And do you ask what game she plays?
With me 'tis lost or won;
With thee it is playing still; with him
It is not well begun;
But 'tis a game she plays with all
Beneath the sway o' the sun.
—DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
Mistress Julia Peyton felt a trifle worried. Matters had not turned out exactly as she had anticipated; it is a way peculiar to matters over which we have no control.
She had been quite aware of the fact that my lord of Stowmaries, with Sir John Ayloffe and Lord Rochester, had made the journey over to Paris in order to be present at the marriage of Michael Kestyon with the tailor's daughter, and it had been with the intention of frustrating my lord's desire to pay his final debt of seventy thousand pounds to Michael that she had sent old Daniel Pye over in the gentlemen's company, armed with the letters writ in scholarly French by the exiled Huguenot clerk and intended for good M. Legros' personal perusal.
Mistress Peyton had no special wish to save the susceptibilities of a tailor's wench, and cared little whether the fraud was discovered by her before she had left her father's home or afterwards, but—she had argued this out in her own mind over and over again—if the girl never actually left her father's house, my lord would not in honour be bound to pay Michael the additional seventy thousand pounds, since the latter would not have accomplished his own share of the bargain to the full. On the other hand there would be quite enough public scandal and gossip round the girl, as it was, to enable my lord of Stowmaries to justify his repudiation of the matrimonial bonds, contracted eighteen years ago, on the grounds that the future Countess of Stowmaries no longer bore a spotless reputation.
That had been Mistress Peyton's subtle argument, and on the basis of this unanswerable logic she had laid her plans. Caring nothing for the girl, she cared everything for the money, and above all for the power that so vast a sum would place in Michael's hand for the furtherance of his own case.
Daniel Pye had returned to England about a week after the wedding at St. Gervais. He was an unblushing liar, both by habit and by temperament. Therefore, when he presented himself before his mistress, he assured her that he had handed her letter over to the master tailor even while the wedding festivities were in progress in the back shop, and long before the coach bore the bridal pair away.
When Mistress Peyton heard the circumstantial narrative of how her faithful henchman had fought his way into the tailor's house at peril of his life, and had given the letter into M. Legros' own hands, the while his own poor shoulders were bruised and well-nigh broken with the blows dealt to him by cruel miscreants who strove to hinder him from performing his duty—when the fair Julia heard all this, I say, she was vastly pleased and commended Master Pye very highly for his faithfulness, and I believe even rewarded him by giving him five shillings.
The wedding it seems had been the talk of Paris, ladies and gentlemen from the Court had been present thereat, and Mme. de Montespan had loudly praised the handsome presence of the bridegroom. All this was passing satisfactory, and Mistress Julia was quite content to think that the tailor and his family would—after such an esclandre—be only too willing to hide their humble heads out of the ken of society wherein they had become a laughing stock.
On legal grounds my lord of Stowmaries could readily command the nullity of the child-marriage now; as for the religious grounds which had been the chief stumbling-block hitherto—"Bah!" argued the fair Julia naïvely to herself, "His Holiness the Pope of Rome is a gentleman; he will not expect an English grand seigneur to acknowledge as his countess the cast-off plaything of an adventurer."
The disappointment came some three or four days later when Cousin John in his turn presented himself at the little house in Holborn Row. Of course he had known nothing of his fair cousin's treacherous little scheme, and although he had greatly wondered at Master Pye's presence in Paris at the time of the wedding, yet he had been far from suspecting the truth with regard to its purport. All that good Sir John knew was that the bridal pair did leave the house of M. Legros in a somewhat unconventional style, for this he had been told by the gaffers of the neighbourhood.
He had not seen the departure, but had heard glowing accounts of it all from one or two of the spectators whom he had closely questioned.
