CHAPTER XIX
STROKE AND COUNTER-STROKE
THOSE fifteen minutes had none the less proved a mauvais quart d'heure for Mr. Kelly. As he entered the room, the memories of the grey morning when first he stood there were heavy upon his thoughts. A cheerful fire burnt upon the hearth now as then. There was the settee on which her ladyship had lain in her pretended swoon. The text which he had read in the Deanery recurred to him: 'Her ways are the ways of Death; her feet take hold on Hell.' Through the open door came the sound of music and the words jangled through Kelly's mind to the tune.
Lady Oxford closed the door; as the latch caught, Kelly lifted his head and faced her. On that first occasion her ladyship had worn a mask, and in truth she wore no mask now. A cruel smile played about her lips; a cruel light glittered in her eyes. She looked him over with triumph, as though he were her captive bound hand and foot. The look braced Mr. Kelly. He started from his memories as a man starts up from sleep; he lived alert and complete in the moments as they passed. Rose, the King's papers, his own liberty—this was his new text. Her ladyship could be trusted to give a sufficient exposition of the other.
She seated herself, and with her fan beckoned him to a chair.
'We have much to speak of, sir. I hear that I have to make you my congratulations, and to pay you my thanks. You may conceive with what sincerity.'
Mr. Kelly remained standing by the fireside.
'For what services does your ladyship thank me?'
'You have made me a tavern-jest. I have to thank you for a ballad.'
Mr. Kelly did not deny or argue the point. His pressing business was to know what Lady Oxford intended.
'And on what fortunate event does your ladyship congratulate me?'
'Are there so many fortunate events in the life of an Irish runagate and traitor? On your happy marriage, sir, with the starving apothecary's daughter.'
Mr. Kelly laughed pleasantly.
'Your ladyship is pleased to be facetious. Upon my honour, I know no such woman,' he said, thinking thus to provoke her to disclose her purposes.
Lady Oxford, to his surprise, rose up with a joyful air. 'I knew it,' she cried. 'I knew the story of the girl was the idle talk of the Cocoa Tree. And Lady Mary thought to stab me with the cruel news. Ah, if the honour of my Strephon be pledged, his Smilinda's anger vanishes.'
Here she threw her arms about Kelly's neck, in a very particular embrace, as if she would kiss him. But she refrained from such a caress. Her arms were clasped tighter and yet more tight till Kelly could scarcely breathe, and her cold whispering mouth touched his ear.
'There was, then, no starving apothecary?'
'None, madam. You have been misinformed.'
The embrace grew deadly tight. He could not have thought that a woman had such strength in her arms.
'No man named Townley? No daughter Rose? No wound? No nursing? No love-vows? No dog Harlequin? No betrothal? Liar!' she whispered in a strange voice, 'I see your miss's ring upon your finger. I saw my portrait upon her breast. Did she steal it? 'Tis like enough. But 'tis likelier that you lie!'
'Your ladyship misunderstands,' said Kelly. 'I denied that there was a starving apothecary's daughter. I did not deny that there was a man named Townley, who, by the way, is your ladyship's guest. I did not deny there was a daughter Rose'
'Go!' she cried suddenly, releasing Kelly, and pushing him off. 'I know everything, everything. Go, traitor to your King and to your word! And when you are hanged, but not till you are dead, remember that you have made a toy and jest of me, babbling to your Lady Marys and your Wogans.'
She flung herself back on a settee panting and tearing her laced handkerchief into shreds. Kelly waited a little for her to recover her composure.
'Madam,' he said, 'in the fatal circumstances you mention with such relish, it is certainly not of you that I shall think, though in less painful moments I shall ever do so with honour and gratitude. As for what you say of my babbling, I protest my innocence before Heaven. Your ladyship forgets that you have an enemy from whom it was my good fortune once to defend you.'
Lady Oxford dropped her handkerchief and sat forward staring doubtfully at Kelly, who at once pressed his advantage.
