"Is in a fair way to forget her duty to a latter husband," asserted the buck, regaling himself with a pinch of smoked rappee out of the handle of his clouded cane.
Three or four of Durnford's acquaintance came to the box in the course of the evening, and were duly presented to his bride, whom they had all recognised as the beauty and heiress of Arlington Street, a star that had flashed upon the town for a brief space, to disappear into rustic obscurity.
"I feared, Mrs. Bosworth, that this poor little smoky town of ours was never again to be illumined by your beauty," said Mr. Philter, who was one of the first to press an entrance into the box.
"Mrs. Bosworth belongs only to history," said Herrick; "I have the honour to present you to Mrs. Durnford."
"What, Herrick! you astound me. Can fortune have been so lavish, and can destiny have been so blind, when your obedient servant Thomas Philter still sighs and worships at the shrine of beauty a miserable bachelor?"
"I have heard you boast 'tis your own fault," laughed Herrick. "It is Philter who is wilful and reluctant, not Venus who is unkind."
"I grant that good easy lady has always been gracious," answered the scribbler gaily; "but how did you manage this business, Durnford? how reconcile a wealthy landed gentleman to the incongruity of a man of letters as a son-in-law?"
"Faith, Philter, since the incongruity seemed somewhat irreconcilable, we have taken the matter into our own hands. 'Twas Parson Keith who tied the knot, at ten o'clock this morning."
"The Reverend Alexander is the most useful man of the age, and this new Mayfair chapel is the true gate of Paradise," said Philter; and then with much flourish he congratulated Irene upon her marriage with his friend.
"Your father will come round, madam," he said. "They all do. They curse and rage and stamp and blaspheme for a time, are more furious than in a fit of podagra; but after a storm comes a calm, and the tyrant softens to the doating grandfather. No argument so potent as a son and heir to melt the heart of a wealthy landowner."
"I'm afraid, Philter, your impressions of the paternal character are mostly derived from the stage," said Durnford. "In a comedy the sternest parent is obliged to yield. No father's wrath can survive the fifth act. The curtain cannot come down till the lovers are forgiven. But in actual life I take it there is such a thing as an obstinate anger which lasts till the grave. However, we mean to soften Mr. Bosworth, if dutiful feeling and a proper sense of our own misconduct can soften him."
"Do you mean to tell him you repent, eh, you dog?" asked Philter.
"Not for the world would I utter such a lie. I glory in the rebellion which has gained me this dearest prize."
CHAPTER II
"O, TO WHAT END, EXCEPT A JEALOUS ONE?"
The married lovers were startled at their breakfast next morning by the arrival of Mdlle. Latour in a hackney chair. She had travelled up from Fairmile to the Hercules Pillars in Piccadilly by the heavy night coach, and had come from the inn in a chair. She looked worn and haggard with fatigue and anxiety.
"I knew where I should find my runaway," she said, clasping Irene in her arms, and covering her fair young face with tearful kisses. "I went first to Mr. Durnford's lodgings, where the woman told me he was staying at Lord Lavendale's house in Bloomsbury, and the same chair brought me here. O Irene, what a trick you have played us!"
"I loved him too well to give him up," faltered the girl. "If there had been any hope of winning my father's consent I would have waited for it. But tell me, Maman, how does he take my disobedience? Is he dreadfully angry?"
"Alas, yes, ma chérie, his anger is indeed dreadful. I can conceive no kind of wrath more terrible. It is a silent anger. He sits alone in his room, or paces the corridors, and none of us dare approach him. Once he went into Mrs. Layburne's room, and was closeted with her for an hour; and then that awful calm broke in a tempest of angry words. Do not think that I listened at the door, Rena, in a prying spirit. I was in the hall, near enough to hear those furious tones, but not one word of speech. I could hear her voice, and it had a mocking sound. I believe in my heart, Rena, that the woman is a demoniac, and would glory in any misfortune of her master's. She has brooded over that house like an evil spirit, and the domestic quiet of our lives has been pain and grief to her. And now she flaps her wings like a bird of evil omen, and croaks out her rapture, and riots in your father's anguish."
"Why should he suffer anguish?" asked Irene. "I have married an honest man."
"Ah, but he had his own ambitious schemes for your marriage. You were to be a great lady, or you were at least to join wealth to wealth. Consider that he has given himself up so long to the labour of money-making that he has grown to think of money as the beginning and end of life. He will die with his mind full of 'Change Alley and the rise and fall of stocks."
"Then how could I help disappointing him – I who care so little for money?" pleaded Rena.
"And so Mrs. Layburne has been playing the devil," said Durnford. "Well, I am not surprised. I have heard some particulars of that lady's history from those who were familiar with her in her youth, early in Queen Anne's reign, and who remember her as a handsome fury, with the voice of an angel and the temper of a fiend. She sang in Camilla with Valentini, that first mongrel opera in which two or three of the principal performers sang in Italian and all the rest in English. It was just before Congreve and Vanbrugh opened their new theatre in the Haymarket. She was then in the heyday of her beauty. She is not so old a woman as you may think her. She wore herself out untimely by the indulgence of an evil temper. But what of her health, Mademoiselle? Think you she is long for this world?"
"I believe that a few weeks will see that stormy nature at rest for ever."
"Then, Rena, the sooner we beard the lion – nay, I mean no disrespect to your father – the better for all of us. If Mademoiselle has no objection, we will take her back in our coach. I mean to start for Fairmile as soon as ever we can get a team of horses from the livery-yard."
"What, you will take Rena back to her father!"
"Only to justify my conduct and hers, and to obtain his forgiveness."
"What, in his present mood," exclaimed the little Frenchwoman, with a scared countenence, "before time has softened him, while his anger rages at white heat! You ought to wait at least a year. Let him begin to miss his daughter's presence; to yearn after her, to mourn for her as one who is dead; and then let her stand before him suddenly some day, rising like a ghost out of the grave of the past, and fall on her knees at his feet. That will be the hour for pardon."
"I have a bolder card to play," said Durnford, "and I mean to play it. Mrs. Layburne is an element in my calculations; and I must have this business settled with the Squire while she is above ground."
"Better wait till she is dead and forgotten. Be assured she will never act the peacemaker. She will fan the flame of Mr. Bosworth's fury and goad him to vengeance. She hates my innocent Rena, hates every creature to whom the Squire was ever civil."
"Her very hatred may be made subservient to our interests. There is no use in arguing the matter, dear Mademoiselle. I mean to have an understanding with Mr. Bosworth, and I think I shall succeed in convincing him that he has very little right to be angry."
"You are an obstinate young man," said Mademoiselle, with a shrug which expressed a kind of despairing resignation.
"Did my father send in pursuit of me?" asked Rena.
"Not he. When we told him you were missing – 'twas I had to do it, I, who had been appointed by him as your guardian, and who had kept so bad a watch – he grew white with anger, and for some moments was speechless. Then he said in a strange voice, which he tried to make calm and steady, 'She has run off with her penniless lover, I make no doubt. So be it. She may starve with him, beg, thieve, die on the gallows with him, for all I care.' I tell you this, Mr. Durnford, to show you the kind of temper he is in, and how unwise it were to make your supplication to him at such a time."
"And