Parson Kelly/Chapter 11

R. WOGAN then returned to Morlaix, and, finding his ketch by this time cleaned and refitted, and two others (the Revolution, a big ship of 40 guns, under Morgan, which was afterwards seized by Commodore Scot at Genoa, and the Lady Mary, a smaller vessel of 14 guns, commanded by Captain Patrick Campbell) at anchor in the harbour, he set sail for the Downs. There they picked up four thousand small arms and a couple of hundred kintals of cannon powder, for traffic, it was alleged, on the coasts of Brazil and Madagascar. But the arms and ammunition travelled no further than Bilboa, where they were stored in the country house of Mr. Brown, an Irish merchant of that part, against the next expedition to England. At Bilboa the three ships parted, and Mr. Wogan, taking in upon freight such goods as he could get, sailed to Genoa, and lay there behind the Mole.

Nor was the Parson to tarry long behind him in London; for less than a fortnight after Wogan's departure, he was sent to carry to Rome, for the Chevalier's approval, a scheme of a lottery for raising a quarter of a million pounds, which Mr. Christopher Layer (later hanged) most ingeniously imagined. With the scheme he carried some silk stockings as a present for the Chevalier and his spouse. This was none of the Bishop of Rochester's work, who knew nothing of Mr. Layer, and of what was later plotted by bold and impatient spirits. The Parson had sad work parting with Smilinda, but made light of the separation to save the lady from distress, and she had happily broken a bank at pharo that same night, which withheld her from entirely breaking her heart. Still, it was as affecting an affair as one could wish for.

The Parson received certain orders of Atterbury's as to business with General Dillon, the Chevalier's manager in Paris, just before he was to start; and, coming from the Deanery at Westminster where the Bishop resided, he walked at once through Petty France to Queen's Square. Lady Oxford's house was all in a blaze of light with figures moving to and fro upon the blinds of the windows. 'Mr. Johnson' was announced, but for some little while could not get a private word with her ladyship, and so stood of one side, taking his fill of that perfumed world of fans and hoops, of sparkling eyes and patches and false hearts wherein Lady Oxford so fitly moved. Many of the faces which flitted before his eyes were strange to him, but one he remarked in particular—a strong, square sort of face set on the top of an elegant figure that wore the uniform of the King's Guards. Mr. Kelly had seen that face under the oil-lamp of a portico in Ryder Street on the occasion when he and Nicholas Wogan set out on their first journey to Brampton Bryan, and the officer who owned the face was now a certain Colonel Montague.

Kelly remarked him because he was playing at the same table with her ladyship, and losing his money to her with all the grace in the world. At last Lady Oxford rose, and, coming towards him:

'Well?' she murmured, 'my Strephon is pale.'

'I leave for Rome to-morrow morning,' he returned in a whisper. At that her hand went up to her heart, and she caught her breath.

'Wait,' said she, and went back to her cards. As the guests were departing some two hours later, she called to Kelly openly.

'Mr. Johnson leaves for Paris to-morrow morning, and has the great kindness to carry over some of my brocades, which indeed need much better repairing than they can get in London.'

It made an excuse for Mr. Johnson to stay, but none the less provoked a smile here and there; and Colonel Montague, deliberately coming to a stop a few paces from Kelly, took careful stock of him. The Colonel did not say a word, but just looked him over. Mr. Kelly was tickled by the man's impudence, and turned slowly round on his heels to give him an opportunity of admiring his back. Then he faced him again. The Colonel gravely bowed his thanks for Mr. Kelly's politeness, Mr. Kelly as gravely returned the bow, and the Colonel stalked out of the door. It was in this way that Mr. Kelly and the Colonel first met.

But the moment Smilinda and Strephon were left alone!

'Oh,' wailed Smilinda, and her arms went round Strephon's neck. 'Heureuse en jeu, malheureuse en amour. O fatal cards, would that I had lost this dross!' cries she, with her eyes on the glittering heap of guineas and doubloons strewed about the table. 'Oh, Strephon, thou wilt forget me in another's arms. I dread the French syrens.'

And then Mr. Kelly to the same tune:

'Never will I forget Smilinda. If I come back with the King, and he makes me a Bishop, with a pastoral crook, thy Strephon will still be true.'

Whereat the lady laughed, though Kelly was jesting with a heavy heart, and vowed that Lady Mary would write a ballad on 'Strephon, or the Faithful Bishop.' Then she fell into a story of lovely Mrs. Tusher, the Bishop of Ealing's wife, who was certainly more fair than faithful. Next she wept again, and so yawned, and gave him her portrait in miniature.

'You will not part with it—never—never,' she implored.

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.