There was no doubt that it had been a fine departure: romantic and epoch-making. No fear now of the scandal being in any way hushed up. "Milor the Englishman," as that rascal Michael had been universally called in that quarter of Paris wherein his prowess had been witnessed, was a magnificent horseman, so the gossips declared with one accord. The way he had jumped on his horse, using neither stirrup nor bridle, was a sight good for sore eyes, then two of his English serving-men had raised the bride to his saddle bow, and after a lusty shout of farewell milor had ridden away with her, and soon his horse was head galloping at maddening speed. Never had such a spectacle been witnessed in the streets of Paris before; the gaffers were still agape at the remembrance of it, and it had all seemed more like a vivid and exciting dream than like sober reality.
But no sooner had milor and the bride disappeared round the bend of the narrow street than the first breath of gossip rose—apparently from nothingness—in their wake. Whence it originated nobody knew, but sure it is that within an hour the whole of the quarter was agog with the scandal. Cousin John prided himself on the fact that he had contributed more than his share in spreading the report from one end of Paris to the other that the daughter of the mightily rich and highly-respectable tailor-in-chief of His Majesty the King of France had eloped with an adventurer, who was even kinsman to her own husband, my lord of Stowmaries and Rivaulx.
"The scandal is quite immense, fair Cousin," quoth Cousin John lustily, and with a merry guffaw the while he sat sipping sack-posset in Mistress Peyton's elegantly furnished boudoir. "Personally I see naught for the tailor's wench but the inevitable nunnery, although Michael—but of this more anon. In the meanwhile Mme. de Montespan dotes on the adventure. Lord Rochester retailed it all to her outside the church porch, and you may well believe that it hath lost naught in the telling. She quite fell in love with Michael's handsome presence, and His Majesty the King of France vows that English gentlemen are the primest rogues on this earth; and even sober diplomatists aver that Michael's prowess and Michael's romantic personality have done more to cement international friendship than a whole host of secret treaties. From the Court the scandal hath reached the lower classes of Paris, all thanks to your humble servant, so I flatter myself; the tailor and his family are the butt of every quip-maker in the city. There is a rhyme that goes the round which—nay, your pardon, fair Cousin, I could not repeat it for fear of offending your ears, but let me assure you that the heroine thereof is not like to petition Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris or His Holiness the Pope to assert her rights to be Countess of Stowmaries—Countess of Stowmaries," added Sir John with another prolonged guffaw, "Countess of Stowmaries! Odd's fish! In Paris they sing of her: 'Une vertu ingulière—' your pardon—your pardon again, dear Coz, I was forgetting—"
And Cousin John had indeed to stop in his narration, for he was choking for very laughter and the tears were streaming down his ruddy cheeks.
Mistress Peyton had listened to the cheerful tale with but ill-repressed impatience, and had not Sir John been so absorbed in what was his favourite topic of conversation—the tearing to shreds of a woman's reputation—he would not have failed to notice that his kinswoman was far from sharing his own hilarity.
Of a truth, the fair Julia's impatience soon gave place to great anger, for it was by now quite clear to her that Daniel Pye had failed in his trust, that he had not only lied like a consummate rogue, but had actually by his unforgivable delinquency caused his mistress' most cherished and carefully-conceived counter-intrigue to come absolutely to naught.
Michael Kestyon had carried off the bride and Lord Stowmaries could not now as a man of honour refuse to pay him that final seventy thousand pounds; a fortune, forsooth, wherewith the adventurer, the wastrel, the haunter of brothels and booths could now make good his claim to the title and peerage of Stowmaries and Rivaulx.
Given a dissolute, money-grabbing king on whose decision the claim for the peerage rested, given this adventure which rendered Michael interesting to those who had the ear of Charles Stuart, and what more likely than that the present lord of Stowmaries should find himself in the terrible position of having paid for his own undoing?
And all because a fool of a serving-man had failed in doing what he had been ordered to do, and this in despite of the most carefully thought-out plans, most ardent wishes and most subtle schemes. We may take it that visions of a terrible retribution to be wreaked on that rascally Daniel Pye already found birth in his mistress' inventive brain; and whilst good Cousin John was wiping the tears of laughter which his own narrative had called to his bulgy eyes, his fair cousin was meditating on the best pretext she could employ for ordering Pye to be lawfully and publicly flogged.
