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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9749-8.txt b/9749-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..988a552 --- /dev/null +++ b/9749-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10242 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Highwayman, by H. C. Bailey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Highwayman + +Author: H. C. Bailey + +Posting Date: November 23, 2011 [EBook #9749] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 15, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + THE HIGHWAYMAN + + BY + + H. C. BAILEY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE COMPLETE HERO + + II. THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + III. A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + IV. A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + V. THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + VI. HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + VII. GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + VIII. MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + IX. ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + X. YOUNG BLOOD + + XI. ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + XII. IN HASTE + + XIII. DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + XIV. SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + XV. MRS. BOYCE + + XVI. THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + XVII. RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + XVIII. HARRY IS DISMISSED + + XIX. ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + XX. RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXI. CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + XXII. TWO'S COMPANY + + XXIII. THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + XXIV. QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + XXV. SAUVE QUI PEUT + + XXVI. REVELATIONS + + XXVII. VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + XXVIII. IN THE TAP + + XXIX. ALISON KNEELS + + XXX. EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + XXXI. CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + XXXII. PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXXIII. REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + XXXIV. HARRY WAKES UP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COMPLETE HERO + + +Harry Boyce addressed Queen Anne in glittering verse. She was not +present. She had, however, no cause to regret that, for he was tramping +the Great North Road at four miles by the hour--a pace far beyond the +capacity of Her Majesty's legs; and his verses were Latin--a language not +within the capacity of Her Majesty's mind. Her absence gave him no grief. +In all his twenty-four years he could not remember being grieved by +anyone's absence. His general content was never diminished at finding +himself alone. He chose the Queen as the subject of his verses merely +because he did not admire her. She appeared to him then, as to later +generations, a woman ineffectual and without interest; a dull woman +physically, mentally, and perhaps morally; just the woman upon whom it +would be hardest to make an encomium of any splendour. So he was heartily +ingenious over his alcaics, and relished them. + +From this you may divine much that you have to know about the soul of +Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to +criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite +satisfied with itself and by itself. To be sure, it was yet only +twenty-four. + +You discover also other things less fundamental. He was something of a +scholar, as scholarship was reckoned in those placid days. He had even +some Greek--more than Mr. Pope and quite as much as Mr. Addison. His +Latin verses would have brought him a fellowship at Merton if he had +been willing to take Holy Orders, "I may take them indeed; but how +believe they have been given me?" quoth he to the Warden with a tilt of +one eyebrow. Whereat the Warden, aghast, wrote him off as a youth +unreasonable, impracticable, and impish. Many others had the same +opinion of Harry Boyce before the world was done with him. Few of them +saw in his antics the uncertain spasms of too tender a conscience. But +you must judge. + +Of course he was poor. He could only boast a bob wig, a base thing, +which, for all the show it made, might have been a man's own hair. He +wore no sword. His hat lacked feather and lace. His coat and breeches +were but black drugget, shiny at each corner of him and rusty everywhere. +His stockings were worsted, and darned even on his excellent calves. His +shoes had strings where buckles should have been, and mere black +heels--and low heels at that. As you know, he could walk at a round pace +with them--a preposterous, vulgar thing. There was nothing in him to give +this poverty a romantical air. To be sure, he had admirable legs, but the +rest was neither good nor bad. He was of the middle size and a wholesome +complexion. You would look at him long and see nothing rare enough to be +worth looking at. If you looked longer yet you might begin to be +surprised: his so ordinary face was extraordinary in its lack of +expression. + +The man who owned it must be either very dull of heart and mind, or +self-contained and of self-control beyond the common. But whatever the +heart might be, no one ever took the eyes for the eyes of a fool. They +were keen, alert, perpetually on guard. There is a letter extant--it was +indeed a dear friend who wrote it--which mocks at Harry for his "curst +stand-and-deliver stare." But it is a queer thing that most men had to +know Harry Boyce a long time before they remarked that his eyes were not +quite of the same colour. The common English grey-green-blue was in both +of them, but one had a bluer glint than the other. The oddity, when it +was discovered, seemed to make the challenge of the eyes more defiant and +more baffling, as though they gleamed from the shadow of a mask. + +Not that anyone cared yet whether he wore a mask or his soul in that +placid, ordinary face. Who should care a pinch of snuff for "a scholar +just from his college broke loose" with a penny farthing in his pocket, +who had to pioneer young gentlemen through their Horace and their Tully +for his bed and board? When you meet him, Harry Boyce was happy in having +caught for his pupil a young fellow who had not merely money but brains, +and so sublime a condescension that Harry was not sent away from table +with the parson when the puddings came. Mr. Geoffrey Waverton was pleased +to have a value for him, and defended him from his natural duty of being +gentleman usher to Lady Waverton. So, Mr. Waverton having taken horse, +Harry was free to go walking. + +It was late in a wet autumn, and all the clay of Middlesex slippery as +butter and, withal, affectionate as warm glue. Harry kept to the highway. +Though its miles of mud and water were, on the surface, even worse than +the too green meadows or the gleaming brown furrows of plough land, a +careful man could count upon its letting him go no further than knee +deep. When he came to Whetstone, Harry's feet were brown, shapeless, +weighty masses, but he had not lost either shoe, and he was still in +hopes of reaching Barnet and a pint of small beer before it was time to +struggle back. At the worst a dry throat and wet legs were a cheap price +for escaping the voice of Lady Waverton, who, in the afternoons, read the +romances of Mlle. de Scudéry aloud. + +He could see the tufts of smoke above Barnet and its church on the +hill-top. He was winding down to the bottom of the valley from which that +hill rises, when eloquence arrested him. He may at other times have heard +profanity as copious, but never profanity so vehement or at such speed. +The orator was a woman. + +Harry stood to listen with critical admiration. Madame mixed the ugly and +the pleasant rarely; she made a charming grotesque. Her mind was very far +from nice and provided her with amazing images; but she had a pretty, +womanly voice, and hard though she drove it, it would not break to one +ugly note. Disgusting epithets, mean threats, poured out in mellow +music. Harry splashed on round the corner. He was eager to see her. + +In the morass at the cross-lanes by the green, a coach was stuck--a coach +of splendour. It was a huge thing as big as a room, half glass, half gold +and garter blue, and it swayed luxuriously on its great springs. Six +horses heaved at it in vain with great splashing and squelching, and a +whole company of servants, some mounted, some afoot, struggled with them. + +The profane woman had half her body and two gesticulating arms out of the +coach window. She was plainly neither a drab nor in liquor. Harry halted +out of range of the splashes to examine and enjoy her. She had been +comely, and still could hold a man's eye with her curves of neck and +bosom. The piquant features must have been adorable before they sharpened +and her cheeks faded and the lines came. Her abundant hair must once have +been gold, and was not yet altogether grey. + +"You filthy slug," said she. "Samuel! Stand to it, I say. Damme, I'll +have a whip about that loose belly of yours! Now pull, you swine, pull. +Odso, flog the black horse. You, devil broil your bones, lay on to him. +What now? Od rot you, Antony, you'll see no money this month, you--" She +became unprintable. As she took breath again, she saw Harry Boyce calmly +contemplative. "You dog, who bade you stand and gape? Go, give a hand +there, I say." + +Harry touched his hat. "By your leave, ma'am, I am too busy admiring +you." + +"William, put that rogue into the ditch," said she. + +All this while a man in the coach had been writing, calmly intent upon +his tablets as though there was not a sound or a rage within a mile. He +now stood up, and, while his lady was still execrating through one door +of the coach, he opened the other and came out. Two of the servants, +obedient to the lady's oaths, were approaching Harry, who waited them +with calm and a swinging stick. The man waved his hand at them and they +turned tail. But he had no further interest in Harry. He stood to watch +the struggles of his horses and his men. He was of some height, and, +though past middle age, bore himself with singular grace and vigour. He +had still a rarely handsome face--too handsome, by far, for Harry's +taste. The features were of an impossible, absurd perfection. There was +something superhuman or fatuous, at least something vastly irritating, in +his assured calm, his air of blandly confident supremacy. + +He walked on to the leaders and, with a gesture and a word, set the whole +team pulling at an angle. Meanwhile the lady had earnestly continued her +abusive orders, but none of the servants now professed to heed her. +Dragging the horses on, or labouring hand and shoulder at the wheels, +they were now effective, and they watched the man's eye as though it were +an inspiration. Wondering why he did, Harry, too, put his weight on a +wheel. The horses found a footing in the mire, the coach was dragged on +to the higher, firmer ground beyond. + +My lady subsided. The man came back to the coach and touched his hat to +Harry. "I'm obliged for your help, sir," he said, and climbed in. They +drove away towards London. + +As the servants swung to their saddles, "Who's your obscene lady?" +said Harry. + +"What, don't you know him, bumpkin?" + +"She will never be him. Her shape is all provocative she." + +This humble wit was not remarked. His ignorance occupied them, "Oh Lud, +not to know the Old Corporal!" + +One of Harry's eyebrows went up. "That the Old Corporal? Faith, I am +sorry for him." + +He received a handful of mud in his face. With a cry of "Rot your +impudence," they splashed off. + +While he wiped the mud out of his eyes, Harry felt a very comfortable +self-satisfaction. It was agreeable to pity His Grace of Marlborough. For +the Duke of Marlborough was still the greatest man in Europe, the +greatest man in the world--credibly the greatest man that ever lived. A +pleasant fool, to marry such a wife and to keep her. + +Harry Boyce at no time in his life had much admiration for human +eminence. In this, his hungry youth, he was set upon despising rank and +power, great fame and pure virtue, as no more than the luck of fools. He +would always atone by finding sympathy and excuses for any rogue's +roguery. Highly fortified in this faith by the exhibition of +Marlborough's matrimonial happiness, he trudged back. + +The delay over the coach had left him no time for small ale at Barnet. +Mr. Waverton, though amiably pleased to deliver Harry from attendance on +his mother, required constant attendance on himself. He would be, in his +superb way, disagreeable if Harry were not in waiting when he was wanted +to take a hand at ombre. Harry liked Mr. Waverton well enough, as well as +he liked anybody, but found him in the part of offended majesty +intolerable. So there was some hard walking back to Whetstone. On the way +his temper was not sweetened by two horsemen at the gallop who gave him a +shower-bath of mud. + +As he came through the village, behold another coach labouring up to the +high road from Totteridge lane. This had but four horses, no array of +outriders, no gilt splendours. It was a sober, old-fashioned thing, and +it rumbled on at a sober gait. "Some city ma'am," Harry sneered at it, +"much the same shape as her horses." + +But half an hour after he saw it again. Where the road was dark through a +thicket it had come to a stand. "Oh Lud," said Harry, "here's more fair +madames in the mud. They may sit on it till they hatch it for me." But he +wondered a little. It was indeed nothing very strange in such an autumn +to find a coach stuck upon the highway. But two for one afternoon, two so +near was a generous provision. And hereabouts, where the road ran level +and high, was a strange place for a coach to choose to stick. "Madame +seems to be a gross girl," quoth Harry. + +And then he saw what made him step out. There were two men on horseback +by the halted coach--two men with black upon their faces which must be +masks, and that in their hands which must be pistols. + +"Egad, the road's joyful to-night," said Harry. "And two and one make +three," and he began to run, and arrived. + +Of the two highwaymen one was dismounted. The other, holding his friend's +horse, held also a pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats +of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half +inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his +blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage +you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your +legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, +what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the +jewel-case out into the mud and, leaning across one woman, reached with a +fat, foul hand to the younger bosom beyond. + +He was prevented by a whistle and a cry, "Behind you, Ben." His companion +announced the arrival of Harry. + +Ben came out of the coach with an oath and thrust his pistol into Harry's +face. "Good e'en to you, bully. Now cut and run or I'll drill you. Via, +my poppet." + +Harry looked along the pistol and stood fast. The highwayman was no +bigger than he, and bloated. "I am studying arithmetic, Benjamin," said +he. + +"Burn your eyes, be off with you; run while you may." + +Harry laughed and swung his stick at the mud. "But, I wonder, is it +addition or subtraction? Is it two and one makes three, or--" + +"Kick the bumpkin into the ditch, Ben," the man on horseback advised. + +"Off with you," Benjamin thrust him back, and in the act the pistol +wavered. Harry slashed with his stick at the pistol hand. A yell, an +oath, and the shot came together--a shot which went into the mud and sent +it spattering about them. Harry sprang away from Benjamin's rush and +brought his stick down on the hindquarters of the horses. They plunged +forward, and the man in the saddle, wrestling with them, let off another +aimless shot. Harry dodged round them and lashed them again, and they +bolted down the road. He returned to fling himself upon Benjamin, who was +ramming another charge into his pistol. "It seems to be subtraction, +Benjamin," said he, embracing the man fervently. "One from two leaves +one," and they swayed together, and he found Benjamin's body soft. + +Benjamin, panting, cursed him. "Od rot you, why must you meddle, bully? +What's your will, burn you? Ha' done now, and--" Benjamin went down on +his back in the mud with Harry on top of him. "Ugh! What's the game, +bully?" + +"I think you call it the high toby," said Harry delicately and began to +sing to the tune of a catch: + +"Oh, three merry men, three merry men, three highwaymen were we. +You in a quag and he on a nag and I on top of the three." + +"Lord love you, are you on the road?" Benjamin cried. "Why, rot you, +did you want a share then? You should ha' said so, bully. Come on now, my +dear, let's up. We do be gentlemen and share fair enough." + +"I warrant you I am having my share," Harry laughed; "and I like it very +well. But oh, Benjamin, there would have been nought to share if I had +not come up. No fun at all, Benjamin." He wrenched the pistol away. "'Tis +I have made the business joyous. You are a dull fellow by yourself." + +"Rot you," said Benjamin frankly. "When Ned comes back he'll shoot you +like vermin." + +On which they both heard horses, and both, according to their +abilities--Benjamin in the mud, and Harry keeping a sure hold of +him--wriggled to look for them. + +Harry laughed. It was certainly not a returning Ned. These horses came +from the other way, and there were four of them and each had a rider. "I +fear your Ned will come too late, Benjamin--if, by the grace of God, he +comes at all." So said Harry, chuckling, and to his amazement Benjamin +also laughed. Why should Benjamin find consolation in the coming of this +_posse_? It was not credible that they could be allies of his. Highwaymen +did not work in gangs of half a dozen. + +The four horsemen, urged by the shots or by what they saw, came at a +gallop and reined up almost on top of Harry and Benjamin. One of them, a +little man with a lean, brown face, called out, "By your leave, sir! +What's this?" + +"It's a rude fellow, sir," Harry said. "I fear a lewd fellow. By trade a +highwayman. The highway, indeed, is his life's love, his adored mistress. +Observe how he cleaves to it." He compressed Benjamin, who squelched, +into the mud, and rose, standing on Benjamin's chest and stomach. + +Benjamin groaned, and the eyes behind his mask rolled towards the little +man. + +"Filthy dog," that little man said with sincere disgust. "Can I serve +you, sir?" he touched his hat to the women in the coach. + +"Why, Benjamin has a friend, one Ned. Ned hath a pistol or so and two +horses which have bolted with him. But he may yet persuade them to bring +back his pistols and him. Now, if you would be so good, it would be +convenient in you to ride on and destroy Ned." + +"It's a pleasure, sir," the little man showed his teeth. "And the fat +rogue there, can I help you with him? Shall we take him on to the +constables?" + +"Oh, I thank you, but my Benjamin is docile. I'll e'en tie him up with +his garters, and all will be well." + +The little man scowled at Benjamin. "I shall hope to be at his hanging," +he said incisively. "Sir, your most obedient! Ladies!" he bobbed at them +and rode off, his three companions close about him in eager talk. + +As they went, Benjamin let out a cry of anguish: "Captain!" + +The little man and his company used their spurs. + +Harry looked at their hurry and then down at Benjamin. + +"Now why did you call him that, my Benjamin?" said he. "Indeed, why did +you call on him at all?" + +From behind the mask Benjamin's prominent eyes stared sullenly. He +said nothing. + +Harry shook his head. "I feel that I do not know you, Benjamin. I must +see more of you," With which he fell upon the man again and twitched +off the mask. The wig came with it. Benjamin was revealed the owner of +a big, bald, shiny head with a face which was puffed and purple. "You +were right, Benjamin," said Harry sadly, "You were kind. To wear a mask +was charity, nay, decency--what breeches are to other men. That obese +and flaccid nose--pah, let us talk of something else." He lay upon +Benjamin and tugged at his sword-belt. Benjamin writhed and groaned. +His sword was caught underneath him, the hilt deep in the small of his +back. Harry hauled the sword-belt off at last and gripped at Benjamin's +wrists. He began to struggle again. "Do not be troublesome or I'll tap +the beer on your brain. So." He hauled the belt taut about the fighting +arms and made all fast. Then he sat himself on Benjamin's legs, which +thus ceased to be turbulent, and, taking off the garters, therewith +tied the ankles together. + +Sighing satisfaction, Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of +victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman +with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are +still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is +over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be +profane. I see him bursting with it. Pray drive on and remove your chaste +ears." He restored to them the jewel-case. + +"Put him up on the box, sir," the younger woman cried. + +"I beg your pardon, madame?" + +"We will take him to the constables at Finchley." + +"But why? He is beautiful there, my Benjamin, and I doubt he was never +beautiful before. And I have planted him so firmly. I think if we leave +him there he may grow and blossom. Do not dig him up again yet. Imagine +Benjamin in flower! A thing to dream of." + +"You are pleased to be witty, sir. Come, we have lost time enough. Put +the rogue up, and do you mount with us." + +Harry became aware that this young woman had a brow of pride. It was +ample and broad and, after the Greek manner, it rose almost in a line +with her admirable nose. A noble head, to be sure, but alarming to a mere +human man. So Harry thought, and he touched his hat and said: "Madame, +your most humble. Pray what do you want with my Benjamin? Your gentle +heart would never have him hanged." + +Her eyes made Harry feel that he was impudent, which, unhappily, amused +him. "I desire the fellow should be given up to the law, sir," she said +coldly. "Have you anything against it?" + +"Oh, ma'am, a thousand things, with which I'll not weary you. For I see +that you would not understand. You are very young (as I hope). Perhaps +you may soon grow older (which I pray for you). Let this suffice then. +My Benjamin may deserve a hanging. Who knows? We are not God, ma'am, +neither you nor I. Therefore I have no mind to be a hangman. And +you--why, you are young enough to wait another occasion. And so I give +you good-night. Home, coachman, home." + +The young woman stared at him as though he were grovelling stupidity, and +then lay back on her cushions with a "You will drive on, Samuel." + +Harry made his bow, and then, as the coach began to move, there was a +cry: "Alison! Alison! It is not right!" The older woman leaned forward, +and for the first time he remarked a gentle, motherly face, much lined +and worn. "Sure, sir, you will ride with us," she said, and he liked the +voice. "We may carry you home." + +Harry smiled at her. "Nay, ma'am. I am too dirty for such fine company." + +"Drive on," said Mistress Alison. And the coach rolled away. + +Harry looked down at the wretched Benjamin, whose eyes answered with +apprehension and anxiety. "What's the game?" said Benjamin hoarsely. "I +say, master--what d'ye want with me?" + +Harry did not answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant +voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself +back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my +Benjamin," he said. "Who was your captain, I wonder?" + +Benjamin scowled. "I know nought o' no captain." + +"Ah, I thought you did. But I fear you have annoyed the captain, +Benjamin. Now what had you done--or what had you not done?" + +"It's not fair, master," Benjamin whined. "You do be making game of me, +and me beat." + +"I am rebuked, Benjamin. Good-night." + +"Oons, ye won't leave me so?" Benjamin howled. "I ha' done you no harm, +master. Come now, play fair. What d'ye want of me?" + +"Nothing, Benjamin, nothing. I like you very well. You are a beautiful +mystery. Pleasant dreams." + +The hapless Benjamin howled after him long and loud. Thereby Harry, who +had a musical ear, was spurred to his best pace. "It's a vile voice," he +reflected; "like Lady Waverton's. The marmoreal Alison was right. He +would be better hanged. But so also would Lady Waverton. She will +acridly want to know why I am late. Well! It will be a melancholy +satisfaction not to tell her. That will also annoy Geoffrey, who'll +magnificently indicate that I owe him an apology. The poor Geoffrey! He +is so fond of himself!" + +His evening was as pleasant as he had anticipated. He won two shillings +from Lady Waverton at ombre, which made her angry; and lost them to +Geoffrey, which made him melancholy. For Mr. Waverton loved (in small +things) to be a martyr. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + +Mr. Waverton had an idea in his head. That was not the least unusual. It +was, unhappily, a wrong one. That was not unusual either. We must have a +trifle of Latin. Mr. Waverton, studying Horace, desired to translate, +_Civium ardor prava jubentium_ "the wicked ardour of the overbearing +citizens." In vain Harry urged that he was outraging grammar. Mr. +Waverton did not believe him, did not want to believe him--the same +thing. Mr. Waverton was convinced that he had an insight into the soul of +Horace which Harry's pedantic eyes could not share. He explained, as one +explains to a dull child, the rare poetic beauty of the sentiment which +he had produced. The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the +man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be +aware) are all overbearing. It is this quality in the vulgar which most +distresses fine souls (like Mr. Waverton) who desire nothing but their +just rights. + +"I dare say it is," Harry yawned. "If Horace had wanted to mean that, he +would have said so." + +"I often think, Harry, you dry scholars have no sense for the thought of +a poet," said Mr. Waverton elegantly, and lay back in his chair and +surveyed Harry. + +He was a handsome lad and knew how to set it off. He had height and +bulk--almost too much of that indeed, and so made light of it by a +careless, lounging ease. At this time he was only twenty-two, but of a +precocious maturity. He had the self-possession--as well as the +full-bottomed wig--of experience and worldly wisdom, and would have liked +to hear you say so. In its dark aquiline style his face was finely +moulded and imposing, and already it had a massive gravity. "A mighty +grand fellow indeed," said Lady Dorchester once, "if only his mouth had +grown since he was a baby." It has to be admitted that Mr. Waverton's +mouth, a small, pretty feature, was oddly assorted with the haughty +manner in which the rest of him was constructed. The ladies who lamented +that were, for the most part, consoled by his eyes--large, dark eyes of a +liquid melancholy. But my Lord Wharton complained that they looked at him +like a hound's. + +Mr. Waverton was an only son, and fatherless. He had also great +possessions. From his house of Tetherdown all the fields that he could +see stretching away to the Essex border were of his inheritance. His +mother was no wiser than she should have been. She consisted spiritually +of admiration for herself, for the family into which she had married, and +the son whom she had borne. "After all," said Harry Boyce in moments of +geniality, "it's wonderful the boy has come out of it so well." + +Mr. Waverton, thanks to vacillation of himself and his mother, doubt as +to what career, what manner of education, what university, could be +worthy his talents, went up to Oxford at last and (for those days) very +late. After doing nothing for another year or two, he decided (which was +also unusual for a gentleman of means in those days) that he had a genius +in pure literature. Therefore Harry was hired to decorate him with all +the elegances of Greek and Latin. + +The appointment was considered a great prize for a lad so awkward as +Harry Boyce. It might well end in a luxurious competence--a stewardship, +for example, and marriage with my lady's maid. "That is, if you play your +cards well, sirrah," the Sub-Warden felt it his duty to warn Harry's +difficult temper. + +"Oh, sir, I could never play cards," said Harry, for the Sub-Warden was a +master at picquet. "I am too honest." + +Yet he had not fallen out with Mr. Waverton. It is probable that he was +careful to keep on good terms with his bread and butter. But he had +always, I believe, a kindness for Geoffrey Waverton, and bore no ill will +for his parade of supremacy. Tyranny in small things, indeed, Mr. +Waverton did not affect. He had a desire to be magnificent. Those who did +not cross him, those who were content to be his inferiors, found him +amiable enough and, on occasion, generous.... + +"Shall we try another line, Mr. Waverton?" said Harry wearily. + +"I have a mind to make an epigram," Mr. Waverton announced. "The +arrogance of the vulgar, the--the uninstructed--perhaps I lack the _mot +juste_, but _quand même_--the mansuetude of the loftier mind. A fine +antithesis that, I think." He stood up, walked to the window, and looked +out. Away down the hill the fields lay in a mellow mist, the kindly +autumn sun made the copses glow golden; it was a benign scene, apt to +encourage wit. Mr. Waverton lisped in numbers, but the numbers did not +come. He turned to seek stimulus from Harry. "You relish the thought?" + +"It is a perfect subject for your style," said Harry. + +Mr. Waverton smiled, and turned again to the window for productive +meditation. + +A third man came lounging in, unheard by Mr. Waverton's rapt mind. He +opened his eyes at the back which Mr. Waverton turned upon Harry and the +space between them. "Why, Geoffrey, have you been very stupid this +morning? And has schoolmaster stood you in the corner? Well done, Mr. +Boyce. I always told you, spare the rod and spoil the child. Shall I go +cut a birch for you?" + +"I wonder you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton +with a dignity which did not permit him to turn round. + +"Never while it annoys you, child." + +"Mr. Waverton is in labour with a poem," Harry explained. + +"And it's indecent in me to be present at the ceremony? Well, Geoffrey, +postpone the birth." He sat himself down at his ease in Geoffrey's chair. +He was a compact man with only one arm. He looked ten years older than +Geoffrey and was, in fact, five. The campaign in Flanders which had +destroyed his right arm had set and hardened a frame and face by nature +solid enough. That face was long and angular, with a heavy chin and an +expression of sardonic complacency oddly increased by the jauntiness of +its shabby brown wig. + +Waverton turned round wearily upon the unwelcome guest. "Well, Charles, +what is it?" + +"It is nothing. My dear Geoffrey, if I had anything to do or anything to +say why should I come to you?" + +"_Merci_, monsieur," Waverton smiled gracious indulgence. + +Mr. Hadley chuckled, and in French replied: "Yes, let's talk French; it +embellishes our simple wit and elevates our souls above the vulgar." + +There is reason to believe that Waverton liked his French better in +fragments than continuously. He still smiled condescension, but risked no +other answer. + +"Come, Geoffrey, what's the news?" Mr. Hadley reverted to English. +"Could you say your lessons this morning? And did you wear a new coat +last night?" + +"You may go if you will, Harry. Mr. Hadley will be talking for some +time," Waverton said. "Indeed, he may, perhaps, have something to say." + +Harry was used to being turned out for any reason or none. He well +understood that Waverton was not fond of an audience when he was being +laughed at. "If you please," he said, and made his bow to Mr. Hadley. + +"Why, what's the matter? I don't bite. You are too meek for this life, +Mr. Boyce." He looked at Harry with some contempt in his grey eyes. +"Oons, you're a man and a brother, ain't you? Sit down and be hearty. +Lud, Geoffrey, why do you never have a pipe in the room?" + +"It's death to a clean taste, your tobacco smoking, and I value my wine." + +"Value it, quotha! Ay, by the spoonful. You ha' never known how to drink +since they weaned you. And you, Mr. Boyce, d'ye never smoke a pipe over +your Latin?" + +"I hope I know my place, Mr. Hadley," Harry said solemnly. + +Charles Hadley stared at him. "Hear the Scripture, Mr. Boyce: 'What shall +it profit a man though he gain a pretty patron and lose his own soul?'" + +"You are very polite, sir," said Harry. + +"Upon my honour, Charles, this is too much," Mr. Waverton cried in noble +indignation. "Mr. Boyce is my friend, and you'll be good enough to take +him as yours if you come to my house." + +Charles Hadley was not out of countenance. He eyed them both, and his +sardonic expression was more marked. "You make a pretty pair," said he. +"When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Eh, Mr. Boyce? I +wonder. Well, Geoffrey, it's a wicked world. Had you heard of that?" + +"The world is what you make it, I think," said Mr. Waverton with +dignity. + +"Oons, I could sometimes believe you did make it. A simple, pompous +place, Geoffrey, that is kind to you if you'll not laugh at it. And full +of petty, pompous mysteries. Maybe you make the mysteries too, Geoffrey. +Damme, it is so. It's perfectly in your manner," he chuckled abundantly. +"Come, child, what were you doing on the highway yesterday?" + +Harry stared at him. "When you have finished laughing at your joke, +perhaps you will make it," said Waverton. "Pray let us have it over +before dinner." + +"My dear child, why be so touchy? Were you bitten? Well, you know, this +morning one of my fellows brings in a miserable wretch he had found on +the road by Black Horse Spinney. The thing was half-dead with wet and +cold. He had been lying there all night--so he said, and it's the one +thing I believe of him. He was found trussed as tight as a chicken in his +own sword-belt and his own garters. Damme, it was a fellow of some humour +had the handling of him. He had not been robbed, for there was a bag of +money at his middle. He professed that he could tell nothing of who had +trussed him or why he was set upon. He would have nought of law or hue +and cry. Egad, empty and shivering as he was, he wanted nothing but to be +let go. A perfect Christian, as you remark, Geoffrey. Now, you or I, if +we had been tied up in the mud through one of these damned raw nights, +would take some pains to catch the fellow who did the trussing. But my +wretch was as meek as the Gospels. So here is a silly, teasing mystery. +Who is the footpad that is at the pains of tying up a fellow and never +looks for his purse? Odds fish, I did not know we had a gentleman of such +humour in these parts. I suspect you, Geoffrey, I protest. There's a +misty fatuousness about it which--" + +"By your leave, sir," a servant appeared, "my lady waits dinner." + +"Then I fear we shall pay for it," said Hadley, and stood up. + +"You dine with us, Charles?" Mr. Waverton was not hearty about it. + +"I'll give you that pleasure, child. Well, Mr. Boyce, what do you make of +my mystery?" + +Harry had to say something. "Perhaps your friend was carrying more than +guineas," he said. + +"What then? Papers and plots and the high political? I don't think it. If +you saw him--a mere tub of beer--and a leaky tub this morning, for he had +a vile cold in the head and dribbled damnably." + +"I give it up then. Have you let him go?" They were moving out in the +corridor and Hadley did not answer. "Is he gone?" Harry said again. + +Hadley turned round upon him. "Why, yes. Does it signify?" + +"I wonder who he was," said Harry. + +Upon that they entered the drawing-room of Lady Waverton. It was +congested and dim. The two oriel windows were so draped with curtains of +pink and yellow that only a faint light as of the last of a sunset +filtered through. The wide spaces were beset with screens in lacquer, +odd chairs, Dutch tables, and very many cabinets,--cabinets inlaid with +flowers and birds of many colours; cabinets full of shells, agates, +corals, and any gaudy stone; cabinets and yet again more cabinets full of +Eastern china. In the midst Lady Waverton reclined. + +She had been handsome in a large, bold style, and might still have been +but for excessive decoration. Her dress was voluminous white satin +embroidered in a big pattern of gold and set off with black. It was low +at her opulent bosom, to the curves of which the eye was directed by +black patches craftily fixed. There were many more patches on her face +which, still only a little too full and too loose, had its colours laid +on in sharp and vivid contrasts. Her black hair was erected in +symmetrical waves high above her brow, and one ringlet was brought by +glossy, frozen curls to caress her bosom. She held out the whitest of +hands drooping from a large but still fine arm for Mr. Hadley to kiss. + +"You are a bad fellow, Charles Hadley," she pouted. "You make me +feel old." + +"There's a common childish fancy, ma'am." + +"You never come to see me now. And when you do come, 'tis not to see me." + +"A thousand pardons. Mr. Boyce delayed me awhile with the beauties of his +conversation." + +"Mr. Boyce?" she looked at Harry as if wondering that he dared exist. "Go +and see why they do not bring in dinner." + +Having thus diminished Harry, she proceeded, without waiting for him to +be gone, to criticize him. "You know, I would never have a chaplain in +the house. This tutor fellow is of the same breed, Charles. They tease +me, these men which are neither gentlemen nor servants. Faith, life's +hard for the poor wretches. They are torn 'twixt their conceit and their +poverty. They know not from minute to minute whether they will fawn or be +insolent. So they do both indifferent ill." + +Harry, who chose not to hear, was opening the door. There came in upon +him a woman--the young woman of the coach. Even as he recoiled, bowing, +even as he collected his startled wits, he was aware of the singular +beauty of her complexion. Its delicacy, its life, were nonpareil. The +first clear process of his mind was to wonder how he had contrived not to +remark that complexion when first he saw her. + +Lady Waverton lifted up her voice. "Alison! Dear child! And are you home +at last? It's delicious in you. You seek us out first, do you not? My +sweet girl!" Alison was engulfed. Conceive apple blossom in the embraces +of a peony. + +The apple blossom emerged with a calm, "Dear Lady Waverton." + +"You are a sad bad thing. I writ you five letters, I think, and not one +from you." + +"You are so much cleverer than I am. I had nothing to say." Alison's +voice was sweet and low, but too sublimely calm for perfect comfort in +her hearers. "So here I am to say it and make my excuses," she dropped +a small curtsey, "my lady. Why, Geoffrey, I thought you had been back +at Oxford!" + +Mr. Waverton came forward, smiling magnificence. "I am delighted to +disappoint you, Alison." + +"Nay, never believe her, Geoffrey," Lady Waverton lifted up her voice +and was arch. "I vow she counted on finding you here. Why else had she +come? I know when I was a toast I wasted none of my time going to see old +women," she languished affectionately at the girl. + +"Dear Lady Waverton,"--if it was possible, Alison's voice became calmer +than ever--"how well you know me. And how cruel to expose me. If Geoffrey +had his mother's wit, faith, I should never dare come here at all." + +"It is not my wit which you need ever fear, Alison," Geoffrey's eyes were +ardent upon her. + +"Why, you are merciful. Or is it modest?" + +"I can be neither, Alison. I am a man." + +"My dear Geoffrey, I am sorry for all your misfortunes." She turned from +him to Mr. Hadley, who was content in a corner. "Have we quarrelled?" + +"We never loved each other well enough." + +"Is that why I am always very glad to see Mr. Hadley?" + +"It is why he can tell Miss Lambourne that she looks divinely beautiful." + +"That means inhuman, sir." + +"Which is not my fault, ma'am." + +Geoffrey was visibly restive at his exclusion, "Charles never could pay a +compliment without a sting in it." + +"That is why they are agreeable, sir," said she. + +"That is why they are true," said Hadley in the same breath, and they +laughed together. + +Lady Waverton interfered imperiously. "Alison, dear, come sit by me and +tell me all about yourself." + +"Faith, not with the gentlemen to listen," said she, and was saved by +Harry and the butler, who came in together announcing dinner. + +Lady Waverton rose elaborately. "Give me your arm, Charles. My +dear Alison--" + +"But who is this?" Alison said, and she stared with placid, candid +interest at Harry. With equal composure Harry stared back. But there was +no candour in his expressionless face. For he had become keenly aware of +her beauty. It was waking in him desire and already something deeper and +stronger, and he vehemently resented the disturbance. He had no wish to +be troubled by any woman, and for this woman, judging her on her +behaviour, he felt even a little more contempt than the store which he +had for all her sex. It was cursedly impertinent in her to be such a joy +to the blood. She stood there, her eyes level with his eyes, and dared to +look as strong as he--slighter to be sure, but not too slight for a +woman, and delectably deep bosomed. There was life and laughter in that +calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The +great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. +He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as +her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous +modesty. And she knew of her power too. There was a mocking confidence in +every line of her. + +"But who is this, Lady Waverton?" she was saying again. + +Lady Waverton tried to draw her on. "'Tis but Geoffrey's new factotum." + +"My good friend, Harry Boyce, Alison," said Geoffrey with a patronly hand +on Harry's shoulder. + +Harry made his bow. + +"Faith, sir, we have met before," she smiled. + +"No, ma'am," Harry bowed again. "I have never had an honour, which, sure, +I could not forget." + +Her brow wrinkled. Lady Waverton swept her on, and Harry in the rear had +the pleasure of hearing Lady Waverton say: "A poor, vulgar wretch, my +dear. An out-at-elbows scholar which Geoffrey met at Oxford and keeps out +of charity. He is too soft of heart, dear boy, and such creatures stick +to him like burrs." + +The dinner-table was a blaze of silver, but otherwise not bountifully +provided. Lady Waverton looked down it with pride. "I am of Mr. Addison's +mind, my dear," she announced. "Do you remember? 'Two plain dishes with +two good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends make me more pleased and +vain than all your luxury.'" + +"Why, then, you must now be sore out of countenance," Alison protested. +"For I am not good-natured and I vow Mr. Hadley is not cheerful." Mr. +Hadley's face, set in contemplation of the food, shed gloom and +apprehension. "But perhaps Mr. Boyce is ingenious." + +"I hope so," said Hadley. + +It was Harry's task to carve, which dispensed him from answering the +girl or even looking at her. One not abundant fowl and a calf's head +smoked before him. Under a heavy fire of directions from Lady Waverton +he did his duty. + +Miss Lambourne may have suddenly grown weary of Lady Waverton's eloquence +upon the daintiest bits of these unexciting foods. She may have been +waiting for the moment when Harry would have no occupation to prevent him +listening to her. While my lady was still explaining the superiority of +her calf, as bred and born in the house of Waverton, to all other calves, +just when Harry had finished his work, Miss Lambourne broke out: "Faith, +I was almost forgetting my splendid story. I wonder, now, have any of you +met any ventures on the North Road?" + +Harry began to eat. Charles Hadley ceased an anxious examination of his +plate and looked at her. Lady Waverton cried out: "Dear Alison! Don't +tell me you have been stopped. Too terrible! I vow I could never bear it. +I should die of shame. They tell me these rogues are vilely impudent to a +fine woman." + +Geoffrey exhibited a tender agitation. "Why, Alison, what is it? Zounds, +I cannot have you go travelling alone! You must give me news when you +make a journey, and I'll ride with you." + +"Thank you for your agonies. But the virgin in distress found her +knight-errant duly provided. He rose out of the mud romantically apropos. +To be sure, I think he was mad. But that is all in the part. The complete +hero. Geoffrey, could you be a little mad?" + +"More than a little," said he with proper ardour. "Pray don't torture us, +Alison. Let us hear." + +"It's on my mind that I am going to hear news of my funny friend," said +Hadley solemnly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry, who had been eating with the humble zeal appropriate to a poor +scholar, looked up for a moment: "Why, sir, I can't tell at all. If you +say so, indeed--" and he went on eating. + +"Come, are you in it too, Mr. Hadley?" Alison cried. + +"In it, odds life, I am bewilderingly out of it," quoth Hadley, and again +told his tale of the mysterious man found tied up in the mud who knew +nothing of his assailants and wanted no vengeance on them. + +"That's our Benjamin," Alison laughed. "Oh, but you did not let him go?" + +"Not let him go, quotha! For what I know, he was a poor, suffering +martyr, though to look at his nose, I doubt it. And yet he was fool +enough. Nay, how could I stay him?" + +"Why, send him to gaol for a rogue and a vagabond. Should he not?" she +invited the suffrages of the table. + +"Dear Alison, to be sure, yes," Lady Waverton murmured. "These fellows +must be put down." + +"You owed it to yourself to look deeper into the matter, Charles," said +Geoffrey gravely. + +"Come, Mr. Boyce, your sentence too," Alison cried, wicked eyes +intent upon him. + +He met them with bland meekness. "Indeed, ma'am, I can't tell. It's Mr. +Hadley's affair." + +"From a virtuous woman, good Lord deliver us," Hadley groaned. "You would +make a rare hanging judge, Alison. Now, i' God's name, let's have your +tale. What's the rogue to you?" + +"Oh, sir, a great joy. Why, he gave me the only knight-errant ever I had. +A vile muddy one, to be sure, but poor maids must not be choosers. We +were driving home, Mrs. Weston and I, and by Black Horse Spinney we were +stopped by two highwaymen. They had just begun to be rude, when out of +the mud comes my knight-errant, bold as Don Quixote and as shabby withal, +and with a pretty wit too--which is not much in the way of +knight-errants, I think. He scared the highwaymen's horses and set them +bolting with the one fellow which held them, then he knocked the other +down, took his pistol, and tied the rogue up in his own garters. Oh, the +neatest knight-errant ever you saw. Then we bade him put the fellow on +the box and drive on with us. But monsieur was haughty, if you please. He +wanted none of our company. Off he packed us, for me to cry my eyes out +for love of him. Which I do heartily, I warrant you." + +"Alison!" Geoffrey cried, and laid his hand on hers. + +"Faith, yes, give me sympathy. I have loved and lost--in the mud. To be +sure, I can ne'er be my own woman again till I find him and give him--a +brush, I think, and maybe a pair of breeches too, for his own can never +recover their youth. Dear Geoffrey, help me to find him." + +Geoffrey had taken his hand away in a hurry. He contemplated her with +cold reproof. It did not trouble her. She was giving all her attention to +Harry; gay, malicious eyes challenged him to declare himself, mocked him +for his modesty, vaunted what she had to give. + +"Damme, this is madder and madder yet," Hadley broke in. "Who is your +Orlando Furioso that's a champion of dames and too haughty to ride in +their carriage; that ties up highwaymen and forgets to tell the constable +where he left 'em? Odso, I thought I knew most of the fools in these +parts, but there's one bigger than I know." + +"Dear Alison--I could never have survived it--but you are so strong--and +what a person! My dear, I could not bear to think of him. A rude, low +fellow, to be sure," Thus Lady Waverton coherently. + +Alison laughed. "I doubt I'm not so delicate," Then she leaned towards +Harry. "Well, and you? Come, Mr. Boyce, why leave yourself out?" + +"I beg pardon, ma'am?" + +She made an impatient sound. "And what do you think of my hero?" + +"I wonder who the gentleman was, ma'am," Harry said. + +Her eyes fought a moment more with his bland, meaningless face. "Faith, I +think he's a fool for his pains," said she. + +"Grateful woman," Hadley grunted. "Humph. _Spretae injuria formae_, ain't +it, Mr. Boyce? Give miss a construe." + +Harry gave a deprecating cough instead. + +"Oh, be brave, sir," she jeered. + +"I am afraid it means 'the insult of slighting your beauty,' ma'am," said +Harry meekly. + +Lady Waverton straightened her back and looked ice at him. But the +butler was at her elbow, whispering. "Colonel Boyce?" she repeated. "What +Colonel Boyce? Who is Colonel Boyce? + +"It might be my father," Harry suggested. + +"Why, Harry, I never knew you had a father," Waverton sneered amiably. + +"Is your father a colonel?" Lady Waverton was torn between incredulity of +such presumption and rage at it. + +"Not that I know of, my lady. But he has always surprised me." + +"Shall we have him in, Geoffrey?" said Lady Waverton. + +"My dear mother!" Geoffrey waved his hand to the butler. "Ask the +gentleman to be so good as to join us." + +Mr. Hadley turned in his chair, and over the remnants of the fowl and the +calf's head directed a grim smile at Harry. "Thank you for a very +pleasant dinner," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + +There came in a man of many colours. Dazzled eyes, recovering from their +first dismay, might admit that his splendours were harmonious. A red coat +with gold buttons, a waistcoat of gold satin embroidered in blue, +breeches of blue velvet with golden garters were topped by a face burnt +brown and a great jet-black periwig. He carried off all this with airy +ease. "My lady, your most humble and devoted," he bowed to Lady Waverton. +"Harry, dear lad," he held out his hands, and Harry, rising, found +himself embraced and kissed on both cheeks. + +"Colonel Boyce is it?" said Lady Waverton with some emphasis on +the title. + +"In the service of your ladyship," he laughed, and bowed to her again, +and turned upon the company. "Pray present me, dear lady." She made +some stumbling about it, but Colonel Boyce appeared to enjoy himself +with an "I account myself fortunate, ma'am," for Miss Lambourne; with a +"My boy's friends are mine, sir--and his debts too," for Geoffrey; and +to Mr. Hadley, "You have served, sir?" with a look of respect at the +empty sleeve. + +Hadley nodded. "Ay, ay. The red field of honour. Well, there's no +life like it." + +"That's why I left it," Hadley grunted. + +"Come, sir, draw up a chair and join us," Geoffrey said. "Be sure you are +very welcome." + +"Ten thousand thanks." Without enthusiasm Colonel Boyce looked at the +calf's head. "But--egad, I am sorry for it now--but I have dined." + +"At least you'll drink a glass of wine with us?" + +"Oh, I can't deny myself the pleasure, sir." He drew up a chair, Geoffrey +reached at a decanter, and so Lady Waverton rose and Alison after her. + +Colonel Boyce started up. "But no--not at that price. Damme, that would +poison the Prince's own Tokay. Nay, you are too cruel, my lady. I come, +and you desolate the table to receive me. Gad's life, ma'am, our friends +here will be calling me out for my daring to exist." + +Lady Waverton was very well pleased. "Sir, you will let me give you a +dish of tea. I warrant the men were already sighing to be rid of us." + +"Then I vow they be blind," quoth Colonel Boyce, and opened the door, +from which he came back with a laugh to his glass of port. Over drinking +it he went through all the tricks of the connoisseur and ended with a +cultured ecstasy. + +"I see you are a man of the world, Colonel," Hadley sneered. + +"A man of many worlds, sir," the Colonel laughed easily. + +"I wonder which this is?" + +"Why, this is the world of good company and good fellowship--" he smiled +and bowed to Geoffrey--"of sound wine and sound learning." + +"Sir, you are very good. But I hope my wine is better than my +scholarship. This is our man of learning," he slapped Harry on the +shoulder. "And Harry counts me a mere trifler, a literary exquisite, an +amateur of elegances." + +"If your scholarship has the elegance of your wine, Mr. Waverton, you do +very well. I doubt my Harry is no judge of the graces. He has always been +something of a plodder." + +"Have I?" Harry found his tongue. "How did you know?" + +The Colonel laughed. "He has me there, the rogue. The truth is, +gentlemen, I have not seen him in these six years. Damme, Harry, you are +grown no fatter." + +"Servitors don't make flesh," said Harry. + +"And soldiers don't make money. Still; there's enough for two now, boy." + +"I am glad you have been fortunate," the tone suggested that though +the father had quite enough for two; there would be none to spare +for the son. + +"Why, sir," Waverton was grandly genial, "I hope you don't mean to rob me +of Harry. He's the most useful fellow, and, I promise you; I value him." + +"Thank you very much," said Harry. + +"I'll take you into my confidence, Mr. Waverton," the Colonel leaned +across the table. + +"Then I'll take my leave," said Hadley. + +"No need, sir. At this time, we all know, there are higher claims on a +man than a friend's or a father's." + +"I feel like a pawn," Harry complained. + +"Egad, sir, a pawn may save a queen or check a king." + +"But do you suppose it enjoys it?" + +"Are you away to the war, sir?" Geoffrey smiled. "I doubt our Harry has +no turn for soldiering." + +"You are always right, Mr. Waverton," Harry nodded at him. + +"It is not only soldiers who fight our battles, Mr. Waverton," said the +Colonel with dignity. "There's danger enough for a quick wit and a cool +judgment far behind the lines. And you need not go to Flanders to find +the war. It's flaming all over England, all over--France," he dropped the +last word in a lower tone, as if his heat had carried him away and it was +a blunder. He flung himself back and emptied his glass, and looked +gloomily at the empty decanter. "Why, Mr. Waverton, you have made me into +a babbler. It's time you delivered me to the ladies." + +"Aye, aye," Hadley yawned. "Let's try another of the worlds." + +They marched out, but the Colonel and Waverton, waiting on each other, +were some distance behind the other pair. + +"You must know I have often had some desire for the life of action," said +Mr. Waverton. + +To which the Colonel earnestly, "I have never known a man more fit for +it," and upon that they entered my lady's drawing-room. + +Miss Lambourne was singing Carey's song of the nightingale: + +"While in a Bow'r with beauty blest + The lov'd Amintor lies, +While sinking on Lucinda's breast + He fondly kiss'd her Eyes. +A wakeful nightingale who long + Had mourn'd within, the Shade +Sweetly renewed her plaintive song + And warbled through the Glade." + +On the coming of the men the wakeful nightingale broke off her plaintive +song abruptly. + +Lady Waverton, who was again at full length on her couch, then opened +her eyes. "Delicious, delicately delicious," she sighed. "Why did you +stop, dear?" she controlled a yawn. "Oh, the men! Odious creatures!" she +rose on her elbow and looked at them, and looked down at her dress and +patted it. + +Colonel Boyce accepted the challenge briskly, and marched upon her. +"Egad, my lady, your name is cruelty." + +"Who--I, sir? I vow I never had the heart to see any creature suffer." + +"Nay, your very nature is cruelty. You exist but to torture us." + +"Good lack, sir," says my lady, well pleased, "and must I die to serve +your pleasure?" + +"Why, there it is. We can neither bear to be with you nor to be without +you. I protest, ma'am, your sex was made for our torture. 'Tis why you +parade it and delight in it." + +"Lud, sir, you are mighty rude," my lady simpered. "I parade my sex? +Alack, my modesty!" + +"Modesty--that's but another weapon to madden us. Fie, ma'am, why do you +clothe yourself in such beauty but to flaunt upon our senses that sex of +yours?" My lady was duly shocked and hid behind her fan. "Aye, there it +is! We catch a whiff of paradise and straightway it is denied us. Our +nightingale there is silent when we draw near. Our Venus here hides +herself when our eyes would enjoy her. As His Grace said to me, you women +are like heaven to a damned soul." + +"You are a wicked fellow," said Lady Waverton with relish. + +Geoffrey at his elbow put in, "'His Grace,' Colonel?" + +"The Old Corporal, Mr. Waverton. The Duke of Marlborough." + +"You have served with him, sir?" + +Colonel Boyce gave a laugh of genial condescension. "Why, yes, Mr. +Waverton, I stand as close to His Grace as most men." + +After a moment of impressive silence, the Wavertons vigorously directed +the conversation to the Duke of Marlborough. Colonel Boyce made no +objection. In the most obliging manner he admitted them to a piquant +intimacy with His Grace's manners and customs. He mingled things personal +and high politics with a fascinating air of letting out secrets at every +word; and, throughout, he maintained a tantalizing discretion about his +own position. My lady and Mr. Waverton were more and more fascinated. + +So that Miss Lambourne had good opportunity to try her maiden steel upon +Harry. As soon as he came in, he withdrew himself to a cabinet of medals +in a remote corner. Mr. Hadley approached the harpsichord and reached it +just before it fell silent. Miss Lambourne looked up into his face. + +"Yes, shall we lay our heads together?" said he. + +"But I doubt mine would turn yours." + +"If you'll risk it, ma'am, I will." + +"La, sir, is this an offer? I protest I am all one blush." + +"Then your imagination is bolder than mine, ma'am. I mean--" + +"Oh, fie for shame! To disgrace a poor maid so! To betray her weakness! +It is unmanly, Mr. Hadley. Sure, my father (in the general resurrection) +will have your blood. I leave you to your conscience, sir," which she +did, making for Harry. + +Mr. Hadley, remaining by the harpsichord, contemplated them, and with his +one hand caressed his chin. "It's a fascinating family, the family of +Boyce," said he to himself. + +Miss Lambourne sat herself down beside Harry before he chose to be aware +of her coming. He started up and obsequiously drew away. + +"You are very coy, Mr. Boyce," said the lady. + +Harry replied, with the servile laughter of a dependent, "Oh, ma'am, you +are mocking me." + +"Tit for tat"--Alison's eyes had some fire in them. + +"Tat, ma'am?" + +"Lud, now, don't be tedious. Sir, the house of Waverton is entranced by +your splendid father: and Charles Hadley (as usual) is entranced by +himself. You have no audience Mr. Boyce. Stop acting, and tell me--what +is wrong with me?" + +Harry considered her with calm criticism. "It's not for me to tell Miss +Lambourne that she is too beautiful." + +"Indeed, I thought you had more sense." + +"Too beautiful," Harry persisted deliberately; "too beautiful to be +good company." + +"That will not serve, sir. You are not so inflammable. Being more in the +nature of a tortoise." + +"If you had a flaw or so: if your nose had a twist; if your cheeks had +felt the weather; if--I fear, ma'am, I grow intimate. In fine, if you +were less fine, you would be a comfort to a man. But as it is--permit the +tortoise to keep in his shell." + +"I advise you, Mr. Boyce--I resent this." + +Harry bowed. "I dare to remind you, ma'am--I did not demand the +conversation." + +"The conversation!" Her eyes flashed. "What do I care if a lad's +impudent? Perhaps I like it well enough, Mr. Boyce. There is more than +that between you and me. You have done me something of a service, and +you'll not let me avow it nor pay you. Well?" + +"Well, ma'am, you're telling the truth," said Harry placidly. + +The lady made an exclamation. "I shall bear you a grudge for this, sir." + +"I am vastly obliged, ma'am." + +The lady drew back a little and looked at him full, which he bore +calmly. "I suppose I am beneath Mr. Boyce's concernment." + +"Not beneath, ma'am. Above. Above. Do you admire the Italian medals? +They are of a delicate restraint," He turned to the cabinet and began +to lecture. + +Miss Lambourne was not repulsed. He maintained a steady flow of +instruction. She waited, watching him. + +By this time Colonel Boyce was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough +and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard +road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You were born +with yours." + +"I conceive, sir, that every man of high spirit must needs take the +road to fame." + +"A dream of a shadow, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel, with melancholy +grandeur. "'Take the goods the gods provide you,'" he waved his hand at +the crowded opulence of the room and then, smiling paternally, at Miss +Lambourne. + +Lady Waverton simpered at her son. He chose to ignore the hint. +"Why, Colonel, if a man is happily placed above vulgar needs, the +more reason--" + +"Vulgar needs! Oh, fie, Mr. Waverton. A divine creature." Colonel +Boyce looked wicked, and his easy hand designed in the air Miss +Lambourne's shape. + +Lady Waverton tittered. Geoffrey blushed, and "You do me too much honour +sir, indeed," he stammered. + +Colonel Boyce turned smiling upon Lady Waverton. "I vow, ma'am, a man +hath twice the modesty of a maid." + +"You are a bad fellow," said Lady Waverton, very well pleased. + +"You go too fast, sir;" with so much mirth about him Geoffrey feared for +his dignity. "There is nothing between me and Miss Lambourne." + +The Colonel shook his head. "I confess I thought better of you, sir. +What, is miss her own mistress?" + +"Miss Lambourne has no father or mother, sir." + +"And her face is her fortune? Egad, 'tis the prettiest romance!" + +Geoffrey and his mother laughed together. "Not quite all her fortune, +sir. She is the only child of Sir Thomas Lambourne." + +"What! old Tom Lambourne of the India House?" Colonel Boyce whistled. He +looked with a new interest at her as she stood by Harry, absorbing the +lecture on medals, and as he looked his face put on a queer air of +mockery. This he presented to Geoffrey. "Something of a plum, sirrah. +Well, well, some folks have but to open their mouths." + +Mr. Waverton, not quite certain whether the Colonel ought to be so +familiar, concluded to be pleased, and laughed fatuously. During which +music the butler announced "Mrs. Weston." + +Lady Waverton and Geoffrey exchanged a glance of disgust. Lady Waverton +murmured, "What a person!" It escaped their notice that Colonel Boyce had +stiffened at the name. His full face lost all its geniality, all +expression. He was for the first time singularly like his son. + +Mrs. Weston was Alison's companion of the coach, a woman of middle age, +inclining to be stout; but her face was thin and lined, belying her +comfortable aspect,--a wistful face which had known much sorrow, and had +still much tenderness to give. + +Lady Waverton put out a languid and supercilious hand. "I hope you +are better." + +"Thank you. I have not been ill." + +"Oh, I always forget." + +"Your servant, ma'am." Geoffrey bowed. + +"Oh,"--Lady Waverton turned on her elbow. "Colonel Boyce--Mrs. Weston, +Alison's companion. Faith, duenna, I think." + +"Your most obedient, ma'am." Colonel Boyce bowed low. + +Mrs. Weston stared at him, seemed to try to speak, said nothing, and +hurried across the room. + +"Alison, dear, are you ready?" her voice sounded hoarse. + +"Am I ever ready?" Alison laughed. "Weston, dear, we are finding friends +here;" she pointed to Harry. + +Colonel Boyce had followed. He laid his hand on Harry's shoulder: "My +son, ma'am," said he. + +Mrs. Weston's eyes grew wide, and her face was white and drawn, and she +swayed. As Harry bowed to her, a lacquered box was swept off the table +with a great clatter, and Colonel Boyce cried, "Odds life, Harry, you are +a clumsy fellow. Here, man, here," and made a great commotion over +picking it up. + +Alison had her arm about Mrs. Weston: "Why, Weston, dear, what is it? Are +you seeing a ghost?" She laughed. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, come to life." + +"I ask pardon, ma'am." Harry rose with the box. + +"'Bid me to live and I will live,'" said the Colonel, with a grand air. + +"Come away, dear, come," Mrs. Weston gasped, in much agitation. + +"Why, Weston, he is not our highwayman, you know," Alison was still +laughing, and then seeing her distress real, took it in earnest. "You are +shaken, poor thing. Come!" She mothered the woman away and, turning, +called over her shoulder-- + +"_Revanche_, Mr. Boyce." There was an explanation to Lady Waverton: poor +Weston had been so alarmed by the highwaymen that she was not fit to be +out of her bed, and anything alarmed her; even Mr. Boyce; so dear Lady +Waverton must forgive them. And Geoffrey took them to their carriage. + +"What a person!" said Lady Waverton. + +Mr. Hadley came out of his corner and looked Harry up and down with +dislike. "Let me know when you play the next act, Mr. Boyce," he +said, and turned to Lady Waverton. "My lady, I beg leave to go with +my friends." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + +In a small, bare room Colonel Boyce sat himself down on a pallet bed and +made a wry face at his son. "My poor, dear boy," he said, and shifted +uneasily, and looked round at the stained walls and shivered. "It's damp, +I vow it's damp," he complained. + +"Oh yes. It's damp after rain, and it's hot after sun, and it's icy after +frost. It's a very sympathetic room," said Harry. + +"They are barbarians, these Wavertons. I vow they give their horses +better lodging." + +"Oh yes. I am not worth so much as a horse," said Harry. + +"Lud, Harry, don't whine,"--his father was irritated. "Have some spirit. +I hate to hear a lad meek." + +"I thought you did," said Harry. + +The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I am bit, am I? _Tant mieux_. But why the devil +do you stay here?" + +"Now why the devil do you want to know?" said Harry. + +"No, that is not kind, boy." + +"Oh, Oh, are we kind?" + +"My dear Harry, I have not seen you for six years, and I have not come +now to quarrel." + +"Then why have you come?" said the affectionate son. + +"You are a gracious cub." Colonel Boyce would not be ruffled. "When I saw +you last, Harry--" + +"You borrowed a shilling of me. I remember I was glad that I had +not another." + +"You can have it back with interest now. There is plenty in the purse, +Harry, and half of all mine is yours." + +"You have changed," Harry said. "Odds life, Harry, bear no grudges. I +dare say I was hard in what you remember of me. Well, things were hard +upon me and I lived hard. You shall find me mellow enough now." + +"Hard? I don't know that you were hard. I thought you were as cold as +ice. I believe, sir, I am still frozen." + +"Egad, Harry, you must have had a curst childhood." + +"Oh, must we be sympathetic?" said Harry. + +"You're right, boy. The past is past. 'Tis your future which is the +matter. So again--why do you stay here?" + +Harry laughed. "They give me bed and board, and a shilling or two by +the month." + +"Bed?" His father shifted upon it. "A bag of stones, I think. And for the +board--bread of affliction and water of affliction by what I saw of the +remains. Egad, Harry, they are savages, these Wavertons." + +"I did not hear you say so to madame. And Geoffrey is not a bad fellow +as far as he has understanding." + +"A dolt, eh? He might take a woman's eye, though. These big dreamy +fellows, the women hanker after them queerly. Take care, Harry." He +looked knowing. "Bed and board--bah, you can do better than that. Now +what do you think I have been doing?" + +"Something profitable, to judge by your genial splendours. Have you +turned highwayman?" + +"You all talk about highwaymen in this house," said the Colonel with a +frown and a keen glance. + +"Damme, no." + +"Why, are you really a colonel?" + +"Faith, you may come see my commission,"--Colonel Boyce was not +annoyed,--"and, egad, share my pay." He pulled out a fat purse and thrust +some guineas upon Harry. "Don't deny me now, boy," he said, with some +tenderness. + +"I never meant to," said Harry, and counted them. "But how long have you +been a soldier? I never knew you were anything." + +"I have been with his Grace of Marlborough in every campaign since +Blenheim. Do you think it's a good service, Harry?" he smiled at his +own opulence. + +"For a versatile man," said Harry, and looked at his father curiously. + +"Why, I can take the field as well as another. Egad, when Vendome fell +back from Oudenarde I was commanding a battalion. But it is not in the +field that my best work is done." + +"Faith, I had guessed that," Harry said. + +"You have a sharp tongue, Harry. It's a dangerous weakness. Be careful +to grow out of it. Then I think you may do well enough." + +"In your profession, sir? To be sure, you flatter me." + +"In my profession--" His father looked at him keenly. "I am not sure. +Maybe you can do better, which will be well enough. Now, what can you do? +You can use a sword, I suppose, though you wear none?" + +Harry shrugged. "I know the rigmarole, the salutes; I could begin a duel, +_par exemple_. It's the other man who would end it." + +"Duels--bah, only dolts are troubled with them. You must learn to hold +your own in a flurry. You can ride, I suppose?" + +"If the beast has a mane." + +"Humph. You speak French?" + +"As we speak it in England." + +"Yes." His father nodded. "When a man is no fool, he finds his profit in +not doing things too well. Well, Harry, are you Whig or Tory--Jacobite or +Hanoverian?" + +"Whichever you like, sir." + +"By the Lord, you take after me mightily. Now look 'e, thus it is. The +Queen grows old. She eats too well and drinks too well, and she has the +gout. It's common among all who know her ways that she cannot last long. +The poor soul will not be wise at dinner. But even if she should last, we +are in an odd case. For Anne hath a conscience as well as a stomach, and +it seems they grow together. As the old lady gets fatter, she feels +remorse. When she's tearful after dinner now she asks her women what +right she has to be queen and keep a good cellar while her poor +half-brother Prince James lives in exile on _vin ordinaire_." + +Harry shrugged his shoulders. "'Poor, dear lad,' says she, 'and to +be sure I am a sad, bad woman. But I think I'll die a queen.' What +then, sir?" + +"I don't say you are wrong, Harry. She's more like to drown the lad in +tears than right him. And meanwhile our rightful king, James the +Pretender, is left to his _vin ordinaire_. Faith, it's a proper liquor, +for rightful heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a +chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath +religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. But here is +what's more likely. You know when an old fellow hath played the knave +with some wardship or some matter of trust, often he holds fast to it all +his life and then seeks to commend himself to the day of judgment by +bequeathing his spoils to those from whom he stole them. Well, it's +whispered among them that know her that Madame Anne will do her possible +to make Prince James King when she is gone." + +"A dead Queen is but a corpse," said Harry. "When she is gone 'twill not +be for her to say who shall reign." + +"That's half a truth. You know the law is so that Prince George of +Hanover should be the King. About him no man knows anything save that he +hath a vile taste in women. I do suspect Marlborough is in the right--he +has a nose for men--when he saith there is nought to know. Well, we +tried a Dutchman once for our King and liked him ill enough. Who is to +say that we shall like a German better? Now Prince James--he is half an +Englishman at least, though they say he has his father's weakness for +priests. I'll not hide from you, Harry, that I am in the confidence of +some great men. It's laid upon me to go to France with an errand to +Prince James." + +"I suppose that is high treason, sir." + +Colonel Boyce smiled queerly. "You see how I trust you, Harry. Bah, you +are not frightened of words. Who is the worse for it, if I find out +what's Monsieur's temper and how he would bear himself if he were King?" + +"And what he would pay any kind gentlemen who chose to turn +Jacobites apropos." + +"If you like." Colonel Boyce laughed. I promise you, Harry, there are +great men in this. Now I need a trusty fellow to my right hand: a fellow +who can talk and say nothing: a fellow who is in no service but mine: and +all the better if he hath some learning to play the secretary. So I +thought of you. And since it may carry you to something of note, I chose +you with right good will." + +"Do you wonder that you surprise me?" + +"I profess you're not generous, Harry. It's true enough, I have done +little for you yet. But the truth is I could do nothing. As soon as I +have it in my power, I come to you--" + +"And offer me--a game at hazard." + +"Why, Harry, you're not a coward?" + +"Faith, I can't tell. Perhaps I will go with you. But I have no +expectation in it." + +"I suppose you have some here," his father sneered. "What do they call +you? You seem to be something better than Master Geoffrey's valet and a +good deal worse than my lady's footman." + +"Why, I believe you have lost your temper." Harry laughed. "Oh, admirable +sight! Pray let me enjoy it! The father rages at his son's ingratitude!" + +But Colonel Boyce had quickly recovered his equanimity. "They used to +tell me that I was a cold fellow. But I vow you are a very fish. So you +have half a mind to stay here, have you? Well, I bear no malice." + +"It is only half a mind," Harry said. "Are you in a hurry?" + +"Oh, you may sleep on it. Damme, I suppose there is little to do here but +sleep. What does Master Geoffrey want with you? He is old to keep a tame +schoolmaster." + +"I listen to his poetry." + +"Oh Lud!" said Colonel Boyce, with sincere sympathy. "I suppose they are +wealthy folk, your Wavertons. Do they keep much company?" Harry shrugged. +"Who is this Mrs. Weston?" + +"I never saw her before." Harry paused, and then with a laugh +added--"before yesterday." + +"That's a fine woman, her mistress. Do you do anything in that +quarter, sirrah?" + +"Why should you think so?" + +"She was willing enough that you should try." + +"She is meat for my betters," said Harry meekly. + +"For Master Geoffrey?" The Colonel looked knowing. "Do you know, Harry, I +think Master Geoffrey is a pigeon made to be plucked. Well. What was the +pretty lady's talk about highwaymen?" + +Harry looked at his father for some time. "The truth is, I don't +understand Benjamin," he said at last. "I wonder if you will. Faith, sir, +here is a pretty piece of family life. The good son confides in his +father alone of all the world." + +"Go on, sir," Colonel Boyce chuckled. "I play fair." + +So Harry told his tale of Benjamin and Benjamin's companion and their +disaster. It was that appearance in the crisis of the fight of other +gentlemen on horseback which most interested Colonel Boyce. "So they went +in pursuit of the fellow who had fled and they never came back again." He +looked quizzically at his son. "These be very honest gentlemen." + +"Why, sir, I thought nothing of that. They were plainly travelling at +speed. I suppose they missed him, and had no time to waste in searching." + +"Then why o' God's name did he not come back to help his fellow? He was +mounted, he was armed, and only you and your cudgel against him. Bah, +Harry, do not be an innocent. Consider: these fellows went after him at +speed. He cannot have been far away. It is any odds that he had his +bolting horses in hand before he had gone two furlongs. Then--allow him +some sense--then he must have turned and come back for his friend. And +then these other honest gentlemen swept down on him. Well. Why have you +heard no more of them or him?" + +"Faith, sir, you are right," Harry conceived for the first time some +admiration for his father. "I had missed that: and, egad, it is the chief +question of the puzzle. But--" + +"Puzzle! Oh Lud, there's no puzzle. They were all one gang, these +fellows." + +Harry laughed. "Then there was not much honour among the thieves. They +abandoned their Benjamin to me with delight." + +"Ah, bah, you do not suppose they were out for such small game as your +pretty miss. They would not work in a gang to stop a simple, common +coach, be it never so rich. Come, Harry, use your wits. Did you hear of +any great folks on the road yesterday?" + +Harry made an exclamation. "Odds life, sir, you would make a great +thief-catcher. You have hit it. There was your friend, the Duke of +Marl-borough, stuck in the mud below Barnet Hill." And he told that part +of the story. + +"Humph. So they came too late," his father said. "You see how it is. This +gang was charged to stop his Grace, and was something slow about it. The +two first, your Benjamin and his friend, I suppose they should have held +the Duke's fellows in play till the others came up. They missed him, or +they shirked it, and instead, tried to stay their stomachs with some +common game. The rest of the gang would be well enough pleased that you +should baste Benjamin while they hurried on after the Duke. Did you mark +any of them, what like they were?" + +"Not I. I was too busy with Benjamin." + +"And your pretty miss, eh? A pity. But it's well enough for your +first affair." + +"First? Why, am I to spend my life tumbling with gentlemen of the road?" + +"And a profitable, pleasant life too, if you use your wits." + +Harry opened his eyes. "Do you know it well, sir? Now, what I don't +understand is why a gang of highwaymen should appoint to set upon the +Duke of Marlborough. It's dangerous, to be sure--" + +"You will understand why, if you come to France," said Colonel Boyce, +with a queer smile. "There be many would pay high for a sight of his +Grace's private papers," and he laughed to himself over some joke. "Nay, +but you have done very well, Harry," he condescended. "I like this +business of leaving Benjamin tied up on the road. 'Tis damned nonsense, +to be sure, but it has an air, a distinction. Your pretty miss will like +that. And I judge you have not told the Wavertons you were the hero, nor +let miss tell them. 'Tis your little secret for yourselves. A good touch, +Harry. Odds life, I begin to be proud of you. I suppose you will soon go +pay your respects--to Mrs. Weston." He laughed heartily. + +Harry was not amused. "Do you know, I think I like you much less than you +like me," he said. + +Colonel Boyce seemed very well content. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + +Colonel Boyce was established in the house, a guest of high honour. + +Harry, dazed at the mere fact, could not be very sure how it had happened +or why. The Wavertons, mother and son, had assaulted the Colonel with +hospitality--for a night--for another--for longer and longer--and he, +appearing at first honestly dubious, remained with a benign +condescension. + +There is no doubt that, in an honourable way, Lady Waverton was +fascinated by Colonel Boyce. She saw nothing coarse in his +highly-coloured manners, suspected no guile in his flattery or his parade +of importance. Harry, who had never supposed her a wise woman, was +surprised by her complete surrender. He had credited her with too much +pride to succumb to flattery, which was to his taste impudently gross. +But he was not yet old enough to allow that other folks might have tastes +wholly unlike his own, and he had himself--it is perhaps the only trait +of much delicacy in him--a shrinking discomfort under praise. + +Colonel Boyce took his victory with a complacency which Harry thought +oddly fatuous in a man so acute. + +"Egad, the old lady would go to church with me to-morrow if I asked her;" +he laughed, and seemed to think that in that at least my lady showed +sense. + +"You had better take her, sir," said Harry, with a sneer. "I know she has +a good dower. And a fool and her money are soon parted." + +"Damme, Harry, you are venomous!" For the first time in their +acquaintance Colonel Boyce showed some signs of smarting. "What harm have +I done you? No, sir, you have a nasty tongue. I intend the old lady no +harm, neither. What if she has a tenderness for me? I suppose that does +not make me a fool." + +"To be sure, sir, I did not know your affection was serious." Harry +laughed disagreeably. + +"I believe you would not miss a chance to say a bitter thing though it +ruined you, Lud, Harry, if you can't be grateful, don't be a fool too. +What a pox are your Wavertons to me? I don't value them a pinch of snuff. +What I am doing, I am doing for you. You know what you were when I found +you--no better than a footman out of livery. Now, they treat you like a +gentleman." + +"And all for the _beaux yeux_ of my father. Well, it's true, sir. But I +don't know that I like any of us much the better for it." + +To his great surprise his father looked at him with affectionate +admiration. "Egad, you take that tone very well," said he. "It's a good +card. Maybe it's the best with the women." + +Harry had to laugh. "I think you have the easiest temper in the +world, sir." + +"Aye, aye. It has been the ruin of me." + +And so they parted the best of friends. Indeed Harry had never liked his +father so well or felt so much his superior. Thus from age to age is +filial affection confirmed. + +But he had to allow some adroitness in his father. Not only Lady +Waverton, but Geoffrey too, succumbed to the paternal charms. That was +the more surprising. Geoffrey, behind his vanity and his affectation, was +no fool. He had also a temper apt to dislike any man who made a show of +position or achievement beyond his own. Yet he hung upon the lips of +Colonel Boyce. What they gave him was indeed a pleasing mixture--secrets +about great affairs flavoured with deference to his ingenious criticisms. +There was something solid about it, too. The Colonel, displaying himself +as a man of much importance, perpetually hinted that only the occasion +was needed for Mr. Waverton to surpass him by far, and to that occasion +he could point the way. It appeared to Harry that his father had in mind +to enlist Geoffrey for the proposed mission to France, or some other +scheme unrevealed. And being unable to see any reason for wanting +Geoffrey as a man, he suspected that his father wanted money. + +He saw clearly that nobody wanted him, and was therewith very well +content. At this time in his life he asked nothing better than to be left +alone with his whims and the open air. He covered many a mile of sticky +clay in these autumn days, placidly vacant of mind, and afterwards +accounted them the most comfortable of his life. + +Mr. Waverton's house was set upon a hill, at one end of a line of hills +which now look over the wilderness of London, falling steeply thereto, +and upon the other side, to northward and the open country, more gently. +In the epoch of Harry Boyce those hills were all woodland--pleasant +patches still remain,--and if the need of great walking was not upon him +he was often pleased to loiter through their thickets. It was on a wild +south-westerly day when the naked trees were at a loud chorus that Alison +came to him. + +The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak +and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of her shape. + +"'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried. + +"You're poetical, ma'am." + +"I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith, +I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?" + +"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?" + +"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows +why she runs after me." + +"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless +maid indeed which runs after a man"--she made him a curtsy. "But what is +the man who runs away from a maid?" + +Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The +rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet +more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep +water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the +wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed +the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did +you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled. + +"I allow you the privileges of a gentleman, Mr. Boyce." + +"Gentleman? Oh Lud, no, ma'am. I am an upper servant. Rather better than +the butler. Not so good as the steward." + +"It won't serve you, sir. You have insulted me, and I demand +satisfaction." She drew off her gauntleted glove and flicked him in the +face with it. "Now will you fight?" + +"Oh, must we slap and scratch then?" Harry flushed darker than the mark +of the glove. "I thought we had been fighting." + +Miss Lambourne laughed. "You can lose your temper then? It's something, +in fact. Yes, we have been fighting, sir, and you don't fight fair." + +"Who does with a woman?" Harry sneered. "I cry you mercy, ma'am. You are +vastly too strong for me. Let me alone and I ask no more of you." + +To which Miss Lambourne said, very innocently, "Why?" Harry looked up and +saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure +smile in the eyes. "Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done +me something of a great service. There was a man handling me--do you know +what that means? "--she made a wry face and gave herself a shaking +shudder--"You rid me of him, and with some risk to your precious skin. +Well, sir, I am grateful, and I want to show it. Odds life, I should be a +beast did I not. I want to thank you and to sing your praises--to +yourself also perhaps. And you are pleased to be a churl and a boor." + +"In effect," said Harry coolly. "Egad, ma'am, let me have the luxury of +hating you. For I am the Wavertons' gentleman usher and you are the +nonpareil Miss Lambourne, vastly rich and--" he ended with a shrug and +a rueful grin. + +"And--?" Miss Lambourne softly insisted. + +"And damnably lovely. Lord, you know that." + +"I thank God," said Miss Lambourne devoutly. + +"Is it true, Mr. Boyce--do the meek inherit the earth?" She held out her +hands to him, one bare, one gloved, she swayed a little towards him, and +her face was gentle and wistful. "Nay, sir, I ask your pardon. Call +friends if you please and will please me." + +Harry lost hold of himself at last. The blood surged in him, and he +caught at her and kissed her fiercely. + +It was he who was embarrassed. As he stood away from her, eyeing her with +a queer defiant shame, she smiled through a small matter of a blush, and +breathing quickly said: "What does it feel like, sir?" + +"The world's a miracle," Harry said unsteadily and would have caught +her again. + +She turned, she was away light of foot, and in a moment through the wind +he heard her singing to a tune of her own the child's rhyme: + +"Fly away, Jack, + Fly away, Jill, +Come again, Jack, + Come again, Jill." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + +Where the lane from Fortis Green crosses the high road there stood an +ale-house. On the wettest days, and some others, the place was Harry's +resort. Not that he had a liking for ale-house company--or indeed any +company. But within the precincts of the Wavertons' house tobacco was +forbidden and--all the more for that--tobacco he loved with a solid +devotion. The alehouse of the cross roads offered a clean floor, a clean +fire, air not too foul, a tolerable chair, a landlord who did not talk, +and until evening, sufficient solitude. There Harry smoked many pipes in +tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's +sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men +whom he more despised. Nobody in a position just better than menial can +be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's +_metier_. But Harry--it is one of his most noble qualities--bore being +laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of +a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt that it was sincere. He could +more easily have forgiven it if it had been hypocritical. A man had no +business to be so mighty honest. + +Mr. Hadley nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for +his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley +was civil enough to pass him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked +in grave silence. + +"So you are still with us," said Mr. Hadley. + +"By your good leave, sir." + +"I had an apprehension the Colonel was going to ravish you away." + +"I hope I am still of some use to Mr. Waverton." + +"Damme, you might be the old family retainer. 'Faithful service of the +antique world,' egad. I suppose you will end your days with Geoffrey, and +be buried at his feet like a trusty hound." + +"If you please, sir." + +They looked at each other. "Well, Mr. Boyce, I beg your pardon," Hadley +said. "But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man." + +"I do not desire it, sir." + +"I may hold my tongue and mind my own business, eh? Why not take me +friendly?" + +"I intend you no harm, Mr. Hadley." + +"That's devilish good of you, Mr. Boyce. To be plain with you, what do +you want here?" + +"Here? Oh Lord, sir, I come to smoke my pipe!" + +"And what if I come to smoke you? Odds life, I know you are no fool. Do +me the honour to take me for none. And tell me, if you please, why do you +choose to be Master Geoffrey's gentleman in waiting? You are good for +better than that, Mr. Boyce." + +"No doubt, sir. But it brings me bread and butter." + +"You could earn that fighting in Flanders." + +Harry shrugged. "I am not very brave, Mr. Hadley." + +"You count upon staying here, do you?" + +"If I can satisfy Mr. Waverton," said Harry meekly. + +Hadley's face grew harder. "I vow I do my best to wish you well, +Mr. Boyce. I should be glad to hear that you'll give up walking in +the woods." + +There was a moment of silence. "I did not know that I had asked for your +advice, sir." Harry said. "I am not grateful for it." + +"Damme, that's the first honest answer you have made," Hadley cried. +"Look 'e, Mr. Boyce, I am as much your friend as I may be. I have an +uncle which was the lady's guardian. If I said a word to him he would +carry it to Lady Waverton in a gouty rage. There would be a swift end of +Mr. Boyce the tutor. Well, I would not desire that. For all your airs, +I'll believe you a man of honour. And I ask you what's to become of Mr. +Boyce the tutor seeking private meetings with the Lambourne heiress? +Egad, sir, you were made for better things than such a mean business." + +"Honour!" Harry sneered. "Were you talking of men of honour? I suppose +there is good cover in the woods, Mr. Hadley." + +Hadley stared at him. "It was not good enough, you see, sir." He knocked +out his pipe and stood up. "Bah, this is childish. You don't think me a +knave, nor I you. I have said my say, and I mean you well." + +"I believe that, Mr. Hadley"--Harry met him with level eyes--"and I am +not grateful." + +"You know who she is meant for." + +"I know that the lady might call us both impudent." + +"Would that break your bones? Come, sir, the lady hath been destined for +Master Geoffrey since she had hair and never has rebelled." + +"Lord, Mr. Hadley, are you destiny?" + +Mr. Hadley let that by with an impatient shrug. "So if you be fool enough +to have ambitions after her, you would wear a better face in eating no +more of Master Geoffrey's bread." + +"It's a good day for walking, Mr. Hadley. Which way do you go? For I go +the other." + +"I hope so," Mr. Hadley agreed, and on that the two gentlemen parted, +both something warm. + +We should flatter him in supposing Harry Boyce of a chivalrous delicacy. +Whether the lady's fair fame might be the worse for him was a question of +which he never thought. It is certain that he did not blame himself for +using his place as Geoffrey's paid servant to damage Geoffrey in his +affections. And indeed you will agree that he was innocent of any +designed attack upon the lady. Yet Mr. Hadley succeeded in making him +very uncomfortable. + +What most troubled him, I conceive, was the fear of being ridiculous. The +position of a poor tutor aspiring to the favours of the heiress destined +for his master invites the unkind gibe. And Harry could not be sure that +Alison herself was free from the desire to make him a figure of scorn. +Such a suspicion might disconcert the most ardent of lovers. Harry +Boyce, whatever his abilities in the profession, was not that yet. But +the very fact that he had come to feel an ache of longing for Alison made +him for once dread laughter. If he had been manoeuvring for what he could +get by her, or if he had been merely taken by her good looks, he might +have met jeering with a brazen face. But she had engaged his most private +emotions, and to have them made ludicrous would be of all possible +punishments most intolerable. The precise truth of what he felt for her +then was, I suppose, that he wanted to make her his own--wanted to have +all of her in his power; and a gentleman whom the world--and the +lady--are laughing at for an aspiring menial cannot comfortably think +about his right to possess her. + +There was something else. He was not meticulously delicate, but he had a +complete practical sanity. He saw very well that even if Alison, by the +chance of circumstance, had some infatuation for him, she might soon +repent: he saw that even if the affair went with romantic success--a +thing hardly possible--his position and hers might be awkward enough. +Her friends would be long in forgiving either of them, and find ways +enough to hurt them both. Mr. Hadley, confound him, spoke the common +sense of mankind. + +There was one solution--that estimable father. By the time he came back +to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the +ambiguous banner of Colonel Boyce. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + +With grim irony Harry congratulated himself on his decision. When first +he came into the house he heard Alison singing. There was indeed (as he +told himself clearly) nothing wonderful about her voice--it resembled +the divine only in being still and small. Yet he could not (he called +himself still more clearly a fool) keep away from it, and so he slunk +into Lady Waverton's drawing-room. Only duty and stated hours were wont +to drag him there. Lady Waverton showed her appreciation of his unusual +attendance by staring at him across the massed trifles of the room with +sleepy and insolent amazement. But it was not the glassy eyes of Lady +Waverton which convinced Harry that flight was the true wisdom. Over +Alison at the harpsichord, Geoffrey hung tenderly: their shoulders +touched, eyes answered eyes, and miss was radiant. She sang at him with a +naughty archness that song of Mr. Congreve's: + +"Thus to a ripe consenting maid, +Poor old repenting Delia said, +Would you long preserve your lover? + Would you still his goddess reign? +Never let him all discover, + Never let him much obtain. + +Men will admire, adore and die +While wishing at your feet they lie; +But admitting their embraces + Wakes 'em from the golden dream: +Nothing's new besides our faces, + Every woman is the same." + +She contorted her own face into smug folly by way of illustration. Then +she and Geoffrey laughed together. "I vow you're the most deliciously +wicked creature that ever was born a maid." + +"D'ye regret it, sir? Faith, I could not well be born a wife." + +"No, ma'am, that's an honour to be won by care and pains." + +"Pains! Lud, yes, I believe that. But, dear sir, I reckon it the +punishment for folly. Why,"--she chose to see Harry--"why, here is our +knight of the rueful countenance!" + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "It is related of the Egyptians--" + +"God help us," Alison murmured. + +He went on, giggling. "It is related of the Ancient Egyptians that they +ever had a corpse among the guests at their feasts." + +"Were their cooks so bad?" said Alison. + +"To remind them that all men are mortal. Now you see why we keep Harry." + +"I wonder if he looked as happy when he was alive," said Alison, +surveying his wooden face. + +"_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the +dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't +like it known." + +Colonel Boyce, who had listened to the song and the first +coruscations of wit with the condescending smile of a connoisseur, +now exhibited some impatience. "Egad, Harry, why will you dress like +a parson out at elbows?" + +"His customary suit of solemn black," said Geoffrey. + +"He is in mourning for himself, of course," Alison laughed. + +"I have two suits of clothes, ma'am," said Harry meekly. "This is +the better." + +"Poor Harry!" Geoffrey granted him a look of protective affection. "I vow +we are too hard on him, Alison." And then in a lower voice for her +private ear. "A dear, worthy fellow, but--well, what would you have?--of +no spirit." Alison bit her lip. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton," Harry protested, "indeed, I am proud to be the cause +of such wit." + +Colonel Boyce stared at his son with an enigmatic frown. Alison's eyes +brightened. But Geoffrey suspected no guile. "Not witty thyself, dear +lad, but the cause of wit in others, eh? Odds life, Harry, you are +invaluable." + +"'Tis your kindness for me makes you think so, Mr. Waverton. And, to be +sure, I could ask no more than to amuse your lady." + +Alison said tartly, "Oh, it takes little to amuse me, sir." + +"I am sure, ma'am," Harry agreed meekly. + +"It's a happy nature." and he bowed to Geoffrey, humbly congratulating +him on a lady of such simple tastes. + +Geoffrey, who had now had enough of his good tutor, eliminated him by a +compliment or so on Alison's voice and the demand that she should sing +again. He found her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she +would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. +Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of +keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the +world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must +be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so +good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they were merely +his kind condescension. And, oh Lud, it was time she was gone, or poor, +dear Weston would be imagining her slaughtered on the highway. + +Geoffrey could not make much of this, but was pleased to take it as +flattering feminine homage to his magnificence. By way of reward, he +announced an intention of riding home with her carriage. "Faith, you are +too good"--her eyes were modestly hidden--"but then you are too good to +everybody. Is he not, Mr. Boyce?" + +"Oh, ma'am, we all practise on his kindness," Harry said. + +"A good night to your mourning," she said sharply, "dear Lady Waverton." +They kissed. "Colonel Boyce, I hold you to your promise." + +"With all my heart, ma'am. Your devoted." + +She was gone, and Harry, with a look of significance at his father, went +off too.... + +In that shabby upper chamber of his, Harry again offered the Colonel a +choice between the bed and the one chair. Colonel Boyce made a gesture +and an exclamation of impatience, and remained standing. "Now, what the +devil do you want with me?" he complained. + +"I want to be very grateful. I want to enlist with you. When shall +we start?" + +His father frowned, and in a little while made a crooked answer, "Do you +know, Harry, you are too mighty subtle. I was so at your years. It's very +pretty sport, but--well, it won't butter your parsnips. The women can't +tell what to make of it. Having, in general, no humour, pretty +creatures." + +"I am obliged for the sermon, sir. Shall we leave to-morrow?" + +"Egad, you are in a fluster," his father smiled. "Well, to be sure, he is +a teasing fellow, the beautiful Geoffrey." + +Harry made an exclamation. "You'll forgive me, sir, if I say you are +talking nonsense." + +"Oh Lud, yes," his father chuckled. + +"Whether I am agreeable to women, whether Mr. Waverton is agreeable to +me--odds life, sir, I don't trouble my head about such things. Pray, +why should you? As well sit down and cry because my eyes are not the +same colour." + +"No. No. There is something taking about that, Harry," his father +remonstrated placidly. + +"When you please to be in earnest, sir," Harry cried, "if this affair of +yours is in earnest--" "Oh, you may count on that." Colonel Boyce was +still enjoying himself. + +"Then I am ready for it. And the sooner the better." + +"Hurry is a bad horse. The truth is, something more hangs on this affair +than Mr. Harry's whims. Oh, damme, I don't blame you, though. He is +tiresome, our Geoffrey." + +"Why, sir, if we have to waste time, we might waste it more comfortably +than with the Waverton family. Shall we say to-morrow?" + +Colonel Boyce tapped his still excellent teeth. "Patience, patience," he +said, and considered his son gravely. "As for to-morrow, I have friends +to see, and so have you. Your pretty miss engaged me to ride over with +you to her house. And behind the brave Geoffrey's back, if you please. +She is a sly puss, Harry." He expected so obviously an angry answer that +Harry chose to disappoint him. + +"I shall be happy to take leave of Miss Lambourne. And shall I ride +pillion with you, sir? For I have no horse of my own." + +"Bah, dear Geoffrey will lend me the best in the stable." + +"I give you joy of the progress in his affections." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You are pledged for the forenoon then," he +paused. "And as to that little affair of mine--you shall know your part +soon enough." + +"It cannot be too soon, sir." + +"No." Colonel Boyce nodded. "I think it's full time." + +He took leave of his son with what the son thought superfluous +affection. + +Half an hour afterwards he was in Mr. Waverton's room--a place very +precious. Everything in it--and there were many things--had an air of +being strange. Mr. Waverton slept behind curtains of black and silver. +His floor was covered with some stuff like scarlet velvet. There was a +skull in the place of honour on the walls, flanked by two Venetian +pictures of the Virgin, and faced by a blowsy Bacchus and Ariadne from +Flanders. The chairs were of the newest Italian mode, designed rather to +carry as much gilding as possible than to comfort the human form. Colonel +Boyce, regarding them with some apprehension, stood himself before the +fire and waved off Geoffrey's effusive courtesy. + +"I hope you have good news for me, Mr. Waverton?" So he opened the +attack. + +"Why, sir, I have considered my engagements," Geoffrey said +magnificently. "I believe I could hold myself free for some months--if +the enterprise were of weight." + +"You relieve me vastly. I'll not disguise from you, Mr. Waverton, that I +am something anxious to secure you. I could not find a gentleman so well +equipped for this delicate business. You'll observe, 'tis of the first +importance that we should have presence, an air, the _je ne sais quoi_ of +dignity and family." + +"Sir, you are very obliging." Geoffrey swallowed it whole. + +"When I came here I confess I was at my wit's end. Indeed, I had a mind +to go alone. The gentlemen of my acquaintance--either they could not be +trusted with an affair of such value, or they had too much of our English +coarseness to be at ease with it. Faith, when I came to see my poor, dear +Harry, little I thought that in his neighbourhood I should find the very +man for my embassy." The two gentlemen laughed together over the +incompatibility of Harry with gentlemanly diplomacy. + +"Not but what Harry is a faithful, trusty fellow," said Mr. Waverton, +with magnificent condescension. + +"You are very good to say so. A dolt, sir, a dolt; so much the worse for +me. Now, Mr. Waverton, to you I have no need of a word more on the +secrecy of the affair. Though, to be sure, this very morning I had +another note from Cadogan--Marlborough's _âme damnée_ you know--pressing +it on me that nothing should get abroad. So when we go, we'll be off +without a good-bye, and if you must leave a word behind for the anxieties +of my lady, let her know that you are off with me to see the army in +Flanders." + +"I profess, Colonel, you are mighty cautious." + +"Dear sir, we cannot be too cautious in this affair. There's many a +handsome scheme gone awry for the sake of some affectionate farewell. +Mothers, wives, lady-loves--sweet luxuries, Mr. Waverton, but damned +dangerous. Now here's my plan. We'll go riding on an afternoon and not +come back again. Trust my servant to get away quietly with your baggage +and mine. We must travel light, to be sure. We'll go round London. I have +too many friends there, and I want none of them asking where old Noll +Boyce is off to now. Newhaven is the port for us. There is a trusty +fellow there has his orders already. I look to land at Le Havre. Now, the +Prince, by our latest news, is back at St. Germain. As you can guess, Mr. +Waverton, to be seen in Paris would suit my health even less than to be +seen in London. Too many honest Frenchmen have met me in the wars, and, +what's worse, too many of them know me deep in Marlborough's business. I +could not show my face without all King Louis's court talking of some +great matter afoot. What I have in mind is to halt on the road--at +Pontoise maybe--while you ride on with letters to Prince James. I warrant +you they are such, and with such names to them, as will assure you a +noble welcome. It's intended that he should quit St. Germain privately +with you to conduct him to me. Then I warrant you we shall know how to +deal with the lad." He paused and stared at Geoffrey intently, and +gradually a grim humour stole into his eyes. He began to laugh. "Egad, I +envy you, Mr. Waverton. To be in such an affair at your years--bah, I +should have been crazy with pride." + +"You need not doubt that I value the occasion, sir," Geoffrey said +grandly. "Pray, believe that I shall do honour to your confidence." + +"To be sure you will. Odds life, to chaffer with a king's son about +kingdoms, to offer a realm to a prince in exile (if only he will be a +good boy)--it's a fine, stately affair, sir, and you are the very man to +take it in the right vein." + +"Sir, you are most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your +kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you." + +"Egad, you do already," Colonel Boyce smiled, still with some touch of +cruelty in his eyes. + +"Pray, sir, when must we start?" + +"When I know, maybe I shall need to start in an hour." + +"I shall not fail you. I shall want, I suppose, some funds in hand?" + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "Oh Lud, yes, we'll want some money. A matter of +five hundred pounds should serve." + +"I will arrange for it in the morning," said Mr. Waverton, too +magnificent to be startled. "Pray, what clothes shall we be able +to carry?" + +"Damme, that's a grave matter," said Colonel Boyce, and with becoming +gravity discussed it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + +Thus Colonel Boyce blandly arranged the lives of his young friends. It is +believed that he had a peculiar pleasure in manoeuvring his +fellow-creatures from behind a veil of secrecy. For in this he sought not +merely his private profit (though it was never out of his calculations); +he enjoyed his operations for their own sake; he liked his trickery as +trickery; to push and pull people to the place in which he wanted them +without their knowing how or why or to what end they were impelled was to +him a pleasure second to none in life. And on a survey of his whole +career he is to be accounted successful. Though I cannot find that he +ever achieved anything of signal importance even for himself, at one time +or another he brought a great number of people, some of them powerful, +and some of them honourable, under his direction, he had his complete +will of many of them, and was rewarded by the bitter hostility of the +majority. He contrived, in fact, to live just such a life as he liked +best. What more can any man have? + +So he told Harry nothing of his engagement of Mr. Waverton, and Harry, +you have seen, was not likely to guess that anyone would enlist his +Geoffrey for a serious enterprise. On the next morning, indeed, Harry did +remark that Geoffrey was more portentous than usual, but thought nothing +of it. He was embarrassed by thinking about himself. + +There was, as Colonel Boyce predicted, no difficulty about a horse for +Harry. When the Colonel suggested it, Geoffrey showed some satirical +surprise at Harry's daring, but (advising one of the older carriage +horses) bade him take what he would. Colonel Boyce spoke only of riding +with his son. He said nothing of where they were going. Harry wondered +whether Geoffrey would have been so gracious if he had known that Alison +was their destination, and, a new experience for him, felt some qualms of +conscience. It was uncomfortable to use a favour from Geoffrey, even a +trifling favour granted with a sneer, for meeting his lady; still more +uncomfortable to go seek the lady out secretly. But if he announced what +he was doing, there would be instantly something ridiculous about it, and +he would have to swallow much of Geoffrey's humour. Geoffrey might even +come with them, and Alison and he be humorous together--a fate +intolerable. There was indeed an easy way of escape. He had but to stay +away from the lady. But, though he despised himself for it, he desired +infinitely to see her again. She compelled him, as he had never believed +anything outside his own will could compel. After all, it was no such +matter, for he would soon be gone with his father to France. He might +well hope never to see her again. + +So on that ride through the steep wooded lanes to Highgate, his father +found him morose, and complained of it. "Damme, for a young fellow that's +off to his lady-love you are a mighty poor thing, Harry." + +"My lady-love! I have no taste for rich food. I thought it was your lady +we were going to see." + +"What the devil do you mean by that?" Colonel Boyce stared. + +"Oh, fie, sir! Why be ashamed of her?" + +"God knows what you are talking about." Colonel Boyce was extraordinarily +irritated. "Ashamed of whom?" + +"Of the peerless Miss Lambourne, to be sure. Oh, sir, why be so innocent? +How could she resist your charms? And indeed--" + +"Miss Lambourne! What damned nonsense you talk, Harry." + +"I followed your lead, sir," said Harry meekly. "But if we are to talk +sense--when shall we start for France?" + +"You shall know when I know." + +And on that they came to the top of the hill and the gates of the Hall. +The wet weather had yielded to St. Martin's summer. It was a day of +gentle silver-gold sunlight and benign air. With her companion, Mrs. +Weston, Miss Lambourne was walking in the garden. She met the gentlemen +at a turn of the drive by rampant sweetbriers. "Here's our knight of the +rueful countenance, and faith, on Rosinante, poor jade," she patted +Harry's aged carriage horse. "Oh, and he has brought with him Solomon in +all his glory," she made a wonderful curtsy to the splendours of Colonel +Boyce. "Now, who would have dreamt Don Quixote's father was Solomon?" + +"I suppose I take after my mother, ma'am," Harry said meekly. "It's a +hope which often consoles me." + +"Why, they say Solomon had something of a variety in wives, and +among them--" + +Colonel Boyce dismounted with so much noise that the jest was hardly +heard and the end of it altogether lost. + +"You did not tell me"--Mrs. Weston was speaking and seemed to find it +difficult--"Alison, you did not tell me the gentlemen were coming." It +occurred to Harry that she looked very pale and ill. + +"Why, Weston; dear, I could not tell if they would keep troth." She +began to hum: + +"Men were deceivers ever, + One foot on sea, and one on shore, +To one thing constant never." + +"Nay, ma'am, sigh no more for here are we," Colonel Boyce said brusquely. + +"Oh Lud, he overwhelms us with the honour." She laughed. "How can we +entertain him worthily? Sir, will you walk? My poor house and I await +your pleasure." + +"I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I have never had a lady-in-waiting." + +"Oh, celibate virtue!" quoth Miss Lambourne. And so to the house Colonel +Boyce led her and his horse, and a little way behind Harry followed with +his and Mrs. Weston. + +She had nothing to say for herself. She looked so wan, she walked so +slowly, and with such an air of pain that Harry had to say something +about fearing she was not well. Then he felt a fool for his pains; as she +turned in answer and shook her head he saw such a sad, wistful dignity in +her eyes that the small coin of courtesy seemed an absurd offering. A +fancy, to be sure, in itself absurd. Yet he could not make the woman out. +There was something odd and baffling in the way she looked at him. + +She led off with an odd question, "Pray, have you lived much with +Colonel Boyce?" + +"Not I, ma'am." Harry laughed. "If I were not a very wise child I should +hardly know my own father. Lived with him? Not much more than with my +mother, whom I never saw." + +"Oh, did you not?" Her eyes dwelt upon him. After a little while, "Who +brought you up then?" + +"Schools. Half a dozen schools between Taunton and London, and +Westminster at last." + +"Were you happy?" + +"When I had sixpence." + +"But Colonel Boyce is rich!" she cried. + +"I have no evidence of it, ma'am." + +"I cannot understand. You hardly know him. But he comes to you at Lady +Waverton's; he stays with you; he brings you here. I believe you are +closer with him than you say." + +"Why, ma'am, it's mighty kind in you to concern yourself so with my +affairs. And if you can't understand them, faith, no more can I." + +She showed no shame at this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was +sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely +affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and +speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an +appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with +power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He +felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in +suffering, richer in all emotion, and (what was vastly surprising) under +her dullness, her feebleness, of fuller and deeper life. + +From vague, intriguing, bewildering fancies, her voice brought him back +with a start. "He brought you here?" she was asking. + +To be sure, she was wonderfully maladroit. This buzzing, futile curiosity +irritated him again into a sneer. "He is no doubt captivated by the +beautiful eyes of Miss Lambourne." + +"He! Mr. Boyce?"--she corrected herself with a stammer and a +blush--"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to be her father." + +"I think we ought to tell him so." Harry chuckled. "It would do +him good." + +"I think this is not very delicate, sir." Mrs. Weston was still blushing. + +"Egad, ma'am, if you ask questions, you must expect answers," Harry +snapped at her. + +"Why do you sneer at her? Why should you speak coarsely of her? I suppose +you come to the house of your own choice? Or does he make you come?" + +Harry saw no occasion for such excitement. "Why, you take away my breath +with your pronouns. He and she--she and he--pray, let's leave him and +her out of the question. Here's a very pretty garden." + +"Indeed, we need not quarrel, I think." She laughed nervously, and gave +him an odd, shy look. "Pray, do you stay with the Wavertons?" + +"Alas, ma'am, I make your acquaintance and bid you farewell all in one +day." + +"Make my acquaintance!" Again came a nervous laugh, and it was a moment +before she went on. "We have met before to-day." + +"Oh Lud, ma'am, I would desire you forget it." + +"I am to forget it!" she echoed. "Oh ... Oh, you are very proud." + +"Not I, indeed. The truth is, ma'am, that silly affair with our +highwayman, it embarrasses me mightily. I want to live it down. Pray, +help me, and think no more about it." + +"I suppose that is what you say to Alison?" For the first time there was +a touch of fun in her eyes. + +"Word for word, ma'am." + +"Why do you come here then?" + +"As I have the honour to tell you--to say good-bye." + +She checked and stared at him. She was very pale. But now they were at +the steps of the house, and Colonel Boyce, who had resigned his horse to +a groom, turned with Alison to meet them. + +"I am hot with the Colonel's compliments, Weston, dear," she announced. +"I must take a turn with Mr. Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A +convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other +freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to +trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you +have a tender heart." + +It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look +at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him. + +"I am not afraid," Mrs. Weston said. + +"I profess I am abashed," said Colonel Boyce. "Pray, ma'am, be gentle to +my disgrace," and he offered his arm. She bowed and moved away, and he +followed her. + +Harry and Alison, face to face, and sufficiently close, eyed each other +with some amusement. + +"Oh, Mr. Boyce," said she, and shook her head. + +"Oh, Miss Lambourne," Harry exhorted in his turn. + +"You have fallen. You have walked into my parlour." + +"I am the best of sons, ma'am. I endure all things at my father's +orders--even spiders." + +She still eyed him steadily, searching him, and was still amused. She +moved a little so that the admirable flowing lines of her shape were more +marked. Then she said, "Why are you afraid of me?" + +Harry shook his head, smiling. "Vainly is the net spread in the sight of +the bird, ma'am. But, faith, it was a pretty question, and I make you my +compliments." + +"So. Will you walk, sir?" She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of +arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a +yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce--when I meet you in company you +shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me +impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I +suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. +Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why in God's name are you afraid of me?" + +"Miss Lambourne got out of bed very earnest this morning," Harry grinned. +"But oh, let's be grave and honest with all my heart. Why, then, ma'am, +I've to say that a penniless fellow has the right to be afraid of Miss +Lambourne's money bags." + +"Fie, you are no such fool. If one is good company to t'other, which is +rich and which is poor is no more matter than which fair and which dark." + +"In a better world, ma'am, I would believe you." + +"And here you believe kind folks would sneer at Harry Boyce for scenting +an heiress. So you tuck your tail between your legs and go to ground. I +suppose that is called honour, sir." + +"Oh no, ma'am. Taste." + +"La, I offend monsieur's fine taste, do I?" + +"Not often, ma'am. But by all means let us be earnest. I believe I mind +being sneered at no more than my betters. _Par exemple_, ma'am, when you +laugh at me for being shabby, I am not much disturbed." + +She blushed furiously. "I never did." + +"Oh, I must have read your thoughts then," Harry laughed. "Well, what +matters to me is not that folks laugh at me but why they laugh. That they +mock me for being out at elbows I swallow well enough. That they should +sneer at me for making love to a woman's purse would give me a nausea." + +Miss Lambourne was pleased to look modest. "Indeed, sir, I did not know +that you had made love to me." + +"I am obliged by your honesty, ma'am." + +Miss Lambourne looked up and spoke with some vehemence. "It comes +to this, then, you would be beaten by what folks may say about you. +Oh, brave!" + +"Lud, we are all beaten by what folks might say. Would you ride into +London in your shift?" + +"I don't want to ride in my shift," she cried fiercely. + +"Perhaps not, ma'am. But perhaps I don't want to make love to your +purse." + +"Od burn it, sir, am I nothing but a purse?" + +"I leave it to your husband to find out, ma'am, and beg leave to take my +leave. My kind father offers me occupation at a distance, and I embrace +it ardently. Who knows? It may provide me with a coat." + +"You are going away?" + +"I have had the honour to say so." + +"And why, if you please?" + +Harry shrugged. "Because, ma'am, without my assistance, Mr. Waverton can +very well translate Horace into his own sublime verse and Miss Lambourne +into his own proud wife." + +He intended her to rage. What she did was to say softly: "You do not want +to see me that?" + +"I have no ambition to amuse you, ma'am." Miss Lambourne looked +sideways. "What if I don't want you to go away?" + +"Egad, ma'am, I know you don't." Harry laughed. "You amuse yourself +vastly (God knows why) with baiting me." + +"Why, it amuses me." Alison still looked at him sideways. "Don't you +know why?" + +He did not choose to answer. + +"Indeed, then, if I am nought to you why do you care what folks say of +you and me?" + +Harry made a step towards her. "You mean to have it again, do you?" +he muttered. + +"Pray, sir, what?" and still she looked sideways. + +"What you dragged out of me in the wood." + +"Dragged out of--oh!" She blushed, she drew back, and so had occasion to +do something with her cloak which let a glimpse of white neck and bosom +come into the light. "You flatter us both indeed." + +"I'll tell you the truth of us both"--he, too, was flushed: "you are a +curst coquette and I am a curst fool." + +Now she met his eyes fairly, and in hers there was no more laughter, +but she smiled with her lips: "I think you know yourself better than +you know me." + +Harry gripped her hands. "You go about to make me mad with desire for +you, you--" + +"I want you so," she breathed, and leaned back, away from him, her eyes +half veiled. + +He had his arms about her body, held her close. The red lips curved in a +riddle of a smile. He saw dark depths in the shadowed eyes. + +"_Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre_" she murmured. + +Harry exclaimed something, felt her against him, was aware of all her +form--and heard footsteps. + +Alison was out of his grasp, her back to him, plucking a rose. "You will +see me again--you shall see me again. I ride in the wood to-morrow +morning," she muttered. + +"You'll pay for it," Harry growled. + +His father arrived, Mrs. Weston, a servant at their heels. + +Alison came round with a swirl of skirts. "Dear sir, I doubt you have +burnt up dinner by your long passages with my Weston. Come in, come in," +and she led the way. + +For once Colonel Boyce was without an answer. Harry, who was dreading +witticisms, looked at him in surprise, and with more surprise saw that he +looked angry. Mrs. Weston hurried on before them all. Her eyes were red. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + +It seems certain that on this day Alison wore a dress of a blue like +peacock's feathers. That colour--as you may see, she wears it in both the +Kneller and the Thornhill portraits--was much a favourite of hers, and +indeed it set off well the rare beauty of her own hues. The clarity, the +delicacy, of her cheeks were such as you may see on one of those roses +which, white in full flower, have a rosy flush on the outer petals of the +bud, and the same rose open may serve for the likeness of a neck and +bosom which she guarded no more prudishly than her day's fashion +demanded. For all the daintiness, her lips, a proud pair, were richly red +(stained of raspberries, in Charles Hadley's sneer), and with the black +masses of her hair and grey eyes almost as dark, gave her an aspect of, +what neither man nor woman ever denied her, eager and passionate life. +All this was flowering out of her peacock blue velvet, and Harry, I +infer, went mad. + +She never expanded into the larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring +to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, +but the bodice was close laced _à la mode_ to parade the riches of her +bosom. Strong and gloriously alive, and abundantly a woman--so she smiled +at the world. + +It was a delirious hour for Harry, that dinner. He knew that Alison was +pleased to be in the gayest spirits, and his father, in his father's own +flamboyant style, seconded her heartily. He joined in, too, and seemed to +himself loud and vapid, yet had no power of restraint. It was as though +his usual placid, critical mind were detached and watched himself in the +happy exuberance of drunkenness--which was a state unknown to him, for +excess of liquor could only move him with drowsy gloom. And in the midst +of the noise Mrs. Weston sat, pale and silent, a ghost at the feast. + +He was glad when his father spoke of going, though he found himself +talking some folly against it, on Alison's side, who jovially mocked the +Colonel for shyness. But Colonel Boyce, it appeared, had made up his +mind, and Harry was surprised at the masterful ease with which, keeping +the empty fun still loud, he extricated himself and his unwilling son. + +They were all at the door, a noisy, laughing company, and the +horses waited. + +"It's no use, ma'am," Harry cried, "he knows how to get his way, +_monsieur mon père_." + +"Pray heaven he hath not taught his son the art!" + +"Oh Lud, no, I am the very humble servant of any petticoat." + +"Fie, that's far worse, sir. I see you would still be forgetting which +covered your wife." + +"Never believe him, Madame Alison." quoth the Colonel. "It's a strong +rogue and a masterless man," + +"Why, that's better again. And yet it's not so well if he'll be +mistressless too." + +"Fight it out, child," the Colonel cried. "'Lay on, Macduff, and curst be +she that first cries hold, enough!' Come, Harry, to horse." + +"See, Weston, he deserts me, and merrily!" + +There came upon the scene two other horsemen--Mr. Hadley's gaunt, +one-armed frame and a big, lumbering elder with a rosy face. + +Harry bowed over Alison's hand. It was she who put it to his lips, and +nodding a roguish smile at the other gentlemen, "So you run away, +sir?" she said. + +Harry looked at her and "Give me back my head," he said in a low voice. +"I have lost it somewhere here." + +"Oh, your head!" She laughed. "Well, maybe it's the best part of you." + +He mounted, and Colonel Boyce, already in the saddle, kissed his hand to +her. They rode off, compelled to single file by the plump old gentleman +who held the middle of the road and glowered at them. Mr. Hadley made an +elaborate bow. + +The old gentleman watched them out of sight round the curve of the drive, +then sent his horse on with an oath and, dismounting heavily at Alison's +toes, roared out: "What the devil's this folly, miss?" He made angry +puffing noises. "I vow I heard you laughing at Finchley. Might have heard +him kissing too." + +"Kissing? Oh la, sir, my hand, and so may you." She held it out and made +an impudent little curtsy. "I protest the gentleman is all maidenly. That +is why he and I make so good a match." + +The old gentleman spluttered and was still redder. "Match, miss? What, +the devil!" + +"Oh no, sir. Pray come in, sir. I see you are in a heat, and I fear for a +chill on your gout." + +"You are mighty civil, miss. You are too civil by half," the old +gentleman puffed, and stalked past her. + +Alison stood in the way of Charles Hadley as he made to follow. There was +some pugnacity on her fair face. "It's mighty kind of Mr. Hadley to +concern himself with me." + +"Egad, ma'am, if I come untimely it's pure happy chance." + +She whirled round on that and they went in. "Will you please to drink a +dish of tea, Sir John?" + +"You know I won't, miss." The old gentleman let himself down with a grunt +into the largest chair in her drawing-room. "Now who the plague is this +kissing fellow?" + +"Sure, sir, it's the gentleman Mr. Hadley told you of," said Alison +meekly. She hit both her birds. Mr. Hadley and his uncle looked at each +other. Sir John snorted. Mr. Hadley shrugged and gave an acid laugh. + +"What, what, that fellow of Waverton's? Od burn it, miss, he's a +starveling usher." + +"Oh, sir, don't be hasty. I dare say he'll be fat when he's old." + +"Don't be pert, miss. D'ye know all the county's talking of you and +this fellow?" + +Alison paled a little. She spoke in a still small voice. "I did not know +how much I was in Mr. Hadley's debt. I advise you, Sir John, don't be one +of those who talk." + +"You advise me, miss! Damme, ain't I your guardian?" + +"I am trying to remember that you once were, sir. But you make it +very hard." + +"What the devil do you mean?" + +"I mean--" + +"I vow neither of you knows what you mean," Mr. Hadley drowned her in a +drawl. "I never saw such fire-eaters. Look 'e, Alison, we come riding +over in a civil way and--" + +"Tell me you have been planning a scandal about me. Oh, I vow I am +obliged to you." + +Mr. Hadley laughed. "Lud, child, you ha' known me long enough. Do I deal +in tattle? And if we have seen what we should not ha' seen, if you're hot +at being caught, prithee, whose fault is it? Egad, you know well enough +there's things beneath Miss Lambourne's dignity." + +"Yes, indeed, and I see Mr. Hadley is one of them." + +"You're a fool for your pains, Charles," John shouted. "What's sense to a +wench? Now, miss, I'll have an end of this. You're old Tom Lambourne's +daughter for all your folly, and I'll not have his flesh and blood the +sport of any greedy rogue from the kennel." + +There was a moment of silence. Then Alison, whose colour was grown high, +said quietly, "Pray, Sir John, will you go or shall I? I do not desire to +see you again in my house." + +"Go?" The old gentleman struggled to his feet. "Damme, Charles, the +girl's mad. Yes, miss, I'll go--and go straight to my Lady Waverton. Od +burn it, we'll have your fellow out of the county in an hour. Egad, miss, +you're besotted. Why, what is he?--a trickster, a knight of the road. +'Stand and deliver,' that's my gentleman's trade. He's for your father's +money, you fool." + +"Good-bye, Sir John," Alison said, and turned away. + +With unwonted agility, Mr. Hadley came between her and the door. "You are +not fair to us, Alison," he said. "Prithee, be fair to yourself." She +passed him without a word. Mr. Hadley turned and showed Sir John a rueful +face. "We have made a bad business of it, sir." + +Sir John swore. "Brazen impudence, damme, brazen, I say." + +"Oh Lord! Don't make bad worse." + +Sir John swore again. Upon his rage came Alison's voice singing: + +"When daffodils begin to peer + With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, +Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year, + For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale." + +Sir John spluttered, and went out roaring for his horse. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +YOUNG BLOOD + + +There is reason to believe that from the first Mr. Hadley suspected he +was making a fool of himself. This sensation, the common accompaniment of +an attempt to do your duty, was just of the right strength to ensure that +all his actions should be disastrous. It was, as you see, not strong +enough to restrain him from exciting the dull and choleric mind of Sir +John Burford; it did not avail to direct the ensuing storm. And then, +having first failed to be sufficient check, it developed into a very +paralysis. + +Startled by the furies he had roused in Alison, Mr. Hadley found that +suspicion of his own folly develop into a gruesome conviction. It +compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering +knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. +Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton +will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay +gave it opportunity. + +If the tale had been told to Lady Waverton, no doubt but Harry would have +been banished from Tetherdown that night. It is likely, indeed, that the +ultimate fates of Alison and Harry would have been the same. But many +antecedent adventures must have been different or superfluous. + +Mr. Hadley was now full of common sense. Mr. Hadley sagely argued with +his uncle that they would do more harm than good by carrying their tale +to Lady Waverton. The woman was a fool in grain, and whatever she did +would surely do it in the silliest way. Tell her a word, and she would +swiftly give birth to a scandal which the world would not willingly let +die, in which Mr. Harry Boyce, if he were indeed the knave of their +hypothesis, might easily find a means to strengthen his grip of Alison. +It was better to wait and (so Mr. Hadley with a sour smile) "see which +way the cat jumped." + +Perhaps Madame Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether +infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have +waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd +enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before--remember the Scottish +lord's son--and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a +chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that +she must needs fall into the arms of any man who made eyes at her. After +all, likely enough she was but amusing herself with Mr. Boyce. Not a very +delicate business, but they were full-blooded folk, the Lambournes. +Remember old Tom, her father: there was a jolly bluff rogue. Well, if +miss was but having her fling, it would do no good to tease her. + +Thus Mr. Hadley, cautiously recoiling, doubting or hoping he was making +the best of things, brought Sir John, in spite of some boilings over, +safe back to his home and his jovial daughter. + +When Harry and his father rode away from Alison, for once in a while +Harry found his father's mood in tune with his own. Colonel Boyce +suddenly relapsed from hilarity into a perfect silence. He soon reined +his horse to a walk, and his wonted alert, soldierly bearing suffered +eclipse. He gave at the back, he was thoughtful, he was melancholy--a +very comfortable companion. + +"Pray, sir, when do we start for France?" said Harry at length. + +"What's that? Egad, you're in a hurry, ain't you? Not to-night nor yet +to-morrow. Time enough, time enough. Make the best of it, Harry." It +occurred to Harry that his father was preoccupied. + +But with that he did not concern himself. He was in too much tumult. It +appeared that he would be able to meet Alison in the morning. He did +not know whether he was glad. He had been telling himself that he would +have snatched at the excuse to fail her, and yet was not sure that if +his father had announced instant departure he would not have bidden his +father to the devil. But still in a fashion he was angry, in a degree +he was frightened. He knew that he would go meet the girl now; he could +not help himself--an exasperating state. And when he was with her--her +presence now set all his nature rioting--with other folk by, it was +hard enough to be sane; when he was alone with her in the wood, what +would the wild wench be to him before they parted? There was no love in +him. He had no tenderness for her, he did not want to cherish her, +serve her, glorify her. Only she made him mad with passion. But, +according to his private lights, he was honest, and wished to be, and +was therefore commanded to try to save the girl from his wicked will +and hers. He despised himself for the gleam of cautious duty. What in +the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round +swell of her breast? + +"Damme, Harry, a man's a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in +upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or +a trifle of power?" + +Harry stared at him. "Lord, sir, why are you so moral?" + +And then Colonel Boyce began to laugh. "I grow old, I think. Oh, the +devil, I never had regrets worse than the morning's headache for last +night's wine. I suppose if you live long enough, life's a procession of +morning headaches. Well, I vow I've not lived long enough yet, Harry." + +"I dare say you are the best judge," Harry admitted. + +"There's a higher court, eh? Who knows? Maybe we are all the toys of +chance." He shrugged. "Why then, damme, I have never been afraid to take +what I chose and wait for the bill. Dodge it, or pay it. Odso, there is +no other way for a hungry man." + +"Lord, sir, now you are philosophical! What's the matter?" + +"Humph, I suppose my stomach is weakening," said Colonel Boyce. "I don't +digest things as I did." + +In this pensive temper they came back to Tetherdown. The Colonel's +servant was waiting for him with letters, and he was seen no more that +night. Harry did not know till afterwards that Mr. Waverton, as well as +letters, was taken to the Colonel's room. + +Madame Alison was left by the exhortations of her anxious friends feeling +defiant of all the world. It is a comfortable condition, but, for a +passionate girl of twenty-two, fruitful of delusions. + +Alison was so far happier than Harry in that she knew what she wanted. +You may wonder if you will how Harry Boyce, with nothing handsome about +him but his legs, could rouse in the girl just such a wild longing as her +beauty set ablaze in him. These problems, comforting to the conceit of +man, are numerous. And, as usual, madame had dreamed her gentleman into a +wonderful fellow. The overthrow of the highwayman became from the first a +splendid achievement. Sure, Mr. Boyce must be of rare courage and +strength, even as he was deliciously adroit, and that insolent air with +which he did his devoir gave one a sweet thrill. + +Afterwards, he progressed in her imagination from victory to victory. +What served him best was his capacity for puzzling her. That its hero +should want to keep such a gallant affair secret proved him of amazing +modesty or amazing pride--perhaps both--a titillating combination. It +surprised her more that he should dare rebuff the advances of Miss +Lambourne. Madame knew very well the power of her beauty over men. If she +gave one half an inch she expected that he should be instantly mad to get +an ell of her. But here was Mr. Boyce, though she gave him a good many +inches, as supercilious about her as if he were a woman. It was +incredible that the creature had no warm blood in him. Indeed, she had +proof--she could still make herself feel the ache of his grasp in the +wood--that he was on occasion as fierce as any woman need want a man. +Why, then, monsieur must be defying her out of wanton pride. A marvellous +fellow, who dared think himself too good for her. + +She made no account of all his wise, honest talk about being poor while +she was rich. To her temper it was impossible that a man who wanted her +in his arms should stop to weigh his purse and hers, or to consider what +the world would say of him for wooing her. All that must be mere fencing, +mere mockery. + +To be sure, he fenced mighty cleverly. The smug meekness which he put on +when she attacked him before others was bewildering. If she had never +seen him in action she must have been deceived. And, faith, it seemed +certain that he wanted to deceive her, to put her off, to put her aside. +The haughty gentleman dared believe that he could be very comfortable +without Miss Lambourne. It must not be allowed. He was by far too fine a +fellow to be let go his way. Faith, it was mighty noble, this +self-sufficient power of his, capable of anything, caring for nothing, +hiding itself behind an impenetrable mask, and living a secret life of +its own. She was on fire to enter into him and take possession, and use +him for herself. + +So she was driven by a double need, knew it, and was not the least +ashamed. She longed to have Harry Boyce in her arms and his grip cruel +upon her. But also she wanted to conquer him and hold his mind at her +order. She imagined him under her direction winning all manner of fame. +And she believed herself mightily in love.... + +There is a moss on the birch trunks which makes a colour of singular +charm, a soft, delicate, grey green. A hood of that colour embraced +Alison's black hair and the glow of the dark eyes and her raspberry lips. +The cloak of the same colour she drew close about her with one gauntleted +hand, so that it confessed her shape. + +The birches could still show a few golden leaves, though each moment +another went whirling away as the crests bowed and tossed before the +wind. In the brown bracken beneath Harry Boyce stood waiting. His graces +were set off with his customary rusty black. His hat was well down upon +his bobwig, and he hunched his shoulders against the wind, making a +picture of melancholy discomfort. He rocked to and fro a little, +according to a habit of his when he was excited. + +Alison was very close to him before she stopped. + +"What have you come for?" he growled. + +She drew a breath, and then, very quietly, "For you," she said. + +"You have had enough fun with me, ma'am." + +Her breast was touching him, and he did not draw back. + +"Then why did you come?" She laughed. + +"Because I'm a fool." + +"A fool to want me?" + +"By God, yes. You know that, you slut." + +"No. You would be a fool if you didn't, you--man." + +"Be careful." Harry flushed. + +"Oh Lud, was I made to be careful?" + +He gripped her hand, and, after a moment, "Take off your hood," he +muttered. + +"Is that all?" She laughed, and let it fall from hair and neck, and +looked as though sunlight had flashed out at her. "Honest gentleman, you +are lightly satisfied." + +"So are not you, I vow." + +She was pleased to answer that with a scrap of a song: + +"Jog on, jog on the footpath way, + And merrily hent the stile-a! +A merry heart goes all the way, + A sad one tires in a mile-a." + +"Faith, yours is a mighty sad one, Harry. Pray, what are you the better +for stripping me of this?" She flirted the hood. + +"I can see those wicked colours of yours. Lord, what a fool is a man to +go mad for a show of pink and white!" + +"And is that all I am?" + +Harry shrugged. "Item--a pair of eyes that look sideways; item--a woman's +body with arms and sufficient legs." + +"Lud, it's an inventory! I'm for sale, then. Well, what's your bid?" + +"I've a shilling in my pocket ma'am and want it to buy tobacco." + +"Oh, silly, what does a man pay for a woman?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, nothing, if she's worth buying." + +Then Alison said softly, "Going--going--gone," and clapped her hands +and laughed. + +"You go beyond me at least," Harry said in a moment. + +She put her hands behind her and leaned forward till her bosom pressed +upon him lightly, and then, with her head tilted back so that he saw the +white curve from under her chin, and the line of the blue vein in it, +"You want me, Harry," she said. + +"You know that too well, by God." + +"Too well for what, sir?" + +"Too well for my peace, ma'am." He flushed. + +"His peace!" She laughed. "Oh Lud, the dear man wants peace!" + +He flung himself upon her, holding her to him as she staggered back, and +kissed her till she was gasping for breath, gripped her head to hold it +against his kisses, buried his face in the fragrance of her neck. She +gave herself, her arms still behind her, offering the swell of her +breasts to him, her eyes gay.... + +"You are mine, now. You're mine, do you hear?" he said unsteadily. + +"I want you," she smiled, and was crushed again. + +When he let her go, it was to step back and look at her, wondering and +intent. She stood something less than her full height, her bosom beating +fast. She was all flushed and smiling, but now her eyes were dim and they +met his shyly. + +"Egad, you're exalting," he said with a wry smile. + +"I feel all power when you grasp at me so--power--just power." + +"No, faith, you are not. When I hold you to me, when you yield for me, I +am all the power there is. Damme, the very life of the world." + +"So then," she looked at him through her eyelashes, "and have it so. For +it's I who give you all." + +"In effect," Harry said: and then, "go to, you make us both mad." + +"I am content." + +"Yes, and for how long?" + +She made an exclamation. "Have I worn out the poor gentleman already?" + +"Would you keep yourself for me? Will you wait?" + +"Why, what have we to wait for now?" + +"Till I am something more than this shabby usher." + +"I despise you when you talk so." Her face flamed. "Fie, what's a word +and a coat? You have lived with me in your arms. You are what I make of +you then. Is it enough, Harry, is it not enough?" + +"I'll come to your arms something better before I come again. I am off +to France." + +"Ah!" Then she studied him for a little while. "You meant to run away, +then. Oh, brave Harry! Oh, wise! Pray, are you not ashamed?" + +"Yes, shame's the only wear." + +"I'll not spare you, I vow." + +"Egad, ma'am, mercy never was a virtue of yours." + +"Is it mercy you want in a woman?" + +"I'll take what I want, not ask for it." + +"Why, now you brag! And if there is not in me what monsieur wants?" + +"So much the worse for us both. But you should have thought of +that before." + +"Faith, Harry, you take it sombrely." She made a wry mouth at him. "Pluck +up heart. I vow I'll satisfy you." + +"You'll not deny me anything you have." + +She paused a moment. "Amen, so be it. And must we never smile again?" + +"I wonder"--he took her hands; "I wonder, will you be smiling to-morrow +when I am away to France." + +"Oh, are you still set on that fancy?" She gave a contemptuous laugh. +"Prithee, Harry, shall I like you the better for waiting till you have +French lace at your neck and a frenchified air?" + +"You'll please to wait till I bring Miss Lambourne a fellow who has done +something more than snuffle over a servitor's books. I want to prove +myself, Alison." + +"You have proved yourself on me, sir. What, am I a lean wench in despair +to hunger for a snuffling servitor? If you were that, I were not for you. +But I know you better, God help me, my Lord Lucifer. Why then, take the +goods the gods provide you and say grace over me." Harry shook his head, +smiling. "Lord, it's a mule! Pray what do you look to do in France?" + +"I am pledged to my father and his policies--to go poking behind the +curtains of the war and deal with the go-betweens of princes." + +"So. You talk big. Well, I like to hear it. What is the business?" + +"My father, if you believe him, has Marlborough's secrets in his pocket +and is sent to chaffer for him. You may guess where and why. Queen Anne +hath a brother." + +Her eyes sparkled. "You like the adventure, Harry?" + +"Egad, I begin to think so." + +"I love you for that!" she cried, and it was the first time she spoke the +word. "Why then, first go with me to church and call me wife!" + +He drew in his breath. "By God, do you mean that?" + +"Why, don't you mean me honourably?" She gave an unsteady laugh, her eyes +mistily kind. + +He sprang at her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It was always in after life alleged by Mr. Hadley that his steady +interest in the family of his uncle was nothing but a desire to keep the +old gentleman out of mischief. Sir John Burford was indeed of a temper +too irascible to be safe with his bucolically English mind: a man who in +throwing tankards at his servants and challenges at his friends was a +source of continuous anxiety to his reasonable kinsfolk. But he had also +a daughter. + +She received the benevolent Mr. Hadley when on the morning after the +explosions in Alison's house he came to see whether Sir John was still +dangerous or his daughter any thinner. It was the latter purpose which he +professed to Susan Burford. She was not annoyed. In her cradle she had +been instructed that she was a jolly, fat girl, and through life she +accepted the status, like every other which was given her, with great +good humour. She was, in fact, no fatter than serves to give a tall woman +an air of genial well-being. It was conjectured by her friends that her +father, needing all his irascibility for himself, had allowed her to +inherit only his physical qualities. She had indeed the largeness of Sir +John and his open countenance. Her supreme equanimity perhaps came from +her mother. She was by a dozen years at least younger than Mr. Hadley, +and always thought him a very clever boy. + +"Sir John is gone out to the pigs, Mr. Hadley. Perhaps you'll go too," +she said, and looked innocent. + +"Well, they are peaceful company, Susan. And you're so surly." + +"I thought you would find some joke in that," said Susan, with kindly +satisfaction. + +"Damme, don't be so maternal. It's cloying to the male. Be discreet, +Susan. You will talk as though you had weaned me but a year or two, and +still wanted me at the breast." + +Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir +John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of." + +"Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and +Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You +don't know what I mean." + +"To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?" + +"Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you +think men are nought but casks--things to fill with drink and victuals. +Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and +smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and +so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I +know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, +Susan; just one of those plump, spacious dames as healthy as milk and +peaches, and blandly jolly about it." + +Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and +patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often +talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay +dinner, Mr. Hadley?" + +"Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?" + +Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you +will say. Can you?" + +"You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth +is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a +guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you +thinking, ma'am?" + +"Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here +talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for +the guinea. + +Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?" + +"Yes, indeed. You're so comical." + +Mr. Hadley surrendered the guinea, looked at his empty left sleeve and +made a wry face. "Lord, yes, I am comical enough. A lop-sided grotesque." + +"That's not fair!" He had at last made her blush. "You know well I did +not mean that. I think it makes you look--noble." + +"It makes me feel a fool," said Mr. Hadley. "Lord, Susan, one arm's not +enough to go round you." + +"So we'll kill the Elstree hog for Christmas;" that apposite +interruption came in her father's robust voice. Sir John strode rolling +in. "What, Charles! In very good time, egad. You can come with me." + +"What, sir, back to the swine? I profess Susan makes as pretty company." + +Sir John was pleased to laugh. "Ay, the wench pays for her victuals, too. +Damme, Sue, you look good enough to eat." He chucked her chin paternally. +"Well, my lad, I ha' thought over that business and I'm taking horse to +ride over to Tetherdown." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley. "And what then, sir?" + +"I'll talk to Master Geoffrey." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley again. "Do it delicately." + +"Delicate be damned," said Sir John. + +"I had better ride with you," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Good boy. Here, Roger--Mr. Hadley's horse." + +Susan stood up. "Lud, sir, you will not be here to dinner then?" + +Sir John shook his head. Mr. Hadley scratched his chin. "I am not so sure +that Geoffrey will give us a dinner," said he. + +"Why, sir," Susan was interested, "what's your business with Mr. +Waverton?" + +"To tell him he's a fool, wench," quoth Sir John. + +"Oh. And will Mr. Waverton like that?" + +"Like it! Odso, he'll like it well enough if he has sense." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "That's logic, faith. Well, sir, have with you." + +So off they rode. On the way Sir John was pleased to expound to Mr. +Hadley the profound sagacity of his new plan. He would rally Geoffrey on +his flaccidity; accuse him of being an oaf; and, describing all the while +in an inflammatory manner the charms of Alison, hint that Geoffrey's +tutor had ambitions after them. "And if that don't wake up my gentleman, +he may go to the devil for me and deserve it." + +It crossed Mr. Hadley's lucid mind that a gentleman who required so much +waking up did not deserve Miss Lambourne. But she was quite capable of +discovering that for herself, if indeed she had not already. And +certainly it would do Geoffrey no harm to be made uncomfortable. So Mr. +Hadley rode on with right good will. + +But when they came to Tetherdown it was announced that Mr. Waverton had +gone riding. "Why, then we'll wait for him." Sir John strode in. The +butler looked dubious. Mr. Waverton had said nothing of when he would +come back. + +"Why the devil should he?" Sir John stretched his legs before the fire. +"He'll dine, won't he?" + +The butler bowed. + +"Prithee, William," says Mr. Hadley, "is Mr. Boyce in the house?" + +"Mr. Boyce, sir, is gone walking." + +Mr. Hadley shrugged. "Odso, away with you," Sir John waved the man off. +"Let my lady know we are here." + +The butler coughed. "My lady is in bed, Sir John." + +"What, still?" quoth Sir John, for it was close upon noon. + +"Hath been afoot, Sir John. But took to her bed half an hour since." + +"What, what? Is she ailing?" + +The butler could not say, but looked a volume of secrets, so that Sir +John swore him out of the room. + +"Vaporous old wench, Charles," Sir John snorted. And a second time Mr. +Hadley shrugged. + +In a little while the butler came back even more puffed up. Her ladyship +hoped to receive the gentlemen in half an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN HASTE + + +Oh, Harry, Harry, I give in. I am the weaker vessel. At least, I have the +shorter legs." + +"What, you're asking me to spare you already? Lord, how will you bear me +as a husband?" + +They were under the great beeches in Hampstead Lane, breasting the rise +to the heath, on their march for that kindly chapel, where, if you dined +in the tavern annexed, the incumbent would marry you for nothing, charge +but the five shillings, cost price of the Queen's licence, and ask no +questions. + +Harry shortened his stride, and looked down with grim amusement at +Alison's breathless bosom. + +"I believe you mean to make an end of me before you have begun with me," +she panted. "Lord, sir, what a figure you'll cut if you bring me to +church too faint to say, 'I will.'" + +"Why, the Levite would but take it for maiden modesty. Not knowing you." + +"You are trying to play the brute. It won't save you, Harry. I shan't be +frightened." + +"You! No, faith, it's I. I am beside myself with terror." + +"I do believe that's true!" She laughed at him. "But, oh, dear +sir, why?" + +"Lest I should not fulfil the heroical expectations of Miss Lambourne. +Confess it, ma'am; you count on me to exalt you into heavens of ecstasy, +to bewilder the world with my glories, and be shaved by breakfast-time." + +"To be sure, I'll always expect the impossible of you." + +"There it is. I suppose you expect me to begin by creating a +wedding-ring." + +"Why, you have created me." + +"Oh, no, no, no. You're a splendid iniquity, but not mine, I vow." + +"This woman of yours never lived till you made her. I profess Miss +Lambourne was ever known for a dull cold thing born 'to suckle fools and +chronicle small beer.'" + +"So she wrote me down her property. Egad, ma'am, it was very natural." + +"You know what you have made of me," Alison said. + +"God knows what you'll make of me. And now in the matter of the ring--" + +"Oh Lud, what a trivial thing is a man!" She drew off her glove and held +out a hand with two rings on it. "Marry me with which you will." One was +a plain piece of gold, paler than the common, carved into an odd device +of a snake biting its tail. + +"With thine own ring I thee wed," Harry said, and took it off. "I +take you to witness, Mrs. Alison, the snake was in your paradise +before I came." + +They were across the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane +beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a +garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the +tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked dead +and desolate. + +Harry forced open the sticking door and strode in, Madame Alison +loitering behind. He was met by a dirty lad whose gaping clothes were +half hidden by a leather apron, and whose shoes protruded straw--a lad +who smelt of the stable and small beer. + +"Where's the priest?" said Harry. + +"In the tap," said the boy, and shuffled off. + +There came out into the passage, wheezing and wiping his chops, a little +bloated man in a cassock, with his bands under his right ear. He leered +at Harry and tried to look round him at Alison. + +"You're out of season, my lord," said he. "These chill rains, they play +the mischief with lusty blood. Go to, you'll not be denied, won't you? Do +you dine here?" + +"We have no time for it." + +"What, you're hasty, ain't you?" He gave a hoarse laugh. "There's my fee +to pay then." + +"Here's a guinea to pay for all," said Harry. + +The dirty fist took it, the little red eyes peered at it closely, the +dirty mouth bit it and was satisfied. "Go you round to the chapel door +and wait. Lord, but man and wench never had to wait for me." He +waddled off. + +Harry turned upon Alison. "So with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he +said, with a crooked smile. "God give you joy of them. I vow I was never +so frightened of spending a guinea." + +"Why, d'ye doubt if I'm worth it? Nay, sir, I'm honest stuff and +challenge any trial." + +Harry looked down at her and was met by eyes as bold as his own. + +The chapel door opened, and the little priest beckoned them in. A pair of +witnesses were already posted by the altar, the dirty lad of the tavern +and a shock-headed wench. + +"Licence first, licence first." The parson bustled off to a table in a +corner. "I warrant you we do things decently in Sion. Aye, and tightly, +my pretty. Never a lawyer can undo my knots, never fear." + +He scratched laboriously over their names, while the dank smell of the +place sank into them. + +They were marched to the altar. A hoarse muttering poured from the +priest. He made no pretence of solemnity or even of meaning. He was +concerned only to make an end and have done with them. Of all the service +they heard nothing clearly but what they said themselves, and while they +were deliberate over that the little priest grunted and puffed at them. + +He ended with a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There +was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled +something for their names and shambled off. + +"Let's breathe some free air," said Harry, and laid hold of his wife. + +The parson chuckled. "Free? You'll never be free again, my lord. I can +see that in madame's eye. What, you ha' sold your birthright for a mess +of pottage, ain't you? And mighty savoury pottage, too, says you." He +rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. "Softly now, softly, madame wants +her certificate. Madame wants to warrant herself a lawful married wife, +if you don't ... There, my lady. And happy to marry you again any day at +the same price." + +They were away from him at last and in clean air stretching their legs up +the hill again. + +"Poor Harry!" Alison laughed. "Before you looked like a man fighting +for his life. Now you look like a man going to be hanged. Dear lad! +Pray how much would you give to escape me now?" She put her arm into +his. He let her shorten his stride a little, but made no other +confession of her existence. "Fie, Harry, it's over early to repent. In +all reason you should first be sure of your sin. Who knows? I may not +be deadly after all. 'Alack,' says he, 'I will not be comforted. Egad, +the world's a cheat. A fool and his folly are soon parted they told me, +and here am I tied to her till death us do part. So, a halter, gratis, +for God's sake.'" + +"You're full of other folks' nonsense, Mrs. Boyce," said Harry with a +grim look at her. + +"Oh, noble name!" She bobbed a curtsy. "Full? I am full of nothing but +fasting, aye," she sighed, and turned up her eyes--"fasting from all but +our sacrament." + +They were upon the ridge of the heath and Harry checked her, and stood +looking away over the wide prospect of mist-veiled meadow and dim blue +woods. She was beginning her mocking chatter again when he broke in +with, "Ods life, ha' done!" and turned to look deep into her eyes. +"There's mystery in this, and I think you see nothing of it." + +"Why, yes, faith. If you were no mystery, should I want you? If you had +discovered all of me, would you want me?" + +"Bah, what do we know of living, you and I, or--or of love?" + +She laughed, with a scrap of twisted song: + +"Most living is feigning. +Most loving mere folly, +Then heigho the holly, +This life is most jolly." + +He shrugged and marched her on again. + +"Pray, sir, will you dine at home?" she said demurely. + +Harry flushed. "I must go tell my father and all," he growled. "I'll be +with you soon enough, madame wife." + +"Oh brave! Dear sir, have with you. I must see Geoffrey's face." + +"Egad, let's be decent!" Harry cried. + +"Decent! For shame, sir! What's more decent than man and wife?" + +"Man and wife!" Harry echoed it with a sour laugh. "Do you feel a wife? I +never felt less of a man." + +"You shall be satisfied," she said, and looked at him gravely. "And I--I +am not afraid, Harry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + +Mr. Hadley and Sir John Burford in the hall at Tetherdown looked at each +other across the fire. "Would you call for a pipe now, Charles?" says Sir +John, fidgeting. + +"There'll be none in the house, sir. Geoffrey has no stomach for +tobacco." + +"Damme, if I know what he hath a stomach for," Sir John grumbled, and +kicked at the burning logs. "He don't eat no more than an old woman, nor +drink so much as a young miss. Ain't the half-hour gone, Charles?" + +"That's a poetic phrase, sir. It means a year or so--while she's tiring +her hair." + +"What and painting her face, too? Same as Jezebel." + +My lady's waiting-woman, Arabella, came in. She minced in the manner of +her mistress, but, being a foot shorter, with different effect. She stood +before Sir John, who had the largest chair, and stared at him, with +languid insolence. "Ods my life, don't ogle me, woman," says he. + +"At your leisure, sir, if you please." She tossed her head. + +"Leisure! Oh Lord, I'm at leisure, thank 'e." + +Arabella sniffed. + +"I think you are in madame's chair, sir," Mr. Hadley explained. + +"What, then? She ain't here, nor I don't carry the plague." + +"The lady-in-waiting wants to compose it for madame." + +"Compose!" Sir John exploded an oath, and jumped up. "I ha'n't +decomposed it." + +Arabella dusted the chair, wheeled it a little this way and that, put two +footstools before it, and three cushions into it, contemplated them for +some time, and then shifted them a little. After which she minced out +with a great sigh. + +"Good God!" says Sir John. + +"I wonder," says Mr. Hadley--"I wonder if we've come to take the breeks +off a Highlander?" + +"What's your will?" Sir John gasped. + +"I wonder if my lady knows all we can tell her. It might have made her +hypochondriac." + +"Hip who? Odso, I am hipped myself." + +My lady came. She had so much flowing drapery about her that she seemed +all robes. She moved very slowly, she was bowed, and she leaned upon the +shoulder of Arabella. With care she deposited herself in the big chair. +Arabella arranged her draperies, arranged the cushion, and stood aside. +My lady lay back, put back the lace about her head, and showed them her +large pale face and sighed. "You are welcome, gentlemen," said she. "You +are vastly kind." + +"Odso, ma'am, what's the matter?" Sir John cried. + +"Why, have you not heard? Arabella, he has not heard!" My lady was +convulsed, and clutched at the maid, who comforted her with a +scent-bottle. "He has gone!" she sighed. "He has gone." + +"What the devil! Who the devil?" + +My lady recovered herself. From somewhere in her voluminous folds she +produced a letter. "If it would please you, be patient with me. My +unhappy eyes." She dabbed at them with a handful of lace, and read: + +"My lady, my mother,--I have but time for these few unkempt lines, +wherein to bid you for a while farewell. My good friend, Colonel Boyce, +has favoured me with an occasion to go see something of the warring world +beyond the sea. And I, since the inglorious leisure of the hearth irks my +blood, heartily company with him. It needs not that you indulge in tears, +save such as must fall for my absence. I seek honour. So, with a son's +kiss, I leave you, my mother. G.W." + +On which his mother's voice broke, and she wept. + +"Lord, what a fop!" said Sir John. My lady swelled in her draperies. "So +he's gone to the war, has he? Odso, I didn't think he had it in him." + +"Sir, if you jeer at my bereavement!" my lady sobbed. + +"And where's Harry Boyce?" says Mr. Hadley. + +Sir John stared at him. "Why, seeking honour too, ain't he? What's in +your head, Charles?" + +"This is rude," my lady sobbed; "this is brutal. The tutor! Oh, heaven, +what is the tutor to me? I would to God I had never seen him--him nor his +wicked father." + +Sir John tugged at Mr. Hadley's empty sleeve and drew him aside. "What +are you pointing at, Charles? D'ye mean the two rogues have took Geoffrey +off to make away with him between 'em?" + +"Lord, sir, you've a villainous imagination." Mr. Hadley grinned. "I mean +no such matter. Nay, I'll lay a guinea, Harry Boyce is not gone at all." + +"Sir John"--my lady raised herself and was shrill--"what are you +whispering there?" + +"What, what? You mean the old fellow took Geoffrey off to leave the young +fellow a clear field with Ally Lambourne? Odso, that's devilish deep, +ain't it? But we can set the young fellow packing, my lad. We--" + +"Sir John!" my lady's voice rose higher yet. + +"Coming, ma'am, coming. Od burn my heart and soul!" That last invocation +was not directed at her but an invading tumult. + +The butler entered backwards, protesting, between two men who did not +take off their hats. They were in riding-boots and cloaks, and splashed +from the road. They had pistol butts ostentatious in their side pockets, +and one carried some papers in his hand. + +"Stand back, my bully, stand back, or you'll smell Newgate," says he to +the butler. + +"Burn your impudence," Sir John roared, and strode forward. + +"In the Queen's name. Messengers of the Secretary of State, with his +warrant." The man waved his papers under Sir John's nose. "Master of the +house, are you?" + +"I am Sir John Burford of Finchley, and be hanged to you." + +"There is the mistress of the house, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley + +"Thank'e. In the Queen's name, ma'am. Warrants to take Oliver Boyce, +Colonel, and Geoffrey Waverton, Esquire." + +My lady shrieked, fell back, and was understood to be fainting. + +"You come too late, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley. "Your foxes be gone away." + +The man tapped his nose and grinned. "That won't do, sir. Set about it, +Joe," and he nudged his fellow. + +"What's the charge against them?" says Mr. Hadley. + +The man laughed. "Come, sir, you know better than that. I ain't here to +answer questions." Mr. Hadley put his hand in his pocket. The man grinned +and shook his head, and went out pushing his comrade in front of him. Mr. +Hadley followed them. As soon as they were out in the corridor and the +door was shut behind them, the man turned and held out his hand to Mr. +Hadley, who dropped into it a couple of guineas. "Lord, now, what did you +think it was?" says the messenger genially. "Treasonable +correspondence--Pretender--Lewis le Grand and so forth. Quite +gentleman-like, d'ye smoke me?" + +"Prithee, who set you on?" says Mr. Hadley. + +"Now you go too far, ecod, you do. I don't mind obliging a gentleman, +but you want to lose me my place. We'll be searching the house, by +your leave." + +Off they went, and Mr. Hadley went back to my lady. She had been revived, +and the air was heavy with scent. She fluttered her hands at the +ministering Arabella and said faintly, "What is it, Charles?" + +"It seems there's some talk of their having dealings with the Pretender." + +"Lord bless my soul," Sir John puffed. + +"The Pretender?" Lady Waverton smiled through her powder. "La, now, +Geoffrey's father always had a kindness for the young Prince." + +"I vow, ma'am, you take it with a fine spirit," says Mr. Hadley in +some surprise. + +"You'll find, Mr. Hadley, that such families as ours, the older families, +know how to bear themselves in this cause." + +Sir John stared at her and puffed the louder, and muttered very audibly, +"Here's a turnabout!" + +"Oh, ma'am, to be sure it's a well-born party," Mr. Hadley shrugged. +"D'ye give us leave to remain and see that these fellows show no +impudence?" + +"Oh, sir, you are very obliging," says my lady superciliously. + +Mr. Hadley bowed, and withdrew to the recess of a window with Sir John +following. "Here's a queer thing, Charles. Did ever you know Master +Geoffrey was a Jacobite?" Mr. Hadley shook his head. "Nor this Colonel +Boyce neither?" + +"I never saw a Jacobite in so good a coat, and I never thought Geoffrey +would risk his coat for any king. And thirdly and lastly, I never knew +Whitehall put itself out in these days whether a man was Jacobite or no. +Why, damme, they be all half Jacobites themselves, from the Queen down." + +"Aye, aye," says Sir John sagely. "A devilish queer thing indeed." + +And on that came Alison and Harry--Alison rosy and smiling, Harry a +pale and deliberate appendage. "Dear Lady Waverton, let me present +my husband." + +Lady Waverton sat up straight. Lady Waverton embraced the pair of them +with a bewildered glare. + +"I married him this morning," Alison laughed. + +"Alison, this is unmaidenly jesting," said my lady feebly. + +"Why, if it were, so it might be. But the truth is, it's unmaidenly +truth. For I am Mrs. Harry Boyce. Give me joy." + +"Joy!" my lady gasped. "It's unworthy! It's cruel! Oh, Geoffrey, +Geoffrey! How dare you?" She was again understood to faint. + +Through the rustle of Arabella and the odours of scent came the +explosions of Sir John, swearing. + +Mr. Hadley moved forward, and, ignoring Alison, addressed himself to +Harry. "Pray, sir, did you know that Mr. Waverton this morning left +Tetherdown in your father's company, your father taking him, as he says +in a letter, to the wars?" + +"Knew?" Lady Waverton chose to speak out of her swoon. "To be sure they +knew. They would not have dared else. Dear Geoffrey! A villain! And you, +miss--you whom he trusted! Oh!" She again took scent. + +"La, ma'am, he trusted me no more than I him. You are not well, I think." + +"You give me news, Mr. Hadley," Harry said. "I knew that my father meant +to go abroad, and understood that I was to go with him." + +"Perhaps you'll go after him." Mr. Hadley shrugged and turned away. + +"Why, what's all this, Harry?" Alison laughed. "Your wise father hath +chosen to take Geoffrey instead of you?" + +"In spite of my modesty, I'm surprised, ma'am," says Harry. + +"Burn your impudent face," quoth Sir John from the background. + +"Well, sir, if you were in your father's plans, maybe you'll pay your +father's debts," quoth Mr. Hadley. + +"What do I owe you, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry, bristling. + +The two messengers came back again. "Right enough, sir, gone away." The +spokesman nodded at Mr. Hadley. "We'll be riding. Trust no offence?" He +looked hopeful. + +"Here's Colonel Boyce's son, wishing to answer for his father." + +The man looked Harry up and down and chuckled. + +"Lord, and mighty like. Servant, sir," he winked at Harry. "Tell the +Colonel, sorry we missed him," He winked again and laughed. + +"What's this comedy of yours, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry. + +"Your friends have warrants to arrest your father and Mr. Waverton for +treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. But none for you, I fear, +Mr. Boyce." + +"Devil a one," the man laughed. "Come, Ned, we'll be jogging," Out +they swung. + +A bewildered company, full of suspicions, stared at one another. + +"Come, Harry, let us go home," Alison said. + +"Home!" Lady Waverton gasped with an hysterical laugh. "Hear her!" + +"My lady"--Alison made her a curtsy--"gentlemen--all the friends of Mr. +Boyce will be very welcome to me." + +Sir John swore. "You for a fool and he for a knave, damme, you're +well matched." + +"When you were younger, sir, I suppose you were less of a boor," says +Harry. "Mr. Hadley--my lady--" he made two stiff bows and gave his arm +to Alison. + +"Humph, they go off with the honours." Mr. Hadley shrugged, and held out +his arm in front of Sir John, who was plunging after them. + +"Be hanged to you. What did the rogue mean, telling me I was old?" + +"Why, he meant that a man who is too old to fight should be civil." + +"Too old?" Sir John fumed. "Burn him for a coward." + +"I think not," says Mr. Hadley. "But for the rest--God be with you. My +lady--sincerely your servant." + +My lady was now weeping. "You never loved him," she complained. "You were +never his friend," and she became speechless. + +The two men looked at each other. "Well, Charles, we'll to horse," Sir +John concluded. "Servant, ma'am." They left her in the scented embraces +of Arabella. + +To Harry as he went out came the butler, who, with something of a furtive +manner, produced and gave him a letter. Harry looked at the writing and +thrust it into his coat. Alison saw and took no notice. + +They walked on for some way before silence was broken. Then Harry said: +"Well, madame wife, so you feel you've been bit." + +"Who--I? What do you know of what I feel?" + +"Oh, I can tell hot from cold. I know when you are thinking you ought to +have thought twice. Egad, I agree with you. You've been badly bit. Here +you were told that I was just off out of the country; that you must catch +me at once if you wanted to catch me; that if you took me you would soon +have me off your hands. And now we're tied up, you find I'm not going at +all. I vow it's disheartening. But if you'll believe me, I did honestly +believe my old rogue of a father. I did think he meant to take me." + +"And now you can't be comforted because you have to stay with me. Oh, +Harry, you're a gloomy fellow to own a new wife. But why did the good man +take Geoffrey when he might have had you? I should have thought he knew a +goose when he saw one." + +"I can't tell. I never saw much meaning in the old gentleman." + +"You might as well look at his letter." + +Harry stared. "How did you know that was his?" + +"You like doing things mysteriously, the family of Boyce." + +The letter said this: + +"MR. HARRY,--I flatter myself that you will be offended. But 'tis all for +your good. When I came after you I did not know that you were so clever a +fellow. No more did I expect that I should have to like you. But since I +do, I prefer that I should do without you. And since you have some of my +wits, you may very well do without me. But I believe you will do the +better without friend Geoffrey. Therefore I take him, who will indeed do +my business much more sincerely than your worthy self. With the dear +fellow safe out of the way, I count upon you to push on bravely with Mrs. +Alison. You'll not find two such chances in one life. If you were master +of her you could promise yourself anything in decent reason you please to +want. For all your wits you are not the man to make his own way out of +nothing. So don't be haughty. Why should you? It's a mighty pretty thing, +Harry, and (trust an old fellow who hath made some use of the sex in his +day) as tender as you may hope for in an heiress. She has looked your way +already, and in her pique at the good Geoffrey deserting her, you'll find +her warmer for you. If you don't make her warm enough for wiving, you're +an oaf, which is not in my blood--nor your mother's, to be honest. Nor if +I was young again and played your hand, I wouldn't let her grow cold when +I had her safe.... So be a man, and I give you my blessing. + +"O. BOYCE" + +Harry held it out to Alison. "We're a noble family--the family of +Boyce," said he. + +But Alison read it without a blush or a sneer, and when she gave it back +she was laughing. "Oh, he's more cunning than any beast of the field! Oh, +he knows the world! Poor, dear fellow." + +"Oh Lud, yes, he's a fool for his wisdom. But he's my father." + +"Well, sir?" Harry scowled at the ground. "Oh, what does he matter? +Harry, what does anything matter to-day--or to-morrow, or to-morrow's +to-morrow?" + +"I had no guess of all this." Harry crushed the paper. "You +believe that?" + +"Oh, silly, silly." + +"You're still content?" + +"Not yet," Alison said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + +In the old house on the hill Mrs. Weston sat alone. She was looking out +of the oriel window at a garden of wintry emptiness and wind swept. The +westerly gale roared and moaned, the heavy earth was sodden and beaten +into hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. +Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild +arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was +gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in +a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the +wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the +opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew +eagerly. It was Susan Burford who came in, royally neat in her +riding-habit, for all the storm. She walked in her leisurely, spacious +fashion to Mrs. Weston, who started and stood up, laughing nervously. +"Indeed Alison will be pleased. You are kind. I know she has been longing +to see you." + +Susan laughed and, a large young goddess of health, stooped to kiss the +worn face. "You always talk about somebody else. Are you pleased?" + +"My dear!" Mrs. Weston protested. "You know I am." + +"We match very well. You never want to talk, and I never have anything to +say." Susan sat down, and for some time the only sound was from Mrs. +Weston's needle. At last, "You are still here, then," Susan said. + +"My dear! Why not, indeed?" + +"Oh. But you would always stay by Alison if she needed you." + +"Why, she never has needed me. And now less than ever." + +"Oh." Susan considered that. "And is he kind to you?" + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Indeed he has been very good to me." + +"That is all I wanted to ask you," said Susan, and again there was +silence. + +After a little while Mrs. Weston dropped her sewing and looked anxiously +at Susan. "Have you ever seen him?" + +"Only his back. He used to keep in the corners at Tetherdown." + +"I suppose people--talk about him." + +"I don't listen," said Susan, "People are always in such a hurry. I +can't keep up." + +"I suppose you think Alison was in a great hurry." + +"Only Alison knows about that." + +"Yes." Mrs. Weston looked at her with affectionate admiration, as though +she had been endowed with rare understanding of the human heart. "Do you +know you are the only one of the people Alison liked who has come +here--since?" + +"Oh." (Susan's favourite eloquent reply.) "I don't mind about people." + +"He doesn't mind at all. She doesn't mind yet." + +"What is that you are working?" said Susan. + +"But indeed they are most perfectly happy," said Mrs. Weston, in a hurry. + +"Is it for a tucker?" said Susan. + +In a greater hurry, Mrs. Weston began to explain. She was still at it +when Alison and Harry came back. + +They too had been riding. The storm had granted Alison none of Susan's +majestic neatness. She looked a wild creature of the hills, her wet habit +clinging about her, black ringlets broken loose curling about her, brown +eyes fierce with life, and all the dainty colours of her face very clear +and bright. She saw Susan and cried out, "Oh, my child, I love you." + +Susan rose leisurely to her majestic height and smiled down upon her. "I +think you are the loveliest thing that ever was made," said she. Alison +laughed, and they kissed. + +"I am quite of your mind, ma'am," said Harry. "Or I was," he made Susan a +bow, "till this moment." + +"I was going to ask her if she was happy, sir," Susan said. "I shan't ask +her." She held out her hand. + +"But I want you to ask me a thousand things." Alison put an arm round +her, "Come away, come. At least I am going to tell you"--she shot a +wicked glance at Harry--"everything." Off they went. + +"What's this mean, ma'am?" Harry stood over Mrs. Weston. "Is our wise +Sir John sending to spy out the land?" + +"I wish you would not talk so." Mrs. Weston shivered. "It is like your +father. Oh, sure, you have no need to be suspicious of every one." + +"Suspicious? Faith, I don't trouble myself." Harry laughed. "All the +world may go hang for me. But you'll not expect me to believe in it." + +"I think you need fear no one's ill will. You are fortunate enough now." + +"Miraculously beyond my deserts, ma'am. As you say. But there's the +wisdom of twenty years' shabbiness in me. And I wonder if the good Sir +John wants to be meddling." + +"You need not be shabby now." + +"Lord, I bear him no malice. For he can do nought. Only I would not have +him plague Alison." + +At last Mrs. Weston smiled upon him. "Aye, you are very careful of her." + +"I vow I would not so insult her." Harry laughed. + +"But you need not be afraid. Susan is here for herself. She is like that. +She is the most independent woman ever I knew. She has come because she +loves Alison." + +"Why, then, I love her. And egad it will be easy. She's a splendid +piece." + +Mrs. Weston gave him an anxious glance. "She is very loyal," said she, +with some emphasis. + +"It's a virtue. To be sure it's a virtue of the stupid." Harry cocked a +teasing eye at her. "And I--well, ma'am, you wouldn't call me stupid." + +"I don't think it clever to jeer at what's good--and true--and noble." + +"Egad, ma'am, you are very parental!" Harry grinned. "You will be talking +to me like a mother--and a stern mother, I protest." + +"Am I stern?" Mrs. Weston looked at him with eyes penitent and tender. + +"Only to yourself, I think. Lud, ma'am, why take me to heart?" + +"What now, Harry?" Alison and Susan close linked came back again. "Whose +heart are you taking?" + +"Why, madame's," said Harry, with a flourish. "You see, ma'am," he turned +to Susan, "I've a gift for making folks cry." + +"Oh. Like an onion," says she, in her slow, grave fashion. + +"Susan dear! How perfect," Alison laughed. "Now I know why I am growing +tired of him. A little, you know, was piquant. But a whole onion to +myself--God help us!" + +"Yet your onion goes well with a goose," Harry said. + +"Alack, Harry, but there's nothing sage about you and me." + +"Oh, fie! See there she sits, our domestic sage"--he waved at Mrs. +Weston. + +"To be sure we couldn't do without her." Alison caressed the grey hair. + +"I must be riding, Alison," Susan said. + +Alison began to protest affectionate hospitality. Harry shook his head. +"I have warned you of this, Alison. We are too conjugal. It embarasses +the polite." + +"I am not embarassed," said Susan, with her placid gravity. "I want to +come again." + +"By the fifth or sixth time, ma'am, I may feel that I am forgiven." + +"I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Then you can do it the more heartily." Harry smiled and held out his +hand. + +"Oh." There was a faint shadow of a blush. "I did not think I should like +you." She turned. "I beg your pardon, Alison." + +"I beg, ma'am, you'll come teach my wife to be kind. She also is frank. +But for kindness--well, we are all sinners." + +"There it is, Mr. Boyce," said Susan, holding out her hand. + +And when she was gone. "Now, why did I not marry her first?" said Harry +pensively. + +"Because she would never have married you, child. Being of those who like +the man to ask." + +As Susan rode down the north slope of the hill, she was met by Mr. +Hadley, gaunt upon a white horse, like death in the Revelation. The +comparison did not occur to Susan, who had a fresh mind, but she did +think white unbecoming to Mr. Hadley, and said, gurgling, "Where did you +find that horse? Or why did you find it?" + +"He was a bad debt. But he has a great soul. And don't prevaricate, +Susan. Where have you been?" Mr. Hadley bent his sardonic brows. + +"To gossip with Alison." + +"Odso, I guessed you would turn traitor." + +"No. I haven't turned at all, Mr. Hadley." + +"She has declared war on us. Your dear father fizzes and fumes like a +grenade all day. And you go gossip with her. It's flat treason, miss. +Come, did you tell Sir John you were going?" + +"No. But he would guess. He is so clever about me. Like you." + +"Humph. If he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I +suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and +what did you see in Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I suppose you are scolding me," said Susan placidly. + +"With all my heart." + +"Oh. Why do you ride that horse?" + +"Damme, miss, don't wriggle. You had no business at Highgate!" + +"He looks as if he had the gout." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "But as you went, let's hear what you saw." + +"I always loved Alison." + +"Your business is to love your father, Susan--till some other man +asks you." + +"I love her better now. She is so happy." + +"Damn her impudence," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Why did you lose your temper with her?" + +"I never lose my temper with any one but you." + +"Well. You made my father lose his." + +"Ods life, Susan, don't you know it's a man's right to tell women how +they ought to live? Dear Alison wouldn't listen." + +Susan laughed. "She has made you look very foolish." + +"If she has I'll forgive her." + +"Oh. You do then," said Susan. + +"On your honour, miss, what did you think of Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I wondered Alison should love him." + +"Ods life, yes. But what's this you're saying?" + +"He is so quiet and simple." + +"Simple! Damme, the fellow's an incarnate mask." + +"Oh. I think I know all about him. I never thought I knew all about +Alison. She wants so much." + +"And she hasn't got all she wants, eh?" + +"Yes, I believe," said Susan, after a moment. + +"Pray God you're right." + +"Oh. I like to hear you say that. You have been so"--for once her placid +words stumbled--"so sordid about this." + +"Damme, Susan, don't be a saint." Mr. Hadley grinned. "They die virgins." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. BOYCE + + +It was a time of wild plots. The long war of Marlborough had left England +impregnably triumphant, and France ambitious of nothing but peace. No +fear remained that foreign arms would carry James, the Pretender by right +divine, to his sister's throne. Who should reign when Anne's growing +weakness ended in death was for England alone to decide, and English law +gave the succession to Prince George of Hanover. But there was a party, +or at least the leaders of a party, who saw more profit to themselves in +importing the Pretender. + +Harley and Bolingbroke, they had thrust out of the Queen's confidence and +the government the friends of Hanover. They had undermined the authority +of Marlborough at home and abroad, and were now ready, honourably or +dishonourably, to put an end to the war which made him necessary. If he +were dispatched into ignominy or exile, there could be no one strong +enough, they believed, to prevent them driving England the way they +chose. What that way would be no one clearly knew, themselves, perhaps, +least of all. But together and singly they set going many strange secret +schemes which were to make a new king, a new England, and new +magnificence for themselves, singly or together. All which the mass of +England watched with shrewd, incurious eyes. It could not long be a +secret that plots were afoot. To shoulder out of power all who were +committed friends of the lawful order was a confession of designs against +it. As if that were not enough, Bolingbroke and Harley so managed their +business that everything they did was wrapped in a mist of trickery and +intrigue. And yet, though they were vastly mysterious over what could +have borne the light without much shame, they contrived to let the agents +of their deeper treachery blunder into notice and fill the air with +rumours of untimely truth. Still England gave no sign. + +"Under which King"--Hanoverian or Pretender--perhaps there were few in +England who cared. If the Pretender was bred French and a Papist, Prince +George was a German born. Some of those who had joined heartily in +driving out his father began to put it about that the son would be a +better king for that lesson. George of Hanover had the right of law, but +the Parliament of to-morrow might undo what the Parliament of yesterday +had done. Who could be ardent for the right of an unknown foreigner over +England? And few were ardent, but there were many who, caring nothing for +Pretender or Hanoverian, had a solid resolution that England should not +be torn in the cause of either. Whatever was done, must be done quietly +and in good order. Since it seemed that the Hanoverian had no need to +change anything in law or State or Church, best that he should be king. +As for the devious politics, the tricks, and the mystery of Harley and +Bolingbroke, they were of no account to plain men. + +There was yet another party not content to watch and wait till the +plotters lost themselves in their own mysteries. The men whom Harley and +Bolingbroke had driven from power had no mind to submit to impotence. +They well knew what they wanted: the Hanoverian, the lawful, limited king +upon the throne and themselves as his ministers. They were not delicate +about the means they used. Since there were treason and plots, they too +turned their hands to plotting and with a vigour and ruthless resolution +of which the other camp was innocent. + +So the wise and eminent were busy while Harry Boyce and his Alison made +trial of their marriage. Harry lived in a dream of bewildered happiness. +He had counted on nothing but the need of his passion, hoped for nothing +but its ecstasy in her beauty, and at its wildest the strain of gloom in +him had bade him dread what lay beyond. She gave him a miracle of mad +delight. A new force of life was born in him while he enjoyed her joy. It +was a discovery of intoxicating power that he could wake that rare, +consummate creature to such eager exultation as his own. In those +wonderful hours it seemed that they passed out of themselves into a world +where every part of their being was one and in the happiness of unbounded +strength. So passion and she kept faith with him and something more. But +the miracle of passion in her arms had less enchantment than the joy of +the quiet hours. It was with this that she bewildered him. Before she +yielded to him, he would have jeered at the hope that she might bring the +gift of peace in her bosom. As the first days of marriage passed he +learnt that all his placid loneliness had been the mere endurance of +hunger. He had stayed himself with the husk of life. She satisfied him +with the fruit. For she too could be calm, delighting in the little daily +things, utterly happy with nonsense. To share all that with her was to +find in it a strange, lulling enchantment of content. + +His fortune seemed too good to be real. For he possessed all that ever +fancy had pretended was worth coveting: his life was a perfect happiness. +No doubts from within, no troubles from without, had power to assail him. +All the old, reasonable, practical fears were become ludicrous cowardice, +only remembered for Alison to tease with. As for other people, and what +they said and thought and did, some folks were kind and were welcome, no +folks were of account. He and she deliciously sufficed themselves. And +there was no dread of change, save in age and death, infinitely distant +and insignificant--no matter but to glorify the power of life. Sometimes +he was aware that the wonder of passion must grow faint and fail, but he +saw nothing which could take from him the quiet, exquisite, daily joys. +Was it real, or a charmed dream, this perfect fortune of content? Indeed, +nothing was real in those days but the delight in being with her. + +Alison had her share. He did not deceive himself. She had her ecstasies +and her exultations, she thought herself even madder than he was. And in +these days, perhaps, her passion was deeper and stronger than his. She +was satisfied, she felt herself accomplished, and gloried in her new +power with a more profound, a more secret delight than his. She had given +him eagerly all that she had, and in the giving found herself more than +ever her own. For all the union, the deepest, truest self in her stood +aloof in a mystery. It was not of her will, for she desired to deny him +nothing. She did not reckon him weak in failing to take all of her. This +must needs be the way of life. No man's passion could be stronger than +his. Doubtless he too had his secret soul apart. And indeed it was +glorious not to lose self in love, to stay always, through the ecstasies, +aloof, to give always anew of will and choice--never to merge helpless in +some unknown double being and become only half a body, half a soul, +capitulating always to the rest, to the other. + +This self-glorious pride of hers gave her for a while that zest in all +the trivial common things which made her a companion so delightful to +Harry's temper. But she enjoyed them in a spirit different from his. All +the bread-and-butter business of living was to him delightful in itself +and for itself. He was born to want no better bread than is made of +wheat. She played with it, made a dainty mock of it, amused herself with +it, and at the back of her mind despised it. + +So they lived, and you imagine Mrs. Weston's dim, wistful eyes watching +them with a great tenderness. For she understood them no better than +they themselves. + +It was Alison who first grew tired. Not of love or passion, but of the +trivialities and the quiet life at Highgate. She had ambitions, or +thought she had. It had been just rediscovered that women could be +leaders in the world--at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. +Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the +warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given +Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It +was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his +enemies the government of England. It was a woman--another duchess--who +beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some humour, of +imagining Harry Boyce a Marlborough. But he did believe him able to make +a noise in the world, and coveted much the sensation of owning him while +the world listened. She did not see herself controlling queens and kings +and parties, but she was well aware of her beauty and its power, and had +a mind to use it widely. She was hungry for excitement. + +So Mrs. Alison determined to set her man upon a larger, busier stage. The +decree went forth that old Tom Lambourne's house in the Lincoln's Inn +Fields was again to be inhabited. Harry was asked for his advice +afterwards. Perhaps he would have been wiser if he had begun their first +quarrel then. But he was enjoying her too much to deny her her ways or +her whims, and he only laughed at her. He was not pleased, to be sure. He +had a taste, which cannot have come from his father, for copse and +field. He never found anything in the town which was worth the living in +other folk's smoke. He disliked crowds and in particular crowds of fine +ladies and gentlemen. So with some horror he saw before him a vista of +polite splendours, and said so. + +"Oh Lud, sir," says she, "if I had wanted to sleep my life away I should +not have married you. And if you wanted to sleep out yours you should not +have married me." + +"I was born for innocence and green fields. You'll make me a bull in a +china shop." + +"I'll love you the better, child. Faith, Harry, I would be very glad to +have you break something." + +"Madame's heart, _par exemple_?" + +"That would be an adventure." + +So you find them arrived in the Lincoln's Inn Fields as the first step +to the conquest of the world. The world was not as excited as Alison +thought fit. Her father, old Tom Lambourne, had commanded reverence in +the City and some respect even as far west as St. James's by sheer +weight of wealth. A rare capacity for living hard had won him an army of +diverse friends. But neither his business nor his pleasures provided him +with many who could be bequeathed to his daughter. Her mother, born a +baker's daughter in Shoe Lane, having died in giving Alison birth, had +left her nothing besides her admirable body but some grumbling objects +of charity. It remained for Alison to make her own way in the world of +fine ladies and gentlemen. Since she was by certain fame an heiress of +great possessions, her way might have been easy if she had not found +herself a husband. The taint of the city, if she had borne herself +humbly, need not have made her quite intolerable to people of birth. But +since her money was already married she could only be reckoned as a city +goodwife; pretty enough, indeed, to be game for fine gentlemen, but to +fine ladies a nobody. + +Folks were slow in coming to the grand house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; +slower still, if they had houses of elegance, to ask Mrs. Alison back. It +suited Harry very well. He would, as his wife complained, go mooning +across the fields to Islington almost as happily as through the woods at +Highgate. His books had almost as good a savour in town as in the +country. When she dragged him to hear Nicolini or Wilks or the +Bracegirdle, he could console himself by gentle jeering over the fact +that in a playhouse where everybody knew everybody not a creature had a +bow for him or her. Of course she smarted. Day by day he chose to affect +astonishment over her failures, believing with infatuated content that he +was slowly driving her back to the country and sanity, though he was but +driving her away from him. And she, choosing to feel humiliated, blamed +him for the shame of it. + +"Why, child," says he in his supercilious way, "'tis not failing to be in +the _beau monde_ that's ridiculous, but wanting to be." + +To such monitions she began not to answer back--a symptom very dangerous. + +She set up a basset table. That, if anything could, must proclaim her a +woman of fashion--a woman, indeed, who had a fancy to be a trifle +daring. There's no doubt that Alison about this time and afterwards did +want to dabble in danger. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. +She encouraged high play. For herself, she enjoyed the excitement of it, +having no need to care if she lost. She wanted to have about her people +who affected heavy stakes, believing in the innocence of her heart that +they were exhilarating company. So she made for herself a queer society, +which Harry to her angry disgust defined as a mixture of sheep and +wolves. There were good wives and lads from the city anxious to make a +jingling show with the funds of the family counting-house, there were +hungry beaux and madames from the other end of the town seeking their +fortune impudently wherever it might be found. + +To one of these happy parties there was introduced a Mrs. Boyce. She +was a faded, handsome creature much jewelled about lean shoulders. +Alison, who hardly heard her name in the rout, took no account of it +and little of her. But on the next day this Mrs. Boyce came early and +caught Alison alone. + +She began with such a fuss about apologizing for her earliness that +Alison set her down for an ill-bred, tiresome creature. She had a high +voice which, like the rest of her, was a trifle faded. "I protest, ma'am, +I have long desired to know you better." Alison languidly muttered +something civil. "Let me make myself known first, I beg. I am the niece +of Sir Gilbert Heathcote." + +Alison, of course, had heard of Sir Gilly--one of the chiefs of high +finance--but cared nothing about him. "I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I was +only born Thomas Lambourne's daughter." + +"There is no need; ma'am." A long, lean hand was waved. "I wonder if we +are in some fashion connected. We are both called Mrs. Boyce. The Boyces +of Oxfordshire, ma'am?" + +Alison's laugh had something of a sneer in it, "Of nowhere that I know, +ma'am. My husband is Mr. Harry Boyce, son of Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +The lady fluttered her fan, settled herself afresh in her chair, +rearranged her close-fitting lips. Alison was reminded of a hen preening +itself. "I had heard so, ma'am. And my husband is Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +"La, ma'am, do you mean the same?" Alison cried. + +Mrs. Oliver Boyce gave a lifeless smile. "That is why I did myself the +honour of giving you my confidence, ma'am. I think there are not two +Colonel Oliver Boyces. The younger son of one of the Oxfordshire family." + +"Oh Lud, how should I know? I never looked into the grandfathers." + +"No, ma'am?" The tone was patronizing contempt. "You might have been the +wiser of it. Colonel Oliver Boyce--he has taken the title lately--when I +knew him he was something in the service of the Duke of Marlborough. Oh, +a fine man to the eye, ma'am, and very splendid in his talk." + +"Why, that's his likeness," Alison laughed. "And what then, ma'am? Have +you come seeking the Colonel? He is the Lord knows where. Or is +it--faith, you don't tell me Harry is your son?" + +"No, ma'am. At least I was spared bearing children." + +"Oh--why, give you joy if you would have it so. But how can I serve you? +Maybe your Colonel is not my Colonel after all. At least he and Harry are +father and son heartily enough." + +"It may be so, ma'am," said the lady heavily, and here Harry came in. + +Alison looked up laughing and then frowned. Harry would not ever dress +fine. His wig was still unfashionably small, he wore some sombre stuff, +and to her eye (as she said) looked like a mole. "Here's Mr. Boyce, +ma'am. Harry, Mrs. Oliver Boyce, who is come to say that you never had +father nor mother." + +"Your obliged servant, ma'am." Harry opened his eyes. "Pray, has my +father married again?" + +"You'll find, sir, that Colonel Boyce has only been married once." + +"If you please, ma'am," said Harry blandly. "Pray, are you blaming him? +Or--" a gesture expressed his complete ignorance of what she was doing. + +The lady seemed to force herself to laugh. "Oh, fie, sir. Sure it is not +for me to blame him." + +"No, ma'am?" Harry was first interrogative then acquiescent. "No, ma'am. +I wonder if you could give me the Colonel's direction." + +"I, sir? You are pleased to amuse yourself." + +"I vow, ma'am, I was never less amused." + +"Colonel Boyce was pleased to leave me five years ago. I have not +forgotten it, if you have." + +"Faith, this is very distressing," Harry protested in bewilderment. "But +you do me injustice, ma'am. I have forgotten nothing about my father. For +I never knew anything." + +"As you please, sir," the lady drawled. "I was talking, by your leave, to +Mrs. Boyce." + +"Oh, ma'am, a hundred pardons," Harry took himself off in a hurry. His +chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she +wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's +deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As +for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps +he was not far wrong. + +Alison too was much of the same opinion, but it was unfortunately +hampered by a natural curiosity to hear what the lady could tell +about the mystery of Harry and his father. "You had something to say +to me, ma'am?" + +"I count it my duty, ma'am, to give you warning of Colonel Boyce." + +Alison stood up. "Duty? I know nothing of your duty, ma'am. But I think +it is mine not to listen to you." + +"I protest, I should have said the same," the lady drawled. "I too had +spirit once, child. That was before I suffered. I would I had known you +earlier. And yet perhaps I may do something to save you even now." + +"I cannot tell how, ma'am." + +"Listen, if you please!" the lady said dramatically. "I was something of +an heiress as you are and maybe something of a toast too. The worse for +me. I choose to believe it was not only my money which brought Oliver +Boyce upon me. He took all I could give him and very soon gave me +nothing, not even common courtesy. When I began to be careful he began to +be brutal. But for my family--I told you that Sir Gilbert Heathcote was +my uncle--he would have stripped me of every penny. When they stepped in +to save me some rag of my fortune, my good Mr. Boyce left me. I have +never had a word from him since. Pray, child, take warning." + +"If it is so, I am sorry for it," said Alison coldly, "I believe I hear +company." She began to walk to the outer room. + +Behind her, "As for your Harry Boyce," said the lady, "oh, I make no +doubt he's Oliver's son, though certainly he is none of mine." + +Alison made as if she did not hear, and she was spared more by the coming +of some of her guests. The card tables filled. There was no more danger +of being private with Mrs. Oliver Boyce. Indeed, the lady, as if she had +done all she wanted, took her leave early. She was affectionate about it, +for which Alison liked her none the better. Through most of that evening, +amid the flutter of cards and the clatter--"Spadillio, on my life! What, +it's Basto, is it? Did you hear of Mrs. Prue? She'll not show for a +month. We win the Codille, ma'am. They say the Duchess and she pulled +caps"--Alison was telling herself over and over that the creature was a +detestable low thing who only wanted to make mischief. It should, you +think, have needed no effort to believe that. But the obvious malice had +power to annoy a mind already discontented. Alison could not stop +wondering what the mystery was about Harry's birth and his father. +Perhaps Harry knew more than the little he professed. Perhaps he was not +the careless, indolent fellow he chose to seem, but something more +cunning and less lofty. What if he were just such another as the woman +painted his father--a fellow on the hunt for an heiress, who, once he had +her and her money, cared no more about her? To be sure there was some +evidence for that. Since they had come to town, he was always off by +himself. If she wanted him with her, she had to plead and plague him. A +proud office! Why, that very night monsieur did not please to appear at +the card tables. He was too fine for her and her company. So she fretted +and rubbed the poison in. And naturally, she fared ill at the card table. +Her cards were bad and she made the worst of them. She was not a good +loser and it was a wife much inflamed who, when her guests were gone, +sought out her husband. + +Harry sat with Mrs. Weston, who was at needlework and, if Alison had been +able to see, looked very benign. But it was he who demanded all the +wife's angry eyes. His wig was on the table beside him. He had a pipe in +his mouth. He was lolling in the deeps of a chair and smiling to himself +over a book. "You might be in an ale-house, you look so slovenly." + +Harry grinned up at her. "Oh, madame wife hasn't been winning to-night. +Tell me all about it." + +"Faugh! Your pipe," Alison coughed. "For God's sake keep it to the +tavern. It's enough that you reek of it without making my house +reek too." + +Harry gave a great sigh and put the pipe down. "We were so comfortable +till you came. I am glad to see you, dear." + +"I was comfortable till you came." Alison snapped. + +"Pray, mother Weston," says Harry, "forgive our public caresses. We have +not long been married." + +Alison looked ice at him. "Weston dear, would you leave us? I have +something to say to Harry." Harry opened his eyes. Mrs. Weston looked at +her anxiously, bade them a nervous good-night, and hurried out. + +"Harry--who was your mother?" Alison stood stern over the lolling +husband. + +"Egad, what's this? Have you been brooding over your bony friend? +Who is she?" + +"She says she is your father's wife; and says he left her." + +"Well, if she is his wife, I wager he did leave her. Faith, she was made +to be deserted." + +"What do you know of her?" + +"Nothing, by the grace of God. Why should I? If my father got drunk and +married her, he would not want to talk about it when he was sober." + +"I despise you when you talk so," Alison cried. + +"And yet you listened to her, child." + +"She says that he took all her money before he left her." + +"Oh! Pray, why has she so much to say, and to you?" + +"She wanted to warn me against Colonel Boyce." + +"And against his son, I think. And you were so kind as to listen. Egad, +ma'am, I am obliged to you. Well, now you know what to do. You have the +money and I have none. Pray, lock up your purse to-night." + +"You are childish," said Alison with lofty scorn. "Harry--who was +your mother?" + +"Oh, I thought your kind friend told you I had none. I dare say it's as +true as the rest." + +"You don't know?" + +"I never saw her." + +"She said--" Alison hesitated. + +"Oh Lud, don't be squeamish now." + +"She said your father had never been married except to her." + +"Odso! That is what you had to tell me. I am a bastard, am I?" He laughed +and turned in his chair. "Give you good-night, madame wife." + +"Harry--" + +"Oh, God save you!" He took up his pipe. "I am no company for you. And, +by God, you are no company for me." + +She looked at him a moment, hesitated, went slowly out. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + +The irruption of Mrs. Oliver Boyce could not easily have been foretold. +That the past life of Colonel Boyce was likely to throw shadows over his +son Harry might have considered, but the nature of the lady and her care +and the successful opportunity of her malice were hardly to be +calculated. There is less excuse for him in the affair of Sir George +Anville. Given the conditions of that hasty marriage and the state into +which it had brought them and the society about them, some Sir George or +other was a natural consequence. + +The ugly quarrel which Mrs. Oliver Boyce had made for them was never +composed. When they met again in the morning they were coldly and +haughtily civil, and so they chose to remain. Mrs. Weston, not being +blind, saw that something was amiss and tried with blundering motherly +affection to push them back into one another's arms. She hardened, as is +usual, their hostility. Each was mortally afraid of weakening, each +suspected the other at once of softness and of guile and so held aloof +and fed upon scorn. They had both enough of that pride of sex which gives +one pleasure in the sufferings of the other. And of course the quarrel +was poisoned with a sordid taint. The colder, the haughtier Harry was, +the more Alison inclined to believe that he had wanted nothing of her but +her money. The haughtier, the colder Alison was, the more Harry raged +against her for a mean creature who desired to make him feel his +dependence upon her money bags. + +In himself Sir George Anville was of no importance. If Harry had been +comfortable he could never have taken the trouble to be angry over the +man. It is certain that Alison never thought him worth any thought of +hers, still less worth one finger's surrender. And yet Sir George +contrived to be disastrous to the pair of them. + +That was not, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said of him in another matter, +altogether his fault. "The fool has excuses," quoth she, "which others +have not. He is so great a fool that you hardly believe his folly is but +folly." Sir George was a man born without impulse or capacity for +anything. Lady Mary, who was fond of using him for her wit, made a +grammarian's jest on him, "The creature's an anomaly: active in form, +passive in meaning." He was bred in a society which made it a fashion to +be vicious. He affected to follow the fashion. If vice must needs be +something active, or at least, something of the will, Sir George Anville +must escape punishment. But he was to a wholesome taste more offensive +than sinners who did more damage. It was Harry's worst blunder in the +affair that he treated Alison as if she did not feel that. + +Sir George knew no other way of passing his life than in dangling about +women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to +contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He +did--it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments--he did +know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew +Alison much resorted to her. His other accomplishment was to dress well. +He was lean and had an air of languor which was not affected, but a +natural lack of vigour. It may be believed that Alison tolerated him +because he made a not disagreeable decoration to her rooms. But at this +era she was cynical, and perhaps told herself that Sir George was as good +a man as another. + +He began to come at hours when she could be found alone and was sometimes +admitted. So Harry caught him once or twice, was ironically obsequious to +him (which Sir George took for solemn earnest), and afterwards amused +himself by congratulating Mrs. Alison on the power of her charms. "Odds +fish, I can't tell where you'll stop, ma'am. You'll have a corpse on his +knees to you yet. Maybe the corpse of a lord. I vow I'm proud of you." +Which was not likely to get the door shut on Sir George. + +So that dangling gentleman became convinced that Alison was yielding to +his embraces. He was, in a limp way, gratified. A devilish fine woman to +be sure. She might be a trifle exhausting to a man of _ton_. But what +would you? Women were greedy and must be satisfied with what one could +spare them. And it was pleasant to see the pretty creatures pining. He +would lure madame on with a few tit-bits. In this kindly mood he went to +her on a wet April day when Alison was fretting for a wild walk or a +wilder ride in wind and rain. But even to herself she would not confess +that she was tired of the town. It would have assimilated her to Harry. + +Sir George sat himself down by Alison's side, simpered at her, sniffed, +put his thin hands on his thin knees and ogled them. Alison held out to +him a cup of tea. He arranged his rings before he took it and then again +simpered at her. After some humming and hawing, "D'ye go to the play +to-night, ma'am?" he drawled. + +"What play is it?" + +"Ah--some curst play or other," said Sir George; and exhausted by that +effort relapsed for a while into silence. + +Alison did not help him out. It is possible that she was wondering how a +creature so vapid could go on existing. She looked Sir George over with +an odd, close inspection. Sir George, who had some perceptions, became +aware of it and according to his nature misunderstood it. He sniffed +again, and "Pray, ma'am, what perfume do you use?" Alison stared at him. +"I am delicate in such things," said he, and smelt his own handkerchief. + +Alison hesitated between disgust and amusement. To be sure the creature +was such a fool that it was not fair to think of him save as a buffoon. +So unfortunately she chose amusement. "Oh, I vow, Sir George, your +delicacy is rare," she laughed. + +The poor creature took it for a compliment. He leered at her: "But you +are exquisite, my Indamora." + +"Who?" + +"It's an amorous lady in a play," Sir George explained. "Pretty +creature," he patted Alison's arm, and leaned upon her to kiss her neck. + +She was so surprised that his lips had almost time to reach her. "Lord, +sir, are you mad?" she cried, as she thrust him off. + +"Pretty creature," Sir George giggled, and clung to her. + +"Your carriage is at the door, Sir George." Harry stood over them. His +face was as much a mask as ever, his voice placid. + +Alison started up and stood to face him with a lowering brow. He did not +appear to see her. Sir George shook down his ruffles. "Carriage? What +d'ye mean?" says he. "I ha' had no carriage this year. I came in a +hackney coach." + +Harry turned away from him and opened the door. + +"Eh? Oh, stap me!" Sir George giggled and got on to his feet, "Madame, +your eternally devoted." He went out with a strut, waving his scented +handkerchief in the direction of Harry. + +Then Alison spoke. Her eyes were furious. "You--oh, you boor! How +dare you?" + +"Egad, that's very good!" Harry laughed. + +She beat her foot on the floor. "Oh, you are not to be borne! To make a +noise of it! To make a scandal of me and that--that creature!" + +"To be sure, I came untimely. Well, ma'am, if you wanted to be quiet +about it, I had rather it made a noise." + +"My God!" she was white. "You dare say that to me! Be careful, Harry." + +"Pray, ma'am, no heroics." + +"I warn you, there are things I'll not bear." + +"Is it possible?" Harry sneered. + +She swept past him and away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It seems that, years afterwards, Harry and Alison were afflicted with a +dreary and remorseful wonder at these wars. Both, as they grew older, had +something of a turn for moralising, and in their copious letters to their +several children is evidence of much penitence and puzzling over the +disasters of their youth. Each plainly took all the blame. Each is +eloquent about the sins of pride and hardness. Harry preaches the duty of +trust; Alison the folly of easy intimacies. Both of them, in those latter +days when they could calmly estimate what they had lost, still wondered +with a gloomy scorn how they had come to let the ugly, ridiculous affair +of Sir George set them against each other. You find them both trying to +recall (or guess) what exactly it was that, in the time of crisis, they +felt and believed. + +When it was all part of their history, Harry could hardly persuade +himself that ever he had fancied Alison untrue, even disloyal; or Alison +believe that she had stormed against him for driving out of the house a +man who had been impudent to her. Yet it is not to be doubted that Harry +did let suspicions of her honesty poison him. He could not, at the worst +of his anger, believe that she would play false with such a husk of a +fop; but he told himself that she wanted to make the fellow into a +waiting gentleman, a servant, and a toy at once--a thing more nauseous +than a lover. And Alison, though at the back of her brain she was aware +that Harry had excuse for what he had done, raged the more against him +for the intolerable things he had said. His suspicions made her despise +him. For his assumption of authority she hated him. + +There were almost from the first the usual sage and kindly friends to +tell them that it was all a misunderstanding, that they had only to be +frank with each other and commonly reasonable and there would be no +quarrel left. But it is doubtful whether this sagacious advice could +have done them much good if they had taken it. "Talk things over like +rational creatures," was (as usual) the prescription. But if they had +really been rational, they would only have come to the conclusion that +they ought not to be married. The force of their passion, to be sure, +was real enough and still moved in them. To hold them together they had +nothing else. There was no consciousness of other need, no longing for a +common life, no desire to help or give. If they had been most calmly +wise and wisely calm in a dozen conversations, they would but have made +this all the clearer. + +Still it is true, as the sagacious friends guessed, that they did not +try to compose the quarrel. Each was by far too proud. Harry was +pleased to consider that he had done his duty by a flighty wife, and +would take no more account of her unless she were penitent--or provoked +him again. Alison, reckoning herself meanly insulted, was resolved that +he could never again be more than an unwelcome guest in her house. They +were, to be sure, ridiculous. In private they avoided each other. In +public they continued to meet, for each was too proud to confess to the +world the failure of their marriage. You imagine how poor Mrs. Weston +enjoyed life in an icy atmosphere, the temperature of which she was not +permitted to notice. + +Such were their relations when the final blow fell upon them. They dined +late in the Lincoln Inn Fields. It was as much as six o'clock and they +were still at table--as jovial as usual. The butler came to Alison with +an elaborate whispering. "Pray him come up," she said aloud, and looked +defiance down the table at Harry. "It is Mr. Waverton." + +"Lord, Lord, is he still alive?" Harry grinned. "That's heroic." + +"Back from France? Is Colonel Boyce come back?" Mrs. Weston cried. + +"I know nothing of Colonel Boyce," said Alison coldly. + +"You couldn't please him better," Harry laughed. "Dear Geoffrey! I wonder +if he knows anything? Well I It would be a new experience." + +Mr. Waverton came. He was more stately than ever--browner also, but not +changed otherwise. His large and handsome face affected all the old +melancholy. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton!" Harry grinned. "You do honour me. Pray let me present +you to my poor wife." + +Geoffrey took no notice of him. "Madame, your obedient," he bowed to +Alison. "I beg leave to have some speech with you." + +"There's still some dinner. Draw up a chair," said Harry. + +"I did not come to dine, sir." + +"Oh, that's a sad stomach of yours. A glass of wine, then?" + +"I do not take wine with you, Mr. Boyce." + +"I wonder if you have made a mistake. For you have come into my house." + +"I will answer for all my mistakes, sir, with hearty goodwill." + +"Egad, you'll be busy." + +"Oh, be silent!" Alison cried. "You are welcome, Mr. Waverton. How can I +serve you?" + +"I understand the gentleman's desire to hurry me into a quarrel, ma'am. +Be sure that I shall not permit it." Harry laughed disagreeably. "It's +very well, sir. But I choose first that you should listen to what I +have to say." + +"Listen I Oh Lud, is it a poem?" + +Mr. Waverton flushed. "You are impertinent, sir. It shall not serve +you. I intend that madame shall know the truth of your father's +treachery and yours." + +Harry stood up. "Are we to stay for more of this, ma'am?" + +"I shall stay," Alison said. + +"You remark the gentleman's impatience to silence me, ma'am. I promise +you that I shall tell you nothing which he or any man can deny." + +"It's a dull tale, then," Harry muttered. + +"I think it will excite you enough, ma'am. You are advised that I went to +France with Colonel Boyce. The office which he offered me was to +negotiate with Prince James. This I undertook readily, for to his party +my family hath ever had an inclination, nay, an affection, and I saw in +the affair duties of honour and moment." + +"To the greater glory of Geoffrey, first Duke of Waverton, whom God +preserve," quoth Harry. + +"I did not, I will avow, foresee that the thing was but a trick to take +me away from my house and out of the country. Though I may regret, +ma'am"--he bowed magnificently to Alison--"I do not even now blame myself +for my blindness, for I have ever accounted it unworthy of a man of +honour to fear treachery in his servants"--he glared at Harry--"or +weakness--ah--weakness in those to whom he gives his devotion"--he made +melancholy eyes at Alison. "No more of that. In fine, I did not suspect +that a fellow who was taking wages from my hand had plotted to rob me of +what was my dearest hope, or that another--another--would surrender +herself a prey to his crafty greed." + +"Damme, it is a poem after all," Harry groaned. + +"You said you had something to tell me, sir," said Alison coldly. + +"Nay, ma'am, be patient. I give you no reproaches. But what is, is. If it +irks you that I remind you of it, do not give the blame to me." + +"I shall blame you for being tedious, by your leave." Alison yawned. + +"Wait till all's told. Well, ma'am, I left Tetherdown with Colonel +Boyce, and we rode posthaste to Newhaven. He was there joined by some +half-dozen fellows, low fellows to my eye. This much surprised me, and I +took occasion to tell him so, for he had given out that his was a very +secret errand of Marlborough's privy policy, into which he would admit +none but me. He made out that these fellows were but messengers and +escort, and I permitted myself to be satisfied, though I remarked that +he was on familiar terms with them. But that gave me little concern, for +I had from the first remarked in Colonel Boyce a coarse habit of +intimacy with the vulgar." + +"Aye, aye, you and he took to each other famously," says Harry. + +"Lud, sir, must you be so wordy?" Alison cried. + +"You will find that every word has its import, ma'am. From some of these +fellows Colonel Boyce learnt that there was a warrant out against him for +treasonable practices with the Pretender. This affected him to great +indignation, in which, as I frankly told him, I found matter for +bewilderment. Since he was, as he professed, about to deal with the +Pretender, it was but fair that the Government should arraign him on that +charge. Over which he was pleased to laugh at me, and then, to explain +his mirth, averred that the Government, and in particular Mr. Secretary +St. John, was much more Jacobite than he, and so had no title to meddle +with him. Then he said that what irked him was that they should have +heard of his dealings with France, which must be done secretly or fail. +So we went in a hurry aboard the schooner which was ready for him, and +crossed to Dieppe, landing by night beyond the town. I make no doubt from +his adroitness that Colonel Boyce hath done business in France before, +but of what kind I leave you to guess when you have heard all. We were +well furnished with horses and upon the road to Paris before noon. He +gave out to some officers which questioned him that we were of Prince +James's service upon our way to St. Germain. We rode to Pontoise, and +there, as it had been planned from the first, Colonel Boyce stayed while +I rode on to the Prince. He dared not, as he said, go himself to Paris, +for fear that some of the French officers should recognize him as +Marlborough's man and denounce him for a spy. Therefore was I to go with +letters to the Prince, and messages which should persuade him to ride out +to Pontoise and come to business with Colonel Boyce. I went on then +alone, save that Colonel Boyce gave me one of his fellows to be my guide +and servant, and he stayed with the rest at Pontoise. Thus far, I beg you +remark, I had no cause to apprehend treachery. Upon the face, the scheme +was fair enough, and all had been done even as Colonel Boyce proposed to +me in England. I will maintain myself honourably free of any blame in the +affair against any man whomsoever." + +"God bless you," said Harry heartily. + +Mr. Waverton visibly laboured with a repartee. + +"Oh, sir, a prayer from you is a rare honour," he said at length. +"You're to understand, ma'am, that I was furnished with letters of +credence from certain of the Jacobite agents in England--John Rogers and +Mrs. White, I remember. How they were come by, I cannot now tell, though +I may guess, for it is plain that there was no stint of money in the +affair. So I came easily to speech with the Prince and his secretary, my +Lord Middleton. And I will ever maintain that His Royal Highness is +altogether such as a prince should be. Being of a dark complexion and a +melancholy dignity, there is in him no lightness of thought or word. To +me he was, I profess, very flattering, showing me courtesies beyond my +rights or expectations. He received me, in a word, most favourably, and +being influenced, as I regret I cannot doubt, by my person and address, +was easily inclined to ride out to Pontoise. Only my Lord Middleton made +difficulties. He is of a sardonic turn, and permits his wit to outrun his +civility. He set me questions in a fashion which my honour could not +brook. Yet I can relate that in the end I prevailed over my Lord +Middleton's jealousy. For he said to the Prince: '_Enfin_, sir, I can +tell no reason why you should not go see this Colonel if you choose. If +there were any guile in the business, faith, they would never have +trusted it to this fellow!' + +"So the thing was agreed. In the morning we rode for Pontoise, the +Prince, my Lord Middleton, myself. His Royal Highness was pleased to +limit himself to one servant. The man with whom Colonel Boyce had +provided me went on to carry advice of our coming. We came to Pontoise +towards evening. Colonel Boyce had put up at the Lion d'Or. He was +waiting for us in the courtyard and received us, as I thought, something +shortly, hurrying us into the house. But once inside, he made ceremony +enough, with endless speeches about the condescension of His Royal +Highness. All this too obsequious, in a boorish taste, so that the Prince +bade him have done and come to business. Therewith Colonel Boyce was as +full of apologies as he had been of servilities. I vow I never heard him +so copious as that night. + +"He took us, you are to understand, to an upper room. And what first +moved my suspicion was that he bade me be gone. Then my Lord Middleton +countered him with, 'I believe, sir, the gentleman had best stay.' +Immediately Colonel Boyce was all smiles over his blunder, and we sat +down about the table in that upper room and came to the substance of his +negotiation. He kept, I'll allow, to the purposes which, from the first, +he had pretended to me: whether Prince James, if assured of support from +Marlborough and his friends, would choose to avow himself Protestant; but +he made so many conditions over it, he was so vague and wary that 'twas +hard to tell what he would be at. When my Lord Middleton tried to pin him +to something plain and certain he would ever evade, till it began to grow +late and the Prince talked of supper and bed. This Colonel Boyce took up +very heartily, and was indeed giving his orders when there came a noise +in the courtyard and he ran to the window and looked out. + +"My Lord Middleton was behind him, with a 'What's your anxiety, sir?' + +"'Why, my lord, I would not have these roysterers break upon the Prince's +incognito. Pray, sir, this way and you'll be secure'; he points to an +inner door. + +"'I believe we are as safe here, sir,' says my Lord Middleton. + +"'Egad, sir, come away,' says Colonel Boyce; and he was in fact dragging +the Prince across the room when the door bursts open and in comes a +stranger, a little man. He flung himself across the room upon Colonel +Boyce, making some play with a pistol. There was some grappling and +wrestling. I recall that they gasped and breathed hard. But it's odd, I +believe, that there was no word spoken. Then Colonel Boyce freed himself +and bolted through that inner door. The stranger fired a shot after him, +and while we were all deaf and sneezing with it and utterly amazed he +turns on us. 'That's a miss,' says he. 'Please God they'll bag him below. +Eh, Charles,' he wags his head at my Lord Middleton, 'I thought you had +more sense,' + +"'Damme,' says my lord, 'it's Hector McBean. And prithee what's all this +ruffling, Mac?' + +"'Why, you have let His Majesty walk into a stinking trap. That fellow +Boyce, he hath been Marlborough's spy, Sunderland's spy, the devil's spy +this twenty year.' + +"'Why, I thought he had something the smack of it,' says my lord. +'And yet--' + +"'Who's this now?' Captain McBean turned on me. 'Yours or his?' + +"'His ambassador in fact,' My lord looked me over and took snuff. 'You +won't tell me that hath any guile in it. Prithee, what is it you have +against the man Boyce?' + +"'Eh, did ye see him run?' says Captain McBean. 'A man's not in that +hurry if he hath a good conscience. If ye'll please to have him up, maybe +we'll hear a tale.' + +"But as he spoke there came into the room a French officer of dragoons, +who, saluting the Prince, asked Captain McBean if he had found his rogue. +On which 'Have I found him?' Captain McBean cries out, 'Eh, sir, did he +not run into your arms?' But it appeared that Colonel Boyce had not been +caught, and they determined at last that he must have made his way out by +a door at the back of the inn and won clear away. But I am sorry to tell +you, ma'am, that he hath not yet been found. For if they catch him in +France, he may count on a hanging." + +"Pray, sir, how did you dodge the rope?" Harry said. "Did you talk them +to death, your Pretender and his tail?" + +"You're too eloquent for me, Mr. Waverton," Alison yawned. "I can't tell +what you want to say. What is this mighty crime which you and Colonel +Boyce were compassing?" + +"Sneers become you ill, ma'am," says Mr. Waverton magnificently. "I +repudiate any charge whatsoever; and tell my story my own way. Some hot +words passed between Captain McBean and the Frenchman, each blaming the +other for Colonel Boyce's escape. Then Captain McBean says 'The fellows +that were drinking in the tap, I suppose you've let them dodge you too? +No? Well, that's a wonder. Tie this rogue up with them and have them in +guard.' So he mocked at me, but the Prince brought him up roundly. + +"'You go too fast for me, my good captain,' quoth he. 'What's your charge +against the gentleman?--who is to my mind a very simple gentleman.' So +His Royal Highness was pleased to honour me." + +"Egad, he was right, Waverton," Harry laughed. + +"I think I know how to value your fair words now, sir," says Mr. Waverton +grandly. "Be pleased to spare them. Upon that, as I was saying, Captain +McBean lost command of himself and was grossly violent. Roaring that I +was none the less a knave because I was so natural a fool, and the like +empty insolence. Accusing me of being art and part in a vile plot with +Colonel Boyce to kidnap and murder His Royal Highness." + +"Now we have it," Alison murmured and looked at Harry strangely. + +"Aye, ma'am. Now, perhaps (though late enough) your eyes are opened," +said Mr. Waverton with relish. "Well, I let the man run on. He was indeed +not to be stopped. A rude, vehement fellow. When he was exhausted, I +addressed His Royal Highness." + +"Lack a day, I believe you," says Harry. + +"I made it clear to him, sir, that my birth and position must warrant me +innocent of any treachery, and though I might well disdain to answer +these reckless charges I owed it to myself to remark to His Royal +Highness that, but for my desire to serve him, I had never meddled in the +affair. So that when I had done, my Lord Middleton says, laughing, 'Egad, +sir, it seems you owe this fine gentleman thanks for his kindly +condescension to you'; and the Prince was pleased to answer, 'We are too +small for his notice, faith. But is he finished yet?' Then I bowed to His +Royal Highness and sat down, well enough pleased, as you may believe. + +"But this Captain McBean called out in his rude fashion, 'Eh, sir, he may +e'en be the booby he pretends. The better decoy, I allow. But by your +leave, we'll look into it more narrowly. Would Your Majesty please to +permit me have up the other rogues?' + +"This, in a word, they did, and Captain McBean and my Lord Middleton (who +is to my mind something more of the attorney than becomes a man of rank) +questioning the fellows shrewdly, it was made put--I crave your +attention, madam--it was made out that Colonel Boyce had undertaken for +the service of the Hanoverian junto here to kidnap or kill Prince James. +And the plan was to bring the Prince out to Pontoise and so drag out +affairs that he passed the night there. Then in the night they were to +invade his room and command him to follow them. They pretended indeed +that they meant only to carry him off. But 'tis not to be doubted that +they looked for resistance and a bloody issue to the affair. So, ma'am, +here is the trade of the family of Boyce--to procure murder, and the +murder of a prince of the blood royal, of our lawful king. I give you joy +of the name you bear." + +Alison bent her head. "You may well be proud of your part, Mr. +Waverton." + +"They let you go, did they?" says Harry; "your captain and your lord and +your prince?" + +"Let me go, sir? There is nothing against me. I defy your impudence. Nay, +I thank you, I thank you. You lead me gracefully to the end of my story." + +"Good God! It has an end!" + +"When these rogues were questioned about me, not a man of them could +pretend to have anything against me. They openly confessed that Colonel +Boyce had warned them that I must be kept in innocence of the affair lest +I should thwart it. For he said that he had brought me into it to show a +good face to the Prince as one beyond suspicion of treachery. Nay and +moreover--and here's my last word to you, ma'am--he avowed that he chose +me because he wanted me out of England where I stood between his own son +and a pretty heiress. At which, as I remember, my Lord Middleton chose to +be amused." + +"Damme, I like that man," says Harry. + +"So, ma'am," Mr. Waverton tossed his head. "Here you have it. I am drawn +into a murderous, vile, base treason that I may be kept out of the way +while Mr. Boyce prosecutes his designs upon you. I give you joy of the +loyal fidelity which yielded to him. I leave you to enjoy him with what +appetite you may." + +He made a majestic bow, he turned and was gone. + +Harry and Alison were left staring at each other. + +From behind came a small strained voice: "Colonel Boyce--he--he is safe, +then?" It was Mrs. Weston. + +The two turned with a start, surprised by her existence. + +Harry laughed. "Oh aye, he is safe. He would be." + +Mrs. Weston rose slowly and then made a rush for the door. + +The husband and wife were left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HARRY IS DISMISSED + + +Alison turned and stared into the fire. Harry filled himself a glass of +port and drank it and laughed. She looked round at him. "Faith, Mr. +Waverton is mighty good entertainment," he explained. + +"Is that all you want to say?" + +Harry would not be awed by that ominous voice. "Oh Lud, how could I dare +talk after him? Our poetic orator!" He made flourishes in the air after +Mr. Waverton's manner. "Nay, but I would give my new wig to have been in +that upper chamber at Pontoise. Dear Geoffrey on his defence booming +noble periods--and the Prince, poor gentleman, with his fingers in his +ears! If dear Geoffrey was telling the truth. I wonder." + +"Oh, is that what you'll pretend?" + +"Pretend? I pretend nothing, ma'am. Why, to be sure, our Geoffrey always +means to tell the truth--having, God bless him, no imagination. But +you'll remark what when he tells a tale, it's Mr. Waverton has always the +_beau rôle_. He sees the world like that, dear lad. So I should be glad +to hear the Caledonian gentleman's notion of what happened." + +"I see. You'll make that your defence. Geoffrey imagined it all." + +"Egad, ma'am, you may lower your tone. I have nothing to defend, nor are +you set in judgment." + +Alison started up. "Do you suppose all this is to make no change?" +she cried. + +"You're a splendid creature, by heaven," says Harry, tilting his chair +back and watching her with a little epicurean smile, the proud vigour of +her, the blood in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, and the sweep of the +white arm. + +"I could hate you for that," she said, and her lips set. + +"Yes. I think you're in a fair way to it," says Harry. "I wonder if you +know why." + +"Because I have come to despise you," she cried sharply. + +"You will be solemn, will you?" says Harry. "Much good may it do you. And +so, egad, have at you heartily. For you have said things which both of us +will find it hard to forget." + +"Oh, you can feel that?" + +"Look 'e, ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each +other like a pair of puppies. Now, what's happened?" + +"You have to ask that? My God, if you have to ask, there's no use in +words between you and me." + +"Oh Lud, don't be mystical. Mr. Waverton comes here to do his poor +possible to make mischief between us. I suppose you saw that. He tells us +that he went blundering with my father into a muddle of a plot." + +"He tells us that your father planned a vile base murder and sought to +make him, a man of honour, part in it. Pray, sir, is that not infamous?" + +"Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?" + +"Yes." + +"We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell +you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find +matter for blackening me." + +Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father +would not stay to face them." + +"Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero." + +"Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was +an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you +think shameful." + +Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I +never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these +political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? +And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton +went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not +understand." + +"He went in your place. You should have gone with your father." + +"Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?" + +"Perhaps." + +Harry started up. "Oh, say it out. I knew we should go far to-night." + +They stood close, fronting each other fiercely. "My God, is it strange +if I wish you had gone? Your father is a base wretch who should be on the +gallows, and I am to be his son's wife and bear the name, and the while +he goes bragging that he took Geoffrey Waverton off so that you should be +free to come at me." + +"Aye, that. To be sure, that rankles. But you have known it long. I +showed you the letter he left me which said he had taken Geoffrey out of +my way and bade me snatch my chance of you. And you made light of that, +ma'am. Oh, it was a base thing, if you will, but you know well enough it +went for nought. We had done our work before. By God, Alison, Geoffrey +there or Geoffrey here, you would have come to me." + +"Ah!" It was like a cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, +I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were +all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I--what was I?" She +shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would +taunt me with that." + +"Egad, you're in a frenzy," says Harry. "You cry aloud and cut yourself +with knives. You will be hurting yourself." + +"I loathe you for that calm way of yours," she cried. "You mock me till +I am mad, and then you please to be grave and lofty. You--I took you out +of the gutter." + +"What now, ma'am?" Harry stiffened. + +"It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your +face--your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you +strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a +fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. +"You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would +take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I +remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst +stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. But he +knew you better. That's your trade, the highwayman, faith, the +highwayman! You trick us all and prey upon us, as you dare. So you marked +me down, who was rich and a girl, and you have caught me, and you have +rifled me, and, for what you care I may now go hang. I ask you for my +pride again, my honour, and you mock at me. Oh, I am ashamed for a fool +and worse, and you know it, God help me, but you--you--" + +Harry shrugged. "I suppose we have come to the end now," he said coolly. +"Well, ma'am, to be sure we married in haste, and it seems we have both +come to repentance. As for wrong that I have done you--why, I can't make +you a maid again, and, if you please, more's the pity. My apologies and +regrets. For the rest, all of your money that hath been spent on me will +go in a small purse, and, I promise you, you shall spend no more. So you +may sleep sound, and I wish you good night." + +She watched him cross the room, and, as he was opening the door, cried +out, "What do you mean?" + +He turned. "Why, would you still be talking?" Their eyes met in +defiance. "You can go," she said. + +"I have had the honour to tell you so," he said, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + +It was on the second day after that Susan Burford and Mr. Hadley rode in +to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. They found Alison and Mrs. Weston together, +and both sewing--a fact which failed to interest Mr. Hadley, but +surprised Susan, who knew Alison, without a taste for needlework. + +"My dear," says Susan, embracing Alison physically and spiritually in her +large, buxom, genial way. + +"You have been a long time finding me," says Alison and put her off. "I +suppose I know why you kindly come to me now." + +"B-r-r-r-r!" Mr. Hadley made the sound of one who comes into a cold +draught. "The truth is, Susan has been so busy improving herself that she +has had no time for her friends. In fine, she has been trying to make +herself worthy the honour of my affections and large enough to support +the burden of my dignity. I don't say she satisfies me, but she does her +best." He propelled Susan forward with his one hand. "'A poor thing, +ma'am, but mine own.'" + +"Oh, he is amusing himself, you see," says Susan, in her leisurely +fashion. + +"Damme, Susan, you're so mighty innocent that sometimes I believe you +are innocent." + +"But you have known me so long," Susan protested. + +Alison stood up with an air of ceremony. Her pale face constrained itself +at last to smile at them. "My dear, I wish you may be very happy," says +she, and gave Susan a matronly kiss. "Mr. Hadley, you're a fortunate +man." She put out a stately hand. + +Having bowed over it. "B-r-r-r," says Mr. Hadley. + +"Damn these east winds. Susan, you're a plague with your affections. You +will have me talk about you, and I can't make you interesting, I hope, +ma'am, we find Mr. Boyce well?" + +Alison drew back. "Why do you ask that? You have seen Mr. Waverton, +of course." + +Mrs. Weston put down her work and folded her hands upon it. + +"Why, yes, I have seen Geoffrey; and what's worse, heard him. I hope he +did not plague you too long." + +"Pray, Mr. Hadley, don't be ironical. You can spare me that. Mr. Waverton +told us his story the night before last. Thereupon Mr. Boyce and I parted +company. He left my house immediately and I do not know where he is." + +Mr. Hadley distinguished himself by containing an oath. Susan said, "Oh, +my dear," in that slow, calm way which might mean anything. + +It was Mrs. Weston who cried out, "Alison, you never told me." + +"You asked once or twice where he was, and I told you I did not know. +What does it matter?" + +"You quarrelled with him?" + +"Quarrelled!" + +"Because of what this Mr. Waverton said?" + +"Do you think it could make no difference?" + +Mrs. Weston clasped her hands and swayed in her chair. + +"Alison; we had no guess of this. I am sorry. I am so sorry," Susan said. + +"There is no need." Alison held her head high. + +"If we have, in some sort, forced your confidence, I beg you believe, +ma'am, it was not meant," So Mr. Hadley in the grand style. "For I +protest it never came into my head that Geoffrey would make mischief +between you and Mr. Boyce." + +"You say that?" Alison stared at him. "Oh, you mean I was so besotted +with him." + +Mr. Hadley relapsed to his ordinary manner. "Damme, d'ye think we came +for nothing but to jeer at you? I promise you we have pleasanter matter +to hand. Neither to jeer at you, nor to meddle with you, Alison, but +friendly. So take us friendly in God's name. If you will go about to find +a sneer in every word, why, a sneer you'll find, but not of my making. We +bring you nothing but goodwill, and want nothing more of you. But if we +irk you, why, let us go and we'll see you again in good time." + +"That's a pretty speech to begin with an oath," Alison said, through the +flicker of a smile. "And, faith, I should be slow to take offence at you. +For we quarrelled before, because you were at pains to warn me. Well, +sir, I humble myself before your wisdom." + +There was a pause. "Oh. Now we are all ill at ease," says Susan. + +"Odso, ma'am, it's not fair," Mr. Hadley cried. "I am not here to say, 'I +told you so,' I am not so proud of it. Well, damme, I have no temptation +to be meddling in your affairs. But I think you will have to know. It is +with Mr. Waverton I have fallen out now." + +"With Mr. Waverton?" Alison repeated. "What is there between you and +him?" + +"I believe he had the impertinence to expect my sympathetic admiration. +While I was thinking him a low fellow. Which I took occasion to tell him. +Without result." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "But I believe he did not feel it. +It's a thick hide." + +"And what was your difference?" + +"Why, this precious story of his." + +There was some little time of silence. "You don't believe it," Alison +said slowly. "Come, you must say more than that." + +"I profess, ma'am, I have no will to say anything. Whatever I say, I'll +be impertinent." + +"Oh. Shall we mark it in you?" Susan said. + +"Well, sir, you were not always so shy of scolding me," says Alison, and +again with a faint smile. + +"Scold you! God warn us, I have no commission. I can tell you what I +thought of Waverton and his tale. Did I believe it? Ods fish, I never +remember believing Geoffrey. If he had to tell you two and two was four, +he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know +what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some +plot which some other fellows smoked. Maybe it was even such as Geoffrey +said, kidnapping and murder to follow. These plots, they grow nastier and +nastier the longer they are afoot. And Colonel Boyce--well, by your +leave, I don't think him delicate. But for the rest of it, I'll wager +that's Geoffrey's sprightly invention. You know very well, ma'am, I have +no kindness for your Mr. Boyce. But, damme, he never thought of tricking +Geoffrey out of the way to give himself a free hand with you. And it's a +low trick in Geoffrey to go about with that tale." + +"Oh! But he is stupid," Susan said. + +"What if Colonel Boyce thought of the trick?" says Alison. + +"Egad, Mr. Boyce is unfortunate in his father. Maybe he knows that as +well as we. But--damme, ma'am, you will have it--I believe there was not +much trick in his affair with you." + +"I believe you once warned me of his tricks," Alison said coldly. "It's +no matter now. I tease you with my affairs." + +"If I can serve you, I'm heartily at your command." + +"Oh, you have worked hard to make the best of a bad business. But I can +do that for myself, and I like my own way of it." + +Mr. Hadley bowed. + +"Oh! Let us go home," Susan said. + +Alison looked at her in some surprise, and, as she stood up, came quickly +to kiss her. "Have I been rude?" she whispered. + +"That would be no matter," Susan said, "You choose to be angry with me?" +Alison stiffened. + +"Oh! One isn't angry. One is sorry," Susan said. + +Alison let her go, and Mr. Hadley, ceremonious but with visible relief, +went after her. + +Then Mrs. Weston said suddenly, quickly, "Where is he?" + +"He?" Alison chose to be slow. "Mr. Boyce? I have no notion." + +"You drove him out?" + +"I could not endure him longer. Or he could endure me no longer. He went +heartily enough. I think we were both glad it was over." + +"You taunted him till he had to go?" + +"Weston, dear!" Alison laughed at the sudden fierceness of the meek. +"What's the matter?" + +"I have heard you mocking him." + +"Maybe. We both have sharp enough tongues." + +"You used to jeer at him for being poor." + +"Good lack, are you calling me to account, ma'am?" + +"Yes, you may well be ashamed! Where is he?" + +"Ashamed? What do you mean, Weston? What is the man to you?" + +"I am his mother," Mrs. Weston said. + +"You!... You! Oh, but this is mad!" + +"I am not mad." + +"But, Weston, dear, you knew nothing about him till he came; nor he of +you. How could he be your son?" + +"I had never seen him since he was a baby. I was not married." + +"That is why you would not tell me? Oh, Weston, dear!" + +"I did not mean to tell you now. I knew it would hurt him with you. But I +suppose it's no matter now. But these are my affairs, not yours." + +"My dear--" + +"You need not pity me." + +"What am I to say?" Alison held out her arms. + +"You have nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never +been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady +hands and turned away. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I am going out of your house. Away from you." + +"But, Weston--not now, not to-night. Where can you go? What can you do?" + +"I can do well enough without you, as he can.... Why don't you tell me +that I have been living on your money? You told him so often enough." + +"Oh ... you're cruel," Alison said. + +"What does it matter? You'll not be hurt. You are too hard." She hurried +to the door. + +"Ah, don't go like this," Alison cried. "Weston, let's part kindly. I +could not know. I have done nothing against you." Mrs. Weston laughed. +"Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father--is Colonel +Boyce--?" + +"Yes, there it is. That is all you want--to pry into all the story. It is +nothing to you. He is nothing to you now." + +The door closed behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Harry was not gone far. In Long Acre stood a tavern calling itself 'The +Hand of Pork.' This had always tempted Harry, whose tastes were of the +people. While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with +satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he +brought his small, battered box. + +He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. +"Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of +Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. +But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, +and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be +concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. If you +can imagine him seriously arguing over that money--a thing impossible--he +would have said that the guineas were of consequence to him and none to +Geoffrey and Alison, that whether he had dealt honestly by them or not, +it would not better his case to pay them back a few shillings. You have +seen that he had qualms of conscience over the rights of Geoffrey's +service and Alison's arms. But the ugly, awkward details gave him no +trouble. He may, if you please, have swallowed a camel or so, but he +never strained at a gnat. + +Now that he was done with Geoffrey and Alison, both, his first feeling +was comfort. It was a huge relief to be his own man again. He told +himself indeed that he was mighty grateful to Geoffrey for bringing on +the final explosion. For one thing, it wiped off all Geoffrey's score. If +Master Geoffrey had been treated shabbily, Master Geoffrey had played a +shabby trick. They could call quits--a pleasant sensation. It would have +been awkward if Geoffrey had chosen to be magnanimous nobility. But he +was never intelligent, the poor Geoffrey. + +He had done his best to be damaging, bless him, and in all ways had been +a benefactor. For, in fact, it was a great relief to be done with Alison. +What with her fretful discontent, her rages, her industrious hate, she +had made herself intolerable. I do not suppose that he forgot, even in +the heat of the divorce, the exquisite pleasure which for a while she had +given him. I think he was always ready to acknowledge that to himself, +for it is certain that he bore her no malice, and if he blamed her for +their catastrophe, blamed himself as much. He might make the most or more +of all the taunts, of her zeal to find occasions for despising him. He +forgot nothing and forgave her nothing; he wrote her down a cruel enemy. +But he did not pay her back with equal hate; he dismissed all the warfare +and the wounds with a shrug of sagacious cynicism. + +She hated him? She had the right, she was his wife. And perhaps she was +in the right too. He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her +beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was +essentially a nobody--a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. +She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have +known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a +bar-sinister or a disreputable father. Certainly Madame Alison could +plead something of a case. + +You are not to suppose Harry in an ecstasy of meek devotion. He was quite +sure that she had behaved to him very badly. He admitted no excuse for +her eagerness to hurt him as soon as she was tired of him. She might hate +him; but after all there were obligations of courtesy, of decency, of +womanhood, and her venomous temper had broken them all. He was well rid +of her. In fine, she and he could call quits as well as he and Geoffrey. +There was no occasion to rage against her. She had treated him badly, +but, first, he had brought her into an awkward mess. Faith, she ought not +to have hurried into a marriage for passion if passion was so soon to +sate her. But then, what man would blame a woman for marrying for +passion? Not the man she married, who might rather humble himself because +he had not been able to keep her passion alive. Well, it was over, and +since it was over, nothing for it but to part. God be with her! She had +given him his hour. And he--why, at least she had lived with him moments +she would not forget. A glorious woman. It is probable that in these +first hours of their parting he began to love her. + +So much for his emotions. But you will not suppose that Harry Boyce was +wholly occupied with emotions. He could not indeed afford it. He had to +make some provision for keeping alive. Perhaps you will be surprised to +hear that he had a friend or two. There was an usher at Westminster, and +a hack writer of Lintot's in Little Britain. He did not propose to live +on them, who had hardly enough to feed themselves. But he looked for them +to put him in the way of some pittance, and they did. The usher had news +that, after Ascension-Day, Westminster would be wanting a writing master, +for the man in possession hoped by then to marry the dean's cook and set +up an ale-house. The author procured a commission to write two lampoons +and a pamphlet against French wines. In the intervals of this occupation, +Harry looked for his father. + +It would be hard to guess--Harry himself could not have told--what he +hoped to gain by that. He wanted, of course, to find out the truth of the +mission to France. Whether his father was likely to tell it, he could not +make up his mind. What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, +he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father +could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined +himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. +A nightmare joke. + +Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The +first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay +him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should +have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to +oblige his enemies. It was incredible, too, that he would go long into +hiding. Away from the importance of bustle and intrigue he could not +exist. Therefore he would certainly come back to London: therefore sooner +or later he would be found at one of the coffee-houses favoured by the +brisk fellows in the underworld of politics--at Tom's, or the British, or +Diggory's by the Seven Dials. He might be heard of among the fire-eating +Jacobites of Sam's. There were not so many likely places, but Harry laid +down more pennies than he could spare at the bars, and all in vain. + +He sat in Sam's on an afternoon chopping Greek tags with a jolly, +fanatical old parson. The days were fast lengthening, and for one reason +or another--the company at Sam's were not too fond of light--only a +candle here and there was burning. A little man came in with a party very +obsequious to him. As he walked up to the bar Harry had a glimpse of a +lean, brown face. He remembered it and yet no more than faintly, and +could not tell where he had seen it. It did not much engage him, and he +went on with his Greek and his parson. The little man made some noise +with the pretty girl behind the bar, claiming the privileges of an old +friend and a good deal of liquor, and it was a little while before he was +established at a table with his party. Harry chose to mouth out something +Homeric and sounding. The little man stopped in the middle of lighting +his pipe. "I know that roll, _pardieu_!" he muttered, and in a florid +fashion declaimed, "Fol de rol de row," and laughed alcoholically. "Who's +talking Hebrew here?" + +One of his party pointed out Harry and the parson. The little man blinked +through the smoky twilight. He stood up, took his candle and lurched +across the room to Harry. Down under Harry's nose he put the candle with +a bang. Harry jerked back and glared at him, and he, rocking a little and +blinking, said thickly, "It's a filthy likeness, after all, it is." + +"No, sir, there's only one of me," said Harry. "If you see two, give God +the glory and go to bed." + +"I'm saying, bully, I'm saying," the little man's accent became more +Caledonian and he clutched at Harry's shoulder. "I'm saying, my +laddie--" + +"Damme, that's what I complain of." + +"I'm saying I do not like your complexion. It's yellow, my jo, it's a +wee rotten orange, it is so." His company, a faithful tail, shook +with laughter. + +"Sleep it off, sir," says Harry, with a shrug. + +"What's your will? Clip it off, do ye say so? Losh, you would have a face +or two to spare. Eh, but I'm doubting you know too much o' clipping. +There's clippit ears, and maybe you have a pair." He twitched Harry's bob +wig awry; and with singular luck reeled out of the reach of Harry's +answering blow. "Ay, and there's clippit shillings and maybe ye make your +filthy living by their parings and shavings. Well a well, and there's +clippit wings; and I'll clip yours, my bonny goose, the night." He +clutched at the wig again and tossed it into the fire. + +Harry sprang up and struck at him. He flung himself backwards into the +arms of his friends and with a surprising adroitness plucked out his +sword. "Have at ye, my man;" he giggled and made a pass. + +"Easy, Captain," says one of his company. "The boy hath no sword." + +"Oh ay, 'tis the Lord that's a man of war. The devil was aye for peace. +Well, what ails ye not to lend the imp a bodkin?" + +The fat old keeper of the coffee-house waddled into the midst. "Sure, +Captain, you don't mean it. I would need to set my lads upon you. 'Tis +disorderly homicide, indeed. Ye can't mean it. Not downstairs. I'll not +deny there's the elegant parlour on the first floor." + +"Ye're a canting old devil, Sam," says the little man. "But I'll oblige +you. Come up, my bully, and I'll show you a thing." + +"Here's for you, cully." One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword. + +"Oh, by your leave,"--Harry waved it oft--"I don't fight a drunken man." + +"Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to +mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school +you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. +I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. +I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give +us your staff." + +"Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I +fight the whole platoon?" + +"You're peevish, do you know, you're peevish. Here, Fraser, give him your +hanger. Do you second the bairn, Donald? Come, Patrick, I'll have you. +There's one for you and one for me, my man, and damn all favours." + +It seemed to Harry that the little man's company were something surprised +at this turn, but they took it in a disciplined silence. So the party of +four marched up the stairs. You will believe that Harry liked the +business ill enough. He shot glances at the two chosen for seconds. There +was nothing sottish about them. They were very soberly alert, they had +the tan and the vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit +comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, +they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the +affair--rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken +brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn +care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the +candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out +of his coat, asked if he needed anything, gravely advised to risk nothing +and play close. + +"We are at your service, Mr. O'Connor," says Donald. + +"At your pleasure, Mr. Mackenzie," says the other. + +Harry was set against the little man and the swords crossed. It then +occurred to him that the little man was very suddenly recovered from his +liquor. The blustering chatter had been cut off as soon as they started +up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the +unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He +had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same +manner, a correctness exact and staccato, about this sword play. + +The knave can never have been drunk, Harry said to himself as he +sweated and was the more embarrassed by bewilderment. But he dared not +let himself think. The little man was urgently dangerous, and Harry +knew enough to know it. Harry had no pretensions to science. All he +could use was the rudiments. He had kept his head at singlestick, held +his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a +point. The little man had the speed and certainty of a _maître +d'armes_. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind +numb and dazed under the strain, expecting--hoping--every moment the +thrust that would make an end. + +It did not come. The ache and fever of the fight went on and on. Still +the little man was masterful and precise. Still he demanded all Harry's +vigour and more than all, kept him struggling desperately, beset by fear +on the edge of death. Harry felt himself weakening, faltering, and still +the opposing blade searched his defence sharply, still the little man was +an exemplar of easy precision. And yet Harry's maladroitness always +sufficed to save his skin. He was puzzled, and blundered and fumbled the +more. The play grew slower and slower, and he was the more tortured, +enduring many times the shame and the pain of defeat. + +At last he had hit upon the truth. He was wondering in a dazed fashion +why that other sword seemed always to wait on him when he made a gross +mistake. Visibly, palpably, the little man's blade halted to give him +time for a parry. Harry dropped his point and gasped out, "Damme, sir, +you are playing with me." + +"What's your will? I fight my own way. At your convenience, sir." + +"The Captain's within his right, sir," says Harry's solemn second. + +"Damn you, for a pack of mountebanks!" Harry cried. + +"On guard, sir," says the little man. + +Harry gave him an oath and dashed at him. There was a moment's wild +fighting and then the little man forced it back to order. They were at +the old game again, precise scientific thrust, pause, and blundering +parry, when to Harry's amazement the little man's sword wavered and flew +from his hand. + +Through a long minute Harry stood staring at him, and he waiting unarmed +for Harry's thrust. Again Harry lowered his sword. At once the little +man stooped and picked up his. "Do you demand to continue, Captain?" +says his second. + +"You're a fool, Patrick," quoth the little man. + +The impenetrable second saluted and turned to his fellow. "Another bout, +if you please, Mr. Mackenzie." + +"Would you grant it, sir?" says Harry's solemn Scot. + +"Egad, we are all mad here," Harry wiped his brow. "Oh, play it +out to hell." + +The little man saluted formally and again they engaged. And now Harry was +enveloped in another kind of fighting. Scientific it might be, but +science far beyond his understanding. The little man's point was +everywhere upon him and he thrusting blindly at the air. He might have +been pinked a score times over, he was for all he knew. And then on a +sudden his own point touched something. Next moment it was struck up to +the ceiling. Some one called out "A hit." He saw the two seconds standing +between the swords and a red scratch on the little man's cheek. + +"_Touché_," says he with a bow. "My compliments, if you please. It's some +while since a man marked me. I am glad to know you, sir. Pray, what's +your name?" + +"Harry Boyce, sir." + +"Egad, it's wonderful!" says the little man, with a laugh which appealed +to Harry. "Hector McBean, at your service." Harry stared. "Aye, aye, I'm +thinking we'll explain ourselves. Will you walk, sir?" + +"If you please." + +Captain McBean took his arm, said over his shoulder to the two seconds +"To-morrow," and marched off with him. Once they were out in the +street, "So you are Colonel Noll Boyce's son," says Captain McBean with +an odd look. + +"He has often told me so." + +"If you had not such a look of him I wouldn't believe it. Oh, pardon, +monsieur, _mille pardons_, _ma foi._ I have been insolent to you in all +this affair. You'll please to observe that the whole of it, and the +issue, is to your honour. Will I have to say more?" + +"Oh Lud, no. Pray, let's talk sense." + +"I take to you marvellously, _mon enfant_. Well now, have you +heard of me?" + +"Enough to want much more." + +"What, has father been talking?" + +"D'ye know where he is, Captain McBean?" + +"I wish I did." + +"So do I. It was Mr. Waverton who told the tale. Now you know why I am +eager to hear what you can say of my father or my father of you." + +"Are you a good son, Mr. Boyce?" + +"I pay my debts." + +"There's a crooked answer. Are you in the Colonel's secrets?" + +"I have no reason to think so." + +"I guess he did not trust you. I guess he was right. Do you remember +where you met me first?" + +"I remember that I can't remember." + +"And me that thought I was a beauty! Well, but you were busy. You were +making mud pies with Ben." + +"I have it. You were his captain on the horse. Pray, sir, what was my +Benjamin's mystery?" + +"I am going to trust you, Mr. Boyce. I shall not require you to trust me +unless you choose. I tell you frankly I hope for it. And so--come in +with you." + +They turned out of the Strand into Bow Street. Captain McBean let +himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. +"D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." +He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now, +_mon cher_, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?" + +"I never could tell." + +"Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. +If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. +Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's +son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? Now there is +something I must say to you. But how much I say is a question. I have no +desire to embarrass you with awkward knowledge. So which is your king, +_mon enfant_, James or George?" + +"I care not a puff of smoke for either." + +"So. I suppose there is something you care for. Well--you asked about +Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the +Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. +Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor +for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his +dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to +negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old +villain had some black design in his head again, and it was thought that +if we could turn over his private papers, we should know where to have +him. It was certified that he had with him something from his agents +abroad. Well, we missed him, and how deep he is dipped in this business, +I know no more than you. + +"Now I come to your father, _mon enfant_, and I promise you I will be as +delicate as I may. Do you know, _par exemple_, how Colonel Boyce is in +the mouths of gentlemen?" + +"Oh, sir, that's another of the matters for which I care nothing." + +"_Tenez donc_. You were born old, I think. Well, Colonel Boyce has been +in some few plots, devices, and manoeuvres. No man ever denied him wit, +nor will I, _mordieu_. But it's his virtue that neither his friends nor +his enemies were ever sure of him. I believe, Mr. Boyce, that if he heard +me he would thank me for a compliment. _Bien_--I come back to my tale. + +"It was known to us poor Jacobites in England that Colonel Boyce was +making salutes to St. Germain. Which much intrigued us, for we would not, +by your leave, have him of our side. They don't know him there as we do, +and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine." + +"Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug. + +"You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have +him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from +Colonel Boyce full of windy promises--_verbosa et grandis epistola_. D'ye +keep up your humanities?--in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord +Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. +If Sunderland and Stair were ready to turn honest, then _pardieu_, there +was hope of the devil himself. Oh, I don't blame the King nor even +Charles Middleton, though he is old enough to be slow. The times are +changing, and maybe Stair and Sunderland they see it as well as we, and +mean to find salvation. I can't tell. But the thing looked ill. Stair and +Sunderland--there is no treachery too foul for those names. And if they +meant honestly, why--saving your presence, _mon enfant_--why did they +choose Colonel Boyce for their agent? It was no good warranty. So we +adventured a counter. We have friends enough now in the Government, _mon +cher_, and it was arranged that the Colonel should be arrested as a +Jacobite. A good stroke, I think. It was mine. Only the old gentleman +dodged it." + +"Pray, what did you know of Mr. Waverton?" + +"That sheep's-head!" McBean laughed. "Why, a letter came to hand in which +the Colonel talked of taking the pretty gentleman to France. So he was +joined in the warrant. _D'ailleurs_--it made a good appearance. However, +we missed him; but we found something in his papers which made me queasy. +So I e'en was off to France after him. + +"The Colonel stayed at Pontoise and sent your Waverton off to St. Germain +with a mighty plausible letter about secret proposals from the chiefs of +the Whigs, which brought the King out to hear them secretly. _Ma foi_! I +think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever +trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could +think that peacock would be in anything crafty? At Pontoise I tumbled in +upon them, and your father, _mon cher_, he ran off on sight of me. +Observe, I press nothing against him. I allow that the best evidence I +have against him is just that--he ran away when he saw me. Secondly, he +had with him some three-four rascals whose faces would hang them. And +thirdly and lastly, beloved brethren, these fellows, when put to it and +charged with a plot to murder King James, were frightened for their lives +and babbled wildly, of which the sum was that they had been brought but +to kidnap him. I grant ye, they may have lied, and I would not hang a dog +(who was not a Whig) upon their word. But confess, _mon cher_, the thing +is black enough. What did the Colonel want with King James alone? Why did +he need his bullies? Why did he run away? I leave it with you." + +Harry knocked out his pipe. "I am obliged for the story, sir. Why did +you tell it?" + +"You have a cold blood in you, _mon enfant_" says Captain MacBean. +"Observe, I look for nothing wonderful from you. I allow your position is +very difficult to a man of honour. And with all my heart--" + +"Oh Lud, sir, let's have nothing pathetic." + +"Aye, aye," McBean bowed. "Mr. Boyce! I do profess I feel the delicacy of +the affair, and I detest it, _pardieu_. But I dare not absolve ye from +your duty." + +"Oh, sir, you are very sublime." + +"Hear me out, Mr. Boyce. I have shown you cause to fear that your +father has it in mind to compass a vile treachery, perhaps a murder. +Would you deny it?" + +"Damme, sir, I am not the day of judgment." + +"_Bien_. I believe that is an answer. I declare to you there is yet a +chance that he may succeed, aye, here in London." + +Harry swore. "If your friends must go walking into traps what is +it to me?" + +"Well, sir, though you will own no loyalty to king or queen or country, +I'll not be deceived. I call on you for your aid. It's believed your +father is in London. It is likely he will seek you out, as he did before. +Maybe at this hour you know where he is." + +"If I did, should I betray him to you, sir?" + +"I ask no treachery. But I do call on you, discover his purpose if you +can, and if he intends violence to the King, prevent it. Lord, sir, it's +to save your father from infamy, and your own name." + +"The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried. + +"I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he +said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For +what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my +life. But I believe I should thank you." + +"Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I +think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + +Do you remember how frightened Swift was of the Mohocks? How he came +home early, and even (that was bitter) spent some pence on being carried +in a sedan chair to avoid the "race of rakes that play the devil about +this town every night, slit people's noses," and so forth? He had some +reason to fear. + +"Was there a Watchman took his hourly rounds +Safe from their blows or new invented wounds" + +in these last days of Queen Anne? Their way was to gather and take +plenty of liquor, "then make a general sally and attack all that are +so unfortunate as to walk the streets through which they patrol. Some +are knocked down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed." The +women would be turned upside down or clapped into barrels and rolled +over the stones. + +It was a dark night with but a glimpse of the new moon when Harry left +Captain McBean. From Bow Street to the "Hand of Pork" in Long Acre was +only a few hundred yards, but murky enough, and Harry took Mr. Gay's +advice for such night walking: + +"Let constant Vigilance thy footsteps guide, +And wary Circumspection guard thy side." + +Nevertheless, as he was coming by the corner into Long Acre, he was +surprised by a sound at his heels. He stepped quickly aside and turned +upon it, felt a blow upon his head, saw flashes of light and the street, +whirling round, rose up to meet him, and he knew no more. + +When he came to himself he was in a room with fire and lights. He raised +himself and heard voices. Then some one was standing over him. He looked +up into his father's face. "Who was that?" he said feebly. + +"Don't you see yet, Harry? It will soon pass off." + +"Lord, I know you. Who are the others?" + +"There is none here but me," said Colonel Boyce. + +Harry looked painfully round the room and saw that it had become empty. +"What was it? A pistol?" said he, and began to feel his head. + +"Egad, nothing so gentlemanly. A cudgel, by the look of the bruise. A +Mohock's club, I suppose. I found you lying in the kennel as I was +coming home." + +"Oh, you're at home are you?" Harry laughed stupidly. "And where is +home?" + +"These are my lodgings in Martin's Lane, Harry, and you are welcome. But +what have you to do in town? Young husbands should not be night walkers." + +Harry stared at him for a moment. "I thought you knew everything," he +said. Then, beginning to scramble up, he became aware that his clothes +were all undone--coat, shirt, even breeches. "Odso, why were you +stripping me?" + +"I found you so. They shave you close, the Mohocks." + +"They are a queer crew, your Mohocks." Harry looked at his father. "What +should I carry inside my shirt?" Then he thrust his hands into his +pockets. "Well, I had not much, but all's gone." + +"Damned rogues," said his father with honest indignation. "How much have +you lost, Harry?" + +"Five guineas or so." + +"I can make that good at least. But what is it to you? You are a warm +fellow now. What, you've made no hole in Madame Alison's money bags yet." + +"You're offensive, do you know?" Harry said. "I have been itching to +tell you so." + +Colonel Boyce's face set. "What now? Are you against me, sirrah?" + +"Ods fish, you're a martyr, ain't you?" Harry laughed. But we are +beginning at the end, I think. If you remember, sir, you promised to take +me to France and went off without me." + +"D'ye quarrel with that? Why, you had a fatter fish to fry than you could +catch with me. So I left you at her and you ha' dined upon her. What's +the matter then?" + +"You were not honest with me--" + +Colonel Boyce laughed, "Ah, bah, you will be a Puritan. It must be your +mother in you." + +"My mother! Thank you. We'll come to her. But one tale at a time. You let +me think I was to go with you till you were gone without me. You took +Waverton and told me nothing of that till you had him safe away." + +"Egad, boy, it was all for your good." + +"Perhaps you did think so," said Harry after a moment. "In fact it's what +I complain of. You want to play Providence to me. Pray, sir, go about +your business." + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "You're a proper grateful son. So be it. You have +your wealthy wench and want no more of me. Well, go to the devil your own +way, Harry." + +"By your leave, I prefer it. But there's more, sir. Now comes Mr. +Waverton and declares to my wife and me that you enticed him into a vile +plot: for your pretence of a mission to the Pretender was nothing but a +device for murder." + +"Mr. Waverton said that to Mrs. Harry Boyce? Egad, it wasn't civil of Mr. +Waverton. And what did the lady say to him?" + +"That's no matter. What do you say to him, sir? Did you intend murder?" + +"Lud, Harry, you talk like a ranting parson. It was not your way. Who has +put this buzz of morality into your head? I suppose your pretty wife +would have you break with your father. He's a low, coarse fellow, faith, +who might want some of her money." + +"We will leave my wife out, if you please. She will not trouble you. She +and I have parted." + +"God's my life! What's the quarrel?" + +Harry shrugged. "Does one ever know? I was not good enough for her, I +believe. And perhaps she was not good enough for me." + +"Damn you for a prig," says his father. + +"If you like. But you'll remark that I do not complain of her." + +"Bah, you make me sick, sir! Not complain of her! That luscious piece! +Egad, you should be drunk with her. But you're not a man, Harry, you're +a parson." + +"Oh, command your emotions! She rebelled against being wed to a man whose +father ran about the world compassing murder, to a man who was withal a +low fellow, a bastard. So far, it is your affair." + +"I see you are no hand with a woman." + +"Do I take after you, sir? We came upon a woman who said she was Mrs. +Oliver Boyce and could not live with him, and boasted vehemently that she +was no mother of mine." + +Colonel Boyce plucked at his mouth. "So dear Rachel has got her finger +into the pie. Why, Harry, you have had no luck." + +"She is your wife, then. Oh, I admire your taste, sir. And pray, who was +my mother?" + +Colonel Boyce began to say something and stopped. "It's no matter. I +believe she would not wish you to know. Why, Harry, I profess I am sorry. +If we had been married, better for us all." + +"Oh, you will be mysterious still. I suppose you are as tender of her +honour as of mine or your own. And this matter of murdering the +Pretender, pray, is that a mystery too?" + +Colonel Boyce became restless. "Ods life, sirrah, there is no matter +of murder. Who told you so? The fool Waverton. And where did he get +the tale?" + +"A gentleman who runs away tells his own tale." + +"Now mark, Harry. The plan was but to bring Prince James to England--" + +"Dead or alive," Harry laughed. + +"Pshaw. I had him at Pontoise and was doing well with him. Then in comes +a swashbuckling Scots Jacobite which is my private enemy, and a dozen +bullies at his tail. Well, I had no mind to have him stick me or turn me +over to the French as a spy of Marlborough's, so I went off. The fool +Waverton let himself be taken. I make no doubt the Scot filled him to the +brim with slanders of me. But is that my fault?" + +"So you're done with the Pretender?" + +Colonel Boyce gave his son a queer look. "Why, there's not much to be +done with him in Martin's Lane, boy." + +"Then what are you doing?" + +"Egad, Harry, I should think you want to lay an information against +me. Waiting for better times is all my business now. My bolt's shot. +And pray, sirrah, what may be your business now you've cut loose from +Mrs. Alison?" + +Harry laughed. "Living on my means." + +"Why, does she settle something on you?" + +Harry looked at his father without affection. "Do you know, sir, I am not +always proud of your name." + +"Egad, but you must have money somehow." + +"The family motto, I suppose. Well, sir, I write for the Press." + +"Good God, not for the newspapers? You have not fallen to that?" + +"Oh, sir, the shillings are clean by comparison." + +They looked at each other for a minute or two. "You walk abroad late, Mr. +Author," says Colonel Boyce. "Do you make friends in your profession?" + +"I believe I have two in the town--a hack writer for Lintot and an usher +at Westminster. And what then, pray?" + +"You were with them to-night?" + +"You are paternal on a sudden, sir. Do you think of putting me out to +nurse again?" + +"So." Colonel Boyce stood up as if he had finished and then forced a +laugh and slapped his son's shoulder, "Come, Harry, why quarrel? There's +room enough for you here. I allow I owe you something. Join in with me." + +"I have no luck in mysteries, sir. I'll wish you goodnight." + +"Now you bear me a grudge," his father protested. + +"What, for getting me born? Sometimes, perhaps." + +"Egad, Harry, I should like to do something for you." + +"Then give me a sword." + +"A sword? And what for i' God's name?" + +"In case I meet any more of your Mohocks." + +Colonel Boyce was taken aback for a moment. Then he cried out heartily: +"Damme, the rogues took five guineas from you too. Here, fill your purse, +child." He shot out gold on the table. + +"I'll take back my five guineas," said Harry, and counted them, while +his father watched with a frown. + +"There are swords of mine below," said Colonel Boyce. + +They went down and from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger +with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves +loaded with lead--just such as the Mohocks used. + +"And where do you lodge?" says Colonel Boyce. + +"At the 'Hand of Pork' in Long Acre. Goodbye, sir." + +Colonel Boyce nodded, and for some time after he had gone stood at the +door, watching. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO'S COMPANY + + +Alison was gone back to her house at Highgate--and immediately regretted +it. She took her adventures in a youthful, egoistic fashion: saw herself +as a lovely woman made the prey of man and robbed of her right to her +own life, a tender, confiding soul deceived and tortured into despair. +The Lincoln's Inn Fields became the abomination of desolation, her fine +society was dust and ashes and mankind in general all mocking villainy. +So it was natural that she should retire from the world and become a +recluse of tragic dignity. What other part is there for the deserted +wife to play? + +But she came upon awkward difficulties. The world would not be left +behind. It was much more closely about her among the woods and meadows of +Highgate than in her London drawing-room. The would-be fine ladies and +gentlemen of her routs and her card parties, so the sweetmeats and the +wines and strong waters were good enough, cared nothing whether she had a +husband upstairs or somewhere else. Out in the country every one, gentle +and simple, had a curious eye upon her. The very woods and meadows must +be jogging her memory and putting her questions. Every one had known Miss +Lambourne of the Hall and gone whispering about her strange, passionate +marriage. Each pleasant path and lane had seen something of that first +wild happiness. All day long she was driven back upon herself and what +she had lost. + +There is no doubt that she suffered. Of course she still told her heart +wonderful tales about the shame that she had to bear and her torturing +wrongs, and beyond doubt she believed most of them. For she could still +profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of +no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's +villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion +that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who +acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she +could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! +Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been +overthrown by passion. The more she tried to despise Harry, the more that +fancy shamed her. But there was in her a strength which refused to be +content with that. She would still boast to herself that she was not the +woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to +take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable +question--if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her +magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her +insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very +pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give +him all that a man could ask. Little by little she forced herself to +believe that she had failed of that. After all, he had offered her +nothing but himself, poor, friendless, of no repute, indolent, careless +of all the world--and she had professed content. What his father might do +was no matter to that. He had offered her what he was and given it +faithfully. And she had not played fair. When she found herself +confessing that, she discovered a new power of being wretched. All the +romantic, egoistic melancholy went down the wind. The finest, proudest of +her, her own honour, told of a torturing wound. + +"I'll satisfy you"--that had been the boast before the wild marriage was +done. And after all she had chosen to deny him. Nothing else could +matter. There could be no excuse. It was he that she had taken, not his +name or what he might be, and he had not changed. It was herself that she +had promised--what other honour for woman or man than to give like for +like?--and she had broken faith. She was humiliated--a state of all +others the most dolorous for Alison. + +To it came on a merry spring day Mr. Waverton. She was in two minds +whether to let him see her, and then--too proud to hide from him or +greedy of a chance to hurt him--had him in. + +Mr. Waverton had decorated himself for a house of mourning. His large +form was all black and silver and drooped sympathetically. His handsome +face was set in a chastened melancholy as of one who grieves for +another's trouble with a modest satisfaction. "Dear lady," says he +tenderly, and bowed over her hand. + +"Dear Geoffrey," says she. "Here's a new song." + +"Madame?" + +"'Vengeance is mine' was the refrain last time. Now it's weeping over the +penitent prodigal. How I love you, Geoffrey." + +Mr. Waverton made a gesture of emotion, an exclamation. "I wronged you, +Alison," he said in a deep voice. "Nay, but you must forgive me. I have +suffered too. Remember! I had lost all." + +"Ah, no," says Alison tragically, "you had still yourself, Geoffrey." + +His emotion was understood to be too much for Mr. Waverton. In a little +while, "We have both been the sport of villainy," he said. "Forgive me, +Alison. I remember that I spoke bitterly. Can you wonder? I had dreamed +of you in his arms. To see you there in that knave's power--ah, I was +beside myself. And he laughed, do you remember, he laughed!" + +"He never would take you to heart, in fact." + +"A treacherous hound!" said Mr. Waverton with startling vehemence. + +"Oh, he was honest when he laughed." + +Mr. Waverton swept Harry out of the conversation. "Forgive me, Alison, I +should have known. My heart should have told me." + +"Oh Lud, and is your heart to give tongue now?" + +"My heart," said Mr. Waverton with dignity, "my heart is always crying to +you. And now--now that the first agony is past, I know all." + +"I wish I did," said Alison and looked in his eyes. + +"But even then--ah, Alison, I have blamed myself cruelly--even then I +should have known that when your eyes were opened, when you knew the +truth, you would have no more of him." + +"You might have known," Alison said slowly. "You might have judged me by +yourself." + +"Aye, that indeed," says Mr. Waverton heartily. "For we are very like, +Alison, we are of the same spirit, you and I." + +"You make me proud." + +"It's our tragedy: we so like, so made to answer each other, should be +betrayed to our ruin by this same vile trickster. Oh, I blame you no more +than myself." + +"This is too generous." + +"No," says Mr. Waverton. "No. When I came on that woman of yours, that +Mrs. Weston--faith, I am glad that you have cut her off too. I never +liked that woman." + +"Yes, she is poor." + +"There it is! I doubt she was in Boyce's pay." + +Alison opened her eyes at him. "Oh, Geoffrey, you surpass yourself +to-day. Go on, go on." + +"If you please," says Mr. Waverton, something ruffled. "I believe he +hired her to play his game with you. Had you a suspicion of it when you +sent her packing?" + +"By God, Geoffrey, I could suspect anyone when you talk to me." + +"She is bitter against you. When I heard from her that you had driven +the fellow away from you, I was on fire to come to you." + +"To forgive the prodigal! Oh, your nobility, Geoffrey. And pray where did +you meet Mrs. Weston?" + +"Why, in the High Street here. She lodges in one of those wretched +cottages behind the street." + +"She is here?" Alison shivered a little. + +"Perhaps she has some game to play yet. She may be his spy. Be warned +against her." + +Alison leant forward in her chair. Her face was hidden from him. "You are +giving me a lesson, Geoffrey. I'll profit by it, I promise you!" + +"Alison!" Mr. Waverton gave a laugh of triumph. "I fight for us both. And +I promise you I am eager enough. As soon as I learnt that you had left +him, why, he was delivered into my hand. By heaven, he shall find no +mercy now. Already I have him watched. I went to an attorney much +practised in these treasonous cheating plots, and of him I have hired +trusty fellows who know all the rogues in London and their hiding-holes. +You said something?" + +But Alison was laughing. + +"I believe there is some humour in it," Mr. Waverton conceded grandly. +"Well, they have tracked him down. Our gentleman lies at a filthy tavern +in the Long Acre. The 'Leg of Pork,' or some such lewd name. He haunts +Jacobite coffeehouses and the like low places. They believe that he makes +some dirty money by scribbling for the Press. A writer in the newspapers! +He is sunk almost to his right depth. They make no doubt that before +long we shall catch him dabbling in some new treasonous matter. And +then--" he made gestures of doom. + +"Well? And then?" + +"The law may revenge us on the treacherous rogue," said Mr. Waverton +with majesty. + +Alison stood up. Mr. Waverton, always polite, started up too. "I give you +joy, Geoffrey," she said very quietly. + +"Not yet! Not yet!" Mr. Waverton put up a modest hand. + +"I believe there is nothing you could feel." Mr. Waverton recoiled +and stared his bewilderment. "You carry a sword, Geoffrey. Oh, that I +were a man!" + +"To use it upon him! Bah, such rogues are not worth the honour of steel." + +"Oh! Honour! Honour!" she cried and flung out her arms, trembling. "The +honour of you and me!" + +What was Mr. Waverton to make of that? "I believe I have excited +you," says he. + +"By God, it is the first time," Alison cried and turned on him so +fiercely that he started back. + +There was a servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then +Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid +simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's +tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much +engaged to hear or be aware of her. + +"Here is Miss Burford," said Waverton in a hurry. + +Alison whirled upon her. "You! You have nothing to do here." + +"My dear Alison!" Waverton protested. "Miss Burford, your very obedient." + +Susan made him a small leisurely curtsy and sat down. "Oh, please give me +a dish of tea," she said. + +"We have not seen you at Tetherdown in this long while," Mr. Waverton +complained genially. + +"I believe not," says Susan. + +Alison stared at her. "Why do you come here? You know you despise me." + +"I do not come to people I despise," says Susan placidly. + +"Well. I am private with dear Geoffrey, if you please." + +"My dear Alison! I must be riding. We have finished our business, I +think. I'll not fail to be with you again soon. I hope to have news for +you. Miss Burford, your most obedient." Susan bent her head. "Alison--" +he held out his hand and smiled at her protective affection. + +"Geoffrey," said Alison, and looked in his eyes. She did not take the +hand. She was very pale. + +Mr. Waverton's smile was withered. He took himself out with a jauntiness +that sat upon him awkwardly. + +Then Alison turned again upon Susan. "You want to know what I have to do +with him?" she said fiercely. + +"No," says Susan. + +Alison stared at the fair, placid face and cried out: "You are a fool." + +"Oh, my dear," says Susan. + +"I hate that cold, flabby way of yours. You think it is all good and +wise and kind. It's like a silly mother with a spoilt child. You've not +spirit enough to scold, and all the while you are thinking me vile and +base and mean." + +"But that is ridiculous. Nobody could think you mean," Susan said. + +"There it is again. You believe it is kind to talk so, and it drives me +mad. I am shameful--do you hear? I am shameful and perhaps I want to be, +and I loathe myself. Now, go. I shall not stay with you. Go." + +Susan stood up. "Alison, oh, Alison," she said. Alison flung out +of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + +Late in that evening one of Alison's servants rode up to the "Hand of +Pork" and inquired for Mr. Boyce. After some parley, he was told that Mr. +Boyce had not been in the tavern that day. So he left a letter in the tap +and rode back to Highgate. + +That letter, which was not heard of till long afterwards, ran thus: + +"Mr. Boyce,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear.--A." + +An ungainly, confused composition, as you see, but it set forth very +clearly the state of Alison's unhappy mind. She was revolted, of course, +by Geoffrey's scheme of spying and trapping, loathed him for +propounding it to her, and was eager to warn Harry against it and clear +herself of any part in the vile business. But she would not have Harry +suppose that she was praying him to come back to her. This time, at +least, there should be no wooing on her side. If she wanted him +hungrily, shamefully, he should not know till he chose to take her. But +he must come to her and be told all the tale, and hold her free of any +part in Geoffrey's baseness. + +So she fought with herself and wrote of her strife, and, as things +went, it mattered nothing to Harry, for he never knew of it till much +else had happened. + +When he woke on the morning after his affairs with Captain McBean and the +Mohocks and his father--woke with a sore head and a very stiff shoulder, +he was a prey to puzzled excitement. There is no doubt that McBean had +engaged his affections. He was not, indeed, very grateful for the +fantastic duel. Of all men, Harry Boyce was the least likely to be +pleased by oddity or an extravagance of chivalry. He always thought, I +believe, that Captain McBean was a little mad, and liked him none the +better for it. But he confessed that with the madness there was allied a +most persuasive mind, a very reasonable reason. The combination may not +be so surprising to you as to Harry Boyce. He thought that McBean's +exposition of the affair of his father, and his consequent duty, was +exactly and delicately true--which means, of course, that it agreed with +his own temper. He had no more doubt than McBean that his father had +planned, was planning, treachery which, win or lose, would disgrace him. +He admitted that it was his own wretched duty to do what he might to make +an end of these plans. + +You smile, perhaps, at Harry Boyce claiming for himself the commands of +duty. He was eminently not a saint. He was not delicate. And yet, thrust +upon an awkward choice, it is certain that he chose what must be +difficult, hazardous, and distressing, rather than stand aloof and let +his father's villainy go its way. + +I make no pretence of exalting him into a tragic fellow. He had no +affection for his father, no respect. Merely to work against his father's +will, to smash his father's schemes, would certainly not have cost him +one twinge. He had no hate for his father either, not the least ambition +to ruin him or make him suffer. But he would heartily have liked to bring +these murderous plots to nothing and yet save his father from vengeance. +Harry had his share of the common human instinct to keep one's family out +of mischief--or at least out of the newspapers. + +And it is not to be denied that there was also active in him a simple +human animosity. He bore his father a grudge for being publicly a knave: +a man who had received nothing from his parents but the gift of birth +might fairly demand that they should not bother him with their rogueries. +He did not extenuate his father's share in the catastrophe of the +marriage. Perhaps it was in itself fated to miscarry, but if Colonel +Boyce had not mixed up his affairs with it, the end need not have been +ignominious. Harry vigorously condemned the old gentleman's meddling. It +was an impertinence at the best to manipulate other folks, and a father +who did it so stupidly as Colonel Boyce was a pestilent nuisance. But all +this, I believe, rankled less than the behaviour of Colonel Boyce on the +night before. If the old gentleman had acknowledged his offences, if he +had even been content to talk of them frankly, man to man, he might have +been forgiven. But his affectation of profound wisdom, his patronage, and +above all, his parade of mystery infuriated Harry's lucid mind. + +It sought further causes of offence and had no difficulty in finding +them. Everything about that conversation was suspicious. For how did it +begin? With a broken head, with every button of his clothes torn open as +though he had just been searched to the skin, he woke up in his father's +presence. The father might pose as a good Samaritan who had come upon a +sufferer by the wayside, but he should not have shown so nervous an +anxiety to know what the sufferer had been about. The father talked of +Mohocks; but what Mohocks were these who knocked a man down before making +sport of him and, not content with taking his money, went through all his +clothes? Why was a Mohock's club lying there beneath the father's swords? +Harry made a ready guess at the riddle. His father must have fellows +watching McBean's house. They had knocked him down to search him for +papers. Then the father must have known that he had been with McBean, and +those anxious questions were to discover how much he was McBean's friend. +Colonel Boyce must have a lively interest in the affairs of McBean--and +yet he professed that he had now nothing in hand. What if he knew of the +secret of the Pretender's coming to London? What if he was still seeking +a chance to accomplish his plot of murder? + +Well, Captain McBean expected no less of him. Captain McBean was in the +right of it. It became a good son's duty to confound his father's +politics. There's no denying that Harry went into the business with zest. + +While he ate his breakfast in the taproom, he caught sight of a fellow +lurking about outside. Whose spy this was is, in fact, not certain. +Afterwards Colonel Boyce vehemently denied that he had commissioned any +man against Harry. Though you may not believe him, it is possible that +the fellow was one of those in Waverton's pay. Harry made no doubt that +his father was the offender. + +He went upstairs again and put a book in his pocket. (He had been +commissioned for a translation of Ovid, which, let us be thankful, never +came into print.) Thus characteristically provided, he went out to +baffle the spy and the father. In the courts between Drury Lane and Bow +Street he did some ingenious marching and counter-marching whereby--he +was always confident and we cannot be quite sure--the spy was shaken +off. He then came into St. Martin's Lane by the north end, and dodging +in and out of it more than once, made for a tavern close to his father's +lodging. He planted himself inside by a window, called for a tankard and +a pipe, and divided his attention between the Tristia and his father's +door across the lane. + +It soon appeared that Colonel Boyce was to have a busy morning. By ones +and twos a dozen men went into his house. They were not, even to Harry's +hostile eye, brazenly ruffians. Something of the bully they might have +about them, for they ran to brawn and swagger, but they were trim enough +and brisk, and had no smack of debauch--a company of old soldiers, by the +look of them, and still not past their prime. They were with Colonel +Boyce a long time, and Harry grew very sick of the Tristia, and had to +drink more beer over it than was his habit of a morning. + +They came out at last singly, and yet with very short intervals between +them. They all turned the same way--across Leicester Fields. There seemed +to Harry something so uncommon in this that he was moved to follow. He +made his way out by the back door and the tavern yard. As he came into +Leicester Fields, he saw that the units had already amalgamated into +three companies. They were all steadily marching westward. Keeping behind +a cart he followed them, and after a while bought for twopence a lift in +an empty hay wagon. I record all this because he seems to have been very +proud of it, which is characteristic of his simple nature. The hay wagon +rumbled him past two companies of them halted and coalescing at an inn. +The first still headed him at a good round pace all the way to +Kensington. + +The wagon was going through Kensington village when he saw that this +vanguard too had found an inn. A little farther on he abandoned his +wagon and, buying bread and cheese at a farm, made his dinner under +the hedge. It was a long while before he saw anything more of the +gentlemen of the inn, and lying among primroses and cowslips he nearly +forgot all about them and his excitement and his wonderful tactics. He +was, in fact, becoming sentimental, and had made three neat +hendecasyllabics to the cowslips when the gentlemen came out again. +They split into pairs and marched on briskly. Harry went through the +hedge, and from behind it he watched them pass. Then, as now, the road +ran straight, and it was not safe to come out and follow them till they +were far ahead. While he waited he heard more tramping, and in a little +while the rest of the company went by. He peeped out after them and saw +an odd thing: though the road ran straight for a mile or more, the +first party had vanished already. + +Harry climbed a tree. It was some little time before he discovered the +lost party. They had scattered, they had taken to the fields and, under +hedges, they were making southward. The rest of the company did likewise. +Soon he saw what they were after. There was a lane running from the high +road towards Fulham. A little way back from it, in a good garden, stood a +house of modest comfort, doubtless the place to which some gentleman +about town came for his pleasures or a breath of fresh air. About its +grounds the company went into hiding. + +Harry came down from his tree in a hurry and, like an honest man, took to +the high road. It was, you know, his one uncommon capacity to go easily +at a round pace. He did his best along the road and down the lane and, +though he caught a glimpse of a coat here and there, unchallenged he came +up the drive and across the garden to the door of the house. He had +hardly knocked before he was being inspected through a peep-hole. The +door was opened and instantly shut behind him. He was in darkness dimly +lit by one candle. The windows had their shutters closed and barred. + +"What's your will, sir?" says the man who let him in. + +"The master of the house, if you please," Two other men lounged +into the hall. + +"And your name, sir?" + +"You may say that I came from Captain McBean." + +The man appeared to think it over. "That's true enough, faith," says +another, advancing out of the shadow. Harry recognised one of the solemn +seconds of the duel, Patrick O'Connor. "Will I serve your turn, sir?" + +"If you're master here." + +"I am not. Come on now." He led the way to a room where a cadaverous man, +richly dressed, sat huddled over a fire. "'Tis a gentleman from the +captain, my lord. Mr. Boyce, my Lord Sale." + +Harry bowed. My lord yawned. "You've a devil of a name, Mr. +Boyce," says he. + +"I deplore it, and hope to disgrace it." + +"Is it possible?" said my lord, and yawned again. + +"I had the honour to tell you, my lord, that I answer for the gentleman," +says Mr. O'Connor. + +"You may endorse the devil, if you please," my lord sneered. + +Harry struck in, "I came to tell you, my lord, that your house is +watched, and by now surrounded." + +"Damn them, they have found it out, have they?" says my lord, and spread +out his lean hands to the fire. + +"How many, if you please?" says O'Connor. + +"A dozen or so. They marched out this morning, scattered, and met again +in the village and came here across country. They are well-armed, I +believe, and look men who would fight." + +"Ods fish, that nets this hole," says my lord. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, when +will they put the ferret in?" Harry shrugged. "Oh, there's a limit to +your kindness, is there? Do you choose to tell us who sent them?" + +Harry was silent a moment and then blurted out: "They came from Colonel +Boyce's lodging." + +My lord laughed. + +"Sure, 'tis an honour to know you, sir," says O'Connor, and bowed to +Harry. + +"Damned filial, indeed," my lord chuckled. + +O'Connor turned upon him. "They have you beat easily, my lord," he said +fiercely. "Damned courageous indeed." But my lord only nodded at him. +"What, we be six--to count Mr. Boyce. Sure, we could hold the house +against the devil's christening." + +There came in briskly a tall fellow crying: "Come, Sale, it's full time, +I believe." + +My Lord Sale got on his feet, "Stap me, sir, I believe not," he drawled. +"We must stay at home. They have smoked us. Here's a gracious youth come +to tell us that his Whiggish friends beset the house." + +The Pretender frowned and seemed slow to understand. Harry looked him +over. He was certainly a fine figure of a man, and bore himself gallantly +enough. His face was darkly handsome in a melancholy fashion, not unlike +the youth of his uncle, Charles II. He turned upon Harry. "What is all +this, sir?" + +"Oh, sir, it's that old rogue Noll Boyce," my lord put in. "And here's +his son betraying the father." + +"Faith, my lord, I'll remind you of that," O'Connor said. "Sir, the +gentleman is an honest gentleman." + +"Colonel Boyce--he is your father, sir?" the Pretender bent his black +brows over Harry. + +"He begot me, he says." Harry shrugged. "I desire to defend you from him. +He has surrounded your house here with a dozen sturdy knaves who intend +you, I believe, the worst." + +"I am obliged by your service, sir," says the Pretender coldly. "Pray, my +lord, is the coach ready?" + +My lord shook his head. "I don't advise it, sir. The good Mr. Boyce +cannot be lying. Or allow the knaves mean but to frighten you. I dare not +risk your person." + +"Dare? You dare too much, my lord, who command neither my person nor my +honour. I do not thank you for your advice. You will have the coach +brought instantly." + +"I ask your pardon, sir, and beg you to consider. What will the world +say of me if I let you run into a gang of murderers? We can maintain +the house against them till our friends come seeking us. In the open +we are outnumbered desperately. Nay, sir, be advised; what is to lose +by waiting? If you go, you grasp at a shadow and may throw away your +life for it." + +"I say, my lord, I do not thank you for your care of me, which is +careless of my honour and your own. I am promised to our friends. Do you +desire me to go afoot, my lord?" + +"I have done, sir." My lord bowed and went out. + +"Sir, I believe they will not spare you," says Harry. + +"I have heard you," the Pretender said haughtily, and waved him away. + +"I'll not be put off so." The Pretender turned upon him. "Sir, I have +done what I could to save your life from a base plot. If it succeeds, the +shame of it must fall upon me and my name, for it's my cursed father that +planned it. And you choose to run upon the danger. I entreat you, do me +right. Your blood should not be upon my head." + +"You have done your duty, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender bowed. "I thank you. +But I must do mine." + +"Why, faith, sir, 'tis the right principle of war to wait the rogues +here," says O'Connor. "You will not?" + +"Go to, man, I say it again and again." + +For the first time in their acquaintance, Harry saw Mr. O'Connor smile. +"I have the honour to take your orders, sir. But sure, we are not at the +end of our tactics. I'll presume to advise you. Let the coach come to the +door, and me and the other gentlemen will make some display of mounting +her and guarding her; she moves off slowly; it's any odds the rogues will +believe we have you with us and deliver their main attack, while you'll +be mounting quietly in the yard with my lord and ride off with him to +Kensington." + +"The plan is well enough. Have it so," said the Pretender carelessly. + +O'Connor went out in a hurry and Harry followed him. "I'll join you, if +you please, Mr. O'Connor." + +O'Connor laughed. "Oh, your servant, your servant. No offence, Mr. +Boyce. I profess I have an admiration for you. But, faith, you are not a +man of war. Do you go round to the stable-yard, now, and watch there to +see they prepare nothing against us from the back." He bustled off, +calling up his fellows. + +So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the +house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign +of his father's legion. In a moment the groom, with one of O'Connor's +men to help him, was busy again in the stable. Still the legion did not +reveal themselves. O'Connor's man ran back into the house, leaving two +horses saddled in the stable. Then the Pretender and my lord hurried +out, and the horses were brought to meet them. As they mounted, Harry +heard the clatter of the coach and then pistols and shouts, and the +clash of fighting. + +The Pretender spurred off, my lord taking the lead of him through the +gate. As they passed, a shot was fired out of the hedge. My lord swayed, +fumbling at his holsters, and crying out: "Ride on, sir, ride," fell from +the saddle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse +dragged him along the ground. + +Harry ran up and snatched the bridle. "How is it with you, my lord?" + +"I have enough, I believe," my lord gasped. "Damme, sir, don't fumble at +me. Mount and after him." + +So Harry went bumping in the saddle after the Pretender. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + +The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he +hit?" + +"He has it in the body and he suffers." + +The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you +see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce." + +"You can do me no harm, sir. God knows if I can do you any good." + +The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my +own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me." + +"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we +are going now?" + +"This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and +die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way." + +"Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined +up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?" + +The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that +he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy. + +"Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me, +where is this damned palace?" + +"Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please." + +So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the +trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you +know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the +disinherited king. + +"Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies +watching for you." + +"And I believe I have not thanked you." + +It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to +the family of Boyce." + +"I shall not forget." + +"He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father." + +"I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too +proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself." + +Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he +was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy +lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the +Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he +would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for +any other in the world. + +Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on +the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham, +sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not +by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden +wall upon the London side. + +There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a +"Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to God nothing has +fallen out amiss?" + +"There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends +are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here." + +Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I +feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady +much troubled for her. By God, we have left it late. And the ministers +must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We +must be swift and downright with the Council." + +Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to +face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was +to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she +presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good +plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the +will to make it work. + +Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy +stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a +hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As +they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation +and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham +plunged after them and wildly waved them on. + +"What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled. + +"Oh God, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard +now," and he muttered to himself. + +"You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go +before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on. + +Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company +below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare +nobility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no +forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach, +the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in +disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were +staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had +betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder +Lord Masham was uneasy for his head. + +They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham, +brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in +a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I +believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard +another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words, +like a baby's cry or an animal's. + +Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim +splendour, and as they passed the door Harry made out what that feeble +voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep +the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew +why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if +they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled. + +A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire +sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was +not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid +mass. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed. +Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it +change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and +it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he +looked there came to him a sense of death. + +Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich +stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her +neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings. + +There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with +something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the +Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded +imperiously at Masham. + +"The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried. + +The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and +shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be +loud," she complained. + +"Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it +is Prince James." + +The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?" +he said heavily. + +The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, +and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like +King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why +does he come? The Council is waiting." + +"I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said. + +"What does he say, Abbie?" the Queen turned to Lady Masham and took her +hand and fondled it feebly. "I am alone. There is none left to me. My boy +is dead. My babies--I am alone. I am alone." + +"I am your brother and your King," the Pretender cried. + +She fell back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble +came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to +shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a +while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, +tap of her hand beat through the room. + +Lady Masham took command. "Nay, sir, leave her. You can do no more now. +Let her be. I will handle her if I can." She rustled across the room +and struck a bell. "Masham, bring Dr. Arbuthnot. He irks her less than +the rest." + +Harry followed the Pretender into the outer room, shambling +awkwardly. The progress from failure to failure dazed him. He recalled +afterwards, as many petty matters of this time stayed vivid in his +memory, a preposterous blunder into a chair. The Pretender sat down +and stretched at his ease. "We are too late, I think," he said coldly. +"It is the genius of my family." He took snuff. "You may go, if you +will, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry looked up and struggled to collect himself. "Not till you are in +safety," he said, and was dully aware of some discomfort. The dying +woman, the sheer ugliness of death, the sordid emotions about her numbed +the life in him. He felt himself in a world inhuman. Yet, even +afterwards, he seems not to have discovered anything ignoble in his +admired Pretender. The blame was fate's that mocked coldly at the hopes +and affections of men. + +"I am obliged, sir," said the Pretender, and so they waited together.... + +After a little while of gloomy silence in that bare room, Masham broke +in, beckoning and muttering: "Sir, sir, the Queen is dead." + +The Pretender stood up. "_Enfin_" said he, with a shrug. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +SAUVE QUI PEUT + + +"Sir, you must be gone instantly," says Masham. + +"You are officious, my lord." The Pretender stared at him. "I have +nothing to fear." + +"I warrant you have," Masham cried. "And so have others." + +"I believe that, _pardieu_. Come, my lord, command yourself. Where is +this Council? I may still show myself to the lords and challenge them." + +"Damme, you cannot be so mad! 'Tis packed with Whigs. They must have wind +of you, curse them. Marlborough is there, and Argyll and Sunderland, burn +his foxy face. It might have gone amiss though the Queen armed you to her +chair. Now she is dead, there is no hope for you. Go to the Council! Go +to the Tower--go to the block." + +The Pretender turned to Harry with a smile and a shrug. "He trims his +sails quickly." + +"That's unworthy, by God," Masham cried. + +"My lord is in the right, sir," Harry said. "It's true enough, +Marlborough is here and he makes sure. You'll but extinguish yourself to +try more now. The need is to bring you safe to your friends." + +"You also!" The Pretender shrugged again. "Faith, Mr. Boyce, you +show yourself vastly anxious for my life. You are not much concerned +for my honour." + +"Egad, sir, I should have thought your honour was to maintain your cause. +You'll not do that from a prison or coffin." + +"Who knows?" the Pretender said. "My grandfather--" + +Masham was stamping with impatience. "Oh Lud, sir, must we gossip +about your grandfather? Stay here, you cannot. It is not decent. The +Queen's a corpse behind that door. Why, and if they take you in the +palace, it's ruin for you and for us all. Oh, we shall not be spared +if you are caught." + +"Yes. I am a curse to my friends." The Pretender laughed drearily. "Well, +my lord, you shall be delivered at least. Lead the way." Masham hurried +out on the word. As they followed the Pretender took Harry's arm. "I wish +you may be right, Mr. Boyce," he said. "But my heart bids me stay." + +"Oh, sir, a king has no right to a heart," says Harry. + +They were suddenly thrown upon Masham as he checked and drew back without +warning. He had come upon a woman who was leaving the Queen's apartments, +a woman who had once been handsome, and was still proud of it. She +stared haughtily at Masham and his companions, and swept on before them. +He was much agitated. + +"What alarms you, my lord?" The Pretender sneered. + +"Carrots from Somerset, egad," Masham muttered, gazing after the +disdainful lady's red head. "It's the Duchess of Somerset, sir, the +damnedest Whig, and she came from the Queen. Now they will all know the +Queen is gone. Come on, sir, come on for God's sake." + +They hurried after him through the palace. All was quiet enough. +Afterwards, indeed, Harry could hardly believe that fancy had not played +tricks with his memory; for the emptiness, the silence of the corridors +must needs have been a dramatic invention of his own mind and no reality. +But it is true that as they hurried their retreat he was haunted by the +quiet of the place--the quiet of death, a quiet ominous of storm. + +They were down at the door by which they had entered, and Masham's +servant-in-waiting there was dispatched for the horses. Masham fumed at +the minutes of delay, ran out and in again, and then with some +awkwardness apologized for himself. "Egad, sir, I warrant you we have +done what we could. It is for you I fear, by God. I promise you, I doubt +damnably how things may go. Pray, sir, put yourself in safety." + +"I am grateful for your emotions, my lord." + +Masham stared at him and then cried out, "Ods life, what now?" The horses +were coming, but before the horses came two of the Guards at the double. +They halted at the door, panting, and grounded their muskets. "What the +devil's this, my lad?" says Masham. + +"None is to leave the palace, my lord." + +"Damme, sirrah, you know me?" + +"It won't do, my lord. That's the order. You must go speak with the +captain at the main gate." + +"Come, sir, I have no time. Forget that you were here soon enough to stop +me. You shall not lose by it." + +"It won't do, my lord. Nay, nay, don't force me to it." The corporal +crossed muskets with his fellow as Masham was thrusting by. "Order is to +spare none." + +"Damme, sir, what do your mean?" + +"Sure, my lord, you know better than that." The corporal grinned. "Ask +the captain, if you please." + +Masham recoiled and drew the others back into the palace. They heard the +corporal shout: "Put the nags up, my bully. My lord won't ride to-day." + +"They know you are here, sir," Masham said, with a very white face. "Damn +the Somerset! She lost no time. What is to do now?" + +"It seems my own plan was the best, gentlemen. If I had gone into the +Council we should at the worst have been in no worse case." + +"Oh Lud, sir, must we wrangle that out again?" + +"You are impudent, my lord. I will do without your company." + +"Good God, sir, it's no time for forms. What would you be at?" + +"I shall go to the main gate of your palace and see who will stand +in my way." + +"That's ruin for certain," Masham groaned. + +"Be easy, my lord. I shall not boast myself your guest." + +"Oh, you are mad." + +"By your leave, sir," says Harry. "We need not so soon despair, I think, +nor you run upon your death. There is something more to be tried. These +sentries, they'll be on the watch for a gentleman of your distinction and +in my lord's company or of some noble attendance. But a common fellow may +pass them. If you would lend me your fine clothes and that great wig, and +condescend to my subfuse and bob, there's no one would take so shabby a +fellow for yourself. Maybe I might make a show to break out one way, +while you slipped past by another." + +"And left you to bear the brunt for me? I complain of you again, Mr. +Boyce--you do not much value my honour." + +"And I say again, sir, your honour is to maintain your cause. Nay, but +what can they do to me? Faith, it's no sin to wear fine clothes. And +I--well, I think the Whigs will never bring me into court. I know too +much of my father." + +"Oh, you are specious, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender smiled at him. "Nay, if +all my friends were such as you, I should not be in this queer plight." +He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "How am I to thank you, sirrah?" + +"Pray, sir, do as I advise." + +The hand pressed harder. "Be it so then." + +"Egad, I like it very well," says Masham heartily. The two exchanged a +shrug and a sneer at him. "If Mr. Boyce will risk it, he may make a show +of marching out by the garden entrance while you slip away by the +servants' wicket beyond." + +"I believe I can trust you to get rid of me, my lord," the Pretender +shrugged. "Pray, where may we exchange our characters--and our breeches?" + +"Oh, sir, follow me; we must be private about that." + +Harry burst out laughing. "Aye, faith, he is a gentleman of delicacy, our +Masham," the Pretender said. + +But my lord had no ears or no understanding for irony. He brought them to +his own quarters and, fervidly entreating them to lose no time, shut them +in and mounted guard outside the door. + +They cut queer figures to their own eyes when they came out, and Masham +was distressed by their laughter. "What ails you?" he protested +nervously. "It does well enough, I swear." + +"I am flattered by your admiration, _pardieu_," says the Pretender, with +a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, +and a clutch at the bob-wig's jauntiness. + +"Some are born great," says Harry, "and some have greatness thrust upon +'em. I believe I can keep inside your periwig, sir, but damme if I am +sure about your breeches. They disdain me, egad." + +"God's life, sir, if you make a jest of it you'll ruin us all," Masham +cried. "I vow it's not seemly, neither. The Queen's dead but this +half-hour, and--and, by God, our own heads are loose on our shoulders." + +"My lord's in the right, sir. It's no laughing matter," says Harry. + +"Aye, he's all noble feeling," the Pretender shrugged. + +"Come on, sir, in God's name," Masham groaned. + +"Look you, thus it goes. I'll bring you within sight of the garden +entry. Then you make to go out, Mr. Boyce, with what parade you can. And +you, sir, I'll take you to the head of the back stairs. You have but to +go straight down and out, and I wish you God speed with all my heart. +Come, come!" + +They marched along the corridor and must needs pass the end of that which +led to the Queen's apartments. Masham was a little ahead of the others. +He passed the corner. Then he checked and he turned sharp about and +charged back on them, crowding them against the wall, trying to stand in +front of both of them and hide them. + +It was Marlborough who alarmed my lord, Marlborough who came, alone, +pacing slowly from the room where the Queen lay dead. No dismay, no +emotion troubled his supreme grace. He disdained his splendours and his +beauty with the wonted calm. + +He saw them, could not but see them, huddled together as they were and +striving not to be seen. His face betrayed nothing. He paced slowly up to +them. It seemed to Harry that from the first his placid eyes looked at +none of them but the Pretender. "We have met before, sir, I think," he +said gently. + +"On the field of battle," says the Pretender in French. + +Marlborough bowed. "Give me your company." + +"Oh, your family has always been too kind to mine." + +Marlborough pointed the way. + +The Pretender shrugged, and "_Enfin_," says he with a bitter laugh, and +marched on with an air. + +Masham, leaning against the wall and very white, muttered to himself, "My +God, my God!" + +Harry ran forward to look after them. He saw Marlborough glance over the +Pretender's shabby clothes and then, making some ostentation of it, put +on his hat. The Pretender with a stare of disdain put on his--or Harry's. +They came to the head of the grand staircase and went down. The servants +in the hall sprang up and ran to open the doors for His Grace. Harry +heard a din and a clang and saw a flash of steel as the guard outside +presented arms. The two passed out and out of sight. For a little while +the servants stood staring after them, and then came back to their chairs +whispering. + +Harry turned round to Masham. "What now?" + +"Now?" Masham stared. "Now we may go hang ourselves." + +"Like Judas? Damme, I don't feel the obligation. Do you, my lord?" + +Masham swore at him and began to walk off. + +"Can you lend me a humbler coat, my lord?" Harry cried. "I am no more +use in this." + +"I'll do no more in it," Masham growled. "Look to yourself." + +"_Enfin,_ as His Majesty says," quoth Harry with a laugh, and went on to +look for the garden entry or any other humble door. He found it soon +enough and was going through it--to be instantly beset by a sergeant's +party and a joyful shout, "Odso, 'tis himself, 'tis the Chevalier." + +"You flatter me," says Harry, and they marched him off. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +REVELATIONS + + +Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came +in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none. +He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew, +indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the +Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the +Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. +He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he +saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be +some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless +distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was +born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison +came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they +opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full +zest of life, all the wonder and the glory--that he might know what it +was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should +never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool. +How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done. +She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was +a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put +his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a +fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who +would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, +but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. +Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for +the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce +should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of +cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. +And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her +beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget +her, forget her as she lay in his arms. + +The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a +room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp +face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a +ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes +too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in +contemptuous disgust. + +"Your name?" + +"La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can +do without." + +"I am the Earl of Sunderland." + +"Then, damme, I am sorry for you." + +"Your name, I say?" + +"Why, didn't your fellows tell you? They told me." + +"Impudence will not serve you. I warn you, the one chance to save +yourself is to be honest with me." + +Harry began to hum a song, and, between the bars, he said, "You may go to +the devil. I care not a curse for anything you can do. So think of your +dignity, my lord. And hold your silly tongue." + +Sunderland considered him keenly. A secretary came in and whispered. "I +will see him," Sunderland said, and lay back in his chair. + +It was Colonel Boyce who broke in, Colonel Boyce something flushed and +out of breath. "Egad, my lord," he began. Sunderland held up his hand. +Colonel Boyce checked and stood staring at his son. + +Harry began to laugh. "Oh, sir, you're infinitely welcome. It only needed +you to complete my happiness." + +"Od's life, sirrah." Colonel Boyce advanced upon him. "Are you crazy? +What damned folly is this?" + +"You know him then?" says Sunderland. + +"Oh, my lord, it's a wise father knows his own son. And he is not +wise, you know. Are you, most reverend? No, faith, or you would never +have begot me. No, faith, nor enlist me to do murder neither. For I do +but bungle it, you see. And make a fool of my Lord Sunderland, God +bless him." + +"Is he mad?" says Sunderland. + +"I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry, +stop your ranting. What brought you here?" + +"You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders +for him. _Imprimis_, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers +who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder." + +"You came here with the Pretender?" + +Harry laughed and began to sing a catch: + +"'Tis nothing to you if I should do so, + And if nothing in it you find, +Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe + Than ever I designed." + +"What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried. + +"Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you +suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all +be shamed." + +"The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug. + +"Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad +fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day, +and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for +your Jacobites. Tell me now--the Pretender is in your clothes, I +see--where did you part from him?" + +"Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter +for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all +power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who +don't trust you?" + +Some voices made themselves heard from outside. Sunderland and Colonel +Boyce looked at each other, and my lord bit his fingers. The Colonel +muttered something in Sunderland's ear. + +Harry laughed. "Do you bite your thumb at me, my lord? No, sir, says he, +but I bite my thumb. Odso, I bite my thumb." + +"Be silent, sirrah," Sunderland cried. + +The door opened. "Announce me," says a placid voice, and the secretary +cried out in a hurry: "His Grace the Duke of Marlborough." + +Harry went on laughing. The contrast of Marlborough's assured calm and +the agitation of the others was too impressive. "Oh, three merry men, +three merry men, three merry men are ye," he chanted. "No, damme, it's +more Shakespeare. The three witches, egad. And I suppose Duncan is +murdered in the next act. When shall you three meet again? In--" + +"Oh, damn your tongue, Harry," his father exploded. + +Marlborough was not disturbed. His eye had picked out Sunderland. "Is +this the whole conspiracy, my lord?" said he. + +"I beg your Grace's pardon," Sunderland started up. "You see, I am not +private," and he called out: "Guard, guard." + +"No," Marlborough said, and, as the soldiers came in, dismissed them with +"You are not needed." + +Sunderland fell back in his chair. "Oh, if you please," he cried +peevishly. "At your Grace's command." + +"You have no secrets from Mr. Boyce, my lord." He turned to Harry. "Sir, +we have met before," and he bowed. + +"Yes. The first time your wife was stuck in the mud. Now it's you." + +"Sir, you have obliged me on both occasions," Marlborough said. "Well, my +lord? You had Mr. Boyce under examination. Pray go on." + +"I don't understand your Grace," Sunderland said sulkily. "I have done +with the gentleman." + +Colonel Boyce thrust forward. "By your Grace's leave, I'll take the lad +away. Time presses and--" + +"You may be silent," said Marlborough. For the first time in their +acquaintance Harry saw his father look at a loss. It was an ugly, +ignominious spectacle. Marlborough turned to Harry, smiling, and his +voice lost its chill: "Well, Mr. Boyce, how far had it gone? Were they +asking you what you had done with Prince James?" + +Harry stared at the bland, handsome condescension and hated it. "Oh, +you have always had the devil's own luck," he cried. "Devil give you +joy of it, now." + +"You mistake me, I believe. I can forgive you more easily than some +others." He turned upon Sunderland. "I will tell you where Prince James +is, my lord. Safe out of your reach. On his way to France." + +Sunderland made a petulant exclamation and spread out his hands. "Your +Grace goes beyond me, I profess. Do you choose to be frank with me?" + +"Frank?" Marlborough laughed. "You know the word, then? By all means let +us be frank. I found Prince James in the palace. He accepted my company. +We had some conversation, my lord. I present to you the results. You have +used my name to warrant a silly, knavish plot for murdering Prince James +in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this +mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against +the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete +your blunders--but for the chance that I came upon him and took him +through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our +hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your +obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being confused with these +imbecilities." + +Sunderland, who had been wriggling and become flushed, cried out: "I'll +not submit to this. I don't choose to answer your Grace. You shall hear +from me when you are cooler." + +"My compliments," Marlborough laughed. "I do not stand by my friends? I +lose my temper? You will easily convince the world of that, my lord. +Colonel Boyce!" Before Harry's wondering eyes his father came to +attention and, with an expression much like a guilty dog's, waited his +reward. "You have had some of my confidence and I think you have not lost +by it. You have repaid me with an impudent treachery. I shall arrange +that you have no more opportunity at home or abroad." + +"Pray leave to ask your Grace's pardon," Colonel Boyce muttered. "I +swear--" + +"You may be silent," Marlborough said, and turned away from them. "Pray, +Mr. Boyce, will you walk?" Something bewildered by this time, Harry stood +up and they went out together. "I require a carriage for this gentleman," +said Marlborough to the sergeant of the guard, and with a smile to Harry, +"That will be convenient, I think?" + +"Egad, sir, you might say, decent," says Harry with a wary hand on +his breeches. + +"Spare me a moment while you wait," Marlborough turned into a recess of +the corridor. "Prince James expressed himself much in your debt, Mr. +Boyce. Consider me not less obliged. Thanks to you, I have freed myself +of suspicions which I profess it had irked me to bear." + +"Your Grace owes me nothing. I never thought of you. Or if I did you were +the villain of the piece." + +Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so +distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so +great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you +and bring you down to our own level." + +"You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my +compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in +your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the +pleasure of commanding me." + +"Oh, your Grace does everything magnificently," says Harry, with a wry +smile, and liked him none the better. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + +There is reason to believe that the Earl of Sunderland and Colonel Boyce +fell out. Sunderland, never an easy man, suspected that he had been +ridiculous and was nervously eager to make some one smart for it. Colonel +Boyce was in a despondent rage that any one should have heard Marlborough +rate him so. They seem to have had some cat and dog business before they +parted: each, I infer, blaming the other for their ignominy. + +But they took it in very different fashions. Colonel Boyce suffered in +the more respectable part of his soul. Sunderland merely fumed and felt +venomous. For it is certain (if absurd) that Colonel Boyce had a sincere +reverence for Marlborough. He much desired (one of his few simple human +emotions) that Marlborough should think well of him. If he had tacked +Marlborough's name to a dirty business about which Marlborough knew +nothing, he had honestly believed that His Grace would be very well +content to know nothing of the means, and profit by the end. That his +hero should retort upon him disgust and contempt wounded him painfully. +Final proof of his devotion--he never thought of questioning +Marlborough's judgment. He had no doubt that he had managed the affair +with miserable stupidity, and bowed a humiliated head. + +Unfortunately, he was not ready to bow it before Sunderland. If there was +to be scolding between him and Sunderland, he had a mind to give as much +as he took. My lord had been art and part in the whole affair, and could +have his share, too, in the disaster. But Sunderland had no notion of +accepting Marlborough's opinion of him. Sunderland had no reverence for +any of God's creatures, and with Marlborough safe out of the room, +snarled something about an old fellow in his dotage. This much enlivened +the quarrel, and they parted in some exhaustion, but still raging. + +The night brought counsel. Sunderland might tell himself and believe that +Marlborough had become only the shadow of a great name. But the great +name, he knew very well, was valuable to himself and his party, and he +had no notion of throwing it away for the sake of his injured dignity. In +his way, Colonel Boyce was quite as necessary to my lord. The fellow knew +too much to be discarded. Moreover, he would still be valuable. His +talents for intrigue and even that weakness of his, his fertility in +multiplying intrigue, much appealed to Sunderland. So before noon on the +next day, Colonel Boyce was reading a civil letter from my lord. He +sneered over it, but it was welcome enough. He did not want to be idle, +and could rely on Sunderland to find him agreeable occupation. He walked +out to wait on my lord, and they made it up, which was perhaps +unfortunate for Mr. Waverton. + +Later in the day my lord heard that a gentleman was asking to speak with +him, a gentleman who professed to have information about the Pretender +which he could give only to my lord's private ear. Thereupon my lord +received a large and imposing young gentleman, who said: "My Lord +Sunderland? My lord, I am Geoffrey Waverton of Tetherdown, a gentleman of +family (as you may know) and sufficient estate. This is to advise you +that I am in need of no private advantage and desire none, but only to do +my duty against traitors." + +"You are benevolent, sir, but I am busy." + +"I believe you will be glad to postpone your business to mine, my lord," +says Mr. Waverton haughtily. "Let me tell you at this moment of anxious +doubt," Mr. Waverton hesitated like one who forgets a bit of his prepared +eloquence,--"let me tell you the Pretender has come to these shores. He +has come to England, to London. He was in Kensington yesterday." + +"You amaze me, Mr. Waverton." + +"My lord, I can take you to the house." + +"You are very obliging. Is he there now?" + +"I believe not, my lord." + +"And I believe not too. Mr. Waverton, the world is full of gentlemen +who know where the Pretender was the other day. You are tedious. Where +is he now?" + +"My lord, I shall put in your power one who is in all his cunning +secrets: one who is the treasonous mainspring of the plot." + +Sunderland, who was something of a purist, made a grimace: "A treasonous +mainspring! You may keep it, sir." + +"You are pleased to be facetious, my lord. I warn you we have here no +matter for levity. I shall deliver to your hands one who is deep in the +most dangerous secrets of the Jacobites, art and part of the design +which at this moment of peril and dismay brings the Pretender down upon +our peace." + +"Mr. Waverton, you are as dull as a play. Who is he, this bogey of +yours?" + +"He calls himself Boyce," said Mr. Waverton, with an intense sneer. +"Harry Boyce, a shabby, scrubby trickster to the eye. You would take him +for a starveling usher, a decayed footman. It's a lurker in holes and +corners, indeed, a cringing, grovelling fellow. But with a heart full of +treason and all the cunning of a base, low hypocrisy. Still a youth, but +sodden in lying craft." + +Sunderland picked up a pen and played with it, and through the flutter of +the feather he began to look keenly at Mr. Waverton. "Pray spare me the +rhetoric," says he. "What has he done, your friend, Harry Boyce?" + +"He has this long time past been hand and glove with the Jacobites of +Sam's. I have evidence of it. Now mark you what follows. Yesterday +betimes he slunk out to Kensington, using much cunning secrecy. And there +he made his way to a certain house--I wonder if you know it, my lord? It +was close watched yesterday, and a coach that came from it was beset. I +wonder if you have been asking yourself how the Pretender evaded that +watch. I can dispel the mystery. This fellow Harry Boyce went in with +news of the guard about the house. It was in his company that the +Pretender rode away." + +"Why do you stop?" said Sunderland. + +"Where they went then I cannot tell you. You will please to observe, my +lord, that I am precisely honest with you and even to this knave Boyce +just. But it is certain that in the evening when Harry Boyce came back to +the low tavern where he lodges--and he came, if you please, in a handsome +coach--he was wearing the very clothes of the Pretender--aye, even to the +hat and wig. I believe I have said enough, my lord. It will be plain to +you that the fellow is very dangerous to the peace of the realm and our +good and lawful king. If you lay hands on him, which I advise you to do +swiftly, you will quench a treason which has us all in peril, and well +deserve the favour of King George. For my own part I seek neither favour +nor reward, desiring only to do my duty as a gentleman." Mr. Waverton +concluded with a large bow in the flamboyant style. + +"Your name is Waverton?" Sunderland said coldly. Mr. Waverton was +stupefied. That such eloquence should not raise a man's temperature! That +he should not have made his name remembered! He remained dumb. "Pray when +did you turn your coat?" + +"Turn my coat?" Mr. Waverton gasped. + +"You once professed yourself Jacobite. You went to France with a certain +Colonel Boyce. You quarrelled with him because he was not Jacobite. Now +you desire to get his son into trouble. You do not gain upon me, Mr. +Waverton." + +"I can explain, my lord--" + +"Pray, spare me," says Sunderland. "You are not obscure. I see that you +have a private grudge against the family of Boyce. Settle it in private, +Mr. Waverton. It is more courageous." + +Mr. Waverton stared at him and began several repartees which were +only begun. + +"I find you tiresome," Sunderland said. "I advise you, do not make me +think of you again," and he struck his bell. But when Mr. Waverton was +gone: "I fear he has not the spirit of a louse," my lord remarked to +himself with a shrug. + +Thus Mr. Waverton's virtue was left to seek its own reward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN THE TAP + + +When Harry came back to his tavern, he was, you'll believe, not anxious +to be seen. He made one step from the coach to the door, scurried through +the tap and upstairs. But the coming of a coach, and a coach of some +splendour, to the humble "Hand of Pork" had brought folks to the windows, +and at the staircase window Harry bumped into his landlady, who gasped at +him and began a "Save your lordship--" which ended in "God help us, it's +Mr. Boyce." + +"Cook me a steak, Meg," Harry said, and went up the stairs three +at a time. + +She screamed after him "Ha' you seen your letter? There's a letter for +you in the tap." + +When Harry came down in his natural clothes, his best and one remaining +suit, and shouted for his supper she was quarrelling with the potman and +searching the shelves: "Meg, you villain--Meg, where's my steak?" + +"Lord love you, it's to the fire. I be looking for your letter. Ain't you +had it now? Days it's been here, I swear, and I saw it again only this +morning. By the black jar of usquebaugh it was, George, Od rot you." + +"Burn the letter," says Harry. "Go, bring me that steak, you slut." + +"Oh, God save you," Mrs. Meg cried in a pet, and so for Alison's letter +there was no more search. But indeed they would not have found it. + +Harry, if he ever thought about it, supposed it one of the grumbling +screeds of the bookseller for whom he scribbled and was glad to be rid of +it so easily. But he was in no case to think usefully of anything. The +amazement of his deliverance left him in a queer state of excited +lassitude. His nerves were all tremulous, he must needs do everything +vehemently, and felt the while as if he were being whirled along, +passive, in the grip of some force outside himself One moment he was +dreaming himself capable of miracles, the next he was limp with weariness +and utterly impotent. And naturally, as soon as he had food inside him, +weariness won and he was overwhelmed with great waves of languor. He +hardly dragged himself up to his attic before he was asleep. + +When he woke, the world was grey. He could survey himself cynically and +wonder why he had been such a fool as to be in a fluster overnight. +Faith, it was a grand exploit to dabble in conspiracies and come out with +your head still (for a while) on your shoulders. And that only by a turn +of the luck, not any wit of his. Well! Neither winners nor losers would +want more of the blundering offices of Mr. Harry Boyce. He was back again +after his conversation with royalty--and royal breeches--a hack writer +in his garret. And Alison as far away as ever. The wonderful Alison! The +beauty of her flashed into his squalor. He felt her passionate life. Be +hanged to Alison! Let the hack writer get to his writing. + +All that day he strove with the fluency of Ovid, and to this hour his +labours, much flaccid verse, survive in a decent obscurity. It was late +in the afternoon before he yielded to his growing disgust with the +whinings of the Tristia and sought relief in the open air. + +There was not much movement in the air of Long Acre. The day had been +warm and languorous, with heavy showers steaming up again in the sun. +Clouds were darkening across the twilight for more rain. Harry turned off +to stretch his legs and find some freer air across the fields by the +Oxford road. But he was soon tired of them. The moist heat oppressed him +still and lowering darkness across the sky threatened a storm. He had no +desire for a wetting and an evening spent in the Pretender's clothes. He +made for his tavern again by St. Martin's Lane and there came full upon +his father. + +Colonel Boyce touched his hat. Harry touched his, gave him the wall +and was going by. Then the Colonel laughed and caught his son's arm. +"Well met, Harry. I was coming to seek you." (It's not known whether +that was true.) + +"And I, sir--I had no notion of seeking you." + +"Fie, don't be haughty. I bear no malice." + +"Egad, sir, that's kind in you," Harry sneered and pushed on. + +Colonel Boyce linked arms with him. "Why, what's the matter? You +went off with the honours. Od's heart, you left us like a pair of +whipped dogs." + +"You've to thank yourself for that, sir. Not me." + +"No, zounds, you did very well. I profess I was proud of you, Harry." + +"Then I have to envy you." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you +need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such +an air, Harry. You carried it off _à merveille_. My lord was a +whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. +It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable." + +"You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled +with you." + +"Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford +to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. +Why the devil should you snarl at me?" + +They were now turning into Long Acre and the coming storm had already +brought darkness. Harry stopped and freed himself from his father's arm. +"If you please, we'll have no more of this. I've no will to make an enemy +of you. But if you seek to be friends, enemies we must be." + +"Why then? Harry, you are not so mad as to declare Jacobite now? It's a +lost cause, boy. There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work +and not a guinea for your pains. You--" + +"Aye, now we have it!" Harry laughed. "You want to be in my +secrets. Sir, I'm obliged to you, and by your leave I'll +discontinue your company." + +"I swear I wish you nothing but well," his father cried. + +"Dear sir, it's your good wishes that I dread. Pray cut me off without a +blessing." He waved his hand to his father and strode off. + +For a moment Colonel Boyce looked after him--shrugged--went his way. + +So Harry walked alone upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was +passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. +They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but +hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and +staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were +borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their +swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared through +his body and he fell. + +Colonel Boyce heard the clatter of ash and steel and turned at his +leisure to look. It was a moment before he made out Harry in the midst +of the mêlée. Then he shouted of help and threats and ran on with +ready sword. + +He came too late. Harry was down and the dripping blades again at his +body. Colonel Boyce had one fellow pinked before they were aware. The +others bore upon him furiously and he was hard beset. He made a good +fight--it's the best thing in his life--he understood the sword, and they +were but hackers and hewers, they were in a mad hurry to finish him and +he had a perfect calm. But he was hampered and overborne. He would not +give ground for fear of more thrusts into the body at his feet, and they +closed upon him and he could not break them. + +But now doors were opening and heads out of windows. From Harry's tavern +a man came at a run. As Colonel Boyce reeled back with a point caught in +his shoulder, gripping at the blade and thrusting at empty air, another +sword shot into the fight. One man went down upon Harry's body. The other +three broke off and bolted down the court by which they had come. + +"_Canaille_," says the deliverer mildly, and plucked at the cloak of the +man he had overthrown to wipe his sword. "Is that a friend of yours +underneath, sir?" + +"Egad, they have tickled me," quoth Colonel Boyce, feeling at his +shoulder. "Pray, lend me your hand, sir." + +The deliverer looked him over without much sympathy: "And, egad, it's the +ancient Boyce," he said. "Oh, you'll survive, _mon vieux_. Who is this in +the mud?" He rolled his own victim, who groaned effusively, off Harry's +body. "It's the boy, _mordieu_!" he cried. + +"In effect, Captain McBean, it's the boy," says Colonel Boyce, who was +trying to fix a pad of handkerchief on his own wound. + +McBean was down on his knees beside Harry, handling him gently. "Twice +through the body, by God," says he. "What does this mean, Boyce? Damme, +did you set your fellows on him?" + +"I am not an imbecile," Colonel Boyce said fiercely, stared at McBean +and laughed his contempt. Then with another manner, he turned to the +little crowd which was mustered: "Bring me a shutter, good lads. We've a +gentleman here much hurt. And some of you call the watch." + +McBean rose with bloody hands. "He has it I believe," he muttered. +"Hark in your ear, Boyce. If this is your work, I'll see you dead, by +God, I will." + +"Oh, damn your folly," says Colonel Boyce. "I struck in to help him. I +know nothing who the knaves were. Your own tail, maybe." + +"Aye, aye," McBean looked at him queerly. "You would say that. Well, +maybe this rogue can speak. He groans loud enough." Down he dropped again +by his victim to cry out "Ben! You filthy rogue! Ben! Who a plague set +you to this business?" + +"Oh, you've found a friend, then?" Colonel Boyce sneered. + +The man who groaned was Harry's old friend, Ben the fat highwayman of the +North Road. He rolled his eyes and made hoarse, grievous noises. +"Captain! Lord love you, captain, I didn't know you was in it. Oh, gad, +and you ha' been the death o' me,' + +"I shall be if you lie," quoth McBean. "You rogue, who set you on +Mr. Boyce?" + +"How would I know he was a friend of yours? 'Twas a squire out of +Hornsey. Squire Waverton of Tetherdown. Paying handsome to have him +downed. Oh, gad, captain, don't be hard. I ha' had no luck since you +turned me off." + +Now the constables came running up and Colonel Boyce turned to them: +"Secure that fellow. He and some others which have escaped stabbed my +son who lies there. I am Colonel Boyce at the Blue House in St. +Martin's Lane." + +The wretched Ben was haled off, groaning. + +Harry, lifeless still and bleeding, for all McBean's work, they lifted +and carried away to his father's lodging. + +"What's your Waverton in this, sir?" says McBean. + +"The silly gentleman wanted Harry's wife. Egad, I never thought he had so +much gall in him." + +"I believe I'll be letting some of it out," says McBean. + +"You'll be pleased to leave that to me," quoth Colonel Boyce. + +McBean looked up at him oddly. "_Ventrebleu_, I wonder if I'll make you +my apologies. Have you bowels after all, sir?" + +"You're impertinent." + +"If you like." McBean cocked a wicked eye at him. + +"You concern yourself with the affairs of my family. I resent it, +Captain McBean." + +"I believe you, _mon vieux_." + +"You have done me a notable service to-night and I am ready to forget +the older injuries, your ill offices with my son. Let us call quits and +part, sir." + +"It won't do," said McBean with a grin. + +"What now, sir?" + +"I must know how Harry does and make sure that he has the best there is +for him. Surgery and friends--he will need both, sound and sure." + +"Be satisfied. I shall well provide him." + +Captain McBean shook his head. + +"Damn your infernal impudence." Colonel Boyce's temper gave way. "Od's +life, sir, this is infamous. You put upon me that I would mishandle my +own son as he lies wounded and near death! I shall murder him, I +suppose. You had that against me before. Shall I rob him too, or +torture him maybe? This is raving. Carry it where you will, I'll none +of it. You may go." + +"Fie, what a heat!" says McBean placidly. + +They were now come to Colonel Boyce's lodging and he bade the bearers +take Harry up to his own room. + +"I sent a brisk lad for Rolfe," says McBean. "I could but stop the blood. +He'll be here soon enough. It's but a step to Chancery Lane. He knows +more of wounds than any man in the town." + +Colonel Boyce was for a moment speechless. "I shall send for Dr. +Radcliffe and Sir Samuel Garth," says he majestically. "I wish you good +night, sir." + +"I believe they have sense enough to do no harm," said McBean. "And now, +Boyce, a word with you. Not in the street." + +"I don't desire it, sir," which McBean answered by passing in front of +him into the house. Colonel Boyce came after, fuming. "Egad, sir, you +presume upon my wound," he cried. "You--" + +"Not I. Patch yourself up and I'll meet you at your convenience. There's +more urgent matter. When the boy comes to himself--if ever he comes to +himself--I must have speech of him." + +Colonel Boyce, who now completely commanded himself, had grown very pale. +"You have gone too far, Captain McBean. I desired to forget that I have +you in my power. You force me to use it. If you thrust yourself upon me I +shall have you arrested as a traitor." + +McBean flushed. "Odso, then there is some villainy of yours in the +affair! Devil take you, I have a mind to finish you now, a wounded man as +you are." He had his hand on his sword. + +"Will you go, sir?" + +"Not I. If you ha' murdered him, you"--he slapped his sword home +again--"no, _mordieu_, I can't touch you so. And you may meddle with me +if you dare." + +"Oh, you have a great devotion to the boy," Colonel Boyce sneered with +pallid lips. "You would have him deeper dipped in your mad treasons? I +think you have done him harm enough." He struck his bell. + +"Harm?" McBean cried. "Is it harm? You that begat him for the heir to +your damned infamy? You that soured him with your husk of a soul and your +cold cunning? You that made a dirt-heap of his life to suit your muddling +need? You--" + +But Colonel Boyce swayed in his seat and fell sideways fainting. + +A moment McBean surveyed him as if he thought this too a trick. Then, +"_Ventrebleu_" says he, "here's Providence takes a hand," and he +whistled, and it is not to be denied that he looked covetously at the +cabinet which held Colonel Boyce's papers. "The poor old devil," he said +with a shrug. "He grows old, in fact. I suppose there's more blood in his +shirt now than his damned body," and he knelt down and began to feel +about the wound. + +He was at that when a woman announced the surgeon. "Mr. Rolfe? Never more +welcome. Here's old Colonel Boyce with a hole in his shoulder, and young +Mr. Boyce with two holes through and through. A street brawl. Pray go up, +sir, the lad's in bad case." + +"Faith, it's Captain McBean," says Rolfe, a brisk, big man, as they shook +hands. "What have you to do with Noll Boyce?" + +"A friend of the family," says McBean. "Away with you to the lad;" and he +knelt again and ministered to the unconscious Colonel. "A friend of the +family, old gentleman," says he with a grin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALISON KNEELS + + +So all this while Alison lacked an answer to her letter. She fretted at +the delay, she grew angry soon, but it does not appear that she allowed +herself any new pique against Harry. She was angry with circumstance, +with herself, and something much more than angry with Mr. Waverton. It +was detestable of Geoffrey to dare spy and plot against Harry, +intolerable in him to suppose that she would favour the villainy. But she +had been a fool and worse to give him any chance of insulting her so. And +yet she might have hoped that her letter--sure, she had been humble +enough in it--that her letter would bring Harry back in a hurry. It was +maddening that some trick of circumstance should have kept it from him or +him from her. For she had no notion that he would read the letter and +toss it aside or delay to come. There was nothing petty about Mr. Harry, +no spite. Nothing of the woman in him, thank God. + +What had happened that he gave her no answer? For certain the letter had +gone safely to the tavern. She could be sure of her servant. Harry was +living at the tavern. The people there gave assurance of that. It was +strange that he made no sign. The servant, indeed, had waited for an +answer late into the night and seen nothing of him. Perhaps he had +discovered Geoffrey's spies and gone into hiding. It would be like +Geoffrey to devise some mighty cunning villainy and so manage it that it +was futile. Perhaps Harry really was at some secret politics, captured +again by his father and sent off to France, or too deep in some matter of +danger to show himself. Perhaps--perhaps a thousand things, so that she +made no doubt of Harry. He would not deny her when she came seeking him. + +She had no fear either. Her nature could not imagine perils or disasters. +There was too proud a force in her life for her to admit a dread of being +defeated. Her man must live and be safe, because she needed him. Harry +could not fail her. But she was desperately impatient. She wanted him +every instant, and even more she wanted to stand before him and accuse +herself, confess herself. For the truth is that Geoffrey Waverton had +profoundly affected her. When she found Geoffrey daubing her with +patronizing congratulations, when he dared to claim her as ally in mean +tricks against her husband, she discovered that she must be miserably in +the wrong. Approved by Geoffrey, annexed, used by Geoffrey--faith, she +must have sunk very low before he could dare venture so with her. She +received illumination. She saw herself in the wrong first and last, the +sole sufficient cause of their catastrophe, a petty mean creature, +snarling and spiteful and passionate for trivialities--just like +Geoffrey, just such a creature as she hated most. Pride and honour +instantly demanded that she must seek Harry, indict herself and read her +recantation. She needed that, longed for it, and to satisfy herself, not +him. It is possible that she then began to love. + +So monsieur must be found instantly, instantly. When she thought of all +her tale of sins, she must needs think also of Mrs. Weston. Poor Weston +had enough against her too--Weston--his mother. It still seemed almost +incredible that poor, grey, puritan Weston should be mother to Harry. But +if she was indeed, she might know something of him. At least, it would be +good to make peace with her again; it was necessary. And so on the day +that Harry fell, Mrs. Alison marched off to the little cottage behind the +High Street. + +It was a room that opened straight from the path, and it seemed very +full. Susan was sitting there, who was now Susan Hadley. Her fair +placidity admitted no surprise. She smiled and said, "Alison!" + +Mrs. Weston stood up in a queer frozen fluster. "What do you need, +ma'am?" says she. + +"Oh, Weston, dear, don't take me so," Alison cried, and she edged her way +between the little table and the stiff chairs, holding out her hands. + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Your servant, ma'am," says she with a curtsy, but +she ignored the hands. + +Then Susan stood up. "I must go, I believe," she smiled, and bent to +offer one fair cheek to Mrs. Weston. The other was then given to Alison. +She smiled upon them both benignly and made for the door. + +"Susan! You'll dine with me to-morrow," Alison put in. + +"Oh. Mr. Hadley will be at home." + +"But of course you bring him." + +"Thank you then." The door shut behind her, and the room was larger. + +"I can't tell why you have come," says Mrs. Weston tremulously. + +"To say I was wrong and I'm sorry. Oh, Weston, dear, to say I have been a +peevish wicked fool." + +Mrs. Weston sat down again. "Where is Harry?" she said. + +"I have writ to him to beg him come back to me." + +"I am asking you to come back to us." + +"You--" + +"Where is he?" + +"Ah, you don't know then?" + +"I have not seen him since he left your house." + +"He has been living at a tavern in the Long Acre. I have made sure of +that, and I wrote to him there. But he has not answered me. He does not +answer me. I can't tell if he has gone away." + +"Where is his father?" Mrs. Weston asked quickly. + +"His father? Colonel Boyce? Oh, Weston! Colonel Boyce is his +father, then?" + +"Did you come to pry?" Mrs. Weston flushed. + +"I do not deserve that," Alison said, and then very gently, "Oh, my dear, +but I have been cruel enough to you." + +"It's very well," Mrs. Weston said faintly. "Where is Colonel Boyce?" + +"I know nothing. Does it matter, Weston, dear? He cannot help us +to Harry." + +"I am afraid of him. Oh, it's all wrong maybe. I am so weak and stupid. +But I am afraid what he may do with Harry." + +"Indeed, I think Mr. Harry can keep his head even against Colonel Boyce," +Alison smiled. + +"His head?" Mrs. Weston looked puzzled. "I don't mean that, I believe. I +am afraid he may win Harry to be like himself. He is so clever and +dazzling, and he is full of wickedness. He cares for nothing but his own +will and to have power. When I saw him so friendly with Harry I thought I +should have died." + +"My poor Weston," Alison said gently. "But I am not afraid of that. Mr. +Harry won't be dazzled." + +"You dazzled him." + +"Oh, and am I full of wickedness too?" Alison laughed. "Dear, +forgive me." + +"No, but you are strong and hard as his father was." + +Alison drew in her breath. "I shall teach you not to call me that, +Weston," she said. "And Harry--well, Harry shall find me for him." + +There was silence for a while, and Alison watched with new emotions the +tired, wistful face. "Weston, dear, I want you to come back to me. I want +Mr. Harry to find you with me when he comes home." + +Mrs. Weston cried out, "He does not know who I am!" in anxious fear, and +clutched at Alison's hand. + +"No, indeed. But he loves you already, I think." + +"But I do not want him to know," Mrs. Weston cried. "I--I was not married +to Colonel Boyce." + +"Weston, dear," Alison pressed the hand. + +"I lived at Kingston. My father reared us strictly. He was harsh. I think +that was because my mother died so young. Mr. Boyce--he was a gentleman +in the Blues then, and very fine, much gayer than Harry and more +handsome. He used to ride out to Hampton Court to an old cousin of his, +who had a charge at the Palace. He met me one day by the river. I don't +know why he set himself upon me. I was never much to his taste, I think. +But I thought him the most wonderful man in the world. I let him do what +he would with me. I don't blame him for that. He never promised me +anything. In a while he grew tired. Then Harry came. My father could not +forgive me. Afterwards they said that I had killed him. Harry was born. I +lay very ill and they believed that I should die. I never knew whether it +was my father or my brother sent for Mr. Boyce. My brother boasted +afterwards that it was he made him relieve them of the baby. And I--I did +not die, you know. When I began to be well again my baby was gone. My +father lay dying then. He would not see me. My brother was the head of +the family, and he--I could not stay there. I tried to find Mr. Boyce, +but he had left the regiment. He had gone to Holland, they said, after +the Duke of Monmouth. I could do nothing. And my brother had told me that +Mr. Boyce would soon find a way to be rid of my baby. I--I believed that +he had. I never saw Harry again till--you know. I never saw his father +till that day at Lady Waverton's. He told me afterwards that they had +said to him I was dying, and he supposed me dead. I believe that is +true. He would not have troubled himself with the child else." + +"Oh, Weston, dear," Alison murmured, and caressed her. + +Mrs. Weston pushed back the hair from her wrinkled brow. "Mr. Boyce +promised me that Harry need know nothing of me now. I do not know if he +has kept his word about that." + +"There's nothing about Harry that is not safe with me," Alison said. "Oh, +my dear, now I know where Harry has his strength from and his +gentleness." + +Mrs. Weston looked at her in a puzzled fashion. "I wonder what he is +doing now?" she said wearily. "I think I have told you everything, +Alison. Oh! Your father. Your father was very kind to me. When I did not +know what to do--I had no money left--they gave me five pounds--I went to +him. He used to come to my father's house, you know, when he had business +in Kingston. He used to go all over the country about his trading. My +father said he was a godless man, but he was always kind to me. I told +him everything. He took me into his house, and indeed I did not know +where to go for food. I was your mother's servant while she lived, but I +think she doubted me. Your father never told her anything, and she--but +she let me be." + +"Oh, Weston, Weston," Alison said. "And you have spent all your life +caring for me." + +"There was nothing else to do. But I was glad to do that." She looked +at the girl with strange, puzzled, wistful eyes and saw Alison's eyes +full of tears. She put out her hand shyly, awkwardly, and touched +Alison's cheek. + +Alison smiled, laughed with a sob in her voice. "It is a long while since +I cried," she said, and put her arms round Mrs. Weston and laid her head +on Mrs. Weston's bosom and cried indeed. + +Mrs. Weston held her close. "Alison! But this isn't like you." + +"Indeed it is," Alison sobbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + +You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the +best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its +severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. +Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat +upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly +over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his +clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the +window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with +profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and +glower down at its emptiness--and repeat the motions in a different +order. He must be theatrical even without an audience. + +But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his +conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, +you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it. + +The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, +and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of +being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung +himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far +away. In a little while came the beat of rain--slow, big drops. That was +soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke. + +Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited +maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious +invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who +admonished her and made her worse. + +Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming +rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a +night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!" + +"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr. +Waverton, in much agitation. + +"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, +dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. +Waverton's. + +"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He +advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a +great clatter of crockery. + +"Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed +into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it." + +"What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said. + +"Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the +ready, the hundred guineas?" + +"Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped. + +"Out with the cole, burn you." + +Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at +it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr. +Waverton cried. + +Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's +dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts." + +Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low +voice. "Ned--was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went +on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth. +"Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight +from my goldsmith, man. Tell me--you said you would force a fight on +him. Did he--" + +"Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows +that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?" + +"I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base +rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise." + +"Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money. +"Where's that damned rum?" + +"You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it. +Nay, but, Ned--how did he take it?" + +"Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?" + +"He said nothing?" + +"Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?" + +"Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him." + +"Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?" + +The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the +bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are +impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his +end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by +a noble lord in high place." + +"Then it's worth more than a hundred megs." + +"You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you." + +"Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I +must quit." + +"It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed. + +"Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that +while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender +thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces." + +"You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on +the table. + +"Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march. +Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and +out he went. + +Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great +mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry +rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow, +hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might +even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender +had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a +pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such +ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined +to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of +Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that +the rogue should have had a chance to fight--that generous chivalry which +had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The +wretched creature had been properly punished--stamped out by knaves of +his own class in a vulgar street brawl--a dirty hole-and-corner end. +Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt +with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet. + +So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily +delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism +steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the +powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need +not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on +her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her +was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence, +and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased +him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very +tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from +too much humility.... + +He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of +the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure, +damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A +tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But, +perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had +paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she +had sunk by yielding to him. + +Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing: + +"MR. BOYCE,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear. + +"A." + +Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes. + +It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never +quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The +treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover, +then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr. +Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she +was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust +after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved +her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would +have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh. + +But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second +time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of +her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay, +faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She +must be shown that--oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a +touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who +moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all +his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very +furiously. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + +Captain McBean, healthily red and brown, showed no sign of having been +out of bed all night. From cold water and a razor in his own lodgings he +came back at a round pace to St. Martin's Lane. He found his aide, Mr. +Mackenzie, taking the air on the doorstep of the Blue House, and rebuked +him. "I bade ye bide with the lad, Donald." + +"The surgeon has him in hand, sir." + +"_Tiens_. He's a brisk fellow, that Rolfe." + +"I'm thinking Mr. Boyce will need him." + +"Eh, is there anything new?" + +"I would not say so. But he's sore hurt. And I'm thinking he takes it +hard." + +"Aye, you're the devil of a thinker, Donald." Captain McBean grinned. +"And the Colonel, has he made a noise?" + +"He's in the way of calling for liquors, but he's peaceable, the +women say." + +"You'll go get your breakfast and be back again. And bring O'Connor with +you. I'll hope to need the two of you." Captain McBean relieved guard on +the doorstep till the surgeon came down. "I'm obliged to you, Mr. Rolfe. +What do you make of him?" + +"Egad, Captain, you're devoted. Why, the old gentleman has put in for +some fever, but I doubt he will do well enough." + +"Be sure of it. What of the young one?" + +Mr. Rolfe pursed his lip. "Faith, there's no more amiss. But--but--why, +he was hard hit, I grant you--but you might take the young one for the +old one. D'ye follow me? The lad hath no vigour in him." + +McBean nodded. "I'll be talking to him, by your leave." + +"Od's life, I would not talk long. I don't like it, Captain, and there's +the truth. Go easy with him. I will be here again to-day." + +Captain McBean went up to the room where Harry lay as white as his +pillows. A woman was feeding him out of a cup. "You made it damned salt, +your broth," says Harry, in a feeble disgust. + +"'Tis what you lack, look you." Captain McBean sat himself on the bed and +took the cup and waved the woman off. "'Tis the natural, hale salinity +and the sanguineous part which you lose by a wound, and for lack of it +you are thus faint. Therefore we do ever administer great possets of salt +to the wounded, and--" + +"And pickle me before I be dead," says Harry. "Be hanged to your jargon." + +"You'll take another sup, my lad, if I hold your long nose to it. And you +may suck your orange after." + +Harry made a wry face, swallowed a mouthful and lay back out of breath. +After a while, "You were here all night, weren't you?" he said. + +"I am body physician to the family of Boyce, _mon brave_." + +"My father?" + +"Has a hole in his shoulder, praise God, and a damned paternal temper. He +will do well enough." + +"How do you come into it?" McBean grinned. "Who were they?" + +"I am here to talk to you, _mon cher_. You will not talk to me, for it is +disintegrating to your tissues. _Allons_, compose yourself and attend. +Now I come into it, if you please, out of gratitude. Mr. Boyce--I have it +in command from His Majesty to present you with his thanks for very +gallant and faithful service." + +"Oh, the boy got off then?" + +"King James is returned to France, sir," says McBean with dignity. +"Look 'e, tie up your tongue. His Majesty charged me to put this in +your hands and to advise you that he would ever have in memory your +resource and spirit and your loyalty. Which I do with a great +satisfaction, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry fingered a pretty toy of a watch circled with diamonds, and wrought +with a monogram in diamonds and sapphires. "Poor lad," says he. + +"It's his own piece and was his father's, I believe. _Pardieu_, sir, +there's many will envy you." + +Harry's head went back on its pillows. "It's a queer taste." + +"Mr. Boyce, you may count upon it that when His Majesty is established in +power, he--" + +"He will have as bad a memory as the rest of his family. Bah, what does +it matter? You are talking of the millennium." + +"You will talk, will you?" says McBean. "I'll gag you, _mordieu_, if you +answer me back again. Come, sirrah, you know the King better. It's a +noble, generous lad. So leave the Whiggish sneers to your father. So much +for that. Now, _mon ami_, you have put me under a great obligation. It +was a rare piece of work, and to be frank, I did not think you had it in +you. But I did count upon you as a gentleman of high honour, and, +_pardieu_, I count myself very fortunate I applied to you. I speak for my +party, Mr. Boyce, when I thank you and promise you any service of mine." + +Harry mumbled something like, "Damn your eloquence." + +But McBean was not to be put off. "You will like to know that the King +when he was quit of Marlborough--egad, the old villain hath been a +gentleman in this business--made straight for me and was instant that I +should concern myself for you. I held it my first duty to get His Majesty +out of the country. Between ourselves, I was never in love with this plan +of palace trickery and Madame Anne. But the thing was offered us, and we +could not show the white feather. _Bien_, His Majesty took assurance from +Marlborough of your safety, so I had no great alarm for you. I could not +be aware of your private feuds. But now, _mordieu_, I make them my own. I +promise you, it touches me nearly that you should be hacked down, and +egad, before my eyes." + +Harry tried to raise himself and said eagerly, "Who was in it? Who +were they?" + +Captain McBean responded with some more of the salt broth. "Now I'll +confess that I had some doubts of your father. As soon as I was back in +London I made haste to find you. I was waiting at that tavern of yours +when I heard the scuffle. You were down before I could reach you, and +there was your father fighting across you most heroical. Faith, I did not +know the old gentleman had it in him. He had pinked one, I believe, but +he is slow, and they were too many for him. He took it badly in the +shoulder as I came. But they were not workmen. I put one out at the first +thrust, and the rogues would not stand. I tickled one in the ham as he +ran, but missed the sinew in his fat. So it ended. Now I'll confess I did +the old gentleman a wrong. I guessed the business might be one of his +damned superfine plots. It would be like him to have you finished while +he made a brag of fighting for you. But I was wrong. _Mordieu_, I believe +he has a kindness for you, Harry." + +"What?" says Harry, startled by the name. + +"Oh, _mon ami_, you must let me be kindly too. Egad, you command my +emotions, sir. No, the old gentleman hath his humanity. He would have +died for you, Harry, and faith he is so rheumatic he nearly did. No, it +was not he played this damned game. Who d'ye think it was that I put on +his back? That rascal Ben--you remember Ben of the North Road? I put the +villain to the question who set him on you. _Bien_ he was hired to it by +that fine fellow Waverton." + +"Geoffrey!" Harry gasped. + +"Even so. Now, Harry, what has Master Geoffrey Waverton against you? If +he wanted to murder your father I could understand it. That affair at +Pontoise is matter enough for a life or two. Though he should take it +gentlemanly. But why must he murder you?" + +"I am not dead yet," said Harry, and his mouth set. + +Captain McBean laughed. "Not by fifty year:" and he contemplated Harry's +pale drawn face with benign approval. "But why does Mr. Waverton want you +dead now?" + +"That's my affair," said Harry. + +"_Enfin_." Captain McBean shrugged, with a twist of the lip and a cock +of the eye. + +"Is there more of that broth?" says Harry. + +Captain McBean administered it. "I go get another cup, Harry." He nodded +and went out. + +His two aides, Mackenzie and O'Connor, were waiting below. "Donald, go +up. The same orders. None but Rolfe is to come to him without you +stand by. And shorten your damned long face, if you can. Patrick, we +take horse." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Captain McBean and Mr. O'Connor halted steaming horses before the door of +Tetherdown. The butler announced that Mr. Waverton had gone out, and then +impressed by the evidence of haste and the martial elegance of McBean, +suggested that my lady might receive the gentleman. + +"How? The animal has a mother?" says McBean in French, and shrugged and +beckoned the butler closer. "Now, my friend, could you make a guess where +I should look for Mr. Waverton?" and money passed. + +"Sir, Mr. Waverton rides over sometimes to the Hall at Highgate. Miss +Lam--Mrs. Boyce's house;" the butler looked knowing. + +"Mrs. Boyce? Eh, is that Colonel Boyce's lady?" + +The butler smiled discreetly. "No, sir, to be sure. Young Boyce--young +Mr. Boyce, sir." + +Captain McBean wheeled round in such a hurry that the butler was almost +overthrown. They clattered off. + +It was not till they were riding through the wood that McBean spoke: +"Patrick, my man, would you say that Harry Boyce is the man to marry +wisely and well?" + +"Faith, I believe he would not be doing anything wisely. That same is +his charm." + +"_Tiens_, it begins now to be ugly. Why must the boy be married at all, +_mordieu_?" + +"It will be in his nature," says O'Connor. "And likely to a shrew." + +"If that were all! Ah, bah, they shall have no satisfaction in it. But no +more will I..." + +There were at the Hall two women who had almost become calm by mingling +their distress and their tears. It's believed that they slept in each +other's arms, and slept well enough. In the morning another messenger was +sent off to the Long Acre tavern. If he came back with no news it was +agreed they should move into town. They said no more of their fears. Each +had some fancy that she was putting on a brave face for the other's sake. +There is no doubt that they found the stress easier to bear for +consciousness of each other's endurance. + +So Mr. Hadley and his Susan were received by an atmosphere of gentle +peace. Much to Mr. Hadley's surprise, who would complain that venture +into Alison's house was much like a post over against the Irish Brigade; +for a man never knew how she would break out upon him, but could count +upon it that she would be harassing. + +"We are so glad," says Susan. + +"She loves to march her prisoner through the town. It's a simple, +brutish taste." + +"Oh. I am so, I believe," says Susan, and contemplated Mr. Hadley with +placid satisfaction. + +"She is too honest for you, Mr. Hadley," Alison said. + +"Oh Lud, yes, ma'am. The mass of her overwhelms me, and it's all plain +virtue--a heavy, solemn thing. Look you, Susan, you embarrass madame with +your revelations." + +"It is curious. He is always ill at ease when I am with him." + +"Because you make me tedious, child." + +"That's your vanity, Mr. Hadley." Alison tried to keep in tune with them. + +"Look you, Susan, I am cashiered by marriage. Once I was Charles. Now I +am without honour." + +"Mr. Geoffrey Waverton," quoth the butler. + +Alison's hand went to her breast and she was white. + +"Dear Geoffrey!" Mr. Hadley murmured. "I do not know when last I saw dear +Geoffrey," and he turned a sardonic face to the door. + +Susan leaned forward. "Alison, dear--if you choose--" she began in +a whisper. + +"Sit still," Alison muttered. "Stay, stay." + +Mr. Waverton came in with measured pomp, stopped short and surveyed the +company and at last made his bow. "Madame, your most obedient. I fear +that I come untimely." + +Alison could not find her voice, so it was Mr. Hadley who answered, "Lud, +Geoffrey dear, you're never out of season: like mutton." + +"I give Mrs. Hadley joy," says Geoffrey. "Such wit must be rare company." + +Alison was staring at him. "You have something to say to me? You may +speak out. There are no secrets here." + +"Is it so, faith? Egad, what friendship! But you have always been +fortunate. And in fact I bring you news of more fortune. You are free +of your Mr. Boyce, ma'am. You are done with him. He has been picked up +dead." He smiled at Alison, Alison white and still and dumb. Mrs. +Weston gave a cry and fell back in her chair and her fingers plucked at +her dress. + +Mr. Hadley strode across and stood very close to Geoffrey. "Take care," +says he in a low voice. + +"Well. Tell all your story," Alison said. + +"They found him lying in the kennel in Long Acre," Geoffrey smiled. "Oh, +there was some brawl, it seems. He was set upon by his tavern cronies in +a quarrel about a wench he had. A very proper end." + +"Geoffrey, you are a cur," says Mr. Hadley in his ear. + +"You are lying," Alison cried. + +Mr. Waverton laughed and waved his hand. "Oh, ma'am, you are a chameleon. +The other day you desired nothing better than monsieur's demise. Now at +the news of it you grow venomous. I vow I cannot keep pace with your +changes. I must withdraw from your intimacy. 'Tis too exacting for my +poor vigour. Madame, your most humble." + +"Not yet," Alison cried. + +"Let him go, ma'am," Mr. Hadley broke in sharply. "Go home, sirrah. +You'll not wait long before you hear from me." + +"From which hand?" Geoffrey flicked at the empty sleeve. "Nay, faith, it +suits madame well, the left-handed champion." + +Mr. Hadley turned on his heel. "Pray, ma'am, leave us. This is become +my affair." + +"I have not done with him yet," Alison said. + +But the door was opened for the servant to say: "Captain Hector McBean, +Mr. Patrick O'Connor," and with a clank of spurs and something of a +military swagger the little man and the long man marched in. + +Captain McBean swept a glance round the room. + +"So," says he with satisfaction and made a right guess at Alison. "Mrs. +Boyce, I am necessitated to present myself. Captain McBean." + +"What, more champions!" Geoffrey laughed. "Oh, ma'am, you have too +general a charity. My sympathy is in your way," and he made his bow and +was going off. + +"_Mordieu_, you relieve me marvellously," says McBean, and O'Connor put +his back against the door. + +Mr. Waverton waved O'Connor aside. + +"You'll be Mr. Waverton?" said O'Connor. + +"Od's life, sir, stand out of my way." But O'Connor laughed and McBean +tapped the magnificent shoulder. Mr. Waverton swung round. + +"Hark in your ear," says McBean. "You're a lewd, cowardly scoundrel, Mr. +Waverton." + +Mr. Waverton glared at him, stepped back and turned on Alison. "Pray, +ma'am, control your bullies. I desire to leave your house!" + +"Let him be, sir," Alison stood up. "Leave us, if you please, I have to +speak with him." + +"You have not," McBean frowned. "The affair is out of your hands. Come, +sir, march. There's a pretty piece of turf beyond the gates. Your friend +there may serve you." + +"Not I, sir," Mr. Hadley put in. "I have myself a meeting to require of +Mr. Waverton." + +"So? I like the air here better and better, _pardieu_. Well, Mr. +Waverton, we'll e'en walk out alone." + +"Your bluster won't serve you, sirrah. If you be a gentleman, which you +make incredible, you may proceed in order and I'll consider if I may do +you the honour to meet you." + +"Gentleman? Bah, I am Hector McBean, Captain in Bouffiers' regiment. +Come, sir, now are you warmer?" He struck Mr. Waverton across the eyes. + +Mr. Waverton, drawing back, turned again upon Alison: "My God, did you +bring your bullies here to murder me?" + +"I did not bid you here," Alison said. + +"_Lâche_," says Mr. O'Connor with a shrug. + +"_En effet_," says McBean and sat down. "Observe, Waverton: I have given +you the chance to take a clean death. You have not the courage for it. +_Tant mieux_. You may now hang." + +Mr. Waverton again made a move for the door, but Mr. O'Connor stood +solidly in the way. "Attention, Waverton. You have bungled your business, +as usual. Your fellow Ned Boon hath been taken and lies in Newgate. He +has confessed that he and his gang were hired for this murder by a +certain Geoffrey Waverton." + +"It is a lie!" + +"Waverton--I have a whip as well as a sword." + +"I do not concern myself with you, sir," says Mr. Waverton with +dignity. "You are repeating a lesson, I see. But I advise you, I shall +not permit myself to be slandered. This fellow Ned Bone--Boon--what is +his vulgar name? I know nothing of him. If he pretends to any knowledge +of me, he lies." + +"You told me that you had hired men to spy upon Mr. Boyce," Alison said. + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "Oh, ma'am, I thank you for a flash of honesty. +Here's the truth then. In madame's interest, I had arranged with her that +a party of fellows should watch her scurvy husband. She suspected him of +various villainies, infidelity, what you will. And, egad, I dare to say +she was right. But I have no more concern in it. So you may his back to +your employers, Captain Mac what's your name, and advise them that I am +not to be bullied. I shall know how to defend myself." + +Alison came nearer Captain McBean. "Sir, this is a confection of lies. It +is true the man told me he was planning a watch on Mr. Boyce. But not of +my will. And when I knew I did instantly give Mr. Boyce warning." + +"I shall deal with you in good time," McBean frowned. "_Dieu de dieu!_ I +do not excuse you. Attention, Waverton! You lie stupidly. Your bullies, +_mordieu_, blunder in your own style. It would not content them to murder +Mr. Boyce. They must have his father too. They could not do their +business quietly nor finish it. The rogue Ben was caught and the Colonel +has only a hole in his shoulder. You may know that he is not the man to +forgive you for it. So, Waverton. You have suborned murder and furnished +evidence to hang you for it. You must meddle with Colonel Boyce to make +sure that his Whiggish party who hold the government shall not spare you. +You set every Jacobite against you when you struck at Harry. However +things go now there'll be those in power urgent to hang you. Go home and +wait till the runners take you off to Newgate. March!" + +Mr. O'Connor opened the door with alacrity. + +"I am not afraid of you," Waverton cried. "And you, madame, you, the +widow--be sure if I am attacked, your loose treachery shall not win you +off. What I have done--you know well it was done for you and in commerce +with you." Mr. O'Connor took him by the arm. "Don't presume to touch me!" +he called out, trembling with rage. Mr. O'Connor propelled him out. + +"I believe Patrick will cut the coat off his back," said McBean pensively +and then laughed a little. He brushed his hand over his face and stood up +and marched on Alison. "Now for you," he said. "I beg leave of the +company." He made them a bow and waved them out of the room. + +"Sir, Mr. Boyce?" Mrs. Weston said faintly. + +"Madame, Mr. Boyce is not dead. He lies wounded. I make no apology, +_pardieu_! It is imperative to frighten the Waverton out of the +country--since he would not stand up to be killed. You, madame," he +turned frowning upon Alison, "you must have him no more in your +neighbourhood." + +Alison bent her head. Mr. Hadley came forward. "Captain McBean, you take +too much upon yourself." + +"I'll answer for it at my leisure, sir." + +"Pray go, Charles," Alison said gently. So they went out, Mrs. +Weston upon Susan's arm, and Captain McBean and Alison were left +alone, the fierce little lean man stretching every inch of him +against her rich beauty. + +"You do me some wrong, sir," Alison said. + +"Is it possible?" McBean's chest swelled to the sneer. + +"Pray, sir, don't scold. It passes me by. Nay, I cannot answer you. I +have no defence, I believe. Be sure that you can say nothing to make my +hurt worse." + +"How long shall we go on talking about you, madame?" + +Alison flushed dark, and turned away and muttered something. + +"What now?" McBean said. In another moment he saw that she was crying. +Some satisfaction perhaps, no pity, softened his stare.... + +She turned, making no pretence to hide her tears. "I beg of you--take me +to Mr. Boyce." + +"I said, madame, Mr. Boyce is not yet dead." The sharp, precise voice +spared her nothing. "I do not know whether he will live." Alison gave a +choking cry. "I do not now know whether he would desire to live." + +"What do you mean?" A madness of fear, of love perhaps, distorted her +face. + +"You well know. When I rode out this morning, I had it in mind to kill +the Waverton and conduct you to Mr. Boyce. But I did not guess that +Waverton would refuse to be killed like a gentleman or that I should find +you engaged in the rogue's infamy." + +"But that is his lie! Ah, you must know that it is a lie. You heard how +he turned on me, and his vileness." + +"_Bien_, you have played fast and loose with him. I allow that. It does +not commend you to me, madame." + +"I'll not bear it," Alison cried wildly. "Oh, sir, you have no right. Mr. +Boyce would never endure you should treat me so." + +"_Dieu de dieu_! Would you trade upon Harry's gentleness now? Aye, +madame, he would not treat you so, _mordieu_. He would see nothing, know +nothing, believe nothing. And let you make a mock of him again. But if +you please, I stand between him and you." + +"You have no right," Alison muttered. + +"It is you who have put me there. You, madame, when you played him false +with this Waverton." + +"That is a lie--a lie," she cried. + +"Oh, content you. You are all chastity. I do not doubt it. But you drove +Harry away from you. You admitted your Waverton to intimacy--you let him +hope--believe--bah, what does it matter? You were in his secrets. You +knew he put bullies upon Harry. Now he has failed and you are in a fright +and want your Harry again. Permit me, madame, not to admire you." + +"What do you want of me?" Alison said miserably. + +"I cannot tell. I want to know what I am to do with Harry. And you--you +are another wound." + +Alison shuddered. "For God's sake take me to him. I will content him." + +"Yes. For how long?" + +"Oh, I deserve it all. I cannot answer you. And yet you are wrong. I am +not such as you think me. I have never had anything but contempt for Mr. +Waverton. If he were not what he is, he must have known that. He came to +me after I left Harry. He told me that he was having Harry spied upon. +The moment he was gone I wrote to Harry and gave him warning and begged +him come back to me. He has never answered me. And I--oh--am I to speak +of Harry and me?" + +"If you could I should not much believe you. From the first, madame, I +have believed you." + +"It was I who drove him away from me. I have been miserable for it ever +since. I humbled myself." + +Captain McBean held up his hand. "I still believe you. Pray, order +your coach." + +"Where is he?" + +"He lies at his father's lodging. Observe, madame: I have said--he is +not yet dead. Whether he lives rests, I believe to God, upon what you +may be to him." + +"Then he will be well enough," she sobbed as she laughed. + +"Oh! I believe in your power," says McBean with a twist of a smile. + +She stayed a moment by the door and flung her arms wide. "What I am--it +is all for him." + +Captain McBean left alone, took snuff. "A splendid wild cat--and that +mouse of a Harry," says he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + +Captain McBean was strutting to and fro for the benefit of his impatience +when Mr. O'Connor returned to him. "Patrick, you look morose. Had he the +legs of you?" + +"He had not," says O'Connor, nursing his hand. "But he had a +beautiful nose. Sure, it was harder than you would think. And I have +sprained my thumb." + +"What, did he fight?" + +"He did not--saving the tongue of him. But I had broke my whip upon him, +so I broke his nose to be even. Egad, he was beautiful before and behind. +He cannot show this long while. Neither behind nor before, faith. What +will he do, d'ye think?" + +"Oh Lud, he'll not face it out. He would dream of hangmen. He'll take the +waters. He'll go the grand tour. D'ye know, Patrick, there's a masterly +touch in old Boyce. To choose that oaf for his decoy at Pontoise! Who +could guess at danger in him? No wonder Charles Middleton saw no guile! +Yet, you observe, the creature's full of venom." + +"He bleeds like a pig," says Mr. O'Connor. "What will we be waiting +for, sir?" + +"The lady." + +"She goes to Harry? Oh, he's the lucky one. What a Venus it is!" + +"Aye, aye. She should have married you, Patrick. You would have +ridden her." + +"Ah now, don't destroy me with envy and desires," says Mr. O'Connor. +"But, sure, there was another, a noble fat girl. Will she be bespoke?" + +"She belongs to the one-armed hero." + +"Maybe she could do with another. There's enough of her for two. Oh, come +away, sir, before I danger my soul." + +They heard the wheels of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming +downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you +need a duenna to watch you with your husband?" + +"Madame is Harry's mother, sir," Alison said. + +For once Captain McBean was disconcerted. "A thousand pardons," says he, +and with much ceremony put Mrs. Weston into the coach. + +As they rode after it, "You fight too fast, sir," says O'Connor with a +grin. "I have remarked it before." + +Captain McBean 'was still something out of countenance. "Who would have +thought he had a mother here?" he growled. + +"Oh, faith, you did not suppose the old Colonel brought him forth--like +Jove plucking Minerva out of his swollen head." + +"I did not, Patrick, you loon. But I did not guess his mother would be +here with this gorgeous madame wife." + +"Fie now, is it the Lord God don't advise you of everything? 'Tis an +indignity, faith." + +Captain McBean swore at him in a friendly way, and they jogged on +through the Islington lanes.... + +So after a while it happened that Colonel Boyce, raising a hot and angry +head at the creature who dared open his bedroom door, found himself +looking at Mrs. Weston. "Ods my life! Kate! What a pox do you want +here?" says he. + +"You are hurt. I thought you would want nursing." + +"I do not want nursing, damme. How did you hear of the business?" + +"That Scotch captain rode out to tell us." + +"Od burn the fellow! Humph. No. Maybe he is no fool, neither. Us? Who is +us, Kate? Mrs. Alison?" + +"She is gone up to Harry now." + +Colonel Boyce whistled. "Come up and we will show you a thing, eh? That +is Scripture, Kate. You used to have your mouth full of Scripture." + +"You put me out of favour with that." + +"Let it be, can't you? What, they will make it up, then?" + +"Does that hurt you? Indeed, they would never have quarrelled but for +you." + +"Oh, aye, blame it on me. I am the devil, faith. Come, ma'am, what have I +done to the pretty dears? She's a warm piece and Harry's a milksop, and +that's the whole of it." + +"With your tricks you made her think Harry was such as you are. And that +wife you married came to Alison and told her that Harry was base-born." + +"Rot the shrew! She must meddle must she? Egad, she was always a blunder, +Madame Rachel." He swore at her fully. "Bah, what though? Why should +jolly Alison heed her?" + +"Alison knows everything now. I told her." + +"Egad, you go beyond me, Kate. You that made me swear none should ever +know the boy was yours. You go and blab it out! Damn you for a woman." + +The woman looked at him strangely. "You have done that indeed," she said. + +"No, that's too bad. I vow it is." For once Colonel Boyce was stung. He +fell silent and fidgeted, and made a long arm for the herb water by his +bed. Mrs. Weston gave it him. "Let be, can't you?" he cried, and drank +all the same. "Eh, Kate that came over my guard.... She has made you +suffer, the shrew. Egad, I could whip her through the town for it." + +"Yes. Whip her." + +"Oh, what would you have?" Colonel Boyce shifted under a rueful air, +strange in him. "I am what I am. I have had no luck in women. She was a +blunder. And you--you have paid to say of me what you will. Egad, you +have the chance now." + +"Are you in pain?" + +"Be hanged to pain! Don't gloat, Kate. That's not like you, at least." + +"Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry." + +"No, nor that neither. Damme, what should I be with you pitying me? Let +it be. Come, you want something of me, I suppose. Something for your +Harry, eh? What is it?" + +"I want nothing but that he should live. He has no need of you or me." + +"Oh Lud, he will live. But you were always full of fears." + +"Yes. You used to say that long ago." + +Colonel Boyce winced again. "Eh, you get in your thrusts, Kate, I swear I +did what I could to save him." + +"I could not have borne to come to you else." + +"Humph. I see no good in your coming. There's little comfort for you or +me in seeing each other. I suppose it's your damned duty." + +"I don't know." + +"Oh Lud, then begone and let's have done with it all." + +"I want to stay till you are well." + +"Aye, faith, it's comfortable to see me on my back and helpless." + +Mrs. Weston did not answer for a moment. She was busy with setting his +table in order. "I want to have some right somewhere. She is with Harry." + +"By God, Kate, you're a good soul," Colonel Boyce cried. + +"I am not. I am jealous of her," Mrs. Weston said with a sob. + +"Does Harry know of you?" + +"What does it matter? He'll not care now." + +"Kate--come here, child." + +"No. No. I am not crying," Mrs. Weston said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +HARRY WAKES UP + + +Harry lay asleep when Alison came into his room. + +She made sure of that and sat herself beside him to wait. It was not, you +know, a thing which she did well. She looked down at him gravely. +Afterwards Harry would accuse her that what first she felt was how little +and miserable a man she had taken to herself. + +He lay there very still and his breath hardly stirred him. Indeed, the +surgery of Mr. Rolfe had bound him up so tightly that he was in armour +from waist to neck. After a moment, she started and trembled and bent +over him and put her cheek close to his lips. She felt his breath and +rose again slowly almost as pale as he. That cheating fear had stabbed +cruelly, and still it would not let her be. His face was so thin, so +white and utterly tired. The life was drained out of him.... + +She sat beside him, still but for the beat of her bosom, and it seemed +that the consciousness in her was falling from a height or galloping +against the wind. She seemed to try to stop and could not. + +She tried to change the fashion of her thought and had no power in that +either. It was a strange, half-angry, half-contemptuous pity that moved +in her, and a fever of impatience. He was wicked to be struck down so, +rent, impotent. Why must the wretch go plunging out into the world and +measure himself against these swashbuckling conspirators? He had no +equipment for it. He was fated to end it with disaster. Faith, it was a +cruel folly to throw himself away and drag up her life by the roots as he +fell. She needed him--needed him quick and eager, and there he lay, a +shrunken thing that could use only gentleness, help, a tedious, trivial +service like a child. + +He was humiliated, a condition not to be borne in her man. As she watched +him, she saw Geoffrey Waverton rise between them, blusterous and +menacing, and his lustiness mocked at the still, helpless body. But on +that all other feeling was lost in a fever of hate of Mr. Waverton. He +was branded with every contemptible sin that she knew, she ached to have +him suffer, and (unaware of the contusions and extravasations +administered by Mr. O'Connor) tried to console herself by recalling the +ignominious condition of Geoffrey in the hands of the truculent gentlemen +at Highgate. Bah, the coward was dishonoured for ever, at least. He would +never dare show his face in town or country. How could he? Mr. Hadley +would spit him like a joint. The good Charles! She found some consolation +in the memory of Mr. Hadley's sardonic contempt. Nay, but the others, +that fire-eating little Scotsman and his lank friend, they were of the +same scornful mind about Mr. Waverton. His blusterous bullying went for +nothing with them but to call for more disdain. They had no doubt that he +cut a miserable figure, that it was he who was humiliated in the affair. +And so all men would think, indeed. It was only a fool of a woman who +could be imposed upon by his brag, only a mean, detestable woman who +could suppose Harry defeated. + +Why, Harry must needs have done nobly to enlist these men on his side. He +was nothing to Captain McBean, nothing but what he had done, and yet +McBean took up his cause with a perfect devotion, cared for nothing but +to punish his enemies, and to assure his safety. Faith, the little man +would be as glad to thrash her as to overthrow Master Geoffrey. He had +come near it, indeed. She smiled a little. The absurd imagination was not +unpleasant. Monsieur was welcome to beat her if it would bring Harry any +comfort. Aye, it would be very good for her. She would be glad to show +Harry the stripes. Nay, but it was Harry who should beat her--only he +never would. And these fantastics were swept away in a wave of +tenderness. + +Mr. Harry was not good at making others suffer. He left it to his wife, +poor lad, and she--she had done it greedily. Well. There was to be an end +of that. Pray God he might ever be strong enough to hurt her. She bent +over him in this queer mood, and her eyes were dim, and she kissed him, +and whispered to herself--to him. Yes. She must make him hurt her. She +must have pain of him to bear.... + +Harry slept on. She began to caress his pillow, and crooned over him like +a mother with her child, and found herself blushing and was still and +silent again. Indeed, she was detestable. To make a show of fondling +after having driven him to the edge of death! To chatter and flutter +about him when he had no more than strength enough for sleep! Why, this +was the very way for a light o' love. And, indeed, she was no better, +wanting him only for her pleasure, for what he would give, watching +greedily till he should be fit to serve her turn again. Yes, that was the +only way of love Mrs. Alison understood. + +It was some satisfaction to scold herself, to make herself believe that +she was vile. For she wanted to suffer, she wanted to be humbled. Not so +much for the comfort of penance, not even for the luxury of sensation +which makes self-torture pleasure, but that she might be sure of +realizing her sins against the love which was now in command of all her +being, and go on to serve it with a clean devotion. One thing only was +worth doing, in one thing only could there be honour and joy, to make him +welcome her and have delight in her... And so she fell among dreams.... + +She saw something glitter on the table by the bed, and idly put out her +hand for it. She found herself looking at the diamonds of the Pretender's +watch. How did Harry come to such a gorgeous toy? J.R., the diamonds +wrote. Who was J.R.? + +"Alison," Harry said. + +She started, stared at him, and stood up. His eyes were open, and he +frowned a little. + +"Alison? It is you?" he said, and rubbed at his eyes. + +"Yes." + +"Why have you come?" + +She fell on her knees by the bed. "Oh, Harry, Harry," she murmured, and +hid her face. + +"Is it true?" + +"I will be true," she sobbed. + +"I want to see you." + +She showed him her face pale and wet with tears.... + +After a while, "Why have you come?" he said again. + +"Harry, I knew about Geoffrey. He told me." + +"You--knew?" + +I wrote you warning. I begged you come back to me. Oh, Harry, Harry, you +are proud." + +"I had no warning. Proud? Oh, yes, I am proud. What were you with +Geoffrey?" + +"Harry! Oh, Harry! No, it's fair. Well. I tried to trick him for your +sake to save you." + +"I am obliged for your care of me." + +She cried out "Ah, God," and hid her face again. Harry lay still and +white as death.... "Oh, Harry, you torture me," she murmured. "You have +the right. No man but you has ever had a thought of me. Harry--I want to +pray you--oh, I want to lie at your feet. Only believe in me--use +me--take me again." + +"I am a fool," Harry said, and she looked up and saw that he, too, was +crying. "Oh, curse the wound," he said hoarsely. "Egad, I am damned +feeble, child." + +"I love you, I love you," she sobbed, and pressed her face to his.... +"Oh, Harry, I am wicked." + +She raised herself. "You are hurt, and I wear you out." + +"That's a brag." Harry smiled faintly, "It takes more than you can give +to kill me, ma'am." + +"Ah, don't." + +"Stand up and let me look at you." Which she did, and made parade of her +beauty, smiling through tears. "Aye, you're a splendid woman," and his +eyes brightened. + +She made him a curtsy. "It's at your will, sir." "Yes, and why? Why? What +made you come back?" + +"My dear!" She held out her arms to him. "I have wanted you ever since I +lost you. And now--now I am nothing unless you want me." + +"Oh, be easy. There is plenty of you, and I want it all." + +"Can you say so? Ah, Harry, you have known enough bad that's me, cruel +and greedy and hard and cheating. I have always taken, and given +nothing back." + +"Damn your humilities," Harry said. + +"Oh, sir, but I want them, my new humilities. I have nothing else to +cover my nakedness." + +"You look better without them, ma'am." + +"Fie, I will stop your mouth." But it was a cup of herb water that she +offered him instead of a kiss. + +"You are a cheat," Harry spluttered. "You presume on my infirmities." + +"No. No. I have made you talk too much. You must be still and rest +again." + +"Burn your maternal care! I have hardly seen you yet a minute." + +"A minute! Oh!" She looked at the jewelled watch. "Aye, sir, an hour. +And what's this pretty toy?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, now I have you. Sure, ma'am, it's a love token." + +"I shall go away, sir." + +"Not till you come by the secret. I know you." + +His ear was pinched. "J.R. Who is J.R., sir?" + +"Jemima Regina. A queen of beauty, ma'am. She fell in love with my nose. +And offered me a thousand pound for it." + +"Harry! I am going to say good night." + +"Hear the truth, Alison. Do you remember--you told me I was born to be a +highwayman--my stand-and-deliver stare--my--" + +"Oh! Don't play so. I was a fiend when I taunted you so." + +"Why, child, it's nothing. Come then--J.R., it's Jacobus Rex, the poor +lad, Prince James, who will never be a king, God help him. He gave me +that for the memory of some little service I did him. McBean brought the +toy to-day." + +Alison nodded. "I will have that story from Captain McBean, sir. You tell +stories mighty ill, do you know--highwayman. Yes, Harry, you are that. +You pillage us all. Love, honour, you win it from all. And I--I am the +last to know you." + +"Bah, you will never be a wife," Harry said. "You have too much +imagination. But you make a mighty fine lover, my dear." + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Highwayman, by H. C. Bailey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 9749-8.txt or 9749-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/7/4/9749/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9749-8.zip b/9749-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f122eae --- /dev/null +++ b/9749-8.zip diff --git a/9749.txt b/9749.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..027f517 --- /dev/null +++ b/9749.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10242 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Highwayman, by H. C. Bailey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Highwayman + +Author: H. C. Bailey + +Posting Date: November 23, 2011 [EBook #9749] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 15, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + THE HIGHWAYMAN + + BY + + H. C. BAILEY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE COMPLETE HERO + + II. THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + III. A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + IV. A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + V. THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + VI. HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + VII. GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + VIII. MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + IX. ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + X. YOUNG BLOOD + + XI. ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + XII. IN HASTE + + XIII. DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + XIV. SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + XV. MRS. BOYCE + + XVI. THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + XVII. RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + XVIII. HARRY IS DISMISSED + + XIX. ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + XX. RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXI. CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + XXII. TWO'S COMPANY + + XXIII. THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + XXIV. QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + XXV. SAUVE QUI PEUT + + XXVI. REVELATIONS + + XXVII. VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + XXVIII. IN THE TAP + + XXIX. ALISON KNEELS + + XXX. EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + XXXI. CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + XXXII. PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXXIII. REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + XXXIV. HARRY WAKES UP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COMPLETE HERO + + +Harry Boyce addressed Queen Anne in glittering verse. She was not +present. She had, however, no cause to regret that, for he was tramping +the Great North Road at four miles by the hour--a pace far beyond the +capacity of Her Majesty's legs; and his verses were Latin--a language not +within the capacity of Her Majesty's mind. Her absence gave him no grief. +In all his twenty-four years he could not remember being grieved by +anyone's absence. His general content was never diminished at finding +himself alone. He chose the Queen as the subject of his verses merely +because he did not admire her. She appeared to him then, as to later +generations, a woman ineffectual and without interest; a dull woman +physically, mentally, and perhaps morally; just the woman upon whom it +would be hardest to make an encomium of any splendour. So he was heartily +ingenious over his alcaics, and relished them. + +From this you may divine much that you have to know about the soul of +Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to +criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite +satisfied with itself and by itself. To be sure, it was yet only +twenty-four. + +You discover also other things less fundamental. He was something of a +scholar, as scholarship was reckoned in those placid days. He had even +some Greek--more than Mr. Pope and quite as much as Mr. Addison. His +Latin verses would have brought him a fellowship at Merton if he had +been willing to take Holy Orders, "I may take them indeed; but how +believe they have been given me?" quoth he to the Warden with a tilt of +one eyebrow. Whereat the Warden, aghast, wrote him off as a youth +unreasonable, impracticable, and impish. Many others had the same +opinion of Harry Boyce before the world was done with him. Few of them +saw in his antics the uncertain spasms of too tender a conscience. But +you must judge. + +Of course he was poor. He could only boast a bob wig, a base thing, +which, for all the show it made, might have been a man's own hair. He +wore no sword. His hat lacked feather and lace. His coat and breeches +were but black drugget, shiny at each corner of him and rusty everywhere. +His stockings were worsted, and darned even on his excellent calves. His +shoes had strings where buckles should have been, and mere black +heels--and low heels at that. As you know, he could walk at a round pace +with them--a preposterous, vulgar thing. There was nothing in him to give +this poverty a romantical air. To be sure, he had admirable legs, but the +rest was neither good nor bad. He was of the middle size and a wholesome +complexion. You would look at him long and see nothing rare enough to be +worth looking at. If you looked longer yet you might begin to be +surprised: his so ordinary face was extraordinary in its lack of +expression. + +The man who owned it must be either very dull of heart and mind, or +self-contained and of self-control beyond the common. But whatever the +heart might be, no one ever took the eyes for the eyes of a fool. They +were keen, alert, perpetually on guard. There is a letter extant--it was +indeed a dear friend who wrote it--which mocks at Harry for his "curst +stand-and-deliver stare." But it is a queer thing that most men had to +know Harry Boyce a long time before they remarked that his eyes were not +quite of the same colour. The common English grey-green-blue was in both +of them, but one had a bluer glint than the other. The oddity, when it +was discovered, seemed to make the challenge of the eyes more defiant and +more baffling, as though they gleamed from the shadow of a mask. + +Not that anyone cared yet whether he wore a mask or his soul in that +placid, ordinary face. Who should care a pinch of snuff for "a scholar +just from his college broke loose" with a penny farthing in his pocket, +who had to pioneer young gentlemen through their Horace and their Tully +for his bed and board? When you meet him, Harry Boyce was happy in having +caught for his pupil a young fellow who had not merely money but brains, +and so sublime a condescension that Harry was not sent away from table +with the parson when the puddings came. Mr. Geoffrey Waverton was pleased +to have a value for him, and defended him from his natural duty of being +gentleman usher to Lady Waverton. So, Mr. Waverton having taken horse, +Harry was free to go walking. + +It was late in a wet autumn, and all the clay of Middlesex slippery as +butter and, withal, affectionate as warm glue. Harry kept to the highway. +Though its miles of mud and water were, on the surface, even worse than +the too green meadows or the gleaming brown furrows of plough land, a +careful man could count upon its letting him go no further than knee +deep. When he came to Whetstone, Harry's feet were brown, shapeless, +weighty masses, but he had not lost either shoe, and he was still in +hopes of reaching Barnet and a pint of small beer before it was time to +struggle back. At the worst a dry throat and wet legs were a cheap price +for escaping the voice of Lady Waverton, who, in the afternoons, read the +romances of Mlle. de Scudery aloud. + +He could see the tufts of smoke above Barnet and its church on the +hill-top. He was winding down to the bottom of the valley from which that +hill rises, when eloquence arrested him. He may at other times have heard +profanity as copious, but never profanity so vehement or at such speed. +The orator was a woman. + +Harry stood to listen with critical admiration. Madame mixed the ugly and +the pleasant rarely; she made a charming grotesque. Her mind was very far +from nice and provided her with amazing images; but she had a pretty, +womanly voice, and hard though she drove it, it would not break to one +ugly note. Disgusting epithets, mean threats, poured out in mellow +music. Harry splashed on round the corner. He was eager to see her. + +In the morass at the cross-lanes by the green, a coach was stuck--a coach +of splendour. It was a huge thing as big as a room, half glass, half gold +and garter blue, and it swayed luxuriously on its great springs. Six +horses heaved at it in vain with great splashing and squelching, and a +whole company of servants, some mounted, some afoot, struggled with them. + +The profane woman had half her body and two gesticulating arms out of the +coach window. She was plainly neither a drab nor in liquor. Harry halted +out of range of the splashes to examine and enjoy her. She had been +comely, and still could hold a man's eye with her curves of neck and +bosom. The piquant features must have been adorable before they sharpened +and her cheeks faded and the lines came. Her abundant hair must once have +been gold, and was not yet altogether grey. + +"You filthy slug," said she. "Samuel! Stand to it, I say. Damme, I'll +have a whip about that loose belly of yours! Now pull, you swine, pull. +Odso, flog the black horse. You, devil broil your bones, lay on to him. +What now? Od rot you, Antony, you'll see no money this month, you--" She +became unprintable. As she took breath again, she saw Harry Boyce calmly +contemplative. "You dog, who bade you stand and gape? Go, give a hand +there, I say." + +Harry touched his hat. "By your leave, ma'am, I am too busy admiring +you." + +"William, put that rogue into the ditch," said she. + +All this while a man in the coach had been writing, calmly intent upon +his tablets as though there was not a sound or a rage within a mile. He +now stood up, and, while his lady was still execrating through one door +of the coach, he opened the other and came out. Two of the servants, +obedient to the lady's oaths, were approaching Harry, who waited them +with calm and a swinging stick. The man waved his hand at them and they +turned tail. But he had no further interest in Harry. He stood to watch +the struggles of his horses and his men. He was of some height, and, +though past middle age, bore himself with singular grace and vigour. He +had still a rarely handsome face--too handsome, by far, for Harry's +taste. The features were of an impossible, absurd perfection. There was +something superhuman or fatuous, at least something vastly irritating, in +his assured calm, his air of blandly confident supremacy. + +He walked on to the leaders and, with a gesture and a word, set the whole +team pulling at an angle. Meanwhile the lady had earnestly continued her +abusive orders, but none of the servants now professed to heed her. +Dragging the horses on, or labouring hand and shoulder at the wheels, +they were now effective, and they watched the man's eye as though it were +an inspiration. Wondering why he did, Harry, too, put his weight on a +wheel. The horses found a footing in the mire, the coach was dragged on +to the higher, firmer ground beyond. + +My lady subsided. The man came back to the coach and touched his hat to +Harry. "I'm obliged for your help, sir," he said, and climbed in. They +drove away towards London. + +As the servants swung to their saddles, "Who's your obscene lady?" +said Harry. + +"What, don't you know him, bumpkin?" + +"She will never be him. Her shape is all provocative she." + +This humble wit was not remarked. His ignorance occupied them, "Oh Lud, +not to know the Old Corporal!" + +One of Harry's eyebrows went up. "That the Old Corporal? Faith, I am +sorry for him." + +He received a handful of mud in his face. With a cry of "Rot your +impudence," they splashed off. + +While he wiped the mud out of his eyes, Harry felt a very comfortable +self-satisfaction. It was agreeable to pity His Grace of Marlborough. For +the Duke of Marlborough was still the greatest man in Europe, the +greatest man in the world--credibly the greatest man that ever lived. A +pleasant fool, to marry such a wife and to keep her. + +Harry Boyce at no time in his life had much admiration for human +eminence. In this, his hungry youth, he was set upon despising rank and +power, great fame and pure virtue, as no more than the luck of fools. He +would always atone by finding sympathy and excuses for any rogue's +roguery. Highly fortified in this faith by the exhibition of +Marlborough's matrimonial happiness, he trudged back. + +The delay over the coach had left him no time for small ale at Barnet. +Mr. Waverton, though amiably pleased to deliver Harry from attendance on +his mother, required constant attendance on himself. He would be, in his +superb way, disagreeable if Harry were not in waiting when he was wanted +to take a hand at ombre. Harry liked Mr. Waverton well enough, as well as +he liked anybody, but found him in the part of offended majesty +intolerable. So there was some hard walking back to Whetstone. On the way +his temper was not sweetened by two horsemen at the gallop who gave him a +shower-bath of mud. + +As he came through the village, behold another coach labouring up to the +high road from Totteridge lane. This had but four horses, no array of +outriders, no gilt splendours. It was a sober, old-fashioned thing, and +it rumbled on at a sober gait. "Some city ma'am," Harry sneered at it, +"much the same shape as her horses." + +But half an hour after he saw it again. Where the road was dark through a +thicket it had come to a stand. "Oh Lud," said Harry, "here's more fair +madames in the mud. They may sit on it till they hatch it for me." But he +wondered a little. It was indeed nothing very strange in such an autumn +to find a coach stuck upon the highway. But two for one afternoon, two so +near was a generous provision. And hereabouts, where the road ran level +and high, was a strange place for a coach to choose to stick. "Madame +seems to be a gross girl," quoth Harry. + +And then he saw what made him step out. There were two men on horseback +by the halted coach--two men with black upon their faces which must be +masks, and that in their hands which must be pistols. + +"Egad, the road's joyful to-night," said Harry. "And two and one make +three," and he began to run, and arrived. + +Of the two highwaymen one was dismounted. The other, holding his friend's +horse, held also a pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats +of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half +inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his +blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage +you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your +legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, +what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the +jewel-case out into the mud and, leaning across one woman, reached with a +fat, foul hand to the younger bosom beyond. + +He was prevented by a whistle and a cry, "Behind you, Ben." His companion +announced the arrival of Harry. + +Ben came out of the coach with an oath and thrust his pistol into Harry's +face. "Good e'en to you, bully. Now cut and run or I'll drill you. Via, +my poppet." + +Harry looked along the pistol and stood fast. The highwayman was no +bigger than he, and bloated. "I am studying arithmetic, Benjamin," said +he. + +"Burn your eyes, be off with you; run while you may." + +Harry laughed and swung his stick at the mud. "But, I wonder, is it +addition or subtraction? Is it two and one makes three, or--" + +"Kick the bumpkin into the ditch, Ben," the man on horseback advised. + +"Off with you," Benjamin thrust him back, and in the act the pistol +wavered. Harry slashed with his stick at the pistol hand. A yell, an +oath, and the shot came together--a shot which went into the mud and sent +it spattering about them. Harry sprang away from Benjamin's rush and +brought his stick down on the hindquarters of the horses. They plunged +forward, and the man in the saddle, wrestling with them, let off another +aimless shot. Harry dodged round them and lashed them again, and they +bolted down the road. He returned to fling himself upon Benjamin, who was +ramming another charge into his pistol. "It seems to be subtraction, +Benjamin," said he, embracing the man fervently. "One from two leaves +one," and they swayed together, and he found Benjamin's body soft. + +Benjamin, panting, cursed him. "Od rot you, why must you meddle, bully? +What's your will, burn you? Ha' done now, and--" Benjamin went down on +his back in the mud with Harry on top of him. "Ugh! What's the game, +bully?" + +"I think you call it the high toby," said Harry delicately and began to +sing to the tune of a catch: + +"Oh, three merry men, three merry men, three highwaymen were we. +You in a quag and he on a nag and I on top of the three." + +"Lord love you, are you on the road?" Benjamin cried. "Why, rot you, +did you want a share then? You should ha' said so, bully. Come on now, my +dear, let's up. We do be gentlemen and share fair enough." + +"I warrant you I am having my share," Harry laughed; "and I like it very +well. But oh, Benjamin, there would have been nought to share if I had +not come up. No fun at all, Benjamin." He wrenched the pistol away. "'Tis +I have made the business joyous. You are a dull fellow by yourself." + +"Rot you," said Benjamin frankly. "When Ned comes back he'll shoot you +like vermin." + +On which they both heard horses, and both, according to their +abilities--Benjamin in the mud, and Harry keeping a sure hold of +him--wriggled to look for them. + +Harry laughed. It was certainly not a returning Ned. These horses came +from the other way, and there were four of them and each had a rider. "I +fear your Ned will come too late, Benjamin--if, by the grace of God, he +comes at all." So said Harry, chuckling, and to his amazement Benjamin +also laughed. Why should Benjamin find consolation in the coming of this +_posse_? It was not credible that they could be allies of his. Highwaymen +did not work in gangs of half a dozen. + +The four horsemen, urged by the shots or by what they saw, came at a +gallop and reined up almost on top of Harry and Benjamin. One of them, a +little man with a lean, brown face, called out, "By your leave, sir! +What's this?" + +"It's a rude fellow, sir," Harry said. "I fear a lewd fellow. By trade a +highwayman. The highway, indeed, is his life's love, his adored mistress. +Observe how he cleaves to it." He compressed Benjamin, who squelched, +into the mud, and rose, standing on Benjamin's chest and stomach. + +Benjamin groaned, and the eyes behind his mask rolled towards the little +man. + +"Filthy dog," that little man said with sincere disgust. "Can I serve +you, sir?" he touched his hat to the women in the coach. + +"Why, Benjamin has a friend, one Ned. Ned hath a pistol or so and two +horses which have bolted with him. But he may yet persuade them to bring +back his pistols and him. Now, if you would be so good, it would be +convenient in you to ride on and destroy Ned." + +"It's a pleasure, sir," the little man showed his teeth. "And the fat +rogue there, can I help you with him? Shall we take him on to the +constables?" + +"Oh, I thank you, but my Benjamin is docile. I'll e'en tie him up with +his garters, and all will be well." + +The little man scowled at Benjamin. "I shall hope to be at his hanging," +he said incisively. "Sir, your most obedient! Ladies!" he bobbed at them +and rode off, his three companions close about him in eager talk. + +As they went, Benjamin let out a cry of anguish: "Captain!" + +The little man and his company used their spurs. + +Harry looked at their hurry and then down at Benjamin. + +"Now why did you call him that, my Benjamin?" said he. "Indeed, why did +you call on him at all?" + +From behind the mask Benjamin's prominent eyes stared sullenly. He +said nothing. + +Harry shook his head. "I feel that I do not know you, Benjamin. I must +see more of you," With which he fell upon the man again and twitched +off the mask. The wig came with it. Benjamin was revealed the owner of +a big, bald, shiny head with a face which was puffed and purple. "You +were right, Benjamin," said Harry sadly, "You were kind. To wear a mask +was charity, nay, decency--what breeches are to other men. That obese +and flaccid nose--pah, let us talk of something else." He lay upon +Benjamin and tugged at his sword-belt. Benjamin writhed and groaned. +His sword was caught underneath him, the hilt deep in the small of his +back. Harry hauled the sword-belt off at last and gripped at Benjamin's +wrists. He began to struggle again. "Do not be troublesome or I'll tap +the beer on your brain. So." He hauled the belt taut about the fighting +arms and made all fast. Then he sat himself on Benjamin's legs, which +thus ceased to be turbulent, and, taking off the garters, therewith +tied the ankles together. + +Sighing satisfaction, Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of +victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman +with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are +still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is +over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be +profane. I see him bursting with it. Pray drive on and remove your chaste +ears." He restored to them the jewel-case. + +"Put him up on the box, sir," the younger woman cried. + +"I beg your pardon, madame?" + +"We will take him to the constables at Finchley." + +"But why? He is beautiful there, my Benjamin, and I doubt he was never +beautiful before. And I have planted him so firmly. I think if we leave +him there he may grow and blossom. Do not dig him up again yet. Imagine +Benjamin in flower! A thing to dream of." + +"You are pleased to be witty, sir. Come, we have lost time enough. Put +the rogue up, and do you mount with us." + +Harry became aware that this young woman had a brow of pride. It was +ample and broad and, after the Greek manner, it rose almost in a line +with her admirable nose. A noble head, to be sure, but alarming to a mere +human man. So Harry thought, and he touched his hat and said: "Madame, +your most humble. Pray what do you want with my Benjamin? Your gentle +heart would never have him hanged." + +Her eyes made Harry feel that he was impudent, which, unhappily, amused +him. "I desire the fellow should be given up to the law, sir," she said +coldly. "Have you anything against it?" + +"Oh, ma'am, a thousand things, with which I'll not weary you. For I see +that you would not understand. You are very young (as I hope). Perhaps +you may soon grow older (which I pray for you). Let this suffice then. +My Benjamin may deserve a hanging. Who knows? We are not God, ma'am, +neither you nor I. Therefore I have no mind to be a hangman. And +you--why, you are young enough to wait another occasion. And so I give +you good-night. Home, coachman, home." + +The young woman stared at him as though he were grovelling stupidity, and +then lay back on her cushions with a "You will drive on, Samuel." + +Harry made his bow, and then, as the coach began to move, there was a +cry: "Alison! Alison! It is not right!" The older woman leaned forward, +and for the first time he remarked a gentle, motherly face, much lined +and worn. "Sure, sir, you will ride with us," she said, and he liked the +voice. "We may carry you home." + +Harry smiled at her. "Nay, ma'am. I am too dirty for such fine company." + +"Drive on," said Mistress Alison. And the coach rolled away. + +Harry looked down at the wretched Benjamin, whose eyes answered with +apprehension and anxiety. "What's the game?" said Benjamin hoarsely. "I +say, master--what d'ye want with me?" + +Harry did not answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant +voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself +back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my +Benjamin," he said. "Who was your captain, I wonder?" + +Benjamin scowled. "I know nought o' no captain." + +"Ah, I thought you did. But I fear you have annoyed the captain, +Benjamin. Now what had you done--or what had you not done?" + +"It's not fair, master," Benjamin whined. "You do be making game of me, +and me beat." + +"I am rebuked, Benjamin. Good-night." + +"Oons, ye won't leave me so?" Benjamin howled. "I ha' done you no harm, +master. Come now, play fair. What d'ye want of me?" + +"Nothing, Benjamin, nothing. I like you very well. You are a beautiful +mystery. Pleasant dreams." + +The hapless Benjamin howled after him long and loud. Thereby Harry, who +had a musical ear, was spurred to his best pace. "It's a vile voice," he +reflected; "like Lady Waverton's. The marmoreal Alison was right. He +would be better hanged. But so also would Lady Waverton. She will +acridly want to know why I am late. Well! It will be a melancholy +satisfaction not to tell her. That will also annoy Geoffrey, who'll +magnificently indicate that I owe him an apology. The poor Geoffrey! He +is so fond of himself!" + +His evening was as pleasant as he had anticipated. He won two shillings +from Lady Waverton at ombre, which made her angry; and lost them to +Geoffrey, which made him melancholy. For Mr. Waverton loved (in small +things) to be a martyr. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + +Mr. Waverton had an idea in his head. That was not the least unusual. It +was, unhappily, a wrong one. That was not unusual either. We must have a +trifle of Latin. Mr. Waverton, studying Horace, desired to translate, +_Civium ardor prava jubentium_ "the wicked ardour of the overbearing +citizens." In vain Harry urged that he was outraging grammar. Mr. +Waverton did not believe him, did not want to believe him--the same +thing. Mr. Waverton was convinced that he had an insight into the soul of +Horace which Harry's pedantic eyes could not share. He explained, as one +explains to a dull child, the rare poetic beauty of the sentiment which +he had produced. The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the +man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be +aware) are all overbearing. It is this quality in the vulgar which most +distresses fine souls (like Mr. Waverton) who desire nothing but their +just rights. + +"I dare say it is," Harry yawned. "If Horace had wanted to mean that, he +would have said so." + +"I often think, Harry, you dry scholars have no sense for the thought of +a poet," said Mr. Waverton elegantly, and lay back in his chair and +surveyed Harry. + +He was a handsome lad and knew how to set it off. He had height and +bulk--almost too much of that indeed, and so made light of it by a +careless, lounging ease. At this time he was only twenty-two, but of a +precocious maturity. He had the self-possession--as well as the +full-bottomed wig--of experience and worldly wisdom, and would have liked +to hear you say so. In its dark aquiline style his face was finely +moulded and imposing, and already it had a massive gravity. "A mighty +grand fellow indeed," said Lady Dorchester once, "if only his mouth had +grown since he was a baby." It has to be admitted that Mr. Waverton's +mouth, a small, pretty feature, was oddly assorted with the haughty +manner in which the rest of him was constructed. The ladies who lamented +that were, for the most part, consoled by his eyes--large, dark eyes of a +liquid melancholy. But my Lord Wharton complained that they looked at him +like a hound's. + +Mr. Waverton was an only son, and fatherless. He had also great +possessions. From his house of Tetherdown all the fields that he could +see stretching away to the Essex border were of his inheritance. His +mother was no wiser than she should have been. She consisted spiritually +of admiration for herself, for the family into which she had married, and +the son whom she had borne. "After all," said Harry Boyce in moments of +geniality, "it's wonderful the boy has come out of it so well." + +Mr. Waverton, thanks to vacillation of himself and his mother, doubt as +to what career, what manner of education, what university, could be +worthy his talents, went up to Oxford at last and (for those days) very +late. After doing nothing for another year or two, he decided (which was +also unusual for a gentleman of means in those days) that he had a genius +in pure literature. Therefore Harry was hired to decorate him with all +the elegances of Greek and Latin. + +The appointment was considered a great prize for a lad so awkward as +Harry Boyce. It might well end in a luxurious competence--a stewardship, +for example, and marriage with my lady's maid. "That is, if you play your +cards well, sirrah," the Sub-Warden felt it his duty to warn Harry's +difficult temper. + +"Oh, sir, I could never play cards," said Harry, for the Sub-Warden was a +master at picquet. "I am too honest." + +Yet he had not fallen out with Mr. Waverton. It is probable that he was +careful to keep on good terms with his bread and butter. But he had +always, I believe, a kindness for Geoffrey Waverton, and bore no ill will +for his parade of supremacy. Tyranny in small things, indeed, Mr. +Waverton did not affect. He had a desire to be magnificent. Those who did +not cross him, those who were content to be his inferiors, found him +amiable enough and, on occasion, generous.... + +"Shall we try another line, Mr. Waverton?" said Harry wearily. + +"I have a mind to make an epigram," Mr. Waverton announced. "The +arrogance of the vulgar, the--the uninstructed--perhaps I lack the _mot +juste_, but _quand meme_--the mansuetude of the loftier mind. A fine +antithesis that, I think." He stood up, walked to the window, and looked +out. Away down the hill the fields lay in a mellow mist, the kindly +autumn sun made the copses glow golden; it was a benign scene, apt to +encourage wit. Mr. Waverton lisped in numbers, but the numbers did not +come. He turned to seek stimulus from Harry. "You relish the thought?" + +"It is a perfect subject for your style," said Harry. + +Mr. Waverton smiled, and turned again to the window for productive +meditation. + +A third man came lounging in, unheard by Mr. Waverton's rapt mind. He +opened his eyes at the back which Mr. Waverton turned upon Harry and the +space between them. "Why, Geoffrey, have you been very stupid this +morning? And has schoolmaster stood you in the corner? Well done, Mr. +Boyce. I always told you, spare the rod and spoil the child. Shall I go +cut a birch for you?" + +"I wonder you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton +with a dignity which did not permit him to turn round. + +"Never while it annoys you, child." + +"Mr. Waverton is in labour with a poem," Harry explained. + +"And it's indecent in me to be present at the ceremony? Well, Geoffrey, +postpone the birth." He sat himself down at his ease in Geoffrey's chair. +He was a compact man with only one arm. He looked ten years older than +Geoffrey and was, in fact, five. The campaign in Flanders which had +destroyed his right arm had set and hardened a frame and face by nature +solid enough. That face was long and angular, with a heavy chin and an +expression of sardonic complacency oddly increased by the jauntiness of +its shabby brown wig. + +Waverton turned round wearily upon the unwelcome guest. "Well, Charles, +what is it?" + +"It is nothing. My dear Geoffrey, if I had anything to do or anything to +say why should I come to you?" + +"_Merci_, monsieur," Waverton smiled gracious indulgence. + +Mr. Hadley chuckled, and in French replied: "Yes, let's talk French; it +embellishes our simple wit and elevates our souls above the vulgar." + +There is reason to believe that Waverton liked his French better in +fragments than continuously. He still smiled condescension, but risked no +other answer. + +"Come, Geoffrey, what's the news?" Mr. Hadley reverted to English. +"Could you say your lessons this morning? And did you wear a new coat +last night?" + +"You may go if you will, Harry. Mr. Hadley will be talking for some +time," Waverton said. "Indeed, he may, perhaps, have something to say." + +Harry was used to being turned out for any reason or none. He well +understood that Waverton was not fond of an audience when he was being +laughed at. "If you please," he said, and made his bow to Mr. Hadley. + +"Why, what's the matter? I don't bite. You are too meek for this life, +Mr. Boyce." He looked at Harry with some contempt in his grey eyes. +"Oons, you're a man and a brother, ain't you? Sit down and be hearty. +Lud, Geoffrey, why do you never have a pipe in the room?" + +"It's death to a clean taste, your tobacco smoking, and I value my wine." + +"Value it, quotha! Ay, by the spoonful. You ha' never known how to drink +since they weaned you. And you, Mr. Boyce, d'ye never smoke a pipe over +your Latin?" + +"I hope I know my place, Mr. Hadley," Harry said solemnly. + +Charles Hadley stared at him. "Hear the Scripture, Mr. Boyce: 'What shall +it profit a man though he gain a pretty patron and lose his own soul?'" + +"You are very polite, sir," said Harry. + +"Upon my honour, Charles, this is too much," Mr. Waverton cried in noble +indignation. "Mr. Boyce is my friend, and you'll be good enough to take +him as yours if you come to my house." + +Charles Hadley was not out of countenance. He eyed them both, and his +sardonic expression was more marked. "You make a pretty pair," said he. +"When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Eh, Mr. Boyce? I +wonder. Well, Geoffrey, it's a wicked world. Had you heard of that?" + +"The world is what you make it, I think," said Mr. Waverton with +dignity. + +"Oons, I could sometimes believe you did make it. A simple, pompous +place, Geoffrey, that is kind to you if you'll not laugh at it. And full +of petty, pompous mysteries. Maybe you make the mysteries too, Geoffrey. +Damme, it is so. It's perfectly in your manner," he chuckled abundantly. +"Come, child, what were you doing on the highway yesterday?" + +Harry stared at him. "When you have finished laughing at your joke, +perhaps you will make it," said Waverton. "Pray let us have it over +before dinner." + +"My dear child, why be so touchy? Were you bitten? Well, you know, this +morning one of my fellows brings in a miserable wretch he had found on +the road by Black Horse Spinney. The thing was half-dead with wet and +cold. He had been lying there all night--so he said, and it's the one +thing I believe of him. He was found trussed as tight as a chicken in his +own sword-belt and his own garters. Damme, it was a fellow of some humour +had the handling of him. He had not been robbed, for there was a bag of +money at his middle. He professed that he could tell nothing of who had +trussed him or why he was set upon. He would have nought of law or hue +and cry. Egad, empty and shivering as he was, he wanted nothing but to be +let go. A perfect Christian, as you remark, Geoffrey. Now, you or I, if +we had been tied up in the mud through one of these damned raw nights, +would take some pains to catch the fellow who did the trussing. But my +wretch was as meek as the Gospels. So here is a silly, teasing mystery. +Who is the footpad that is at the pains of tying up a fellow and never +looks for his purse? Odds fish, I did not know we had a gentleman of such +humour in these parts. I suspect you, Geoffrey, I protest. There's a +misty fatuousness about it which--" + +"By your leave, sir," a servant appeared, "my lady waits dinner." + +"Then I fear we shall pay for it," said Hadley, and stood up. + +"You dine with us, Charles?" Mr. Waverton was not hearty about it. + +"I'll give you that pleasure, child. Well, Mr. Boyce, what do you make of +my mystery?" + +Harry had to say something. "Perhaps your friend was carrying more than +guineas," he said. + +"What then? Papers and plots and the high political? I don't think it. If +you saw him--a mere tub of beer--and a leaky tub this morning, for he had +a vile cold in the head and dribbled damnably." + +"I give it up then. Have you let him go?" They were moving out in the +corridor and Hadley did not answer. "Is he gone?" Harry said again. + +Hadley turned round upon him. "Why, yes. Does it signify?" + +"I wonder who he was," said Harry. + +Upon that they entered the drawing-room of Lady Waverton. It was +congested and dim. The two oriel windows were so draped with curtains of +pink and yellow that only a faint light as of the last of a sunset +filtered through. The wide spaces were beset with screens in lacquer, +odd chairs, Dutch tables, and very many cabinets,--cabinets inlaid with +flowers and birds of many colours; cabinets full of shells, agates, +corals, and any gaudy stone; cabinets and yet again more cabinets full of +Eastern china. In the midst Lady Waverton reclined. + +She had been handsome in a large, bold style, and might still have been +but for excessive decoration. Her dress was voluminous white satin +embroidered in a big pattern of gold and set off with black. It was low +at her opulent bosom, to the curves of which the eye was directed by +black patches craftily fixed. There were many more patches on her face +which, still only a little too full and too loose, had its colours laid +on in sharp and vivid contrasts. Her black hair was erected in +symmetrical waves high above her brow, and one ringlet was brought by +glossy, frozen curls to caress her bosom. She held out the whitest of +hands drooping from a large but still fine arm for Mr. Hadley to kiss. + +"You are a bad fellow, Charles Hadley," she pouted. "You make me +feel old." + +"There's a common childish fancy, ma'am." + +"You never come to see me now. And when you do come, 'tis not to see me." + +"A thousand pardons. Mr. Boyce delayed me awhile with the beauties of his +conversation." + +"Mr. Boyce?" she looked at Harry as if wondering that he dared exist. "Go +and see why they do not bring in dinner." + +Having thus diminished Harry, she proceeded, without waiting for him to +be gone, to criticize him. "You know, I would never have a chaplain in +the house. This tutor fellow is of the same breed, Charles. They tease +me, these men which are neither gentlemen nor servants. Faith, life's +hard for the poor wretches. They are torn 'twixt their conceit and their +poverty. They know not from minute to minute whether they will fawn or be +insolent. So they do both indifferent ill." + +Harry, who chose not to hear, was opening the door. There came in upon +him a woman--the young woman of the coach. Even as he recoiled, bowing, +even as he collected his startled wits, he was aware of the singular +beauty of her complexion. Its delicacy, its life, were nonpareil. The +first clear process of his mind was to wonder how he had contrived not to +remark that complexion when first he saw her. + +Lady Waverton lifted up her voice. "Alison! Dear child! And are you home +at last? It's delicious in you. You seek us out first, do you not? My +sweet girl!" Alison was engulfed. Conceive apple blossom in the embraces +of a peony. + +The apple blossom emerged with a calm, "Dear Lady Waverton." + +"You are a sad bad thing. I writ you five letters, I think, and not one +from you." + +"You are so much cleverer than I am. I had nothing to say." Alison's +voice was sweet and low, but too sublimely calm for perfect comfort in +her hearers. "So here I am to say it and make my excuses," she dropped +a small curtsey, "my lady. Why, Geoffrey, I thought you had been back +at Oxford!" + +Mr. Waverton came forward, smiling magnificence. "I am delighted to +disappoint you, Alison." + +"Nay, never believe her, Geoffrey," Lady Waverton lifted up her voice +and was arch. "I vow she counted on finding you here. Why else had she +come? I know when I was a toast I wasted none of my time going to see old +women," she languished affectionately at the girl. + +"Dear Lady Waverton,"--if it was possible, Alison's voice became calmer +than ever--"how well you know me. And how cruel to expose me. If Geoffrey +had his mother's wit, faith, I should never dare come here at all." + +"It is not my wit which you need ever fear, Alison," Geoffrey's eyes were +ardent upon her. + +"Why, you are merciful. Or is it modest?" + +"I can be neither, Alison. I am a man." + +"My dear Geoffrey, I am sorry for all your misfortunes." She turned from +him to Mr. Hadley, who was content in a corner. "Have we quarrelled?" + +"We never loved each other well enough." + +"Is that why I am always very glad to see Mr. Hadley?" + +"It is why he can tell Miss Lambourne that she looks divinely beautiful." + +"That means inhuman, sir." + +"Which is not my fault, ma'am." + +Geoffrey was visibly restive at his exclusion, "Charles never could pay a +compliment without a sting in it." + +"That is why they are agreeable, sir," said she. + +"That is why they are true," said Hadley in the same breath, and they +laughed together. + +Lady Waverton interfered imperiously. "Alison, dear, come sit by me and +tell me all about yourself." + +"Faith, not with the gentlemen to listen," said she, and was saved by +Harry and the butler, who came in together announcing dinner. + +Lady Waverton rose elaborately. "Give me your arm, Charles. My +dear Alison--" + +"But who is this?" Alison said, and she stared with placid, candid +interest at Harry. With equal composure Harry stared back. But there was +no candour in his expressionless face. For he had become keenly aware of +her beauty. It was waking in him desire and already something deeper and +stronger, and he vehemently resented the disturbance. He had no wish to +be troubled by any woman, and for this woman, judging her on her +behaviour, he felt even a little more contempt than the store which he +had for all her sex. It was cursedly impertinent in her to be such a joy +to the blood. She stood there, her eyes level with his eyes, and dared to +look as strong as he--slighter to be sure, but not too slight for a +woman, and delectably deep bosomed. There was life and laughter in that +calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The +great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. +He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as +her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous +modesty. And she knew of her power too. There was a mocking confidence in +every line of her. + +"But who is this, Lady Waverton?" she was saying again. + +Lady Waverton tried to draw her on. "'Tis but Geoffrey's new factotum." + +"My good friend, Harry Boyce, Alison," said Geoffrey with a patronly hand +on Harry's shoulder. + +Harry made his bow. + +"Faith, sir, we have met before," she smiled. + +"No, ma'am," Harry bowed again. "I have never had an honour, which, sure, +I could not forget." + +Her brow wrinkled. Lady Waverton swept her on, and Harry in the rear had +the pleasure of hearing Lady Waverton say: "A poor, vulgar wretch, my +dear. An out-at-elbows scholar which Geoffrey met at Oxford and keeps out +of charity. He is too soft of heart, dear boy, and such creatures stick +to him like burrs." + +The dinner-table was a blaze of silver, but otherwise not bountifully +provided. Lady Waverton looked down it with pride. "I am of Mr. Addison's +mind, my dear," she announced. "Do you remember? 'Two plain dishes with +two good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends make me more pleased and +vain than all your luxury.'" + +"Why, then, you must now be sore out of countenance," Alison protested. +"For I am not good-natured and I vow Mr. Hadley is not cheerful." Mr. +Hadley's face, set in contemplation of the food, shed gloom and +apprehension. "But perhaps Mr. Boyce is ingenious." + +"I hope so," said Hadley. + +It was Harry's task to carve, which dispensed him from answering the +girl or even looking at her. One not abundant fowl and a calf's head +smoked before him. Under a heavy fire of directions from Lady Waverton +he did his duty. + +Miss Lambourne may have suddenly grown weary of Lady Waverton's eloquence +upon the daintiest bits of these unexciting foods. She may have been +waiting for the moment when Harry would have no occupation to prevent him +listening to her. While my lady was still explaining the superiority of +her calf, as bred and born in the house of Waverton, to all other calves, +just when Harry had finished his work, Miss Lambourne broke out: "Faith, +I was almost forgetting my splendid story. I wonder, now, have any of you +met any ventures on the North Road?" + +Harry began to eat. Charles Hadley ceased an anxious examination of his +plate and looked at her. Lady Waverton cried out: "Dear Alison! Don't +tell me you have been stopped. Too terrible! I vow I could never bear it. +I should die of shame. They tell me these rogues are vilely impudent to a +fine woman." + +Geoffrey exhibited a tender agitation. "Why, Alison, what is it? Zounds, +I cannot have you go travelling alone! You must give me news when you +make a journey, and I'll ride with you." + +"Thank you for your agonies. But the virgin in distress found her +knight-errant duly provided. He rose out of the mud romantically apropos. +To be sure, I think he was mad. But that is all in the part. The complete +hero. Geoffrey, could you be a little mad?" + +"More than a little," said he with proper ardour. "Pray don't torture us, +Alison. Let us hear." + +"It's on my mind that I am going to hear news of my funny friend," said +Hadley solemnly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry, who had been eating with the humble zeal appropriate to a poor +scholar, looked up for a moment: "Why, sir, I can't tell at all. If you +say so, indeed--" and he went on eating. + +"Come, are you in it too, Mr. Hadley?" Alison cried. + +"In it, odds life, I am bewilderingly out of it," quoth Hadley, and again +told his tale of the mysterious man found tied up in the mud who knew +nothing of his assailants and wanted no vengeance on them. + +"That's our Benjamin," Alison laughed. "Oh, but you did not let him go?" + +"Not let him go, quotha! For what I know, he was a poor, suffering +martyr, though to look at his nose, I doubt it. And yet he was fool +enough. Nay, how could I stay him?" + +"Why, send him to gaol for a rogue and a vagabond. Should he not?" she +invited the suffrages of the table. + +"Dear Alison, to be sure, yes," Lady Waverton murmured. "These fellows +must be put down." + +"You owed it to yourself to look deeper into the matter, Charles," said +Geoffrey gravely. + +"Come, Mr. Boyce, your sentence too," Alison cried, wicked eyes +intent upon him. + +He met them with bland meekness. "Indeed, ma'am, I can't tell. It's Mr. +Hadley's affair." + +"From a virtuous woman, good Lord deliver us," Hadley groaned. "You would +make a rare hanging judge, Alison. Now, i' God's name, let's have your +tale. What's the rogue to you?" + +"Oh, sir, a great joy. Why, he gave me the only knight-errant ever I had. +A vile muddy one, to be sure, but poor maids must not be choosers. We +were driving home, Mrs. Weston and I, and by Black Horse Spinney we were +stopped by two highwaymen. They had just begun to be rude, when out of +the mud comes my knight-errant, bold as Don Quixote and as shabby withal, +and with a pretty wit too--which is not much in the way of +knight-errants, I think. He scared the highwaymen's horses and set them +bolting with the one fellow which held them, then he knocked the other +down, took his pistol, and tied the rogue up in his own garters. Oh, the +neatest knight-errant ever you saw. Then we bade him put the fellow on +the box and drive on with us. But monsieur was haughty, if you please. He +wanted none of our company. Off he packed us, for me to cry my eyes out +for love of him. Which I do heartily, I warrant you." + +"Alison!" Geoffrey cried, and laid his hand on hers. + +"Faith, yes, give me sympathy. I have loved and lost--in the mud. To be +sure, I can ne'er be my own woman again till I find him and give him--a +brush, I think, and maybe a pair of breeches too, for his own can never +recover their youth. Dear Geoffrey, help me to find him." + +Geoffrey had taken his hand away in a hurry. He contemplated her with +cold reproof. It did not trouble her. She was giving all her attention to +Harry; gay, malicious eyes challenged him to declare himself, mocked him +for his modesty, vaunted what she had to give. + +"Damme, this is madder and madder yet," Hadley broke in. "Who is your +Orlando Furioso that's a champion of dames and too haughty to ride in +their carriage; that ties up highwaymen and forgets to tell the constable +where he left 'em? Odso, I thought I knew most of the fools in these +parts, but there's one bigger than I know." + +"Dear Alison--I could never have survived it--but you are so strong--and +what a person! My dear, I could not bear to think of him. A rude, low +fellow, to be sure," Thus Lady Waverton coherently. + +Alison laughed. "I doubt I'm not so delicate," Then she leaned towards +Harry. "Well, and you? Come, Mr. Boyce, why leave yourself out?" + +"I beg pardon, ma'am?" + +She made an impatient sound. "And what do you think of my hero?" + +"I wonder who the gentleman was, ma'am," Harry said. + +Her eyes fought a moment more with his bland, meaningless face. "Faith, I +think he's a fool for his pains," said she. + +"Grateful woman," Hadley grunted. "Humph. _Spretae injuria formae_, ain't +it, Mr. Boyce? Give miss a construe." + +Harry gave a deprecating cough instead. + +"Oh, be brave, sir," she jeered. + +"I am afraid it means 'the insult of slighting your beauty,' ma'am," said +Harry meekly. + +Lady Waverton straightened her back and looked ice at him. But the +butler was at her elbow, whispering. "Colonel Boyce?" she repeated. "What +Colonel Boyce? Who is Colonel Boyce? + +"It might be my father," Harry suggested. + +"Why, Harry, I never knew you had a father," Waverton sneered amiably. + +"Is your father a colonel?" Lady Waverton was torn between incredulity of +such presumption and rage at it. + +"Not that I know of, my lady. But he has always surprised me." + +"Shall we have him in, Geoffrey?" said Lady Waverton. + +"My dear mother!" Geoffrey waved his hand to the butler. "Ask the +gentleman to be so good as to join us." + +Mr. Hadley turned in his chair, and over the remnants of the fowl and the +calf's head directed a grim smile at Harry. "Thank you for a very +pleasant dinner," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + +There came in a man of many colours. Dazzled eyes, recovering from their +first dismay, might admit that his splendours were harmonious. A red coat +with gold buttons, a waistcoat of gold satin embroidered in blue, +breeches of blue velvet with golden garters were topped by a face burnt +brown and a great jet-black periwig. He carried off all this with airy +ease. "My lady, your most humble and devoted," he bowed to Lady Waverton. +"Harry, dear lad," he held out his hands, and Harry, rising, found +himself embraced and kissed on both cheeks. + +"Colonel Boyce is it?" said Lady Waverton with some emphasis on +the title. + +"In the service of your ladyship," he laughed, and bowed to her again, +and turned upon the company. "Pray present me, dear lady." She made +some stumbling about it, but Colonel Boyce appeared to enjoy himself +with an "I account myself fortunate, ma'am," for Miss Lambourne; with a +"My boy's friends are mine, sir--and his debts too," for Geoffrey; and +to Mr. Hadley, "You have served, sir?" with a look of respect at the +empty sleeve. + +Hadley nodded. "Ay, ay. The red field of honour. Well, there's no +life like it." + +"That's why I left it," Hadley grunted. + +"Come, sir, draw up a chair and join us," Geoffrey said. "Be sure you are +very welcome." + +"Ten thousand thanks." Without enthusiasm Colonel Boyce looked at the +calf's head. "But--egad, I am sorry for it now--but I have dined." + +"At least you'll drink a glass of wine with us?" + +"Oh, I can't deny myself the pleasure, sir." He drew up a chair, Geoffrey +reached at a decanter, and so Lady Waverton rose and Alison after her. + +Colonel Boyce started up. "But no--not at that price. Damme, that would +poison the Prince's own Tokay. Nay, you are too cruel, my lady. I come, +and you desolate the table to receive me. Gad's life, ma'am, our friends +here will be calling me out for my daring to exist." + +Lady Waverton was very well pleased. "Sir, you will let me give you a +dish of tea. I warrant the men were already sighing to be rid of us." + +"Then I vow they be blind," quoth Colonel Boyce, and opened the door, +from which he came back with a laugh to his glass of port. Over drinking +it he went through all the tricks of the connoisseur and ended with a +cultured ecstasy. + +"I see you are a man of the world, Colonel," Hadley sneered. + +"A man of many worlds, sir," the Colonel laughed easily. + +"I wonder which this is?" + +"Why, this is the world of good company and good fellowship--" he smiled +and bowed to Geoffrey--"of sound wine and sound learning." + +"Sir, you are very good. But I hope my wine is better than my +scholarship. This is our man of learning," he slapped Harry on the +shoulder. "And Harry counts me a mere trifler, a literary exquisite, an +amateur of elegances." + +"If your scholarship has the elegance of your wine, Mr. Waverton, you do +very well. I doubt my Harry is no judge of the graces. He has always been +something of a plodder." + +"Have I?" Harry found his tongue. "How did you know?" + +The Colonel laughed. "He has me there, the rogue. The truth is, +gentlemen, I have not seen him in these six years. Damme, Harry, you are +grown no fatter." + +"Servitors don't make flesh," said Harry. + +"And soldiers don't make money. Still; there's enough for two now, boy." + +"I am glad you have been fortunate," the tone suggested that though +the father had quite enough for two; there would be none to spare +for the son. + +"Why, sir," Waverton was grandly genial, "I hope you don't mean to rob me +of Harry. He's the most useful fellow, and, I promise you; I value him." + +"Thank you very much," said Harry. + +"I'll take you into my confidence, Mr. Waverton," the Colonel leaned +across the table. + +"Then I'll take my leave," said Hadley. + +"No need, sir. At this time, we all know, there are higher claims on a +man than a friend's or a father's." + +"I feel like a pawn," Harry complained. + +"Egad, sir, a pawn may save a queen or check a king." + +"But do you suppose it enjoys it?" + +"Are you away to the war, sir?" Geoffrey smiled. "I doubt our Harry has +no turn for soldiering." + +"You are always right, Mr. Waverton," Harry nodded at him. + +"It is not only soldiers who fight our battles, Mr. Waverton," said the +Colonel with dignity. "There's danger enough for a quick wit and a cool +judgment far behind the lines. And you need not go to Flanders to find +the war. It's flaming all over England, all over--France," he dropped the +last word in a lower tone, as if his heat had carried him away and it was +a blunder. He flung himself back and emptied his glass, and looked +gloomily at the empty decanter. "Why, Mr. Waverton, you have made me into +a babbler. It's time you delivered me to the ladies." + +"Aye, aye," Hadley yawned. "Let's try another of the worlds." + +They marched out, but the Colonel and Waverton, waiting on each other, +were some distance behind the other pair. + +"You must know I have often had some desire for the life of action," said +Mr. Waverton. + +To which the Colonel earnestly, "I have never known a man more fit for +it," and upon that they entered my lady's drawing-room. + +Miss Lambourne was singing Carey's song of the nightingale: + +"While in a Bow'r with beauty blest + The lov'd Amintor lies, +While sinking on Lucinda's breast + He fondly kiss'd her Eyes. +A wakeful nightingale who long + Had mourn'd within, the Shade +Sweetly renewed her plaintive song + And warbled through the Glade." + +On the coming of the men the wakeful nightingale broke off her plaintive +song abruptly. + +Lady Waverton, who was again at full length on her couch, then opened +her eyes. "Delicious, delicately delicious," she sighed. "Why did you +stop, dear?" she controlled a yawn. "Oh, the men! Odious creatures!" she +rose on her elbow and looked at them, and looked down at her dress and +patted it. + +Colonel Boyce accepted the challenge briskly, and marched upon her. +"Egad, my lady, your name is cruelty." + +"Who--I, sir? I vow I never had the heart to see any creature suffer." + +"Nay, your very nature is cruelty. You exist but to torture us." + +"Good lack, sir," says my lady, well pleased, "and must I die to serve +your pleasure?" + +"Why, there it is. We can neither bear to be with you nor to be without +you. I protest, ma'am, your sex was made for our torture. 'Tis why you +parade it and delight in it." + +"Lud, sir, you are mighty rude," my lady simpered. "I parade my sex? +Alack, my modesty!" + +"Modesty--that's but another weapon to madden us. Fie, ma'am, why do you +clothe yourself in such beauty but to flaunt upon our senses that sex of +yours?" My lady was duly shocked and hid behind her fan. "Aye, there it +is! We catch a whiff of paradise and straightway it is denied us. Our +nightingale there is silent when we draw near. Our Venus here hides +herself when our eyes would enjoy her. As His Grace said to me, you women +are like heaven to a damned soul." + +"You are a wicked fellow," said Lady Waverton with relish. + +Geoffrey at his elbow put in, "'His Grace,' Colonel?" + +"The Old Corporal, Mr. Waverton. The Duke of Marlborough." + +"You have served with him, sir?" + +Colonel Boyce gave a laugh of genial condescension. "Why, yes, Mr. +Waverton, I stand as close to His Grace as most men." + +After a moment of impressive silence, the Wavertons vigorously directed +the conversation to the Duke of Marlborough. Colonel Boyce made no +objection. In the most obliging manner he admitted them to a piquant +intimacy with His Grace's manners and customs. He mingled things personal +and high politics with a fascinating air of letting out secrets at every +word; and, throughout, he maintained a tantalizing discretion about his +own position. My lady and Mr. Waverton were more and more fascinated. + +So that Miss Lambourne had good opportunity to try her maiden steel upon +Harry. As soon as he came in, he withdrew himself to a cabinet of medals +in a remote corner. Mr. Hadley approached the harpsichord and reached it +just before it fell silent. Miss Lambourne looked up into his face. + +"Yes, shall we lay our heads together?" said he. + +"But I doubt mine would turn yours." + +"If you'll risk it, ma'am, I will." + +"La, sir, is this an offer? I protest I am all one blush." + +"Then your imagination is bolder than mine, ma'am. I mean--" + +"Oh, fie for shame! To disgrace a poor maid so! To betray her weakness! +It is unmanly, Mr. Hadley. Sure, my father (in the general resurrection) +will have your blood. I leave you to your conscience, sir," which she +did, making for Harry. + +Mr. Hadley, remaining by the harpsichord, contemplated them, and with his +one hand caressed his chin. "It's a fascinating family, the family of +Boyce," said he to himself. + +Miss Lambourne sat herself down beside Harry before he chose to be aware +of her coming. He started up and obsequiously drew away. + +"You are very coy, Mr. Boyce," said the lady. + +Harry replied, with the servile laughter of a dependent, "Oh, ma'am, you +are mocking me." + +"Tit for tat"--Alison's eyes had some fire in them. + +"Tat, ma'am?" + +"Lud, now, don't be tedious. Sir, the house of Waverton is entranced by +your splendid father: and Charles Hadley (as usual) is entranced by +himself. You have no audience Mr. Boyce. Stop acting, and tell me--what +is wrong with me?" + +Harry considered her with calm criticism. "It's not for me to tell Miss +Lambourne that she is too beautiful." + +"Indeed, I thought you had more sense." + +"Too beautiful," Harry persisted deliberately; "too beautiful to be +good company." + +"That will not serve, sir. You are not so inflammable. Being more in the +nature of a tortoise." + +"If you had a flaw or so: if your nose had a twist; if your cheeks had +felt the weather; if--I fear, ma'am, I grow intimate. In fine, if you +were less fine, you would be a comfort to a man. But as it is--permit the +tortoise to keep in his shell." + +"I advise you, Mr. Boyce--I resent this." + +Harry bowed. "I dare to remind you, ma'am--I did not demand the +conversation." + +"The conversation!" Her eyes flashed. "What do I care if a lad's +impudent? Perhaps I like it well enough, Mr. Boyce. There is more than +that between you and me. You have done me something of a service, and +you'll not let me avow it nor pay you. Well?" + +"Well, ma'am, you're telling the truth," said Harry placidly. + +The lady made an exclamation. "I shall bear you a grudge for this, sir." + +"I am vastly obliged, ma'am." + +The lady drew back a little and looked at him full, which he bore +calmly. "I suppose I am beneath Mr. Boyce's concernment." + +"Not beneath, ma'am. Above. Above. Do you admire the Italian medals? +They are of a delicate restraint," He turned to the cabinet and began +to lecture. + +Miss Lambourne was not repulsed. He maintained a steady flow of +instruction. She waited, watching him. + +By this time Colonel Boyce was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough +and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard +road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You were born +with yours." + +"I conceive, sir, that every man of high spirit must needs take the +road to fame." + +"A dream of a shadow, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel, with melancholy +grandeur. "'Take the goods the gods provide you,'" he waved his hand at +the crowded opulence of the room and then, smiling paternally, at Miss +Lambourne. + +Lady Waverton simpered at her son. He chose to ignore the hint. +"Why, Colonel, if a man is happily placed above vulgar needs, the +more reason--" + +"Vulgar needs! Oh, fie, Mr. Waverton. A divine creature." Colonel +Boyce looked wicked, and his easy hand designed in the air Miss +Lambourne's shape. + +Lady Waverton tittered. Geoffrey blushed, and "You do me too much honour +sir, indeed," he stammered. + +Colonel Boyce turned smiling upon Lady Waverton. "I vow, ma'am, a man +hath twice the modesty of a maid." + +"You are a bad fellow," said Lady Waverton, very well pleased. + +"You go too fast, sir;" with so much mirth about him Geoffrey feared for +his dignity. "There is nothing between me and Miss Lambourne." + +The Colonel shook his head. "I confess I thought better of you, sir. +What, is miss her own mistress?" + +"Miss Lambourne has no father or mother, sir." + +"And her face is her fortune? Egad, 'tis the prettiest romance!" + +Geoffrey and his mother laughed together. "Not quite all her fortune, +sir. She is the only child of Sir Thomas Lambourne." + +"What! old Tom Lambourne of the India House?" Colonel Boyce whistled. He +looked with a new interest at her as she stood by Harry, absorbing the +lecture on medals, and as he looked his face put on a queer air of +mockery. This he presented to Geoffrey. "Something of a plum, sirrah. +Well, well, some folks have but to open their mouths." + +Mr. Waverton, not quite certain whether the Colonel ought to be so +familiar, concluded to be pleased, and laughed fatuously. During which +music the butler announced "Mrs. Weston." + +Lady Waverton and Geoffrey exchanged a glance of disgust. Lady Waverton +murmured, "What a person!" It escaped their notice that Colonel Boyce had +stiffened at the name. His full face lost all its geniality, all +expression. He was for the first time singularly like his son. + +Mrs. Weston was Alison's companion of the coach, a woman of middle age, +inclining to be stout; but her face was thin and lined, belying her +comfortable aspect,--a wistful face which had known much sorrow, and had +still much tenderness to give. + +Lady Waverton put out a languid and supercilious hand. "I hope you +are better." + +"Thank you. I have not been ill." + +"Oh, I always forget." + +"Your servant, ma'am." Geoffrey bowed. + +"Oh,"--Lady Waverton turned on her elbow. "Colonel Boyce--Mrs. Weston, +Alison's companion. Faith, duenna, I think." + +"Your most obedient, ma'am." Colonel Boyce bowed low. + +Mrs. Weston stared at him, seemed to try to speak, said nothing, and +hurried across the room. + +"Alison, dear, are you ready?" her voice sounded hoarse. + +"Am I ever ready?" Alison laughed. "Weston, dear, we are finding friends +here;" she pointed to Harry. + +Colonel Boyce had followed. He laid his hand on Harry's shoulder: "My +son, ma'am," said he. + +Mrs. Weston's eyes grew wide, and her face was white and drawn, and she +swayed. As Harry bowed to her, a lacquered box was swept off the table +with a great clatter, and Colonel Boyce cried, "Odds life, Harry, you are +a clumsy fellow. Here, man, here," and made a great commotion over +picking it up. + +Alison had her arm about Mrs. Weston: "Why, Weston, dear, what is it? Are +you seeing a ghost?" She laughed. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, come to life." + +"I ask pardon, ma'am." Harry rose with the box. + +"'Bid me to live and I will live,'" said the Colonel, with a grand air. + +"Come away, dear, come," Mrs. Weston gasped, in much agitation. + +"Why, Weston, he is not our highwayman, you know," Alison was still +laughing, and then seeing her distress real, took it in earnest. "You are +shaken, poor thing. Come!" She mothered the woman away and, turning, +called over her shoulder-- + +"_Revanche_, Mr. Boyce." There was an explanation to Lady Waverton: poor +Weston had been so alarmed by the highwaymen that she was not fit to be +out of her bed, and anything alarmed her; even Mr. Boyce; so dear Lady +Waverton must forgive them. And Geoffrey took them to their carriage. + +"What a person!" said Lady Waverton. + +Mr. Hadley came out of his corner and looked Harry up and down with +dislike. "Let me know when you play the next act, Mr. Boyce," he +said, and turned to Lady Waverton. "My lady, I beg leave to go with +my friends." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + +In a small, bare room Colonel Boyce sat himself down on a pallet bed and +made a wry face at his son. "My poor, dear boy," he said, and shifted +uneasily, and looked round at the stained walls and shivered. "It's damp, +I vow it's damp," he complained. + +"Oh yes. It's damp after rain, and it's hot after sun, and it's icy after +frost. It's a very sympathetic room," said Harry. + +"They are barbarians, these Wavertons. I vow they give their horses +better lodging." + +"Oh yes. I am not worth so much as a horse," said Harry. + +"Lud, Harry, don't whine,"--his father was irritated. "Have some spirit. +I hate to hear a lad meek." + +"I thought you did," said Harry. + +The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I am bit, am I? _Tant mieux_. But why the devil +do you stay here?" + +"Now why the devil do you want to know?" said Harry. + +"No, that is not kind, boy." + +"Oh, Oh, are we kind?" + +"My dear Harry, I have not seen you for six years, and I have not come +now to quarrel." + +"Then why have you come?" said the affectionate son. + +"You are a gracious cub." Colonel Boyce would not be ruffled. "When I saw +you last, Harry--" + +"You borrowed a shilling of me. I remember I was glad that I had +not another." + +"You can have it back with interest now. There is plenty in the purse, +Harry, and half of all mine is yours." + +"You have changed," Harry said. "Odds life, Harry, bear no grudges. I +dare say I was hard in what you remember of me. Well, things were hard +upon me and I lived hard. You shall find me mellow enough now." + +"Hard? I don't know that you were hard. I thought you were as cold as +ice. I believe, sir, I am still frozen." + +"Egad, Harry, you must have had a curst childhood." + +"Oh, must we be sympathetic?" said Harry. + +"You're right, boy. The past is past. 'Tis your future which is the +matter. So again--why do you stay here?" + +Harry laughed. "They give me bed and board, and a shilling or two by +the month." + +"Bed?" His father shifted upon it. "A bag of stones, I think. And for the +board--bread of affliction and water of affliction by what I saw of the +remains. Egad, Harry, they are savages, these Wavertons." + +"I did not hear you say so to madame. And Geoffrey is not a bad fellow +as far as he has understanding." + +"A dolt, eh? He might take a woman's eye, though. These big dreamy +fellows, the women hanker after them queerly. Take care, Harry." He +looked knowing. "Bed and board--bah, you can do better than that. Now +what do you think I have been doing?" + +"Something profitable, to judge by your genial splendours. Have you +turned highwayman?" + +"You all talk about highwaymen in this house," said the Colonel with a +frown and a keen glance. + +"Damme, no." + +"Why, are you really a colonel?" + +"Faith, you may come see my commission,"--Colonel Boyce was not +annoyed,--"and, egad, share my pay." He pulled out a fat purse and thrust +some guineas upon Harry. "Don't deny me now, boy," he said, with some +tenderness. + +"I never meant to," said Harry, and counted them. "But how long have you +been a soldier? I never knew you were anything." + +"I have been with his Grace of Marlborough in every campaign since +Blenheim. Do you think it's a good service, Harry?" he smiled at his +own opulence. + +"For a versatile man," said Harry, and looked at his father curiously. + +"Why, I can take the field as well as another. Egad, when Vendome fell +back from Oudenarde I was commanding a battalion. But it is not in the +field that my best work is done." + +"Faith, I had guessed that," Harry said. + +"You have a sharp tongue, Harry. It's a dangerous weakness. Be careful +to grow out of it. Then I think you may do well enough." + +"In your profession, sir? To be sure, you flatter me." + +"In my profession--" His father looked at him keenly. "I am not sure. +Maybe you can do better, which will be well enough. Now, what can you do? +You can use a sword, I suppose, though you wear none?" + +Harry shrugged. "I know the rigmarole, the salutes; I could begin a duel, +_par exemple_. It's the other man who would end it." + +"Duels--bah, only dolts are troubled with them. You must learn to hold +your own in a flurry. You can ride, I suppose?" + +"If the beast has a mane." + +"Humph. You speak French?" + +"As we speak it in England." + +"Yes." His father nodded. "When a man is no fool, he finds his profit in +not doing things too well. Well, Harry, are you Whig or Tory--Jacobite or +Hanoverian?" + +"Whichever you like, sir." + +"By the Lord, you take after me mightily. Now look 'e, thus it is. The +Queen grows old. She eats too well and drinks too well, and she has the +gout. It's common among all who know her ways that she cannot last long. +The poor soul will not be wise at dinner. But even if she should last, we +are in an odd case. For Anne hath a conscience as well as a stomach, and +it seems they grow together. As the old lady gets fatter, she feels +remorse. When she's tearful after dinner now she asks her women what +right she has to be queen and keep a good cellar while her poor +half-brother Prince James lives in exile on _vin ordinaire_." + +Harry shrugged his shoulders. "'Poor, dear lad,' says she, 'and to +be sure I am a sad, bad woman. But I think I'll die a queen.' What +then, sir?" + +"I don't say you are wrong, Harry. She's more like to drown the lad in +tears than right him. And meanwhile our rightful king, James the +Pretender, is left to his _vin ordinaire_. Faith, it's a proper liquor, +for rightful heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a +chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath +religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. But here is +what's more likely. You know when an old fellow hath played the knave +with some wardship or some matter of trust, often he holds fast to it all +his life and then seeks to commend himself to the day of judgment by +bequeathing his spoils to those from whom he stole them. Well, it's +whispered among them that know her that Madame Anne will do her possible +to make Prince James King when she is gone." + +"A dead Queen is but a corpse," said Harry. "When she is gone 'twill not +be for her to say who shall reign." + +"That's half a truth. You know the law is so that Prince George of +Hanover should be the King. About him no man knows anything save that he +hath a vile taste in women. I do suspect Marlborough is in the right--he +has a nose for men--when he saith there is nought to know. Well, we +tried a Dutchman once for our King and liked him ill enough. Who is to +say that we shall like a German better? Now Prince James--he is half an +Englishman at least, though they say he has his father's weakness for +priests. I'll not hide from you, Harry, that I am in the confidence of +some great men. It's laid upon me to go to France with an errand to +Prince James." + +"I suppose that is high treason, sir." + +Colonel Boyce smiled queerly. "You see how I trust you, Harry. Bah, you +are not frightened of words. Who is the worse for it, if I find out +what's Monsieur's temper and how he would bear himself if he were King?" + +"And what he would pay any kind gentlemen who chose to turn +Jacobites apropos." + +"If you like." Colonel Boyce laughed. I promise you, Harry, there are +great men in this. Now I need a trusty fellow to my right hand: a fellow +who can talk and say nothing: a fellow who is in no service but mine: and +all the better if he hath some learning to play the secretary. So I +thought of you. And since it may carry you to something of note, I chose +you with right good will." + +"Do you wonder that you surprise me?" + +"I profess you're not generous, Harry. It's true enough, I have done +little for you yet. But the truth is I could do nothing. As soon as I +have it in my power, I come to you--" + +"And offer me--a game at hazard." + +"Why, Harry, you're not a coward?" + +"Faith, I can't tell. Perhaps I will go with you. But I have no +expectation in it." + +"I suppose you have some here," his father sneered. "What do they call +you? You seem to be something better than Master Geoffrey's valet and a +good deal worse than my lady's footman." + +"Why, I believe you have lost your temper." Harry laughed. "Oh, admirable +sight! Pray let me enjoy it! The father rages at his son's ingratitude!" + +But Colonel Boyce had quickly recovered his equanimity. "They used to +tell me that I was a cold fellow. But I vow you are a very fish. So you +have half a mind to stay here, have you? Well, I bear no malice." + +"It is only half a mind," Harry said. "Are you in a hurry?" + +"Oh, you may sleep on it. Damme, I suppose there is little to do here but +sleep. What does Master Geoffrey want with you? He is old to keep a tame +schoolmaster." + +"I listen to his poetry." + +"Oh Lud!" said Colonel Boyce, with sincere sympathy. "I suppose they are +wealthy folk, your Wavertons. Do they keep much company?" Harry shrugged. +"Who is this Mrs. Weston?" + +"I never saw her before." Harry paused, and then with a laugh +added--"before yesterday." + +"That's a fine woman, her mistress. Do you do anything in that +quarter, sirrah?" + +"Why should you think so?" + +"She was willing enough that you should try." + +"She is meat for my betters," said Harry meekly. + +"For Master Geoffrey?" The Colonel looked knowing. "Do you know, Harry, I +think Master Geoffrey is a pigeon made to be plucked. Well. What was the +pretty lady's talk about highwaymen?" + +Harry looked at his father for some time. "The truth is, I don't +understand Benjamin," he said at last. "I wonder if you will. Faith, sir, +here is a pretty piece of family life. The good son confides in his +father alone of all the world." + +"Go on, sir," Colonel Boyce chuckled. "I play fair." + +So Harry told his tale of Benjamin and Benjamin's companion and their +disaster. It was that appearance in the crisis of the fight of other +gentlemen on horseback which most interested Colonel Boyce. "So they went +in pursuit of the fellow who had fled and they never came back again." He +looked quizzically at his son. "These be very honest gentlemen." + +"Why, sir, I thought nothing of that. They were plainly travelling at +speed. I suppose they missed him, and had no time to waste in searching." + +"Then why o' God's name did he not come back to help his fellow? He was +mounted, he was armed, and only you and your cudgel against him. Bah, +Harry, do not be an innocent. Consider: these fellows went after him at +speed. He cannot have been far away. It is any odds that he had his +bolting horses in hand before he had gone two furlongs. Then--allow him +some sense--then he must have turned and come back for his friend. And +then these other honest gentlemen swept down on him. Well. Why have you +heard no more of them or him?" + +"Faith, sir, you are right," Harry conceived for the first time some +admiration for his father. "I had missed that: and, egad, it is the chief +question of the puzzle. But--" + +"Puzzle! Oh Lud, there's no puzzle. They were all one gang, these +fellows." + +Harry laughed. "Then there was not much honour among the thieves. They +abandoned their Benjamin to me with delight." + +"Ah, bah, you do not suppose they were out for such small game as your +pretty miss. They would not work in a gang to stop a simple, common +coach, be it never so rich. Come, Harry, use your wits. Did you hear of +any great folks on the road yesterday?" + +Harry made an exclamation. "Odds life, sir, you would make a great +thief-catcher. You have hit it. There was your friend, the Duke of +Marl-borough, stuck in the mud below Barnet Hill." And he told that part +of the story. + +"Humph. So they came too late," his father said. "You see how it is. This +gang was charged to stop his Grace, and was something slow about it. The +two first, your Benjamin and his friend, I suppose they should have held +the Duke's fellows in play till the others came up. They missed him, or +they shirked it, and instead, tried to stay their stomachs with some +common game. The rest of the gang would be well enough pleased that you +should baste Benjamin while they hurried on after the Duke. Did you mark +any of them, what like they were?" + +"Not I. I was too busy with Benjamin." + +"And your pretty miss, eh? A pity. But it's well enough for your +first affair." + +"First? Why, am I to spend my life tumbling with gentlemen of the road?" + +"And a profitable, pleasant life too, if you use your wits." + +Harry opened his eyes. "Do you know it well, sir? Now, what I don't +understand is why a gang of highwaymen should appoint to set upon the +Duke of Marlborough. It's dangerous, to be sure--" + +"You will understand why, if you come to France," said Colonel Boyce, +with a queer smile. "There be many would pay high for a sight of his +Grace's private papers," and he laughed to himself over some joke. "Nay, +but you have done very well, Harry," he condescended. "I like this +business of leaving Benjamin tied up on the road. 'Tis damned nonsense, +to be sure, but it has an air, a distinction. Your pretty miss will like +that. And I judge you have not told the Wavertons you were the hero, nor +let miss tell them. 'Tis your little secret for yourselves. A good touch, +Harry. Odds life, I begin to be proud of you. I suppose you will soon go +pay your respects--to Mrs. Weston." He laughed heartily. + +Harry was not amused. "Do you know, I think I like you much less than you +like me," he said. + +Colonel Boyce seemed very well content. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + +Colonel Boyce was established in the house, a guest of high honour. + +Harry, dazed at the mere fact, could not be very sure how it had happened +or why. The Wavertons, mother and son, had assaulted the Colonel with +hospitality--for a night--for another--for longer and longer--and he, +appearing at first honestly dubious, remained with a benign +condescension. + +There is no doubt that, in an honourable way, Lady Waverton was +fascinated by Colonel Boyce. She saw nothing coarse in his +highly-coloured manners, suspected no guile in his flattery or his parade +of importance. Harry, who had never supposed her a wise woman, was +surprised by her complete surrender. He had credited her with too much +pride to succumb to flattery, which was to his taste impudently gross. +But he was not yet old enough to allow that other folks might have tastes +wholly unlike his own, and he had himself--it is perhaps the only trait +of much delicacy in him--a shrinking discomfort under praise. + +Colonel Boyce took his victory with a complacency which Harry thought +oddly fatuous in a man so acute. + +"Egad, the old lady would go to church with me to-morrow if I asked her;" +he laughed, and seemed to think that in that at least my lady showed +sense. + +"You had better take her, sir," said Harry, with a sneer. "I know she has +a good dower. And a fool and her money are soon parted." + +"Damme, Harry, you are venomous!" For the first time in their +acquaintance Colonel Boyce showed some signs of smarting. "What harm have +I done you? No, sir, you have a nasty tongue. I intend the old lady no +harm, neither. What if she has a tenderness for me? I suppose that does +not make me a fool." + +"To be sure, sir, I did not know your affection was serious." Harry +laughed disagreeably. + +"I believe you would not miss a chance to say a bitter thing though it +ruined you, Lud, Harry, if you can't be grateful, don't be a fool too. +What a pox are your Wavertons to me? I don't value them a pinch of snuff. +What I am doing, I am doing for you. You know what you were when I found +you--no better than a footman out of livery. Now, they treat you like a +gentleman." + +"And all for the _beaux yeux_ of my father. Well, it's true, sir. But I +don't know that I like any of us much the better for it." + +To his great surprise his father looked at him with affectionate +admiration. "Egad, you take that tone very well," said he. "It's a good +card. Maybe it's the best with the women." + +Harry had to laugh. "I think you have the easiest temper in the +world, sir." + +"Aye, aye. It has been the ruin of me." + +And so they parted the best of friends. Indeed Harry had never liked his +father so well or felt so much his superior. Thus from age to age is +filial affection confirmed. + +But he had to allow some adroitness in his father. Not only Lady +Waverton, but Geoffrey too, succumbed to the paternal charms. That was +the more surprising. Geoffrey, behind his vanity and his affectation, was +no fool. He had also a temper apt to dislike any man who made a show of +position or achievement beyond his own. Yet he hung upon the lips of +Colonel Boyce. What they gave him was indeed a pleasing mixture--secrets +about great affairs flavoured with deference to his ingenious criticisms. +There was something solid about it, too. The Colonel, displaying himself +as a man of much importance, perpetually hinted that only the occasion +was needed for Mr. Waverton to surpass him by far, and to that occasion +he could point the way. It appeared to Harry that his father had in mind +to enlist Geoffrey for the proposed mission to France, or some other +scheme unrevealed. And being unable to see any reason for wanting +Geoffrey as a man, he suspected that his father wanted money. + +He saw clearly that nobody wanted him, and was therewith very well +content. At this time in his life he asked nothing better than to be left +alone with his whims and the open air. He covered many a mile of sticky +clay in these autumn days, placidly vacant of mind, and afterwards +accounted them the most comfortable of his life. + +Mr. Waverton's house was set upon a hill, at one end of a line of hills +which now look over the wilderness of London, falling steeply thereto, +and upon the other side, to northward and the open country, more gently. +In the epoch of Harry Boyce those hills were all woodland--pleasant +patches still remain,--and if the need of great walking was not upon him +he was often pleased to loiter through their thickets. It was on a wild +south-westerly day when the naked trees were at a loud chorus that Alison +came to him. + +The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak +and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of her shape. + +"'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried. + +"You're poetical, ma'am." + +"I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith, +I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?" + +"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?" + +"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows +why she runs after me." + +"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless +maid indeed which runs after a man"--she made him a curtsy. "But what is +the man who runs away from a maid?" + +Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The +rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet +more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep +water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the +wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed +the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did +you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled. + +"I allow you the privileges of a gentleman, Mr. Boyce." + +"Gentleman? Oh Lud, no, ma'am. I am an upper servant. Rather better than +the butler. Not so good as the steward." + +"It won't serve you, sir. You have insulted me, and I demand +satisfaction." She drew off her gauntleted glove and flicked him in the +face with it. "Now will you fight?" + +"Oh, must we slap and scratch then?" Harry flushed darker than the mark +of the glove. "I thought we had been fighting." + +Miss Lambourne laughed. "You can lose your temper then? It's something, +in fact. Yes, we have been fighting, sir, and you don't fight fair." + +"Who does with a woman?" Harry sneered. "I cry you mercy, ma'am. You are +vastly too strong for me. Let me alone and I ask no more of you." + +To which Miss Lambourne said, very innocently, "Why?" Harry looked up and +saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure +smile in the eyes. "Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done +me something of a great service. There was a man handling me--do you know +what that means? "--she made a wry face and gave herself a shaking +shudder--"You rid me of him, and with some risk to your precious skin. +Well, sir, I am grateful, and I want to show it. Odds life, I should be a +beast did I not. I want to thank you and to sing your praises--to +yourself also perhaps. And you are pleased to be a churl and a boor." + +"In effect," said Harry coolly. "Egad, ma'am, let me have the luxury of +hating you. For I am the Wavertons' gentleman usher and you are the +nonpareil Miss Lambourne, vastly rich and--" he ended with a shrug and +a rueful grin. + +"And--?" Miss Lambourne softly insisted. + +"And damnably lovely. Lord, you know that." + +"I thank God," said Miss Lambourne devoutly. + +"Is it true, Mr. Boyce--do the meek inherit the earth?" She held out her +hands to him, one bare, one gloved, she swayed a little towards him, and +her face was gentle and wistful. "Nay, sir, I ask your pardon. Call +friends if you please and will please me." + +Harry lost hold of himself at last. The blood surged in him, and he +caught at her and kissed her fiercely. + +It was he who was embarrassed. As he stood away from her, eyeing her with +a queer defiant shame, she smiled through a small matter of a blush, and +breathing quickly said: "What does it feel like, sir?" + +"The world's a miracle," Harry said unsteadily and would have caught +her again. + +She turned, she was away light of foot, and in a moment through the wind +he heard her singing to a tune of her own the child's rhyme: + +"Fly away, Jack, + Fly away, Jill, +Come again, Jack, + Come again, Jill." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + +Where the lane from Fortis Green crosses the high road there stood an +ale-house. On the wettest days, and some others, the place was Harry's +resort. Not that he had a liking for ale-house company--or indeed any +company. But within the precincts of the Wavertons' house tobacco was +forbidden and--all the more for that--tobacco he loved with a solid +devotion. The alehouse of the cross roads offered a clean floor, a clean +fire, air not too foul, a tolerable chair, a landlord who did not talk, +and until evening, sufficient solitude. There Harry smoked many pipes in +tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's +sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men +whom he more despised. Nobody in a position just better than menial can +be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's +_metier_. But Harry--it is one of his most noble qualities--bore being +laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of +a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt that it was sincere. He could +more easily have forgiven it if it had been hypocritical. A man had no +business to be so mighty honest. + +Mr. Hadley nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for +his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley +was civil enough to pass him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked +in grave silence. + +"So you are still with us," said Mr. Hadley. + +"By your good leave, sir." + +"I had an apprehension the Colonel was going to ravish you away." + +"I hope I am still of some use to Mr. Waverton." + +"Damme, you might be the old family retainer. 'Faithful service of the +antique world,' egad. I suppose you will end your days with Geoffrey, and +be buried at his feet like a trusty hound." + +"If you please, sir." + +They looked at each other. "Well, Mr. Boyce, I beg your pardon," Hadley +said. "But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man." + +"I do not desire it, sir." + +"I may hold my tongue and mind my own business, eh? Why not take me +friendly?" + +"I intend you no harm, Mr. Hadley." + +"That's devilish good of you, Mr. Boyce. To be plain with you, what do +you want here?" + +"Here? Oh Lord, sir, I come to smoke my pipe!" + +"And what if I come to smoke you? Odds life, I know you are no fool. Do +me the honour to take me for none. And tell me, if you please, why do you +choose to be Master Geoffrey's gentleman in waiting? You are good for +better than that, Mr. Boyce." + +"No doubt, sir. But it brings me bread and butter." + +"You could earn that fighting in Flanders." + +Harry shrugged. "I am not very brave, Mr. Hadley." + +"You count upon staying here, do you?" + +"If I can satisfy Mr. Waverton," said Harry meekly. + +Hadley's face grew harder. "I vow I do my best to wish you well, +Mr. Boyce. I should be glad to hear that you'll give up walking in +the woods." + +There was a moment of silence. "I did not know that I had asked for your +advice, sir." Harry said. "I am not grateful for it." + +"Damme, that's the first honest answer you have made," Hadley cried. +"Look 'e, Mr. Boyce, I am as much your friend as I may be. I have an +uncle which was the lady's guardian. If I said a word to him he would +carry it to Lady Waverton in a gouty rage. There would be a swift end of +Mr. Boyce the tutor. Well, I would not desire that. For all your airs, +I'll believe you a man of honour. And I ask you what's to become of Mr. +Boyce the tutor seeking private meetings with the Lambourne heiress? +Egad, sir, you were made for better things than such a mean business." + +"Honour!" Harry sneered. "Were you talking of men of honour? I suppose +there is good cover in the woods, Mr. Hadley." + +Hadley stared at him. "It was not good enough, you see, sir." He knocked +out his pipe and stood up. "Bah, this is childish. You don't think me a +knave, nor I you. I have said my say, and I mean you well." + +"I believe that, Mr. Hadley"--Harry met him with level eyes--"and I am +not grateful." + +"You know who she is meant for." + +"I know that the lady might call us both impudent." + +"Would that break your bones? Come, sir, the lady hath been destined for +Master Geoffrey since she had hair and never has rebelled." + +"Lord, Mr. Hadley, are you destiny?" + +Mr. Hadley let that by with an impatient shrug. "So if you be fool enough +to have ambitions after her, you would wear a better face in eating no +more of Master Geoffrey's bread." + +"It's a good day for walking, Mr. Hadley. Which way do you go? For I go +the other." + +"I hope so," Mr. Hadley agreed, and on that the two gentlemen parted, +both something warm. + +We should flatter him in supposing Harry Boyce of a chivalrous delicacy. +Whether the lady's fair fame might be the worse for him was a question of +which he never thought. It is certain that he did not blame himself for +using his place as Geoffrey's paid servant to damage Geoffrey in his +affections. And indeed you will agree that he was innocent of any +designed attack upon the lady. Yet Mr. Hadley succeeded in making him +very uncomfortable. + +What most troubled him, I conceive, was the fear of being ridiculous. The +position of a poor tutor aspiring to the favours of the heiress destined +for his master invites the unkind gibe. And Harry could not be sure that +Alison herself was free from the desire to make him a figure of scorn. +Such a suspicion might disconcert the most ardent of lovers. Harry +Boyce, whatever his abilities in the profession, was not that yet. But +the very fact that he had come to feel an ache of longing for Alison made +him for once dread laughter. If he had been manoeuvring for what he could +get by her, or if he had been merely taken by her good looks, he might +have met jeering with a brazen face. But she had engaged his most private +emotions, and to have them made ludicrous would be of all possible +punishments most intolerable. The precise truth of what he felt for her +then was, I suppose, that he wanted to make her his own--wanted to have +all of her in his power; and a gentleman whom the world--and the +lady--are laughing at for an aspiring menial cannot comfortably think +about his right to possess her. + +There was something else. He was not meticulously delicate, but he had a +complete practical sanity. He saw very well that even if Alison, by the +chance of circumstance, had some infatuation for him, she might soon +repent: he saw that even if the affair went with romantic success--a +thing hardly possible--his position and hers might be awkward enough. +Her friends would be long in forgiving either of them, and find ways +enough to hurt them both. Mr. Hadley, confound him, spoke the common +sense of mankind. + +There was one solution--that estimable father. By the time he came back +to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the +ambiguous banner of Colonel Boyce. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + +With grim irony Harry congratulated himself on his decision. When first +he came into the house he heard Alison singing. There was indeed (as he +told himself clearly) nothing wonderful about her voice--it resembled +the divine only in being still and small. Yet he could not (he called +himself still more clearly a fool) keep away from it, and so he slunk +into Lady Waverton's drawing-room. Only duty and stated hours were wont +to drag him there. Lady Waverton showed her appreciation of his unusual +attendance by staring at him across the massed trifles of the room with +sleepy and insolent amazement. But it was not the glassy eyes of Lady +Waverton which convinced Harry that flight was the true wisdom. Over +Alison at the harpsichord, Geoffrey hung tenderly: their shoulders +touched, eyes answered eyes, and miss was radiant. She sang at him with a +naughty archness that song of Mr. Congreve's: + +"Thus to a ripe consenting maid, +Poor old repenting Delia said, +Would you long preserve your lover? + Would you still his goddess reign? +Never let him all discover, + Never let him much obtain. + +Men will admire, adore and die +While wishing at your feet they lie; +But admitting their embraces + Wakes 'em from the golden dream: +Nothing's new besides our faces, + Every woman is the same." + +She contorted her own face into smug folly by way of illustration. Then +she and Geoffrey laughed together. "I vow you're the most deliciously +wicked creature that ever was born a maid." + +"D'ye regret it, sir? Faith, I could not well be born a wife." + +"No, ma'am, that's an honour to be won by care and pains." + +"Pains! Lud, yes, I believe that. But, dear sir, I reckon it the +punishment for folly. Why,"--she chose to see Harry--"why, here is our +knight of the rueful countenance!" + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "It is related of the Egyptians--" + +"God help us," Alison murmured. + +He went on, giggling. "It is related of the Ancient Egyptians that they +ever had a corpse among the guests at their feasts." + +"Were their cooks so bad?" said Alison. + +"To remind them that all men are mortal. Now you see why we keep Harry." + +"I wonder if he looked as happy when he was alive," said Alison, +surveying his wooden face. + +"_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the +dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't +like it known." + +Colonel Boyce, who had listened to the song and the first +coruscations of wit with the condescending smile of a connoisseur, +now exhibited some impatience. "Egad, Harry, why will you dress like +a parson out at elbows?" + +"His customary suit of solemn black," said Geoffrey. + +"He is in mourning for himself, of course," Alison laughed. + +"I have two suits of clothes, ma'am," said Harry meekly. "This is +the better." + +"Poor Harry!" Geoffrey granted him a look of protective affection. "I vow +we are too hard on him, Alison." And then in a lower voice for her +private ear. "A dear, worthy fellow, but--well, what would you have?--of +no spirit." Alison bit her lip. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton," Harry protested, "indeed, I am proud to be the cause +of such wit." + +Colonel Boyce stared at his son with an enigmatic frown. Alison's eyes +brightened. But Geoffrey suspected no guile. "Not witty thyself, dear +lad, but the cause of wit in others, eh? Odds life, Harry, you are +invaluable." + +"'Tis your kindness for me makes you think so, Mr. Waverton. And, to be +sure, I could ask no more than to amuse your lady." + +Alison said tartly, "Oh, it takes little to amuse me, sir." + +"I am sure, ma'am," Harry agreed meekly. + +"It's a happy nature." and he bowed to Geoffrey, humbly congratulating +him on a lady of such simple tastes. + +Geoffrey, who had now had enough of his good tutor, eliminated him by a +compliment or so on Alison's voice and the demand that she should sing +again. He found her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she +would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. +Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of +keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the +world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must +be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so +good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they were merely +his kind condescension. And, oh Lud, it was time she was gone, or poor, +dear Weston would be imagining her slaughtered on the highway. + +Geoffrey could not make much of this, but was pleased to take it as +flattering feminine homage to his magnificence. By way of reward, he +announced an intention of riding home with her carriage. "Faith, you are +too good"--her eyes were modestly hidden--"but then you are too good to +everybody. Is he not, Mr. Boyce?" + +"Oh, ma'am, we all practise on his kindness," Harry said. + +"A good night to your mourning," she said sharply, "dear Lady Waverton." +They kissed. "Colonel Boyce, I hold you to your promise." + +"With all my heart, ma'am. Your devoted." + +She was gone, and Harry, with a look of significance at his father, went +off too.... + +In that shabby upper chamber of his, Harry again offered the Colonel a +choice between the bed and the one chair. Colonel Boyce made a gesture +and an exclamation of impatience, and remained standing. "Now, what the +devil do you want with me?" he complained. + +"I want to be very grateful. I want to enlist with you. When shall +we start?" + +His father frowned, and in a little while made a crooked answer, "Do you +know, Harry, you are too mighty subtle. I was so at your years. It's very +pretty sport, but--well, it won't butter your parsnips. The women can't +tell what to make of it. Having, in general, no humour, pretty +creatures." + +"I am obliged for the sermon, sir. Shall we leave to-morrow?" + +"Egad, you are in a fluster," his father smiled. "Well, to be sure, he is +a teasing fellow, the beautiful Geoffrey." + +Harry made an exclamation. "You'll forgive me, sir, if I say you are +talking nonsense." + +"Oh Lud, yes," his father chuckled. + +"Whether I am agreeable to women, whether Mr. Waverton is agreeable to +me--odds life, sir, I don't trouble my head about such things. Pray, +why should you? As well sit down and cry because my eyes are not the +same colour." + +"No. No. There is something taking about that, Harry," his father +remonstrated placidly. + +"When you please to be in earnest, sir," Harry cried, "if this affair of +yours is in earnest--" "Oh, you may count on that." Colonel Boyce was +still enjoying himself. + +"Then I am ready for it. And the sooner the better." + +"Hurry is a bad horse. The truth is, something more hangs on this affair +than Mr. Harry's whims. Oh, damme, I don't blame you, though. He is +tiresome, our Geoffrey." + +"Why, sir, if we have to waste time, we might waste it more comfortably +than with the Waverton family. Shall we say to-morrow?" + +Colonel Boyce tapped his still excellent teeth. "Patience, patience," he +said, and considered his son gravely. "As for to-morrow, I have friends +to see, and so have you. Your pretty miss engaged me to ride over with +you to her house. And behind the brave Geoffrey's back, if you please. +She is a sly puss, Harry." He expected so obviously an angry answer that +Harry chose to disappoint him. + +"I shall be happy to take leave of Miss Lambourne. And shall I ride +pillion with you, sir? For I have no horse of my own." + +"Bah, dear Geoffrey will lend me the best in the stable." + +"I give you joy of the progress in his affections." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You are pledged for the forenoon then," he +paused. "And as to that little affair of mine--you shall know your part +soon enough." + +"It cannot be too soon, sir." + +"No." Colonel Boyce nodded. "I think it's full time." + +He took leave of his son with what the son thought superfluous +affection. + +Half an hour afterwards he was in Mr. Waverton's room--a place very +precious. Everything in it--and there were many things--had an air of +being strange. Mr. Waverton slept behind curtains of black and silver. +His floor was covered with some stuff like scarlet velvet. There was a +skull in the place of honour on the walls, flanked by two Venetian +pictures of the Virgin, and faced by a blowsy Bacchus and Ariadne from +Flanders. The chairs were of the newest Italian mode, designed rather to +carry as much gilding as possible than to comfort the human form. Colonel +Boyce, regarding them with some apprehension, stood himself before the +fire and waved off Geoffrey's effusive courtesy. + +"I hope you have good news for me, Mr. Waverton?" So he opened the +attack. + +"Why, sir, I have considered my engagements," Geoffrey said +magnificently. "I believe I could hold myself free for some months--if +the enterprise were of weight." + +"You relieve me vastly. I'll not disguise from you, Mr. Waverton, that I +am something anxious to secure you. I could not find a gentleman so well +equipped for this delicate business. You'll observe, 'tis of the first +importance that we should have presence, an air, the _je ne sais quoi_ of +dignity and family." + +"Sir, you are very obliging." Geoffrey swallowed it whole. + +"When I came here I confess I was at my wit's end. Indeed, I had a mind +to go alone. The gentlemen of my acquaintance--either they could not be +trusted with an affair of such value, or they had too much of our English +coarseness to be at ease with it. Faith, when I came to see my poor, dear +Harry, little I thought that in his neighbourhood I should find the very +man for my embassy." The two gentlemen laughed together over the +incompatibility of Harry with gentlemanly diplomacy. + +"Not but what Harry is a faithful, trusty fellow," said Mr. Waverton, +with magnificent condescension. + +"You are very good to say so. A dolt, sir, a dolt; so much the worse for +me. Now, Mr. Waverton, to you I have no need of a word more on the +secrecy of the affair. Though, to be sure, this very morning I had +another note from Cadogan--Marlborough's _ame damnee_ you know--pressing +it on me that nothing should get abroad. So when we go, we'll be off +without a good-bye, and if you must leave a word behind for the anxieties +of my lady, let her know that you are off with me to see the army in +Flanders." + +"I profess, Colonel, you are mighty cautious." + +"Dear sir, we cannot be too cautious in this affair. There's many a +handsome scheme gone awry for the sake of some affectionate farewell. +Mothers, wives, lady-loves--sweet luxuries, Mr. Waverton, but damned +dangerous. Now here's my plan. We'll go riding on an afternoon and not +come back again. Trust my servant to get away quietly with your baggage +and mine. We must travel light, to be sure. We'll go round London. I have +too many friends there, and I want none of them asking where old Noll +Boyce is off to now. Newhaven is the port for us. There is a trusty +fellow there has his orders already. I look to land at Le Havre. Now, the +Prince, by our latest news, is back at St. Germain. As you can guess, Mr. +Waverton, to be seen in Paris would suit my health even less than to be +seen in London. Too many honest Frenchmen have met me in the wars, and, +what's worse, too many of them know me deep in Marlborough's business. I +could not show my face without all King Louis's court talking of some +great matter afoot. What I have in mind is to halt on the road--at +Pontoise maybe--while you ride on with letters to Prince James. I warrant +you they are such, and with such names to them, as will assure you a +noble welcome. It's intended that he should quit St. Germain privately +with you to conduct him to me. Then I warrant you we shall know how to +deal with the lad." He paused and stared at Geoffrey intently, and +gradually a grim humour stole into his eyes. He began to laugh. "Egad, I +envy you, Mr. Waverton. To be in such an affair at your years--bah, I +should have been crazy with pride." + +"You need not doubt that I value the occasion, sir," Geoffrey said +grandly. "Pray, believe that I shall do honour to your confidence." + +"To be sure you will. Odds life, to chaffer with a king's son about +kingdoms, to offer a realm to a prince in exile (if only he will be a +good boy)--it's a fine, stately affair, sir, and you are the very man to +take it in the right vein." + +"Sir, you are most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your +kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you." + +"Egad, you do already," Colonel Boyce smiled, still with some touch of +cruelty in his eyes. + +"Pray, sir, when must we start?" + +"When I know, maybe I shall need to start in an hour." + +"I shall not fail you. I shall want, I suppose, some funds in hand?" + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "Oh Lud, yes, we'll want some money. A matter of +five hundred pounds should serve." + +"I will arrange for it in the morning," said Mr. Waverton, too +magnificent to be startled. "Pray, what clothes shall we be able +to carry?" + +"Damme, that's a grave matter," said Colonel Boyce, and with becoming +gravity discussed it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + +Thus Colonel Boyce blandly arranged the lives of his young friends. It is +believed that he had a peculiar pleasure in manoeuvring his +fellow-creatures from behind a veil of secrecy. For in this he sought not +merely his private profit (though it was never out of his calculations); +he enjoyed his operations for their own sake; he liked his trickery as +trickery; to push and pull people to the place in which he wanted them +without their knowing how or why or to what end they were impelled was to +him a pleasure second to none in life. And on a survey of his whole +career he is to be accounted successful. Though I cannot find that he +ever achieved anything of signal importance even for himself, at one time +or another he brought a great number of people, some of them powerful, +and some of them honourable, under his direction, he had his complete +will of many of them, and was rewarded by the bitter hostility of the +majority. He contrived, in fact, to live just such a life as he liked +best. What more can any man have? + +So he told Harry nothing of his engagement of Mr. Waverton, and Harry, +you have seen, was not likely to guess that anyone would enlist his +Geoffrey for a serious enterprise. On the next morning, indeed, Harry did +remark that Geoffrey was more portentous than usual, but thought nothing +of it. He was embarrassed by thinking about himself. + +There was, as Colonel Boyce predicted, no difficulty about a horse for +Harry. When the Colonel suggested it, Geoffrey showed some satirical +surprise at Harry's daring, but (advising one of the older carriage +horses) bade him take what he would. Colonel Boyce spoke only of riding +with his son. He said nothing of where they were going. Harry wondered +whether Geoffrey would have been so gracious if he had known that Alison +was their destination, and, a new experience for him, felt some qualms of +conscience. It was uncomfortable to use a favour from Geoffrey, even a +trifling favour granted with a sneer, for meeting his lady; still more +uncomfortable to go seek the lady out secretly. But if he announced what +he was doing, there would be instantly something ridiculous about it, and +he would have to swallow much of Geoffrey's humour. Geoffrey might even +come with them, and Alison and he be humorous together--a fate +intolerable. There was indeed an easy way of escape. He had but to stay +away from the lady. But, though he despised himself for it, he desired +infinitely to see her again. She compelled him, as he had never believed +anything outside his own will could compel. After all, it was no such +matter, for he would soon be gone with his father to France. He might +well hope never to see her again. + +So on that ride through the steep wooded lanes to Highgate, his father +found him morose, and complained of it. "Damme, for a young fellow that's +off to his lady-love you are a mighty poor thing, Harry." + +"My lady-love! I have no taste for rich food. I thought it was your lady +we were going to see." + +"What the devil do you mean by that?" Colonel Boyce stared. + +"Oh, fie, sir! Why be ashamed of her?" + +"God knows what you are talking about." Colonel Boyce was extraordinarily +irritated. "Ashamed of whom?" + +"Of the peerless Miss Lambourne, to be sure. Oh, sir, why be so innocent? +How could she resist your charms? And indeed--" + +"Miss Lambourne! What damned nonsense you talk, Harry." + +"I followed your lead, sir," said Harry meekly. "But if we are to talk +sense--when shall we start for France?" + +"You shall know when I know." + +And on that they came to the top of the hill and the gates of the Hall. +The wet weather had yielded to St. Martin's summer. It was a day of +gentle silver-gold sunlight and benign air. With her companion, Mrs. +Weston, Miss Lambourne was walking in the garden. She met the gentlemen +at a turn of the drive by rampant sweetbriers. "Here's our knight of the +rueful countenance, and faith, on Rosinante, poor jade," she patted +Harry's aged carriage horse. "Oh, and he has brought with him Solomon in +all his glory," she made a wonderful curtsy to the splendours of Colonel +Boyce. "Now, who would have dreamt Don Quixote's father was Solomon?" + +"I suppose I take after my mother, ma'am," Harry said meekly. "It's a +hope which often consoles me." + +"Why, they say Solomon had something of a variety in wives, and +among them--" + +Colonel Boyce dismounted with so much noise that the jest was hardly +heard and the end of it altogether lost. + +"You did not tell me"--Mrs. Weston was speaking and seemed to find it +difficult--"Alison, you did not tell me the gentlemen were coming." It +occurred to Harry that she looked very pale and ill. + +"Why, Weston; dear, I could not tell if they would keep troth." She +began to hum: + +"Men were deceivers ever, + One foot on sea, and one on shore, +To one thing constant never." + +"Nay, ma'am, sigh no more for here are we," Colonel Boyce said brusquely. + +"Oh Lud, he overwhelms us with the honour." She laughed. "How can we +entertain him worthily? Sir, will you walk? My poor house and I await +your pleasure." + +"I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I have never had a lady-in-waiting." + +"Oh, celibate virtue!" quoth Miss Lambourne. And so to the house Colonel +Boyce led her and his horse, and a little way behind Harry followed with +his and Mrs. Weston. + +She had nothing to say for herself. She looked so wan, she walked so +slowly, and with such an air of pain that Harry had to say something +about fearing she was not well. Then he felt a fool for his pains; as she +turned in answer and shook her head he saw such a sad, wistful dignity in +her eyes that the small coin of courtesy seemed an absurd offering. A +fancy, to be sure, in itself absurd. Yet he could not make the woman out. +There was something odd and baffling in the way she looked at him. + +She led off with an odd question, "Pray, have you lived much with +Colonel Boyce?" + +"Not I, ma'am." Harry laughed. "If I were not a very wise child I should +hardly know my own father. Lived with him? Not much more than with my +mother, whom I never saw." + +"Oh, did you not?" Her eyes dwelt upon him. After a little while, "Who +brought you up then?" + +"Schools. Half a dozen schools between Taunton and London, and +Westminster at last." + +"Were you happy?" + +"When I had sixpence." + +"But Colonel Boyce is rich!" she cried. + +"I have no evidence of it, ma'am." + +"I cannot understand. You hardly know him. But he comes to you at Lady +Waverton's; he stays with you; he brings you here. I believe you are +closer with him than you say." + +"Why, ma'am, it's mighty kind in you to concern yourself so with my +affairs. And if you can't understand them, faith, no more can I." + +She showed no shame at this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was +sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely +affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and +speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an +appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with +power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He +felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in +suffering, richer in all emotion, and (what was vastly surprising) under +her dullness, her feebleness, of fuller and deeper life. + +From vague, intriguing, bewildering fancies, her voice brought him back +with a start. "He brought you here?" she was asking. + +To be sure, she was wonderfully maladroit. This buzzing, futile curiosity +irritated him again into a sneer. "He is no doubt captivated by the +beautiful eyes of Miss Lambourne." + +"He! Mr. Boyce?"--she corrected herself with a stammer and a +blush--"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to be her father." + +"I think we ought to tell him so." Harry chuckled. "It would do +him good." + +"I think this is not very delicate, sir." Mrs. Weston was still blushing. + +"Egad, ma'am, if you ask questions, you must expect answers," Harry +snapped at her. + +"Why do you sneer at her? Why should you speak coarsely of her? I suppose +you come to the house of your own choice? Or does he make you come?" + +Harry saw no occasion for such excitement. "Why, you take away my breath +with your pronouns. He and she--she and he--pray, let's leave him and +her out of the question. Here's a very pretty garden." + +"Indeed, we need not quarrel, I think." She laughed nervously, and gave +him an odd, shy look. "Pray, do you stay with the Wavertons?" + +"Alas, ma'am, I make your acquaintance and bid you farewell all in one +day." + +"Make my acquaintance!" Again came a nervous laugh, and it was a moment +before she went on. "We have met before to-day." + +"Oh Lud, ma'am, I would desire you forget it." + +"I am to forget it!" she echoed. "Oh ... Oh, you are very proud." + +"Not I, indeed. The truth is, ma'am, that silly affair with our +highwayman, it embarrasses me mightily. I want to live it down. Pray, +help me, and think no more about it." + +"I suppose that is what you say to Alison?" For the first time there was +a touch of fun in her eyes. + +"Word for word, ma'am." + +"Why do you come here then?" + +"As I have the honour to tell you--to say good-bye." + +She checked and stared at him. She was very pale. But now they were at +the steps of the house, and Colonel Boyce, who had resigned his horse to +a groom, turned with Alison to meet them. + +"I am hot with the Colonel's compliments, Weston, dear," she announced. +"I must take a turn with Mr. Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A +convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other +freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to +trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you +have a tender heart." + +It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look +at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him. + +"I am not afraid," Mrs. Weston said. + +"I profess I am abashed," said Colonel Boyce. "Pray, ma'am, be gentle to +my disgrace," and he offered his arm. She bowed and moved away, and he +followed her. + +Harry and Alison, face to face, and sufficiently close, eyed each other +with some amusement. + +"Oh, Mr. Boyce," said she, and shook her head. + +"Oh, Miss Lambourne," Harry exhorted in his turn. + +"You have fallen. You have walked into my parlour." + +"I am the best of sons, ma'am. I endure all things at my father's +orders--even spiders." + +She still eyed him steadily, searching him, and was still amused. She +moved a little so that the admirable flowing lines of her shape were more +marked. Then she said, "Why are you afraid of me?" + +Harry shook his head, smiling. "Vainly is the net spread in the sight of +the bird, ma'am. But, faith, it was a pretty question, and I make you my +compliments." + +"So. Will you walk, sir?" She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of +arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a +yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce--when I meet you in company you +shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me +impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I +suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. +Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why in God's name are you afraid of me?" + +"Miss Lambourne got out of bed very earnest this morning," Harry grinned. +"But oh, let's be grave and honest with all my heart. Why, then, ma'am, +I've to say that a penniless fellow has the right to be afraid of Miss +Lambourne's money bags." + +"Fie, you are no such fool. If one is good company to t'other, which is +rich and which is poor is no more matter than which fair and which dark." + +"In a better world, ma'am, I would believe you." + +"And here you believe kind folks would sneer at Harry Boyce for scenting +an heiress. So you tuck your tail between your legs and go to ground. I +suppose that is called honour, sir." + +"Oh no, ma'am. Taste." + +"La, I offend monsieur's fine taste, do I?" + +"Not often, ma'am. But by all means let us be earnest. I believe I mind +being sneered at no more than my betters. _Par exemple_, ma'am, when you +laugh at me for being shabby, I am not much disturbed." + +She blushed furiously. "I never did." + +"Oh, I must have read your thoughts then," Harry laughed. "Well, what +matters to me is not that folks laugh at me but why they laugh. That they +mock me for being out at elbows I swallow well enough. That they should +sneer at me for making love to a woman's purse would give me a nausea." + +Miss Lambourne was pleased to look modest. "Indeed, sir, I did not know +that you had made love to me." + +"I am obliged by your honesty, ma'am." + +Miss Lambourne looked up and spoke with some vehemence. "It comes +to this, then, you would be beaten by what folks may say about you. +Oh, brave!" + +"Lud, we are all beaten by what folks might say. Would you ride into +London in your shift?" + +"I don't want to ride in my shift," she cried fiercely. + +"Perhaps not, ma'am. But perhaps I don't want to make love to your +purse." + +"Od burn it, sir, am I nothing but a purse?" + +"I leave it to your husband to find out, ma'am, and beg leave to take my +leave. My kind father offers me occupation at a distance, and I embrace +it ardently. Who knows? It may provide me with a coat." + +"You are going away?" + +"I have had the honour to say so." + +"And why, if you please?" + +Harry shrugged. "Because, ma'am, without my assistance, Mr. Waverton can +very well translate Horace into his own sublime verse and Miss Lambourne +into his own proud wife." + +He intended her to rage. What she did was to say softly: "You do not want +to see me that?" + +"I have no ambition to amuse you, ma'am." Miss Lambourne looked +sideways. "What if I don't want you to go away?" + +"Egad, ma'am, I know you don't." Harry laughed. "You amuse yourself +vastly (God knows why) with baiting me." + +"Why, it amuses me." Alison still looked at him sideways. "Don't you +know why?" + +He did not choose to answer. + +"Indeed, then, if I am nought to you why do you care what folks say of +you and me?" + +Harry made a step towards her. "You mean to have it again, do you?" +he muttered. + +"Pray, sir, what?" and still she looked sideways. + +"What you dragged out of me in the wood." + +"Dragged out of--oh!" She blushed, she drew back, and so had occasion to +do something with her cloak which let a glimpse of white neck and bosom +come into the light. "You flatter us both indeed." + +"I'll tell you the truth of us both"--he, too, was flushed: "you are a +curst coquette and I am a curst fool." + +Now she met his eyes fairly, and in hers there was no more laughter, +but she smiled with her lips: "I think you know yourself better than +you know me." + +Harry gripped her hands. "You go about to make me mad with desire for +you, you--" + +"I want you so," she breathed, and leaned back, away from him, her eyes +half veiled. + +He had his arms about her body, held her close. The red lips curved in a +riddle of a smile. He saw dark depths in the shadowed eyes. + +"_Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre_" she murmured. + +Harry exclaimed something, felt her against him, was aware of all her +form--and heard footsteps. + +Alison was out of his grasp, her back to him, plucking a rose. "You will +see me again--you shall see me again. I ride in the wood to-morrow +morning," she muttered. + +"You'll pay for it," Harry growled. + +His father arrived, Mrs. Weston, a servant at their heels. + +Alison came round with a swirl of skirts. "Dear sir, I doubt you have +burnt up dinner by your long passages with my Weston. Come in, come in," +and she led the way. + +For once Colonel Boyce was without an answer. Harry, who was dreading +witticisms, looked at him in surprise, and with more surprise saw that he +looked angry. Mrs. Weston hurried on before them all. Her eyes were red. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + +It seems certain that on this day Alison wore a dress of a blue like +peacock's feathers. That colour--as you may see, she wears it in both the +Kneller and the Thornhill portraits--was much a favourite of hers, and +indeed it set off well the rare beauty of her own hues. The clarity, the +delicacy, of her cheeks were such as you may see on one of those roses +which, white in full flower, have a rosy flush on the outer petals of the +bud, and the same rose open may serve for the likeness of a neck and +bosom which she guarded no more prudishly than her day's fashion +demanded. For all the daintiness, her lips, a proud pair, were richly red +(stained of raspberries, in Charles Hadley's sneer), and with the black +masses of her hair and grey eyes almost as dark, gave her an aspect of, +what neither man nor woman ever denied her, eager and passionate life. +All this was flowering out of her peacock blue velvet, and Harry, I +infer, went mad. + +She never expanded into the larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring +to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, +but the bodice was close laced _a la mode_ to parade the riches of her +bosom. Strong and gloriously alive, and abundantly a woman--so she smiled +at the world. + +It was a delirious hour for Harry, that dinner. He knew that Alison was +pleased to be in the gayest spirits, and his father, in his father's own +flamboyant style, seconded her heartily. He joined in, too, and seemed to +himself loud and vapid, yet had no power of restraint. It was as though +his usual placid, critical mind were detached and watched himself in the +happy exuberance of drunkenness--which was a state unknown to him, for +excess of liquor could only move him with drowsy gloom. And in the midst +of the noise Mrs. Weston sat, pale and silent, a ghost at the feast. + +He was glad when his father spoke of going, though he found himself +talking some folly against it, on Alison's side, who jovially mocked the +Colonel for shyness. But Colonel Boyce, it appeared, had made up his +mind, and Harry was surprised at the masterful ease with which, keeping +the empty fun still loud, he extricated himself and his unwilling son. + +They were all at the door, a noisy, laughing company, and the +horses waited. + +"It's no use, ma'am," Harry cried, "he knows how to get his way, +_monsieur mon pere_." + +"Pray heaven he hath not taught his son the art!" + +"Oh Lud, no, I am the very humble servant of any petticoat." + +"Fie, that's far worse, sir. I see you would still be forgetting which +covered your wife." + +"Never believe him, Madame Alison." quoth the Colonel. "It's a strong +rogue and a masterless man," + +"Why, that's better again. And yet it's not so well if he'll be +mistressless too." + +"Fight it out, child," the Colonel cried. "'Lay on, Macduff, and curst be +she that first cries hold, enough!' Come, Harry, to horse." + +"See, Weston, he deserts me, and merrily!" + +There came upon the scene two other horsemen--Mr. Hadley's gaunt, +one-armed frame and a big, lumbering elder with a rosy face. + +Harry bowed over Alison's hand. It was she who put it to his lips, and +nodding a roguish smile at the other gentlemen, "So you run away, +sir?" she said. + +Harry looked at her and "Give me back my head," he said in a low voice. +"I have lost it somewhere here." + +"Oh, your head!" She laughed. "Well, maybe it's the best part of you." + +He mounted, and Colonel Boyce, already in the saddle, kissed his hand to +her. They rode off, compelled to single file by the plump old gentleman +who held the middle of the road and glowered at them. Mr. Hadley made an +elaborate bow. + +The old gentleman watched them out of sight round the curve of the drive, +then sent his horse on with an oath and, dismounting heavily at Alison's +toes, roared out: "What the devil's this folly, miss?" He made angry +puffing noises. "I vow I heard you laughing at Finchley. Might have heard +him kissing too." + +"Kissing? Oh la, sir, my hand, and so may you." She held it out and made +an impudent little curtsy. "I protest the gentleman is all maidenly. That +is why he and I make so good a match." + +The old gentleman spluttered and was still redder. "Match, miss? What, +the devil!" + +"Oh no, sir. Pray come in, sir. I see you are in a heat, and I fear for a +chill on your gout." + +"You are mighty civil, miss. You are too civil by half," the old +gentleman puffed, and stalked past her. + +Alison stood in the way of Charles Hadley as he made to follow. There was +some pugnacity on her fair face. "It's mighty kind of Mr. Hadley to +concern himself with me." + +"Egad, ma'am, if I come untimely it's pure happy chance." + +She whirled round on that and they went in. "Will you please to drink a +dish of tea, Sir John?" + +"You know I won't, miss." The old gentleman let himself down with a grunt +into the largest chair in her drawing-room. "Now who the plague is this +kissing fellow?" + +"Sure, sir, it's the gentleman Mr. Hadley told you of," said Alison +meekly. She hit both her birds. Mr. Hadley and his uncle looked at each +other. Sir John snorted. Mr. Hadley shrugged and gave an acid laugh. + +"What, what, that fellow of Waverton's? Od burn it, miss, he's a +starveling usher." + +"Oh, sir, don't be hasty. I dare say he'll be fat when he's old." + +"Don't be pert, miss. D'ye know all the county's talking of you and +this fellow?" + +Alison paled a little. She spoke in a still small voice. "I did not know +how much I was in Mr. Hadley's debt. I advise you, Sir John, don't be one +of those who talk." + +"You advise me, miss! Damme, ain't I your guardian?" + +"I am trying to remember that you once were, sir. But you make it +very hard." + +"What the devil do you mean?" + +"I mean--" + +"I vow neither of you knows what you mean," Mr. Hadley drowned her in a +drawl. "I never saw such fire-eaters. Look 'e, Alison, we come riding +over in a civil way and--" + +"Tell me you have been planning a scandal about me. Oh, I vow I am +obliged to you." + +Mr. Hadley laughed. "Lud, child, you ha' known me long enough. Do I deal +in tattle? And if we have seen what we should not ha' seen, if you're hot +at being caught, prithee, whose fault is it? Egad, you know well enough +there's things beneath Miss Lambourne's dignity." + +"Yes, indeed, and I see Mr. Hadley is one of them." + +"You're a fool for your pains, Charles," John shouted. "What's sense to a +wench? Now, miss, I'll have an end of this. You're old Tom Lambourne's +daughter for all your folly, and I'll not have his flesh and blood the +sport of any greedy rogue from the kennel." + +There was a moment of silence. Then Alison, whose colour was grown high, +said quietly, "Pray, Sir John, will you go or shall I? I do not desire to +see you again in my house." + +"Go?" The old gentleman struggled to his feet. "Damme, Charles, the +girl's mad. Yes, miss, I'll go--and go straight to my Lady Waverton. Od +burn it, we'll have your fellow out of the county in an hour. Egad, miss, +you're besotted. Why, what is he?--a trickster, a knight of the road. +'Stand and deliver,' that's my gentleman's trade. He's for your father's +money, you fool." + +"Good-bye, Sir John," Alison said, and turned away. + +With unwonted agility, Mr. Hadley came between her and the door. "You are +not fair to us, Alison," he said. "Prithee, be fair to yourself." She +passed him without a word. Mr. Hadley turned and showed Sir John a rueful +face. "We have made a bad business of it, sir." + +Sir John swore. "Brazen impudence, damme, brazen, I say." + +"Oh Lord! Don't make bad worse." + +Sir John swore again. Upon his rage came Alison's voice singing: + +"When daffodils begin to peer + With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, +Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year, + For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale." + +Sir John spluttered, and went out roaring for his horse. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +YOUNG BLOOD + + +There is reason to believe that from the first Mr. Hadley suspected he +was making a fool of himself. This sensation, the common accompaniment of +an attempt to do your duty, was just of the right strength to ensure that +all his actions should be disastrous. It was, as you see, not strong +enough to restrain him from exciting the dull and choleric mind of Sir +John Burford; it did not avail to direct the ensuing storm. And then, +having first failed to be sufficient check, it developed into a very +paralysis. + +Startled by the furies he had roused in Alison, Mr. Hadley found that +suspicion of his own folly develop into a gruesome conviction. It +compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering +knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. +Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton +will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay +gave it opportunity. + +If the tale had been told to Lady Waverton, no doubt but Harry would have +been banished from Tetherdown that night. It is likely, indeed, that the +ultimate fates of Alison and Harry would have been the same. But many +antecedent adventures must have been different or superfluous. + +Mr. Hadley was now full of common sense. Mr. Hadley sagely argued with +his uncle that they would do more harm than good by carrying their tale +to Lady Waverton. The woman was a fool in grain, and whatever she did +would surely do it in the silliest way. Tell her a word, and she would +swiftly give birth to a scandal which the world would not willingly let +die, in which Mr. Harry Boyce, if he were indeed the knave of their +hypothesis, might easily find a means to strengthen his grip of Alison. +It was better to wait and (so Mr. Hadley with a sour smile) "see which +way the cat jumped." + +Perhaps Madame Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether +infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have +waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd +enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before--remember the Scottish +lord's son--and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a +chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that +she must needs fall into the arms of any man who made eyes at her. After +all, likely enough she was but amusing herself with Mr. Boyce. Not a very +delicate business, but they were full-blooded folk, the Lambournes. +Remember old Tom, her father: there was a jolly bluff rogue. Well, if +miss was but having her fling, it would do no good to tease her. + +Thus Mr. Hadley, cautiously recoiling, doubting or hoping he was making +the best of things, brought Sir John, in spite of some boilings over, +safe back to his home and his jovial daughter. + +When Harry and his father rode away from Alison, for once in a while +Harry found his father's mood in tune with his own. Colonel Boyce +suddenly relapsed from hilarity into a perfect silence. He soon reined +his horse to a walk, and his wonted alert, soldierly bearing suffered +eclipse. He gave at the back, he was thoughtful, he was melancholy--a +very comfortable companion. + +"Pray, sir, when do we start for France?" said Harry at length. + +"What's that? Egad, you're in a hurry, ain't you? Not to-night nor yet +to-morrow. Time enough, time enough. Make the best of it, Harry." It +occurred to Harry that his father was preoccupied. + +But with that he did not concern himself. He was in too much tumult. It +appeared that he would be able to meet Alison in the morning. He did +not know whether he was glad. He had been telling himself that he would +have snatched at the excuse to fail her, and yet was not sure that if +his father had announced instant departure he would not have bidden his +father to the devil. But still in a fashion he was angry, in a degree +he was frightened. He knew that he would go meet the girl now; he could +not help himself--an exasperating state. And when he was with her--her +presence now set all his nature rioting--with other folk by, it was +hard enough to be sane; when he was alone with her in the wood, what +would the wild wench be to him before they parted? There was no love in +him. He had no tenderness for her, he did not want to cherish her, +serve her, glorify her. Only she made him mad with passion. But, +according to his private lights, he was honest, and wished to be, and +was therefore commanded to try to save the girl from his wicked will +and hers. He despised himself for the gleam of cautious duty. What in +the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round +swell of her breast? + +"Damme, Harry, a man's a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in +upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or +a trifle of power?" + +Harry stared at him. "Lord, sir, why are you so moral?" + +And then Colonel Boyce began to laugh. "I grow old, I think. Oh, the +devil, I never had regrets worse than the morning's headache for last +night's wine. I suppose if you live long enough, life's a procession of +morning headaches. Well, I vow I've not lived long enough yet, Harry." + +"I dare say you are the best judge," Harry admitted. + +"There's a higher court, eh? Who knows? Maybe we are all the toys of +chance." He shrugged. "Why then, damme, I have never been afraid to take +what I chose and wait for the bill. Dodge it, or pay it. Odso, there is +no other way for a hungry man." + +"Lord, sir, now you are philosophical! What's the matter?" + +"Humph, I suppose my stomach is weakening," said Colonel Boyce. "I don't +digest things as I did." + +In this pensive temper they came back to Tetherdown. The Colonel's +servant was waiting for him with letters, and he was seen no more that +night. Harry did not know till afterwards that Mr. Waverton, as well as +letters, was taken to the Colonel's room. + +Madame Alison was left by the exhortations of her anxious friends feeling +defiant of all the world. It is a comfortable condition, but, for a +passionate girl of twenty-two, fruitful of delusions. + +Alison was so far happier than Harry in that she knew what she wanted. +You may wonder if you will how Harry Boyce, with nothing handsome about +him but his legs, could rouse in the girl just such a wild longing as her +beauty set ablaze in him. These problems, comforting to the conceit of +man, are numerous. And, as usual, madame had dreamed her gentleman into a +wonderful fellow. The overthrow of the highwayman became from the first a +splendid achievement. Sure, Mr. Boyce must be of rare courage and +strength, even as he was deliciously adroit, and that insolent air with +which he did his devoir gave one a sweet thrill. + +Afterwards, he progressed in her imagination from victory to victory. +What served him best was his capacity for puzzling her. That its hero +should want to keep such a gallant affair secret proved him of amazing +modesty or amazing pride--perhaps both--a titillating combination. It +surprised her more that he should dare rebuff the advances of Miss +Lambourne. Madame knew very well the power of her beauty over men. If she +gave one half an inch she expected that he should be instantly mad to get +an ell of her. But here was Mr. Boyce, though she gave him a good many +inches, as supercilious about her as if he were a woman. It was +incredible that the creature had no warm blood in him. Indeed, she had +proof--she could still make herself feel the ache of his grasp in the +wood--that he was on occasion as fierce as any woman need want a man. +Why, then, monsieur must be defying her out of wanton pride. A marvellous +fellow, who dared think himself too good for her. + +She made no account of all his wise, honest talk about being poor while +she was rich. To her temper it was impossible that a man who wanted her +in his arms should stop to weigh his purse and hers, or to consider what +the world would say of him for wooing her. All that must be mere fencing, +mere mockery. + +To be sure, he fenced mighty cleverly. The smug meekness which he put on +when she attacked him before others was bewildering. If she had never +seen him in action she must have been deceived. And, faith, it seemed +certain that he wanted to deceive her, to put her off, to put her aside. +The haughty gentleman dared believe that he could be very comfortable +without Miss Lambourne. It must not be allowed. He was by far too fine a +fellow to be let go his way. Faith, it was mighty noble, this +self-sufficient power of his, capable of anything, caring for nothing, +hiding itself behind an impenetrable mask, and living a secret life of +its own. She was on fire to enter into him and take possession, and use +him for herself. + +So she was driven by a double need, knew it, and was not the least +ashamed. She longed to have Harry Boyce in her arms and his grip cruel +upon her. But also she wanted to conquer him and hold his mind at her +order. She imagined him under her direction winning all manner of fame. +And she believed herself mightily in love.... + +There is a moss on the birch trunks which makes a colour of singular +charm, a soft, delicate, grey green. A hood of that colour embraced +Alison's black hair and the glow of the dark eyes and her raspberry lips. +The cloak of the same colour she drew close about her with one gauntleted +hand, so that it confessed her shape. + +The birches could still show a few golden leaves, though each moment +another went whirling away as the crests bowed and tossed before the +wind. In the brown bracken beneath Harry Boyce stood waiting. His graces +were set off with his customary rusty black. His hat was well down upon +his bobwig, and he hunched his shoulders against the wind, making a +picture of melancholy discomfort. He rocked to and fro a little, +according to a habit of his when he was excited. + +Alison was very close to him before she stopped. + +"What have you come for?" he growled. + +She drew a breath, and then, very quietly, "For you," she said. + +"You have had enough fun with me, ma'am." + +Her breast was touching him, and he did not draw back. + +"Then why did you come?" She laughed. + +"Because I'm a fool." + +"A fool to want me?" + +"By God, yes. You know that, you slut." + +"No. You would be a fool if you didn't, you--man." + +"Be careful." Harry flushed. + +"Oh Lud, was I made to be careful?" + +He gripped her hand, and, after a moment, "Take off your hood," he +muttered. + +"Is that all?" She laughed, and let it fall from hair and neck, and +looked as though sunlight had flashed out at her. "Honest gentleman, you +are lightly satisfied." + +"So are not you, I vow." + +She was pleased to answer that with a scrap of a song: + +"Jog on, jog on the footpath way, + And merrily hent the stile-a! +A merry heart goes all the way, + A sad one tires in a mile-a." + +"Faith, yours is a mighty sad one, Harry. Pray, what are you the better +for stripping me of this?" She flirted the hood. + +"I can see those wicked colours of yours. Lord, what a fool is a man to +go mad for a show of pink and white!" + +"And is that all I am?" + +Harry shrugged. "Item--a pair of eyes that look sideways; item--a woman's +body with arms and sufficient legs." + +"Lud, it's an inventory! I'm for sale, then. Well, what's your bid?" + +"I've a shilling in my pocket ma'am and want it to buy tobacco." + +"Oh, silly, what does a man pay for a woman?