CHAPTER XVIII
WHEREIN A NEW FLY DISCOURSES ON THE INNOCENCE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB
WOGAN was still leaning on the rail of the balustrade when a watch was held beneath his nose.
'The half-hour is gone, Mr. Hilton,' said Lord Sidney Beauclerk.
'True,' said Wogan, 'it is now a quarter past eleven.' His eyes moved from the watch to the closed door. 'Half an hour, my lord,' he mused, 'a small trifle of minutes. You may measure it by grains of sand, but, if you will, for each grain of sand you may count a life.'
'You hit my sentiments to a nicety.'
Lord Sidney spoke with a grave significance which roused Wogan from his reflections. The lad's face was hard; his eyes gloomy and fierce. Wogan remembered that, when Lord Sidney had spoken before, he had not seemed in the best of good humour.
'My lord,' he said, 'we can hardly talk with comfort here in the doorway.' He led the way back into the inner withdrawing-room and across the room to the recess of a window.
'Here we shall be private,' he said.
'Mr. Hilton, you spoke a little while ago of a ballad, wherein, to use your words, the arm of flesh was preferred to a spiritual Blade. That may have been wit, of which I do not profess to be the judge. But you aimed an insult at a woman, and any man may claim to be the judge of that.'
'My lord,' answered Wogan gently, 'you do not know the woman. I could wish you never will.'
Lord Sidney laughed with a sharp scorn which brought the blood into Wogan's face. It was plain the remark was counted an evasion.
'At all events I know an insult when I hear it. Let us keep to the insult, Mr. Hilton. It reaped its reward, for here and there a coward smirked his applause.' Lord Sidney's voice began to tremble with passion. 'But it has yet to be paid for. You must pay for it to me,' and, since Wogan kept silence, his passion of a sudden got the upper hand, and in a low quick voice—there was as much pain as anger in it—'It hurts me,' he said, clenching his hands, 'it positively hurts me. Here is a woman'—he stopped in full flight, and blushed with a youthful sort of shame at his eloquence—'a woman, sir, in a word, and you must torture her with your brave sneers and she must wear a smiling face while her heart bleeds! Mr. Hilton, are you a man? Why, then, so am I, and it humiliates me that we should both be men. The humiliation will not pass even after,' and he drew a breath in through his shut teeth, 'after I have killed you.'
Mr. Wogan had listened to the outburst with all the respect he thought due to a boy's frank faith. A boy—Wogan's years were not many more than his, but he had seen mankind, and marvelled how they will trust a woman who, they know, has fooled one man, if but a husband. But, at Lord Sidney's talk of killing him, Wogan sank the philosopher and could not repress a grin.
'Kill me, my young friend; ne fait ce tour qui veut,' he said; 'but sure you may try if you will. You will not be the first who has tried.'
'I have no doubt of that,' said Lord Sidney gravely, 'and you will oblige me by using another word. I may be young, Mr. Hilton, but I thank God I am not your friend.'
There was a dignity, a sincerity in his manner which to Mr. Wogan's ears robbed the speech of all impertinence. Wogan simply bowed and said:
'If you will send your friend to Burton's Coffee House in the morning'
'To Burton's Coffee House.'
Lord Sidney turned away. Mr. Wogan drew aside the curtain of the window and stared out into the night with an unusual discontent. Across the road Mr. Scrope was still lurking in the shadow—a hired spy. Very like, he had once been just such another honest lad, with just the same chivalry, before my lady cast her covetous eyes on him. Downstairs in the little room the Parson was fighting, for the Cause, for his sweetheart, for his liberty, and maybe for his life, with little prospect of a safe issue. It seemed a pity that Lord Sidney Beauclerk should be wasted too.
'My lord,' said Wogan, calling after Lord Sidney. And Lord Sidney came back. Wogan was still holding the curtain aside; he had some vague thought of relating Scrope's history, but his first glance at Lord Sidney's face showed to him it would not avail. Lord Sidney would disbelieve it utterly. Wogan dropped the curtain.
'How old is your lordship?' he asked.
Lord Sidney looked surprised, as well he might, and then blushed for his youth.
'I am twenty,' he said, 'and some months,' with considerable emphasis on the months as though they made a world of difference.
'Ah,' replied Wogan, 'I am of the century's age, twenty-two and some more months. You are astonished, my lord. But when I was fifteen I fought in battles.'
'Was it to tell me this you called me back?'
