CHAPTER IV
SHOWS THE EXTREME DANGER OF KNOWING LATIN
An hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all thetalking that one of them did, there might have been present only thetwo whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that LadyOxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary,but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt tosay in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keephis tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slipfrom him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford wasyoung, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of thegout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course tocourse, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latesttittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley andMr. Pope were still the best of friends.
'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, lookingup with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits anda wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, beingsister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to theElector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over thewater.
'Without doubt,' returned Lady Oxford. 'Lady Mary is my bosom friend.The dear malicious creature! What is her latest quip? Tell me, Mr.Johnson, I die to hear it. Or rather whisper it. It will be toodeliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think,should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and atap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake wherethe sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at allclumsy--how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But theygain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'
It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, andKelly's face fell.
'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be consideredclever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'
'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt youhave brought her some of your laces and brocades from France,Mr.--Johnson.' She paused slyly upon the name.
Kelly glanced quickly at her, their eyes met, and the lady laughed.There could be no doubt that she knew something of Kelly's business.Indeed, she would hardly have asked him for the fashionable gossip atall had she taken him for just what he represented himself to be.Wogan put his foot on his friend's pretty heavily, and, he knows nothow, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made amoan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.
'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring abottle of salts.
'No,' she replied with a smile on her lips and her eyes full of tears,'but your secretary has dropped a blot on the wrong paper.'
'Your ladyship,' cried Wogan in an extremity of confusion, 'it was themost miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, theconsequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained, making thematter worse.
'Oh, and in what battle was Mr. Johnson's secretary wounded?' shesaid, taking him up on the instant.
'In a struggle with the Preventive men,' replied Wogan hurriedly, andhe too broke off with a wry face, for Mr. Johnson was warning _him_and with no less vigour. Before he knew what he was doing Wogan hadstooped down and begun to rub his leg. Lady Oxford's smile became alaugh.
'To be sure,' said she, 'and I think Mr. Johnson must have beenwounded too, in just that same way, and in just that same encounter.'
'Faith, madam,' said Kelly, 'the smuggling trade is a hard one. No manengages in it but sooner or later he gets a knock that leaves itsmark.'
Lady Oxford expressed the profoundest sympathy with a great deal ofdisbelief; and when her ladyship left her guests to their wine, theylooked at one another across the table.
'Well,' said Wogan cheerfully, 'if my Lady Oxford is in Mr. Walpole'sinterest we have not made the best beginning in the world,' and in alittle he went off to smoke a pipe in the stables.
Kelly withdrew to the great library, and had not been there manyminutes before Lady Oxford came in. It seemed she did not see him atthe first, although he sat bent up over the fire and his shadow hugeupon the walls. Mr. Kelly certainly did not remark her entrance. Forone thing, he was absorbed in his book; for another, the carpet wasthick and the lady's step of the lightest. She went first to thebookcase, then she crossed the room and shuffled some papers on atable, then she knocked against a chair, the chair knocked against thetable, and at the noise Kelly looked up. He rose to his feet. LadyOxford turned round, started, and uttered a sharp little cry.
'My lady,' began Mr. Kelly.
'Oh, it is you, Mr. Johnson,' she broke in with a hand to her heart,and dropped into the chair. 'I believe,' she said with a broken laugh,'I was foolish enough to be frightened. I fancied you had gone withyour friend to the stables,' which was as much as to say that she knewhe had not. Kelly commenced an apology for so disordering her, but shewould not listen to it.
'No,' she said, 'it is I that am to be blamed. Indeed, such stupidfears need chiding. But in a house so lonely and silent they grow onone insensibly. Indeed, I have known the mere creak of the stairs keepme awake in terror half the night.'
She spoke with the air of one gently railing at her own distress, butshivered a little to prove the distress genuine, and Kelly, as helooked at her, felt a sudden pang of pity.
'Your place, my lady, is not here,' he cried, 'but in the Mall, at theSpring Gardens, in the lighted theatres, when even your ladyship's ownsex would pay you homage for outrivalling them.'
