Mr. Kelly

“ Kelly, who caught her in his arms and set her in an arm-chair. The maid, who all this while had been standing in the doorway, smiled. 'I will run to her ladyship's dressing-room for the salts,' she said, and so went out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Kelly kneeled by the lady's side, and taking up her fan, sought to waft her that way back into the world. She did not stir so much as a muscle, but lay all huddled up in her domino and mask. Mr. Kelly leaned over her, and so became aware of a penetrating perfume which breathed out from her dress. ”

“ The impulse, the movement, the words had all been the matter of a second; but the executioner was more than naturally startled, as Mr. Kelly might have perceived had he possessed his five wits. For the man leaped rather than stepped back; he gave a gasp; his hand gripped tight about the handle of his axe. Then he stepped close to Kelly.
'You know me?' he said. The voice was muffled, the accent one of menace. Kelly noticed neither the voice nor the menace. He bowed with ceremony.
'Without a doubt. You are M. de Strasbourg.'
The headsman laughed abruptly like a man relieved. ”

“ Mr. Kelly leaned back in his chair open-mouthed. 'Scrope?' he asked.
'Scrope,' replied her ladyship. 'I received a humble letter from him praying that I would forgive his odious ingratitude, and, by way of peace-offering, bidding me tell my Lord Oxford—'
'Who had already withdrawn,' said George. 'I think I understand,' Lady Oxford's look of humiliation had enlightened him, 'and I think your ladyship understands with me. Mr. Scrope is a sort of a gentleman, and would prefer to do his dirty work without appearing as a spy. He has made use of your ladyship. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that those same fumes of punch floated Lady Oxford into Mr. Kelly's mind. He swaggered up St. James's Street with her ladyship consequently riding atop of his bemused fancies. It was a gay hour in St. James's, being then about half past one of the morning. Music rippled out of windows open on the night. Kelly heard the dice rattle within and the gold clink on the green cloth; lovers were whispering on the balconies; the world seemed to be going very well for those who had not their money in the Bubble, and for no one better than for Mr. Kelly. ”

“ Mr. Kelly heard a crack.
'What is the matter?' he asked, in a low voice.
'The key is filled with dust, or the lock is jammed,' Montague whispered back. 'I have broken open the box with the guard of my sword.'
'Be quick,' said Kelly. 'Make sure you have Smilinda's letters.'
All this while he had not looked towards the scrutoire. The most that he saw was the shadow of the Colonel thrown on the wall of the room by the single candle, a shadow monstrous big that held the shadow of a paper to its eyes. It is to be said in Mr. Kelly's defence that he dared not look about him. ”

“ Carriages and chairs set down in quick succession, ladies in dominoes, gentlemen in masks. Mr. Kelly remembered that it was a night of the masquerades; all the world would be gathered in the theatre, and why not Lady Oxford, who was herself the better half of it? Kelly had a ticket in his pocket, pushed through the loiterers, and stood on the inner rim of the crowd watching the masqueraders arrive. Every carriage that drew up surely concealed her ladyship, every domino that passed up the steps hid her incomparable figure. ”

“ Thereupon the girl turned round.
'Harlequin,' she called to the dog, and showed Mr. Kelly as sweet a face as a young man ever deserved to see. It was fresh and clear as the morning dew, with frank eyes and a scarlet bow of a mouth ready for a laugh. 'Harlequin!' said Mr. Kelly to himself with a start, as he looked towards the girl. Harlequin trotted off to his mistress, and got prettily chided for his forwardness, of which chiding he made little or no account, and very properly. It is not every dog that achieves immortality by stretching itself against a stranger's knee. But Harlequin did. ”

“ Colonel Montague and Hutchins were standing in Mr. Kelly's room close to the scrutoire and the open window.
Mr. Kelly, Lyng, who was a big lout, designed by Providence for this office and no other, and the maid, were in the passage. Randall and Chandler were outside in the street and at their wits' ends to keep back the mob, which was now grown very clamorous.
Mr. Kelly was the first to make any movement. He sheathed his sword, carefully dusted the sleeves of his coat where the Messengers had held him and arranged his cravat.
'These are ill times for a peaceful man to live in,' he said. ”