'It was into this room that I then had the honour of escorting your ladyship. Upon that occasion, if I may be pardoned for reminding you, what appears now to be treachery in me, seemed more akin to loyalty. But though the sentiments of your ladyship have suffered a change since then, those of Mr. Scrope have not. It was he who had attacked you then; it is he who attacks you now, and, believe me, it is my regret that I was not again at hand to defend you.'
The Parson should have stopped before those last few words were spoken. He spoke them in all sincerity, but they lost him the advantage he had gained, for it was not in Lady Oxford's nature to believe them. She made her profit out of her lovers' sincerity, yet could not comprehend it. It seemed almost as though some instinct led her to choose them for that very quality, with which her judgment could not credit them.
'A fine story,' she exclaimed with a sneer, 'and no doubt the apothecary's daughter would be entirely content with it, but I know you lie.'
Kelly bowed in silence.
'Wait,' she said, mistaking the bow, for Mr. Kelly had a certain question to ask before he returned to the company; 'we must appear together.'
She took in her hand a box of lace which had been placed ready in the room.
'Your hand, if you please, Mr. Johnson, for the last time. You are going, sir, to your death by rope and knife, or by point of sword.'
Mr. Kelly gave Lady Oxford his hand, and put his question:
'Your Ladyship has no fear that I shall escape?'
Her ladyship had none whatever, as her smile clearly showed.
'Then perhaps your ladyship will inform me how much liberty I have still left to me.'
'You have to-night free,' she answered, and as he heard the words Kelly's heart gave a great leap within him. 'So much reprieve you have. But you must not go till I dismiss you. Enjoy yourself.' She took Kelly's hand with a low courtesy.
He had to-night free! At all events, the King's papers would be saved. If all else went down, the papers would be saved. So it came about that he met Wogan at the stair-foot with a smiling face.
In the withdrawing-room the clatter of tongues had begun again, so that neither Lady Oxford nor the Parson distinguished the shouts of the newsboys, as they mounted the stairs. To Mr. Wogan, indeed, who followed upon their heels, the words no longer rose clear and audible. But as they entered the room, it was plain something was stirring. The windows stood open, gentlemen leaned out, ladies asked questions; about each window there was a restless, noisy group. The candles guttered in the wind; the card-tables were deserted; and straight in front of him Mr. Wogan saw Rose, her hands clasped in an extremity of apprehension. Colonel Montague stood beside her chatting easily and making as though he remarked nothing of her uneasiness.
Then the hoarse cries again rang through the room.
'Bloody Popish Plot.' 'A Plot discovered.'
'What, yet another Plot?' said Mr. Wogan smiling to Lady Oxford.
'Mr. Walpole discovers plots by the dozen; he is the most active of our guardians, 'said Kelly easily. He dared not look at Rose.
'We must hear more of it,' said Lady Oxford pleasantly, and calling her black boy: 'Run, Sambo, bring this late-flying night-bird of ill omen.'
The boy grinned, and ran away upon his errand. Lady Oxford came up to my Lady Mary Montagu.
'See, madam,' she cried, opening the box of lace with the air of a child that has a new toy.
'See what this kind obliger has brought me from the looms of the Fairy Queen. All point d'Alençon of the finest. Yes, you may well look envious. Here is meat for a Queen.'
The other ladies, deserting the windows when they heard that magical word 'lace,' crowded round, and Kelly was, where many a pretty fellow would have loved to be, in the centre of a perfumed world of fans and hoops, of sparkling eyes and patched faces. Kelly, however, had other business on hand, and, slipping through the group while Lady Oxford was praising her lace, he drew Wogan aside to a window now deserted. There he told him of his conversation with Lady Oxford.
'So you see, Nick, I have to-night free. I mean to run to my lodging, burn the papers, and then—why one has a night free. I may yet outwit my lady. Besides, the papers once burned, there's little proof to condemn me. Speak to Rose, Nick! She will believe you; you never lied to her. Tell her there's no need to despair. Then make speed to the coast. I must go to Ryder Street.'
As he turned, Nick caught him by the arm.
'You must not go yet.'
'Why?'
For answer Wogan turned to the window.
'Stand here in the shadow of the curtain. Across the street; there, in the corner.'
