mistress bellairs was up betimes. in truth she had slept ill, which was a strange experience for her. what her thirty-seven lovers had never had the power to wring from her—a tear and a sleepless night—this had she given to the one man who loved her not.
she was tortured with anxiety concerning the danger which her caprice (or, as she put it, lady standish's inconceivable foolishness) might have brought upon lord verney. at daybreak she rang for her maid, and with the eight o'clock chocolate demanded to be posted with all the news of the town. she was of those who possess the talent of making themselves served. the chocolate was to the full as perfumed and creamy as ever, and miss lydia was bursting with tidings of importance, as she stood by her lady's couch.
"well, lydia, well?" cried her mistress, sharply.
"oh, lud, ma'am, the whole town's ringing with it! my lady standish has been found out. there, i for one never trust those solemn prudes that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, and their mouths pursed like cherries. you would not be so proper if there was not a reason for it, i always think."
"lydia," said mistress bellairs, "do not be a fool. go on; what has lady standish been found out in, pray?"
"oh, ma'am," said lydia, "it ain't hard to guess. 'tis what a woman's always found out in, i suppose. but, lud, the shamelessness of it! i hear, ma'am," she came closer to her mistress and bent to whisper, almost trembling with the joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, "i hear, ma'am, sir jasper found colonel villiers there yesterday afternoon. oh, ma'am, such goings on!"
"pshaw!" said mistress kitty.
"well, they're going to fight, anyhow," cried the girl, "and sir jasper tore off the colonel's wig and beat him about the face with it, ma'am, and the colonel's been like a madman ever since, and he vows he will shoot him this morning."
mistress bellairs gave a sigh of relief.
"let them shoot each other," said she, sinking back on her pillows and stirring her chocolate calmly. "i do not find the world any better for either of them."
"but that is not all, ma'am, for poor sir jasper no sooner had he thrashed the colonel, than he finds mr. denis o'hara behind the curtains."
"denis o'hara!" exclaimed mistress bellairs, sitting up in amaze. "you're raving!"
"no, ma'am, for i have it from mr. o'hara's own man; and did not he and sir jasper fight it out then and there, and was not mr. o'hara carried home wounded by the watch!"
"mercy on us!" exclaimed the lady.
"and that is not all, ma'am," said the maid.
"you frighten me, child."
"there is captain spicer too, whom you can't a-bear, and lord verney."
"lord verney!" cried mistress kitty.
"ay, ma'am; he and sir jasper are going to fight this morning. sir jasper's going to fight them all, but lord verney is to be the first, for sir jasper found him kissing lady standish yesterday at noon; the others were later on. so it's my lord comes first you see, ma'am."
"la, girl," cried mistress bellairs with a scream, and upset her chocolate, "going to fight this morning? 'tis not true!" her pretty face turned as white as chalk under its lace frills.
"yes, ma'am," pursued the maid, gabbling as hard as she could. "yes, ma'am, first there's lord verney. sir jasper, they say, behaved so oddly to captain spicer who brought the first challenge, that lord verney sent another by a chairman this morning. and then colonel villiers. of course, as mr. mahoney says (that's mr. o'hara's man, ma'am), sir jasper is safe to kill lord verney, and colonel villiers is safe to kill sir jasper. but if the colonel do not kill sir jasper, then sir jasper will fight captain spicer! la! ma'am, the chocolate's all over the bed."
"oh, get out of that, you silly wench," cried mistress bellairs, "let me rise! there is not a moment to lose. and where is sir jasper supposed to fight my lord verney? (give me my silk stockings, useless thing that you are!) i don't believe a word of your story. how dare you come and tell me such a pack of nonsense? but where are they supposed to fight? of course you must have heard the hour?" she was pulling silk stockings over her little arched foot, and up her little plump leg as fast as her trembling hands would obey her.
"i do not know where, ma'am," said the maid demurely, "but the colonel is to meet sir jasper in hammer's fields at noon, so i suppose my lord verney and he will be fighting about this time."
"oh, hold your tongue," cried her mistress; "you're enough to drive one mad with your quacking!"
not a dab of rouge did the widow find time to spread upon pale cheeks, not a dust of powder upon a black curl. the pretty morning hood was drawn round a very different face from that which it usually shaded; but who shall say that kitty, the woman, running breathless through the empty streets with the early breeze playing with her loose hair, was not as fair in her complete self-abandonment, as the fashionable lady, powdered, painted, patched and laced, known under the name of mrs. bellairs? her small feet hammered impatiently along, her skirts fluttered as she went. she would not wait for a coach; a chair would have sent her crazy.
at the turning of the crescent, another fluttering woman's figure, also hooded, also cloaked, also advancing with the haste that despises appearances, passed her with a patter and a flash. they crossed, then moved by the same impulse halted with dawning recognition.
"mistress bellairs!" cried lady standish's flute-like voice.
"julia standish!" screamed mistress bellairs. they turned and caught at each other with clinging hands.
"oh, heavens," said mistress bellairs, "is what i hear true? is that devil sir jasper going to fight lord verney this morning? why, verney's but a child; 'tis rank murder. you wicked woman, see what you have done!"