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, nothing, if she's worth buying." + +Then Alison said softly, "Going--going--gone," and clapped her hands +and laughed. + +"You go beyond me at least," Harry said in a moment. + +She put her hands behind her and leaned forward till her bosom pressed +upon him lightly, and then, with her head tilted back so that he saw the +white curve from under her chin, and the line of the blue vein in it, +"You want me, Harry," she said. + +"You know that too well, by God." + +"Too well for what, sir?" + +"Too well for my peace, ma'am." He flushed. + +"His peace!" She laughed. "Oh Lud, the dear man wants peace!" + +He flung himself upon her, holding her to him as she staggered back, and +kissed her till she was gasping for breath, gripped her head to hold it +against his kisses, buried his face in the fragrance of her neck. She +gave herself, her arms still behind her, offering the swell of her +breasts to him, her eyes gay.... + +"You are mine, now. You're mine, do you hear?" he said unsteadily. + +"I want you," she smiled, and was crushed again. + +When he let her go, it was to step back and look at her, wondering and +intent. She stood something less than her full height, her bosom beating +fast. She was all flushed and smiling, but now her eyes were dim and they +met his shyly. + +"Egad, you're exalting," he said with a wry smile. + +"I feel all power when you grasp at me so--power--just power." + +"No, faith, you are not. When I hold you to me, when you yield for me, I +am all the power there is. Damme, the very life of the world." + +"So then," she looked at him through her eyelashes, "and have it so. For +it's I who give you all." + +"In effect," Harry said: and then, "go to, you make us both mad." + +"I am content." + +"Yes, and for how long?" + +She made an exclamation. "Have I worn out the poor gentleman already?" + +"Would you keep yourself for me? Will you wait?" + +"Why, what have we to wait for now?" + +"Till I am something more than this shabby usher." + +"I despise you when you talk so." Her face flamed. "Fie, what's a word +and a coat? You have lived with me in your arms. You are what I make of +you then. Is it enough, Harry, is it not enough?" + +"I'll come to your arms something better before I come again. I am off +to France." + +"Ah!" Then she studied him for a little while. "You meant to run away, +then. Oh, brave Harry! Oh, wise! Pray, are you not ashamed?" + +"Yes, shame's the only wear." + +"I'll not spare you, I vow." + +"Egad, ma'am, mercy never was a virtue of yours." + +"Is it mercy you want in a woman?" + +"I'll take what I want, not ask for it." + +"Why, now you brag! And if there is not in me what monsieur wants?" + +"So much the worse for us both. But you should have thought of +that before." + +"Faith, Harry, you take it sombrely." She made a wry mouth at him. "Pluck +up heart. I vow I'll satisfy you." + +"You'll not deny me anything you have." + +She paused a moment. "Amen, so be it. And must we never smile again?" + +"I wonder"--he took her hands; "I wonder, will you be smiling to-morrow +when I am away to France." + +"Oh, are you still set on that fancy?" She gave a contemptuous laugh. +"Prithee, Harry, shall I like you the better for waiting till you have +French lace at your neck and a frenchified air?" + +"You'll please to wait till I bring Miss Lambourne a fellow who has done +something more than snuffle over a servitor's books. I want to prove +myself, Alison." + +"You have proved yourself on me, sir. What, am I a lean wench in despair +to hunger for a snuffling servitor? If you were that, I were not for you. +But I know you better, God help me, my Lord Lucifer. Why then, take the +goods the gods provide you and say grace over me." Harry shook his head, +smiling. "Lord, it's a mule! Pray what do you look to do in France?" + +"I am pledged to my father and his policies--to go poking behind the +curtains of the war and deal with the go-betweens of princes." + +"So. You talk big. Well, I like to hear it. What is the business?" + +"My father, if you believe him, has Marlborough's secrets in his pocket +and is sent to chaffer for him. You may guess where and why. Queen Anne +hath a brother." + +Her eyes sparkled. "You like the adventure, Harry?" + +"Egad, I begin to think so." + +"I love you for that!" she cried, and it was the first time she spoke the +word. "Why then, first go with me to church and call me wife!" + +He drew in his breath. "By God, do you mean that?" + +"Why, don't you mean me honourably?" She gave an unsteady laugh, her eyes +mistily kind. + +He sprang at her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It was always in after life alleged by Mr. Hadley that his steady +interest in the family of his uncle was nothing but a desire to keep the +old gentleman out of mischief. Sir John Burford was indeed of a temper +too irascible to be safe with his bucolically English mind: a man who in +throwing tankards at his servants and challenges at his friends was a +source of continuous anxiety to his reasonable kinsfolk. But he had also +a daughter. + +She received the benevolent Mr. Hadley when on the morning after the +explosions in Alison's house he came to see whether Sir John was still +dangerous or his daughter any thinner. It was the latter purpose which he +professed to Susan Burford. She was not annoyed. In her cradle she had +been instructed that she was a jolly, fat girl, and through life she +accepted the status, like every other which was given her, with great +good humour. She was, in fact, no fatter than serves to give a tall woman +an air of genial well-being. It was conjectured by her friends that her +father, needing all his irascibility for himself, had allowed her to +inherit only his physical qualities. She had indeed the largeness of Sir +John and his open countenance. Her supreme equanimity perhaps came from +her mother. She was by a dozen years at least younger than Mr. Hadley, +and always thought him a very clever boy. + +"Sir John is gone out to the pigs, Mr. Hadley. Perhaps you'll go too," +she said, and looked innocent. + +"Well, they are peaceful company, Susan. And you're so surly." + +"I thought you would find some joke in that," said Susan, with kindly +satisfaction. + +"Damme, don't be so maternal. It's cloying to the male. Be discreet, +Susan. You will talk as though you had weaned me but a year or two, and +still wanted me at the breast." + +Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir +John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of." + +"Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and +Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You +don't know what I mean." + +"To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?" + +"Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you +think men are nought but casks--things to fill with drink and victuals. +Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and +smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and +so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I +know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, +Susan; just one of those plump, spacious dames as healthy as milk and +peaches, and blandly jolly about it." + +Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and +patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often +talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay +dinner, Mr. Hadley?" + +"Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?" + +Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you +will say. Can you?" + +"You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth +is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a +guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you +thinking, ma'am?" + +"Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here +talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for +the guinea. + +Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?" + +"Yes, indeed. You're so comical." + +Mr. Hadley surrendered the guinea, looked at his empty left sleeve and +made a wry face. "Lord, yes, I am comical enough. A lop-sided grotesque." + +"That's not fair!" He had at last made her blush. "You know well I did +not mean that. I think it makes you look--noble." + +"It makes me feel a fool," said Mr. Hadley. "Lord, Susan, one arm's not +enough to go round you." + +"So we'll kill the Elstree hog for Christmas;" that apposite +interruption came in her father's robust voice. Sir John strode rolling +in. "What, Charles! In very good time, egad. You can come with me." + +"What, sir, back to the swine? I profess Susan makes as pretty company." + +Sir John was pleased to laugh. "Ay, the wench pays for her victuals, too. +Damme, Sue, you look good enough to eat." He chucked her chin paternally. +"Well, my lad, I ha' thought over that business and I'm taking horse to +ride over to Tetherdown." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley. "And what then, sir?" + +"I'll talk to Master Geoffrey." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley again. "Do it delicately." + +"Delicate be damned," said Sir John. + +"I had better ride with you," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Good boy. Here, Roger--Mr. Hadley's horse." + +Susan stood up. "Lud, sir, you will not be here to dinner then?" + +Sir John shook his head. Mr. Hadley scratched his chin. "I am not so sure +that Geoffrey will give us a dinner," said he. + +"Why, sir," Susan was interested, "what's your business with Mr. +Waverton?" + +"To tell him he's a fool, wench," quoth Sir John. + +"Oh. And will Mr. Waverton like that?" + +"Like it! Odso, he'll like it well enough if he has sense." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "That's logic, faith. Well, sir, have with you." + +So off they rode. On the way Sir John was pleased to expound to Mr. +Hadley the profound sagacity of his new plan. He would rally Geoffrey on +his flaccidity; accuse him of being an oaf; and, describing all the while +in an inflammatory manner the charms of Alison, hint that Geoffrey's +tutor had ambitions after them. "And if that don't wake up my gentleman, +he may go to the devil for me and deserve it." + +It crossed Mr. Hadley's lucid mind that a gentleman who required so much +waking up did not deserve Miss Lambourne. But she was quite capable of +discovering that for herself, if indeed she had not already. And +certainly it would do Geoffrey no harm to be made uncomfortable. So Mr. +Hadley rode on with right good will. + +But when they came to Tetherdown it was announced that Mr. Waverton had +gone riding. "Why, then we'll wait for him." Sir John strode in. The +butler looked dubious. Mr. Waverton had said nothing of when he would +come back. + +"Why the devil should he?" Sir John stretched his legs before the fire. +"He'll dine, won't he?" + +The butler bowed. + +"Prithee, William," says Mr. Hadley, "is Mr. Boyce in the house?" + +"Mr. Boyce, sir, is gone walking." + +Mr. Hadley shrugged. "Odso, away with you," Sir John waved the man off. +"Let my lady know we are here." + +The butler coughed. "My lady is in bed, Sir John." + +"What, still?" quoth Sir John, for it was close upon noon. + +"Hath been afoot, Sir John. But took to her bed half an hour since." + +"What, what? Is she ailing?" + +The butler could not say, but looked a volume of secrets, so that Sir +John swore him out of the room. + +"Vaporous old wench, Charles," Sir John snorted. And a second time Mr. +Hadley shrugged. + +In a little while the butler came back even more puffed up. Her ladyship +hoped to receive the gentlemen in half an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN HASTE + + +Oh, Harry, Harry, I give in. I am the weaker vessel. At least, I have the +shorter legs." + +"What, you're asking me to spare you already? Lord, how will you bear me +as a husband?" + +They were under the great beeches in Hampstead Lane, breasting the rise +to the heath, on their march for that kindly chapel, where, if you dined +in the tavern annexed, the incumbent would marry you for nothing, charge +but the five shillings, cost price of the Queen's licence, and ask no +questions. + +Harry shortened his stride, and looked down with grim amusement at +Alison's breathless bosom. + +"I believe you mean to make an end of me before you have begun with me," +she panted. "Lord, sir, what a figure you'll cut if you bring me to +church too faint to say, 'I will.'" + +"Why, the Levite would but take it for maiden modesty. Not knowing you." + +"You are trying to play the brute. It won't save you, Harry. I shan't be +frightened." + +"You! No, faith, it's I. I am beside myself with terror." + +"I do believe that's true!" She laughed at him. "But, oh, dear +sir, why?" + +"Lest I should not fulfil the heroical expectations of Miss Lambourne. +Confess it, ma'am; you count on me to exalt you into heavens of ecstasy, +to bewilder the world with my glories, and be shaved by breakfast-time." + +"To be sure, I'll always expect the impossible of you." + +"There it is. I suppose you expect me to begin by creating a +wedding-ring." + +"Why, you have created me." + +"Oh, no, no, no. You're a splendid iniquity, but not mine, I vow." + +"This woman of yours never lived till you made her. I profess Miss +Lambourne was ever known for a dull cold thing born 'to suckle fools and +chronicle small beer.'" + +"So she wrote me down her property. Egad, ma'am, it was very natural." + +"You know what you have made of me," Alison said. + +"God knows what you'll make of me. And now in the matter of the ring--" + +"Oh Lud, what a trivial thing is a man!" She drew off her glove and held +out a hand with two rings on it. "Marry me with which you will." One was +a plain piece of gold, paler than the common, carved into an odd device +of a snake biting its tail. + +"With thine own ring I thee wed," Harry said, and took it off. "I +take you to witness, Mrs. Alison, the snake was in your paradise +before I came." + +They were across the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane +beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a +garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the +tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked dead +and desolate. + +Harry forced open the sticking door and strode in, Madame Alison +loitering behind. He was met by a dirty lad whose gaping clothes were +half hidden by a leather apron, and whose shoes protruded straw--a lad +who smelt of the stable and small beer. + +"Where's the priest?" said Harry. + +"In the tap," said the boy, and shuffled off. + +There came out into the passage, wheezing and wiping his chops, a little +bloated man in a cassock, with his bands under his right ear. He leered +at Harry and tried to look round him at Alison. + +"You're out of season, my lord," said he. "These chill rains, they play +the mischief with lusty blood. Go to, you'll not be denied, won't you? Do +you dine here?" + +"We have no time for it." + +"What, you're hasty, ain't you?" He gave a hoarse laugh. "There's my fee +to pay then." + +"Here's a guinea to pay for all," said Harry. + +The dirty fist took it, the little red eyes peered at it closely, the +dirty mouth bit it and was satisfied. "Go you round to the chapel door +and wait. Lord, but man and wench never had to wait for me." He +waddled off. + +Harry turned upon Alison. "So with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he +said, with a crooked smile. "God give you joy of them. I vow I was never +so frightened of spending a guinea." + +"Why, d'ye doubt if I'm worth it? Nay, sir, I'm honest stuff and +challenge any trial." + +Harry looked down at her and was met by eyes as bold as his own. + +The chapel door opened, and the little priest beckoned them in. A pair of +witnesses were already posted by the altar, the dirty lad of the tavern +and a shock-headed wench. + +"Licence first, licence first." The parson bustled off to a table in a +corner. "I warrant you we do things decently in Sion. Aye, and tightly, +my pretty. Never a lawyer can undo my knots, never fear." + +He scratched laboriously over their names, while the dank smell of the +place sank into them. + +They were marched to the altar. A hoarse muttering poured from the +priest. He made no pretence of solemnity or even of meaning. He was +concerned only to make an end and have done with them. Of all the service +they heard nothing clearly but what they said themselves, and while they +were deliberate over that the little priest grunted and puffed at them. + +He ended with a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There +was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled +something for their names and shambled off. + +"Let's breathe some free air," said Harry, and laid hold of his wife. + +The parson chuckled. "Free? You'll never be free again, my lord. I can +see that in madame's eye. What, you ha' sold your birthright for a mess +of pottage, ain't you? And mighty savoury pottage, too, says you." He +rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. "Softly now, softly, madame wants +her certificate. Madame wants to warrant herself a lawful married wife, +if you don't ... There, my lady. And happy to marry you again any day at +the same price." + +They were away from him at last and in clean air stretching their legs up +the hill again. + +"Poor Harry!" Alison laughed. "Before you looked like a man fighting +for his life. Now you look like a man going to be hanged. Dear lad! +Pray how much would you give to escape me now?" She put her arm into +his. He let her shorten his stride a little, but made no other +confession of her existence. "Fie, Harry, it's over early to repent. In +all reason you should first be sure of your sin. Who knows? I may not +be deadly after all. 'Alack,' says he, 'I will not be comforted. Egad, +the world's a cheat. A fool and his folly are soon parted they told me, +and here am I tied to her till death us do part. So, a halter, gratis, +for God's sake.'" + +"You're full of other folks' nonsense, Mrs. Boyce," said Harry with a +grim look at her. + +"Oh, noble name!" She bobbed a curtsy. "Full? I am full of nothing but +fasting, aye," she sighed, and turned up her eyes--"fasting from all but +our sacrament." + +They were upon the ridge of the heath and Harry checked her, and stood +looking away over the wide prospect of mist-veiled meadow and dim blue +woods. She was beginning her mocking chatter again when he broke in +with, "Ods life, ha' done!" and turned to look deep into her eyes. +"There's mystery in this, and I think you see nothing of it." + +"Why, yes, faith. If you were no mystery, should I want you? If you had +discovered all of me, would you want me?" + +"Bah, what do we know of living, you and I, or--or of love?" + +She laughed, with a scrap of twisted song: + +"Most living is feigning. +Most loving mere folly, +Then heigho the holly, +This life is most jolly." + +He shrugged and marched her on again. + +"Pray, sir, will you dine at home?" she said demurely. + +Harry flushed. "I must go tell my father and all," he growled. "I'll be +with you soon enough, madame wife." + +"Oh brave! Dear sir, have with you. I must see Geoffrey's face." + +"Egad, let's be decent!" Harry cried. + +"Decent! For shame, sir! What's more decent than man and wife?" + +"Man and wife!" Harry echoed it with a sour laugh. "Do you feel a wife? I +never felt less of a man." + +"You shall be satisfied," she said, and looked at him gravely. "And I--I +am not afraid, Harry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + +Mr. Hadley and Sir John Burford in the hall at Tetherdown looked at each +other across the fire. "Would you call for a pipe now, Charles?" says Sir +John, fidgeting. + +"There'll be none in the house, sir. Geoffrey has no stomach for +tobacco." + +"Damme, if I know what he hath a stomach for," Sir John grumbled, and +kicked at the burning logs. "He don't eat no more than an old woman, nor +drink so much as a young miss. Ain't the half-hour gone, Charles?" + +"That's a poetic phrase, sir. It means a year or so--while she's tiring +her hair." + +"What and painting her face, too? Same as Jezebel." + +My lady's waiting-woman, Arabella, came in. She minced in the manner of +her mistress, but, being a foot shorter, with different effect. She stood +before Sir John, who had the largest chair, and stared at him, with +languid insolence. "Ods my life, don't ogle me, woman," says he. + +"At your leisure, sir, if you please." She tossed her head. + +"Leisure! Oh Lord, I'm at leisure, thank 'e." + +Arabella sniffed. + +"I think you are in madame's chair, sir," Mr. Hadley explained. + +"What, then? She ain't here, nor I don't carry the plague." + +"The lady-in-waiting wants to compose it for madame." + +"Compose!" Sir John exploded an oath, and jumped up. "I ha'n't +decomposed it." + +Arabella dusted the chair, wheeled it a little this way and that, put two +footstools before it, and three cushions into it, contemplated them for +some time, and then shifted them a little. After which she minced out +with a great sigh. + +"Good God!" says Sir John. + +"I wonder," says Mr. Hadley--"I wonder if we've come to take the breeks +off a Highlander?" + +"What's your will?" Sir John gasped. + +"I wonder if my lady knows all we can tell her. It might have made her +hypochondriac." + +"Hip who? Odso, I am hipped myself." + +My lady came. She had so much flowing drapery about her that she seemed +all robes. She moved very slowly, she was bowed, and she leaned upon the +shoulder of Arabella. With care she deposited herself in the big chair. +Arabella arranged her draperies, arranged the cushion, and stood aside. +My lady lay back, put back the lace about her head, and showed them her +large pale face and sighed. "You are welcome, gentlemen," said she. "You +are vastly kind." + +"Odso, ma'am, what's the matter?" Sir John cried. + +"Why, have you not heard? Arabella, he has not heard!" My lady was +convulsed, and clutched at the maid, who comforted her with a +scent-bottle. "He has gone!" she sighed. "He has gone." + +"What the devil! Who the devil?" + +My lady recovered herself. From somewhere in her voluminous folds she +produced a letter. "If it would please you, be patient with me. My +unhappy eyes." She dabbed at them with a handful of lace, and read: + +"My lady, my mother,--I have but time for these few unkempt lines, +wherein to bid you for a while farewell. My good friend, Colonel Boyce, +has favoured me with an occasion to go see something of the warring world +beyond the sea. And I, since the inglorious leisure of the hearth irks my +blood, heartily company with him. It needs not that you indulge in tears, +save such as must fall for my absence. I seek honour. So, with a son's +kiss, I leave you, my mother. G.W." + +On which his mother's voice broke, and she wept. + +"Lord, what a fop!" said Sir John. My lady swelled in her draperies. "So +he's gone to the war, has he? Odso, I didn't think he had it in him." + +"Sir, if you jeer at my bereavement!" my lady sobbed. + +"And where's Harry Boyce?" says Mr. Hadley. + +Sir John stared at him. "Why, seeking honour too, ain't he? What's in +your head, Charles?" + +"This is rude," my lady sobbed; "this is brutal. The tutor! Oh, heaven, +what is the tutor to me? I would to God I had never seen him--him nor his +wicked father." + +Sir John tugged at Mr. Hadley's empty sleeve and drew him aside. "What +are you pointing at, Charles? D'ye mean the two rogues have took Geoffrey +off to make away with him between 'em?" + +"Lord, sir, you've a villainous imagination." Mr. Hadley grinned. "I mean +no such matter. Nay, I'll lay a guinea, Harry Boyce is not gone at all." + +"Sir John"--my lady raised herself and was shrill--"what are you +whispering there?" + +"What, what? You mean the old fellow took Geoffrey off to leave the young +fellow a clear field with Ally Lambourne? Odso, that's devilish deep, +ain't it? But we can set the young fellow packing, my lad. We--" + +"Sir John!" my lady's voice rose higher yet. + +"Coming, ma'am, coming. Od burn my heart and soul!" That last invocation +was not directed at her but an invading tumult. + +The butler entered backwards, protesting, between two men who did not +take off their hats. They were in riding-boots and cloaks, and splashed +from the road. They had pistol butts ostentatious in their side pockets, +and one carried some papers in his hand. + +"Stand back, my bully, stand back, or you'll smell Newgate," says he to +the butler. + +"Burn your impudence," Sir John roared, and strode forward. + +"In the Queen's name. Messengers of the Secretary of State, with his +warrant." The man waved his papers under Sir John's nose. "Master of the +house, are you?" + +"I am Sir John Burford of Finchley, and be hanged to you." + +"There is the mistress of the house, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley + +"Thank'e. In the Queen's name, ma'am. Warrants to take Oliver Boyce, +Colonel, and Geoffrey Waverton, Esquire." + +My lady shrieked, fell back, and was understood to be fainting. + +"You come too late, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley. "Your foxes be gone away." + +The man tapped his nose and grinned. "That won't do, sir. Set about it, +Joe," and he nudged his fellow. + +"What's the charge against them?" says Mr. Hadley. + +The man laughed. "Come, sir, you know better than that. I ain't here to +answer questions." Mr. Hadley put his hand in his pocket. The man grinned +and shook his head, and went out pushing his comrade in front of him. Mr. +Hadley followed them. As soon as they were out in the corridor and the +door was shut behind them, the man turned and held out his hand to Mr. +Hadley, who dropped into it a couple of guineas. "Lord, now, what did you +think it was?" says the messenger genially. "Treasonable +correspondence--Pretender--Lewis le Grand and so forth. Quite +gentleman-like, d'ye smoke me?" + +"Prithee, who set you on?" says Mr. Hadley. + +"Now you go too far, ecod, you do. I don't mind obliging a gentleman, +but you want to lose me my place. We'll be searching the house, by +your leave." + +Off they went, and Mr. Hadley went back to my lady. She had been revived, +and the air was heavy with scent. She fluttered her hands at the +ministering Arabella and said faintly, "What is it, Charles?" + +"It seems there's some talk of their having dealings with the Pretender." + +"Lord bless my soul," Sir John puffed. + +"The Pretender?" Lady Waverton smiled through her powder. "La, now, +Geoffrey's father always had a kindness for the young Prince." + +"I vow, ma'am, you take it with a fine spirit," says Mr. Hadley in +some surprise. + +"You'll find, Mr. Hadley, that such families as ours, the older families, +know how to bear themselves in this cause." + +Sir John stared at her and puffed the louder, and muttered very audibly, +"Here's a turnabout!" + +"Oh, ma'am, to be sure it's a well-born party," Mr. Hadley shrugged. +"D'ye give us leave to remain and see that these fellows show no +impudence?" + +"Oh, sir, you are very obliging," says my lady superciliously. + +Mr. Hadley bowed, and withdrew to the recess of a window with Sir John +following. "Here's a queer thing, Charles. Did ever you know Master +Geoffrey was a Jacobite?" Mr. Hadley shook his head. "Nor this Colonel +Boyce neither?" + +"I never saw a Jacobite in so good a coat, and I never thought Geoffrey +would risk his coat for any king. And thirdly and lastly, I never knew +Whitehall put itself out in these days whether a man was Jacobite or no. +Why, damme, they be all half Jacobites themselves, from the Queen down." + +"Aye, aye," says Sir John sagely. "A devilish queer thing indeed." + +And on that came Alison and Harry--Alison rosy and smiling, Harry a +pale and deliberate appendage. "Dear Lady Waverton, let me present +my husband." + +Lady Waverton sat up straight. Lady Waverton embraced the pair of them +with a bewildered glare. + +"I married him this morning," Alison laughed. + +"Alison, this is unmaidenly jesting," said my lady feebly. + +"Why, if it were, so it might be. But the truth is, it's unmaidenly +truth. For I am Mrs. Harry Boyce. Give me joy." + +"Joy!" my lady gasped. "It's unworthy! It's cruel! Oh, Geoffrey, +Geoffrey! How dare you?" She was again understood to faint. + +Through the rustle of Arabella and the odours of scent came the +explosions of Sir John, swearing. + +Mr. Hadley moved forward, and, ignoring Alison, addressed himself to +Harry. "Pray, sir, did you know that Mr. Waverton this morning left +Tetherdown in your father's company, your father taking him, as he says +in a letter, to the wars?" + +"Knew?" Lady Waverton chose to speak out of her swoon. "To be sure they +knew. They would not have dared else. Dear Geoffrey! A villain! And you, +miss--you whom he trusted! Oh!" She again took scent. + +"La, ma'am, he trusted me no more than I him. You are not well, I think." + +"You give me news, Mr. Hadley," Harry said. "I knew that my father meant +to go abroad, and understood that I was to go with him." + +"Perhaps you'll go after him." Mr. Hadley shrugged and turned away. + +"Why, what's all this, Harry?" Alison laughed. "Your wise father hath +chosen to take Geoffrey instead of you?" + +"In spite of my modesty, I'm surprised, ma'am," says Harry. + +"Burn your impudent face," quoth Sir John from the background. + +"Well, sir, if you were in your father's plans, maybe you'll pay your +father's debts," quoth Mr. Hadley. + +"What do I owe you, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry, bristling. + +The two messengers came back again. "Right enough, sir, gone away." The +spokesman nodded at Mr. Hadley. "We'll be riding. Trust no offence?" He +looked hopeful. + +"Here's Colonel Boyce's son, wishing to answer for his father." + +The man looked Harry up and down and chuckled. + +"Lord, and mighty like. Servant, sir," he winked at Harry. "Tell the +Colonel, sorry we missed him," He winked again and laughed. + +"What's this comedy of yours, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry. + +"Your friends have warrants to arrest your father and Mr. Waverton for +treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. But none for you, I fear, +Mr. Boyce." + +"Devil a one," the man laughed. "Come, Ned, we'll be jogging," Out +they swung. + +A bewildered company, full of suspicions, stared at one another. + +"Come, Harry, let us go home," Alison said. + +"Home!" Lady Waverton gasped with an hysterical laugh. "Hear her!" + +"My lady"--Alison made her a curtsy--"gentlemen--all the friends of Mr. +Boyce will be very welcome to me." + +Sir John swore. "You for a fool and he for a knave, damme, you're +well matched." + +"When you were younger, sir, I suppose you were less of a boor," says +Harry. "Mr. Hadley--my lady--" he made two stiff bows and gave his arm +to Alison. + +"Humph, they go off with the honours." Mr. Hadley shrugged, and held out +his arm in front of Sir John, who was plunging after them. + +"Be hanged to you. What did the rogue mean, telling me I was old?" + +"Why, he meant that a man who is too old to fight should be civil." + +"Too old?" Sir John fumed. "Burn him for a coward." + +"I think not," says Mr. Hadley. "But for the rest--God be with you. My +lady--sincerely your servant." + +My lady was now weeping. "You never loved him," she complained. "You were +never his friend," and she became speechless. + +The two men looked at each other. "Well, Charles, we'll to horse," Sir +John concluded. "Servant, ma'am." They left her in the scented embraces +of Arabella. + +To Harry as he went out came the butler, who, with something of a furtive +manner, produced and gave him a letter. Harry looked at the writing and +thrust it into his coat. Alison saw and took no notice. + +They walked on for some way before silence was broken. Then Harry said: +"Well, madame wife, so you feel you've been bit." + +"Who--I? What do you know of what I feel?" + +"Oh, I can tell hot from cold. I know when you are thinking you ought to +have thought twice. Egad, I agree with you. You've been badly bit. Here +you were told that I was just off out of the country; that you must catch +me at once if you wanted to catch me; that if you took me you would soon +have me off your hands. And now we're tied up, you find I'm not going at +all. I vow it's disheartening. But if you'll believe me, I did honestly +believe my old rogue of a father. I did think he meant to take me." + +"And now you can't be comforted because you have to stay with me. Oh, +Harry, you're a gloomy fellow to own a new wife. But why did the good man +take Geoffrey when he might have had you? I should have thought he knew a +goose when he saw one." + +"I can't tell. I never saw much meaning in the old gentleman." + +"You might as well look at his letter." + +Harry stared. "How did you know that was his?" + +"You like doing things mysteriously, the family of Boyce." + +The letter said this: + +"MR. HARRY,--I flatter myself that you will be offended. But 'tis all for +your good. When I came after you I did not know that you were so clever a +fellow. No more did I expect that I should have to like you. But since I +do, I prefer that I should do without you. And since you have some of my +wits, you may very well do without me. But I believe you will do the +better without friend Geoffrey. Therefore I take him, who will indeed do +my business much more sincerely than your worthy self. With the dear +fellow safe out of the way, I count upon you to push on bravely with Mrs. +Alison. You'll not find two such chances in one life. If you were master +of her you could promise yourself anything in decent reason you please to +want. For all your wits you are not the man to make his own way out of +nothing. So don't be haughty. Why should you? It's a mighty pretty thing, +Harry, and (trust an old fellow who hath made some use of the sex in his +day) as tender as you may hope for in an heiress. She has looked your way +already, and in her pique at the good Geoffrey deserting her, you'll find +her warmer for you. If you don't make her warm enough for wiving, you're +an oaf, which is not in my blood--nor your mother's, to be honest. Nor if +I was young again and played your hand, I wouldn't let her grow cold when +I had her safe.... So be a man, and I give you my blessing. + +"O. BOYCE" + +Harry held it out to Alison. "We're a noble family--the family of +Boyce," said he. + +But Alison read it without a blush or a sneer, and when she gave it back +she was laughing. "Oh, he's more cunning than any beast of the field! Oh, +he knows the world! Poor, dear fellow." + +"Oh Lud, yes, he's a fool for his wisdom. But he's my father." + +"Well, sir?" Harry scowled at the ground. "Oh, what does he matter? +Harry, what does anything matter to-day--or to-morrow, or to-morrow's +to-morrow?" + +"I had no guess of all this." Harry crushed the paper. "You +believe that?" + +"Oh, silly, silly." + +"You're still content?" + +"Not yet," Alison said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + +In the old house on the hill Mrs. Weston sat alone. She was looking out +of the oriel window at a garden of wintry emptiness and wind swept. The +westerly gale roared and moaned, the heavy earth was sodden and beaten +into hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. +Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild +arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was +gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in +a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the +wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the +opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew +eagerly. It was Susan Burford who came in, royally neat in her +riding-habit, for all the storm. She walked in her leisurely, spacious +fashion to Mrs. Weston, who started and stood up, laughing nervously. +"Indeed Alison will be pleased. You are kind. I know she has been longing +to see you." + +Susan laughed and, a large young goddess of health, stooped to kiss the +worn face. "You always talk about somebody else. Are you pleased?" + +"My dear!" Mrs. Weston protested. "You know I am." + +"We match very well. You never want to talk, and I never have anything to +say." Susan sat down, and for some time the only sound was from Mrs. +Weston's needle. At last, "You are still here, then," Susan said. + +"My dear! Why not, indeed?" + +"Oh. But you would always stay by Alison if she needed you." + +"Why, she never has needed me. And now less than ever." + +"Oh." Susan considered that. "And is he kind to you?" + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Indeed he has been very good to me." + +"That is all I wanted to ask you," said Susan, and again there was +silence. + +After a little while Mrs. Weston dropped her sewing and looked anxiously +at Susan. "Have you ever seen him?" + +"Only his back. He used to keep in the corners at Tetherdown." + +"I suppose people--talk about him." + +"I don't listen," said Susan, "People are always in such a hurry. I +can't keep up." + +"I suppose you think Alison was in a great hurry." + +"Only Alison knows about that." + +"Yes." Mrs. Weston looked at her with affectionate admiration, as though +she had been endowed with rare understanding of the human heart. "Do you +know you are the only one of the people Alison liked who has come +here--since?" + +"Oh." (Susan's favourite eloquent reply.) "I don't mind about people." + +"He doesn't mind at all. She doesn't mind yet." + +"What is that you are working?" said Susan. + +"But indeed they are most perfectly happy," said Mrs. Weston, in a hurry. + +"Is it for a tucker?" said Susan. + +In a greater hurry, Mrs. Weston began to explain. She was still at it +when Alison and Harry came back. + +They too had been riding. The storm had granted Alison none of Susan's +majestic neatness. She looked a wild creature of the hills, her wet habit +clinging about her, black ringlets broken loose curling about her, brown +eyes fierce with life, and all the dainty colours of her face very clear +and bright. She saw Susan and cried out, "Oh, my child, I love you." + +Susan rose leisurely to her majestic height and smiled down upon her. "I +think you are the loveliest thing that ever was made," said she. Alison +laughed, and they kissed. + +"I am quite of your mind, ma'am," said Harry. "Or I was," he made Susan a +bow, "till this moment." + +"I was going to ask her if she was happy, sir," Susan said. "I shan't ask +her." She held out her hand. + +"But I want you to ask me a thousand things." Alison put an arm round +her, "Come away, come. At least I am going to tell you"--she shot a +wicked glance at Harry--"everything." Off they went. + +"What's this mean, ma'am?" Harry stood over Mrs. Weston. "Is our wise +Sir John sending to spy out the land?" + +"I wish you would not talk so." Mrs. Weston shivered. "It is like your +father. Oh, sure, you have no need to be suspicious of every one." + +"Suspicious? Faith, I don't trouble myself." Harry laughed. "All the +world may go hang for me. But you'll not expect me to believe in it." + +"I think you need fear no one's ill will. You are fortunate enough now." + +"Miraculously beyond my deserts, ma'am. As you say. But there's the +wisdom of twenty years' shabbiness in me. And I wonder if the good Sir +John wants to be meddling." + +"You need not be shabby now." + +"Lord, I bear him no malice. For he can do nought. Only I would not have +him plague Alison." + +At last Mrs. Weston smiled upon him. "Aye, you are very careful of her." + +"I vow I would not so insult her." Harry laughed. + +"But you need not be afraid. Susan is here for herself. She is like that. +She is the most independent woman ever I knew. She has come because she +loves Alison." + +"Why, then, I love her. And egad it will be easy. She's a splendid +piece." + +Mrs. Weston gave him an anxious glance. "She is very loyal," said she, +with some emphasis. + +"It's a virtue. To be sure it's a virtue of the stupid." Harry cocked a +teasing eye at her. "And I--well, ma'am, you wouldn't call me stupid." + +"I don't think it clever to jeer at what's good--and true--and noble." + +"Egad, ma'am, you are very parental!" Harry grinned. "You will be talking +to me like a mother--and a stern mother, I protest." + +"Am I stern?" Mrs. Weston looked at him with eyes penitent and tender. + +"Only to yourself, I think. Lud, ma'am, why take me to heart?" + +"What now, Harry?" Alison and Susan close linked came back again. "Whose +heart are you taking?" + +"Why, madame's," said Harry, with a flourish. "You see, ma'am," he turned +to Susan, "I've a gift for making folks cry." + +"Oh. Like an onion," says she, in her slow, grave fashion. + +"Susan dear! How perfect," Alison laughed. "Now I know why I am growing +tired of him. A little, you know, was piquant. But a whole onion to +myself--God help us!" + +"Yet your onion goes well with a goose," Harry said. + +"Alack, Harry, but there's nothing sage about you and me." + +"Oh, fie! See there she sits, our domestic sage"--he waved at Mrs. +Weston. + +"To be sure we couldn't do without her." Alison caressed the grey hair. + +"I must be riding, Alison," Susan said. + +Alison began to protest affectionate hospitality. Harry shook his head. +"I have warned you of this, Alison. We are too conjugal. It embarasses +the polite." + +"I am not embarassed," said Susan, with her placid gravity. "I want to +come again." + +"By the fifth or sixth time, ma'am, I may feel that I am forgiven." + +"I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Then you can do it the more heartily." Harry smiled and held out his +hand. + +"Oh." There was a faint shadow of a blush. "I did not think I should like +you." She turned. "I beg your pardon, Alison." + +"I beg, ma'am, you'll come teach my wife to be kind. She also is frank. +But for kindness--well, we are all sinners." + +"There it is, Mr. Boyce," said Susan, holding out her hand. + +And when she was gone. "Now, why did I not marry her first?" said Harry +pensively. + +"Because she would never have married you, child. Being of those who like +the man to ask." + +As Susan rode down the north slope of the hill, she was met by Mr. +Hadley, gaunt upon a white horse, like death in the Revelation. The +comparison did not occur to Susan, who had a fresh mind, but she did +think white unbecoming to Mr. Hadley, and said, gurgling, "Where did you +find that horse? Or why did you find it?" + +"He was a bad debt. But he has a great soul. And don't prevaricate, +Susan. Where have you been?" Mr. Hadley bent his sardonic brows. + +"To gossip with Alison." + +"Odso, I guessed you would turn traitor." + +"No. I haven't turned at all, Mr. Hadley." + +"She has declared war on us. Your dear father fizzes and fumes like a +grenade all day. And you go gossip with her. It's flat treason, miss. +Come, did you tell Sir John you were going?" + +"No. But he would guess. He is so clever about me. Like you." + +"Humph. If he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I +suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and +what did you see in Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I suppose you are scolding me," said Susan placidly. + +"With all my heart." + +"Oh. Why do you ride that horse?" + +"Damme, miss, don't wriggle. You had no business at Highgate!" + +"He looks as if he had the gout." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "But as you went, let's hear what you saw." + +"I always loved Alison." + +"Your business is to love your father, Susan--till some other man +asks you." + +"I love her better now. She is so happy." + +"Damn her impudence," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Why did you lose your temper with her?" + +"I never lose my temper with any one but you." + +"Well. You made my father lose his." + +"Ods life, Susan, don't you know it's a man's right to tell women how +they ought to live? Dear Alison wouldn't listen." + +Susan laughed. "She has made you look very foolish." + +"If she has I'll forgive her." + +"Oh. You do then," said Susan. + +"On your honour, miss, what did you think of Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I wondered Alison should love him." + +"Ods life, yes. But what's this you're saying?" + +"He is so quiet and simple." + +"Simple! Damme, the fellow's an incarnate mask." + +"Oh. I think I know all about him. I never thought I knew all about +Alison. She wants so much." + +"And she hasn't got all she wants, eh?" + +"Yes, I believe," said Susan, after a moment. + +"Pray God you're right." + +"Oh. I like to hear you say that. You have been so"--for once her placid +words stumbled--"so sordid about this." + +"Damme, Susan, don't be a saint." Mr. Hadley grinned. "They die virgins." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. BOYCE + + +It was a time of wild plots. The long war of Marlborough had left England +impregnably triumphant, and France ambitious of nothing but peace. No +fear remained that foreign arms would carry James, the Pretender by right +divine, to his sister's throne. Who should reign when Anne's growing +weakness ended in death was for England alone to decide, and English law +gave the succession to Prince George of Hanover. But there was a party, +or at least the leaders of a party, who saw more profit to themselves in +importing the Pretender. + +Harley and Bolingbroke, they had thrust out of the Queen's confidence and +the government the friends of Hanover. They had undermined the authority +of Marlborough at home and abroad, and were now ready, honourably or +dishonourably, to put an end to the war which made him necessary. If he +were dispatched into ignominy or exile, there could be no one strong +enough, they believed, to prevent them driving England the way they +chose. What that way would be no one clearly knew, themselves, perhaps, +least of all. But together and singly they set going many strange secret +schemes which were to make a new king, a new England, and new +magnificence for themselves, singly or together. All which the mass of +England watched with shrewd, incurious eyes. It could not long be a +secret that plots were afoot. To shoulder out of power all who were +committed friends of the lawful order was a confession of designs against +it. As if that were not enough, Bolingbroke and Harley so managed their +business that everything they did was wrapped in a mist of trickery and +intrigue. And yet, though they were vastly mysterious over what could +have borne the light without much shame, they contrived to let the agents +of their deeper treachery blunder into notice and fill the air with +rumours of untimely truth. Still England gave no sign. + +"Under which King"--Hanoverian or Pretender--perhaps there were few in +England who cared. If the Pretender was bred French and a Papist, Prince +George was a German born. Some of those who had joined heartily in +driving out his father began to put it about that the son would be a +better king for that lesson. George of Hanover had the right of law, but +the Parliament of to-morrow might undo what the Parliament of yesterday +had done. Who could be ardent for the right of an unknown foreigner over +England? And few were ardent, but there were many who, caring nothing for +Pretender or Hanoverian, had a solid resolution that England should not +be torn in the cause of either. Whatever was done, must be done quietly +and in good order. Since it seemed that the Hanoverian had no need to +change anything in law or State or Church, best that he should be king. +As for the devious politics, the tricks, and the mystery of Harley and +Bolingbroke, they were of no account to plain men. + +There was yet another party not content to watch and wait till the +plotters lost themselves in their own mysteries. The men whom Harley and +Bolingbroke had driven from power had no mind to submit to impotence. +They well knew what they wanted: the Hanoverian, the lawful, limited king +upon the throne and themselves as his ministers. They were not delicate +about the means they used. Since there were treason and plots, they too +turned their hands to plotting and with a vigour and ruthless resolution +of which the other camp was innocent. + +So the wise and eminent were busy while Harry Boyce and his Alison made +trial of their marriage. Harry lived in a dream of bewildered happiness. +He had counted on nothing but the need of his passion, hoped for nothing +but its ecstasy in her beauty, and at its wildest the strain of gloom in +him had bade him dread what lay beyond. She gave him a miracle of mad +delight. A new force of life was born in him while he enjoyed her joy. It +was a discovery of intoxicating power that he could wake that rare, +consummate creature to such eager exultation as his own. In those +wonderful hours it seemed that they passed out of themselves into a world +where every part of their being was one and in the happiness of unbounded +strength. So passion and she kept faith with him and something more. But +the miracle of passion in her arms had less enchantment than the joy of +the quiet hours. It was with this that she bewildered him. Before she +yielded to him, he would have jeered at the hope that she might bring the +gift of peace in her bosom. As the first days of marriage passed he +learnt that all his placid loneliness had been the mere endurance of +hunger. He had stayed himself with the husk of life. She satisfied him +with the fruit. For she too could be calm, delighting in the little daily +things, utterly happy with nonsense. To share all that with her was to +find in it a strange, lulling enchantment of content. + +His fortune seemed too good to be real. For he possessed all that ever +fancy had pretended was worth coveting: his life was a perfect happiness. +No doubts from within, no troubles from without, had power to assail him. +All the old, reasonable, practical fears were become ludicrous cowardice, +only remembered for Alison to tease with. As for other people, and what +they said and thought and did, some folks were kind and were welcome, no +folks were of account. He and she deliciously sufficed themselves. And +there was no dread of change, save in age and death, infinitely distant +and insignificant--no matter but to glorify the power of life. Sometimes +he was aware that the wonder of passion must grow faint and fail, but he +saw nothing which could take from him the quiet, exquisite, daily joys. +Was it real, or a charmed dream, this perfect fortune of content? Indeed, +nothing was real in those days but the delight in being with her. + +Alison had her share. He did not deceive himself. She had her ecstasies +and her exultations, she thought herself even madder than he was. And in +these days, perhaps, her passion was deeper and stronger than his. She +was satisfied, she felt herself accomplished, and gloried in her new +power with a more profound, a more secret delight than his. She had given +him eagerly all that she had, and in the giving found herself more than +ever her own. For all the union, the deepest, truest self in her stood +aloof in a mystery. It was not of her will, for she desired to deny him +nothing. She did not reckon him weak in failing to take all of her. This +must needs be the way of life. No man's passion could be stronger than +his. Doubtless he too had his secret soul apart. And indeed it was +glorious not to lose self in love, to stay always, through the ecstasies, +aloof, to give always anew of will and choice--never to merge helpless in +some unknown double being and become only half a body, half a soul, +capitulating always to the rest, to the other. + +This self-glorious pride of hers gave her for a while that zest in all +the trivial common things which made her a companion so delightful to +Harry's temper. But she enjoyed them in a spirit different from his. All +the bread-and-butter business of living was to him delightful in itself +and for itself. He was born to want no better bread than is made of +wheat. She played with it, made a dainty mock of it, amused herself with +it, and at the back of her mind despised it. + +So they lived, and you imagine Mrs. Weston's dim, wistful eyes watching +them with a great tenderness. For she understood them no better than +they themselves. + +It was Alison who first grew tired. Not of love or passion, but of the +trivialities and the quiet life at Highgate. She had ambitions, or +thought she had. It had been just rediscovered that women could be +leaders in the world--at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. +Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the +warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given +Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It +was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his +enemies the government of England. It was a woman--another duchess--who +beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some humour, of +imagining Harry Boyce a Marlborough. But he did believe him able to make +a noise in the world, and coveted much the sensation of owning him while +the world listened. She did not see herself controlling queens and kings +and parties, but she was well aware of her beauty and its power, and had +a mind to use it widely. She was hungry for excitement. + +So Mrs. Alison determined to set her man upon a larger, busier stage. The +decree went forth that old Tom Lambourne's house in the Lincoln's Inn +Fields was again to be inhabited. Harry was asked for his advice +afterwards. Perhaps he would have been wiser if he had begun their first +quarrel then. But he was enjoying her too much to deny her her ways or +her whims, and he only laughed at her. He was not pleased, to be sure. He +had a taste, which cannot have come from his father, for copse and +field. He never found anything in the town which was worth the living in +other folk's smoke. He disliked crowds and in particular crowds of fine +ladies and gentlemen. So with some horror he saw before him a vista of +polite splendours, and said so. + +"Oh Lud, sir," says she, "if I had wanted to sleep my life away I should +not have married you. And if you wanted to sleep out yours you should not +have married me." + +"I was born for innocence and green fields. You'll make me a bull in a +china shop." + +"I'll love you the better, child. Faith, Harry, I would be very glad to +have you break something." + +"Madame's heart, _par exemple_?" + +"That would be an adventure." + +So you find them arrived in the Lincoln's Inn Fields as the first step +to the conquest of the world. The world was not as excited as Alison +thought fit. Her father, old Tom Lambourne, had commanded reverence in +the City and some respect even as far west as St. James's by sheer +weight of wealth. A rare capacity for living hard had won him an army of +diverse friends. But neither his business nor his pleasures provided him +with many who could be bequeathed to his daughter. Her mother, born a +baker's daughter in Shoe Lane, having died in giving Alison birth, had +left her nothing besides her admirable body but some grumbling objects +of charity. It remained for Alison to make her own way in the world of +fine ladies and gentlemen. Since she was by certain fame an heiress of +great possessions, her way might have been easy if she had not found +herself a husband. The taint of the city, if she had borne herself +humbly, need not have made her quite intolerable to people of birth. But +since her money was already married she could only be reckoned as a city +goodwife; pretty enough, indeed, to be game for fine gentlemen, but to +fine ladies a nobody. + +Folks were slow in coming to the grand house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; +slower still, if they had houses of elegance, to ask Mrs. Alison back. It +suited Harry very well. He would, as his wife complained, go mooning +across the fields to Islington almost as happily as through the woods at +Highgate. His books had almost as good a savour in town as in the +country. When she dragged him to hear Nicolini or Wilks or the +Bracegirdle, he could console himself by gentle jeering over the fact +that in a playhouse where everybody knew everybody not a creature had a +bow for him or her. Of course she smarted. Day by day he chose to affect +astonishment over her failures, believing with infatuated content that he +was slowly driving her back to the country and sanity, though he was but +driving her away from him. And she, choosing to feel humiliated, blamed +him for the shame of it. + +"Why, child," says he in his supercilious way, "'tis not failing to be in +the _beau monde_ that's ridiculous, but wanting to be." + +To such monitions she began not to answer back--a symptom very dangerous. + +She set up a basset table. That, if anything could, must proclaim her a +woman of fashion--a woman, indeed, who had a fancy to be a trifle +daring. There's no doubt that Alison about this time and afterwards did +want to dabble in danger. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. +She encouraged high play. For herself, she enjoyed the excitement of it, +having no need to care if she lost. She wanted to have about her people +who affected heavy stakes, believing in the innocence of her heart that +they were exhilarating company. So she made for herself a queer society, +which Harry to her angry disgust defined as a mixture of sheep and +wolves. There were good wives and lads from the city anxious to make a +jingling show with the funds of the family counting-house, there were +hungry beaux and madames from the other end of the town seeking their +fortune impudently wherever it might be found. + +To one of these happy parties there was introduced a Mrs. Boyce. She +was a faded, handsome creature much jewelled about lean shoulders. +Alison, who hardly heard her name in the rout, took no account of it +and little of her. But on the next day this Mrs. Boyce came early and +caught Alison alone. + +She began with such a fuss about apologizing for her earliness that +Alison set her down for an ill-bred, tiresome creature. She had a high +voice which, like the rest of her, was a trifle faded. "I protest, ma'am, +I have long desired to know you better." Alison languidly muttered +something civil. "Let me make myself known first, I beg. I am the niece +of Sir Gilbert Heathcote." + +Alison, of course, had heard of Sir Gilly--one of the chiefs of high +finance--but cared nothing about him. "I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I was +only born Thomas Lambourne's daughter." + +"There is no need; ma'am." A long, lean hand was waved. "I wonder if we +are in some fashion connected. We are both called Mrs. Boyce. The Boyces +of Oxfordshire, ma'am?" + +Alison's laugh had something of a sneer in it, "Of nowhere that I know, +ma'am. My husband is Mr. Harry Boyce, son of Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +The lady fluttered her fan, settled herself afresh in her chair, +rearranged her close-fitting lips. Alison was reminded of a hen preening +itself. "I had heard so, ma'am. And my husband is Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +"La, ma'am, do you mean the same?" Alison cried. + +Mrs. Oliver Boyce gave a lifeless smile. "That is why I did myself the +honour of giving you my confidence, ma'am. I think there are not two +Colonel Oliver Boyces. The younger son of one of the Oxfordshire family." + +"Oh Lud, how should I know? I never looked into the grandfathers." + +"No, ma'am?" The tone was patronizing contempt. "You might have been the +wiser of it. Colonel Oliver Boyce--he has taken the title lately--when I +knew him he was something in the service of the Duke of Marlborough. Oh, +a fine man to the eye, ma'am, and very splendid in his talk." + +"Why, that's his likeness," Alison laughed. "And what then, ma'am? Have +you come seeking the Colonel? He is the Lord knows where. Or is +it--faith, you don't tell me Harry is your son?" + +"No, ma'am. At least I was spared bearing children." + +"Oh--why, give you joy if you would have it so. But how can I serve you? +Maybe your Colonel is not my Colonel after all. At least he and Harry are +father and son heartily enough." + +"It may be so, ma'am," said the lady heavily, and here Harry came in. + +Alison looked up laughing and then frowned. Harry would not ever dress +fine. His wig was still unfashionably small, he wore some sombre stuff, +and to her eye (as she said) looked like a mole. "Here's Mr. Boyce, +ma'am. Harry, Mrs. Oliver Boyce, who is come to say that you never had +father nor mother." + +"Your obliged servant, ma'am." Harry opened his eyes. "Pray, has my +father married again?" + +"You'll find, sir, that Colonel Boyce has only been married once." + +"If you please, ma'am," said Harry blandly. "Pray, are you blaming him? +Or--" a gesture expressed his complete ignorance of what she was doing. + +The lady seemed to force herself to laugh. "Oh, fie, sir. Sure it is not +for me to blame him." + +"No, ma'am?" Harry was first interrogative then acquiescent. "No, ma'am. +I wonder if you could give me the Colonel's direction." + +"I, sir? You are pleased to amuse yourself." + +"I vow, ma'am, I was never less amused." + +"Colonel Boyce was pleased to leave me five years ago. I have not +forgotten it, if you have." + +"Faith, this is very distressing," Harry protested in bewilderment. "But +you do me injustice, ma'am. I have forgotten nothing about my father. For +I never knew anything." + +"As you please, sir," the lady drawled. "I was talking, by your leave, to +Mrs. Boyce." + +"Oh, ma'am, a hundred pardons," Harry took himself off in a hurry. His +chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she +wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's +deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As +for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps +he was not far wrong. + +Alison too was much of the same opinion, but it was unfortunately +hampered by a natural curiosity to hear what the lady could tell +about the mystery of Harry and his father. "You had something to say +to me, ma'am?" + +"I count it my duty, ma'am, to give you warning of Colonel Boyce." + +Alison stood up. "Duty? I know nothing of your duty, ma'am. But I think +it is mine not to listen to you." + +"I protest, I should have said the same," the lady drawled. "I too had +spirit once, child. That was before I suffered. I would I had known you +earlier. And yet perhaps I may do something to save you even now." + +"I cannot tell how, ma'am." + +"Listen, if you please!" the lady said dramatically. "I was something of +an heiress as you are and maybe something of a toast too. The worse for +me. I choose to believe it was not only my money which brought Oliver +Boyce upon me. He took all I could give him and very soon gave me +nothing, not even common courtesy. When I began to be careful he began to +be brutal. But for my family--I told you that Sir Gilbert Heathcote was +my uncle--he would have stripped me of every penny. When they stepped in +to save me some rag of my fortune, my good Mr. Boyce left me. I have +never had a word from him since. Pray, child, take warning." + +"If it is so, I am sorry for it," said Alison coldly, "I believe I hear +company." She began to walk to the outer room. + +Behind her, "As for your Harry Boyce," said the lady, "oh, I make no +doubt he's Oliver's son, though certainly he is none of mine." + +Alison made as if she did not hear, and she was spared more by the coming +of some of her guests. The card tables filled. There was no more danger +of being private with Mrs. Oliver Boyce. Indeed, the lady, as if she had +done all she wanted, took her leave early. She was affectionate about it, +for which Alison liked her none the better. Through most of that evening, +amid the flutter of cards and the clatter--"Spadillio, on my life! What, +it's Basto, is it? Did you hear of Mrs. Prue? She'll not show for a +month. We win the Codille, ma'am. They say the Duchess and she pulled +caps"--Alison was telling herself over and over that the creature was a +detestable low thing who only wanted to make mischief. It should, you +think, have needed no effort to believe that. But the obvious malice had +power to annoy a mind already discontented. Alison could not stop +wondering what the mystery was about Harry's birth and his father. +Perhaps Harry knew more than the little he professed. Perhaps he was not +the careless, indolent fellow he chose to seem, but something more +cunning and less lofty. What if he were just such another as the woman +painted his father--a fellow on the hunt for an heiress, who, once he had +her and her money, cared no more about her? To be sure there was some +evidence for that. Since they had come to town, he was always off by +himself. If she wanted him with her, she had to plead and plague him. A +proud office! Why, that very night monsieur did not please to appear at +the card tables. He was too fine for her and her company. So she fretted +and rubbed the poison in. And naturally, she fared ill at the card table. +Her cards were bad and she made the worst of them. She was not a good +loser and it was a wife much inflamed who, when her guests were gone, +sought out her husband. + +Harry sat with Mrs. Weston, who was at needlework and, if Alison had been +able to see, looked very benign. But it was he who demanded all the +wife's angry eyes. His wig was on the table beside him. He had a pipe in +his mouth. He was lolling in the deeps of a chair and smiling to himself +over a book. "You might be in an ale-house, you look so slovenly." + +Harry grinned up at her. "Oh, madame wife hasn't been winning to-night. +Tell me all about it." + +"Faugh! Your pipe," Alison coughed. "For God's sake keep it to the +tavern. It's enough that you reek of it without making my house +reek too." + +Harry gave a great sigh and put the pipe down. "We were so comfortable +till you came. I am glad to see you, dear." + +"I was comfortable till you came." Alison snapped. + +"Pray, mother Weston," says Harry, "forgive our public caresses. We have +not long been married." + +Alison looked ice at him. "Weston dear, would you leave us? I have +something to say to Harry." Harry opened his eyes. Mrs. Weston looked at +her anxiously, bade them a nervous good-night, and hurried out. + +"Harry--who was your mother?" Alison stood stern over the lolling +husband. + +"Egad, what's this? Have you been brooding over your bony friend? +Who is she?" + +"She says she is your father's wife; and says he left her." + +"Well, if she is his wife, I wager he did leave her. Faith, she was made +to be deserted." + +"What do you know of her?" + +"Nothing, by the grace of God. Why should I? If my father got drunk and +married her, he would not want to talk about it when he was sober." + +"I despise you when you talk so," Alison cried. + +"And yet you listened to her, child." + +"She says that he took all her money before he left her." + +"Oh! Pray, why has she so much to say, and to you?" + +"She wanted to warn me against Colonel Boyce." + +"And against his son, I think. And you were so kind as to listen. Egad, +ma'am, I am obliged to you. Well, now you know what to do. You have the +money and I have none. Pray, lock up your purse to-night." + +"You are childish," said Alison with lofty scorn. "Harry--who was +your mother?" + +"Oh, I thought your kind friend told you I had none. I dare say it's as +true as the rest." + +"You don't know?" + +"I never saw her." + +"She said--" Alison hesitated. + +"Oh Lud, don't be squeamish now." + +"She said your father had never been married except to her." + +"Odso! That is what you had to tell me. I am a bastard, am I?" He laughed +and turned in his chair. "Give you good-night, madame wife." + +"Harry--" + +"Oh, God save you!" He took up his pipe. "I am no company for you. And, +by God, you are no company for me." + +She looked at him a moment, hesitated, went slowly out. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + +The irruption of Mrs. Oliver Boyce could not easily have been foretold. +That the past life of Colonel Boyce was likely to throw shadows over his +son Harry might have considered, but the nature of the lady and her care +and the successful opportunity of her malice were hardly to be +calculated. There is less excuse for him in the affair of Sir George +Anville. Given the conditions of that hasty marriage and the state into +which it had brought them and the society about them, some Sir George or +other was a natural consequence. + +The ugly quarrel which Mrs. Oliver Boyce had made for them was never +composed. When they met again in the morning they were coldly and +haughtily civil, and so they chose to remain. Mrs. Weston, not being +blind, saw that something was amiss and tried with blundering motherly +affection to push them back into one another's arms. She hardened, as is +usual, their hostility. Each was mortally afraid of weakening, each +suspected the other at once of softness and of guile and so held aloof +and fed upon scorn. They had both enough of that pride of sex which gives +one pleasure in the sufferings of the other. And of course the quarrel +was poisoned with a sordid taint. The colder, the haughtier Harry was, +the more Alison inclined to believe that he had wanted nothing of her but +her money. The haughtier, the colder Alison was, the more Harry raged +against her for a mean creature who desired to make him feel his +dependence upon her money bags. + +In himself Sir George Anville was of no importance. If Harry had been +comfortable he could never have taken the trouble to be angry over the +man. It is certain that Alison never thought him worth any thought of +hers, still less worth one finger's surrender. And yet Sir George +contrived to be disastrous to the pair of them. + +That was not, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said of him in another matter, +altogether his fault. "The fool has excuses," quoth she, "which others +have not. He is so great a fool that you hardly believe his folly is but +folly." Sir George was a man born without impulse or capacity for +anything. Lady Mary, who was fond of using him for her wit, made a +grammarian's jest on him, "The creature's an anomaly: active in form, +passive in meaning." He was bred in a society which made it a fashion to +be vicious. He affected to follow the fashion. If vice must needs be +something active, or at least, something of the will, Sir George Anville +must escape punishment. But he was to a wholesome taste more offensive +than sinners who did more damage. It was Harry's worst blunder in the +affair that he treated Alison as if she did not feel that. + +Sir George knew no other way of passing his life than in dangling about +women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to +contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He +did--it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments--he did +know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew +Alison much resorted to her. His other accomplishment was to dress well. +He was lean and had an air of languor which was not affected, but a +natural lack of vigour. It may be believed that Alison tolerated him +because he made a not disagreeable decoration to her rooms. But at this +era she was cynical, and perhaps told herself that Sir George was as good +a man as another. + +He began to come at hours when she could be found alone and was sometimes +admitted. So Harry caught him once or twice, was ironically obsequious to +him (which Sir George took for solemn earnest), and afterwards amused +himself by congratulating Mrs. Alison on the power of her charms. "Odds +fish, I can't tell where you'll stop, ma'am. You'll have a corpse on his +knees to you yet. Maybe the corpse of a lord. I vow I'm proud of you." +Which was not likely to get the door shut on Sir George. + +So that dangling gentleman became convinced that Alison was yielding to +his embraces. He was, in a limp way, gratified. A devilish fine woman to +be sure. She might be a trifle exhausting to a man of _ton_. But what +would you? Women were greedy and must be satisfied with what one could +spare them. And it was pleasant to see the pretty creatures pining. He +would lure madame on with a few tit-bits. In this kindly mood he went to +her on a wet April day when Alison was fretting for a wild walk or a +wilder ride in wind and rain. But even to herself she would not confess +that she was tired of the town. It would have assimilated her to Harry. + +Sir George sat himself down by Alison's side, simpered at her, sniffed, +put his thin hands on his thin knees and ogled them. Alison held out to +him a cup of tea. He arranged his rings before he took it and then again +simpered at her. After some humming and hawing, "D'ye go to the play +to-night, ma'am?" he drawled. + +"What play is it?" + +"Ah--some curst play or other," said Sir George; and exhausted by that +effort relapsed for a while into silence. + +Alison did not help him out. It is possible that she was wondering how a +creature so vapid could go on existing. She looked Sir George over with +an odd, close inspection. Sir George, who had some perceptions, became +aware of it and according to his nature misunderstood it. He sniffed +again, and "Pray, ma'am, what perfume do you use?" Alison stared at him. +"I am delicate in such things," said he, and smelt his own handkerchief. + +Alison hesitated between disgust and amusement. To be sure the creature +was such a fool that it was not fair to think of him save as a buffoon. +So unfortunately she chose amusement. "Oh, I vow, Sir George, your +delicacy is rare," she laughed. + +The poor creature took it for a compliment. He leered at her: "But you +are exquisite, my Indamora." + +"Who?" + +"It's an amorous lady in a play," Sir George explained. "Pretty +creature," he patted Alison's arm, and leaned upon her to kiss her neck. + +She was so surprised that his lips had almost time to reach her. "Lord, +sir, are you mad?" she cried, as she thrust him off. + +"Pretty creature," Sir George giggled, and clung to her. + +"Your carriage is at the door, Sir George." Harry stood over them. His +face was as much a mask as ever, his voice placid. + +Alison started up and stood to face him with a lowering brow. He did not +appear to see her. Sir George shook down his ruffles. "Carriage? What +d'ye mean?" says he. "I ha' had no carriage this year. I came in a +hackney coach." + +Harry turned away from him and opened the door. + +"Eh? Oh, stap me!" Sir George giggled and got on to his feet, "Madame, +your eternally devoted." He went out with a strut, waving his scented +handkerchief in the direction of Harry. + +Then Alison spoke. Her eyes were furious. "You--oh, you boor! How +dare you?" + +"Egad, that's very good!" Harry laughed. + +She beat her foot on the floor. "Oh, you are not to be borne! To make a +noise of it! To make a scandal of me and that--that creature!" + +"To be sure, I came untimely. Well, ma'am, if you wanted to be quiet +about it, I had rather it made a noise." + +"My God!" she was white. "You dare say that to me! Be careful, Harry." + +"Pray, ma'am, no heroics." + +"I warn you, there are things I'll not bear." + +"Is it possible?" Harry sneered. + +She swept past him and away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It seems that, years afterwards, Harry and Alison were afflicted with a +dreary and remorseful wonder at these wars. Both, as they grew older, had +something of a turn for moralising, and in their copious letters to their +several children is evidence of much penitence and puzzling over the +disasters of their youth. Each plainly took all the blame. Each is +eloquent about the sins of pride and hardness. Harry preaches the duty of +trust; Alison the folly of easy intimacies. Both of them, in those latter +days when they could calmly estimate what they had lost, still wondered +with a gloomy scorn how they had come to let the ugly, ridiculous affair +of Sir George set them against each other. You find them both trying to +recall (or guess) what exactly it was that, in the time of crisis, they +felt and believed. + +When it was all part of their history, Harry could hardly persuade +himself that ever he had fancied Alison untrue, even disloyal; or Alison +believe that she had stormed against him for driving out of the house a +man who had been impudent to her. Yet it is not to be doubted that Harry +did let suspicions of her honesty poison him. He could not, at the worst +of his anger, believe that she would play false with such a husk of a +fop; but he told himself that she wanted to make the fellow into a +waiting gentleman, a servant, and a toy at once--a thing more nauseous +than a lover. And Alison, though at the back of her brain she was aware +that Harry had excuse for what he had done, raged the more against him +for the intolerable things he had said. His suspicions made her despise +him. For his assumption of authority she hated him. + +There were almost from the first the usual sage and kindly friends to +tell them that it was all a misunderstanding, that they had only to be +frank with each other and commonly reasonable and there would be no +quarrel left. But it is doubtful whether this sagacious advice could +have done them much good if they had taken it. "Talk things over like +rational creatures," was (as usual) the prescription. But if they had +really been rational, they would only have come to the conclusion that +they ought not to be married. The force of their passion, to be sure, +was real enough and still moved in them. To hold them together they had +nothing else. There was no consciousness of other need, no longing for a +common life, no desire to help or give. If they had been most calmly +wise and wisely calm in a dozen conversations, they would but have made +this all the clearer. + +Still it is true, as the sagacious friends guessed, that they did not +try to compose the quarrel. Each was by far too proud. Harry was +pleased to consider that he had done his duty by a flighty wife, and +would take no more account of her unless she were penitent--or provoked +him again. Alison, reckoning herself meanly insulted, was resolved that +he could never again be more than an unwelcome guest in her house. They +were, to be sure, ridiculous. In private they avoided each other. In +public they continued to meet, for each was too proud to confess to the +world the failure of their marriage. You imagine how poor Mrs. Weston +enjoyed life in an icy atmosphere, the temperature of which she was not +permitted to notice. + +Such were their relations when the final blow fell upon them. They dined +late in the Lincoln Inn Fields. It was as much as six o'clock and they +were still at table--as jovial as usual. The butler came to Alison with +an elaborate whispering. "Pray him come up," she said aloud, and looked +defiance down the table at Harry. "It is Mr. Waverton." + +"Lord, Lord, is he still alive?" Harry grinned. "That's heroic." + +"Back from France? Is Colonel Boyce come back?" Mrs. Weston cried. + +"I know nothing of Colonel Boyce," said Alison coldly. + +"You couldn't please him better," Harry laughed. "Dear Geoffrey! I wonder +if he knows anything? Well I It would be a new experience." + +Mr. Waverton came. He was more stately than ever--browner also, but not +changed otherwise. His large and handsome face affected all the old +melancholy. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton!" Harry grinned. "You do honour me. Pray let me present +you to my poor wife." + +Geoffrey took no notice of him. "Madame, your obedient," he bowed to +Alison. "I beg leave to have some speech with you." + +"There's still some dinner. Draw up a chair," said Harry. + +"I did not come to dine, sir." + +"Oh, that's a sad stomach of yours. A glass of wine, then?" + +"I do not take wine with you, Mr. Boyce." + +"I wonder if you have made a mistake. For you have come into my house." + +"I will answer for all my mistakes, sir, with hearty goodwill." + +"Egad, you'll be busy." + +"Oh, be silent!" Alison cried. "You are welcome, Mr. Waverton. How can I +serve you?" + +"I understand the gentleman's desire to hurry me into a quarrel, ma'am. +Be sure that I shall not permit it." Harry laughed disagreeably. "It's +very well, sir. But I choose first that you should listen to what I +have to say." + +"Listen I Oh Lud, is it a poem?" + +Mr. Waverton flushed. "You are impertinent, sir. It shall not serve +you. I intend that madame shall know the truth of your father's +treachery and yours." + +Harry stood up. "Are we to stay for more of this, ma'am?" + +"I shall stay," Alison said. + +"You remark the gentleman's impatience to silence me, ma'am. I promise +you that I shall tell you nothing which he or any man can deny." + +"It's a dull tale, then," Harry muttered. + +"I think it will excite you enough, ma'am. You are advised that I went to +France with Colonel Boyce. The office which he offered me was to +negotiate with Prince James. This I undertook readily, for to his party +my family hath ever had an inclination, nay, an affection, and I saw in +the affair duties of honour and moment." + +"To the greater glory of Geoffrey, first Duke of Waverton, whom God +preserve," quoth Harry. + +"I did not, I will avow, foresee that the thing was but a trick to take +me away from my house and out of the country. Though I may regret, +ma'am"--he bowed magnificently to Alison--"I do not even now blame myself +for my blindness, for I have ever accounted it unworthy of a man of +honour to fear treachery in his servants"--he glared at Harry--"or +weakness--ah--weakness in those to whom he gives his devotion"--he made +melancholy eyes at Alison. "No more of that. In fine, I did not suspect +that a fellow who was taking wages from my hand had plotted to rob me of +what was my dearest hope, or that another--another--would surrender +herself a prey to his crafty greed." + +"Damme, it is a poem after all," Harry groaned. + +"You said you had something to tell me, sir," said Alison coldly. + +"Nay, ma'am, be patient. I give you no reproaches. But what is, is. If it +irks you that I remind you of it, do not give the blame to me." + +"I shall blame you for being tedious, by your leave." Alison yawned. + +"Wait till all's told. Well, ma'am, I left Tetherdown with Colonel +Boyce, and we rode posthaste to Newhaven. He was there joined by some +half-dozen fellows, low fellows to my eye. This much surprised me, and I +took occasion to tell him so, for he had given out that his was a very +secret errand of Marlborough's privy policy, into which he would admit +none but me. He made out that these fellows were but messengers and +escort, and I permitted myself to be satisfied, though I remarked that +he was on familiar terms with them. But that gave me little concern, for +I had from the first remarked in Colonel Boyce a coarse habit of +intimacy with the vulgar." + +"Aye, aye, you and he took to each other famously," says Harry. + +"Lud, sir, must you be so wordy?" Alison cried. + +"You will find that every word has its import, ma'am. From some of these +fellows Colonel Boyce learnt that there was a warrant out against him for +treasonable practices with the Pretender. This affected him to great +indignation, in which, as I frankly told him, I found matter for +bewilderment. Since he was, as he professed, about to deal with the +Pretender, it was but fair that the Government should arraign him on that +charge. Over which he was pleased to laugh at me, and then, to explain +his mirth, averred that the Government, and in particular Mr. Secretary +St. John, was much more Jacobite than he, and so had no title to meddle +with him. Then he said that what irked him was that they should have +heard of his dealings with France, which must be done secretly or fail. +So we went in a hurry aboard the schooner which was ready for him, and +crossed to Dieppe, landing by night beyond the town. I make no doubt from +his adroitness that Colonel Boyce hath done business in France before, +but of what kind I leave you to guess when you have heard all. We were +well furnished with horses and upon the road to Paris before noon. He +gave out to some officers which questioned him that we were of Prince +James's service upon our way to St. Germain. We rode to Pontoise, and +there, as it had been planned from the first, Colonel Boyce stayed while +I rode on to the Prince. He dared not, as he said, go himself to Paris, +for fear that some of the French officers should recognize him as +Marlborough's man and denounce him for a spy. Therefore was I to go with +letters to the Prince, and messages which should persuade him to ride out +to Pontoise and come to business with Colonel Boyce. I went on then +alone, save that Colonel Boyce gave me one of his fellows to be my guide +and servant, and he stayed with the rest at Pontoise. Thus far, I beg you +remark, I had no cause to apprehend treachery. Upon the face, the scheme +was fair enough, and all had been done even as Colonel Boyce proposed to +me in England. I will maintain myself honourably free of any blame in the +affair against any man whomsoever." + +"God bless you," said Harry heartily. + +Mr. Waverton visibly laboured with a repartee. + +"Oh, sir, a prayer from you is a rare honour," he said at length. +"You're to understand, ma'am, that I was furnished with letters of +credence from certain of the Jacobite agents in England--John Rogers and +Mrs. White, I remember. How they were come by, I cannot now tell, though +I may guess, for it is plain that there was no stint of money in the +affair. So I came easily to speech with the Prince and his secretary, my +Lord Middleton. And I will ever maintain that His Royal Highness is +altogether such as a prince should be. Being of a dark complexion and a +melancholy dignity, there is in him no lightness of thought or word. To +me he was, I profess, very flattering, showing me courtesies beyond my +rights or expectations. He received me, in a word, most favourably, and +being influenced, as I regret I cannot doubt, by my person and address, +was easily inclined to ride out to Pontoise. Only my Lord Middleton made +difficulties. He is of a sardonic turn, and permits his wit to outrun his +civility. He set me questions in a fashion which my honour could not +brook. Yet I can relate that in the end I prevailed over my Lord +Middleton's jealousy. For he said to the Prince: '_Enfin_, sir, I can +tell no reason why you should not go see this Colonel if you choose. If +there were any guile in the business, faith, they would never have +trusted it to this fellow!' + +"So the thing was agreed. In the morning we rode for Pontoise, the +Prince, my Lord Middleton, myself. His Royal Highness was pleased to +limit himself to one servant. The man with whom Colonel Boyce had +provided me went on to carry advice of our coming. We came to Pontoise +towards evening. Colonel Boyce had put up at the Lion d'Or. He was +waiting for us in the courtyard and received us, as I thought, something +shortly, hurrying us into the house. But once inside, he made ceremony +enough, with endless speeches about the condescension of His Royal +Highness. All this too obsequious, in a boorish taste, so that the Prince +bade him have done and come to business. Therewith Colonel Boyce was as +full of apologies as he had been of servilities. I vow I never heard him +so copious as that night. + +"He took us, you are to understand, to an upper room. And what first +moved my suspicion was that he bade me be gone. Then my Lord Middleton +countered him with, 'I believe, sir, the gentleman had best stay.' +Immediately Colonel Boyce was all smiles over his blunder, and we sat +down about the table in that upper room and came to the substance of his +negotiation. He kept, I'll allow, to the purposes which, from the first, +he had pretended to me: whether Prince James, if assured of support from +Marlborough and his friends, would choose to avow himself Protestant; but +he made so many conditions over it, he was so vague and wary that 'twas +hard to tell what he would be at. When my Lord Middleton tried to pin him +to something plain and certain he would ever evade, till it began to grow +late and the Prince talked of supper and bed. This Colonel Boyce took up +very heartily, and was indeed giving his orders when there came a noise +in the courtyard and he ran to the window and looked out. + +"My Lord Middleton was behind him, with a 'What's your anxiety, sir?' + +"'Why, my lord, I would not have these roysterers break upon the Prince's +incognito. Pray, sir, this way and you'll be secure'; he points to an +inner door. + +"'I believe we are as safe here, sir,' says my Lord Middleton. + +"'Egad, sir, come away,' says Colonel Boyce; and he was in fact dragging +the Prince across the room when the door bursts open and in comes a +stranger, a little man. He flung himself across the room upon Colonel +Boyce, making some play with a pistol. There was some grappling and +wrestling. I recall that they gasped and breathed hard. But it's odd, I +believe, that there was no word spoken. Then Colonel Boyce freed himself +and bolted through that inner door. The stranger fired a shot after him, +and while we were all deaf and sneezing with it and utterly amazed he +turns on us. 'That's a miss,' says he. 'Please God they'll bag him below. +Eh, Charles,' he wags his head at my Lord Middleton, 'I thought you had +more sense,' + +"'Damme,' says my lord, 'it's Hector McBean. And prithee what's all this +ruffling, Mac?' + +"'Why, you have let His Majesty walk into a stinking trap. That fellow +Boyce, he hath been Marlborough's spy, Sunderland's spy, the devil's spy +this twenty year.' + +"'Why, I thought he had something the smack of it,' says my lord. +'And yet--' + +"'Who's this now?' Captain McBean turned on me. 'Yours or his?' + +"'His ambassador in fact,' My lord looked me over and took snuff. 'You +won't tell me that hath any guile in it. Prithee, what is it you have +against the man Boyce?' + +"'Eh, did ye see him run?' says Captain McBean. 'A man's not in that +hurry if he hath a good conscience. If ye'll please to have him up, maybe +we'll hear a tale.' + +"But as he spoke there came into the room a French officer of dragoons, +who, saluting the Prince, asked Captain McBean if he had found his rogue. +On which 'Have I found him?' Captain McBean cries out, 'Eh, sir, did he +not run into your arms?' But it appeared that Colonel Boyce had not been +caught, and they determined at last that he must have made his way out by +a door at the back of the inn and won clear away. But I am sorry to tell +you, ma'am, that he hath not yet been found. For if they catch him in +France, he may count on a hanging." + +"Pray, sir, how did you dodge the rope?" Harry said. "Did you talk them +to death, your Pretender and his tail?" + +"You're too eloquent for me, Mr. Waverton," Alison yawned. "I can't tell +what you want to say. What is this mighty crime which you and Colonel +Boyce were compassing?" + +"Sneers become you ill, ma'am," says Mr. Waverton magnificently. "I +repudiate any charge whatsoever; and tell my story my own way. Some hot +words passed between Captain McBean and the Frenchman, each blaming the +other for Colonel Boyce's escape. Then Captain McBean says 'The fellows +that were drinking in the tap, I suppose you've let them dodge you too? +No? Well, that's a wonder. Tie this rogue up with them and have them in +guard.' So he mocked at me, but the Prince brought him up roundly. + +"'You go too fast for me, my good captain,' quoth he. 'What's your charge +against the gentleman?--who is to my mind a very simple gentleman.' So +His Royal Highness was pleased to honour me." + +"Egad, he was right, Waverton," Harry laughed. + +"I think I know how to value your fair words now, sir," says Mr. Waverton +grandly. "Be pleased to spare them. Upon that, as I was saying, Captain +McBean lost command of himself and was grossly violent. Roaring that I +was none the less a knave because I was so natural a fool, and the like +empty insolence. Accusing me of being art and part in a vile plot with +Colonel Boyce to kidnap and murder His Royal Highness." + +"Now we have it," Alison murmured and looked at Harry strangely. + +"Aye, ma'am. Now, perhaps (though late enough) your eyes are opened," +said Mr. Waverton with relish. "Well, I let the man run on. He was indeed +not to be stopped. A rude, vehement fellow. When he was exhausted, I +addressed His Royal Highness." + +"Lack a day, I believe you," says Harry. + +"I made it clear to him, sir, that my birth and position must warrant me +innocent of any treachery, and though I might well disdain to answer +these reckless charges I owed it to myself to remark to His Royal +Highness that, but for my desire to serve him, I had never meddled in the +affair. So that when I had done, my Lord Middleton says, laughing, 'Egad, +sir, it seems you owe this fine gentleman thanks for his kindly +condescension to you'; and the Prince was pleased to answer, 'We are too +small for his notice, faith. But is he finished yet?' Then I bowed to His +Royal Highness and sat down, well enough pleased, as you may believe. + +"But this Captain McBean called out in his rude fashion, 'Eh, sir, he may +e'en be the booby he pretends. The better decoy, I allow. But by your +leave, we'll look into it more narrowly. Would Your Majesty please to +permit me have up the other rogues?' + +"This, in a word, they did, and Captain McBean and my Lord Middleton (who +is to my mind something more of the attorney than becomes a man of rank) +questioning the fellows shrewdly, it was made put--I crave your +attention, madam--it was made out that Colonel Boyce had undertaken for +the service of the Hanoverian junto here to kidnap or kill Prince James. +And the plan was to bring the Prince out to Pontoise and so drag out +affairs that he passed the night there. Then in the night they were to +invade his room and command him to follow them. They pretended indeed +that they meant only to carry him off. But 'tis not to be doubted that +they looked for resistance and a bloody issue to the affair. So, ma'am, +here is the trade of the family of Boyce--to procure murder, and the +murder of a prince of the blood royal, of our lawful king. I give you joy +of the name you bear." + +Alison bent her head. "You may well be proud of your part, Mr. +Waverton." + +"They let you go, did they?" says Harry; "your captain and your lord and +your prince?" + +"Let me go, sir? There is nothing against me. I defy your impudence. Nay, +I thank you, I thank you. You lead me gracefully to the end of my story." + +"Good God! It has an end!" + +"When these rogues were questioned about me, not a man of them could +pretend to have anything against me. They openly confessed that Colonel +Boyce had warned them that I must be kept in innocence of the affair lest +I should thwart it. For he said that he had brought me into it to show a +good face to the Prince as one beyond suspicion of treachery. Nay and +moreover--and here's my last word to you, ma'am--he avowed that he chose +me because he wanted me out of England where I stood between his own son +and a pretty heiress. At which, as I remember, my Lord Middleton chose to +be amused." + +"Damme, I like that man," says Harry. + +"So, ma'am," Mr. Waverton tossed his head. "Here you have it. I am drawn +into a murderous, vile, base treason that I may be kept out of the way +while Mr. Boyce prosecutes his designs upon you. I give you joy of the +loyal fidelity which yielded to him. I leave you to enjoy him with what +appetite you may." + +He made a majestic bow, he turned and was gone. + +Harry and Alison were left staring at each other. + +From behind came a small strained voice: "Colonel Boyce--he--he is safe, +then?" It was Mrs. Weston. + +The two turned with a start, surprised by her existence. + +Harry laughed. "Oh aye, he is safe. He would be." + +Mrs. Weston rose slowly and then made a rush for the door. + +The husband and wife were left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HARRY IS DISMISSED + + +Alison turned and stared into the fire. Harry filled himself a glass of +port and drank it and laughed. She looked round at him. "Faith, Mr. +Waverton is mighty good entertainment," he explained. + +"Is that all you want to say?" + +Harry would not be awed by that ominous voice. "Oh Lud, how could I dare +talk after him? Our poetic orator!" He made flourishes in the air after +Mr. Waverton's manner. "Nay, but I would give my new wig to have been in +that upper chamber at Pontoise. Dear Geoffrey on his defence booming +noble periods--and the Prince, poor gentleman, with his fingers in his +ears! If dear Geoffrey was telling the truth. I wonder." + +"Oh, is that what you'll pretend?" + +"Pretend? I pretend nothing, ma'am. Why, to be sure, our Geoffrey always +means to tell the truth--having, God bless him, no imagination. But +you'll remark what when he tells a tale, it's Mr. Waverton has always the +_beau role_. He sees the world like that, dear lad. So I should be glad +to hear the Caledonian gentleman's notion of what happened." + +"I see. You'll make that your defence. Geoffrey imagined it all." + +"Egad, ma'am, you may lower your tone. I have nothing to defend, nor are +you set in judgment." + +Alison started up. "Do you suppose all this is to make no change?" +she cried. + +"You're a splendid creature, by heaven," says Harry, tilting his chair +back and watching her with a little epicurean smile, the proud vigour of +her, the blood in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, and the sweep of the +white arm. + +"I could hate you for that," she said, and her lips set. + +"Yes. I think you're in a fair way to it," says Harry. "I wonder if you +know why." + +"Because I have come to despise you," she cried sharply. + +"You will be solemn, will you?" says Harry. "Much good may it do you. And +so, egad, have at you heartily. For you have said things which both of us +will find it hard to forget." + +"Oh, you can feel that?" + +"Look 'e, ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each +other like a pair of puppies. Now, what's happened?" + +"You have to ask that? My God, if you have to ask, there's no use in +words between you and me." + +"Oh Lud, don't be mystical. Mr. Waverton comes here to do his poor +possible to make mischief between us. I suppose you saw that. He tells us +that he went blundering with my father into a muddle of a plot." + +"He tells us that your father planned a vile base murder and sought to +make him, a man of honour, part in it. Pray, sir, is that not infamous?" + +"Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?" + +"Yes." + +"We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell +you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find +matter for blackening me." + +Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father +would not stay to face them." + +"Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero." + +"Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was +an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you +think shameful." + +Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I +never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these +political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? +And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton +went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not +understand." + +"He went in your place. You should have gone with your father." + +"Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?" + +"Perhaps." + +Harry started up. "Oh, say it out. I knew we should go far to-night." + +They stood close, fronting each other fiercely. "My God, is it strange +if I wish you had gone? Your father is a base wretch who should be on the +gallows, and I am to be his son's wife and bear the name, and the while +he goes bragging that he took Geoffrey Waverton off so that you should be +free to come at me." + +"Aye, that. To be sure, that rankles. But you have known it long. I +showed you the letter he left me which said he had taken Geoffrey out of +my way and bade me snatch my chance of you. And you made light of that, +ma'am. Oh, it was a base thing, if you will, but you know well enough it +went for nought. We had done our work before. By God, Alison, Geoffrey +there or Geoffrey here, you would have come to me." + +"Ah!" It was like a cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, +I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were +all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I--what was I?" She +shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would +taunt me with that." + +"Egad, you're in a frenzy," says Harry. "You cry aloud and cut yourself +with knives. You will be hurting yourself." + +"I loathe you for that calm way of yours," she cried. "You mock me till +I am mad, and then you please to be grave and lofty. You--I took you out +of the gutter." + +"What now, ma'am?" Harry stiffened. + +"It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your +face--your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you +strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a +fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. +"You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would +take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I +remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst +stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. But he +knew you better. That's your trade, the highwayman, faith, the +highwayman! You trick us all and prey upon us, as you dare. So you marked +me down, who was rich and a girl, and you have caught me, and you have +rifled me, and, for what you care I may now go hang. I ask you for my +pride again, my honour, and you mock at me. Oh, I am ashamed for a fool +and worse, and you know it, God help me, but you--you--" + +Harry shrugged. "I suppose we have come to the end now," he said coolly. +"Well, ma'am, to be sure we married in haste, and it seems we have both +come to repentance. As for wrong that I have done you--why, I can't make +you a maid again, and, if you please, more's the pity. My apologies and +regrets. For the rest, all of your money that hath been spent on me will +go in a small purse, and, I promise you, you shall spend no more. So you +may sleep sound, and I wish you good night." + +She watched him cross the room, and, as he was opening the door, cried +out, "What do you mean?" + +He turned. "Why, would you still be talking?" Their eyes met in +defiance. "You can go," she said. + +"I have had the honour to tell you so," he said, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + +It was on the second day after that Susan Burford and Mr. Hadley rode in +to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. They found Alison and Mrs. Weston together, +and both sewing--a fact which failed to interest Mr. Hadley, but +surprised Susan, who knew Alison, without a taste for needlework. + +"My dear," says Susan, embracing Alison physically and spiritually in her +large, buxom, genial way. + +"You have been a long time finding me," says Alison and put her off. "I +suppose I know why you kindly come to me now." + +"B-r-r-r-r!" Mr. Hadley made the sound of one who comes into a cold +draught. "The truth is, Susan has been so busy improving herself that she +has had no time for her friends. In fine, she has been trying to make +herself worthy the honour of my affections and large enough to support +the burden of my dignity. I don't say she satisfies me, but she does her +best." He propelled Susan forward with his one hand. "'A poor thing, +ma'am, but mine own.'" + +"Oh, he is amusing himself, you see," says Susan, in her leisurely +fashion. + +"Damme, Susan, you're so mighty innocent that sometimes I believe you +are innocent." + +"But you have known me so long," Susan protested. + +Alison stood up with an air of ceremony. Her pale face constrained itself +at last to smile at them. "My dear, I wish you may be very happy," says +she, and gave Susan a matronly kiss. "Mr. Hadley, you're a fortunate +man." She put out a stately hand. + +Having bowed over it. "B-r-r-r," says Mr. Hadley. + +"Damn these east winds. Susan, you're a plague with your affections. You +will have me talk about you, and I can't make you interesting, I hope, +ma'am, we find Mr. Boyce well?" + +Alison drew back. "Why do you ask that? You have seen Mr. Waverton, +of course." + +Mrs. Weston put down her work and folded her hands upon it. + +"Why, yes, I have seen Geoffrey; and what's worse, heard him. I hope he +did not plague you too long." + +"Pray, Mr. Hadley, don't be ironical. You can spare me that. Mr. Waverton +told us his story the night before last. Thereupon Mr. Boyce and I parted +company. He left my house immediately and I do not know where he is." + +Mr. Hadley distinguished himself by containing an oath. Susan said, "Oh, +my dear," in that slow, calm way which might mean anything. + +It was Mrs. Weston who cried out, "Alison, you never told me." + +"You asked once or twice where he was, and I told you I did not know. +What does it matter?" + +"You quarrelled with him?" + +"Quarrelled!" + +"Because of what this Mr. Waverton said?" + +"Do you think it could make no difference?" + +Mrs. Weston clasped her hands and swayed in her chair. + +"Alison; we had no guess of this. I am sorry. I am so sorry," Susan said. + +"There is no need." Alison held her head high. + +"If we have, in some sort, forced your confidence, I beg you believe, +ma'am, it was not meant," So Mr. Hadley in the grand style. "For I +protest it never came into my head that Geoffrey would make mischief +between you and Mr. Boyce." + +"You say that?" Alison stared at him. "Oh, you mean I was so besotted +with him." + +Mr. Hadley relapsed to his ordinary manner. "Damme, d'ye think we came +for nothing but to jeer at you? I promise you we have pleasanter matter +to hand. Neither to jeer at you, nor to meddle with you, Alison, but +friendly. So take us friendly in God's name. If you will go about to find +a sneer in every word, why, a sneer you'll find, but not of my making. We +bring you nothing but goodwill, and want nothing more of you. But if we +irk you, why, let us go and we'll see you again in good time." + +"That's a pretty speech to begin with an oath," Alison said, through the +flicker of a smile. "And, faith, I should be slow to take offence at you. +For we quarrelled before, because you were at pains to warn me. Well, +sir, I humble myself before your wisdom." + +There was a pause. "Oh. Now we are all ill at ease," says Susan. + +"Odso, ma'am, it's not fair," Mr. Hadley cried. "I am not here to say, 'I +told you so,' I am not so proud of it. Well, damme, I have no temptation +to be meddling in your affairs. But I think you will have to know. It is +with Mr. Waverton I have fallen out now." + +"With Mr. Waverton?" Alison repeated. "What is there between you and +him?" + +"I believe he had the impertinence to expect my sympathetic admiration. +While I was thinking him a low fellow. Which I took occasion to tell him. +Without result." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "But I believe he did not feel it. +It's a thick hide." + +"And what was your difference?" + +"Why, this precious story of his." + +There was some little time of silence. "You don't believe it," Alison +said slowly. "Come, you must say more than that." + +"I profess, ma'am, I have no will to say anything. Whatever I say, I'll +be impertinent." + +"Oh. Shall we mark it in you?" Susan said. + +"Well, sir, you were not always so shy of scolding me," says Alison, and +again with a faint smile. + +"Scold you! God warn us, I have no commission. I can tell you what I +thought of Waverton and his tale. Did I believe it? Ods fish, I never +remember believing Geoffrey. If he had to tell you two and two was four, +he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know +what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some +plot which some other fellows smoked. Maybe it was even such as Geoffrey +said, kidnapping and murder to follow. These plots, they grow nastier and +nastier the longer they are afoot. And Colonel Boyce--well, by your +leave, I don't think him delicate. But for the rest of it, I'll wager +that's Geoffrey's sprightly invention. You know very well, ma'am, I have +no kindness for your Mr. Boyce. But, damme, he never thought of tricking +Geoffrey out of the way to give himself a free hand with you. And it's a +low trick in Geoffrey to go about with that tale." + +"Oh! But he is stupid," Susan said. + +"What if Colonel Boyce thought of the trick?" says Alison. + +"Egad, Mr. Boyce is unfortunate in his father. Maybe he knows that as +well as we. But--damme, ma'am, you will have it--I believe there was not +much trick in his affair with you." + +"I believe you once warned me of his tricks," Alison said coldly. "It's +no matter now. I tease you with my affairs." + +"If I can serve you, I'm heartily at your command." + +"Oh, you have worked hard to make the best of a bad business. But I can +do that for myself, and I like my own way of it." + +Mr. Hadley bowed. + +"Oh! Let us go home," Susan said. + +Alison looked at her in some surprise, and, as she stood up, came quickly +to kiss her. "Have I been rude?" she whispered. + +"That would be no matter," Susan said, "You choose to be angry with me?" +Alison stiffened. + +"Oh! One isn't angry. One is sorry," Susan said. + +Alison let her go, and Mr. Hadley, ceremonious but with visible relief, +went after her. + +Then Mrs. Weston said suddenly, quickly, "Where is he?" + +"He?" Alison chose to be slow. "Mr. Boyce? I have no notion." + +"You drove him out?" + +"I could not endure him longer. Or he could endure me no longer. He went +heartily enough. I think we were both glad it was over." + +"You taunted him till he had to go?" + +"Weston, dear!" Alison laughed at the sudden fierceness of the meek. +"What's the matter?" + +"I have heard you mocking him." + +"Maybe. We both have sharp enough tongues." + +"You used to jeer at him for being poor." + +"Good lack, are you calling me to account, ma'am?" + +"Yes, you may well be ashamed! Where is he?" + +"Ashamed? What do you mean, Weston? What is the man to you?" + +"I am his mother," Mrs. Weston said. + +"You!... You! Oh, but this is mad!" + +"I am not mad." + +"But, Weston, dear, you knew nothing about him till he came; nor he of +you. How could he be your son?" + +"I had never seen him since he was a baby. I was not married." + +"That is why you would not tell me? Oh, Weston, dear!" + +"I did not mean to tell you now. I knew it would hurt him with you. But I +suppose it's no matter now. But these are my affairs, not yours." + +"My dear--" + +"You need not pity me." + +"What am I to say?" Alison held out her arms. + +"You have nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never +been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady +hands and turned away. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I am going out of your house. Away from you." + +"But, Weston--not now, not to-night. Where can you go? What can you do?" + +"I can do well enough without you, as he can.... Why don't you tell me +that I have been living on your money? You told him so often enough." + +"Oh ... you're cruel," Alison said. + +"What does it matter? You'll not be hurt. You are too hard." She hurried +to the door. + +"Ah, don't go like this," Alison cried. "Weston, let's part kindly. I +could not know. I have done nothing against you." Mrs. Weston laughed. +"Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father--is Colonel +Boyce--?" + +"Yes, there it is. That is all you want--to pry into all the story. It is +nothing to you. He is nothing to you now." + +The door closed behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Harry was not gone far. In Long Acre stood a tavern calling itself 'The +Hand of Pork.' This had always tempted Harry, whose tastes were of the +people. While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with +satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he +brought his small, battered box. + +He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. +"Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of +Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. +But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, +and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be +concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. If you +can imagine him seriously arguing over that money--a thing impossible--he +would have said that the guineas were of consequence to him and none to +Geoffrey and Alison, that whether he had dealt honestly by them or not, +it would not better his case to pay them back a few shillings. You have +seen that he had qualms of conscience over the rights of Geoffrey's +service and Alison's arms. But the ugly, awkward details gave him no +trouble. He may, if you please, have swallowed a camel or so, but he +never strained at a gnat. + +Now that he was done with Geoffrey and Alison, both, his first feeling +was comfort. It was a huge relief to be his own man again. He told +himself indeed that he was mighty grateful to Geoffrey for bringing on +the final explosion. For one thing, it wiped off all Geoffrey's score. If +Master Geoffrey had been treated shabbily, Master Geoffrey had played a +shabby trick. They could call quits--a pleasant sensation. It would have +been awkward if Geoffrey had chosen to be magnanimous nobility. But he +was never intelligent, the poor Geoffrey. + +He had done his best to be damaging, bless him, and in all ways had been +a benefactor. For, in fact, it was a great relief to be done with Alison. +What with her fretful discontent, her rages, her industrious hate, she +had made herself intolerable. I do not suppose that he forgot, even in +the heat of the divorce, the exquisite pleasure which for a while she had +given him. I think he was always ready to acknowledge that to himself, +for it is certain that he bore her no malice, and if he blamed her for +their catastrophe, blamed himself as much. He might make the most or more +of all the taunts, of her zeal to find occasions for despising him. He +forgot nothing and forgave her nothing; he wrote her down a cruel enemy. +But he did not pay her back with equal hate; he dismissed all the warfare +and the wounds with a shrug of sagacious cynicism. + +She hated him? She had the right, she was his wife. And perhaps she was +in the right too. He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her +beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was +essentially a nobody--a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. +She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have +known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a +bar-sinister or a disreputable father. Certainly Madame Alison could +plead something of a case. + +You are not to suppose Harry in an ecstasy of meek devotion. He was quite +sure that she had behaved to him very badly. He admitted no excuse for +her eagerness to hurt him as soon as she was tired of him. She might hate +him; but after all there were obligations of courtesy, of decency, of +womanhood, and her venomous temper had broken them all. He was well rid +of her. In fine, she and he could call quits as well as he and Geoffrey. +There was no occasion to rage against her. She had treated him badly, +but, first, he had brought her into an awkward mess. Faith, she ought not +to have hurried into a marriage for passion if passion was so soon to +sate her. But then, what man would blame a woman for marrying for +passion? Not the man she married, who might rather humble himself because +he had not been able to keep her passion alive. Well, it was over, and +since it was over, nothing for it but to part. God be with her! She had +given him his hour. And he--why, at least she had lived with him moments +she would not forget. A glorious woman. It is probable that in these +first hours of their parting he began to love her. + +So much for his emotions. But you will not suppose that Harry Boyce was +wholly occupied with emotions. He could not indeed afford it. He had to +make some provision for keeping alive. Perhaps you will be surprised to +hear that he had a friend or two. There was an usher at Westminster, and +a hack writer of Lintot's in Little Britain. He did not propose to live +on them, who had hardly enough to feed themselves. But he looked for them +to put him in the way of some pittance, and they did. The usher had news +that, after Ascension-Day, Westminster would be wanting a writing master, +for the man in possession hoped by then to marry the dean's cook and set +up an ale-house. The author procured a commission to write two lampoons +and a pamphlet against French wines. In the intervals of this occupation, +Harry looked for his father. + +It would be hard to guess--Harry himself could not have told--what he +hoped to gain by that. He wanted, of course, to find out the truth of the +mission to France. Whether his father was likely to tell it, he could not +make up his mind. What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, +he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father +could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined +himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. +A nightmare joke. + +Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The +first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay +him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should +have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to +oblige his enemies. It was incredible, too, that he would go long into +hiding. Away from the importance of bustle and intrigue he could not +exist. Therefore he would certainly come back to London: therefore sooner +or later he would be found at one of the coffee-houses favoured by the +brisk fellows in the underworld of politics--at Tom's, or the British, or +Diggory's by the Seven Dials. He might be heard of among the fire-eating +Jacobites of Sam's. There were not so many likely places, but Harry laid +down more pennies than he could spare at the bars, and all in vain. + +He sat in Sam's on an afternoon chopping Greek tags with a jolly, +fanatical old parson. The days were fast lengthening, and for one reason +or another--the company at Sam's were not too fond of light--only a +candle here and there was burning. A little man came in with a party very +obsequious to him. As he walked up to the bar Harry had a glimpse of a +lean, brown face. He remembered it and yet no more than faintly, and +could not tell where he had seen it. It did not much engage him, and he +went on with his Greek and his parson. The little man made some noise +with the pretty girl behind the bar, claiming the privileges of an old +friend and a good deal of liquor, and it was a little while before he was +established at a table with his party. Harry chose to mouth out something +Homeric and sounding. The little man stopped in the middle of lighting +his pipe. "I know that roll, _pardieu_!" he muttered, and in a florid +fashion declaimed, "Fol de rol de row," and laughed alcoholically. "Who's +talking Hebrew here?" + +One of his party pointed out Harry and the parson. The little man blinked +through the smoky twilight. He stood up, took his candle and lurched +across the room to Harry. Down under Harry's nose he put the candle with +a bang. Harry jerked back and glared at him, and he, rocking a little and +blinking, said thickly, "It's a filthy likeness, after all, it is." + +"No, sir, there's only one of me," said Harry. "If you see two, give God +the glory and go to bed." + +"I'm saying, bully, I'm saying," the little man's accent became more +Caledonian and he clutched at Harry's shoulder. "I'm saying, my +laddie--" + +"Damme, that's what I complain of." + +"I'm saying I do not like your complexion. It's yellow, my jo, it's a +wee rotten orange, it is so." His company, a faithful tail, shook +with laughter. + +"Sleep it off, sir," says Harry, with a shrug. + +"What's your will? Clip it off, do ye say so? Losh, you would have a face +or two to spare. Eh, but I'm doubting you know too much o' clipping. +There's clippit ears, and maybe you have a pair." He twitched Harry's bob +wig awry; and with singular luck reeled out of the reach of Harry's +answering blow. "Ay, and there's clippit shillings and maybe ye make your +filthy living by their parings and shavings. Well a well, and there's +clippit wings; and I'll clip yours, my bonny goose, the night." He +clutched at the wig again and tossed it into the fire. + +Harry sprang up and struck at him. He flung himself backwards into the +arms of his friends and with a surprising adroitness plucked out his +sword. "Have at ye, my man;" he giggled and made a pass. + +"Easy, Captain," says one of his company. "The boy hath no sword." + +"Oh ay, 'tis the Lord that's a man of war. The devil was aye for peace. +Well, what ails ye not to lend the imp a bodkin?" + +The fat old keeper of the coffee-house waddled into the midst. "Sure, +Captain, you don't mean it. I would need to set my lads upon you. 'Tis +disorderly homicide, indeed. Ye can't mean it. Not downstairs. I'll not +deny there's the elegant parlour on the first floor." + +"Ye're a canting old devil, Sam," says the little man. "But I'll oblige +you. Come up, my bully, and I'll show you a thing." + +"Here's for you, cully." One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword. + +"Oh, by your leave,"--Harry waved it oft--"I don't fight a drunken man." + +"Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to +mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school +you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. +I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. +I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give +us your staff." + +"Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I +fight the whole platoon?" + +"You're peevish, do you know, you're peevish. Here, Fraser, give him your +hanger. Do you second the bairn, Donald? Come, Patrick, I'll have you. +There's one for you and one for me, my man, and damn all favours." + +It seemed to Harry that the little man's company were something surprised +at this turn, but they took it in a disciplined silence. So the party of +four marched up the stairs. You will believe that Harry liked the +business ill enough. He shot glances at the two chosen for seconds. There +was nothing sottish about them. They were very soberly alert, they had +the tan and the vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit +comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, +they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the +affair--rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken +brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn +care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the +candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out +of his coat, asked if he needed anything, gravely advised to risk nothing +and play close. + +"We are at your service, Mr. O'Connor," says Donald. + +"At your pleasure, Mr. Mackenzie," says the other. + +Harry was set against the little man and the swords crossed. It then +occurred to him that the little man was very suddenly recovered from his +liquor. The blustering chatter had been cut off as soon as they started +up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the +unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He +had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same +manner, a correctness exact and staccato, about this sword play. + +The knave can never have been drunk, Harry said to himself as he +sweated and was the more embarrassed by bewilderment. But he dared not +let himself think. The little man was urgently dangerous, and Harry +knew enough to know it. Harry had no pretensions to science. All he +could use was the rudiments. He had kept his head at singlestick, held +his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a +point. The little man had the speed and certainty of a _maitre +d'armes_. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind +numb and dazed under the strain, expecting--hoping--every moment the +thrust that would make an end. + +It did not come. The ache and fever of the fight went on and on. Still +the little man was masterful and precise. Still he demanded all Harry's +vigour and more than all, kept him struggling desperately, beset by fear +on the edge of death. Harry felt himself weakening, faltering, and still +the opposing blade searched his defence sharply, still the little man was +an exemplar of easy precision. And yet Harry's maladroitness always +sufficed to save his skin. He was puzzled, and blundered and fumbled the +more. The play grew slower and slower, and he was the more tortured, +enduring many times the shame and the pain of defeat. + +At last he had hit upon the truth. He was wondering in a dazed fashion +why that other sword seemed always to wait on him when he made a gross +mistake. Visibly, palpably, the little man's blade halted to give him +time for a parry. Harry dropped his point and gasped out, "Damme, sir, +you are playing with me." + +"What's your will? I fight my own way. At your convenience, sir." + +"The Captain's within his right, sir," says Harry's solemn second. + +"Damn you, for a pack of mountebanks!" Harry cried. + +"On guard, sir," says the little man. + +Harry gave him an oath and dashed at him. There was a moment's wild +fighting and then the little man forced it back to order. They were at +the old game again, precise scientific thrust, pause, and blundering +parry, when to Harry's amazement the little man's sword wavered and flew +from his hand. + +Through a long minute Harry stood staring at him, and he waiting unarmed +for Harry's thrust. Again Harry lowered his sword. At once the little +man stooped and picked up his. "Do you demand to continue, Captain?" +says his second. + +"You're a fool, Patrick," quoth the little man. + +The impenetrable second saluted and turned to his fellow. "Another bout, +if you please, Mr. Mackenzie." + +"Would you grant it, sir?" says Harry's solemn Scot. + +"Egad, we are all mad here," Harry wiped his brow. "Oh, play it +out to hell." + +The little man saluted formally and again they engaged. And now Harry was +enveloped in another kind of fighting. Scientific it might be, but +science far beyond his understanding. The little man's point was +everywhere upon him and he thrusting blindly at the air. He might have +been pinked a score times over, he was for all he knew. And then on a +sudden his own point touched something. Next moment it was struck up to +the ceiling. Some one called out "A hit." He saw the two seconds standing +between the swords and a red scratch on the little man's cheek. + +"_Touche_," says he with a bow. "My compliments, if you please. It's some +while since a man marked me. I am glad to know you, sir. Pray, what's +your name?" + +"Harry Boyce, sir." + +"Egad, it's wonderful!" says the little man, with a laugh which appealed +to Harry. "Hector McBean, at your service." Harry stared. "Aye, aye, I'm +thinking we'll explain ourselves. Will you walk, sir?" + +"If you please." + +Captain McBean took his arm, said over his shoulder to the two seconds +"To-morrow," and marched off with him. Once they were out in the +street, "So you are Colonel Noll Boyce's son," says Captain McBean with +an odd look. + +"He has often told me so." + +"If you had not such a look of him I wouldn't believe it. Oh, pardon, +monsieur, _mille pardons_, _ma foi._ I have been insolent to you in all +this affair. You'll please to observe that the whole of it, and the +issue, is to your honour. Will I have to say more?" + +"Oh Lud, no. Pray, let's talk sense." + +"I take to you marvellously, _mon enfant_. Well now, have you +heard of me?" + +"Enough to want much more." + +"What, has father been talking?" + +"D'ye know where he is, Captain McBean?" + +"I wish I did." + +"So do I. It was Mr. Waverton who told the tale. Now you know why I am +eager to hear what you can say of my father or my father of you." + +"Are you a good son, Mr. Boyce?" + +"I pay my debts." + +"There's a crooked answer. Are you in the Colonel's secrets?" + +"I have no reason to think so." + +"I guess he did not trust you. I guess he was right. Do you remember +where you met me first?" + +"I remember that I can't remember." + +"And me that thought I was a beauty! Well, but you were busy. You were +making mud pies with Ben." + +"I have it. You were his captain on the horse. Pray, sir, what was my +Benjamin's mystery?" + +"I am going to trust you, Mr. Boyce. I shall not require you to trust me +unless you choose. I tell you frankly I hope for it. And so--come in +with you." + +They turned out of the Strand into Bow Street. Captain McBean let +himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. +"D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." +He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now, +_mon cher_, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?" + +"I never could tell." + +"Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. +If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. +Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's +son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? Now there is +something I must say to you. But how much I say is a question. I have no +desire to embarrass you with awkward knowledge. So which is your king, +_mon enfant_, James or George?" + +"I care not a puff of smoke for either." + +"So. I suppose there is something you care for. Well--you asked about +Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the +Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. +Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor +for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his +dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to +negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old +villain had some black design in his head again, and it was thought that +if we could turn over his private papers, we should know where to have +him. It was certified that he had with him something from his agents +abroad. Well, we missed him, and how deep he is dipped in this business, +I know no more than you. + +"Now I come to your father, _mon enfant_, and I promise you I will be as +delicate as I may. Do you know, _par exemple_, how Colonel Boyce is in +the mouths of gentlemen?" + +"Oh, sir, that's another of the matters for which I care nothing." + +"_Tenez donc_. You were born old, I think. Well, Colonel Boyce has been +in some few plots, devices, and manoeuvres. No man ever denied him wit, +nor will I, _mordieu_. But it's his virtue that neither his friends nor +his enemies were ever sure of him. I believe, Mr. Boyce, that if he heard +me he would thank me for a compliment. _Bien_--I come back to my tale. + +"It was known to us poor Jacobites in England that Colonel Boyce was +making salutes to St. Germain. Which much intrigued us, for we would not, +by your leave, have him of our side. They don't know him there as we do, +and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine." + +"Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug. + +"You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have +him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from +Colonel Boyce full of windy promises--_verbosa et grandis epistola_. D'ye +keep up your humanities?--in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord +Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. +If Sunderland and Stair were ready to turn honest, then _pardieu_, there +was hope of the devil himself. Oh, I don't blame the King nor even +Charles Middleton, though he is old enough to be slow. The times are +changing, and maybe Stair and Sunderland they see it as well as we, and +mean to find salvation. I can't tell. But the thing looked ill. Stair and +Sunderland--there is no treachery too foul for those names. And if they +meant honestly, why--saving your presence, _mon enfant_--why did they +choose Colonel Boyce for their agent? It was no good warranty. So we +adventured a counter. We have friends enough now in the Government, _mon +cher_, and it was arranged that the Colonel should be arrested as a +Jacobite. A good stroke, I think. It was mine. Only the old gentleman +dodged it." + +"Pray, what did you know of Mr. Waverton?" + +"That sheep's-head!" McBean laughed. "Why, a letter came to hand in which +the Colonel talked of taking the pretty gentleman to France. So he was +joined in the warrant. _D'ailleurs_--it made a good appearance. However, +we missed him; but we found something in his papers which made me queasy. +So I e'en was off to France after him. + +"The Colonel stayed at Pontoise and sent your Waverton off to St. Germain +with a mighty plausible letter about secret proposals from the chiefs of +the Whigs, which brought the King out to hear them secretly. _Ma foi_! I +think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever +trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could +think that peacock would be in anything crafty? At Pontoise I tumbled in +upon them, and your father, _mon cher_, he ran off on sight of me. +Observe, I press nothing against him. I allow that the best evidence I +have against him is just that--he ran away when he saw me. Secondly, he +had with him some three-four rascals whose faces would hang them. And +thirdly and lastly, beloved brethren, these fellows, when put to it and +charged with a plot to murder King James, were frightened for their lives +and babbled wildly, of which the sum was that they had been brought but +to kidnap him. I grant ye, they may have lied, and I would not hang a dog +(who was not a Whig) upon their word. But confess, _mon cher_, the thing +is black enough. What did the Colonel want with King James alone? Why did +he need his bullies? Why did he run away? I leave it with you." + +Harry knocked out his pipe. "I am obliged for the story, sir. Why did +you tell it?" + +"You have a cold blood in you, _mon enfant_" says Captain MacBean. +"Observe, I look for nothing wonderful from you. I allow your position is +very difficult to a man of honour. And with all my heart--" + +"Oh Lud, sir, let's have nothing pathetic." + +"Aye, aye," McBean bowed. "Mr. Boyce! I do profess I feel the delicacy of +the affair, and I detest it, _pardieu_. But I dare not absolve ye from +your duty." + +"Oh, sir, you are very sublime." + +"Hear me out, Mr. Boyce. I have shown you cause to fear that your +father has it in mind to compass a vile treachery, perhaps a murder. +Would you deny it?" + +"Damme, sir, I am not the day of judgment." + +"_Bien_. I believe that is an answer. I declare to you there is yet a +chance that he may succeed, aye, here in London." + +Harry swore. "If your friends must go walking into traps what is +it to me?" + +"Well, sir, though you will own no loyalty to king or queen or country, +I'll not be deceived. I call on you for your aid. It's believed your +father is in London. It is likely he will seek you out, as he did before. +Maybe at this hour you know where he is." + +"If I did, should I betray him to you, sir?" + +"I ask no treachery. But I do call on you, discover his purpose if you +can, and if he intends violence to the King, prevent it. Lord, sir, it's +to save your father from infamy, and your own name." + +"The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried. + +"I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he +said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For +what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my +life. But I believe I should thank you." + +"Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I +think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + +Do you remember how frightened Swift was of the Mohocks? How he came +home early, and even (that was bitter) spent some pence on being carried +in a sedan chair to avoid the "race of rakes that play the devil about +this town every night, slit people's noses," and so forth? He had some +reason to fear. + +"Was there a Watchman took his hourly rounds +Safe from their blows or new invented wounds" + +in these last days of Queen Anne? Their way was to gather and take +plenty of liquor, "then make a general sally and attack all that are +so unfortunate as to walk the streets through which they patrol. Some +are knocked down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed." The +women would be turned upside down or clapped into barrels and rolled +over the stones. + +It was a dark night with but a glimpse of the new moon when Harry left +Captain McBean. From Bow Street to the "Hand of Pork" in Long Acre was +only a few hundred yards, but murky enough, and Harry took Mr. Gay's +advice for such night walking: + +"Let constant Vigilance thy footsteps guide, +And wary Circumspection guard thy side." + +Nevertheless, as he was coming by the corner into Long Acre, he was +surprised by a sound at his heels. He stepped quickly aside and turned +upon it, felt a blow upon his head, saw flashes of light and the street, +whirling round, rose up to meet him, and he knew no more. + +When he came to himself he was in a room with fire and lights. He raised +himself and heard voices. Then some one was standing over him. He looked +up into his father's face. "Who was that?" he said feebly. + +"Don't you see yet, Harry? It will soon pass off." + +"Lord, I know you. Who are the others?" + +"There is none here but me," said Colonel Boyce. + +Harry looked painfully round the room and saw that it had become empty. +"What was it? A pistol?" said he, and began to feel his head. + +"Egad, nothing so gentlemanly. A cudgel, by the look of the bruise. A +Mohock's club, I suppose. I found you lying in the kennel as I was +coming home." + +"Oh, you're at home are you?" Harry laughed stupidly. "And where is +home?" + +"These are my lodgings in Martin's Lane, Harry, and you are welcome. But +what have you to do in town? Young husbands should not be night walkers." + +Harry stared at him for a moment. "I thought you knew everything," he +said. Then, beginning to scramble up, he became aware that his clothes +were all undone--coat, shirt, even breeches. "Odso, why were you +stripping me?" + +"I found you so. They shave you close, the Mohocks." + +"They are a queer crew, your Mohocks." Harry looked at his father. "What +should I carry inside my shirt?" Then he thrust his hands into his +pockets. "Well, I had not much, but all's gone." + +"Damned rogues," said his father with honest indignation. "How much have +you lost, Harry?" + +"Five guineas or so." + +"I can make that good at least. But what is it to you? You are a warm +fellow now. What, you've made no hole in Madame Alison's money bags yet." + +"You're offensive, do you know?" Harry said. "I have been itching to +tell you so." + +Colonel Boyce's face set. "What now? Are you against me, sirrah?" + +"Ods fish, you're a martyr, ain't you?" Harry laughed. But we are +beginning at the end, I think. If you remember, sir, you promised to take +me to France and went off without me." + +"D'ye quarrel with that? Why, you had a fatter fish to fry than you could +catch with me. So I left you at her and you ha' dined upon her. What's +the matter then?" + +"You were not honest with me--" + +Colonel Boyce laughed, "Ah, bah, you will be a Puritan. It must be your +mother in you." + +"My mother! Thank you. We'll come to her. But one tale at a time. You let +me think I was to go with you till you were gone without me. You took +Waverton and told me nothing of that till you had him safe away." + +"Egad, boy, it was all for your good." + +"Perhaps you did think so," said Harry after a moment. "In fact it's what +I complain of. You want to play Providence to me. Pray, sir, go about +your business." + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "You're a proper grateful son. So be it. You have +your wealthy wench and want no more of me. Well, go to the devil your own +way, Harry." + +"By your leave, I prefer it. But there's more, sir. Now comes Mr. +Waverton and declares to my wife and me that you enticed him into a vile +plot: for your pretence of a mission to the Pretender was nothing but a +device for murder." + +"Mr. Waverton said that to Mrs. Harry Boyce? Egad, it wasn't civil of Mr. +Waverton. And what did the lady say to him?" + +"That's no matter. What do you say to him, sir? Did you intend murder?" + +"Lud, Harry, you talk like a ranting parson. It was not your way. Who has +put this buzz of morality into your head? I suppose your pretty wife +would have you break with your father. He's a low, coarse fellow, faith, +who might want some of her money." + +"We will leave my wife out, if you please. She will not trouble you. She +and I have parted." + +"God's my life! What's the quarrel?" + +Harry shrugged. "Does one ever know? I was not good enough for her, I +believe. And perhaps she was not good enough for me." + +"Damn you for a prig," says his father. + +"If you like. But you'll remark that I do not complain of her." + +"Bah, you make me sick, sir! Not complain of her! That luscious piece! +Egad, you should be drunk with her. But you're not a man, Harry, you're +a parson." + +"Oh, command your emotions! She rebelled against being wed to a man whose +father ran about the world compassing murder, to a man who was withal a +low fellow, a bastard. So far, it is your affair." + +"I see you are no hand with a woman." + +"Do I take after you, sir? We came upon a woman who said she was Mrs. +Oliver Boyce and could not live with him, and boasted vehemently that she +was no mother of mine." + +Colonel Boyce plucked at his mouth. "So dear Rachel has got her finger +into the pie. Why, Harry, you have had no luck." + +"She is your wife, then. Oh, I admire your taste, sir. And pray, who was +my mother?" + +Colonel Boyce began to say something and stopped. "It's no matter. I +believe she would not wish you to know. Why, Harry, I profess I am sorry. +If we had been married, better for us all." + +"Oh, you will be mysterious still. I suppose you are as tender of her +honour as of mine or your own. And this matter of murdering the +Pretender, pray, is that a mystery too?" + +Colonel Boyce became restless. "Ods life, sirrah, there is no matter +of murder. Who told you so? The fool Waverton. And where did he get +the tale?" + +"A gentleman who runs away tells his own tale." + +"Now mark, Harry. The plan was but to bring Prince James to England--" + +"Dead or alive," Harry laughed. + +"Pshaw. I had him at Pontoise and was doing well with him. Then in comes +a swashbuckling Scots Jacobite which is my private enemy, and a dozen +bullies at his tail. Well, I had no mind to have him stick me or turn me +over to the French as a spy of Marlborough's, so I went off. The fool +Waverton let himself be taken. I make no doubt the Scot filled him to the +brim with slanders of me. But is that my fault?" + +"So you're done with the Pretender?" + +Colonel Boyce gave his son a queer look. "Why, there's not much to be +done with him in Martin's Lane, boy." + +"Then what are you doing?" + +"Egad, Harry, I should think you want to lay an information against +me. Waiting for better times is all my business now. My bolt's shot. +And pray, sirrah, what may be your business now you've cut loose from +Mrs. Alison?" + +Harry laughed. "Living on my means." + +"Why, does she settle something on you?" + +Harry looked at his father without affection. "Do you know, sir, I am not +always proud of your name." + +"Egad, but you must have money somehow." + +"The family motto, I suppose. Well, sir, I write for the Press." + +"Good God, not for the newspapers? You have not fallen to that?" + +"Oh, sir, the shillings are clean by comparison." + +They looked at each other for a minute or two. "You walk abroad late, Mr. +Author," says Colonel Boyce. "Do you make friends in your profession?" + +"I believe I have two in the town--a hack writer for Lintot and an usher +at Westminster. And what then, pray?" + +"You were with them to-night?" + +"You are paternal on a sudden, sir. Do you think of putting me out to +nurse again?" + +"So." Colonel Boyce stood up as if he had finished and then forced a +laugh and slapped his son's shoulder, "Come, Harry, why quarrel? There's +room enough for you here. I allow I owe you something. Join in with me." + +"I have no luck in mysteries, sir. I'll wish you goodnight." + +"Now you bear me a grudge," his father protested. + +"What, for getting me born? Sometimes, perhaps." + +"Egad, Harry, I should like to do something for you." + +"Then give me a sword." + +"A sword? And what for i' God's name?" + +"In case I meet any more of your Mohocks." + +Colonel Boyce was taken aback for a moment. Then he cried out heartily: +"Damme, the rogues took five guineas from you too. Here, fill your purse, +child." He shot out gold on the table. + +"I'll take back my five guineas," said Harry, and counted them, while +his father watched with a frown. + +"There are swords of mine below," said Colonel Boyce. + +They went down and from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger +with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves +loaded with lead--just such as the Mohocks used. + +"And where do you lodge?" says Colonel Boyce. + +"At the 'Hand of Pork' in Long Acre. Goodbye, sir." + +Colonel Boyce nodded, and for some time after he had gone stood at the +door, watching. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO'S COMPANY + + +Alison was gone back to her house at Highgate--and immediately regretted +it. She took her adventures in a youthful, egoistic fashion: saw herself +as a lovely woman made the prey of man and robbed of her right to her +own life, a tender, confiding soul deceived and tortured into despair. +The Lincoln's Inn Fields became the abomination of desolation, her fine +society was dust and ashes and mankind in general all mocking villainy. +So it was natural that she should retire from the world and become a +recluse of tragic dignity. What other part is there for the deserted +wife to play? + +But she came upon awkward difficulties. The world would not be left +behind. It was much more closely about her among the woods and meadows of +Highgate than in her London drawing-room. The would-be fine ladies and +gentlemen of her routs and her card parties, so the sweetmeats and the +wines and strong waters were good enough, cared nothing whether she had a +husband upstairs or somewhere else. Out in the country every one, gentle +and simple, had a curious eye upon her. The very woods and meadows must +be jogging her memory and putting her questions. Every one had known Miss +Lambourne of the Hall and gone whispering about her strange, passionate +marriage. Each pleasant path and lane had seen something of that first +wild happiness. All day long she was driven back upon herself and what +she had lost. + +There is no doubt that she suffered. Of course she still told her heart +wonderful tales about the shame that she had to bear and her torturing +wrongs, and beyond doubt she believed most of them. For she could still +profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of +no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's +villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion +that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who +acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she +could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! +Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been +overthrown by passion. The more she tried to despise Harry, the more that +fancy shamed her. But there was in her a strength which refused to be +content with that. She would still boast to herself that she was not the +woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to +take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable +question--if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her +magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her +insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very +pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give +him all that a man could ask. Little by little she forced herself to +believe that she had failed of that. After all, he had offered her +nothing but himself, poor, friendless, of no repute, indolent, careless +of all the world--and she had professed content. What his father might do +was no matter to that. He had offered her what he was and given it +faithfully. And she had not played fair. When she found herself +confessing that, she discovered a new power of being wretched. All the +romantic, egoistic melancholy went down the wind. The finest, proudest of +her, her own honour, told of a torturing wound. + +"I'll satisfy you"--that had been the boast before the wild marriage was +done. And after all she had chosen to deny him. Nothing else could +matter. There could be no excuse. It was he that she had taken, not his +name or what he might be, and he had not changed. It was herself that she +had promised--what other honour for woman or man than to give like for +like?--and she had broken faith. She was humiliated--a state of all +others the most dolorous for Alison. + +To it came on a merry spring day Mr. Waverton. She was in two minds +whether to let him see her, and then--too proud to hide from him or +greedy of a chance to hurt him--had him in. + +Mr. Waverton had decorated himself for a house of mourning. His large +form was all black and silver and drooped sympathetically. His handsome +face was set in a chastened melancholy as of one who grieves for +another's trouble with a modest satisfaction. "Dear lady," says he +tenderly, and bowed over her hand. + +"Dear Geoffrey," says she. "Here's a new song." + +"Madame?" + +"'Vengeance is mine' was the refrain last time. Now it's weeping over the +penitent prodigal. How I love you, Geoffrey." + +Mr. Waverton made a gesture of emotion, an exclamation. "I wronged you, +Alison," he said in a deep voice. "Nay, but you must forgive me. I have +suffered too. Remember! I had lost all." + +"Ah, no," says Alison tragically, "you had still yourself, Geoffrey." + +His emotion was understood to be too much for Mr. Waverton. In a little +while, "We have both been the sport of villainy," he said. "Forgive me, +Alison. I remember that I spoke bitterly. Can you wonder? I had dreamed +of you in his arms. To see you there in that knave's power--ah, I was +beside myself. And he laughed, do you remember, he laughed!" + +"He never would take you to heart, in fact." + +"A treacherous hound!" said Mr. Waverton with startling vehemence. + +"Oh, he was honest when he laughed." + +Mr. Waverton swept Harry out of the conversation. "Forgive me, Alison, I +should have known. My heart should have told me." + +"Oh Lud, and is your heart to give tongue now?" + +"My heart," said Mr. Waverton with dignity, "my heart is always crying to +you. And now--now that the first agony is past, I know all." + +"I wish I did," said Alison and looked in his eyes. + +"But even then--ah, Alison, I have blamed myself cruelly--even then I +should have known that when your eyes were opened, when you knew the +truth, you would have no more of him." + +"You might have known," Alison said slowly. "You might have judged me by +yourself." + +"Aye, that indeed," says Mr. Waverton heartily. "For we are very like, +Alison, we are of the same spirit, you and I." + +"You make me proud." + +"It's our tragedy: we so like, so made to answer each other, should be +betrayed to our ruin by this same vile trickster. Oh, I blame you no more +than myself." + +"This is too generous." + +"No," says Mr. Waverton. "No. When I came on that woman of yours, that +Mrs. Weston--faith, I am glad that you have cut her off too. I never +liked that woman." + +"Yes, she is poor." + +"There it is! I doubt she was in Boyce's pay." + +Alison opened her eyes at him. "Oh, Geoffrey, you surpass yourself +to-day. Go on, go on." + +"If you please," says Mr. Waverton, something ruffled. "I believe he +hired her to play his game with you. Had you a suspicion of it when you +sent her packing?" + +"By God, Geoffrey, I could suspect anyone when you talk to me." + +"She is bitter against you. When I heard from her that you had driven +the fellow away from you, I was on fire to come to you." + +"To forgive the prodigal! Oh, your nobility, Geoffrey. And pray where did +you meet Mrs. Weston?" + +"Why, in the High Street here. She lodges in one of those wretched +cottages behind the street." + +"She is here?" Alison shivered a little. + +"Perhaps she has some game to play yet. She may be his spy. Be warned +against her." + +Alison leant forward in her chair. Her face was hidden from him. "You are +giving me a lesson, Geoffrey. I'll profit by it, I promise you!" + +"Alison!" Mr. Waverton gave a laugh of triumph. "I fight for us both. And +I promise you I am eager enough. As soon as I learnt that you had left +him, why, he was delivered into my hand. By heaven, he shall find no +mercy now. Already I have him watched. I went to an attorney much +practised in these treasonous cheating plots, and of him I have hired +trusty fellows who know all the rogues in London and their hiding-holes. +You said something?" + +But Alison was laughing. + +"I believe there is some humour in it," Mr. Waverton conceded grandly. +"Well, they have tracked him down. Our gentleman lies at a filthy tavern +in the Long Acre. The 'Leg of Pork,' or some such lewd name. He haunts +Jacobite coffeehouses and the like low places. They believe that he makes +some dirty money by scribbling for the Press. A writer in the newspapers! +He is sunk almost to his right depth. They make no doubt that before +long we shall catch him dabbling in some new treasonous matter. And +then--" he made gestures of doom. + +"Well? And then?" + +"The law may revenge us on the treacherous rogue," said Mr. Waverton +with majesty. + +Alison stood up. Mr. Waverton, always polite, started up too. "I give you +joy, Geoffrey," she said very quietly. + +"Not yet! Not yet!" Mr. Waverton put up a modest hand. + +"I believe there is nothing you could feel." Mr. Waverton recoiled +and stared his bewilderment. "You carry a sword, Geoffrey. Oh, that I +were a man!" + +"To use it upon him! Bah, such rogues are not worth the honour of steel." + +"Oh! Honour! Honour!" she cried and flung out her arms, trembling. "The +honour of you and me!" + +What was Mr. Waverton to make of that? "I believe I have excited +you," says he. + +"By God, it is the first time," Alison cried and turned on him so +fiercely that he started back. + +There was a servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then +Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid +simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's +tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much +engaged to hear or be aware of her. + +"Here is Miss Burford," said Waverton in a hurry. + +Alison whirled upon her. "You! You have nothing to do here." + +"My dear Alison!" Waverton protested. "Miss Burford, your very obedient." + +Susan made him a small leisurely curtsy and sat down. "Oh, please give me +a dish of tea," she said. + +"We have not seen you at Tetherdown in this long while," Mr. Waverton +complained genially. + +"I believe not," says Susan. + +Alison stared at her. "Why do you come here? You know you despise me." + +"I do not come to people I despise," says Susan placidly. + +"Well. I am private with dear Geoffrey, if you please." + +"My dear Alison! I must be riding. We have finished our business, I +think. I'll not fail to be with you again soon. I hope to have news for +you. Miss Burford, your most obedient." Susan bent her head. "Alison--" +he held out his hand and smiled at her protective affection. + +"Geoffrey," said Alison, and looked in his eyes. She did not take the +hand. She was very pale. + +Mr. Waverton's smile was withered. He took himself out with a jauntiness +that sat upon him awkwardly. + +Then Alison turned again upon Susan. "You want to know what I have to do +with him?" she said fiercely. + +"No," says Susan. + +Alison stared at the fair, placid face and cried out: "You are a fool." + +"Oh, my dear," says Susan. + +"I hate that cold, flabby way of yours. You think it is all good and +wise and kind. It's like a silly mother with a spoilt child. You've not +spirit enough to scold, and all the while you are thinking me vile and +base and mean." + +"But that is ridiculous. Nobody could think you mean," Susan said. + +"There it is again. You believe it is kind to talk so, and it drives me +mad. I am shameful--do you hear? I am shameful and perhaps I want to be, +and I loathe myself. Now, go. I shall not stay with you. Go." + +Susan stood up. "Alison, oh, Alison," she said. Alison flung out +of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + +Late in that evening one of Alison's servants rode up to the "Hand of +Pork" and inquired for Mr. Boyce. After some parley, he was told that Mr. +Boyce had not been in the tavern that day. So he left a letter in the tap +and rode back to Highgate. + +That letter, which was not heard of till long afterwards, ran thus: + +"Mr. Boyce,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear.--A." + +An ungainly, confused composition, as you see, but it set forth very +clearly the state of Alison's unhappy mind. She was revolted, of course, +by Geoffrey's scheme of spying and trapping, loathed him for +propounding it to her, and was eager to warn Harry against it and clear +herself of any part in the vile business. But she would not have Harry +suppose that she was praying him to come back to her. This time, at +least, there should be no wooing on her side. If she wanted him +hungrily, shamefully, he should not know till he chose to take her. But +he must come to her and be told all the tale, and hold her free of any +part in Geoffrey's baseness. + +So she fought with herself and wrote of her strife, and, as things +went, it mattered nothing to Harry, for he never knew of it till much +else had happened. + +When he woke on the morning after his affairs with Captain McBean and the +Mohocks and his father--woke with a sore head and a very stiff shoulder, +he was a prey to puzzled excitement. There is no doubt that McBean had +engaged his affections. He was not, indeed, very grateful for the +fantastic duel. Of all men, Harry Boyce was the least likely to be +pleased by oddity or an extravagance of chivalry. He always thought, I +believe, that Captain McBean was a little mad, and liked him none the +better for it. But he confessed that with the madness there was allied a +most persuasive mind, a very reasonable reason. The combination may not +be so surprising to you as to Harry Boyce. He thought that McBean's +exposition of the affair of his father, and his consequent duty, was +exactly and delicately true--which means, of course, that it agreed with +his own temper. He had no more doubt than McBean that his father had +planned, was planning, treachery which, win or lose, would disgrace him. +He admitted that it was his own wretched duty to do what he might to make +an end of these plans. + +You smile, perhaps, at Harry Boyce claiming for himself the commands of +duty. He was eminently not a saint. He was not delicate. And yet, thrust +upon an awkward choice, it is certain that he chose what must be +difficult, hazardous, and distressing, rather than stand aloof and let +his father's villainy go its way. + +I make no pretence of exalting him into a tragic fellow. He had no +affection for his father, no respect. Merely to work against his father's +will, to smash his father's schemes, would certainly not have cost him +one twinge. He had no hate for his father either, not the least ambition +to ruin him or make him suffer. But he would heartily have liked to bring +these murderous plots to nothing and yet save his father from vengeance. +Harry had his share of the common human instinct to keep one's family out +of mischief--or at least out of the newspapers. + +And it is not to be denied that there was also active in him a simple +human animosity. He bore his father a grudge for being publicly a knave: +a man who had received nothing from his parents but the gift of birth +might fairly demand that they should not bother him with their rogueries. +He did not extenuate his father's share in the catastrophe of the +marriage. Perhaps it was in itself fated to miscarry, but if Colonel +Boyce had not mixed up his affairs with it, the end need not have been +ignominious. Harry vigorously condemned the old gentleman's meddling. It +was an impertinence at the best to manipulate other folks, and a father +who did it so stupidly as Colonel Boyce was a pestilent nuisance. But all +this, I believe, rankled less than the behaviour of Colonel Boyce on the +night before. If the old gentleman had acknowledged his offences, if he +had even been content to talk of them frankly, man to man, he might have +been forgiven. But his affectation of profound wisdom, his patronage, and +above all, his parade of mystery infuriated Harry's lucid mind. + +It sought further causes of offence and had no difficulty in finding +them. Everything about that conversation was suspicious. For how did it +begin? With a broken head, with every button of his clothes torn open as +though he had just been searched to the skin, he woke up in his father's +presence. The father might pose as a good Samaritan who had come upon a +sufferer by the wayside, but he should not have shown so nervous an +anxiety to know what the sufferer had been about. The father talked of +Mohocks; but what Mohocks were these who knocked a man down before making +sport of him and, not content with taking his money, went through all his +clothes? Why was a Mohock's club lying there beneath the father's swords? +Harry made a ready guess at the riddle. His father must have fellows +watching McBean's house. They had knocked him down to search him for +papers. Then the father must have known that he had been with McBean, and +those anxious questions were to discover how much he was McBean's friend. +Colonel Boyce must have a lively interest in the affairs of McBean--and +yet he professed that he had now nothing in hand. What if he knew of the +secret of the Pretender's coming to London? What if he was still seeking +a chance to accomplish his plot of murder? + +Well, Captain McBean expected no less of him. Captain McBean was in the +right of it. It became a good son's duty to confound his father's +politics. There's no denying that Harry went into the business with zest. + +While he ate his breakfast in the taproom, he caught sight of a fellow +lurking about outside. Whose spy this was is, in fact, not certain. +Afterwards Colonel Boyce vehemently denied that he had commissioned any +man against Harry. Though you may not believe him, it is possible that +the fellow was one of those in Waverton's pay. Harry made no doubt that +his father was the offender. + +He went upstairs again and put a book in his pocket. (He had been +commissioned for a translation of Ovid, which, let us be thankful, never +came into print.) Thus characteristically provided, he went out to +baffle the spy and the father. In the courts between Drury Lane and Bow +Street he did some ingenious marching and counter-marching whereby--he +was always confident and we cannot be quite sure--the spy was shaken +off. He then came into St. Martin's Lane by the north end, and dodging +in and out of it more than once, made for a tavern close to his father's +lodging. He planted himself inside by a window, called for a tankard and +a pipe, and divided his attention between the Tristia and his father's +door across the lane. + +It soon appeared that Colonel Boyce was to have a busy morning. By ones +and twos a dozen men went into his house. They were not, even to Harry's +hostile eye, brazenly ruffians. Something of the bully they might have +about them, for they ran to brawn and swagger, but they were trim enough +and brisk, and had no smack of debauch--a company of old soldiers, by the +look of them, and still not past their prime. They were with Colonel +Boyce a long time, and Harry grew very sick of the Tristia, and had to +drink more beer over it than was his habit of a morning. + +They came out at last singly, and yet with very short intervals between +them. They all turned the same way--across Leicester Fields. There seemed +to Harry something so uncommon in this that he was moved to follow. He +made his way out by the back door and the tavern yard. As he came into +Leicester Fields, he saw that the units had already amalgamated into +three companies. They were all steadily marching westward. Keeping behind +a cart he followed them, and after a while bought for twopence a lift in +an empty hay wagon. I record all this because he seems to have been very +proud of it, which is characteristic of his simple nature. The hay wagon +rumbled him past two companies of them halted and coalescing at an inn. +The first still headed him at a good round pace all the way to +Kensington. + +The wagon was going through Kensington village when he saw that this +vanguard too had found an inn. A little farther on he abandoned his +wagon and, buying bread and cheese at a farm, made his dinner under +the hedge. It was a long while before he saw anything more of the +gentlemen of the inn, and lying among primroses and cowslips he nearly +forgot all about them and his excitement and his wonderful tactics. He +was, in fact, becoming sentimental, and had made three neat +hendecasyllabics to the cowslips when the gentlemen came out again. +They split into pairs and marched on briskly. Harry went through the +hedge, and from behind it he watched them pass. Then, as now, the road +ran straight, and it was not safe to come out and follow them till they +were far ahead. While he waited he heard more tramping, and in a little +while the rest of the company went by. He peeped out after them and saw +an odd thing: though the road ran straight for a mile or more, the +first party had vanished already. + +Harry climbed a tree. It was some little time before he discovered the +lost party. They had scattered, they had taken to the fields and, under +hedges, they were making southward. The rest of the company did likewise. +Soon he saw what they were after. There was a lane running from the high +road towards Fulham. A little way back from it, in a good garden, stood a +house of modest comfort, doubtless the place to which some gentleman +about town came for his pleasures or a breath of fresh air. About its +grounds the company went into hiding. + +Harry came down from his tree in a hurry and, like an honest man, took to +the high road. It was, you know, his one uncommon capacity to go easily +at a round pace. He did his best along the road and down the lane and, +though he caught a glimpse of a coat here and there, unchallenged he came +up the drive and across the garden to the door of the house. He had +hardly knocked before he was being inspected through a peep-hole. The +door was opened and instantly shut behind him. He was in darkness dimly +lit by one candle. The windows had their shutters closed and barred. + +"What's your will, sir?" says the man who let him in. + +"The master of the house, if you please," Two other men lounged +into the hall. + +"And your name, sir?" + +"You may say that I came from Captain McBean." + +The man appeared to think it over. "That's true enough, faith," says +another, advancing out of the shadow. Harry recognised one of the solemn +seconds of the duel, Patrick O'Connor. "Will I serve your turn, sir?" + +"If you're master here." + +"I am not. Come on now." He led the way to a room where a cadaverous man, +richly dressed, sat huddled over a fire. "'Tis a gentleman from the +captain, my lord. Mr. Boyce, my Lord Sale." + +Harry bowed. My lord yawned. "You've a devil of a name, Mr. +Boyce," says he. + +"I deplore it, and hope to disgrace it." + +"Is it possible?" said my lord, and yawned again. + +"I had the honour to tell you, my lord, that I answer for the gentleman," +says Mr. O'Connor. + +"You may endorse the devil, if you please," my lord sneered. + +Harry struck in, "I came to tell you, my lord, that your house is +watched, and by now surrounded." + +"Damn them, they have found it out, have they?" says my lord, and spread +out his lean hands to the fire. + +"How many, if you please?" says O'Connor. + +"A dozen or so. They marched out this morning, scattered, and met again +in the village and came here across country. They are well-armed, I +believe, and look men who would fight." + +"Ods fish, that nets this hole," says my lord. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, when +will they put the ferret in?" Harry shrugged. "Oh, there's a limit to +your kindness, is there? Do you choose to tell us who sent them?" + +Harry was silent a moment and then blurted out: "They came from Colonel +Boyce's lodging." + +My lord laughed. + +"Sure, 'tis an honour to know you, sir," says O'Connor, and bowed to +Harry. + +"Damned filial, indeed," my lord chuckled. + +O'Connor turned upon him. "They have you beat easily, my lord," he said +fiercely. "Damned courageous indeed." But my lord only nodded at him. +"What, we be six--to count Mr. Boyce. Sure, we could hold the house +against the devil's christening." + +There came in briskly a tall fellow crying: "Come, Sale, it's full time, +I believe." + +My Lord Sale got on his feet, "Stap me, sir, I believe not," he drawled. +"We must stay at home. They have smoked us. Here's a gracious youth come +to tell us that his Whiggish friends beset the house." + +The Pretender frowned and seemed slow to understand. Harry looked him +over. He was certainly a fine figure of a man, and bore himself gallantly +enough. His face was darkly handsome in a melancholy fashion, not unlike +the youth of his uncle, Charles II. He turned upon Harry. "What is all +this, sir?" + +"Oh, sir, it's that old rogue Noll Boyce," my lord put in. "And here's +his son betraying the father." + +"Faith, my lord, I'll remind you of that," O'Connor said. "Sir, the +gentleman is an honest gentleman." + +"Colonel Boyce--he is your father, sir?" the Pretender bent his black +brows over Harry. + +"He begot me, he says." Harry shrugged. "I desire to defend you from him. +He has surrounded your house here with a dozen sturdy knaves who intend +you, I believe, the worst." + +"I am obliged by your service, sir," says the Pretender coldly. "Pray, my +lord, is the coach ready?" + +My lord shook his head. "I don't advise it, sir. The good Mr. Boyce +cannot be lying. Or allow the knaves mean but to frighten you. I dare not +risk your person." + +"Dare? You dare too much, my lord, who command neither my person nor my +honour. I do not thank you for your advice. You will have the coach +brought instantly." + +"I ask your pardon, sir, and beg you to consider. What will the world +say of me if I let you run into a gang of murderers? We can maintain +the house against them till our friends come seeking us. In the open +we are outnumbered desperately. Nay, sir, be advised; what is to lose +by waiting? If you go, you grasp at a shadow and may throw away your +life for it." + +"I say, my lord, I do not thank you for your care of me, which is +careless of my honour and your own. I am promised to our friends. Do you +desire me to go afoot, my lord?" + +"I have done, sir." My lord bowed and went out. + +"Sir, I believe they will not spare you," says Harry. + +"I have heard you," the Pretender said haughtily, and waved him away. + +"I'll not be put off so." The Pretender turned upon him. "Sir, I have +done what I could to save your life from a base plot. If it succeeds, the +shame of it must fall upon me and my name, for it's my cursed father that +planned it. And you choose to run upon the danger. I entreat you, do me +right. Your blood should not be upon my head." + +"You have done your duty, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender bowed. "I thank you. +But I must do mine." + +"Why, faith, sir, 'tis the right principle of war to wait the rogues +here," says O'Connor. "You will not?" + +"Go to, man, I say it again and again." + +For the first time in their acquaintance, Harry saw Mr. O'Connor smile. +"I have the honour to take your orders, sir. But sure, we are not at the +end of our tactics. I'll presume to advise you. Let the coach come to the +door, and me and the other gentlemen will make some display of mounting +her and guarding her; she moves off slowly; it's any odds the rogues will +believe we have you with us and deliver their main attack, while you'll +be mounting quietly in the yard with my lord and ride off with him to +Kensington." + +"The plan is well enough. Have it so," said the Pretender carelessly. + +O'Connor went out in a hurry and Harry followed him. "I'll join you, if +you please, Mr. O'Connor." + +O'Connor laughed. "Oh, your servant, your servant. No offence, Mr. +Boyce. I profess I have an admiration for you. But, faith, you are not a +man of war. Do you go round to the stable-yard, now, and watch there to +see they prepare nothing against us from the back." He bustled off, +calling up his fellows. + +So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the +house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign +of his father's legion. In a moment the groom, with one of O'Connor's +men to help him, was busy again in the stable. Still the legion did not +reveal themselves. O'Connor's man ran back into the house, leaving two +horses saddled in the stable. Then the Pretender and my lord hurried +out, and the horses were brought to meet them. As they mounted, Harry +heard the clatter of the coach and then pistols and shouts, and the +clash of fighting. + +The Pretender spurred off, my lord taking the lead of him through the +gate. As they passed, a shot was fired out of the hedge. My lord swayed, +fumbling at his holsters, and crying out: "Ride on, sir, ride," fell from +the saddle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse +dragged him along the ground. + +Harry ran up and snatched the bridle. "How is it with you, my lord?" + +"I have enough, I believe," my lord gasped. "Damme, sir, don't fumble at +me. Mount and after him." + +So Harry went bumping in the saddle after the Pretender. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + +The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he +hit?" + +"He has it in the body and he suffers." + +The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you +see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce." + +"You can do me no harm, sir. God knows if I can do you any good." + +The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my +own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me." + +"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we +are going now?" + +"This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and +die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way." + +"Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined +up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?" + +The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that +he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy. + +"Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me, +where is this damned palace?" + +"Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please." + +So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the +trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you +know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the +disinherited king. + +"Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies +watching for you." + +"And I believe I have not thanked you." + +It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to +the family of Boyce." + +"I shall not forget." + +"He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father." + +"I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too +proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself." + +Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he +was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy +lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the +Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he +would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for +any other in the world. + +Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on +the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham, +sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not +by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden +wall upon the London side. + +There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a +"Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to God nothing has +fallen out amiss?" + +"There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends +are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here." + +Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I +feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady +much troubled for her. By God, we have left it late. And the ministers +must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We +must be swift and downright with the Council." + +Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to +face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was +to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she +presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good +plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the +will to make it work. + +Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy +stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a +hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As +they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation +and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham +plunged after them and wildly waved them on. + +"What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled. + +"Oh God, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard +now," and he muttered to himself. + +"You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go +before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on. + +Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company +below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare +nobility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no +forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach, +the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in +disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were +staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had +betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder +Lord Masham was uneasy for his head. + +They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham, +brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in +a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I +believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard +another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words, +like a baby's cry or an animal's. + +Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim +splendour, and as they passed the door Harry made out what that feeble +voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep +the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew +why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if +they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled. + +A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire +sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was +not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid +mass. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed. +Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it +change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and +it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he +looked there came to him a sense of death. + +Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich +stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her +neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings. + +There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with +something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the +Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded +imperiously at Masham. + +"The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried. + +The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and +shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be +loud," she complained. + +"Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it +is Prince James." + +The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?" +he said heavily. + +The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, +and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like +King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why +does he come? The Council is waiting." + +"I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said. + +"What does he say, Abbie?" the Queen turned to Lady Masham and took her +hand and fondled it feebly. "I am alone. There is none left to me. My boy +is dead. My babies--I am alone. I am alone." + +"I am your brother and your King," the Pretender cried. + +She fell back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble +came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to +shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a +while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, +tap of her hand beat through the room. + +Lady Masham took command. "Nay, sir, leave her. You can do no more now. +Let her be. I will handle her if I can." She rustled across the room +and struck a bell. "Masham, bring Dr. Arbuthnot. He irks her less than +the rest." + +Harry followed the Pretender into the outer room, shambling +awkwardly. The progress from failure to failure dazed him. He recalled +afterwards, as many petty matters of this time stayed vivid in his +memory, a preposterous blunder into a chair. The Pretender sat down +and stretched at his ease. "We are too late, I think," he said coldly. +"It is the genius of my family." He took snuff. "You may go, if you +will, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry looked up and struggled to collect himself. "Not till you are in +safety," he said, and was dully aware of some discomfort. The dying +woman, the sheer ugliness of death, the sordid emotions about her numbed +the life in him. He felt himself in a world inhuman. Yet, even +afterwards, he seems not to have discovered anything ignoble in his +admired Pretender. The blame was fate's that mocked coldly at the hopes +and affections of men. + +"I am obliged, sir," said the Pretender, and so they waited together.... + +After a little while of gloomy silence in that bare room, Masham broke +in, beckoning and muttering: "Sir, sir, the Queen is dead." + +The Pretender stood up. "_Enfin_" said he, with a shrug. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +SAUVE QUI PEUT + + +"Sir, you must be gone instantly," says Masham. + +"You are officious, my lord." The Pretender stared at him. "I have +nothing to fear." + +"I warrant you have," Masham cried. "And so have others." + +"I believe that, _pardieu_. Come, my lord, command yourself. Where is +this Council? I may still show myself to the lords and challenge them." + +"Damme, you cannot be so mad! 