Mr. Wogan remembers very well one night on which the pair of them, after cracking a bottle in Grimble's tavern, came down to the water-gate and were rowed on board of Wogan's ketch. This was in the spring of the year 1721, some four or five months since the Parson had left England, and Wogan thought it altogether a very suitable occasion for what he had to say. He took the Parson down into his cabin, and there, while the lamp flecked the mahogany panels with light and shade, and the water tinkled against the ship's planks as it swung with the tide, he told him all that he had surmised of Lady Oxford's character, and how Lady Mary had corroborated his surmises. At the first Mr. Kelly would hear nothing of his arguments.

'It is pure treason,' said he. 'From any other man but you, Nick, I would not have listened to more than a word, and that word I would have made him eat. But I take it ill even from you. Why do you tell me this now? Why did you not tell it me in London, when I could have given her ladyship a chance of answering the slander?'

'Why,' replied Wogan, 'because I know very well the answer she would have made to you—a few words of no account whatever, and her soft arms about your neck, and you'd have been convinced. But now, when you have not seen her for so long, there's a chance you may come to your senses. Did you never wonder what brought Scrope to Brampton Bryan?'

'No need for wonder since she told me.'

'She told you, did she? Well, I'm telling you now, and do you sit there until I have told you, for Mr. Scrope's history you are going to hear. Bah, leave that bodkin of a sword alone. If you draw it, upon my soul I'll knock you down and kneel on your chest. Mr. Scrope went before you in her ladyship's affections.'

Here Mr. Kelly flinched as though he had been struck, and thereafter sat with a white stern face as though he would not condescend to answer the insinuation. 'Sure he was a gentleman—out of Leicestershire, and of some fortune, which fortune Lady Oxford spent for him. He was besides a sad, pertinacious fellow, and nothing would content him but she must elope with him from her old husband, and make for themselves a Paradise on the Rhine. It appears that he talked all the old nonsense—they were man and wife in the sight of God, and the rest of it. Her ladyship was put to it for shifts and excuses, and at the last, what with his money being almost spent, and his suit more pressing, she fled into the country where we met her. Scrope was no better than a kitten before its eyes are opened, and, getting together what was left of his fortune, followed her with a chaise, meaning to carry her off there and then. However, he found us there, and I take it that opened his eyes. And I would have you beware of Mr. Scrope, George. A kitten becomes a cat, and a cat has claws. It is Lady Mary's thought that you have not heard the last of him, for his conscience hath made him a kind of gentleman spy on the honest party.'

George, who in spite of himself could not but see how exactly Wogan's account fitted in with and explained Scrope's attempt after the masquerade, caught at Lady Mary's name with an eager relief.

'Ah, it was she gave you this flimsy story,' he cried, leaning forward over the table. 'There's more malice in it than truth, Nick. The pair of them have been at loggerheads this long while. Lady Mary never could suffer a woman who can hold her own against her. Why, Nick, you have been gulled,' and he lit his pipe, which he had let go out.

'Oh, and have I? Well, at all events, I have not stripped myself of every penny in order to pay Lady Oxford's losses at cards. Scrope is not the only man whom her ladyship has sucked dry.'

'What do you mean?' cried Kelly, letting his pipe slip out of his fingers and break on the floor. Wogan told him of his visit to Lady Mary, and the story was so circumstantial, the dates of the loss at cards and the payment so fitted with Lady Oxford's message to Kelly and her proposal as to the placing of his fortune, that it could not but give him pause.

'It is not true,' was all he could find to say, and 'I'll not believe it,' and so fell to silence.

'You'll be wanting another pipe,' said Wogan. He fetched one from a cupboard and filled it. The two men smoked for a while in silence. Then Kelly burst out of a sudden:

'Nick, the fool that I was ever to preach that sermon in Dublin,' and stopped. Wogan knew well enough what the Parson meant. His thoughts had gone back to the little parsonage, and the rambling cure of half a dozen parishes, and the quiet library, and evenings by the inn-fire, where he would tell his little trivial stories of the day's doings. It was always that dream he would play with and fondle when the world went wrong with him, though to be sure, could the dream have come true, he would have been the unhappiest man that ever breathed Irish air.

'Shall we go on deck?' Wogan proposed.

It was a fine clear night, but there was no moon. The riding-lights of ships at anchor were dotted about the harbour, the stars blazed in a rich sky; the water rippled black and seemed to flash sparks where the lights struck it; outside the harbour the Mediterranean stretched away smooth as a slab of marble. Kelly stood in the chains while Wogan paced up and down the deck. The Parson was in for his black hour, and silent companionship is the only alleviation for the trouble. After a time he came towards Wogan and caught him by the arm, but so tight that Wogan could feel his friend's finger-nails through the thick sleeves of his coat.

