Moll Davis: a comedy

by Bernard Capes

Now, as regards physical infection, one may be susceptible to the predaceous germ on one occasion and not on another: it is a question of bodily condition. So, there is a moral microbe whose insidious approaches may find us pregnable or not according to our spiritual temper of the time. The healthiest constitutions enjoy no absolute immunity in this respect, and those which do escape harm often owe their reputation for incorruptibility to no better than the accident which found them free from attack at the weak moments. Evil disposition makes no more sinners than the lack of it does saints. It is mostly a question of coincidence between the alighting seed-down and the soil suitable to its germination.

Well, there are soils and soils, and as one seed which sickens on a rich loam will wax bursting fat in an arid crevice, so sand will not produce roses. Yet, I should say, if one sought a common denominator in this matter of proneness to moral infections, one could not instance a state more typically susceptive to all than that of idleness and boredom.

And to that perilous condition had poor Kate succeeded. She was ennuyée, sick of soul, tired of everything and everybody. Her matrimonial barque, she felt, had been flung on a shoal, where it lay as divorced from wreck as from rescue. There appeared no alternative but to abandon it; and yet all her instincts of faith and decency still fought against that seeming treachery to her vows. She had really at one time believed in the poor creature her husband—even though necessarily at the modified valuation imposed upon wives of her date and condition: she had not utterly abandoned her hope in him yet. But little of it remained, and that little so tempered with scorn and disgust as to seem hardly worth the retaining. Still, the wifely instinct clung by a thread, and was so far her resource and safety. Yet not much was needed to snap that last strand, and she knew it, and felt it, and was wrought thereby to a state of nervous irritability which halted, in its sense of sick isolation, between fidelity and revolt. She was susceptible, in fact, when the germ made its appearance.

It was a flattering germ, garbed royally, with a melting eye and an insinuative manner. She may have been already conscious in herself of premonitory symptoms betokening its approach, as the wind of the avalanche heralds the fall thereof; I will certainly not commit myself to any statement to the contrary. But even were that the case, it is not to say that her hold on the thread continued less fond and desperate. It is likely, indeed, that it acquired a more urgent grip, as foreseeing a particular strain upon its resources. Royalty could pull so hard with so little effort of its own. However that may be, it is worthy of note that she displayed at least the courage of her sex in facing the possibility of infection instead of flying from it.

Now, as she sat, gazing out on the quiet scene with unregarding eyes, and obsessed with the sole thought that she was the most aggrieved and weary-spirited woman in the world, she heard a sound in the room behind her, and turned to see her second brother, young Arran. He minced forward, the darling, and saluted her with the most unimaginable grace, though there was certainly a little tell-tale flush on his callow cheek.

“Thithter Kit,” quoth he, “I have taken the privilege of a brother to introduth a vithitor to your private apartment.”

“A visitor!” She rose, uncertain, to her feet, and was aware, with a little shock of the blood, of the figure of the Duke of York standing in the doorway. His Royal Highness, with a grave smile, in which there was nevertheless a touch of anxiety, advanced into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Uninvited, but not too greatly daring, I hope,” said he. “Formality, ceremonial, were all incompatible with the boon we designed to ask of your ladyship.”

A vivid flush would rise to her cheek; she could not help it, nor control, with all her will to, the self-conscious instinct betrayed in her drooped lashes. For a moment, in the embarrassment of her youth, she stood dumb before this realized liberty.

“A privilege, your brother called it,” continued the Duke. “Then, if for him, how much more for me! Of its extent, believe me, I am so fully sensible, that, accepting your silence for condonation of my presumption, I hesitate to abuse a favour so freely vouchsafed by taking advantage of it to beg another.”