'Tis packed with Whigs. They must have wind +of you, curse them. Marlborough is there, and Argyll and Sunderland, burn +his foxy face. It might have gone amiss though the Queen armed you to her +chair. Now she is dead, there is no hope for you. Go to the Council! Go +to the Tower--go to the block." + +The Pretender turned to Harry with a smile and a shrug. "He trims his +sails quickly." + +"That's unworthy, by God," Masham cried. + +"My lord is in the right, sir," Harry said. "It's true enough, +Marlborough is here and he makes sure. You'll but extinguish yourself to +try more now. The need is to bring you safe to your friends." + +"You also!" The Pretender shrugged again. "Faith, Mr. Boyce, you +show yourself vastly anxious for my life. You are not much concerned +for my honour." + +"Egad, sir, I should have thought your honour was to maintain your cause. +You'll not do that from a prison or coffin." + +"Who knows?" the Pretender said. "My grandfather--" + +Masham was stamping with impatience. "Oh Lud, sir, must we gossip +about your grandfather? Stay here, you cannot. It is not decent. The +Queen's a corpse behind that door. Why, and if they take you in the +palace, it's ruin for you and for us all. Oh, we shall not be spared +if you are caught." + +"Yes. I am a curse to my friends." The Pretender laughed drearily. "Well, +my lord, you shall be delivered at least. Lead the way." Masham hurried +out on the word. As they followed the Pretender took Harry's arm. "I wish +you may be right, Mr. Boyce," he said. "But my heart bids me stay." + +"Oh, sir, a king has no right to a heart," says Harry. + +They were suddenly thrown upon Masham as he checked and drew back without +warning. He had come upon a woman who was leaving the Queen's apartments, +a woman who had once been handsome, and was still proud of it. She +stared haughtily at Masham and his companions, and swept on before them. +He was much agitated. + +"What alarms you, my lord?" The Pretender sneered. + +"Carrots from Somerset, egad," Masham muttered, gazing after the +disdainful lady's red head. "It's the Duchess of Somerset, sir, the +damnedest Whig, and she came from the Queen. Now they will all know the +Queen is gone. Come on, sir, come on for God's sake." + +They hurried after him through the palace. All was quiet enough. +Afterwards, indeed, Harry could hardly believe that fancy had not played +tricks with his memory; for the emptiness, the silence of the corridors +must needs have been a dramatic invention of his own mind and no reality. +But it is true that as they hurried their retreat he was haunted by the +quiet of the place--the quiet of death, a quiet ominous of storm. + +They were down at the door by which they had entered, and Masham's +servant-in-waiting there was dispatched for the horses. Masham fumed at +the minutes of delay, ran out and in again, and then with some +awkwardness apologized for himself. "Egad, sir, I warrant you we have +done what we could. It is for you I fear, by God. I promise you, I doubt +damnably how things may go. Pray, sir, put yourself in safety." + +"I am grateful for your emotions, my lord." + +Masham stared at him and then cried out, "Ods life, what now?" The horses +were coming, but before the horses came two of the Guards at the double. +They halted at the door, panting, and grounded their muskets. "What the +devil's this, my lad?" says Masham. + +"None is to leave the palace, my lord." + +"Damme, sirrah, you know me?" + +"It won't do, my lord. That's the order. You must go speak with the +captain at the main gate." + +"Come, sir, I have no time. Forget that you were here soon enough to stop +me. You shall not lose by it." + +"It won't do, my lord. Nay, nay, don't force me to it." The corporal +crossed muskets with his fellow as Masham was thrusting by. "Order is to +spare none." + +"Damme, sir, what do your mean?" + +"Sure, my lord, you know better than that." The corporal grinned. "Ask +the captain, if you please." + +Masham recoiled and drew the others back into the palace. They heard the +corporal shout: "Put the nags up, my bully. My lord won't ride to-day." + +"They know you are here, sir," Masham said, with a very white face. "Damn +the Somerset! She lost no time. What is to do now?" + +"It seems my own plan was the best, gentlemen. If I had gone into the +Council we should at the worst have been in no worse case." + +"Oh Lud, sir, must we wrangle that out again?" + +"You are impudent, my lord. I will do without your company." + +"Good God, sir, it's no time for forms. What would you be at?" + +"I shall go to the main gate of your palace and see who will stand +in my way." + +"That's ruin for certain," Masham groaned. + +"Be easy, my lord. I shall not boast myself your guest." + +"Oh, you are mad." + +"By your leave, sir," says Harry. "We need not so soon despair, I think, +nor you run upon your death. There is something more to be tried. These +sentries, they'll be on the watch for a gentleman of your distinction and +in my lord's company or of some noble attendance. But a common fellow may +pass them. If you would lend me your fine clothes and that great wig, and +condescend to my subfuse and bob, there's no one would take so shabby a +fellow for yourself. Maybe I might make a show to break out one way, +while you slipped past by another." + +"And left you to bear the brunt for me? I complain of you again, Mr. +Boyce--you do not much value my honour." + +"And I say again, sir, your honour is to maintain your cause. Nay, but +what can they do to me? Faith, it's no sin to wear fine clothes. And +I--well, I think the Whigs will never bring me into court. I know too +much of my father." + +"Oh, you are specious, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender smiled at him. "Nay, if +all my friends were such as you, I should not be in this queer plight." +He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "How am I to thank you, sirrah?" + +"Pray, sir, do as I advise." + +The hand pressed harder. "Be it so then." + +"Egad, I like it very well," says Masham heartily. The two exchanged a +shrug and a sneer at him. "If Mr. Boyce will risk it, he may make a show +of marching out by the garden entrance while you slip away by the +servants' wicket beyond." + +"I believe I can trust you to get rid of me, my lord," the Pretender +shrugged. "Pray, where may we exchange our characters--and our breeches?" + +"Oh, sir, follow me; we must be private about that." + +Harry burst out laughing. "Aye, faith, he is a gentleman of delicacy, our +Masham," the Pretender said. + +But my lord had no ears or no understanding for irony. He brought them to +his own quarters and, fervidly entreating them to lose no time, shut them +in and mounted guard outside the door. + +They cut queer figures to their own eyes when they came out, and Masham +was distressed by their laughter. "What ails you?" he protested +nervously. "It does well enough, I swear." + +"I am flattered by your admiration, _pardieu_," says the Pretender, with +a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, +and a clutch at the bob-wig's jauntiness. + +"Some are born great," says Harry, "and some have greatness thrust upon +'em. I believe I can keep inside your periwig, sir, but damme if I am +sure about your breeches. They disdain me, egad." + +"God's life, sir, if you make a jest of it you'll ruin us all," Masham +cried. "I vow it's not seemly, neither. The Queen's dead but this +half-hour, and--and, by God, our own heads are loose on our shoulders." + +"My lord's in the right, sir. It's no laughing matter," says Harry. + +"Aye, he's all noble feeling," the Pretender shrugged. + +"Come on, sir, in God's name," Masham groaned. + +"Look you, thus it goes. I'll bring you within sight of the garden +entry. Then you make to go out, Mr. Boyce, with what parade you can. And +you, sir, I'll take you to the head of the back stairs. You have but to +go straight down and out, and I wish you God speed with all my heart. +Come, come!" + +They marched along the corridor and must needs pass the end of that which +led to the Queen's apartments. Masham was a little ahead of the others. +He passed the corner. Then he checked and he turned sharp about and +charged back on them, crowding them against the wall, trying to stand in +front of both of them and hide them. + +It was Marlborough who alarmed my lord, Marlborough who came, alone, +pacing slowly from the room where the Queen lay dead. No dismay, no +emotion troubled his supreme grace. He disdained his splendours and his +beauty with the wonted calm. + +He saw them, could not but see them, huddled together as they were and +striving not to be seen. His face betrayed nothing. He paced slowly up to +them. It seemed to Harry that from the first his placid eyes looked at +none of them but the Pretender. "We have met before, sir, I think," he +said gently. + +"On the field of battle," says the Pretender in French. + +Marlborough bowed. "Give me your company." + +"Oh, your family has always been too kind to mine." + +Marlborough pointed the way. + +The Pretender shrugged, and "_Enfin_," says he with a bitter laugh, and +marched on with an air. + +Masham, leaning against the wall and very white, muttered to himself, "My +God, my God!" + +Harry ran forward to look after them. He saw Marlborough glance over the +Pretender's shabby clothes and then, making some ostentation of it, put +on his hat. The Pretender with a stare of disdain put on his--or Harry's. +They came to the head of the grand staircase and went down. The servants +in the hall sprang up and ran to open the doors for His Grace. Harry +heard a din and a clang and saw a flash of steel as the guard outside +presented arms. The two passed out and out of sight. For a little while +the servants stood staring after them, and then came back to their chairs +whispering. + +Harry turned round to Masham. "What now?" + +"Now?" Masham stared. "Now we may go hang ourselves." + +"Like Judas? Damme, I don't feel the obligation. Do you, my lord?" + +Masham swore at him and began to walk off. + +"Can you lend me a humbler coat, my lord?" Harry cried. "I am no more +use in this." + +"I'll do no more in it," Masham growled. "Look to yourself." + +"_Enfin,_ as His Majesty says," quoth Harry with a laugh, and went on to +look for the garden entry or any other humble door. He found it soon +enough and was going through it--to be instantly beset by a sergeant's +party and a joyful shout, "Odso, 'tis himself, 'tis the Chevalier." + +"You flatter me," says Harry, and they marched him off. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +REVELATIONS + + +Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came +in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none. +He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew, +indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the +Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the +Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. +He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he +saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be +some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless +distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was +born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison +came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they +opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full +zest of life, all the wonder and the glory--that he might know what it +was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should +never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool. +How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done. +She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was +a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put +his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a +fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who +would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, +but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. +Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for +the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce +should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of +cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. +And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her +beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget +her, forget her as she lay in his arms. + +The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a +room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp +face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a +ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes +too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in +contemptuous disgust. + +"Your name?" + +"La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can +do without." + +"I am the Earl of Sunderland." + +"Then, damme, I am sorry for you." + +"Your name, I say?" + +"Why, didn't your fellows tell you? They told me." + +"Impudence will not serve you. I warn you, the one chance to save +yourself is to be honest with me." + +Harry began to hum a song, and, between the bars, he said, "You may go to +the devil. I care not a curse for anything you can do. So think of your +dignity, my lord. And hold your silly tongue." + +Sunderland considered him keenly. A secretary came in and whispered. "I +will see him," Sunderland said, and lay back in his chair. + +It was Colonel Boyce who broke in, Colonel Boyce something flushed and +out of breath. "Egad, my lord," he began. Sunderland held up his hand. +Colonel Boyce checked and stood staring at his son. + +Harry began to laugh. "Oh, sir, you're infinitely welcome. It only needed +you to complete my happiness." + +"Od's life, sirrah." Colonel Boyce advanced upon him. "Are you crazy? +What damned folly is this?" + +"You know him then?" says Sunderland. + +"Oh, my lord, it's a wise father knows his own son. And he is not +wise, you know. Are you, most reverend? No, faith, or you would never +have begot me. No, faith, nor enlist me to do murder neither. For I do +but bungle it, you see. And make a fool of my Lord Sunderland, God +bless him." + +"Is he mad?" says Sunderland. + +"I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry, +stop your ranting. What brought you here?" + +"You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders +for him. _Imprimis_, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers +who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder." + +"You came here with the Pretender?" + +Harry laughed and began to sing a catch: + +"'Tis nothing to you if I should do so, + And if nothing in it you find, +Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe + Than ever I designed." + +"What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried. + +"Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you +suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all +be shamed." + +"The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug. + +"Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad +fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day, +and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for +your Jacobites. Tell me now--the Pretender is in your clothes, I +see--where did you part from him?" + +"Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter +for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all +power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who +don't trust you?" + +Some voices made themselves heard from outside. Sunderland and Colonel +Boyce looked at each other, and my lord bit his fingers. The Colonel +muttered something in Sunderland's ear. + +Harry laughed. "Do you bite your thumb at me, my lord? No, sir, says he, +but I bite my thumb. Odso, I bite my thumb." + +"Be silent, sirrah," Sunderland cried. + +The door opened. "Announce me," says a placid voice, and the secretary +cried out in a hurry: "His Grace the Duke of Marlborough." + +Harry went on laughing. The contrast of Marlborough's assured calm and +the agitation of the others was too impressive. "Oh, three merry men, +three merry men, three merry men are ye," he chanted. "No, damme, it's +more Shakespeare. The three witches, egad. And I suppose Duncan is +murdered in the next act. When shall you three meet again? In--" + +"Oh, damn your tongue, Harry," his father exploded. + +Marlborough was not disturbed. His eye had picked out Sunderland. "Is +this the whole conspiracy, my lord?" said he. + +"I beg your Grace's pardon," Sunderland started up. "You see, I am not +private," and he called out: "Guard, guard." + +"No," Marlborough said, and, as the soldiers came in, dismissed them with +"You are not needed." + +Sunderland fell back in his chair. "Oh, if you please," he cried +peevishly. "At your Grace's command." + +"You have no secrets from Mr. Boyce, my lord." He turned to Harry. "Sir, +we have met before," and he bowed. + +"Yes. The first time your wife was stuck in the mud. Now it's you." + +"Sir, you have obliged me on both occasions," Marlborough said. "Well, my +lord? You had Mr. Boyce under examination. Pray go on." + +"I don't understand your Grace," Sunderland said sulkily. "I have done +with the gentleman." + +Colonel Boyce thrust forward. "By your Grace's leave, I'll take the lad +away. Time presses and--" + +"You may be silent," said Marlborough. For the first time in their +acquaintance Harry saw his father look at a loss. It was an ugly, +ignominious spectacle. Marlborough turned to Harry, smiling, and his +voice lost its chill: "Well, Mr. Boyce, how far had it gone? Were they +asking you what you had done with Prince James?" + +Harry stared at the bland, handsome condescension and hated it. "Oh, +you have always had the devil's own luck," he cried. "Devil give you +joy of it, now." + +"You mistake me, I believe. I can forgive you more easily than some +others." He turned upon Sunderland. "I will tell you where Prince James +is, my lord. Safe out of your reach. On his way to France." + +Sunderland made a petulant exclamation and spread out his hands. "Your +Grace goes beyond me, I profess. Do you choose to be frank with me?" + +"Frank?" Marlborough laughed. "You know the word, then? By all means let +us be frank. I found Prince James in the palace. He accepted my company. +We had some conversation, my lord. I present to you the results. You have +used my name to warrant a silly, knavish plot for murdering Prince James +in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this +mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against +the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete +your blunders--but for the chance that I came upon him and took him +through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our +hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your +obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being confused with these +imbecilities." + +Sunderland, who had been wriggling and become flushed, cried out: "I'll +not submit to this. I don't choose to answer your Grace. You shall hear +from me when you are cooler." + +"My compliments," Marlborough laughed. "I do not stand by my friends? I +lose my temper? You will easily convince the world of that, my lord. +Colonel Boyce!" Before Harry's wondering eyes his father came to +attention and, with an expression much like a guilty dog's, waited his +reward. "You have had some of my confidence and I think you have not lost +by it. You have repaid me with an impudent treachery. I shall arrange +that you have no more opportunity at home or abroad." + +"Pray leave to ask your Grace's pardon," Colonel Boyce muttered. "I +swear--" + +"You may be silent," Marlborough said, and turned away from them. "Pray, +Mr. Boyce, will you walk?" Something bewildered by this time, Harry stood +up and they went out together. "I require a carriage for this gentleman," +said Marlborough to the sergeant of the guard, and with a smile to Harry, +"That will be convenient, I think?" + +"Egad, sir, you might say, decent," says Harry with a wary hand on +his breeches. + +"Spare me a moment while you wait," Marlborough turned into a recess of +the corridor. "Prince James expressed himself much in your debt, Mr. +Boyce. Consider me not less obliged. Thanks to you, I have freed myself +of suspicions which I profess it had irked me to bear." + +"Your Grace owes me nothing. I never thought of you. Or if I did you were +the villain of the piece." + +Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so +distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so +great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you +and bring you down to our own level." + +"You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my +compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in +your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the +pleasure of commanding me." + +"Oh, your Grace does everything magnificently," says Harry, with a wry +smile, and liked him none the better. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + +There is reason to believe that the Earl of Sunderland and Colonel Boyce +fell out. Sunderland, never an easy man, suspected that he had been +ridiculous and was nervously eager to make some one smart for it. Colonel +Boyce was in a despondent rage that any one should have heard Marlborough +rate him so. They seem to have had some cat and dog business before they +parted: each, I infer, blaming the other for their ignominy. + +But they took it in very different fashions. Colonel Boyce suffered in +the more respectable part of his soul. Sunderland merely fumed and felt +venomous. For it is certain (if absurd) that Colonel Boyce had a sincere +reverence for Marlborough. He much desired (one of his few simple human +emotions) that Marlborough should think well of him. If he had tacked +Marlborough's name to a dirty business about which Marlborough knew +nothing, he had honestly believed that His Grace would be very well +content to know nothing of the means, and profit by the end. That his +hero should retort upon him disgust and contempt wounded him painfully. +Final proof of his devotion--he never thought of questioning +Marlborough's judgment. He had no doubt that he had managed the affair +with miserable stupidity, and bowed a humiliated head. + +Unfortunately, he was not ready to bow it before Sunderland. If there was +to be scolding between him and Sunderland, he had a mind to give as much +as he took. My lord had been art and part in the whole affair, and could +have his share, too, in the disaster. But Sunderland had no notion of +accepting Marlborough's opinion of him. Sunderland had no reverence for +any of God's creatures, and with Marlborough safe out of the room, +snarled something about an old fellow in his dotage. This much enlivened +the quarrel, and they parted in some exhaustion, but still raging. + +The night brought counsel. Sunderland might tell himself and believe that +Marlborough had become only the shadow of a great name. But the great +name, he knew very well, was valuable to himself and his party, and he +had no notion of throwing it away for the sake of his injured dignity. In +his way, Colonel Boyce was quite as necessary to my lord. The fellow knew +too much to be discarded. Moreover, he would still be valuable. His +talents for intrigue and even that weakness of his, his fertility in +multiplying intrigue, much appealed to Sunderland. So before noon on the +next day, Colonel Boyce was reading a civil letter from my lord. He +sneered over it, but it was welcome enough. He did not want to be idle, +and could rely on Sunderland to find him agreeable occupation. He walked +out to wait on my lord, and they made it up, which was perhaps +unfortunate for Mr. Waverton. + +Later in the day my lord heard that a gentleman was asking to speak with +him, a gentleman who professed to have information about the Pretender +which he could give only to my lord's private ear. Thereupon my lord +received a large and imposing young gentleman, who said: "My Lord +Sunderland? My lord, I am Geoffrey Waverton of Tetherdown, a gentleman of +family (as you may know) and sufficient estate. This is to advise you +that I am in need of no private advantage and desire none, but only to do +my duty against traitors." + +"You are benevolent, sir, but I am busy." + +"I believe you will be glad to postpone your business to mine, my lord," +says Mr. Waverton haughtily. "Let me tell you at this moment of anxious +doubt," Mr. Waverton hesitated like one who forgets a bit of his prepared +eloquence,--"let me tell you the Pretender has come to these shores. He +has come to England, to London. He was in Kensington yesterday." + +"You amaze me, Mr. Waverton." + +"My lord, I can take you to the house." + +"You are very obliging. Is he there now?" + +"I believe not, my lord." + +"And I believe not too. Mr. Waverton, the world is full of gentlemen +who know where the Pretender was the other day. You are tedious. Where +is he now?" + +"My lord, I shall put in your power one who is in all his cunning +secrets: one who is the treasonous mainspring of the plot." + +Sunderland, who was something of a purist, made a grimace: "A treasonous +mainspring! You may keep it, sir." + +"You are pleased to be facetious, my lord. I warn you we have here no +matter for levity. I shall deliver to your hands one who is deep in the +most dangerous secrets of the Jacobites, art and part of the design +which at this moment of peril and dismay brings the Pretender down upon +our peace." + +"Mr. Waverton, you are as dull as a play. Who is he, this bogey of +yours?" + +"He calls himself Boyce," said Mr. Waverton, with an intense sneer. +"Harry Boyce, a shabby, scrubby trickster to the eye. You would take him +for a starveling usher, a decayed footman. It's a lurker in holes and +corners, indeed, a cringing, grovelling fellow. But with a heart full of +treason and all the cunning of a base, low hypocrisy. Still a youth, but +sodden in lying craft." + +Sunderland picked up a pen and played with it, and through the flutter of +the feather he began to look keenly at Mr. Waverton. "Pray spare me the +rhetoric," says he. "What has he done, your friend, Harry Boyce?" + +"He has this long time past been hand and glove with the Jacobites of +Sam's. I have evidence of it. Now mark you what follows. Yesterday +betimes he slunk out to Kensington, using much cunning secrecy. And there +he made his way to a certain house--I wonder if you know it, my lord? It +was close watched yesterday, and a coach that came from it was beset. I +wonder if you have been asking yourself how the Pretender evaded that +watch. I can dispel the mystery. This fellow Harry Boyce went in with +news of the guard about the house. It was in his company that the +Pretender rode away." + +"Why do you stop?" said Sunderland. + +"Where they went then I cannot tell you. You will please to observe, my +lord, that I am precisely honest with you and even to this knave Boyce +just. But it is certain that in the evening when Harry Boyce came back to +the low tavern where he lodges--and he came, if you please, in a handsome +coach--he was wearing the very clothes of the Pretender--aye, even to the +hat and wig. I believe I have said enough, my lord. It will be plain to +you that the fellow is very dangerous to the peace of the realm and our +good and lawful king. If you lay hands on him, which I advise you to do +swiftly, you will quench a treason which has us all in peril, and well +deserve the favour of King George. For my own part I seek neither favour +nor reward, desiring only to do my duty as a gentleman." Mr. Waverton +concluded with a large bow in the flamboyant style. + +"Your name is Waverton?" Sunderland said coldly. Mr. Waverton was +stupefied. That such eloquence should not raise a man's temperature! That +he should not have made his name remembered! He remained dumb. "Pray when +did you turn your coat?" + +"Turn my coat?" Mr. Waverton gasped. + +"You once professed yourself Jacobite. You went to France with a certain +Colonel Boyce. You quarrelled with him because he was not Jacobite. Now +you desire to get his son into trouble. You do not gain upon me, Mr. +Waverton." + +"I can explain, my lord--" + +"Pray, spare me," says Sunderland. "You are not obscure. I see that you +have a private grudge against the family of Boyce. Settle it in private, +Mr. Waverton. It is more courageous." + +Mr. Waverton stared at him and began several repartees which were +only begun. + +"I find you tiresome," Sunderland said. "I advise you, do not make me +think of you again," and he struck his bell. But when Mr. Waverton was +gone: "I fear he has not the spirit of a louse," my lord remarked to +himself with a shrug. + +Thus Mr. Waverton's virtue was left to seek its own reward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN THE TAP + + +When Harry came back to his tavern, he was, you'll believe, not anxious +to be seen. He made one step from the coach to the door, scurried through +the tap and upstairs. But the coming of a coach, and a coach of some +splendour, to the humble "Hand of Pork" had brought folks to the windows, +and at the staircase window Harry bumped into his landlady, who gasped at +him and began a "Save your lordship--" which ended in "God help us, it's +Mr. Boyce." + +"Cook me a steak, Meg," Harry said, and went up the stairs three +at a time. + +She screamed after him "Ha' you seen your letter? There's a letter for +you in the tap." + +When Harry came down in his natural clothes, his best and one remaining +suit, and shouted for his supper she was quarrelling with the potman and +searching the shelves: "Meg, you villain--Meg, where's my steak?" + +"Lord love you, it's to the fire. I be looking for your letter. Ain't you +had it now? Days it's been here, I swear, and I saw it again only this +morning. By the black jar of usquebaugh it was, George, Od rot you." + +"Burn the letter," says Harry. "Go, bring me that steak, you slut." + +"Oh, God save you," Mrs. Meg cried in a pet, and so for Alison's letter +there was no more search. But indeed they would not have found it. + +Harry, if he ever thought about it, supposed it one of the grumbling +screeds of the bookseller for whom he scribbled and was glad to be rid of +it so easily. But he was in no case to think usefully of anything. The +amazement of his deliverance left him in a queer state of excited +lassitude. His nerves were all tremulous, he must needs do everything +vehemently, and felt the while as if he were being whirled along, +passive, in the grip of some force outside himself One moment he was +dreaming himself capable of miracles, the next he was limp with weariness +and utterly impotent. And naturally, as soon as he had food inside him, +weariness won and he was overwhelmed with great waves of languor. He +hardly dragged himself up to his attic before he was asleep. + +When he woke, the world was grey. He could survey himself cynically and +wonder why he had been such a fool as to be in a fluster overnight. +Faith, it was a grand exploit to dabble in conspiracies and come out with +your head still (for a while) on your shoulders. And that only by a turn +of the luck, not any wit of his. Well! Neither winners nor losers would +want more of the blundering offices of Mr. Harry Boyce. He was back again +after his conversation with royalty--and royal breeches--a hack writer +in his garret. And Alison as far away as ever. The wonderful Alison! The +beauty of her flashed into his squalor. He felt her passionate life. Be +hanged to Alison! Let the hack writer get to his writing. + +All that day he strove with the fluency of Ovid, and to this hour his +labours, much flaccid verse, survive in a decent obscurity. It was late +in the afternoon before he yielded to his growing disgust with the +whinings of the Tristia and sought relief in the open air. + +There was not much movement in the air of Long Acre. The day had been +warm and languorous, with heavy showers steaming up again in the sun. +Clouds were darkening across the twilight for more rain. Harry turned off +to stretch his legs and find some freer air across the fields by the +Oxford road. But he was soon tired of them. The moist heat oppressed him +still and lowering darkness across the sky threatened a storm. He had no +desire for a wetting and an evening spent in the Pretender's clothes. He +made for his tavern again by St. Martin's Lane and there came full upon +his father. + +Colonel Boyce touched his hat. Harry touched his, gave him the wall +and was going by. Then the Colonel laughed and caught his son's arm. +"Well met, Harry. I was coming to seek you." (It's not known whether +that was true.) + +"And I, sir--I had no notion of seeking you." + +"Fie, don't be haughty. I bear no malice." + +"Egad, sir, that's kind in you," Harry sneered and pushed on. + +Colonel Boyce linked arms with him. "Why, what's the matter? You +went off with the honours. Od's heart, you left us like a pair of +whipped dogs." + +"You've to thank yourself for that, sir. Not me." + +"No, zounds, you did very well. I profess I was proud of you, Harry." + +"Then I have to envy you." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you +need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such +an air, Harry. You carried it off _a merveille_. My lord was a +whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. +It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable." + +"You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled +with you." + +"Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford +to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. +Why the devil should you snarl at me?" + +They were now turning into Long Acre and the coming storm had already +brought darkness. Harry stopped and freed himself from his father's arm. +"If you please, we'll have no more of this. I've no will to make an enemy +of you. But if you seek to be friends, enemies we must be." + +"Why then? Harry, you are not so mad as to declare Jacobite now? It's a +lost cause, boy. There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work +and not a guinea for your pains. You--" + +"Aye, now we have it!" Harry laughed. "You want to be in my +secrets. Sir, I'm obliged to you, and by your leave I'll +discontinue your company." + +"I swear I wish you nothing but well," his father cried. + +"Dear sir, it's your good wishes that I dread. Pray cut me off without a +blessing." He waved his hand to his father and strode off. + +For a moment Colonel Boyce looked after him--shrugged--went his way. + +So Harry walked alone upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was +passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. +They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but +hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and +staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were +borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their +swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared through +his body and he fell. + +Colonel Boyce heard the clatter of ash and steel and turned at his +leisure to look. It was a moment before he made out Harry in the midst +of the melee. Then he shouted of help and threats and ran on with +ready sword. + +He came too late. Harry was down and the dripping blades again at his +body. Colonel Boyce had one fellow pinked before they were aware. The +others bore upon him furiously and he was hard beset. He made a good +fight--it's the best thing in his life--he understood the sword, and they +were but hackers and hewers, they were in a mad hurry to finish him and +he had a perfect calm. But he was hampered and overborne. He would not +give ground for fear of more thrusts into the body at his feet, and they +closed upon him and he could not break them. + +But now doors were opening and heads out of windows. From Harry's tavern +a man came at a run. As Colonel Boyce reeled back with a point caught in +his shoulder, gripping at the blade and thrusting at empty air, another +sword shot into the fight. One man went down upon Harry's body. The other +three broke off and bolted down the court by which they had come. + +"_Canaille_," says the deliverer mildly, and plucked at the cloak of the +man he had overthrown to wipe his sword. "Is that a friend of yours +underneath, sir?" + +"Egad, they have tickled me," quoth Colonel Boyce, feeling at his +shoulder. "Pray, lend me your hand, sir." + +The deliverer looked him over without much sympathy: "And, egad, it's the +ancient Boyce," he said. "Oh, you'll survive, _mon vieux_. Who is this in +the mud?" He rolled his own victim, who groaned effusively, off Harry's +body. "It's the boy, _mordieu_!" he cried. + +"In effect, Captain McBean, it's the boy," says Colonel Boyce, who was +trying to fix a pad of handkerchief on his own wound. + +McBean was down on his knees beside Harry, handling him gently. "Twice +through the body, by God," says he. "What does this mean, Boyce? Damme, +did you set your fellows on him?" + +"I am not an imbecile," Colonel Boyce said fiercely, stared at McBean +and laughed his contempt. Then with another manner, he turned to the +little crowd which was mustered: "Bring me a shutter, good lads. We've a +gentleman here much hurt. And some of you call the watch." + +McBean rose with bloody hands. "He has it I believe," he muttered. +"Hark in your ear, Boyce. If this is your work, I'll see you dead, by +God, I will." + +"Oh, damn your folly," says Colonel Boyce. "I struck in to help him. I +know nothing who the knaves were. Your own tail, maybe." + +"Aye, aye," McBean looked at him queerly. "You would say that. Well, +maybe this rogue can speak. He groans loud enough." Down he dropped again +by his victim to cry out "Ben! You filthy rogue! Ben! Who a plague set +you to this business?" + +"Oh, you've found a friend, then?" Colonel Boyce sneered. + +The man who groaned was Harry's old friend, Ben the fat highwayman of the +North Road. He rolled his eyes and made hoarse, grievous noises. +"Captain! Lord love you, captain, I didn't know you was in it. Oh, gad, +and you ha' been the death o' me,' + +"I shall be if you lie," quoth McBean. "You rogue, who set you on +Mr. Boyce?" + +"How would I know he was a friend of yours? 'Twas a squire out of +Hornsey. Squire Waverton of Tetherdown. Paying handsome to have him +downed. Oh, gad, captain, don't be hard. I ha' had no luck since you +turned me off." + +Now the constables came running up and Colonel Boyce turned to them: +"Secure that fellow. He and some others which have escaped stabbed my +son who lies there. I am Colonel Boyce at the Blue House in St. +Martin's Lane." + +The wretched Ben was haled off, groaning. + +Harry, lifeless still and bleeding, for all McBean's work, they lifted +and carried away to his father's lodging. + +"What's your Waverton in this, sir?" says McBean. + +"The silly gentleman wanted Harry's wife. Egad, I never thought he had so +much gall in him." + +"I believe I'll be letting some of it out," says McBean. + +"You'll be pleased to leave that to me," quoth Colonel Boyce. + +McBean looked up at him oddly. "_Ventrebleu_, I wonder if I'll make you +my apologies. Have you bowels after all, sir?" + +"You're impertinent." + +"If you like." McBean cocked a wicked eye at him. + +"You concern yourself with the affairs of my family. I resent it, +Captain McBean." + +"I believe you, _mon vieux_." + +"You have done me a notable service to-night and I am ready to forget +the older injuries, your ill offices with my son. Let us call quits and +part, sir." + +"It won't do," said McBean with a grin. + +"What now, sir?" + +"I must know how Harry does and make sure that he has the best there is +for him. Surgery and friends--he will need both, sound and sure." + +"Be satisfied. I shall well provide him." + +Captain McBean shook his head. + +"Damn your infernal impudence." Colonel Boyce's temper gave way. "Od's +life, sir, this is infamous. You put upon me that I would mishandle my +own son as he lies wounded and near death! I shall murder him, I +suppose. You had that against me before. Shall I rob him too, or +torture him maybe? This is raving. Carry it where you will, I'll none +of it. You may go." + +"Fie, what a heat!" says McBean placidly. + +They were now come to Colonel Boyce's lodging and he bade the bearers +take Harry up to his own room. + +"I sent a brisk lad for Rolfe," says McBean. "I could but stop the blood. +He'll be here soon enough. It's but a step to Chancery Lane. He knows +more of wounds than any man in the town." + +Colonel Boyce was for a moment speechless. "I shall send for Dr. +Radcliffe and Sir Samuel Garth," says he majestically. "I wish you good +night, sir." + +"I believe they have sense enough to do no harm," said McBean. "And now, +Boyce, a word with you. Not in the street." + +"I don't desire it, sir," which McBean answered by passing in front of +him into the house. Colonel Boyce came after, fuming. "Egad, sir, you +presume upon my wound," he cried. "You--" + +"Not I. Patch yourself up and I'll meet you at your convenience. There's +more urgent matter. When the boy comes to himself--if ever he comes to +himself--I must have speech of him." + +Colonel Boyce, who now completely commanded himself, had grown very pale. +"You have gone too far, Captain McBean. I desired to forget that I have +you in my power. You force me to use it. If you thrust yourself upon me I +shall have you arrested as a traitor." + +McBean flushed. "Odso, then there is some villainy of yours in the +affair! Devil take you, I have a mind to finish you now, a wounded man as +you are." He had his hand on his sword. + +"Will you go, sir?" + +"Not I. If you ha' murdered him, you"--he slapped his sword home +again--"no, _mordieu_, I can't touch you so. And you may meddle with me +if you dare." + +"Oh, you have a great devotion to the boy," Colonel Boyce sneered with +pallid lips. "You would have him deeper dipped in your mad treasons? I +think you have done him harm enough." He struck his bell. + +"Harm?" McBean cried. "Is it harm? You that begat him for the heir to +your damned infamy? You that soured him with your husk of a soul and your +cold cunning? You that made a dirt-heap of his life to suit your muddling +need? You--" + +But Colonel Boyce swayed in his seat and fell sideways fainting. + +A moment McBean surveyed him as if he thought this too a trick. Then, +"_Ventrebleu_" says he, "here's Providence takes a hand," and he +whistled, and it is not to be denied that he looked covetously at the +cabinet which held Colonel Boyce's papers. "The poor old devil," he said +with a shrug. "He grows old, in fact. I suppose there's more blood in his +shirt now than his damned body," and he knelt down and began to feel +about the wound. + +He was at that when a woman announced the surgeon. "Mr. Rolfe? Never more +welcome. Here's old Colonel Boyce with a hole in his shoulder, and young +Mr. Boyce with two holes through and through. A street brawl. Pray go up, +sir, the lad's in bad case." + +"Faith, it's Captain McBean," says Rolfe, a brisk, big man, as they shook +hands. "What have you to do with Noll Boyce?" + +"A friend of the family," says McBean. "Away with you to the lad;" and he +knelt again and ministered to the unconscious Colonel. "A friend of the +family, old gentleman," says he with a grin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALISON KNEELS + + +So all this while Alison lacked an answer to her letter. She fretted at +the delay, she grew angry soon, but it does not appear that she allowed +herself any new pique against Harry. She was angry with circumstance, +with herself, and something much more than angry with Mr. Waverton. It +was detestable of Geoffrey to dare spy and plot against Harry, +intolerable in him to suppose that she would favour the villainy. But she +had been a fool and worse to give him any chance of insulting her so. And +yet she might have hoped that her letter--sure, she had been humble +enough in it--that her letter would bring Harry back in a hurry. It was +maddening that some trick of circumstance should have kept it from him or +him from her. For she had no notion that he would read the letter and +toss it aside or delay to come. There was nothing petty about Mr. Harry, +no spite. Nothing of the woman in him, thank God. + +What had happened that he gave her no answer? For certain the letter had +gone safely to the tavern. She could be sure of her servant. Harry was +living at the tavern. The people there gave assurance of that. It was +strange that he made no sign. The servant, indeed, had waited for an +answer late into the night and seen nothing of him. Perhaps he had +discovered Geoffrey's spies and gone into hiding. It would be like +Geoffrey to devise some mighty cunning villainy and so manage it that it +was futile. Perhaps Harry really was at some secret politics, captured +again by his father and sent off to France, or too deep in some matter of +danger to show himself. Perhaps--perhaps a thousand things, so that she +made no doubt of Harry. He would not deny her when she came seeking him. + +She had no fear either. Her nature could not imagine perils or disasters. +There was too proud a force in her life for her to admit a dread of being +defeated. Her man must live and be safe, because she needed him. Harry +could not fail her. But she was desperately impatient. She wanted him +every instant, and even more she wanted to stand before him and accuse +herself, confess herself. For the truth is that Geoffrey Waverton had +profoundly affected her. When she found Geoffrey daubing her with +patronizing congratulations, when he dared to claim her as ally in mean +tricks against her husband, she discovered that she must be miserably in +the wrong. Approved by Geoffrey, annexed, used by Geoffrey--faith, she +must have sunk very low before he could dare venture so with her. She +received illumination. She saw herself in the wrong first and last, the +sole sufficient cause of their catastrophe, a petty mean creature, +snarling and spiteful and passionate for trivialities--just like +Geoffrey, just such a creature as she hated most. Pride and honour +instantly demanded that she must seek Harry, indict herself and read her +recantation. She needed that, longed for it, and to satisfy herself, not +him. It is possible that she then began to love. + +So monsieur must be found instantly, instantly. When she thought of all +her tale of sins, she must needs think also of Mrs. Weston. Poor Weston +had enough against her too--Weston--his mother. It still seemed almost +incredible that poor, grey, puritan Weston should be mother to Harry. But +if she was indeed, she might know something of him. At least, it would be +good to make peace with her again; it was necessary. And so on the day +that Harry fell, Mrs. Alison marched off to the little cottage behind the +High Street. + +It was a room that opened straight from the path, and it seemed very +full. Susan was sitting there, who was now Susan Hadley. Her fair +placidity admitted no surprise. She smiled and said, "Alison!" + +Mrs. Weston stood up in a queer frozen fluster. "What do you need, +ma'am?" says she. + +"Oh, Weston, dear, don't take me so," Alison cried, and she edged her way +between the little table and the stiff chairs, holding out her hands. + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Your servant, ma'am," says she with a curtsy, but +she ignored the hands. + +Then Susan stood up. "I must go, I believe," she smiled, and bent to +offer one fair cheek to Mrs. Weston. The other was then given to Alison. +She smiled upon them both benignly and made for the door. + +"Susan! You'll dine with me to-morrow," Alison put in. + +"Oh. Mr. Hadley will be at home." + +"But of course you bring him." + +"Thank you then." The door shut behind her, and the room was larger. + +"I can't tell why you have come," says Mrs. Weston tremulously. + +"To say I was wrong and I'm sorry. Oh, Weston, dear, to say I have been a +peevish wicked fool." + +Mrs. Weston sat down again. "Where is Harry?" she said. + +"I have writ to him to beg him come back to me." + +"I am asking you to come back to us." + +"You--" + +"Where is he?" + +"Ah, you don't know then?" + +"I have not seen him since he left your house." + +"He has been living at a tavern in the Long Acre. I have made sure of +that, and I wrote to him there. But he has not answered me. He does not +answer me. I can't tell if he has gone away." + +"Where is his father?" Mrs. Weston asked quickly. + +"His father? Colonel Boyce? Oh, Weston! Colonel Boyce is his +father, then?" + +"Did you come to pry?" Mrs. Weston flushed. + +"I do not deserve that," Alison said, and then very gently, "Oh, my dear, +but I have been cruel enough to you." + +"It's very well," Mrs. Weston said faintly. "Where is Colonel Boyce?" + +"I know nothing. Does it matter, Weston, dear? He cannot help us +to Harry." + +"I am afraid of him. Oh, it's all wrong maybe. I am so weak and stupid. +But I am afraid what he may do with Harry." + +"Indeed, I think Mr. Harry can keep his head even against Colonel Boyce," +Alison smiled. + +"His head?" Mrs. Weston looked puzzled. "I don't mean that, I believe. I +am afraid he may win Harry to be like himself. He is so clever and +dazzling, and he is full of wickedness. He cares for nothing but his own +will and to have power. When I saw him so friendly with Harry I thought I +should have died." + +"My poor Weston," Alison said gently. "But I am not afraid of that. Mr. +Harry won't be dazzled." + +"You dazzled him." + +"Oh, and am I full of wickedness too?" Alison laughed. "Dear, +forgive me." + +"No, but you are strong and hard as his father was." + +Alison drew in her breath. "I shall teach you not to call me that, +Weston," she said. "And Harry--well, Harry shall find me for him." + +There was silence for a while, and Alison watched with new emotions the +tired, wistful face. "Weston, dear, I want you to come back to me. I want +Mr. Harry to find you with me when he comes home." + +Mrs. Weston cried out, "He does not know who I am!" in anxious fear, and +clutched at Alison's hand. + +"No, indeed. But he loves you already, I think." + +"But I do not want him to know," Mrs. Weston cried. "I--I was not married +to Colonel Boyce." + +"Weston, dear," Alison pressed the hand. + +"I lived at Kingston. My father reared us strictly. He was harsh. I think +that was because my mother died so young. Mr. Boyce--he was a gentleman +in the Blues then, and very fine, much gayer than Harry and more +handsome. He used to ride out to Hampton Court to an old cousin of his, +who had a charge at the Palace. He met me one day by the river. I don't +know why he set himself upon me. I was never much to his taste, I think. +But I thought him the most wonderful man in the world. I let him do what +he would with me. I don't blame him for that. He never promised me +anything. In a while he grew tired. Then Harry came. My father could not +forgive me. Afterwards they said that I had killed him. Harry was born. I +lay very ill and they believed that I should die. I never knew whether it +was my father or my brother sent for Mr. Boyce. My brother boasted +afterwards that it was he made him relieve them of the baby. And I--I did +not die, you know. When I began to be well again my baby was gone. My +father lay dying then. He would not see me. My brother was the head of +the family, and he--I could not stay there. I tried to find Mr. Boyce, +but he had left the regiment. He had gone to Holland, they said, after +the Duke of Monmouth. I could do nothing. And my brother had told me that +Mr. Boyce would soon find a way to be rid of my baby. I--I believed that +he had. I never saw Harry again till--you know. I never saw his father +till that day at Lady Waverton's. He told me afterwards that they had +said to him I was dying, and he supposed me dead. I believe that is +true. He would not have troubled himself with the child else." + +"Oh, Weston, dear," Alison murmured, and caressed her. + +Mrs. Weston pushed back the hair from her wrinkled brow. "Mr. Boyce +promised me that Harry need know nothing of me now. I do not know if he +has kept his word about that." + +"There's nothing about Harry that is not safe with me," Alison said. "Oh, +my dear, now I know where Harry has his strength from and his +gentleness." + +Mrs. Weston looked at her in a puzzled fashion. "I wonder what he is +doing now?" she said wearily. "I think I have told you everything, +Alison. Oh! Your father. Your father was very kind to me. When I did not +know what to do--I had no money left--they gave me five pounds--I went to +him. He used to come to my father's house, you know, when he had business +in Kingston. He used to go all over the country about his trading. My +father said he was a godless man, but he was always kind to me. I told +him everything. He took me into his house, and indeed I did not know +where to go for food. I was your mother's servant while she lived, but I +think she doubted me. Your father never told her anything, and she--but +she let me be." + +"Oh, Weston, Weston," Alison said. "And you have spent all your life +caring for me." + +"There was nothing else to do. But I was glad to do that." She looked +at the girl with strange, puzzled, wistful eyes and saw Alison's eyes +full of tears. She put out her hand shyly, awkwardly, and touched +Alison's cheek. + +Alison smiled, laughed with a sob in her voice. "It is a long while since +I cried," she said, and put her arms round Mrs. Weston and laid her head +on Mrs. Weston's bosom and cried indeed. + +Mrs. Weston held her close. "Alison! But this isn't like you." + +"Indeed it is," Alison sobbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + +You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the +best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its +severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. +Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat +upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly +over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his +clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the +window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with +profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and +glower down at its emptiness--and repeat the motions in a different +order. He must be theatrical even without an audience. + +But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his +conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, +you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it. + +The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, +and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of +being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung +himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far +away. In a little while came the beat of rain--slow, big drops. That was +soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke. + +Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited +maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious +invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who +admonished her and made her worse. + +Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming +rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a +night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!" + +"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr. +Waverton, in much agitation. + +"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, +dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. +Waverton's. + +"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He +advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a +great clatter of crockery. + +"Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed +into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it." + +"What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said. + +"Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the +ready, the hundred guineas?" + +"Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped. + +"Out with the cole, burn you." + +Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at +it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr. +Waverton cried. + +Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's +dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts." + +Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low +voice. "Ned--was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went +on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth. +"Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight +from my goldsmith, man. Tell me--you said you would force a fight on +him. Did he--" + +"Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows +that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?" + +"I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base +rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise." + +"Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money. +"Where's that damned rum?" + +"You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it. +Nay, but, Ned--how did he take it?" + +"Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?" + +"He said nothing?" + +"Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?" + +"Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him." + +"Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?" + +The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the +bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are +impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his +end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by +a noble lord in high place." + +"Then it's worth more than a hundred megs." + +"You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you." + +"Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I +must quit." + +"It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed. + +"Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that +while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender +thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces." + +"You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on +the table. + +"Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march. +Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and +out he went. + +Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great +mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry +rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow, +hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might +even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender +had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a +pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such +ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined +to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of +Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that +the rogue should have had a chance to fight--that generous chivalry which +had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The +wretched creature had been properly punished--stamped out by knaves of +his own class in a vulgar street brawl--a dirty hole-and-corner end. +Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt +with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet. + +So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily +delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism +steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the +powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need +not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on +her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her +was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence, +and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased +him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very +tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from +too much humility.... + +He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of +the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure, +damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A +tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But, +perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had +paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she +had sunk by yielding to him. + +Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing: + +"MR. BOYCE,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear. + +"A." + +Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes. + +It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never +quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The +treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover, +then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr. +Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she +was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust +after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved +her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would +have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh. + +But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second +time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of +her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay, +faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She +must be shown that--oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a +touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who +moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all +his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very +furiously. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + +Captain McBean, healthily red and brown, showed no sign of having been +out of bed all night. From cold water and a razor in his own lodgings he +came back at a round pace to St. Martin's Lane. He found his aide, Mr. +Mackenzie, taking the air on the doorstep of the Blue House, and rebuked +him. "I bade ye bide with the lad, Donald." + +"The surgeon has him in hand, sir." + +"_Tiens_. He's a brisk fellow, that Rolfe." + +"I'm thinking Mr. Boyce will need him." + +"Eh, is there anything new?" + +"I would not say so. But he's sore hurt. And I'm thinking he takes it +hard." + +"Aye, you're the devil of a thinker, Donald." Captain McBean grinned. +"And the Colonel, has he made a noise?" + +"He's in the way of calling for liquors, but he's peaceable, the +women say." + +"You'll go get your breakfast and be back again. And bring O'Connor with +you. I'll hope to need the two of you." Captain McBean relieved guard on +the doorstep till the surgeon came down. "I'm obliged to you, Mr. Rolfe. +What do you make of him?" + +"Egad, Captain, you're devoted. Why, the old gentleman has put in for +some fever, but I doubt he will do well enough." + +"Be sure of it. What of the young one?" + +Mr. Rolfe pursed his lip. "Faith, there's no more amiss. But--but--why, +he was hard hit, I grant you--but you might take the young one for the +old one. D'ye follow me? The lad hath no vigour in him." + +McBean nodded. "I'll be talking to him, by your leave." + +"Od's life, I would not talk long. I don't like it, Captain, and there's +the truth. Go easy with him. I will be here again to-day." + +Captain McBean went up to the room where Harry lay as white as his +pillows. A woman was feeding him out of a cup. "You made it damned salt, +your broth," says Harry, in a feeble disgust. + +"'Tis what you lack, look you." Captain McBean sat himself on the bed and +took the cup and waved the woman off. "'Tis the natural, hale salinity +and the sanguineous part which you lose by a wound, and for lack of it +you are thus faint. Therefore we do ever administer great possets of salt +to the wounded, and--" + +"And pickle me before I be dead," says Harry. "Be hanged to your jargon." + +"You'll take another sup, my lad, if I hold your long nose to it. And you +may suck your orange after." + +Harry made a wry face, swallowed a mouthful and lay back out of breath. +After a while, "You were here all night, weren't you?" he said. + +"I am body physician to the family of Boyce, _mon brave_." + +"My father?" + +"Has a hole in his shoulder, praise God, and a damned paternal temper. He +will do well enough." + +"How do you come into it?" McBean grinned. "Who were they?" + +"I am here to talk to you, _mon cher_. You will not talk to me, for it is +disintegrating to your tissues. _Allons_, compose yourself and attend. +Now I come into it, if you please, out of gratitude. Mr. Boyce--I have it +in command from His Majesty to present you with his thanks for very +gallant and faithful service." + +"Oh, the boy got off then?" + +"King James is returned to France, sir," says McBean with dignity. +"Look 'e, tie up your tongue. His Majesty charged me to put this in +your hands and to advise you that he would ever have in memory your +resource and spirit and your loyalty. Which I do with a great +satisfaction, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry fingered a pretty toy of a watch circled with diamonds, and wrought +with a monogram in diamonds and sapphires. "Poor lad," says he. + +"It's his own piece and was his father's, I believe. _Pardieu_, sir, +there's many will envy you." + +Harry's head went back on its pillows. "It's a queer taste." + +"Mr. Boyce, you may count upon it that when His Majesty is established in +power, he--" + +"He will have as bad a memory as the rest of his family. Bah, what does +it matter? You are talking of the millennium." + +"You will talk, will you?" says McBean. "I'll gag you, _mordieu_, if you +answer me back again. Come, sirrah, you know the King better. It's a +noble, generous lad. So leave the Whiggish sneers to your father. So much +for that. Now, _mon ami_, you have put me under a great obligation. It +was a rare piece of work, and to be frank, I did not think you had it in +you. But I did count upon you as a gentleman of high honour, and, +_pardieu_, I count myself very fortunate I applied to you. I speak for my +party, Mr. Boyce, when I thank you and promise you any service of mine." + +Harry mumbled something like, "Damn your eloquence." + +But McBean was not to be put off. "You will like to know that the King +when he was quit of Marlborough--egad, the old villain hath been a +gentleman in this business--made straight for me and was instant that I +should concern myself for you. I held it my first duty to get His Majesty +out of the country. Between ourselves, I was never in love with this plan +of palace trickery and Madame Anne. But the thing was offered us, and we +could not show the white feather. _Bien_, His Majesty took assurance from +Marlborough of your safety, so I had no great alarm for you. I could not +be aware of your private feuds. But now, _mordieu_, I make them my own. I +promise you, it touches me nearly that you should be hacked down, and +egad, before my eyes." + +Harry tried to raise himself and said eagerly, "Who was in it? Who +were they?" + +Captain McBean responded with some more of the salt broth. "Now I'll +confess that I had some doubts of your father. As soon as I was back in +London I made haste to find you. I was waiting at that tavern of yours +when I heard the scuffle. You were down before I could reach you, and +there was your father fighting across you most heroical. Faith, I did not +know the old gentleman had it in him. He had pinked one, I believe, but +he is slow, and they were too many for him. He took it badly in the +shoulder as I came. But they were not workmen. I put one out at the first +thrust, and the rogues would not stand. I tickled one in the ham as he +ran, but missed the sinew in his fat. So it ended. Now I'll confess I did +the old gentleman a wrong. I guessed the business might be one of his +damned superfine plots. It would be like him to have you finished while +he made a brag of fighting for you. But I was wrong. _Mordieu_, I believe +he has a kindness for you, Harry." + +"What?" says Harry, startled by the name. + +"Oh, _mon ami_, you must let me be kindly too. Egad, you command my +emotions, sir. No, the old gentleman hath his humanity. He would have +died for you, Harry, and faith he is so rheumatic he nearly did. No, it +was not he played this damned game. Who d'ye think it was that I put on +his back? That rascal Ben--you remember Ben of the North Road? I put the +villain to the question who set him on you. _Bien_ he was hired to it by +that fine fellow Waverton." + +"Geoffrey!" Harry gasped. + +"Even so. Now, Harry, what has Master Geoffrey Waverton against you? If +he wanted to murder your father I could understand it. That affair at +Pontoise is matter enough for a life or two. Though he should take it +gentlemanly. But why must he murder you?" + +"I am not dead yet," said Harry, and his mouth set. + +Captain McBean laughed. "Not by fifty year:" and he contemplated Harry's +pale drawn face with benign approval. "But why does Mr. Waverton want you +dead now?" + +"That's my affair," said Harry. + +"_Enfin_." Captain McBean shrugged, with a twist of the lip and a cock +of the eye. + +"Is there more of that broth?" says Harry. + +Captain McBean administered it. "I go get another cup, Harry." He nodded +and went out. + +His two aides, Mackenzie and O'Connor, were waiting below. "Donald, go +up. The same orders. None but Rolfe is to come to him without you +stand by. And shorten your damned long face, if you can. Patrick, we +take horse." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Captain McBean and Mr. O'Connor halted steaming horses before the door of +Tetherdown. The butler announced that Mr. Waverton had gone out, and then +impressed by the evidence of haste and the martial elegance of McBean, +suggested that my lady might receive the gentleman. + +"How? The animal has a mother?" says McBean in French, and shrugged and +beckoned the butler closer. "Now, my friend, could you make a guess where +I should look for Mr. Waverton?" and money passed. + +"Sir, Mr. Waverton rides over sometimes to the Hall at Highgate. Miss +Lam--Mrs. Boyce's house;" the butler looked knowing. + +"Mrs. Boyce? Eh, is that Colonel Boyce's lady?" + +The butler smiled discreetly. "No, sir, to be sure. Young Boyce--young +Mr. Boyce, sir." + +Captain McBean wheeled round in such a hurry that the butler was almost +overthrown. They clattered off. + +It was not till they were riding through the wood that McBean spoke: +"Patrick, my man, would you say that Harry Boyce is the man to marry +wisely and well?" + +"Faith, I believe he would not be doing anything wisely. That same is +his charm." + +"_Tiens_, it begins now to be ugly. Why must the boy be married at all, +_mordieu_?" + +"It will be in his nature," says O'Connor. "And likely to a shrew." + +"If that were all! Ah, bah, they shall have no satisfaction in it. But no +more will I..." + +There were at the Hall two women who had almost become calm by mingling +their distress and their tears. It's believed that they slept in each +other's arms, and slept well enough. In the morning another messenger was +sent off to the Long Acre tavern. If he came back with no news it was +agreed they should move into town. They said no more of their fears. Each +had some fancy that she was putting on a brave face for the other's sake. +There is no doubt that they found the stress easier to bear for +consciousness of each other's endurance. + +So Mr. Hadley and his Susan were received by an atmosphere of gentle +peace. Much to Mr. Hadley's surprise, who would complain that venture +into Alison's house was much like a post over against the Irish Brigade; +for a man never knew how she would break out upon him, but could count +upon it that she would be harassing. + +"We are so glad," says Susan. + +"She loves to march her prisoner through the town. It's a simple, +brutish taste." + +"Oh. I am so, I believe," says Susan, and contemplated Mr. Hadley with +placid satisfaction. + +"She is too honest for you, Mr. Hadley," Alison said. + +"Oh Lud, yes, ma'am. The mass of her overwhelms me, and it's all plain +virtue--a heavy, solemn thing. Look you, Susan, you embarrass madame with +your revelations." + +"It is curious. He is always ill at ease when I am with him." + +"Because you make me tedious, child." + +"That's your vanity, Mr. Hadley." Alison tried to keep in tune with them. + +"Look you, Susan, I am cashiered by marriage. Once I was Charles. Now I +am without honour." + +"Mr. Geoffrey Waverton," quoth the butler. + +Alison's hand went to her breast and she was white. + +"Dear Geoffrey!" Mr. Hadley murmured. "I do not know when last I saw dear +Geoffrey," and he turned a sardonic face to the door. + +Susan leaned forward. "Alison, dear--if you choose--" she began in +a whisper. + +"Sit still," Alison muttered. "Stay, stay." + +Mr. Waverton came in with measured pomp, stopped short and surveyed the +company and at last made his bow. "Madame, your most obedient. I fear +that I come untimely." + +Alison could not find her voice, so it was Mr. Hadley who answered, "Lud, +Geoffrey dear, you're never out of season: like mutton." + +"I give Mrs. Hadley joy," says Geoffrey. "Such wit must be rare company." + +Alison was staring at him. "You have something to say to me? You may +speak out. There are no secrets here." + +"Is it so, faith? Egad, what friendship! But you have always been +fortunate. And in fact I bring you news of more fortune. You are free +of your Mr. Boyce, ma'am. You are done with him. He has been picked up +dead." He smiled at Alison, Alison white and still and dumb. Mrs. +Weston gave a cry and fell back in her chair and her fingers plucked at +her dress. + +Mr. Hadley strode across and stood very close to Geoffrey. "Take care," +says he in a low voice. + +"Well. Tell all your story," Alison said. + +"They found him lying in the kennel in Long Acre," Geoffrey smiled. "Oh, +there was some brawl, it seems. He was set upon by his tavern cronies in +a quarrel about a wench he had. A very proper end." + +"Geoffrey, you are a cur," says Mr. Hadley in his ear. + +"You are lying," Alison cried. + +Mr. Waverton laughed and waved his hand. "Oh, ma'am, you are a chameleon. +The other day you desired nothing better than monsieur's demise. Now at +the news of it you grow venomous. I vow I cannot keep pace with your +changes. I must withdraw from your intimacy. 'Tis too exacting for my +poor vigour. Madame, your most humble." + +"Not yet," Alison cried. + +"Let him go, ma'am," Mr. Hadley broke in sharply. "Go home, sirrah. +You'll not wait long before you hear from me." + +"From which hand?" Geoffrey flicked at the empty sleeve. "Nay, faith, it +suits madame well, the left-handed champion." + +Mr. Hadley turned on his heel. "Pray, ma'am, leave us. This is become +my affair." + +"I have not done with him yet," Alison said. + +But the door was opened for the servant to say: "Captain Hector McBean, +Mr. Patrick O'Connor," and with a clank of spurs and something of a +military swagger the little man and the long man marched in. + +Captain McBean swept a glance round the room. + +"So," says he with satisfaction and made a right guess at Alison. "Mrs. +Boyce, I am necessitated to present myself. Captain McBean." + +"What, more champions!" Geoffrey laughed. "Oh, ma'am, you have too +general a charity. My sympathy is in your way," and he made his bow and +was going off. + +"_Mordieu_, you relieve me marvellously," says McBean, and O'Connor put +his back against the door. + +Mr. Waverton waved O'Connor aside. + +"You'll be Mr. Waverton?" said O'Connor. + +"Od's life, sir, stand out of my way." But O'Connor laughed and McBean +tapped the magnificent shoulder. Mr. Waverton swung round. + +"Hark in your ear," says McBean. "You're a lewd, cowardly scoundrel, Mr. +Waverton." + +Mr. Waverton glared at him, stepped back and turned on Alison. "Pray, +ma'am, control your bullies. I desire to leave your house!" + +"Let him be, sir," Alison stood up. "Leave us, if you please, I have to +speak with him." + +"You have not," McBean frowned. "The affair is out of your hands. Come, +sir, march. There's a pretty piece of turf beyond the gates. Your friend +there may serve you." + +"Not I, sir," Mr. Hadley put in. "I have myself a meeting to require of +Mr. Waverton." + +"So? I like the air here better and better, _pardieu_. Well, Mr. +Waverton, we'll e'en walk out alone." + +"Your bluster won't serve you, sirrah. If you be a gentleman, which you +make incredible, you may proceed in order and I'll consider if I may do +you the honour to meet you." + +"Gentleman? Bah, I am Hector McBean, Captain in Bouffiers' regiment. +Come, sir, now are you warmer?" He struck Mr. Waverton across the eyes. + +Mr. Waverton, drawing back, turned again upon Alison: "My God, did you +bring your bullies here to murder me?" + +"I did not bid you here," Alison said. + +"_Lache_," says Mr. O'Connor with a shrug. + +"_En effet_," says McBean and sat down. "Observe, Waverton: I have given +you the chance to take a clean death. You have not the courage for it. +_Tant mieux_. You may now hang." + +Mr. Waverton again made a move for the door, but Mr. O'Connor stood +solidly in the way. "Attention, Waverton. You have bungled your business, +as usual. Your fellow Ned Boon hath been taken and lies in Newgate. He +has confessed that he and his gang were hired for this murder by a +certain Geoffrey Waverton." + +"It is a lie!" + +"Waverton--I have a whip as well as a sword." + +"I do not concern myself with you, sir," says Mr. Waverton with +dignity. "You are repeating a lesson, I see. But I advise you, I shall +not permit myself to be slandered. This fellow Ned Bone--Boon--what is +his vulgar name? I know nothing of him. If he pretends to any knowledge +of me, he lies." + +"You told me that you had hired men to spy upon Mr. Boyce," Alison said. + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "Oh, ma'am, I thank you for a flash of honesty. +Here's the truth then. In madame's interest, I had arranged with her that +a party of fellows should watch her scurvy husband. She suspected him of +various villainies, infidelity, what you will. And, egad, I dare to say +she was right. But I have no more concern in it. So you may his back to +your employers, Captain Mac what's your name, and advise them that I am +not to be bullied. I shall know how to defend myself." + +Alison came nearer Captain McBean. "Sir, this is a confection of lies. It +is true the man told me he was planning a watch on Mr. Boyce. But not of +my will. And when I knew I did instantly give Mr. Boyce warning." + +"I shall deal with you in good time," McBean frowned. "_Dieu de dieu!_ I +do not excuse you. Attention, Waverton! You lie stupidly. Your bullies, +_mordieu_, blunder in your own style. It would not content them to murder +Mr. Boyce. They must have his father too. They could not do their +business quietly nor finish it. The rogue Ben was caught and the Colonel +has only a hole in his shoulder. You may know that he is not the man to +forgive you for it. So, Waverton. You have suborned murder and furnished +evidence to hang you for it. You must meddle with Colonel Boyce to make +sure that his Whiggish party who hold the government shall not spare you. +You set every Jacobite against you when you struck at Harry. However +things go now there'll be those in power urgent to hang you. Go home and +wait till the runners take you off to Newgate. March!" + +Mr. O'Connor opened the door with alacrity. + +"I am not afraid of you," Waverton cried. "And you, madame, you, the +widow--be sure if I am attacked, your loose treachery shall not win you +off. What I have done--you know well it was done for you and in commerce +with you." Mr. O'Connor took him by the arm. "Don't presume to touch me!" +he called out, trembling with rage. Mr. O'Connor propelled him out. + +"I believe Patrick will cut the coat off his back," said McBean pensively +and then laughed a little. He brushed his hand over his face and stood up +and marched on Alison. "Now for you," he said. "I beg leave of the +company." He made them a bow and waved them out of the room. + +"Sir, Mr. Boyce?" Mrs. Weston said faintly. + +"Madame, Mr. Boyce is not dead. He lies wounded. I make no apology, +_pardieu_! It is imperative to frighten the Waverton out of the +country--since he would not stand up to be killed. You, madame," he +turned frowning upon Alison, "you must have him no more in your +neighbourhood." + +Alison bent her head. Mr. Hadley came forward. "Captain McBean, you take +too much upon yourself." + +"I'll answer for it at my leisure, sir." + +"Pray go, Charles," Alison said gently. So they went out, Mrs. +Weston upon Susan's arm, and Captain McBean and Alison were left +alone, the fierce little lean man stretching every inch of him +against her rich beauty. + +"You do me some wrong, sir," Alison said. + +"Is it possible?" McBean's chest swelled to the sneer. + +"Pray, sir, don't scold. It passes me by. Nay, I cannot answer you. I +have no defence, I believe. Be sure that you can say nothing to make my +hurt worse." + +"How long shall we go on talking about you, madame?" + +Alison flushed dark, and turned away and muttered something. + +"What now?" McBean said. In another moment he saw that she was crying. +Some satisfaction perhaps, no pity, softened his stare.... + +She turned, making no pretence to hide her tears. "I beg of you--take me +to Mr. Boyce." + +"I said, madame, Mr. Boyce is not yet dead." The sharp, precise voice +spared her nothing. "I do not know whether he will live." Alison gave a +choking cry. "I do not now know whether he would desire to live." + +"What do you mean?" A madness of fear, of love perhaps, distorted her +face. + +"You well know. When I rode out this morning, I had it in mind to kill +the Waverton and conduct you to Mr. Boyce. But I did not guess that +Waverton would refuse to be killed like a gentleman or that I should find +you engaged in the rogue's infamy." + +"But that is his lie! Ah, you must know that it is a lie. You heard how +he turned on me, and his vileness." + +"_Bien_, you have played fast and loose with him. I allow that. It does +not commend you to me, madame." + +"I'll not bear it," Alison cried wildly. "Oh, sir, you have no right. Mr. +Boyce would never endure you should treat me so." + +"_Dieu de dieu_! Would you trade upon Harry's gentleness now? Aye, +madame, he would not treat you so, _mordieu_. He would see nothing, know +nothing, believe nothing. And let you make a mock of him again. But if +you please, I stand between him and you." + +"You have no right," Alison muttered. + +"It is you who have put me there. You, madame, when you played him false +with this Waverton." + +"That is a lie--a lie," she cried. + +"Oh, content you. You are all chastity. I do not doubt it. But you drove +Harry away from you. You admitted your Waverton to intimacy--you let him +hope--believe--bah, what does it matter? You were in his secrets. You +knew he put bullies upon Harry. Now he has failed and you are in a fright +and want your Harry again. Permit me, madame, not to admire you." + +"What do you want of me?" Alison said miserably. + +"I cannot tell. I want to know what I am to do with Harry. And you--you +are another wound." + +Alison shuddered. "For God's sake take me to him. I will content him." + +"Yes. For how long?" + +"Oh, I deserve it all. I cannot answer you. And yet you are wrong. I am +not such as you think me. I have never had anything but contempt for Mr. +Waverton. If he were not what he is, he must have known that. He came to +me after I left Harry. He told me that he was having Harry spied upon. +The moment he was gone I wrote to Harry and gave him warning and begged +him come back to me. He has never answered me. And I--oh--am I to speak +of Harry and me?" + +"If you could I should not much believe you. From the first, madame, I +have believed you." + +"It was I who drove him away from me. I have been miserable for it ever +since. I humbled myself." + +Captain McBean held up his hand. "I still believe you. Pray, order +your coach." + +"Where is he?" + +"He lies at his father's lodging. Observe, madame: I have said--he is +not yet dead. Whether he lives rests, I believe to God, upon what you +may be to him." + +"Then he will be well enough," she sobbed as she laughed. + +"Oh! I believe in your power," says McBean with a twist of a smile. + +She stayed a moment by the door and flung her arms wide. "What I am--it +is all for him." + +Captain McBean left alone, took snuff. "A splendid wild cat--and that +mouse of a Harry," says he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + +Captain McBean was strutting to and fro for the benefit of his impatience +when Mr. O'Connor returned to him. "Patrick, you look morose. Had he the +legs of you?" + +"He had not," says O'Connor, nursing his hand. "But he had a +beautiful nose. Sure, it was harder than you would think. And I have +sprained my thumb." + +"What, did he fight?" + +"He did not--saving the tongue of him. But I had broke my whip upon him, +so I broke his nose to be even. Egad, he was beautiful before and behind. +He cannot show this long while. Neither behind nor before, faith. What +will he do, d'ye think?" + +"Oh Lud, he'll not face it out. He would dream of hangmen. He'll take the +waters. He'll go the grand tour. D'ye know, Patrick, there's a masterly +touch in old Boyce. To choose that oaf for his decoy at Pontoise! Who +could guess at danger in him? No wonder Charles Middleton saw no guile! +Yet, you observe, the creature's full of venom." + +"He bleeds like a pig," says Mr. O'Connor. "What will we be waiting +for, sir?" + +"The lady." + +"She goes to Harry? Oh, he's the lucky one. What a Venus it is!" + +"Aye, aye. She should have married you, Patrick. You would have +ridden her." + +"Ah now, don't destroy me with envy and desires," says Mr. O'Connor. +"But, sure, there was another, a noble fat girl. Will she be bespoke?" + +"She belongs to the one-armed hero." + +"Maybe she could do with another. There's enough of her for two. Oh, come +away, sir, before I danger my soul." + +They heard the wheels of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming +downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you +need a duenna to watch you with your husband?" + +"Madame is Harry's mother, sir," Alison said. + +For once Captain McBean was disconcerted. "A thousand pardons," says he, +and with much ceremony put Mrs. Weston into the coach. + +As they rode after it, "You fight too fast, sir," says O'Connor with a +grin. "I have remarked it before." + +Captain McBean 'was still something out of countenance. "Who would have +thought he had a mother here?" he growled. + +"Oh, faith, you did not suppose the old Colonel brought him forth--like +Jove plucking Minerva out of his swollen head." + +"I did not, Patrick, you loon. But I did not guess his mother would be +here with this gorgeous madame wife." + +"Fie now, is it the Lord God don't advise you of everything? 'Tis an +indignity, faith." + +Captain McBean swore at him in a friendly way, and they jogged on +through the Islington lanes.... + +So after a while it happened that Colonel Boyce, raising a hot and angry +head at the creature who dared open his bedroom door, found himself +looking at Mrs. Weston. "Ods my life! Kate! What a pox do you want +here?" says he. + +"You are hurt. I thought you would want nursing." + +"I do not want nursing, damme. How did you hear of the business?" + +"That Scotch captain rode out to tell us." + +"Od burn the fellow! Humph. No. Maybe he is no fool, neither. Us? Who is +us, Kate? Mrs. Alison?" + +"She is gone up to Harry now." + +Colonel Boyce whistled. "Come up and we will show you a thing, eh? That +is Scripture, Kate. You used to have your mouth full of Scripture." + +"You put me out of favour with that." + +"Let it be, can't you? What, they will make it up, then?" + +"Does that hurt you? Indeed, they would never have quarrelled but for +you." + +"Oh, aye, blame it on me. I am the devil, faith. Come, ma'am, what have I +done to the pretty dears? She's a warm piece and Harry's a milksop, and +that's the whole of it." + +"With your tricks you made her think Harry was such as you are. And that +wife you married came to Alison and told her that Harry was base-born." + +"Rot the shrew! She must meddle must she? Egad, she was always a blunder, +Madame Rachel." He swore at her fully. "Bah, what though? Why should +jolly Alison heed her?" + +"Alison knows everything now. I told her." + +"Egad, you go beyond me, Kate. You that made me swear none should ever +know the boy was yours. You go and blab it out! Damn you for a woman." + +The woman looked at him strangely. "You have done that indeed," she said. + +"No, that's too bad. I vow it is." For once Colonel Boyce was stung. He +fell silent and fidgeted, and made a long arm for the herb water by his +bed. Mrs. Weston gave it him. "Let be, can't you?" he cried, and drank +all the same. "Eh, Kate that came over my guard.... She has made you +suffer, the shrew. Egad, I could whip her through the town for it." + +"Yes. Whip her." + +"Oh, what would you have?" Colonel Boyce shifted under a rueful air, +strange in him. "I am what I am. I have had no luck in women. She was a +blunder. And you--you have paid to say of me what you will. Egad, you +have the chance now." + +"Are you in pain?" + +"Be hanged to pain! Don't gloat, Kate. That's not like you, at least." + +"Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry." + +"No, nor that neither. Damme, what should I be with you pitying me? Let +it be. Come, you want something of me, I suppose. Something for your +Harry, eh? What is it?" + +"I want nothing but that he should live. He has no need of you or me." + +"Oh Lud, he will live. But you were always full of fears." + +"Yes. You used to say that long ago." + +Colonel Boyce winced again. "Eh, you get in your thrusts, Kate, I swear I +did what I could to save him." + +"I could not have borne to come to you else." + +"Humph. I see no good in your coming. There's little comfort for you or +me in seeing each other. I suppose it's your damned duty." + +"I don't know." + +"Oh Lud, then begone and let's have done with it all." + +"I want to stay till you are well." + +"Aye, faith, it's comfortable to see me on my back and helpless." + +Mrs. Weston did not answer for a moment. She was busy with setting his +table in order. "I want to have some right somewhere. She is with Harry." + +"By God, Kate, you're a good soul," Colonel Boyce cried. + +"I am not. I am jealous of her," Mrs. Weston said with a sob. + +"Does Harry know of you?" + +"What does it matter? He'll not care now." + +"Kate--come here, child." + +"No. No. I am not crying," Mrs. Weston said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +HARRY WAKES UP + + +Harry lay asleep when Alison came into his room. + +She made sure of that and sat herself beside him to wait. It was not, you +know, a thing which she did well. She looked down at him gravely. +Afterwards Harry would accuse her that what first she felt was how little +and miserable a man she had taken to herself. + +He lay there very still and his breath hardly stirred him. Indeed, the +surgery of Mr. Rolfe had bound him up so tightly that he was in armour +from waist to neck. After a moment, she started and trembled and bent +over him and put her cheek close to his lips. She felt his breath and +rose again slowly almost as pale as he. That cheating fear had stabbed +cruelly, and still it would not let her be. His face was so thin, so +white and utterly tired. The life was drained out of him.... + +She sat beside him, still but for the beat of her bosom, and it seemed +that the consciousness in her was falling from a height or galloping +against the wind. She seemed to try to stop and could not. + +She tried to change the fashion of her thought and had no power in that +either. It was a strange, half-angry, half-contemptuous pity that moved +in her, and a fever of impatience. He was wicked to be struck down so, +rent, impotent. Why must the wretch go plunging out into the world and +measure himself against these swashbuckling conspirators? He had no +equipment for it. He was fated to end it with disaster. Faith, it was a +cruel folly to throw himself away and drag up her life by the roots as he +fell. She needed him--needed him quick and eager, and there he lay, a +shrunken thing that could use only gentleness, help, a tedious, trivial +service like a child. + +He was humiliated, a condition not to be borne in her man. As she watched +him, she saw Geoffrey Waverton rise between them, blusterous and +menacing, and his lustiness mocked at the still, helpless body. But on +that all other feeling was lost in a fever of hate of Mr. Waverton. He +was branded with every contemptible sin that she knew, she ached to have +him suffer, and (unaware of the contusions and extravasations +administered by Mr. O'Connor) tried to console herself by recalling the +ignominious condition of Geoffrey in the hands of the truculent gentlemen +at Highgate. Bah, the coward was dishonoured for ever, at least. He would +never dare show his face in town or country. How could he? Mr. Hadley +would spit him like a joint. The good Charles! She found some consolation +in the memory of Mr. Hadley's sardonic contempt. Nay, but the others, +that fire-eating little Scotsman and his lank friend, they were of the +same scornful mind about Mr. Waverton. His blusterous bullying went for +nothing with them but to call for more disdain. They had no doubt that he +cut a miserable figure, that it was he who was humiliated in the affair. +And so all men would think, indeed. It was only a fool of a woman who +could be imposed upon by his brag, only a mean, detestable woman who +could suppose Harry defeated. + +Why, Harry must needs have done nobly to enlist these men on his side. He +was nothing to Captain McBean, nothing but what he had done, and yet +McBean took up his cause with a perfect devotion, cared for nothing but +to punish his enemies, and to assure his safety. Faith, the little man +would be as glad to thrash her as to overthrow Master Geoffrey. He had +come near it, indeed. She smiled a little. The absurd imagination was not +unpleasant. Monsieur was welcome to beat her if it would bring Harry any +comfort. Aye, it would be very good for her. She would be glad to show +Harry the stripes. Nay, but it was Harry who should beat her--only he +never would. And these fantastics were swept away in a wave of +tenderness. + +Mr. Harry was not good at making others suffer. He left it to his wife, +poor lad, and she--she had done it greedily. Well. There was to be an end +of that. Pray God he might ever be strong enough to hurt her. She bent +over him in this queer mood, and her eyes were dim, and she kissed him, +and whispered to herself--to him. Yes. She must make him hurt her. She +must have pain of him to bear.... + +Harry slept on. She began to caress his pillow, and crooned over him like +a mother with her child, and found herself blushing and was still and +silent again. Indeed, she was detestable. To make a show of fondling +after having driven him to the edge of death! To chatter and flutter +about him when he had no more than strength enough for sleep! Why, this +was the very way for a light o' love. And, indeed, she was no better, +wanting him only for her pleasure, for what he would give, watching +greedily till he should be fit to serve her turn again. Yes, that was the +only way of love Mrs. Alison understood. + +It was some satisfaction to scold herself, to make herself believe that +she was vile. For she wanted to suffer, she wanted to be humbled. Not so +much for the comfort of penance, not even for the luxury of sensation +which makes self-torture pleasure, but that she might be sure of +realizing her sins against the love which was now in command of all her +being, and go on to serve it with a clean devotion. One thing only was +worth doing, in one thing only could there be honour and joy, to make him +welcome her and have delight in her... And so she fell among dreams.... + +She saw something glitter on the table by the bed, and idly put out her +hand for it. She found herself looking at the diamonds of the Pretender's +watch. How did Harry come to such a gorgeous toy? J.R., the diamonds +wrote. Who was J.R.? + +"Alison," Harry said. + +She started, stared at him, and stood up. His eyes were open, and he +frowned a little. + +"Alison? It is you?" he said, and rubbed at his eyes. + +"Yes." + +"Why have you come?" + +She fell on her knees by the bed. "Oh, Harry, Harry," she murmured, and +hid her face. + +"Is it true?" + +"I will be true," she sobbed. + +"I want to see you." + +She showed him her face pale and wet with tears.... + +After a while, "Why have you come?" he said again. + +"Harry, I knew about Geoffrey. He told me." + +"You--knew?" + +I wrote you warning. I begged you come back to me. Oh, Harry, Harry, you +are proud." + +"I had no warning. Proud? Oh, yes, I am proud. What were you with +Geoffrey?" + +"Harry! Oh, Harry! No, it's fair. Well. I tried to trick him for your +sake to save you." + +"I am obliged for your care of me." + +She cried out "Ah, God," and hid her face again. Harry lay still and +white as death.... "Oh, Harry, you torture me," she murmured. "You have +the right. No man but you has ever had a thought of me. Harry--I want to +pray you--oh, I want to lie at your feet. Only believe in me--use +me--take me again." + +"I am a fool," Harry said, and she looked up and saw that he, too, was +crying. "Oh, curse the wound," he said hoarsely. "Egad, I am damned +feeble, child." + +"I love you, I love you," she sobbed, and pressed her face to his.... +"Oh, Harry, I am wicked." + +She raised herself. "You are hurt, and I wear you out." + +"That's a brag." Harry smiled faintly, "It takes more than you can give +to kill me, ma'am." + +"Ah, don't." + +"Stand up and let me look at you." Which she did, and made parade of her +beauty, smiling through tears. "Aye, you're a splendid woman," and his +eyes brightened. + +She made him a curtsy. "It's at your will, sir." "Yes, and why? Why? What +made you come back?" + +"My dear!" She held out her arms to him. "I have wanted you ever since I +lost you. And now--now I am nothing unless you want me." + +"Oh, be easy. There is plenty of you, and I want it all." + +"Can you say so? Ah, Harry, you have known enough bad that's me, cruel +and greedy and hard and cheating. I have always taken, and given +nothing back." + +"Damn your humilities," Harry said. + +"Oh, sir, but I want them, my new humilities. I have nothing else to +cover my nakedness." + +"You look better without them, ma'am." + +"Fie, I will stop your mouth." But it was a cup of herb water that she +offered him instead of a kiss. + +"You are a cheat," Harry spluttered. "You presume on my infirmities." + +"No. No. I have made you talk too much. You must be still and rest +again." + +"Burn your maternal care! I have hardly seen you yet a minute." + +"A minute! Oh!" She looked at the jewelled watch. "Aye, sir, an hour. +And what's this pretty toy?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, now I have you. Sure, ma'am, it's a love token." + +"I shall go away, sir." + +"Not till you come by the secret. I know you." + +His ear was pinched. "J.R. Who is J.R., sir?" + +"Jemima Regina. A queen of beauty, ma'am. She fell in love with my nose. +And offered me a thousand pound for it." + +"Harry! I am going to say good night." + +"Hear the truth, Alison. Do you remember--you told me I was born to be a +highwayman--my stand-and-deliver stare--my--" + +"Oh! Don't play so. I was a fiend when I taunted you so." + +"Why, child, it's nothing. Come then--J.R., it's Jacobus Rex, the poor +lad, Prince James, who will never be a king, God help him. He gave me +that for the memory of some little service I did him. McBean brought the +toy to-day." + +Alison nodded. "I will have that story from Captain McBean, sir. You tell +stories mighty ill, do you know--highwayman. Yes, Harry, you are that. +You pillage us all. Love, honour, you win it from all. And I--I am the +last to know you." + +"Bah, you will never be a wife," Harry said. "You have too much +imagination. But you make a mighty fine lover, my dear." + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Highwayman, by H. C. Bailey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 9749.txt or 9749.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/7/4/9749/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Highwayman + +Author: H.C. Bailey + +Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9749] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + THE HIGHWAYMAN + + BY + + H. C. BAILEY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE COMPLETE HERO + + II. THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + III. A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + IV. A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + V. THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + VI. HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + VII. GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + VIII. MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + IX. ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + X. YOUNG BLOOD + + XI. ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + XII. IN HASTE + + XIII. DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + XIV. SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + XV. MRS. BOYCE + + XVI. THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + XVII. RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + XVIII. HARRY IS DISMISSED + + XIX. ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + XX. RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXI. CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + XXII. TWO'S COMPANY + + XXIII. THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + XXIV. QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + XXV. SAUVE QUI PEUT + + XXVI. REVELATIONS + + XXVII. VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + XXVIII. IN THE TAP + + XXIX. ALISON KNEELS + + XXX. EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + XXXI. CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + XXXII. PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXXIII. REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + XXXIV. HARRY WAKES UP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COMPLETE HERO + + +Harry Boyce addressed Queen Anne in glittering verse. She was not +present. She had, however, no cause to regret that, for he was tramping +the Great North Road at four miles by the hour--a pace far beyond the +capacity of Her Majesty's legs; and his verses were Latin--a language not +within the capacity of Her Majesty's mind. Her absence gave him no grief. +In all his twenty-four years he could not remember being grieved by +anyone's absence. His general content was never diminished at finding +himself alone. He chose the Queen as the subject of his verses merely +because he did not admire her. She appeared to him then, as to later +generations, a woman ineffectual and without interest; a dull woman +physically, mentally, and perhaps morally; just the woman upon whom it +would be hardest to make an encomium of any splendour. So he was heartily +ingenious over his alcaics, and relished them. + +From this you may divine much that you have to know about the soul of +Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to +criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite +satisfied with itself and by itself. To be sure, it was yet only +twenty-four. + +You discover also other things less fundamental. He was something of a +scholar, as scholarship was reckoned in those placid days. He had even +some Greek--more than Mr. Pope and quite as much as Mr. Addison. His +Latin verses would have brought him a fellowship at Merton if he had +been willing to take Holy Orders, "I may take them indeed; but how +believe they have been given me?" quoth he to the Warden with a tilt of +one eyebrow. Whereat the Warden, aghast, wrote him off as a youth +unreasonable, impracticable, and impish. Many others had the same +opinion of Harry Boyce before the world was done with him. Few of them +saw in his antics the uncertain spasms of too tender a conscience. But +you must judge. + +Of course he was poor. He could only boast a bob wig, a base thing, +which, for all the show it made, might have been a man's own hair. He +wore no sword. His hat lacked feather and lace. His coat and breeches +were but black drugget, shiny at each corner of him and rusty everywhere. +His stockings were worsted, and darned even on his excellent calves. His +shoes had strings where buckles should have been, and mere black +heels--and low heels at that. As you know, he could walk at a round pace +with them--a preposterous, vulgar thing. There was nothing in him to give +this poverty a romantical air. To be sure, he had admirable legs, but the +rest was neither good nor bad. He was of the middle size and a wholesome +complexion. You would look at him long and see nothing rare enough to be +worth looking at. If you looked longer yet you might begin to be +surprised: his so ordinary face was extraordinary in its lack of +expression. + +The man who owned it must be either very dull of heart and mind, or +self-contained and of self-control beyond the common. But whatever the +heart might be, no one ever took the eyes for the eyes of a fool. They +were keen, alert, perpetually on guard. There is a letter extant--it was +indeed a dear friend who wrote it--which mocks at Harry for his "curst +stand-and-deliver stare." But it is a queer thing that most men had to +know Harry Boyce a long time before they remarked that his eyes were not +quite of the same colour. The common English grey-green-blue was in both +of them, but one had a bluer glint than the other. The oddity, when it +was discovered, seemed to make the challenge of the eyes more defiant and +more baffling, as though they gleamed from the shadow of a mask. + +Not that anyone cared yet whether he wore a mask or his soul in that +placid, ordinary face. Who should care a pinch of snuff for "a scholar +just from his college broke loose" with a penny farthing in his pocket, +who had to pioneer young gentlemen through their Horace and their Tully +for his bed and board? When you meet him, Harry Boyce was happy in having +caught for his pupil a young fellow who had not merely money but brains, +and so sublime a condescension that Harry was not sent away from table +with the parson when the puddings came. Mr. Geoffrey Waverton was pleased +to have a value for him, and defended him from his natural duty of being +gentleman usher to Lady Waverton. So, Mr. Waverton having taken horse, +Harry was free to go walking. + +It was late in a wet autumn, and all the clay of Middlesex slippery as +butter and, withal, affectionate as warm glue. Harry kept to the highway. +Though its miles of mud and water were, on the surface, even worse than +the too green meadows or the gleaming brown furrows of plough land, a +careful man could count upon its letting him go no further than knee +deep. When he came to Whetstone, Harry's feet were brown, shapeless, +weighty masses, but he had not lost either shoe, and he was still in +hopes of reaching Barnet and a pint of small beer before it was time to +struggle back. At the worst a dry throat and wet legs were a cheap price +for escaping the voice of Lady Waverton, who, in the afternoons, read the +romances of Mlle. de Scudery aloud. + +He could see the tufts of smoke above Barnet and its church on the +hill-top. He was winding down to the bottom of the valley from which that +hill rises, when eloquence arrested him. He may at other times have heard +profanity as copious, but never profanity so vehement or at such speed. +The orator was a woman. + +Harry stood to listen with critical admiration. Madame mixed the ugly and +the pleasant rarely; she made a charming grotesque. Her mind was very far +from nice and provided her with amazing images; but she had a pretty, +womanly voice, and hard though she drove it, it would not break to one +ugly note. Disgusting epithets, mean threats, poured out in mellow +music. Harry splashed on round the corner. He was eager to see her. + +In the morass at the cross-lanes by the green, a coach was stuck--a coach +of splendour. It was a huge thing as big as a room, half glass, half gold +and garter blue, and it swayed luxuriously on its great springs. Six +horses heaved at it in vain with great splashing and squelching, and a +whole company of servants, some mounted, some afoot, struggled with them. + +The profane woman had half her body and two gesticulating arms out of the +coach window. She was plainly neither a drab nor in liquor. Harry halted +out of range of the splashes to examine and enjoy her. She had been +comely, and still could hold a man's eye with her curves of neck and +bosom. The piquant features must have been adorable before they sharpened +and her cheeks faded and the lines came. Her abundant hair must once have +been gold, and was not yet altogether grey. + +"You filthy slug," said she. "Samuel! Stand to it, I say. Damme, I'll +have a whip about that loose belly of yours! Now pull, you swine, pull. +Odso, flog the black horse. You, devil broil your bones, lay on to him. +What now? Od rot you, Antony, you'll see no money this month, you--" She +became unprintable. As she took breath again, she saw Harry Boyce calmly +contemplative. "You dog, who bade you stand and gape? Go, give a hand +there, I say." + +Harry touched his hat. "By your leave, ma'am, I am too busy admiring +you." + +"William, put that rogue into the ditch," said she. + +All this while a man in the coach had been writing, calmly intent upon +his tablets as though there was not a sound or a rage within a mile. He +now stood up, and, while his lady was still execrating through one door +of the coach, he opened the other and came out. Two of the servants, +obedient to the lady's oaths, were approaching Harry, who waited them +with calm and a swinging stick. The man waved his hand at them and they +turned tail. But he had no further interest in Harry. He stood to watch +the struggles of his horses and his men. He was of some height, and, +though past middle age, bore himself with singular grace and vigour. He +had still a rarely handsome face--too handsome, by far, for Harry's +taste. The features were of an impossible, absurd perfection. There was +something superhuman or fatuous, at least something vastly irritating, in +his assured calm, his air of blandly confident supremacy. + +He walked on to the leaders and, with a gesture and a word, set the whole +team pulling at an angle. Meanwhile the lady had earnestly continued her +abusive orders, but none of the servants now professed to heed her. +Dragging the horses on, or labouring hand and shoulder at the wheels, +they were now effective, and they watched the man's eye as though it were +an inspiration. Wondering why he did, Harry, too, put his weight on a +wheel. The horses found a footing in the mire, the coach was dragged on +to the higher, firmer ground beyond. + +My lady subsided. The man came back to the coach and touched his hat to +Harry. "I'm obliged for your help, sir," he said, and climbed in. They +drove away towards London. + +As the servants swung to their saddles, "Who's your obscene lady?" +said Harry. + +"What, don't you know him, bumpkin?" + +"She will never be him. Her shape is all provocative she." + +This humble wit was not remarked. His ignorance occupied them, "Oh Lud, +not to know the Old Corporal!" + +One of Harry's eyebrows went up. "That the Old Corporal? Faith, I am +sorry for him." + +He received a handful of mud in his face. With a cry of "Rot your +impudence," they splashed off. + +While he wiped the mud out of his eyes, Harry felt a very comfortable +self-satisfaction. It was agreeable to pity His Grace of Marlborough. For +the Duke of Marlborough was still the greatest man in Europe, the +greatest man in the world--credibly the greatest man that ever lived. A +pleasant fool, to marry such a wife and to keep her. + +Harry Boyce at no time in his life had much admiration for human +eminence. In this, his hungry youth, he was set upon despising rank and +power, great fame and pure virtue, as no more than the luck of fools. He +would always atone by finding sympathy and excuses for any rogue's +roguery. Highly fortified in this faith by the exhibition of +Marlborough's matrimonial happiness, he trudged back. + +The delay over the coach had left him no time for small ale at Barnet. +Mr. Waverton, though amiably pleased to deliver Harry from attendance on +his mother, required constant attendance on himself. He would be, in his +superb way, disagreeable if Harry were not in waiting when he was wanted +to take a hand at ombre. Harry liked Mr. Waverton well enough, as well as +he liked anybody, but found him in the part of offended majesty +intolerable. So there was some hard walking back to Whetstone. On the way +his temper was not sweetened by two horsemen at the gallop who gave him a +shower-bath of mud. + +As he came through the village, behold another coach labouring up to the +high road from Totteridge lane. This had but four horses, no array of +outriders, no gilt splendours. It was a sober, old-fashioned thing, and +it rumbled on at a sober gait. "Some city ma'am," Harry sneered at it, +"much the same shape as her horses." + +But half an hour after he saw it again. Where the road was dark through a +thicket it had come to a stand. "Oh Lud," said Harry, "here's more fair +madames in the mud. They may sit on it till they hatch it for me." But he +wondered a little. It was indeed nothing very strange in such an autumn +to find a coach stuck upon the highway. But two for one afternoon, two so +near was a generous provision. And hereabouts, where the road ran level +and high, was a strange place for a coach to choose to stick. "Madame +seems to be a gross girl," quoth Harry. + +And then he saw what made him step out. There were two men on horseback +by the halted coach--two men with black upon their faces which must be +masks, and that in their hands which must be pistols. + +"Egad, the road's joyful to-night," said Harry. "And two and one make +three," and he began to run, and arrived. + +Of the two highwaymen one was dismounted. The other, holding his friend's +horse, held also a pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats +of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half +inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his +blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage +you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your +legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, +what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the +jewel-case out into the mud and, leaning across one woman, reached with a +fat, foul hand to the younger bosom beyond. + +He was prevented by a whistle and a cry, "Behind you, Ben." His companion +announced the arrival of Harry. + +Ben came out of the coach with an oath and thrust his pistol into Harry's +face. "Good e'en to you, bully. Now cut and run or I'll drill you. Via, +my poppet." + +Harry looked along the pistol and stood fast. The highwayman was no +bigger than he, and bloated. "I am studying arithmetic, Benjamin," said +he. + +"Burn your eyes, be off with you; run while you may." + +Harry laughed and swung his stick at the mud. "But, I wonder, is it +addition or subtraction? Is it two and one makes three, or--" + +"Kick the bumpkin into the ditch, Ben," the man on horseback advised. + +"Off with you," Benjamin thrust him back, and in the act the pistol +wavered. Harry slashed with his stick at the pistol hand. A yell, an +oath, and the shot came together--a shot which went into the mud and sent +it spattering about them. Harry sprang away from Benjamin's rush and +brought his stick down on the hindquarters of the horses. They plunged +forward, and the man in the saddle, wrestling with them, let off another +aimless shot. Harry dodged round them and lashed them again, and they +bolted down the road. He returned to fling himself upon Benjamin, who was +ramming another charge into his pistol. "It seems to be subtraction, +Benjamin," said he, embracing the man fervently. "One from two leaves +one," and they swayed together, and he found Benjamin's body soft. + +Benjamin, panting, cursed him. "Od rot you, why must you meddle, bully? +What's your will, burn you? Ha' done now, and--" Benjamin went down on +his back in the mud with Harry on top of him. "Ugh! What's the game, +bully?" + +"I think you call it the high toby," said Harry delicately and began to +sing to the tune of a catch: + +"Oh, three merry men, three merry men, three highwaymen were we. +You in a quag and he on a nag and I on top of the three." + +"Lord love you, are you on the road?" Benjamin cried. "Why, rot you, +did you want a share then? You should ha' said so, bully. Come on now, my +dear, let's up. We do be gentlemen and share fair enough." + +"I warrant you I am having my share," Harry laughed; "and I like it very +well. But oh, Benjamin, there would have been nought to share if I had +not come up. No fun at all, Benjamin." He wrenched the pistol away. "'Tis +I have made the business joyous. You are a dull fellow by yourself." + +"Rot you," said Benjamin frankly. "When Ned comes back he'll shoot you +like vermin." + +On which they both heard horses, and both, according to their +abilities--Benjamin in the mud, and Harry keeping a sure hold of +him--wriggled to look for them. + +Harry laughed. It was certainly not a returning Ned. These horses came +from the other way, and there were four of them and each had a rider. "I +fear your Ned will come too late, Benjamin--if, by the grace of God, he +comes at all." So said Harry, chuckling, and to his amazement Benjamin +also laughed. Why should Benjamin find consolation in the coming of this +_posse_? It was not credible that they could be allies of his. Highwaymen +did not work in gangs of half a dozen. + +The four horsemen, urged by the shots or by what they saw, came at a +gallop and reined up almost on top of Harry and Benjamin. One of them, a +little man with a lean, brown face, called out, "By your leave, sir! +What's this?" + +"It's a rude fellow, sir," Harry said. "I fear a lewd fellow. By trade a +highwayman. The highway, indeed, is his life's love, his adored mistress. +Observe how he cleaves to it." He compressed Benjamin, who squelched, +into the mud, and rose, standing on Benjamin's chest and stomach. + +Benjamin groaned, and the eyes behind his mask rolled towards the little +man. + +"Filthy dog," that little man said with sincere disgust. "Can I serve +you, sir?" he touched his hat to the women in the coach. + +"Why, Benjamin has a friend, one Ned. Ned hath a pistol or so and two +horses which have bolted with him. But he may yet persuade them to bring +back his pistols and him. Now, if you would be so good, it would be +convenient in you to ride on and destroy Ned." + +"It's a pleasure, sir," the little man showed his teeth. "And the fat +rogue there, can I help you with him? Shall we take him on to the +constables?" + +"Oh, I thank you, but my Benjamin is docile. I'll e'en tie him up with +his garters, and all will be well." + +The little man scowled at Benjamin. "I shall hope to be at his hanging," +he said incisively. "Sir, your most obedient! Ladies!" he bobbed at them +and rode off, his three companions close about him in eager talk. + +As they went, Benjamin let out a cry of anguish: "Captain!" + +The little man and his company used their spurs. + +Harry looked at their hurry and then down at Benjamin. + +"Now why did you call him that, my Benjamin?" said he. "Indeed, why did +you call on him at all?" + +From behind the mask Benjamin's prominent eyes stared sullenly. He +said nothing. + +Harry shook his head. "I feel that I do not know you, Benjamin. I must +see more of you," With which he fell upon the man again and twitched +off the mask. The wig came with it. Benjamin was revealed the owner of +a big, bald, shiny head with a face which was puffed and purple. "You +were right, Benjamin," said Harry sadly, "You were kind. To wear a mask +was charity, nay, decency--what breeches are to other men. That obese +and flaccid nose--pah, let us talk of something else." He lay upon +Benjamin and tugged at his sword-belt. Benjamin writhed and groaned. +His sword was caught underneath him, the hilt deep in the small of his +back. Harry hauled the sword-belt off at last and gripped at Benjamin's +wrists. He began to struggle again. "Do not be troublesome or I'll tap +the beer on your brain. So." He hauled the belt taut about the fighting +arms and made all fast. Then he sat himself on Benjamin's legs, which +thus ceased to be turbulent, and, taking off the garters, therewith +tied the ankles together. + +Sighing satisfaction, Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of +victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman +with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are +still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is +over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be +profane. I see him bursting with it. Pray drive on and remove your chaste +ears." He restored to them the jewel-case. + +"Put him up on the box, sir," the younger woman cried. + +"I beg your pardon, madame?" + +"We will take him to the constables at Finchley." + +"But why? He is beautiful there, my Benjamin, and I doubt he was never +beautiful before. And I have planted him so firmly. I think if we leave +him there he may grow and blossom. Do not dig him up again yet. Imagine +Benjamin in flower! A thing to dream of." + +"You are pleased to be witty, sir. Come, we have lost time enough. Put +the rogue up, and do you mount with us." + +Harry became aware that this young woman had a brow of pride. It was +ample and broad and, after the Greek manner, it rose almost in a line +with her admirable nose. A noble head, to be sure, but alarming to a mere +human man. So Harry thought, and he touched his hat and said: "Madame, +your most humble. Pray what do you want with my Benjamin? Your gentle +heart would never have him hanged." + +Her eyes made Harry feel that he was impudent, which, unhappily, amused +him. "I desire the fellow should be given up to the law, sir," she said +coldly. "Have you anything against it?" + +"Oh, ma'am, a thousand things, with which I'll not weary you. For I see +that you would not understand. You are very young (as I hope). Perhaps +you may soon grow older (which I pray for you). Let this suffice then. +My Benjamin may deserve a hanging. Who knows? We are not God, ma'am, +neither you nor I. Therefore I have no mind to be a hangman. And +you--why, you are young enough to wait another occasion. And so I give +you good-night. Home, coachman, home." + +The young woman stared at him as though he were grovelling stupidity, and +then lay back on her cushions with a "You will drive on, Samuel." + +Harry made his bow, and then, as the coach began to move, there was a +cry: "Alison! Alison! It is not right!" The older woman leaned forward, +and for the first time he remarked a gentle, motherly face, much lined +and worn. "Sure, sir, you will ride with us," she said, and he liked the +voice. "We may carry you home." + +Harry smiled at her. "Nay, ma'am. I am too dirty for such fine company." + +"Drive on," said Mistress Alison. And the coach rolled away. + +Harry looked down at the wretched Benjamin, whose eyes answered with +apprehension and anxiety. "What's the game?" said Benjamin hoarsely. "I +say, master--what d'ye want with me?" + +Harry did not answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant +voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself +back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my +Benjamin," he said. "Who was your captain, I wonder?" + +Benjamin scowled. "I know nought o' no captain." + +"Ah, I thought you did. But I fear you have annoyed the captain, +Benjamin. Now what had you done--or what had you not done?" + +"It's not fair, master," Benjamin whined. "You do be making game of me, +and me beat." + +"I am rebuked, Benjamin. Good-night." + +"Oons, ye won't leave me so?" Benjamin howled. "I ha' done you no harm, +master. Come now, play fair. What d'ye want of me?" + +"Nothing, Benjamin, nothing. I like you very well. You are a beautiful +mystery. Pleasant dreams." + +The hapless Benjamin howled after him long and loud. Thereby Harry, who +had a musical ear, was spurred to his best pace. "It's a vile voice," he +reflected; "like Lady Waverton's. The marmoreal Alison was right. He +would be better hanged. But so also would Lady Waverton. She will +acridly want to know why I am late. Well! It will be a melancholy +satisfaction not to tell her. That will also annoy Geoffrey, who'll +magnificently indicate that I owe him an apology. The poor Geoffrey! He +is so fond of himself!" + +His evening was as pleasant as he had anticipated. He won two shillings +from Lady Waverton at ombre, which made her angry; and lost them to +Geoffrey, which made him melancholy. For Mr. Waverton loved (in small +things) to be a martyr. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + +Mr. Waverton had an idea in his head. That was not the least unusual. It +was, unhappily, a wrong one. That was not unusual either. We must have a +trifle of Latin. Mr. Waverton, studying Horace, desired to translate, +_Civium ardor prava jubentium_ "the wicked ardour of the overbearing +citizens." In vain Harry urged that he was outraging grammar. Mr. +Waverton did not believe him, did not want to believe him--the same +thing. Mr. Waverton was convinced that he had an insight into the soul of +Horace which Harry's pedantic eyes could not share. He explained, as one +explains to a dull child, the rare poetic beauty of the sentiment which +he had produced. The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the +man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be +aware) are all overbearing. It is this quality in the vulgar which most +distresses fine souls (like Mr. Waverton) who desire nothing but their +just rights. + +"I dare say it is," Harry yawned. "If Horace had wanted to mean that, he +would have said so." + +"I often think, Harry, you dry scholars have no sense for the thought of +a poet," said Mr. Waverton elegantly, and lay back in his chair and +surveyed Harry. + +He was a handsome lad and knew how to set it off. He had height and +bulk--almost too much of that indeed, and so made light of it by a +careless, lounging ease. At this time he was only twenty-two, but of a +precocious maturity. He had the self-possession--as well as the +full-bottomed wig--of experience and worldly wisdom, and would have liked +to hear you say so. In its dark aquiline style his face was finely +moulded and imposing, and already it had a massive gravity. "A mighty +grand fellow indeed," said Lady Dorchester once, "if only his mouth had +grown since he was a baby." It has to be admitted that Mr. Waverton's +mouth, a small, pretty feature, was oddly assorted with the haughty +manner in which the rest of him was constructed. The ladies who lamented +that were, for the most part, consoled by his eyes--large, dark eyes of a +liquid melancholy. But my Lord Wharton complained that they looked at him +like a hound's. + +Mr. Waverton was an only son, and fatherless. He had also great +possessions. From his house of Tetherdown all the fields that he could +see stretching away to the Essex border were of his inheritance. His +mother was no wiser than she should have been. She consisted spiritually +of admiration for herself, for the family into which she had married, and +the son whom she had borne. "After all," said Harry Boyce in moments of +geniality, "it's wonderful the boy has come out of it so well." + +Mr. Waverton, thanks to vacillation of himself and his mother, doubt as +to what career, what manner of education, what university, could be +worthy his talents, went up to Oxford at last and (for those days) very +late. After doing nothing for another year or two, he decided (which was +also unusual for a gentleman of means in those days) that he had a genius +in pure literature. Therefore Harry was hired to decorate him with all +the elegances of Greek and Latin. + +The appointment was considered a great prize for a lad so awkward as +Harry Boyce. It might well end in a luxurious competence--a stewardship, +for example, and marriage with my lady's maid. "That is, if you play your +cards well, sirrah," the Sub-Warden felt it his duty to warn Harry's +difficult temper. + +"Oh, sir, I could never play cards," said Harry, for the Sub-Warden was a +master at picquet. "I am too honest." + +Yet he had not fallen out with Mr. Waverton. It is probable that he was +careful to keep on good terms with his bread and butter. But he had +always, I believe, a kindness for Geoffrey Waverton, and bore no ill will +for his parade of supremacy. Tyranny in small things, indeed, Mr. +Waverton did not affect. He had a desire to be magnificent. Those who did +not cross him, those who were content to be his inferiors, found him +amiable enough and, on occasion, generous.... + +"Shall we try another line, Mr. Waverton?" said Harry wearily. + +"I have a mind to make an epigram," Mr. Waverton announced. "The +arrogance of the vulgar, the--the uninstructed--perhaps I lack the _mot +juste_, but _quand meme_--the mansuetude of the loftier mind. A fine +antithesis that, I think." He stood up, walked to the window, and looked +out. Away down the hill the fields lay in a mellow mist, the kindly +autumn sun made the copses glow golden; it was a benign scene, apt to +encourage wit. Mr. Waverton lisped in numbers, but the numbers did not +come. He turned to seek stimulus from Harry. "You relish the thought?" + +"It is a perfect subject for your style," said Harry. + +Mr. Waverton smiled, and turned again to the window for productive +meditation. + +A third man came lounging in, unheard by Mr. Waverton's rapt mind. He +opened his eyes at the back which Mr. Waverton turned upon Harry and the +space between them. "Why, Geoffrey, have you been very stupid this +morning? And has schoolmaster stood you in the corner? Well done, Mr. +Boyce. I always told you, spare the rod and spoil the child. Shall I go +cut a birch for you?" + +"I wonder you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton +with a dignity which did not permit him to turn round. + +"Never while it annoys you, child." + +"Mr. Waverton is in labour with a poem," Harry explained. + +"And it's indecent in me to be present at the ceremony? Well, Geoffrey, +postpone the birth." He sat himself down at his ease in Geoffrey's chair. +He was a compact man with only one arm. He looked ten years older than +Geoffrey and was, in fact, five. The campaign in Flanders which had +destroyed his right arm had set and hardened a frame and face by nature +solid enough. That face was long and angular, with a heavy chin and an +expression of sardonic complacency oddly increased by the jauntiness of +its shabby brown wig. + +Waverton turned round wearily upon the unwelcome guest. "Well, Charles, +what is it?" + +"It is nothing. My dear Geoffrey, if I had anything to do or anything to +say why should I come to you?" + +"_Merci_, monsieur," Waverton smiled gracious indulgence. + +Mr. Hadley chuckled, and in French replied: "Yes, let's talk French; it +embellishes our simple wit and elevates our souls above the vulgar." + +There is reason to believe that Waverton liked his French better in +fragments than continuously. He still smiled condescension, but risked no +other answer. + +"Come, Geoffrey, what's the news?" Mr. Hadley reverted to English. +"Could you say your lessons this morning? And did you wear a new coat +last night?" + +"You may go if you will, Harry. Mr. Hadley will be talking for some +time," Waverton said. "Indeed, he may, perhaps, have something to say." + +Harry was used to being turned out for any reason or none. He well +understood that Waverton was not fond of an audience when he was being +laughed at. "If you please," he said, and made his bow to Mr. Hadley. + +"Why, what's the matter? I don't bite. You are too meek for this life, +Mr. Boyce." He looked at Harry with some contempt in his grey eyes. +"Oons, you're a man and a brother, ain't you? Sit down and be hearty. +Lud, Geoffrey, why do you never have a pipe in the room?" + +"It's death to a clean taste, your tobacco smoking, and I value my wine." + +"Value it, quotha! Ay, by the spoonful. You ha' never known how to drink +since they weaned you. And you, Mr. Boyce, d'ye never smoke a pipe over +your Latin?" + +"I hope I know my place, Mr. Hadley," Harry said solemnly. + +Charles Hadley stared at him. "Hear the Scripture, Mr. Boyce: 'What shall +it profit a man though he gain a pretty patron and lose his own soul?'" + +"You are very polite, sir," said Harry. + +"Upon my honour, Charles, this is too much," Mr. Waverton cried in noble +indignation. "Mr. Boyce is my friend, and you'll be good enough to take +him as yours if you come to my house." + +Charles Hadley was not out of countenance. He eyed them both, and his +sardonic expression was more marked. "You make a pretty pair," said he. +"When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Eh, Mr. Boyce? I +wonder. Well, Geoffrey, it's a wicked world. Had you heard of that?" + +"The world is what you make it, I think," said Mr. Waverton with +dignity. + +"Oons, I could sometimes believe you did make it. A simple, pompous +place, Geoffrey, that is kind to you if you'll not laugh at it. And full +of petty, pompous mysteries. Maybe you make the mysteries too, Geoffrey. +Damme, it is so. It's perfectly in your manner," he chuckled abundantly. +"Come, child, what were you doing on the highway yesterday?" + +Harry stared at him. "When you have finished laughing at your joke, +perhaps you will make it," said Waverton. "Pray let us have it over +before dinner." + +"My dear child, why be so touchy? Were you bitten? Well, you know, this +morning one of my fellows brings in a miserable wretch he had found on +the road by Black Horse Spinney. The thing was half-dead with wet and +cold. He had been lying there all night--so he said, and it's the one +thing I believe of him. He was found trussed as tight as a chicken in his +own sword-belt and his own garters. Damme, it was a fellow of some humour +had the handling of him. He had not been robbed, for there was a bag of +money at his middle. He professed that he could tell nothing of who had +trussed him or why he was set upon. He would have nought of law or hue +and cry. Egad, empty and shivering as he was, he wanted nothing but to be +let go. A perfect Christian, as you remark, Geoffrey. Now, you or I, if +we had been tied up in the mud through one of these damned raw nights, +would take some pains to catch the fellow who did the trussing. But my +wretch was as meek as the Gospels. So here is a silly, teasing mystery. +Who is the footpad that is at the pains of tying up a fellow and never +looks for his purse? Odds fish, I did not know we had a gentleman of such +humour in these parts. I suspect you, Geoffrey, I protest. There's a +misty fatuousness about it which--" + +"By your leave, sir," a servant appeared, "my lady waits dinner." + +"Then I fear we shall pay for it," said Hadley, and stood up. + +"You dine with us, Charles?" Mr. Waverton was not hearty about it. + +"I'll give you that pleasure, child. Well, Mr. Boyce, what do you make of +my mystery?" + +Harry had to say something. "Perhaps your friend was carrying more than +guineas," he said. + +"What then? Papers and plots and the high political? I don't think it. If +you saw him--a mere tub of beer--and a leaky tub this morning, for he had +a vile cold in the head and dribbled damnably." + +"I give it up then. Have you let him go?" They were moving out in the +corridor and Hadley did not answer. "Is he gone?" Harry said again. + +Hadley turned round upon him. "Why, yes. Does it signify?" + +"I wonder who he was," said Harry. + +Upon that they entered the drawing-room of Lady Waverton. It was +congested and dim. The two oriel windows were so draped with curtains of +pink and yellow that only a faint light as of the last of a sunset +filtered through. The wide spaces were beset with screens in lacquer, +odd chairs, Dutch tables, and very many cabinets,--cabinets inlaid with +flowers and birds of many colours; cabinets full of shells, agates, +corals, and any gaudy stone; cabinets and yet again more cabinets full of +Eastern china. In the midst Lady Waverton reclined. + +She had been handsome in a large, bold style, and might still have been +but for excessive decoration. Her dress was voluminous white satin +embroidered in a big pattern of gold and set off with black. It was low +at her opulent bosom, to the curves of which the eye was directed by +black patches craftily fixed. There were many more patches on her face +which, still only a little too full and too loose, had its colours laid +on in sharp and vivid contrasts. Her black hair was erected in +symmetrical waves high above her brow, and one ringlet was brought by +glossy, frozen curls to caress her bosom. She held out the whitest of +hands drooping from a large but still fine arm for Mr. Hadley to kiss. + +"You are a bad fellow, Charles Hadley," she pouted. "You make me +feel old." + +"There's a common childish fancy, ma'am." + +"You never come to see me now. And when you do come, 'tis not to see me." + +"A thousand pardons. Mr. Boyce delayed me awhile with the beauties of his +conversation." + +"Mr. Boyce?" she looked at Harry as if wondering that he dared exist. "Go +and see why they do not bring in dinner." + +Having thus diminished Harry, she proceeded, without waiting for him to +be gone, to criticize him. "You know, I would never have a chaplain in +the house. This tutor fellow is of the same breed, Charles. They tease +me, these men which are neither gentlemen nor servants. Faith, life's +hard for the poor wretches. They are torn 'twixt their conceit and their +poverty. They know not from minute to minute whether they will fawn or be +insolent. So they do both indifferent ill." + +Harry, who chose not to hear, was opening the door. There came in upon +him a woman--the young woman of the coach. Even as he recoiled, bowing, +even as he collected his startled wits, he was aware of the singular +beauty of her complexion. Its delicacy, its life, were nonpareil. The +first clear process of his mind was to wonder how he had contrived not to +remark that complexion when first he saw her. + +Lady Waverton lifted up her voice. "Alison! Dear child! And are you home +at last? It's delicious in you. You seek us out first, do you not? My +sweet girl!" Alison was engulfed. Conceive apple blossom in the embraces +of a peony. + +The apple blossom emerged with a calm, "Dear Lady Waverton." + +"You are a sad bad thing. I writ you five letters, I think, and not one +from you." + +"You are so much cleverer than I am. I had nothing to say." Alison's +voice was sweet and low, but too sublimely calm for perfect comfort in +her hearers. "So here I am to say it and make my excuses," she dropped +a small curtsey, "my lady. Why, Geoffrey, I thought you had been back +at Oxford!" + +Mr. Waverton came forward, smiling magnificence. "I am delighted to +disappoint you, Alison." + +"Nay, never believe her, Geoffrey," Lady Waverton lifted up her voice +and was arch. "I vow she counted on finding you here. Why else had she +come? I know when I was a toast I wasted none of my time going to see old +women," she languished affectionately at the girl. + +"Dear Lady Waverton,"--if it was possible, Alison's voice became calmer +than ever--"how well you know me. And how cruel to expose me. If Geoffrey +had his mother's wit, faith, I should never dare come here at all." + +"It is not my wit which you need ever fear, Alison," Geoffrey's eyes were +ardent upon her. + +"Why, you are merciful. Or is it modest?" + +"I can be neither, Alison. I am a man." + +"My dear Geoffrey, I am sorry for all your misfortunes." She turned from +him to Mr. Hadley, who was content in a corner. "Have we quarrelled?" + +"We never loved each other well enough." + +"Is that why I am always very glad to see Mr. Hadley?" + +"It is why he can tell Miss Lambourne that she looks divinely beautiful." + +"That means inhuman, sir." + +"Which is not my fault, ma'am." + +Geoffrey was visibly restive at his exclusion, "Charles never could pay a +compliment without a sting in it." + +"That is why they are agreeable, sir," said she. + +"That is why they are true," said Hadley in the same breath, and they +laughed together. + +Lady Waverton interfered imperiously. "Alison, dear, come sit by me and +tell me all about yourself." + +"Faith, not with the gentlemen to listen," said she, and was saved by +Harry and the butler, who came in together announcing dinner. + +Lady Waverton rose elaborately. "Give me your arm, Charles. My +dear Alison--" + +"But who is this?" Alison said, and she stared with placid, candid +interest at Harry. With equal composure Harry stared back. But there was +no candour in his expressionless face. For he had become keenly aware of +her beauty. It was waking in him desire and already something deeper and +stronger, and he vehemently resented the disturbance. He had no wish to +be troubled by any woman, and for this woman, judging her on her +behaviour, he felt even a little more contempt than the store which he +had for all her sex. It was cursedly impertinent in her to be such a joy +to the blood. She stood there, her eyes level with his eyes, and dared to +look as strong as he--slighter to be sure, but not too slight for a +woman, and delectably deep bosomed. There was life and laughter in that +calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The +great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. +He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as +her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous +modesty. And she knew of her power too. There was a mocking confidence in +every line of her. + +"But who is this, Lady Waverton?" she was saying again. + +Lady Waverton tried to draw her on. "'Tis but Geoffrey's new factotum." + +"My good friend, Harry Boyce, Alison," said Geoffrey with a patronly hand +on Harry's shoulder. + +Harry made his bow. + +"Faith, sir, we have met before," she smiled. + +"No, ma'am," Harry bowed again. "I have never had an honour, which, sure, +I could not forget." + +Her brow wrinkled. Lady Waverton swept her on, and Harry in the rear had +the pleasure of hearing Lady Waverton say: "A poor, vulgar wretch, my +dear. An out-at-elbows scholar which Geoffrey met at Oxford and keeps out +of charity. He is too soft of heart, dear boy, and such creatures stick +to him like burrs." + +The dinner-table was a blaze of silver, but otherwise not bountifully +provided. Lady Waverton looked down it with pride. "I am of Mr. Addison's +mind, my dear," she announced. "Do you remember? 'Two plain dishes with +two good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends make me more pleased and +vain than all your luxury.'" + +"Why, then, you must now be sore out of countenance," Alison protested. +"For I am not good-natured and I vow Mr. Hadley is not cheerful." Mr. +Hadley's face, set in contemplation of the food, shed gloom and +apprehension. "But perhaps Mr. Boyce is ingenious." + +"I hope so," said Hadley. + +It was Harry's task to carve, which dispensed him from answering the +girl or even looking at her. One not abundant fowl and a calf's head +smoked before him. Under a heavy fire of directions from Lady Waverton +he did his duty. + +Miss Lambourne may have suddenly grown weary of Lady Waverton's eloquence +upon the daintiest bits of these unexciting foods. She may have been +waiting for the moment when Harry would have no occupation to prevent him +listening to her. While my lady was still explaining the superiority of +her calf, as bred and born in the house of Waverton, to all other calves, +just when Harry had finished his work, Miss Lambourne broke out: "Faith, +I was almost forgetting my splendid story. I wonder, now, have any of you +met any ventures on the North Road?" + +Harry began to eat. Charles Hadley ceased an anxious examination of his +plate and looked at her. Lady Waverton cried out: "Dear Alison! Don't +tell me you have been stopped. Too terrible! I vow I could never bear it. +I should die of shame. They tell me these rogues are vilely impudent to a +fine woman." + +Geoffrey exhibited a tender agitation. "Why, Alison, what is it? Zounds, +I cannot have you go travelling alone! You must give me news when you +make a journey, and I'll ride with you." + +"Thank you for your agonies. But the virgin in distress found her +knight-errant duly provided. He rose out of the mud romantically apropos. +To be sure, I think he was mad. But that is all in the part. The complete +hero. Geoffrey, could you be a little mad?" + +"More than a little," said he with proper ardour. "Pray don't torture us, +Alison. Let us hear." + +"It's on my mind that I am going to hear news of my funny friend," said +Hadley solemnly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry, who had been eating with the humble zeal appropriate to a poor +scholar, looked up for a moment: "Why, sir, I can't tell at all. If you +say so, indeed--" and he went on eating. + +"Come, are you in it too, Mr. Hadley?" Alison cried. + +"In it, odds life, I am bewilderingly out of it," quoth Hadley, and again +told his tale of the mysterious man found tied up in the mud who knew +nothing of his assailants and wanted no vengeance on them. + +"That's our Benjamin," Alison laughed. "Oh, but you did not let him go?" + +"Not let him go, quotha! For what I know, he was a poor, suffering +martyr, though to look at his nose, I doubt it. And yet he was fool +enough. Nay, how could I stay him?" + +"Why, send him to gaol for a rogue and a vagabond. Should he not?" she +invited the suffrages of the table. + +"Dear Alison, to be sure, yes," Lady Waverton murmured. "These fellows +must be put down." + +"You owed it to yourself to look deeper into the matter, Charles," said +Geoffrey gravely. + +"Come, Mr. Boyce, your sentence too," Alison cried, wicked eyes +intent upon him. + +He met them with bland meekness. "Indeed, ma'am, I can't tell. It's Mr. +Hadley's affair." + +"From a virtuous woman, good Lord deliver us," Hadley groaned. "You would +make a rare hanging judge, Alison. Now, i' God's name, let's have your +tale. What's the rogue to you?" + +"Oh, sir, a great joy. Why, he gave me the only knight-errant ever I had. +A vile muddy one, to be sure, but poor maids must not be choosers. We +were driving home, Mrs. Weston and I, and by Black Horse Spinney we were +stopped by two highwaymen. They had just begun to be rude, when out of +the mud comes my knight-errant, bold as Don Quixote and as shabby withal, +and with a pretty wit too--which is not much in the way of +knight-errants, I think. He scared the highwaymen's horses and set them +bolting with the one fellow which held them, then he knocked the other +down, took his pistol, and tied the rogue up in his own garters. Oh, the +neatest knight-errant ever you saw. Then we bade him put the fellow on +the box and drive on with us. But monsieur was haughty, if you please. He +wanted none of our company. Off he packed us, for me to cry my eyes out +for love of him. Which I do heartily, I warrant you." + +"Alison!" Geoffrey cried, and laid his hand on hers. + +"Faith, yes, give me sympathy. I have loved and lost--in the mud. To be +sure, I can ne'er be my own woman again till I find him and give him--a +brush, I think, and maybe a pair of breeches too, for his own can never +recover their youth. Dear Geoffrey, help me to find him." + +Geoffrey had taken his hand away in a hurry. He contemplated her with +cold reproof. It did not trouble her. She was giving all her attention to +Harry; gay, malicious eyes challenged him to declare himself, mocked him +for his modesty, vaunted what she had to give. + +"Damme, this is madder and madder yet," Hadley broke in. "Who is your +Orlando Furioso that's a champion of dames and too haughty to ride in +their carriage; that ties up highwaymen and forgets to tell the constable +where he left 'em? Odso, I thought I knew most of the fools in these +parts, but there's one bigger than I know." + +"Dear Alison--I could never have survived it--but you are so strong--and +what a person! My dear, I could not bear to think of him. A rude, low +fellow, to be sure," Thus Lady Waverton coherently. + +Alison laughed. "I doubt I'm not so delicate," Then she leaned towards +Harry. "Well, and you? Come, Mr. Boyce, why leave yourself out?" + +"I beg pardon, ma'am?" + +She made an impatient sound. "And what do you think of my hero?" + +"I wonder who the gentleman was, ma'am," Harry said. + +Her eyes fought a moment more with his bland, meaningless face. "Faith, I +think he's a fool for his pains," said she. + +"Grateful woman," Hadley grunted. "Humph. _Spretae injuria formae_, ain't +it, Mr. Boyce? Give miss a construe." + +Harry gave a deprecating cough instead. + +"Oh, be brave, sir," she jeered. + +"I am afraid it means 'the insult of slighting your beauty,' ma'am," said +Harry meekly. + +Lady Waverton straightened her back and looked ice at him. But the +butler was at her elbow, whispering. "Colonel Boyce?" she repeated. "What +Colonel Boyce? Who is Colonel Boyce? + +"It might be my father," Harry suggested. + +"Why, Harry, I never knew you had a father," Waverton sneered amiably. + +"Is your father a colonel?" Lady Waverton was torn between incredulity of +such presumption and rage at it. + +"Not that I know of, my lady. But he has always surprised me." + +"Shall we have him in, Geoffrey?" said Lady Waverton. + +"My dear mother!" Geoffrey waved his hand to the butler. "Ask the +gentleman to be so good as to join us." + +Mr. Hadley turned in his chair, and over the remnants of the fowl and the +calf's head directed a grim smile at Harry. "Thank you for a very +pleasant dinner," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + +There came in a man of many colours. Dazzled eyes, recovering from their +first dismay, might admit that his splendours were harmonious. A red coat +with gold buttons, a waistcoat of gold satin embroidered in blue, +breeches of blue velvet with golden garters were topped by a face burnt +brown and a great jet-black periwig. He carried off all this with airy +ease. "My lady, your most humble and devoted," he bowed to Lady Waverton. +"Harry, dear lad," he held out his hands, and Harry, rising, found +himself embraced and kissed on both cheeks. + +"Colonel Boyce is it?" said Lady Waverton with some emphasis on +the title. + +"In the service of your ladyship," he laughed, and bowed to her again, +and turned upon the company. "Pray present me, dear lady." She made +some stumbling about it, but Colonel Boyce appeared to enjoy himself +with an "I account myself fortunate, ma'am," for Miss Lambourne; with a +"My boy's friends are mine, sir--and his debts too," for Geoffrey; and +to Mr. Hadley, "You have served, sir?" with a look of respect at the +empty sleeve. + +Hadley nodded. "Ay, ay. The red field of honour. Well, there's no +life like it." + +"That's why I left it," Hadley grunted. + +"Come, sir, draw up a chair and join us," Geoffrey said. "Be sure you are +very welcome." + +"Ten thousand thanks." Without enthusiasm Colonel Boyce looked at the +calf's head. "But--egad, I am sorry for it now--but I have dined." + +"At least you'll drink a glass of wine with us?" + +"Oh, I can't deny myself the pleasure, sir." He drew up a chair, Geoffrey +reached at a decanter, and so Lady Waverton rose and Alison after her. + +Colonel Boyce started up. "But no--not at that price. Damme, that would +poison the Prince's own Tokay. Nay, you are too cruel, my lady. I come, +and you desolate the table to receive me. Gad's life, ma'am, our friends +here will be calling me out for my daring to exist." + +Lady Waverton was very well pleased. "Sir, you will let me give you a +dish of tea. I warrant the men were already sighing to be rid of us." + +"Then I vow they be blind," quoth Colonel Boyce, and opened the door, +from which he came back with a laugh to his glass of port. Over drinking +it he went through all the tricks of the connoisseur and ended with a +cultured ecstasy. + +"I see you are a man of the world, Colonel," Hadley sneered. + +"A man of many worlds, sir," the Colonel laughed easily. + +"I wonder which this is?" + +"Why, this is the world of good company and good fellowship--" he smiled +and bowed to Geoffrey--"of sound wine and sound learning." + +"Sir, you are very good. But I hope my wine is better than my +scholarship. This is our man of learning," he slapped Harry on the +shoulder. "And Harry counts me a mere trifler, a literary exquisite, an +amateur of elegances." + +"If your scholarship has the elegance of your wine, Mr. Waverton, you do +very well. I doubt my Harry is no judge of the graces. He has always been +something of a plodder." + +"Have I?" Harry found his tongue. "How did you know?" + +The Colonel laughed. "He has me there, the rogue. The truth is, +gentlemen, I have not seen him in these six years. Damme, Harry, you are +grown no fatter." + +"Servitors don't make flesh," said Harry. + +"And soldiers don't make money. Still; there's enough for two now, boy." + +"I am glad you have been fortunate," the tone suggested that though +the father had quite enough for two; there would be none to spare +for the son. + +"Why, sir," Waverton was grandly genial, "I hope you don't mean to rob me +of Harry. He's the most useful fellow, and, I promise you; I value him." + +"Thank you very much," said Harry. + +"I'll take you into my confidence, Mr. Waverton," the Colonel leaned +across the table. + +"Then I'll take my leave," said Hadley. + +"No need, sir. At this time, we all know, there are higher claims on a +man than a friend's or a father's." + +"I feel like a pawn," Harry complained. + +"Egad, sir, a pawn may save a queen or check a king." + +"But do you suppose it enjoys it?" + +"Are you away to the war, sir?" Geoffrey smiled. "I doubt our Harry has +no turn for soldiering." + +"You are always right, Mr. Waverton," Harry nodded at him. + +"It is not only soldiers who fight our battles, Mr. Waverton," said the +Colonel with dignity. "There's danger enough for a quick wit and a cool +judgment far behind the lines. And you need not go to Flanders to find +the war. It's flaming all over England, all over--France," he dropped the +last word in a lower tone, as if his heat had carried him away and it was +a blunder. He flung himself back and emptied his glass, and looked +gloomily at the empty decanter. "Why, Mr. Waverton, you have made me into +a babbler. It's time you delivered me to the ladies." + +"Aye, aye," Hadley yawned. "Let's try another of the worlds." + +They marched out, but the Colonel and Waverton, waiting on each other, +were some distance behind the other pair. + +"You must know I have often had some desire for the life of action," said +Mr. Waverton. + +To which the Colonel earnestly, "I have never known a man more fit for +it," and upon that they entered my lady's drawing-room. + +Miss Lambourne was singing Carey's song of the nightingale: + +"While in a Bow'r with beauty blest + The lov'd Amintor lies, +While sinking on Lucinda's breast + He fondly kiss'd her Eyes. +A wakeful nightingale who long + Had mourn'd within, the Shade +Sweetly renewed her plaintive song + And warbled through the Glade." + +On the coming of the men the wakeful nightingale broke off her plaintive +song abruptly. + +Lady Waverton, who was again at full length on her couch, then opened +her eyes. "Delicious, delicately delicious," she sighed. "Why did you +stop, dear?" she controlled a yawn. "Oh, the men! Odious creatures!" she +rose on her elbow and looked at them, and looked down at her dress and +patted it. + +Colonel Boyce accepted the challenge briskly, and marched upon her. +"Egad, my lady, your name is cruelty." + +"Who--I, sir? I vow I never had the heart to see any creature suffer." + +"Nay, your very nature is cruelty. You exist but to torture us." + +"Good lack, sir," says my lady, well pleased, "and must I die to serve +your pleasure?" + +"Why, there it is. We can neither bear to be with you nor to be without +you. I protest, ma'am, your sex was made for our torture. 'Tis why you +parade it and delight in it." + +"Lud, sir, you are mighty rude," my lady simpered. "I parade my sex? +Alack, my modesty!" + +"Modesty--that's but another weapon to madden us. Fie, ma'am, why do you +clothe yourself in such beauty but to flaunt upon our senses that sex of +yours?" My lady was duly shocked and hid behind her fan. "Aye, there it +is! We catch a whiff of paradise and straightway it is denied us. Our +nightingale there is silent when we draw near. Our Venus here hides +herself when our eyes would enjoy her. As His Grace said to me, you women +are like heaven to a damned soul." + +"You are a wicked fellow," said Lady Waverton with relish. + +Geoffrey at his elbow put in, "'His Grace,' Colonel?" + +"The Old Corporal, Mr. Waverton. The Duke of Marlborough." + +"You have served with him, sir?" + +Colonel Boyce gave a laugh of genial condescension. "Why, yes, Mr. +Waverton, I stand as close to His Grace as most men." + +After a moment of impressive silence, the Wavertons vigorously directed +the conversation to the Duke of Marlborough. Colonel Boyce made no +objection. In the most obliging manner he admitted them to a piquant +intimacy with His Grace's manners and customs. He mingled things personal +and high politics with a fascinating air of letting out secrets at every +word; and, throughout, he maintained a tantalizing discretion about his +own position. My lady and Mr. Waverton were more and more fascinated. + +So that Miss Lambourne had good opportunity to try her maiden steel upon +Harry. As soon as he came in, he withdrew himself to a cabinet of medals +in a remote corner. Mr. Hadley approached the harpsichord and reached it +just before it fell silent. Miss Lambourne looked up into his face. + +"Yes, shall we lay our heads together?" said he. + +"But I doubt mine would turn yours." + +"If you'll risk it, ma'am, I will." + +"La, sir, is this an offer? I protest I am all one blush." + +"Then your imagination is bolder than mine, ma'am. I mean--" + +"Oh, fie for shame! To disgrace a poor maid so! To betray her weakness! +It is unmanly, Mr. Hadley. Sure, my father (in the general resurrection) +will have your blood. I leave you to your conscience, sir," which she +did, making for Harry. + +Mr. Hadley, remaining by the harpsichord, contemplated them, and with his +one hand caressed his chin. "It's a fascinating family, the family of +Boyce," said he to himself. + +Miss Lambourne sat herself down beside Harry before he chose to be aware +of her coming. He started up and obsequiously drew away. + +"You are very coy, Mr. Boyce," said the lady. + +Harry replied, with the servile laughter of a dependent, "Oh, ma'am, you +are mocking me." + +"Tit for tat"--Alison's eyes had some fire in them. + +"Tat, ma'am?" + +"Lud, now, don't be tedious. Sir, the house of Waverton is entranced by +your splendid father: and Charles Hadley (as usual) is entranced by +himself. You have no audience Mr. Boyce. Stop acting, and tell me--what +is wrong with me?" + +Harry considered her with calm criticism. "It's not for me to tell Miss +Lambourne that she is too beautiful." + +"Indeed, I thought you had more sense." + +"Too beautiful," Harry persisted deliberately; "too beautiful to be +good company." + +"That will not serve, sir. You are not so inflammable. Being more in the +nature of a tortoise." + +"If you had a flaw or so: if your nose had a twist; if your cheeks had +felt the weather; if--I fear, ma'am, I grow intimate. In fine, if you +were less fine, you would be a comfort to a man. But as it is--permit the +tortoise to keep in his shell." + +"I advise you, Mr. Boyce--I resent this." + +Harry bowed. "I dare to remind you, ma'am--I did not demand the +conversation." + +"The conversation!" Her eyes flashed. "What do I care if a lad's +impudent? Perhaps I like it well enough, Mr. Boyce. There is more than +that between you and me. You have done me something of a service, and +you'll not let me avow it nor pay you. Well?" + +"Well, ma'am, you're telling the truth," said Harry placidly. + +The lady made an exclamation. "I shall bear you a grudge for this, sir." + +"I am vastly obliged, ma'am." + +The lady drew back a little and looked at him full, which he bore +calmly. "I suppose I am beneath Mr. Boyce's concernment." + +"Not beneath, ma'am. Above. Above. Do you admire the Italian medals? +They are of a delicate restraint," He turned to the cabinet and began +to lecture. + +Miss Lambourne was not repulsed. He maintained a steady flow of +instruction. She waited, watching him. + +By this time Colonel Boyce was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough +and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard +road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You were born +with yours." + +"I conceive, sir, that every man of high spirit must needs take the +road to fame." + +"A dream of a shadow, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel, with melancholy +grandeur. "'Take the goods the gods provide you,'" he waved his hand at +the crowded opulence of the room and then, smiling paternally, at Miss +Lambourne. + +Lady Waverton simpered at her son. He chose to ignore the hint. +"Why, Colonel, if a man is happily placed above vulgar needs, the +more reason--" + +"Vulgar needs! Oh, fie, Mr. Waverton. A divine creature." Colonel +Boyce looked wicked, and his easy hand designed in the air Miss +Lambourne's shape. + +Lady Waverton tittered. Geoffrey blushed, and "You do me too much honour +sir, indeed," he stammered. + +Colonel Boyce turned smiling upon Lady Waverton. "I vow, ma'am, a man +hath twice the modesty of a maid." + +"You are a bad fellow," said Lady Waverton, very well pleased. + +"You go too fast, sir;" with so much mirth about him Geoffrey feared for +his dignity. "There is nothing between me and Miss Lambourne." + +The Colonel shook his head. "I confess I thought better of you, sir. +What, is miss her own mistress?" + +"Miss Lambourne has no father or mother, sir." + +"And her face is her fortune? Egad, 'tis the prettiest romance!" + +Geoffrey and his mother laughed together. "Not quite all her fortune, +sir. She is the only child of Sir Thomas Lambourne." + +"What! old Tom Lambourne of the India House?" Colonel Boyce whistled. He +looked with a new interest at her as she stood by Harry, absorbing the +lecture on medals, and as he looked his face put on a queer air of +mockery. This he presented to Geoffrey. "Something of a plum, sirrah. +Well, well, some folks have but to open their mouths." + +Mr. Waverton, not quite certain whether the Colonel ought to be so +familiar, concluded to be pleased, and laughed fatuously. During which +music the butler announced "Mrs. Weston." + +Lady Waverton and Geoffrey exchanged a glance of disgust. Lady Waverton +murmured, "What a person!" It escaped their notice that Colonel Boyce had +stiffened at the name. His full face lost all its geniality, all +expression. He was for the first time singularly like his son. + +Mrs. Weston was Alison's companion of the coach, a woman of middle age, +inclining to be stout; but her face was thin and lined, belying her +comfortable aspect,--a wistful face which had known much sorrow, and had +still much tenderness to give. + +Lady Waverton put out a languid and supercilious hand. "I hope you +are better." + +"Thank you. I have not been ill." + +"Oh, I always forget." + +"Your servant, ma'am." Geoffrey bowed. + +"Oh,"--Lady Waverton turned on her elbow. "Colonel Boyce--Mrs. Weston, +Alison's companion. Faith, duenna, I think." + +"Your most obedient, ma'am." Colonel Boyce bowed low. + +Mrs. Weston stared at him, seemed to try to speak, said nothing, and +hurried across the room. + +"Alison, dear, are you ready?" her voice sounded hoarse. + +"Am I ever ready?" Alison laughed. "Weston, dear, we are finding friends +here;" she pointed to Harry. + +Colonel Boyce had followed. He laid his hand on Harry's shoulder: "My +son, ma'am," said he. + +Mrs. Weston's eyes grew wide, and her face was white and drawn, and she +swayed. As Harry bowed to her, a lacquered box was swept off the table +with a great clatter, and Colonel Boyce cried, "Odds life, Harry, you are +a clumsy fellow. Here, man, here," and made a great commotion over +picking it up. + +Alison had her arm about Mrs. Weston: "Why, Weston, dear, what is it? Are +you seeing a ghost?" She laughed. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, come to life." + +"I ask pardon, ma'am." Harry rose with the box. + +"'Bid me to live and I will live,'" said the Colonel, with a grand air. + +"Come away, dear, come," Mrs. Weston gasped, in much agitation. + +"Why, Weston, he is not our highwayman, you know," Alison was still +laughing, and then seeing her distress real, took it in earnest. "You are +shaken, poor thing. Come!" She mothered the woman away and, turning, +called over her shoulder-- + +"_Revanche_, Mr. Boyce." There was an explanation to Lady Waverton: poor +Weston had been so alarmed by the highwaymen that she was not fit to be +out of her bed, and anything alarmed her; even Mr. Boyce; so dear Lady +Waverton must forgive them. And Geoffrey took them to their carriage. + +"What a person!" said Lady Waverton. + +Mr. Hadley came out of his corner and looked Harry up and down with +dislike. "Let me know when you play the next act, Mr. Boyce," he +said, and turned to Lady Waverton. "My lady, I beg leave to go with +my friends." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + +In a small, bare room Colonel Boyce sat himself down on a pallet bed and +made a wry face at his son. "My poor, dear boy," he said, and shifted +uneasily, and looked round at the stained walls and shivered. "It's damp, +I vow it's damp," he complained. + +"Oh yes. It's damp after rain, and it's hot after sun, and it's icy after +frost. It's a very sympathetic room," said Harry. + +"They are barbarians, these Wavertons. I vow they give their horses +better lodging." + +"Oh yes. I am not worth so much as a horse," said Harry. + +"Lud, Harry, don't whine,"--his father was irritated. "Have some spirit. +I hate to hear a lad meek." + +"I thought you did," said Harry. + +The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I am bit, am I? _Tant mieux_. But why the devil +do you stay here?" + +"Now why the devil do you want to know?" said Harry. + +"No, that is not kind, boy." + +"Oh, Oh, are we kind?" + +"My dear Harry, I have not seen you for six years, and I have not come +now to quarrel." + +"Then why have you come?" said the affectionate son. + +"You are a gracious cub." Colonel Boyce would not be ruffled. "When I saw +you last, Harry--" + +"You borrowed a shilling of me. I remember I was glad that I had +not another." + +"You can have it back with interest now. There is plenty in the purse, +Harry, and half of all mine is yours." + +"You have changed," Harry said. "Odds life, Harry, bear no grudges. I +dare say I was hard in what you remember of me. Well, things were hard +upon me and I lived hard. You shall find me mellow enough now." + +"Hard? I don't know that you were hard. I thought you were as cold as +ice. I believe, sir, I am still frozen." + +"Egad, Harry, you must have had a curst childhood." + +"Oh, must we be sympathetic?" said Harry. + +"You're right, boy. The past is past. 'Tis your future which is the +matter. So again--why do you stay here?" + +Harry laughed. "They give me bed and board, and a shilling or two by +the month." + +"Bed?" His father shifted upon it. "A bag of stones, I think. And for the +board--bread of affliction and water of affliction by what I saw of the +remains. Egad, Harry, they are savages, these Wavertons." + +"I did not hear you say so to madame. And Geoffrey is not a bad fellow +as far as he has understanding." + +"A dolt, eh? He might take a woman's eye, though. These big dreamy +fellows, the women hanker after them queerly. Take care, Harry." He +looked knowing. "Bed and board--bah, you can do better than that. Now +what do you think I have been doing?" + +"Something profitable, to judge by your genial splendours. Have you +turned highwayman?" + +"You all talk about highwaymen in this house," said the Colonel with a +frown and a keen glance. + +"Damme, no." + +"Why, are you really a colonel?" + +"Faith, you may come see my commission,"--Colonel Boyce was not +annoyed,--"and, egad, share my pay." He pulled out a fat purse and thrust +some guineas upon Harry. "Don't deny me now, boy," he said, with some +tenderness. + +"I never meant to," said Harry, and counted them. "But how long have you +been a soldier? I never knew you were anything." + +"I have been with his Grace of Marlborough in every campaign since +Blenheim. Do you think it's a good service, Harry?" he smiled at his +own opulence. + +"For a versatile man," said Harry, and looked at his father curiously. + +"Why, I can take the field as well as another. Egad, when Vendome fell +back from Oudenarde I was commanding a battalion. But it is not in the +field that my best work is done." + +"Faith, I had guessed that," Harry said. + +"You have a sharp tongue, Harry. It's a dangerous weakness. Be careful +to grow out of it. Then I think you may do well enough." + +"In your profession, sir? To be sure, you flatter me." + +"In my profession--" His father looked at him keenly. "I am not sure. +Maybe you can do better, which will be well enough. Now, what can you do? +You can use a sword, I suppose, though you wear none?" + +Harry shrugged. "I know the rigmarole, the salutes; I could begin a duel, +_par exemple_. It's the other man who would end it." + +"Duels--bah, only dolts are troubled with them. You must learn to hold +your own in a flurry. You can ride, I suppose?" + +"If the beast has a mane." + +"Humph. You speak French?" + +"As we speak it in England." + +"Yes." His father nodded. "When a man is no fool, he finds his profit in +not doing things too well. Well, Harry, are you Whig or Tory--Jacobite or +Hanoverian?" + +"Whichever you like, sir." + +"By the Lord, you take after me mightily. Now look 'e, thus it is. The +Queen grows old. She eats too well and drinks too well, and she has the +gout. It's common among all who know her ways that she cannot last long. +The poor soul will not be wise at dinner. But even if she should last, we +are in an odd case. For Anne hath a conscience as well as a stomach, and +it seems they grow together. As the old lady gets fatter, she feels +remorse. When she's tearful after dinner now she asks her women what +right she has to be queen and keep a good cellar while her poor +half-brother Prince James lives in exile on _vin ordinaire_." + +Harry shrugged his shoulders. "'Poor, dear lad,' says she, 'and to +be sure I am a sad, bad woman. But I think I'll die a queen.' What +then, sir?" + +"I don't say you are wrong, Harry. She's more like to drown the lad in +tears than right him. And meanwhile our rightful king, James the +Pretender, is left to his _vin ordinaire_. Faith, it's a proper liquor, +for rightful heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a +chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath +religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. But here is +what's more likely. You know when an old fellow hath played the knave +with some wardship or some matter of trust, often he holds fast to it all +his life and then seeks to commend himself to the day of judgment by +bequeathing his spoils to those from whom he stole them. Well, it's +whispered among them that know her that Madame Anne will do her possible +to make Prince James King when she is gone." + +"A dead Queen is but a corpse," said Harry. "When she is gone 'twill not +be for her to say who shall reign." + +"That's half a truth. You know the law is so that Prince George of +Hanover should be the King. About him no man knows anything save that he +hath a vile taste in women. I do suspect Marlborough is in the right--he +has a nose for men--when he saith there is nought to know. Well, we +tried a Dutchman once for our King and liked him ill enough. Who is to +say that we shall like a German better? Now Prince James--he is half an +Englishman at least, though they say he has his father's weakness for +priests. I'll not hide from you, Harry, that I am in the confidence of +some great men. It's laid upon me to go to France with an errand to +Prince James." + +"I suppose that is high treason, sir." + +Colonel Boyce smiled queerly. "You see how I trust you, Harry. Bah, you +are not frightened of words. Who is the worse for it, if I find out +what's Monsieur's temper and how he would bear himself if he were King?" + +"And what he would pay any kind gentlemen who chose to turn +Jacobites apropos." + +"If you like." Colonel Boyce laughed. I promise you, Harry, there are +great men in this. Now I need a trusty fellow to my right hand: a fellow +who can talk and say nothing: a fellow who is in no service but mine: and +all the better if he hath some learning to play the secretary. So I +thought of you. And since it may carry you to something of note, I chose +you with right good will." + +"Do you wonder that you surprise me?" + +"I profess you're not generous, Harry. It's true enough, I have done +little for you yet. But the truth is I could do nothing. As soon as I +have it in my power, I come to you--" + +"And offer me--a game at hazard." + +"Why, Harry, you're not a coward?" + +"Faith, I can't tell. Perhaps I will go with you. But I have no +expectation in it." + +"I suppose you have some here," his father sneered. "What do they call +you? You seem to be something better than Master Geoffrey's valet and a +good deal worse than my lady's footman." + +"Why, I believe you have lost your temper." Harry laughed. "Oh, admirable +sight! Pray let me enjoy it! The father rages at his son's ingratitude!" + +But Colonel Boyce had quickly recovered his equanimity. "They used to +tell me that I was a cold fellow. But I vow you are a very fish. So you +have half a mind to stay here, have you? Well, I bear no malice." + +"It is only half a mind," Harry said. "Are you in a hurry?" + +"Oh, you may sleep on it. Damme, I suppose there is little to do here but +sleep. What does Master Geoffrey want with you? He is old to keep a tame +schoolmaster." + +"I listen to his poetry." + +"Oh Lud!" said Colonel Boyce, with sincere sympathy. "I suppose they are +wealthy folk, your Wavertons. Do they keep much company?" Harry shrugged. +"Who is this Mrs. Weston?" + +"I never saw her before." Harry paused, and then with a laugh +added--"before yesterday." + +"That's a fine woman, her mistress. Do you do anything in that +quarter, sirrah?" + +"Why should you think so?" + +"She was willing enough that you should try." + +"She is meat for my betters," said Harry meekly. + +"For Master Geoffrey?" The Colonel looked knowing. "Do you know, Harry, I +think Master Geoffrey is a pigeon made to be plucked. Well. What was the +pretty lady's talk about highwaymen?" + +Harry looked at his father for some time. "The truth is, I don't +understand Benjamin," he said at last. "I wonder if you will. Faith, sir, +here is a pretty piece of family life. The good son confides in his +father alone of all the world." + +"Go on, sir," Colonel Boyce chuckled. "I play fair." + +So Harry told his tale of Benjamin and Benjamin's companion and their +disaster. It was that appearance in the crisis of the fight of other +gentlemen on horseback which most interested Colonel Boyce. "So they went +in pursuit of the fellow who had fled and they never came back again." He +looked quizzically at his son. "These be very honest gentlemen." + +"Why, sir, I thought nothing of that. They were plainly travelling at +speed. I suppose they missed him, and had no time to waste in searching." + +"Then why o' God's name did he not come back to help his fellow? He was +mounted, he was armed, and only you and your cudgel against him. Bah, +Harry, do not be an innocent. Consider: these fellows went after him at +speed. He cannot have been far away. It is any odds that he had his +bolting horses in hand before he had gone two furlongs. Then--allow him +some sense--then he must have turned and come back for his friend. And +then these other honest gentlemen swept down on him. Well. Why have you +heard no more of them or him?" + +"Faith, sir, you are right," Harry conceived for the first time some +admiration for his father. "I had missed that: and, egad, it is the chief +question of the puzzle. But--" + +"Puzzle! Oh Lud, there's no puzzle. They were all one gang, these +fellows." + +Harry laughed. "Then there was not much honour among the thieves. They +abandoned their Benjamin to me with delight." + +"Ah, bah, you do not suppose they were out for such small game as your +pretty miss. They would not work in a gang to stop a simple, common +coach, be it never so rich. Come, Harry, use your wits. Did you hear of +any great folks on the road yesterday?" + +Harry made an exclamation. "Odds life, sir, you would make a great +thief-catcher. You have hit it. There was your friend, the Duke of +Marl-borough, stuck in the mud below Barnet Hill." And he told that part +of the story. + +"Humph. So they came too late," his father said. "You see how it is. This +gang was charged to stop his Grace, and was something slow about it. The +two first, your Benjamin and his friend, I suppose they should have held +the Duke's fellows in play till the others came up. They missed him, or +they shirked it, and instead, tried to stay their stomachs with some +common game. The rest of the gang would be well enough pleased that you +should baste Benjamin while they hurried on after the Duke. Did you mark +any of them, what like they were?" + +"Not I. I was too busy with Benjamin." + +"And your pretty miss, eh? A pity. But it's well enough for your +first affair." + +"First? Why, am I to spend my life tumbling with gentlemen of the road?" + +"And a profitable, pleasant life too, if you use your wits." + +Harry opened his eyes. "Do you know it well, sir? Now, what I don't +understand is why a gang of highwaymen should appoint to set upon the +Duke of Marlborough. It's dangerous, to be sure--" + +"You will understand why, if you come to France," said Colonel Boyce, +with a queer smile. "There be many would pay high for a sight of his +Grace's private papers," and he laughed to himself over some joke. "Nay, +but you have done very well, Harry," he condescended. "I like this +business of leaving Benjamin tied up on the road. 'Tis damned nonsense, +to be sure, but it has an air, a distinction. Your pretty miss will like +that. And I judge you have not told the Wavertons you were the hero, nor +let miss tell them. 'Tis your little secret for yourselves. A good touch, +Harry. Odds life, I begin to be proud of you. I suppose you will soon go +pay your respects--to Mrs. Weston." He laughed heartily. + +Harry was not amused. "Do you know, I think I like you much less than you +like me," he said. + +Colonel Boyce seemed very well content. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + +Colonel Boyce was established in the house, a guest of high honour. + +Harry, dazed at the mere fact, could not be very sure how it had happened +or why. The Wavertons, mother and son, had assaulted the Colonel with +hospitality--for a night--for another--for longer and longer--and he, +appearing at first honestly dubious, remained with a benign +condescension. + +There is no doubt that, in an honourable way, Lady Waverton was +fascinated by Colonel Boyce. She saw nothing coarse in his +highly-coloured manners, suspected no guile in his flattery or his parade +of importance. Harry, who had never supposed her a wise woman, was +surprised by her complete surrender. He had credited her with too much +pride to succumb to flattery, which was to his taste impudently gross. +But he was not yet old enough to allow that other folks might have tastes +wholly unlike his own, and he had himself--it is perhaps the only trait +of much delicacy in him--a shrinking discomfort under praise. + +Colonel Boyce took his victory with a complacency which Harry thought +oddly fatuous in a man so acute. + +"Egad, the old lady would go to church with me to-morrow if I asked her;" +he laughed, and seemed to think that in that at least my lady showed +sense. + +"You had better take her, sir," said Harry, with a sneer. "I know she has +a good dower. And a fool and her money are soon parted." + +"Damme, Harry, you are venomous!" For the first time in their +acquaintance Colonel Boyce showed some signs of smarting. "What harm have +I done you? No, sir, you have a nasty tongue. I intend the old lady no +harm, neither. What if she has a tenderness for me? I suppose that does +not make me a fool." + +"To be sure, sir, I did not know your affection was serious." Harry +laughed disagreeably. + +"I believe you would not miss a chance to say a bitter thing though it +ruined you, Lud, Harry, if you can't be grateful, don't be a fool too. +What a pox are your Wavertons to me? I don't value them a pinch of snuff. +What I am doing, I am doing for you. You know what you were when I found +you--no better than a footman out of livery. Now, they treat you like a +gentleman." + +"And all for the _beaux yeux_ of my father. Well, it's true, sir. But I +don't know that I like any of us much the better for it." + +To his great surprise his father looked at him with affectionate +admiration. "Egad, you take that tone very well," said he. "It's a good +card. Maybe it's the best with the women." + +Harry had to laugh. "I think you have the easiest temper in the +world, sir." + +"Aye, aye. It has been the ruin of me." + +And so they parted the best of friends. Indeed Harry had never liked his +father so well or felt so much his superior. Thus from age to age is +filial affection confirmed. + +But he had to allow some adroitness in his father. Not only Lady +Waverton, but Geoffrey too, succumbed to the paternal charms. That was +the more surprising. Geoffrey, behind his vanity and his affectation, was +no fool. He had also a temper apt to dislike any man who made a show of +position or achievement beyond his own. Yet he hung upon the lips of +Colonel Boyce. What they gave him was indeed a pleasing mixture--secrets +about great affairs flavoured with deference to his ingenious criticisms. +There was something solid about it, too. The Colonel, displaying himself +as a man of much importance, perpetually hinted that only the occasion +was needed for Mr. Waverton to surpass him by far, and to that occasion +he could point the way. It appeared to Harry that his father had in mind +to enlist Geoffrey for the proposed mission to France, or some other +scheme unrevealed. And being unable to see any reason for wanting +Geoffrey as a man, he suspected that his father wanted money. + +He saw clearly that nobody wanted him, and was therewith very well +content. At this time in his life he asked nothing better than to be left +alone with his whims and the open air. He covered many a mile of sticky +clay in these autumn days, placidly vacant of mind, and afterwards +accounted them the most comfortable of his life. + +Mr. Waverton's house was set upon a hill, at one end of a line of hills +which now look over the wilderness of London, falling steeply thereto, +and upon the other side, to northward and the open country, more gently. +In the epoch of Harry Boyce those hills were all woodland--pleasant +patches still remain,--and if the need of great walking was not upon him +he was often pleased to loiter through their thickets. It was on a wild +south-westerly day when the naked trees were at a loud chorus that Alison +came to him. + +The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak +and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of her shape. + +"'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried. + +"You're poetical, ma'am." + +"I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith, +I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?" + +"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?" + +"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows +why she runs after me." + +"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless +maid indeed which runs after a man"--she made him a curtsy. "But what is +the man who runs away from a maid?" + +Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The +rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet +more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep +water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the +wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed +the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did +you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled. + +"I allow you the privileges of a gentleman, Mr. Boyce." + +"Gentleman? Oh Lud, no, ma'am. I am an upper servant. Rather better than +the butler. Not so good as the steward." + +"It won't serve you, sir. You have insulted me, and I demand +satisfaction." She drew off her gauntleted glove and flicked him in the +face with it. "Now will you fight?" + +"Oh, must we slap and scratch then?" Harry flushed darker than the mark +of the glove. "I thought we had been fighting." + +Miss Lambourne laughed. "You can lose your temper then? It's something, +in fact. Yes, we have been fighting, sir, and you don't fight fair." + +"Who does with a woman?" Harry sneered. "I cry you mercy, ma'am. You are +vastly too strong for me. Let me alone and I ask no more of you." + +To which Miss Lambourne said, very innocently, "Why?" Harry looked up and +saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure +smile in the eyes. "Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done +me something of a great service. There was a man handling me--do you know +what that means? "--she made a wry face and gave herself a shaking +shudder--"You rid me of him, and with some risk to your precious skin. +Well, sir, I am grateful, and I want to show it. Odds life, I should be a +beast did I not. I want to thank you and to sing your praises--to +yourself also perhaps. And you are pleased to be a churl and a boor." + +"In effect," said Harry coolly. "Egad, ma'am, let me have the luxury of +hating you. For I am the Wavertons' gentleman usher and you are the +nonpareil Miss Lambourne, vastly rich and--" he ended with a shrug and +a rueful grin. + +"And--?" Miss Lambourne softly insisted. + +"And damnably lovely. Lord, you know that." + +"I thank God," said Miss Lambourne devoutly. + +"Is it true, Mr. Boyce--do the meek inherit the earth?" She held out her +hands to him, one bare, one gloved, she swayed a little towards him, and +her face was gentle and wistful. "Nay, sir, I ask your pardon. Call +friends if you please and will please me." + +Harry lost hold of himself at last. The blood surged in him, and he +caught at her and kissed her fiercely. + +It was he who was embarrassed. As he stood away from her, eyeing her with +a queer defiant shame, she smiled through a small matter of a blush, and +breathing quickly said: "What does it feel like, sir?" + +"The world's a miracle," Harry said unsteadily and would have caught +her again. + +She turned, she was away light of foot, and in a moment through the wind +he heard her singing to a tune of her own the child's rhyme: + +"Fly away, Jack, + Fly away, Jill, +Come again, Jack, + Come again, Jill." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + +Where the lane from Fortis Green crosses the high road there stood an +ale-house. On the wettest days, and some others, the place was Harry's +resort. Not that he had a liking for ale-house company--or indeed any +company. But within the precincts of the Wavertons' house tobacco was +forbidden and--all the more for that--tobacco he loved with a solid +devotion. The alehouse of the cross roads offered a clean floor, a clean +fire, air not too foul, a tolerable chair, a landlord who did not talk, +and until evening, sufficient solitude. There Harry smoked many pipes in +tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's +sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men +whom he more despised. Nobody in a position just better than menial can +be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's +_metier_. But Harry--it is one of his most noble qualities--bore being +laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of +a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt that it was sincere. He could +more easily have forgiven it if it had been hypocritical. A man had no +business to be so mighty honest. + +Mr. Hadley nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for +his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley +was civil enough to pass him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked +in grave silence. + +"So you are still with us," said Mr. Hadley. + +"By your good leave, sir." + +"I had an apprehension the Colonel was going to ravish you away." + +"I hope I am still of some use to Mr. Waverton." + +"Damme, you might be the old family retainer. 