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