Where the grounds of Buckingham Palace now extend, there stood in
the seventeenth century the old flowery pleasaunce known as Mulberry
Garden, a place long appropriated, like its Spring prototype at
Whitehall, to _al fresco_ entertainment. Ex-mural and mural as things
then went, there was to the ordinary cit a _soupçon_ of adventure
suggested in a visit to this remoter fairyland; and, as a little
enterprising beyond the confines of the orthodox adds a zest to the
soberest merry-making, Mulberry Garden possessed an attraction for the
town, which was certainly due as much to its comparative removedness
as to any diversions it might offer in the way of dancing and
junketing. There was a mild thrill in achieving it, its wild and
tangled acres, only gathered into cores of brilliancy at certain
definite centres, where, after dark, the scattered threads of lamps,
like gossamer hung with dew-drops, constellated thickly about groups
of arbours, set in open spaces among the trees, where glittering forms
circulated, and laughter rang, and cheese-cakes were eaten and lips
kissed under fragrant ambushes of boughs woven into a thousand pretty
devices of green garters and lovers’ knots. There was here none of the
structural artifices which later came to vulgarize, and, alas!
popularize, the more ordered vistas of Vauxhall across the
water--cascades, and sham ruins, and side shows, and so forth; but
Nature was allowed for the most part her own sweet, untrammelled way;
and, where the wildernesses _were_ converted, it was to no more than
an artless religion of green swards and bowers, whereon and wherein
the tripping frolic of foot and heart might adapt itself, if it would,
to “the music of the moon” and the song of the innocent nightingale.
Not that to those chaste warblers of the night was entrusted the whole
provision of music for the company. Skies might be moonless, and birds
silent or out of season; wherefore there was generally to be found
engaged to the service of romantic hearts and ears some performer,
skilled on lute or harp, whose melodious utterances, thrilling through
grove and clearing, were calculated to awaken such emotions as were
compatible with the sweet understanding of sylvan solitudes.
Now, that is a true picture, though very certainly a one-sided. For
where innocence goes sin is sure to follow; and the atmosphere of
Mulberry Garden was by no means all of harmless frolic compact. Being
relatively remote, and consisting, moreover, for three-fourths of its
space of unredeemed wilderness, it formed a tempting rendezvous for
spirits kept better apart; and too often, it must be confessed, a
meeting among its waste thickets was tantamount to an intrigue. Still,
in its popular centres the whole may be said to have leavened the
parts, and it was to those, nominally, that the town gravitated, and
in them found its entertainment.
Mulberry Garden was aristocratic, and remained so until its vogue came
to abate--which it was already threatening to do--through the growing
reputation of that “Jardin Printemps” at Lambeth, to the entrance of
which a trip across the water made such a pleasant prelude. Never
popularly patronized, there were times when--robuster novelties
attracting--the exclusive might enjoy its green walks and
hospitalities with the sense almost of being a privileged company
invited to a _fête champêtre_. It had, of course, its central
restaurant--without which it could not have existed
aristocratically--in the building known as Mulberry Garden House,
where quite _recherché_ little dinners could be eaten; and, indeed,
it was there that Mr. Pepys (to mention him but once again) discussed
that “Spanish Olio,” chartered by one Shere, and mentioned in the
Diary, which he found so richly delectable--“a very noble dish such as
I never saw better or more of.” In this room Fashion would dine--and
often too liberally wine, too--before emerging to tickle its
pseudo-pastoral sentiment with pretence of neo-Arcadian groves and
flowery shepherdesses; and it was from this room that, vizard on brow,
Mr. George Hamilton issued at about a quarter past eight o’clock on a
certain soft and windless June night.
He looked sharply about him, as he descended the steps into the open,
searching among the company within his range for a particular token.
It was one of those exceptional occasions when the visitors were
relatively few, and as such widely scattered among the walks and
trees. All the space before him was strung with tiny lamps, festooned
from branch to branch, or ambushed in cloudy green like glow-worms.
They cast a diffused light, enough to distinguish people by, but
clothing one and all in a romantic glamour very soft and mystic. Many,
most, in fact, of the company wore vizards. Women, indeed, on view in
public places, seldom appeared unmasked, not from blushing modesty,
but to hide their inability to blush at all where a blush was called
for. That was understood, and derided; yet, while wit and address
might effect what they could in the way of persuasion, it was an
article of the strictest punctilio that no vizor should be removed by
force--a rule so respected that any abuse of it was like enough, in
those hot times, to lead to bloody reprisals on the offender.
Now, not distinguishing what he sought--and, indeed, the hour was yet
early for an expected trysting--Master George sauntered away, with the
purpose to seek some retired spot, where he might pin about his hat
the green emblem of identification which he had brought with him in
his pocket. On his way, reaching an open space where much company was
congregated, he stopped to ascertain the cause of the assembling, and
perceived, seated upon a green knoll in the midst, the long, grey-clad
figure of a harpist, who was in the act of tuning up his instrument
before performing.
“_Quel qu’il soit?_” he asked of a scented exquisite who stood near
him.
“What!” exclaimed the gallant, turning in a fainting affectation on
his interlocutor. “Not know him? Not know our divine Orpheus, the
rare, the inspired, the man to whose finger-tips the bees come
a-sipping for honey, the man the tweak of whose thumb will ravish a
heart from its bosom as clean as a periwinkle from its shell!”
“I asked for a name,” said Hamilton caustically, “and you have given
me a catalogue, of which the least desired part was the note of
exclamation at the end.”
“Well, ’tis Jack Bannister,” said the stranger, much misliking the
other’s tone, but recognizing a potential something in it which kept
him civil. But, having furnished the information, he first edged and
then swaggered away.
Hamilton had heard speak of the prodigy, but had never yet chanced to
alight on him. He lingered now, to endorse or not the extravagant
eulogies lavished on this eighth wonder of his age. And, having
listened, he admitted to himself that the verdict was justified. There
was something in this man’s performance which surpassed anything he
had hitherto experienced. It illustrated in the extremest degree what
is called genius, but which is really soul--that spiritual utterance,
born with a few men like an unknown language, which would be
transcendental were it not for the medium--paint, or ink, or chord, or
marble--through which it must materialize in order to reach the
senses. “Ah!” he thought: “if he could only say all that without the
harp; if Shakespeare could only have conveyed his mind to us without
pen or paper, what a divine and cleansing understanding would be ours!
But the senses are cloudy interpreters.”
He was moved, but he would not applaud. “As well cry ‘Brava!’” he
thought, “to the divine Speaker of the Sermon on the Mount. I will not
so degrade him to exalt myself.”