At last Mistress Peyton's sullen silence brought Cousin John back from the pleasing realms of gossip and scandal. Looking into her face he saw anger, where he had expected to witness a smile of triumph; he also saw two perfect lips closed tightly in obvious moodiness, the while he had looked forward to unstinted praise for his own share in the furtherance of her desires.
Cousin John, therefore, was vastly astonished. Puzzlement in its turn yielded to speculation. Mistress Julia was angered—why? She had desired the scandal; now she seemed to resent it. Something had gone amiss then—or had she veered round in her intentions?
Women were strange cattle in Sir John Ayloffe's estimation. Had his ambitious cousin perchance nurtured some counter-scheme of her own, which had come to naught through the success of the original intrigue? It almost seemed like it from the wrathful expression of her face.
The presence of Daniel Pye in Paris came back to Sir John as a swift memory. There had been a counter-intrigue then?
Of a truth this would trouble him but little, provided that such intrigue did not affect the due payment to himself of the twelve thousand pounds promised by the capricious lady. But of this guerdon he felt fully assured. Which is another proof of the truth of the ancient adage which says that there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, and also of the fact that women are far keener diviners of such untoward slips than are those who belong to the sterner and less intuitive sex.
Even while the prospect of those pleasing thousands was flitting—all unbeknown to him—further and further from his future grasp, Sir John, studying his cousin's unaccountable mood tried to make some of his wonted cynical maxims anent the motives and emotions of the other sex fit the present situation.
Mistress Peyton was angered when she should have been pleased. Had she perchance conceived an attachment for the romantic blackguard? Such things were possible—women's tastes ever erred on the queer side—and this would certainly account for Julia's impatient anger when she heard of Michael's interesting departure with the beautiful bride in his arms.
Nay then! if this was the case, good Cousin John had still the cream of his narrative in reserve, and the final episode which he had to relate would of a surety satisfy the most rancorous feelings of revenge harboured against a hated rival by any fair monster that wore petticoat.
And at the moment that Mistress Peyton finally decided in her own mind that an accusation of theft preferred by herself against Daniel Pye would bring that elderly reprobate to the whipping post and the stocks, Cousin John's mellifluent voice broke in upon these pleasant dreams.
"Odd's fish, fair Coz," he said loudly and emphatically, for he desired his words to rouse her from her absorption, "imagine our surprise, nay, our consternation when on our arrival at St. Denis we found one solitary turtledove mourning over the absence of the other—"
The effect of these words was instantaneous. The fair Julia's thoughts suddenly flew from prospective vengeance to present interests, and though the frown did not disappear from her brow, her eyes flashed eagerness now rather than anger.
"What nonsense is this?" she queried with a show of petulance. "I pray you, Cousin, speak with less imagery. The matter is of serious portent to me as you know—and also to yourself," she added significantly, "and I fear me that my poor wits are too dull to follow the circumlocutions of your flowery speech."
Sir John smiled complacently; he was quite satisfied that he once more held his cousin's undivided attention, and resumed his narrative with imperturbable good-humour.
"I crave your pardon, fair lady," he said, "but on my honour 'tis just as I have told you. My lord of Stowmaries, Lord Rochester and your humble servant did journey by coach to St. Denis, for we knew that thither was the bridal couple bound. We drove in the lumbering vehicle on God-forsaken roads all the way from Paris, and never in all my life did I experience such uncomfortable journeying. 'Milor the Englishman,' quoth Rochester as soon as his feet had touched the ground, 'is he abed?' For you must know that it was then nigh on ten of the clock and the hostelry of the Three Archangels looked as dark as pitch from within and without. 'Milor is upstairs,' exclaimed mine host who, of a surety, looked vastly bewildered at our arrival. He seemed like a man bursting with news, and as if eager to explain something, but we were too impatient to pay any heed to him at the time and ran helter-skelter upstairs in the wake of Lord Rochester who, as you know, is ever in the forefront in a spicy adventure, and who moreover was eager for another peep at the bride, whom he had greatly admired during the religious ceremony in the church. We none of us had any idea that anything could be amiss, and as I have had the honour of assuring you, our consternation was great when on entering the parlour we found Michael standing by the open window, staring moodily out into the dreary landscape, the room itself in total darkness, and—as we learnt afterwards—the bride gone back to Paris by coach in company with her father."