'Nay,' she replied, with the sweetest smile of reproof, 'you go toofast, Mr. Johnson. My place is here, for here my duty lies.' Shelooked up to the ceiling with a meek acceptance of the burden laidupon her fair shoulders. 'But I am not come to disturb you,' shecontinued briskly; 'I came to fetch a book to read aloud to my lord.'At that a sigh half broke from her and was caught back as it were uponher lips. 'Perhaps, Mr. Johnson,' she said in a well-acted flurry,'you will help me in the selection?'
'With all the heart in the world,' said he, laying down his volume.The choice took perhaps longer than need have been, for over each bookthere was some discussion. This one was too trivial to satisfy my LordOxford's weighty mind; that other was too profound to suit his health.'And nothing too contentious, I implore you, lest it throw him into aheat,' she prayed, 'for my lord has a great gift of logic, and willargue with you by the hour over the merest trifle.' This with anotherhalf-uttered sigh, and so the martyr sought her lord's bedside. Itappeared, however, that Lord Oxford was sleepy that night, or had nomind for the music of his lady's voice, for in a very little while shereturned to the library and Mr. Kelly, where Wogan presently foundthem discussing in a great animation the prospects of Mr. Law'sventures.
'You are in for a great stake?' she asked.
'For all I have,' replied Kelly, 'and a little more. It is not a greatsum.'
'But may become one,' said she, 'and will if a friend's good wishescan at all avail.' And so she wished her guests good night.
The next morning Lord Oxford sent a message that he was so farrecovered as would enable him to receive his visitors that afternoon.Meanwhile Lady Oxford, after breakfast carried off the two gentlemento visit a new orchard she was having planted. The orchard was open tothe south-west, and Kelly took objection to its site, quoting Virgilin favour of a westerly outlook.
'Ah, but the west wind,' she said, 'comes to us across the Welshmountains, which even in the late spring are at times covered deep insnow. However, I should be pleased to hear the advice of Virgil,' andthe Parson goes off to the library and fetches out a copy.
It was a warm day in April, with the sky blue overhead and the budsputting out on the trees, and for the most part of that morning Mr.Kelly translated the Georgics to her ladyship, on a seat under a greatyew-tree, in a little square of grass fenced off with a hedge. Shelistened with an extraordinary complaisance, and now and then acompliment upon the Pars
on's fluency; so that Mr. Wogan lost all hisapprehensions as to her meddling in the King's affairs. For, to histhinking, than listening to Virgil, there was no greater proof offriendship.
Nor was it only upon this occasion that she gave the proof. LordOxford was a difficult man from his very timidity, and the Parson'svisit was consequently protracted. His lordship needed endlessassurances as to the prospects of a rising on behalf of King James,before he would hazard a joint of his little finger to support it. Whowould take the place of the Royal Swede? Could the French Regent bepersuaded to lend any troops or arms or money, or even to wink? Hadthe Czar been approached? Indeed he had, by Wogan's brother Charles.And what office would my Lord Oxford hold when James III. was crowned?Each day saw these questions reiterated and no conclusion come to.Lady Oxford was never present at these discussions; the face of herconduct was a sedulous discretion. It is true that after a little shedropped the pretence of laces, and, when the servants were notpresent, styled the Parson 'Mr. Kelly.' But that was all. 'These arenot women's matters,' she would say with a pretty humility, and thenrise like a queen and sail out of the room. Mr. Wogan might havenoticed upon such occasions that the Parson hesitated for a littleafter she had gone, and spoke at random, as though she had carried offsome part of his mind from affairs with the waft of her hoop. But hewaited on the lady's dispositions and set down what he saw of hisfriend's conduct at the time as merely the consequence of an endeavourto enlist her secrecy and good-will.