But there were others who lacked his understanding, and the clapping
of hands was general. It offended this paradoxical being, and he
strode away, the perfection of his impression sullied. As he dived
into a dusk, unfrequented walk, a new strain of music pursued him; but
he would not stop to listen to it. That applause had spelt the surfeit
which had spoilt the feast.
Presently a little stealing figure in front of him barred his way.
There was but an occasional lamp here, and the path was dim. But he
could make out that it was a woman, and young, and alone. It was easy
to overtake her, and a matter of course to stop and accost, because
she was masked and unaccompanied, which was in itself a challenge. As
he stood, a sudden thought seizing him, he looked down at her bosom;
but no green emblem was there to inform him, only a rather tell-tale
tawdriness of ornament and material; and he laughed, and put his hand
on the truant’s arm.
“He is under the gooseberry-bushes beyond,” he said. “Shall we go
stoop and seek him there?”
She started from him, wincing up her shoulders in alarm, while she
clutched a handkerchief between her palms; and then he heard her
breath catch, and saw that she had been crying.
“O! don’t touch me!” she said, with a gulp. “Please to let me go past,
good gentleman.”
The address, her intonation, betrayed her plainly enough for what she
was--some little town skit, sempstress or servant-maid, broken loose,
and now frightened over her own temerity.
“Why,” said he. “If you are in distress, I am a rare comforter. Come,
let me remove this before it dissolves.”
She could offer no resistance to so beautiful a gentleman, and he
slipped the vizard from her face. It was a blowzed and plain one so
revealed, its only recommendation youth.
“Let honesty spare to deny itself,” said Hamilton. “There was no need
to cover this away, child. What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl, distraught and sobbing. “I didn’t ought
to have come. O, let me go!”
“What made you come, then?”
“’Twas my young man, there! He called me a name; and I thought--I
thought, if I was to be called that----”
“You’d not be called it for nothing? Now, you know, that was foolish,
because to answer wrong with wrong is like patching a worn-out gown
with a piece cut from itself.”
“Yes, sir; so it is.”
“Mend bad with good, child, and”--he positively seemed to
expand--“forgive injuries. Tell me, what wrought this change of
feeling in you, this sense of an error realized and repented?”
She began to sob again, but quietly, and hanging her head.
“’Twas--’twas him there, I think, a-playing so beautiful; and--and, I
seemed overtook, all of a sudden, with my wickedness. I want to get
out, to escape, from--from----”
“Why, from yourself, child; and so you shall. But whither? To him?”
“O no, no! To mother.”
“Come, then; I will see you on your road.”
“O, don’t, sir!”
“Pish! I am sincere. What is thy name?”
“Betty, sir.”
“Harkee, Betsinda! I also heard the harpist, and was ‘overtook,’ and
repented me of my sins--for the time being. Now for the nonce I am to
be trusted; but you must hurry. This virtue will certainly last to the
gate, where I will see you safe bestowed. Go home, then, and be a good
girl, and never think to sin this way again.”
She still hesitated, tearful and in doubt, but quickly surrendered to
his insistence, and went beside him submissively. He led her by a
circuitous route to the great wicket of the place, where it stood in a
blaze of flambeaux facing the dining-hall; and there outside waited a
throng of chairs and vehicles, the most having brought visitors, but
among them several hackney coaches, driven over, as they might be
to-day, on the chance of a fare. And into one of these Hamilton
bundled his charge, having first settled with the coachman; and he
sent her off with his blessing, smiling on her timid benedictions. And
then he turned his back on the gate, and smacked his chest with
ineffable unction, and threw a glance at the sky, as if to observe if
the recording angel were there making a note.
Yet, what if the girl had been pretty?--but he shall have the benefit
of the doubt.
He strolled back the length of the lighted building, savouring by the
way his own laudableness; and, coming presently to the starry,
tree-haunted sward beyond, was aware in one instant of a lady, with an
emerald bow in her bosom, standing fanning herself apart near a
rhododendron thicket, and of a cavalier, whose hat was adorned with an
apple-green scarf, striding across the grass to join her. He was so
near the two that he was able, unobserved, to slip, though with a
little jump of the heart, behind a tree-trunk, within earshot of the
coming colloquy.
The gentleman walked up to the lady, and bowed, and stood silent. She
responded with the minutest toss of her head, and remained as mute.
She fanned herself, he whistled. “Hem!” said he. “Hem!” said she.
Hamilton chuckled, though in an exasperated way.
“By the lord,” he thought, “if ’tis not my cousin Kate and Phil! And I
perceive what is their game, which is for each to make the other speak
first.”
He watched like a cat. “Hem!” coughed the lady again, and “Hem!”
coughed the gentleman, only more aggressively. At that moment a second
lady, having a green bow at her bosom, came rapidly from the direction
of the gate, and, passing across the observer’s near field of vision,
went on and vanished among the trees. She was seen both by him and by
the stationary lady, who started ever so slightly; Chesterfield,
having his back to the flitting figure, stood unmoved.
“I think,” said the lady, in an odd, repressed little voice, and
seeming to make up her mind of a sudden, “that you have made a
mistake.”
Chesterfield uttered a sort of triumphant snarl.
“No, by God!” said he. “I have made no mistake. And now acknowledge,
madam, that you have been the first to break the silence between us.”
“What, then?” she protested. “You have made a mistake, I say. Whoever
you may think me, I am not she.”
Now Hamilton, struck with an idea, had been privily, during these few
moments, pinning his own scarf about his hat. And at these words he
came from his ambush.
“No _guet-apens_, but the grass, sir,” said he, “must explain my soft
approach. This lady speaks truth. You are mistaken in her.”
Chesterfield’s eyes glared red through his vizard holes. He sneered
horribly.
“If I were mistaken before, sir,” said he, “judge what I may be now.”
Then he turned with a whirl on the other. “Is this the way you hope to
convince me against your shameless perfidy? But you are betrayed,
madam, as much in your purposed visit here as in the object of your
wanton escapade. Will you still pretend you do not know your husband?”
“Indeed,” she said, “I know him very well.”
He uttered an oath.
“Then you know his way with villains”--and, white with passion, he
whipped out his sword.
They were all standing apart, screened by shrubs from the general
view. For the first time the lady showed some trepidation. She moved
hurriedly to interpose herself.
“For shame! Put it up,” she said. “I tell you again you are mistaken.”
“And you may say it a hundred times,” he cried, “and I shall not
believe you.”
“Sir,” said Hamilton frigidly, “I too wear a sword, though I have not
drawn it.”
“You shall not lack the need,” cried the other. But he left him for
the moment, and, addressing the lady, stamped with fury.
“You dare to face me with that lie, and the very witness to it
standing here to refute you! But there’s a way to settle it. Take off
your vizard.”