“ Lady Oxford was not abashed by the rebuke. She turned upon the Colonel eyes that swam with pity for Mr. Kelly's misfortunes.
'I read that he was taken,' she said sadly. 'Poor gentleman! But he should have burnt my letters long ago. They were letters written, as we women write, with a careless pen and ill-considered words which malice might misconstrue. He should have burnt them, as he swore to do; but he broke his word, and so, alas! pays most dearly for his fault. ”

“ The portrait was beautifully set with diamonds.
'It shall be buried with me,' said Kelly, and so Lady Oxford let him go, but called him back again when he was through the door to make him promise again that he would not part with her portrait. Mr. Kelly wondered a little at her insistence, but set it down to the strength of her affection. So he departed from the cave of the enchantress with many vows of mutual constancy and went to Rome, and from Rome he came back to Genoa, where he fell in with Nicholas Wogan. ”

“ Had Kelly been the man to care for triumphs wrested from a woman, he would have found his occasion now. A minute before, Lady Oxford's eyes glittered with menaces, her face was masterful; now, her eyes besought pity, her face was humbled.
'If your ladyship will permit me,' said Kelly, 'I will return when I have seen Miss Townley to her chair.'
It was a difficult moment for Miss Townley. For to those who looked on it seemed that by some means here was Mr. Johnson brought back into bondage before the very eyes of his betrothed. But Rose was patient of Lady Mary's lesson. ”

“ What conversation passed between the four gentlemen Wogan has already told, and he has mentioned how the Colonel went away, and how, after using pains to prevent Mr. Scrope from catching a cold, he himself withdrew to court slumber, and left Mr. Kelly alone in the moonlight.
Mr. Kelly did not remain in the open, but lay perdu on the shadowy side of the grove. Concealing himself from any chance of a rencounter, he allotted a space of twelve minutes by his watch, and time never paced more tardy with him in all his life. ”

“ To-morrow she might be a woman again, a woman wronged, deceived, insulted; to-night, with the astonishing valour and duplicity of her sex, she was all in her part, to see nothing, to know nothing, to be staunch.
To the smiles, the simpered sarcasms, the quizzing glances, she paid no heed. She said, with a simple dignity, to Lady Oxford:
'I will not keep Mr. Johnson long. It is but a few steps to your ladyship's door, where my chair waits for me,' and she held out her hand to Kelly. She had her reward. Kelly's face put on a look of pride which no one in the room could mistake. ”

“ Kelly—not bothering much with letters at all.”
“You'll be longing for a line, though, Capt'n—that's only natural.”
“No news is good news—I can lave it with her.”
“Of coorse, that's truth enough, yes! But still and for all, a taste of a letter—it's doing no harm, Capt'n—aisy writ, too, and sweet to get sometimes, you know—shows a woman isn't forgetting a man when she's away.”
“Mr. Kelly! Mr. Kelly!” said Pete, with his hand before his face, palm outwards.
“Not necessary? Well, I lave it with you. Good-night, Capt'n.”
“Good-night to you, sir,” said Pete. ”

“ Wogan had enough sense to strangle his jealousy that night, and was heartily ashamed of it the next morning when he bade the couple good-bye and set out for Paris.
Mr. Kelly took his leave a few days later, being now sufficiently recovered to travel. The precise date was the eighth of April. To part from Rose you may well believe was a totally different matter from his adieus to Smilinda. Nothing would serve the poor girl, who had no miniature and diamonds to give, but to sacrifice what she prized most in the world after her father and her lover. ”

“ Masterson to Mr. Kelly.
That night Mr. Masterson met Mr. Kelly, Mr. Wright and Mr. Short at the Long Branch and laid bare a plan. Its simplicity impressed Mr. Masterson’s hearers; Mr. Wright even waxed enthusiastic.
“It’ll win!” he cried, smiting the poker table about which the four were gathered.
“It shore looks it,” coincided Mr. Short. “In any event we lose nothin’; we can always fall back on the guns.”
At the latter intimation Mr. Kelly nodded solemnly. While not mercurial, Mr. Kelly was in many of his characteristics one with Cimarron Bill. ”