'Faithful service of the +antique world,' egad. I suppose you will end your days with Geoffrey, and +be buried at his feet like a trusty hound." + +"If you please, sir." + +They looked at each other. "Well, Mr. Boyce, I beg your pardon," Hadley +said. "But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man." + +"I do not desire it, sir." + +"I may hold my tongue and mind my own business, eh? Why not take me +friendly?" + +"I intend you no harm, Mr. Hadley." + +"That's devilish good of you, Mr. Boyce. To be plain with you, what do +you want here?" + +"Here? Oh Lord, sir, I come to smoke my pipe!" + +"And what if I come to smoke you? Odds life, I know you are no fool. Do +me the honour to take me for none. And tell me, if you please, why do you +choose to be Master Geoffrey's gentleman in waiting? You are good for +better than that, Mr. Boyce." + +"No doubt, sir. But it brings me bread and butter." + +"You could earn that fighting in Flanders." + +Harry shrugged. "I am not very brave, Mr. Hadley." + +"You count upon staying here, do you?" + +"If I can satisfy Mr. Waverton," said Harry meekly. + +Hadley's face grew harder. "I vow I do my best to wish you well, +Mr. Boyce. I should be glad to hear that you'll give up walking in +the woods." + +There was a moment of silence. "I did not know that I had asked for your +advice, sir." Harry said. "I am not grateful for it." + +"Damme, that's the first honest answer you have made," Hadley cried. +"Look 'e, Mr. Boyce, I am as much your friend as I may be. I have an +uncle which was the lady's guardian. If I said a word to him he would +carry it to Lady Waverton in a gouty rage. There would be a swift end of +Mr. Boyce the tutor. Well, I would not desire that. For all your airs, +I'll believe you a man of honour. And I ask you what's to become of Mr. +Boyce the tutor seeking private meetings with the Lambourne heiress? +Egad, sir, you were made for better things than such a mean business." + +"Honour!" Harry sneered. "Were you talking of men of honour? I suppose +there is good cover in the woods, Mr. Hadley." + +Hadley stared at him. "It was not good enough, you see, sir." He knocked +out his pipe and stood up. "Bah, this is childish. You don't think me a +knave, nor I you. I have said my say, and I mean you well." + +"I believe that, Mr. Hadley"--Harry met him with level eyes--"and I am +not grateful." + +"You know who she is meant for." + +"I know that the lady might call us both impudent." + +"Would that break your bones? Come, sir, the lady hath been destined for +Master Geoffrey since she had hair and never has rebelled." + +"Lord, Mr. Hadley, are you destiny?" + +Mr. Hadley let that by with an impatient shrug. "So if you be fool enough +to have ambitions after her, you would wear a better face in eating no +more of Master Geoffrey's bread." + +"It's a good day for walking, Mr. Hadley. Which way do you go? For I go +the other." + +"I hope so," Mr. Hadley agreed, and on that the two gentlemen parted, +both something warm. + +We should flatter him in supposing Harry Boyce of a chivalrous delicacy. +Whether the lady's fair fame might be the worse for him was a question of +which he never thought. It is certain that he did not blame himself for +using his place as Geoffrey's paid servant to damage Geoffrey in his +affections. And indeed you will agree that he was innocent of any +designed attack upon the lady. Yet Mr. Hadley succeeded in making him +very uncomfortable. + +What most troubled him, I conceive, was the fear of being ridiculous. The +position of a poor tutor aspiring to the favours of the heiress destined +for his master invites the unkind gibe. And Harry could not be sure that +Alison herself was free from the desire to make him a figure of scorn. +Such a suspicion might disconcert the most ardent of lovers. Harry +Boyce, whatever his abilities in the profession, was not that yet. But +the very fact that he had come to feel an ache of longing for Alison made +him for once dread laughter. If he had been manoeuvring for what he could +get by her, or if he had been merely taken by her good looks, he might +have met jeering with a brazen face. But she had engaged his most private +emotions, and to have them made ludicrous would be of all possible +punishments most intolerable. The precise truth of what he felt for her +then was, I suppose, that he wanted to make her his own--wanted to have +all of her in his power; and a gentleman whom the world--and the +lady--are laughing at for an aspiring menial cannot comfortably think +about his right to possess her. + +There was something else. He was not meticulously delicate, but he had a +complete practical sanity. He saw very well that even if Alison, by the +chance of circumstance, had some infatuation for him, she might soon +repent: he saw that even if the affair went with romantic success--a +thing hardly possible--his position and hers might be awkward enough. +Her friends would be long in forgiving either of them, and find ways +enough to hurt them both. Mr. Hadley, confound him, spoke the common +sense of mankind. + +There was one solution--that estimable father. By the time he came back +to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the +ambiguous banner of Colonel Boyce. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + +With grim irony Harry congratulated himself on his decision. When first +he came into the house he heard Alison singing. There was indeed (as he +told himself clearly) nothing wonderful about her voice--it resembled +the divine only in being still and small. Yet he could not (he called +himself still more clearly a fool) keep away from it, and so he slunk +into Lady Waverton's drawing-room. Only duty and stated hours were wont +to drag him there. Lady Waverton showed her appreciation of his unusual +attendance by staring at him across the massed trifles of the room with +sleepy and insolent amazement. But it was not the glassy eyes of Lady +Waverton which convinced Harry that flight was the true wisdom. Over +Alison at the harpsichord, Geoffrey hung tenderly: their shoulders +touched, eyes answered eyes, and miss was radiant. She sang at him with a +naughty archness that song of Mr. Congreve's: + +"Thus to a ripe consenting maid, +Poor old repenting Delia said, +Would you long preserve your lover? + Would you still his goddess reign? +Never let him all discover, + Never let him much obtain. + +Men will admire, adore and die +While wishing at your feet they lie; +But admitting their embraces + Wakes 'em from the golden dream: +Nothing's new besides our faces, + Every woman is the same." + +She contorted her own face into smug folly by way of illustration. Then +she and Geoffrey laughed together. "I vow you're the most deliciously +wicked creature that ever was born a maid." + +"D'ye regret it, sir? Faith, I could not well be born a wife." + +"No, ma'am, that's an honour to be won by care and pains." + +"Pains! Lud, yes, I believe that. But, dear sir, I reckon it the +punishment for folly. Why,"--she chose to see Harry--"why, here is our +knight of the rueful countenance!" + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "It is related of the Egyptians--" + +"God help us," Alison murmured. + +He went on, giggling. "It is related of the Ancient Egyptians that they +ever had a corpse among the guests at their feasts." + +"Were their cooks so bad?" said Alison. + +"To remind them that all men are mortal. Now you see why we keep Harry." + +"I wonder if he looked as happy when he was alive," said Alison, +surveying his wooden face. + +"_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the +dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't +like it known." + +Colonel Boyce, who had listened to the song and the first +coruscations of wit with the condescending smile of a connoisseur, +now exhibited some impatience. "Egad, Harry, why will you dress like +a parson out at elbows?" + +"His customary suit of solemn black," said Geoffrey. + +"He is in mourning for himself, of course," Alison laughed. + +"I have two suits of clothes, ma'am," said Harry meekly. "This is +the better." + +"Poor Harry!" Geoffrey granted him a look of protective affection. "I vow +we are too hard on him, Alison." And then in a lower voice for her +private ear. "A dear, worthy fellow, but--well, what would you have?--of +no spirit." Alison bit her lip. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton," Harry protested, "indeed, I am proud to be the cause +of such wit." + +Colonel Boyce stared at his son with an enigmatic frown. Alison's eyes +brightened. But Geoffrey suspected no guile. "Not witty thyself, dear +lad, but the cause of wit in others, eh? Odds life, Harry, you are +invaluable." + +"'Tis your kindness for me makes you think so, Mr. Waverton. And, to be +sure, I could ask no more than to amuse your lady." + +Alison said tartly, "Oh, it takes little to amuse me, sir." + +"I am sure, ma'am," Harry agreed meekly. + +"It's a happy nature." and he bowed to Geoffrey, humbly congratulating +him on a lady of such simple tastes. + +Geoffrey, who had now had enough of his good tutor, eliminated him by a +compliment or so on Alison's voice and the demand that she should sing +again. He found her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she +would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. +Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of +keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the +world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must +be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so +good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they were merely +his kind condescension. And, oh Lud, it was time she was gone, or poor, +dear Weston would be imagining her slaughtered on the highway. + +Geoffrey could not make much of this, but was pleased to take it as +flattering feminine homage to his magnificence. By way of reward, he +announced an intention of riding home with her carriage. "Faith, you are +too good"--her eyes were modestly hidden--"but then you are too good to +everybody. Is he not, Mr. Boyce?" + +"Oh, ma'am, we all practise on his kindness," Harry said. + +"A good night to your mourning," she said sharply, "dear Lady Waverton." +They kissed. "Colonel Boyce, I hold you to your promise." + +"With all my heart, ma'am. Your devoted." + +She was gone, and Harry, with a look of significance at his father, went +off too.... + +In that shabby upper chamber of his, Harry again offered the Colonel a +choice between the bed and the one chair. Colonel Boyce made a gesture +and an exclamation of impatience, and remained standing. "Now, what the +devil do you want with me?" he complained. + +"I want to be very grateful. I want to enlist with you. When shall +we start?" + +His father frowned, and in a little while made a crooked answer, "Do you +know, Harry, you are too mighty subtle. I was so at your years. It's very +pretty sport, but--well, it won't butter your parsnips. The women can't +tell what to make of it. Having, in general, no humour, pretty +creatures." + +"I am obliged for the sermon, sir. Shall we leave to-morrow?" + +"Egad, you are in a fluster," his father smiled. "Well, to be sure, he is +a teasing fellow, the beautiful Geoffrey." + +Harry made an exclamation. "You'll forgive me, sir, if I say you are +talking nonsense." + +"Oh Lud, yes," his father chuckled. + +"Whether I am agreeable to women, whether Mr. Waverton is agreeable to +me--odds life, sir, I don't trouble my head about such things. Pray, +why should you? As well sit down and cry because my eyes are not the +same colour." + +"No. No. There is something taking about that, Harry," his father +remonstrated placidly. + +"When you please to be in earnest, sir," Harry cried, "if this affair of +yours is in earnest--" "Oh, you may count on that." Colonel Boyce was +still enjoying himself. + +"Then I am ready for it. And the sooner the better." + +"Hurry is a bad horse. The truth is, something more hangs on this affair +than Mr. Harry's whims. Oh, damme, I don't blame you, though. He is +tiresome, our Geoffrey." + +"Why, sir, if we have to waste time, we might waste it more comfortably +than with the Waverton family. Shall we say to-morrow?" + +Colonel Boyce tapped his still excellent teeth. "Patience, patience," he +said, and considered his son gravely. "As for to-morrow, I have friends +to see, and so have you. Your pretty miss engaged me to ride over with +you to her house. And behind the brave Geoffrey's back, if you please. +She is a sly puss, Harry." He expected so obviously an angry answer that +Harry chose to disappoint him. + +"I shall be happy to take leave of Miss Lambourne. And shall I ride +pillion with you, sir? For I have no horse of my own." + +"Bah, dear Geoffrey will lend me the best in the stable." + +"I give you joy of the progress in his affections." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You are pledged for the forenoon then," he +paused. "And as to that little affair of mine--you shall know your part +soon enough." + +"It cannot be too soon, sir." + +"No." Colonel Boyce nodded. "I think it's full time." + +He took leave of his son with what the son thought superfluous +affection. + +Half an hour afterwards he was in Mr. Waverton's room--a place very +precious. Everything in it--and there were many things--had an air of +being strange. Mr. Waverton slept behind curtains of black and silver. +His floor was covered with some stuff like scarlet velvet. There was a +skull in the place of honour on the walls, flanked by two Venetian +pictures of the Virgin, and faced by a blowsy Bacchus and Ariadne from +Flanders. The chairs were of the newest Italian mode, designed rather to +carry as much gilding as possible than to comfort the human form. Colonel +Boyce, regarding them with some apprehension, stood himself before the +fire and waved off Geoffrey's effusive courtesy. + +"I hope you have good news for me, Mr. Waverton?" So he opened the +attack. + +"Why, sir, I have considered my engagements," Geoffrey said +magnificently. "I believe I could hold myself free for some months--if +the enterprise were of weight." + +"You relieve me vastly. I'll not disguise from you, Mr. Waverton, that I +am something anxious to secure you. I could not find a gentleman so well +equipped for this delicate business. You'll observe, 'tis of the first +importance that we should have presence, an air, the _je ne sais quoi_ of +dignity and family." + +"Sir, you are very obliging." Geoffrey swallowed it whole. + +"When I came here I confess I was at my wit's end. Indeed, I had a mind +to go alone. The gentlemen of my acquaintance--either they could not be +trusted with an affair of such value, or they had too much of our English +coarseness to be at ease with it. Faith, when I came to see my poor, dear +Harry, little I thought that in his neighbourhood I should find the very +man for my embassy." The two gentlemen laughed together over the +incompatibility of Harry with gentlemanly diplomacy. + +"Not but what Harry is a faithful, trusty fellow," said Mr. Waverton, +with magnificent condescension. + +"You are very good to say so. A dolt, sir, a dolt; so much the worse for +me. Now, Mr. Waverton, to you I have no need of a word more on the +secrecy of the affair. Though, to be sure, this very morning I had +another note from Cadogan--Marlborough's _ame damnee_ you know--pressing +it on me that nothing should get abroad. So when we go, we'll be off +without a good-bye, and if you must leave a word behind for the anxieties +of my lady, let her know that you are off with me to see the army in +Flanders." + +"I profess, Colonel, you are mighty cautious." + +"Dear sir, we cannot be too cautious in this affair. There's many a +handsome scheme gone awry for the sake of some affectionate farewell. +Mothers, wives, lady-loves--sweet luxuries, Mr. Waverton, but damned +dangerous. Now here's my plan. We'll go riding on an afternoon and not +come back again. Trust my servant to get away quietly with your baggage +and mine. We must travel light, to be sure. We'll go round London. I have +too many friends there, and I want none of them asking where old Noll +Boyce is off to now. Newhaven is the port for us. There is a trusty +fellow there has his orders already. I look to land at Le Havre. Now, the +Prince, by our latest news, is back at St. Germain. As you can guess, Mr. +Waverton, to be seen in Paris would suit my health even less than to be +seen in London. Too many honest Frenchmen have met me in the wars, and, +what's worse, too many of them know me deep in Marlborough's business. I +could not show my face without all King Louis's court talking of some +great matter afoot. What I have in mind is to halt on the road--at +Pontoise maybe--while you ride on with letters to Prince James. I warrant +you they are such, and with such names to them, as will assure you a +noble welcome. It's intended that he should quit St. Germain privately +with you to conduct him to me. Then I warrant you we shall know how to +deal with the lad." He paused and stared at Geoffrey intently, and +gradually a grim humour stole into his eyes. He began to laugh. "Egad, I +envy you, Mr. Waverton. To be in such an affair at your years--bah, I +should have been crazy with pride." + +"You need not doubt that I value the occasion, sir," Geoffrey said +grandly. "Pray, believe that I shall do honour to your confidence." + +"To be sure you will. Odds life, to chaffer with a king's son about +kingdoms, to offer a realm to a prince in exile (if only he will be a +good boy)--it's a fine, stately affair, sir, and you are the very man to +take it in the right vein." + +"Sir, you are most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your +kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you." + +"Egad, you do already," Colonel Boyce smiled, still with some touch of +cruelty in his eyes. + +"Pray, sir, when must we start?" + +"When I know, maybe I shall need to start in an hour." + +"I shall not fail you. I shall want, I suppose, some funds in hand?" + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "Oh Lud, yes, we'll want some money. A matter of +five hundred pounds should serve." + +"I will arrange for it in the morning," said Mr. Waverton, too +magnificent to be startled. "Pray, what clothes shall we be able +to carry?" + +"Damme, that's a grave matter," said Colonel Boyce, and with becoming +gravity discussed it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + +Thus Colonel Boyce blandly arranged the lives of his young friends. It is +believed that he had a peculiar pleasure in manoeuvring his +fellow-creatures from behind a veil of secrecy. For in this he sought not +merely his private profit (though it was never out of his calculations); +he enjoyed his operations for their own sake; he liked his trickery as +trickery; to push and pull people to the place in which he wanted them +without their knowing how or why or to what end they were impelled was to +him a pleasure second to none in life. And on a survey of his whole +career he is to be accounted successful. Though I cannot find that he +ever achieved anything of signal importance even for himself, at one time +or another he brought a great number of people, some of them powerful, +and some of them honourable, under his direction, he had his complete +will of many of them, and was rewarded by the bitter hostility of the +majority. He contrived, in fact, to live just such a life as he liked +best. What more can any man have? + +So he told Harry nothing of his engagement of Mr. Waverton, and Harry, +you have seen, was not likely to guess that anyone would enlist his +Geoffrey for a serious enterprise. On the next morning, indeed, Harry did +remark that Geoffrey was more portentous than usual, but thought nothing +of it. He was embarrassed by thinking about himself. + +There was, as Colonel Boyce predicted, no difficulty about a horse for +Harry. When the Colonel suggested it, Geoffrey showed some satirical +surprise at Harry's daring, but (advising one of the older carriage +horses) bade him take what he would. Colonel Boyce spoke only of riding +with his son. He said nothing of where they were going. Harry wondered +whether Geoffrey would have been so gracious if he had known that Alison +was their destination, and, a new experience for him, felt some qualms of +conscience. It was uncomfortable to use a favour from Geoffrey, even a +trifling favour granted with a sneer, for meeting his lady; still more +uncomfortable to go seek the lady out secretly. But if he announced what +he was doing, there would be instantly something ridiculous about it, and +he would have to swallow much of Geoffrey's humour. Geoffrey might even +come with them, and Alison and he be humorous together--a fate +intolerable. There was indeed an easy way of escape. He had but to stay +away from the lady. But, though he despised himself for it, he desired +infinitely to see her again. She compelled him, as he had never believed +anything outside his own will could compel. After all, it was no such +matter, for he would soon be gone with his father to France. He might +well hope never to see her again. + +So on that ride through the steep wooded lanes to Highgate, his father +found him morose, and complained of it. "Damme, for a young fellow that's +off to his lady-love you are a mighty poor thing, Harry." + +"My lady-love! I have no taste for rich food. I thought it was your lady +we were going to see." + +"What the devil do you mean by that?" Colonel Boyce stared. + +"Oh, fie, sir! Why be ashamed of her?" + +"God knows what you are talking about." Colonel Boyce was extraordinarily +irritated. "Ashamed of whom?" + +"Of the peerless Miss Lambourne, to be sure. Oh, sir, why be so innocent? +How could she resist your charms? And indeed--" + +"Miss Lambourne! What damned nonsense you talk, Harry." + +"I followed your lead, sir," said Harry meekly. "But if we are to talk +sense--when shall we start for France?" + +"You shall know when I know." + +And on that they came to the top of the hill and the gates of the Hall. +The wet weather had yielded to St. Martin's summer. It was a day of +gentle silver-gold sunlight and benign air. With her companion, Mrs. +Weston, Miss Lambourne was walking in the garden. She met the gentlemen +at a turn of the drive by rampant sweetbriers. "Here's our knight of the +rueful countenance, and faith, on Rosinante, poor jade," she patted +Harry's aged carriage horse. "Oh, and he has brought with him Solomon in +all his glory," she made a wonderful curtsy to the splendours of Colonel +Boyce. "Now, who would have dreamt Don Quixote's father was Solomon?" + +"I suppose I take after my mother, ma'am," Harry said meekly. "It's a +hope which often consoles me." + +"Why, they say Solomon had something of a variety in wives, and +among them--" + +Colonel Boyce dismounted with so much noise that the jest was hardly +heard and the end of it altogether lost. + +"You did not tell me"--Mrs. Weston was speaking and seemed to find it +difficult--"Alison, you did not tell me the gentlemen were coming." It +occurred to Harry that she looked very pale and ill. + +"Why, Weston; dear, I could not tell if they would keep troth." She +began to hum: + +"Men were deceivers ever, + One foot on sea, and one on shore, +To one thing constant never." + +"Nay, ma'am, sigh no more for here are we," Colonel Boyce said brusquely. + +"Oh Lud, he overwhelms us with the honour." She laughed. "How can we +entertain him worthily? Sir, will you walk? My poor house and I await +your pleasure." + +"I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I have never had a lady-in-waiting." + +"Oh, celibate virtue!" quoth Miss Lambourne. And so to the house Colonel +Boyce led her and his horse, and a little way behind Harry followed with +his and Mrs. Weston. + +She had nothing to say for herself. She looked so wan, she walked so +slowly, and with such an air of pain that Harry had to say something +about fearing she was not well. Then he felt a fool for his pains; as she +turned in answer and shook her head he saw such a sad, wistful dignity in +her eyes that the small coin of courtesy seemed an absurd offering. A +fancy, to be sure, in itself absurd. Yet he could not make the woman out. +There was something odd and baffling in the way she looked at him. + +She led off with an odd question, "Pray, have you lived much with +Colonel Boyce?" + +"Not I, ma'am." Harry laughed. "If I were not a very wise child I should +hardly know my own father. Lived with him? Not much more than with my +mother, whom I never saw." + +"Oh, did you not?" Her eyes dwelt upon him. After a little while, "Who +brought you up then?" + +"Schools. Half a dozen schools between Taunton and London, and +Westminster at last." + +"Were you happy?" + +"When I had sixpence." + +"But Colonel Boyce is rich!" she cried. + +"I have no evidence of it, ma'am." + +"I cannot understand. You hardly know him. But he comes to you at Lady +Waverton's; he stays with you; he brings you here. I believe you are +closer with him than you say." + +"Why, ma'am, it's mighty kind in you to concern yourself so with my +affairs. And if you can't understand them, faith, no more can I." + +She showed no shame at this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was +sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely +affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and +speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an +appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with +power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He +felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in +suffering, richer in all emotion, and (what was vastly surprising) under +her dullness, her feebleness, of fuller and deeper life. + +From vague, intriguing, bewildering fancies, her voice brought him back +with a start. "He brought you here?" she was asking. + +To be sure, she was wonderfully maladroit. This buzzing, futile curiosity +irritated him again into a sneer. "He is no doubt captivated by the +beautiful eyes of Miss Lambourne." + +"He! Mr. Boyce?"--she corrected herself with a stammer and a +blush--"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to be her father." + +"I think we ought to tell him so." Harry chuckled. "It would do +him good." + +"I think this is not very delicate, sir." Mrs. Weston was still blushing. + +"Egad, ma'am, if you ask questions, you must expect answers," Harry +snapped at her. + +"Why do you sneer at her? Why should you speak coarsely of her? I suppose +you come to the house of your own choice? Or does he make you come?" + +Harry saw no occasion for such excitement. "Why, you take away my breath +with your pronouns. He and she--she and he--pray, let's leave him and +her out of the question. Here's a very pretty garden." + +"Indeed, we need not quarrel, I think." She laughed nervously, and gave +him an odd, shy look. "Pray, do you stay with the Wavertons?" + +"Alas, ma'am, I make your acquaintance and bid you farewell all in one +day." + +"Make my acquaintance!" Again came a nervous laugh, and it was a moment +before she went on. "We have met before to-day." + +"Oh Lud, ma'am, I would desire you forget it." + +"I am to forget it!" she echoed. "Oh ... Oh, you are very proud." + +"Not I, indeed. The truth is, ma'am, that silly affair with our +highwayman, it embarrasses me mightily. I want to live it down. Pray, +help me, and think no more about it." + +"I suppose that is what you say to Alison?" For the first time there was +a touch of fun in her eyes. + +"Word for word, ma'am." + +"Why do you come here then?" + +"As I have the honour to tell you--to say good-bye." + +She checked and stared at him. She was very pale. But now they were at +the steps of the house, and Colonel Boyce, who had resigned his horse to +a groom, turned with Alison to meet them. + +"I am hot with the Colonel's compliments, Weston, dear," she announced. +"I must take a turn with Mr. Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A +convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other +freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to +trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you +have a tender heart." + +It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look +at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him. + +"I am not afraid," Mrs. Weston said. + +"I profess I am abashed," said Colonel Boyce. "Pray, ma'am, be gentle to +my disgrace," and he offered his arm. She bowed and moved away, and he +followed her. + +Harry and Alison, face to face, and sufficiently close, eyed each other +with some amusement. + +"Oh, Mr. Boyce," said she, and shook her head. + +"Oh, Miss Lambourne," Harry exhorted in his turn. + +"You have fallen. You have walked into my parlour." + +"I am the best of sons, ma'am. I endure all things at my father's +orders--even spiders." + +She still eyed him steadily, searching him, and was still amused. She +moved a little so that the admirable flowing lines of her shape were more +marked. Then she said, "Why are you afraid of me?" + +Harry shook his head, smiling. "Vainly is the net spread in the sight of +the bird, ma'am. But, faith, it was a pretty question, and I make you my +compliments." + +"So. Will you walk, sir?" She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of +arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a +yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce--when I meet you in company you +shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me +impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I +suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. +Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why in God's name are you afraid of me?" + +"Miss Lambourne got out of bed very earnest this morning," Harry grinned. +"But oh, let's be grave and honest with all my heart. Why, then, ma'am, +I've to say that a penniless fellow has the right to be afraid of Miss +Lambourne's money bags." + +"Fie, you are no such fool. If one is good company to t'other, which is +rich and which is poor is no more matter than which fair and which dark." + +"In a better world, ma'am, I would believe you." + +"And here you believe kind folks would sneer at Harry Boyce for scenting +an heiress. So you tuck your tail between your legs and go to ground. I +suppose that is called honour, sir." + +"Oh no, ma'am. Taste." + +"La, I offend monsieur's fine taste, do I?" + +"Not often, ma'am. But by all means let us be earnest. I believe I mind +being sneered at no more than my betters. _Par exemple_, ma'am, when you +laugh at me for being shabby, I am not much disturbed." + +She blushed furiously. "I never did." + +"Oh, I must have read your thoughts then," Harry laughed. "Well, what +matters to me is not that folks laugh at me but why they laugh. That they +mock me for being out at elbows I swallow well enough. That they should +sneer at me for making love to a woman's purse would give me a nausea." + +Miss Lambourne was pleased to look modest. "Indeed, sir, I did not know +that you had made love to me." + +"I am obliged by your honesty, ma'am." + +Miss Lambourne looked up and spoke with some vehemence. "It comes +to this, then, you would be beaten by what folks may say about you. +Oh, brave!" + +"Lud, we are all beaten by what folks might say. Would you ride into +London in your shift?" + +"I don't want to ride in my shift," she cried fiercely. + +"Perhaps not, ma'am. But perhaps I don't want to make love to your +purse." + +"Od burn it, sir, am I nothing but a purse?" + +"I leave it to your husband to find out, ma'am, and beg leave to take my +leave. My kind father offers me occupation at a distance, and I embrace +it ardently. Who knows? It may provide me with a coat." + +"You are going away?" + +"I have had the honour to say so." + +"And why, if you please?" + +Harry shrugged. "Because, ma'am, without my assistance, Mr. Waverton can +very well translate Horace into his own sublime verse and Miss Lambourne +into his own proud wife." + +He intended her to rage. What she did was to say softly: "You do not want +to see me that?" + +"I have no ambition to amuse you, ma'am." Miss Lambourne looked +sideways. "What if I don't want you to go away?" + +"Egad, ma'am, I know you don't." Harry laughed. "You amuse yourself +vastly (God knows why) with baiting me." + +"Why, it amuses me." Alison still looked at him sideways. "Don't you +know why?" + +He did not choose to answer. + +"Indeed, then, if I am nought to you why do you care what folks say of +you and me?" + +Harry made a step towards her. "You mean to have it again, do you?" +he muttered. + +"Pray, sir, what?" and still she looked sideways. + +"What you dragged out of me in the wood." + +"Dragged out of--oh!" She blushed, she drew back, and so had occasion to +do something with her cloak which let a glimpse of white neck and bosom +come into the light. "You flatter us both indeed." + +"I'll tell you the truth of us both"--he, too, was flushed: "you are a +curst coquette and I am a curst fool." + +Now she met his eyes fairly, and in hers there was no more laughter, +but she smiled with her lips: "I think you know yourself better than +you know me." + +Harry gripped her hands. "You go about to make me mad with desire for +you, you--" + +"I want you so," she breathed, and leaned back, away from him, her eyes +half veiled. + +He had his arms about her body, held her close. The red lips curved in a +riddle of a smile. He saw dark depths in the shadowed eyes. + +"_Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre_" she murmured. + +Harry exclaimed something, felt her against him, was aware of all her +form--and heard footsteps. + +Alison was out of his grasp, her back to him, plucking a rose. "You will +see me again--you shall see me again. I ride in the wood to-morrow +morning," she muttered. + +"You'll pay for it," Harry growled. + +His father arrived, Mrs. Weston, a servant at their heels. + +Alison came round with a swirl of skirts. "Dear sir, I doubt you have +burnt up dinner by your long passages with my Weston. Come in, come in," +and she led the way. + +For once Colonel Boyce was without an answer. Harry, who was dreading +witticisms, looked at him in surprise, and with more surprise saw that he +looked angry. Mrs. Weston hurried on before them all. Her eyes were red. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + +It seems certain that on this day Alison wore a dress of a blue like +peacock's feathers. That colour--as you may see, she wears it in both the +Kneller and the Thornhill portraits--was much a favourite of hers, and +indeed it set off well the rare beauty of her own hues. The clarity, the +delicacy, of her cheeks were such as you may see on one of those roses +which, white in full flower, have a rosy flush on the outer petals of the +bud, and the same rose open may serve for the likeness of a neck and +bosom which she guarded no more prudishly than her day's fashion +demanded. For all the daintiness, her lips, a proud pair, were richly red +(stained of raspberries, in Charles Hadley's sneer), and with the black +masses of her hair and grey eyes almost as dark, gave her an aspect of, +what neither man nor woman ever denied her, eager and passionate life. +All this was flowering out of her peacock blue velvet, and Harry, I +infer, went mad. + +She never expanded into the larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring +to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, +but the bodice was close laced _a la mode_ to parade the riches of her +bosom. Strong and gloriously alive, and abundantly a woman--so she smiled +at the world. + +It was a delirious hour for Harry, that dinner. He knew that Alison was +pleased to be in the gayest spirits, and his father, in his father's own +flamboyant style, seconded her heartily. He joined in, too, and seemed to +himself loud and vapid, yet had no power of restraint. It was as though +his usual placid, critical mind were detached and watched himself in the +happy exuberance of drunkenness--which was a state unknown to him, for +excess of liquor could only move him with drowsy gloom. And in the midst +of the noise Mrs. Weston sat, pale and silent, a ghost at the feast. + +He was glad when his father spoke of going, though he found himself +talking some folly against it, on Alison's side, who jovially mocked the +Colonel for shyness. But Colonel Boyce, it appeared, had made up his +mind, and Harry was surprised at the masterful ease with which, keeping +the empty fun still loud, he extricated himself and his unwilling son. + +They were all at the door, a noisy, laughing company, and the +horses waited. + +"It's no use, ma'am," Harry cried, "he knows how to get his way, +_monsieur mon pere_." + +"Pray heaven he hath not taught his son the art!" + +"Oh Lud, no, I am the very humble servant of any petticoat." + +"Fie, that's far worse, sir. I see you would still be forgetting which +covered your wife." + +"Never believe him, Madame Alison." quoth the Colonel. "It's a strong +rogue and a masterless man," + +"Why, that's better again. And yet it's not so well if he'll be +mistressless too." + +"Fight it out, child," the Colonel cried. "'Lay on, Macduff, and curst be +she that first cries hold, enough!' Come, Harry, to horse." + +"See, Weston, he deserts me, and merrily!" + +There came upon the scene two other horsemen--Mr. Hadley's gaunt, +one-armed frame and a big, lumbering elder with a rosy face. + +Harry bowed over Alison's hand. It was she who put it to his lips, and +nodding a roguish smile at the other gentlemen, "So you run away, +sir?" she said. + +Harry looked at her and "Give me back my head," he said in a low voice. +"I have lost it somewhere here." + +"Oh, your head!" She laughed. "Well, maybe it's the best part of you." + +He mounted, and Colonel Boyce, already in the saddle, kissed his hand to +her. They rode off, compelled to single file by the plump old gentleman +who held the middle of the road and glowered at them. Mr. Hadley made an +elaborate bow. + +The old gentleman watched them out of sight round the curve of the drive, +then sent his horse on with an oath and, dismounting heavily at Alison's +toes, roared out: "What the devil's this folly, miss?" He made angry +puffing noises. "I vow I heard you laughing at Finchley. Might have heard +him kissing too." + +"Kissing? Oh la, sir, my hand, and so may you." She held it out and made +an impudent little curtsy. "I protest the gentleman is all maidenly. That +is why he and I make so good a match." + +The old gentleman spluttered and was still redder. "Match, miss? What, +the devil!" + +"Oh no, sir. Pray come in, sir. I see you are in a heat, and I fear for a +chill on your gout." + +"You are mighty civil, miss. You are too civil by half," the old +gentleman puffed, and stalked past her. + +Alison stood in the way of Charles Hadley as he made to follow. There was +some pugnacity on her fair face. "It's mighty kind of Mr. Hadley to +concern himself with me." + +"Egad, ma'am, if I come untimely it's pure happy chance." + +She whirled round on that and they went in. "Will you please to drink a +dish of tea, Sir John?" + +"You know I won't, miss." The old gentleman let himself down with a grunt +into the largest chair in her drawing-room. "Now who the plague is this +kissing fellow?" + +"Sure, sir, it's the gentleman Mr. Hadley told you of," said Alison +meekly. She hit both her birds. Mr. Hadley and his uncle looked at each +other. Sir John snorted. Mr. Hadley shrugged and gave an acid laugh. + +"What, what, that fellow of Waverton's? Od burn it, miss, he's a +starveling usher." + +"Oh, sir, don't be hasty. I dare say he'll be fat when he's old." + +"Don't be pert, miss. D'ye know all the county's talking of you and +this fellow?" + +Alison paled a little. She spoke in a still small voice. "I did not know +how much I was in Mr. Hadley's debt. I advise you, Sir John, don't be one +of those who talk." + +"You advise me, miss! Damme, ain't I your guardian?" + +"I am trying to remember that you once were, sir. But you make it +very hard." + +"What the devil do you mean?" + +"I mean--" + +"I vow neither of you knows what you mean," Mr. Hadley drowned her in a +drawl. "I never saw such fire-eaters. Look 'e, Alison, we come riding +over in a civil way and--" + +"Tell me you have been planning a scandal about me. Oh, I vow I am +obliged to you." + +Mr. Hadley laughed. "Lud, child, you ha' known me long enough. Do I deal +in tattle? And if we have seen what we should not ha' seen, if you're hot +at being caught, prithee, whose fault is it? Egad, you know well enough +there's things beneath Miss Lambourne's dignity." + +"Yes, indeed, and I see Mr. Hadley is one of them." + +"You're a fool for your pains, Charles," John shouted. "What's sense to a +wench? Now, miss, I'll have an end of this. You're old Tom Lambourne's +daughter for all your folly, and I'll not have his flesh and blood the +sport of any greedy rogue from the kennel." + +There was a moment of silence. Then Alison, whose colour was grown high, +said quietly, "Pray, Sir John, will you go or shall I? I do not desire to +see you again in my house." + +"Go?" The old gentleman struggled to his feet. "Damme, Charles, the +girl's mad. Yes, miss, I'll go--and go straight to my Lady Waverton. Od +burn it, we'll have your fellow out of the county in an hour. Egad, miss, +you're besotted. Why, what is he?--a trickster, a knight of the road. +'Stand and deliver,' that's my gentleman's trade. He's for your father's +money, you fool." + +"Good-bye, Sir John," Alison said, and turned away. + +With unwonted agility, Mr. Hadley came between her and the door. "You are +not fair to us, Alison," he said. "Prithee, be fair to yourself." She +passed him without a word. Mr. Hadley turned and showed Sir John a rueful +face. "We have made a bad business of it, sir." + +Sir John swore. "Brazen impudence, damme, brazen, I say." + +"Oh Lord! Don't make bad worse." + +Sir John swore again. Upon his rage came Alison's voice singing: + +"When daffodils begin to peer + With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, +Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year, + For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale." + +Sir John spluttered, and went out roaring for his horse. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +YOUNG BLOOD + + +There is reason to believe that from the first Mr. Hadley suspected he +was making a fool of himself. This sensation, the common accompaniment of +an attempt to do your duty, was just of the right strength to ensure that +all his actions should be disastrous. It was, as you see, not strong +enough to restrain him from exciting the dull and choleric mind of Sir +John Burford; it did not avail to direct the ensuing storm. And then, +having first failed to be sufficient check, it developed into a very +paralysis. + +Startled by the furies he had roused in Alison, Mr. Hadley found that +suspicion of his own folly develop into a gruesome conviction. It +compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering +knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. +Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton +will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay +gave it opportunity. + +If the tale had been told to Lady Waverton, no doubt but Harry would have +been banished from Tetherdown that night. It is likely, indeed, that the +ultimate fates of Alison and Harry would have been the same. But many +antecedent adventures must have been different or superfluous. + +Mr. Hadley was now full of common sense. Mr. Hadley sagely argued with +his uncle that they would do more harm than good by carrying their tale +to Lady Waverton. The woman was a fool in grain, and whatever she did +would surely do it in the silliest way. Tell her a word, and she would +swiftly give birth to a scandal which the world would not willingly let +die, in which Mr. Harry Boyce, if he were indeed the knave of their +hypothesis, might easily find a means to strengthen his grip of Alison. +It was better to wait and (so Mr. Hadley with a sour smile) "see which +way the cat jumped." + +Perhaps Madame Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether +infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have +waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd +enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before--remember the Scottish +lord's son--and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a +chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that +she must needs fall into the arms of any man who made eyes at her. After +all, likely enough she was but amusing herself with Mr. Boyce. Not a very +delicate business, but they were full-blooded folk, the Lambournes. +Remember old Tom, her father: there was a jolly bluff rogue. Well, if +miss was but having her fling, it would do no good to tease her. + +Thus Mr. Hadley, cautiously recoiling, doubting or hoping he was making +the best of things, brought Sir John, in spite of some boilings over, +safe back to his home and his jovial daughter. + +When Harry and his father rode away from Alison, for once in a while +Harry found his father's mood in tune with his own. Colonel Boyce +suddenly relapsed from hilarity into a perfect silence. He soon reined +his horse to a walk, and his wonted alert, soldierly bearing suffered +eclipse. He gave at the back, he was thoughtful, he was melancholy--a +very comfortable companion. + +"Pray, sir, when do we start for France?" said Harry at length. + +"What's that? Egad, you're in a hurry, ain't you? Not to-night nor yet +to-morrow. Time enough, time enough. Make the best of it, Harry." It +occurred to Harry that his father was preoccupied. + +But with that he did not concern himself. He was in too much tumult. It +appeared that he would be able to meet Alison in the morning. He did +not know whether he was glad. He had been telling himself that he would +have snatched at the excuse to fail her, and yet was not sure that if +his father had announced instant departure he would not have bidden his +father to the devil. But still in a fashion he was angry, in a degree +he was frightened. He knew that he would go meet the girl now; he could +not help himself--an exasperating state. And when he was with her--her +presence now set all his nature rioting--with other folk by, it was +hard enough to be sane; when he was alone with her in the wood, what +would the wild wench be to him before they parted? There was no love in +him. He had no tenderness for her, he did not want to cherish her, +serve her, glorify her. Only she made him mad with passion. But, +according to his private lights, he was honest, and wished to be, and +was therefore commanded to try to save the girl from his wicked will +and hers. He despised himself for the gleam of cautious duty. What in +the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round +swell of her breast? + +"Damme, Harry, a man's a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in +upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or +a trifle of power?" + +Harry stared at him. "Lord, sir, why are you so moral?" + +And then Colonel Boyce began to laugh. "I grow old, I think. Oh, the +devil, I never had regrets worse than the morning's headache for last +night's wine. I suppose if you live long enough, life's a procession of +morning headaches. Well, I vow I've not lived long enough yet, Harry." + +"I dare say you are the best judge," Harry admitted. + +"There's a higher court, eh? Who knows? Maybe we are all the toys of +chance." He shrugged. "Why then, damme, I have never been afraid to take +what I chose and wait for the bill. Dodge it, or pay it. Odso, there is +no other way for a hungry man." + +"Lord, sir, now you are philosophical! What's the matter?" + +"Humph, I suppose my stomach is weakening," said Colonel Boyce. "I don't +digest things as I did." + +In this pensive temper they came back to Tetherdown. The Colonel's +servant was waiting for him with letters, and he was seen no more that +night. Harry did not know till afterwards that Mr. Waverton, as well as +letters, was taken to the Colonel's room. + +Madame Alison was left by the exhortations of her anxious friends feeling +defiant of all the world. It is a comfortable condition, but, for a +passionate girl of twenty-two, fruitful of delusions. + +Alison was so far happier than Harry in that she knew what she wanted. +You may wonder if you will how Harry Boyce, with nothing handsome about +him but his legs, could rouse in the girl just such a wild longing as her +beauty set ablaze in him. These problems, comforting to the conceit of +man, are numerous. And, as usual, madame had dreamed her gentleman into a +wonderful fellow. The overthrow of the highwayman became from the first a +splendid achievement. Sure, Mr. Boyce must be of rare courage and +strength, even as he was deliciously adroit, and that insolent air with +which he did his devoir gave one a sweet thrill. + +Afterwards, he progressed in her imagination from victory to victory. +What served him best was his capacity for puzzling her. That its hero +should want to keep such a gallant affair secret proved him of amazing +modesty or amazing pride--perhaps both--a titillating combination. It +surprised her more that he should dare rebuff the advances of Miss +Lambourne. Madame knew very well the power of her beauty over men. If she +gave one half an inch she expected that he should be instantly mad to get +an ell of her. But here was Mr. Boyce, though she gave him a good many +inches, as supercilious about her as if he were a woman. It was +incredible that the creature had no warm blood in him. Indeed, she had +proof--she could still make herself feel the ache of his grasp in the +wood--that he was on occasion as fierce as any woman need want a man. +Why, then, monsieur must be defying her out of wanton pride. A marvellous +fellow, who dared think himself too good for her. + +She made no account of all his wise, honest talk about being poor while +she was rich. To her temper it was impossible that a man who wanted her +in his arms should stop to weigh his purse and hers, or to consider what +the world would say of him for wooing her. All that must be mere fencing, +mere mockery. + +To be sure, he fenced mighty cleverly. The smug meekness which he put on +when she attacked him before others was bewildering. If she had never +seen him in action she must have been deceived. And, faith, it seemed +certain that he wanted to deceive her, to put her off, to put her aside. +The haughty gentleman dared believe that he could be very comfortable +without Miss Lambourne. It must not be allowed. He was by far too fine a +fellow to be let go his way. Faith, it was mighty noble, this +self-sufficient power of his, capable of anything, caring for nothing, +hiding itself behind an impenetrable mask, and living a secret life of +its own. She was on fire to enter into him and take possession, and use +him for herself. + +So she was driven by a double need, knew it, and was not the least +ashamed. She longed to have Harry Boyce in her arms and his grip cruel +upon her. But also she wanted to conquer him and hold his mind at her +order. She imagined him under her direction winning all manner of fame. +And she believed herself mightily in love.... + +There is a moss on the birch trunks which makes a colour of singular +charm, a soft, delicate, grey green. A hood of that colour embraced +Alison's black hair and the glow of the dark eyes and her raspberry lips. +The cloak of the same colour she drew close about her with one gauntleted +hand, so that it confessed her shape. + +The birches could still show a few golden leaves, though each moment +another went whirling away as the crests bowed and tossed before the +wind. In the brown bracken beneath Harry Boyce stood waiting. His graces +were set off with his customary rusty black. His hat was well down upon +his bobwig, and he hunched his shoulders against the wind, making a +picture of melancholy discomfort. He rocked to and fro a little, +according to a habit of his when he was excited. + +Alison was very close to him before she stopped. + +"What have you come for?" he growled. + +She drew a breath, and then, very quietly, "For you," she said. + +"You have had enough fun with me, ma'am." + +Her breast was touching him, and he did not draw back. + +"Then why did you come?" She laughed. + +"Because I'm a fool." + +"A fool to want me?" + +"By God, yes. You know that, you slut." + +"No. You would be a fool if you didn't, you--man." + +"Be careful." Harry flushed. + +"Oh Lud, was I made to be careful?" + +He gripped her hand, and, after a moment, "Take off your hood," he +muttered. + +"Is that all?" She laughed, and let it fall from hair and neck, and +looked as though sunlight had flashed out at her. "Honest gentleman, you +are lightly satisfied." + +"So are not you, I vow." + +She was pleased to answer that with a scrap of a song: + +"Jog on, jog on the footpath way, + And merrily hent the stile-a! +A merry heart goes all the way, + A sad one tires in a mile-a." + +"Faith, yours is a mighty sad one, Harry. Pray, what are you the better +for stripping me of this?" She flirted the hood. + +"I can see those wicked colours of yours. Lord, what a fool is a man to +go mad for a show of pink and white!" + +"And is that all I am?" + +Harry shrugged. "Item--a pair of eyes that look sideways; item--a woman's +body with arms and sufficient legs." + +"Lud, it's an inventory! I'm for sale, then. Well, what's your bid?" + +"I've a shilling in my pocket ma'am and want it to buy tobacco." + +"Oh, silly, what does a man pay for a woman?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, nothing, if she's worth buying." + +Then Alison said softly, "Going--going--gone," and clapped her hands +and laughed. + +"You go beyond me at least," Harry said in a moment. + +She put her hands behind her and leaned forward till her bosom pressed +upon him lightly, and then, with her head tilted back so that he saw the +white curve from under her chin, and the line of the blue vein in it, +"You want me, Harry," she said. + +"You know that too well, by God." + +"Too well for what, sir?" + +"Too well for my peace, ma'am." He flushed. + +"His peace!" She laughed. "Oh Lud, the dear man wants peace!" + +He flung himself upon her, holding her to him as she staggered back, and +kissed her till she was gasping for breath, gripped her head to hold it +against his kisses, buried his face in the fragrance of her neck. She +gave herself, her arms still behind her, offering the swell of her +breasts to him, her eyes gay.... + +"You are mine, now. You're mine, do you hear?" he said unsteadily. + +"I want you," she smiled, and was crushed again. + +When he let her go, it was to step back and look at her, wondering and +intent. She stood something less than her full height, her bosom beating +fast. She was all flushed and smiling, but now her eyes were dim and they +met his shyly. + +"Egad, you're exalting," he said with a wry smile. + +"I feel all power when you grasp at me so--power--just power." + +"No, faith, you are not. When I hold you to me, when you yield for me, I +am all the power there is. Damme, the very life of the world." + +"So then," she looked at him through her eyelashes, "and have it so. For +it's I who give you all." + +"In effect," Harry said: and then, "go to, you make us both mad." + +"I am content." + +"Yes, and for how long?" + +She made an exclamation. "Have I worn out the poor gentleman already?" + +"Would you keep yourself for me? Will you wait?" + +"Why, what have we to wait for now?" + +"Till I am something more than this shabby usher." + +"I despise you when you talk so." Her face flamed. "Fie, what's a word +and a coat? You have lived with me in your arms. You are what I make of +you then. Is it enough, Harry, is it not enough?" + +"I'll come to your arms something better before I come again. I am off +to France." + +"Ah!" Then she studied him for a little while. "You meant to run away, +then. Oh, brave Harry! Oh, wise! Pray, are you not ashamed?" + +"Yes, shame's the only wear." + +"I'll not spare you, I vow." + +"Egad, ma'am, mercy never was a virtue of yours." + +"Is it mercy you want in a woman?" + +"I'll take what I want, not ask for it." + +"Why, now you brag! And if there is not in me what monsieur wants?" + +"So much the worse for us both. But you should have thought of +that before." + +"Faith, Harry, you take it sombrely." She made a wry mouth at him. "Pluck +up heart. I vow I'll satisfy you." + +"You'll not deny me anything you have." + +She paused a moment. "Amen, so be it. And must we never smile again?" + +"I wonder"--he took her hands; "I wonder, will you be smiling to-morrow +when I am away to France." + +"Oh, are you still set on that fancy?" She gave a contemptuous laugh. +"Prithee, Harry, shall I like you the better for waiting till you have +French lace at your neck and a frenchified air?" + +"You'll please to wait till I bring Miss Lambourne a fellow who has done +something more than snuffle over a servitor's books. I want to prove +myself, Alison." + +"You have proved yourself on me, sir. What, am I a lean wench in despair +to hunger for a snuffling servitor? If you were that, I were not for you. +But I know you better, God help me, my Lord Lucifer. Why then, take the +goods the gods provide you and say grace over me." Harry shook his head, +smiling. "Lord, it's a mule! Pray what do you look to do in France?" + +"I am pledged to my father and his policies--to go poking behind the +curtains of the war and deal with the go-betweens of princes." + +"So. You talk big. Well, I like to hear it. What is the business?" + +"My father, if you believe him, has Marlborough's secrets in his pocket +and is sent to chaffer for him. You may guess where and why. Queen Anne +hath a brother." + +Her eyes sparkled. "You like the adventure, Harry?" + +"Egad, I begin to think so." + +"I love you for that!" she cried, and it was the first time she spoke the +word. "Why then, first go with me to church and call me wife!" + +He drew in his breath. "By God, do you mean that?" + +"Why, don't you mean me honourably?" She gave an unsteady laugh, her eyes +mistily kind. + +He sprang at her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It was always in after life alleged by Mr. Hadley that his steady +interest in the family of his uncle was nothing but a desire to keep the +old gentleman out of mischief. Sir John Burford was indeed of a temper +too irascible to be safe with his bucolically English mind: a man who in +throwing tankards at his servants and challenges at his friends was a +source of continuous anxiety to his reasonable kinsfolk. But he had also +a daughter. + +She received the benevolent Mr. Hadley when on the morning after the +explosions in Alison's house he came to see whether Sir John was still +dangerous or his daughter any thinner. It was the latter purpose which he +professed to Susan Burford. She was not annoyed. In her cradle she had +been instructed that she was a jolly, fat girl, and through life she +accepted the status, like every other which was given her, with great +good humour. She was, in fact, no fatter than serves to give a tall woman +an air of genial well-being. It was conjectured by her friends that her +father, needing all his irascibility for himself, had allowed her to +inherit only his physical qualities. She had indeed the largeness of Sir +John and his open countenance. Her supreme equanimity perhaps came from +her mother. She was by a dozen years at least younger than Mr. Hadley, +and always thought him a very clever boy. + +"Sir John is gone out to the pigs, Mr. Hadley. Perhaps you'll go too," +she said, and looked innocent. + +"Well, they are peaceful company, Susan. And you're so surly." + +"I thought you would find some joke in that," said Susan, with kindly +satisfaction. + +"Damme, don't be so maternal. It's cloying to the male. Be discreet, +Susan. You will talk as though you had weaned me but a year or two, and +still wanted me at the breast." + +Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir +John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of." + +"Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and +Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You +don't know what I mean." + +"To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?" + +"Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you +think men are nought but casks--things to fill with drink and victuals. +Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and +smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and +so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I +know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, +Susan; just one of those plump, spacious dames as healthy as milk and +peaches, and blandly jolly about it." + +Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and +patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often +talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay +dinner, Mr. Hadley?" + +"Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?" + +Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you +will say. Can you?" + +"You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth +is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a +guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you +thinking, ma'am?" + +"Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here +talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for +the guinea. + +Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?" + +"Yes, indeed. You're so comical." + +Mr. Hadley surrendered the guinea, looked at his empty left sleeve and +made a wry face. "Lord, yes, I am comical enough. A lop-sided grotesque." + +"That's not fair!" He had at last made her blush. "You know well I did +not mean that. I think it makes you look--noble." + +"It makes me feel a fool," said Mr. Hadley. "Lord, Susan, one arm's not +enough to go round you." + +"So we'll kill the Elstree hog for Christmas;" that apposite +interruption came in her father's robust voice. Sir John strode rolling +in. "What, Charles! In very good time, egad. You can come with me." + +"What, sir, back to the swine? I profess Susan makes as pretty company." + +Sir John was pleased to laugh. "Ay, the wench pays for her victuals, too. +Damme, Sue, you look good enough to eat." He chucked her chin paternally. +"Well, my lad, I ha' thought over that business and I'm taking horse to +ride over to Tetherdown." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley. "And what then, sir?" + +"I'll talk to Master Geoffrey." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley again. "Do it delicately." + +"Delicate be damned," said Sir John. + +"I had better ride with you," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Good boy. Here, Roger--Mr. Hadley's horse." + +Susan stood up. "Lud, sir, you will not be here to dinner then?" + +Sir John shook his head. Mr. Hadley scratched his chin. "I am not so sure +that Geoffrey will give us a dinner," said he. + +"Why, sir," Susan was interested, "what's your business with Mr. +Waverton?" + +"To tell him he's a fool, wench," quoth Sir John. + +"Oh. And will Mr. Waverton like that?" + +"Like it! Odso, he'll like it well enough if he has sense." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "That's logic, faith. Well, sir, have with you." + +So off they rode. On the way Sir John was pleased to expound to Mr. +Hadley the profound sagacity of his new plan. He would rally Geoffrey on +his flaccidity; accuse him of being an oaf; and, describing all the while +in an inflammatory manner the charms of Alison, hint that Geoffrey's +tutor had ambitions after them. "And if that don't wake up my gentleman, +he may go to the devil for me and deserve it." + +It crossed Mr. Hadley's lucid mind that a gentleman who required so much +waking up did not deserve Miss Lambourne. But she was quite capable of +discovering that for herself, if indeed she had not already. And +certainly it would do Geoffrey no harm to be made uncomfortable. So Mr. +Hadley rode on with right good will. + +But when they came to Tetherdown it was announced that Mr. Waverton had +gone riding. "Why, then we'll wait for him." Sir John strode in. The +butler looked dubious. Mr. Waverton had said nothing of when he would +come back. + +"Why the devil should he?" Sir John stretched his legs before the fire. +"He'll dine, won't he?" + +The butler bowed. + +"Prithee, William," says Mr. Hadley, "is Mr. Boyce in the house?" + +"Mr. Boyce, sir, is gone walking." + +Mr. Hadley shrugged. "Odso, away with you," Sir John waved the man off. +"Let my lady know we are here." + +The butler coughed. "My lady is in bed, Sir John." + +"What, still?" quoth Sir John, for it was close upon noon. + +"Hath been afoot, Sir John. But took to her bed half an hour since." + +"What, what? Is she ailing?" + +The butler could not say, but looked a volume of secrets, so that Sir +John swore him out of the room. + +"Vaporous old wench, Charles," Sir John snorted. And a second time Mr. +Hadley shrugged. + +In a little while the butler came back even more puffed up. Her ladyship +hoped to receive the gentlemen in half an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN HASTE + + +Oh, Harry, Harry, I give in. I am the weaker vessel. At least, I have the +shorter legs." + +"What, you're asking me to spare you already? Lord, how will you bear me +as a husband?" + +They were under the great beeches in Hampstead Lane, breasting the rise +to the heath, on their march for that kindly chapel, where, if you dined +in the tavern annexed, the incumbent would marry you for nothing, charge +but the five shillings, cost price of the Queen's licence, and ask no +questions. + +Harry shortened his stride, and looked down with grim amusement at +Alison's breathless bosom. + +"I believe you mean to make an end of me before you have begun with me," +she panted. "Lord, sir, what a figure you'll cut if you bring me to +church too faint to say, 'I will.'" + +"Why, the Levite would but take it for maiden modesty. Not knowing you." + +"You are trying to play the brute. It won't save you, Harry. I shan't be +frightened." + +"You! No, faith, it's I. I am beside myself with terror." + +"I do believe that's true!" She laughed at him. "But, oh, dear +sir, why?" + +"Lest I should not fulfil the heroical expectations of Miss Lambourne. +Confess it, ma'am; you count on me to exalt you into heavens of ecstasy, +to bewilder the world with my glories, and be shaved by breakfast-time." + +"To be sure, I'll always expect the impossible of you." + +"There it is. I suppose you expect me to begin by creating a +wedding-ring." + +"Why, you have created me." + +"Oh, no, no, no. You're a splendid iniquity, but not mine, I vow." + +"This woman of yours never lived till you made her. I profess Miss +Lambourne was ever known for a dull cold thing born 'to suckle fools and +chronicle small beer.'" + +"So she wrote me down her property. Egad, ma'am, it was very natural." + +"You know what you have made of me," Alison said. + +"God knows what you'll make of me. And now in the matter of the ring--" + +"Oh Lud, what a trivial thing is a man!" She drew off her glove and held +out a hand with two rings on it. "Marry me with which you will." One was +a plain piece of gold, paler than the common, carved into an odd device +of a snake biting its tail. + +"With thine own ring I thee wed," Harry said, and took it off. "I +take you to witness, Mrs. Alison, the snake was in your paradise +before I came." + +They were across the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane +beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a +garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the +tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked dead +and desolate. + +Harry forced open the sticking door and strode in, Madame Alison +loitering behind. He was met by a dirty lad whose gaping clothes were +half hidden by a leather apron, and whose shoes protruded straw--a lad +who smelt of the stable and small beer. + +"Where's the priest?" said Harry. + +"In the tap," said the boy, and shuffled off. + +There came out into the passage, wheezing and wiping his chops, a little +bloated man in a cassock, with his bands under his right ear. He leered +at Harry and tried to look round him at Alison. + +"You're out of season, my lord," said he. "These chill rains, they play +the mischief with lusty blood. Go to, you'll not be denied, won't you? Do +you dine here?" + +"We have no time for it." + +"What, you're hasty, ain't you?" He gave a hoarse laugh. "There's my fee +to pay then." + +"Here's a guinea to pay for all," said Harry. + +The dirty fist took it, the little red eyes peered at it closely, the +dirty mouth bit it and was satisfied. "Go you round to the chapel door +and wait. Lord, but man and wench never had to wait for me." He +waddled off. + +Harry turned upon Alison. "So with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he +said, with a crooked smile. "God give you joy of them. I vow I was never +so frightened of spending a guinea." + +"Why, d'ye doubt if I'm worth it? Nay, sir, I'm honest stuff and +challenge any trial." + +Harry looked down at her and was met by eyes as bold as his own. + +The chapel door opened, and the little priest beckoned them in. A pair of +witnesses were already posted by the altar, the dirty lad of the tavern +and a shock-headed wench. + +"Licence first, licence first." The parson bustled off to a table in a +corner. "I warrant you we do things decently in Sion. Aye, and tightly, +my pretty. Never a lawyer can undo my knots, never fear." + +He scratched laboriously over their names, while the dank smell of the +place sank into them. + +They were marched to the altar. A hoarse muttering poured from the +priest. He made no pretence of solemnity or even of meaning. He was +concerned only to make an end and have done with them. Of all the service +they heard nothing clearly but what they said themselves, and while they +were deliberate over that the little priest grunted and puffed at them. + +He ended with a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There +was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled +something for their names and shambled off. + +"Let's breathe some free air," said Harry, and laid hold of his wife. + +The parson chuckled. "Free? You'll never be free again, my lord. I can +see that in madame's eye. What, you ha' sold your birthright for a mess +of pottage, ain't you? And mighty savoury pottage, too, says you." He +rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. "Softly now, softly, madame wants +her certificate. Madame wants to warrant herself a lawful married wife, +if you don't ... There, my lady. And happy to marry you again any day at +the same price." + +They were away from him at last and in clean air stretching their legs up +the hill again. + +"Poor Harry!" Alison laughed. "Before you looked like a man fighting +for his life. Now you look like a man going to be hanged. Dear lad! +Pray how much would you give to escape me now?" She put her arm into +his. He let her shorten his stride a little, but made no other +confession of her existence. "Fie, Harry, it's over early to repent. In +all reason you should first be sure of your sin. Who knows? I may not +be deadly after all. 'Alack,' says he, 'I will not be comforted. Egad, +the world's a cheat. A fool and his folly are soon parted they told me, +and here am I tied to her till death us do part. So, a halter, gratis, +for God's sake.'" + +"You're full of other folks' nonsense, Mrs. Boyce," said Harry with a +grim look at her. + +"Oh, noble name!" She bobbed a curtsy. "Full? I am full of nothing but +fasting, aye," she sighed, and turned up her eyes--"fasting from all but +our sacrament." + +They were upon the ridge of the heath and Harry checked her, and stood +looking away over the wide prospect of mist-veiled meadow and dim blue +woods. She was beginning her mocking chatter again when he broke in +with, "Ods life, ha' done!" and turned to look deep into her eyes. +"There's mystery in this, and I think you see nothing of it." + +"Why, yes, faith. If you were no mystery, should I want you? If you had +discovered all of me, would you want me?" + +"Bah, what do we know of living, you and I, or--or of love?" + +She laughed, with a scrap of twisted song: + +"Most living is feigning. +Most loving mere folly, +Then heigho the holly, +This life is most jolly." + +He shrugged and marched her on again. + +"Pray, sir, will you dine at home?" she said demurely. + +Harry flushed. "I must go tell my father and all," he growled. "I'll be +with you soon enough, madame wife." + +"Oh brave! Dear sir, have with you. I must see Geoffrey's face." + +"Egad, let's be decent!" Harry cried. + +"Decent! For shame, sir! What's more decent than man and wife?" + +"Man and wife!" Harry echoed it with a sour laugh. "Do you feel a wife? I +never felt less of a man." + +"You shall be satisfied," she said, and looked at him gravely. "And I--I +am not afraid, Harry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + +Mr. Hadley and Sir John Burford in the hall at Tetherdown looked at each +other across the fire. "Would you call for a pipe now, Charles?" says Sir +John, fidgeting. + +"There'll be none in the house, sir. Geoffrey has no stomach for +tobacco." + +"Damme, if I know what he hath a stomach for," Sir John grumbled, and +kicked at the burning logs. "He don't eat no more than an old woman, nor +drink so much as a young miss. Ain't the half-hour gone, Charles?" + +"That's a poetic phrase, sir. It means a year or so--while she's tiring +her hair." + +"What and painting her face, too? Same as Jezebel." + +My lady's waiting-woman, Arabella, came in. She minced in the manner of +her mistress, but, being a foot shorter, with different effect. She stood +before Sir John, who had the largest chair, and stared at him, with +languid insolence. "Ods my life, don't ogle me, woman," says he. + +"At your leisure, sir, if you please." She tossed her head. + +"Leisure! Oh Lord, I'm at leisure, thank 'e." + +Arabella sniffed. + +"I think you are in madame's chair, sir," Mr. Hadley explained. + +"What, then? She ain't here, nor I don't carry the plague." + +"The lady-in-waiting wants to compose it for madame." + +"Compose!" Sir John exploded an oath, and jumped up. "I ha'n't +decomposed it." + +Arabella dusted the chair, wheeled it a little this way and that, put two +footstools before it, and three cushions into it, contemplated them for +some time, and then shifted them a little. After which she minced out +with a great sigh. + +"Good God!" says Sir John. + +"I wonder," says Mr. Hadley--"I wonder if we've come to take the breeks +off a Highlander?" + +"What's your will?" Sir John gasped. + +"I wonder if my lady knows all we can tell her. It might have made her +hypochondriac." + +"Hip who? Odso, I am hipped myself." + +My lady came. She had so much flowing drapery about her that she seemed +all robes. She moved very slowly, she was bowed, and she leaned upon the +shoulder of Arabella. With care she deposited herself in the big chair. +Arabella arranged her draperies, arranged the cushion, and stood aside. +My lady lay back, put back the lace about her head, and showed them her +large pale face and sighed. "You are welcome, gentlemen," said she. "You +are vastly kind." + +"Odso, ma'am, what's the matter?" Sir John cried. + +"Why, have you not heard? Arabella, he has not heard!" My lady was +convulsed, and clutched at the maid, who comforted her with a +scent-bottle. "He has gone!" she sighed. "He has gone." + +"What the devil! Who the devil?" + +My lady recovered herself. From somewhere in her voluminous folds she +produced a letter. "If it would please you, be patient with me. My +unhappy eyes." She dabbed at them with a handful of lace, and read: + +"My lady, my mother,--I have but time for these few unkempt lines, +wherein to bid you for a while farewell. My good friend, Colonel Boyce, +has favoured me with an occasion to go see something of the warring world +beyond the sea. And I, since the inglorious leisure of the hearth irks my +blood, heartily company with him. It needs not that you indulge in tears, +save such as must fall for my absence. I seek honour. So, with a son's +kiss, I leave you, my mother. G.W." + +On which his mother's voice broke, and she wept. + +"Lord, what a fop!" said Sir John. My lady swelled in her draperies. "So +he's gone to the war, has he? Odso, I didn't think he had it in him." + +"Sir, if you jeer at my bereavement!" my lady sobbed. + +"And where's Harry Boyce?" says Mr. Hadley. + +Sir John stared at him. "Why, seeking honour too, ain't he? What's in +your head, Charles?" + +"This is rude," my lady sobbed; "this is brutal. The tutor! Oh, heaven, +what is the tutor to me? I would to God I had never seen him--him nor his +wicked father." + +Sir John tugged at Mr. Hadley's empty sleeve and drew him aside. "What +are you pointing at, Charles? D'ye mean the two rogues have took Geoffrey +off to make away with him between 'em?" + +"Lord, sir, you've a villainous imagination." Mr. Hadley grinned. "I mean +no such matter. Nay, I'll lay a guinea, Harry Boyce is not gone at all." + +"Sir John"--my lady raised herself and was shrill--"what are you +whispering there?" + +"What, what? You mean the old fellow took Geoffrey off to leave the young +fellow a clear field with Ally Lambourne? Odso, that's devilish deep, +ain't it? But we can set the young fellow packing, my lad. We--" + +"Sir John!" my lady's voice rose higher yet. + +"Coming, ma'am, coming. Od burn my heart and soul!" That last invocation +was not directed at her but an invading tumult. + +The butler entered backwards, protesting, between two men who did not +take off their hats. They were in riding-boots and cloaks, and splashed +from the road. They had pistol butts ostentatious in their side pockets, +and one carried some papers in his hand. + +"Stand back, my bully, stand back, or you'll smell Newgate," says he to +the butler. + +"Burn your impudence," Sir John roared, and strode forward. + +"In the Queen's name. Messengers of the Secretary of State, with his +warrant." The man waved his papers under Sir John's nose. "Master of the +house, are you?" + +"I am Sir John Burford of Finchley, and be hanged to you." + +"There is the mistress of the house, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley + +"Thank'e. In the Queen's name, ma'am. Warrants to take Oliver Boyce, +Colonel, and Geoffrey Waverton, Esquire." + +My lady shrieked, fell back, and was understood to be fainting. + +"You come too late, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley. "Your foxes be gone away." + +The man tapped his nose and grinned. "That won't do, sir. Set about it, +Joe," and he nudged his fellow. + +"What's the charge against them?" says Mr. Hadley. + +The man laughed. "Come, sir, you know better than that. I ain't here to +answer questions." Mr. Hadley put his hand in his pocket. The man grinned +and shook his head, and went out pushing his comrade in front of him. Mr. +Hadley followed them. As soon as they were out in the corridor and the +door was shut behind them, the man turned and held out his hand to Mr. +Hadley, who dropped into it a couple of guineas. "Lord, now, what did you +think it was?" says the messenger genially. "Treasonable +correspondence--Pretender--Lewis le Grand and so forth. Quite +gentleman-like, d'ye smoke me?" + +"Prithee, who set you on?" says Mr. Hadley. + +"Now you go too far, ecod, you do. I don't mind obliging a gentleman, +but you want to lose me my place. We'll be searching the house, by +your leave." + +Off they went, and Mr. Hadley went back to my lady. She had been revived, +and the air was heavy with scent. She fluttered her hands at the +ministering Arabella and said faintly, "What is it, Charles?" + +"It seems there's some talk of their having dealings with the Pretender." + +"Lord bless my soul," Sir John puffed. + +"The Pretender?" Lady Waverton smiled through her powder. "La, now, +Geoffrey's father always had a kindness for the young Prince." + +"I vow, ma'am, you take it with a fine spirit," says Mr. Hadley in +some surprise. + +"You'll find, Mr. Hadley, that such families as ours, the older families, +know how to bear themselves in this cause." + +Sir John stared at her and puffed the louder, and muttered very audibly, +"Here's a turnabout!" + +"Oh, ma'am, to be sure it's a well-born party," Mr. Hadley shrugged. +"D'ye give us leave to remain and see that these fellows show no +impudence?" + +"Oh, sir, you are very obliging," says my lady superciliously. + +Mr. Hadley bowed, and withdrew to the recess of a window with Sir John +following. "Here's a queer thing, Charles. Did ever you know Master +Geoffrey was a Jacobite?" Mr. Hadley shook his head. "Nor this Colonel +Boyce neither?" + +"I never saw a Jacobite in so good a coat, and I never thought Geoffrey +would risk his coat for any king. And thirdly and lastly, I never knew +Whitehall put itself out in these days whether a man was Jacobite or no. +Why, damme, they be all half Jacobites themselves, from the Queen down." + +"Aye, aye," says Sir John sagely. "A devilish queer thing indeed." + +And on that came Alison and Harry--Alison rosy and smiling, Harry a +pale and deliberate appendage. "Dear Lady Waverton, let me present +my husband." + +Lady Waverton sat up straight. Lady Waverton embraced the pair of them +with a bewildered glare. + +"I married him this morning," Alison laughed. + +"Alison, this is unmaidenly jesting," said my lady feebly. + +"Why, if it were, so it might be. But the truth is, it's unmaidenly +truth. For I am Mrs. Harry Boyce. Give me joy." + +"Joy!" my lady gasped. "It's unworthy! It's cruel! Oh, Geoffrey, +Geoffrey! How dare you?" She was again understood to faint. + +Through the rustle of Arabella and the odours of scent came the +explosions of Sir John, swearing. + +Mr. Hadley moved forward, and, ignoring Alison, addressed himself to +Harry. "Pray, sir, did you know that Mr. Waverton this morning left +Tetherdown in your father's company, your father taking him, as he says +in a letter, to the wars?" + +"Knew?" Lady Waverton chose to speak out of her swoon. "To be sure they +knew. They would not have dared else. Dear Geoffrey! A villain! And you, +miss--you whom he trusted! Oh!" She again took scent. + +"La, ma'am, he trusted me no more than I him. You are not well, I think." + +"You give me news, Mr. Hadley," Harry said. "I knew that my father meant +to go abroad, and understood that I was to go with him." + +"Perhaps you'll go after him." Mr. Hadley shrugged and turned away. + +"Why, what's all this, Harry?" Alison laughed. "Your wise father hath +chosen to take Geoffrey instead of you?" + +"In spite of my modesty, I'm surprised, ma'am," says Harry. + +"Burn your impudent face," quoth Sir John from the background. + +"Well, sir, if you were in your father's plans, maybe you'll pay your +father's debts," quoth Mr. Hadley. + +"What do I owe you, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry, bristling. + +The two messengers came back again. "Right enough, sir, gone away." The +spokesman nodded at Mr. Hadley. "We'll be riding. Trust no offence?" He +looked hopeful. + +"Here's Colonel Boyce's son, wishing to answer for his father." + +The man looked Harry up and down and chuckled. + +"Lord, and mighty like. Servant, sir," he winked at Harry. "Tell the +Colonel, sorry we missed him," He winked again and laughed. + +"What's this comedy of yours, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry. + +"Your friends have warrants to arrest your father and Mr. Waverton for +treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. But none for you, I fear, +Mr. Boyce." + +"Devil a one," the man laughed. "Come, Ned, we'll be jogging," Out +they swung. + +A bewildered company, full of suspicions, stared at one another. + +"Come, Harry, let us go home," Alison said. + +"Home!" Lady Waverton gasped with an hysterical laugh. "Hear her!" + +"My lady"--Alison made her a curtsy--"gentlemen--all the friends of Mr. +Boyce will be very welcome to me." + +Sir John swore. "You for a fool and he for a knave, damme, you're +well matched." + +"When you were younger, sir, I suppose you were less of a boor," says +Harry. "Mr. Hadley--my lady--" he made two stiff bows and gave his arm +to Alison. + +"Humph, they go off with the honours." Mr. Hadley shrugged, and held out +his arm in front of Sir John, who was plunging after them. + +"Be hanged to you. What did the rogue mean, telling me I was old?" + +"Why, he meant that a man who is too old to fight should be civil." + +"Too old?" Sir John fumed. "Burn him for a coward." + +"I think not," says Mr. Hadley. "But for the rest--God be with you. My +lady--sincerely your servant." + +My lady was now weeping. "You never loved him," she complained. "You were +never his friend," and she became speechless. + +The two men looked at each other. "Well, Charles, we'll to horse," Sir +John concluded. "Servant, ma'am." They left her in the scented embraces +of Arabella. + +To Harry as he went out came the butler, who, with something of a furtive +manner, produced and gave him a letter. Harry looked at the writing and +thrust it into his coat. Alison saw and took no notice. + +They walked on for some way before silence was broken. Then Harry said: +"Well, madame wife, so you feel you've been bit." + +"Who--I? What do you know of what I feel?" + +"Oh, I can tell hot from cold. I know when you are thinking you ought to +have thought twice. Egad, I agree with you. You've been badly bit. Here +you were told that I was just off out of the country; that you must catch +me at once if you wanted to catch me; that if you took me you would soon +have me off your hands. And now we're tied up, you find I'm not going at +all. I vow it's disheartening. But if you'll believe me, I did honestly +believe my old rogue of a father. I did think he meant to take me." + +"And now you can't be comforted because you have to stay with me. Oh, +Harry, you're a gloomy fellow to own a new wife. But why did the good man +take Geoffrey when he might have had you? I should have thought he knew a +goose when he saw one." + +"I can't tell. I never saw much meaning in the old gentleman." + +"You might as well look at his letter." + +Harry stared. "How did you know that was his?" + +"You like doing things mysteriously, the family of Boyce." + +The letter said this: + +"MR. HARRY,--I flatter myself that you will be offended. But 'tis all for +your good. When I came after you I did not know that you were so clever a +fellow. No more did I expect that I should have to like you. But since I +do, I prefer that I should do without you. And since you have some of my +wits, you may very well do without me. But I believe you will do the +better without friend Geoffrey. Therefore I take him, who will indeed do +my business much more sincerely than your worthy self. With the dear +fellow safe out of the way, I count upon you to push on bravely with Mrs. +Alison. You'll not find two such chances in one life. If you were master +of her you could promise yourself anything in decent reason you please to +want. For all your wits you are not the man to make his own way out of +nothing. So don't be haughty. Why should you? It's a mighty pretty thing, +Harry, and (trust an old fellow who hath made some use of the sex in his +day) as tender as you may hope for in an heiress. She has looked your way +already, and in her pique at the good Geoffrey deserting her, you'll find +her warmer for you. If you don't make her warm enough for wiving, you're +an oaf, which is not in my blood--nor your mother's, to be honest. Nor if +I was young again and played your hand, I wouldn't let her grow cold when +I had her safe.... So be a man, and I give you my blessing. + +"O. BOYCE" + +Harry held it out to Alison. "We're a noble family--the family of +Boyce," said he. + +But Alison read it without a blush or a sneer, and when she gave it back +she was laughing. "Oh, he's more cunning than any beast of the field! Oh, +he knows the world! Poor, dear fellow." + +"Oh Lud, yes, he's a fool for his wisdom. But he's my father." + +"Well, sir?" Harry scowled at the ground. "Oh, what does he matter? +Harry, what does anything matter to-day--or to-morrow, or to-morrow's +to-morrow?" + +"I had no guess of all this." Harry crushed the paper. "You +believe that?" + +"Oh, silly, silly." + +"You're still content?" + +"Not yet," Alison said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + +In the old house on the hill Mrs. Weston sat alone. She was looking out +of the oriel window at a garden of wintry emptiness and wind swept. The +westerly gale roared and moaned, the heavy earth was sodden and beaten +into hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. +Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild +arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was +gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in +a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the +wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the +opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew +eagerly. It was Susan Burford who came in, royally neat in her +riding-habit, for all the storm. She walked in her leisurely, spacious +fashion to Mrs. Weston, who started and stood up, laughing nervously. +"Indeed Alison will be pleased. You are kind. I know she has been longing +to see you." + +Susan laughed and, a large young goddess of health, stooped to kiss the +worn face. "You always talk about somebody else. Are you pleased?" + +"My dear!" Mrs. Weston protested. "You know I am." + +"We match very well. You never want to talk, and I never have anything to +say." Susan sat down, and for some time the only sound was from Mrs. +Weston's needle. At last, "You are still here, then," Susan said. + +"My dear! Why not, indeed?" + +"Oh. But you would always stay by Alison if she needed you." + +"Why, she never has needed me. And now less than ever." + +"Oh." Susan considered that. "And is he kind to you?" + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Indeed he has been very good to me." + +"That is all I wanted to ask you," said Susan, and again there was +silence. + +After a little while Mrs. Weston dropped her sewing and looked anxiously +at Susan. "Have you ever seen him?" + +"Only his back. He used to keep in the corners at Tetherdown." + +"I suppose people--talk about him." + +"I don't listen," said Susan, "People are always in such a hurry. I +can't keep up." + +"I suppose you think Alison was in a great hurry." + +"Only Alison knows about that." + +"Yes." Mrs. Weston looked at her with affectionate admiration, as though +she had been endowed with rare understanding of the human heart. "Do you +know you are the only one of the people Alison liked who has come +here--since?" + +"Oh." (Susan's favourite eloquent reply.) "I don't mind about people." + +"He doesn't mind at all. She doesn't mind yet." + +"What is that you are working?" said Susan. + +"But indeed they are most perfectly happy," said Mrs. Weston, in a hurry. + +"Is it for a tucker?" said Susan. + +In a greater hurry, Mrs. Weston began to explain. She was still at it +when Alison and Harry came back. + +They too had been riding. The storm had granted Alison none of Susan's +majestic neatness. She looked a wild creature of the hills, her wet habit +clinging about her, black ringlets broken loose curling about her, brown +eyes fierce with life, and all the dainty colours of her face very clear +and bright. She saw Susan and cried out, "Oh, my child, I love you." + +Susan rose leisurely to her majestic height and smiled down upon her. "I +think you are the loveliest thing that ever was made," said she. Alison +laughed, and they kissed. + +"I am quite of your mind, ma'am," said Harry. "Or I was," he made Susan a +bow, "till this moment." + +"I was going to ask her if she was happy, sir," Susan said. "I shan't ask +her." She held out her hand. + +"But I want you to ask me a thousand things." Alison put an arm round +her, "Come away, come. At least I am going to tell you"--she shot a +wicked glance at Harry--"everything." Off they went. + +"What's this mean, ma'am?" Harry stood over Mrs. Weston. "Is our wise +Sir John sending to spy out the land?" + +"I wish you would not talk so." Mrs. Weston shivered. "It is like your +father. Oh, sure, you have no need to be suspicious of every one." + +"Suspicious? Faith, I don't trouble myself." Harry laughed. "All the +world may go hang for me. But you'll not expect me to believe in it." + +"I think you need fear no one's ill will. You are fortunate enough now." + +"Miraculously beyond my deserts, ma'am. As you say. But there's the +wisdom of twenty years' shabbiness in me. And I wonder if the good Sir +John wants to be meddling." + +"You need not be shabby now." + +"Lord, I bear him no malice. For he can do nought. Only I would not have +him plague Alison." + +At last Mrs. Weston smiled upon him. "Aye, you are very careful of her." + +"I vow I would not so insult her." Harry laughed. + +"But you need not be afraid. Susan is here for herself. She is like that. +She is the most independent woman ever I knew. She has come because she +loves Alison." + +"Why, then, I love her. And egad it will be easy. She's a splendid +piece." + +Mrs. Weston gave him an anxious glance. "She is very loyal," said she, +with some emphasis. + +"It's a virtue. To be sure it's a virtue of the stupid." Harry cocked a +teasing eye at her. "And I--well, ma'am, you wouldn't call me stupid." + +"I don't think it clever to jeer at what's good--and true--and noble." + +"Egad, ma'am, you are very parental!" Harry grinned. "You will be talking +to me like a mother--and a stern mother, I protest." + +"Am I stern?" Mrs. Weston looked at him with eyes penitent and tender. + +"Only to yourself, I think. Lud, ma'am, why take me to heart?" + +"What now, Harry?" Alison and Susan close linked came back again. "Whose +heart are you taking?" + +"Why, madame's," said Harry, with a flourish. "You see, ma'am," he turned +to Susan, "I've a gift for making folks cry." + +"Oh. Like an onion," says she, in her slow, grave fashion. + +"Susan dear! How perfect," Alison laughed. "Now I know why I am growing +tired of him. A little, you know, was piquant. But a whole onion to +myself--God help us!" + +"Yet your onion goes well with a goose," Harry said. + +"Alack, Harry, but there's nothing sage about you and me." + +"Oh, fie! See there she sits, our domestic sage"--he waved at Mrs. +Weston. + +"To be sure we couldn't do without her." Alison caressed the grey hair. + +"I must be riding, Alison," Susan said. + +Alison began to protest affectionate hospitality. Harry shook his head. +"I have warned you of this, Alison. We are too conjugal. It embarasses +the polite." + +"I am not embarassed," said Susan, with her placid gravity. "I want to +come again." + +"By the fifth or sixth time, ma'am, I may feel that I am forgiven." + +"I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Then you can do it the more heartily." Harry smiled and held out his +hand. + +"Oh." There was a faint shadow of a blush. "I did not think I should like +you." She turned. "I beg your pardon, Alison." + +"I beg, ma'am, you'll come teach my wife to be kind. She also is frank. +But for kindness--well, we are all sinners." + +"There it is, Mr. Boyce," said Susan, holding out her hand. + +And when she was gone. "Now, why did I not marry her first?" said Harry +pensively. + +"Because she would never have married you, child. Being of those who like +the man to ask." + +As Susan rode down the north slope of the hill, she was met by Mr. +Hadley, gaunt upon a white horse, like death in the Revelation. The +comparison did not occur to Susan, who had a fresh mind, but she did +think white unbecoming to Mr. Hadley, and said, gurgling, "Where did you +find that horse? Or why did you find it?" + +"He was a bad debt. But he has a great soul. And don't prevaricate, +Susan. Where have you been?" Mr. Hadley bent his sardonic brows. + +"To gossip with Alison." + +"Odso, I guessed you would turn traitor." + +"No. I haven't turned at all, Mr. Hadley." + +"She has declared war on us. Your dear father fizzes and fumes like a +grenade all day. And you go gossip with her. It's flat treason, miss. +Come, did you tell Sir John you were going?" + +"No. But he would guess. He is so clever about me. Like you." + +"Humph. If he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I +suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and +what did you see in Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I suppose you are scolding me," said Susan placidly. + +"With all my heart." + +"Oh. Why do you ride that horse?" + +"Damme, miss, don't wriggle. You had no business at Highgate!" + +"He looks as if he had the gout." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "But as you went, let's hear what you saw." + +"I always loved Alison." + +"Your business is to love your father, Susan--till some other man +asks you." + +"I love her better now. She is so happy." + +"Damn her impudence," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Why did you lose your temper with her?" + +"I never lose my temper with any one but you." + +"Well. You made my father lose his." + +"Ods life, Susan, don't you know it's a man's right to tell women how +they ought to live? Dear Alison wouldn't listen." + +Susan laughed. "She has made you look very foolish." + +"If she has I'll forgive her." + +"Oh. You do then," said Susan. + +"On your honour, miss, what did you think of Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I wondered Alison should love him." + +"Ods life, yes. But what's this you're saying?" + +"He is so quiet and simple." + +"Simple! Damme, the fellow's an incarnate mask." + +"Oh. I think I know all about him. I never thought I knew all about +Alison. She wants so much." + +"And she hasn't got all she wants, eh?" + +"Yes, I believe," said Susan, after a moment. + +"Pray God you're right." + +"Oh. I like to hear you say that. You have been so"--for once her placid +words stumbled--"so sordid about this." + +"Damme, Susan, don't be a saint." Mr. Hadley grinned. "They die virgins." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. BOYCE + + +It was a time of wild plots. The long war of Marlborough had left England +impregnably triumphant, and France ambitious of nothing but peace. No +fear remained that foreign arms would carry James, the Pretender by right +divine, to his sister's throne. Who should reign when Anne's growing +weakness ended in death was for England alone to decide, and English law +gave the succession to Prince George of Hanover. But there was a party, +or at least the leaders of a party, who saw more profit to themselves in +importing the Pretender. + +Harley and Bolingbroke, they had thrust out of the Queen's confidence and +the government the friends of Hanover. They had undermined the authority +of Marlborough at home and abroad, and were now ready, honourably or +dishonourably, to put an end to the war which made him necessary. If he +were dispatched into ignominy or exile, there could be no one strong +enough, they believed, to prevent them driving England the way they +chose. What that way would be no one clearly knew, themselves, perhaps, +least of all. But together and singly they set going many strange secret +schemes which were to make a new king, a new England, and new +magnificence for themselves, singly or together. All which the mass of +England watched with shrewd, incurious eyes. It could not long be a +secret that plots were afoot. To shoulder out of power all who were +committed friends of the lawful order was a confession of designs against +it. As if that were not enough, Bolingbroke and Harley so managed their +business that everything they did was wrapped in a mist of trickery and +intrigue. And yet, though they were vastly mysterious over what could +have borne the light without much shame, they contrived to let the agents +of their deeper treachery blunder into notice and fill the air with +rumours of untimely truth. Still England gave no sign. + +"Under which King"--Hanoverian or Pretender--perhaps there were few in +England who cared. If the Pretender was bred French and a Papist, Prince +George was a German born. Some of those who had joined heartily in +driving out his father began to put it about that the son would be a +better king for that lesson. George of Hanover had the right of law, but +the Parliament of to-morrow might undo what the Parliament of yesterday +had done. Who could be ardent for the right of an unknown foreigner over +England? And few were ardent, but there were many who, caring nothing for +Pretender or Hanoverian, had a solid resolution that England should not +be torn in the cause of either. Whatever was done, must be done quietly +and in good order. Since it seemed that the Hanoverian had no need to +change anything in law or State or Church, best that he should be king. +As for the devious politics, the tricks, and the mystery of Harley and +Bolingbroke, they were of no account to plain men. + +There was yet another party not content to watch and wait till the +plotters lost themselves in their own mysteries. The men whom Harley and +Bolingbroke had driven from power had no mind to submit to impotence. +They well knew what they wanted: the Hanoverian, the lawful, limited king +upon the throne and themselves as his ministers. They were not delicate +about the means they used. Since there were treason and plots, they too +turned their hands to plotting and with a vigour and ruthless resolution +of which the other camp was innocent. + +So the wise and eminent were busy while Harry Boyce and his Alison made +trial of their marriage. Harry lived in a dream of bewildered happiness. +He had counted on nothing but the need of his passion, hoped for nothing +but its ecstasy in her beauty, and at its wildest the strain of gloom in +him had bade him dread what lay beyond. She gave him a miracle of mad +delight. A new force of life was born in him while he enjoyed her joy. It +was a discovery of intoxicating power that he could wake that rare, +consummate creature to such eager exultation as his own. In those +wonderful hours it seemed that they passed out of themselves into a world +where every part of their being was one and in the happiness of unbounded +strength. So passion and she kept faith with him and something more. But +the miracle of passion in her arms had less enchantment than the joy of +the quiet hours. It was with this that she bewildered him. Before she +yielded to him, he would have jeered at the hope that she might bring the +gift of peace in her bosom. As the first days of marriage passed he +learnt that all his placid loneliness had been the mere endurance of +hunger. He had stayed himself with the husk of life. She satisfied him +with the fruit. For she too could be calm, delighting in the little daily +things, utterly happy with nonsense. To share all that with her was to +find in it a strange, lulling enchantment of content. + +His fortune seemed too good to be real. For he possessed all that ever +fancy had pretended was worth coveting: his life was a perfect happiness. +No doubts from within, no troubles from without, had power to assail him. +All the old, reasonable, practical fears were become ludicrous cowardice, +only remembered for Alison to tease with. As for other people, and what +they said and thought and did, some folks were kind and were welcome, no +folks were of account. He and she deliciously sufficed themselves. And +there was no dread of change, save in age and death, infinitely distant +and insignificant--no matter but to glorify the power of life. Sometimes +he was aware that the wonder of passion must grow faint and fail, but he +saw nothing which could take from him the quiet, exquisite, daily joys. +Was it real, or a charmed dream, this perfect fortune of content? Indeed, +nothing was real in those days but the delight in being with her. + +Alison had her share. He did not deceive himself. She had her ecstasies +and her exultations, she thought herself even madder than he was. And in +these days, perhaps, her passion was deeper and stronger than his. She +was satisfied, she felt herself accomplished, and gloried in her new +power with a more profound, a more secret delight than his. She had given +him eagerly all that she had, and in the giving found herself more than +ever her own. For all the union, the deepest, truest self in her stood +aloof in a mystery. It was not of her will, for she desired to deny him +nothing. She did not reckon him weak in failing to take all of her. This +must needs be the way of life. No man's passion could be stronger than +his. Doubtless he too had his secret soul apart. And indeed it was +glorious not to lose self in love, to stay always, through the ecstasies, +aloof, to give always anew of will and choice--never to merge helpless in +some unknown double being and become only half a body, half a soul, +capitulating always to the rest, to the other. + +This self-glorious pride of hers gave her for a while that zest in all +the trivial common things which made her a companion so delightful to +Harry's temper. But she enjoyed them in a spirit different from his. All +the bread-and-butter business of living was to him delightful in itself +and for itself. He was born to want no better bread than is made of +wheat. She played with it, made a dainty mock of it, amused herself with +it, and at the back of her mind despised it. + +So they lived, and you imagine Mrs. Weston's dim, wistful eyes watching +them with a great tenderness. For she understood them no better than +they themselves. + +It was Alison who first grew tired. Not of love or passion, but of the +trivialities and the quiet life at Highgate. She had ambitions, or +thought she had. It had been just rediscovered that women could be +leaders in the world--at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. +Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the +warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given +Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It +was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his +enemies the government of England. It was a woman--another duchess--who +beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some humour, of +imagining Harry Boyce a Marlborough. But he did believe him able to make +a noise in the world, and coveted much the sensation of owning him while +the world listened. She did not see herself controlling queens and kings +and parties, but she was well aware of her beauty and its power, and had +a mind to use it widely. She was hungry for excitement. + +So Mrs. Alison determined to set her man upon a larger, busier stage. The +decree went forth that old Tom Lambourne's house in the Lincoln's Inn +Fields was again to be inhabited. Harry was asked for his advice +afterwards. Perhaps he would have been wiser if he had begun their first +quarrel then. But he was enjoying her too much to deny her her ways or +her whims, and he only laughed at her. He was not pleased, to be sure. He +had a taste, which cannot have come from his father, for copse and +field. He never found anything in the town which was worth the living in +other folk's smoke. He disliked crowds and in particular crowds of fine +ladies and gentlemen. So with some horror he saw before him a vista of +polite splendours, and said so. + +"Oh Lud, sir," says she, "if I had wanted to sleep my life away I should +not have married you. And if you wanted to sleep out yours you should not +have married me." + +"I was born for innocence and green fields. You'll make me a bull in a +china shop." + +"I'll love you the better, child. Faith, Harry, I would be very glad to +have you break something." + +"Madame's heart, _par exemple_?" + +"That would be an adventure." + +So you find them arrived in the Lincoln's Inn Fields as the first step +to the conquest of the world. The world was not as excited as Alison +thought fit. Her father, old Tom Lambourne, had commanded reverence in +the City and some respect even as far west as St. James's by sheer +weight of wealth. A rare capacity for living hard had won him an army of +diverse friends. But neither his business nor his pleasures provided him +with many who could be bequeathed to his daughter. Her mother, born a +baker's daughter in Shoe Lane, having died in giving Alison birth, had +left her nothing besides her admirable body but some grumbling objects +of charity. It remained for Alison to make her own way in the world of +fine ladies and gentlemen. Since she was by certain fame an heiress of +great possessions, her way might have been easy if she had not found +herself a husband. The taint of the city, if she had borne herself +humbly, need not have made her quite intolerable to people of birth. But +since her money was already married she could only be reckoned as a city +goodwife; pretty enough, indeed, to be game for fine gentlemen, but to +fine ladies a nobody. + +Folks were slow in coming to the grand house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; +slower still, if they had houses of elegance, to ask Mrs. Alison back. It +suited Harry very well. He would, as his wife complained, go mooning +across the fields to Islington almost as happily as through the woods at +Highgate. His books had almost as good a savour in town as in the +country. When she dragged him to hear Nicolini or Wilks or the +Bracegirdle, he could console himself by gentle jeering over the fact +that in a playhouse where everybody knew everybody not a creature had a +bow for him or her. Of course she smarted. Day by day he chose to affect +astonishment over her failures, believing with infatuated content that he +was slowly driving her back to the country and sanity, though he was but +driving her away from him. And she, choosing to feel humiliated, blamed +him for the shame of it. + +"Why, child," says he in his supercilious way, "'tis not failing to be in +the _beau monde_ that's ridiculous, but wanting to be." + +To such monitions she began not to answer back--a symptom very dangerous. + +She set up a basset table. That, if anything could, must proclaim her a +woman of fashion--a woman, indeed, who had a fancy to be a trifle +daring. There's no doubt that Alison about this time and afterwards did +want to dabble in danger. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. +She encouraged high play. For herself, she enjoyed the excitement of it, +having no need to care if she lost. She wanted to have about her people +who affected heavy stakes, believing in the innocence of her heart that +they were exhilarating company. So she made for herself a queer society, +which Harry to her angry disgust defined as a mixture of sheep and +wolves. There were good wives and lads from the city anxious to make a +jingling show with the funds of the family counting-house, there were +hungry beaux and madames from the other end of the town seeking their +fortune impudently wherever it might be found. + +To one of these happy parties there was introduced a Mrs. Boyce. She +was a faded, handsome creature much jewelled about lean shoulders. +Alison, who hardly heard her name in the rout, took no account of it +and little of her. But on the next day this Mrs. Boyce came early and +caught Alison alone. + +She began with such a fuss about apologizing for her earliness that +Alison set her down for an ill-bred, tiresome creature. She had a high +voice which, like the rest of her, was a trifle faded. "I protest, ma'am, +I have long desired to know you better." Alison languidly muttered +something civil. "Let me make myself known first, I beg. I am the niece +of Sir Gilbert Heathcote." + +Alison, of course, had heard of Sir Gilly--one of the chiefs of high +finance--but cared nothing about him. "I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I was +only born Thomas Lambourne's daughter." + +"There is no need; ma'am." A long, lean hand was waved. "I wonder if we +are in some fashion connected. We are both called Mrs. Boyce. The Boyces +of Oxfordshire, ma'am?" + +Alison's laugh had something of a sneer in it, "Of nowhere that I know, +ma'am. My husband is Mr. Harry Boyce, son of Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +The lady fluttered her fan, settled herself afresh in her chair, +rearranged her close-fitting lips. Alison was reminded of a hen preening +itself. "I had heard so, ma'am. And my husband is Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +"La, ma'am, do you mean the same?" Alison cried. + +Mrs. Oliver Boyce gave a lifeless smile. "That is why I did myself the +honour of giving you my confidence, ma'am. I think there are not two +Colonel Oliver Boyces. The younger son of one of the Oxfordshire family." + +"Oh Lud, how should I know? I never looked into the grandfathers." + +"No, ma'am?" The tone was patronizing contempt. "You might have been the +wiser of it. Colonel Oliver Boyce--he has taken the title lately--when I +knew him he was something in the service of the Duke of Marlborough. Oh, +a fine man to the eye, ma'am, and very splendid in his talk." + +"Why, that's his likeness," Alison laughed. "And what then, ma'am? Have +you come seeking the Colonel? He is the Lord knows where. Or is +it--faith, you don't tell me Harry is your son?" + +"No, ma'am. At least I was spared bearing children." + +"Oh--why, give you joy if you would have it so. But how can I serve you? +Maybe your Colonel is not my Colonel after all. At least he and Harry are +father and son heartily enough." + +"It may be so, ma'am," said the lady heavily, and here Harry came in. + +Alison looked up laughing and then frowned. Harry would not ever dress +fine. His wig was still unfashionably small, he wore some sombre stuff, +and to her eye (as she said) looked like a mole. "Here's Mr. Boyce, +ma'am. Harry, Mrs. Oliver Boyce, who is come to say that you never had +father nor mother." + +"Your obliged servant, ma'am." Harry opened his eyes. "Pray, has my +father married again?" + +"You'll find, sir, that Colonel Boyce has only been married once." + +"If you please, ma'am," said Harry blandly. "Pray, are you blaming him? +Or--" a gesture expressed his complete ignorance of what she was doing. + +The lady seemed to force herself to laugh. "Oh, fie, sir. Sure it is not +for me to blame him." + +"No, ma'am?" Harry was first interrogative then acquiescent. "No, ma'am. +I wonder if you could give me the Colonel's direction." + +"I, sir? You are pleased to amuse yourself." + +"I vow, ma'am, I was never less amused." + +"Colonel Boyce was pleased to leave me five years ago. I have not +forgotten it, if you have." + +"Faith, this is very distressing," Harry protested in bewilderment. "But +you do me injustice, ma'am. I have forgotten nothing about my father. For +I never knew anything." + +"As you please, sir," the lady drawled. "I was talking, by your leave, to +Mrs. Boyce." + +"Oh, ma'am, a hundred pardons," Harry took himself off in a hurry. His +chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she +wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's +deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As +for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps +he was not far wrong. + +Alison too was much of the same opinion, but it was unfortunately +hampered by a natural curiosity to hear what the lady could tell +about the mystery of Harry and his father. "You had something to say +to me, ma'am?" + +"I count it my duty, ma'am, to give you warning of Colonel Boyce." + +Alison stood up. "Duty? I know nothing of your duty, ma'am. But I think +it is mine not to listen to you." + +"I protest, I should have said the same," the lady drawled. "I too had +spirit once, child. That was before I suffered. I would I had known you +earlier. And yet perhaps I may do something to save you even now." + +"I cannot tell how, ma'am." + +"Listen, if you please!" the lady said dramatically. "I was something of +an heiress as you are and maybe something of a toast too. The worse for +me. I choose to believe it was not only my money which brought Oliver +Boyce upon me. He took all I could give him and very soon gave me +nothing, not even common courtesy. When I began to be careful he began to +be brutal. But for my family--I told you that Sir Gilbert Heathcote was +my uncle--he would have stripped me of every penny. When they stepped in +to save me some rag of my fortune, my good Mr. Boyce left me. I have +never had a word from him since. Pray, child, take warning." + +"If it is so, I am sorry for it," said Alison coldly, "I believe I hear +company." She began to walk to the outer room. + +Behind her, "As for your Harry Boyce," said the lady, "oh, I make no +doubt he's Oliver's son, though certainly he is none of mine." + +Alison made as if she did not hear, and she was spared more by the coming +of some of her guests. The card tables filled. There was no more danger +of being private with Mrs. Oliver Boyce. Indeed, the lady, as if she had +done all she wanted, took her leave early. She was affectionate about it, +for which Alison liked her none the better. Through most of that evening, +amid the flutter of cards and the clatter--"Spadillio, on my life! What, +it's Basto, is it? Did you hear of Mrs. Prue? She'll not show for a +month. We win the Codille, ma'am. They say the Duchess and she pulled +caps"--Alison was telling herself over and over that the creature was a +detestable low thing who only wanted to make mischief. It should, you +think, have needed no effort to believe that. But the obvious malice had +power to annoy a mind already discontented. Alison could not stop +wondering what the mystery was about Harry's birth and his father. +Perhaps Harry knew more than the little he professed. Perhaps he was not +the careless, indolent fellow he chose to seem, but something more +cunning and less lofty. What if he were just such another as the woman +painted his father--a fellow on the hunt for an heiress, who, once he had +her and her money, cared no more about her? To be sure there was some +evidence for that. Since they had come to town, he was always off by +himself. If she wanted him with her, she had to plead and plague him. A +proud office! Why, that very night monsieur did not please to appear at +the card tables. He was too fine for her and her company. So she fretted +and rubbed the poison in. And naturally, she fared ill at the card table. +Her cards were bad and she made the worst of them. She was not a good +loser and it was a wife much inflamed who, when her guests were gone, +sought out her husband. + +Harry sat with Mrs. Weston, who was at needlework and, if Alison had been +able to see, looked very benign. But it was he who demanded all the +wife's angry eyes. His wig was on the table beside him. He had a pipe in +his mouth. He was lolling in the deeps of a chair and smiling to himself +over a book. "You might be in an ale-house, you look so slovenly." + +Harry grinned up at her. "Oh, madame wife hasn't been winning to-night. +Tell me all about it." + +"Faugh! Your pipe," Alison coughed. "For God's sake keep it to the +tavern. It's enough that you reek of it without making my house +reek too." + +Harry gave a great sigh and put the pipe down. "We were so comfortable +till you came. I am glad to see you, dear." + +"I was comfortable till you came." Alison snapped. + +"Pray, mother Weston," says Harry, "forgive our public caresses. We have +not long been married." + +Alison looked ice at him. "Weston dear, would you leave us? I have +something to say to Harry." Harry opened his eyes. Mrs. Weston looked at +her anxiously, bade them a nervous good-night, and hurried out. + +"Harry--who was your mother?" Alison stood stern over the lolling +husband. + +"Egad, what's this? Have you been brooding over your bony friend? +Who is she?" + +"She says she is your father's wife; and says he left her." + +"Well, if she is his wife, I wager he did leave her. Faith, she was made +to be deserted." + +"What do you know of her?" + +"Nothing, by the grace of God. Why should I? If my father got drunk and +married her, he would not want to talk about it when he was sober." + +"I despise you when you talk so," Alison cried. + +"And yet you listened to her, child." + +"She says that he took all her money before he left her." + +"Oh! Pray, why has she so much to say, and to you?" + +"She wanted to warn me against Colonel Boyce." + +"And against his son, I think. And you were so kind as to listen. Egad, +ma'am, I am obliged to you. Well, now you know what to do. You have the +money and I have none. Pray, lock up your purse to-night." + +"You are childish," said Alison with lofty scorn. "Harry--who was +your mother?" + +"Oh, I thought your kind friend told you I had none. I dare say it's as +true as the rest." + +"You don't know?" + +"I never saw her." + +"She said--" Alison hesitated. + +"Oh Lud, don't be squeamish now." + +"She said your father had never been married except to her." + +"Odso! That is what you had to tell me. I am a bastard, am I?" He laughed +and turned in his chair. "Give you good-night, madame wife." + +"Harry--" + +"Oh, God save you!" He took up his pipe. "I am no company for you. And, +by God, you are no company for me." + +She looked at him a moment, hesitated, went slowly out. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + +The irruption of Mrs. Oliver Boyce could not easily have been foretold. +That the past life of Colonel Boyce was likely to throw shadows over his +son Harry might have considered, but the nature of the lady and her care +and the successful opportunity of her malice were hardly to be +calculated. There is less excuse for him in the affair of Sir George +Anville. Given the conditions of that hasty marriage and the state into +which it had brought them and the society about them, some Sir George or +other was a natural consequence. + +The ugly quarrel which Mrs. Oliver Boyce had made for them was never +composed. When they met again in the morning they were coldly and +haughtily civil, and so they chose to remain. Mrs. Weston, not being +blind, saw that something was amiss and tried with blundering motherly +affection to push them back into one another's arms. She hardened, as is +usual, their hostility. Each was mortally afraid of weakening, each +suspected the other at once of softness and of guile and so held aloof +and fed upon scorn. They had both enough of that pride of sex which gives +one pleasure in the sufferings of the other. And of course the quarrel +was poisoned with a sordid taint. The colder, the haughtier Harry was, +the more Alison inclined to believe that he had wanted nothing of her but +her money. The haughtier, the colder Alison was, the more Harry raged +against her for a mean creature who desired to make him feel his +dependence upon her money bags. + +In himself Sir George Anville was of no importance. If Harry had been +comfortable he could never have taken the trouble to be angry over the +man. It is certain that Alison never thought him worth any thought of +hers, still less worth one finger's surrender. And yet Sir George +contrived to be disastrous to the pair of them. + +That was not, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said of him in another matter, +altogether his fault. "The fool has excuses," quoth she, "which others +have not. He is so great a fool that you hardly believe his folly is but +folly." Sir George was a man born without impulse or capacity for +anything. Lady Mary, who was fond of using him for her wit, made a +grammarian's jest on him, "The creature's an anomaly: active in form, +passive in meaning." He was bred in a society which made it a fashion to +be vicious. He affected to follow the fashion. If vice must needs be +something active, or at least, something of the will, Sir George Anville +must escape punishment. But he was to a wholesome taste more offensive +than sinners who did more damage. It was Harry's worst blunder in the +affair that he treated Alison as if she did not feel that. + +Sir George knew no other way of passing his life than in dangling about +women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to +contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He +did--it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments--he did +know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew +Alison much resorted to her. His other accomplishment was to dress well. +He was lean and had an air of languor which was not affected, but a +natural lack of vigour. It may be believed that Alison tolerated him +because he made a not disagreeable decoration to her rooms. But at this +era she was cynical, and perhaps told herself that Sir George was as good +a man as another. + +He began to come at hours when she could be found alone and was sometimes +admitted. So Harry caught him once or twice, was ironically obsequious to +him (which Sir George took for solemn earnest), and afterwards amused +himself by congratulating Mrs. Alison on the power of her charms. "Odds +fish, I can't tell where you'll stop, ma'am. You'll have a corpse on his +knees to you yet. Maybe the corpse of a lord. I vow I'm proud of you." +Which was not likely to get the door shut on Sir George. + +So that dangling gentleman became convinced that Alison was yielding to +his embraces. He was, in a limp way, gratified. A devilish fine woman to +be sure. She might be a trifle exhausting to a man of _ton_. But what +would you? Women were greedy and must be satisfied with what one could +spare them. And it was pleasant to see the pretty creatures pining. He +would lure madame on with a few tit-bits. In this kindly mood he went to +her on a wet April day when Alison was fretting for a wild walk or a +wilder ride in wind and rain. But even to herself she would not confess +that she was tired of the town. It would have assimilated her to Harry. + +Sir George sat himself down by Alison's side, simpered at her, sniffed, +put his thin hands on his thin knees and ogled them. Alison held out to +him a cup of tea. He arranged his rings before he took it and then again +simpered at her. After some humming and hawing, "D'ye go to the play +to-night, ma'am?" he drawled. + +"What play is it?" + +"Ah--some curst play or other," said Sir George; and exhausted by that +effort relapsed for a while into silence. + +Alison did not help him out. It is possible that she was wondering how a +creature so vapid could go on existing. She looked Sir George over with +an odd, close inspection. Sir George, who had some perceptions, became +aware of it and according to his nature misunderstood it. He sniffed +again, and "Pray, ma'am, what perfume do you use?" Alison stared at him. +"I am delicate in such things," said he, and smelt his own handkerchief. + +Alison hesitated between disgust and amusement. To be sure the creature +was such a fool that it was not fair to think of him save as a buffoon. +So unfortunately she chose amusement. "Oh, I vow, Sir George, your +delicacy is rare," she laughed. + +The poor creature took it for a compliment. He leered at her: "But you +are exquisite, my Indamora." + +"Who?" + +"It's an amorous lady in a play," Sir George explained. "Pretty +creature," he patted Alison's arm, and leaned upon her to kiss her neck. + +She was so surprised that his lips had almost time to reach her. "Lord, +sir, are you mad?" she cried, as she thrust him off. + +"Pretty creature," Sir George giggled, and clung to her. + +"Your carriage is at the door, Sir George." Harry stood over them. His +face was as much a mask as ever, his voice placid. + +Alison started up and stood to face him with a lowering brow. He did not +appear to see her. Sir George shook down his ruffles. "Carriage? What +d'ye mean?" says he. "I ha' had no carriage this year. I came in a +hackney coach." + +Harry turned away from him and opened the door. + +"Eh? Oh, stap me!" Sir George giggled and got on to his feet, "Madame, +your eternally devoted." He went out with a strut, waving his scented +handkerchief in the direction of Harry. + +Then Alison spoke. Her eyes were furious. "You--oh, you boor! How +dare you?" + +"Egad, that's very good!" Harry laughed. + +She beat her foot on the floor. "Oh, you are not to be borne! To make a +noise of it! To make a scandal of me and that--that creature!" + +"To be sure, I came untimely. Well, ma'am, if you wanted to be quiet +about it, I had rather it made a noise." + +"My God!" she was white. "You dare say that to me! Be careful, Harry." + +"Pray, ma'am, no heroics." + +"I warn you, there are things I'll not bear." + +"Is it possible?" Harry sneered. + +She swept past him and away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It seems that, years afterwards, Harry and Alison were afflicted with a +dreary and remorseful wonder at these wars. Both, as they grew older, had +something of a turn for moralising, and in their copious letters to their +several children is evidence of much penitence and puzzling over the +disasters of their youth. Each plainly took all the blame. Each is +eloquent about the sins of pride and hardness. Harry preaches the duty of +trust; Alison the folly of easy intimacies. Both of them, in those latter +days when they could calmly estimate what they had lost, still wondered +with a gloomy scorn how they had come to let the ugly, ridiculous affair +of Sir George set them against each other. You find them both trying to +recall (or guess) what exactly it was that, in the time of crisis, they +felt and believed. + +When it was all part of their history, Harry could hardly persuade +himself that ever he had fancied Alison untrue, even disloyal; or Alison +believe that she had stormed against him for driving out of the house a +man who had been impudent to her. Yet it is not to be doubted that Harry +did let suspicions of her honesty poison him. He could not, at the worst +of his anger, believe that she would play false with such a husk of a +fop; but he told himself that she wanted to make the fellow into a +waiting gentleman, a servant, and a toy at once--a thing more nauseous +than a lover. And Alison, though at the back of her brain she was aware +that Harry had excuse for what he had done, raged the more against him +for the intolerable things he had said. His suspicions made her despise +him. For his assumption of authority she hated him. + +There were almost from the first the usual sage and kindly friends to +tell them that it was all a misunderstanding, that they had only to be +frank with each other and commonly reasonable and there would be no +quarrel left. But it is doubtful whether this sagacious advice could +have done them much good if they had taken it. "Talk things over like +rational creatures," was (as usual) the prescription. But if they had +really been rational, they would only have come to the conclusion that +they ought not to be married. The force of their passion, to be sure, +was real enough and still moved in them. To hold them together they had +nothing else. There was no consciousness of other need, no longing for a +common life, no desire to help or give. If they had been most calmly +wise and wisely calm in a dozen conversations, they would but have made +this all the clearer. + +Still it is true, as the sagacious friends guessed, that they did not +try to compose the quarrel. Each was by far too proud. Harry was +pleased to consider that he had done his duty by a flighty wife, and +would take no more account of her unless she were penitent--or provoked +him again. Alison, reckoning herself meanly insulted, was resolved that +he could never again be more than an unwelcome guest in her house. They +were, to be sure, ridiculous. In private they avoided each other. In +public they continued to meet, for each was too proud to confess to the +world the failure of their marriage. You imagine how poor Mrs. Weston +enjoyed life in an icy atmosphere, the temperature of which she was not +permitted to notice. + +Such were their relations when the final blow fell upon them. They dined +late in the Lincoln Inn Fields. It was as much as six o'clock and they +were still at table--as jovial as usual. The butler came to Alison with +an elaborate whispering. "Pray him come up," she said aloud, and looked +defiance down the table at Harry. "It is Mr. Waverton." + +"Lord, Lord, is he still alive?" Harry grinned. "That's heroic." + +"Back from France? Is Colonel Boyce come back?" Mrs. Weston cried. + +"I know nothing of Colonel Boyce," said Alison coldly. + +"You couldn't please him better," Harry laughed. "Dear Geoffrey! I wonder +if he knows anything? Well I It would be a new experience." + +Mr. Waverton came. He was more stately than ever--browner also, but not +changed otherwise. His large and handsome face affected all the old +melancholy. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton!" Harry grinned. "You do honour me. Pray let me present +you to my poor wife." + +Geoffrey took no notice of him. "Madame, your obedient," he bowed to +Alison. "I beg leave to have some speech with you." + +"There's still some dinner. Draw up a chair," said Harry. + +"I did not come to dine, sir." + +"Oh, that's a sad stomach of yours. A glass of wine, then?" + +"I do not take wine with you, Mr. Boyce." + +"I wonder if you have made a mistake. For you have come into my house." + +"I will answer for all my mistakes, sir, with hearty goodwill." + +"Egad, you'll be busy." + +"Oh, be silent!" Alison cried. "You are welcome, Mr. Waverton. How can I +serve you?" + +"I understand the gentleman's desire to hurry me into a quarrel, ma'am. +Be sure that I shall not permit it." Harry laughed disagreeably. "It's +very well, sir. But I choose first that you should listen to what I +have to say." + +"Listen I Oh Lud, is it a poem?" + +Mr. Waverton flushed. "You are impertinent, sir. It shall not serve +you. I intend that madame shall know the truth of your father's +treachery and yours." + +Harry stood up. "Are we to stay for more of this, ma'am?" + +"I shall stay," Alison said. + +"You remark the gentleman's impatience to silence me, ma'am. I promise +you that I shall tell you nothing which he or any man can deny." + +"It's a dull tale, then," Harry muttered. + +"I think it will excite you enough, ma'am. You are advised that I went to +France with Colonel Boyce. The office which he offered me was to +negotiate with Prince James. This I undertook readily, for to his party +my family hath ever had an inclination, nay, an affection, and I saw in +the affair duties of honour and moment." + +"To the greater glory of Geoffrey, first Duke of Waverton, whom God +preserve," quoth Harry. + +"I did not, I will avow, foresee that the thing was but a trick to take +me away from my house and out of the country. Though I may regret, +ma'am"--he bowed magnificently to Alison--"I do not even now blame myself +for my blindness, for I have ever accounted it unworthy of a man of +honour to fear treachery in his servants"--he glared at Harry--"or +weakness--ah--weakness in those to whom he gives his devotion"--he made +melancholy eyes at Alison. "No more of that. In fine, I did not suspect +that a fellow who was taking wages from my hand had plotted to rob me of +what was my dearest hope, or that another--another--would surrender +herself a prey to his crafty greed." + +"Damme, it is a poem after all," Harry groaned. + +"You said you had something to tell me, sir," said Alison coldly. + +"Nay, ma'am, be patient. I give you no reproaches. But what is, is. If it +irks you that I remind you of it, do not give the blame to me." + +"I shall blame you for being tedious, by your leave." Alison yawned. + +"Wait till all's told. Well, ma'am, I left Tetherdown with Colonel +Boyce, and we rode posthaste to Newhaven. He was there joined by some +half-dozen fellows, low fellows to my eye. This much surprised me, and I +took occasion to tell him so, for he had given out that his was a very +secret errand of Marlborough's privy policy, into which he would admit +none but me. He made out that these fellows were but messengers and +escort, and I permitted myself to be satisfied, though I remarked that +he was on familiar terms with them. But that gave me little concern, for +I had from the first remarked in Colonel Boyce a coarse habit of +intimacy with the vulgar." + +"Aye, aye, you and he took to each other famously," says Harry. + +"Lud, sir, must you be so wordy?" Alison cried. + +"You will find that every word has its import, ma'am. From some of these +fellows Colonel Boyce learnt that there was a warrant out against him for +treasonable practices with the Pretender. This affected him to great +indignation, in which, as I frankly told him, I found matter for +bewilderment. Since he was, as he professed, about to deal with the +Pretender, it was but fair that the Government should arraign him on that +charge. Over which he was pleased to laugh at me, and then, to explain +his mirth, averred that the Government, and in particular Mr. Secretary +St. John, was much more Jacobite than he, and so had no title to meddle +with him. Then he said that what irked him was that they should have +heard of his dealings with France, which must be done secretly or fail. +So we went in a hurry aboard the schooner which was ready for him, and +crossed to Dieppe, landing by night beyond the town. I make no doubt from +his adroitness that Colonel Boyce hath done business in France before, +but of what kind I leave you to guess when you have heard all. We were +well furnished with horses and upon the road to Paris before noon. He +gave out to some officers which questioned him that we were of Prince +James's service upon our way to St. Germain. We rode to Pontoise, and +there, as it had been planned from the first, Colonel Boyce stayed while +I rode on to the Prince. He dared not, as he said, go himself to Paris, +for fear that some of the French officers should recognize him as +Marlborough's man and denounce him for a spy. Therefore was I to go with +letters to the Prince, and messages which should persuade him to ride out +to Pontoise and come to business with Colonel Boyce. I went on then +alone, save that Colonel Boyce gave me one of his fellows to be my guide +and servant, and he stayed with the rest at Pontoise. Thus far, I beg you +remark, I had no cause to apprehend treachery. Upon the face, the scheme +was fair enough, and all had been done even as Colonel Boyce proposed to +me in England. I will maintain myself honourably free of any blame in the +affair against any man whomsoever." + +"God bless you," said Harry heartily. + +Mr. Waverton visibly laboured with a repartee. + +"Oh, sir, a prayer from you is a rare honour," he said at length. +"You're to understand, ma'am, that I was furnished with letters of +credence from certain of the Jacobite agents in England--John Rogers and +Mrs. White, I remember. How they were come by, I cannot now tell, though +I may guess, for it is plain that there was no stint of money in the +affair. So I came easily to speech with the Prince and his secretary, my +Lord Middleton. And I will ever maintain that His Royal Highness is +altogether such as a prince should be. Being of a dark complexion and a +melancholy dignity, there is in him no lightness of thought or word. To +me he was, I profess, very flattering, showing me courtesies beyond my +rights or expectations. He received me, in a word, most favourably, and +being influenced, as I regret I cannot doubt, by my person and address, +was easily inclined to ride out to Pontoise. Only my Lord Middleton made +difficulties. He is of a sardonic turn, and permits his wit to outrun his +civility. He set me questions in a fashion which my honour could not +brook. Yet I can relate that in the end I prevailed over my Lord +Middleton's jealousy. For he said to the Prince: '_Enfin_, sir, I can +tell no reason why you should not go see this Colonel if you choose. If +there were any guile in the business, faith, they would never have +trusted it to this fellow!' + +"So the thing was agreed. In the morning we rode for Pontoise, the +Prince, my Lord Middleton, myself. His Royal Highness was pleased to +limit himself to one servant. The man with whom Colonel Boyce had +provided me went on to carry advice of our coming. We came to Pontoise +towards evening. Colonel Boyce had put up at the Lion d'Or. He was +waiting for us in the courtyard and received us, as I thought, something +shortly, hurrying us into the house. But once inside, he made ceremony +enough, with endless speeches about the condescension of His Royal +Highness. All this too obsequious, in a boorish taste, so that the Prince +bade him have done and come to business. Therewith Colonel Boyce was as +full of apologies as he had been of servilities. I vow I never heard him +so copious as that night. + +"He took us, you are to understand, to an upper room. And what first +moved my suspicion was that he bade me be gone. Then my Lord Middleton +countered him with, 'I believe, sir, the gentleman had best stay.' +Immediately Colonel Boyce was all smiles over his blunder, and we sat +down about the table in that upper room and came to the substance of his +negotiation. He kept, I'll allow, to the purposes which, from the first, +he had pretended to me: whether Prince James, if assured of support from +Marlborough and his friends, would choose to avow himself Protestant; but +he made so many conditions over it, he was so vague and wary that 'twas +hard to tell what he would be at. When my Lord Middleton tried to pin him +to something plain and certain he would ever evade, till it began to grow +late and the Prince talked of supper and bed. This Colonel Boyce took up +very heartily, and was indeed giving his orders when there came a noise +in the courtyard and he ran to the window and looked out. + +"My Lord Middleton was behind him, with a 'What's your anxiety, sir?' + +"'Why, my lord, I would not have these roysterers break upon the Prince's +incognito. Pray, sir, this way and you'll be secure'; he points to an +inner door. + +"'I believe we are as safe here, sir,' says my Lord Middleton. + +"'Egad, sir, come away,' says Colonel Boyce; and he was in fact dragging +the Prince across the room when the door bursts open and in comes a +stranger, a little man. He flung himself across the room upon Colonel +Boyce, making some play with a pistol. There was some grappling and +wrestling. I recall that they gasped and breathed hard. But it's odd, I +believe, that there was no word spoken. Then Colonel Boyce freed himself +and bolted through that inner door. The stranger fired a shot after him, +and while we were all deaf and sneezing with it and utterly amazed he +turns on us. 'That's a miss,' says he. 'Please God they'll bag him below. +Eh, Charles,' he wags his head at my Lord Middleton, 'I thought you had +more sense,' + +"'Damme,' says my lord, 'it's Hector McBean. And prithee what's all this +ruffling, Mac?' + +"'Why, you have let His Majesty walk into a stinking trap. That fellow +Boyce, he hath been Marlborough's spy, Sunderland's spy, the devil's spy +this twenty year.' + +"'Why, I thought he had something the smack of it,' says my lord. +'And yet--' + +"'Who's this now?' Captain McBean turned on me. 'Yours or his?' + +"'His ambassador in fact,' My lord looked me over and took snuff. 'You +won't tell me that hath any guile in it. Prithee, what is it you have +against the man Boyce?' + +"'Eh, did ye see him run?' says Captain McBean. 'A man's not in that +hurry if he hath a good conscience. If ye'll please to have him up, maybe +we'll hear a tale.' + +"But as he spoke there came into the room a French officer of dragoons, +who, saluting the Prince, asked Captain McBean if he had found his rogue. +On which 'Have I found him?' Captain McBean cries out, 'Eh, sir, did he +not run into your arms?' But it appeared that Colonel Boyce had not been +caught, and they determined at last that he must have made his way out by +a door at the back of the inn and won clear away. But I am sorry to tell +you, ma'am, that he hath not yet been found. For if they catch him in +France, he may count on a hanging." + +"Pray, sir, how did you dodge the rope?" Harry said. "Did you talk them +to death, your Pretender and his tail?" + +"You're too eloquent for me, Mr. Waverton," Alison yawned. "I can't tell +what you want to say. What is this mighty crime which you and Colonel +Boyce were compassing?" + +"Sneers become you ill, ma'am," says Mr. Waverton magnificently. "I +repudiate any charge whatsoever; and tell my story my own way. Some hot +words passed between Captain McBean and the Frenchman, each blaming the +other for Colonel Boyce's escape. Then Captain McBean says 'The fellows +that were drinking in the tap, I suppose you've let them dodge you too? +No? Well, that's a wonder. Tie this rogue up with them and have them in +guard.' So he mocked at me, but the Prince brought him up roundly. + +"'You go too fast for me, my good captain,' quoth he. 'What's your charge +against the gentleman?--who is to my mind a very simple gentleman.' So +His Royal Highness was pleased to honour me." + +"Egad, he was right, Waverton," Harry laughed. + +"I think I know how to value your fair words now, sir," says Mr. Waverton +grandly. "Be pleased to spare them. Upon that, as I was saying, Captain +McBean lost command of himself and was grossly violent. Roaring that I +was none the less a knave because I was so natural a fool, and the like +empty insolence. Accusing me of being art and part in a vile plot with +Colonel Boyce to kidnap and murder His Royal Highness." + +"Now we have it," Alison murmured and looked at Harry strangely. + +"Aye, ma'am. Now, perhaps (though late enough) your eyes are opened," +said Mr. Waverton with relish. "Well, I let the man run on. He was indeed +not to be stopped. A rude, vehement fellow. When he was exhausted, I +addressed His Royal Highness." + +"Lack a day, I believe you," says Harry. + +"I made it clear to him, sir, that my birth and position must warrant me +innocent of any treachery, and though I might well disdain to answer +these reckless charges I owed it to myself to remark to His Royal +Highness that, but for my desire to serve him, I had never meddled in the +affair. So that when I had done, my Lord Middleton says, laughing, 'Egad, +sir, it seems you owe this fine gentleman thanks for his kindly +condescension to you'; and the Prince was pleased to answer, 'We are too +small for his notice, faith. But is he finished yet?' Then I bowed to His +Royal Highness and sat down, well enough pleased, as you may believe. + +"But this Captain McBean called out in his rude fashion, 'Eh, sir, he may +e'en be the booby he pretends. The better decoy, I allow. But by your +leave, we'll look into it more narrowly. Would Your Majesty please to +permit me have up the other rogues?' + +"This, in a word, they did, and Captain McBean and my Lord Middleton (who +is to my mind something more of the attorney than becomes a man of rank) +questioning the fellows shrewdly, it was made put--I crave your +attention, madam--it was made out that Colonel Boyce had undertaken for +the service of the Hanoverian junto here to kidnap or kill Prince James. +And the plan was to bring the Prince out to Pontoise and so drag out +affairs that he passed the night there. Then in the night they were to +invade his room and command him to follow them. They pretended indeed +that they meant only to carry him off. But 'tis not to be doubted that +they looked for resistance and a bloody issue to the affair. So, ma'am, +here is the trade of the family of Boyce--to procure murder, and the +murder of a prince of the blood royal, of our lawful king. I give you joy +of the name you bear." + +Alison bent her head. "You may well be proud of your part, Mr. +Waverton." + +"They let you go, did they?" says Harry; "your captain and your lord and +your prince?" + +"Let me go, sir? There is nothing against me. I defy your impudence. Nay, +I thank you, I thank you. You lead me gracefully to the end of my story." + +"Good God! It has an end!" + +"When these rogues were questioned about me, not a man of them could +pretend to have anything against me. They openly confessed that Colonel +Boyce had warned them that I must be kept in innocence of the affair lest +I should thwart it. For he said that he had brought me into it to show a +good face to the Prince as one beyond suspicion of treachery. Nay and +moreover--and here's my last word to you, ma'am--he avowed that he chose +me because he wanted me out of England where I stood between his own son +and a pretty heiress. At which, as I remember, my Lord Middleton chose to +be amused." + +"Damme, I like that man," says Harry. + +"So, ma'am," Mr. Waverton tossed his head. "Here you have it. I am drawn +into a murderous, vile, base treason that I may be kept out of the way +while Mr. Boyce prosecutes his designs upon you. I give you joy of the +loyal fidelity which yielded to him. I leave you to enjoy him with what +appetite you may." + +He made a majestic bow, he turned and was gone. + +Harry and Alison were left staring at each other. + +From behind came a small strained voice: "Colonel Boyce--he--he is safe, +then?" It was Mrs. Weston. + +The two turned with a start, surprised by her existence. + +Harry laughed. "Oh aye, he is safe. He would be." + +Mrs. Weston rose slowly and then made a rush for the door. + +The husband and wife were left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HARRY IS DISMISSED + + +Alison turned and stared into the fire. Harry filled himself a glass of +port and drank it and laughed. She looked round at him. "Faith, Mr. +Waverton is mighty good entertainment," he explained. + +"Is that all you want to say?" + +Harry would not be awed by that ominous voice. "Oh Lud, how could I dare +talk after him? Our poetic orator!" He made flourishes in the air after +Mr. Waverton's manner. "Nay, but I would give my new wig to have been in +that upper chamber at Pontoise. Dear Geoffrey on his defence booming +noble periods--and the Prince, poor gentleman, with his fingers in his +ears! If dear Geoffrey was telling the truth. I wonder." + +"Oh, is that what you'll pretend?" + +"Pretend? I pretend nothing, ma'am. Why, to be sure, our Geoffrey always +means to tell the truth--having, God bless him, no imagination. But +you'll remark what when he tells a tale, it's Mr. Waverton has always the +_beau role_. He sees the world like that, dear lad. So I should be glad +to hear the Caledonian gentleman's notion of what happened." + +"I see. You'll make that your defence. Geoffrey imagined it all." + +"Egad, ma'am, you may lower your tone. I have nothing to defend, nor are +you set in judgment." + +Alison started up. "Do you suppose all this is to make no change?" +she cried. + +"You're a splendid creature, by heaven," says Harry, tilting his chair +back and watching her with a little epicurean smile, the proud vigour of +her, the blood in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, and the sweep of the +white arm. + +"I could hate you for that," she said, and her lips set. + +"Yes. I think you're in a fair way to it," says Harry. "I wonder if you +know why." + +"Because I have come to despise you," she cried sharply. + +"You will be solemn, will you?" says Harry. "Much good may it do you. And +so, egad, have at you heartily. For you have said things which both of us +will find it hard to forget." + +"Oh, you can feel that?" + +"Look 'e, ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each +other like a pair of puppies. Now, what's happened?" + +"You have to ask that? My God, if you have to ask, there's no use in +words between you and me." + +"Oh Lud, don't be mystical. Mr. Waverton comes here to do his poor +possible to make mischief between us. I suppose you saw that. He tells us +that he went blundering with my father into a muddle of a plot." + +"He tells us that your father planned a vile base murder and sought to +make him, a man of honour, part in it. Pray, sir, is that not infamous?" + +"Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?" + +"Yes." + +"We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell +you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find +matter for blackening me." + +Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father +would not stay to face them." + +"Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero." + +"Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was +an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you +think shameful." + +Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I +never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these +political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? +And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton +went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not +understand." + +"He went in your place. You should have gone with your father." + +"Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?" + +"Perhaps." + +Harry started up. "Oh, say it out. I knew we should go far to-night." + +They stood close, fronting each other fiercely. "My God, is it strange +if I wish you had gone? Your father is a base wretch who should be on the +gallows, and I am to be his son's wife and bear the name, and the while +he goes bragging that he took Geoffrey Waverton off so that you should be +free to come at me." + +"Aye, that. To be sure, that rankles. But you have known it long. I +showed you the letter he left me which said he had taken Geoffrey out of +my way and bade me snatch my chance of you. And you made light of that, +ma'am. Oh, it was a base thing, if you will, but you know well enough it +went for nought. We had done our work before. By God, Alison, Geoffrey +there or Geoffrey here, you would have come to me." + +"Ah!" It was like a cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, +I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were +all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I--what was I?" She +shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would +taunt me with that." + +"Egad, you're in a frenzy," says Harry. "You cry aloud and cut yourself +with knives. You will be hurting yourself." + +"I loathe you for that calm way of yours," she cried. "You mock me till +I am mad, and then you please to be grave and lofty. You--I took you out +of the gutter." + +"What now, ma'am?" Harry stiffened. + +"It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your +face--your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you +strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a +fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. +"You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would +take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I +remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst +stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. But he +knew you better. That's your trade, the highwayman, faith, the +highwayman! You trick us all and prey upon us, as you dare. So you marked +me down, who was rich and a girl, and you have caught me, and you have +rifled me, and, for what you care I may now go hang. I ask you for my +pride again, my honour, and you mock at me. Oh, I am ashamed for a fool +and worse, and you know it, God help me, but you--you--" + +Harry shrugged. "I suppose we have come to the end now," he said coolly. +"Well, ma'am, to be sure we married in haste, and it seems we have both +come to repentance. As for wrong that I have done you--why, I can't make +you a maid again, and, if you please, more's the pity. My apologies and +regrets. For the rest, all of your money that hath been spent on me will +go in a small purse, and, I promise you, you shall spend no more. So you +may sleep sound, and I wish you good night." + +She watched him cross the room, and, as he was opening the door, cried +out, "What do you mean?" + +He turned. "Why, would you still be talking?" Their eyes met in +defiance. "You can go," she said. + +"I have had the honour to tell you so," he said, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + +It was on the second day after that Susan Burford and Mr. Hadley rode in +to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. They found Alison and Mrs. Weston together, +and both sewing--a fact which failed to interest Mr. Hadley, but +surprised Susan, who knew Alison, without a taste for needlework. + +"My dear," says Susan, embracing Alison physically and spiritually in her +large, buxom, genial way. + +"You have been a long time finding me," says Alison and put her off. "I +suppose I know why you kindly come to me now." + +"B-r-r-r-r!" Mr. Hadley made the sound of one who comes into a cold +draught. "The truth is, Susan has been so busy improving herself that she +has had no time for her friends. In fine, she has been trying to make +herself worthy the honour of my affections and large enough to support +the burden of my dignity. I don't say she satisfies me, but she does her +best." He propelled Susan forward with his one hand. "'A poor thing, +ma'am, but mine own.'" + +"Oh, he is amusing himself, you see," says Susan, in her leisurely +fashion. + +"Damme, Susan, you're so mighty innocent that sometimes I believe you +are innocent." + +"But you have known me so long," Susan protested. + +Alison stood up with an air of ceremony. Her pale face constrained itself +at last to smile at them. "My dear, I wish you may be very happy," says +she, and gave Susan a matronly kiss. "Mr. Hadley, you're a fortunate +man." She put out a stately hand. + +Having bowed over it. "B-r-r-r," says Mr. Hadley. + +"Damn these east winds. Susan, you're a plague with your affections. You +will have me talk about you, and I can't make you interesting, I hope, +ma'am, we find Mr. Boyce well?" + +Alison drew back. "Why do you ask that? You have seen Mr. Waverton, +of course." + +Mrs. Weston put down her work and folded her hands upon it. + +"Why, yes, I have seen Geoffrey; and what's worse, heard him. I hope he +did not plague you too long." + +"Pray, Mr. Hadley, don't be ironical. You can spare me that. Mr. Waverton +told us his story the night before last. Thereupon Mr. Boyce and I parted +company. He left my house immediately and I do not know where he is." + +Mr. Hadley distinguished himself by containing an oath. Susan said, "Oh, +my dear," in that slow, calm way which might mean anything. + +It was Mrs. Weston who cried out, "Alison, you never told me." + +"You asked once or twice where he was, and I told you I did not know. +What does it matter?" + +"You quarrelled with him?" + +"Quarrelled!" + +"Because of what this Mr. Waverton said?" + +"Do you think it could make no difference?" + +Mrs. Weston clasped her hands and swayed in her chair. + +"Alison; we had no guess of this. I am sorry. I am so sorry," Susan said. + +"There is no need." Alison held her head high. + +"If we have, in some sort, forced your confidence, I beg you believe, +ma'am, it was not meant," So Mr. Hadley in the grand style. "For I +protest it never came into my head that Geoffrey would make mischief +between you and Mr. Boyce." + +"You say that?" Alison stared at him. "Oh, you mean I was so besotted +with him." + +Mr. Hadley relapsed to his ordinary manner. "Damme, d'ye think we came +for nothing but to jeer at you? I promise you we have pleasanter matter +to hand. Neither to jeer at you, nor to meddle with you, Alison, but +friendly. So take us friendly in God's name. If you will go about to find +a sneer in every word, why, a sneer you'll find, but not of my making. We +bring you nothing but goodwill, and want nothing more of you. But if we +irk you, why, let us go and we'll see you again in good time." + +"That's a pretty speech to begin with an oath," Alison said, through the +flicker of a smile. "And, faith, I should be slow to take offence at you. +For we quarrelled before, because you were at pains to warn me. Well, +sir, I humble myself before your wisdom." + +There was a pause. "Oh. Now we are all ill at ease," says Susan. + +"Odso, ma'am, it's not fair," Mr. Hadley cried. "I am not here to say, 'I +told you so,' I am not so proud of it. Well, damme, I have no temptation +to be meddling in your affairs. But I think you will have to know. It is +with Mr. Waverton I have fallen out now." + +"With Mr. Waverton?" Alison repeated. "What is there between you and +him?" + +"I believe he had the impertinence to expect my sympathetic admiration. +While I was thinking him a low fellow. Which I took occasion to tell him. +Without result." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "But I believe he did not feel it. +It's a thick hide." + +"And what was your difference?" + +"Why, this precious story of his." + +There was some little time of silence. "You don't believe it," Alison +said slowly. "Come, you must say more than that." + +"I profess, ma'am, I have no will to say anything. Whatever I say, I'll +be impertinent." + +"Oh. Shall we mark it in you?" Susan said. + +"Well, sir, you were not always so shy of scolding me," says Alison, and +again with a faint smile. + +"Scold you! God warn us, I have no commission. I can tell you what I +thought of Waverton and his tale. Did I believe it? Ods fish, I never +remember believing Geoffrey. If he had to tell you two and two was four, +he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know +what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some +plot which some other fellows smoked. Maybe it was even such as Geoffrey +said, kidnapping and murder to follow. These plots, they grow nastier and +nastier the longer they are afoot. And Colonel Boyce--well, by your +leave, I don't think him delicate. But for the rest of it, I'll wager +that's Geoffrey's sprightly invention. You know very well, ma'am, I have +no kindness for your Mr. Boyce. But, damme, he never thought of tricking +Geoffrey out of the way to give himself a free hand with you. And it's a +low trick in Geoffrey to go about with that tale." + +"Oh! But he is stupid," Susan said. + +"What if Colonel Boyce thought of the trick?" says Alison. + +"Egad, Mr. Boyce is unfortunate in his father. Maybe he knows that as +well as we. But--damme, ma'am, you will have it--I believe there was not +much trick in his affair with you." + +"I believe you once warned me of his tricks," Alison said coldly. "It's +no matter now. I tease you with my affairs." + +"If I can serve you, I'm heartily at your command." + +"Oh, you have worked hard to make the best of a bad business. But I can +do that for myself, and I like my own way of it." + +Mr. Hadley bowed. + +"Oh! Let us go home," Susan said. + +Alison looked at her in some surprise, and, as she stood up, came quickly +to kiss her. "Have I been rude?" she whispered. + +"That would be no matter," Susan said, "You choose to be angry with me?" +Alison stiffened. + +"Oh! One isn't angry. One is sorry," Susan said. + +Alison let her go, and Mr. Hadley, ceremonious but with visible relief, +went after her. + +Then Mrs. Weston said suddenly, quickly, "Where is he?" + +"He?" Alison chose to be slow. "Mr. Boyce? I have no notion." + +"You drove him out?" + +"I could not endure him longer. Or he could endure me no longer. He went +heartily enough. I think we were both glad it was over." + +"You taunted him till he had to go?" + +"Weston, dear!" Alison laughed at the sudden fierceness of the meek. +"What's the matter?" + +"I have heard you mocking him." + +"Maybe. We both have sharp enough tongues." + +"You used to jeer at him for being poor." + +"Good lack, are you calling me to account, ma'am?" + +"Yes, you may well be ashamed! Where is he?" + +"Ashamed? What do you mean, Weston? What is the man to you?" + +"I am his mother," Mrs. Weston said. + +"You!... You! Oh, but this is mad!" + +"I am not mad." + +"But, Weston, dear, you knew nothing about him till he came; nor he of +you. How could he be your son?" + +"I had never seen him since he was a baby. I was not married." + +"That is why you would not tell me? Oh, Weston, dear!" + +"I did not mean to tell you now. I knew it would hurt him with you. But I +suppose it's no matter now. But these are my affairs, not yours." + +"My dear--" + +"You need not pity me." + +"What am I to say?" Alison held out her arms. + +"You have nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never +been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady +hands and turned away. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I am going out of your house. Away from you." + +"But, Weston--not now, not to-night. Where can you go? What can you do?" + +"I can do well enough without you, as he can.... Why don't you tell me +that I have been living on your money? You told him so often enough." + +"Oh ... you're cruel," Alison said. + +"What does it matter? You'll not be hurt. You are too hard." She hurried +to the door. + +"Ah, don't go like this," Alison cried. "Weston, let's part kindly. I +could not know. I have done nothing against you." Mrs. Weston laughed. +"Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father--is Colonel +Boyce--?" + +"Yes, there it is. That is all you want--to pry into all the story. It is +nothing to you. He is nothing to you now." + +The door closed behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Harry was not gone far. In Long Acre stood a tavern calling itself 'The +Hand of Pork.' This had always tempted Harry, whose tastes were of the +people. While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with +satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he +brought his small, battered box. + +He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. +"Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of +Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. +But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, +and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be +concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. If you +can imagine him seriously arguing over that money--a thing impossible--he +would have said that the guineas were of consequence to him and none to +Geoffrey and Alison, that whether he had dealt honestly by them or not, +it would not better his case to pay them back a few shillings. You have +seen that he had qualms of conscience over the rights of Geoffrey's +service and Alison's arms. But the ugly, awkward details gave him no +trouble. He may, if you please, have swallowed a camel or so, but he +never strained at a gnat. + +Now that he was done with Geoffrey and Alison, both, his first feeling +was comfort. It was a huge relief to be his own man again. He told +himself indeed that he was mighty grateful to Geoffrey for bringing on +the final explosion. For one thing, it wiped off all Geoffrey's score. If +Master Geoffrey had been treated shabbily, Master Geoffrey had played a +shabby trick. They could call quits--a pleasant sensation. It would have +been awkward if Geoffrey had chosen to be magnanimous nobility. But he +was never intelligent, the poor Geoffrey. + +He had done his best to be damaging, bless him, and in all ways had been +a benefactor. For, in fact, it was a great relief to be done with Alison. +What with her fretful discontent, her rages, her industrious hate, she +had made herself intolerable. I do not suppose that he forgot, even in +the heat of the divorce, the exquisite pleasure which for a while she had +given him. I think he was always ready to acknowledge that to himself, +for it is certain that he bore her no malice, and if he blamed her for +their catastrophe, blamed himself as much. He might make the most or more +of all the taunts, of her zeal to find occasions for despising him. He +forgot nothing and forgave her nothing; he wrote her down a cruel enemy. +But he did not pay her back with equal hate; he dismissed all the warfare +and the wounds with a shrug of sagacious cynicism. + +She hated him? She had the right, she was his wife. And perhaps she was +in the right too. He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her +beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was +essentially a nobody--a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. +She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have +known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a +bar-sinister or a disreputable father. Certainly Madame Alison could +plead something of a case. + +You are not to suppose Harry in an ecstasy of meek devotion. He was quite +sure that she had behaved to him very badly. He admitted no excuse for +her eagerness to hurt him as soon as she was tired of him. She might hate +him; but after all there were obligations of courtesy, of decency, of +womanhood, and her venomous temper had broken them all. He was well rid +of her. In fine, she and he could call quits as well as he and Geoffrey. +There was no occasion to rage against her. She had treated him badly, +but, first, he had brought her into an awkward mess. Faith, she ought not +to have hurried into a marriage for passion if passion was so soon to +sate her. But then, what man would blame a woman for marrying for +passion? Not the man she married, who might rather humble himself because +he had not been able to keep her passion alive. Well, it was over, and +since it was over, nothing for it but to part. God be with her! She had +given him his hour. And he--why, at least she had lived with him moments +she would not forget. A glorious woman. It is probable that in these +first hours of their parting he began to love her. + +So much for his emotions. But you will not suppose that Harry Boyce was +wholly occupied with emotions. He could not indeed afford it. He had to +make some provision for keeping alive. Perhaps you will be surprised to +hear that he had a friend or two. There was an usher at Westminster, and +a hack writer of Lintot's in Little Britain. He did not propose to live +on them, who had hardly enough to feed themselves. But he looked for them +to put him in the way of some pittance, and they did. The usher had news +that, after Ascension-Day, Westminster would be wanting a writing master, +for the man in possession hoped by then to marry the dean's cook and set +up an ale-house. The author procured a commission to write two lampoons +and a pamphlet against French wines. In the intervals of this occupation, +Harry looked for his father. + +It would be hard to guess--Harry himself could not have told--what he +hoped to gain by that. He wanted, of course, to find out the truth of the +mission to France. Whether his father was likely to tell it, he could not +make up his mind. What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, +he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father +could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined +himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. +A nightmare joke. + +Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The +first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay +him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should +have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to +oblige his enemies. It was incredible, too, that he would go long into +hiding. Away from the importance of bustle and intrigue he could not +exist. Therefore he would certainly come back to London: therefore sooner +or later he would be found at one of the coffee-houses favoured by the +brisk fellows in the underworld of politics--at Tom's, or the British, or +Diggory's by the Seven Dials. He might be heard of among the fire-eating +Jacobites of Sam's. There were not so many likely places, but Harry laid +down more pennies than he could spare at the bars, and all in vain. + +He sat in Sam's on an afternoon chopping Greek tags with a jolly, +fanatical old parson. The days were fast lengthening, and for one reason +or another--the company at Sam's were not too fond of light--only a +candle here and there was burning. A little man came in with a party very +obsequious to him. As he walked up to the bar Harry had a glimpse of a +lean, brown face. He remembered it and yet no more than faintly, and +could not tell where he had seen it. It did not much engage him, and he +went on with his Greek and his parson. The little man made some noise +with the pretty girl behind the bar, claiming the privileges of an old +friend and a good deal of liquor, and it was a little while before he was +established at a table with his party. Harry chose to mouth out something +Homeric and sounding. The little man stopped in the middle of lighting +his pipe. "I know that roll, _pardieu_!" he muttered, and in a florid +fashion declaimed, "Fol de rol de row," and laughed alcoholically. "Who's +talking Hebrew here?" + +One of his party pointed out Harry and the parson. The little man blinked +through the smoky twilight. He stood up, took his candle and lurched +across the room to Harry. Down under Harry's nose he put the candle with +a bang. Harry jerked back and glared at him, and he, rocking a little and +blinking, said thickly, "It's a filthy likeness, after all, it is." + +"No, sir, there's only one of me," said Harry. "If you see two, give God +the glory and go to bed." + +"I'm saying, bully, I'm saying," the little man's accent became more +Caledonian and he clutched at Harry's shoulder. "I'm saying, my +laddie--" + +"Damme, that's what I complain of." + +"I'm saying I do not like your complexion. It's yellow, my jo, it's a +wee rotten orange, it is so." His company, a faithful tail, shook +with laughter. + +"Sleep it off, sir," says Harry, with a shrug. + +"What's your will? Clip it off, do ye say so? Losh, you would have a face +or two to spare. Eh, but I'm doubting you know too much o' clipping. +There's clippit ears, and maybe you have a pair." He twitched Harry's bob +wig awry; and with singular luck reeled out of the reach of Harry's +answering blow. "Ay, and there's clippit shillings and maybe ye make your +filthy living by their parings and shavings. Well a well, and there's +clippit wings; and I'll clip yours, my bonny goose, the night." He +clutched at the wig again and tossed it into the fire. + +Harry sprang up and struck at him. He flung himself backwards into the +arms of his friends and with a surprising adroitness plucked out his +sword. "Have at ye, my man;" he giggled and made a pass. + +"Easy, Captain," says one of his company. "The boy hath no sword." + +"Oh ay, 'tis the Lord that's a man of war. The devil was aye for peace. +Well, what ails ye not to lend the imp a bodkin?" + +The fat old keeper of the coffee-house waddled into the midst. "Sure, +Captain, you don't mean it. I would need to set my lads upon you. 'Tis +disorderly homicide, indeed. Ye can't mean it. Not downstairs. I'll not +deny there's the elegant parlour on the first floor." + +"Ye're a canting old devil, Sam," says the little man. "But I'll oblige +you. Come up, my bully, and I'll show you a thing." + +"Here's for you, cully." One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword. + +"Oh, by your leave,"--Harry waved it oft--"I don't fight a drunken man." + +"Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to +mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school +you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. +I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. +I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give +us your staff." + +"Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I +fight the whole platoon?" + +"You're peevish, do you know, you're peevish. Here, Fraser, give him your +hanger. Do you second the bairn, Donald? Come, Patrick, I'll have you. +There's one for you and one for me, my man, and damn all favours." + +It seemed to Harry that the little man's company were something surprised +at this turn, but they took it in a disciplined silence. So the party of +four marched up the stairs. You will believe that Harry liked the +business ill enough. He shot glances at the two chosen for seconds. There +was nothing sottish about them. They were very soberly alert, they had +the tan and the vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit +comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, +they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the +affair--rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken +brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn +care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the +candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out +of his coat, asked if he needed anything, gravely advised to risk nothing +and play close. + +"We are at your service, Mr. O'Connor," says Donald. + +"At your pleasure, Mr. Mackenzie," says the other. + +Harry was set against the little man and the swords crossed. It then +occurred to him that the little man was very suddenly recovered from his +liquor. The blustering chatter had been cut off as soon as they started +up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the +unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He +had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same +manner, a correctness exact and staccato, about this sword play. + +The knave can never have been drunk, Harry said to himself as he +sweated and was the more embarrassed by bewilderment. But he dared not +let himself think. The little man was urgently dangerous, and Harry +knew enough to know it. Harry had no pretensions to science. All he +could use was the rudiments. He had kept his head at singlestick, held +his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a +point. The little man had the speed and certainty of a _maitre +d'armes_. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind +numb and dazed under the strain, expecting--hoping--every moment the +thrust that would make an end. + +It did not come. The ache and fever of the fight went on and on. Still +the little man was masterful and precise. Still he demanded all Harry's +vigour and more than all, kept him struggling desperately, beset by fear +on the edge of death. Harry felt himself weakening, faltering, and still +the opposing blade searched his defence sharply, still the little man was +an exemplar of easy precision. And yet Harry's maladroitness always +sufficed to save his skin. He was puzzled, and blundered and fumbled the +more. The play grew slower and slower, and he was the more tortured, +enduring many times the shame and the pain of defeat. + +At last he had hit upon the truth. He was wondering in a dazed fashion +why that other sword seemed always to wait on him when he made a gross +mistake. Visibly, palpably, the little man's blade halted to give him +time for a parry. Harry dropped his point and gasped out, "Damme, sir, +you are playing with me." + +"What's your will? I fight my own way. At your convenience, sir." + +"The Captain's within his right, sir," says Harry's solemn second. + +"Damn you, for a pack of mountebanks!" Harry cried. + +"On guard, sir," says the little man. + +Harry gave him an oath and dashed at him. There was a moment's wild +fighting and then the little man forced it back to order. They were at +the old game again, precise scientific thrust, pause, and blundering +parry, when to Harry's amazement the little man's sword wavered and flew +from his hand. + +Through a long minute Harry stood staring at him, and he waiting unarmed +for Harry's thrust. Again Harry lowered his sword. At once the little +man stooped and picked up his. "Do you demand to continue, Captain?" +says his second. + +"You're a fool, Patrick," quoth the little man. + +The impenetrable second saluted and turned to his fellow. "Another bout, +if you please, Mr. Mackenzie." + +"Would you grant it, sir?" says Harry's solemn Scot. + +"Egad, we are all mad here," Harry wiped his brow. "Oh, play it +out to hell." + +The little man saluted formally and again they engaged. And now Harry was +enveloped in another kind of fighting. Scientific it might be, but +science far beyond his understanding. The little man's point was +everywhere upon him and he thrusting blindly at the air. He might have +been pinked a score times over, he was for all he knew. And then on a +sudden his own point touched something. Next moment it was struck up to +the ceiling. Some one called out "A hit." He saw the two seconds standing +between the swords and a red scratch on the little man's cheek. + +"_Touche_," says he with a bow. "My compliments, if you please. It's some +while since a man marked me. I am glad to know you, sir. Pray, what's +your name?" + +"Harry Boyce, sir." + +"Egad, it's wonderful!" says the little man, with a laugh which appealed +to Harry. "Hector McBean, at your service." Harry stared. "Aye, aye, I'm +thinking we'll explain ourselves. Will you walk, sir?" + +"If you please." + +Captain McBean took his arm, said over his shoulder to the two seconds +"To-morrow," and marched off with him. Once they were out in the +street, "So you are Colonel Noll Boyce's son," says Captain McBean with +an odd look. + +"He has often told me so." + +"If you had not such a look of him I wouldn't believe it. Oh, pardon, +monsieur, _mille pardons_, _ma foi._ I have been insolent to you in all +this affair. You'll please to observe that the whole of it, and the +issue, is to your honour. Will I have to say more?" + +"Oh Lud, no. Pray, let's talk sense." + +"I take to you marvellously, _mon enfant_. Well now, have you +heard of me?" + +"Enough to want much more." + +"What, has father been talking?" + +"D'ye know where he is, Captain McBean?" + +"I wish I did." + +"So do I. It was Mr. Waverton who told the tale. Now you know why I am +eager to hear what you can say of my father or my father of you." + +"Are you a good son, Mr. Boyce?" + +"I pay my debts." + +"There's a crooked answer. Are you in the Colonel's secrets?" + +"I have no reason to think so." + +"I guess he did not trust you. I guess he was right. Do you remember +where you met me first?" + +"I remember that I can't remember." + +"And me that thought I was a beauty! Well, but you were busy. You were +making mud pies with Ben." + +"I have it. You were his captain on the horse. Pray, sir, what was my +Benjamin's mystery?" + +"I am going to trust you, Mr. Boyce. I shall not require you to trust me +unless you choose. I tell you frankly I hope for it. And so--come in +with you." + +They turned out of the Strand into Bow Street. Captain McBean let +himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. +"D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." +He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now, +_mon cher_, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?" + +"I never could tell." + +"Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. +If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. +Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's +son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? Now there is +something I must say to you. But how much I say is a question. I have no +desire to embarrass you with awkward knowledge. So which is your king, +_mon enfant_, James or George?" + +"I care not a puff of smoke for either." + +"So. I suppose there is something you care for. Well--you asked about +Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the +Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. +Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor +for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his +dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to +negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old +villain had some black design in his head again, and it was thought that +if we could turn over his private papers, we should know where to have +him. It was certified that he had with him something from his agents +abroad. Well, we missed him, and how deep he is dipped in this business, +I know no more than you. + +"Now I come to your father, _mon enfant_, and I promise you I will be as +delicate as I may. Do you know, _par exemple_, how Colonel Boyce is in +the mouths of gentlemen?" + +"Oh, sir, that's another of the matters for which I care nothing." + +"_Tenez donc_. You were born old, I think. Well, Colonel Boyce has been +in some few plots, devices, and manoeuvres. No man ever denied him wit, +nor will I, _mordieu_. But it's his virtue that neither his friends nor +his enemies were ever sure of him. I believe, Mr. Boyce, that if he heard +me he would thank me for a compliment. _Bien_--I come back to my tale. + +"It was known to us poor Jacobites in England that Colonel Boyce was +making salutes to St. Germain. Which much intrigued us, for we would not, +by your leave, have him of our side. They don't know him there as we do, +and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine." + +"Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug. + +"You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have +him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from +Colonel Boyce full of windy promises--_verbosa et grandis epistola_. D'ye +keep up your humanities?