'I'll not believe it,' Kelly argued; but it was against himself he was arguing now, as Wogan perceived, and had the discretion to hold his tongue. ' 'Faith,' he continued, 'she came into my life like a glint of the sun into a musty dark room,' and then he suddenly put his hand into his bosom and drew out something at which he looked for a moment. He laughed bitterly and swung his arm back. Before, however, he could throw that something into the sea Wogan caught his hand.

'Sure,' said he, 'I saw a sparkle of diamonds.'

Kelly opened his hand and showed a miniature.

'Lady Oxford's diamonds,' he answered bitterly, 'which she did not sell, but gave out of a loving, generous heart.'

'George, you're moon-struck,' said Wogan. 'Diamonds, after all, are always diamonds.'

'True,' said Kelly, 'and I promised never to part with them,' he sneered. He put the miniature back in his pocket, and then dropping his arm to his side said,

'Put me ashore, Nick. I will see you to-morrow. I am very tired.'

But in the morning he was gone, and a few days later Nick, who was not spared certain prickings of conscience for the hand he had taken in bringing about the Parson's misfortunes (he had just now, by hindering him from throwing away the miniature, taken more of a hand than he guessed), sailed out from Genoa.

The rest of that year '21 was a busy time for all engaged in forwarding the Great Affair. England itself seemed ripe for the attempt, and it was finally determined to hazard it in the spring of the next year, when the Elector would be in Hanover. The new plan was that the exiled Duke of Ormond, whom the soldiers were thought to love, should sail from Spain with the Earl Marischal, Morgan, and Halstead, commanding some ragged regiments of Mr. Wogan's countrymen. The Duke was to land in the west, the King was to be at Antwerp ready to come over, and the young Prince Charles of Wales, who would then be not quite two years old, was to be carried to the Highlands. A mob was to be in readiness in town, with arms secretly buried; the soldiers were expected to declare for High Church and Ormond; and in a word the 'honest party' was to secure its interest on its own bottom, without foreign help, which the English people has never loved. The rich lords, but not Bishop Atterbury, knew of the beginning of this scheme, but abandoned it. They did not know, or only Lords North and Grey knew, that the scheme lived on without them.

Mr. Kelly therefore had his hands full, and it was very well for him that it was so. There were things at stake of more moment than his love-affairs, as he was the first to recognise. Yet, even so, he had time enough, in the saddle and on the sea, to plumb the black depths of his chagrin and to toss to and fro that shuttlecock of a question, whether he should accuse her ladyship for her trickeries or himself for misdoubting her. However, he got a complete answer to that question before the year was out. It was his habit now, whenever he was in London, to skulk out of sight and knowledge of Lady Oxford, to avoid theatres, routs, drums, and all places where she might be met, and Mr. Carte the historian took his place when it was necessary to visit Lord Oxford in the country. Mr. Carte had a ready pretence, for Lord Oxford kept a great store of old manuscripts concerning the history of the country, and these beauties, it is to be feared, came somewhat between Mr. Carte and his business, just as her ladyship's eyes had come between Mr. Kelly's and his. Accordingly the Parson saw little of her ladyship and heard less, since his friends avoided all mention of her and he himself asked no questions.

'Saw little,' and the phrase is intended. For often enough of an evening his misery would fetch him out of the coffee houses and lead him like a man blindfold to where her ladyship was accustomed to visit. There he would stand in the darkness of the street until the door opened and Lady Oxford, all smiles and hooped petticoats, would trip gaily out to her chair. But very likely habit—the habit of her conversation and appearance—had as much to do with this particular folly as any despairing passion. How many lovers the wide world over fancy they are bemoaning their broken hearts, when they are only deploring their broken habits! Well, Mr. Kelly, at all events, took the matter au grand sérieux, and so one night saw her ladyship come out from the porch of Drury Lane theatre in company with Colonel Montague.

There is one unprofitable piece of knowledge which a man acquires who has ever had a woman make love to him; he knows when that woman is making love to someone else. Lady Oxford's modest droop of the head when the Colonel spoke, her shy sidelong smile at him, her red lips a trifle parted as though his mere presence held her in a pleased suspense—all these tokens were familiar to Mr. Kelly as his daily bread, and he went home eating his own heart, and nursing a quite unjustifiable resentment against Nicholas Wogan for that he ever saved the Colonel's life. It did not take Kelly long to discover that his suspicions were correct. A few questions to his friends, who for his sake had kept silence, and the truth was out. Lady Oxford's constancy had lasted precisely seven weeks before the Whig colonel had stepped into the Jacobite parson's shoes. Mr. Kelly put his heart beneath his heel and now stamped her image out of it. Then he went upon his way, and the King's business took him to Avignon.