“ Now, Mr. Kelly was, after all, a human being. It was all very well in the first flush of prosperity to propose to scatter his few thousands, but afterwards he had come to see that they would not go so very far. Besides, he had now obvious reasons for desiring to cut as agreeable a figure as he could. At all events the money still remained with Mr. Child, the goldsmith, and so he told her ladyship, with a little remorse.
'Then,' she cried in joy,' that chance has come for which Smilinda has been longing. My presents, Strephon, you have always refused,' which was true enough ”

“ There was a little quiver in her voice as she said the words. She looked at him with appeal in her eyes.
"I know," said Kelly.
With a slight effort she went on. "He—Burke—thinks otherwise. And because of that, he won't let me see Guy again. He is very angry with me—I doubt if he will ever really forgive me—for following Guy to this place. But,—Mr. Kelly,—I had a reason—an urgent reason for doing this. I hoped to be back again before he found out; but everything was against me."
"Ah! Didn't I know it?" said Kelly. "It's the way of the world in an emergency. Nothing ever goes right of itself." ”

“ Instantly M. de Strasbourg ran across the road to the carriage, the coachman bent over on that side to watch, and Mr. Kelly, on the other side, ran forward to the box. M. de Strasbourg wrenched open the door and jumped into the carriage. Mr. Kelly heard a woman's scream and sprang on to the box. The coachman turned with a start. Before he could shout, before he could speak, Kelly showed him a pistol (for he went armed) under the man's nose. ”

“ For Kelly, it seemed, after all held the trumps in his hand; he had but to play them aright and the game was his.
'The longer he takes to play them the better,' murmured Wogan, as he stood on the steps of Lady Oxford's house and looked briskly about him. For to his left, standing openly in the moonlight, he saw a tall martial figure wrapped in a cloak, and the end of a scabbard shining beneath the cloak, while across the road his eyes made out a hunched form blotted against the wall. The figure in the cloak was Colonel Montague; the skulker would no less certainly be Mr. Scrope. ”

“ Nevertheless, being a gentleman, he will not abandon your ladyship's cause.'
Lady Oxford was in no way comforted.
'It may well be as you say,' she returned with a look at Mr. Kelly. She had already one example of how much a gentleman could forgive a woman when she stood in need of his help. 'But, Mr. Kelly, you cannot come at Colonel Montague.'
'Why not?'
'You know very well that he lodges in the same house as yourself. I sent a lackey with a note to you, yesterday. And your reply was dated from 13 Ryder Street.'
Mr. Kelly stepped back, he could hardly believe his ears. ”

“ One might fancy they are the first peach blossoms that ever blossomed in the world. Now she comes on again just as carelessly, but perhaps the carelessness is a thought too careful, eh? However, she does not look this way. Watch for her surprise, my friend, when she can't but see you. She will be startled, positively startled. Oh, she does not know you are here.'
The girl walked to the steps, mounted them, her face rose above the level of the wall.
'Oh,' she cried, 'Mr. Kelly!' in an extremity of astonishment. Wogan burst out into a laugh. ”

“ A man like me, with a man's longings and a man's despair, but, unlike me, robbed of a nation. Day by day delay shadowed his eyes and wrote upon his face until the face became an open book of sorrows. Yet himself would say, "Perish the Cause, perish all but honour,"' and, suddenly throwing up his arms, Mr. Kelly cried out in a voice of great passion and longing, 'The King! ”

“ Being afraid, and being a man of honour, Kelly did nothing, said nothing on the head of his old love affair, and trembled with apprehension of he knew not very well what. A path of flowers stretched before him, but a shadow walked on it, a tall, handsome shadow, yet unfriendly. It is Mr. Wogan's firm belief, based on experience, that a woman always finds everything out. The only questions are, when, and how will she take it? Sometimes it is a letter in the pocket of an old coat which the dear charitable creature is giving to a poor devil of a chairman. ”

“ I'm going home now. I—I want you to take it, please. There are some sandwiches—with veal loaf, that Looey Sam makes deliciously—and some cake. I—I wish it was more. I know you'll like the veal loaf.”
Kelly looked down at her, and God knows what thoughts were in his mind. He did not answer her with words; he just swallowed hard.
“Poor devil!” was what Keith said to himself, and the gun he was holding threatened, for a minute, to wing a cloud.
Beatrice laid the package in Kelly's unresisting hand, looked up into his averted face and said simply: “Good-by, Mr. Kelly.” ”