“’Tis he!” Lady Betty murmured to the mirror, laughing softly, “’tis he! Oh, my prophetic heart—I knew it!”
CHAPTER XVI
MY LORD CLANCARTY
THERE was a ball that night at Newmarket, but Lady Clancarty did not go, in spite of the commands and entreaties of Lady Sunderland. The elder countess was particularly anxious to display her handsome daughter at the assembly, and nothing could exceed her anger and chagrin at the younger woman’s obstinacy. By afternoon the quarrel waxed so hot that Betty pleaded illness and went to bed, as a last resort, and stayed there, too, in spite of her mother’s rage. Lady Sunderland, who in a passion could forget herself and use such language as only a fish-wife or a woman of fashion could command, heaped recriminations on her daughter, and screamed and chattered and swore a little, too, for my lady was a pupil—and an apt one—of the court of Charles the Second. But Lady Betty was more than her match in wit and strength of will, and she won the victory. When the hour for the ball arrived, her mother had to go with Lord Spencer and leave her daughter calmly ensconced in bed, defiant and triumphant. The Countess of Sunderland’s chair was brought to the inn door, preceded by the link-boys with their lanthorns, and the lady was helped into it by her son, her very headdress quivering with rage and the color of the paint upon her cheeks enhanced by the flush of anger.
“The minx!” she exclaimed to Spencer, “I don’t believe she’s ill at all; it’s nothing but her obstinacy and some fancy she has about that scapegrace, Clancarty. The saucy little baggage defied me, and looked as lovely as any nymph all the time! Your father must see to it—there must be a divorce from that creature, or next thing, she’ll run away to France with him; she’s equal to it, the little wretch!”
“Never, madam,” said Spencer solemnly, “I’d see her dead first—before she disgraced the family!”
If the truth be told, this was too much for the countess; she gasped and stared uneasily at this self-righteous young man, who certainly resembled her as little as he did the versatile and unprincipled Sunderland.
Meanwhile, the invalid at the Lion’s Head had miraculously recovered and dressed herself with the assistance of Alice, who viewed the whole proceeding with amazement and distinct disapproval. She knew that Lady Clancarty had not been ill and she looked upon the stratagem as an unworthy deceit. Her mistress, reading her as easily as an open book, understood the girl’s mood and said nothing to her. Instead, she set her the task of lighting the candles in the room where she received her guests, and seeing that the servant replenished the wood fire and drew the curtains. Finally she came in herself, a charming figure in pink, with a single rose in her hair. Finding everything arranged to her satisfaction, she dismissed her attendant and waited quite alone, standing before the hearth and gazing pensively at the fire. Though she was outwardly calm, a storm was raging in her bosom. He had asked for this interview and he was coming, and now she shrank from the thought of this meeting with sudden trepidation. She bit her lip and stared into the fire, but her hands quivered and her heart beat almost to suffocation. She had thought of this moment many, many times—girlish day-dreams of her lover and husband coming to claim her—but she had never pictured anything like this. A proscribed rebel, who was forced to see her secretly, and the man himself—ah, that was it! Here was a powerful personality that she had never imagined; there was something in his eyes, his voice that drew her to him with so strange a fascination that it frightened her. She knew just how he would look, just the flash in his gray eyes, the deep tones of his voice, before she saw him enter. She struggled with herself when she heard his tread in the hall and knew it—and she was listening with strained ears, when the door was opened for him. But Lady Betty was not one to show the white feather; she drew her breath hard and straightened herself, and then she opened that fan of hers—a beautiful affair from one of the India houses in London—and she swayed it to and fro shading her face.