Master Rowland woke up, looked his fill, as open-mouthed as the rest, and while he did so, his system received a shock. Lady Betty was revenged to an extent she had not foreseen.
The noble woman went with her whole soul into the sorrows of the dark-eyed, brown-faced sister whom Titian might have painted, and made them accord with her fair English love of justice, her blue-eyed devotion to her husband, her Saxon fearlessness and faith in the hour of danger: only she did look strange and foreign when, in place of lying prostrate in submission and rising in chaste, meek patience to rear her orphan son, she writhed, like a Constance in agony, and died more speedily from her despair than Jaffier by the dagger which on the scaffold freed Pierre. The assembly rose in whole rows, and sobbed and swooned. Mrs. Prissy and Mrs. Fiddy cried in delicious abandonment; Master Rowland sat motionless.
"I declare I had forgotten the Justice," reflects Lady Betty, resting behind the scenes. "I do believe I am that poor Belvidera for the last half-hour. I meant to bring the man to tears. His blooming face was as white as a sheet;—poor, dear, good man, I hope he's none the worse of it."
Master Rowland knows full well that she is Mistress Betty Lumley the great London actress, not Belvidera the Venetian senator's daughter; but he will never again turn from the chill of his stone-arched hall, where his fingers have grown benumbed riveting a piece of armour or copying an epitaph or an epigram, or linger under his mighty oak-tree, or advise with his poor tenants, or worship in church, without the sickening sense of a dull blank in his heart and home.
[III.—MISTRESS BETTY BECOMES NURSE.]
Bath was sleeping as soundly as if it had been a quaker town: any sounds of riot were scattered and subdued. The dowager did not count her gains as she clutched them, while borne along the street by the glare of the dropping flambeaux. Her son, who, like the young Duke of Marlborough and his brother peer, carried no meaner change than golden guineas, did not clink them as he tossed them to the chairmen fighting for the prize. The "Bear" was reasonably still for a great public-house with twos and threes of travellers departing at all hours, as waiters and ostlers stirred on their behalf, horses trotted out from adjoining stables, and circles of chariots suffered displacement—all in addition to the distinct and fervent sensation of the night coach.
Suddenly a noise and a flurry arose in the grey light and its general repose. Accents of terror and anxiety are heard, and a movement of pity and distress arises and grows in the establishment. A young girl is attacked by violent illness—a life in its spring-time is threatened with sudden extinction; friends at hand are seeking remedies and bewailing the calamity—friends at a distance, all unconscious, are mentioned with subdued voices and averted eyes.
Mrs. Price was wiping her eyes and carrying up restoratives with her own hands. "'Twas Mistress Fiddy, whom she had known from a child; the niece of Master Rowland, who had always supported the house; and madam, her mother, away at the Vicarage, and the dear child, so good and quiet."
"I will come, my good Mrs. Price. My sister had these fainting fits; I'm used to them. I'll revive the child: the poor child, I am sure she'll not be offended at the liberty. Pooh! I can sit up as well as sleep after playing. Dear! dear! Many a night I was happy to sit up with Deb," pleaded an urgent, benevolent voice, waxing plaintive towards the conclusion of the speech.