'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incenséd points of mighty opposites.
—HAMLET V. 2.
Less than twenty minutes after the despatch of her missive—twenty minutes which seemed to Julia more like twenty cycles of immeasurable time—Sir John Ayloffe was announced.
He entered very composedly. Having been formally announced by the servant, he waited with easy patience that the man should close the doors and leave him alone with his fair cousin.
He scarcely touched her fingers with his lips and she said quickly:
"'Twas kind to come at once. You were at home?"
"Waiting for this summons," he replied.
"Then you knew?" she asked.
"Since last evening!" he said simply.
He was of a tall, somewhat fleshy build, the face—good-looking enough—rendered heavy by many dissipations and nights of vigil and pleasure. His eyes were very prominent, surrounded by thick lids, furtive and quick in expression like those of a fox on the alert. The heavy features—nose, chin and lips—were, so 'twas said, an inheritance from a Jewish ancestress, the daughter of a rich Levantine merchant, brought into England by one of the Ayloffes who graced this country in the days of Richard III.
It was the money of this same ancestress which had enriched the impoverished family, and had at the same time sown the seeds of that love of luxury and display which had ruined the present bearer of the ancient name. From that same Oriental ancestress Sir John Ayloffe had no doubt inherited his cleverness at striking a bargain as well as his taste for showy apparel. He was always dressed in the latest fashion, and had already adopted the new modes lately imported from France, the long vest tied in with a gaily coloured sash, the shorter surcoat with its rows of gilded buttons, and oh! wonder of wonders, the huge French periwig, with its many curls which none knew better than did Sir John how to toss and to wallow when he bowed.
His fat fingers were covered with rings, and the buckles on his shoes glittered with shiny stones.
Julia, quivering with eagerness and excitement which she took no pains to conceal, now dragged Sir John down to a settee beside her.
"You knew that my lord of Stowmaries was a married man, and that I have been fooled beyond the powers of belief!" she ejaculated, whilst her angry eyes searched his furtive ones, in a vain endeavour to read his thoughts.
"I heard my lord's miserable story from his own lips last night," reiterated Sir John.
"Ah! He told it then over the supper table, between two bumpers of wine, to a set of boon companions as drunken, as dissolute as himself? Man! man! why don't you speak?" she cried almost hysterically, for she had suffered a great deal to-day, her nerves were overwrought and threatening to give way in the face of this new and horrible vision conjured up by her own excited imagination. "Why don't you describe the whole scene to me—the laughter which the tale evoked, the sneers directed against the unfortunate woman who has been so hideously fooled?"
Ayloffe listened to the tirade with the patience of a man who has had many dealings with the gentle if somewhat highly-strung sex. He patted her twitching fingers with his own soft, pulpy palm, and waited until her paroxysm of weeping had calmed down, then he said quietly:
"Nay, dear coz, the scene as it occurred round the most exclusive table at the Three Bears, in no way bears resemblance to the horrible picture which your fevered fancy has conjured up. My lord of Stowmaries told his pitiable tale in the midst of awed and sympathetic silence, broken only by brief exclamations of friendship and pity."
"And my name was not mentioned?" she asked, mollified but still incredulous.
"Not save in the deepest respect," he replied, whilst a line of sarcasm quickly repressed rose to his fleshy lips. "How could you suppose the reverse?"
"Ah, well, mayhap, since women were not present. But they will hear of it, too, to-day or to-morrow. The story is bound to leak out. My lord of Stowmaries' attentions to me were known all over the town—and to-day or to-morrow people will talk, will laugh and jeer. Oh! I cannot bear it," she added with renewed vehemence; "I cannot—I cannot—I verily believe 'twill drive me mad."
She rose and resumed her agitated walk up and down the small room, her clenched fists beating one against the other, her trembling lips murmuring with irritating persistency.
"I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it. The ridicule—the ridicule will kill me—"
Suddenly she paused in her restlessness, stood in front of Sir John and let her tear-dimmed eyes rest on his thick-set face.
"Cousin," she said deliberately, "you must find a way out of this impasse."
"You must find a way out of it," she reiterated firmly.
He shrugged his shoulders, and said drily:
"Fair Mistress, you may as well ask me to reconcile the Pope of Rome and all the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to the idea of flouting the sacrament of marriage, by declaring that its bonds are no longer indissoluble. The past few centuries have taught us that in Rome they are none too ready to do that."