“I’ll not.”
“Ah! Take it off, I say.”
“Never, while I live!”
“Then, by God, I’ll do it for you!”
He actually meant it; she retreated before him. “Kit!” she cried,
“will you see me so insulted?”
Now, at that, my lord stopped dead, mowing and grinning like an ape.
“So convict out of your own mouth,” he cried, “will you dare to deny
longer?” And then he turned his fury on the other. “Liar and betrayer,
whatever your cursed identity, this point shall penetrate it. Look to
yourself!”
Hamilton was ready, the swords tinkled, the lady screamed.
“There she goes again--the green favour! Look! Is it for her you have
mistaken me? Wretch, hold your wicked hand!”
As by one consent, the two belligerents lowered their points. The
figure, which had once before revealed itself hurrying past, was again
come into view, walking this time with a gentleman, about whose hat
was wound a scarf of green sarcenet.
Hamilton gaped, a surprised grin on his face. Already somewhat
confounded by his cousin’s appeal to him, this suggestion of a further
entanglement seemed fairly to take his breath away. Was the
coincidence accidental or deliberate? And, if the latter, what the
mischief was at the bottom of it all? He might have thought “who,”
rather, but that was superfluous. There could be only one. Anyhow,
being in for it, he would make the best he could of circumstance. For
the rest, he was rather tickled with the hussy’s impudent daring, and
curious to see how her plot worked out. Where was she herself? he
wondered. Somewhere watching the game, no doubt.
But, as for my lord, he stared like one petrified. All his assurance
was knocked out of him. He looked--goggle-eyed and gasping like a
landed fish--from his adversary to the lady, and from the lady to
Hamilton, and again from them both to the rapidly receding couple. It
seemed minutes before he could find his voice.
“But--but----” he said, and stuck again.
“Very well, sir,” said Hamilton. “Take your guard.”
But the other, with a muttered oath, slipped his blade into its
scabbard.
“I’m damned if I do!” he said, and looked stupidly at the lady. “You
called him Kit, you know,” he muttered.
“And why not?” she said. “Is he to be killed for being christened?”
“You may realize by now, sir,” said Hamilton, “that you have made an
error. If I may suggest, the way to rectify it is by not imposing
yourself longer on our company.”
The glare came again into Chesterfield’s eyes; and then doubt,
confusion, indecision. Was this, in truth, his errant wife? He had
never questioned it before; but now--was there not something seeming
more familiar in the pose, the walk of the other? And yet----
He bent, bewildered, to search the secret of the impenetrable mask.
Certainly the dim light, the artificial atmosphere, were trickish
things; they confused the visual sense, no less than that of voice and
hearing. Was he mistaken after all? And what was his folly, in that
case, in bandying words with these while the actual delinquents
escaped!
One moment longer he hesitated; then, with a curse, turned on his heel
and hurried off in pursuit.
The two remaining watched his retreat in silence; and then Hamilton,
resheathing his sword with a snap, gave a low laugh.
“Nothing, my Phil,” muttered he, “will make thee a gentleman”; and he
turned on his companion. She stood quite still, observing him. “What
made you call me Kit?” said he.
“Why, are you not Kit?” she asked.
He peered at her, inquisitive. Surely she could not have failed to
recognize him? No! that was incredible. And he, her? There could be no
doubt about it. Her voice, her figure, her manner of dressing her
hair; even the trick of her speech, moulded on soft wilful lips; even
the fashion of her gown, which he seemed vaguely to recall--they were
all Kate, indubitably Kate. No, he must seek another reason for her
caprice. And could it be this--that all the time in “Kit” had been
meant himself? that all the time she had been taking this playful
symbolic means to avow her love for one she dared not admit by name?
It was a revealing, a rapturous thought; it might explain much which
had seemed inexplicable. And yet, if it were true, what had decided
the crisis? Was it possible that it was she herself who had written
that anonymous letter, confident in her bait to allure him hither?
But, in that case, how had her husband got wind of the ruse? And who
were those others, all, apparently, in the emblematic secret? Well, at
least she had claimed him, and that was sufficient for his present
satisfaction. If some eavesdropping mischief, possessed of knowledge,
was manœuvring to complicate the issue, they must set their own wits
to outwit hers. For the moment it was only his obvious policy to
answer that question in kind.
“Yes, I am Kit,” he said. “I understand at last--your very Kit, sweet
cousin. And now, let us away to covert where we can talk.”
“Which way?” she said. Her voice seemed to suggest some tiny inward
struggle.
“The shady way,” he answered, with a laugh; and she went compliantly
with him. “You made sure of my coming?” he asked tenderly.
“O yes,” she answered--“sure.”
He sighed. “I have waited long, trying to dissemble, but trust a woman
to know. Come this way, little cousin. There are labyrinths of wild
darknesses beyond, where none may hope to track and find us. Is not
the night sweet? So Phil hath sinned at last beyond forgiveness?
Come--why do you linger?” For she had stopped.
“I hear music,” she said.
“It is only some harping fellow. Come!”
“Where is he?”
“Yonder in the grove.”
She stood as if spellbound, took a hurried step or two, paused, and
caught her hands to her bosom.
“Let us go listen,” she said; her breath came quick. “Where is he? I
will go, I tell you,” and in a moment she was running. He followed,
calling to her: “Cousin, wait! What hath taken you? Stop for me at
least!” But she paid no heed to him, and sped on. Her feet twinkled on
the grass, in and out between the hanging lamps; he found her, lost
her, found her again among the thickening throng; and in another
moment, hard pressing on her tracks, he had pursued her into the ring
which stood about the player--through it, to the very front, where she
stopped, breathless and panting.
And now let us follow the footsteps of that other green-bowed lady,
the seeming double or replica of this, whom we can leave for the time
being. She was Kate herself, in fact, the little outraged wife, intent
on her design to personate the object of her faithless spouse’s
pursuit, and, by figuring to him under false colours, to draw him into
an unconscious confession of his guilt.
She had driven over in her coach, and--though some accident had
delayed her by the way--in time, she still hoped, to enable her to
forestall the other. Alighting, she had hurriedly traversed the
distance between the gates and the open sward beyond, where the
company were most wont to congregate; but, though she used her eyes
for all the inquisition they were worth, without result. Eager and
flurried, then, she was turning to retrace her steps, when she saw
_him_ making towards her from the shadow of a clump of trees, whence,
obviously, he had been watching. She stopped instantly, and let out a
shaking breath to ease the turmoil of her heart.
