CHAPTER XVI
Mrs. Davis, conscious that her position was no longer a tenable one, and driven to naughty extremities by the three-sided investment which left her no alternative but to retreat—fighting—retired to her chamber to consider the course by which she could best inflict a Parthian stroke on the three enemies who, each from a different motive, were responsible for her coming ejectment. She contemplated nothing very terrible, it is true—only some exaggerated form of mischief in keeping with her little lawless, whimsical nature. She was not a tragic vengeance, and she nursed no very grievous resentment over a treatment which, she was perfectly aware, she had done much to deserve and little to be entitled to deprecate. She had taken advantage of a temptation to play, especially of late, a game of her own rather than that of Hamilton, her employer and confederate; and she had wasted her opportunities rather on personal enjoyment than in pursuance of any consistent effort to serve that gentleman’s designs. She knew all this, admitted her own shortcomings; and yet, though she had a physical liking for the rascal, she was not going to let him escape scot-free, without any endeavour to retaliate on him for his cool repudiation of her at the eleventh hour. She wished and intended him no great harm; only she felt it a moral obligation on herself to speak the last word in this comedy of misunderstandings. It was worth while to show him that his supposed easy command of women was subject to some little accidents of discomfiture and humiliation where he chose to presume too much in his dealings with the sharp-witted among them. After which she would be quite willing to call quits with him.
Now, Hamilton, for his part, in leaping to a certain conclusion as regarded Moll’s connection with the guitar incident, had shrewdly approximated, but only approximated, the truth. Mrs. Davis, as we know, had had nothing to do with the Duke’s visit; nevertheless the Duke’s visit came to have something to do with Mrs. Davis. His Highness—a singularly close observer, though with a congenital incapacity for profitable reflection—had not failed to take stock of the attractive little figure in the garden, nor to consider to what possible uses he might convert the fact of its offence in the eyes of the lady of whom he was enamoured. He might, for instance, by privately threatening that offence with punishment for its wrong-doing, terrify it into lending itself as an instrument to his own designs. It should be worth trying; only it was necessary first to secure an interview with the person of the offence. There was no difficulty to be foreseen in that, save the one difficulty of eluding scandal in the process; and, indeed, from the lady’s point of view, there was no difficulty at all. For in very truth, from the moment when, listening and peeping at the keyhole, Moll had realized the rank of the Countess’s visitor, that amazing young person had been actually busying her brain with speculations as to her own possible eligibility as a royal favourite, though in the regard of the “second best” only. It had been under the spur of that inspiration, indeed, that, deterred by no false modesty as to her personal qualifications in the way of looks and witcheries, she had appeared, singing, at the window, with the view that questions might be asked about her—a piece of effrontery which, seeing that it was ventured in the very face of the high-born rival to be supplanted, might fairly be considered unsurpassable. But diffidence was never one of Moll’s weaknesses.
So far, then, Master George’s native acumen had led him to within sight of the facts; he had been wrong only in assuming the meeting to be already a fait accompli. It was not, so far, and the reason was this. The Duke could not afford to bid directly for the services of a great nobleman’s presumed chère amie: but he could employ an agent; and for this purpose he had selected Arran—as much through his imbecility as through his relationship with the family a convenient instrument—for the task of enticing the quarry into his preserves.
It was easily done, and after all at a minimum expense in tactics. Arran, acting as his Highness’s decoy, and with no thought but to accommodate his master in the sort of jest approved and applauded by the gallants of his day, found no difficulty in getting into communication with Mrs. Davis, or in arranging an accidental meeting with her. Of course, at that, Moll refused utterly to be beguiled offhand into committing herself to the mysterious interview entreated of her; she was pettish, wilful, distracting; she showed a complete obtuseness in realizing the nature of the rank which stood behind the summons; she was wholly childish and adorable, and she ended by chastising the impertinence which her innocent flirtations had seemed meant to provoke.
And all the while she was calculating how best she could invite those second approaches to which she was resolved in her mind to succumb. The issue of that night decided her. The next day she sent a little private note of penitence to Arran, and that same evening saw her closeted with the Duke of York.
