PRETTY early on the morning after the ball Ned rode over to pay his respects to, and inquire after the health of, the ladies. None, apparently, was as yet in evidence; but Mr Sheridan, having information of his coming, sent down a message inviting him up to his bedroom; and thither the young gentleman bent his steps, not loath to avail himself of any excuse for remaining.
He found the viveur of the previous night propped up on his pillows, a towel round his shaven head, a pencil and paper on the counterpane before him. At the dressing-table stood a little common man, in a scratch wig and with a very blue chin, who mixed some powders with small-beer in a tumbler.
“You won’t thank me for introducing you,” said Sheridan to Ned. “Monsieur has not le haut rang (spare thy concern), nor any word of our tongue.”
“Who is he?” said Ned.
“My physician.”
“The deuce he is!”
“Ah! I am under the influence here of a democratic atmosphere. No hand-muffs and silver-headed canes in the economics of Egalité. In Rome, as Rome. Monsieur is, in fact, a beast-leech attached to the household to teach mesdemoiselles how to put Pompon’s tail in splints when it has been caught in the parlour door. He can bleed, rowel, and drench; shoe a horse, or salt a pig. And, egad! now I think on’t, there is his right use to me. For, when a man has made a hog of himself, what better physician does he need than him that hath the knowledge how to cure bacon?”
Deprecatory of the applause that he waited a moment to secure, he called over to the little man by the table: “Dépêche-toi, monsieur! ma gorge est en feu!”
“Attendez, monsieur, attendez!” replied the leech in a thin, hoarse voice: “ayez encore un peu de patience, je vous prie.”
He brought the cup over in a moment. Sheridan sent the liquid hissing down his throat. He gave a sigh of pleasure.
“Ah!” he said, “small-beer and absolution were invented by the devil to tempt men to sin for the sake of the ecstasy of relief they bring.”
He looked at Ned, his fevered eyes watering in the strong glare of sunlight that shot under the half-closed blind.
“You have an enviable complexion, my lord,” said he. “Did you ever, in all your life, experience the need to dose yourself with so much as a mug of tar-water?”
Ned laughed.
“I refuse to lend myself to point a moral,” said he. “Palate is a matter of temperament, and temperament is a cause, not a consequence. Mr Sheridan may find in wine the very stimulant I borrow from country air and exercise.”
“Oh, the country!” said the other, with a groan: “from Tweed to Channel nothing but the market-garden to London.”
“So you think? And yet you stay on here?”
Mr Sheridan shrugged his shoulders. His face seemed to have fallen quite sick and peevish.
“By my own wish?” said he. “But at least I scent liberty at last. Madame (I am abusing no confidence in telling you) contemplates changing her quarters very shortly.”
Ned was conscious that his heart gave a somersault.
“Indeed?” said he, reining-in his emotion. “And for what others?”
“I can’t say. Monseigneur is, I believe, at Brussels. That is all I know.”
“And when is the removal to take place?” said Ned sinkingly.
“Faith! it can’t be too soon for me. Madame, the dear creature, hath ‘spy’ writ large upon her brain. Her tremors and her apprehensions would be ridiculous, were they not tiresome. There is no listening to reason with her. She is convinced she is surrounded by secret agents of the royalty she hath provoked. She lives in hourly fear of assassination for herself, and abduction for her sacred charge. One day she will do this, another, that; bury herself and hers in the caves of Staffa; return to the protection of her illustrious protector. That, I warrant, will be the end o’t. But there is some difficulty in the way—some imperative necessity, as I understand, that forewarning of her return be conveyed to monsieur the duke; and she hath no messenger that she can trust to the task—no prodromos to signal her approach. So day by day she grows more distraught, until I know not what to say for counsel or comfort.”
There was some odd quality in the stealth with which he regarded the young man as he spoke. He saw his words had so far taken effect that Ned was fallen into a musing fit where he sat by the bed. He was too finished an artist in practical joking to ruin the promise of a situation by over-haste. He would drop a suggestion on “kind” soil and leave it to germinate. He knew that a seed thumbed in too deep is often choked from sprouting.
So, having deposited his grain, he took means to dismiss his subject—in the double sense. “Well,” he said, “and that is all that’s to remark on’t. But I was to have put you twenty questions when I asked you to come up: as to the ball, and your enjoyment of it; and as to how far you was satisfied I had held to my share of the compact. Sir, I claim you responsible at least for the state of my head this morning.”