"Impossible," ejaculated Mistress Peyton, feigning surprise which of a truth she did not feel. What had been and still was a mystery to Sir John was clear enough to his fair cousin, and there was, it seems, some slight attenuation to Daniel Pye's monstrous delinquency. The letter, by some idiotic blunder on the part of old Pye, had reached Master Legros just a trifle too late, but it had reached him at last, and the infuriated father had contrived to reach St. Denis in time to snatch his daughter away from the arms of the adventurer—who thus stood prematurely unmasked.
"Impossible!" she reiterated the while Sir John like a true raconteur, having succeeded in capturing her interest, made an effective pause in his narration. He could not complain of her moodiness now, for she seemed all eagerness and agitation.
"True, nevertheless," he asserted quietly, "the bride was gone and Michael—left desolate—seemed inclined to act like a man bereft of his senses."
"How mean you that?" she asked.
"He had, it seems, fallen madly in love with the tailor's daughter, and had no doubt during his hours of loneliness been assailed with remorse at what he chose to call a shameful bargain."
Again Cousin John paused; his large, prominent eyes were fixed once more upon his cousin. Clearly there was an undercurrent of intrigue going on here of which he did not as yet possess the entire secret, for he had distinctly noted that at his last words the deep frown which had still lingered on Julia's snow-white brow now vanished completely, giving place to an excited look of hope. Something of the inner workings of her mind began to dawn on him, however, a vague, indefinable sense of what had gone before, what she had feared, and what she now hoped. Therefore he waited awhile, watching her eager, impatient face, the play of her delicate features, the nervous movements of her hands, ere he resumed with well-simulated carelessness.
"Ay! my dear Coz, the more I think on it, the more am I convinced that Michael in his love-sickness became bereft of reason, for you'll scarce believe it when I tell you that when my lord of Stowmaries desired to acquit himself like an honourable gentleman of his debt to his kinsman, and held out to him the draft for seventy thousand pounds, Michael refused to take it."
This time there was no mistaking the look of pleasure which lit up the fair Julia's face. A less acute observer than was Sir John would have realised at once that this last item of news was essentially pleasant to the hearer. Mistress Peyton of a truth, found her anxieties vanishing away, and was at no pains to hide the pleasure which she felt. Hope was returning to her heart, also gratitude towards Fate who, it seems, had been kind enough after all to play into her hands.
Psychologically the situation was interesting, and we may assume that Cousin John was no longer at sea now. He might not yet possess the key which opened the magic gate into his fair cousin's secret orchard, but he was essentially a gambler, an unscrupulous schemer himself; money, to him, was the all-powerful solution of many an obscure puzzle.
The mention of money had brought on the beautiful face before him the first smile of satisfaction since the beginning of his narrative; ergo, argued Cousin John, the fair mistress entered into a private, villainous little scheme of her own, of calling the tune without paying the piper. Women have no sense of honour, where debts between gentlemen are concerned.
Once on a track, Sir John was quick enough to follow the puzzle to its satisfactory solution. But he was not pleased that his cousin, and partner in the whole enterprise, should thus have intrigued without his knowledge or counsel. Heavens above, if conspirators did not work together, every plot, however well laid, would speedily abort. Women were ever ready for these petty infamies; they seemed to revel in them, to plan and scheme them even if—as in this case—they were wholly superfluous.
He was angry with his pretty cousin, and showed it by keeping her on tenter-hooks, dropping his narrative and ostentatiously draining a mug of posset to its last drop. He would force her, he thought, to disclose her treacherous little hand to the full.
And he succeeded, for as he did not speak she was quite unable to curb her impatience.