"I was not thinking of such vast schemes," said Julia in tones as dry as his had been. "I was not thinking either of corrupting the Roman Church, or of persuading one of her adherents to rebel against her. My lord of Stowmaries has already explained to me," she continued with bitter sarcasm, "that against the Pope's decision there would be no appeal—he himself would not wish to appeal against it. His love for me is apparently not so boundless as I had fondly imagined, its limits meseems are traced in Rome. He has given me to understand that his wife's people—those—those tailors of Paris—actually hold a promise from the Pope that a command will be issued ordering that their daughter be installed and acknowledged as Countess of Stowmaries and that without any undue delay. Failing which, excommunication for my lord, scandal, disgrace. Bah! I know not!—these Romanists are servile under such tyranny—and we know that not only the Duke of York, but the king himself is at one with the Catholics just now. No—no—no—that sort of thing is not to be thought on, Cousin, but there are other ways—"
Her eyes, restless, searching, half-fearful, tried to fix the glance of his own. But his shifted uneasily, now responding to her questioning look, anon trying to avoid it, as if dreading to comprehend.
"Other ways, other ways!" he muttered; "of a truth there are many such—but none of which you, fair Cousin, would care to take the risk."
"How do you know that?" she retorted. "There are no risks which I would not run, in order to free the man I love from the trammels of an undesired marriage."
Cousin John said nothing in reply. His eyes, still furtive in expression, were no longer restless. They were fixed upon the beautiful face before him, the luminous eyes, the daintily-curved mouth, the rounded chin—a transparent and exquisite mask which scarcely concealed now the strange and tortuous thoughts which chased one another behind that white brow, smooth as that of a child.
She held his gaze, willing that he should read those thoughts, wishing him to divine them; in fact, to save her the humiliation of framing them into words. But as he seemed disinclined to speak, she reiterated with slow and deliberate emphasis:
"There are no risks, Cousin, which I would not run."
"'Tis nobly said," he remarked, without attempting this time to conceal the sarcastic smile which played round his sensuous lips. "Odd's fish! the man whom you have honoured with such sublime devotion is lucky beyond compare."
"A truce on your sneers, Sir John," she retorted imperiously; "you said that there were several ways whereby that hateful marriage could be annulled. What are they?"
Sir John Ayloffe glanced down the length of his elegant surcoat; with careful hand he smoothed out a wrinkle which had appeared in the well-fitting breeches just above his knee, he readjusted the set of his fringed scarf, and of his lace-edged cravat. All this took time and kept Mistress Julia on tenter hooks, the while she felt as if her temples would burst from their throbbing.
Then, at last, Cousin John looked up at her again.
"Poison," he said drily; "an Italian stiletto an you prefer that method. An hired assassin in any event—"
A shudder ran down her spine. Had she really harboured these thoughts herself, and had Cousin John merely put her wild imaginings into words? Thus crudely put they horrified her—for the moment—and she looked down almost with loathing on the man who accompanied each grim suggestion with a leer, which caused his thick lips to part and to disclose a row of large, uneven teeth stained with tobacco juice and giving his face a cruel expression like that of a hyena.
"You see, there are always means, fair Cousin," continued Sir John with pleasing urbanity; "it is only a question of money—and of the risks which one is prepared to run. Beyond that, I believe, that the task, though difficult, can be accomplished in Paris. There are some amiable gentry there ever ready to do your bidding, whatever it may be, provided you are generous—"
She passed the gossamer handkerchief over her dry lips.
"I had not thought of crime," she murmured.
"Had you not?" he said blandly. "Yet 'tis the most easy solution of the difficulty."
"But there are others," she insisted.
"I fear not."
Again she paused, then continued, speaking very low, scarce above a whisper.
"You would help me, of course?"
"I could certainly go over to Paris," he said with marked hesitation, "always providing I were plentifully supplied with money—a voyage of reconnaissance, you understand—nothing more—"
"Which means that you will not help me."
"The risks are too great, Cousin—I—"
"You would not care to run them, in order to be of service to me?"
"Frankly—no!"
"And suppose, Cousin John," she now said more quietly, once more sitting down beside him, "supposing, I say for the sake of argument, that I were to come to you and tell you that I will give half of my fortune to the man who will at this juncture so ordinate matters that my marriage with the Earl of Stowmaries once more becomes not only feasible, but inevitable. What then?"
"Then—also for the sake of argument," he rejoined blandly, "I would ask you, fair Cousin, of what your fortune consists."