These councils with Lord Oxford took place, as a rule, in theafternoon, his lordship being a late riser, and even when risencapable only of sitting in a chair, with a leg swathed in a mountainof flannel. So that, altogether, Mr. Kelly had a deal of time upon hishands, and doubtless would have found it hang as heavy as Nick Wogandid, but for the sudden interest he took in Lady Oxford's new orchard.He would spend hours over the 'Observations on Modern Gardening,' andthen,
'Nick,' he would cry,' there's no life but a country life. One wakesin the morning, and the eye travels with delight over the greenexpanse of fields. One makes friends with the inanimate things ofnature. Nick, here one might re-create the Golden Age.'
'To my mind,' says Nick, 'but for the dogs and horses it would bepurely insupportable. With all the goodwill in the world I cannot makefriends with a gatepost, and I'm not denying I shall be mightily gladwhen the wambling old sufferer upstairs brings his mind at last to ananchor.'
But the Parson was already lost in speculation, and would presentlywake to ask Wogan's opinion as to whether a Huff-cap pear waspreferable to a Bar-land. To which he got no answer, and so, snatchingup his Virgil, would go in search of Lady Oxford. He acquired, indeed,a most intimate knowledge of apples and pears, and would discoursewith her ladyship upon the methods of planting and grafting asthough he had been Adam, and she Flora, or, rather, our mother Eve,before the apple was shared between them. For apples the store, thehayloe-crab, the brandy-apple, the red-streak, the moyle, thefoxwhelp, the dymock-red; for pears the squash pear, the Oldfield, thesack-pear, never a meal passed but one of these names cropped up atthe table and was bandied about between Kelly and her ladyship like atennis-ball. Now all this, though dull, was none the less reassuringto Wogan, who saw very clearly that Lady Oxford was altogether devotedto country pursuits, and wisely inferred that while there might resultconfusion in the quality of the pears, there would be the lessdisorder in the affairs of the Chevalier.
Moreover, her ladyship's inclination towards Mr. Kelly plainlyincreased. He translated the whole of the second book of the Georgicsto her, five hundred and forty-two mortal lines of immortal poetry,and she never winced. Nor did she cry halt at the end of them, but,thereafter, listened to the Eclogues; and, all at once, theirconversation was sprinkled with Melib[oe]us and M[oe]ris, and Lycidasand Mopsus, and Heaven knows what other names. Mr. Wogan remembersvery well coming upon them one wet afternoon in the hall when it wasgrowing dark. The lamps had not been lit, and Kelly had just finishedreading one of the pastorals by the firelight. Lady Oxford sat withher hands clasped upon her knees, and, as he closed the book,
'Oh for those days,' she cried, 'when a youth and a maid could roambarefoot over the grass in simple woollen garments! But now we must gofurbelowed and bedecked till there's no more comfort than simplicity,'and she smoothed her hand over her petticoat with a great contempt forits finery. Lady Mary Wortley, to whom Wogan related this sayingafterwards, explained that doubtless her ladyship had laced her staystoo tight that morning; but the two men put no such construction onher words, nor, indeed, did they notice a certain contradictionbetween them and Lady Oxford's anxiety for London gossip--the Parson,because he had ceased to do anything but admire; Wogan, because alittle design had suddenly occurred to him.
It was Lady Oxford's patience under the verses which put it intoWogan's head. For since she endured to listen to poetry about treesand shepherds, poetry about herself must be a sheer delight to her.So, at all events, he reasoned, not knowing that Lady Oxford hadalready enjoyed occasion to listen to poetry about herself from LadyMary's pen, which was anything but a delight. Accordingly he hinted tohis friend that a little ode might set a firm seal upon herfriendliness.
'Make her a Dryad in one of the trees of her own orchard, d'ye see?'he suggested; 'something pretty and artful, with sufficient allusionsto her beauty. Who knows but what she may be so flattered as to carrythe verses against her heart; and so, when some fine day she bringsher husband's secrets to Mr. Walpole, she may hear the paper cracklingagainst her bodice, and turn back on the very doorstep.'