It was he, her husband; it never occurred to her to doubt it; the
height, the figure, were sufficient, not to speak of the damning token
in his hat. And, once assured, she hardly looked his way, I think. And
yet, so susceptible is jealousy to false witness, it was not my lord
at all, but the Duke of York.
He came up to her where she stood, and, gazing intently through his
mask, waited silently a while. And then he sighed, with extreme
audibility. Still, she vouchsafed him no recognition or encouragement,
but stood as cold and motionless as one of the white lilies in the bed
beyond. He was forced at last into taking the initiative.
“Not one word, madam,” said he, “to him that wears your favour? Will
you not reassure my anxiety?”
He was aware of the faintest odd response to this appeal; it might
have been a whispered note of exultation.
“For whom, sir,” she said, still white, still inflexible, “do you take
me?”
“Ah!” he said, “is not that bow in your bosom sufficient answer?”
With a quick, fierce action, she pulled the vizard from her face,
looked him in the eyes one moment, and, replacing it, half turned her
back on him.
“Now,” she said, “are you satisfied of your error?”
“Satisfied,” said he, “but not of my error, for indeed there is none.”
And, indeed, there _was_ none, from his point of view.
She turned on him irresistibly, unable to control her indignation--
“You can dare to say it, trapped and detected in the very act? There
is no error--none?--and I am she, I suppose, whom you expected to find
revealed under this token? O! shameless! But your dissembling does not
deceive me--instant and ready as it proves itself. Go seek her, sir,
the vile party to your iniquity--she is doubtless somewhere in the
garden; and bear with you the scorn and detestation of the insulted
wife you thought vainly to overreach, and who now denounces and
repudiates you for evermore.”
She made as if to leave him, but again turned, a quivering smile on
her lips--
“And bear with you, Philip Stanhope, this reflection, which I know
will gall you above any sense of guilt expressed: it was you broke the
long silence between us, and it was I that trapped you into doing so.
If you can feel any humiliation greater than your own discovered
wickedness, it will lie in that, I know.”
“Stop!” cried his Highness, as she was going. The truth had dawned
upon him through that torrent of invective. Not Kit was he, in her
assumption, but her own recreant husband. The discovery was
illuminating--and, indirectly, gratifying, inasmuch as it seemed to
dispose, so far as she was concerned, of that hypothetical intriguer.
And yet was it possible she was only manœuvring to justify her own
frailty through her husband’s example? “Where are you going?” he said.
She answered in one straitened monosyllable: “Home.”
And that reassured and decided him. It was a cruel ruse, perhaps; but
he saw no other hope, in her excited state, of detaining and reasoning
with her. Doubtless, when the inevitable discovery ensued, the
emotional reaction consequent on it would prove his forgiver and
abetter.
He had to hurry to keep pace with her. “Nay,” he whispered in her ear,
“believe me when I say there was no error. Could I have failed, think
you, to recognize my Kate, though in a subtler disguise than this?
Trust a husband’s eyes and senses, sweetheart. Come, be reasonable; we
cannot talk here. Turn with me, and let us seek a spot more private to
our confidences in the solitudes beyond.”
Indeed, as they advanced, it was to make themselves more and more “the
cynosure of neighbouring eyes.” But the wife was not to be moved. She
was deaf and blind now with a passion she could not surmount. As he
persisted in accompanying her, she stopped suddenly, and stamped her
little foot on the grass.
“Will you cease to importune me,” she said, “and go?”
“Only turn and come away,” he entreated, “and I will explain
everything.”
“Never!” she exclaimed vehemently. “I do not believe you--not one
word. It is all over between us. Leave me, and go and seek your
paramour.”
“I will not,” he persisted doggedly. “There is none but yourself for
me.”
“I am going home, I say.”
“Then I will go with you.”
She hurried a few steps farther; then, as he kept beside her, turned
with a flounce, and went off in the opposite direction. He wheeled to
follow--and so suddenly, that he ran into the very arms of a masked
gentleman who, the moment before, had been advancing upon him from the
rear. He snapped out a half-angry apology, and was for speeding on;
but, to his astonishment, the other gripped and held him like a vice.
“Unhand me, sir!” cried the Duke. “What! do you dare?”
For the moment he was beside himself with fury, seeing his light
quarry, who had taken advantage of the check, in the act of making her
escape. But his struggles availed him nothing.
“Aye, I dare,” said the stranger viciously; and he turned his face, in
a white fume, to regard the flight of the fugitive. “Go your way,”
said he between his teeth, as if addressing the receding figure. “You
are marked down at last, my lady, and will be called on in due time to
pay the reckoning. And as for you, you villain”--he whisked like a
devil on his prisoner--“you have got to answer for this here and now.”
He had to, somehow. His Highness, with that acute perception of his,
saw the necessity, and ceased to strive. He was fairly trapped, and
very certainly by the injured husband himself. He had nothing for it
but to bring all his finesse to the solution of so embarrassing a
problem.
“Sir,” said he, with a good deal of haughtiness, “will you please to
quit this rude grasp on me? You need not fear. I am a man of honour.”
“O, of honour!” said Chesterfield, with a sneer. But he released his
hold. “You surprise me, on my word. But, being so, perhaps you will
inform me, man of honour, where you would like to come with me to have
your throat cut.”
“We will discuss the necessity of that,” said the Duke civilly, “when
I know your name.”
“So particular?” mocked the other. “But will it not inform you
sufficiently to be told that I am the husband of the lady you have
just parted with?”
“Indeed, it informs me nothing,” replied the Duke most suavely.
“What! you dare to pretend to me that you know her not?”
“Sir,” said the Duke, “I would disdain to answer to your insolence
were it not that there must be something in appearances which, it
seems, justifies it in you. I cannot presume your name from that of
the lady who has just vanished, because I do not know her.”
“You are lying to me, I know.”
“You deserve no explanation; which I vouchsafe, nevertheless, solely
for her good credit’s sake. I admit I accosted the lady in question;
but it was under a misapprehension, being misled by a certain token
she wore in her dress, and for which I had been directed to look. My
importunities are explained by my reluctance to believe that a
coincidence so remarkable as the wearing of that same token by another
was even conceivable.”
Truly a plausible defence; but there is a craft, as well as a
credulity, in jealousy, and Chesterfield showed it.
“Well, sir,” said he, “I will take your word for’t on a condition; and
that is that you return me your name for my own. I am the Earl of
Chesterfield.”
“And I,” said the Duke, “prefer to be known to you for the moment as
‘Kit’--simply ‘Kit,’ at your service.”
It was no sooner spoken than he realized his blunder. It would be this
very anonymity, the presumptive second party to the liaison, whom the
husband, being here, would be in search of. Chesterfield, in fact,
showed his instant sense of the admission. He let out a laugh that was
wholly diabolical.
