Volume Iii Part 15 (1/2)
The royalties had eaten heavily and departed, much pleased with their entertainment.
”I thought the supper-table looked like a larder,” said Lady Judith, fanning herself indolently, as she half reclined in a great carved oak chair. ”Any one but a German would have been nauseated by such a plethora of food.”
”But 'twas just what they like,” replied Philter. ”I saw your ladys.h.i.+p had all his Majesty's favourite dishes.”
”I ought to know his tastes, after those wearisome dinners at Richmond Lodge, over which I have groaned in spirit on so many a Sat.u.r.day,” said Judith.
”Ah, I grant you, madam, those Richmond dinners are an abomination,”
retorted Philter, who would have forfeited five of his declining years to have been bidden to one.
”The king is as fond of punch as his lamented father, who used to get amicably drunk with Sir Robert every afternoon, after a morning's shooting in the New Park at Richmond last year, when the minister had a temporary lodging on the hill there,” said Bolingbroke.
”In spite of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal and her Germans, who did their best to cut short that pleasant easy conviviality between his Majesty and Robin,” said Philter.
And now Bolingbroke made his adieux, with that blending of stately grace and friendly familiarity which const.i.tutes the charm of the grand manner, and little Philter tripped out at his heels, leaving Lavendale alone with his host and hostess. Judith looked at him furtively from under her drooping lashes, wondering for what purpose he had lingered so long. There had been no word of explanation between them since that broken appointment last summer. They had met only in public, and had simpered and chattered as if the most indifferent acquaintance. And now it seemed very strange to Judith, as a woman of the world, that Lavendale should make himself conspicuous by outstaying all her other guests.
”I have waited till the last, Mr. Topsparkle,” said his lords.h.i.+p gravely, ”in the hope that, late as the hour is, you would honour me with a few words in private.”
”There is no hour in which I am not at your lords.h.i.+p's service,” replied Topsparkle, with his airiest manner; yet there was a look of anxiety in his countenance which his wife noted.
”Is your business of such a private nature that even I may not hear it?”
she asked lightly, hiding keenest anxiety under that easy manner.
”Husband and wife are supposed to have no secrets from each other.”
”That is a supposition which must have been out of date in the Garden of Eden, madam,” said Lavendale. ”Be sure Eve had her little mysteries from Adam after that affair of the apple had taught her a prudent reserve.”
”Then I wish you good-night, gentlemen, and leave you to a masonic secrecy,” said Lady Judith, emerging with slow and languid movements from the depths of the great oak chair, sinking almost to the ground in a stately curtsey to Lavendale, and then gliding from the room, a dazzling vision of powder and patches, diamonds and ostrich feathers, alabaster shoulders and gold brocade.
She was gone, the servants had retired, all save the Swiss porter who dozed in his chair; and Lavendale and Topsparkle were alone in front of the hearth.
”Your lords.h.i.+p may converse at your ease,” said Topsparkle, ”that fellow has not a word of English.”
He employed foreign locutions at times, like Lord Hervey, a modish affectation of the time which distinguished the gentleman who had travelled from the country b.u.mpkin.
”I am going to speak to you of the past, Mr. Topsparkle. I am here to do you a friendly office, if I can.”
”Indeed, my lord, I have no consciousness of being at this present moment in need of friendly offices; nor do I think it is any man's business to concern himself about another man's history. The past belongs to him who made it.”
”Not always, Mr. Topsparkle. There are occasions when the history of the past concerns the law of the land--when undiscovered crimes have to be brought to light--and when wicked deeds, unrepented of and unatoned, have to be accounted for.”
”As in the case of Mr. Jonathan Wild and his young friend Jack Sheppard,” said Topsparkle. ”Your proposition is indisputable. But did your lords.h.i.+p outstay the company to tell me nothing newer in the way of argument or fact?”
”No, sir; I am here to talk to you of your own crime, committed in this house, forty years ago; suspected at the time by a town which was not slow to give expression to its opinion; confessed only the other night by your tool and accomplice, Louis Fetis.”
”The hysterical ravings of a drunken valet are about as trustworthy as the libels of electioneering pamphleteers; and I am surprised that a man of the world like your lords.h.i.+p should concern himself with such folly,” said Topsparkle. ”The slander was as baseless as it was malicious.”
”Yet it drove you from England.”
”No, my lord; I left England because I was tired of a country in which the fine arts were still in their infancy. We have been improving since Handel and Bononcini came to London. In William's time there were not half a dozen good musicians in the kingdom. I wonder, Lord Lavendale, that you should take occasion to insult me upon the strength of a slander which I trampled out forty years ago, when my slanderers stood in the pillory.”