He turned over on his pillow with a moan.
“Zounds!” said he, “small-beer, I find, is like small-talk for deadening one’s faculties. I must commit myself to good Mr Pig-curer, if I would save my bacon.”
Ned secretly thought this a poor capping of a fairly respectable witticism. He would have valued the joke even less as a spontaneous effusion, could he have examined its essays scribbled over the scrap of paper on which Mr Sheridan had been writing before he entered: “Physicians and pork-butchers: both cure by killing: like all butchers, they must kill to cure,” and so on, and so on.
However, he got to his feet immediately and, apologising for his intrusion, made his adieux and left the invalid to his aching cogitations.
These were, perhaps, more characteristic than praiseworthy. Mr Sheridan’s social ethics would always extend a plenary indulgence to practical joking. It was a practical joke to rid oneself of a rival by whatever ruse. His ruse had been to grossly misrepresent to madame the young lord’s financial condition. Quite indefinitely he had succeeded in investing Ned with the character of a needy adventurer. Local evidence as to the reckless philanthropy, visual proof of the inner poverty, of “Stowling,” helped him to the fraud. Madame may have been ambitious for the child of her adoption; she may have become cognisant of the fact that a little tendresse was beginning to show itself in the girl’s attitude towards her grave young suitor; she may have been anxious only to accommodate herself to the wishes of her distinguished guest, whom she fervently admired, and upon whom at this juncture she was greatly dependent for advice and assistance. At any rate, she lent herself to his plans. The two devised a little plot, of which she was to be the ingenuous agent, and my lord, the poor viscount, the victim. Perhaps the understanding between the conspirators was sympathetic rather than verbal. Of whatever nature it was, a certain method of procedure was adopted by both—diplomatically to conciliate; effectively to get rid of. Madame, it must be said, was not attracted to his lordship. Her volatility recoiled from his solemnity. Conscious of the most lofty principles, she could never, when in his company, free herself of the impression that she was being “found out.” She had a shrewd idea that Ned’s respectful subscription to her opinions was in the nature of a moral bribe to secure her favourable consideration of his suit—that secretly he valued her at that cheaper estimate that she secretly knew represented her real moral solvency. When one has a grudge against the superior understanding of a person, it is a thing dear to one’s amour propre to convert that understanding to one’s own uses.
As Ned descended the stairs, madame came suddenly upon him and, welcoming him with quite cordial effusion, drew him into a side room.
She hoped he was not fatigued after the late festivities. As for the members of her own household, they were one and all the victims of a migraine. (She here looked forth a moment, and issued a sharp order to some one to close a little door that led from the back hall into the garden.) Yes, all were enervated—overcome. Mademoiselle was in bed; Pamela was in bed; Mr Sherree-den was in bed. As for herself, no such desirable indulgence was possible. A ceaseless vigilance was entailed upon her. During such moments of relaxation as she permitted herself, she was constrained to wear a mask of gaiety over the shocking anxiety of her soul. She was surrounded by menace and intrigue. There was scarce one she could rely upon—only Mr Sherree-den, and he could little longer afford to be parted from his duties. There was not a soul, even, she could entrust at this time with a letter it was imperative should be conveyed abroad by a confident hand. She had no hesitation in informing monsieur of its direction. It was to monseigneur, the father of the young princess, at present sojourning in Brussels. It was to acquaint monseigneur of the pitiable anxiety of the refugees, and to beg him to order their return at once. But it would be necessary for the messenger to back up the substance of the letter by arguments deduced from a personal knowledge of the condition of the victims; and who, in all her forlorn state, could she find meet to so delicate a mission?
She wept; she clasped her hands convulsively; she apostrophised Heaven. Was this the brilliant, self-confident, rather aggressive chaperon of the night before? Ned listened in something like amazement. He could never have misdoubted the obvious suggestion of her lamentation. As to her sincerity, it is very possible he was completely duped. He was not at all in the plot against himself; and madame had been a notable actress from the days when, at eleven years old, she played the title part in Racine’s Iphigénie en Aulide.
“Ah, monsieur!” cried she; “but the joy, all troubles past, of welcoming in our land the amiable friend who should be the means to our returning thither!”
If now the idea of offering himself to the mission first began to take root in Ned’s mind, it was because his jealousy would not tolerate the thought that, failing him, another might be found to serve his mistress with a less questioning devotion. Still, he would not yet commit himself definitely to a course that not only—in the present state of continental ferment—entailed a certain personal risk, but entailed a risk that in the result might effectively separate him from that very fair lady it was his principal wish to serve in the matter. Moreover, it was certainly in his interest to ascertain if it was this same lady’s desire to be so served by him.