“Ha-ha!” cried he. “Damned and condemned, thou dog, out of thine own
mouth!”
Conscious that all this time they were objects of some curious
attention on the part of the nearest company, he thought it well now
to subdue his voice, and affect a nonchalant manner.
“Mr. Kit,” said he, in an undertone, “you will hardly continue, in
face of that confession, your pretence of innocence, nor, by denying
me the satisfaction I demand here and now, force me to the necessity
of whipping you, like the hound you are, in public. There are level
spaces in the wildernesses beyond, and something of a rising moon,
sufficient for the business we have in hand. Will you walk with me,
sir--or----”
“Without admitting anything,” said his Highness, very haughty and
wroth, “or condescending to further remonstrance, I answer to your
effrontery as it deserves. It must be chastised, at whatever cost to
the truth. Follow me, sir,” and he stalked off in high choler.
He was horribly perplexed, nevertheless, though for the moment so
offended as half to mean the bellicosity he threatened. But reflection
soon cooled him of that temper, and he recognized that, if nothing
else intervened, there would be no alternative for him but to make
himself known, at the critical pass, to his adversary.
The two gentlemen disappeared in the direction of the thickets.
And so, leaving them, we will return to Hamilton and _his_ green bow.
The harper harped his sweetest, and the lady stood and listened
entranced. She seemed as one fascinated, half hypnotized, oblivious of
the soft reproaches her companion kept whispering in her ear. She paid
no heed whatever to his babble, but always her gaze was fixed on the
long swaying form of the musician and the melancholy-wrapt eyes of
him, lost, like her own, to all outer influences and impressions, and
wholly absorbed in the visions conjured up of his unconscious soul.
And when at length he ended on a triumphant chord, she sighed, and
seemed to come awake, and, first joining in the applause with her
little hands, plucked off her vizard, being quite carried away by her
feelings, and, waving it in the air, cried “Brava!” in a manner to
make the people about her laugh.
Hamilton, momentarily pressed back by the thrusting forward of the
crowd, saw that ebullition, and frowned and wondered a little over
such a _grossièreté_ in his cousin; but she had the thing on again
before he could reach her to remonstrate; and, indeed, he never had
the chance to. For all of a sudden he found himself witness of an odd
scene. Attracted, it seemed, by the little acclaiming voice, the
performer, who was seated not ten yards away, got suddenly to his
feet, and, after standing staring a minute, came striding across the
grass towards the spot whence the demonstration had issued. Those
about the lady may have thought that he was bent on some graceful
acknowledgment to her of an approval so spontaneous and so unusual;
but, whatever the attention he designed, she did not wait to receive
it. As if seized with a sudden panic over the publicity she had called
down upon herself, she whipped round, and, taking advantage of an
opening in the crowd, slipped through it, to a roar of laughter, and
was gone in an instant. So quick had she been, that Hamilton, taken by
surprise, and hemmed in as he was, could not extricate himself from
his position in time to mark the direction of her flight; but, once
clear of the press, he stood completely baffled and cursing his evil
luck.
And in the meantime green-bow was making good her escape; she ran as
if some spectre were at her heels. Across the thronged grass, in and
out between the trees, heedless of the attention she attracted, making
instinctively for the outer glooms, onward she sped, and never paused
until the covert of green shadows coming thickly about her gave her
comfort and reassurance of an asylum reached at last. And then she
stopped, panting and dishevelled, but with a little inclination,
nevertheless, to some hysterical giggling.
“O, mussey me!” she whispered, as she fought for breath: “O, mussey
me!” And then she looked hurriedly about her. She was still so near
the fringe of the thickets as to have a clear view of the lighted
swards she had left. Not safe from detection yet, she must penetrate
deeper into the wilderness, if she hoped to baffle pursuit. Away from
her ran a little glow-worm track, dim but discernible, and threaded
with lamps, always attenuating, until they seemed to cease altogether
in the leafy depths. She followed it, and found it to conduct her deep
into an open space among the trees, about which was hung a slender
coronal of lamps, and in whose midmost stood a rustic arbour, “for
whispering lovers made,” but at the moment, it seemed, unoccupied. And
here she stopped, to recover her breath and her self-possession, and,
with a laugh, began to preen her tumbled plumes like a bird escaped
from the fowler.
“I never did--there, never!” she said aloud, and instantly looked up
with a start. A masked lady, with a green bow at her bosom, had come
silently, it seemed, from the direction of the bower, and was standing
regarding her with stony eyes. This was poor Kate, indeed, whom
accident had precipitated upon the same refuge.
Moll, after that first little shock, continued her preening
unperturbed.
“You fair took my breath away,” she said, “coming on me that fashion
like a ghost.”
Kate’s head was bent forward; her dove-like eyes glared.
“Who are you?” she said, scarce audibly. “How dare you thrust yourself
upon me like this?”
“Highty-tighty!” said Moll, still comfortably busy. “I might ask that
of you.”
“Of me!” cried Kate desperately. “I think I hardly know myself”--for
indeed the other had taken pains to duplicate her in many particulars,
both dress and voice. “What are you doing here? But I understand the
cunning infamy of it all at last. It was to throw dust in the eyes of
scandal by feigning ’twas his own wife he came to meet.”
“He? Who?” said Moll, readjusting her breast knot.
“Do not you well know, false creature? But you are betrayed through
that very token in your bosom you used to further your wicked
designs.”
“What!” says saucebox: “mayn’t I wear a green bow if it suits my
complexion?”
“Lies and duplicity,” cries the other, “are your complexion. It suits
them very well.”
“Green stands for ‘forsaken,’” says the vixen. “Is that why you wear
one yourself?”
It was a stab that made the poor lady wince. Her face went from pink
to white.
“Cruel and inhuman!” she gasped.
“Come, call fair, my lady,” said Moll, in some heat. “If he’s been and
mistaken you for me, _whoever he is_--and I take it that’s the
truth--you’ve only got what you asked for. Look through the keyhole,
you know, and you’ll get a sore eye.”
Her white teeth showed a moment under the hem of her vizard. With a
dart, her ladyship was upon her.
“I will see it--that face”--she could hardly articulate in her
passion--“abandoned wretch that you are--masquerading under a false
name. I will know this ‘Kit’ of his for whom she is. Take it off, I
say.”
But the facile jade easily repulsed and eluded her.
“Give over,” she said. “You’re no match for me.”
And indeed it was obvious to the poor girl that she was not. So she
desisted in a moment, and resolved upon the better part of dignity,
which is contempt.
“Keep your secret,” she said, panting. “After all, its shame is better
hidden out of sight. Do you know who I am?”
“I can guess,” said Moll.