"Then—the money—" she asked with obviously affected indifference, "what became of it?"
"The money?" he asked blandly "What money?"
"The seventy thousand pounds," she said, "which Michael Kestyon was to receive and which he refused to take."
Cousin John looked at her over the top of his goblet, his round, bulgy eyes told her quite plainly that he had read her through and through, and that he for one was not sorry that her little counter-scheme had failed, since she had not thought fit to ask his advice. But he said quite lightly, as one who speaks of a trifle too mean to dwell in the memory:
"Oh! the seventy thousand pounds! They are where they should be, dear Cousin, in Michael Kestyon's pocket. The just reward for his services rendered to his kinsman, your future lord, fair Coz!"
"But you said just now—" she stammered on the verge of tears, for the sudden sense of disappointment had been very bitter to bear.
"I said that Michael had been smitten with remorse, and had at first refused to take the money, but Lord Stowmaries soon overcame his scruples and—"
"Lord Stowmaries is a fool!" she interrupted hotly.
Sir John feigned great astonishment.
"A fool? For acquitting himself of a debt of honour?" he asked in tones of mild reproof.
"Ay! a fool, and thrice a fool," she reiterated with increased vehemence, for she was no gaby and was not taken in now by Cousin John's blandness. He had divined her thoughts, and guessed something of her aborted plans; there was no occasion therefore to subdue her annoyance any longer. "An Michael Kestyon was such a dotard as to refuse a fortune," she continued, "why should my lord Stowmaries be the one to force it upon him. Nay! The whole bargain was iniquitous or worse. Ridiculous it was of a truth—one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to a man who would have done the trick for so many pence. I marvelled at you, Cousin, for lending a hand to such wanton waste and did my best to circumvent your folly, but thanks to that dolt Daniel Pye, and apparently to my lord Stowmaries' idiocy, Michael Kestyon is now in possession of the means whereby he can divest the cousin who paid him so well not only of his title but of all his wealth. A blunder, Cousin, an idiotic, silly blunder," she added as she jumped to her feet, unable to sit still, tramping up and down the room like a raging wildcat, lashing herself into worse fury by picturing all the evils which the unfortunate business would bring in its train, chief amongst these being my lord Stowmaries' undoing, for which she really cared naught only in so long as it affected her own prospects.
"The silly adventure is already the talk of the town; the king has asked to see Michael Kestyon. Bah! The man sold his kingdom, the liberty and dignity of England for a sum not much larger than what Michael can now offer him for a favourable decision in a peerage claim. Ye saints above! what fools men are! what blind, blundering, silly fools, the moment they begin to prate of honour!"
Cousin John had allowed his fair cousin's vehement vituperations to pass unchallenged over his humbled head. That there was some truth in her argument he himself could not deny, and it was a fact that fears very akin to her own in the matter of the money had more than once crossed his mind. Feeling, therefore, that the reproof, though exceptionally violent, was not undeserved, he dropped his bland, cynical manner, and when at last the fair Julia paused in her invectives, chiefly for lack of breath, and also because tears of anger were choking her voice, he spoke to her quite quietly and almost apologetically.
"Indeed, Coz," he said, "I would have you believe that I am deeply touched by your reproaches, which, alas, I may have merited to a certain extent. Zeal in your cause may have rendered me less far-seeing than I really should have been, considering what we both have at stake. But let me tell you also that I have not been quite such a dolt as you seem to think. You are quite wrong in supposing that Michael Kestyon would have acted the part which he did for a less sum than we have given him. Nothing but a real substantial fortune would have tempted Michael. Nothing," reiterated Sir John emphatically, seeing that Julia made a contemptuous gesture of incredulity. "He is a curious mixture of the wastrel and the gentleman; if we could not satisfy his ambition, we could not attack his sense of honour. Where we made the mistake was in thinking that a substantial sum would satisfy him in itself. No one guessed that his dormant claim to the peerage of Stowmaries was still of such vital importance to him. He had ceased to move actively in the matter partly through the lack of money, but also in part through the moral collapse which he has undergone in the past two years. I confess that I did think that when he was possessed of his newly-acquired fortune, he would continue the life of dissolute vagabondage which we all believed had become his second—nay, his only nature. It seems that we were all mistaken—"
"What do you mean? Has anything occurred already?" asked Julia, who found all her fears increased tenfold at Cousin John's seriously-spoken words.