Kelly put his hands to his face to shut out the light of the room, and peered into the darkness.
'There is a man. Who is it?'
'I told you! Scrope. I saw him an hour ago. A link-boy's torch showed me his face. You have to-night free. An hour or so more will make little difference to you, and may tire out our friend there—or he may mean another bout with the sharps.'
'I hope so,' said Kelly.
At this moment Sambo returned with a little damp sheet of the Flying Post, and the laces were forgotten. Sambo carried the sheet to Lady Oxford.
'Faugh,' said she, 'I dare not touch the inky thing!'
Wogan came out from his window, where he left his friend, and took the sheet from the boy's black paw.
'Does your ladyship wish to alarm us all by reading out the news? These Papists are terrible fellows.'
'Read! Read!' said Lady Oxford, with a contented laugh.
Wogan ran his eyes over the print.
'It is scarce fit for ladies' ears,' he said meaningly. 'Some nonsense out of Grub Street. The wretch should be whipped from Temple Bar to Westminster,' and Wogan made as if he would tear the sheet.
Her ladyship hesitated. But she could not guess what the sheet contained, and she knew Mr. Wogan would try to screen his friend.
'Nay, read sir,' she said boldly, 'or must I imperil my own fingers with the foul thing?'
Wogan folded the paper, and with a bow held it out to her ladyship; again she hesitated; she did not take the sheet; she looked into Wogan's face as though she would read the news-sheet there. Curious smiles began to show upon the faces about her, heads to nod, lips to whisper.
'Shall I oblige your ladyship?' asked Mr. Methuen, who stood by.
'If you please,' replied Lady Oxford, but in a less certain tone than she had used before.
Mr. Methuen took the sheet from Wogan's hand, unfolded it, and glanced at it.
'It is indeed scarce fit for your ladyship's ears,' he said; and in his turn he folded it.
The smiles broadened, the whispers increased. Lady Oxford was altogether disconcerted.
'I will read it,' a young voice rang out. Lord Sidney Beauclerk stepped forward, took the sheet from Mr. Methuen, and at once read it aloud. He began defiantly, but towards the end his voice faltered. Mr. Kelly did not turn round, and seemed to pay no heed whatever.
'They write from Paris that a foul Plot against the Throne, and even the sacred Person of His Most Gracious Majesty hath been discovered. In Town, it is thought that a Lady of great Beauty who has a Tory Lord of advanced years and gouty Habit to her Husband, and a young Whig Officer of great Promise for her Friend, hath given the Intelligence to the Minister. Nobody has yet been taken, but the Gentry of the Silver Greyhound are thought to have their eyes on a certain Reverend Nonjuror. We say no more for the present.'
Lord Sidney crumpled up the sheet, and retiring from the circle, slowly tore it in pieces.
'To be sure, they say quite enough,' murmured Lady Mary, and no one else spoke, but all looked to Lady Oxford.
Lady Oxford was brave.
In the silence of the company who were gathered round she spoke.
'Too scurrilous to need a contradiction! Doubtless it is I and my kind lace-dealer who are aimed at. Now Mr. Johnson is here, and is my guest. The inference is plain.'
Mr. Johnson turned from the window and came up to the group.
'My confidence in her ladyship is as great as my certainty that there is no Plot in which I am concerned,' said Kelly, bowing to the lady, and letting his jolly laugh out of him to the comfort of the company who did not smoke his jest. Mr. Wogan admired his friend.
It was now become impossible for Kelly to leave the house. Should he go now, his going would wear all the appearances of a hasty flight, and who knew but what some of Mr. Walpole's spies might be within the room as well as in the street? Kelly must remain and brave it out, as he clearly recognised. For,
'There are ears to be cut for this,' he went on, 'but we had better be cutting the cards.'
'Mr. Johnson holds the bank with me!' cried Lady Oxford. 'After this terrible false alarm I am ready to risk all, and brave everything. I must win enough to pay for my laces; I am much in Mr. Johnson's debt. Sambo, my money box.'
