CHAPTER VII

The total disappearance of the pair of heroes who had been the latest in

the conspiracy to vex his delicate charge, gave Mr. Beamish a high

opinion of Caseldy as an assistant in such an office as he held. They had

gone, and nothing more was heard of them. Caseldy confined his

observations on the subject to the remark that he had employed the best

means to be rid of that kind of worthies; and whether their souls had

fled, or only their bodies, was unknown. But the duchess had quiet

promenades with Caseldy to guard her, while Mr. Beamish counted the

remaining days of her visit with the impatience of a man having cause to

cast eye on a clock. For Duchess Susan was not very manageable now; she

had fits of insurgency, and plainly said that her time was short, and she

meant to do as she liked, go where she liked, play when she liked, and be

an independent woman--if she was so soon to be taken away and boxed in a

castle that was only a bigger sedan.

Caseldy protested he was as helpless as the beau. He described the

annoyance of his incessant running about at her heels in all directions

amusingly, and suggested that she must be beating the district to recover

her 'strange cavalier,' of whom, or of one that had ridden beside her

carriage half a day on her journey to the Wells, he said she had dropped

a sort of hint. He complained of the impossibility of his getting an hour

in privacy with his Chloe.

'And I, accustomed to consult with her, see too little of her,' said Mr.

Beamish. 'I shall presently be seeing nothing, and already I am sensible

of my loss.'

He represented his case to Duchess Susan:--that she was for ever driving

out long distances and taking Chloe from him, when his occupation

precluded his accompanying them; and as Chloe soon was to be lost to him

for good, he deeply felt her absence.

The duchess flung him enigmatical rejoinders: 'You can change all that,

Mr. Beamish, if you like, and you know you can. Oh, yes, you can. But you

like being a butterfly, and when you've made ladies pale you're happy:

and there they're to stick and wither for you. Never!--I've that pride. I

may be worried, but I'll never sink to green and melancholy for a man.'

She bridled at herself in a mirror, wherein not a sign of paleness was

reflected.

Mr. Beamish meditated, and he thought it prudent to speak to Caseldy

manfully of her childish suspicions, lest she should perchance in like

manner perturb the lover's mind.

'Oh, make your mind easy, my dear sir, as far as I am concerned,' said

Caseldy. 'But, to tell you the truth, I think I can interpret her creamy

ladyship's innuendos a little differently and quite as clearly. For my

part, I prefer the pale to the blowsy, and I stake my right hand on

Chloe's fidelity. Whatever harm I may have the senseless

cruelty--misfortune, I may rather call it--to do that heavenly-minded

woman in our days to come, none shall say of me that I was ever for an

instant guilty of the baseness of doubting her purity and constancy. And,

sir, I will add that I could perfectly rely also on your honour.'

Mr. Beamish bowed. 'You do but do me justice. But, say, what

interpretation?'

'She began by fearing you,' said Caseldy, creating a stare that was

followed by a frown. 'She fancies you neglect her. Perhaps she has a

woman's suspicion that you do it to try her.'

Mr. Beamish frenetically cited his many occupations. 'How can I be ever

dancing attendance on her?' Then he said, 'Pooh,' and tenderly fingered

the ruffles of his wrist. 'Tush, tush,' said he, 'no, no: though if it

came to a struggle between us, I might in the interests of my old friend,

her lord, whom I have reasons for esteeming, interpose an influence that

would make the exercise of my authority agreeable. Hitherto I have seen

no actual need of it, and I watch keenly. Her eye has been on Colonel

Poltermore once or twice his on her. The woman is a rose in June, sir,

and I forgive the whole world for looking--and for longing too. But I

have observed nothing serious.'

'He is of our party to the beacon-head to-morrow,' said Caseldy. 'She

insisted that she would have him; and at least it will grant me furlough

for an hour.'

'Do me the service to report to me,' said Mr. Beamish.

In this fashion he engaged Caseldy to supply him with inventions, and

prepared himself to swallow them. It was Poltermore and Poltermore, the

Colonel here, the Colonel there until the chase grew so hot that Mr.

Beamish could no longer listen to young Mr. Camwell's fatiguing drone

upon his one theme of the double-dealing of Chloe's betrothed. He became

of her way of thinking, and treated the young gentleman almost as coldly

as she. In time he was ready to guess of his own acuteness that the

'strange cavalier' could have been no other than Colonel Poltermore. When

Caseldy hinted it, Mr. Beamish said, 'I have marked him.' He added, in

highly self-satisfied style, 'With all your foreign training, my friend,

you will learn that we English are not so far behind you in the art of

unravelling an intrigue in the dark.' To which Caseldy replied, that the

Continental world had little to teach Mr. Beamish.

