CHAPTER XVII
HOW MY LADY BETTY WROTE A LETTER
"DEAR MAJOR D'ARCY,
"Burning yet with a natural womanly indignation by reason of your shameless accusations, each and all as cruel, as unmanly, as unwarranted as unjust I——"
"Pho!" exclaimed Lady Betty and tearing up her unfinished letter, threw it on the floor and stamped on it.
"To MAJOR D'ARCY:
"SIR,
"Though unvirginal, unmaidenly, unwomanly, and lost to all sense of modesty and shame, I am yet not entirely removed from the lesser virtues and amongst them——"
"Pish!" cried Lady Betty, and rent this asunder also.
"MY DEAR MAJOR D'ARCY,
"By this time of course you are duly sorry and deeply ashamed, for the very many indelicate expressions you gave voice to concerning me. You have perchance passed a sleepless night and such is but your due considering the abandoned and shameful treatment you accorded me. But seeing you saved me from the brutal arms of——"
"Pshaw!" cried Lady Betty, and this letter shared the fate of its predecessors.
Her black brows frowned, her pink finger-tips were ink-stained, her cheeks glowed, her bosom heaved, her white teeth gnashed themselves, in a word, Lady Betty was in a temper.
"Aunt Belinda, I—hate you!"
"Lud Betty, do you child!" murmured that lady, opening sleepy eyes, "Pray what's amiss now?"
"Why must you tattle of me to Major d'Arcy?"
"I? Tattle? O Gemini!"
"Of me—and breeches?"
"Breeches! La miss and fie! I should swoon to name 'em to a man! So indelicate, so immodest, so——"
"Unvirginal!" cried Betty, and stamped pretty foot more angrily than ever.
"Truly, miss! Indeed such a word has never crossed my lips to one of the male sex and never shall——"
"And when you told him he was duly shocked, I suppose, and rolled up his eyes in a spasm of virtue and lifted his hands in prudish horror?" demanded Lady Betty, kicking savagely at the litter of torn paper.
"Nay, he frowned, I remember, and positively blushed—and no wonder!"
"He blushed!" cried Betty scornfully, "and he a man—a soldier! By heaven he seems more virginal than Diana and all her train! Fie on him, O, 'tis shameful—so big, so strong, so—squeamish! O Lord, how I hate, detest and despise him!"
"Gracious heaven!" ejaculated Lady Belinda, sitting up suddenly, "I do verily believe you're in love with him!"
"In love with—him! I?" cried Lady Betty, "I in love with——" she gasped and stopped suddenly, staring down at the torn paper at her feet and, as she stared, her lashes drooped and up over creamy chin from rounded throat to glossy hair crept a wave of vivid colour.
"O Betty," wailed her aunt, "Betty, is it true—is it love or are you only taken with his—his medieval airs?"
"Aunt Belinda," said Betty, turning her back and staring out through the open lattice, "there are times when I wonder I don't—bite you!"
"He's so much your elder, Betty!"
"And so much my younger, aunt—in some ways, he's a very child! But suppose I do marry him, what then, aunt?"
"Marry him! Heaven above—marry Major d'Arcy? Betty, are you mad? You so young and giddy, he so—so mature and grave——"
"You never saw him climb a wall, aunt!"
"Old enough to be your father, girl! So very sober and reserved! So very serious and quiet——"
"You haven't seen him in his plum-coloured velvet, aunt!"
"But you—O Bet, you never really—love him!"
"Of—course—not! What has love to do with marriage, dear aunt? Love-marriages are so unmodish—'tis like plough-boy and dairy-wench—hugging and kissing—faugh, so vulgar and nauseous! Nay, aunt, I desire a marriage à la mode: 'Good-morrow to your ladyship, I trust your ladyship slept well?' A solemn bow, a kiss upon one extreme finger-tip!' O, excellently, sir, I hope you the same.' A smile and gracious curtsey—and so to breakfast. Now Major d'Arcy is a gentleman, rich, sufficiently handsome, and once a husband would be fairly easy to manage! Indeed I might do worse, aunt!"
"But so much—ah, so very much better, girl. There is the Duke of Nairn——"
"A drunken old reprobate! Charles told me that once, being more tipsy than usual he——"
"Hush, miss! He worshipped you. Then there is His Grace of Hawcastle——"
"An addle-pated popinjay!"
"Fie, Betty! Then there is Lord Alvaston, the Marquis, Viscount Merivale and the rest——"
"Aye, but I can't wed 'em all, aunt, so will I wed none!"
"Lud child, here's scandalous talk! But O Betty, what—what of love?"