'No,' said Wogan solemnly, 'but you meet me tomorrow. I am not sure that I could do you better service than by taking care that you meet no one afterwards. It was that I had to tell you,' and he added with a smile, 'but I do not think I shall bring myself to do you that service.'
Lord Sidney's face changed a little from its formal politeness. He eyed Mr. Wogan as though for a moment he doubted whether he had not mistaken his man. Then he said:
'In a duel, Mr. Hilton, there are two who fight.'
'Not always, my lord. Sometimes there is one who only defends,' and with that they parted. Clamorous dames took Lord Sidney captive. Wogan looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed since that latch had clicked. He strolled out of the room to the stairs. The door was still shut. He came back into the room and stood by Lady Mary, who was describing to Rose the characters of those who passed by. She looked anxiously at Wogan, who had no comforting news and shook his head, but she did not cease from her rattle.
'And here comes Colonel Montague with a yellow bundle of bones tied up in parchment, 'she cried. Lady Rich was the bundle of bones in parchment. 'Colonel Montague—well, my dear, he is a gallant officer in the King's guards who fought at Preston, and he owes his life to a noisy Irish boy who has since grown out of all recognition.'
Here Rose suddenly looked up at Wogan.
'It was this Colonel Montague you saved!' said she.
'Hush,' whispered Wogan, who had his own reasons for wishing the Colonel should discover nothing upon that head. 'Remember, if you please, that my name is Hilton.'
Colonel Montague led Lady Rich to the sofa.
'Colonel, has fortune deserted you that you look so glum?' asked Lady Mary.
'I am on the losing hand indeed, your ladyship, to-night,' said Montague bitterly.
'Well, malheureux en jeu,' said her ladyship maliciously, 'you may take comfort from the rest of the proverb.'
Lady Rich shook her rose-coloured ribbons, a girlish simpleton of forty summers.
'I am vastly ashamed of being so prodigiously ignorant,' said she. 'I daresay I ask a mighty silly question, but what is the rest?'
'French, my dear, and it means that fifteen years is the properest age for a woman to continue at, but why need one be five?'
Colonel Montague smiled grimly. Mr. Wogan stifled a laugh. Lady Rich looked somewhat disconcerted.
'Oh, is that a proverb?' said she with a minauderie. 'I shall dote on proverbs,' and so she simpered out of range.
Lady Mary lifted up her hands.
'Regardez cet animal!' she cried; 'considérez ce néant. There's a pretty soul to be immortal.'
'Your ladyship is cruel,' said Rose in remonstrance.
'Nay, my dear, it is the only way to keep her quiet. My Lady Rich is like a top that hums senselessly. You must whip it hard enough and then it goes to sleep and makes no noise. Mr. Hilton, are you struck dumb?'
Mr. Hilton's ears were on the stretch to catch the sound of a door, and making an excuse he moved away. Suspense kept him restless; it seemed every muscle in his body clamoured to be doing. He walked again to the window. Scrope was still fixed at his post. Wogan sauntered out of the room to the stairs, and down the stairs to the hall. The hall was empty. The door of the little room where Kelly and Lady Oxford were closeted was shut, and no sound came through it, either of word or movement. Wogan wished he had been born a housemaid, that he might lean his ear against the keyhole without any shame at the eavesdropping. He stood at the stair-foot gazing at the door as though his eyes would melt the oak by the ardour of their look. Above the voices laughed, the smooth music murmured of all soft pleasures. Here, in the quiet of the hall, Wogan began to think the door would never open; he had a foolish fancy that he was staring at the lid of a coffin sealed down until the Judgment Day, and indeed the room might prove a coffin. He looked at his watch; only a poor quarter of an hour had passed since the door had closed. Wogan could not believe it; he shook his watch in the belief that it had stopped, and then a hubbub arose in the street. The noise drew nearer and nearer, and Wogan could distinguish the shouts of newsboys crying their papers. What they cried as yet he could not hear. In the great room at the head of the stairs the voices of a sudden ceased; here and there a window was thrown open. The ominous din rang through the open windows and floated down the stairs, first the vague cries, then the sound of running feet, and last of all the words, clear as a knell:
'Bloody Popish Plot! A Plot discovered!'
So Lady Oxford had played her cards. The plot was out; Scrope was in the street; the Parson was trapped. Wogan determined to open that door. He took his hand from the balustrade, but before he had advanced a step, the door was opened from within. Her ladyship sailed forth upon Mr. Kelly's arm, radiant with smiles; and, to Wogan's astonishment, Kelly in the matter of good humour seemed in no wise behind her.