The black boy ran out of the room. Mr. Kelly walked towards the card-table, and as he went, a light hand was laid upon his arm, and Rose's trembling voice whispered in his ear:
'George, you will go. Yes, now, to-night. There may yet be time for you to cross to France.'
Mr. Kelly was comforted beyond words, beyond belief. Rose knew, and she forgave; he had not thought it was in woman's nature. But he was also tempted to fly; his papers unburned, the Cause deserted. The hand upon his sleeve had its fingers on his heart-strings, and was twanging them to a very pretty tune. A few strides would bring him to the doorway, a couple of leaps to the foot of the stairs, and outside was the night.
'You will go,' she repeated, seeing how her voice weakened him. 'Now—now.'
'Yes 'trembled on his lips. It seemed to Rose in her great longing that she heard the word breathed upon the air. But he did not speak it; he spoke no word at all. He started, his mouth dropped, his blue eyes stared, the blood was drained from his cheeks. He stood amazed, like one that sees a ghost. Rose followed the direction of his eyes; she saw the guests, the tables, the candles, but nothing that should so startle her lover.
'What is it?' she asked, fearing any delay that checked the assent she had seen tremble on his lips. 'You will go! You will go!' But even as she spoke she knew that he would not go. His face kept its pallor, but grew resolute, ennobled. He had ceased to think of his own safety.
'I cannot go,' he said.
'Why?'
'Mr. Johnson,' Lady Oxford's voice broke in. Sambo had returned with a casket curiously enamelled. 'Mr. Johnson,' said she, looking into the casket: 'Some five hundred pounds.'
'And six rouleaux,' added Kelly, bringing out the spoils of Hazard with an air.
Rose turned away, her face of a sudden grown very white and hard. She had done her best to make Kelly seek safety, and he would not: could she do more?
The Parson crossed suddenly to Wogan, his face very pale, but with a wonderful bright light in his eyes.
'Nick, I have seen the King, here, in this room, young, happy. The shadow of the hundred years of sorrow of his race has lifted from his forehead.'
'The King is at Antwerp, George. You have not seen him.'
'Then it is his spirit, which has taken form to hearten us,' Kelly whispered in a voice of awe.
'George, you have seen Lord Sidney Beauclerk.' It needed no more than a word to make him understand. He had not seen the King nor the King's appearance, only the King's cousin, Lord Sidney. But now he could not forget any longer that the King's papers were in his lodgings; that at all costs he must reach his lodgings unfollowed; that at all costs those papers must be a little pile of ashes before the morning came.
'The bank is open,' said Lady Oxford. 'Colonel Montague, will you find a lady and be our opposite?'
The glum Colonel bowed in silence, and allied himself with silly smiling Lady Rich. The play was high. The luck had not deserted Kelly, while Lady Oxford paid him a hundred flattering compliments and bantered her military lover, who was not ready at repartee or was not ready then.
'Malheureux en jeu,' said Lady Oxford, repeating the proverb Lady Mary had already quoted that evening. 'How fortunate, Colonel, must be your affections!'
'It is only your ladyship who has all the luck and wins, or wins back if she loses,' answered the Colonel, looking at Mr. Kelly with an evil favour, and her ladyship laughed in pure delight.
There was another game besides Quadrille played at that table. Lady Oxford was setting Colonel Montague and the Parson by the ears. Did she wish to embroil them in a quarrel to make Kelly's ruin doubly sure? Wogan watched the Colonel; he had the first claim upon the Colonel's sword. Mr. Kelly kept smiling and raking in the rippling golden stakes. The company stood round; they had left their tables to see this great battle of Quadrille. At times Wogan caught a glimpse of Rose Townley through a gap in the circle. She could not know why her lover had not fled. She only knew that, in her despite, he stayed in the house of the woman of whom he had told her at Avignon, though his life was in peril; she only saw that woman fawning upon him, and him smiling back to the woman. Lady Mary had stolen her hand into the girl's, that no doubt was cold as marble, and in his heart Wogan blessed her kind ladyship. At last all the tide of gold had turned to Lady Oxford's side of the table. The Colonel rose and confessed defeat.