“Go to him, then. You will find him seeking for you, yonder in the
open. Tell him that he is welcome to his goods for me; that I have
seen them and understand their attraction to one so sunk in base
corruption as himself.”
“Come, now,” said Moll. “Keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Did Kate suspect? She glanced anyhow, in a startled, puzzled way, at
the dim face menacing her, before she turned on her heel, and, with
her head held erect, swept away. She made for the narrow track,
leaving the other standing where she was, and had passed but half-way
down it, when she met Hamilton face to face. The scarf in his hat was
plainly distinguishable; she took him for her husband, and stood
rigidly aside to let him pass.
“Ah, little wicked truant!” said he; “but I have run you to earth at
last. What made you scamper from the great musician in that panic
fashion?”
His voice insensibly perplexed her; but her emotions were in too
prejudiced a state to serve her for trusty interpreters.
“Are _you_, then, the great musician?” she said, hard scorn in her
tone, “since it was you alone I sought to escape from, and--and for
ever.”
“From me?”--a grieved amazement marked his voice--“after what hath
passed between us?”
She stood back, peremptorily signing him on with her hand.
“Passed? Are you again in error? Proceed, sir--’tis but a little
distance--and find her, the brazen partner of your guilt, for whom you
have already once mistaken me.”
He cried out: “You are mad! How could I ever mistake you? Were we not
listening together but now to the harpist, when you turned and ran?”
“_I_ ran? I have heard no harpist. It was from your lying
importunities I escaped.”
“My lying--before God I spoke my very heart. And you were kind,
cousin.”
“Cousin!”
“Am I not your cousin, though your lover?”
“George Hamilton!”
“Do you not know me, cousin?”
She sighed, seemed to sway a little, then to stiffen.
“O!” she said. “I know you now, indeed.”
He laughed, relieved.
“Why, what misled you, Kate?”
“Never mind.” She was a serpent all at once, subtle, wooing, alluring.
“Let us go back this way. There is something I want to show you. Will
you come?”
Come? He would have followed her to the pit. Yet what surprise had she
in store for him, what unknown witness to her own mistake, what
solution of this mystery of her denial about the music? She had
appeared strangely affected by that performance; was it possible it
had wrought upon her to forgetfulness? Well, he would know in a
moment.
She meant that he should--meant to face him with the proof of his own
misconception and his intended betrayal of herself. It was somehow
that woman wretch’s doing, of that she felt certain, though she was
bewildered with the complication of it all. But at least her course
here was clear: it was to expose and denounce the would-be seducer in
the presence of the wanton who had entrapped him.
Mrs. Moll, however, was not to be caught so easily. She had, in fact,
having followed stealthily in Kate’s footsteps, and whisked behind a
tree at the psychologic moment, overheard the gist of this colloquy,
and it imbued her with no desire to return and face the music. She
just waited until the couple had passed out of sight, then slipped
into the track with a view to making her escape by it.
But, alas for “the best-laid plans of mice”--and monkeys! This little
monkey was nabbed before she had well set foot on the path. For there
suddenly appeared advancing towards her along the narrow way the
figures of a couple of gentlemen--and each had a green scarf adorning
his hat.
“Well, I’m damned!” she whispered, and stood stock still.
His Highness, coming first, saw her at once, and paused--as he thought
recognizing her--in some amazement. It was an embarrassing moment, and
he was standing in frank indecision, when Chesterfield, coming up,
pushed by him, and in his turn jerked to a stop.
“What, by God!” said he. “So we have tracked you to your lair, my
lady.”
He ran at her, with a scowl, and seized her by the wrist, so roughly
that she cried out.
“Aye, howl!” said he. “You will have full reason for your lamentation
before I have done with you and this fancy beau of yours. Come, my
pretty faithful Kate, and watch us fight. You shall stand by, and clap
your husband victor, while I cut him into ribbons for love-knots to
your gown. Come, stir--there is a green hard by where he shall caper
for you, dancing to very prick-song. Will you not come?”
She could not help herself, indeed. His grip was iron; he dragged her
with him, so that he half pulled her arm out. “O, lud!” she thought.
“I’m in for it now!”
A few steps farther, and they broke into the clearing. My lady and
Hamilton were just before them; it was plain they had both overheard.
They stood as if petrified, Kate with white face and bewildered eyes,
her companion with the grin of a dog at bay lifting his lip.
“Curse it!” said Chesterfield. “What’s this?”
Involuntarily he released his hold; on which Moll, with a naughty
laugh, sprang from him and stood apart, nursing her angry wrist. And
so they remained a full minute, Chesterfield and my lord Duke facing
the other two, the girl covertly watching.
The Earl looked from one woman to the other, and more than once; but
always his eyes returned to his true wife, on whom they finally
rested.
“If this,” said he, in a gripping voice, and pulling off his mask, “is
to make me the victim of some foul conspiracy, it fails with you, my
lady. I know you. You need pretend no longer.”
She plucked off _her_ vizard, and, throwing it with a gesture of scorn
on the grass, stood proudly up before him.
“Well guessed, sir,” she said. “But you were not so happy in your
choice a moment ago. Was it the green bow deceived you?”
“Yes, by God, it was, madam, though you may sneer. I looked for it on
none but you.”
“On me?” Her eyes opened, amazed. “And why, please?”
“Because I was privily informed you were to wear it.”
“Indeed? And for whose benefit?”
“Will you ask it”--he stepped aside, flinging out his arm towards his
Highness, who stood silent, gnawing his forefinger--“and this Kit,
this damning witness to your guilt, to answer for it to your face? Did
I not find you with him but now? For shame, madam! But he shall pay
for his temerity with his life.”
“You are mad,” she said, in a voice of wonder. “I never saw you. I
thought him you, and that he had accosted me, taking me for Kit.”
“_You_ Kit? Why, in God’s name? Kit’s a man.”
“No, a woman.”
“A man, I say. He’s here.”
“And so is she here.”
“She? I tell you, no! What cursed coil is this? And you thought him
me, you say? Why--answer that.”
“He wore the scarf in his hat the secret letter spoke of.”
“The secret letter? What! you have received one too?”
“I have received one.” In a sudden thought she whipped round on
Hamilton. “And you, also, cousin, judging by your token.”
“Cousin!” roared Chesterfield. “What, you too, George!” For, seeing
further disguise useless, that gentleman had also discovered himself.
“Damme! am I to fight you all?” He stamped with fury. “Who and what is
at the bottom of this juggling?”
“Why, Kit,” said Hamilton coolly--he guessed pretty well the truth,
and was only mad with himself for having walked so tamely into the
trap--“whoever Kit may be. I had the letter, sure enough, and acted on
it. ’Twas the green bow, nothing else, for which I went. How could I
know your wife behind it?”