"No! No! No!" he said reassuringly, "nothing at present, save that Michael Kestyon has made no attempt to return to his boon companions in the various brothels which were wont to be his haunts. Rumour hath it that he is oft seen in the company of my lord Shaftesbury, and there is no doubt that the king was vastly amused by the adventure. Some say that royal smiles are the sure precursors to royal favours. But between entertaining Charles II with tales of spicy adventures and obtaining actual decisions from him in important matters lie vast gulfs of kingly indifference and of kindly indolence. There is nothing that the king hates worse than the giving of a decision, and, believe me, that he will dilly-dally with Michael until that young reprobate will have spent every penny of his new fortune, and will have none left to offer as a bribe to our merry monarch. It is not cheap, believe me, to be a temporary boon companion to Charles Stuart, and a great deal more than a hundred thousand pounds would have to pass through Michael's fingers in keeping up a certain gentlemanly state, in tailor's accounts, in bets and in losses at hazard, before the king would think of rewarding him in the only manner which would compensate him for all the money expended in obtaining the royal smiles."
"You may be right, Cousin," said Mistress Peyton, somewhat reassured, "at the same time a great deal of anxiety would have been saved me, if that old liar Daniel Pye had done as he was bid. But he shall rue his prevarications, and bitterly, too."
"You may wreak what vengeance you will, fair Cousin, on the varlet who hath disobeyed you. But I entreat you to keep your favours for those who have tried to serve you to the best of their poor abilities. As for the rest, let me assure you now that Michael Kestyon refused the seventy thousand pounds and even offered to repay the first instalment of fifty thousand on terms which were wholly unacceptable to Lord Stowmaries. The chief condition being that my lord should rescind the whole of the bargain, and take the tailor's wench back into his heart and marital bosom. You see, fair Coz, how impossible it was to treat with Michael at all, and we certainly were not to blame. My lord of Stowmaries is still the happiest man on earth; glad enough to have purchased his happiness for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. An I mistake not he is in Rome now, awaiting the Pope's decision—but that is a foregone conclusion. Monseigneur the Archbishop hath assured him of his cooperation. Soon my lord will receive that for which he craves: religious dispensation to avail himself of the civil law of England which will readily grant him nullity of marriage, and the blessing of the Pope himself on his remarriage with the fairest beauty that e'er hath graced an ancestral home. Until then I entreat you, Cousin," added Sir John with elaborate gallantry, "to smooth away those frowns of anxiety which ill become the future Countess of Stowmaries. Let me see you smile, dear Coz, ere I take my leave, having, I trust, assured you that you have no truer servant than your faithful kinsman, the recipient of your favours, and, I trust, of many more in the not very distant future."
There was no resisting Cousin John's assurance and his smile of confident encouragement. Mistress Peyton did allow the wrinkles of anger to fade from her smooth brow. But complete peace of mind was not restored to her in full; she was almost glad that "the happiest man on earth" was away from her just now. She wanted to think matters over in absolute quietude, away from her good cousin's bland platitudes. It almost seemed as if Fate had reshuffled all her cards; she and her partners in the great life-gamble, Lord Stowmaries, Sir John and Michael Kestyon, too, had had fresh hands dealt to them. They needed sorting and the game mayhap reconsidering.
It was even doubtful at the present moment what was the chief trump card. Daniel Pye with his clumsy fingers had abstracted one out of his mistress' hand. At thought of that the frown returned and the "fairest beauty that e'er graced an ancestral home" looked not unlike a vengeful termagant gloating over the petty revenge which—in a small measure—would compensate her for all anxieties past, present and to come.