SCENE IV
For the first time for over a fortnight Sir Jasper returned to the very fine mansion he had taken for the Bath season, before the small hours.
It was about ten o'clock of the evening that his impatient hand upon the knocker sent thunder through the house, startled the gambling footmen in the hall below and the fat butler from his comfortable nook at the housekeeper's fireside and his fragrant glass of punch. The nerves of the elder footman were indeed so shaken that he dropped an ace from his wide cuff as he swung back the door. Breathing hot lemon peel, the butler hurried to receive his master's cloak and cane. The ribbons of Mistress Tremlet's cap quivered over the staircase: the whole household was agog with curiosity, for her ladyship's woman had told them to a tear the state of her ladyship's feelings.
Sir Jasper cursed freely as he entered, struck the younger footman with his cane over the calves for gaping, requested a just Creator to dispose of his butler's soul with all possible celerity, and himself obligingly suggested the particular temperature most suitable to it; then strode he to the drawing-room with the brief announcement that he expected the visit of some gentlemen.
He looked round scowlingly for his wife. The room was empty and desolate in spite of bright chandeliers. He paused with a frowning brow, stood a moment irresolute, then shaped his course for the stairs and mounted with determined foot. In my lady's dressing-room, by one dismal candle, sat her woman, reading a book of sermons. She had a long pink face, had been her ladyship's mother's own attendant; and much Sir Jasper hated her. She rose bristling, dropped him a curtesy eloquent of a sense of his reprobation; and he felt that with every line of the homily she laid by on his appearance she had just damned him as comfortably as he the butler.
Oh, Lud, Lud! (thus she prayed Sir Jasper in a frightful whisper) would he in mercy walk softer? My lady was asleep. Her ladyship had been so unwell, so indisposed, that she, Megrim, had seen the moment when she must send for the apothecary, and have Sir Jasper looked for all over Bath. Sir Jasper did not seem to realise it, but my lady was of a delicate complexion: a tender flower! A harsh look from Sir Jasper, an unkind word, much less cruel treatment, and she would slip through his fingers. Ay, that she would.
Sir Jasper cast a lowering suspicious look around. He glared at the woman, at the corners of the room, at the closed door. He felt his hot jealousy sicken and turn green and yellow within him. He stretched out his hand towards the lock of his wife's door; but Mistress Megrim came between him and his purpose with determined movement, her stout bust creaking in its tight stays.
"No," said she, "no, Sir Jasper, unless it be across my dead corpse!" Here she trembled very much and grew red about the eyes and nose.
"Pshaw!" said Sir Jasper, and walked away down the stairs again and into the empty, lighted drawing-room. First he halted by the window, where Lady Standish had stood and smiled upon Lord Verney. Then he went to her writing-desk, and laid his hand upon the casket where she kept her correspondence, then withdrawing it with a murmured curse, turned to the chair where she sat, and lifted up her bag of silks. But this he tossed from him without drawing the strings. Another moment and his eye caught the gleam of the letter so artfully hidden and exposed by Mistress Bellairs. He picked it up and surveyed it; it bore no address, was vaguely perfumed and fell temptingly open to his hand. He spread the sheet and saw the ruddy curl. Then his eyes read in spite of himself. And as he read the blood rushed to his brain and turned him giddy, and he sank on the settee and tore at the ruffles at his neck. For a moment he suffocated. With recovered breath came a fury as voluptuous as a rapture. He brought the paper to the light and examined the love-lock.
"Red!" said he, "red!"