People began to say their good-byes. Dr. Townley crossed the room to his daughter, who rose at once with a word of thanks to Lady Mary. Mr. Kelly remarked her movement, and with an imploring look bade her wait until Lady Oxford released him.
'Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship, dividing the winnings, 'short accounts make long friends. I think when you reckon up the night you will find that all my great debt to you is fully paid.'
Mr. Kelly bowed, and took the money, his eyes on her flushed face and glittering serpent's eyes. Lady Oxford turned to Colonel Montague.
'Your revenge is waiting for you, Colonel, whenever you are pleased to claim it. To-morrow if you will.'
'Madam, I may claim my revenge to-night,' said the Colonel, and stepped back with his full weight upon Kelly's foot. There was no mistaking the deliberate movement. Lady Oxford made as though she had not seen it, but as she turned away her face had a look of pleasure, which Mr. Kelly remarked.
'Nay, Colonel,' said Wogan, 'you and I have a game to play, you remember. Le Queux's is still open and I claim the first call on your leisure at Hazard.'
Colonel Montague answered Mr. Wogan with a good-nature which the latter did not comprehend.
'I have indeed some words to say to you, sir.'
'But, Colonel,' said the Parson, 'you trod upon my foot. I shall be happy to consult you on the bruise to-morrow.'
'To-morrow?' said Montague, his face hardening instantly. 'I may inquire after it before then,' and so making his bow he got him from the room.
Lady Oxford gave her hand to Wogan and dismissed him with a friendly word. She was so occupied with the pleasure of her revenge that she had altogether forgotten his jest about the ballad. Wogan on his side made his leave-taking as short as could be, for out of the corner of his eye he saw Kelly offering his arm to Miss Townley, and Kelly must not leave the house without Wogan at his side. For, in the first place, Colonel Montague was for a sure thing standing sentinel within ten paces of the door, and after he had run the gauntlet of the Colonel, there was Scrope for him to make his account with, should Scrope attempt to follow in his tracks. Mr. Wogan had a mind to insist upon his first claim to Colonel Montague's attentions, and, once they were rid of him, it would not be difficult to come to a suitable understanding with Scrope should he attempt to follow them to Ryder Street.
Mr. Wogan was indeed already relishing in anticipation the half-hour that was to come, and hurried after the Parson, who was by this time close to the door with Rose upon his arm and Dr. Townley at his heels.
'Good night, Mr. Johnson,' said her ladyship in a lazy voice. 'Take care of yourself, for they tell me the streets are not too safe.'
Kelly dropped Rose Townley's arm and turned back towards Lady Oxford.
'But surely,' said he with some anxiety, 'to-night the streets are safe. Your ladyship assured me of their safety to-night.'
Lady Oxford made no reply for a few seconds, she stood watching Kelly with an indolent smile. A word of Lady Mary's came back to Wogan's mind—a word spoken two years since in Paris, 'She will play cat to any man's mouse.'
'To-night?' said Lady Oxford, lifting her eyebrows, and she glanced towards the clock. It was five minutes to one. Kelly stared at the clock, his mouth open and his eyes fixed. Then he drew his hand across his forehead, and, walking slowly to the mantelpiece, leaned his hands on it in a broken attitude and so stared at the clock again. Lady Oxford had struck her last blow, and the last was the heaviest. Kelly had the night free, but the night was gone—and the streets were not safe. Nothing could be saved now—not even the King's papers. Then Wogan saw a change come over his face. The despair died out of it and left it blank as a shuttered window. But very slowly the shutter opened. He was thinking; the thought became a hope, the hope a resolve. First his knees straightened, then the rounded shoulders rose stiff and strong. In his turn Kelly struck.
'Your ladyship,' he said, 'was kind enough some time ago to entrust me with your own brocades. Those brocades are in the strong box in my lodgings.'
