Lady Barbarity: A Romance

by J. C. Snaith

“Why, aunt,” cries I, “who is to be our visitor?”

“Patience, child,” my aunt replied, with such an amiable air that forthwith I suspected her of treachery. And, straight, a pang went through me, for I was almost sure that we had been lured into a trap from which it was now too late to escape. And even as this thought afflicted me, suspicion became dire fact. The door appeared to open and a commotion arose the other side of the screen. A sound of shuffling, accompanied by a painfully slow gait, published to me the worst ere even the ubiquitous Captain hove in view. He came to the table leaning on the shoulder of a servant, and was propped up also by a stick.

You can suppose that every detail of the Captain’s mien and conduct is writ down in my mind. First he advanced in the most unincriminating manner, bowed profoundly over my aunt’s extended hand, accepted the kind words and congratulations of my lord with an air of admirable courtesy and pleasure, put his palm across his heart and smiled, and bowed to me as gracefully and deeply as his predicament allowed, and generally held himself with a sweeping ease that was sublime. Nor was I much behind him there. I turned to the poor masquerader who was sustaining the ordeal nobly, and said in a full, clear tone:

“Prue, dear, permit me to present to you Captain Grantley, of the Thirty-third, one of my oldest and most cherished friends.”

Bows were exchanged by both parties with a gravity that would have been enjoyable had one’s fears been quieter. Without more ado we assumed our chairs, and the meal began. My appetite was gratified with a mere pretence of eating, and even this Barmecidal course was begrudged it by my heart. Here I was sensibly the poorest actor of the three, for the Captain laughed, joked, drank, and supped with a military heartiness, while Miss Prue requested him to pass the salt with the demurest smile you ever saw. It was quite on the cards, of course, that the Captain was still in ignorance of the Honourable Prudence Canticle’s true identity, as her disguise really was without a shade of doubt ingenious. Yet, on the other hand, to accept this as a fact would be the height of assumption. The Captain was a terrible variety of man to whose depth it was impossible to put a limit. He was a master of the art of concealing what he knew. He had the trick of wooing one into the comfortable notion that he was pretty well an ignoramus, when he had practically taken all knowledge for his province. Thus, his present air of candour notwithstanding, I was woefully afraid.

The conversation was unceasing. The Captain kept up a rattle of the delightfulest inconsequence, made jests upon his leg that actually enticed the dowager into a smile, and seemed most magnanimously inclined to forget the injuries to his person and his reputation, let bygones be bygones, and pardon even me, the arrantest rebel that had yet to grin through hemp.

Later, on retiring to the withdrawing-room, we had cards as usual. Going from one apartment to the other, I was able to secure a short aside with Prue.

“Suppose,” says I, “you now contract a headache, and retire for the evening? The less you are exposed the better.”

“Not I,” says she; “I’ll see it through. If he hath already smelled me out, nought can avail me. If he hath not, but is lingering in doubt, he will take the fact of my seizing the first chance of escaping from his scrutiny as an important evidence, and will feed his suspicions on it.”

I had to admit that this in the main was shrewd. Prue came therefore and bore a hand at cards. The play was continued pretty late. All things were amicable as could be, and gradually, as the hours passed, our dark suspicions of the early evening were considerably laid. The dowager retired at the sound of twelve, as was her custom. The best part of an hour later, growing drowsy and uncertain in his play, the Earl rose, gave us good-night, and also went to bed.