“If it were true!” flounced and fumed the young delinquent, who was not brought to contriteness just then, “when did I lie to you? As for Master Charles,” Lady Bell stamped her small foot, “how dare you bring a modest and honourable young gentleman, so far as I know him, into such a discussion?”
“Lud! lud!” Miss Kingscote rose and retreated, perfectly in earnest in her alarm, “you mun be in a frenzy, girl, you’ll fright me clean out of my wits, though the maids are in the kitchen; what would you have me to say or do? I never thought you were such a right-down vixen, or I wouldn’t have had the pluck to live with you so long.”
“I am not a vixen, Miss Kingscote,” denied Lady Bell, beginning to laugh excitedly, as she caught a glimpse of the absurdity of the altercation. “I’m only a poor oppressed soul, as I told you, to whom no one will afford a harbour, who must seek one in the grave,” and overcome by her own hyperbole, which she fully believed at the moment, Lady Bell sank down, sighing and moaning over her forlorn youth.
“Oh, deary me!” lamented poor Miss Kingscote in turn, “them dismals are worser than tantrums; sure, child, you may have a harbour for me, though you do be a married woman. I have no dislike to married women, though I beant matched myself. When I come to think of it,” added Miss Kingscote, recollecting herself, and speaking with reviving spirit, “them’s the best news, if so be they’re right square, which I’ve heard for many a day; your good man beant dead, be he now?” she inquired, insinuatingly.
“No, madam; and though he has been no good man to me, I dare not, as I am a sinner, wish him sent to his account,” said Lady Bell wearily.
“No! The Lord be thanked he is to the fore,” commented Miss Kingscote devoutly, “and I ask your pardon, miss—madam, if I spoke like a crosspatch when you went to break your marriage to me. It struck me all of a heap, and put me in such a stew, my heart do go pit-a-pat still. But when I’ve got over it, I should not wonder though you and me were better friends than ever.” Miss Kingscote ended by smirking and nodding.
“I am content,” submitted Lady Bell, sadly. “But, if you please, Miss Kingscote, we’ll not speak of these unhappy passages in my life. I cannot give you particulars. I must keep my own counsel, only you had better call me Mrs. Barlowe, and let Master Charles know why you do so. He will be tender of my secret. For that matter, I’m not alone; I’m not the only unhappy wife in England, who has been driven to fight her own battle to-day.”
“My word, no,” assented Miss Kingscote heartily; “I’ve known women as were beat within an inch of their lives by their brutes of men, and women as were left to shift for themselves, while their fine gentlemen gallanted with other women, and the poor wives were none to blame. What was I thinking on, Mrs. Barlowe, when I sought to bring home the guilt to a pretty babe like you? I’ll tell Master Charles with all the pleasure in life—I mean, I’ll let him know, as it is but fair, to say the least, and he’ll be main sorry and rare kind to you.”
Lady Bell and Miss Kingscote never supposed that the knowledge which they had to give, might not be an insurmountable obstacle to stay Master Charles from wishing to create a closer, warmer friendship between him and Lady Bell. They never fancied that such knowledge might prove as tow to the hell-fire of an unlawful passion, let loose to devastate human nature and social life. What did good women know of unlawful passions even in a wild age?
Happily Master Charles was, in his way, and for his sex, as innocent and ignorant as the women. He was somewhat of the stuff of which Blake and Penn had been made. He had the faults of his day; he could, especially in his raw youth, ere he had been taught a lesson, and had a discipline appointed for him, bluster and swagger a little. He was over free in the drinking and betting, and even the brawling and fighting, which were then held manly.