Wogan understood. Brocades was the name for letters in the jargon of the Plot. Lady Oxford's love-letters were in that box which he had handled that very afternoon. If Kelly was seized in the street his rooms would be searched, the King's papers found, and, with the King's papers, Lady Oxford's love-letters. Lady Oxford understood too. Her ingenious stratagems of the evening to discredit the ballad and save her fair fame would be of little avail if the world once got wind of those pretty outpourings of Smilinda's heart. Her face grew very white. She dropped her fan and stooped to recover it. It was noticeable, though unnoticed, that no one of those who were still present stepped forward to pick up the fan. Curiosity held them in chains, not for the first time that evening. It was as though they stood in a room and knew that behind locked doors two people were engaged in a duel. Now and then a clink of steel would assure them that a thrust was made; but how the duel went they could not tell.
When Lady Oxford rose her colour had returned.
'My brocades?' she said. 'Indeed, I had purely forgotten them. You have had them repaired in Paris?'
'Yes, madam,' answered Kelly deliberately. 'I do not think the streets are so unsafe as your ladyship supposes; but I should be sorry for them to fall into any hands but your own if by any chance footpads end my days to-night.'
He bowed and walked towards Rose Townley and her father, who stood in the doorway at a loss what to make of the scene. He had crossed half the distance before Lady Oxford moved. Then, it seemed with one swift step, she stood at Kelly's side.
'Mr. Johnson, you are my prisoner!' she exclaimed. 'My dear brocades! Mr. Johnson, you are surely the most attentive of men. You must tell me how they have been repaired; I shall not close my eyes unless you take pity on my impatience.'
Had Kelly been the man to care for triumphs wrested from a woman, he would have found his occasion now. A minute before, Lady Oxford's eyes glittered with menaces, her face was masterful; now, her eyes besought pity, her face was humbled.
'If your ladyship will permit me,' said Kelly, 'I will return when I have seen Miss Townley to her chair.'
It was a difficult moment for Miss Townley. For to those who looked on it seemed that by some means here was Mr. Johnson brought back into bondage before the very eyes of his betrothed. But Rose was patient of Lady Mary's lesson. 'Tomorrow give him his congé if you will; to-night be staunch! It is for life and honour!' She knew no more, but she was loyal. Wogan had seen men go, for the Cause, to a shameful death by torture. But he never saw courage so unfaltering, or loyalty so true, as this girl's. She was not herself in that hour; she had taken up a part as an actress does, and she played it clean, and played it through. To-morrow she might be a woman again, a woman wronged, deceived, insulted; to-night, with the astonishing valour and duplicity of her sex, she was all in her part, to see nothing, to know nothing, to be staunch.
To the smiles, the simpered sarcasms, the quizzing glances, she paid no heed. She said, with a simple dignity, to Lady Oxford:
'I will not keep Mr. Johnson long. It is but a few steps to your ladyship's door, where my chair waits for me,' and she held out her hand to Kelly. She had her reward. Kelly's face put on a look of pride which no one in the room could mistake. He took her hand with a laugh, and threw back his chest.
'I will return, your ladyship,' he said gaily, and with Rose passed out of the door. The whispers were stilled; the couple went down the stairs in a great silence. Rose bore herself bravely until she had stepped into her chair; showed a brave face then at the window.
'I shall hear of you from France,' she whispered. 'Good-night.'
The chair was carried off; Dr. Townley followed. The Parson returned slowly up the stairs. His heart was full; in Rose's eyes he had seen the tears gathering; no doubt in the darkness of her chair they were flowing now. She would hear of him from France! Well, he had his one weapon—Lady Oxford's letters. If he used that weapon aright, why should she not hear of him from France? By the time he reached the top of the stairs, he was already putting together the words of the letter he should write.
When he re-entered the withdrawing-room, the last few guests, of whom Wogan was one, were taking their departure. Wogan saw Kelly move towards the little card-table which had stood empty. Kelly sat down, and with the fingers of one hand he played with the cards, cutting them unwittingly as though for a deal. It was, after all, he and not Wogan who had to play the hand with the shrouded figure. Wogan had already made his adieux. As he passed out of the door Lady Oxford was standing in the middle of the room plucking at her fan. As he went down the stairs, the door was flung to with a bang. Lady Oxford and Kelly were left alone.