Moll Davis: a comedy

The voice ceased, and the music. A sort of universal sigh seemed to breathe from the hearts of the listeners. It was like a sigh of waking. The girl wiped her eyes, and sniffed, and laughed.

“Well, what next?” she said defiantly.

Chesterfield, the least impressible of the group, took a furious step forward.

“That mask,” he said hoarsely, “that mask!” and without the least demur she whipped it from her face, and stood saucily before them. He turned on his wife.

“You see, madam? Your friend!”

“No friend of mine!” cried her ladyship. “How dare you so insult me?”

He stared bewildered.

“No friend of yours? Did you not invite her to our house?”

“Never! You know you did yourself.”

“I? Before God, no! I thought she was your guest.”

“What is this, my lord? And I thought her yours.”

“Mine? I had never seen her in my life before. That hussy!”

Again that amazed inquisition of the delinquent.

“Hussy yourself!” cried Moll. And then she screamed with laughter. “O! don’t look so perplexed, good people! It’s all right. Neither of you invited me. I invited myself.”

“Yourself?” cried my lady, dumbfounded.

“Why, you see, my dear,” said Moll, “as you weren’t on speaking terms, I thought I might risk it, as each of you would suppose the other had asked me. And so I did; and so it turned out; and I’ve had a good time, a killing time, and I thank you both for it. And I’m glad to see your little difference is made up at last, and to know that I’m after all the one you’ve got to thank for it.”

“You?” cried her ladyship, with infinite scorn.

“Yes, me, my dear,” said Moll. “Now don’t be nasty about it. ’Twas I, you know, wrote all those letters and arranged this little mixture, by which you’ve come to profit.”

“You infamous creature!” said Kate. “Who suggested this trick to you?”

Hamilton, if he did not look, felt, supremely uncomfortable. But he need not have feared his confederate’s loyalty. “Honour amongst thieves” was a good enough motto for her.

“Kit,” said Mrs. Moll. “’Tis a rare little impy when it chooses.”

He breathed again. As for his Highness, he had already, realizing that he had been well fooled, and unwilling to risk any further compromising revelations, slipped quietly and unostentatiously away.

Kate breathed her disdain.

“I will know,” she began, and paused. Perhaps, after all, she did know—or guess. Her indignant eyes sought her cousin.

“Be wise,” said Hamilton, with a laugh, “and leave it at that. When all’s said, you know, ’tis very truth that she’s to thank, however she chose to work it, for this—this tender reconciliation.”

She turned her shoulder on him and his sneering, and again addressed Moll—

“Was it not enough to impose yourself on us, as you did, without setting your wicked wits to work to spite us in this fashion? Why did you do it?”

“O!” said Mrs. Davis nonchalantly, “I was tired of you all and your tragic ways; and I wanted some fun; and there was none to be got out of that jealous grumps of a husband of yours; and—and so I played for a general post. What then, and what cause have you, of all people, to blame me for it?”

Now, at that, Chesterfield, uttering an oath, made a run for the saucy creature, as if he were minded to strike her.

“No, damn it, Phil!” cried Hamilton, moving to interpose—“hold your hand. What cause have you either, for that matter!”

“Cause!” cried the nobleman, glaring round. “What the devil do you do defending her? Are you in her confidence? Cause, by God! I’ll have her by the heels for a common rogue and impostor—I’ll——” and he was making for the girl again.

She struck out at him, with a little shriek.

“Jack Davis,” she cried, “are you going to see your wife ill-treated before your eyes?”

There was a rustle in the shadows, and a long form came bounding out, and seemed to tumble towards the mound.

“Zounds!” ejaculated Hamilton, “his wife! If it isn’t the harping prodigy!” He whistled. “’Tis all plain now.”

“Hold, sir!” cried the musician. “This is indeed my wife.”

He ascended the mound, and stood shoulder to shoulder beside that injured lady. Chesterfield fell back, snorting, while Kate ran to him and clutched his arm. That touch, so desired, so unfamiliar, seemed to fall like balm on his passion.

Moll looked up, with a twinkle of dismal resignation, at the sad, adoring face above her.

“So you’ve found me at last, Jack,” she said, “and all my fun’s over, I suppose, for the present. Well-a-day!” and she heaved a great sigh. “How did you know me?”

“Know you!” he exclaimed; and O, the aching tragedy, to him, implied in those two words! “Was not your voice enough, child, when you cried ‘Brava!’ There is none other like it in all the world. I followed it—when I could, and some instinct led me hither. And then and then—O, I wondered if you could be moved in the old way; and—and——”

“And I was moved, Jack; I had to sing when you made me. Lud, if you could only be always the angel your playing makes you! But”—she heaved her shoulders pettishly—“well, I must come back to be your wife again, I suppose.”