"Squire Peyton left me £20,000 and the principal is still intact."
"Deposited—where?"
"The bulk of it with Mr. Brooke the goldsmith. He pays me six per cent. per year thereon. It hath sufficed for my needs. No one—except you, Cousin, now—knows the extent of this fortune. Half of it will suffice me for pin money, once I am Countess of Stowmaries. My lord would marry me—if he were free—an I had not a groat to my name, nor more than one gown to my back. Ten thousand pounds shall be yours, Cousin, if you can bring this about."
"Call it £12,000, Mistress, and it shall be done," he said cynically.
"How will you do it?"
"Let that be my secret for the nonce."
"I'll give you no advance, remember," she said quickly, for she had seen the swift glitter of joy in his eyes, at the first mention of money, and she knew full well that she could not count on the most elementary feelings of honesty on the part of this unscrupulous gambler.
"Then I can do nothing," he concluded decisively.
"What do you mean?"
"Only this, fair Cousin, that putting aside the question—a somewhat humiliating one for me, you must admit—that your refusal to place certain funds in advance in my hands, implies a singular and—if I may say so—an ill-considered want of trust on your part; putting this question aside, I say, you must understand that nothing in this present world can be accomplished without money, and I am reduced to my last shilling."
"Have I not said that £10,000 shall be yours the day that my marriage with Lord Stowmaries is irrevocably settled?"
"£12,000," he corrected suavely.
"Very well, then, £12,000. We'll have the bond duly writ out and signed."
"And you, fair Cousin, will immediately place in my hands a first instalment of £2,000."
"Failing which?"
"As I have had the honour to tell you, I can do nothing. This is my last word, fair Cousin," he added, seeing that Mistress Julia still seemed inclined to hesitate.
There was silence in the little room for a few seconds, a silence all complete save for the solemn ticking of a little French clock over the hearth. Sir John Ayloffe lounging on the settee with one firm leg clad in the new-fashioned tight breeches stretched out at full length, the other doubled inwards, so that the satin shimmered and crackled over his knee, his jewelled hands toying with the lace cravat, or with the dark curls of his periwig, looked now the picture of supreme indifference.
It almost seemed as if £12,000 more or less in his vest pocket would affect him not at all. But the fleshy lids had half-closed over the prominent eyes, and from beneath their folds he was watching the fair young widow, who made no attempt to hide her hesitancy and her perturbation.
He knew quite well that his personality, the weight of his whole individuality, would win against her prudence in the end. He was fully aware that among the crowd of her several adorers, she had no one to whom she could confide her present troubles, no one whose aid she could with so much surety invoke. Few were so resourceful, none quite so unscrupulous, as Sir John Ayloffe where his own interests were at stake.
That £12,000 which was to be his price would mean the final ending of his shiftless career. He felt himself getting older every day, and the thought of what the morrow might bring—a morrow when he would no longer be active and alert, neither amusing nor interesting to those whose company was a necessity to his livelihood—that thought was embittering his present life, until at times he wondered whether a self-inflicted sword thrust to end a miserable existence were not the most desirable contingency after all.
How he would earn that £12,000 he did not know as yet. His secret was that he did not know. But he had lived for the past twenty years in sublime ignorance of the various shifts which he might be put to from day to day, and he knew that he could trust to his imagination to find a means now, when the result would mean security in old age, peace from that eternal war against chance—almost a fortune in these days when money was scarce after the great turmoil of civil war.
Therefore, though he said no more, though he assumed an indifference which he was very far from feeling, he not only watched Mistress Julia, but with every nerve within him, with all the magnetism of his powerful personality, he willed her to accede to his wishes.
She, feeling this subtle influence in the same manner as in ages to come mediums were destined to feel the influence of hypnotic power, she gradually yielded to his unspoken desire—yielded to him whilst believing that she held the threads of her own destiny, and that the final decision only rested with her.
Then she rose and went to that same little bureau in the angle of the room, at which just an hour ago she had penned so laboriously the missive which had summoned Sir John Ayloffe hither. This time, as she sat down to it, she took from beneath her kerchief a small key which was fastened round her neck by a silk ribbon. With this she opened one of the drawers of the bureau, and after another moment of final hesitation she deliberately took a packet from the drawer.
The packet was tied up with green cord; this she untied with a hand that trembled somewhat with feverish excitement. Having selected a paper from among a number of others, she once more fastened the green cord, replaced the packet in the drawer, locked the latter and replaced the key in the folds of her gown.
