An hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all the talking that one of them did, there might have been present only the two whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that Lady Oxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary, but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt to say in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keep his tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slip from him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford was young, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of the gout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course to course, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latest tittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley and Mr. Pope were still the best of friends.
'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, looking up with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits and a wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, being sister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to the Elector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over the water.
'Without doubt,' returned Lady Oxford. 'Lady Mary is my bosom friend. The dear malicious creature! What is her latest quip? Tell me, Mr. Johnson, I die to hear it. Or rather whisper it. It will be too deliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think, should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and a tap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake where the sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at all clumsy--how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But they gain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'
It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, and Kelly's face fell.
'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be considered clever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'
'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt you have brought her some of your laces and brocades from France, Mr.--Johnson.' She paused slyly upon the name.
Kelly glanced quickly at her, their eyes met, and the lady laughed. There could be no doubt that she knew something of Kelly's business. Indeed, she would hardly have asked him for the fashionable gossip at all had she taken him for just what he represented himself to be. Wogan put his foot on his friend's pretty heavily, and, he knows not how, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made a moan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.
'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring a bottle of salts.
'No,' she replied with a smile on her lips and her eyes full of tears, 'but your secretary has dropped a blot on the wrong paper.'
'Your ladyship,' cried Wogan in an extremity of confusion, 'it was the most miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, the consequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained, making the matter worse.