“Will you, Molly?” Poor wretch—the rapture and the marvel!

“O yes!” she said indifferently. “Well, what have you been doing with yourself all this while?”

“Playing for bread,” he answered. “I took another name—Bannister—my mother’s; and I think it blessed me. I have been making a reputation and a fortune, Molly.”

“A fortune!” cried the lady, opening her eyes. “Then I’ll come with you, sure. La, now! what must all these folks think of us, making love in public?”

She led him down from the mound, up to the listening group, astonished spectators of this domestic reunion. She was quite cool and impudent.

“These are some of my friends, Jack,” says she—“or were, till a moment ago. You don’t ask me what I’ve been doing since we quarrelled and parted. Well, they’ll tell you, if you are curious, only don’t you believe all they say.” And then she addressed the company: “My lord—hem!—ladies and gentlemen. I’ve found, though quite unexpected, the husband I came to London to seek, not the one I meant but an old one I had thought used up. Never mind for that; and I daresay both my lady and me know what it is to wear a turned gown; but the point is that, if you ever doubted of my respectability—and some of you may; not all, perhaps, recognizing the thing when they see it—here’s the proof of it to answer you, and so shall remain, until we quarrel again and go our ways as before.”

“No, no!” said the radiant creature, with a patient smile.

“No, no!” croaked Hamilton, with a laugh.

“To spite you,” cried Moll, blazing on him, “I’d live with him for ever—at least, for part of it!”

“Poor man! what a vengeance!” said her ladyship, and turned with cold disdain on the mocker (she still held her husband’s arm). “I trust you appreciate your punishment, cousin,” she said, “and will submit to it without resorting to the bad counsel of jealousy.” And so she faced the lady. “I congratulate you, Mrs. Davis, on your—your proof. We had not learned, I confess, to associate you with angels in any form, and the very opportune arrival of this one—whether in the conspiracy or not—must serve you, I suppose, for a means to escape the chastisement you have so richly deserved at our hands. Under what circumstances and at whose instigation you were moved to venture on this audacity it is idle to inquire—we should never extract the truth. Nor, the air being cleared of you, need we now wish to. When one has thrown off a sickness, one likes to dismiss its unpleasantness from one’s thoughts. Your boxes, with their green bows, and vulgarities, and thrice-turned gowns, and whatever other stage ‘properties’ or ‘perquisites’ they may contain, shall be sent to your direction. Come, my lord”—and she turned very stately, and, entering the track with her husband, disappeared along it.

“There’s gratitude!” cried Moll; and, positively snivelling, threw herself upon Sad Jack’s sober bosom.

Hamilton, looking on, with a grin wrinkling his nose, shrugged his shoulders, began to whistle, and sauntered off in another direction.

My lord and lady, in the meantime, walked like reconciled lovers.

“Do you know,” she said, with an arch smile, “that ’twas you first broke the silence between us?”

“No, no,” said he, stopping.

“Ah! but it was.”

“It was not, I say.”

“And I say it was.”

They had edged apart. For the moment it seemed as if it was all to begin over again.

“Curse it!” muttered my lord.

“Why, do not you remember,” said she, rallying to sweetness, “that you declared you knew me?”

He bit his lip, scowled, and brightened.

“That’s true, my lady. But I have not gone down on my knees to you.”

And on the very word, advancing a pace, he tripped over a stump and went down on his knees.

She checked an impulse to laugh, and did the tactful thing. As he got to his feet, she gazed at him with dear dove’s eyes, and said she—

“And now I will ask the pardon. O, I would ask anything, do anything for you, my lord, since learning—since learning——”

He tucked her arm within his, and they went on together.

And on the green, in the light of the fading lamps, Moll snivelled.

“What does this all mean? What mischief hast thou been up to, thou incorrigible one?” asked the fond fellow, her husband, as he held her.

“Not I, but Kit,” said the girl, and, with a tearful laugh, she produced the fetish, and held it up to his face.

“What!” said he, smiling. “Dost thou still carry that absurd imp about with thee?”

“Always, and wherever I go,” she answered solemnly. And then, with a sigh: “I think he is the only one my heart hath ever really loved—the first, as he shall be the last. There, don’t gloom, Jack, but kiss him—kiss him!”

[The End]

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. mussey-me/mussey me, whimple/wimple, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Add TOC.

[Chapter II]

Change “was already susspected of a leaning in” to suspected.

[Chapter XVIII]

(would be ours! But the senses are cloudy interpreters”) add missing period.

[End of text]