There was none other present but the young Earl, retained, possibly, by his Royal Highness for the part of chaperon—a precaution not ill-advised, the Prince may have been disposed to think, when he came to re-view the visible attractions of his visitor. They were such, indeed, that he felt he would have to keep a definite guard on his susceptibilities if he were to come out of the interview unscathed. He would have had no objection in the world to take this sugared bonbon by the way, as a man might crunch a salted almond to add a zest to his wine; only the stake at issue was too instant. The bottle might pass while he was enjoying the appetizer. Wherefore he assumed from the first an air of coldness and restraint. He bowed to the lady, and assigned her a seat with a gesture.
“My lord has informed you,” he said, “of my reason for desiring this meeting?”
Mrs. Davis shook her pretty head. “Not he!”
“O!” said the Duke. “It is explained in a few words. During a recent visit of ceremony I was paying to—how shall I name her—your unofficial hostess, I chanced to hear you singing outside the window of the room in which I was seated.”
“La!” said Moll, with a shrug of her white shoulders; “to think of it! And I never guessed but I was alone.”
She was not in the least overawed by the sacrosanctity of her company; she would have “answered back” to the Pope himself in his own coin of excommunication, or anything else, and certainly not less to a lay son of his, however illustrious. She had no bump of reverence whatever on her little noddle.
“You have a rare voice, Mrs. Davis,” said the Prince. “It is a pity—is it not?—that it should be wasted on discord, when it might be so much more profitably employed in winning you a way to legitimate and decent fame.”
Moll opened her eyes. This, for a beginning, was not at all the sort of thing she had expected.
“What discord, if you please?” said she.
“Tut-tut!” answered his Highness, hardly smiling. “Is not that a very unnecessary question? We have not got eyes for nothing, ears for nothing, intelligence for nothing. If the form of discord need not be specified, it need none the less be understood. I will speak plainly, however, and to this effect. Your position in a certain quarter of Whitehall Palace is not, by whomsoever franked, a desirable one. It constitutes, in short, a scandal to the place, and an insult to one who is forced, against her will, to condone it.”
Moll rose to her feet, her eyes sparkling.
“Why?” she said.
“There is no need, nor desire on my part,” said the Duke coldly, “to go into particulars. It is enough that the situation I have hinted at must terminate.”
And this was all—this the sole reason for which she had been trapped and beguiled into this interview with the great person? It appeared so, and Mrs. Davis had nothing for it but to bear her disappointment and chagrin with what philosophy she could.
And on the whole she bore them amiably. After all, Moll’s philosophy fished in large waters, and if she failed in a catch, she was always ready without complaint to rebait her hook and try again. There is a sort of self-complacency in certain beauties which is too serenely un-selfconscious to be called vanity. It is largely founded, I think, on the flawless digestion which generally goes with physical perfection.
“I suppose she has been putting you up to this,” she said, quite coolly. “I call it mean of her, when she knows perfectly well that she is the scandal, and not me. But, I see what it is; she wants to rid herself of a witness she’s done nothing to make a friendly one; and so, being afraid to tell me downright I must go, she hands over the business to the one——”
His Highness put up his hand with such a grim, authoritative expression that the young lady stopped, though with a rebellious gulp.
“My lord,” said the Duke, very smoothly addressing the Earl, “I think perhaps this interview will not suffer by being confined to the two most interested in it.”
He smiled and nodded. Arran, with an answering grimace, expressive at least of as much mental vacuity as understanding, bowed low and withdrew.
The moment they were alone, the Duke turned in his chair, and, crossing his knees and leaning on one arm, bent his melancholy brows on Moll in deliberate scrutiny.
“By she, madam,” he said, “you allude to——?”
Moll laughed shortly.
“O! don’t you know very well?”
“Don’t you know,” he said, “that the young gentleman just left is her brother?”
“Of course I do,” answered Moll, “and that that was why you wanted to shut my mouth.”
He sat regarding her some moments longer, and then a little sombre smile dawned on his face.
“You have a quick understanding, I perceive, Mrs. Davis,” he said. “That may be a profitable or a perilous possession, according as it is employed. I wonder it has never yet led you to realize the supreme asset you have in your voice.”
