Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to the grass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, and it was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.
'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with the grandest 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 his letter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had been published in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West the exclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.
'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livres to 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it is we are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbare devil! We shall be rich before August.'
'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping up in the contagion of his friend's good spirits..
'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping at once into the Irish accent.
'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and he sprang on to the seat.
'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out of black pearls.'
'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a graving tool.'
'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' said Kelly.
'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to his friend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said he earnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces of eight, 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 looked at Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.
'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's a lizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a step away from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.
'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not a farthing 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 very well.'
Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung a leg 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 he turned back.
'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan's thigh. '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 looked down the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and Lady Oxford come out.
'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and he rose from his seat.
'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quickly to the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on the first step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kelly stood 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 the balustrade 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 next instant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked by Mr. 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 should put the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it is sorely needed.'
She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a step to 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 of disappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. She clasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens, her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'the noblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more such friends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit of generosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as if in prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed the destination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled George Kelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from his appearance, found it very much to his taste.
'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' she continued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which prompts it.'
'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be careful to follow it.'
Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kelly did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event occurred 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 little in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch, suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck a buffet across the face.
'Your ladyship—' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved, Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious glance at his face.
'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turned about.
Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing, a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows. Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain sinister distinction—stranger, for that he was to the two men at this time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he had seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there; and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had used much at one time.