Then paper in hand she turned back to the settee whereon lolled Sir John Ayloffe, and holding the paper out to him, she said:
"This is an order requesting Master Brooke, goldsmith, of Minchin Lane, to hand over to you on my behalf the sum of £2,000."
Sir John roused himself from his well-studied apathy. He took the paper from Mistress Julia's hand, looked at it very carefully, then folded it and prepared to slip it in his breast pocket.
"Remember, Cousin," she said calmly, "that if I find that you have deceived me in this, that you have deliberately robbed me of this £2,000 without having any intention or power to help me in my need, that, in such a case you will lose the only friend you have in the world. I will turn my back on you for ever; you shall never darken the threshold of my door, and if I saw you in want or in a debtor's prison, I would not pay one farthing to help you in your need. You believe that, do you not?"
"I believe that a woman thwarted is capable of anything," he retorted with a sneer.
"There I think you are right, Cousin," she assented, whilst a look of determination which assorted strangely with her otherwise impulsive ways marred for a moment the childlike prettiness of her face. "You would find me very hard and unforgiving, if you cheated me of my hopes."
"Very hard, I doubt not," he said blandly. "Did I not see a while ago, fair Cousin, your gentle soul taking in with scarce a thought of horror my first suggestion of poison or hired assassin?"
"Tush, man! prate not so lightly of these things. Bah!" she added with some of her former vehemence, "there are other things that kill besides poison or stilettos—things that hurt worse than death—things that no Countess of Stowmaries could endure and live. You have your £2,000, man—go—go and think—a fortune an you succeed."
Sir John Ayloffe smiled. The lady had at last shown to him—mayhap without meaning to do so—the real desire of her heart. She had also set his active brain athinking. As she said, it would be a fortune if he succeeded.
He had placed the valuable paper carefully away in his breast pocket; he tapped this pocket gently to feel that it was secure. Then—as obviously the interview must now come to an end—he rose to go.
Vague thoughts were already floating in his mind, and when she too rose to bid him farewell, and her fevered eyes found his and held them, he responded with a look of distinct encouragement.
Long after Cousin John's footsteps had ceased to echo along the short flagged corridor, Mistress Julia Peyton sat musing, whilst a sigh of content and of hope ever and anon escaped her lips. Her face was quite serene, her expression one of anticipation rather than of trouble. Never for a moment did a pang of conscience trouble her. Remember, that the unknown Countess of Stowmaries—the daughter of the Paris tailor—was but a shadowy personality to her. Less than two hours ago, Mistress Julia was not aware of her existence.
Was it wrong then to wish her out of the way? With commendable satisfaction, the outraged beauty realised that she felt no direct wish for any bodily harm to come to her successful rival. And pray, how many women would have had such scruples? A certain feeling of self-righteousness eased Mistress Julia's soul at the thought.
No. She wished the real and only Countess of Stowmaries no bodily harm. She had made Cousin John understand that, she hoped. Crime might mean remorse, which would be unpleasant, also fear of discovery. Mistress Julia hoped now that she had made Cousin John understand quite clearly that she wanted neither poison nor hired assassin for the end which she had in view—not at first at any rate—later on, mayhap—if other schemes had failed—
There are things which hurt worse than death—and Mistress Julia had placed in the hands of an unscrupulous gambler the means whereby such things could easily be brought about.
If such things be crimes, they certainly were not of the kind which troubled Mistress Julia's conscience.
Having settled these abstract points to her own satisfaction, she adjourned to her tiring-room and rang for her maid. She told the wench to prepare that new butter-coloured satin gown with the pink rosebuds broidered thereon—a vastly becoming gown for setting off the fair Julia's style of beauty—and also the colverteen pinner which had the advantage of making any woman look demure. She had her hair redressed in the newest fashion with immense taure and puffs which made her small head look wide and her tiny face more childlike and innocent than ever.
She meant to finish the day at the King's Playhouse, there to witness a vastly diverting comedy by the late Master Shakespeare. She wished to see and to be seen by His Majesty, by the Duke of York, and all London society. Knowing that her name would be in everybody's mouth, she wished to appear radiant with beauty and good spirits, and in no way concerned with the ugly rumours anent the tailor's daughter over in Paris, and the ridiculous cock and bull story that my lord of Stowmaries was other than engaged to wed Mistress Julia Peyton ere the London season had fully run its course.