"ah, mistress bellairs," cried julia, and pressed her side, "my heart is broken."
"but what has happened, woman, what has happened?" cried kitty, and shook the plaintive julia with a fierce hand.
"sir jasper will not see me," sobbed julia, "but i have found out that he is to meet my lord verney in an hour in bathwick meadows. there have been messages going backwards and forwards since early dawn. oh, heaven have pity on us!"
"where are you going?" cried kitty, and shook her once more.
"i was going to lord verney to plead for my husband's life," said lady standish, and the tears streamed down her face like the storm-rain upon lily flowers.
"the lord keep you," cried mistress bellairs with feelings too deep for anger; "i believe you are no better than an idiot!"
the most heroic resolves are often the work of a second! "now go back home again, you silly thing," said kitty. "'tis i—yes, lady standish, you do not deserve it of me—but i will sacrifice myself! i will prevent this duel, i will go to my lord verney!"
"you," said julia, and wondered, and but half understood the meaning of the words.
"go home, go home," said mistress kitty, "and i tell you that if i do not make lord verney fail at the meeting, my name is not kitty bellairs!"
lady standish hesitated, and meekly bowed her head, turned and began to retrace her steps, her slim figure bending and swaying as if the fresh morning wind were too stern for her.
mistress bellairs looked at her watch.
"did she say an hour?" murmured she to herself. "then, ten minutes before the looking-glass, and ten minutes to get to my lord's lodgings, and i will find him about to start. 'tis his first affair of honour, poor boy, and he is sure to be as early at it as a country cousin to a dinner-party."
the sun broke out from a cloudy sky, and mrs. bellairs shook herself and felt her spirits rise. a dimple peeped in either cheek.
"after all," said she as she tripped along, and the dimples deepened as the smile broadened, "who knows? 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody good."
*****
my lady standish returned home. the servants stared at her curiously as she crossed the hall. mistress tremlet, the housekeeper, passed her with pursed lips. her own maid, she knew, was dissolved in tears and plunged in doctor persel's discourses against heresy. white as new fallen snow was her conscience, nevertheless she felt herself smirched in the eyes of all these people. yet she cared not.
outside sir jasper's dressing-room she listened. she could hear him stamp about as he made his toilet, and curse his man. she put out her hand to knock, but the memory of his stern repulse to her last appeal robbed her of all courage.
"i will not go in upon him," thought she, "but when he comes out i will speak."
"these swords," said sir jasper within, "i will take in the carriage. i expect mr. stafford and a friend to call for me in half-an-hour. do you understand, sirrah! and hark ye, where are the pistols?"
"pistols!" echoed lady standish, and her heart beat to suffocation.
there was a pause.
"here, sir jasper," said the valet then.
"now, mark what i say," said jasper impressively. "lord markham will call at eleven. let the curricle be in waiting; tell my lord that i will meet him five minutes before the half-hour at hammer's fields. forget at your peril! you are to take these pistols there yourself. stay, tell my lord markham that if i am not at the rendezvous, 'twill only be because i have not life enough left to take me there, and he must make it straight with colonel villiers. have you understood, rascal? nay—damn you!—i will give you a letter for my lord markham."
"oh god! oh god!" cried poor lady standish, and felt her knees tremble, "what is this now? another meeting! the colonel! ... in god's name how comes he upon colonel villiers? why, this is wholesale slaughter! this is insanity! this must be prevented!" she caught her head in her hands. "sir jasper's mad," she said. "what shall i do? what shall i do? they will kill him, and i shall have done it. why now, if kitty prevents the first duel, cannot i prevent the second? oh, i am a false wife if i cannot save my husband. heaven direct me!" she prayed, and to her prayer came inspiration.
there was the bishop, the bishop of bath and wells! that reverend prelate had shown her much kindness and attention; he would know how to interfere in such a crisis. he was a man of authority. between them could they not enforce the peace at hammer's fields, and could not sir jasper be saved in spite of himself, were it by delivering him into the hands of the law?
lady standish flew into her room and called the sniffing megrim.
"paper and ink," cried she, "and get you ready to run on a message. 'tis a matter of life and death."
"my lady," said megrim primly, "i will serve your ladyship in all things that are right; but i hope i know my dooty to my creator; and stoop to connive at irregularities, my lady, i won't and never will." she had been ready to condemn her master overnight, but the talk in the servants' hall had, as she expressed it, "opened her eyes." and what woman is not ready to judge her sister woman—above all, what maid to condemn her mistress?
lady standish stared.
"what means this?" said she. "you shall do as i bid you, mistress megrim. how dare you!" cried lady standish with a sudden flash of comprehension. "why, woman, my letter is to the bishop!"
"oh," quoth mistress megrim, still with reserve, yet condescending to approval, "that is another matter! shall i," she sniffed, "be stricter than becomes a christian? shall i refuse aid to the bruised sinner or to the smoking lamp whose conscience is awakened? may his lordship be a tower of strength to your ladyship along the rocky paths of penitence—amen!"