"True, dear aunt—what?"
"Ah, child, 'tis fair woman's crowning joy and strong man's consolation sweet——
"'Tis a disease and megrim o' the mind, aunt, the which, I do thank heaven, hath ne'er yet come anigh me——"
"Aye but it will, Betty, it will!"
"Then with pill and purge and bolus I will drive it hence again."
"Nay child," sighed the Lady Belinda, as her niece arose, "talk how you will, but when love comes to thee, as come he will, why then, Ah me! what with thy ardent temperament, thy headstrong spirits, thy bustling health then—O then shall I tremble for thee!"
"Nay, prithee spare yourself, dear aunt, I can tremble for myself when needful." Saying which my lady went out into the garden.
Very slowly she went, her head bowed, her bright eyes grave and troubled; once she stopped to frown at a hollyhock and once to cull a rose only to drop it all unnoticed ere she had gone a dozen yards. Thus thoughtful and preoccupied she came to that secluded corner of her garden where, against a certain wall a ladder stood invitingly: mounting forthwith, she perched herself upon the broad coping and glanced down into the Major's orchard. The hutch-like sentry-box showed deserted but at the foot of the wall and almost immediately below her, Sergeant Zebedee stooped above a new-turned border of earth, busily engaged with a foot-rule. Lady Betty reached softly over and plucking an apricot, dropped it with remarkable accuracy into the very middle of the Sergeant's trim wig.
"Sacré nom!" he ejaculated, and starting erect, glanced up into my lady's serene blue eyes.
"'Tis Sergeant Zebedee, I think?" she enquired gravely.
The Sergeant saluted and stood at attention:
"I was so baptised, my lady, and an uncommon awk'ard name I've found it."
"Nay, 'tis a quaint name and suits you. If you have any children——"
"Chil——!" The Sergeant gasped.
"They should be called James and John, of course! So the poor Major passed a sleepless night, did he, Sergeant?"
"O!" said the Sergeant, staring, "Did he, mam?"
"Well, hasn't he?"
"Not as I know of, my lady."
"And when will he come home?"
"Home?" repeated the Sergeant, scratching his wig, "Why, mam, he has, I mean he hasn't, him not having been out, d'ye see."
"He must be a great trial and worry to live with, Sergeant?"
"No, my lady, no—except when he don't take his rations reg'lar—food and drink, d'ye see."
"Ah, doth his appetite languish of late?"
"Never was better, mam! He do seem to grow younger and brisker every day."
"Indeed, 'tis pity he's so wild!"
"Wild, mam? The Major——?"
"So gay, so bold and audacious." The Sergeant could only stare. "His wife will lead a sorry life I fear, poor soul!"
The Sergeant fell back a step opening eyes and mouth together:
"Zooks!" he muttered, "axing your ladyship's pardon but—does your ladyship mean—Zounds! Axing your pardon again, my lady, but—wife! Does your ladyship mean to say——? Is't true, madam?"
"So 'tis said!" nodded her unblushing ladyship.
"But who, my lady, and—when?"
"Nay, he's very secret."
"Pro-digious!" exclaimed the Sergeant, his eyes shining. "His honour was ever a great hand at surprises—ambuscades d'ye see, madam—ambushments, my lady, sudden onfalls and the like, and for leading a forlorn hope there was none to compare."
"You mean he has fought in a battle, Sergeant?"
"A battle, mam!" The Sergeant sighed and shook reproachful head. "Twenty and three pitched battles, my lady and twelve sieges, not to mention sorties, outpost skirmishes and the like! 'Fighting d'Arcy' he was called, madam! Sixteen wounds, my lady, seven of 'em bullet and the rest steel——"
"Heavens!" exclaimed my lady, "I marvel there is any of him left!"
"What is left, my lady, is all man! There never was such a man! There never will be."
"'Fighting d'Arcy'!" she repeated. "It sounds so unlike—and looks quite impossible—see yonder!" And she turned towards where, afar off, the object of their talk limped towards them his head bent studiously above an open book from which he raised his eyes, ever and anon, as if weighing some abstruse passage; thus he presently espied my lady and, shutting the book, thrust it into his pocket and hastened towards her. Hereupon the Sergeant saluted, wheeled and marched away, yet not before he had noted the glad light in the Major's grey eyes and, from a proper distance, had seen him clasp my lady's white hand and kiss it fervently. Instantly the Sergeant fell to the "double" until he was out of sight, then he halted suddenly, shook his head, smacked hand to thigh and laughed:
"All I say is, as there ain't, there never was, there never will be a word for it—not one!"