'She will carry no secrets,' replied Kelly with a huff. 'She is tooconscious of her duties. Besides, she knows none. Have you not seenher leave the room the moment politics are so much as hinted of?'
'True,' said Wogan. 'But what's her husband for except to provide herwith secrets when they are alone to which she cannot listen withoutimpertinence in company?'
Kelly moved impatiently away. He stood with a foot upon the fender,turning over the pages of his Virgil.
'You allow her no merit whatsoever,' he said slowly with a greatgentleness.
'Indeed, but I do,' replied Wogan. 'I allow that she will be charmedby your poetry, and that's a rare merit. She will find it as soothingas a soldier does a pipe of tobacco after a hard day's fighting.'
'I would not practise on her for the world,' says Kelly with just thesame gentleness, and goes softly out by the door.
Wogan, however, was troubled by no such delicate scruples. An ode mustbe written, even if he had to write it himself. He slapped hisforehead as the notion occurred to him. The ode might be dropped asthough by accident at some spot where her ladyship's eyes could notfail to light on it. Wogan heaved a deep breath, took a turn acrossthe room, and resolved on the heroical feat. He would turn poet tohelp his friend. For two nights he fortified himself with the perusalof Sir John Suckling's poems, and the next morning took pencil andpaper into the garden. He walked along the terrace, and seated himselfon the bench beneath the yew-tree. Wogan sucked strenuously at hispencil.
'Strephon to his Smilinda, running barefoot over the grass in a galeof wind,' he wrote at the top, and was very well pleased with thetitle. By noonday he had produced a verse, and was very well pleasedwith that, except, perhaps, that the last line halted. The verse ranas follows:--
Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chide The wind that wantons with thy hair; The grass will all his prickles hide Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare. And, listen, the enamoured air Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair. At night the stars are mirrors which reflect Thine eyes: at least that is what I expect.
Mr. Wogan spent an hour and three pipes of tobacco over his unwontedexercise, which brought him into a great heat.
Having finished the verse he blew out his cheeks and took a rest fromhis labours. It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bright as amidsummer day. To his right the creepers were beginning to stretchtheir
green tendrils over the red bricks of the garden wall. To hisleft half-a-dozen steps led up to a raised avenue of trees. Woganlooked down the avenue, noted the border of spring flowers, and aflash of a big window at the extreme end; and in all the branches thebirds sang. The world seemed all together very good, and his poemquite apiece with the world. Wogan stretched his arms and kicked outhis feet. His feet struck against something hard in a tuft of grass.He stooped down and picked it up. It was Kelly's Virgil. The book wasopen, and the pages all blotted and smeared with the dew. It hadevidently lain open on the grass by the bench all night. Wogan wipedthe covers dry, and, using it as a desk, settled himself to thecomposition of his second verse. He had not, however, thought of anopening for it before a voice hailed him from behind.
He turned round and saw Kelly coming towards him from the direction ofthe orchard, and at that moment the opening of his verse occurred tohim; Strephon offered to Smilinda his heart's allegiance. Wogan sethis pencil to the paper, fearful lest he should forget the line.
'Nick,' cries Kelly, waving a bundle of letters, and starts to run.Wogan slipped his paper between the leaves of the book; just as he didso, Strephon, in return for his heart's 'allegiance,' asked forSmilinda's soft 'obedience.'
'Nick,' cries Kelly again, coming up to the bench, 'what d'you think?'
'I think, 'says Wogan, 'that interruption is the true source ofinspiration.'
'What do you mean?' asked Kelly, looking at Wogan's pencil.
'I mean,' says Wogan, looking at the cover of the book, 'that if Ilived by my poetry, I would hire a man to rap at my door all daylong.'
Kelly, however, had no ears for philosophy.
'Nick,' says he, 'will you listen to me, if you please? I have aletter from Miss Oglethorpe. It explains--'
'Yes,' interposed Wogan thoughtfully. 'It explains why the best poetsare ever those who are most dunned by their creditors.'
Kelly snatched the Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to thegrass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, andit was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.
