“Sure ’tis pity you’re mewed up here, Kenn, for you’re the lion of the hour. None can roar like you. The betting books at White’s are filled with wagers about you,” Creagh told me.
“About me?” I exclaimed.
“Faith, who else? ‘Lord Pam bets Mr. Conway three ponies against a hundred pounds that Mr. Kenneth Montagu of Montagu Grange falls by the hand of justice before three months from date,’” he quoted with a great deal of gusto. “Does your neck ache, Kenn?”
“Oh, the odds are in my favour yet. What else?” I asked calmly.
“‘Mr. James Haddon gives ten pounds each to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and to Sir Robert Volney and is to receive from each twenty guineas if Mr. K. Montagu is alive twelve months from date.’ Egad, you’re a topic of interest in high quarters!”
“Honoured, I’m sure! I’ll make it a point to see that his Royal Highness and my dear friend Volney lose. Anything else?”
“At the coffee-house they were talking about raising a subscription to you because they hear you’re devilish hard up and because you made such a plucky fight against Volney. Some one mentioned that you had a temper and were proud as Lucifer. ‘He’s such a hothead. How’ll he take it?’ asks Beauclerc. ‘Why, quarterly, to be sure!’ cries Selwyn. And that reminds me: George has written an epigram that is going the rounds. Out of some queer whim—to keep them warm I suppose—Madame Bellevue took her slippers to bed with her. Some one told it at the club, so Selwyn sat down and wrote these verses:
“‘Well may Suspicion shake its head—
Well may Clorinda’s spouse be jealous,
When the dear wanton takes to bed
Her very shoes—because they’re fellows.’”
Creagh’s merry laugh was a source of healing in itself, and his departure to join the Prince put an edge to the zest of my desire to get back into the world. Just before leaving he fished a letter from his pocket and tossed it across the room to me.
“Egad, and you are the lucky man, Kenn,” he said. “The ladies pester us with praises of your valour. This morning one of the fair creatures gave me this to deliver, swearing I knew your whereabouts.”
’Twas a gay little note from my former playmate Antoinette Westerleigh, and inclosed was a letter to her from my sister. How eagerly I devoured Cloe’s letter for news of Aileen may be guessed.
My Dearest ’Toinette:—
Since last I saw you (so the letter ran) seems a century, and of course I am dying to come to town. No doubt the country is very healthy, but Lud! ’tis monstrous dull after a London season. I vow I am already a lifetime behind the fashions. Is’t true that prodigious bustles are the rage? And while I think of it I wish you would call at Madame Ronald’s and get the lylack lute-string scirt she is making for me.
Also at Duprez’s for the butifull little hat I ordered. Please have them sent by carrier. I know I am a vast nuisance; ’tis the penalty, my dear, for having a country mawkin as your best friend.
Of course you know what that grate brother of mine has been at. Gaming I hear, playing ducks and drakes with his money, and fighting duels with your lover. For a time we were dreadfully anxious about him. What do you think he has sent me down to take care of for him? But you would never guess. My love, a Scotch girl, shy as one of her own mountain deer. I suppose when he is recovert of his wounds he will be down here to philander with her. Aileen Macleod is her name, and really I do not blame him. I like her purely myself. In a way quite new she is very taking; speaks the prettiest broken English, is very simple, sweet, and grateful. At a word the pink and white comes and goes in her cheeks as it never does in ours. I wish I could acquire her manner, but Alack! ’tis not to be learnt though I took lessons forever. The gracefull creature dances the Scottish flings divinely. She is not exactly butifull, but—well, I can see why the men think so and fall down in worship! By the way, she is very nearly in love—tho she does not know it—with that blundering brother of mine; says that “her heart iss always thanking him at all events.” If he knew how to play his cards—but there, the oaf will put his grate foot in it.
She came here with a shag-headed gillie of a servant, under the protection of a Captain Macdonald who is a very fine figure of a man. He was going to stay only an hour or two, but Charles persuaded him to stop three days. Charles teases me about him, swears the Captain is already my slave, but you may depend on’t there is nothing in it. Last night we diverted ourselves with playing Hide the Thimble, and the others lost the Scotch Captain and me in the
armory. He is a peck of fun. This morning he left for the North, and do you think the grate Mr. Impudence did not buss us both; Aileen because she is his cousin a hundred times removed and me because (what a reason!) “my eyes dared him.” Of course I was in a vast rage, which seemed to hily delight Captain Impudence. I don’t see how he dared take so grate a preaviledge. Do you?
Aileen is almost drest, and I must go smart myself. My dear, an you love me, write to
Your own Cloe.
P. S.—Lard, I clear forgot! ’Tis a secret that the Scotch enchantress is here. You must be sure not to mention it, my dear, to your Sir Robert, But la! I have the utmost confidence in your discretion.
Conceive my dismay! Discretion and Antoinette Westerleigh were as far apart as the poles. What more likely than that the dashing little minx would undertake to rally her lover about Aileen, and that the adroit baronet would worm out of her the information he desired? The letter crystallized my desire to set out at once for Montagu Grange, and from there to take the road with Miss Macleod hotspur for Scotland. It appeared to me that the sooner we were out of England the better it would be for both of us.
I made the journey to the Grange by easy stages, following so far as I could little used roads and lanes on account of a modest desire to avoid publicity. ’Twas early morning when I reached the Grange. I remember the birds were twittering a chorus as I rode under the great oaks to the house. Early as it was, Cloe and Aileen were already walking in the garden with their arms entwined about each other’s waists in girl fashion. They made a picture taking enough to have satisfied a jaded connoisseur of beauty: the fair tall Highland lass, jimp as a willow wand, with the long-lashed blue eyes that looked out so shyly and yet so frankly on those she liked, and the merry brown-eyed English girl so ready of saucy tongue, so worldly wise and yet so innocent of heart.
Cloe came running to meet me in a flutter of excitement and Mistress Aileen followed more demurely down the path, though there was a Highland welcome in her frank face not to be denied. I slid from the horse and kissed Cloe. Miss Macleod gave me her hand.
“We are hoping you are quite well from your wounds,” she said.
“Quite,” I answered. “Better much for hearing your kind voices and seeing your bright faces.”
I dare say I looked over-long into one of the bright faces, and for a punishment was snatched into confusion by my malapert sister.
“I didn’t know you had heard my kind voice yet,” mimicked Miss Madcap. “And are you thinking of holding Aileen’s hand all day?”
My hand plumped to my side like a shot. Both of us flamed, I stammering apologies the while Cloe no doubt enjoyed hugely my embarrassment. ’Tis a sister’s prerogative to teach her older brothers humility, and Cloe for one did not let it fall into neglect.
“To be sure I do not know the Highland custom in the matter,” she was continuing complacently when Aileen hoist her with her own petard.
“I wass thinking that perhaps Captain Macdonald had taught you in the armory,” she said quietly; and Cloe, to be in the fashion, ran up the red flag too.
It appeared that my plan for an immediate departure from England jumped with the inclination of Miss Macleod. She had received a letter from her brother, now in Scotland, whose plans in regard to her had been upset by the unexpected