“When does madame wish this letter conveyed?” he said gravely, after some moments of deep pondering.
“Oh, indeed!” cried madame, “but varee soon—in two-tree days.”
“And the messenger is to be a sort of outrider to your party?”
“An outrider?—but, in truth. Yet, how far an outrider, shall depend upon his influence with monseigneur.”
Ned bowed.
“I should like to think the matter over,” said he. “It is possible, at least, I may be able to serve madame with an avant-coureur.”
Madame seized his hands in an emotional grasp.
“My friend! my dear friend!” she murmured.
“And now,” said Ned, “with madame’s permission, I will take a turn in the garden.”
Had madame again the impression that she was “found out” of this unconscionable Joseph? She certainly flushed the little flush of shamefulness, and for the moment had not a plausible word at her command. For, indeed, she knew and, what was worse, believed that my lord knew that Pamela was at that very time seated by herself in the little box-arbour amongst the Jerusalem artichokes (the girl’s figure had been plainly visible through the doorway which madame had ordered over-late to be closed); and the sudden realisation of the situation was like a cold douche to her self-confidence. To deny this cavalier, on whatever pretext, the substance of his request, was assuredly to convict herself of having lied as to Pamela’s whereabouts; was to dismiss him at a critical moment; was, possibly, to deprive him of that actual inducement to serve her which an interview with the young lady might confirm. On the other hand, the girl herself may have profited by some indefinite warnings as to the folly of effecting a mésalliance; as to the ineffectiveness of a coronet when it is in pledge to the Jews.
Madame, after a scarcely appreciable moment of hesitation, came to her decision with a charming smile.
It was entirely at monsieur’s disposition, she said. There was not a soul in it, and she would see that monsieur was not disturbed. For herself, the contemplation of flowers resolved many problems that the subtlest sophistries were unable to disentangle.
Ned set foot on the long box-bordered path with his mind in a condition of strange ferment. The glamour of the previous night; the sweet glory of this new bidding to the side of his mistress (over which his soul laughed, as over its own humorous strategy in the hoodwinking of a credulous guardian); the thought that it was in his power to assist to its welfare the very dear object of his solicitude, and, by so assisting, to convert what might otherwise seem a pursuit into a welcome—such fancies combined made of his brain a house of pleasant dreams. All down the bed-rows the scent of blossoming mignonette accompanied him to the arbour at the end of the garden. To his dying day this gentle green flower remained the asphodel of his heaven. Great ships of cloud, carrying freightage of hidden stars, sailed slowly across the sky to ports beyond the vision of the world. Yet there did not seem enough wind to discrown a thistle-head. The lark rose straight as the smoke from the town chimneys, dropping a clew of song into the very gaping throats of his own nestlings in the field. The rattle of a horse’s headstall, the drowsy thunder of rolling skittle-balls, came over the wall from the neighbouring inn as distinct in their every vibration as though the silence of night, in a motionless atmosphere, had merged itself imperceptibly in the life of a day but half awake. And, behold! at the end of the garden was the crystallised expression of all this peace and beauty, the breathing spirit of the roses and of the mignonette. Ned, as he looked down upon her, had a thought that, if she woke, the wind would rise, the rose-leaves scatter, and the cloud argosies dash themselves shapeless on rocks of air.
How pretty she was! Great God, how pretty and how innocent! To him who had fronted stubbornly the storms of passion, who had been sought a sacrifice to the misconsecrated heats of a love whose name in consequence he had learned to loathe, this new power of reverence was most wonderful and most dear. He could have worshipped, had he not loved so humanly.
Mademoiselle was sunk a little back into the leafage of the arbour. Her eyes were closed, her lips a trifle parted. She was cuddled into a pink négligé. Everything she wore seemed to caress her. An open book lay upon her lap, one slender finger serving for listless marker in it.
Suddenly a tiny smile, the ghostliest throb of laughter, flickered at the corners of her mouth. Ned leapt hot all over.
“Oh, monsieur!” murmured the unconscionable witch, as if talking in her sleep, “but are you the doctor?”
“Yes,” said Ned.
She put out a languid hand, never raising her eyelids.
“Madame-maman says it is the cake; but I think it is the Englishman that lies heavy on me.”
