pondered. “Has it come to that, and _was_ Mrs. Moll
instrumental in arranging this meeting? And is she making us all her
dupes--me included? I’d give something to look into her mind. But
she’s to receive her _congé_; and ’tis as well, I think--especially
as it saves me the necessity of settling with her. Yet, as to her
reputed traffic with the Duke--and this Kit’s part in it? O, mercy on
us all! I must see her somehow, and set my wits to hers--_fin contre
fin_, or, if need be, _fort contre fin_. O, what a plaguey difficult
and fascinating world this is! If a man can’t hate without wrong and
can’t love without wrong, where is the ethical mean to justify his
creation? I’ll go be an oyster.”
He didn’t do that; but, hearing of the Earl being on duty that evening
with her Majesty, and assuming the Countess’s coincident attendance at
Court, he slipped over to the Chesterfields’ quarters, in the hope and
expectation of finding Mrs. Davis yawning away the hours there with
only herself for company.
But, to his surprise, and irresistible gratification, he found, not
Moll, but her little ladyship herself in solitary possession of the
great chamber; at which discovery his eyes glowed and his pulses
thrilled.
“What, Kate!” says he, glibly lying. “I never hoped to find you
alone.”
She had received him with no sign of fervour corresponding to his own,
and now looked up from her work a little chill and unresponsive.
“Why should you have hoped it, cousin?” she said. “Why should you show
pleasure now that it is so?”
“Why, are we not near and dear kinsfolk?” said he.
“Not near enough for the forbidden degrees,” she answered, “and
therefore not near enough to be alone together.”
His brows went up.
“You were not wont to speak to me like this. What have I done to
change you?”
“O! nothing.”
“That is quite true. Well, _my_ feelings have not changed.”
“I was sure they had not.”
“Were you?” He looked at her curiously, but her impassive face gave
him no clue to her thoughts.
“Did you expect to find my lord?” she said, again quietly busy at her
work. “Or was it, perhaps, Mrs. Davis you sought?”
“If I sought one I sought the other,” he answered. “They are not long
to be caught apart.”
“Thank you for the reminder,” she answered, and he bit his lip with
vexation. “Well, he hath taken her to attend on her Majesty, I
presume, since that is where his duties detain him. You had better
seek them there.”
A thrill shot through his veins in the sudden thought that she was
jealous.
“Not I,” he said. “I know where I am well off, if Phil does not.”
A faintest increase of colour flushed her cheek, but she worked on
steadily.
“Still,” she said, “in spite of their inseparability, as you consider
it, I do not doubt but that she is in the house at this moment. Shall
I send her a message that you are here?”
“What are you implying, if you please, cousin?” he said.
“Why,” she answered quietly, “you knew very well that my lord was
elsewhere, and concluded my absence from his. Who other than Mrs.
Davis, then, could have been the object of this clandestine visit?”
He heard; he smiled to himself; he drew his chair a little closer.
“Kate,” he said, “are you in very truth jealous?”
She cast one startled glance at him, but, though her bosom betrayed
its own disquiet, maintained her self-possession.
“Jealous?” she said. “Of Mrs. Davis and my husband?”
“No,” he answered, “but of Mrs. Davis?” He sought to convey a world of
meaning into his look, his tone. “Shall I confess the truth?” he said.
“It _was_ Mrs. Davis I expected to find alone here.”
“I will send her to you.” She rose.
“No, no!” He begged her, with a gesture, to be seated again; but she
refused to respond. “Be your kind and reasonable self. You misconceive
me--indeed you do. I had come to a resolution--it was to see this
young woman, and urge upon her, by every motive of decency and
consideration, to leave this house, and cease to take advantage of a
grotesque situation to persecute and humiliate you.”
She stood looking down at him, still impassive, still inscrutable.
“I should be grateful to you, cousin,” she said; “but I am humiliated
in nothing but your thinking me so.”
“At least you are unhappy.”
“O no, indeed!”
“Not? Well, it is true that freedom has its compensations, sweeter by
contrast than any rich possession. And morally you are free, cousin.”
“I know I am.”
“Free to choose.”
“I choose freedom.”
“Ah! but with love!”
He caught lightly at her skirt; but she withdrew it sharply from him.
“There is no need to act,” she said, “when there is no audience.”
“Indeed, I am not acting,” he answered.
“I am glad of it,” she said, “because it is a bad play. I prefer you
in your part, cousin, of the disinterested friend.”
Then he was stung to a foolish retort.
“Like the Duke of York.”
She started, ever so slightly.
“What about him?”
“Was that the character he came to play when he visited you yesterday
in your private apartments?”
To his surprise she answered him with perfect apparent serenity.
“Of course. He merely came to borrow my guitar of me.”
Was she really innocent or dissembling? He believed the latter, and
looked at her with some genuine admiration for her subtlety.
“O!” he said, “was that all? And, being in Julia’s chamber, to melt
‘melodious words to lutes of amber,’ I suppose?”
“He played,” she answered. “Indeed, they both played.”
“Both?” He laughed. “So his Highness came accompanied?”
“O yes!” she said. “He would never have come alone.”
“And who was his friend?”
“One of mine.”
“Ah! You will not tell me.”
“Are you not interesting yourself a little too much in my personal
affairs?” she said. She held out her hand coldly. “Good-night.”
“Am I to go, then?”
“No, I am. I am really dropping with sleep. Good-night, cousin.”
He got up in a pet.
“I am sorry my company has proved so fatiguing. There was a time when
you could endure it with a better grace. But that was before your days
of freedom and happiness.” And he strode out of the room, resisting a
violent temptation to bang the door.
But her ladyship stood looking after him rather piteously, and with
tears sprung suddenly to her eyes.
“I was so sorry, cousin,” she murmured, with a grievous sigh; “but I
am afraid you are a bad man.”
And outside, on the gravel under the moonlight, Master George,
hurrying away, stopped to grind his vicious teeth.
“_Has_ he stolen a march on me? And _who_ was the other?”
For, you see, that problem of Kit was again disturbing his mind.