“O! I see well enough you too want me out of the way,” said Moll, perking a scornful nose. “What is the good of going round about it like this? I’m dangerous where I am, I suppose. Very well, then I must be got rid of.”
He laughed.
“Too impulsive, too impulsive, my little lady. Dangerous you could be, that’s patent, to any man’s peace of mind. But, as to the sense in which you mean it——”
She broke in with a little imperious stamp.
“As to that, I’m not to be misjudged by you or any one. When I said the scandal wasn’t in my position, I meant it. If you think I’m there as my lord’s doxy, you’re precious well mistaken. I hate the beast—and if it’s a question of scandal, ’tis her ladyship ought to go. There, she ought; and you know why.”
“I don’t, on my honour.”
“Then, you’d like to.”
“Ah! that, maybe, is quite another matter.”
He looked at her, she looked at him.
“Come, Mrs. Davis,” he said, after a minute of silence: “I’m sure we are on the way to understand one another.”
“O! are we?” said Moll, with a sniff.
“Scandals,” he said, “have nothing to do with facts. An apparition might cause one. You may be as innocent as a babe, but appearances are against you. Therefore you must suffer for appearances. Now, about this voice of yours.”
“Well, what about it?”
“With that and your face for fortune, you might, under proper auspices, prove an incalculable success.”
“What do you mean by auspices?”
He leaned forward, lightly touching his breast with his fingers.
“Patronage: a Royal Duke’s. And in the meantime, pending developments, we might consent to condone this offence, leaving you undisturbed in your present position.”
“I see,” said the girl, after a pause, her eyes rather glowing—“I see. And that, you mean, is to be your reward to me by and by for consenting, if I do consent, to act now as your creature and decoy to help you to your fancy. You’ve no objection to letting me remain on the spot, in spite of my polluting it, if only I’ll act my best for you as an informer and go-between.”
“Such intelligence,” said the Duke, “combined with gifts so sweet, should ensure you, properly directed, a prosperous future.”
“Well,” said Moll, “it’s a bargain if you like. Only wait while I think.”
A sense of mischief was already alive in her. Defrauded in her higher expectations, she cared nothing for that conditional promise of patronage, except that it humiliated even her to be thought worthy of it. She had the wit and the gifts, if she chose to exercise them, to prevail in that direction without any help from outsiders. Feeling rather at bay, in the midst of this group of self-interested plotters, she was driven at last to abandon her position in a revel of retaliation on them all. Only how could she manage it—how? Let her think.
“You’re a great gentleman, I know,” she said suddenly; “but, where love’s concerned, even princes have to take their place among the ranks. Have you never fear of a rival?”
He gazed at her sombrely some moments, without speaking.
“Do you know of any?” he asked at length.
“I know of a coming meeting,” she said.
“With whom?”
“Kit’s his name. I’ve learnt no more.”
“How did you learn that?”
“Never mind how. I’ve not been in her company these weeks for nothing.”
“And when and where is this meeting to take place?”
“At half past eight o’clock to-morrow evening, in the—in the Mulberry Garden”—she chose the place and time at haphazard.
“What!” cried his Highness, biting his lip: “so public!”
“O!” said Moll; “there’s nothing so private, for that matter, as a vizard. And—and he’s to wear a green scarf in his hat to be known by her, and she a green bow in her bosom to be known by him. If you doubt, you’d better go and see for yourself.”
My lord Duke’s countenance had fallen very glum. A shadow seemed to overspread his face.
“It is a good thought,” he said. “Kit, did you say?”
“Kit, sure.”
“Supposing I were to be Kit?”
Moll clapped her hands in delight.
“And pretending it,” she cried, “find out all about the other!”
“H’m!”
His Highness was plainly disturbed. He sat awhile pondering, a gloomy frown knotting his forehead. Presently he looked up, with a deep sigh.
“Well,” said he, “you have already proved your title to my favour. I will consider of this matter; and, in the meantime, keep, you, as silent as the grave.” He rose, put a finger to his lips: “Not a word to any one,” he said. “You shall hear from me again.” And he led her to the door, smiled on her, hesitated, laughed away the temptation, and bade her go.
And then he returned to his seat, and sat gnawing at his nails for the next half-hour.