'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with thegrandest news, and you must babble about poets and creditors. Nick,there'll be few creditors to dun you and me for a bit. Just listen,will you?'
He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench, and read from hisletter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had beenpublished in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West theexclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.
'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livresto 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it iswe are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbaredevil! We shall be rich before August.'
'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping upin the contagion of his friend's good spirits..
'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping atonce into the Irish accent.
'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and hesprang on to the seat.
'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out ofblack pearls.'
'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a gravingtool.'
'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' saidKelly.
'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to hisfriend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said heearnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces ofeight, and doubloons, and guinea-pieces; and all tied up in sacks.'
'What will we do with it?' asked Kelly.
'Why, sit on the sacks,' replied Nick, and then grew silent. He lookedat Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.
'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's alizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a stepaway from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.
'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not afarthing of it is mine at all.'
'Now, that's a damned scurvy ungenerous remark,' replied George.'Haven't I borrowed half of your last sixpence before now?'
Wogan got down from the seat.
'Poverty may take a favour from poverty, George, and 'tis all verywell.'
Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung aleg to and fro.
'I don't want the money,' said he, with a snort.
'My philosophy calls it altogether an encumbrance,' said Wogan,sitting down by his side.
Kelly turned his back on Wogan, and stared at the garden-wall. Then heturned back.
'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan'sthigh. 'We'll give it to the King. He can do no more than spend it.'
'He will certainly do no less.' But they did not give it to the King.
Wogan was sitting turned rather towards the house, and as he lookeddown the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and LadyOxford come out.
'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and herose from his seat.
'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quicklyto the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on thefirst step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kellystood on the grass at the foot of the steps, and told her of his news.
'The shares,' he ended, 'have risen to double value already.'
It seemed to Wogan that her eyes flashed suddenly with a queer,unpleasant light, and the hand which was resting idly on thebalustrade crooked like the claws of a bird. He had seen such eyes,and such a hand, at the pharo tables in Paris.
'It is the best news I have heard for many a day,' she said the nextinstant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked byMr. Kelly's side towards the bench.
'And what will you do with it?' she asked. It was her first question,for she was a practical woman.
'In the first flush,' replied Kelly, hesitating as to how he shouldput the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it issorely needed.'
She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a stepto the seat with her eyes on the ground.
'Oh,' she observed slowly; 'you would give it away.' There was,perhaps, a trifle of a pucker upon her forehead, perhaps a shade ofdisappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. Sheclasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens,her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'thenoblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more suchfriends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit ofgenerosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as ifin prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed thedestination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled GeorgeKelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from hisappearance, found it very much to his taste.
'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' shecontinued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they haverisen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if youwill but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit whichprompts it.'
'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be carefulto follow it.'
Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kellydid not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an eventoccurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.
All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat,the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a littlein advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquelyover her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thusher whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch,suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart intoher cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixedher eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been strucka buffet acr
oss the face.
'Your ladyship--' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of hergaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved,Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, consciousglance at his face.
'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turnedabout.
Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He wasof the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing,a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, thefeatures rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows.Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certainsinister distinction--stranger, for that he was to the two men at thistime, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought hehad seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there;and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he hadused much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge,and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxfordand her guests were discussing the Parson's good fortune.
As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat,made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.
'Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant.'
He laid a stress upon the word 'obedient,' and uttered it with ameaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shiftedher position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand asthough she would draw him nearer.
The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in hisexpression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.
'Mr. George Kelly,' he said quietly, and bowed again. 'The ReverendMr. George Kelly, I think,' and he bowed a third time, but lower, andwith extreme gravity.
Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly thestranger turned to him.
'Ah,' said he, 'Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,' and he took a thirdstep. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; hefell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity theattitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no smallsatisfaction.
'Sure, my unknown friend,' said he, 'I think something has tripped youup.'
'Yes,' said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a bookfrom the grass.
'It is,' said he, 'a copy of Virgil.'