Poor Colonel Poltermore, as he came to be called, was clearly a victim of

the sudden affability of Duchess Susan. The transformation of a stiff

military officer into a nimble Puck, a runner of errands and a sprightly

attendant, could not pass without notice. The first effect of her

discriminating condescension on this unfortunate gentleman was to make

him the champion of her claims to breeding. She had it by nature, she was

Nature's great lady, he would protest to the noble dames of the circle he

moved in; and they admitted that she was different in every way from a

bourgeoise elevated by marriage to lofty rank: she was not vulgar. But

they remained doubtful of the perfect simplicity of a young woman who

worked such changes in men as to render one of the famous conquerors of

the day her agitated humble servant. By rapid degrees the Colonel had

fallen to that. When not by her side, he was ever marching with sharp

strides, hurrying through rooms and down alleys and groves until he had

discovered and attached himself to her skirts. And, curiously, the object

of his jealousy was the devoted Alonzo! Mr. Beamish laughed when he heard

of it. The lady's excitement and giddy mien, however, accused Poltermore

of a stage of success requiring to be combated immediately. There was

mention of Duchess Susan's mighty wish to pay a visit to the popular

fortune-teller of the hut on the heath, and Mr. Beamish put his veto on

the expedition. She had obeyed him by abstaining from play of late, so he

fully expected, that his interdict would be obeyed; and besides the

fortune-teller was a rogue of a sham astrologer known to have foretold to

certain tender ladies things they were only too desirous to imagine

predestined by an extraordinary indication of the course of planets

through the zodiac, thus causing them to sin by the example of celestial

conjunctions--a piece of wanton impiety. The beau took high ground in his

objections to the adventure. Nevertheless, Duchess Susan did go. She

drove to the heath at an early hour of the morning, attended by Chloe,

Colonel Poltermore, and Caseldy. They subsequently breakfasted at an inn

where gipsy repasts were occasionally served to the fashion, and they

were back at the wells as soon as the world was abroad. Their surprise

then was prodigious when Mr. Beamish, accosting them full in assembly,

inquired whether they were satisfied with the report of their fortunes,

and yet more when he positively proved himself acquainted with the

fortunes which had been recounted to each of them in privacy.

'You, Colonel Poltermore, are to be in luck's way up to the tenth

milestone,--where your chariot will overset and you will be lamed for

life.'

'Not quite so bad,' said the Colonel cheerfully, he having been informed

of much better.

'And you, Count Caseldy, are to have it all your own way with good luck,

after committing a deed of slaughter, with the solitary penalty of

undergoing a visit every night from the corpse.'

'Ghost,' Caseldy smilingly corrected him.

'And Chloe would not have her fortune told, because she knew it!' Mr.

Beamish cast a paternal glance at her. 'And you, madam,' he bent his

brows on the duchess, 'received the communication that "All for Love"

will sink you as it raised you, put you down as it took you up, furnish

the feast to the raven gentleman which belongs of right to the golden

eagle?'

'Nothing of the sort! And I don't believe in any of their stories,' cried

the duchess, with a burning face.

'You deny it, madam?'

'I do. There was never a word of a raven or an eagle, that I'll swear,

now.'

'You deny that there was ever a word of "All for Love"? Speak, madam.'

'Their conjuror's rigmarole!' she murmured, huffing. 'As if I listened to

their nonsense!'

'Does the Duchess of Dewlap dare to give me the lie?' said Mr. Beamish.

'That's not my title, and you know it,' she retorted.

'What's this?' the angry beau sang out. 'What stuff is this you wear?' He

towered and laid hand on a border of lace of her morning dress, tore it

furiously and swung a length of it round him: and while the duchess

panted and trembled at an outrage that won for her the sympathy of every

lady present as well as the championship of the gentlemen, he tossed the

lace to the floor and trampled on it, making his big voice intelligible

over the uproar: 'Hear what she does! 'Tis a felony! She wears the stuff

with Betty Worcester's yellow starch on it for mock antique! And let who

else wears it strip it off before the town shall say we are

disgraced--when I tell you that Betty Worcester was hanged at Tyburn

yesterday morning for murder!'

There were shrieks.

Hardly had he finished speaking before the assembly began to melt; he

stood in the centre like a pole unwinding streamers, amid a confusion of

hurrying dresses, the sound and whirl and drift whereof was as that of

the autumnal strewn leaves on a wind rising in November. The troops of

ladies were off to bereave themselves of their fashionable imitation old

lace adornment, which denounced them in some sort abettors and associates

of the sanguinary loathed wretch, Mrs. Elizabeth Worcester, their

benefactress of the previous day, now hanged and dangling on the

gallows-tree.

Those ladies who wore not imitation lace or any lace in the morning, were

scarcely displeased with the beau for his exposure of them that did. The

gentlemen were confounded by his exhibition of audacious power. The two

gentlemen nighest upon violently resenting his brutality to Duchess

Susan, led her from the room in company with Chloe.

'The woman shall fear me to good purpose,' Mr. Beamish said to himself.