Kelly began to laugh outright.
'Sure,' said he, 'I might as well tell her at once her hair is sandy.'
'Oh, she will not examine your words so nicely. She will just perceive that you intend a compliment.'
'And take me for a very impertinent fellow.'
'George' said Wogan, 'for a parson you are a man of a most unnatural modesty.' In which remark Wogan did his friend no more than the merest justice. For he had nothing in common with that usual foible of the young chaplains and tutors who frequent the houses of the great.
To listen to them over a bottle you would think them conquerors of all hearts, from the still-room maid to my lady and her daughters. But Mr. Kelly was in a different case. The Bishop of Rochester himself gave him the character of being prudent and reserved beyond his years. And perhaps it was by reason of that very modesty that he slid insensibly into the thoughts of more women than he knew of. Of these, however, Lady Oxford was not one.
It was about three in the afternoon of the next day when the chaise drove up to the door of the great house at Brampton Bryan. The Parson and Nicholas Wogan had barely stepped into the hall before an inner door opened and my lady came forward to greet them. She was for her sex uncommonly tall, and altogether of a conquering beauty, which a simple country dress did but the more plainly set forth. For, seeing her, one thought what a royal woman she would look if royally attired, and so came to a due appreciation of her consummate appearance. Whereas, had she been royally attired, her dress might have taken some of the credit of her beauty. She stood for a second between the two men, looking from one to the other as though in doubt.
'And which is Mr. James Johnson? 'said she, with a sly emphasis upon the name.
'I am,' said George, stepping forward, 'and your Ladyship's humble servant.'
She gave him a smile and her hand. Mr. Kelly clicked his heels together, bent over the hand and kissed it reverentially.
The lady sighed a quick little sigh (of pleasure) as she drew her hand away.
'I have taken the liberty, your Ladyship,' said Kelly, 'to bring my secretary, Mr. Hilton, with me,' and he waved a hand towards Wogan.
'Mr. Hilton,' she returned, 'is very welcome. For, indeed, we hear too few voices in the house.' She bowed very graciously, but she did not give her hand to Mr. Wogan. 'Gentlemen,' she continued, 'my lord bids me make you his apologies, but he lies abed. Else would he have welcomed you in person.'
'Your Ladyship,' said Kelley, 'if we come at an inopportune time—'
'By no means,' interrupted Lady Oxford. 'My lord is troubled with the gout, but the fit is passing. And if for a couple of days my poor hospitality will content you—'
'Your Ladyship,' protested Kelly, but that was all he said. Now, to Mr. Wogan's thinking, here was as timely an occasion for a compliment as a man could wish. And since Mr. Kelly had not the tact to seize it, why, his friend must come to his help. Accordingly,
'So might the holy angels apologise when they open the gates of Paradise,' said Wogan with his hand on his heart, and bowed. As he bowed he heard some stifled sounds, and he looked up quickly. My lady was crimson in the face with the effort to check her laughter.
'Mr. Hilton is too polite,' said she instantly, with an elaborate courtesy, and turned again to Kelly with some inquiries about his journey. Wogan was shown up the stairs before the inquiries were answered. The staircase ran round the three sides of the hall up to a landing on the fourth, and as Wogan came to the first turn he saw Lady Oxford cross to the great wood fire which was burning on the hearth; when he came to the second he saw that the Parson had crossed too and stood over against her; when he reached the third turn, my lady was seated toasting a foot at the blaze; when he reached the landing, Mr. Kelly had drawn up a chair.
Wogan leaned for a moment over the balustrade. It was a very small foot with an admirably arched instep; Mr. Wogan had seen the like in Spain. Well, very likely she only thrust it out to warm it. The firelight coloured her face to a pretty rose hue, sparkled in her dark eyes, and searched out the gold threads in her brown hair. Mr. Wogan was much tempted to whisper a reminder to his friend concerning her ear. But he resisted the temptation, for after all it seemed there would be little to do about my lady's politics.
CHAPTER IV
SHOWS THE EXTREME DANGER OF KNOWING LATIN
AN hour later the three sat down to dinner, though, for all the talking that one of them did, there might have been present only the two whom Wogan had left chatting in the hall. It was not that Lady Oxford omitted any proper courtesy towards Mr. Johnson's secretary, but the secretary himself, sensible that he was something too apt to say in all companies just what came into his head, was careful to keep his tongue in a strict leash, lest an inconvenient word should slip from him. His deficiency, however, was not remarked. Lady Oxford was young, and for all that my lord lay upstairs in a paroxysm of the gout, she was in the highest feather; she rattled from course to course, plying Mr. Kelly with innumerable questions as to the latest tittle-tattle of the tea-parties, and whether Lady Mary Wortley and Mr. Pope were still the best of friends.
'Then your Ladyship is acquainted with Lady Mary?' says Kelly, looking up with some eagerness. For Lady Mary, then a toast among the wits and a wit among the toasts, was glanced at by some tongues as if, being sister to the Duchess of Mar, she was not of the most loyal to the Elector. The Duke of Mar was still Secretary to King James over the water.
'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 too deliciously cruel for loud speaking. Lady Mary's witticisms, I think, should always be spoken in a low voice, with a suggestive nod and a tap of the forefinger on the table, so that one may not mistake where the sting lies. Not that the sayings are in themselves at all clumsy—how could they be, when she has such clever friends? But they gain much from a mysterious telling of them. You agree with me?'
It was evident that Lady Oxford wasted no love on Lady Mary, and Kelly's face fell.
'Your ladyship,' he replied, 'though I have no claims to be considered clever, I have the honour to be ranked amongst her friends.'
'Indeed!' said she with a light laugh at the rebuff. 'No doubt you have 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 at all 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 not how, encountered her ladyship's. To his horror, Lady Oxford made a moan of pain. Kelly starts up in a hurry.
'Your ladyship is unwell,' says he, and bids the servant bring a bottle 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 the most miserable accident, believe me. A spasm in the leg, madam, the consequence of a sabre cut across the calf,' he explained,