“What Englishman?” said Ned.
“My lord the Englishman, monsieur. Is he not the heaviest of all in Bury?”
Ned touched the young healthy pulse as if he handled a wax flower.
“If that is the trouble,” said he, “it is soon dealt with.”
“But how, monsieur? and would you not first see my tongue?” and she put out the tip of a supremely pink organ.
“It is as red as a capsicum,” said Ned.
Pamela burst out laughing. She sat up, her cheeks flushed, her brown hair ruffled on her forehead.
“Oh!” she cried, “you do not say pretty things at all; you are not like Mr Sherree-den.”
“No,” said the young man sadly. “And because I have not his readiness, I must lack his good fortune. Is that the moral of it? But I could be a willing pupil if you would be my tutor.”
“Is it so? I should punish and punish till you wearied of me. Say, then, like Mr Sherree-den, ‘Oh, mon bonté-moi!’ (he does not, you know, speak varee good French); ‘but here is a poor little sick fairy crumpled in a rose petal.’ Hélas! you could not have said that, you solemn man.”
“I could not, indeed; but I should have taken the poor little sick fairy and nursed her upon my heart.”
She looked up at him kindlily and, suddenly, pathetically—
“But I am not sick at all,” she said, “and you must not take my play to your heart.”
Thereat, foolish Ned, reading her words literally, missed his small chance.
“I never did,” he only answered stoutly. “I knew you were not asleep.”
Mademoiselle pouted.
“I do not act so badly, nevertheless,” she said, “when I may have an appreciative audience.”
“And I, at least, am that.”
She shrugged her shoulders, yawned a tiny yawn.
“Well,” she said, “I must not keep monsieur from his business; and monsieur the doctor shall not persuade me to cure too much cake with more.”
She rose, smoothing her rumpled plumes. Ned smiled.
“I will not, since you bid me, take it to heart,” he said. “Had you found me as heavy as you say, you would not last night have voluntarily elected to bear so much of the weight of my company.”
“I sacrificed myself, monsieur, according to my principles, to the good of the community.”
“Pamela,” cried my lord, suddenly pained, “my business is to go on a journey only for the reason that I may serve you!”
She would have resented, without any real feeling of resentment, his familiar use of her name, had not his tone found the sympathetic chord in her that his words could not reach.
“Has madame asked you, then?” she said, with some wonder, some gentleness, in her voice.
“I have resolved to offer myself, if you will give me the one end of a clue of hope to bear along with me.”
“Of what hope, monsieur? Your bargain should be with madame, not with me.”
He would not take her by storm, the aggravating noodle. No doubt that erst fulsome experience of his had distorted his sense of proportion in such matters.
“’Tis no bargain, of course,” he cried, in great distress. “To give me hope is to hand me nothing but a promissory note without a signature. But I would kiss it none the less for the sake of the name that might be there.”
But why did he not kiss the jade herself?
“Mon ami,” she said very kindly, “you must not concern yourself so of the favour of a poor foolish maid, who could return you, ah! so little for the noble trust you place in her; who is not even the mistress of herself.”
“Pamela!” he cried, in sudden agony, “you are not bound to another?”
“I am bound only to those who have protected and cared for me,” she answered. “It is no time this, when danger threatens, to think of separating myself from our common fortune.”
Her young bosom heaved; her eyes even filled with tears.
“Ah!” she murmured, “there is nothing invites me but the peace of the cloister. To escape from the turmoil and the menace—to know no interest of love or fortune in the company of God’s dear prisoners!”
Perhaps she only quoted from the commonplace book of mère adoptive. At least the picture she conjured up seemed so real as to fetch a little sob from her. Ned’s heart was rent by the sound.
“My dear,” he said simply, “I would not persuade you against your conscience. God knows, in any bargain between us I should be the only gainer. I have nothing to offer you that is worth the offer but my love, dear. That is for you, in stress or sunshine, whenever you care to whistle for it. Now I will say no more; but I will cross the channel, at the very bidding of madame la comtesse, and pave the way as I can for your return. And I shall carry hope with me, Pamela. It is the beggar’s scrip; and what am I but a beggar!”
For the first time he forgot the little red heels that were still in his pocket. They were often to prove a sharp reminder of themselves, however.
Did the girl read his figurative speech in a too literal sense? Let us hope she was never influenced by a consideration so worldly. She held out her hand to him. Her blue eyes swam with tears.
“Perhaps, in happier times to come,” she said—and so they parted.