“Why, not at all,” quoth my lady, “by what you said to her. I think,
cousin, you were the most mistaken of us all.”
He felt the cold, sarcastic sting in her tone, and knew himself
revealed and dismissed from that moment.
Chesterfield clinched and convulsed his fists in impotent desperation.
“But--but----” he shouted, and turned on his wife again. “Kit was to
wear a scarf, I tell you.”
“No, a bow,” said she.
“And nothing else, madam?” he cried.
“There would be no disputing Kit’s sex in that case,” said Hamilton
pleasantly. And then he laughed. “But there are still two potential
Kits in the field--and both unmasked. Why not ask them?”
Obviously it was the simple course. Chesterfield pounced on the Duke--
“You hear? Kit or the devil, man--whichever you are, confess
yourself.”
His Highness hesitated--it was an awkward moment for him--and
succumbed, finally, to the tyranny of circumstance.
“I could claim my privilege, and refuse, sir,” said he, “were it not
that by persisting in this disguise the fair fame of an innocent lady
might appear to lack its vindication. I took her, if not for another,
at least not for herself,” and he pulled off his vizard in his turn.
“The Duke of York!” muttered the Earl, falling back a little, with a
stupefied look; while Kate, on her part, her face flushing crimson,
bent her eyes on the ground.
But in a moment she looked up, and, clasping her hands, took a
passionate step forward.
“My lord Duke,” she said, urgently and pitifully, “tell him--you owe
it to me--that I knew nothing of your presence here, that I guessed
you as little as he did himself. My behaviour proves it.”
“Surely, madam,” said his Highness, rather grimly. “It should be
self-evident to any reasonable man. But to put the matter beyond
dispute, I confess myself a victim to the same mischievous agency
which, it seems, has been working this havoc amongst us. From private
information received, I understood that here, on this night, a green
scarf was to rally to a green bow, the pass-word ‘Kit,’ and ’twas in
a mere spirit of frolic that I undertook to be present in order to
confuse the issue. If I had guessed for a moment----”
“But you did not guess, Sir,” said Chesterfield dryly, and only half
convinced.
“I did not guess,” said the Duke, mildly and piously. “And now comes
in the question, who is the one responsible for all this
misunderstanding?”
“Kit!” cried Moll. She was standing a little apart on a rising mound.
“Kit!” she cried, with a ringing laugh. “Here’s Kit!” And she took
from her pocket a little impish, sexless doll, a mere thing of cloth
and wire, which she flourished in the air. “My darling,” she said,
hugging and kissing the fetish. “Look at them! Look at it, good
people! It’s always been with me, everywhere, from the time I was a
baby; and sometimes it’s a girl, and sometimes a boy; and I never can
tell from one minute to another what it will be up to next. O, you
dear!” and she held the rubbish to her young breast, swaying it as if
it were an infant.
They had all turned on her, like a pack baying a little speared otter.
Stupefaction marked their faces; a dead silence ensued.
And suddenly, in the midst of it, awoke a sound--music--the plucking
of fingers on harp strings; and with one impulse they turned.
It came from the darkness of the trees--sweet, wild, unearthly; it
rose on the starry night like incense, like a drug, like a spell,
taking their brains captive. And in a moment it had slipped into a
symphony, preluding some wonder--and the girl, as if irresistibly
compelled, was singing--
“My lodging is on the cold ground,
And hard, very hard, is my fare,
But that which grieves me more
Is the coldness of my dear.
Oh, turn, love, I prythee, love,
turn to me,
For thou art the only one, love,
that art ador’d by me.
I’ll twine thee a garland of straw, love,
I’ll marry thee with a rush ring,
My frozen hopes will thaw, love,
And merrily we will sing.
Then turn to me, my own love;
I prythee, love, turn to me,
For thou art the only one, love,
that art adored by me.”
The voice ceased, and the music. A sort of universal sigh seemed to
breathe from the hearts of the listeners. It was like a sigh of
waking. The girl wiped her eyes, and sniffed, and laughed.
“Well, what next?” she said defiantly.
Chesterfield, the least impressible of the group, took a furious step
forward.
“That mask,” he said hoarsely, “that mask!” and without the least
demur she whipped it from her face, and stood saucily before them. He
turned on his wife.
“You see, madam? Your friend!”
“No friend of mine!” cried her ladyship. “How dare you so insult me?”
He stared bewildered.
“No friend of yours? Did you not invite her to our house?”
“Never! You know you did yourself.”
“I? Before God, no! I thought she was your guest.”
“What is this, my lord? And I thought her yours.”
“Mine? I had never seen her in my life before. That hussy!”
Again that amazed inquisition of the delinquent.
“Hussy yourself!” cried Moll. And then she screamed with laughter. “O!
don’t look so perplexed, good people! It’s all right. Neither of you
invited me. I invited myself.”
“Yourself?” cried my lady, dumbfounded.
“Why, you see, my dear,” said Moll, “as you weren’t on speaking terms,
I thought I might risk it, as each of you would suppose the other had
asked me. And so I did; and so it turned out; and I’ve had a good
time, a killing time, and I thank you both for it. And I’m glad to see
your little difference is made up at last, and to know that I’m after
all the one you’ve got to thank for it.”
“You?” cried her ladyship, with infinite scorn.
“Yes, me, my dear,” said Moll. “Now don’t be nasty about it. ’Twas I,
you know, wrote all those letters and arranged this little mixture, by
which you’ve come to profit.”
“You infamous creature!” said Kate. “Who suggested this trick to you?”
Hamilton, if he did not look, felt, supremely uncomfortable. But he
need not have feared his confederate’s loyalty. “Honour amongst
thieves” was a good enough motto for her.
“Kit,” said Mrs. Moll. “’Tis a rare little impy when it chooses.”
He breathed again. As for his Highness, he had already, realizing that
he had been well fooled, and unwilling to risk any further
compromising revelations, slipped quietly and unostentatiously away.
Kate breathed her disdain.
“I will know,” she began, and paused. Perhaps, after all, she _did_
know--or guess. Her indignant eyes sought her cousin.
“Be wise,” said Hamilton, with a laugh, “and leave it at that. When
all’s said, you know, ’tis very truth that she’s to thank, however she
chose to work it, for this--this tender reconciliation.”
She turned her shoulder on him and his sneering, and again addressed
Moll--
“Was it not enough to impose yourself on us, as you did, without
setting your wicked wits to work to spite us in this fashion? Why did
you do it?”