--in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord +Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. +If Sunderland and Stair were ready to turn honest, then _pardieu_, there +was hope of the devil himself. Oh, I don't blame the King nor even +Charles Middleton, though he is old enough to be slow. The times are +changing, and maybe Stair and Sunderland they see it as well as we, and +mean to find salvation. I can't tell. But the thing looked ill. Stair and +Sunderland--there is no treachery too foul for those names. And if they +meant honestly, why--saving your presence, _mon enfant_--why did they +choose Colonel Boyce for their agent? It was no good warranty. So we +adventured a counter. We have friends enough now in the Government, _mon +cher_, and it was arranged that the Colonel should be arrested as a +Jacobite. A good stroke, I think. It was mine. Only the old gentleman +dodged it." + +"Pray, what did you know of Mr. Waverton?" + +"That sheep's-head!" McBean laughed. "Why, a letter came to hand in which +the Colonel talked of taking the pretty gentleman to France. So he was +joined in the warrant. _D'ailleurs_--it made a good appearance. However, +we missed him; but we found something in his papers which made me queasy. +So I e'en was off to France after him. + +"The Colonel stayed at Pontoise and sent your Waverton off to St. Germain +with a mighty plausible letter about secret proposals from the chiefs of +the Whigs, which brought the King out to hear them secretly. _Ma foi_! I +think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever +trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could +think that peacock would be in anything crafty? At Pontoise I tumbled in +upon them, and your father, _mon cher_, he ran off on sight of me. +Observe, I press nothing against him. I allow that the best evidence I +have against him is just that--he ran away when he saw me. Secondly, he +had with him some three-four rascals whose faces would hang them. And +thirdly and lastly, beloved brethren, these fellows, when put to it and +charged with a plot to murder King James, were frightened for their lives +and babbled wildly, of which the sum was that they had been brought but +to kidnap him. I grant ye, they may have lied, and I would not hang a dog +(who was not a Whig) upon their word. But confess, _mon cher_, the thing +is black enough. What did the Colonel want with King James alone? Why did +he need his bullies? Why did he run away? I leave it with you." + +Harry knocked out his pipe. "I am obliged for the story, sir. Why did +you tell it?" + +"You have a cold blood in you, _mon enfant_" says Captain MacBean. +"Observe, I look for nothing wonderful from you. I allow your position is +very difficult to a man of honour. And with all my heart--" + +"Oh Lud, sir, let's have nothing pathetic." + +"Aye, aye," McBean bowed. "Mr. Boyce! I do profess I feel the delicacy of +the affair, and I detest it, _pardieu_. But I dare not absolve ye from +your duty." + +"Oh, sir, you are very sublime." + +"Hear me out, Mr. Boyce. I have shown you cause to fear that your +father has it in mind to compass a vile treachery, perhaps a murder. +Would you deny it?" + +"Damme, sir, I am not the day of judgment." + +"_Bien_. I believe that is an answer. I declare to you there is yet a +chance that he may succeed, aye, here in London." + +Harry swore. "If your friends must go walking into traps what is +it to me?" + +"Well, sir, though you will own no loyalty to king or queen or country, +I'll not be deceived. I call on you for your aid. It's believed your +father is in London. It is likely he will seek you out, as he did before. +Maybe at this hour you know where he is." + +"If I did, should I betray him to you, sir?" + +"I ask no treachery. But I do call on you, discover his purpose if you +can, and if he intends violence to the King, prevent it. Lord, sir, it's +to save your father from infamy, and your own name." + +"The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried. + +"I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he +said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For +what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my +life. But I believe I should thank you." + +"Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I +think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + +Do you remember how frightened Swift was of the Mohocks? How he came +home early, and even (that was bitter) spent some pence on being carried +in a sedan chair to avoid the "race of rakes that play the devil about +this town every night, slit people's noses," and so forth? He had some +reason to fear. + +"Was there a Watchman took his hourly rounds +Safe from their blows or new invented wounds" + +in these last days of Queen Anne? Their way was to gather and take +plenty of liquor, "then make a general sally and attack all that are +so unfortunate as to walk the streets through which they patrol. Some +are knocked down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed." The +women would be turned upside down or clapped into barrels and rolled +over the stones. + +It was a dark night with but a glimpse of the new moon when Harry left +Captain McBean. From Bow Street to the "Hand of Pork" in Long Acre was +only a few hundred yards, but murky enough, and Harry took Mr. Gay's +advice for such night walking: + +"Let constant Vigilance thy footsteps guide, +And wary Circumspection guard thy side." + +Nevertheless, as he was coming by the corner into Long Acre, he was +surprised by a sound at his heels. He stepped quickly aside and turned +upon it, felt a blow upon his head, saw flashes of light and the street, +whirling round, rose up to meet him, and he knew no more. + +When he came to himself he was in a room with fire and lights. He raised +himself and heard voices. Then some one was standing over him. He looked +up into his father's face. "Who was that?" he said feebly. + +"Don't you see yet, Harry? It will soon pass off." + +"Lord, I know you. Who are the others?" + +"There is none here but me," said Colonel Boyce. + +Harry looked painfully round the room and saw that it had become empty. +"What was it? A pistol?" said he, and began to feel his head. + +"Egad, nothing so gentlemanly. A cudgel, by the look of the bruise. A +Mohock's club, I suppose. I found you lying in the kennel as I was +coming home." + +"Oh, you're at home are you?" Harry laughed stupidly. "And where is +home?" + +"These are my lodgings in Martin's Lane, Harry, and you are welcome. But +what have you to do in town? Young husbands should not be night walkers." + +Harry stared at him for a moment. "I thought you knew everything," he +said. Then, beginning to scramble up, he became aware that his clothes +were all undone--coat, shirt, even breeches. "Odso, why were you +stripping me?" + +"I found you so. They shave you close, the Mohocks." + +"They are a queer crew, your Mohocks." Harry looked at his father. "What +should I carry inside my shirt?" Then he thrust his hands into his +pockets. "Well, I had not much, but all's gone." + +"Damned rogues," said his father with honest indignation. "How much have +you lost, Harry?" + +"Five guineas or so." + +"I can make that good at least. But what is it to you? You are a warm +fellow now. What, you've made no hole in Madame Alison's money bags yet." + +"You're offensive, do you know?" Harry said. "I have been itching to +tell you so." + +Colonel Boyce's face set. "What now? Are you against me, sirrah?" + +"Ods fish, you're a martyr, ain't you?" Harry laughed. But we are +beginning at the end, I think. If you remember, sir, you promised to take +me to France and went off without me." + +"D'ye quarrel with that? Why, you had a fatter fish to fry than you could +catch with me. So I left you at her and you ha' dined upon her. What's +the matter then?" + +"You were not honest with me--" + +Colonel Boyce laughed, "Ah, bah, you will be a Puritan. It must be your +mother in you." + +"My mother! Thank you. We'll come to her. But one tale at a time. You let +me think I was to go with you till you were gone without me. You took +Waverton and told me nothing of that till you had him safe away." + +"Egad, boy, it was all for your good." + +"Perhaps you did think so," said Harry after a moment. "In fact it's what +I complain of. You want to play Providence to me. Pray, sir, go about +your business." + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "You're a proper grateful son. So be it. You have +your wealthy wench and want no more of me. Well, go to the devil your own +way, Harry." + +"By your leave, I prefer it. But there's more, sir. Now comes Mr. +Waverton and declares to my wife and me that you enticed him into a vile +plot: for your pretence of a mission to the Pretender was nothing but a +device for murder." + +"Mr. Waverton said that to Mrs. Harry Boyce? Egad, it wasn't civil of Mr. +Waverton. And what did the lady say to him?" + +"That's no matter. What do you say to him, sir? Did you intend murder?" + +"Lud, Harry, you talk like a ranting parson. It was not your way. Who has +put this buzz of morality into your head? I suppose your pretty wife +would have you break with your father. He's a low, coarse fellow, faith, +who might want some of her money." + +"We will leave my wife out, if you please. She will not trouble you. She +and I have parted." + +"God's my life! What's the quarrel?" + +Harry shrugged. "Does one ever know? I was not good enough for her, I +believe. And perhaps she was not good enough for me." + +"Damn you for a prig," says his father. + +"If you like. But you'll remark that I do not complain of her." + +"Bah, you make me sick, sir! Not complain of her! That luscious piece! +Egad, you should be drunk with her. But you're not a man, Harry, you're +a parson." + +"Oh, command your emotions! She rebelled against being wed to a man whose +father ran about the world compassing murder, to a man who was withal a +low fellow, a bastard. So far, it is your affair." + +"I see you are no hand with a woman." + +"Do I take after you, sir? We came upon a woman who said she was Mrs. +Oliver Boyce and could not live with him, and boasted vehemently that she +was no mother of mine." + +Colonel Boyce plucked at his mouth. "So dear Rachel has got her finger +into the pie. Why, Harry, you have had no luck." + +"She is your wife, then. Oh, I admire your taste, sir. And pray, who was +my mother?" + +Colonel Boyce began to say something and stopped. "It's no matter. I +believe she would not wish you to know. Why, Harry, I profess I am sorry. +If we had been married, better for us all." + +"Oh, you will be mysterious still. I suppose you are as tender of her +honour as of mine or your own. And this matter of murdering the +Pretender, pray, is that a mystery too?" + +Colonel Boyce became restless. "Ods life, sirrah, there is no matter +of murder. Who told you so? The fool Waverton. And where did he get +the tale?" + +"A gentleman who runs away tells his own tale." + +"Now mark, Harry. The plan was but to bring Prince James to England--" + +"Dead or alive," Harry laughed. + +"Pshaw. I had him at Pontoise and was doing well with him. Then in comes +a swashbuckling Scots Jacobite which is my private enemy, and a dozen +bullies at his tail. Well, I had no mind to have him stick me or turn me +over to the French as a spy of Marlborough's, so I went off. The fool +Waverton let himself be taken. I make no doubt the Scot filled him to the +brim with slanders of me. But is that my fault?" + +"So you're done with the Pretender?" + +Colonel Boyce gave his son a queer look. "Why, there's not much to be +done with him in Martin's Lane, boy." + +"Then what are you doing?" + +"Egad, Harry, I should think you want to lay an information against +me. Waiting for better times is all my business now. My bolt's shot. +And pray, sirrah, what may be your business now you've cut loose from +Mrs. Alison?" + +Harry laughed. "Living on my means." + +"Why, does she settle something on you?" + +Harry looked at his father without affection. "Do you know, sir, I am not +always proud of your name." + +"Egad, but you must have money somehow." + +"The family motto, I suppose. Well, sir, I write for the Press." + +"Good God, not for the newspapers? You have not fallen to that?" + +"Oh, sir, the shillings are clean by comparison." + +They looked at each other for a minute or two. "You walk abroad late, Mr. +Author," says Colonel Boyce. "Do you make friends in your profession?" + +"I believe I have two in the town--a hack writer for Lintot and an usher +at Westminster. And what then, pray?" + +"You were with them to-night?" + +"You are paternal on a sudden, sir. Do you think of putting me out to +nurse again?" + +"So." Colonel Boyce stood up as if he had finished and then forced a +laugh and slapped his son's shoulder, "Come, Harry, why quarrel? There's +room enough for you here. I allow I owe you something. Join in with me." + +"I have no luck in mysteries, sir. I'll wish you goodnight." + +"Now you bear me a grudge," his father protested. + +"What, for getting me born? Sometimes, perhaps." + +"Egad, Harry, I should like to do something for you." + +"Then give me a sword." + +"A sword? And what for i' God's name?" + +"In case I meet any more of your Mohocks." + +Colonel Boyce was taken aback for a moment. Then he cried out heartily: +"Damme, the rogues took five guineas from you too. Here, fill your purse, +child." He shot out gold on the table. + +"I'll take back my five guineas," said Harry, and counted them, while +his father watched with a frown. + +"There are swords of mine below," said Colonel Boyce. + +They went down and from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger +with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves +loaded with lead--just such as the Mohocks used. + +"And where do you lodge?" says Colonel Boyce. + +"At the 'Hand of Pork' in Long Acre. Goodbye, sir." + +Colonel Boyce nodded, and for some time after he had gone stood at the +door, watching. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO'S COMPANY + + +Alison was gone back to her house at Highgate--and immediately regretted +it. She took her adventures in a youthful, egoistic fashion: saw herself +as a lovely woman made the prey of man and robbed of her right to her +own life, a tender, confiding soul deceived and tortured into despair. +The Lincoln's Inn Fields became the abomination of desolation, her fine +society was dust and ashes and mankind in general all mocking villainy. +So it was natural that she should retire from the world and become a +recluse of tragic dignity. What other part is there for the deserted +wife to play? + +But she came upon awkward difficulties. The world would not be left +behind. It was much more closely about her among the woods and meadows of +Highgate than in her London drawing-room. The would-be fine ladies and +gentlemen of her routs and her card parties, so the sweetmeats and the +wines and strong waters were good enough, cared nothing whether she had a +husband upstairs or somewhere else. Out in the country every one, gentle +and simple, had a curious eye upon her. The very woods and meadows must +be jogging her memory and putting her questions. Every one had known Miss +Lambourne of the Hall and gone whispering about her strange, passionate +marriage. Each pleasant path and lane had seen something of that first +wild happiness. All day long she was driven back upon herself and what +she had lost. + +There is no doubt that she suffered. Of course she still told her heart +wonderful tales about the shame that she had to bear and her torturing +wrongs, and beyond doubt she believed most of them. For she could still +profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of +no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's +villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion +that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who +acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she +could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! +Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been +overthrown by passion. The more she tried to despise Harry, the more that +fancy shamed her. But there was in her a strength which refused to be +content with that. She would still boast to herself that she was not the +woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to +take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable +question--if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her +magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her +insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very +pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give +him all that a man could ask. Little by little she forced herself to +believe that she had failed of that. After all, he had offered her +nothing but himself, poor, friendless, of no repute, indolent, careless +of all the world--and she had professed content. What his father might do +was no matter to that. He had offered her what he was and given it +faithfully. And she had not played fair. When she found herself +confessing that, she discovered a new power of being wretched. All the +romantic, egoistic melancholy went down the wind. The finest, proudest of +her, her own honour, told of a torturing wound. + +"I'll satisfy you"--that had been the boast before the wild marriage was +done. And after all she had chosen to deny him. Nothing else could +matter. There could be no excuse. It was he that she had taken, not his +name or what he might be, and he had not changed. It was herself that she +had promised--what other honour for woman or man than to give like for +like?--and she had broken faith. She was humiliated--a state of all +others the most dolorous for Alison. + +To it came on a merry spring day Mr. Waverton. She was in two minds +whether to let him see her, and then--too proud to hide from him or +greedy of a chance to hurt him--had him in. + +Mr. Waverton had decorated himself for a house of mourning. His large +form was all black and silver and drooped sympathetically. His handsome +face was set in a chastened melancholy as of one who grieves for +another's trouble with a modest satisfaction. "Dear lady," says he +tenderly, and bowed over her hand. + +"Dear Geoffrey," says she. "Here's a new song." + +"Madame?" + +"'Vengeance is mine' was the refrain last time. Now it's weeping over the +penitent prodigal. How I love you, Geoffrey." + +Mr. Waverton made a gesture of emotion, an exclamation. "I wronged you, +Alison," he said in a deep voice. "Nay, but you must forgive me. I have +suffered too. Remember! I had lost all." + +"Ah, no," says Alison tragically, "you had still yourself, Geoffrey." + +His emotion was understood to be too much for Mr. Waverton. In a little +while, "We have both been the sport of villainy," he said. "Forgive me, +Alison. I remember that I spoke bitterly. Can you wonder? I had dreamed +of you in his arms. To see you there in that knave's power--ah, I was +beside myself. And he laughed, do you remember, he laughed!" + +"He never would take you to heart, in fact." + +"A treacherous hound!" said Mr. Waverton with startling vehemence. + +"Oh, he was honest when he laughed." + +Mr. Waverton swept Harry out of the conversation. "Forgive me, Alison, I +should have known. My heart should have told me." + +"Oh Lud, and is your heart to give tongue now?" + +"My heart," said Mr. Waverton with dignity, "my heart is always crying to +you. And now--now that the first agony is past, I know all." + +"I wish I did," said Alison and looked in his eyes. + +"But even then--ah, Alison, I have blamed myself cruelly--even then I +should have known that when your eyes were opened, when you knew the +truth, you would have no more of him." + +"You might have known," Alison said slowly. "You might have judged me by +yourself." + +"Aye, that indeed," says Mr. Waverton heartily. "For we are very like, +Alison, we are of the same spirit, you and I." + +"You make me proud." + +"It's our tragedy: we so like, so made to answer each other, should be +betrayed to our ruin by this same vile trickster. Oh, I blame you no more +than myself." + +"This is too generous." + +"No," says Mr. Waverton. "No. When I came on that woman of yours, that +Mrs. Weston--faith, I am glad that you have cut her off too. I never +liked that woman." + +"Yes, she is poor." + +"There it is! I doubt she was in Boyce's pay." + +Alison opened her eyes at him. "Oh, Geoffrey, you surpass yourself +to-day. Go on, go on." + +"If you please," says Mr. Waverton, something ruffled. "I believe he +hired her to play his game with you. Had you a suspicion of it when you +sent her packing?" + +"By God, Geoffrey, I could suspect anyone when you talk to me." + +"She is bitter against you. When I heard from her that you had driven +the fellow away from you, I was on fire to come to you." + +"To forgive the prodigal! Oh, your nobility, Geoffrey. And pray where did +you meet Mrs. Weston?" + +"Why, in the High Street here. She lodges in one of those wretched +cottages behind the street." + +"She is here?" Alison shivered a little. + +"Perhaps she has some game to play yet. She may be his spy. Be warned +against her." + +Alison leant forward in her chair. Her face was hidden from him. "You are +giving me a lesson, Geoffrey. I'll profit by it, I promise you!" + +"Alison!" Mr. Waverton gave a laugh of triumph. "I fight for us both. And +I promise you I am eager enough. As soon as I learnt that you had left +him, why, he was delivered into my hand. By heaven, he shall find no +mercy now. Already I have him watched. I went to an attorney much +practised in these treasonous cheating plots, and of him I have hired +trusty fellows who know all the rogues in London and their hiding-holes. +You said something?" + +But Alison was laughing. + +"I believe there is some humour in it," Mr. Waverton conceded grandly. +"Well, they have tracked him down. Our gentleman lies at a filthy tavern +in the Long Acre. The 'Leg of Pork,' or some such lewd name. He haunts +Jacobite coffeehouses and the like low places. They believe that he makes +some dirty money by scribbling for the Press. A writer in the newspapers! +He is sunk almost to his right depth. They make no doubt that before +long we shall catch him dabbling in some new treasonous matter. And +then--" he made gestures of doom. + +"Well? And then?" + +"The law may revenge us on the treacherous rogue," said Mr. Waverton +with majesty. + +Alison stood up. Mr. Waverton, always polite, started up too. "I give you +joy, Geoffrey," she said very quietly. + +"Not yet! Not yet!" Mr. Waverton put up a modest hand. + +"I believe there is nothing you could feel." Mr. Waverton recoiled +and stared his bewilderment. "You carry a sword, Geoffrey. Oh, that I +were a man!" + +"To use it upon him! Bah, such rogues are not worth the honour of steel." + +"Oh! Honour! Honour!" she cried and flung out her arms, trembling. "The +honour of you and me!" + +What was Mr. Waverton to make of that? "I believe I have excited +you," says he. + +"By God, it is the first time," Alison cried and turned on him so +fiercely that he started back. + +There was a servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then +Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid +simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's +tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much +engaged to hear or be aware of her. + +"Here is Miss Burford," said Waverton in a hurry. + +Alison whirled upon her. "You! You have nothing to do here." + +"My dear Alison!" Waverton protested. "Miss Burford, your very obedient." + +Susan made him a small leisurely curtsy and sat down. "Oh, please give me +a dish of tea," she said. + +"We have not seen you at Tetherdown in this long while," Mr. Waverton +complained genially. + +"I believe not," says Susan. + +Alison stared at her. "Why do you come here? You know you despise me." + +"I do not come to people I despise," says Susan placidly. + +"Well. I am private with dear Geoffrey, if you please." + +"My dear Alison! I must be riding. We have finished our business, I +think. I'll not fail to be with you again soon. I hope to have news for +you. Miss Burford, your most obedient." Susan bent her head. "Alison--" +he held out his hand and smiled at her protective affection. + +"Geoffrey," said Alison, and looked in his eyes. She did not take the +hand. She was very pale. + +Mr. Waverton's smile was withered. He took himself out with a jauntiness +that sat upon him awkwardly. + +Then Alison turned again upon Susan. "You want to know what I have to do +with him?" she said fiercely. + +"No," says Susan. + +Alison stared at the fair, placid face and cried out: "You are a fool." + +"Oh, my dear," says Susan. + +"I hate that cold, flabby way of yours. You think it is all good and +wise and kind. It's like a silly mother with a spoilt child. You've not +spirit enough to scold, and all the while you are thinking me vile and +base and mean." + +"But that is ridiculous. Nobody could think you mean," Susan said. + +"There it is again. You believe it is kind to talk so, and it drives me +mad. I am shameful--do you hear? I am shameful and perhaps I want to be, +and I loathe myself. Now, go. I shall not stay with you. Go." + +Susan stood up. "Alison, oh, Alison," she said. Alison flung out +of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + +Late in that evening one of Alison's servants rode up to the "Hand of +Pork" and inquired for Mr. Boyce. After some parley, he was told that Mr. +Boyce had not been in the tavern that day. So he left a letter in the tap +and rode back to Highgate. + +That letter, which was not heard of till long afterwards, ran thus: + +"Mr. Boyce,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear.--A." + +An ungainly, confused composition, as you see, but it set forth very +clearly the state of Alison's unhappy mind. She was revolted, of course, +by Geoffrey's scheme of spying and trapping, loathed him for +propounding it to her, and was eager to warn Harry against it and clear +herself of any part in the vile business. But she would not have Harry +suppose that she was praying him to come back to her. This time, at +least, there should be no wooing on her side. If she wanted him +hungrily, shamefully, he should not know till he chose to take her. But +he must come to her and be told all the tale, and hold her free of any +part in Geoffrey's baseness. + +So she fought with herself and wrote of her strife, and, as things +went, it mattered nothing to Harry, for he never knew of it till much +else had happened. + +When he woke on the morning after his affairs with Captain McBean and the +Mohocks and his father--woke with a sore head and a very stiff shoulder, +he was a prey to puzzled excitement. There is no doubt that McBean had +engaged his affections. He was not, indeed, very grateful for the +fantastic duel. Of all men, Harry Boyce was the least likely to be +pleased by oddity or an extravagance of chivalry. He always thought, I +believe, that Captain McBean was a little mad, and liked him none the +better for it. But he confessed that with the madness there was allied a +most persuasive mind, a very reasonable reason. The combination may not +be so surprising to you as to Harry Boyce. He thought that McBean's +exposition of the affair of his father, and his consequent duty, was +exactly and delicately true--which means, of course, that it agreed with +his own temper. He had no more doubt than McBean that his father had +planned, was planning, treachery which, win or lose, would disgrace him. +He admitted that it was his own wretched duty to do what he might to make +an end of these plans. + +You smile, perhaps, at Harry Boyce claiming for himself the commands of +duty. He was eminently not a saint. He was not delicate. And yet, thrust +upon an awkward choice, it is certain that he chose what must be +difficult, hazardous, and distressing, rather than stand aloof and let +his father's villainy go its way. + +I make no pretence of exalting him into a tragic fellow. He had no +affection for his father, no respect. Merely to work against his father's +will, to smash his father's schemes, would certainly not have cost him +one twinge. He had no hate for his father either, not the least ambition +to ruin him or make him suffer. But he would heartily have liked to bring +these murderous plots to nothing and yet save his father from vengeance. +Harry had his share of the common human instinct to keep one's family out +of mischief--or at least out of the newspapers. + +And it is not to be denied that there was also active in him a simple +human animosity. He bore his father a grudge for being publicly a knave: +a man who had received nothing from his parents but the gift of birth +might fairly demand that they should not bother him with their rogueries. +He did not extenuate his father's share in the catastrophe of the +marriage. Perhaps it was in itself fated to miscarry, but if Colonel +Boyce had not mixed up his affairs with it, the end need not have been +ignominious. Harry vigorously condemned the old gentleman's meddling. It +was an impertinence at the best to manipulate other folks, and a father +who did it so stupidly as Colonel Boyce was a pestilent nuisance. But all +this, I believe, rankled less than the behaviour of Colonel Boyce on the +night before. If the old gentleman had acknowledged his offences, if he +had even been content to talk of them frankly, man to man, he might have +been forgiven. But his affectation of profound wisdom, his patronage, and +above all, his parade of mystery infuriated Harry's lucid mind. + +It sought further causes of offence and had no difficulty in finding +them. Everything about that conversation was suspicious. For how did it +begin? With a broken head, with every button of his clothes torn open as +though he had just been searched to the skin, he woke up in his father's +presence. The father might pose as a good Samaritan who had come upon a +sufferer by the wayside, but he should not have shown so nervous an +anxiety to know what the sufferer had been about. The father talked of +Mohocks; but what Mohocks were these who knocked a man down before making +sport of him and, not content with taking his money, went through all his +clothes? Why was a Mohock's club lying there beneath the father's swords? +Harry made a ready guess at the riddle. His father must have fellows +watching McBean's house. They had knocked him down to search him for +papers. Then the father must have known that he had been with McBean, and +those anxious questions were to discover how much he was McBean's friend. +Colonel Boyce must have a lively interest in the affairs of McBean--and +yet he professed that he had now nothing in hand. What if he knew of the +secret of the Pretender's coming to London? What if he was still seeking +a chance to accomplish his plot of murder? + +Well, Captain McBean expected no less of him. Captain McBean was in the +right of it. It became a good son's duty to confound his father's +politics. There's no denying that Harry went into the business with zest. + +While he ate his breakfast in the taproom, he caught sight of a fellow +lurking about outside. Whose spy this was is, in fact, not certain. +Afterwards Colonel Boyce vehemently denied that he had commissioned any +man against Harry. Though you may not believe him, it is possible that +the fellow was one of those in Waverton's pay. Harry made no doubt that +his father was the offender. + +He went upstairs again and put a book in his pocket. (He had been +commissioned for a translation of Ovid, which, let us be thankful, never +came into print.) Thus characteristically provided, he went out to +baffle the spy and the father. In the courts between Drury Lane and Bow +Street he did some ingenious marching and counter-marching whereby--he +was always confident and we cannot be quite sure--the spy was shaken +off. He then came into St. Martin's Lane by the north end, and dodging +in and out of it more than once, made for a tavern close to his father's +lodging. He planted himself inside by a window, called for a tankard and +a pipe, and divided his attention between the Tristia and his father's +door across the lane. + +It soon appeared that Colonel Boyce was to have a busy morning. By ones +and twos a dozen men went into his house. They were not, even to Harry's +hostile eye, brazenly ruffians. Something of the bully they might have +about them, for they ran to brawn and swagger, but they were trim enough +and brisk, and had no smack of debauch--a company of old soldiers, by the +look of them, and still not past their prime. They were with Colonel +Boyce a long time, and Harry grew very sick of the Tristia, and had to +drink more beer over it than was his habit of a morning. + +They came out at last singly, and yet with very short intervals between +them. They all turned the same way--across Leicester Fields. There seemed +to Harry something so uncommon in this that he was moved to follow. He +made his way out by the back door and the tavern yard. As he came into +Leicester Fields, he saw that the units had already amalgamated into +three companies. They were all steadily marching westward. Keeping behind +a cart he followed them, and after a while bought for twopence a lift in +an empty hay wagon. I record all this because he seems to have been very +proud of it, which is characteristic of his simple nature. The hay wagon +rumbled him past two companies of them halted and coalescing at an inn. +The first still headed him at a good round pace all the way to +Kensington. + +The wagon was going through Kensington village when he saw that this +vanguard too had found an inn. A little farther on he abandoned his +wagon and, buying bread and cheese at a farm, made his dinner under +the hedge. It was a long while before he saw anything more of the +gentlemen of the inn, and lying among primroses and cowslips he nearly +forgot all about them and his excitement and his wonderful tactics. He +was, in fact, becoming sentimental, and had made three neat +hendecasyllabics to the cowslips when the gentlemen came out again. +They split into pairs and marched on briskly. Harry went through the +hedge, and from behind it he watched them pass. Then, as now, the road +ran straight, and it was not safe to come out and follow them till they +were far ahead. While he waited he heard more tramping, and in a little +while the rest of the company went by. He peeped out after them and saw +an odd thing: though the road ran straight for a mile or more, the +first party had vanished already. + +Harry climbed a tree. It was some little time before he discovered the +lost party. They had scattered, they had taken to the fields and, under +hedges, they were making southward. The rest of the company did likewise. +Soon he saw what they were after. There was a lane running from the high +road towards Fulham. A little way back from it, in a good garden, stood a +house of modest comfort, doubtless the place to which some gentleman +about town came for his pleasures or a breath of fresh air. About its +grounds the company went into hiding. + +Harry came down from his tree in a hurry and, like an honest man, took to +the high road. It was, you know, his one uncommon capacity to go easily +at a round pace. He did his best along the road and down the lane and, +though he caught a glimpse of a coat here and there, unchallenged he came +up the drive and across the garden to the door of the house. He had +hardly knocked before he was being inspected through a peep-hole. The +door was opened and instantly shut behind him. He was in darkness dimly +lit by one candle. The windows had their shutters closed and barred. + +"What's your will, sir?" says the man who let him in. + +"The master of the house, if you please," Two other men lounged +into the hall. + +"And your name, sir?" + +"You may say that I came from Captain McBean." + +The man appeared to think it over. "That's true enough, faith," says +another, advancing out of the shadow. Harry recognised one of the solemn +seconds of the duel, Patrick O'Connor. "Will I serve your turn, sir?" + +"If you're master here." + +"I am not. Come on now." He led the way to a room where a cadaverous man, +richly dressed, sat huddled over a fire. "'Tis a gentleman from the +captain, my lord. Mr. Boyce, my Lord Sale." + +Harry bowed. My lord yawned. "You've a devil of a name, Mr. +Boyce," says he. + +"I deplore it, and hope to disgrace it." + +"Is it possible?" said my lord, and yawned again. + +"I had the honour to tell you, my lord, that I answer for the gentleman," +says Mr. O'Connor. + +"You may endorse the devil, if you please," my lord sneered. + +Harry struck in, "I came to tell you, my lord, that your house is +watched, and by now surrounded." + +"Damn them, they have found it out, have they?" says my lord, and spread +out his lean hands to the fire. + +"How many, if you please?" says O'Connor. + +"A dozen or so. They marched out this morning, scattered, and met again +in the village and came here across country. They are well-armed, I +believe, and look men who would fight." + +"Ods fish, that nets this hole," says my lord. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, when +will they put the ferret in?" Harry shrugged. "Oh, there's a limit to +your kindness, is there? Do you choose to tell us who sent them?" + +Harry was silent a moment and then blurted out: "They came from Colonel +Boyce's lodging." + +My lord laughed. + +"Sure, 'tis an honour to know you, sir," says O'Connor, and bowed to +Harry. + +"Damned filial, indeed," my lord chuckled. + +O'Connor turned upon him. "They have you beat easily, my lord," he said +fiercely. "Damned courageous indeed." But my lord only nodded at him. +"What, we be six--to count Mr. Boyce. Sure, we could hold the house +against the devil's christening." + +There came in briskly a tall fellow crying: "Come, Sale, it's full time, +I believe." + +My Lord Sale got on his feet, "Stap me, sir, I believe not," he drawled. +"We must stay at home. They have smoked us. Here's a gracious youth come +to tell us that his Whiggish friends beset the house." + +The Pretender frowned and seemed slow to understand. Harry looked him +over. He was certainly a fine figure of a man, and bore himself gallantly +enough. His face was darkly handsome in a melancholy fashion, not unlike +the youth of his uncle, Charles II. He turned upon Harry. "What is all +this, sir?" + +"Oh, sir, it's that old rogue Noll Boyce," my lord put in. "And here's +his son betraying the father." + +"Faith, my lord, I'll remind you of that," O'Connor said. "Sir, the +gentleman is an honest gentleman." + +"Colonel Boyce--he is your father, sir?" the Pretender bent his black +brows over Harry. + +"He begot me, he says." Harry shrugged. "I desire to defend you from him. +He has surrounded your house here with a dozen sturdy knaves who intend +you, I believe, the worst." + +"I am obliged by your service, sir," says the Pretender coldly. "Pray, my +lord, is the coach ready?" + +My lord shook his head. "I don't advise it, sir. The good Mr. Boyce +cannot be lying. Or allow the knaves mean but to frighten you. I dare not +risk your person." + +"Dare? You dare too much, my lord, who command neither my person nor my +honour. I do not thank you for your advice. You will have the coach +brought instantly." + +"I ask your pardon, sir, and beg you to consider. What will the world +say of me if I let you run into a gang of murderers? We can maintain +the house against them till our friends come seeking us. In the open +we are outnumbered desperately. Nay, sir, be advised; what is to lose +by waiting? If you go, you grasp at a shadow and may throw away your +life for it." + +"I say, my lord, I do not thank you for your care of me, which is +careless of my honour and your own. I am promised to our friends. Do you +desire me to go afoot, my lord?" + +"I have done, sir." My lord bowed and went out. + +"Sir, I believe they will not spare you," says Harry. + +"I have heard you," the Pretender said haughtily, and waved him away. + +"I'll not be put off so." The Pretender turned upon him. "Sir, I have +done what I could to save your life from a base plot. If it succeeds, the +shame of it must fall upon me and my name, for it's my cursed father that +planned it. And you choose to run upon the danger. I entreat you, do me +right. Your blood should not be upon my head." + +"You have done your duty, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender bowed. "I thank you. +But I must do mine." + +"Why, faith, sir, 'tis the right principle of war to wait the rogues +here," says O'Connor. "You will not?" + +"Go to, man, I say it again and again." + +For the first time in their acquaintance, Harry saw Mr. O'Connor smile. +"I have the honour to take your orders, sir. But sure, we are not at the +end of our tactics. I'll presume to advise you. Let the coach come to the +door, and me and the other gentlemen will make some display of mounting +her and guarding her; she moves off slowly; it's any odds the rogues will +believe we have you with us and deliver their main attack, while you'll +be mounting quietly in the yard with my lord and ride off with him to +Kensington." + +"The plan is well enough. Have it so," said the Pretender carelessly. + +O'Connor went out in a hurry and Harry followed him. "I'll join you, if +you please, Mr. O'Connor." + +O'Connor laughed. "Oh, your servant, your servant. No offence, Mr. +Boyce. I profess I have an admiration for you. But, faith, you are not a +man of war. Do you go round to the stable-yard, now, and watch there to +see they prepare nothing against us from the back." He bustled off, +calling up his fellows. + +So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the +house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign +of his father's legion. In a moment the groom, with one of O'Connor's +men to help him, was busy again in the stable. Still the legion did not +reveal themselves. O'Connor's man ran back into the house, leaving two +horses saddled in the stable. Then the Pretender and my lord hurried +out, and the horses were brought to meet them. As they mounted, Harry +heard the clatter of the coach and then pistols and shouts, and the +clash of fighting. + +The Pretender spurred off, my lord taking the lead of him through the +gate. As they passed, a shot was fired out of the hedge. My lord swayed, +fumbling at his holsters, and crying out: "Ride on, sir, ride," fell from +the saddle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse +dragged him along the ground. + +Harry ran up and snatched the bridle. "How is it with you, my lord?" + +"I have enough, I believe," my lord gasped. "Damme, sir, don't fumble at +me. Mount and after him." + +So Harry went bumping in the saddle after the Pretender. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + +The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he +hit?" + +"He has it in the body and he suffers." + +The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you +see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce." + +"You can do me no harm, sir. God knows if I can do you any good." + +The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my +own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me." + +"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we +are going now?" + +"This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and +die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way." + +"Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined +up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?" + +The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that +he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy. + +"Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me, +where is this damned palace?" + +"Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please." + +So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the +trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you +know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the +disinherited king. + +"Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies +watching for you." + +"And I believe I have not thanked you." + +It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to +the family of Boyce." + +"I shall not forget." + +"He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father." + +"I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too +proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself." + +Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he +was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy +lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the +Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he +would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for +any other in the world. + +Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on +the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham, +sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not +by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden +wall upon the London side. + +There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a +"Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to God nothing has +fallen out amiss?" + +"There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends +are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here." + +Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I +feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady +much troubled for her. By God, we have left it late. And the ministers +must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We +must be swift and downright with the Council." + +Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to +face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was +to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she +presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good +plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the +will to make it work. + +Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy +stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a +hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As +they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation +and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham +plunged after them and wildly waved them on. + +"What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled. + +"Oh God, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard +now," and he muttered to himself. + +"You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go +before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on. + +Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company +below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare +nobility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no +forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach, +the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in +disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were +staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had +betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder +Lord Masham was uneasy for his head. + +They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham, +brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in +a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I +believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard +another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words, +like a baby's cry or an animal's. + +Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim +splendour, and as they passed the door Harry made out what that feeble +voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep +the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew +why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if +they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled. + +A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire +sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was +not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid +mass. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed. +Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it +change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and +it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he +looked there came to him a sense of death. + +Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich +stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her +neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings. + +There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with +something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the +Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded +imperiously at Masham. + +"The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried. + +The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and +shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be +loud," she complained. + +"Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it +is Prince James." + +The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?" +he said heavily. + +The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, +and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like +King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why +does he come? The Council is waiting." + +"I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said. + +"What does he say, Abbie?" the Queen turned to Lady Masham and took her +hand and fondled it feebly. "I am alone. There is none left to me. My boy +is dead. My babies--I am alone. I am alone." + +"I am your brother and your King," the Pretender cried. + +She fell back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble +came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to +shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a +while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, +tap of her hand beat through the room. + +Lady Masham took command. "Nay, sir, leave her. You can do no more now. +Let her be. I will handle her if I can." She rustled across the room +and struck a bell. "Masham, bring Dr. Arbuthnot. He irks her less than +the rest." + +Harry followed the Pretender into the outer room, shambling +awkwardly. The progress from failure to failure dazed him. He recalled +afterwards, as many petty matters of this time stayed vivid in his +memory, a preposterous blunder into a chair. The Pretender sat down +and stretched at his ease. "We are too late, I think," he said coldly. +"It is the genius of my family." He took snuff. "You may go, if you +will, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry looked up and struggled to collect himself. "Not till you are in +safety," he said, and was dully aware of some discomfort. The dying +woman, the sheer ugliness of death, the sordid emotions about her numbed +the life in him. He felt himself in a world inhuman. Yet, even +afterwards, he seems not to have discovered anything ignoble in his +admired Pretender. The blame was fate's that mocked coldly at the hopes +and affections of men. + +"I am obliged, sir," said the Pretender, and so they waited together.... + +After a little while of gloomy silence in that bare room, Masham broke +in, beckoning and muttering: "Sir, sir, the Queen is dead." + +The Pretender stood up. "_Enfin_" said he, with a shrug. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +SAUVE QUI PEUT + + +"Sir, you must be gone instantly," says Masham. + +"You are officious, my lord." The Pretender stared at him. "I have +nothing to fear." + +"I warrant you have," Masham cried. "And so have others." + +"I believe that, _pardieu_. Come, my lord, command yourself. Where is +this Council? I may still show myself to the lords and challenge them." + +"Damme, you cannot be so mad! 'Tis packed with Whigs. They must have wind +of you, curse them. Marlborough is there, and Argyll and Sunderland, burn +his foxy face. It might have gone amiss though the Queen armed you to her +chair. Now she is dead, there is no hope for you. Go to the Council! Go +to the Tower--go to the block." + +The Pretender turned to Harry with a smile and a shrug. "He trims his +sails quickly." + +"That's unworthy, by God," Masham cried. + +"My lord is in the right, sir," Harry said. "It's true enough, +Marlborough is here and he makes sure. You'll but extinguish yourself to +try more now. The need is to bring you safe to your friends." + +"You also!" The Pretender shrugged again. "Faith, Mr. Boyce, you +show yourself vastly anxious for my life. You are not much concerned +for my honour." + +"Egad, sir, I should have thought your honour was to maintain your cause. +You'll not do that from a prison or coffin." + +"Who knows?" the Pretender said. "My grandfather--" + +Masham was stamping with impatience. "Oh Lud, sir, must we gossip +about your grandfather? Stay here, you cannot. It is not decent. The +Queen's a corpse behind that door. Why, and if they take you in the +palace, it's ruin for you and for us all. Oh, we shall not be spared +if you are caught." + +"Yes. I am a curse to my friends." The Pretender laughed drearily. "Well, +my lord, you shall be delivered at least. Lead the way." Masham hurried +out on the word. As they followed the Pretender took Harry's arm. "I wish +you may be right, Mr. Boyce," he said. "But my heart bids me stay." + +"Oh, sir, a king has no right to a heart," says Harry. + +They were suddenly thrown upon Masham as he checked and drew back without +warning. He had come upon a woman who was leaving the Queen's apartments, +a woman who had once been handsome, and was still proud of it. She +stared haughtily at Masham and his companions, and swept on before them. +He was much agitated. + +"What alarms you, my lord?" The Pretender sneered. + +"Carrots from Somerset, egad," Masham muttered, gazing after the +disdainful lady's red head. "It's the Duchess of Somerset, sir, the +damnedest Whig, and she came from the Queen. Now they will all know the +Queen is gone. Come on, sir, come on for God's sake." + +They hurried after him through the palace. All was quiet enough. +Afterwards, indeed, Harry could hardly believe that fancy had not played +tricks with his memory; for the emptiness, the silence of the corridors +must needs have been a dramatic invention of his own mind and no reality. +But it is true that as they hurried their retreat he was haunted by the +quiet of the place--the quiet of death, a quiet ominous of storm. + +They were down at the door by which they had entered, and Masham's +servant-in-waiting there was dispatched for the horses. Masham fumed at +the minutes of delay, ran out and in again, and then with some +awkwardness apologized for himself. "Egad, sir, I warrant you we have +done what we could. It is for you I fear, by God. I promise you, I doubt +damnably how things may go. Pray, sir, put yourself in safety." + +"I am grateful for your emotions, my lord." + +Masham stared at him and then cried out, "Ods life, what now?" The horses +were coming, but before the horses came two of the Guards at the double. +They halted at the door, panting, and grounded their muskets. "What the +devil's this, my lad?" says Masham. + +"None is to leave the palace, my lord." + +"Damme, sirrah, you know me?" + +"It won't do, my lord. That's the order. You must go speak with the +captain at the main gate." + +"Come, sir, I have no time. Forget that you were here soon enough to stop +me. You shall not lose by it." + +"It won't do, my lord. Nay, nay, don't force me to it." The corporal +crossed muskets with his fellow as Masham was thrusting by. "Order is to +spare none." + +"Damme, sir, what do your mean?" + +"Sure, my lord, you know better than that." The corporal grinned. "Ask +the captain, if you please." + +Masham recoiled and drew the others back into the palace. They heard the +corporal shout: "Put the nags up, my bully. My lord won't ride to-day." + +"They know you are here, sir," Masham said, with a very white face. "Damn +the Somerset! She lost no time. What is to do now?" + +"It seems my own plan was the best, gentlemen. If I had gone into the +Council we should at the worst have been in no worse case." + +"Oh Lud, sir, must we wrangle that out again?" + +"You are impudent, my lord. I will do without your company." + +"Good God, sir, it's no time for forms. What would you be at?" + +"I shall go to the main gate of your palace and see who will stand +in my way." + +"That's ruin for certain," Masham groaned. + +"Be easy, my lord. I shall not boast myself your guest." + +"Oh, you are mad." + +"By your leave, sir," says Harry. "We need not so soon despair, I think, +nor you run upon your death. There is something more to be tried. These +sentries, they'll be on the watch for a gentleman of your distinction and +in my lord's company or of some noble attendance. But a common fellow may +pass them. If you would lend me your fine clothes and that great wig, and +condescend to my subfuse and bob, there's no one would take so shabby a +fellow for yourself. Maybe I might make a show to break out one way, +while you slipped past by another." + +"And left you to bear the brunt for me? I complain of you again, Mr. +Boyce--you do not much value my honour." + +"And I say again, sir, your honour is to maintain your cause. Nay, but +what can they do to me? Faith, it's no sin to wear fine clothes. And +I--well, I think the Whigs will never bring me into court. I know too +much of my father." + +"Oh, you are specious, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender smiled at him. "Nay, if +all my friends were such as you, I should not be in this queer plight." +He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "How am I to thank you, sirrah?" + +"Pray, sir, do as I advise." + +The hand pressed harder. "Be it so then." + +"Egad, I like it very well," says Masham heartily. The two exchanged a +shrug and a sneer at him. "If Mr. Boyce will risk it, he may make a show +of marching out by the garden entrance while you slip away by the +servants' wicket beyond." + +"I believe I can trust you to get rid of me, my lord," the Pretender +shrugged. "Pray, where may we exchange our characters--and our breeches?" + +"Oh, sir, follow me; we must be private about that." + +Harry burst out laughing. "Aye, faith, he is a gentleman of delicacy, our +Masham," the Pretender said. + +But my lord had no ears or no understanding for irony. He brought them to +his own quarters and, fervidly entreating them to lose no time, shut them +in and mounted guard outside the door. + +They cut queer figures to their own eyes when they came out, and Masham +was distressed by their laughter. "What ails you?" he protested +nervously. "It does well enough, I swear." + +"I am flattered by your admiration, _pardieu_," says the Pretender, with +a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, +and a clutch at the bob-wig's jauntiness. + +"Some are born great," says Harry, "and some have greatness thrust upon +'em. I believe I can keep inside your periwig, sir, but damme if I am +sure about your breeches. They disdain me, egad." + +"God's life, sir, if you make a jest of it you'll ruin us all," Masham +cried. "I vow it's not seemly, neither. The Queen's dead but this +half-hour, and--and, by God, our own heads are loose on our shoulders." + +"My lord's in the right, sir. It's no laughing matter," says Harry. + +"Aye, he's all noble feeling," the Pretender shrugged. + +"Come on, sir, in God's name," Masham groaned. + +"Look you, thus it goes. I'll bring you within sight of the garden +entry. Then you make to go out, Mr. Boyce, with what parade you can. And +you, sir, I'll take you to the head of the back stairs. You have but to +go straight down and out, and I wish you God speed with all my heart. +Come, come!" + +They marched along the corridor and must needs pass the end of that which +led to the Queen's apartments. Masham was a little ahead of the others. +He passed the corner. Then he checked and he turned sharp about and +charged back on them, crowding them against the wall, trying to stand in +front of both of them and hide them. + +It was Marlborough who alarmed my lord, Marlborough who came, alone, +pacing slowly from the room where the Queen lay dead. No dismay, no +emotion troubled his supreme grace. He disdained his splendours and his +beauty with the wonted calm. + +He saw them, could not but see them, huddled together as they were and +striving not to be seen. His face betrayed nothing. He paced slowly up to +them. It seemed to Harry that from the first his placid eyes looked at +none of them but the Pretender. "We have met before, sir, I think," he +said gently. + +"On the field of battle," says the Pretender in French. + +Marlborough bowed. "Give me your company." + +"Oh, your family has always been too kind to mine." + +Marlborough pointed the way. + +The Pretender shrugged, and "_Enfin_," says he with a bitter laugh, and +marched on with an air. + +Masham, leaning against the wall and very white, muttered to himself, "My +God, my God!" + +Harry ran forward to look after them. He saw Marlborough glance over the +Pretender's shabby clothes and then, making some ostentation of it, put +on his hat. The Pretender with a stare of disdain put on his--or Harry's. +They came to the head of the grand staircase and went down. The servants +in the hall sprang up and ran to open the doors for His Grace. Harry +heard a din and a clang and saw a flash of steel as the guard outside +presented arms. The two passed out and out of sight. For a little while +the servants stood staring after them, and then came back to their chairs +whispering. + +Harry turned round to Masham. "What now?" + +"Now?" Masham stared. "Now we may go hang ourselves." + +"Like Judas? Damme, I don't feel the obligation. Do you, my lord?" + +Masham swore at him and began to walk off. + +"Can you lend me a humbler coat, my lord?" Harry cried. "I am no more +use in this." + +"I'll do no more in it," Masham growled. "Look to yourself." + +"_Enfin,_ as His Majesty says," quoth Harry with a laugh, and went on to +look for the garden entry or any other humble door. He found it soon +enough and was going through it--to be instantly beset by a sergeant's +party and a joyful shout, "Odso, 'tis himself, 'tis the Chevalier." + +"You flatter me," says Harry, and they marched him off. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +REVELATIONS + + +Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came +in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none. +He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew, +indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the +Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the +Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. +He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he +saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be +some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless +distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was +born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison +came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they +opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full +zest of life, all the wonder and the glory--that he might know what it +was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should +never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool. +How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done. +She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was +a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put +his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a +fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who +would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, +but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. +Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for +the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce +should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of +cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. +And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her +beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget +her, forget her as she lay in his arms. + +The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a +room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp +face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a +ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes +too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in +contemptuous disgust. + +"Your name?" + +"La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can +do without." + +"I am the Earl of Sunderland." + +"Then, damme, I am sorry for you." + +"Your name, I say?" + +"Why, didn't your fellows tell you? They told me." + +"Impudence will not serve you. I warn you, the one chance to save +yourself is to be honest with me." + +Harry began to hum a song, and, between the bars, he said, "You may go to +the devil. I care not a curse for anything you can do. So think of your +dignity, my lord. And hold your silly tongue." + +Sunderland considered him keenly. A secretary came in and whispered. "I +will see him," Sunderland said, and lay back in his chair. + +It was Colonel Boyce who broke in, Colonel Boyce something flushed and +out of breath. "Egad, my lord," he began. Sunderland held up his hand. +Colonel Boyce checked and stood staring at his son. + +Harry began to laugh. "Oh, sir, you're infinitely welcome. It only needed +you to complete my happiness." + +"Od's life, sirrah." Colonel Boyce advanced upon him. "Are you crazy? +What damned folly is this?" + +"You know him then?" says Sunderland. + +"Oh, my lord, it's a wise father knows his own son. And he is not +wise, you know. Are you, most reverend? No, faith, or you would never +have begot me. No, faith, nor enlist me to do murder neither. For I do +but bungle it, you see. And make a fool of my Lord Sunderland, God +bless him." + +"Is he mad?" says Sunderland. + +"I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry, +stop your ranting. What brought you here?" + +"You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders +for him. _Imprimis_, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers +who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder." + +"You came here with the Pretender?" + +Harry laughed and began to sing a catch: + +"'Tis nothing to you if I should do so, + And if nothing in it you find, +Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe + Than ever I designed." + +"What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried. + +"Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you +suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all +be shamed." + +"The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug. + +"Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad +fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day, +and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for +your Jacobites. Tell me now--the Pretender is in your clothes, I +see--where did you part from him?" + +"Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter +for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all +power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who +don't trust you?" + +Some voices made themselves heard from outside. Sunderland and Colonel +Boyce looked at each other, and my lord bit his fingers. The Colonel +muttered something in Sunderland's ear. + +Harry laughed. "Do you bite your thumb at me, my lord? No, sir, says he, +but I bite my thumb. Odso, I bite my thumb." + +"Be silent, sirrah," Sunderland cried. + +The door opened. "Announce me," says a placid voice, and the secretary +cried out in a hurry: "His Grace the Duke of Marlborough." + +Harry went on laughing. The contrast of Marlborough's assured calm and +the agitation of the others was too impressive. "Oh, three merry men, +three merry men, three merry men are ye," he chanted. "No, damme, it's +more Shakespeare. The three witches, egad. And I suppose Duncan is +murdered in the next act. When shall you three meet again? In--" + +"Oh, damn your tongue, Harry," his father exploded. + +Marlborough was not disturbed. His eye had picked out Sunderland. "Is +this the whole conspiracy, my lord?" said he. + +"I beg your Grace's pardon," Sunderland started up. "You see, I am not +private," and he called out: "Guard, guard." + +"No," Marlborough said, and, as the soldiers came in, dismissed them with +"You are not needed." + +Sunderland fell back in his chair. "Oh, if you please," he cried +peevishly. "At your Grace's command." + +"You have no secrets from Mr. Boyce, my lord." He turned to Harry. "Sir, +we have met before," and he bowed. + +"Yes. The first time your wife was stuck in the mud. Now it's you." + +"Sir, you have obliged me on both occasions," Marlborough said. "Well, my +lord? You had Mr. Boyce under examination. Pray go on." + +"I don't understand your Grace," Sunderland said sulkily. "I have done +with the gentleman." + +Colonel Boyce thrust forward. "By your Grace's leave, I'll take the lad +away. Time presses and--" + +"You may be silent," said Marlborough. For the first time in their +acquaintance Harry saw his father look at a loss. It was an ugly, +ignominious spectacle. Marlborough turned to Harry, smiling, and his +voice lost its chill: "Well, Mr. Boyce, how far had it gone? Were they +asking you what you had done with Prince James?" + +Harry stared at the bland, handsome condescension and hated it. "Oh, +you have always had the devil's own luck," he cried. "Devil give you +joy of it, now." + +"You mistake me, I believe. I can forgive you more easily than some +others." He turned upon Sunderland. "I will tell you where Prince James +is, my lord. Safe out of your reach. On his way to France." + +Sunderland made a petulant exclamation and spread out his hands. "Your +Grace goes beyond me, I profess. Do you choose to be frank with me?" + +"Frank?" Marlborough laughed. "You know the word, then? By all means let +us be frank. I found Prince James in the palace. He accepted my company. +We had some conversation, my lord. I present to you the results. You have +used my name to warrant a silly, knavish plot for murdering Prince James +in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this +mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against +the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete +your blunders--but for the chance that I came upon him and took him +through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our +hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your +obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being confused with these +imbecilities." + +Sunderland, who had been wriggling and become flushed, cried out: "I'll +not submit to this. I don't choose to answer your Grace. You shall hear +from me when you are cooler." + +"My compliments," Marlborough laughed. "I do not stand by my friends? I +lose my temper? You will easily convince the world of that, my lord. +Colonel Boyce!" Before Harry's wondering eyes his father came to +attention and, with an expression much like a guilty dog's, waited his +reward. "You have had some of my confidence and I think you have not lost +by it. You have repaid me with an impudent treachery. I shall arrange +that you have no more opportunity at home or abroad." + +"Pray leave to ask your Grace's pardon," Colonel Boyce muttered. "I +swear--" + +"You may be silent," Marlborough said, and turned away from them. "Pray, +Mr. Boyce, will you walk?" Something bewildered by this time, Harry stood +up and they went out together. "I require a carriage for this gentleman," +said Marlborough to the sergeant of the guard, and with a smile to Harry, +"That will be convenient, I think?" + +"Egad, sir, you might say, decent," says Harry with a wary hand on +his breeches. + +"Spare me a moment while you wait," Marlborough turned into a recess of +the corridor. "Prince James expressed himself much in your debt, Mr. +Boyce. Consider me not less obliged. Thanks to you, I have freed myself +of suspicions which I profess it had irked me to bear." + +"Your Grace owes me nothing. I never thought of you. Or if I did you were +the villain of the piece." + +Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so +distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so +great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you +and bring you down to our own level." + +"You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my +compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in +your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the +pleasure of commanding me." + +"Oh, your Grace does everything magnificently," says Harry, with a wry +smile, and liked him none the better. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + +There is reason to believe that the Earl of Sunderland and Colonel Boyce +fell out. Sunderland, never an easy man, suspected that he had been +ridiculous and was nervously eager to make some one smart for it. Colonel +Boyce was in a despondent rage that any one should have heard Marlborough +rate him so. They seem to have had some cat and dog business before they +parted: each, I infer, blaming the other for their ignominy. + +But they took it in very different fashions. Colonel Boyce suffered in +the more respectable part of his soul. Sunderland merely fumed and felt +venomous. For it is certain (if absurd) that Colonel Boyce had a sincere +reverence for Marlborough. He much desired (one of his few simple human +emotions) that Marlborough should think well of him. If he had tacked +Marlborough's name to a dirty business about which Marlborough knew +nothing, he had honestly believed that His Grace would be very well +content to know nothing of the means, and profit by the end. That his +hero should retort upon him disgust and contempt wounded him painfully. +Final proof of his devotion--he never thought of questioning +Marlborough's judgment. He had no doubt that he had managed the affair +with miserable stupidity, and bowed a humiliated head. + +Unfortunately, he was not ready to bow it before Sunderland. If there was +to be scolding between him and Sunderland, he had a mind to give as much +as he took. My lord had been art and part in the whole affair, and could +have his share, too, in the disaster. But Sunderland had no notion of +accepting Marlborough's opinion of him. Sunderland had no reverence for +any of God's creatures, and with Marlborough safe out of the room, +snarled something about an old fellow in his dotage. This much enlivened +the quarrel, and they parted in some exhaustion, but still raging. + +The night brought counsel. Sunderland might tell himself and believe that +Marlborough had become only the shadow of a great name. But the great +name, he knew very well, was valuable to himself and his party, and he +had no notion of throwing it away for the sake of his injured dignity. In +his way, Colonel Boyce was quite as necessary to my lord. The fellow knew +too much to be discarded. Moreover, he would still be valuable. His +talents for intrigue and even that weakness of his, his fertility in +multiplying intrigue, much appealed to Sunderland. So before noon on the +next day, Colonel Boyce was reading a civil letter from my lord. He +sneered over it, but it was welcome enough. He did not want to be idle, +and could rely on Sunderland to find him agreeable occupation. He walked +out to wait on my lord, and they made it up, which was perhaps +unfortunate for Mr. Waverton. + +Later in the day my lord heard that a gentleman was asking to speak with +him, a gentleman who professed to have information about the Pretender +which he could give only to my lord's private ear. Thereupon my lord +received a large and imposing young gentleman, who said: "My Lord +Sunderland? My lord, I am Geoffrey Waverton of Tetherdown, a gentleman of +family (as you may know) and sufficient estate. This is to advise you +that I am in need of no private advantage and desire none, but only to do +my duty against traitors." + +"You are benevolent, sir, but I am busy." + +"I believe you will be glad to postpone your business to mine, my lord," +says Mr. Waverton haughtily. "Let me tell you at this moment of anxious +doubt," Mr. Waverton hesitated like one who forgets a bit of his prepared +eloquence,--"let me tell you the Pretender has come to these shores. He +has come to England, to London. He was in Kensington yesterday." + +"You amaze me, Mr. Waverton." + +"My lord, I can take you to the house." + +"You are very obliging. Is he there now?" + +"I believe not, my lord." + +"And I believe not too. Mr. Waverton, the world is full of gentlemen +who know where the Pretender was the other day. You are tedious. Where +is he now?" + +"My lord, I shall put in your power one who is in all his cunning +secrets: one who is the treasonous mainspring of the plot." + +Sunderland, who was something of a purist, made a grimace: "A treasonous +mainspring! You may keep it, sir." + +"You are pleased to be facetious, my lord. I warn you we have here no +matter for levity. I shall deliver to your hands one who is deep in the +most dangerous secrets of the Jacobites, art and part of the design +which at this moment of peril and dismay brings the Pretender down upon +our peace." + +"Mr. Waverton, you are as dull as a play. Who is he, this bogey of +yours?" + +"He calls himself Boyce," said Mr. Waverton, with an intense sneer. +"Harry Boyce, a shabby, scrubby trickster to the eye. You would take him +for a starveling usher, a decayed footman. It's a lurker in holes and +corners, indeed, a cringing, grovelling fellow. But with a heart full of +treason and all the cunning of a base, low hypocrisy. Still a youth, but +sodden in lying craft." + +Sunderland picked up a pen and played with it, and through the flutter of +the feather he began to look keenly at Mr. Waverton. "Pray spare me the +rhetoric," says he. "What has he done, your friend, Harry Boyce?" + +"He has this long time past been hand and glove with the Jacobites of +Sam's. I have evidence of it. Now mark you what follows. Yesterday +betimes he slunk out to Kensington, using much cunning secrecy. And there +he made his way to a certain house--I wonder if you know it, my lord? It +was close watched yesterday, and a coach that came from it was beset. I +wonder if you have been asking yourself how the Pretender evaded that +watch. I can dispel the mystery. This fellow Harry Boyce went in with +news of the guard about the house. It was in his company that the +Pretender rode away." + +"Why do you stop?" said Sunderland. + +"Where they went then I cannot tell you. You will please to observe, my +lord, that I am precisely honest with you and even to this knave Boyce +just. But it is certain that in the evening when Harry Boyce came back to +the low tavern where he lodges--and he came, if you please, in a handsome +coach--he was wearing the very clothes of the Pretender--aye, even to the +hat and wig. I believe I have said enough, my lord. It will be plain to +you that the fellow is very dangerous to the peace of the realm and our +good and lawful king. If you lay hands on him, which I advise you to do +swiftly, you will quench a treason which has us all in peril, and well +deserve the favour of King George. For my own part I seek neither favour +nor reward, desiring only to do my duty as a gentleman." Mr. Waverton +concluded with a large bow in the flamboyant style. + +"Your name is Waverton?" Sunderland said coldly. Mr. Waverton was +stupefied. That such eloquence should not raise a man's temperature! That +he should not have made his name remembered! He remained dumb. "Pray when +did you turn your coat?" + +"Turn my coat?" Mr. Waverton gasped. + +"You once professed yourself Jacobite. You went to France with a certain +Colonel Boyce. You quarrelled with him because he was not Jacobite. Now +you desire to get his son into trouble. You do not gain upon me, Mr. +Waverton." + +"I can explain, my lord--" + +"Pray, spare me," says Sunderland. "You are not obscure. I see that you +have a private grudge against the family of Boyce. Settle it in private, +Mr. Waverton. It is more courageous." + +Mr. Waverton stared at him and began several repartees which were +only begun. + +"I find you tiresome," Sunderland said. "I advise you, do not make me +think of you again," and he struck his bell. But when Mr. Waverton was +gone: "I fear he has not the spirit of a louse," my lord remarked to +himself with a shrug. + +Thus Mr. Waverton's virtue was left to seek its own reward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN THE TAP + + +When Harry came back to his tavern, he was, you'll believe, not anxious +to be seen. He made one step from the coach to the door, scurried through +the tap and upstairs. But the coming of a coach, and a coach of some +splendour, to the humble "Hand of Pork" had brought folks to the windows, +and at the staircase window Harry bumped into his landlady, who gasped at +him and began a "Save your lordship--" which ended in "God help us, it's +Mr. Boyce." + +"Cook me a steak, Meg," Harry said, and went up the stairs three +at a time. + +She screamed after him "Ha' you seen your letter? There's a letter for +you in the tap." + +When Harry came down in his natural clothes, his best and one remaining +suit, and shouted for his supper she was quarrelling with the potman and +searching the shelves: "Meg, you villain--Meg, where's my steak?" + +"Lord love you, it's to the fire. I be looking for your letter. Ain't you +had it now? Days it's been here, I swear, and I saw it again only this +morning. By the black jar of usquebaugh it was, George, Od rot you." + +"Burn the letter," says Harry. "Go, bring me that steak, you slut." + +"Oh, God save you," Mrs. Meg cried in a pet, and so for Alison's letter +there was no more search. But indeed they would not have found it. + +Harry, if he ever thought about it, supposed it one of the grumbling +screeds of the bookseller for whom he scribbled and was glad to be rid of +it so easily. But he was in no case to think usefully of anything. The +amazement of his deliverance left him in a queer state of excited +lassitude. His nerves were all tremulous, he must needs do everything +vehemently, and felt the while as if he were being whirled along, +passive, in the grip of some force outside himself One moment he was +dreaming himself capable of miracles, the next he was limp with weariness +and utterly impotent. And naturally, as soon as he had food inside him, +weariness won and he was overwhelmed with great waves of languor. He +hardly dragged himself up to his attic before he was asleep. + +When he woke, the world was grey. He could survey himself cynically and +wonder why he had been such a fool as to be in a fluster overnight. +Faith, it was a grand exploit to dabble in conspiracies and come out with +your head still (for a while) on your shoulders. And that only by a turn +of the luck, not any wit of his. Well! Neither winners nor losers would +want more of the blundering offices of Mr. Harry Boyce. He was back again +after his conversation with royalty--and royal breeches--a hack writer +in his garret. And Alison as far away as ever. The wonderful Alison! The +beauty of her flashed into his squalor. He felt her passionate life. Be +hanged to Alison! Let the hack writer get to his writing. + +All that day he strove with the fluency of Ovid, and to this hour his +labours, much flaccid verse, survive in a decent obscurity. It was late +in the afternoon before he yielded to his growing disgust with the +whinings of the Tristia and sought relief in the open air. + +There was not much movement in the air of Long Acre. The day had been +warm and languorous, with heavy showers steaming up again in the sun. +Clouds were darkening across the twilight for more rain. Harry turned off +to stretch his legs and find some freer air across the fields by the +Oxford road. But he was soon tired of them. The moist heat oppressed him +still and lowering darkness across the sky threatened a storm. He had no +desire for a wetting and an evening spent in the Pretender's clothes. He +made for his tavern again by St. Martin's Lane and there came full upon +his father. + +Colonel Boyce touched his hat. Harry touched his, gave him the wall +and was going by. Then the Colonel laughed and caught his son's arm. +"Well met, Harry. I was coming to seek you." (It's not known whether +that was true.) + +"And I, sir--I had no notion of seeking you." + +"Fie, don't be haughty. I bear no malice." + +"Egad, sir, that's kind in you," Harry sneered and pushed on. + +Colonel Boyce linked arms with him. "Why, what's the matter? You +went off with the honours. Od's heart, you left us like a pair of +whipped dogs." + +"You've to thank yourself for that, sir. Not me." + +"No, zounds, you did very well. I profess I was proud of you, Harry." + +"Then I have to envy you." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you +need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such +an air, Harry. You carried it off _a merveille_. My lord was a +whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. +It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable." + +"You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled +with you." + +"Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford +to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. +Why the devil should you snarl at me?" + +They were now turning into Long Acre and the coming storm had already +brought darkness. Harry stopped and freed himself from his father's arm. +"If you please, we'll have no more of this. I've no will to make an enemy +of you. But if you seek to be friends, enemies we must be." + +"Why then? Harry, you are not so mad as to declare Jacobite now? It's a +lost cause, boy. There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work +and not a guinea for your pains. You--" + +"Aye, now we have it!" Harry laughed. "You want to be in my +secrets. Sir, I'm obliged to you, and by your leave I'll +discontinue your company." + +"I swear I wish you nothing but well," his father cried. + +"Dear sir, it's your good wishes that I dread. Pray cut me off without a +blessing." He waved his hand to his father and strode off. + +For a moment Colonel Boyce looked after him--shrugged--went his way. + +So Harry walked alone upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was +passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. +They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but +hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and +staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were +borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their +swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared through +his body and he fell. + +Colonel Boyce heard the clatter of ash and steel and turned at his +leisure to look. It was a moment before he made out Harry in the midst +of the melee. Then he shouted of help and threats and ran on with +ready sword. + +He came too late. Harry was down and the dripping blades again at his +body. Colonel Boyce had one fellow pinked before they were aware. The +others bore upon him furiously and he was hard beset. He made a good +fight--it's the best thing in his life--he understood the sword, and they +were but hackers and hewers, they were in a mad hurry to finish him and +he had a perfect calm. But he was hampered and overborne. He would not +give ground for fear of more thrusts into the body at his feet, and they +closed upon him and he could not break them. + +But now doors were opening and heads out of windows. From Harry's tavern +a man came at a run. As Colonel Boyce reeled back with a point caught in +his shoulder, gripping at the blade and thrusting at empty air, another +sword shot into the fight. One man went down upon Harry's body. The other +three broke off and bolted down the court by which they had come. + +"_Canaille_," says the deliverer mildly, and plucked at the cloak of the +man he had overthrown to wipe his sword. "Is that a friend of yours +underneath, sir?" + +"Egad, they have tickled me," quoth Colonel Boyce, feeling at his +shoulder. "Pray, lend me your hand, sir." + +The deliverer looked him over without much sympathy: "And, egad, it's the +ancient Boyce," he said. "Oh, you'll survive, _mon vieux_. Who is this in +the mud?" He rolled his own victim, who groaned effusively, off Harry's +body. "It's the boy, _mordieu_!" he cried. + +"In effect, Captain McBean, it's the boy," says Colonel Boyce, who was +trying to fix a pad of handkerchief on his own wound. + +McBean was down on his knees beside Harry, handling him gently. "Twice +through the body, by God," says he. "What does this mean, Boyce? Damme, +did you set your fellows on him?" + +"I am not an imbecile," Colonel Boyce said fiercely, stared at McBean +and laughed his contempt. Then with another manner, he turned to the +little crowd which was mustered: "Bring me a shutter, good lads. We've a +gentleman here much hurt. And some of you call the watch." + +McBean rose with bloody hands. "He has it I believe," he muttered. +"Hark in your ear, Boyce. If this is your work, I'll see you dead, by +God, I will." + +"Oh, damn your folly," says Colonel Boyce. "I struck in to help him. I +know nothing who the knaves were. Your own tail, maybe." + +"Aye, aye," McBean looked at him queerly. "You would say that. Well, +maybe this rogue can speak. He groans loud enough." Down he dropped again +by his victim to cry out "Ben! You filthy rogue! Ben! Who a plague set +you to this business?" + +"Oh, you've found a friend, then?" Colonel Boyce sneered. + +The man who groaned was Harry's old friend, Ben the fat highwayman of the +North Road. He rolled his eyes and made hoarse, grievous noises. +"Captain! Lord love you, captain, I didn't know you was in it. Oh, gad, +and you ha' been the death o' me,' + +"I shall be if you lie," quoth McBean. "You rogue, who set you on +Mr. Boyce?" + +"How would I know he was a friend of yours? 'Twas a squire out of +Hornsey. Squire Waverton of Tetherdown. Paying handsome to have him +downed. Oh, gad, captain, don't be hard. I ha' had no luck since you +turned me off." + +Now the constables came running up and Colonel Boyce turned to them: +"Secure that fellow. He and some others which have escaped stabbed my +son who lies there. I am Colonel Boyce at the Blue House in St. +Martin's Lane." + +The wretched Ben was haled off, groaning. + +Harry, lifeless still and bleeding, for all McBean's work, they lifted +and carried away to his father's lodging. + +"What's your Waverton in this, sir?" says McBean. + +"The silly gentleman wanted Harry's wife. Egad, I never thought he had so +much gall in him." + +"I believe I'll be letting some of it out," says McBean. + +"You'll be pleased to leave that to me," quoth Colonel Boyce. + +McBean looked up at him oddly. "_Ventrebleu_, I wonder if I'll make you +my apologies. Have you bowels after all, sir?" + +"You're impertinent." + +"If you like." McBean cocked a wicked eye at him. + +"You concern yourself with the affairs of my family. I resent it, +Captain McBean." + +"I believe you, _mon vieux_." + +"You have done me a notable service to-night and I am ready to forget +the older injuries, your ill offices with my son. Let us call quits and +part, sir." + +"It won't do," said McBean with a grin. + +"What now, sir?" + +"I must know how Harry does and make sure that he has the best there is +for him. Surgery and friends--he will need both, sound and sure." + +"Be satisfied. I shall well provide him." + +Captain McBean shook his head. + +"Damn your infernal impudence." Colonel Boyce's temper gave way. "Od's +life, sir, this is infamous. You put upon me that I would mishandle my +own son as he lies wounded and near death! I shall murder him, I +suppose. You had that against me before. Shall I rob him too, or +torture him maybe? This is raving. Carry it where you will, I'll none +of it. You may go." + +"Fie, what a heat!" says McBean placidly. + +They were now come to Colonel Boyce's lodging and he bade the bearers +take Harry up to his own room. + +"I sent a brisk lad for Rolfe," says McBean. "I could but stop the blood. +He'll be here soon enough. It's but a step to Chancery Lane. He knows +more of wounds than any man in the town." + +Colonel Boyce was for a moment speechless. "I shall send for Dr. +Radcliffe and Sir Samuel Garth," says he majestically. "I wish you good +night, sir." + +"I believe they have sense enough to do no harm," said McBean. "And now, +Boyce, a word with you. Not in the street." + +"I don't desire it, sir," which McBean answered by passing in front of +him into the house. Colonel Boyce came after, fuming. "Egad, sir, you +presume upon my wound," he cried. "You--" + +"Not I. Patch yourself up and I'll meet you at your convenience. There's +more urgent matter. When the boy comes to himself--if ever he comes to +himself--I must have speech of him." + +Colonel Boyce, who now completely commanded himself, had grown very pale. +"You have gone too far, Captain McBean. I desired to forget that I have +you in my power. You force me to use it. If you thrust yourself upon me I +shall have you arrested as a traitor." + +McBean flushed. "Odso, then there is some villainy of yours in the +affair! Devil take you, I have a mind to finish you now, a wounded man as +you are." He had his hand on his sword. + +"Will you go, sir?" + +"Not I. If you ha' murdered him, you"--he slapped his sword home +again--"no, _mordieu_, I can't touch you so. And you may meddle with me +if you dare." + +"Oh, you have a great devotion to the boy," Colonel Boyce sneered with +pallid lips. "You would have him deeper dipped in your mad treasons? I +think you have done him harm enough." He struck his bell. + +"Harm?" McBean cried. "Is it harm? You that begat him for the heir to +your damned infamy? You that soured him with your husk of a soul and your +cold cunning? You that made a dirt-heap of his life to suit your muddling +need? You--" + +But Colonel Boyce swayed in his seat and fell sideways fainting. + +A moment McBean surveyed him as if he thought this too a trick. Then, +"_Ventrebleu_" says he, "here's Providence takes a hand," and he +whistled, and it is not to be denied that he looked covetously at the +cabinet which held Colonel Boyce's papers. "The poor old devil," he said +with a shrug. "He grows old, in fact. I suppose there's more blood in his +shirt now than his damned body," and he knelt down and began to feel +about the wound. + +He was at that when a woman announced the surgeon. "Mr. Rolfe? Never more +welcome. Here's old Colonel Boyce with a hole in his shoulder, and young +Mr. Boyce with two holes through and through. A street brawl. Pray go up, +sir, the lad's in bad case." + +"Faith, it's Captain McBean," says Rolfe, a brisk, big man, as they shook +hands. "What have you to do with Noll Boyce?" + +"A friend of the family," says McBean. "Away with you to the lad;" and he +knelt again and ministered to the unconscious Colonel. "A friend of the +family, old gentleman," says he with a grin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALISON KNEELS + + +So all this while Alison lacked an answer to her letter. She fretted at +the delay, she grew angry soon, but it does not appear that she allowed +herself any new pique against Harry. She was angry with circumstance, +with herself, and something much more than angry with Mr. Waverton. It +was detestable of Geoffrey to dare spy and plot against Harry, +intolerable in him to suppose that she would favour the villainy. But she +had been a fool and worse to give him any chance of insulting her so. And +yet she might have hoped that her letter--sure, she had been humble +enough in it--that her letter would bring Harry back in a hurry. It was +maddening that some trick of circumstance should have kept it from him or +him from her. For she had no notion that he would read the letter and +toss it aside or delay to come. There was nothing petty about Mr. Harry, +no spite. Nothing of the woman in him, thank God. + +What had happened that he gave her no answer? For certain the letter had +gone safely to the tavern. She could be sure of her servant. Harry was +living at the tavern. The people there gave assurance of that. It was +strange that he made no sign. The servant, indeed, had waited for an +answer late into the night and seen nothing of him. Perhaps he had +discovered Geoffrey's spies and gone into hiding. It would be like +Geoffrey to devise some mighty cunning villainy and so manage it that it +was futile. Perhaps Harry really was at some secret politics, captured +again by his father and sent off to France, or too deep in some matter of +danger to show himself. Perhaps--perhaps a thousand things, so that she +made no doubt of Harry. He would not deny her when she came seeking him. + +She had no fear either. Her nature could not imagine perils or disasters. +There was too proud a force in her life for her to admit a dread of being +defeated. Her man must live and be safe, because she needed him. Harry +could not fail her. But she was desperately impatient. She wanted him +every instant, and even more she wanted to stand before him and accuse +herself, confess herself. For the truth is that Geoffrey Waverton had +profoundly affected her. When she found Geoffrey daubing her with +patronizing congratulations, when he dared to claim her as ally in mean +tricks against her husband, she discovered that she must be miserably in +the wrong. Approved by Geoffrey, annexed, used by Geoffrey--faith, she +must have sunk very low before he could dare venture so with her. She +received illumination. She saw herself in the wrong first and last, the +sole sufficient cause of their catastrophe, a petty mean creature, +snarling and spiteful and passionate for trivialities--just like +Geoffrey, just such a creature as she hated most. Pride and honour +instantly demanded that she must seek Harry, indict herself and read her +recantation. She needed that, longed for it, and to satisfy herself, not +him. It is possible that she then began to love. + +So monsieur must be found instantly, instantly. When she thought of all +her tale of sins, she must needs think also of Mrs. Weston. Poor Weston +had enough against her too--Weston--his mother. It still seemed almost +incredible that poor, grey, puritan Weston should be mother to Harry. But +if she was indeed, she might know something of him. At least, it would be +good to make peace with her again; it was necessary. And so on the day +that Harry fell, Mrs. Alison marched off to the little cottage behind the +High Street. + +It was a room that opened straight from the path, and it seemed very +full. Susan was sitting there, who was now Susan Hadley. Her fair +placidity admitted no surprise. She smiled and said, "Alison!" + +Mrs. Weston stood up in a queer frozen fluster. "What do you need, +ma'am?" says she. + +"Oh, Weston, dear, don't take me so," Alison cried, and she edged her way +between the little table and the stiff chairs, holding out her hands. + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Your servant, ma'am," says she with a curtsy, but +she ignored the hands. + +Then Susan stood up. "I must go, I believe," she smiled, and bent to +offer one fair cheek to Mrs. Weston. The other was then given to Alison. +She smiled upon them both benignly and made for the door. + +"Susan! You'll dine with me to-morrow," Alison put in. + +"Oh. Mr. Hadley will be at home." + +"But of course you bring him." + +"Thank you then." The door shut behind her, and the room was larger. + +"I can't tell why you have come," says Mrs. Weston tremulously. + +"To say I was wrong and I'm sorry. Oh, Weston, dear, to say I have been a +peevish wicked fool." + +Mrs. Weston sat down again. "Where is Harry?" she said. + +"I have writ to him to beg him come back to me." + +"I am asking you to come back to us." + +"You--" + +"Where is he?" + +"Ah, you don't know then?" + +"I have not seen him since he left your house." + +"He has been living at a tavern in the Long Acre. I have made sure of +that, and I wrote to him there. But he has not answered me. He does not +answer me. I can't tell if he has gone away." + +"Where is his father?" Mrs. Weston asked quickly. + +"His father? Colonel Boyce? Oh, Weston! Colonel Boyce is his +father, then?" + +"Did you come to pry?" Mrs. Weston flushed. + +"I do not deserve that," Alison said, and then very gently, "Oh, my dear, +but I have been cruel enough to you." + +"It's very well," Mrs. Weston said faintly. "Where is Colonel Boyce?" + +"I know nothing. Does it matter, Weston, dear? He cannot help us +to Harry." + +"I am afraid of him. Oh, it's all wrong maybe. I am so weak and stupid. +But I am afraid what he may do with Harry." + +"Indeed, I think Mr. Harry can keep his head even against Colonel Boyce," +Alison smiled. + +"His head?" Mrs. Weston looked puzzled. "I don't mean that, I believe. I +am afraid he may win Harry to be like himself. He is so clever and +dazzling, and he is full of wickedness. He cares for nothing but his own +will and to have power. When I saw him so friendly with Harry I thought I +should have died." + +"My poor Weston," Alison said gently. "But I am not afraid of that. Mr. +Harry won't be dazzled." + +"You dazzled him." + +"Oh, and am I full of wickedness too?" Alison laughed. "Dear, +forgive me." + +"No, but you are strong and hard as his father was." + +Alison drew in her breath. "I shall teach you not to call me that, +Weston," she said. "And Harry--well, Harry shall find me for him." + +There was silence for a while, and Alison watched with new emotions the +tired, wistful face. "Weston, dear, I want you to come back to me. I want +Mr. Harry to find you with me when he comes home." + +Mrs. Weston cried out, "He does not know who I am!" in anxious fear, and +clutched at Alison's hand. + +"No, indeed. But he loves you already, I think." + +"But I do not want him to know," Mrs. Weston cried. "I--I was not married +to Colonel Boyce." + +"Weston, dear," Alison pressed the hand. + +"I lived at Kingston. My father reared us strictly. He was harsh. I think +that was because my mother died so young. Mr. Boyce--he was a gentleman +in the Blues then, and very fine, much gayer than Harry and more +handsome. He used to ride out to Hampton Court to an old cousin of his, +who had a charge at the Palace. He met me one day by the river. I don't +know why he set himself upon me. I was never much to his taste, I think. +But I thought him the most wonderful man in the world. I let him do what +he would with me. I don't blame him for that. He never promised me +anything. In a while he grew tired. Then Harry came. My father could not +forgive me. Afterwards they said that I had killed him. Harry was born. I +lay very ill and they believed that I should die. I never knew whether it +was my father or my brother sent for Mr. Boyce. My brother boasted +afterwards that it was he made him relieve them of the baby. And I--I did +not die, you know. When I began to be well again my baby was gone. My +father lay dying then. He would not see me. My brother was the head of +the family, and he--I could not stay there. I tried to find Mr. Boyce, +but he had left the regiment. He had gone to Holland, they said, after +the Duke of Monmouth. I could do nothing. And my brother had told me that +Mr. Boyce would soon find a way to be rid of my baby. I--I believed that +he had. I never saw Harry again till--you know. I never saw his father +till that day at Lady Waverton's. He told me afterwards that they had +said to him I was dying, and he supposed me dead. I believe that is +true. He would not have troubled himself with the child else." + +"Oh, Weston, dear," Alison murmured, and caressed her. + +Mrs. Weston pushed back the hair from her wrinkled brow. "Mr. Boyce +promised me that Harry need know nothing of me now. I do not know if he +has kept his word about that." + +"There's nothing about Harry that is not safe with me," Alison said. "Oh, +my dear, now I know where Harry has his strength from and his +gentleness." + +Mrs. Weston looked at her in a puzzled fashion. "I wonder what he is +doing now?" she said wearily. "I think I have told you everything, +Alison. Oh! Your father. Your father was very kind to me. When I did not +know what to do--I had no money left--they gave me five pounds--I went to +him. He used to come to my father's house, you know, when he had business +in Kingston. He used to go all over the country about his trading. My +father said he was a godless man, but he was always kind to me. I told +him everything. He took me into his house, and indeed I did not know +where to go for food. I was your mother's servant while she lived, but I +think she doubted me. Your father never told her anything, and she--but +she let me be." + +"Oh, Weston, Weston," Alison said. "And you have spent all your life +caring for me." + +"There was nothing else to do. But I was glad to do that." She looked +at the girl with strange, puzzled, wistful eyes and saw Alison's eyes +full of tears. She put out her hand shyly, awkwardly, and touched +Alison's cheek. + +Alison smiled, laughed with a sob in her voice. "It is a long while since +I cried," she said, and put her arms round Mrs. West on and laid her head +on Mrs. Weston's bosom and cried indeed. + +Mrs. Weston held her close. "Alison! But this isn't like you." + +"Indeed it is," Alison sobbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + +You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the +best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its +severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. +Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat +upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly +over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his +clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the +window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with +profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and +glower down at its emptiness--and repeat the motions in a different +order. He must be theatrical even without an audience. + +But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his +conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, +you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it. + +The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, +and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of +being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung +himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far +away. In a little while came the beat of rain--slow, big drops. That was +soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke. + +Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited +maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious +invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who +admonished her and made her worse. + +Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming +rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a +night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!" + +"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr. +Waverton, in much agitation. + +"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, +dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. +Waverton's. + +"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He +advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a +great clatter of crockery. + +"Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed +into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it." + +"What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said. + +"Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the +ready, the hundred guineas?" + +"Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped. + +"Out with the cole, burn you." + +Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at +it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr. +Waverton cried. + +Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's +dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts." + +Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low +voice. "Ned--was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went +on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth. +"Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight +from my goldsmith, man. Tell me--you said you would force a fight on +him. Did he--" + +"Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows +that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?" + +"I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base +rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise." + +"Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money. +"Where's that damned rum?" + +"You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it. +Nay, but, Ned--how did he take it?" + +"Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?" + +"He said nothing?" + +"Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?" + +"Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him." + +"Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?" + +The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the +bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are +impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his +end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by +a noble lord in high place." + +"Then it's worth more than a hundred megs." + +"You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you." + +"Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I +must quit." + +"It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed. + +"Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that +while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender +thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces." + +"You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on +the table. + +"Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march. +Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and +out he went. + +Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great +mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry +rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow, +hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might +even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender +had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a +pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such +ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined +to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of +Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that +the rogue should have had a chance to fight--that generous chivalry which +had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The +wretched creature had been properly punished--stamped out by knaves of +his own class in a vulgar street brawl--a dirty hole-and-corner end. +Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt +with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet. + +So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily +delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism +steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the +powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need +not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on +her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her +was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence, +and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased +him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very +tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from +too much humility.... + +He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of +the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure, +damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A +tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But, +perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had +paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she +had sunk by yielding to him. + +Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing: + +"MR. BOYCE,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear. + +"A." + +Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes. + +It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never +quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The +treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover, +then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr. +Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she +was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust +after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved +her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would +have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh. + +But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second +time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of +her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay, +faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She +must be shown that--oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a +touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who +moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all +his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very +furiously. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + +Captain McBean, healthily red and brown, showed no sign of having been +out of bed all night. From cold water and a razor in his own lodgings he +came back at a round pace to St. Martin's Lane. He found his aide, Mr. +Mackenzie, taking the air on the doorstep of the Blue House, and rebuked +him. "I bade ye bide with the lad, Donald." + +"The surgeon has him in hand, sir." + +"_Tiens_. He's a brisk fellow, that Rolfe." + +"I'm thinking Mr. Boyce will need him." + +"Eh, is there anything new?" + +"I would not say so. But he's sore hurt. And I'm thinking he takes it +hard." + +"Aye, you're the devil of a thinker, Donald." Captain McBean grinned. +"And the Colonel, has he made a noise?" + +"He's in the way of calling for liquors, but he's peaceable, the +women say." + +"You'll go get your breakfast and be back again. And bring O'Connor with +you. I'll hope to need the two of you." Captain McBean relieved guard on +the doorstep till the surgeon came down. "I'm obliged to you, Mr. Rolfe. +What do you make of him?" + +"Egad, Captain, you're devoted. Why, the old gentleman has put in for +some fever, but I doubt he will do well enough." + +"Be sure of it. What of the young one?" + +Mr. Rolfe pursed his lip. "Faith, there's no more amiss. But--but--why, +he was hard hit, I grant you--but you might take the young one for the +old one. D'ye follow me? The lad hath no vigour in him." + +McBean nodded. "I'll be talking to him, by your leave." + +"Od's life, I would not talk long. I don't like it, Captain, and there's +the truth. Go easy with him. I will be here again to-day." + +Captain McBean went up to the room where Harry lay as white as his +pillows. A woman was feeding him out of a cup. "You made it damned salt, +your broth," says Harry, in a feeble disgust. + +"'Tis what you lack, look you." Captain McBean sat himself on the bed and +took the cup and waved the woman off. "'Tis the natural, hale salinity +and the sanguineous part which you lose by a wound, and for lack of it +you are thus faint. Therefore we do ever administer great possets of salt +to the wounded, and--" + +"And pickle me before I be dead," says Harry. "Be hanged to your jargon." + +"You'll take another sup, my lad, if I hold your long nose to it. And you +may suck your orange after." + +Harry made a wry face, swallowed a mouthful and lay back out of breath. +After a while, "You were here all night, weren't you?" he said. + +"I am body physician to the family of Boyce, _mon brave_." + +"My father?" + +"Has a hole in his shoulder, praise God, and a damned paternal temper. He +will do well enough." + +"How do you come into it?" McBean grinned. "Who were they?" + +"I am here to talk to you, _mon cher_. You will not talk to me, for it is +disintegrating to your tissues. _Allons_, compose yourself and attend. +Now I come into it, if you please, out of gratitude. Mr. Boyce--I have it +in command from His Majesty to present you with his thanks for very +gallant and faithful service." + +"Oh, the boy got off then?" + +"King James is returned to France, sir," says McBean with dignity. +"Look 'e, tie up your tongue. His Majesty charged me to put this in +your hands and to advise you that he would ever have in memory your +resource and spirit and your loyalty. Which I do with a great +satisfaction, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry fingered a pretty toy of a watch circled with diamonds, and wrought +with a monogram in diamonds and sapphires. "Poor lad," says he. + +"It's his own piece and was his father's, I believe. _Pardieu_, sir, +there's many will envy you." + +Harry's head went back on its pillows. "It's a queer taste." + +"Mr. Boyce, you may count upon it that when His Majesty is established in +power, he--" + +"He will have as bad a memory as the rest of his family. Bah, what does +it matter? You are talking of the millennium." + +"You will talk, will you?" says McBean. "I'll gag you, _mordieu_, if you +answer me back again. Come, sirrah, you know the King better. It's a +noble, generous lad. So leave the Whiggish sneers to your father. So much +for that. Now, _mon ami_, you have put me under a great obligation. It +was a rare piece of work, and to be frank, I did not think you had it in +you. But I did count upon you as a gentleman of high honour, and, +_pardieu_, I count myself very fortunate I applied to you. I speak for my +party, Mr. Boyce, when I thank you and promise you any service of mine." + +Harry mumbled something like, "Damn your eloquence." + +But McBean was not to be put off. "You will like to know that the King +when he was quit of Marlborough--egad, the old villain hath been a +gentleman in this business--made straight for me and was instant that I +should concern myself for you. I held it my first duty to get His Majesty +out of the country. Between ourselves, I was never in love with this plan +of palace trickery and Madame Anne. But the thing was offered us, and we +could not show the white feather. _Bien_, His Majesty took assurance from +Marlborough of your safety, so I had no great alarm for you. I could not +be aware of your private feuds. But now, _mordieu_, I make them my own. I +promise you, it touches me nearly that you should be hacked down, and +egad, before my eyes." + +Harry tried to raise himself and said eagerly, "Who was in it? Who +were they?" + +Captain McBean responded with some more of the salt broth. "Now I'll +confess that I had some doubts of your father. As soon as I was back in +London I made haste to find you. I was waiting at that tavern of yours +when I heard the scuffle. You were down before I could reach you, and +there was your father fighting across you most heroical. Faith, I did not +know the old gentleman had it in him. He had pinked one, I believe, but +he is slow, and they were too many for him. He took it badly in the +shoulder as I came. But they were not workmen. I put one out at the first +thrust, and the rogues would not stand. I tickled one in the ham as he +ran, but missed the sinew in his fat. So it ended. Now I'll confess I did +the old gentleman a wrong. I guessed the business might be one of his +damned superfine plots. It would be like him to have you finished while +he made a brag of fighting for you. But I was wrong. _Mordieu_, I believe +he has a kindness for you, Harry." + +"What?" says Harry, startled by the name. + +"Oh, _mon ami_, you must let me be kindly too. Egad, you command my +emotions, sir. No, the old gentleman hath his humanity. He would have +died for you, Harry, and faith he is so rheumatic he nearly did. No, it +was not he played this damned game. Who d'ye think it was that I put on +his back? That rascal Ben--you remember Ben of the North Road? I put the +villain to the question who set him on you. _Bien_ he was hired to it by +that fine fellow Waverton." + +"Geoffrey!" Harry gasped. + +"Even so. Now, Harry, what has Master Geoffrey Waverton against you? If +he wanted to murder your father I could understand it. That affair at +Pontoise is matter enough for a life or two. Though he should take it +gentlemanly. But why must he murder you?" + +"I am not dead yet," said Harry, and his mouth set. + +Captain McBean laughed. "Not by fifty year:" and he contemplated Harry's +pale drawn face with benign approval. "But why does Mr. Waverton want you +dead now?" + +"That's my affair," said Harry. + +"_Enfin_." Captain McBean shrugged, with a twist of the lip and a cock +of the eye. + +"Is there more of that broth?" says Harry. + +Captain McBean administered it. "I go get another cup, Harry." He nodded +and went out. + +His two aides, Mackenzie and O'Connor, were waiting below. "Donald, go +up. The same orders. None but Rolfe is to come to him without you +stand by. And shorten your damned long face, if you can. Patrick, we +take horse." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Captain McBean and Mr. O'Connor halted steaming horses before the door of +Tetherdown. The butler announced that Mr. Waverton had gone out, and then +impressed by the evidence of haste and the martial elegance of McBean, +suggested that my lady might receive the gentleman. + +"How? The animal has a mother?" says Me Bean in French, and shrugged and +beckoned the butler closer. "Now, my friend, could you make a guess where +I should look for Mr. Waverton?" and money passed. + +"Sir, Mr. Waverton rides over sometimes to the Hall at Highgate. Miss +Lam--Mrs. Boyce's house;" the butler looked knowing. + +"Mrs. Boyce? Eh, is that Colonel Boyce's lady?" + +The butler smiled discreetly. "No, sir, to be sure. Young Boyce--young +Mr. Boyce, sir." + +Captain McBean wheeled round in such a hurry that the butler was almost +overthrown. They clattered off. + +It was not till they were riding through the wood that McBean spoke: +"Patrick, my man, would you say that Harry Boyce is the man to marry +wisely and well?" + +"Faith, I believe he would not be doing anything wisely. That same is +his charm." + +"_Tiens_, it begins now to be ugly. Why must the boy be married at all, +_mordieu_?" + +"It will be in his nature," says O'Connor. "And likely to a shrew." + +"If that were all! Ah, bah, they shall have no satisfaction in it. But no +more will I..." + +There were at the Hall two women who had almost become calm by mingling +their distress and their tears. It's believed that they slept in each +other's arms, and slept well enough. In the morning another messenger was +sent off to the Long Acre tavern. If he came back with no news it was +agreed they should move into town. They said no more of their fears. Each +had some fancy that she was putting on a brave face for the other's sake. +There is no doubt that they found the stress easier to bear for +consciousness of each other's endurance. + +So Mr. Hadley and his Susan were received by an atmosphere of gentle +peace. Much to Mr. Hadley's surprise, who would complain that venture +into Alison's house was much like a post over against the Irish Brigade; +for a man never knew how she would break out upon him, but could count +upon it that she would be harassing. + +"We are so glad," says Susan. + +"She loves to march her prisoner through the town. It's a simple, +brutish taste." + +"Oh. I am so, I believe," says Susan, and contemplated Mr. Hadley with +placid satisfaction. + +"She is too honest for you, Mr. Hadley," Alison said. + +"Oh Lud, yes, ma'am. The mass of her overwhelms me, and it's all plain +virtue--a heavy, solemn thing. Look you, Susan, you embarrass madame with +your revelations." + +"It is curious. He is always ill at ease when I am with him." + +"Because you make me tedious, child." + +"That's your vanity, Mr. Hadley." Alison tried to keep in tune with them. + +"Look you, Susan, I am cashiered by marriage. Once I was Charles. Now I +am without honour." + +"Mr. Geoffrey Waverton," quoth the butler. + +Alison's hand went to her breast and she was white. + +"Dear Geoffrey!" Mr. Hadley murmured. "I do not know when last I saw dear +Geoffrey," and he turned a sardonic face to the door. + +Susan leaned forward. "Alison, dear--if you choose--" she began in +a whisper. + +"Sit still," Alison muttered. "Stay, stay." + +Mr. Waverton came in with measured pomp, stopped short and surveyed the +company and at last made his bow. "Madame, your most obedient. I fear +that I come untimely." + +Alison could not find her voice, so it was Mr. Hadley who answered, "Lud, +Geoffrey dear, you're never out of season: like mutton." + +"I give Mrs. Hadley joy," says Geoffrey. "Such wit must be rare company." + +Alison was staring at him. "You have something to say to me? You may +speak out. There are no secrets here." + +"Is it so, faith? Egad, what friendship! But you have always been +fortunate. And in fact I bring you news of more fortune. You are free +of your Mr. Boyce, ma'am. You are done with him. He has been picked up +dead." He smiled at Alison, Alison white and still and dumb. Mrs. +Weston gave a cry and fell back in her chair and her fingers plucked at +her dress. + +Mr. Hadley strode across and stood very close to Geoffrey. "Take care," +says he in a low voice. + +"Well. Tell all your story," Alison said. + +"They found him lying in the kennel in Long Acre," Geoffrey smiled. "Oh, +there was some brawl, it seems. He was set upon by his tavern cronies in +a quarrel about a wench he had. A very proper end." + +"Geoffrey, you are a cur," says Mr. Hadley in his ear. + +"You are lying," Alison cried. + +Mr. Waverton laughed and waved his hand. "Oh, ma'am, you are a chameleon. +The other day you desired nothing better than monsieur's demise. Now at +the news of it you grow venomous. I vow I cannot keep pace with your +changes. I must withdraw from your intimacy. 'Tis too exacting for my +poor vigour. Madame, your most humble." + +"Not yet," Alison cried. + +"Let him go, ma'am," Mr. Hadley broke in sharply. "Go home, sirrah. +You'll not wait long before you hear from me." + +"From which hand?" Geoffrey flicked at the empty sleeve. "Nay, faith, it +suits madame well, the left-handed champion." + +Mr. Hadley turned on his heel. "Pray, ma'am, leave us. This is become +my affair." + +"I have not done with him yet," Alison said. + +But the door was opened for the servant to say: "Captain Hector McBean, +Mr. Patrick O'Connor," and with a clank of spurs and something of a +military swagger the little man and the long man marched in. + +Captain McBean swept a glance round the room. + +"So," says he with satisfaction and made a right guess at Alison. "Mrs. +Boyce, I am necessitated to present myself. Captain McBean." + +"What, more champions!" Geoffrey laughed. "Oh, ma'am, you have too +general a charity. My sympathy is in your way," and he made his bow and +was going off. + +"_Mordieu_, you relieve me marvellously," says McBean, and O'Connor put +his back against the door. + +Mr. Waverton waved O'Connor aside. + +"You'll be Mr. Waverton?" said O'Connor. + +"Od's life, sir, stand out of my way." But O'Connor laughed and McBean +tapped the magnificent shoulder. Mr. Waverton swung round. + +"Hark in your ear," says McBean. "You're a lewd, cowardly scoundrel, Mr. +Waverton." + +Mr. Waverton glared at him, stepped back and turned on Alison. "Pray, +ma'am, control your bullies. I desire to leave your house!" + +"Let him be, sir," Alison stood up. "Leave us, if you please, I have to +speak with him." + +"You have not," McBean frowned. "The affair is out of your hands. Come, +sir, march. There's a pretty piece of turf beyond the gates. Your friend +there may serve you." + +"Not I, sir," Mr. Hadley put in. "I have myself a meeting to require of +Mr. Waverton." + +"So? I like the air here better and better, _pardieu_. Well, Mr. +Waverton, we'll e'en walk out alone." + +"Your bluster won't serve you, sirrah. If you be a gentleman, which you +make incredible, you may proceed in order and I'll consider if I may do +you the honour to meet you." + +"Gentleman? Bah, I am Hector McBean, Captain in Bouffiers' regiment. +Come, sir, now are you warmer?" He struck Mr. Waverton across the eyes. + +Mr. Waverton, drawing back, turned again upon Alison: "My God, did you +bring your bullies here to murder me?" + +"I did not bid you here," Alison said. + +"_Lache_," says Mr. O'Connor with a shrug. + +"_En effet_," says McBean and sat down. "Observe, Waverton: I have given +you the chance to take a clean death. You have not the courage for it. +_Tant mieux_. You may now hang." + +Mr. Waverton again made a move for the door, but Mr. O'Connor stood +solidly in the way. "Attention, Waverton. You have bungled your business, +as usual. Your fellow Ned Boon hath been taken and lies in Newgate. He +has confessed that he and his gang were hired for this murder by a +certain Geoffrey Waverton." + +"It is a lie!" + +"Waverton--I have a whip as well as a sword." + +"I do not concern myself with you, sir," says Mr. Waverton with +dignity. "You are repeating a lesson, I see. But I advise you, I shall +not permit myself to be slandered. This fellow Ned Bone--Boon--what is +his vulgar name? I know nothing of him. If he pretends to any knowledge +of me, he lies." + +"You told me that you had hired men to spy upon Mr. Boyce," Alison said. + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "Oh, ma'am, I thank you for a flash of honesty. +Here's the truth then. In madame's interest, I had arranged with her that +a party of fellows should watch her scurvy husband. She suspected him of +various villainies, infidelity, what you will. And, egad, I dare to say +she was right. But I have no more concern in it. So you may his back to +your employers, Captain Mac what's your name, and advise them that I am +not to be bullied. I shall know how to defend myself." + +Alison came nearer Captain McBean. "Sir, this is a confection of lies. It +is true the man told me he was planning a watch on Mr. Boyce. But not of +my will. And when I knew I did instantly give Mr. Boyce warning." + +"I shall deal with you in good time," McBean frowned. "_Dieu de dieu!_ I +do not excuse you. Attention, Waverton! You lie stupidly. Your bullies, +_mordieu_, blunder in your own style. It would not content them to murder +Mr. Boyce. They must have his father too. They could not do their +business quietly nor finish it. The rogue Ben was caught and the Colonel +has only a hole in his shoulder. You may know that he is not the man to +forgive you for it. So, Waverton. You have suborned murder and furnished +evidence to hang you for it. You must meddle with Colonel Boyce to make +sure that his Whiggish party who hold the government shall not spare you. +You set every Jacobite against you when you struck at Harry. However +things go now there'll be those in power urgent to hang you. Go home and +wait till the runners take you off to Newgate. March!" + +Mr. O'Connor opened the door with alacrity. + +"I am not afraid of you," Waverton cried. "And you, madame, you, the +widow--be sure if I am attacked, your loose treachery shall not win you +off. What I have done--you know well it was done for you and in commerce +with you." Mr. O'Connor took him by the arm. "Don't presume to touch me!" +he called out, trembling with rage. Mr. O'Connor propelled him out. + +"I believe Patrick will cut the coat off his back," said McBean pensively +and then laughed a little. He brushed his hand over his face and stood up +and marched on Alison. "Now for you," he said. "I beg leave of the +company." He made them a bow and waved them out of the room. + +"Sir, Mr. Boyce?" Mrs. Weston said faintly. + +"Madame, Mr. Boyce is not dead. He lies wounded. I make no apology, +_pardieu_! It is imperative to frighten the Waverton out of the +country--since he would not stand up to be killed. You, madame," he +turned frowning upon Alison, "you must have him no more in your +neighbourhood." + +Alison bent her head. Mr. Hadley came forward. "Captain McBean, you take +too much upon yourself." + +"I'll answer for it at my leisure, sir." + +"Pray go, Charles," Alison said gently. So they went out, Mrs. +Weston upon Susan's arm, and Captain McBean and Alison were left +alone, the fierce little lean man stretching every inch of him +against her rich beauty. + +"You do me some wrong, sir," Alison said. + +"Is it possible?" McBean's chest swelled to the sneer. + +"Pray, sir, don't scold. It passes me by. Nay, I cannot answer you. I +have no defence, I believe. Be sure that you can say nothing to make my +hurt worse." + +"How long shall we go on talking about you, madame?" + +Alison flushed dark, and turned away and muttered something. + +"What now?" McBean said. In another moment he saw that she was crying. +Some satisfaction perhaps, no pity, softened his stare.... + +She turned, making no pretence to hide her tears. "I beg of you--take me +to Mr. Boyce." + +"I said, madame, Mr. Boyce is not yet dead." The sharp, precise voice +spared her nothing. "I do not know whether he will live." Alison gave a +choking cry. "I do not now know whether he would desire to live." + +"What do you mean?" A madness of fear, of love perhaps, distorted her +face. + +"You well know. When I rode out this morning, I had it in mind to kill +the Waverton and conduct you to Mr. Boyce. But I did not guess that +Waverton would refuse to be killed like a gentleman or that I should find +you engaged in the rogue's infamy." + +"But that is his lie! Ah, you must know that it is a lie. You heard how +he turned on me, and his vileness." + +"_Bien_, you have played fast and loose with him. I allow that. It does +not commend you to me, madame." + +"I'll not bear it," Alison cried wildly. "Oh, sir, you have no right. Mr. +Boyce would never endure you should treat me so." + +"_Dieu de dieu_! Would you trade upon Harry's gentleness now? Aye, +madame, he would not treat you so, _mordieu_. He would see nothing, know +nothing, believe nothing. And let you make a mock of him again. But if +you please, I stand between him and you." + +"You have no right," Alison muttered. + +"It is you who have put me there. You, madame, when you played him false +with this Waverton." + +"That is a lie--a lie," she cried. + +"Oh, content you. You are all chastity. I do not doubt it. But you drove +Harry away from you. You admitted your Waverton to intimacy--you let him +hope--believe--bah, what does it matter? You were in his secrets. You +knew he put bullies upon Harry. Now he has failed and you are in a fright +and want your Harry again. Permit me, madame, not to admire you." + +"What do you want of me?" Alison said miserably. + +"I cannot tell. I want to know what I am to do with Harry. And you--you +are another wound." + +Alison shuddered. "For God's sake take me to him. I will content him." + +"Yes. For how long?" + +"Oh, I deserve it all. I cannot answer you. And yet you are wrong. I am +not such as you think me. I have never had anything but contempt for Mr. +Waverton. If he were not what he is, he must have known that. He came to +me after I left Harry. He told me that he was having Harry spied upon. +The moment he was gone I wrote to Harry and gave him warning and begged +him come back to me. He has never answered me. And I--oh--am I to speak +of Harry and me?" + +"If you could I should not much believe you. From the first, madame, I +have believed you." + +"It was I who drove him away from me. I have been miserable for it ever +since. I humbled myself." + +Captain McBean held up his hand. "I still believe you. Pray, order +your coach." + +"Where is he?" + +"He lies at his father's lodging. Observe, madame: I have said--he is +not yet dead. Whether he lives rests, I believe to God, upon what you +may be to him." + +"Then he will be well enough," she sobbed as she laughed. + +"Oh! I believe in your power," says McBean with a twist of a smile. + +She stayed a moment by the door and flung her arms wide. "What I am--it +is all for him." + +Captain McBean left alone, took snuff. "A splendid wild cat--and that +mouse of a Harry," says he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + +Captain McBean was strutting to and fro for the benefit of his impatience +when Mr. O'Connor returned to him. "Patrick, you look morose. Had he the +legs of you?" + +"He had not," says O'Connor, nursing his hand. "But he had a +beautiful nose. Sure, it was harder than you would think. And I have +sprained my thumb." + +"What, did he fight?" + +"He did not--saving the tongue of him. But I had broke my whip upon him, +so I broke his nose to be even. Egad, he was beautiful before and behind. +He cannot show this long while. Neither behind nor before, faith. What +will he do, d'ye think?" + +"Oh Lud, he'll not face it out. He would dream of hangmen. He'll take the +waters. He'll go the grand tour. D'ye know, Patrick, there's a masterly +touch in old Boyce. To choose that oaf for his decoy at Pontoise! Who +could guess at danger in him? No wonder Charles Middleton saw no guile! +Yet, you observe, the creature's full of venom." + +"He bleeds like a pig," says Mr. O'Connor. "What will we be waiting +for, sir?" + +"The lady." + +"She goes to Harry? Oh, he's the lucky one. What a Venus it is!" + +"Aye, aye. She should have married you, Patrick. You would have +ridden her." + +"Ah now, don't destroy me with envy and desires," says Mr. O'Connor. +"But, sure, there was another, a noble fat girl. Will she be bespoke?" + +"She belongs to the one-armed hero." + +"Maybe she could do with another. There's enough of her for two. Oh, come +away, sir, before I danger my soul." + +They heard the wheels of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming +downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you +need a duenna to watch you with your husband?" + +"Madame is Harry's mother, sir," Alison said. + +For once Captain McBean was disconcerted. "A thousand pardons," says he, +and with much ceremony put Mrs. Weston into the coach. + +As they rode after it, "You fight too fast, sir," says O'Connor with a +grin. "I have remarked it before." + +Captain McBean 'was still something out of countenance. "Who would have +thought he had a mother here?" he growled. + +"Oh, faith, you did not suppose the old Colonel brought him forth--like +Jove plucking Minerva out of his swollen head." + +"I did not, Patrick, you loon. But I did not guess his mother would be +here with this gorgeous madame wife." + +"Fie now, is it the Lord God don't advise you of everything? 'Tis an +indignity, faith." + +Captain Me Bean swore at him in a friendly way, and they jogged on +through the Islington lanes.... + +So after a while it happened that Colonel Boyce, raising a hot and angry +head at the creature who dared open his bedroom door, found himself +looking at Mrs. Weston. "Ods my life! Kate! What a pox do you want +here?" says he. + +"You are hurt. I thought you would want nursing." + +"I do not want nursing, damme. How did you hear of the business?" + +"That Scotch captain rode out to tell us." + +"Od burn the fellow! Humph. No. Maybe he is no fool, neither. Us? Who is +us, Kate? Mrs. Alison?" + +"She is gone up to Harry now." + +Colonel Boyce whistled. "Come up and we will show you a thing, eh? That +is Scripture, Kate. You used to have your mouth full of Scripture." + +"You put me out of favour with that." + +"Let it be, can't you? What, they will make it up, then?" + +"Does that hurt you? Indeed, they would never have quarrelled but for +you." + +"Oh, aye, blame it on me. I am the devil, faith. Come, ma'am, what have I +done to the pretty dears? She's a warm piece and Harry's a milksop, and +that's the whole of it." + +"With your tricks you made her think Harry was such as you are. And that +wife you married came to Alison and told her that Harry was base-born." + +"Rot the shrew! She must meddle must she? Egad, she was always a blunder, +Madame Rachel." He swore at her fully. "Bah, what though? Why should +jolly Alison heed her?" + +"Alison knows everything now. I told her." + +"Egad, you go beyond me, Kate. You that made me swear none should ever +know the boy was yours. You go and blab it out! Damn you for a woman." + +The woman looked at him strangely. "You have done that indeed," she said. + +"No, that's too bad. I vow it is." For once Colonel Boyce was stung. He +fell silent and fidgeted, and made a long arm for the herb water by his +bed. Mrs. Weston gave it him. "Let be, can't you?" he cried, and drank +all the same. "Eh, Kate that came over my guard.... She has made you +suffer, the shrew. Egad, I could whip her through the town for it." + +"Yes. Whip her." + +"Oh, what would you have?" Colonel Boyce shifted under a rueful air, +strange in him. "I am what I am. I have had no luck in women. She was a +blunder. And you--you have paid to say of me what you will. Egad, you +have the chance now." + +"Are you in pain?" + +"Be hanged to pain! Don't gloat, Kate. That's not like you, at least." + +"Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry." + +"No, nor that neither. Damme, what should I be with you pitying me? Let +it be. Come, you want something of me, I suppose. Something for your +Harry, eh? What is it?" + +"I want nothing but that he should live. He has no need of you or me." + +"Oh Lud, he will live. But you were always full of fears." + +"Yes. You used to say that long ago." + +Colonel Boyce winced again. "Eh, you get in your thrusts, Kate, I swear I +did what I could to save him." + +"I could not have borne to come to you else." + +"Humph. I see no good in your coming. There's little comfort for you or +me in seeing each other. I suppose it's your damned duty." + +"I don't know." + +"Oh Lud, then begone and let's have done with it all." + +"I want to stay till you are well." + +"Aye, faith, it's comfortable to see me on my back and helpless." + +Mrs. Weston did not answer for a moment. She was busy with setting his +table in order. "I want to have some right somewhere. She is with Harry." + +"By God, Kate, you're a good soul," Colonel Boyce cried. + +"I am not. I am jealous of her," Mrs. Weston said with a sob. + +"Does Harry know of you?" + +"What does it matter? He'll not care now." + +"Kate--come here, child." + +"No. No. I am not crying," Mrs. Weston said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +HARRY WAKES UP + + +Harry lay asleep when Alison came into his room. + +She made sure of that and sat herself beside him to wait. It was not, you +know, a thing which she did well. She looked down at him gravely. +Afterwards Harry would accuse her that what first she felt was how little +and miserable a man she had taken to herself. + +He lay there very still and his breath hardly stirred him. Indeed, the +surgery of Mr. Rolfe had bound him up so tightly that he was in armour +from waist to neck. After a moment, she started and trembled and bent +over him and put her cheek close to his lips. She felt his breath and +rose again slowly almost as pale as he. That cheating fear had stabbed +cruelly, and still it would not let her be. His face was so thin, so +white and utterly tired. The life was drained out of him.... + +She sat beside him, still but for the beat of her bosom, and it seemed +that the consciousness in her was falling from a height or galloping +against the wind. She seemed to try to stop and could not. + +She tried to change the fashion of her thought and had no power in that +either. It was a strange, half-angry, half-contemptuous pity that moved +in her, and a fever of impatience. He was wicked to be struck down so, +rent, impotent. Why must the wretch go plunging out into the world and +measure himself against these swashbuckling conspirators? He had no +equipment for it. He was fated to end it with disaster. Faith, it was a +cruel folly to throw himself away and drag up her life by the roots as he +fell. She needed him--needed him quick and eager, and there he lay, a +shrunken thing that could use only gentleness, help, a tedious, trivial +service like a child. + +He was humiliated, a condition not to be borne in her man. As she watched +him, she saw Geoffrey Waverton rise between them, blusterous and +menacing, and his lustiness mocked at the still, helpless body. But on +that all other feeling was lost in a fever of hate of Mr. Waverton. He +was branded with every contemptible sin that she knew, she ached to have +him suffer, and (unaware of the contusions and extravasations +administered by Mr. O'Connor) tried to console herself by recalling the +ignominious condition of Geoffrey in the hands of the truculent gentlemen +at Highgate. Bah, the coward was dishonoured for ever, at least. He would +never dare show his face in town or country. How could he? Mr. Hadley +would spit him like a joint. The good Charles! She found some consolation +in the memory of Mr. Hadley's sardonic contempt. Nay, but the others, +that fire-eating little Scotsman and his lank friend, they were of the +same scornful mind about Mr. Waverton. His blusterous bullying went for +nothing with them but to call for more disdain. They had no doubt that he +cut a miserable figure, that it was he who was humiliated in the affair. +And so all men would think, indeed. It was only a fool of a woman who +could be imposed upon by his brag, only a mean, detestable woman who +could suppose Harry defeated. + +Why, Harry must needs have done nobly to enlist these men on his side. He +was nothing to Captain McBean, nothing but what he had done, and yet +McBean took up his cause with a perfect devotion, cared for nothing but +to punish his enemies, and to assure his safety. Faith, the little man +would be as glad to thrash her as to overthrow Master Geoffrey. He had +come near it, indeed. She smiled a little. The absurd imagination was not +unpleasant. Monsieur was welcome to beat her if it would bring Harry any +comfort. Aye, it would be very good for her. She would be glad to show +Harry the stripes. Nay, but it was Harry who should beat her--only he +never would. And these fantastics were swept away in a wave of +tenderness. + +Mr. Harry was not good at making others suffer. He left it to his wife, +poor lad, and she--she had done it greedily. Well. There was to be an end +of that. Pray God he might ever be strong enough to hurt her. She bent +over him in this queer mood, and her eyes were dim, and she kissed him, +and whispered to herself--to him. Yes. She must make him hurt her. She +must have pain of him to bear.... + +Harry slept on. She began to caress his pillow, and crooned over him like +a mother with her child, and found herself blushing and was still and +silent again. Indeed, she was detestable. To make a show of fondling +after having driven him to the edge of death! To chatter and flutter +about him when he had no more than strength enough for sleep! Why, this +was the very way for a light o' love. And, indeed, she was no better, +wanting him only for her pleasure, for what he would give, watching +greedily till he should be fit to serve her turn again. Yes, that was the +only way of love Mrs. Alison understood. + +It was some satisfaction to scold herself, to make herself believe that +she was vile. For she wanted to suffer, she wanted to be humbled. Not so +much for the comfort of penance, not even for the luxury of sensation +which makes self-torture pleasure, but that she might be sure of +realizing her sins against the love which was now in command of all her +being, and go on to serve it with a clean devotion. One thing only was +worth doing, in one thing only could there be honour and joy, to make him +welcome her and have delight in her... And so she fell among dreams.... + +She saw something glitter on the table by the bed, and idly put out her +hand for it. She found herself looking at the diamonds of the Pretender's +watch. How did Harry come to such a gorgeous toy? J.R., the diamonds +wrote. Who was J.R.? + +"Alison," Harry said. + +She started, stared at him, and stood up. His eyes were open, and he +frowned a little. + +"Alison? It is you?" he said, and rubbed at his eyes. + +"Yes." + +"Why have you come?" + +She fell on her knees by the bed. "Oh, Harry, Harry," she murmured, and +hid her face. + +"Is it true?" + +"I will be true," she sobbed. + +"I want to see you." + +She showed him her face pale and wet with tears.... + +After a while, "Why have you come?" he said again. + +"Harry, I knew about Geoffrey. He told me." + +"You--knew?" + +I wrote you warning. I begged you come back to me. Oh, Harry, Harry, you +are proud." + +"I had no warning. Proud? Oh, yes, I am proud. What were you with +Geoffrey?" + +"Harry! Oh, Harry! No, it's fair. Well. I tried to trick him for your +sake to save you." + +"I am obliged for your care of me." + +She cried out "Ah, God," and hid her face again. Harry lay still and +white as death.... "Oh, Harry, you torture me," she murmured. "You have +the right. No man but you has ever had a thought of me. Harry--I want to +pray you--oh, I want to lie at your feet. Only believe in me--use +me--take me again." + +"I am a fool," Harry said, and she looked up and saw that he, too, was +crying. "Oh, curse the wound," he said hoarsely. "Egad, I am damned +feeble, child." + +"I love you, I love you," she sobbed, and pressed her face to his.... +"Oh, Harry, I am wicked." + +She raised herself. "You are hurt, and I wear you out." + +"That's a brag." Harry smiled faintly, "It takes more than you can give +to kill me, ma'am." + +"Ah, don't." + +"Stand up and let me look at you." Which she did, and made parade of her +beauty, smiling through tears. "Aye, you're a splendid woman," and his +eyes brightened. + +She made him a curtsy. "It's at your will, sir." "Yes, and why? Why? What +made you come back?" + +"My dear!" She held out her arms to him. "I have wanted you ever since I +lost you. And now--now I am nothing unless you want me." + +"Oh, be easy. There is plenty of you, and I want it all." + +"Can you say so? Ah, Harry, you have known enough bad that's me, cruel +and greedy and hard and cheating. I have always taken, and given +nothing back." + +"Damn your humilities," Harry said. + +"Oh, sir, but I want them, my new humilities. I have nothing else to +cover my nakedness." + +"You look better without them, ma'am." + +"Fie, I will stop your mouth." But it was a cup of herb water that she +offered him instead of a kiss. + +"You are a cheat," Harry spluttered. "You presume on my infirmities." + +"No. No. I have made you talk too much. You must be still and rest +again." + +"Burn your maternal care! I have hardly seen you yet a minute." + +"A minute! Oh!" She looked at the jewelled watch. "Aye, sir, an hour. +And what's this pretty toy?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, now I have you. Sure, ma'am, it's a love token." + +"I shall go away, sir." + +"Not till you come by the secret. I know you." + +His ear was pinched. "J.R. Who is J.R., sir?" + +"Jemima Regina. A queen of beauty, ma'am. She fell in love with my nose. +And offered me a thousand pound for it." + +"Harry! I am going to say good night." + +"Hear the truth, Alison. Do you remember--you told me I was born to be a +highwayman--my stand-and-deliver stare--my--" + +"Oh! Don't play so. I was a fiend when I taunted you so." + +"Why, child, it's nothing. Come then--J.R., it's Jacobus Rex, the poor +lad, Prince James, who will never be a king, God help him. He gave me +that for the memory of some little service I did him. McBean brought the +toy to-day." + +Alison nodded. "I will have that story from Captain McBean, sir. You tell +stories mighty ill, do you know--highwayman. Yes, Harry, you are that. +You pillage us all. Love, honour, you win it from all. And I--I am the +last to know you." + +"Bah, you will never be a wife," Harry said. "You have too much +imagination. But you make a mighty fine lover, my dear." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Highwayman, by H.C. Bailey + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + +This file should be named 7high10.txt or 7high10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7high11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7high10a.txt + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Bailey + +Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9749] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + THE HIGHWAYMAN + + BY + + H. C. BAILEY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE COMPLETE HERO + + II. THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + III. A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + IV. A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + V. THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + VI. HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + VII. GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + VIII. MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + IX. ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + X. YOUNG BLOOD + + XI. ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + XII. IN HASTE + + XIII. DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + XIV. SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + XV. MRS. BOYCE + + XVI. THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + XVII. RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + XVIII. HARRY IS DISMISSED + + XIX. ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + XX. RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXI. CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + XXII. TWO'S COMPANY + + XXIII. THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + XXIV. QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + XXV. SAUVE QUI PEUT + + XXVI. REVELATIONS + + XXVII. VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + XXVIII. IN THE TAP + + XXIX. ALISON KNEELS + + XXX. EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + XXXI. CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + XXXII. PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + XXXIII. REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + XXXIV. HARRY WAKES UP + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE COMPLETE HERO + + +Harry Boyce addressed Queen Anne in glittering verse. She was not +present. She had, however, no cause to regret that, for he was tramping +the Great North Road at four miles by the hour--a pace far beyond the +capacity of Her Majesty's legs; and his verses were Latin--a language not +within the capacity of Her Majesty's mind. Her absence gave him no grief. +In all his twenty-four years he could not remember being grieved by +anyone's absence. His general content was never diminished at finding +himself alone. He chose the Queen as the subject of his verses merely +because he did not admire her. She appeared to him then, as to later +generations, a woman ineffectual and without interest; a dull woman +physically, mentally, and perhaps morally; just the woman upon whom it +would be hardest to make an encomium of any splendour. So he was heartily +ingenious over his alcaics, and relished them. + +From this you may divine much that you have to know about the soul of +Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to +criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite +satisfied with itself and by itself. To be sure, it was yet only +twenty-four. + +You discover also other things less fundamental. He was something of a +scholar, as scholarship was reckoned in those placid days. He had even +some Greek--more than Mr. Pope and quite as much as Mr. Addison. His +Latin verses would have brought him a fellowship at Merton if he had +been willing to take Holy Orders, "I may take them indeed; but how +believe they have been given me?" quoth he to the Warden with a tilt of +one eyebrow. Whereat the Warden, aghast, wrote him off as a youth +unreasonable, impracticable, and impish. Many others had the same +opinion of Harry Boyce before the world was done with him. Few of them +saw in his antics the uncertain spasms of too tender a conscience. But +you must judge. + +Of course he was poor. He could only boast a bob wig, a base thing, +which, for all the show it made, might have been a man's own hair. He +wore no sword. His hat lacked feather and lace. His coat and breeches +were but black drugget, shiny at each corner of him and rusty everywhere. +His stockings were worsted, and darned even on his excellent calves. His +shoes had strings where buckles should have been, and mere black +heels--and low heels at that. As you know, he could walk at a round pace +with them--a preposterous, vulgar thing. There was nothing in him to give +this poverty a romantical air. To be sure, he had admirable legs, but the +rest was neither good nor bad. He was of the middle size and a wholesome +complexion. You would look at him long and see nothing rare enough to be +worth looking at. If you looked longer yet you might begin to be +surprised: his so ordinary face was extraordinary in its lack of +expression. + +The man who owned it must be either very dull of heart and mind, or +self-contained and of self-control beyond the common. But whatever the +heart might be, no one ever took the eyes for the eyes of a fool. They +were keen, alert, perpetually on guard. There is a letter extant--it was +indeed a dear friend who wrote it--which mocks at Harry for his "curst +stand-and-deliver stare." But it is a queer thing that most men had to +know Harry Boyce a long time before they remarked that his eyes were not +quite of the same colour. The common English grey-green-blue was in both +of them, but one had a bluer glint than the other. The oddity, when it +was discovered, seemed to make the challenge of the eyes more defiant and +more baffling, as though they gleamed from the shadow of a mask. + +Not that anyone cared yet whether he wore a mask or his soul in that +placid, ordinary face. Who should care a pinch of snuff for "a scholar +just from his college broke loose" with a penny farthing in his pocket, +who had to pioneer young gentlemen through their Horace and their Tully +for his bed and board? When you meet him, Harry Boyce was happy in having +caught for his pupil a young fellow who had not merely money but brains, +and so sublime a condescension that Harry was not sent away from table +with the parson when the puddings came. Mr. Geoffrey Waverton was pleased +to have a value for him, and defended him from his natural duty of being +gentleman usher to Lady Waverton. So, Mr. Waverton having taken horse, +Harry was free to go walking. + +It was late in a wet autumn, and all the clay of Middlesex slippery as +butter and, withal, affectionate as warm glue. Harry kept to the highway. +Though its miles of mud and water were, on the surface, even worse than +the too green meadows or the gleaming brown furrows of plough land, a +careful man could count upon its letting him go no further than knee +deep. When he came to Whetstone, Harry's feet were brown, shapeless, +weighty masses, but he had not lost either shoe, and he was still in +hopes of reaching Barnet and a pint of small beer before it was time to +struggle back. At the worst a dry throat and wet legs were a cheap price +for escaping the voice of Lady Waverton, who, in the afternoons, read the +romances of Mlle. de Scudéry aloud. + +He could see the tufts of smoke above Barnet and its church on the +hill-top. He was winding down to the bottom of the valley from which that +hill rises, when eloquence arrested him. He may at other times have heard +profanity as copious, but never profanity so vehement or at such speed. +The orator was a woman. + +Harry stood to listen with critical admiration. Madame mixed the ugly and +the pleasant rarely; she made a charming grotesque. Her mind was very far +from nice and provided her with amazing images; but she had a pretty, +womanly voice, and hard though she drove it, it would not break to one +ugly note. Disgusting epithets, mean threats, poured out in mellow +music. Harry splashed on round the corner. He was eager to see her. + +In the morass at the cross-lanes by the green, a coach was stuck--a coach +of splendour. It was a huge thing as big as a room, half glass, half gold +and garter blue, and it swayed luxuriously on its great springs. Six +horses heaved at it in vain with great splashing and squelching, and a +whole company of servants, some mounted, some afoot, struggled with them. + +The profane woman had half her body and two gesticulating arms out of the +coach window. She was plainly neither a drab nor in liquor. Harry halted +out of range of the splashes to examine and enjoy her. She had been +comely, and still could hold a man's eye with her curves of neck and +bosom. The piquant features must have been adorable before they sharpened +and her cheeks faded and the lines came. Her abundant hair must once have +been gold, and was not yet altogether grey. + +"You filthy slug," said she. "Samuel! Stand to it, I say. Damme, I'll +have a whip about that loose belly of yours! Now pull, you swine, pull. +Odso, flog the black horse. You, devil broil your bones, lay on to him. +What now? Od rot you, Antony, you'll see no money this month, you--" She +became unprintable. As she took breath again, she saw Harry Boyce calmly +contemplative. "You dog, who bade you stand and gape? Go, give a hand +there, I say." + +Harry touched his hat. "By your leave, ma'am, I am too busy admiring +you." + +"William, put that rogue into the ditch," said she. + +All this while a man in the coach had been writing, calmly intent upon +his tablets as though there was not a sound or a rage within a mile. He +now stood up, and, while his lady was still execrating through one door +of the coach, he opened the other and came out. Two of the servants, +obedient to the lady's oaths, were approaching Harry, who waited them +with calm and a swinging stick. The man waved his hand at them and they +turned tail. But he had no further interest in Harry. He stood to watch +the struggles of his horses and his men. He was of some height, and, +though past middle age, bore himself with singular grace and vigour. He +had still a rarely handsome face--too handsome, by far, for Harry's +taste. The features were of an impossible, absurd perfection. There was +something superhuman or fatuous, at least something vastly irritating, in +his assured calm, his air of blandly confident supremacy. + +He walked on to the leaders and, with a gesture and a word, set the whole +team pulling at an angle. Meanwhile the lady had earnestly continued her +abusive orders, but none of the servants now professed to heed her. +Dragging the horses on, or labouring hand and shoulder at the wheels, +they were now effective, and they watched the man's eye as though it were +an inspiration. Wondering why he did, Harry, too, put his weight on a +wheel. The horses found a footing in the mire, the coach was dragged on +to the higher, firmer ground beyond. + +My lady subsided. The man came back to the coach and touched his hat to +Harry. "I'm obliged for your help, sir," he said, and climbed in. They +drove away towards London. + +As the servants swung to their saddles, "Who's your obscene lady?" +said Harry. + +"What, don't you know him, bumpkin?" + +"She will never be him. Her shape is all provocative she." + +This humble wit was not remarked. His ignorance occupied them, "Oh Lud, +not to know the Old Corporal!" + +One of Harry's eyebrows went up. "That the Old Corporal? Faith, I am +sorry for him." + +He received a handful of mud in his face. With a cry of "Rot your +impudence," they splashed off. + +While he wiped the mud out of his eyes, Harry felt a very comfortable +self-satisfaction. It was agreeable to pity His Grace of Marlborough. For +the Duke of Marlborough was still the greatest man in Europe, the +greatest man in the world--credibly the greatest man that ever lived. A +pleasant fool, to marry such a wife and to keep her. + +Harry Boyce at no time in his life had much admiration for human +eminence. In this, his hungry youth, he was set upon despising rank and +power, great fame and pure virtue, as no more than the luck of fools. He +would always atone by finding sympathy and excuses for any rogue's +roguery. Highly fortified in this faith by the exhibition of +Marlborough's matrimonial happiness, he trudged back. + +The delay over the coach had left him no time for small ale at Barnet. +Mr. Waverton, though amiably pleased to deliver Harry from attendance on +his mother, required constant attendance on himself. He would be, in his +superb way, disagreeable if Harry were not in waiting when he was wanted +to take a hand at ombre. Harry liked Mr. Waverton well enough, as well as +he liked anybody, but found him in the part of offended majesty +intolerable. So there was some hard walking back to Whetstone. On the way +his temper was not sweetened by two horsemen at the gallop who gave him a +shower-bath of mud. + +As he came through the village, behold another coach labouring up to the +high road from Totteridge lane. This had but four horses, no array of +outriders, no gilt splendours. It was a sober, old-fashioned thing, and +it rumbled on at a sober gait. "Some city ma'am," Harry sneered at it, +"much the same shape as her horses." + +But half an hour after he saw it again. Where the road was dark through a +thicket it had come to a stand. "Oh Lud," said Harry, "here's more fair +madames in the mud. They may sit on it till they hatch it for me." But he +wondered a little. It was indeed nothing very strange in such an autumn +to find a coach stuck upon the highway. But two for one afternoon, two so +near was a generous provision. And hereabouts, where the road ran level +and high, was a strange place for a coach to choose to stick. "Madame +seems to be a gross girl," quoth Harry. + +And then he saw what made him step out. There were two men on horseback +by the halted coach--two men with black upon their faces which must be +masks, and that in their hands which must be pistols. + +"Egad, the road's joyful to-night," said Harry. "And two and one make +three," and he began to run, and arrived. + +Of the two highwaymen one was dismounted. The other, holding his friend's +horse, held also a pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats +of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half +inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his +blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage +you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your +legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, +what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the +jewel-case out into the mud and, leaning across one woman, reached with a +fat, foul hand to the younger bosom beyond. + +He was prevented by a whistle and a cry, "Behind you, Ben." His companion +announced the arrival of Harry. + +Ben came out of the coach with an oath and thrust his pistol into Harry's +face. "Good e'en to you, bully. Now cut and run or I'll drill you. Via, +my poppet." + +Harry looked along the pistol and stood fast. The highwayman was no +bigger than he, and bloated. "I am studying arithmetic, Benjamin," said +he. + +"Burn your eyes, be off with you; run while you may." + +Harry laughed and swung his stick at the mud. "But, I wonder, is it +addition or subtraction? Is it two and one makes three, or--" + +"Kick the bumpkin into the ditch, Ben," the man on horseback advised. + +"Off with you," Benjamin thrust him back, and in the act the pistol +wavered. Harry slashed with his stick at the pistol hand. A yell, an +oath, and the shot came together--a shot which went into the mud and sent +it spattering about them. Harry sprang away from Benjamin's rush and +brought his stick down on the hindquarters of the horses. They plunged +forward, and the man in the saddle, wrestling with them, let off another +aimless shot. Harry dodged round them and lashed them again, and they +bolted down the road. He returned to fling himself upon Benjamin, who was +ramming another charge into his pistol. "It seems to be subtraction, +Benjamin," said he, embracing the man fervently. "One from two leaves +one," and they swayed together, and he found Benjamin's body soft. + +Benjamin, panting, cursed him. "Od rot you, why must you meddle, bully? +What's your will, burn you? Ha' done now, and--" Benjamin went down on +his back in the mud with Harry on top of him. "Ugh! What's the game, +bully?" + +"I think you call it the high toby," said Harry delicately and began to +sing to the tune of a catch: + +"Oh, three merry men, three merry men, three highwaymen were we. +You in a quag and he on a nag and I on top of the three." + +"Lord love you, are you on the road?" Benjamin cried. "Why, rot you, +did you want a share then? You should ha' said so, bully. Come on now, my +dear, let's up. We do be gentlemen and share fair enough." + +"I warrant you I am having my share," Harry laughed; "and I like it very +well. But oh, Benjamin, there would have been nought to share if I had +not come up. No fun at all, Benjamin." He wrenched the pistol away. "'Tis +I have made the business joyous. You are a dull fellow by yourself." + +"Rot you," said Benjamin frankly. "When Ned comes back he'll shoot you +like vermin." + +On which they both heard horses, and both, according to their +abilities--Benjamin in the mud, and Harry keeping a sure hold of +him--wriggled to look for them. + +Harry laughed. It was certainly not a returning Ned. These horses came +from the other way, and there were four of them and each had a rider. "I +fear your Ned will come too late, Benjamin--if, by the grace of God, he +comes at all." So said Harry, chuckling, and to his amazement Benjamin +also laughed. Why should Benjamin find consolation in the coming of this +_posse_? It was not credible that they could be allies of his. Highwaymen +did not work in gangs of half a dozen. + +The four horsemen, urged by the shots or by what they saw, came at a +gallop and reined up almost on top of Harry and Benjamin. One of them, a +little man with a lean, brown face, called out, "By your leave, sir! +What's this?" + +"It's a rude fellow, sir," Harry said. "I fear a lewd fellow. By trade a +highwayman. The highway, indeed, is his life's love, his adored mistress. +Observe how he cleaves to it." He compressed Benjamin, who squelched, +into the mud, and rose, standing on Benjamin's chest and stomach. + +Benjamin groaned, and the eyes behind his mask rolled towards the little +man. + +"Filthy dog," that little man said with sincere disgust. "Can I serve +you, sir?" he touched his hat to the women in the coach. + +"Why, Benjamin has a friend, one Ned. Ned hath a pistol or so and two +horses which have bolted with him. But he may yet persuade them to bring +back his pistols and him. Now, if you would be so good, it would be +convenient in you to ride on and destroy Ned." + +"It's a pleasure, sir," the little man showed his teeth. "And the fat +rogue there, can I help you with him? Shall we take him on to the +constables?" + +"Oh, I thank you, but my Benjamin is docile. I'll e'en tie him up with +his garters, and all will be well." + +The little man scowled at Benjamin. "I shall hope to be at his hanging," +he said incisively. "Sir, your most obedient! Ladies!" he bobbed at them +and rode off, his three companions close about him in eager talk. + +As they went, Benjamin let out a cry of anguish: "Captain!" + +The little man and his company used their spurs. + +Harry looked at their hurry and then down at Benjamin. + +"Now why did you call him that, my Benjamin?" said he. "Indeed, why did +you call on him at all?" + +From behind the mask Benjamin's prominent eyes stared sullenly. He +said nothing. + +Harry shook his head. "I feel that I do not know you, Benjamin. I must +see more of you," With which he fell upon the man again and twitched +off the mask. The wig came with it. Benjamin was revealed the owner of +a big, bald, shiny head with a face which was puffed and purple. "You +were right, Benjamin," said Harry sadly, "You were kind. To wear a mask +was charity, nay, decency--what breeches are to other men. That obese +and flaccid nose--pah, let us talk of something else." He lay upon +Benjamin and tugged at his sword-belt. Benjamin writhed and groaned. +His sword was caught underneath him, the hilt deep in the small of his +back. Harry hauled the sword-belt off at last and gripped at Benjamin's +wrists. He began to struggle again. "Do not be troublesome or I'll tap +the beer on your brain. So." He hauled the belt taut about the fighting +arms and made all fast. Then he sat himself on Benjamin's legs, which +thus ceased to be turbulent, and, taking off the garters, therewith +tied the ankles together. + +Sighing satisfaction, Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of +victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman +with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are +still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is +over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be +profane. I see him bursting with it. Pray drive on and remove your chaste +ears." He restored to them the jewel-case. + +"Put him up on the box, sir," the younger woman cried. + +"I beg your pardon, madame?" + +"We will take him to the constables at Finchley." + +"But why? He is beautiful there, my Benjamin, and I doubt he was never +beautiful before. And I have planted him so firmly. I think if we leave +him there he may grow and blossom. Do not dig him up again yet. Imagine +Benjamin in flower! A thing to dream of." + +"You are pleased to be witty, sir. Come, we have lost time enough. Put +the rogue up, and do you mount with us." + +Harry became aware that this young woman had a brow of pride. It was +ample and broad and, after the Greek manner, it rose almost in a line +with her admirable nose. A noble head, to be sure, but alarming to a mere +human man. So Harry thought, and he touched his hat and said: "Madame, +your most humble. Pray what do you want with my Benjamin? Your gentle +heart would never have him hanged." + +Her eyes made Harry feel that he was impudent, which, unhappily, amused +him. "I desire the fellow should be given up to the law, sir," she said +coldly. "Have you anything against it?" + +"Oh, ma'am, a thousand things, with which I'll not weary you. For I see +that you would not understand. You are very young (as I hope). Perhaps +you may soon grow older (which I pray for you). Let this suffice then. +My Benjamin may deserve a hanging. Who knows? We are not God, ma'am, +neither you nor I. Therefore I have no mind to be a hangman. And +you--why, you are young enough to wait another occasion. And so I give +you good-night. Home, coachman, home." + +The young woman stared at him as though he were grovelling stupidity, and +then lay back on her cushions with a "You will drive on, Samuel." + +Harry made his bow, and then, as the coach began to move, there was a +cry: "Alison! Alison! It is not right!" The older woman leaned forward, +and for the first time he remarked a gentle, motherly face, much lined +and worn. "Sure, sir, you will ride with us," she said, and he liked the +voice. "We may carry you home." + +Harry smiled at her. "Nay, ma'am. I am too dirty for such fine company." + +"Drive on," said Mistress Alison. And the coach rolled away. + +Harry looked down at the wretched Benjamin, whose eyes answered with +apprehension and anxiety. "What's the game?" said Benjamin hoarsely. "I +say, master--what d'ye want with me?" + +Harry did not answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant +voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself +back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my +Benjamin," he said. "Who was your captain, I wonder?" + +Benjamin scowled. "I know nought o' no captain." + +"Ah, I thought you did. But I fear you have annoyed the captain, +Benjamin. Now what had you done--or what had you not done?" + +"It's not fair, master," Benjamin whined. "You do be making game of me, +and me beat." + +"I am rebuked, Benjamin. Good-night." + +"Oons, ye won't leave me so?" Benjamin howled. "I ha' done you no harm, +master. Come now, play fair. What d'ye want of me?" + +"Nothing, Benjamin, nothing. I like you very well. You are a beautiful +mystery. Pleasant dreams." + +The hapless Benjamin howled after him long and loud. Thereby Harry, who +had a musical ear, was spurred to his best pace. "It's a vile voice," he +reflected; "like Lady Waverton's. The marmoreal Alison was right. He +would be better hanged. But so also would Lady Waverton. She will +acridly want to know why I am late. Well! It will be a melancholy +satisfaction not to tell her. That will also annoy Geoffrey, who'll +magnificently indicate that I owe him an apology. The poor Geoffrey! He +is so fond of himself!" + +His evening was as pleasant as he had anticipated. He won two shillings +from Lady Waverton at ombre, which made her angry; and lost them to +Geoffrey, which made him melancholy. For Mr. Waverton loved (in small +things) to be a martyr. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE HOUSE OF WAVERTON + + +Mr. Waverton had an idea in his head. That was not the least unusual. It +was, unhappily, a wrong one. That was not unusual either. We must have a +trifle of Latin. Mr. Waverton, studying Horace, desired to translate, +_Civium ardor prava jubentium_ "the wicked ardour of the overbearing +citizens." In vain Harry urged that he was outraging grammar. Mr. +Waverton did not believe him, did not want to believe him--the same +thing. Mr. Waverton was convinced that he had an insight into the soul of +Horace which Harry's pedantic eyes could not share. He explained, as one +explains to a dull child, the rare poetic beauty of the sentiment which +he had produced. The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the +man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be +aware) are all overbearing. It is this quality in the vulgar which most +distresses fine souls (like Mr. Waverton) who desire nothing but their +just rights. + +"I dare say it is," Harry yawned. "If Horace had wanted to mean that, he +would have said so." + +"I often think, Harry, you dry scholars have no sense for the thought of +a poet," said Mr. Waverton elegantly, and lay back in his chair and +surveyed Harry. + +He was a handsome lad and knew how to set it off. He had height and +bulk--almost too much of that indeed, and so made light of it by a +careless, lounging ease. At this time he was only twenty-two, but of a +precocious maturity. He had the self-possession--as well as the +full-bottomed wig--of experience and worldly wisdom, and would have liked +to hear you say so. In its dark aquiline style his face was finely +moulded and imposing, and already it had a massive gravity. "A mighty +grand fellow indeed," said Lady Dorchester once, "if only his mouth had +grown since he was a baby." It has to be admitted that Mr. Waverton's +mouth, a small, pretty feature, was oddly assorted with the haughty +manner in which the rest of him was constructed. The ladies who lamented +that were, for the most part, consoled by his eyes--large, dark eyes of a +liquid melancholy. But my Lord Wharton complained that they looked at him +like a hound's. + +Mr. Waverton was an only son, and fatherless. He had also great +possessions. From his house of Tetherdown all the fields that he could +see stretching away to the Essex border were of his inheritance. His +mother was no wiser than she should have been. She consisted spiritually +of admiration for herself, for the family into which she had married, and +the son whom she had borne. "After all," said Harry Boyce in moments of +geniality, "it's wonderful the boy has come out of it so well." + +Mr. Waverton, thanks to vacillation of himself and his mother, doubt as +to what career, what manner of education, what university, could be +worthy his talents, went up to Oxford at last and (for those days) very +late. After doing nothing for another year or two, he decided (which was +also unusual for a gentleman of means in those days) that he had a genius +in pure literature. Therefore Harry was hired to decorate him with all +the elegances of Greek and Latin. + +The appointment was considered a great prize for a lad so awkward as +Harry Boyce. It might well end in a luxurious competence--a stewardship, +for example, and marriage with my lady's maid. "That is, if you play your +cards well, sirrah," the Sub-Warden felt it his duty to warn Harry's +difficult temper. + +"Oh, sir, I could never play cards," said Harry, for the Sub-Warden was a +master at picquet. "I am too honest." + +Yet he had not fallen out with Mr. Waverton. It is probable that he was +careful to keep on good terms with his bread and butter. But he had +always, I believe, a kindness for Geoffrey Waverton, and bore no ill will +for his parade of supremacy. Tyranny in small things, indeed, Mr. +Waverton did not affect. He had a desire to be magnificent. Those who did +not cross him, those who were content to be his inferiors, found him +amiable enough and, on occasion, generous.... + +"Shall we try another line, Mr. Waverton?" said Harry wearily. + +"I have a mind to make an epigram," Mr. Waverton announced. "The +arrogance of the vulgar, the--the uninstructed--perhaps I lack the _mot +juste_, but _quand même_--the mansuetude of the loftier mind. A fine +antithesis that, I think." He stood up, walked to the window, and looked +out. Away down the hill the fields lay in a mellow mist, the kindly +autumn sun made the copses glow golden; it was a benign scene, apt to +encourage wit. Mr. Waverton lisped in numbers, but the numbers did not +come. He turned to seek stimulus from Harry. "You relish the thought?" + +"It is a perfect subject for your style," said Harry. + +Mr. Waverton smiled, and turned again to the window for productive +meditation. + +A third man came lounging in, unheard by Mr. Waverton's rapt mind. He +opened his eyes at the back which Mr. Waverton turned upon Harry and the +space between them. "Why, Geoffrey, have you been very stupid this +morning? And has schoolmaster stood you in the corner? Well done, Mr. +Boyce. I always told you, spare the rod and spoil the child. Shall I go +cut a birch for you?" + +"I wonder you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton +with a dignity which did not permit him to turn round. + +"Never while it annoys you, child." + +"Mr. Waverton is in labour with a poem," Harry explained. + +"And it's indecent in me to be present at the ceremony? Well, Geoffrey, +postpone the birth." He sat himself down at his ease in Geoffrey's chair. +He was a compact man with only one arm. He looked ten years older than +Geoffrey and was, in fact, five. The campaign in Flanders which had +destroyed his right arm had set and hardened a frame and face by nature +solid enough. That face was long and angular, with a heavy chin and an +expression of sardonic complacency oddly increased by the jauntiness of +its shabby brown wig. + +Waverton turned round wearily upon the unwelcome guest. "Well, Charles, +what is it?" + +"It is nothing. My dear Geoffrey, if I had anything to do or anything to +say why should I come to you?" + +"_Merci_, monsieur," Waverton smiled gracious indulgence. + +Mr. Hadley chuckled, and in French replied: "Yes, let's talk French; it +embellishes our simple wit and elevates our souls above the vulgar." + +There is reason to believe that Waverton liked his French better in +fragments than continuously. He still smiled condescension, but risked no +other answer. + +"Come, Geoffrey, what's the news?" Mr. Hadley reverted to English. +"Could you say your lessons this morning? And did you wear a new coat +last night?" + +"You may go if you will, Harry. Mr. Hadley will be talking for some +time," Waverton said. "Indeed, he may, perhaps, have something to say." + +Harry was used to being turned out for any reason or none. He well +understood that Waverton was not fond of an audience when he was being +laughed at. "If you please," he said, and made his bow to Mr. Hadley. + +"Why, what's the matter? I don't bite. You are too meek for this life, +Mr. Boyce." He looked at Harry with some contempt in his grey eyes. +"Oons, you're a man and a brother, ain't you? Sit down and be hearty. +Lud, Geoffrey, why do you never have a pipe in the room?" + +"It's death to a clean taste, your tobacco smoking, and I value my wine." + +"Value it, quotha! Ay, by the spoonful. You ha' never known how to drink +since they weaned you. And you, Mr. Boyce, d'ye never smoke a pipe over +your Latin?" + +"I hope I know my place, Mr. Hadley," Harry said solemnly. + +Charles Hadley stared at him. "Hear the Scripture, Mr. Boyce: 'What shall +it profit a man though he gain a pretty patron and lose his own soul?'" + +"You are very polite, sir," said Harry. + +"Upon my honour, Charles, this is too much," Mr. Waverton cried in noble +indignation. "Mr. Boyce is my friend, and you'll be good enough to take +him as yours if you come to my house." + +Charles Hadley was not out of countenance. He eyed them both, and his +sardonic expression was more marked. "You make a pretty pair," said he. +"When two men ride a horse, one must ride behind. Eh, Mr. Boyce? I +wonder. Well, Geoffrey, it's a wicked world. Had you heard of that?" + +"The world is what you make it, I think," said Mr. Waverton with +dignity. + +"Oons, I could sometimes believe you did make it. A simple, pompous +place, Geoffrey, that is kind to you if you'll not laugh at it. And full +of petty, pompous mysteries. Maybe you make the mysteries too, Geoffrey. +Damme, it is so. It's perfectly in your manner," he chuckled abundantly. +"Come, child, what were you doing on the highway yesterday?" + +Harry stared at him. "When you have finished laughing at your joke, +perhaps you will make it," said Waverton. "Pray let us have it over +before dinner." + +"My dear child, why be so touchy? Were you bitten? Well, you know, this +morning one of my fellows brings in a miserable wretch he had found on +the road by Black Horse Spinney. The thing was half-dead with wet and +cold. He had been lying there all night--so he said, and it's the one +thing I believe of him. He was found trussed as tight as a chicken in his +own sword-belt and his own garters. Damme, it was a fellow of some humour +had the handling of him. He had not been robbed, for there was a bag of +money at his middle. He professed that he could tell nothing of who had +trussed him or why he was set upon. He would have nought of law or hue +and cry. Egad, empty and shivering as he was, he wanted nothing but to be +let go. A perfect Christian, as you remark, Geoffrey. Now, you or I, if +we had been tied up in the mud through one of these damned raw nights, +would take some pains to catch the fellow who did the trussing. But my +wretch was as meek as the Gospels. So here is a silly, teasing mystery. +Who is the footpad that is at the pains of tying up a fellow and never +looks for his purse? Odds fish, I did not know we had a gentleman of such +humour in these parts. I suspect you, Geoffrey, I protest. There's a +misty fatuousness about it which--" + +"By your leave, sir," a servant appeared, "my lady waits dinner." + +"Then I fear we shall pay for it," said Hadley, and stood up. + +"You dine with us, Charles?" Mr. Waverton was not hearty about it. + +"I'll give you that pleasure, child. Well, Mr. Boyce, what do you make of +my mystery?" + +Harry had to say something. "Perhaps your friend was carrying more than +guineas," he said. + +"What then? Papers and plots and the high political? I don't think it. If +you saw him--a mere tub of beer--and a leaky tub this morning, for he had +a vile cold in the head and dribbled damnably." + +"I give it up then. Have you let him go?" They were moving out in the +corridor and Hadley did not answer. "Is he gone?" Harry said again. + +Hadley turned round upon him. "Why, yes. Does it signify?" + +"I wonder who he was," said Harry. + +Upon that they entered the drawing-room of Lady Waverton. It was +congested and dim. The two oriel windows were so draped with curtains of +pink and yellow that only a faint light as of the last of a sunset +filtered through. The wide spaces were beset with screens in lacquer, +odd chairs, Dutch tables, and very many cabinets,--cabinets inlaid with +flowers and birds of many colours; cabinets full of shells, agates, +corals, and any gaudy stone; cabinets and yet again more cabinets full of +Eastern china. In the midst Lady Waverton reclined. + +She had been handsome in a large, bold style, and might still have been +but for excessive decoration. Her dress was voluminous white satin +embroidered in a big pattern of gold and set off with black. It was low +at her opulent bosom, to the curves of which the eye was directed by +black patches craftily fixed. There were many more patches on her face +which, still only a little too full and too loose, had its colours laid +on in sharp and vivid contrasts. Her black hair was erected in +symmetrical waves high above her brow, and one ringlet was brought by +glossy, frozen curls to caress her bosom. She held out the whitest of +hands drooping from a large but still fine arm for Mr. Hadley to kiss. + +"You are a bad fellow, Charles Hadley," she pouted. "You make me +feel old." + +"There's a common childish fancy, ma'am." + +"You never come to see me now. And when you do come, 'tis not to see me." + +"A thousand pardons. Mr. Boyce delayed me awhile with the beauties of his +conversation." + +"Mr. Boyce?" she looked at Harry as if wondering that he dared exist. "Go +and see why they do not bring in dinner." + +Having thus diminished Harry, she proceeded, without waiting for him to +be gone, to criticize him. "You know, I would never have a chaplain in +the house. This tutor fellow is of the same breed, Charles. They tease +me, these men which are neither gentlemen nor servants. Faith, life's +hard for the poor wretches. They are torn 'twixt their conceit and their +poverty. They know not from minute to minute whether they will fawn or be +insolent. So they do both indifferent ill." + +Harry, who chose not to hear, was opening the door. There came in upon +him a woman--the young woman of the coach. Even as he recoiled, bowing, +even as he collected his startled wits, he was aware of the singular +beauty of her complexion. Its delicacy, its life, were nonpareil. The +first clear process of his mind was to wonder how he had contrived not to +remark that complexion when first he saw her. + +Lady Waverton lifted up her voice. "Alison! Dear child! And are you home +at last? It's delicious in you. You seek us out first, do you not? My +sweet girl!" Alison was engulfed. Conceive apple blossom in the embraces +of a peony. + +The apple blossom emerged with a calm, "Dear Lady Waverton." + +"You are a sad bad thing. I writ you five letters, I think, and not one +from you." + +"You are so much cleverer than I am. I had nothing to say." Alison's +voice was sweet and low, but too sublimely calm for perfect comfort in +her hearers. "So here I am to say it and make my excuses," she dropped +a small curtsey, "my lady. Why, Geoffrey, I thought you had been back +at Oxford!" + +Mr. Waverton came forward, smiling magnificence. "I am delighted to +disappoint you, Alison." + +"Nay, never believe her, Geoffrey," Lady Waverton lifted up her voice +and was arch. "I vow she counted on finding you here. Why else had she +come? I know when I was a toast I wasted none of my time going to see old +women," she languished affectionately at the girl. + +"Dear Lady Waverton,"--if it was possible, Alison's voice became calmer +than ever--"how well you know me. And how cruel to expose me. If Geoffrey +had his mother's wit, faith, I should never dare come here at all." + +"It is not my wit which you need ever fear, Alison," Geoffrey's eyes were +ardent upon her. + +"Why, you are merciful. Or is it modest?" + +"I can be neither, Alison. I am a man." + +"My dear Geoffrey, I am sorry for all your misfortunes." She turned from +him to Mr. Hadley, who was content in a corner. "Have we quarrelled?" + +"We never loved each other well enough." + +"Is that why I am always very glad to see Mr. Hadley?" + +"It is why he can tell Miss Lambourne that she looks divinely beautiful." + +"That means inhuman, sir." + +"Which is not my fault, ma'am." + +Geoffrey was visibly restive at his exclusion, "Charles never could pay a +compliment without a sting in it." + +"That is why they are agreeable, sir," said she. + +"That is why they are true," said Hadley in the same breath, and they +laughed together. + +Lady Waverton interfered imperiously. "Alison, dear, come sit by me and +tell me all about yourself." + +"Faith, not with the gentlemen to listen," said she, and was saved by +Harry and the butler, who came in together announcing dinner. + +Lady Waverton rose elaborately. "Give me your arm, Charles. My +dear Alison--" + +"But who is this?" Alison said, and she stared with placid, candid +interest at Harry. With equal composure Harry stared back. But there was +no candour in his expressionless face. For he had become keenly aware of +her beauty. It was waking in him desire and already something deeper and +stronger, and he vehemently resented the disturbance. He had no wish to +be troubled by any woman, and for this woman, judging her on her +behaviour, he felt even a little more contempt than the store which he +had for all her sex. It was cursedly impertinent in her to be such a joy +to the blood. She stood there, her eyes level with his eyes, and dared to +look as strong as he--slighter to be sure, but not too slight for a +woman, and delectably deep bosomed. There was life and laughter in that +calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The +great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. +He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as +her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous +modesty. And she knew of her power too. There was a mocking confidence in +every line of her. + +"But who is this, Lady Waverton?" she was saying again. + +Lady Waverton tried to draw her on. "'Tis but Geoffrey's new factotum." + +"My good friend, Harry Boyce, Alison," said Geoffrey with a patronly hand +on Harry's shoulder. + +Harry made his bow. + +"Faith, sir, we have met before," she smiled. + +"No, ma'am," Harry bowed again. "I have never had an honour, which, sure, +I could not forget." + +Her brow wrinkled. Lady Waverton swept her on, and Harry in the rear had +the pleasure of hearing Lady Waverton say: "A poor, vulgar wretch, my +dear. An out-at-elbows scholar which Geoffrey met at Oxford and keeps out +of charity. He is too soft of heart, dear boy, and such creatures stick +to him like burrs." + +The dinner-table was a blaze of silver, but otherwise not bountifully +provided. Lady Waverton looked down it with pride. "I am of Mr. Addison's +mind, my dear," she announced. "Do you remember? 