“O!” said Mrs. Davis nonchalantly, “I was tired of you all and your
tragic ways; and I wanted some fun; and there was none to be got out
of that jealous grumps of a husband of yours; and--and so I played for
a general post. What then, and what cause have you, of all people, to
blame me for it?”
Now, at that, Chesterfield, uttering an oath, made a run for the saucy
creature, as if he were minded to strike her.
“No, damn it, Phil!” cried Hamilton, moving to interpose--“hold your
hand. What cause have you either, for that matter!”
“Cause!” cried the nobleman, glaring round. “What the devil do you do
defending her? Are you in her confidence? Cause, by God! I’ll have her
by the heels for a common rogue and impostor--I’ll----” and he was
making for the girl again.
She struck out at him, with a little shriek.
“Jack Davis,” she cried, “are you going to see your wife ill-treated
before your eyes?”
There was a rustle in the shadows, and a long form came bounding out,
and seemed to tumble towards the mound.
“Zounds!” ejaculated Hamilton, “his wife! If it isn’t the harping
prodigy!” He whistled. “’Tis all plain now.”
“Hold, sir!” cried the musician. “This is indeed my wife.”
He ascended the mound, and stood shoulder to shoulder beside that
injured lady. Chesterfield fell back, snorting, while Kate ran to him
and clutched his arm. That touch, so desired, so unfamiliar, seemed to
fall like balm on his passion.
Moll looked up, with a twinkle of dismal resignation, at the sad,
adoring face above her.
“So you’ve found me at last, Jack,” she said, “and all my fun’s over,
I suppose, for the present. Well-a-day!” and she heaved a great sigh.
“How did you know me?”
“Know you!” he exclaimed; and O, the aching tragedy, to him, implied
in those two words! “Was not your voice enough, child, when you cried
‘Brava!’ There is none other like it in all the world. I followed
it--when I could, and some instinct led me hither. And then and
then--O, I wondered if you could be moved in the old way;
and--and----”
“And I was moved, Jack; I had to sing when you made me. Lud, if you
could only be always the angel your playing makes you! But”--she
heaved her shoulders pettishly--“well, I must come back to be your
wife again, I suppose.”
“Will you, Molly?” Poor wretch--the rapture and the marvel!
“O yes!” she said indifferently. “Well, what have you been doing with
yourself all this while?”
“Playing for bread,” he answered. “I took another name--Bannister--my
mother’s; and I think it blessed me. I have been making a reputation
and a fortune, Molly.”
“A fortune!” cried the lady, opening her eyes. “Then I’ll come with
you, sure. La, now! what must all these folks think of us, making love
in public?”
She led him down from the mound, up to the listening group, astonished
spectators of this domestic reunion. She was quite cool and impudent.
“These are some of my friends, Jack,” says she--“or were, till a
moment ago. You don’t ask me what I’ve been doing since we quarrelled
and parted. Well, they’ll tell you, if you are curious, only don’t you
believe all they say.” And then she addressed the company: “My
lord--hem!--ladies and gentlemen. I’ve found, though quite unexpected,
the husband I came to London to seek, not the one I meant but an old
one I had thought used up. Never mind for that; and I daresay both my
lady and me know what it is to wear a turned gown; but the point is
that, if you ever doubted of my respectability--and some of you may;
not all, perhaps, recognizing the thing when they see it--here’s the
proof of it to answer you, and so shall remain, until we quarrel again
and go our ways as before.”
“No, no!” said the radiant creature, with a patient smile.
“No, no!” croaked Hamilton, with a laugh.
“To spite _you_,” cried Moll, blazing on him, “I’d live with him for
ever--at least, for part of it!”
“Poor man! what a vengeance!” said her ladyship, and turned with cold
disdain on the mocker (she still held her husband’s arm). “I trust you
appreciate your punishment, cousin,” she said, “and will submit to it
without resorting to the bad counsel of jealousy.” And so she faced
the lady. “I congratulate you, Mrs. Davis, on your--your proof. We had
not learned, I confess, to associate you with angels in any form, and
the very opportune arrival of this one--whether in the conspiracy or
not--must serve you, I suppose, for a means to escape the chastisement
you have so richly deserved at our hands. Under what circumstances and
at whose instigation you were moved to venture on this audacity it is
idle to inquire--we should never extract the truth. Nor, the air being
cleared of you, need we now wish to. When one has thrown off a
sickness, one likes to dismiss its unpleasantness from one’s thoughts.
Your boxes, with their green bows, and vulgarities, and thrice-turned
gowns, and whatever other stage ‘properties’ or ‘perquisites’ they may
contain, shall be sent to your direction. Come, my lord”--and she
turned very stately, and, entering the track with her husband,
disappeared along it.
“There’s gratitude!” cried Moll; and, positively snivelling, threw
herself upon Sad Jack’s sober bosom.
Hamilton, looking on, with a grin wrinkling his nose, shrugged his
shoulders, began to whistle, and sauntered off in another direction.
My lord and lady, in the meantime, walked like reconciled lovers.
“Do you know,” she said, with an arch smile, “that ’twas you first
broke the silence between us?”
“No, no,” said he, stopping.
“Ah! but it was.”
“It was not, I say.”
“And I say it was.”
They had edged apart. For the moment it seemed as if it was all to
begin over again.
“Curse it!” muttered my lord.
“Why, do not you remember,” said she, rallying to sweetness, “that you
declared you knew me?”
He bit his lip, scowled, and brightened.
“That’s true, my lady. But I have not gone down on my knees to you.”
And on the very word, advancing a pace, he tripped over a stump and
went down on his knees.
She checked an impulse to laugh, and did the tactful thing. As he got
to his feet, she gazed at him with dear dove’s eyes, and said she--
“And now _I_ will ask the pardon. O, I would ask anything, do anything
for you, my lord, since learning--since learning----”
He tucked her arm within his, and they went on together.
And on the green, in the light of the fading lamps, Moll snivelled.
“What does this all mean? What mischief hast thou been up to, thou
incorrigible one?” asked the fond fellow, her husband, as he held her.
“Not I, but Kit,” said the girl, and, with a tearful laugh, she
produced the fetish, and held it up to his face.
“What!” said he, smiling. “Dost thou still carry that absurd imp about
with thee?”
“Always, and wherever I go,” she answered solemnly. And then, with a
sigh: “I think he is the only one my heart hath ever really loved--the
first, as he shall be the last. There, don’t gloom, Jack, but kiss
him--kiss him!”
[The End]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ mussey-me/mussey me,
whimple/wimple, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Add TOC.
[Chapter II]
Change “was already _susspected_ of a leaning in” to _suspected_.
[Chapter XVIII]
(would be ours! But the senses are cloudy interpreters”) add missing
period.
[End of text]