'Two plain dishes with +two good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends make me more pleased and +vain than all your luxury.'" + +"Why, then, you must now be sore out of countenance," Alison protested. +"For I am not good-natured and I vow Mr. Hadley is not cheerful." Mr. +Hadley's face, set in contemplation of the food, shed gloom and +apprehension. "But perhaps Mr. Boyce is ingenious." + +"I hope so," said Hadley. + +It was Harry's task to carve, which dispensed him from answering the +girl or even looking at her. One not abundant fowl and a calf's head +smoked before him. Under a heavy fire of directions from Lady Waverton +he did his duty. + +Miss Lambourne may have suddenly grown weary of Lady Waverton's eloquence +upon the daintiest bits of these unexciting foods. She may have been +waiting for the moment when Harry would have no occupation to prevent him +listening to her. While my lady was still explaining the superiority of +her calf, as bred and born in the house of Waverton, to all other calves, +just when Harry had finished his work, Miss Lambourne broke out: "Faith, +I was almost forgetting my splendid story. I wonder, now, have any of you +met any ventures on the North Road?" + +Harry began to eat. Charles Hadley ceased an anxious examination of his +plate and looked at her. Lady Waverton cried out: "Dear Alison! Don't +tell me you have been stopped. Too terrible! I vow I could never bear it. +I should die of shame. They tell me these rogues are vilely impudent to a +fine woman." + +Geoffrey exhibited a tender agitation. "Why, Alison, what is it? Zounds, +I cannot have you go travelling alone! You must give me news when you +make a journey, and I'll ride with you." + +"Thank you for your agonies. But the virgin in distress found her +knight-errant duly provided. He rose out of the mud romantically apropos. +To be sure, I think he was mad. But that is all in the part. The complete +hero. Geoffrey, could you be a little mad?" + +"More than a little," said he with proper ardour. "Pray don't torture us, +Alison. Let us hear." + +"It's on my mind that I am going to hear news of my funny friend," said +Hadley solemnly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry, who had been eating with the humble zeal appropriate to a poor +scholar, looked up for a moment: "Why, sir, I can't tell at all. If you +say so, indeed--" and he went on eating. + +"Come, are you in it too, Mr. Hadley?" Alison cried. + +"In it, odds life, I am bewilderingly out of it," quoth Hadley, and again +told his tale of the mysterious man found tied up in the mud who knew +nothing of his assailants and wanted no vengeance on them. + +"That's our Benjamin," Alison laughed. "Oh, but you did not let him go?" + +"Not let him go, quotha! For what I know, he was a poor, suffering +martyr, though to look at his nose, I doubt it. And yet he was fool +enough. Nay, how could I stay him?" + +"Why, send him to gaol for a rogue and a vagabond. Should he not?" she +invited the suffrages of the table. + +"Dear Alison, to be sure, yes," Lady Waverton murmured. "These fellows +must be put down." + +"You owed it to yourself to look deeper into the matter, Charles," said +Geoffrey gravely. + +"Come, Mr. Boyce, your sentence too," Alison cried, wicked eyes +intent upon him. + +He met them with bland meekness. "Indeed, ma'am, I can't tell. It's Mr. +Hadley's affair." + +"From a virtuous woman, good Lord deliver us," Hadley groaned. "You would +make a rare hanging judge, Alison. Now, i' God's name, let's have your +tale. What's the rogue to you?" + +"Oh, sir, a great joy. Why, he gave me the only knight-errant ever I had. +A vile muddy one, to be sure, but poor maids must not be choosers. We +were driving home, Mrs. Weston and I, and by Black Horse Spinney we were +stopped by two highwaymen. They had just begun to be rude, when out of +the mud comes my knight-errant, bold as Don Quixote and as shabby withal, +and with a pretty wit too--which is not much in the way of +knight-errants, I think. He scared the highwaymen's horses and set them +bolting with the one fellow which held them, then he knocked the other +down, took his pistol, and tied the rogue up in his own garters. Oh, the +neatest knight-errant ever you saw. Then we bade him put the fellow on +the box and drive on with us. But monsieur was haughty, if you please. He +wanted none of our company. Off he packed us, for me to cry my eyes out +for love of him. Which I do heartily, I warrant you." + +"Alison!" Geoffrey cried, and laid his hand on hers. + +"Faith, yes, give me sympathy. I have loved and lost--in the mud. To be +sure, I can ne'er be my own woman again till I find him and give him--a +brush, I think, and maybe a pair of breeches too, for his own can never +recover their youth. Dear Geoffrey, help me to find him." + +Geoffrey had taken his hand away in a hurry. He contemplated her with +cold reproof. It did not trouble her. She was giving all her attention to +Harry; gay, malicious eyes challenged him to declare himself, mocked him +for his modesty, vaunted what she had to give. + +"Damme, this is madder and madder yet," Hadley broke in. "Who is your +Orlando Furioso that's a champion of dames and too haughty to ride in +their carriage; that ties up highwaymen and forgets to tell the constable +where he left 'em? Odso, I thought I knew most of the fools in these +parts, but there's one bigger than I know." + +"Dear Alison--I could never have survived it--but you are so strong--and +what a person! My dear, I could not bear to think of him. A rude, low +fellow, to be sure," Thus Lady Waverton coherently. + +Alison laughed. "I doubt I'm not so delicate," Then she leaned towards +Harry. "Well, and you? Come, Mr. Boyce, why leave yourself out?" + +"I beg pardon, ma'am?" + +She made an impatient sound. "And what do you think of my hero?" + +"I wonder who the gentleman was, ma'am," Harry said. + +Her eyes fought a moment more with his bland, meaningless face. "Faith, I +think he's a fool for his pains," said she. + +"Grateful woman," Hadley grunted. "Humph. _Spretae injuria formae_, ain't +it, Mr. Boyce? Give miss a construe." + +Harry gave a deprecating cough instead. + +"Oh, be brave, sir," she jeered. + +"I am afraid it means 'the insult of slighting your beauty,' ma'am," said +Harry meekly. + +Lady Waverton straightened her back and looked ice at him. But the +butler was at her elbow, whispering. "Colonel Boyce?" she repeated. "What +Colonel Boyce? Who is Colonel Boyce? + +"It might be my father," Harry suggested. + +"Why, Harry, I never knew you had a father," Waverton sneered amiably. + +"Is your father a colonel?" Lady Waverton was torn between incredulity of +such presumption and rage at it. + +"Not that I know of, my lady. But he has always surprised me." + +"Shall we have him in, Geoffrey?" said Lady Waverton. + +"My dear mother!" Geoffrey waved his hand to the butler. "Ask the +gentleman to be so good as to join us." + +Mr. Hadley turned in his chair, and over the remnants of the fowl and the +calf's head directed a grim smile at Harry. "Thank you for a very +pleasant dinner," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A MAN OF MANY WORLDS + + +There came in a man of many colours. Dazzled eyes, recovering from their +first dismay, might admit that his splendours were harmonious. A red coat +with gold buttons, a waistcoat of gold satin embroidered in blue, +breeches of blue velvet with golden garters were topped by a face burnt +brown and a great jet-black periwig. He carried off all this with airy +ease. "My lady, your most humble and devoted," he bowed to Lady Waverton. +"Harry, dear lad," he held out his hands, and Harry, rising, found +himself embraced and kissed on both cheeks. + +"Colonel Boyce is it?" said Lady Waverton with some emphasis on +the title. + +"In the service of your ladyship," he laughed, and bowed to her again, +and turned upon the company. "Pray present me, dear lady." She made +some stumbling about it, but Colonel Boyce appeared to enjoy himself +with an "I account myself fortunate, ma'am," for Miss Lambourne; with a +"My boy's friends are mine, sir--and his debts too," for Geoffrey; and +to Mr. Hadley, "You have served, sir?" with a look of respect at the +empty sleeve. + +Hadley nodded. "Ay, ay. The red field of honour. Well, there's no +life like it." + +"That's why I left it," Hadley grunted. + +"Come, sir, draw up a chair and join us," Geoffrey said. "Be sure you are +very welcome." + +"Ten thousand thanks." Without enthusiasm Colonel Boyce looked at the +calf's head. "But--egad, I am sorry for it now--but I have dined." + +"At least you'll drink a glass of wine with us?" + +"Oh, I can't deny myself the pleasure, sir." He drew up a chair, Geoffrey +reached at a decanter, and so Lady Waverton rose and Alison after her. + +Colonel Boyce started up. "But no--not at that price. Damme, that would +poison the Prince's own Tokay. Nay, you are too cruel, my lady. I come, +and you desolate the table to receive me. Gad's life, ma'am, our friends +here will be calling me out for my daring to exist." + +Lady Waverton was very well pleased. "Sir, you will let me give you a +dish of tea. I warrant the men were already sighing to be rid of us." + +"Then I vow they be blind," quoth Colonel Boyce, and opened the door, +from which he came back with a laugh to his glass of port. Over drinking +it he went through all the tricks of the connoisseur and ended with a +cultured ecstasy. + +"I see you are a man of the world, Colonel," Hadley sneered. + +"A man of many worlds, sir," the Colonel laughed easily. + +"I wonder which this is?" + +"Why, this is the world of good company and good fellowship--" he smiled +and bowed to Geoffrey--"of sound wine and sound learning." + +"Sir, you are very good. But I hope my wine is better than my +scholarship. This is our man of learning," he slapped Harry on the +shoulder. "And Harry counts me a mere trifler, a literary exquisite, an +amateur of elegances." + +"If your scholarship has the elegance of your wine, Mr. Waverton, you do +very well. I doubt my Harry is no judge of the graces. He has always been +something of a plodder." + +"Have I?" Harry found his tongue. "How did you know?" + +The Colonel laughed. "He has me there, the rogue. The truth is, +gentlemen, I have not seen him in these six years. Damme, Harry, you are +grown no fatter." + +"Servitors don't make flesh," said Harry. + +"And soldiers don't make money. Still; there's enough for two now, boy." + +"I am glad you have been fortunate," the tone suggested that though +the father had quite enough for two; there would be none to spare +for the son. + +"Why, sir," Waverton was grandly genial, "I hope you don't mean to rob me +of Harry. He's the most useful fellow, and, I promise you; I value him." + +"Thank you very much," said Harry. + +"I'll take you into my confidence, Mr. Waverton," the Colonel leaned +across the table. + +"Then I'll take my leave," said Hadley. + +"No need, sir. At this time, we all know, there are higher claims on a +man than a friend's or a father's." + +"I feel like a pawn," Harry complained. + +"Egad, sir, a pawn may save a queen or check a king." + +"But do you suppose it enjoys it?" + +"Are you away to the war, sir?" Geoffrey smiled. "I doubt our Harry has +no turn for soldiering." + +"You are always right, Mr. Waverton," Harry nodded at him. + +"It is not only soldiers who fight our battles, Mr. Waverton," said the +Colonel with dignity. "There's danger enough for a quick wit and a cool +judgment far behind the lines. And you need not go to Flanders to find +the war. It's flaming all over England, all over--France," he dropped the +last word in a lower tone, as if his heat had carried him away and it was +a blunder. He flung himself back and emptied his glass, and looked +gloomily at the empty decanter. "Why, Mr. Waverton, you have made me into +a babbler. It's time you delivered me to the ladies." + +"Aye, aye," Hadley yawned. "Let's try another of the worlds." + +They marched out, but the Colonel and Waverton, waiting on each other, +were some distance behind the other pair. + +"You must know I have often had some desire for the life of action," said +Mr. Waverton. + +To which the Colonel earnestly, "I have never known a man more fit for +it," and upon that they entered my lady's drawing-room. + +Miss Lambourne was singing Carey's song of the nightingale: + +"While in a Bow'r with beauty blest + The lov'd Amintor lies, +While sinking on Lucinda's breast + He fondly kiss'd her Eyes. +A wakeful nightingale who long + Had mourn'd within, the Shade +Sweetly renewed her plaintive song + And warbled through the Glade." + +On the coming of the men the wakeful nightingale broke off her plaintive +song abruptly. + +Lady Waverton, who was again at full length on her couch, then opened +her eyes. "Delicious, delicately delicious," she sighed. "Why did you +stop, dear?" she controlled a yawn. "Oh, the men! Odious creatures!" she +rose on her elbow and looked at them, and looked down at her dress and +patted it. + +Colonel Boyce accepted the challenge briskly, and marched upon her. +"Egad, my lady, your name is cruelty." + +"Who--I, sir? I vow I never had the heart to see any creature suffer." + +"Nay, your very nature is cruelty. You exist but to torture us." + +"Good lack, sir," says my lady, well pleased, "and must I die to serve +your pleasure?" + +"Why, there it is. We can neither bear to be with you nor to be without +you. I protest, ma'am, your sex was made for our torture. 'Tis why you +parade it and delight in it." + +"Lud, sir, you are mighty rude," my lady simpered. "I parade my sex? +Alack, my modesty!" + +"Modesty--that's but another weapon to madden us. Fie, ma'am, why do you +clothe yourself in such beauty but to flaunt upon our senses that sex of +yours?" My lady was duly shocked and hid behind her fan. "Aye, there it +is! We catch a whiff of paradise and straightway it is denied us. Our +nightingale there is silent when we draw near. Our Venus here hides +herself when our eyes would enjoy her. As His Grace said to me, you women +are like heaven to a damned soul." + +"You are a wicked fellow," said Lady Waverton with relish. + +Geoffrey at his elbow put in, "'His Grace,' Colonel?" + +"The Old Corporal, Mr. Waverton. The Duke of Marlborough." + +"You have served with him, sir?" + +Colonel Boyce gave a laugh of genial condescension. "Why, yes, Mr. +Waverton, I stand as close to His Grace as most men." + +After a moment of impressive silence, the Wavertons vigorously directed +the conversation to the Duke of Marlborough. Colonel Boyce made no +objection. In the most obliging manner he admitted them to a piquant +intimacy with His Grace's manners and customs. He mingled things personal +and high politics with a fascinating air of letting out secrets at every +word; and, throughout, he maintained a tantalizing discretion about his +own position. My lady and Mr. Waverton were more and more fascinated. + +So that Miss Lambourne had good opportunity to try her maiden steel upon +Harry. As soon as he came in, he withdrew himself to a cabinet of medals +in a remote corner. Mr. Hadley approached the harpsichord and reached it +just before it fell silent. Miss Lambourne looked up into his face. + +"Yes, shall we lay our heads together?" said he. + +"But I doubt mine would turn yours." + +"If you'll risk it, ma'am, I will." + +"La, sir, is this an offer? I protest I am all one blush." + +"Then your imagination is bolder than mine, ma'am. I mean--" + +"Oh, fie for shame! To disgrace a poor maid so! To betray her weakness! +It is unmanly, Mr. Hadley. Sure, my father (in the general resurrection) +will have your blood. I leave you to your conscience, sir," which she +did, making for Harry. + +Mr. Hadley, remaining by the harpsichord, contemplated them, and with his +one hand caressed his chin. "It's a fascinating family, the family of +Boyce," said he to himself. + +Miss Lambourne sat herself down beside Harry before he chose to be aware +of her coming. He started up and obsequiously drew away. + +"You are very coy, Mr. Boyce," said the lady. + +Harry replied, with the servile laughter of a dependent, "Oh, ma'am, you +are mocking me." + +"Tit for tat"--Alison's eyes had some fire in them. + +"Tat, ma'am?" + +"Lud, now, don't be tedious. Sir, the house of Waverton is entranced by +your splendid father: and Charles Hadley (as usual) is entranced by +himself. You have no audience Mr. Boyce. Stop acting, and tell me--what +is wrong with me?" + +Harry considered her with calm criticism. "It's not for me to tell Miss +Lambourne that she is too beautiful." + +"Indeed, I thought you had more sense." + +"Too beautiful," Harry persisted deliberately; "too beautiful to be +good company." + +"That will not serve, sir. You are not so inflammable. Being more in the +nature of a tortoise." + +"If you had a flaw or so: if your nose had a twist; if your cheeks had +felt the weather; if--I fear, ma'am, I grow intimate. In fine, if you +were less fine, you would be a comfort to a man. But as it is--permit the +tortoise to keep in his shell." + +"I advise you, Mr. Boyce--I resent this." + +Harry bowed. "I dare to remind you, ma'am--I did not demand the +conversation." + +"The conversation!" Her eyes flashed. "What do I care if a lad's +impudent? Perhaps I like it well enough, Mr. Boyce. There is more than +that between you and me. You have done me something of a service, and +you'll not let me avow it nor pay you. Well?" + +"Well, ma'am, you're telling the truth," said Harry placidly. + +The lady made an exclamation. "I shall bear you a grudge for this, sir." + +"I am vastly obliged, ma'am." + +The lady drew back a little and looked at him full, which he bore +calmly. "I suppose I am beneath Mr. Boyce's concernment." + +"Not beneath, ma'am. Above. Above. Do you admire the Italian medals? +They are of a delicate restraint," He turned to the cabinet and began +to lecture. + +Miss Lambourne was not repulsed. He maintained a steady flow of +instruction. She waited, watching him. + +By this time Colonel Boyce was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough +and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard +road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You were born +with yours." + +"I conceive, sir, that every man of high spirit must needs take the +road to fame." + +"A dream of a shadow, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel, with melancholy +grandeur. "'Take the goods the gods provide you,'" he waved his hand at +the crowded opulence of the room and then, smiling paternally, at Miss +Lambourne. + +Lady Waverton simpered at her son. He chose to ignore the hint. +"Why, Colonel, if a man is happily placed above vulgar needs, the +more reason--" + +"Vulgar needs! Oh, fie, Mr. Waverton. A divine creature." Colonel +Boyce looked wicked, and his easy hand designed in the air Miss +Lambourne's shape. + +Lady Waverton tittered. Geoffrey blushed, and "You do me too much honour +sir, indeed," he stammered. + +Colonel Boyce turned smiling upon Lady Waverton. "I vow, ma'am, a man +hath twice the modesty of a maid." + +"You are a bad fellow," said Lady Waverton, very well pleased. + +"You go too fast, sir;" with so much mirth about him Geoffrey feared for +his dignity. "There is nothing between me and Miss Lambourne." + +The Colonel shook his head. "I confess I thought better of you, sir. +What, is miss her own mistress?" + +"Miss Lambourne has no father or mother, sir." + +"And her face is her fortune? Egad, 'tis the prettiest romance!" + +Geoffrey and his mother laughed together. "Not quite all her fortune, +sir. She is the only child of Sir Thomas Lambourne." + +"What! old Tom Lambourne of the India House?" Colonel Boyce whistled. He +looked with a new interest at her as she stood by Harry, absorbing the +lecture on medals, and as he looked his face put on a queer air of +mockery. This he presented to Geoffrey. "Something of a plum, sirrah. +Well, well, some folks have but to open their mouths." + +Mr. Waverton, not quite certain whether the Colonel ought to be so +familiar, concluded to be pleased, and laughed fatuously. During which +music the butler announced "Mrs. Weston." + +Lady Waverton and Geoffrey exchanged a glance of disgust. Lady Waverton +murmured, "What a person!" It escaped their notice that Colonel Boyce had +stiffened at the name. His full face lost all its geniality, all +expression. He was for the first time singularly like his son. + +Mrs. Weston was Alison's companion of the coach, a woman of middle age, +inclining to be stout; but her face was thin and lined, belying her +comfortable aspect,--a wistful face which had known much sorrow, and had +still much tenderness to give. + +Lady Waverton put out a languid and supercilious hand. "I hope you +are better." + +"Thank you. I have not been ill." + +"Oh, I always forget." + +"Your servant, ma'am." Geoffrey bowed. + +"Oh,"--Lady Waverton turned on her elbow. "Colonel Boyce--Mrs. Weston, +Alison's companion. Faith, duenna, I think." + +"Your most obedient, ma'am." Colonel Boyce bowed low. + +Mrs. Weston stared at him, seemed to try to speak, said nothing, and +hurried across the room. + +"Alison, dear, are you ready?" her voice sounded hoarse. + +"Am I ever ready?" Alison laughed. "Weston, dear, we are finding friends +here;" she pointed to Harry. + +Colonel Boyce had followed. He laid his hand on Harry's shoulder: "My +son, ma'am," said he. + +Mrs. Weston's eyes grew wide, and her face was white and drawn, and she +swayed. As Harry bowed to her, a lacquered box was swept off the table +with a great clatter, and Colonel Boyce cried, "Odds life, Harry, you are +a clumsy fellow. Here, man, here," and made a great commotion over +picking it up. + +Alison had her arm about Mrs. Weston: "Why, Weston, dear, what is it? Are +you seeing a ghost?" She laughed. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, come to life." + +"I ask pardon, ma'am." Harry rose with the box. + +"'Bid me to live and I will live,'" said the Colonel, with a grand air. + +"Come away, dear, come," Mrs. Weston gasped, in much agitation. + +"Why, Weston, he is not our highwayman, you know," Alison was still +laughing, and then seeing her distress real, took it in earnest. "You are +shaken, poor thing. Come!" She mothered the woman away and, turning, +called over her shoulder-- + +"_Revanche_, Mr. Boyce." There was an explanation to Lady Waverton: poor +Weston had been so alarmed by the highwaymen that she was not fit to be +out of her bed, and anything alarmed her; even Mr. Boyce; so dear Lady +Waverton must forgive them. And Geoffrey took them to their carriage. + +"What a person!" said Lady Waverton. + +Mr. Hadley came out of his corner and looked Harry up and down with +dislike. "Let me know when you play the next act, Mr. Boyce," he +said, and turned to Lady Waverton. "My lady, I beg leave to go with +my friends." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A GENTLEMAN'S PURSE + + +In a small, bare room Colonel Boyce sat himself down on a pallet bed and +made a wry face at his son. "My poor, dear boy," he said, and shifted +uneasily, and looked round at the stained walls and shivered. "It's damp, +I vow it's damp," he complained. + +"Oh yes. It's damp after rain, and it's hot after sun, and it's icy after +frost. It's a very sympathetic room," said Harry. + +"They are barbarians, these Wavertons. I vow they give their horses +better lodging." + +"Oh yes. I am not worth so much as a horse," said Harry. + +"Lud, Harry, don't whine,"--his father was irritated. "Have some spirit. +I hate to hear a lad meek." + +"I thought you did," said Harry. + +The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I am bit, am I? _Tant mieux_. But why the devil +do you stay here?" + +"Now why the devil do you want to know?" said Harry. + +"No, that is not kind, boy." + +"Oh, Oh, are we kind?" + +"My dear Harry, I have not seen you for six years, and I have not come +now to quarrel." + +"Then why have you come?" said the affectionate son. + +"You are a gracious cub." Colonel Boyce would not be ruffled. "When I saw +you last, Harry--" + +"You borrowed a shilling of me. I remember I was glad that I had +not another." + +"You can have it back with interest now. There is plenty in the purse, +Harry, and half of all mine is yours." + +"You have changed," Harry said. "Odds life, Harry, bear no grudges. I +dare say I was hard in what you remember of me. Well, things were hard +upon me and I lived hard. You shall find me mellow enough now." + +"Hard? I don't know that you were hard. I thought you were as cold as +ice. I believe, sir, I am still frozen." + +"Egad, Harry, you must have had a curst childhood." + +"Oh, must we be sympathetic?" said Harry. + +"You're right, boy. The past is past. 'Tis your future which is the +matter. So again--why do you stay here?" + +Harry laughed. "They give me bed and board, and a shilling or two by +the month." + +"Bed?" His father shifted upon it. "A bag of stones, I think. And for the +board--bread of affliction and water of affliction by what I saw of the +remains. Egad, Harry, they are savages, these Wavertons." + +"I did not hear you say so to madame. And Geoffrey is not a bad fellow +as far as he has understanding." + +"A dolt, eh? He might take a woman's eye, though. These big dreamy +fellows, the women hanker after them queerly. Take care, Harry." He +looked knowing. "Bed and board--bah, you can do better than that. Now +what do you think I have been doing?" + +"Something profitable, to judge by your genial splendours. Have you +turned highwayman?" + +"You all talk about highwaymen in this house," said the Colonel with a +frown and a keen glance. + +"Damme, no." + +"Why, are you really a colonel?" + +"Faith, you may come see my commission,"--Colonel Boyce was not +annoyed,--"and, egad, share my pay." He pulled out a fat purse and thrust +some guineas upon Harry. "Don't deny me now, boy," he said, with some +tenderness. + +"I never meant to," said Harry, and counted them. "But how long have you +been a soldier? I never knew you were anything." + +"I have been with his Grace of Marlborough in every campaign since +Blenheim. Do you think it's a good service, Harry?" he smiled at his +own opulence. + +"For a versatile man," said Harry, and looked at his father curiously. + +"Why, I can take the field as well as another. Egad, when Vendome fell +back from Oudenarde I was commanding a battalion. But it is not in the +field that my best work is done." + +"Faith, I had guessed that," Harry said. + +"You have a sharp tongue, Harry. It's a dangerous weakness. Be careful +to grow out of it. Then I think you may do well enough." + +"In your profession, sir? To be sure, you flatter me." + +"In my profession--" His father looked at him keenly. "I am not sure. +Maybe you can do better, which will be well enough. Now, what can you do? +You can use a sword, I suppose, though you wear none?" + +Harry shrugged. "I know the rigmarole, the salutes; I could begin a duel, +_par exemple_. It's the other man who would end it." + +"Duels--bah, only dolts are troubled with them. You must learn to hold +your own in a flurry. You can ride, I suppose?" + +"If the beast has a mane." + +"Humph. You speak French?" + +"As we speak it in England." + +"Yes." His father nodded. "When a man is no fool, he finds his profit in +not doing things too well. Well, Harry, are you Whig or Tory--Jacobite or +Hanoverian?" + +"Whichever you like, sir." + +"By the Lord, you take after me mightily. Now look 'e, thus it is. The +Queen grows old. She eats too well and drinks too well, and she has the +gout. It's common among all who know her ways that she cannot last long. +The poor soul will not be wise at dinner. But even if she should last, we +are in an odd case. For Anne hath a conscience as well as a stomach, and +it seems they grow together. As the old lady gets fatter, she feels +remorse. When she's tearful after dinner now she asks her women what +right she has to be queen and keep a good cellar while her poor +half-brother Prince James lives in exile on _vin ordinaire_." + +Harry shrugged his shoulders. "'Poor, dear lad,' says she, 'and to +be sure I am a sad, bad woman. But I think I'll die a queen.' What +then, sir?" + +"I don't say you are wrong, Harry. She's more like to drown the lad in +tears than right him. And meanwhile our rightful king, James the +Pretender, is left to his _vin ordinaire_. Faith, it's a proper liquor, +for rightful heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a +chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath +religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. But here is +what's more likely. You know when an old fellow hath played the knave +with some wardship or some matter of trust, often he holds fast to it all +his life and then seeks to commend himself to the day of judgment by +bequeathing his spoils to those from whom he stole them. Well, it's +whispered among them that know her that Madame Anne will do her possible +to make Prince James King when she is gone." + +"A dead Queen is but a corpse," said Harry. "When she is gone 'twill not +be for her to say who shall reign." + +"That's half a truth. You know the law is so that Prince George of +Hanover should be the King. About him no man knows anything save that he +hath a vile taste in women. I do suspect Marlborough is in the right--he +has a nose for men--when he saith there is nought to know. Well, we +tried a Dutchman once for our King and liked him ill enough. Who is to +say that we shall like a German better? Now Prince James--he is half an +Englishman at least, though they say he has his father's weakness for +priests. I'll not hide from you, Harry, that I am in the confidence of +some great men. It's laid upon me to go to France with an errand to +Prince James." + +"I suppose that is high treason, sir." + +Colonel Boyce smiled queerly. "You see how I trust you, Harry. Bah, you +are not frightened of words. Who is the worse for it, if I find out +what's Monsieur's temper and how he would bear himself if he were King?" + +"And what he would pay any kind gentlemen who chose to turn +Jacobites apropos." + +"If you like." Colonel Boyce laughed. I promise you, Harry, there are +great men in this. Now I need a trusty fellow to my right hand: a fellow +who can talk and say nothing: a fellow who is in no service but mine: and +all the better if he hath some learning to play the secretary. So I +thought of you. And since it may carry you to something of note, I chose +you with right good will." + +"Do you wonder that you surprise me?" + +"I profess you're not generous, Harry. It's true enough, I have done +little for you yet. But the truth is I could do nothing. As soon as I +have it in my power, I come to you--" + +"And offer me--a game at hazard." + +"Why, Harry, you're not a coward?" + +"Faith, I can't tell. Perhaps I will go with you. But I have no +expectation in it." + +"I suppose you have some here," his father sneered. "What do they call +you? You seem to be something better than Master Geoffrey's valet and a +good deal worse than my lady's footman." + +"Why, I believe you have lost your temper." Harry laughed. "Oh, admirable +sight! Pray let me enjoy it! The father rages at his son's ingratitude!" + +But Colonel Boyce had quickly recovered his equanimity. "They used to +tell me that I was a cold fellow. But I vow you are a very fish. So you +have half a mind to stay here, have you? Well, I bear no malice." + +"It is only half a mind," Harry said. "Are you in a hurry?" + +"Oh, you may sleep on it. Damme, I suppose there is little to do here but +sleep. What does Master Geoffrey want with you? He is old to keep a tame +schoolmaster." + +"I listen to his poetry." + +"Oh Lud!" said Colonel Boyce, with sincere sympathy. "I suppose they are +wealthy folk, your Wavertons. Do they keep much company?" Harry shrugged. +"Who is this Mrs. Weston?" + +"I never saw her before." Harry paused, and then with a laugh +added--"before yesterday." + +"That's a fine woman, her mistress. Do you do anything in that +quarter, sirrah?" + +"Why should you think so?" + +"She was willing enough that you should try." + +"She is meat for my betters," said Harry meekly. + +"For Master Geoffrey?" The Colonel looked knowing. "Do you know, Harry, I +think Master Geoffrey is a pigeon made to be plucked. Well. What was the +pretty lady's talk about highwaymen?" + +Harry looked at his father for some time. "The truth is, I don't +understand Benjamin," he said at last. "I wonder if you will. Faith, sir, +here is a pretty piece of family life. The good son confides in his +father alone of all the world." + +"Go on, sir," Colonel Boyce chuckled. "I play fair." + +So Harry told his tale of Benjamin and Benjamin's companion and their +disaster. It was that appearance in the crisis of the fight of other +gentlemen on horseback which most interested Colonel Boyce. "So they went +in pursuit of the fellow who had fled and they never came back again." He +looked quizzically at his son. "These be very honest gentlemen." + +"Why, sir, I thought nothing of that. They were plainly travelling at +speed. I suppose they missed him, and had no time to waste in searching." + +"Then why o' God's name did he not come back to help his fellow? He was +mounted, he was armed, and only you and your cudgel against him. Bah, +Harry, do not be an innocent. Consider: these fellows went after him at +speed. He cannot have been far away. It is any odds that he had his +bolting horses in hand before he had gone two furlongs. Then--allow him +some sense--then he must have turned and come back for his friend. And +then these other honest gentlemen swept down on him. Well. Why have you +heard no more of them or him?" + +"Faith, sir, you are right," Harry conceived for the first time some +admiration for his father. "I had missed that: and, egad, it is the chief +question of the puzzle. But--" + +"Puzzle! Oh Lud, there's no puzzle. They were all one gang, these +fellows." + +Harry laughed. "Then there was not much honour among the thieves. They +abandoned their Benjamin to me with delight." + +"Ah, bah, you do not suppose they were out for such small game as your +pretty miss. They would not work in a gang to stop a simple, common +coach, be it never so rich. Come, Harry, use your wits. Did you hear of +any great folks on the road yesterday?" + +Harry made an exclamation. "Odds life, sir, you would make a great +thief-catcher. You have hit it. There was your friend, the Duke of +Marl-borough, stuck in the mud below Barnet Hill." And he told that part +of the story. + +"Humph. So they came too late," his father said. "You see how it is. This +gang was charged to stop his Grace, and was something slow about it. The +two first, your Benjamin and his friend, I suppose they should have held +the Duke's fellows in play till the others came up. They missed him, or +they shirked it, and instead, tried to stay their stomachs with some +common game. The rest of the gang would be well enough pleased that you +should baste Benjamin while they hurried on after the Duke. Did you mark +any of them, what like they were?" + +"Not I. I was too busy with Benjamin." + +"And your pretty miss, eh? A pity. But it's well enough for your +first affair." + +"First? Why, am I to spend my life tumbling with gentlemen of the road?" + +"And a profitable, pleasant life too, if you use your wits." + +Harry opened his eyes. "Do you know it well, sir? Now, what I don't +understand is why a gang of highwaymen should appoint to set upon the +Duke of Marlborough. It's dangerous, to be sure--" + +"You will understand why, if you come to France," said Colonel Boyce, +with a queer smile. "There be many would pay high for a sight of his +Grace's private papers," and he laughed to himself over some joke. "Nay, +but you have done very well, Harry," he condescended. "I like this +business of leaving Benjamin tied up on the road. 'Tis damned nonsense, +to be sure, but it has an air, a distinction. Your pretty miss will like +that. And I judge you have not told the Wavertons you were the hero, nor +let miss tell them. 'Tis your little secret for yourselves. A good touch, +Harry. Odds life, I begin to be proud of you. I suppose you will soon go +pay your respects--to Mrs. Weston." He laughed heartily. + +Harry was not amused. "Do you know, I think I like you much less than you +like me," he said. + +Colonel Boyce seemed very well content. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORLD'S A MIRACLE + + +Colonel Boyce was established in the house, a guest of high honour. + +Harry, dazed at the mere fact, could not be very sure how it had happened +or why. The Wavertons, mother and son, had assaulted the Colonel with +hospitality--for a night--for another--for longer and longer--and he, +appearing at first honestly dubious, remained with a benign +condescension. + +There is no doubt that, in an honourable way, Lady Waverton was +fascinated by Colonel Boyce. She saw nothing coarse in his +highly-coloured manners, suspected no guile in his flattery or his parade +of importance. Harry, who had never supposed her a wise woman, was +surprised by her complete surrender. He had credited her with too much +pride to succumb to flattery, which was to his taste impudently gross. +But he was not yet old enough to allow that other folks might have tastes +wholly unlike his own, and he had himself--it is perhaps the only trait +of much delicacy in him--a shrinking discomfort under praise. + +Colonel Boyce took his victory with a complacency which Harry thought +oddly fatuous in a man so acute. + +"Egad, the old lady would go to church with me to-morrow if I asked her;" +he laughed, and seemed to think that in that at least my lady showed +sense. + +"You had better take her, sir," said Harry, with a sneer. "I know she has +a good dower. And a fool and her money are soon parted." + +"Damme, Harry, you are venomous!" For the first time in their +acquaintance Colonel Boyce showed some signs of smarting. "What harm have +I done you? No, sir, you have a nasty tongue. I intend the old lady no +harm, neither. What if she has a tenderness for me? I suppose that does +not make me a fool." + +"To be sure, sir, I did not know your affection was serious." Harry +laughed disagreeably. + +"I believe you would not miss a chance to say a bitter thing though it +ruined you, Lud, Harry, if you can't be grateful, don't be a fool too. +What a pox are your Wavertons to me? I don't value them a pinch of snuff. +What I am doing, I am doing for you. You know what you were when I found +you--no better than a footman out of livery. Now, they treat you like a +gentleman." + +"And all for the _beaux yeux_ of my father. Well, it's true, sir. But I +don't know that I like any of us much the better for it." + +To his great surprise his father looked at him with affectionate +admiration. "Egad, you take that tone very well," said he. "It's a good +card. Maybe it's the best with the women." + +Harry had to laugh. "I think you have the easiest temper in the +world, sir." + +"Aye, aye. It has been the ruin of me." + +And so they parted the best of friends. Indeed Harry had never liked his +father so well or felt so much his superior. Thus from age to age is +filial affection confirmed. + +But he had to allow some adroitness in his father. Not only Lady +Waverton, but Geoffrey too, succumbed to the paternal charms. That was +the more surprising. Geoffrey, behind his vanity and his affectation, was +no fool. He had also a temper apt to dislike any man who made a show of +position or achievement beyond his own. Yet he hung upon the lips of +Colonel Boyce. What they gave him was indeed a pleasing mixture--secrets +about great affairs flavoured with deference to his ingenious criticisms. +There was something solid about it, too. The Colonel, displaying himself +as a man of much importance, perpetually hinted that only the occasion +was needed for Mr. Waverton to surpass him by far, and to that occasion +he could point the way. It appeared to Harry that his father had in mind +to enlist Geoffrey for the proposed mission to France, or some other +scheme unrevealed. And being unable to see any reason for wanting +Geoffrey as a man, he suspected that his father wanted money. + +He saw clearly that nobody wanted him, and was therewith very well +content. At this time in his life he asked nothing better than to be left +alone with his whims and the open air. He covered many a mile of sticky +clay in these autumn days, placidly vacant of mind, and afterwards +accounted them the most comfortable of his life. + +Mr. Waverton's house was set upon a hill, at one end of a line of hills +which now look over the wilderness of London, falling steeply thereto, +and upon the other side, to northward and the open country, more gently. +In the epoch of Harry Boyce those hills were all woodland--pleasant +patches still remain,--and if the need of great walking was not upon him +he was often pleased to loiter through their thickets. It was on a wild +south-westerly day when the naked trees were at a loud chorus that Alison +came to him. + +The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak +and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of her shape. + +"'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried. + +"You're poetical, ma'am." + +"I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith, +I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?" + +"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?" + +"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows +why she runs after me." + +"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless +maid indeed which runs after a man"--she made him a curtsy. "But what is +the man who runs away from a maid?" + +Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The +rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet +more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep +water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the +wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed +the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did +you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled. + +"I allow you the privileges of a gentleman, Mr. Boyce." + +"Gentleman? Oh Lud, no, ma'am. I am an upper servant. Rather better than +the butler. Not so good as the steward." + +"It won't serve you, sir. You have insulted me, and I demand +satisfaction." She drew off her gauntleted glove and flicked him in the +face with it. "Now will you fight?" + +"Oh, must we slap and scratch then?" Harry flushed darker than the mark +of the glove. "I thought we had been fighting." + +Miss Lambourne laughed. "You can lose your temper then? It's something, +in fact. Yes, we have been fighting, sir, and you don't fight fair." + +"Who does with a woman?" Harry sneered. "I cry you mercy, ma'am. You are +vastly too strong for me. Let me alone and I ask no more of you." + +To which Miss Lambourne said, very innocently, "Why?" Harry looked up and +saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure +smile in the eyes. "Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done +me something of a great service. There was a man handling me--do you know +what that means? "--she made a wry face and gave herself a shaking +shudder--"You rid me of him, and with some risk to your precious skin. +Well, sir, I am grateful, and I want to show it. Odds life, I should be a +beast did I not. I want to thank you and to sing your praises--to +yourself also perhaps. And you are pleased to be a churl and a boor." + +"In effect," said Harry coolly. "Egad, ma'am, let me have the luxury of +hating you. For I am the Wavertons' gentleman usher and you are the +nonpareil Miss Lambourne, vastly rich and--" he ended with a shrug and +a rueful grin. + +"And--?" Miss Lambourne softly insisted. + +"And damnably lovely. Lord, you know that." + +"I thank God," said Miss Lambourne devoutly. + +"Is it true, Mr. Boyce--do the meek inherit the earth?" She held out her +hands to him, one bare, one gloved, she swayed a little towards him, and +her face was gentle and wistful. "Nay, sir, I ask your pardon. Call +friends if you please and will please me." + +Harry lost hold of himself at last. The blood surged in him, and he +caught at her and kissed her fiercely. + +It was he who was embarrassed. As he stood away from her, eyeing her with +a queer defiant shame, she smiled through a small matter of a blush, and +breathing quickly said: "What does it feel like, sir?" + +"The world's a miracle," Harry said unsteadily and would have caught +her again. + +She turned, she was away light of foot, and in a moment through the wind +he heard her singing to a tune of her own the child's rhyme: + +"Fly away, Jack, + Fly away, Jill, +Come again, Jack, + Come again, Jill." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL + + +Where the lane from Fortis Green crosses the high road there stood an +ale-house. On the wettest days, and some others, the place was Harry's +resort. Not that he had a liking for ale-house company--or indeed any +company. But within the precincts of the Wavertons' house tobacco was +forbidden and--all the more for that--tobacco he loved with a solid +devotion. The alehouse of the cross roads offered a clean floor, a clean +fire, air not too foul, a tolerable chair, a landlord who did not talk, +and until evening, sufficient solitude. There Harry smoked many pipes in +tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's +sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men +whom he more despised. Nobody in a position just better than menial can +be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's +_metier_. But Harry--it is one of his most noble qualities--bore being +laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of +a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt that it was sincere. He could +more easily have forgiven it if it had been hypocritical. A man had no +business to be so mighty honest. + +Mr. Hadley nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for +his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley +was civil enough to pass him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked +in grave silence. + +"So you are still with us," said Mr. Hadley. + +"By your good leave, sir." + +"I had an apprehension the Colonel was going to ravish you away." + +"I hope I am still of some use to Mr. Waverton." + +"Damme, you might be the old family retainer. 'Faithful service of the +antique world,' egad. I suppose you will end your days with Geoffrey, and +be buried at his feet like a trusty hound." + +"If you please, sir." + +They looked at each other. "Well, Mr. Boyce, I beg your pardon," Hadley +said. "But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man." + +"I do not desire it, sir." + +"I may hold my tongue and mind my own business, eh? Why not take me +friendly?" + +"I intend you no harm, Mr. Hadley." + +"That's devilish good of you, Mr. Boyce. To be plain with you, what do +you want here?" + +"Here? Oh Lord, sir, I come to smoke my pipe!" + +"And what if I come to smoke you? Odds life, I know you are no fool. Do +me the honour to take me for none. And tell me, if you please, why do you +choose to be Master Geoffrey's gentleman in waiting? You are good for +better than that, Mr. Boyce." + +"No doubt, sir. But it brings me bread and butter." + +"You could earn that fighting in Flanders." + +Harry shrugged. "I am not very brave, Mr. Hadley." + +"You count upon staying here, do you?" + +"If I can satisfy Mr. Waverton," said Harry meekly. + +Hadley's face grew harder. "I vow I do my best to wish you well, +Mr. Boyce. I should be glad to hear that you'll give up walking in +the woods." + +There was a moment of silence. "I did not know that I had asked for your +advice, sir." Harry said. "I am not grateful for it." + +"Damme, that's the first honest answer you have made," Hadley cried. +"Look 'e, Mr. Boyce, I am as much your friend as I may be. I have an +uncle which was the lady's guardian. If I said a word to him he would +carry it to Lady Waverton in a gouty rage. There would be a swift end of +Mr. Boyce the tutor. Well, I would not desire that. For all your airs, +I'll believe you a man of honour. And I ask you what's to become of Mr. +Boyce the tutor seeking private meetings with the Lambourne heiress? +Egad, sir, you were made for better things than such a mean business." + +"Honour!" Harry sneered. "Were you talking of men of honour? I suppose +there is good cover in the woods, Mr. Hadley." + +Hadley stared at him. "It was not good enough, you see, sir." He knocked +out his pipe and stood up. "Bah, this is childish. You don't think me a +knave, nor I you. I have said my say, and I mean you well." + +"I believe that, Mr. Hadley"--Harry met him with level eyes--"and I am +not grateful." + +"You know who she is meant for." + +"I know that the lady might call us both impudent." + +"Would that break your bones? Come, sir, the lady hath been destined for +Master Geoffrey since she had hair and never has rebelled." + +"Lord, Mr. Hadley, are you destiny?" + +Mr. Hadley let that by with an impatient shrug. "So if you be fool enough +to have ambitions after her, you would wear a better face in eating no +more of Master Geoffrey's bread." + +"It's a good day for walking, Mr. Hadley. Which way do you go? For I go +the other." + +"I hope so," Mr. Hadley agreed, and on that the two gentlemen parted, +both something warm. + +We should flatter him in supposing Harry Boyce of a chivalrous delicacy. +Whether the lady's fair fame might be the worse for him was a question of +which he never thought. It is certain that he did not blame himself for +using his place as Geoffrey's paid servant to damage Geoffrey in his +affections. And indeed you will agree that he was innocent of any +designed attack upon the lady. Yet Mr. Hadley succeeded in making him +very uncomfortable. + +What most troubled him, I conceive, was the fear of being ridiculous. The +position of a poor tutor aspiring to the favours of the heiress destined +for his master invites the unkind gibe. And Harry could not be sure that +Alison herself was free from the desire to make him a figure of scorn. +Such a suspicion might disconcert the most ardent of lovers. Harry +Boyce, whatever his abilities in the profession, was not that yet. But +the very fact that he had come to feel an ache of longing for Alison made +him for once dread laughter. If he had been manoeuvring for what he could +get by her, or if he had been merely taken by her good looks, he might +have met jeering with a brazen face. But she had engaged his most private +emotions, and to have them made ludicrous would be of all possible +punishments most intolerable. The precise truth of what he felt for her +then was, I suppose, that he wanted to make her his own--wanted to have +all of her in his power; and a gentleman whom the world--and the +lady--are laughing at for an aspiring menial cannot comfortably think +about his right to possess her. + +There was something else. He was not meticulously delicate, but he had a +complete practical sanity. He saw very well that even if Alison, by the +chance of circumstance, had some infatuation for him, she might soon +repent: he saw that even if the affair went with romantic success--a +thing hardly possible--his position and hers might be awkward enough. +Her friends would be long in forgiving either of them, and find ways +enough to hurt them both. Mr. Hadley, confound him, spoke the common +sense of mankind. + +There was one solution--that estimable father. By the time he came back +to the house on Tether-down, Harry was resolved to enlist under the +ambiguous banner of Colonel Boyce. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +GENEROSITY OF A FATHER + + +With grim irony Harry congratulated himself on his decision. When first +he came into the house he heard Alison singing. There was indeed (as he +told himself clearly) nothing wonderful about her voice--it resembled +the divine only in being still and small. Yet he could not (he called +himself still more clearly a fool) keep away from it, and so he slunk +into Lady Waverton's drawing-room. Only duty and stated hours were wont +to drag him there. Lady Waverton showed her appreciation of his unusual +attendance by staring at him across the massed trifles of the room with +sleepy and insolent amazement. But it was not the glassy eyes of Lady +Waverton which convinced Harry that flight was the true wisdom. Over +Alison at the harpsichord, Geoffrey hung tenderly: their shoulders +touched, eyes answered eyes, and miss was radiant. She sang at him with a +naughty archness that song of Mr. Congreve's: + +"Thus to a ripe consenting maid, +Poor old repenting Delia said, +Would you long preserve your lover? + Would you still his goddess reign? +Never let him all discover, + Never let him much obtain. + +Men will admire, adore and die +While wishing at your feet they lie; +But admitting their embraces + Wakes 'em from the golden dream: +Nothing's new besides our faces, + Every woman is the same." + +She contorted her own face into smug folly by way of illustration. Then +she and Geoffrey laughed together. "I vow you're the most deliciously +wicked creature that ever was born a maid." + +"D'ye regret it, sir? Faith, I could not well be born a wife." + +"No, ma'am, that's an honour to be won by care and pains." + +"Pains! Lud, yes, I believe that. But, dear sir, I reckon it the +punishment for folly. Why,"--she chose to see Harry--"why, here is our +knight of the rueful countenance!" + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "It is related of the Egyptians--" + +"God help us," Alison murmured. + +He went on, giggling. "It is related of the Ancient Egyptians that they +ever had a corpse among the guests at their feasts." + +"Were their cooks so bad?" said Alison. + +"To remind them that all men are mortal. Now you see why we keep Harry." + +"I wonder if he looked as happy when he was alive," said Alison, +surveying his wooden face. + +"_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the +dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't +like it known." + +Colonel Boyce, who had listened to the song and the first +coruscations of wit with the condescending smile of a connoisseur, +now exhibited some impatience. "Egad, Harry, why will you dress like +a parson out at elbows?" + +"His customary suit of solemn black," said Geoffrey. + +"He is in mourning for himself, of course," Alison laughed. + +"I have two suits of clothes, ma'am," said Harry meekly. "This is +the better." + +"Poor Harry!" Geoffrey granted him a look of protective affection. "I vow +we are too hard on him, Alison." And then in a lower voice for her +private ear. "A dear, worthy fellow, but--well, what would you have?--of +no spirit." Alison bit her lip. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton," Harry protested, "indeed, I am proud to be the cause +of such wit." + +Colonel Boyce stared at his son with an enigmatic frown. Alison's eyes +brightened. But Geoffrey suspected no guile. "Not witty thyself, dear +lad, but the cause of wit in others, eh? Odds life, Harry, you are +invaluable." + +"'Tis your kindness for me makes you think so, Mr. Waverton. And, to be +sure, I could ask no more than to amuse your lady." + +Alison said tartly, "Oh, it takes little to amuse me, sir." + +"I am sure, ma'am," Harry agreed meekly. + +"It's a happy nature." and he bowed to Geoffrey, humbly congratulating +him on a lady of such simple tastes. + +Geoffrey, who had now had enough of his good tutor, eliminated him by a +compliment or so on Alison's voice and the demand that she should sing +again. He found her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she +would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. +Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of +keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the +world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must +be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so +good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they were merely +his kind condescension. And, oh Lud, it was time she was gone, or poor, +dear Weston would be imagining her slaughtered on the highway. + +Geoffrey could not make much of this, but was pleased to take it as +flattering feminine homage to his magnificence. By way of reward, he +announced an intention of riding home with her carriage. "Faith, you are +too good"--her eyes were modestly hidden--"but then you are too good to +everybody. Is he not, Mr. Boyce?" + +"Oh, ma'am, we all practise on his kindness," Harry said. + +"A good night to your mourning," she said sharply, "dear Lady Waverton." +They kissed. "Colonel Boyce, I hold you to your promise." + +"With all my heart, ma'am. Your devoted." + +She was gone, and Harry, with a look of significance at his father, went +off too.... + +In that shabby upper chamber of his, Harry again offered the Colonel a +choice between the bed and the one chair. Colonel Boyce made a gesture +and an exclamation of impatience, and remained standing. "Now, what the +devil do you want with me?" he complained. + +"I want to be very grateful. I want to enlist with you. When shall +we start?" + +His father frowned, and in a little while made a crooked answer, "Do you +know, Harry, you are too mighty subtle. I was so at your years. It's very +pretty sport, but--well, it won't butter your parsnips. The women can't +tell what to make of it. Having, in general, no humour, pretty +creatures." + +"I am obliged for the sermon, sir. Shall we leave to-morrow?" + +"Egad, you are in a fluster," his father smiled. "Well, to be sure, he is +a teasing fellow, the beautiful Geoffrey." + +Harry made an exclamation. "You'll forgive me, sir, if I say you are +talking nonsense." + +"Oh Lud, yes," his father chuckled. + +"Whether I am agreeable to women, whether Mr. Waverton is agreeable to +me--odds life, sir, I don't trouble my head about such things. Pray, +why should you? As well sit down and cry because my eyes are not the +same colour." + +"No. No. There is something taking about that, Harry," his father +remonstrated placidly. + +"When you please to be in earnest, sir," Harry cried, "if this affair of +yours is in earnest--" "Oh, you may count on that." Colonel Boyce was +still enjoying himself. + +"Then I am ready for it. And the sooner the better." + +"Hurry is a bad horse. The truth is, something more hangs on this affair +than Mr. Harry's whims. Oh, damme, I don't blame you, though. He is +tiresome, our Geoffrey." + +"Why, sir, if we have to waste time, we might waste it more comfortably +than with the Waverton family. Shall we say to-morrow?" + +Colonel Boyce tapped his still excellent teeth. "Patience, patience," he +said, and considered his son gravely. "As for to-morrow, I have friends +to see, and so have you. Your pretty miss engaged me to ride over with +you to her house. And behind the brave Geoffrey's back, if you please. +She is a sly puss, Harry." He expected so obviously an angry answer that +Harry chose to disappoint him. + +"I shall be happy to take leave of Miss Lambourne. And shall I ride +pillion with you, sir? For I have no horse of my own." + +"Bah, dear Geoffrey will lend me the best in the stable." + +"I give you joy of the progress in his affections." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You are pledged for the forenoon then," he +paused. "And as to that little affair of mine--you shall know your part +soon enough." + +"It cannot be too soon, sir." + +"No." Colonel Boyce nodded. "I think it's full time." + +He took leave of his son with what the son thought superfluous +affection. + +Half an hour afterwards he was in Mr. Waverton's room--a place very +precious. Everything in it--and there were many things--had an air of +being strange. Mr. Waverton slept behind curtains of black and silver. +His floor was covered with some stuff like scarlet velvet. There was a +skull in the place of honour on the walls, flanked by two Venetian +pictures of the Virgin, and faced by a blowsy Bacchus and Ariadne from +Flanders. The chairs were of the newest Italian mode, designed rather to +carry as much gilding as possible than to comfort the human form. Colonel +Boyce, regarding them with some apprehension, stood himself before the +fire and waved off Geoffrey's effusive courtesy. + +"I hope you have good news for me, Mr. Waverton?" So he opened the +attack. + +"Why, sir, I have considered my engagements," Geoffrey said +magnificently. "I believe I could hold myself free for some months--if +the enterprise were of weight." + +"You relieve me vastly. I'll not disguise from you, Mr. Waverton, that I +am something anxious to secure you. I could not find a gentleman so well +equipped for this delicate business. You'll observe, 'tis of the first +importance that we should have presence, an air, the _je ne sais quoi_ of +dignity and family." + +"Sir, you are very obliging." Geoffrey swallowed it whole. + +"When I came here I confess I was at my wit's end. Indeed, I had a mind +to go alone. The gentlemen of my acquaintance--either they could not be +trusted with an affair of such value, or they had too much of our English +coarseness to be at ease with it. Faith, when I came to see my poor, dear +Harry, little I thought that in his neighbourhood I should find the very +man for my embassy." The two gentlemen laughed together over the +incompatibility of Harry with gentlemanly diplomacy. + +"Not but what Harry is a faithful, trusty fellow," said Mr. Waverton, +with magnificent condescension. + +"You are very good to say so. A dolt, sir, a dolt; so much the worse for +me. Now, Mr. Waverton, to you I have no need of a word more on the +secrecy of the affair. Though, to be sure, this very morning I had +another note from Cadogan--Marlborough's _âme damnée_ you know--pressing +it on me that nothing should get abroad. So when we go, we'll be off +without a good-bye, and if you must leave a word behind for the anxieties +of my lady, let her know that you are off with me to see the army in +Flanders." + +"I profess, Colonel, you are mighty cautious." + +"Dear sir, we cannot be too cautious in this affair. There's many a +handsome scheme gone awry for the sake of some affectionate farewell. +Mothers, wives, lady-loves--sweet luxuries, Mr. Waverton, but damned +dangerous. Now here's my plan. We'll go riding on an afternoon and not +come back again. Trust my servant to get away quietly with your baggage +and mine. We must travel light, to be sure. We'll go round London. I have +too many friends there, and I want none of them asking where old Noll +Boyce is off to now. Newhaven is the port for us. There is a trusty +fellow there has his orders already. I look to land at Le Havre. Now, the +Prince, by our latest news, is back at St. Germain. As you can guess, Mr. +Waverton, to be seen in Paris would suit my health even less than to be +seen in London. Too many honest Frenchmen have met me in the wars, and, +what's worse, too many of them know me deep in Marlborough's business. I +could not show my face without all King Louis's court talking of some +great matter afoot. What I have in mind is to halt on the road--at +Pontoise maybe--while you ride on with letters to Prince James. I warrant +you they are such, and with such names to them, as will assure you a +noble welcome. It's intended that he should quit St. Germain privately +with you to conduct him to me. Then I warrant you we shall know how to +deal with the lad." He paused and stared at Geoffrey intently, and +gradually a grim humour stole into his eyes. He began to laugh. "Egad, I +envy you, Mr. Waverton. To be in such an affair at your years--bah, I +should have been crazy with pride." + +"You need not doubt that I value the occasion, sir," Geoffrey said +grandly. "Pray, believe that I shall do honour to your confidence." + +"To be sure you will. Odds life, to chaffer with a king's son about +kingdoms, to offer a realm to a prince in exile (if only he will be a +good boy)--it's a fine, stately affair, sir, and you are the very man to +take it in the right vein." + +"Sir, you are most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your +kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you." + +"Egad, you do already," Colonel Boyce smiled, still with some touch of +cruelty in his eyes. + +"Pray, sir, when must we start?" + +"When I know, maybe I shall need to start in an hour." + +"I shall not fail you. I shall want, I suppose, some funds in hand?" + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "Oh Lud, yes, we'll want some money. A matter of +five hundred pounds should serve." + +"I will arrange for it in the morning," said Mr. Waverton, too +magnificent to be startled. "Pray, what clothes shall we be able +to carry?" + +"Damme, that's a grave matter," said Colonel Boyce, and with becoming +gravity discussed it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS LAMBOURNE LOOKS SIDEWAYS + + +Thus Colonel Boyce blandly arranged the lives of his young friends. It is +believed that he had a peculiar pleasure in manoeuvring his +fellow-creatures from behind a veil of secrecy. For in this he sought not +merely his private profit (though it was never out of his calculations); +he enjoyed his operations for their own sake; he liked his trickery as +trickery; to push and pull people to the place in which he wanted them +without their knowing how or why or to what end they were impelled was to +him a pleasure second to none in life. And on a survey of his whole +career he is to be accounted successful. Though I cannot find that he +ever achieved anything of signal importance even for himself, at one time +or another he brought a great number of people, some of them powerful, +and some of them honourable, under his direction, he had his complete +will of many of them, and was rewarded by the bitter hostility of the +majority. He contrived, in fact, to live just such a life as he liked +best. What more can any man have? + +So he told Harry nothing of his engagement of Mr. Waverton, and Harry, +you have seen, was not likely to guess that anyone would enlist his +Geoffrey for a serious enterprise. On the next morning, indeed, Harry did +remark that Geoffrey was more portentous than usual, but thought nothing +of it. He was embarrassed by thinking about himself. + +There was, as Colonel Boyce predicted, no difficulty about a horse for +Harry. When the Colonel suggested it, Geoffrey showed some satirical +surprise at Harry's daring, but (advising one of the older carriage +horses) bade him take what he would. Colonel Boyce spoke only of riding +with his son. He said nothing of where they were going. Harry wondered +whether Geoffrey would have been so gracious if he had known that Alison +was their destination, and, a new experience for him, felt some qualms of +conscience. It was uncomfortable to use a favour from Geoffrey, even a +trifling favour granted with a sneer, for meeting his lady; still more +uncomfortable to go seek the lady out secretly. But if he announced what +he was doing, there would be instantly something ridiculous about it, and +he would have to swallow much of Geoffrey's humour. Geoffrey might even +come with them, and Alison and he be humorous together--a fate +intolerable. There was indeed an easy way of escape. He had but to stay +away from the lady. But, though he despised himself for it, he desired +infinitely to see her again. She compelled him, as he had never believed +anything outside his own will could compel. After all, it was no such +matter, for he would soon be gone with his father to France. He might +well hope never to see her again. + +So on that ride through the steep wooded lanes to Highgate, his father +found him morose, and complained of it. "Damme, for a young fellow that's +off to his lady-love you are a mighty poor thing, Harry." + +"My lady-love! I have no taste for rich food. I thought it was your lady +we were going to see." + +"What the devil do you mean by that?" Colonel Boyce stared. + +"Oh, fie, sir! Why be ashamed of her?" + +"God knows what you are talking about." Colonel Boyce was extraordinarily +irritated. "Ashamed of whom?" + +"Of the peerless Miss Lambourne, to be sure. Oh, sir, why be so innocent? +How could she resist your charms? And indeed--" + +"Miss Lambourne! What damned nonsense you talk, Harry." + +"I followed your lead, sir," said Harry meekly. "But if we are to talk +sense--when shall we start for France?" + +"You shall know when I know." + +And on that they came to the top of the hill and the gates of the Hall. +The wet weather had yielded to St. Martin's summer. It was a day of +gentle silver-gold sunlight and benign air. With her companion, Mrs. +Weston, Miss Lambourne was walking in the garden. She met the gentlemen +at a turn of the drive by rampant sweetbriers. "Here's our knight of the +rueful countenance, and faith, on Rosinante, poor jade," she patted +Harry's aged carriage horse. "Oh, and he has brought with him Solomon in +all his glory," she made a wonderful curtsy to the splendours of Colonel +Boyce. "Now, who would have dreamt Don Quixote's father was Solomon?" + +"I suppose I take after my mother, ma'am," Harry said meekly. "It's a +hope which often consoles me." + +"Why, they say Solomon had something of a variety in wives, and +among them--" + +Colonel Boyce dismounted with so much noise that the jest was hardly +heard and the end of it altogether lost. + +"You did not tell me"--Mrs. Weston was speaking and seemed to find it +difficult--"Alison, you did not tell me the gentlemen were coming." It +occurred to Harry that she looked very pale and ill. + +"Why, Weston; dear, I could not tell if they would keep troth." She +began to hum: + +"Men were deceivers ever, + One foot on sea, and one on shore, +To one thing constant never." + +"Nay, ma'am, sigh no more for here are we," Colonel Boyce said brusquely. + +"Oh Lud, he overwhelms us with the honour." She laughed. "How can we +entertain him worthily? Sir, will you walk? My poor house and I await +your pleasure." + +"I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I have never had a lady-in-waiting." + +"Oh, celibate virtue!" quoth Miss Lambourne. And so to the house Colonel +Boyce led her and his horse, and a little way behind Harry followed with +his and Mrs. Weston. + +She had nothing to say for herself. She looked so wan, she walked so +slowly, and with such an air of pain that Harry had to say something +about fearing she was not well. Then he felt a fool for his pains; as she +turned in answer and shook her head he saw such a sad, wistful dignity in +her eyes that the small coin of courtesy seemed an absurd offering. A +fancy, to be sure, in itself absurd. Yet he could not make the woman out. +There was something odd and baffling in the way she looked at him. + +She led off with an odd question, "Pray, have you lived much with +Colonel Boyce?" + +"Not I, ma'am." Harry laughed. "If I were not a very wise child I should +hardly know my own father. Lived with him? Not much more than with my +mother, whom I never saw." + +"Oh, did you not?" Her eyes dwelt upon him. After a little while, "Who +brought you up then?" + +"Schools. Half a dozen schools between Taunton and London, and +Westminster at last." + +"Were you happy?" + +"When I had sixpence." + +"But Colonel Boyce is rich!" she cried. + +"I have no evidence of it, ma'am." + +"I cannot understand. You hardly know him. But he comes to you at Lady +Waverton's; he stays with you; he brings you here. I believe you are +closer with him than you say." + +"Why, ma'am, it's mighty kind in you to concern yourself so with my +affairs. And if you can't understand them, faith, no more can I." + +She showed no shame at this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was +sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely +affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and +speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an +appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with +power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He +felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in +suffering, richer in all emotion, and (what was vastly surprising) under +her dullness, her feebleness, of fuller and deeper life. + +From vague, intriguing, bewildering fancies, her voice brought him back +with a start. "He brought you here?" she was asking. + +To be sure, she was wonderfully maladroit. This buzzing, futile curiosity +irritated him again into a sneer. "He is no doubt captivated by the +beautiful eyes of Miss Lambourne." + +"He! Mr. Boyce?"--she corrected herself with a stammer and a +blush--"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to be her father." + +"I think we ought to tell him so." Harry chuckled. "It would do +him good." + +"I think this is not very delicate, sir." Mrs. Weston was still blushing. + +"Egad, ma'am, if you ask questions, you must expect answers," Harry +snapped at her. + +"Why do you sneer at her? Why should you speak coarsely of her? I suppose +you come to the house of your own choice? Or does he make you come?" + +Harry saw no occasion for such excitement. "Why, you take away my breath +with your pronouns. He and she--she and he--pray, let's leave him and +her out of the question. Here's a very pretty garden." + +"Indeed, we need not quarrel, I think." She laughed nervously, and gave +him an odd, shy look. "Pray, do you stay with the Wavertons?" + +"Alas, ma'am, I make your acquaintance and bid you farewell all in one +day." + +"Make my acquaintance!" Again came a nervous laugh, and it was a moment +before she went on. "We have met before to-day." + +"Oh Lud, ma'am, I would desire you forget it." + +"I am to forget it!" she echoed. "Oh ... Oh, you are very proud." + +"Not I, indeed. The truth is, ma'am, that silly affair with our +highwayman, it embarrasses me mightily. I want to live it down. Pray, +help me, and think no more about it." + +"I suppose that is what you say to Alison?" For the first time there was +a touch of fun in her eyes. + +"Word for word, ma'am." + +"Why do you come here then?" + +"As I have the honour to tell you--to say good-bye." + +She checked and stared at him. She was very pale. But now they were at +the steps of the house, and Colonel Boyce, who had resigned his horse to +a groom, turned with Alison to meet them. + +"I am hot with the Colonel's compliments, Weston, dear," she announced. +"I must take a turn with Mr. Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A +convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other +freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to +trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you +have a tender heart." + +It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look +at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him. + +"I am not afraid," Mrs. Weston said. + +"I profess I am abashed," said Colonel Boyce. "Pray, ma'am, be gentle to +my disgrace," and he offered his arm. She bowed and moved away, and he +followed her. + +Harry and Alison, face to face, and sufficiently close, eyed each other +with some amusement. + +"Oh, Mr. Boyce," said she, and shook her head. + +"Oh, Miss Lambourne," Harry exhorted in his turn. + +"You have fallen. You have walked into my parlour." + +"I am the best of sons, ma'am. I endure all things at my father's +orders--even spiders." + +She still eyed him steadily, searching him, and was still amused. She +moved a little so that the admirable flowing lines of her shape were more +marked. Then she said, "Why are you afraid of me?" + +Harry shook his head, smiling. "Vainly is the net spread in the sight of +the bird, ma'am. But, faith, it was a pretty question, and I make you my +compliments." + +"So. Will you walk, sir?" She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of +arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a +yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce--when I meet you in company you +shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me +impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I +suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. +Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why in God's name are you afraid of me?" + +"Miss Lambourne got out of bed very earnest this morning," Harry grinned. +"But oh, let's be grave and honest with all my heart. Why, then, ma'am, +I've to say that a penniless fellow has the right to be afraid of Miss +Lambourne's money bags." + +"Fie, you are no such fool. If one is good company to t'other, which is +rich and which is poor is no more matter than which fair and which dark." + +"In a better world, ma'am, I would believe you." + +"And here you believe kind folks would sneer at Harry Boyce for scenting +an heiress. So you tuck your tail between your legs and go to ground. I +suppose that is called honour, sir." + +"Oh no, ma'am. Taste." + +"La, I offend monsieur's fine taste, do I?" + +"Not often, ma'am. But by all means let us be earnest. I believe I mind +being sneered at no more than my betters. _Par exemple_, ma'am, when you +laugh at me for being shabby, I am not much disturbed." + +She blushed furiously. "I never did." + +"Oh, I must have read your thoughts then," Harry laughed. "Well, what +matters to me is not that folks laugh at me but why they laugh. That they +mock me for being out at elbows I swallow well enough. That they should +sneer at me for making love to a woman's purse would give me a nausea." + +Miss Lambourne was pleased to look modest. "Indeed, sir, I did not know +that you had made love to me." + +"I am obliged by your honesty, ma'am." + +Miss Lambourne looked up and spoke with some vehemence. "It comes +to this, then, you would be beaten by what folks may say about you. +Oh, brave!" + +"Lud, we are all beaten by what folks might say. Would you ride into +London in your shift?" + +"I don't want to ride in my shift," she cried fiercely. + +"Perhaps not, ma'am. But perhaps I don't want to make love to your +purse." + +"Od burn it, sir, am I nothing but a purse?" + +"I leave it to your husband to find out, ma'am, and beg leave to take my +leave. My kind father offers me occupation at a distance, and I embrace +it ardently. Who knows? It may provide me with a coat." + +"You are going away?" + +"I have had the honour to say so." + +"And why, if you please?" + +Harry shrugged. "Because, ma'am, without my assistance, Mr. Waverton can +very well translate Horace into his own sublime verse and Miss Lambourne +into his own proud wife." + +He intended her to rage. What she did was to say softly: "You do not want +to see me that?" + +"I have no ambition to amuse you, ma'am." Miss Lambourne looked +sideways. "What if I don't want you to go away?" + +"Egad, ma'am, I know you don't." Harry laughed. "You amuse yourself +vastly (God knows why) with baiting me." + +"Why, it amuses me." Alison still looked at him sideways. "Don't you +know why?" + +He did not choose to answer. + +"Indeed, then, if I am nought to you why do you care what folks say of +you and me?" + +Harry made a step towards her. "You mean to have it again, do you?" +he muttered. + +"Pray, sir, what?" and still she looked sideways. + +"What you dragged out of me in the wood." + +"Dragged out of--oh!" She blushed, she drew back, and so had occasion to +do something with her cloak which let a glimpse of white neck and bosom +come into the light. "You flatter us both indeed." + +"I'll tell you the truth of us both"--he, too, was flushed: "you are a +curst coquette and I am a curst fool." + +Now she met his eyes fairly, and in hers there was no more laughter, +but she smiled with her lips: "I think you know yourself better than +you know me." + +Harry gripped her hands. "You go about to make me mad with desire for +you, you--" + +"I want you so," she breathed, and leaned back, away from him, her eyes +half veiled. + +He had his arms about her body, held her close. The red lips curved in a +riddle of a smile. He saw dark depths in the shadowed eyes. + +"_Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre_" she murmured. + +Harry exclaimed something, felt her against him, was aware of all her +form--and heard footsteps. + +Alison was out of his grasp, her back to him, plucking a rose. "You will +see me again--you shall see me again. I ride in the wood to-morrow +morning," she muttered. + +"You'll pay for it," Harry growled. + +His father arrived, Mrs. Weston, a servant at their heels. + +Alison came round with a swirl of skirts. "Dear sir, I doubt you have +burnt up dinner by your long passages with my Weston. Come in, come in," +and she led the way. + +For once Colonel Boyce was without an answer. Harry, who was dreading +witticisms, looked at him in surprise, and with more surprise saw that he +looked angry. Mrs. Weston hurried on before them all. Her eyes were red. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ANGER OF AN UNCLE + + +It seems certain that on this day Alison wore a dress of a blue like +peacock's feathers. That colour--as you may see, she wears it in both the +Kneller and the Thornhill portraits--was much a favourite of hers, and +indeed it set off well the rare beauty of her own hues. The clarity, the +delicacy, of her cheeks were such as you may see on one of those roses +which, white in full flower, have a rosy flush on the outer petals of the +bud, and the same rose open may serve for the likeness of a neck and +bosom which she guarded no more prudishly than her day's fashion +demanded. For all the daintiness, her lips, a proud pair, were richly red +(stained of raspberries, in Charles Hadley's sneer), and with the black +masses of her hair and grey eyes almost as dark, gave her an aspect of, +what neither man nor woman ever denied her, eager and passionate life. +All this was flowering out of her peacock blue velvet, and Harry, I +infer, went mad. + +She never expanded into the larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring +to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, +but the bodice was close laced _à la mode_ to parade the riches of her +bosom. Strong and gloriously alive, and abundantly a woman--so she smiled +at the world. + +It was a delirious hour for Harry, that dinner. He knew that Alison was +pleased to be in the gayest spirits, and his father, in his father's own +flamboyant style, seconded her heartily. He joined in, too, and seemed to +himself loud and vapid, yet had no power of restraint. It was as though +his usual placid, critical mind were detached and watched himself in the +happy exuberance of drunkenness--which was a state unknown to him, for +excess of liquor could only move him with drowsy gloom. And in the midst +of the noise Mrs. Weston sat, pale and silent, a ghost at the feast. + +He was glad when his father spoke of going, though he found himself +talking some folly against it, on Alison's side, who jovially mocked the +Colonel for shyness. But Colonel Boyce, it appeared, had made up his +mind, and Harry was surprised at the masterful ease with which, keeping +the empty fun still loud, he extricated himself and his unwilling son. + +They were all at the door, a noisy, laughing company, and the +horses waited. + +"It's no use, ma'am," Harry cried, "he knows how to get his way, +_monsieur mon père_." + +"Pray heaven he hath not taught his son the art!" + +"Oh Lud, no, I am the very humble servant of any petticoat." + +"Fie, that's far worse, sir. I see you would still be forgetting which +covered your wife." + +"Never believe him, Madame Alison." quoth the Colonel. "It's a strong +rogue and a masterless man," + +"Why, that's better again. And yet it's not so well if he'll be +mistressless too." + +"Fight it out, child," the Colonel cried. "'Lay on, Macduff, and curst be +she that first cries hold, enough!' Come, Harry, to horse." + +"See, Weston, he deserts me, and merrily!" + +There came upon the scene two other horsemen--Mr. Hadley's gaunt, +one-armed frame and a big, lumbering elder with a rosy face. + +Harry bowed over Alison's hand. It was she who put it to his lips, and +nodding a roguish smile at the other gentlemen, "So you run away, +sir?" she said. + +Harry looked at her and "Give me back my head," he said in a low voice. +"I have lost it somewhere here." + +"Oh, your head!" She laughed. "Well, maybe it's the best part of you." + +He mounted, and Colonel Boyce, already in the saddle, kissed his hand to +her. They rode off, compelled to single file by the plump old gentleman +who held the middle of the road and glowered at them. Mr. Hadley made an +elaborate bow. + +The old gentleman watched them out of sight round the curve of the drive, +then sent his horse on with an oath and, dismounting heavily at Alison's +toes, roared out: "What the devil's this folly, miss?" He made angry +puffing noises. "I vow I heard you laughing at Finchley. Might have heard +him kissing too." + +"Kissing? Oh la, sir, my hand, and so may you." She held it out and made +an impudent little curtsy. "I protest the gentleman is all maidenly. That +is why he and I make so good a match." + +The old gentleman spluttered and was still redder. "Match, miss? What, +the devil!" + +"Oh no, sir. Pray come in, sir. I see you are in a heat, and I fear for a +chill on your gout." + +"You are mighty civil, miss. You are too civil by half," the old +gentleman puffed, and stalked past her. + +Alison stood in the way of Charles Hadley as he made to follow. There was +some pugnacity on her fair face. "It's mighty kind of Mr. Hadley to +concern himself with me." + +"Egad, ma'am, if I come untimely it's pure happy chance." + +She whirled round on that and they went in. "Will you please to drink a +dish of tea, Sir John?" + +"You know I won't, miss." The old gentleman let himself down with a grunt +into the largest chair in her drawing-room. "Now who the plague is this +kissing fellow?" + +"Sure, sir, it's the gentleman Mr. Hadley told you of," said Alison +meekly. She hit both her birds. Mr. Hadley and his uncle looked at each +other. Sir John snorted. Mr. Hadley shrugged and gave an acid laugh. + +"What, what, that fellow of Waverton's? Od burn it, miss, he's a +starveling usher." + +"Oh, sir, don't be hasty. I dare say he'll be fat when he's old." + +"Don't be pert, miss. D'ye know all the county's talking of you and +this fellow?" + +Alison paled a little. She spoke in a still small voice. "I did not know +how much I was in Mr. Hadley's debt. I advise you, Sir John, don't be one +of those who talk." + +"You advise me, miss! Damme, ain't I your guardian?" + +"I am trying to remember that you once were, sir. But you make it +very hard." + +"What the devil do you mean?" + +"I mean--" + +"I vow neither of you knows what you mean," Mr. Hadley drowned her in a +drawl. "I never saw such fire-eaters. Look 'e, Alison, we come riding +over in a civil way and--" + +"Tell me you have been planning a scandal about me. Oh, I vow I am +obliged to you." + +Mr. Hadley laughed. "Lud, child, you ha' known me long enough. Do I deal +in tattle? And if we have seen what we should not ha' seen, if you're hot +at being caught, prithee, whose fault is it? Egad, you know well enough +there's things beneath Miss Lambourne's dignity." + +"Yes, indeed, and I see Mr. Hadley is one of them." + +"You're a fool for your pains, Charles," John shouted. "What's sense to a +wench? Now, miss, I'll have an end of this. You're old Tom Lambourne's +daughter for all your folly, and I'll not have his flesh and blood the +sport of any greedy rogue from the kennel." + +There was a moment of silence. Then Alison, whose colour was grown high, +said quietly, "Pray, Sir John, will you go or shall I? I do not desire to +see you again in my house." + +"Go?" The old gentleman struggled to his feet. "Damme, Charles, the +girl's mad. Yes, miss, I'll go--and go straight to my Lady Waverton. Od +burn it, we'll have your fellow out of the county in an hour. Egad, miss, +you're besotted. Why, what is he?--a trickster, a knight of the road. +'Stand and deliver,' that's my gentleman's trade. He's for your father's +money, you fool." + +"Good-bye, Sir John," Alison said, and turned away. + +With unwonted agility, Mr. Hadley came between her and the door. "You are +not fair to us, Alison," he said. "Prithee, be fair to yourself." She +passed him without a word. Mr. Hadley turned and showed Sir John a rueful +face. "We have made a bad business of it, sir." + +Sir John swore. "Brazen impudence, damme, brazen, I say." + +"Oh Lord! Don't make bad worse." + +Sir John swore again. Upon his rage came Alison's voice singing: + +"When daffodils begin to peer + With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, +Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year, + For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale." + +Sir John spluttered, and went out roaring for his horse. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +YOUNG BLOOD + + +There is reason to believe that from the first Mr. Hadley suspected he +was making a fool of himself. This sensation, the common accompaniment of +an attempt to do your duty, was just of the right strength to ensure that +all his actions should be disastrous. It was, as you see, not strong +enough to restrain him from exciting the dull and choleric mind of Sir +John Burford; it did not avail to direct the ensuing storm. And then, +having first failed to be sufficient check, it developed into a very +paralysis. + +Startled by the furies he had roused in Alison, Mr. Hadley found that +suspicion of his own folly develop into a gruesome conviction. It +compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering +knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. +Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton +will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay +gave it opportunity. + +If the tale had been told to Lady Waverton, no doubt but Harry would have +been banished from Tetherdown that night. It is likely, indeed, that the +ultimate fates of Alison and Harry would have been the same. But many +antecedent adventures must have been different or superfluous. + +Mr. Hadley was now full of common sense. Mr. Hadley sagely argued with +his uncle that they would do more harm than good by carrying their tale +to Lady Waverton. The woman was a fool in grain, and whatever she did +would surely do it in the silliest way. Tell her a word, and she would +swiftly give birth to a scandal which the world would not willingly let +die, in which Mr. Harry Boyce, if he were indeed the knave of their +hypothesis, might easily find a means to strengthen his grip of Alison. +It was better to wait and (so Mr. Hadley with a sour smile) "see which +way the cat jumped." + +Perhaps Madame Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether +infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have +waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd +enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before--remember the Scottish +lord's son--and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a +chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that +she must needs fall into the arms of any man who made eyes at her. After +all, likely enough she was but amusing herself with Mr. Boyce. Not a very +delicate business, but they were full-blooded folk, the Lambournes. +Remember old Tom, her father: there was a jolly bluff rogue. Well, if +miss was but having her fling, it would do no good to tease her. + +Thus Mr. Hadley, cautiously recoiling, doubting or hoping he was making +the best of things, brought Sir John, in spite of some boilings over, +safe back to his home and his jovial daughter. + +When Harry and his father rode away from Alison, for once in a while +Harry found his father's mood in tune with his own. Colonel Boyce +suddenly relapsed from hilarity into a perfect silence. He soon reined +his horse to a walk, and his wonted alert, soldierly bearing suffered +eclipse. He gave at the back, he was thoughtful, he was melancholy--a +very comfortable companion. + +"Pray, sir, when do we start for France?" said Harry at length. + +"What's that? Egad, you're in a hurry, ain't you? Not to-night nor yet +to-morrow. Time enough, time enough. Make the best of it, Harry." It +occurred to Harry that his father was preoccupied. + +But with that he did not concern himself. He was in too much tumult. It +appeared that he would be able to meet Alison in the morning. He did +not know whether he was glad. He had been telling himself that he would +have snatched at the excuse to fail her, and yet was not sure that if +his father had announced instant departure he would not have bidden his +father to the devil. But still in a fashion he was angry, in a degree +he was frightened. He knew that he would go meet the girl now; he could +not help himself--an exasperating state. And when he was with her--her +presence now set all his nature rioting--with other folk by, it was +hard enough to be sane; when he was alone with her in the wood, what +would the wild wench be to him before they parted? There was no love in +him. He had no tenderness for her, he did not want to cherish her, +serve her, glorify her. Only she made him mad with passion. But, +according to his private lights, he was honest, and wished to be, and +was therefore commanded to try to save the girl from his wicked will +and hers. He despised himself for the gleam of cautious duty. What in +the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round +swell of her breast? + +"Damme, Harry, a man's a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in +upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or +a trifle of power?" + +Harry stared at him. "Lord, sir, why are you so moral?" + +And then Colonel Boyce began to laugh. "I grow old, I think. Oh, the +devil, I never had regrets worse than the morning's headache for last +night's wine. I suppose if you live long enough, life's a procession of +morning headaches. Well, I vow I've not lived long enough yet, Harry." + +"I dare say you are the best judge," Harry admitted. + +"There's a higher court, eh? Who knows? Maybe we are all the toys of +chance." He shrugged. "Why then, damme, I have never been afraid to take +what I chose and wait for the bill. Dodge it, or pay it. Odso, there is +no other way for a hungry man." + +"Lord, sir, now you are philosophical! What's the matter?" + +"Humph, I suppose my stomach is weakening," said Colonel Boyce. "I don't +digest things as I did." + +In this pensive temper they came back to Tetherdown. The Colonel's +servant was waiting for him with letters, and he was seen no more that +night. Harry did not know till afterwards that Mr. Waverton, as well as +letters, was taken to the Colonel's room. + +Madame Alison was left by the exhortations of her anxious friends feeling +defiant of all the world. It is a comfortable condition, but, for a +passionate girl of twenty-two, fruitful of delusions. + +Alison was so far happier than Harry in that she knew what she wanted. +You may wonder if you will how Harry Boyce, with nothing handsome about +him but his legs, could rouse in the girl just such a wild longing as her +beauty set ablaze in him. These problems, comforting to the conceit of +man, are numerous. And, as usual, madame had dreamed her gentleman into a +wonderful fellow. The overthrow of the highwayman became from the first a +splendid achievement. Sure, Mr. Boyce must be of rare courage and +strength, even as he was deliciously adroit, and that insolent air with +which he did his devoir gave one a sweet thrill. + +Afterwards, he progressed in her imagination from victory to victory. +What served him best was his capacity for puzzling her. That its hero +should want to keep such a gallant affair secret proved him of amazing +modesty or amazing pride--perhaps both--a titillating combination. It +surprised her more that he should dare rebuff the advances of Miss +Lambourne. Madame knew very well the power of her beauty over men. If she +gave one half an inch she expected that he should be instantly mad to get +an ell of her. But here was Mr. Boyce, though she gave him a good many +inches, as supercilious about her as if he were a woman. It was +incredible that the creature had no warm blood in him. Indeed, she had +proof--she could still make herself feel the ache of his grasp in the +wood--that he was on occasion as fierce as any woman need want a man. +Why, then, monsieur must be defying her out of wanton pride. A marvellous +fellow, who dared think himself too good for her. + +She made no account of all his wise, honest talk about being poor while +she was rich. To her temper it was impossible that a man who wanted her +in his arms should stop to weigh his purse and hers, or to consider what +the world would say of him for wooing her. All that must be mere fencing, +mere mockery. + +To be sure, he fenced mighty cleverly. The smug meekness which he put on +when she attacked him before others was bewildering. If she had never +seen him in action she must have been deceived. And, faith, it seemed +certain that he wanted to deceive her, to put her off, to put her aside. +The haughty gentleman dared believe that he could be very comfortable +without Miss Lambourne. It must not be allowed. He was by far too fine a +fellow to be let go his way. Faith, it was mighty noble, this +self-sufficient power of his, capable of anything, caring for nothing, +hiding itself behind an impenetrable mask, and living a secret life of +its own. She was on fire to enter into him and take possession, and use +him for herself. + +So she was driven by a double need, knew it, and was not the least +ashamed. She longed to have Harry Boyce in her arms and his grip cruel +upon her. But also she wanted to conquer him and hold his mind at her +order. She imagined him under her direction winning all manner of fame. +And she believed herself mightily in love.... + +There is a moss on the birch trunks which makes a colour of singular +charm, a soft, delicate, grey green. A hood of that colour embraced +Alison's black hair and the glow of the dark eyes and her raspberry lips. +The cloak of the same colour she drew close about her with one gauntleted +hand, so that it confessed her shape. + +The birches could still show a few golden leaves, though each moment +another went whirling away as the crests bowed and tossed before the +wind. In the brown bracken beneath Harry Boyce stood waiting. His graces +were set off with his customary rusty black. His hat was well down upon +his bobwig, and he hunched his shoulders against the wind, making a +picture of melancholy discomfort. He rocked to and fro a little, +according to a habit of his when he was excited. + +Alison was very close to him before she stopped. + +"What have you come for?" he growled. + +She drew a breath, and then, very quietly, "For you," she said. + +"You have had enough fun with me, ma'am." + +Her breast was touching him, and he did not draw back. + +"Then why did you come?" She laughed. + +"Because I'm a fool." + +"A fool to want me?" + +"By God, yes. You know that, you slut." + +"No. You would be a fool if you didn't, you--man." + +"Be careful." Harry flushed. + +"Oh Lud, was I made to be careful?" + +He gripped her hand, and, after a moment, "Take off your hood," he +muttered. + +"Is that all?" She laughed, and let it fall from hair and neck, and +looked as though sunlight had flashed out at her. "Honest gentleman, you +are lightly satisfied." + +"So are not you, I vow." + +She was pleased to answer that with a scrap of a song: + +"Jog on, jog on the footpath way, + And merrily hent the stile-a! +A merry heart goes all the way, + A sad one tires in a mile-a." + +"Faith, yours is a mighty sad one, Harry. Pray, what are you the better +for stripping me of this?" She flirted the hood. + +"I can see those wicked colours of yours. Lord, what a fool is a man to +go mad for a show of pink and white!" + +"And is that all I am?" + +Harry shrugged. "Item--a pair of eyes that look sideways; item--a woman's +body with arms and sufficient legs." + +"Lud, it's an inventory! I'm for sale, then. Well, what's your bid?" + +"I've a shilling in my pocket ma'am and want it to buy tobacco." + +"Oh, silly, what does a man pay for a woman?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, nothing, if she's worth buying." + +Then Alison said softly, "Going--going--gone," and clapped her hands +and laughed. + +"You go beyond me at least," Harry said in a moment. + +She put her hands behind her and leaned forward till her bosom pressed +upon him lightly, and then, with her head tilted back so that he saw the +white curve from under her chin, and the line of the blue vein in it, +"You want me, Harry," she said. + +"You know that too well, by God." + +"Too well for what, sir?" + +"Too well for my peace, ma'am." He flushed. + +"His peace!" She laughed. "Oh Lud, the dear man wants peace!" + +He flung himself upon her, holding her to him as she staggered back, and +kissed her till she was gasping for breath, gripped her head to hold it +against his kisses, buried his face in the fragrance of her neck. She +gave herself, her arms still behind her, offering the swell of her +breasts to him, her eyes gay.... + +"You are mine, now. You're mine, do you hear?" he said unsteadily. + +"I want you," she smiled, and was crushed again. + +When he let her go, it was to step back and look at her, wondering and +intent. She stood something less than her full height, her bosom beating +fast. She was all flushed and smiling, but now her eyes were dim and they +met his shyly. + +"Egad, you're exalting," he said with a wry smile. + +"I feel all power when you grasp at me so--power--just power." + +"No, faith, you are not. When I hold you to me, when you yield for me, I +am all the power there is. Damme, the very life of the world." + +"So then," she looked at him through her eyelashes, "and have it so. For +it's I who give you all." + +"In effect," Harry said: and then, "go to, you make us both mad." + +"I am content." + +"Yes, and for how long?" + +She made an exclamation. "Have I worn out the poor gentleman already?" + +"Would you keep yourself for me? Will you wait?" + +"Why, what have we to wait for now?" + +"Till I am something more than this shabby usher." + +"I despise you when you talk so." Her face flamed. "Fie, what's a word +and a coat? You have lived with me in your arms. You are what I make of +you then. Is it enough, Harry, is it not enough?" + +"I'll come to your arms something better before I come again. I am off +to France." + +"Ah!" Then she studied him for a little while. "You meant to run away, +then. Oh, brave Harry! Oh, wise! Pray, are you not ashamed?" + +"Yes, shame's the only wear." + +"I'll not spare you, I vow." + +"Egad, ma'am, mercy never was a virtue of yours." + +"Is it mercy you want in a woman?" + +"I'll take what I want, not ask for it." + +"Why, now you brag! And if there is not in me what monsieur wants?" + +"So much the worse for us both. But you should have thought of +that before." + +"Faith, Harry, you take it sombrely." She made a wry mouth at him. "Pluck +up heart. I vow I'll satisfy you." + +"You'll not deny me anything you have." + +She paused a moment. "Amen, so be it. And must we never smile again?" + +"I wonder"--he took her hands; "I wonder, will you be smiling to-morrow +when I am away to France." + +"Oh, are you still set on that fancy?" She gave a contemptuous laugh. +"Prithee, Harry, shall I like you the better for waiting till you have +French lace at your neck and a frenchified air?" + +"You'll please to wait till I bring Miss Lambourne a fellow who has done +something more than snuffle over a servitor's books. I want to prove +myself, Alison." + +"You have proved yourself on me, sir. What, am I a lean wench in despair +to hunger for a snuffling servitor? If you were that, I were not for you. +But I know you better, God help me, my Lord Lucifer. Why then, take the +goods the gods provide you and say grace over me." Harry shook his head, +smiling. "Lord, it's a mule! Pray what do you look to do in France?" + +"I am pledged to my father and his policies--to go poking behind the +curtains of the war and deal with the go-betweens of princes." + +"So. You talk big. Well, I like to hear it. What is the business?" + +"My father, if you believe him, has Marlborough's secrets in his pocket +and is sent to chaffer for him. You may guess where and why. Queen Anne +hath a brother." + +Her eyes sparkled. "You like the adventure, Harry?" + +"Egad, I begin to think so." + +"I love you for that!" she cried, and it was the first time she spoke the +word. "Why then, first go with me to church and call me wife!" + +He drew in his breath. "By God, do you mean that?" + +"Why, don't you mean me honourably?" She gave an unsteady laugh, her eyes +mistily kind. + +He sprang at her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It was always in after life alleged by Mr. Hadley that his steady +interest in the family of his uncle was nothing but a desire to keep the +old gentleman out of mischief. Sir John Burford was indeed of a temper +too irascible to be safe with his bucolically English mind: a man who in +throwing tankards at his servants and challenges at his friends was a +source of continuous anxiety to his reasonable kinsfolk. But he had also +a daughter. + +She received the benevolent Mr. Hadley when on the morning after the +explosions in Alison's house he came to see whether Sir John was still +dangerous or his daughter any thinner. It was the latter purpose which he +professed to Susan Burford. She was not annoyed. In her cradle she had +been instructed that she was a jolly, fat girl, and through life she +accepted the status, like every other which was given her, with great +good humour. She was, in fact, no fatter than serves to give a tall woman +an air of genial well-being. It was conjectured by her friends that her +father, needing all his irascibility for himself, had allowed her to +inherit only his physical qualities. She had indeed the largeness of Sir +John and his open countenance. Her supreme equanimity perhaps came from +her mother. She was by a dozen years at least younger than Mr. Hadley, +and always thought him a very clever boy. + +"Sir John is gone out to the pigs, Mr. Hadley. Perhaps you'll go too," +she said, and looked innocent. + +"Well, they are peaceful company, Susan. And you're so surly." + +"I thought you would find some joke in that," said Susan, with kindly +satisfaction. + +"Damme, don't be so maternal. It's cloying to the male. Be discreet, +Susan. You will talk as though you had weaned me but a year or two, and +still wanted me at the breast." + +Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir +John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of." + +"Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and +Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You +don't know what I mean." + +"To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?" + +"Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you +think men are nought but casks--things to fill with drink and victuals. +Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and +smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and +so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I +know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, +Susan; just one of those plump, spacious dames as healthy as milk and +peaches, and blandly jolly about it." + +Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and +patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often +talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay +dinner, Mr. Hadley?" + +"Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?" + +Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you +will say. Can you?" + +"You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth +is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a +guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you +thinking, ma'am?" + +"Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here +talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for +the guinea. + +Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?" + +"Yes, indeed. You're so comical." + +Mr. Hadley surrendered the guinea, looked at his empty left sleeve and +made a wry face. "Lord, yes, I am comical enough. A lop-sided grotesque." + +"That's not fair!" He had at last made her blush. "You know well I did +not mean that. I think it makes you look--noble." + +"It makes me feel a fool," said Mr. Hadley. "Lord, Susan, one arm's not +enough to go round you." + +"So we'll kill the Elstree hog for Christmas;" that apposite +interruption came in her father's robust voice. Sir John strode rolling +in. "What, Charles! In very good time, egad. You can come with me." + +"What, sir, back to the swine? I profess Susan makes as pretty company." + +Sir John was pleased to laugh. "Ay, the wench pays for her victuals, too. +Damme, Sue, you look good enough to eat." He chucked her chin paternally. +"Well, my lad, I ha' thought over that business and I'm taking horse to +ride over to Tetherdown." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley. "And what then, sir?" + +"I'll talk to Master Geoffrey." + +"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley again. "Do it delicately." + +"Delicate be damned," said Sir John. + +"I had better ride with you," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Good boy. Here, Roger--Mr. Hadley's horse." + +Susan stood up. "Lud, sir, you will not be here to dinner then?" + +Sir John shook his head. Mr. Hadley scratched his chin. "I am not so sure +that Geoffrey will give us a dinner," said he. + +"Why, sir," Susan was interested, "what's your business with Mr. +Waverton?" + +"To tell him he's a fool, wench," quoth Sir John. + +"Oh. And will Mr. Waverton like that?" + +"Like it! Odso, he'll like it well enough if he has sense." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "That's logic, faith. Well, sir, have with you." + +So off they rode. On the way Sir John was pleased to expound to Mr. +Hadley the profound sagacity of his new plan. He would rally Geoffrey on +his flaccidity; accuse him of being an oaf; and, describing all the while +in an inflammatory manner the charms of Alison, hint that Geoffrey's +tutor had ambitions after them. "And if that don't wake up my gentleman, +he may go to the devil for me and deserve it." + +It crossed Mr. Hadley's lucid mind that a gentleman who required so much +waking up did not deserve Miss Lambourne. But she was quite capable of +discovering that for herself, if indeed she had not already. And +certainly it would do Geoffrey no harm to be made uncomfortable. So Mr. +Hadley rode on with right good will. + +But when they came to Tetherdown it was announced that Mr. Waverton had +gone riding. "Why, then we'll wait for him." Sir John strode in. The +butler looked dubious. Mr. Waverton had said nothing of when he would +come back. + +"Why the devil should he?" Sir John stretched his legs before the fire. +"He'll dine, won't he?" + +The butler bowed. + +"Prithee, William," says Mr. Hadley, "is Mr. Boyce in the house?" + +"Mr. Boyce, sir, is gone walking." + +Mr. Hadley shrugged. "Odso, away with you," Sir John waved the man off. +"Let my lady know we are here." + +The butler coughed. "My lady is in bed, Sir John." + +"What, still?" quoth Sir John, for it was close upon noon. + +"Hath been afoot, Sir John. But took to her bed half an hour since." + +"What, what? Is she ailing?" + +The butler could not say, but looked a volume of secrets, so that Sir +John swore him out of the room. + +"Vaporous old wench, Charles," Sir John snorted. And a second time Mr. +Hadley shrugged. + +In a little while the butler came back even more puffed up. Her ladyship +hoped to receive the gentlemen in half an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN HASTE + + +Oh, Harry, Harry, I give in. I am the weaker vessel. At least, I have the +shorter legs." + +"What, you're asking me to spare you already? Lord, how will you bear me +as a husband?" + +They were under the great beeches in Hampstead Lane, breasting the rise +to the heath, on their march for that kindly chapel, where, if you dined +in the tavern annexed, the incumbent would marry you for nothing, charge +but the five shillings, cost price of the Queen's licence, and ask no +questions. + +Harry shortened his stride, and looked down with grim amusement at +Alison's breathless bosom. + +"I believe you mean to make an end of me before you have begun with me," +she panted. "Lord, sir, what a figure you'll cut if you bring me to +church too faint to say, 'I will.'" + +"Why, the Levite would but take it for maiden modesty. Not knowing you." + +"You are trying to play the brute. It won't save you, Harry. I shan't be +frightened." + +"You! No, faith, it's I. I am beside myself with terror." + +"I do believe that's true!" She laughed at him. "But, oh, dear +sir, why?" + +"Lest I should not fulfil the heroical expectations of Miss Lambourne. +Confess it, ma'am; you count on me to exalt you into heavens of ecstasy, +to bewilder the world with my glories, and be shaved by breakfast-time." + +"To be sure, I'll always expect the impossible of you." + +"There it is. I suppose you expect me to begin by creating a +wedding-ring." + +"Why, you have created me." + +"Oh, no, no, no. You're a splendid iniquity, but not mine, I vow." + +"This woman of yours never lived till you made her. I profess Miss +Lambourne was ever known for a dull cold thing born 'to suckle fools and +chronicle small beer.'" + +"So she wrote me down her property. Egad, ma'am, it was very natural." + +"You know what you have made of me," Alison said. + +"God knows what you'll make of me. And now in the matter of the ring--" + +"Oh Lud, what a trivial thing is a man!" She drew off her glove and held +out a hand with two rings on it. "Marry me with which you will." One was +a plain piece of gold, paler than the common, carved into an odd device +of a snake biting its tail. + +"With thine own ring I thee wed," Harry said, and took it off. "I +take you to witness, Mrs. Alison, the snake was in your paradise +before I came." + +They were across the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane +beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a +garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the +tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked dead +and desolate. + +Harry forced open the sticking door and strode in, Madame Alison +loitering behind. He was met by a dirty lad whose gaping clothes were +half hidden by a leather apron, and whose shoes protruded straw--a lad +who smelt of the stable and small beer. + +"Where's the priest?" said Harry. + +"In the tap," said the boy, and shuffled off. + +There came out into the passage, wheezing and wiping his chops, a little +bloated man in a cassock, with his bands under his right ear. He leered +at Harry and tried to look round him at Alison. + +"You're out of season, my lord," said he. "These chill rains, they play +the mischief with lusty blood. Go to, you'll not be denied, won't you? Do +you dine here?" + +"We have no time for it." + +"What, you're hasty, ain't you?" He gave a hoarse laugh. "There's my fee +to pay then." + +"Here's a guinea to pay for all," said Harry. + +The dirty fist took it, the little red eyes peered at it closely, the +dirty mouth bit it and was satisfied. "Go you round to the chapel door +and wait. Lord, but man and wench never had to wait for me." He +waddled off. + +Harry turned upon Alison. "So with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he +said, with a crooked smile. "God give you joy of them. I vow I was never +so frightened of spending a guinea." + +"Why, d'ye doubt if I'm worth it? Nay, sir, I'm honest stuff and +challenge any trial." + +Harry looked down at her and was met by eyes as bold as his own. + +The chapel door opened, and the little priest beckoned them in. A pair of +witnesses were already posted by the altar, the dirty lad of the tavern +and a shock-headed wench. + +"Licence first, licence first." The parson bustled off to a table in a +corner. "I warrant you we do things decently in Sion. Aye, and tightly, +my pretty. Never a lawyer can undo my knots, never fear." + +He scratched laboriously over their names, while the dank smell of the +place sank into them. + +They were marched to the altar. A hoarse muttering poured from the +priest. He made no pretence of solemnity or even of meaning. He was +concerned only to make an end and have done with them. Of all the service +they heard nothing clearly but what they said themselves, and while they +were deliberate over that the little priest grunted and puffed at them. + +He ended with a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There +was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled +something for their names and shambled off. + +"Let's breathe some free air," said Harry, and laid hold of his wife. + +The parson chuckled. "Free? You'll never be free again, my lord. I can +see that in madame's eye. What, you ha' sold your birthright for a mess +of pottage, ain't you? And mighty savoury pottage, too, says you." He +rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. "Softly now, softly, madame wants +her certificate. Madame wants to warrant herself a lawful married wife, +if you don't ... There, my lady. And happy to marry you again any day at +the same price." + +They were away from him at last and in clean air stretching their legs up +the hill again. + +"Poor Harry!" Alison laughed. "Before you looked like a man fighting +for his life. Now you look like a man going to be hanged. Dear lad! +Pray how much would you give to escape me now?" She put her arm into +his. He let her shorten his stride a little, but made no other +confession of her existence. "Fie, Harry, it's over early to repent. In +all reason you should first be sure of your sin. Who knows? I may not +be deadly after all. 'Alack,' says he, 'I will not be comforted. Egad, +the world's a cheat. A fool and his folly are soon parted they told me, +and here am I tied to her till death us do part. So, a halter, gratis, +for God's sake.'" + +"You're full of other folks' nonsense, Mrs. Boyce," said Harry with a +grim look at her. + +"Oh, noble name!" She bobbed a curtsy. "Full? I am full of nothing but +fasting, aye," she sighed, and turned up her eyes--"fasting from all but +our sacrament." + +They were upon the ridge of the heath and Harry checked her, and stood +looking away over the wide prospect of mist-veiled meadow and dim blue +woods. She was beginning her mocking chatter again when he broke in +with, "Ods life, ha' done!" and turned to look deep into her eyes. +"There's mystery in this, and I think you see nothing of it." + +"Why, yes, faith. If you were no mystery, should I want you? If you had +discovered all of me, would you want me?" + +"Bah, what do we know of living, you and I, or--or of love?" + +She laughed, with a scrap of twisted song: + +"Most living is feigning. +Most loving mere folly, +Then heigho the holly, +This life is most jolly." + +He shrugged and marched her on again. + +"Pray, sir, will you dine at home?" she said demurely. + +Harry flushed. "I must go tell my father and all," he growled. "I'll be +with you soon enough, madame wife." + +"Oh brave! Dear sir, have with you. I must see Geoffrey's face." + +"Egad, let's be decent!" Harry cried. + +"Decent! For shame, sir! What's more decent than man and wife?" + +"Man and wife!" Harry echoed it with a sour laugh. "Do you feel a wife? I +never felt less of a man." + +"You shall be satisfied," she said, and looked at him gravely. "And I--I +am not afraid, Harry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DISTRESS OF A MOTHER + + +Mr. Hadley and Sir John Burford in the hall at Tetherdown looked at each +other across the fire. "Would you call for a pipe now, Charles?" says Sir +John, fidgeting. + +"There'll be none in the house, sir. Geoffrey has no stomach for +tobacco." + +"Damme, if I know what he hath a stomach for," Sir John grumbled, and +kicked at the burning logs. "He don't eat no more than an old woman, nor +drink so much as a young miss. Ain't the half-hour gone, Charles?" + +"That's a poetic phrase, sir. It means a year or so--while she's tiring +her hair." + +"What and painting her face, too? Same as Jezebel." + +My lady's waiting-woman, Arabella, came in. She minced in the manner of +her mistress, but, being a foot shorter, with different effect. She stood +before Sir John, who had the largest chair, and stared at him, with +languid insolence. "Ods my life, don't ogle me, woman," says he. + +"At your leisure, sir, if you please." She tossed her head. + +"Leisure! Oh Lord, I'm at leisure, thank 'e." + +Arabella sniffed. + +"I think you are in madame's chair, sir," Mr. Hadley explained. + +"What, then? She ain't here, nor I don't carry the plague." + +"The lady-in-waiting wants to compose it for madame." + +"Compose!" Sir John exploded an oath, and jumped up. "I ha'n't +decomposed it." + +Arabella dusted the chair, wheeled it a little this way and that, put two +footstools before it, and three cushions into it, contemplated them for +some time, and then shifted them a little. After which she minced out +with a great sigh. + +"Good God!" says Sir John. + +"I wonder," says Mr. Hadley--"I wonder if we've come to take the breeks +off a Highlander?" + +"What's your will?" Sir John gasped. + +"I wonder if my lady knows all we can tell her. It might have made her +hypochondriac." + +"Hip who? Odso, I am hipped myself." + +My lady came. She had so much flowing drapery about her that she seemed +all robes. She moved very slowly, she was bowed, and she leaned upon the +shoulder of Arabella. With care she deposited herself in the big chair. +Arabella arranged her draperies, arranged the cushion, and stood aside. +My lady lay back, put back the lace about her head, and showed them her +large pale face and sighed. "You are welcome, gentlemen," said she. "You +are vastly kind." + +"Odso, ma'am, what's the matter?" Sir John cried. + +"Why, have you not heard? Arabella, he has not heard!" My lady was +convulsed, and clutched at the maid, who comforted her with a +scent-bottle. "He has gone!" she sighed. "He has gone." + +"What the devil! Who the devil?" + +My lady recovered herself. From somewhere in her voluminous folds she +produced a letter. "If it would please you, be patient with me. My +unhappy eyes." She dabbed at them with a handful of lace, and read: + +"My lady, my mother,--I have but time for these few unkempt lines, +wherein to bid you for a while farewell. My good friend, Colonel Boyce, +has favoured me with an occasion to go see something of the warring world +beyond the sea. And I, since the inglorious leisure of the hearth irks my +blood, heartily company with him. It needs not that you indulge in tears, +save such as must fall for my absence. I seek honour. So, with a son's +kiss, I leave you, my mother. G.W." + +On which his mother's voice broke, and she wept. + +"Lord, what a fop!" said Sir John. My lady swelled in her draperies. "So +he's gone to the war, has he? Odso, I didn't think he had it in him." + +"Sir, if you jeer at my bereavement!" my lady sobbed. + +"And where's Harry Boyce?" says Mr. Hadley. + +Sir John stared at him. "Why, seeking honour too, ain't he? What's in +your head, Charles?" + +"This is rude," my lady sobbed; "this is brutal. The tutor! Oh, heaven, +what is the tutor to me? I would to God I had never seen him--him nor his +wicked father." + +Sir John tugged at Mr. Hadley's empty sleeve and drew him aside. "What +are you pointing at, Charles? D'ye mean the two rogues have took Geoffrey +off to make away with him between 'em?" + +"Lord, sir, you've a villainous imagination." Mr. Hadley grinned. "I mean +no such matter. Nay, I'll lay a guinea, Harry Boyce is not gone at all." + +"Sir John"--my lady raised herself and was shrill--"what are you +whispering there?" + +"What, what? You mean the old fellow took Geoffrey off to leave the young +fellow a clear field with Ally Lambourne? Odso, that's devilish deep, +ain't it? But we can set the young fellow packing, my lad. We--" + +"Sir John!" my lady's voice rose higher yet. + +"Coming, ma'am, coming. Od burn my heart and soul!" That last invocation +was not directed at her but an invading tumult. + +The butler entered backwards, protesting, between two men who did not +take off their hats. They were in riding-boots and cloaks, and splashed +from the road. They had pistol butts ostentatious in their side pockets, +and one carried some papers in his hand. + +"Stand back, my bully, stand back, or you'll smell Newgate," says he to +the butler. + +"Burn your impudence," Sir John roared, and strode forward. + +"In the Queen's name. Messengers of the Secretary of State, with his +warrant." The man waved his papers under Sir John's nose. "Master of the +house, are you?" + +"I am Sir John Burford of Finchley, and be hanged to you." + +"There is the mistress of the house, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley + +"Thank'e. In the Queen's name, ma'am. Warrants to take Oliver Boyce, +Colonel, and Geoffrey Waverton, Esquire." + +My lady shrieked, fell back, and was understood to be fainting. + +"You come too late, sirrah," says Mr. Hadley. "Your foxes be gone away." + +The man tapped his nose and grinned. "That won't do, sir. Set about it, +Joe," and he nudged his fellow. + +"What's the charge against them?" says Mr. Hadley. + +The man laughed. "Come, sir, you know better than that. I ain't here to +answer questions." Mr. Hadley put his hand in his pocket. The man grinned +and shook his head, and went out pushing his comrade in front of him. Mr. +Hadley followed them. As soon as they were out in the corridor and the +door was shut behind them, the man turned and held out his hand to Mr. +Hadley, who dropped into it a couple of guineas. "Lord, now, what did you +think it was?" says the messenger genially. "Treasonable +correspondence--Pretender--Lewis le Grand and so forth. Quite +gentleman-like, d'ye smoke me?" + +"Prithee, who set you on?" says Mr. Hadley. + +"Now you go too far, ecod, you do. I don't mind obliging a gentleman, +but you want to lose me my place. We'll be searching the house, by +your leave." + +Off they went, and Mr. Hadley went back to my lady. She had been revived, +and the air was heavy with scent. She fluttered her hands at the +ministering Arabella and said faintly, "What is it, Charles?" + +"It seems there's some talk of their having dealings with the Pretender." + +"Lord bless my soul," Sir John puffed. + +"The Pretender?" Lady Waverton smiled through her powder. "La, now, +Geoffrey's father always had a kindness for the young Prince." + +"I vow, ma'am, you take it with a fine spirit," says Mr. Hadley in +some surprise. + +"You'll find, Mr. Hadley, that such families as ours, the older families, +know how to bear themselves in this cause." + +Sir John stared at her and puffed the louder, and muttered very audibly, +"Here's a turnabout!" + +"Oh, ma'am, to be sure it's a well-born party," Mr. Hadley shrugged. +"D'ye give us leave to remain and see that these fellows show no +impudence?" + +"Oh, sir, you are very obliging," says my lady superciliously. + +Mr. Hadley bowed, and withdrew to the recess of a window with Sir John +following. "Here's a queer thing, Charles. Did ever you know Master +Geoffrey was a Jacobite?" Mr. Hadley shook his head. "Nor this Colonel +Boyce neither?" + +"I never saw a Jacobite in so good a coat, and I never thought Geoffrey +would risk his coat for any king. And thirdly and lastly, I never knew +Whitehall put itself out in these days whether a man was Jacobite or no. +Why, damme, they be all half Jacobites themselves, from the Queen down." + +"Aye, aye," says Sir John sagely. "A devilish queer thing indeed." + +And on that came Alison and Harry--Alison rosy and smiling, Harry a +pale and deliberate appendage. "Dear Lady Waverton, let me present +my husband." + +Lady Waverton sat up straight. Lady Waverton embraced the pair of them +with a bewildered glare. + +"I married him this morning," Alison laughed. + +"Alison, this is unmaidenly jesting," said my lady feebly. + +"Why, if it were, so it might be. But the truth is, it's unmaidenly +truth. For I am Mrs. Harry Boyce. Give me joy." + +"Joy!" my lady gasped. "It's unworthy! It's cruel! Oh, Geoffrey, +Geoffrey! How dare you?" She was again understood to faint. + +Through the rustle of Arabella and the odours of scent came the +explosions of Sir John, swearing. + +Mr. Hadley moved forward, and, ignoring Alison, addressed himself to +Harry. "Pray, sir, did you know that Mr. Waverton this morning left +Tetherdown in your father's company, your father taking him, as he says +in a letter, to the wars?" + +"Knew?" Lady Waverton chose to speak out of her swoon. "To be sure they +knew. They would not have dared else. Dear Geoffrey! A villain! And you, +miss--you whom he trusted! Oh!" She again took scent. + +"La, ma'am, he trusted me no more than I him. You are not well, I think." + +"You give me news, Mr. Hadley," Harry said. "I knew that my father meant +to go abroad, and understood that I was to go with him." + +"Perhaps you'll go after him." Mr. Hadley shrugged and turned away. + +"Why, what's all this, Harry?" Alison laughed. "Your wise father hath +chosen to take Geoffrey instead of you?" + +"In spite of my modesty, I'm surprised, ma'am," says Harry. + +"Burn your impudent face," quoth Sir John from the background. + +"Well, sir, if you were in your father's plans, maybe you'll pay your +father's debts," quoth Mr. Hadley. + +"What do I owe you, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry, bristling. + +The two messengers came back again. "Right enough, sir, gone away." The +spokesman nodded at Mr. Hadley. "We'll be riding. Trust no offence?" He +looked hopeful. + +"Here's Colonel Boyce's son, wishing to answer for his father." + +The man looked Harry up and down and chuckled. + +"Lord, and mighty like. Servant, sir," he winked at Harry. "Tell the +Colonel, sorry we missed him," He winked again and laughed. + +"What's this comedy of yours, Mr. Hadley?" says Harry. + +"Your friends have warrants to arrest your father and Mr. Waverton for +treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. But none for you, I fear, +Mr. Boyce." + +"Devil a one," the man laughed. "Come, Ned, we'll be jogging," Out +they swung. + +A bewildered company, full of suspicions, stared at one another. + +"Come, Harry, let us go home," Alison said. + +"Home!" Lady Waverton gasped with an hysterical laugh. "Hear her!" + +"My lady"--Alison made her a curtsy--"gentlemen--all the friends of Mr. +Boyce will be very welcome to me." + +Sir John swore. "You for a fool and he for a knave, damme, you're +well matched." + +"When you were younger, sir, I suppose you were less of a boor," says +Harry. "Mr. Hadley--my lady--" he made two stiff bows and gave his arm +to Alison. + +"Humph, they go off with the honours." Mr. Hadley shrugged, and held out +his arm in front of Sir John, who was plunging after them. + +"Be hanged to you. What did the rogue mean, telling me I was old?" + +"Why, he meant that a man who is too old to fight should be civil." + +"Too old?" Sir John fumed. "Burn him for a coward." + +"I think not," says Mr. Hadley. "But for the rest--God be with you. My +lady--sincerely your servant." + +My lady was now weeping. "You never loved him," she complained. "You were +never his friend," and she became speechless. + +The two men looked at each other. "Well, Charles, we'll to horse," Sir +John concluded. "Servant, ma'am." They left her in the scented embraces +of Arabella. + +To Harry as he went out came the butler, who, with something of a furtive +manner, produced and gave him a letter. Harry looked at the writing and +thrust it into his coat. Alison saw and took no notice. + +They walked on for some way before silence was broken. Then Harry said: +"Well, madame wife, so you feel you've been bit." + +"Who--I? What do you know of what I feel?" + +"Oh, I can tell hot from cold. I know when you are thinking you ought to +have thought twice. Egad, I agree with you. You've been badly bit. Here +you were told that I was just off out of the country; that you must catch +me at once if you wanted to catch me; that if you took me you would soon +have me off your hands. And now we're tied up, you find I'm not going at +all. I vow it's disheartening. But if you'll believe me, I did honestly +believe my old rogue of a father. I did think he meant to take me." + +"And now you can't be comforted because you have to stay with me. Oh, +Harry, you're a gloomy fellow to own a new wife. But why did the good man +take Geoffrey when he might have had you? I should have thought he knew a +goose when he saw one." + +"I can't tell. I never saw much meaning in the old gentleman." + +"You might as well look at his letter." + +Harry stared. "How did you know that was his?" + +"You like doing things mysteriously, the family of Boyce." + +The letter said this: + +"MR. HARRY,--I flatter myself that you will be offended. But 'tis all for +your good. When I came after you I did not know that you were so clever a +fellow. No more did I expect that I should have to like you. But since I +do, I prefer that I should do without you. And since you have some of my +wits, you may very well do without me. But I believe you will do the +better without friend Geoffrey. Therefore I take him, who will indeed do +my business much more sincerely than your worthy self. With the dear +fellow safe out of the way, I count upon you to push on bravely with Mrs. +Alison. You'll not find two such chances in one life. If you were master +of her you could promise yourself anything in decent reason you please to +want. For all your wits you are not the man to make his own way out of +nothing. So don't be haughty. Why should you? It's a mighty pretty thing, +Harry, and (trust an old fellow who hath made some use of the sex in his +day) as tender as you may hope for in an heiress. She has looked your way +already, and in her pique at the good Geoffrey deserting her, you'll find +her warmer for you. If you don't make her warm enough for wiving, you're +an oaf, which is not in my blood--nor your mother's, to be honest. Nor if +I was young again and played your hand, I wouldn't let her grow cold when +I had her safe.... So be a man, and I give you my blessing. + +"O. BOYCE" + +Harry held it out to Alison. "We're a noble family--the family of +Boyce," said he. + +But Alison read it without a blush or a sneer, and when she gave it back +she was laughing. "Oh, he's more cunning than any beast of the field! Oh, +he knows the world! Poor, dear fellow." + +"Oh Lud, yes, he's a fool for his wisdom. But he's my father." + +"Well, sir?" Harry scowled at the ground. "Oh, what does he matter? +Harry, what does anything matter to-day--or to-morrow, or to-morrow's +to-morrow?" + +"I had no guess of all this." Harry crushed the paper. "You +believe that?" + +"Oh, silly, silly." + +"You're still content?" + +"Not yet," Alison said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SPECTATORS OF PARADISE + + +In the old house on the hill Mrs. Weston sat alone. She was looking out +of the oriel window at a garden of wintry emptiness and wind swept. The +westerly gale roared and moaned, the heavy earth was sodden and beaten +into hollows and pools through which broke tiny pale points of snowdrops. +Away beyond the first terrace of lawn the roses bowed and tossed wild +arms. A silvery gleam of sunlight fell on the turf, glistened, and was +gone. Mrs. Weston sat with her hands in her lap and her needle at rest in +a half-worked piece of linen. A veil of languor had fallen upon the +wistfulness of her face. Her bosom hardly stirred. The sound of the +opening door broke her dream, and she picked up her work and began to sew +eagerly. It was Susan Burford who came in, royally neat in her +riding-habit, for all the storm. She walked in her leisurely, spacious +fashion to Mrs. Weston, who started and stood up, laughing nervously. +"Indeed Alison will be pleased. You are kind. I know she has been longing +to see you." + +Susan laughed and, a large young goddess of health, stooped to kiss the +worn face. "You always talk about somebody else. Are you pleased?" + +"My dear!" Mrs. Weston protested. "You know I am." + +"We match very well. You never want to talk, and I never have anything to +say." Susan sat down, and for some time the only sound was from Mrs. +Weston's needle. At last, "You are still here, then," Susan said. + +"My dear! Why not, indeed?" + +"Oh. But you would always stay by Alison if she needed you." + +"Why, she never has needed me. And now less than ever." + +"Oh." Susan considered that. "And is he kind to you?" + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Indeed he has been very good to me." + +"That is all I wanted to ask you," said Susan, and again there was +silence. + +After a little while Mrs. Weston dropped her sewing and looked anxiously +at Susan. "Have you ever seen him?" + +"Only his back. He used to keep in the corners at Tetherdown." + +"I suppose people--talk about him." + +"I don't listen," said Susan, "People are always in such a hurry. I +can't keep up." + +"I suppose you think Alison was in a great hurry." + +"Only Alison knows about that." + +"Yes." Mrs. Weston looked at her with affectionate admiration, as though +she had been endowed with rare understanding of the human heart. "Do you +know you are the only one of the people Alison liked who has come +here--since?" + +"Oh." (Susan's favourite eloquent reply.) "I don't mind about people." + +"He doesn't mind at all. She doesn't mind yet." + +"What is that you are working?" said Susan. + +"But indeed they are most perfectly happy," said Mrs. Weston, in a hurry. + +"Is it for a tucker?" said Susan. + +In a greater hurry, Mrs. Weston began to explain. She was still at it +when Alison and Harry came back. + +They too had been riding. The storm had granted Alison none of Susan's +majestic neatness. She looked a wild creature of the hills, her wet habit +clinging about her, black ringlets broken loose curling about her, brown +eyes fierce with life, and all the dainty colours of her face very clear +and bright. She saw Susan and cried out, "Oh, my child, I love you." + +Susan rose leisurely to her majestic height and smiled down upon her. "I +think you are the loveliest thing that ever was made," said she. Alison +laughed, and they kissed. + +"I am quite of your mind, ma'am," said Harry. "Or I was," he made Susan a +bow, "till this moment." + +"I was going to ask her if she was happy, sir," Susan said. "I shan't ask +her." She held out her hand. + +"But I want you to ask me a thousand things." Alison put an arm round +her, "Come away, come. At least I am going to tell you"--she shot a +wicked glance at Harry--"everything." Off they went. + +"What's this mean, ma'am?" Harry stood over Mrs. Weston. "Is our wise +Sir John sending to spy out the land?" + +"I wish you would not talk so." Mrs. Weston shivered. "It is like your +father. Oh, sure, you have no need to be suspicious of every one." + +"Suspicious? Faith, I don't trouble myself." Harry laughed. "All the +world may go hang for me. But you'll not expect me to believe in it." + +"I think you need fear no one's ill will. You are fortunate enough now." + +"Miraculously beyond my deserts, ma'am. As you say. But there's the +wisdom of twenty years' shabbiness in me. And I wonder if the good Sir +John wants to be meddling." + +"You need not be shabby now." + +"Lord, I bear him no malice. For he can do nought. Only I would not have +him plague Alison." + +At last Mrs. Weston smiled upon him. "Aye, you are very careful of her." + +"I vow I would not so insult her." Harry laughed. + +"But you need not be afraid. Susan is here for herself. She is like that. +She is the most independent woman ever I knew. She has come because she +loves Alison." + +"Why, then, I love her. And egad it will be easy. She's a splendid +piece." + +Mrs. Weston gave him an anxious glance. "She is very loyal," said she, +with some emphasis. + +"It's a virtue. To be sure it's a virtue of the stupid." Harry cocked a +teasing eye at her. "And I--well, ma'am, you wouldn't call me stupid." + +"I don't think it clever to jeer at what's good--and true--and noble." + +"Egad, ma'am, you are very parental!" Harry grinned. "You will be talking +to me like a mother--and a stern mother, I protest." + +"Am I stern?" Mrs. Weston looked at him with eyes penitent and tender. + +"Only to yourself, I think. Lud, ma'am, why take me to heart?" + +"What now, Harry?" Alison and Susan close linked came back again. "Whose +heart are you taking?" + +"Why, madame's," said Harry, with a flourish. "You see, ma'am," he turned +to Susan, "I've a gift for making folks cry." + +"Oh. Like an onion," says she, in her slow, grave fashion. + +"Susan dear! How perfect," Alison laughed. "Now I know why I am growing +tired of him. A little, you know, was piquant. But a whole onion to +myself--God help us!" + +"Yet your onion goes well with a goose," Harry said. + +"Alack, Harry, but there's nothing sage about you and me." + +"Oh, fie! See there she sits, our domestic sage"--he waved at Mrs. +Weston. + +"To be sure we couldn't do without her." Alison caressed the grey hair. + +"I must be riding, Alison," Susan said. + +Alison began to protest affectionate hospitality. Harry shook his head. +"I have warned you of this, Alison. We are too conjugal. It embarasses +the polite." + +"I am not embarassed," said Susan, with her placid gravity. "I want to +come again." + +"By the fifth or sixth time, ma'am, I may feel that I am forgiven." + +"I have nothing to forgive you, Mr. Boyce." + +"Then you can do it the more heartily." Harry smiled and held out his +hand. + +"Oh." There was a faint shadow of a blush. "I did not think I should like +you." She turned. "I beg your pardon, Alison." + +"I beg, ma'am, you'll come teach my wife to be kind. She also is frank. +But for kindness--well, we are all sinners." + +"There it is, Mr. Boyce," said Susan, holding out her hand. + +And when she was gone. "Now, why did I not marry her first?" said Harry +pensively. + +"Because she would never have married you, child. Being of those who like +the man to ask." + +As Susan rode down the north slope of the hill, she was met by Mr. +Hadley, gaunt upon a white horse, like death in the Revelation. The +comparison did not occur to Susan, who had a fresh mind, but she did +think white unbecoming to Mr. Hadley, and said, gurgling, "Where did you +find that horse? Or why did you find it?" + +"He was a bad debt. But he has a great soul. And don't prevaricate, +Susan. Where have you been?" Mr. Hadley bent his sardonic brows. + +"To gossip with Alison." + +"Odso, I guessed you would turn traitor." + +"No. I haven't turned at all, Mr. Hadley." + +"She has declared war on us. Your dear father fizzes and fumes like a +grenade all day. And you go gossip with her. It's flat treason, miss. +Come, did you tell Sir John you were going?" + +"No. But he would guess. He is so clever about me. Like you." + +"Humph. If he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I +suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and +what did you see in Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I suppose you are scolding me," said Susan placidly. + +"With all my heart." + +"Oh. Why do you ride that horse?" + +"Damme, miss, don't wriggle. You had no business at Highgate!" + +"He looks as if he had the gout." + +Mr. Hadley grinned. "But as you went, let's hear what you saw." + +"I always loved Alison." + +"Your business is to love your father, Susan--till some other man +asks you." + +"I love her better now. She is so happy." + +"Damn her impudence," said Mr. Hadley. + +"Why did you lose your temper with her?" + +"I never lose my temper with any one but you." + +"Well. You made my father lose his." + +"Ods life, Susan, don't you know it's a man's right to tell women how +they ought to live? Dear Alison wouldn't listen." + +Susan laughed. "She has made you look very foolish." + +"If she has I'll forgive her." + +"Oh. You do then," said Susan. + +"On your honour, miss, what did you think of Mr. Harry Boyce?" + +"I wondered Alison should love him." + +"Ods life, yes. But what's this you're saying?" + +"He is so quiet and simple." + +"Simple! Damme, the fellow's an incarnate mask." + +"Oh. I think I know all about him. I never thought I knew all about +Alison. She wants so much." + +"And she hasn't got all she wants, eh?" + +"Yes, I believe," said Susan, after a moment. + +"Pray God you're right." + +"Oh. I like to hear you say that. You have been so"--for once her placid +words stumbled--"so sordid about this." + +"Damme, Susan, don't be a saint." Mr. Hadley grinned. "They die virgins." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. BOYCE + + +It was a time of wild plots. The long war of Marlborough had left England +impregnably triumphant, and France ambitious of nothing but peace. No +fear remained that foreign arms would carry James, the Pretender by right +divine, to his sister's throne. Who should reign when Anne's growing +weakness ended in death was for England alone to decide, and English law +gave the succession to Prince George of Hanover. But there was a party, +or at least the leaders of a party, who saw more profit to themselves in +importing the Pretender. + +Harley and Bolingbroke, they had thrust out of the Queen's confidence and +the government the friends of Hanover. They had undermined the authority +of Marlborough at home and abroad, and were now ready, honourably or +dishonourably, to put an end to the war which made him necessary. If he +were dispatched into ignominy or exile, there could be no one strong +enough, they believed, to prevent them driving England the way they +chose. What that way would be no one clearly knew, themselves, perhaps, +least of all. But together and singly they set going many strange secret +schemes which were to make a new king, a new England, and new +magnificence for themselves, singly or together. All which the mass of +England watched with shrewd, incurious eyes. It could not long be a +secret that plots were afoot. To shoulder out of power all who were +committed friends of the lawful order was a confession of designs against +it. As if that were not enough, Bolingbroke and Harley so managed their +business that everything they did was wrapped in a mist of trickery and +intrigue. And yet, though they were vastly mysterious over what could +have borne the light without much shame, they contrived to let the agents +of their deeper treachery blunder into notice and fill the air with +rumours of untimely truth. Still England gave no sign. + +"Under which King"--Hanoverian or Pretender--perhaps there were few in +England who cared. If the Pretender was bred French and a Papist, Prince +George was a German born. Some of those who had joined heartily in +driving out his father began to put it about that the son would be a +better king for that lesson. George of Hanover had the right of law, but +the Parliament of to-morrow might undo what the Parliament of yesterday +had done. Who could be ardent for the right of an unknown foreigner over +England? And few were ardent, but there were many who, caring nothing for +Pretender or Hanoverian, had a solid resolution that England should not +be torn in the cause of either. Whatever was done, must be done quietly +and in good order. Since it seemed that the Hanoverian had no need to +change anything in law or State or Church, best that he should be king. +As for the devious politics, the tricks, and the mystery of Harley and +Bolingbroke, they were of no account to plain men. + +There was yet another party not content to watch and wait till the +plotters lost themselves in their own mysteries. The men whom Harley and +Bolingbroke had driven from power had no mind to submit to impotence. +They well knew what they wanted: the Hanoverian, the lawful, limited king +upon the throne and themselves as his ministers. They were not delicate +about the means they used. Since there were treason and plots, they too +turned their hands to plotting and with a vigour and ruthless resolution +of which the other camp was innocent. + +So the wise and eminent were busy while Harry Boyce and his Alison made +trial of their marriage. Harry lived in a dream of bewildered happiness. +He had counted on nothing but the need of his passion, hoped for nothing +but its ecstasy in her beauty, and at its wildest the strain of gloom in +him had bade him dread what lay beyond. She gave him a miracle of mad +delight. A new force of life was born in him while he enjoyed her joy. It +was a discovery of intoxicating power that he could wake that rare, +consummate creature to such eager exultation as his own. In those +wonderful hours it seemed that they passed out of themselves into a world +where every part of their being was one and in the happiness of unbounded +strength. So passion and she kept faith with him and something more. But +the miracle of passion in her arms had less enchantment than the joy of +the quiet hours. It was with this that she bewildered him. Before she +yielded to him, he would have jeered at the hope that she might bring the +gift of peace in her bosom. As the first days of marriage passed he +learnt that all his placid loneliness had been the mere endurance of +hunger. He had stayed himself with the husk of life. She satisfied him +with the fruit. For she too could be calm, delighting in the little daily +things, utterly happy with nonsense. To share all that with her was to +find in it a strange, lulling enchantment of content. + +His fortune seemed too good to be real. For he possessed all that ever +fancy had pretended was worth coveting: his life was a perfect happiness. +No doubts from within, no troubles from without, had power to assail him. +All the old, reasonable, practical fears were become ludicrous cowardice, +only remembered for Alison to tease with. As for other people, and what +they said and thought and did, some folks were kind and were welcome, no +folks were of account. He and she deliciously sufficed themselves. And +there was no dread of change, save in age and death, infinitely distant +and insignificant--no matter but to glorify the power of life. Sometimes +he was aware that the wonder of passion must grow faint and fail, but he +saw nothing which could take from him the quiet, exquisite, daily joys. +Was it real, or a charmed dream, this perfect fortune of content? Indeed, +nothing was real in those days but the delight in being with her. + +Alison had her share. He did not deceive himself. She had her ecstasies +and her exultations, she thought herself even madder than he was. And in +these days, perhaps, her passion was deeper and stronger than his. She +was satisfied, she felt herself accomplished, and gloried in her new +power with a more profound, a more secret delight than his. She had given +him eagerly all that she had, and in the giving found herself more than +ever her own. For all the union, the deepest, truest self in her stood +aloof in a mystery. It was not of her will, for she desired to deny him +nothing. She did not reckon him weak in failing to take all of her. This +must needs be the way of life. No man's passion could be stronger than +his. Doubtless he too had his secret soul apart. And indeed it was +glorious not to lose self in love, to stay always, through the ecstasies, +aloof, to give always anew of will and choice--never to merge helpless in +some unknown double being and become only half a body, half a soul, +capitulating always to the rest, to the other. + +This self-glorious pride of hers gave her for a while that zest in all +the trivial common things which made her a companion so delightful to +Harry's temper. But she enjoyed them in a spirit different from his. All +the bread-and-butter business of living was to him delightful in itself +and for itself. He was born to want no better bread than is made of +wheat. She played with it, made a dainty mock of it, amused herself with +it, and at the back of her mind despised it. + +So they lived, and you imagine Mrs. Weston's dim, wistful eyes watching +them with a great tenderness. For she understood them no better than +they themselves. + +It was Alison who first grew tired. Not of love or passion, but of the +trivialities and the quiet life at Highgate. She had ambitions, or +thought she had. It had been just rediscovered that women could be +leaders in the world--at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. +Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the +warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given +Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It +was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his +enemies the government of England. It was a woman--another duchess--who +beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some humour, of +imagining Harry Boyce a Marlborough. But he did believe him able to make +a noise in the world, and coveted much the sensation of owning him while +the world listened. She did not see herself controlling queens and kings +and parties, but she was well aware of her beauty and its power, and had +a mind to use it widely. She was hungry for excitement. + +So Mrs. Alison determined to set her man upon a larger, busier stage. The +decree went forth that old Tom Lambourne's house in the Lincoln's Inn +Fields was again to be inhabited. Harry was asked for his advice +afterwards. Perhaps he would have been wiser if he had begun their first +quarrel then. But he was enjoying her too much to deny her her ways or +her whims, and he only laughed at her. He was not pleased, to be sure. He +had a taste, which cannot have come from his father, for copse and +field. He never found anything in the town which was worth the living in +other folk's smoke. He disliked crowds and in particular crowds of fine +ladies and gentlemen. So with some horror he saw before him a vista of +polite splendours, and said so. + +"Oh Lud, sir," says she, "if I had wanted to sleep my life away I should +not have married you. And if you wanted to sleep out yours you should not +have married me." + +"I was born for innocence and green fields. You'll make me a bull in a +china shop." + +"I'll love you the better, child. Faith, Harry, I would be very glad to +have you break something." + +"Madame's heart, _par exemple_?" + +"That would be an adventure." + +So you find them arrived in the Lincoln's Inn Fields as the first step +to the conquest of the world. The world was not as excited as Alison +thought fit. Her father, old Tom Lambourne, had commanded reverence in +the City and some respect even as far west as St. James's by sheer +weight of wealth. A rare capacity for living hard had won him an army of +diverse friends. But neither his business nor his pleasures provided him +with many who could be bequeathed to his daughter. Her mother, born a +baker's daughter in Shoe Lane, having died in giving Alison birth, had +left her nothing besides her admirable body but some grumbling objects +of charity. It remained for Alison to make her own way in the world of +fine ladies and gentlemen. Since she was by certain fame an heiress of +great possessions, her way might have been easy if she had not found +herself a husband. The taint of the city, if she had borne herself +humbly, need not have made her quite intolerable to people of birth. But +since her money was already married she could only be reckoned as a city +goodwife; pretty enough, indeed, to be game for fine gentlemen, but to +fine ladies a nobody. + +Folks were slow in coming to the grand house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; +slower still, if they had houses of elegance, to ask Mrs. Alison back. It +suited Harry very well. He would, as his wife complained, go mooning +across the fields to Islington almost as happily as through the woods at +Highgate. His books had almost as good a savour in town as in the +country. When she dragged him to hear Nicolini or Wilks or the +Bracegirdle, he could console himself by gentle jeering over the fact +that in a playhouse where everybody knew everybody not a creature had a +bow for him or her. Of course she smarted. Day by day he chose to affect +astonishment over her failures, believing with infatuated content that he +was slowly driving her back to the country and sanity, though he was but +driving her away from him. And she, choosing to feel humiliated, blamed +him for the shame of it. + +"Why, child," says he in his supercilious way, "'tis not failing to be in +the _beau monde_ that's ridiculous, but wanting to be." + +To such monitions she began not to answer back--a symptom very dangerous. + +She set up a basset table. That, if anything could, must proclaim her a +woman of fashion--a woman, indeed, who had a fancy to be a trifle +daring. There's no doubt that Alison about this time and afterwards did +want to dabble in danger. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. +She encouraged high play. For herself, she enjoyed the excitement of it, +having no need to care if she lost. She wanted to have about her people +who affected heavy stakes, believing in the innocence of her heart that +they were exhilarating company. So she made for herself a queer society, +which Harry to her angry disgust defined as a mixture of sheep and +wolves. There were good wives and lads from the city anxious to make a +jingling show with the funds of the family counting-house, there were +hungry beaux and madames from the other end of the town seeking their +fortune impudently wherever it might be found. + +To one of these happy parties there was introduced a Mrs. Boyce. She +was a faded, handsome creature much jewelled about lean shoulders. +Alison, who hardly heard her name in the rout, took no account of it +and little of her. But on the next day this Mrs. Boyce came early and +caught Alison alone. + +She began with such a fuss about apologizing for her earliness that +Alison set her down for an ill-bred, tiresome creature. She had a high +voice which, like the rest of her, was a trifle faded. "I protest, ma'am, +I have long desired to know you better." Alison languidly muttered +something civil. "Let me make myself known first, I beg. I am the niece +of Sir Gilbert Heathcote." + +Alison, of course, had heard of Sir Gilly--one of the chiefs of high +finance--but cared nothing about him. "I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I was +only born Thomas Lambourne's daughter." + +"There is no need; ma'am." A long, lean hand was waved. "I wonder if we +are in some fashion connected. We are both called Mrs. Boyce. The Boyces +of Oxfordshire, ma'am?" + +Alison's laugh had something of a sneer in it, "Of nowhere that I know, +ma'am. My husband is Mr. Harry Boyce, son of Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +The lady fluttered her fan, settled herself afresh in her chair, +rearranged her close-fitting lips. Alison was reminded of a hen preening +itself. "I had heard so, ma'am. And my husband is Colonel Oliver Boyce." + +"La, ma'am, do you mean the same?" Alison cried. + +Mrs. Oliver Boyce gave a lifeless smile. "That is why I did myself the +honour of giving you my confidence, ma'am. I think there are not two +Colonel Oliver Boyces. The younger son of one of the Oxfordshire family." + +"Oh Lud, how should I know? I never looked into the grandfathers." + +"No, ma'am?" The tone was patronizing contempt. "You might have been the +wiser of it. Colonel Oliver Boyce--he has taken the title lately--when I +knew him he was something in the service of the Duke of Marlborough. Oh, +a fine man to the eye, ma'am, and very splendid in his talk." + +"Why, that's his likeness," Alison laughed. "And what then, ma'am? Have +you come seeking the Colonel? He is the Lord knows where. Or is +it--faith, you don't tell me Harry is your son?" + +"No, ma'am. At least I was spared bearing children." + +"Oh--why, give you joy if you would have it so. But how can I serve you? +Maybe your Colonel is not my Colonel after all. At least he and Harry are +father and son heartily enough." + +"It may be so, ma'am," said the lady heavily, and here Harry came in. + +Alison looked up laughing and then frowned. Harry would not ever dress +fine. His wig was still unfashionably small, he wore some sombre stuff, +and to her eye (as she said) looked like a mole. "Here's Mr. Boyce, +ma'am. Harry, Mrs. Oliver Boyce, who is come to say that you never had +father nor mother." + +"Your obliged servant, ma'am." Harry opened his eyes. "Pray, has my +father married again?" + +"You'll find, sir, that Colonel Boyce has only been married once." + +"If you please, ma'am," said Harry blandly. "Pray, are you blaming him? +Or--" a gesture expressed his complete ignorance of what she was doing. + +The lady seemed to force herself to laugh. "Oh, fie, sir. Sure it is not +for me to blame him." + +"No, ma'am?" Harry was first interrogative then acquiescent. "No, ma'am. +I wonder if you could give me the Colonel's direction." + +"I, sir? You are pleased to amuse yourself." + +"I vow, ma'am, I was never less amused." + +"Colonel Boyce was pleased to leave me five years ago. I have not +forgotten it, if you have." + +"Faith, this is very distressing," Harry protested in bewilderment. "But +you do me injustice, ma'am. I have forgotten nothing about my father. For +I never knew anything." + +"As you please, sir," the lady drawled. "I was talking, by your leave, to +Mrs. Boyce." + +"Oh, ma'am, a hundred pardons," Harry took himself off in a hurry. His +chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she +wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's +deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As +for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps +he was not far wrong. + +Alison too was much of the same opinion, but it was unfortunately +hampered by a natural curiosity to hear what the lady could tell +about the mystery of Harry and his father. "You had something to say +to me, ma'am?" + +"I count it my duty, ma'am, to give you warning of Colonel Boyce." + +Alison stood up. "Duty? I know nothing of your duty, ma'am. But I think +it is mine not to listen to you." + +"I protest, I should have said the same," the lady drawled. "I too had +spirit once, child. That was before I suffered. I would I had known you +earlier. And yet perhaps I may do something to save you even now." + +"I cannot tell how, ma'am." + +"Listen, if you please!" the lady said dramatically. "I was something of +an heiress as you are and maybe something of a toast too. The worse for +me. I choose to believe it was not only my money which brought Oliver +Boyce upon me. He took all I could give him and very soon gave me +nothing, not even common courtesy. When I began to be careful he began to +be brutal. But for my family--I told you that Sir Gilbert Heathcote was +my uncle--he would have stripped me of every penny. When they stepped in +to save me some rag of my fortune, my good Mr. Boyce left me. I have +never had a word from him since. Pray, child, take warning." + +"If it is so, I am sorry for it," said Alison coldly, "I believe I hear +company." She began to walk to the outer room. + +Behind her, "As for your Harry Boyce," said the lady, "oh, I make no +doubt he's Oliver's son, though certainly he is none of mine." + +Alison made as if she did not hear, and she was spared more by the coming +of some of her guests. The card tables filled. There was no more danger +of being private with Mrs. Oliver Boyce. Indeed, the lady, as if she had +done all she wanted, took her leave early. She was affectionate about it, +for which Alison liked her none the better. Through most of that evening, +amid the flutter of cards and the clatter--"Spadillio, on my life! What, +it's Basto, is it? Did you hear of Mrs. Prue? She'll not show for a +month. We win the Codille, ma'am. They say the Duchess and she pulled +caps"--Alison was telling herself over and over that the creature was a +detestable low thing who only wanted to make mischief. It should, you +think, have needed no effort to believe that. But the obvious malice had +power to annoy a mind already discontented. Alison could not stop +wondering what the mystery was about Harry's birth and his father. +Perhaps Harry knew more than the little he professed. Perhaps he was not +the careless, indolent fellow he chose to seem, but something more +cunning and less lofty. What if he were just such another as the woman +painted his father--a fellow on the hunt for an heiress, who, once he had +her and her money, cared no more about her? To be sure there was some +evidence for that. Since they had come to town, he was always off by +himself. If she wanted him with her, she had to plead and plague him. A +proud office! Why, that very night monsieur did not please to appear at +the card tables. He was too fine for her and her company. So she fretted +and rubbed the poison in. And naturally, she fared ill at the card table. +Her cards were bad and she made the worst of them. She was not a good +loser and it was a wife much inflamed who, when her guests were gone, +sought out her husband. + +Harry sat with Mrs. Weston, who was at needlework and, if Alison had been +able to see, looked very benign. But it was he who demanded all the +wife's angry eyes. His wig was on the table beside him. He had a pipe in +his mouth. He was lolling in the deeps of a chair and smiling to himself +over a book. "You might be in an ale-house, you look so slovenly." + +Harry grinned up at her. "Oh, madame wife hasn't been winning to-night. +Tell me all about it." + +"Faugh! Your pipe," Alison coughed. "For God's sake keep it to the +tavern. It's enough that you reek of it without making my house +reek too." + +Harry gave a great sigh and put the pipe down. "We were so comfortable +till you came. I am glad to see you, dear." + +"I was comfortable till you came." Alison snapped. + +"Pray, mother Weston," says Harry, "forgive our public caresses. We have +not long been married." + +Alison looked ice at him. "Weston dear, would you leave us? I have +something to say to Harry." Harry opened his eyes. Mrs. Weston looked at +her anxiously, bade them a nervous good-night, and hurried out. + +"Harry--who was your mother?" Alison stood stern over the lolling +husband. + +"Egad, what's this? Have you been brooding over your bony friend? +Who is she?" + +"She says she is your father's wife; and says he left her." + +"Well, if she is his wife, I wager he did leave her. Faith, she was made +to be deserted." + +"What do you know of her?" + +"Nothing, by the grace of God. Why should I? If my father got drunk and +married her, he would not want to talk about it when he was sober." + +"I despise you when you talk so," Alison cried. + +"And yet you listened to her, child." + +"She says that he took all her money before he left her." + +"Oh! Pray, why has she so much to say, and to you?" + +"She wanted to warn me against Colonel Boyce." + +"And against his son, I think. And you were so kind as to listen. Egad, +ma'am, I am obliged to you. Well, now you know what to do. You have the +money and I have none. Pray, lock up your purse to-night." + +"You are childish," said Alison with lofty scorn. "Harry--who was +your mother?" + +"Oh, I thought your kind friend told you I had none. I dare say it's as +true as the rest." + +"You don't know?" + +"I never saw her." + +"She said--" Alison hesitated. + +"Oh Lud, don't be squeamish now." + +"She said your father had never been married except to her." + +"Odso! That is what you had to tell me. I am a bastard, am I?" He laughed +and turned in his chair. "Give you good-night, madame wife." + +"Harry--" + +"Oh, God save you!" He took up his pipe. "I am no company for you. And, +by God, you are no company for me." + +She looked at him a moment, hesitated, went slowly out. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE AFFAIR OF SIR GEORGE + + +The irruption of Mrs. Oliver Boyce could not easily have been foretold. +That the past life of Colonel Boyce was likely to throw shadows over his +son Harry might have considered, but the nature of the lady and her care +and the successful opportunity of her malice were hardly to be +calculated. There is less excuse for him in the affair of Sir George +Anville. Given the conditions of that hasty marriage and the state into +which it had brought them and the society about them, some Sir George or +other was a natural consequence. + +The ugly quarrel which Mrs. Oliver Boyce had made for them was never +composed. When they met again in the morning they were coldly and +haughtily civil, and so they chose to remain. Mrs. Weston, not being +blind, saw that something was amiss and tried with blundering motherly +affection to push them back into one another's arms. She hardened, as is +usual, their hostility. Each was mortally afraid of weakening, each +suspected the other at once of softness and of guile and so held aloof +and fed upon scorn. They had both enough of that pride of sex which gives +one pleasure in the sufferings of the other. And of course the quarrel +was poisoned with a sordid taint. The colder, the haughtier Harry was, +the more Alison inclined to believe that he had wanted nothing of her but +her money. The haughtier, the colder Alison was, the more Harry raged +against her for a mean creature who desired to make him feel his +dependence upon her money bags. + +In himself Sir George Anville was of no importance. If Harry had been +comfortable he could never have taken the trouble to be angry over the +man. It is certain that Alison never thought him worth any thought of +hers, still less worth one finger's surrender. And yet Sir George +contrived to be disastrous to the pair of them. + +That was not, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said of him in another matter, +altogether his fault. "The fool has excuses," quoth she, "which others +have not. He is so great a fool that you hardly believe his folly is but +folly." Sir George was a man born without impulse or capacity for +anything. Lady Mary, who was fond of using him for her wit, made a +grammarian's jest on him, "The creature's an anomaly: active in form, +passive in meaning." He was bred in a society which made it a fashion to +be vicious. He affected to follow the fashion. If vice must needs be +something active, or at least, something of the will, Sir George Anville +must escape punishment. But he was to a wholesome taste more offensive +than sinners who did more damage. It was Harry's worst blunder in the +affair that he treated Alison as if she did not feel that. + +Sir George knew no other way of passing his life than in dangling about +women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to +contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He +did--it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments--he did +know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew +Alison much resorted to her. His other accomplishment was to dress well. +He was lean and had an air of languor which was not affected, but a +natural lack of vigour. It may be believed that Alison tolerated him +because he made a not disagreeable decoration to her rooms. But at this +era she was cynical, and perhaps told herself that Sir George was as good +a man as another. + +He began to come at hours when she could be found alone and was sometimes +admitted. So Harry caught him once or twice, was ironically obsequious to +him (which Sir George took for solemn earnest), and afterwards amused +himself by congratulating Mrs. Alison on the power of her charms. "Odds +fish, I can't tell where you'll stop, ma'am. You'll have a corpse on his +knees to you yet. Maybe the corpse of a lord. I vow I'm proud of you." +Which was not likely to get the door shut on Sir George. + +So that dangling gentleman became convinced that Alison was yielding to +his embraces. He was, in a limp way, gratified. A devilish fine woman to +be sure. She might be a trifle exhausting to a man of _ton_. But what +would you? Women were greedy and must be satisfied with what one could +spare them. And it was pleasant to see the pretty creatures pining. He +would lure madame on with a few tit-bits. In this kindly mood he went to +her on a wet April day when Alison was fretting for a wild walk or a +wilder ride in wind and rain. But even to herself she would not confess +that she was tired of the town. It would have assimilated her to Harry. + +Sir George sat himself down by Alison's side, simpered at her, sniffed, +put his thin hands on his thin knees and ogled them. Alison held out to +him a cup of tea. He arranged his rings before he took it and then again +simpered at her. After some humming and hawing, "D'ye go to the play +to-night, ma'am?" he drawled. + +"What play is it?" + +"Ah--some curst play or other," said Sir George; and exhausted by that +effort relapsed for a while into silence. + +Alison did not help him out. It is possible that she was wondering how a +creature so vapid could go on existing. She looked Sir George over with +an odd, close inspection. Sir George, who had some perceptions, became +aware of it and according to his nature misunderstood it. He sniffed +again, and "Pray, ma'am, what perfume do you use?" Alison stared at him. +"I am delicate in such things," said he, and smelt his own handkerchief. + +Alison hesitated between disgust and amusement. To be sure the creature +was such a fool that it was not fair to think of him save as a buffoon. +So unfortunately she chose amusement. "Oh, I vow, Sir George, your +delicacy is rare," she laughed. + +The poor creature took it for a compliment. He leered at her: "But you +are exquisite, my Indamora." + +"Who?" + +"It's an amorous lady in a play," Sir George explained. "Pretty +creature," he patted Alison's arm, and leaned upon her to kiss her neck. + +She was so surprised that his lips had almost time to reach her. "Lord, +sir, are you mad?" she cried, as she thrust him off. + +"Pretty creature," Sir George giggled, and clung to her. + +"Your carriage is at the door, Sir George." Harry stood over them. His +face was as much a mask as ever, his voice placid. + +Alison started up and stood to face him with a lowering brow. He did not +appear to see her. Sir George shook down his ruffles. "Carriage? What +d'ye mean?" says he. "I ha' had no carriage this year. I came in a +hackney coach." + +Harry turned away from him and opened the door. + +"Eh? Oh, stap me!" Sir George giggled and got on to his feet, "Madame, +your eternally devoted." He went out with a strut, waving his scented +handkerchief in the direction of Harry. + +Then Alison spoke. Her eyes were furious. "You--oh, you boor! How +dare you?" + +"Egad, that's very good!" Harry laughed. + +She beat her foot on the floor. "Oh, you are not to be borne! To make a +noise of it! To make a scandal of me and that--that creature!" + +"To be sure, I came untimely. Well, ma'am, if you wanted to be quiet +about it, I had rather it made a noise." + +"My God!" she was white. "You dare say that to me! Be careful, Harry." + +"Pray, ma'am, no heroics." + +"I warn you, there are things I'll not bear." + +"Is it possible?" Harry sneered. + +She swept past him and away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RETURN OF MR. WAVERTON + + +It seems that, years afterwards, Harry and Alison were afflicted with a +dreary and remorseful wonder at these wars. Both, as they grew older, had +something of a turn for moralising, and in their copious letters to their +several children is evidence of much penitence and puzzling over the +disasters of their youth. Each plainly took all the blame. Each is +eloquent about the sins of pride and hardness. Harry preaches the duty of +trust; Alison the folly of easy intimacies. Both of them, in those latter +days when they could calmly estimate what they had lost, still wondered +with a gloomy scorn how they had come to let the ugly, ridiculous affair +of Sir George set them against each other. You find them both trying to +recall (or guess) what exactly it was that, in the time of crisis, they +felt and believed. + +When it was all part of their history, Harry could hardly persuade +himself that ever he had fancied Alison untrue, even disloyal; or Alison +believe that she had stormed against him for driving out of the house a +man who had been impudent to her. Yet it is not to be doubted that Harry +did let suspicions of her honesty poison him. He could not, at the worst +of his anger, believe that she would play false with such a husk of a +fop; but he told himself that she wanted to make the fellow into a +waiting gentleman, a servant, and a toy at once--a thing more nauseous +than a lover. And Alison, though at the back of her brain she was aware +that Harry had excuse for what he had done, raged the more against him +for the intolerable things he had said. His suspicions made her despise +him. For his assumption of authority she hated him. + +There were almost from the first the usual sage and kindly friends to +tell them that it was all a misunderstanding, that they had only to be +frank with each other and commonly reasonable and there would be no +quarrel left. But it is doubtful whether this sagacious advice could +have done them much good if they had taken it. "Talk things over like +rational creatures," was (as usual) the prescription. But if they had +really been rational, they would only have come to the conclusion that +they ought not to be married. The force of their passion, to be sure, +was real enough and still moved in them. To hold them together they had +nothing else. There was no consciousness of other need, no longing for a +common life, no desire to help or give. If they had been most calmly +wise and wisely calm in a dozen conversations, they would but have made +this all the clearer. + +Still it is true, as the sagacious friends guessed, that they did not +try to compose the quarrel. Each was by far too proud. Harry was +pleased to consider that he had done his duty by a flighty wife, and +would take no more account of her unless she were penitent--or provoked +him again. Alison, reckoning herself meanly insulted, was resolved that +he could never again be more than an unwelcome guest in her house. They +were, to be sure, ridiculous. In private they avoided each other. In +public they continued to meet, for each was too proud to confess to the +world the failure of their marriage. You imagine how poor Mrs. Weston +enjoyed life in an icy atmosphere, the temperature of which she was not +permitted to notice. + +Such were their relations when the final blow fell upon them. They dined +late in the Lincoln Inn Fields. It was as much as six o'clock and they +were still at table--as jovial as usual. The butler came to Alison with +an elaborate whispering. "Pray him come up," she said aloud, and looked +defiance down the table at Harry. "It is Mr. Waverton." + +"Lord, Lord, is he still alive?" Harry grinned. "That's heroic." + +"Back from France? Is Colonel Boyce come back?" Mrs. Weston cried. + +"I know nothing of Colonel Boyce," said Alison coldly. + +"You couldn't please him better," Harry laughed. "Dear Geoffrey! I wonder +if he knows anything? Well I It would be a new experience." + +Mr. Waverton came. He was more stately than ever--browner also, but not +changed otherwise. His large and handsome face affected all the old +melancholy. + +"Oh, Mr. Waverton!" Harry grinned. "You do honour me. Pray let me present +you to my poor wife." + +Geoffrey took no notice of him. "Madame, your obedient," he bowed to +Alison. "I beg leave to have some speech with you." + +"There's still some dinner. Draw up a chair," said Harry. + +"I did not come to dine, sir." + +"Oh, that's a sad stomach of yours. A glass of wine, then?" + +"I do not take wine with you, Mr. Boyce." + +"I wonder if you have made a mistake. For you have come into my house." + +"I will answer for all my mistakes, sir, with hearty goodwill." + +"Egad, you'll be busy." + +"Oh, be silent!" Alison cried. "You are welcome, Mr. Waverton. How can I +serve you?" + +"I understand the gentleman's desire to hurry me into a quarrel, ma'am. +Be sure that I shall not permit it." Harry laughed disagreeably. "It's +very well, sir. But I choose first that you should listen to what I +have to say." + +"Listen I Oh Lud, is it a poem?" + +Mr. Waverton flushed. "You are impertinent, sir. It shall not serve +you. I intend that madame shall know the truth of your father's +treachery and yours." + +Harry stood up. "Are we to stay for more of this, ma'am?" + +"I shall stay," Alison said. + +"You remark the gentleman's impatience to silence me, ma'am. I promise +you that I shall tell you nothing which he or any man can deny." + +"It's a dull tale, then," Harry muttered. + +"I think it will excite you enough, ma'am. You are advised that I went to +France with Colonel Boyce. The office which he offered me was to +negotiate with Prince James. This I undertook readily, for to his party +my family hath ever had an inclination, nay, an affection, and I saw in +the affair duties of honour and moment." + +"To the greater glory of Geoffrey, first Duke of Waverton, whom God +preserve," quoth Harry. + +"I did not, I will avow, foresee that the thing was but a trick to take +me away from my house and out of the country. Though I may regret, +ma'am"--he bowed magnificently to Alison--"I do not even now blame myself +for my blindness, for I have ever accounted it unworthy of a man of +honour to fear treachery in his servants"--he glared at Harry--"or +weakness--ah--weakness in those to whom he gives his devotion"--he made +melancholy eyes at Alison. "No more of that. In fine, I did not suspect +that a fellow who was taking wages from my hand had plotted to rob me of +what was my dearest hope, or that another--another--would surrender +herself a prey to his crafty greed." + +"Damme, it is a poem after all," Harry groaned. + +"You said you had something to tell me, sir," said Alison coldly. + +"Nay, ma'am, be patient. I give you no reproaches. But what is, is. If it +irks you that I remind you of it, do not give the blame to me." + +"I shall blame you for being tedious, by your leave." Alison yawned. + +"Wait till all's told. Well, ma'am, I left Tetherdown with Colonel +Boyce, and we rode posthaste to Newhaven. He was there joined by some +half-dozen fellows, low fellows to my eye. This much surprised me, and I +took occasion to tell him so, for he had given out that his was a very +secret errand of Marlborough's privy policy, into which he would admit +none but me. He made out that these fellows were but messengers and +escort, and I permitted myself to be satisfied, though I remarked that +he was on familiar terms with them. But that gave me little concern, for +I had from the first remarked in Colonel Boyce a coarse habit of +intimacy with the vulgar." + +"Aye, aye, you and he took to each other famously," says Harry. + +"Lud, sir, must you be so wordy?" Alison cried. + +"You will find that every word has its import, ma'am. From some of these +fellows Colonel Boyce learnt that there was a warrant out against him for +treasonable practices with the Pretender. This affected him to great +indignation, in which, as I frankly told him, I found matter for +bewilderment. Since he was, as he professed, about to deal with the +Pretender, it was but fair that the Government should arraign him on that +charge. Over which he was pleased to laugh at me, and then, to explain +his mirth, averred that the Government, and in particular Mr. Secretary +St. John, was much more Jacobite than he, and so had no title to meddle +with him. Then he said that what irked him was that they should have +heard of his dealings with France, which must be done secretly or fail. +So we went in a hurry aboard the schooner which was ready for him, and +crossed to Dieppe, landing by night beyond the town. I make no doubt from +his adroitness that Colonel Boyce hath done business in France before, +but of what kind I leave you to guess when you have heard all. We were +well furnished with horses and upon the road to Paris before noon. He +gave out to some officers which questioned him that we were of Prince +James's service upon our way to St. Germain. We rode to Pontoise, and +there, as it had been planned from the first, Colonel Boyce stayed while +I rode on to the Prince. He dared not, as he said, go himself to Paris, +for fear that some of the French officers should recognize him as +Marlborough's man and denounce him for a spy. Therefore was I to go with +letters to the Prince, and messages which should persuade him to ride out +to Pontoise and come to business with Colonel Boyce. I went on then +alone, save that Colonel Boyce gave me one of his fellows to be my guide +and servant, and he stayed with the rest at Pontoise. Thus far, I beg you +remark, I had no cause to apprehend treachery. Upon the face, the scheme +was fair enough, and all had been done even as Colonel Boyce proposed to +me in England. I will maintain myself honourably free of any blame in the +affair against any man whomsoever." + +"God bless you," said Harry heartily. + +Mr. Waverton visibly laboured with a repartee. + +"Oh, sir, a prayer from you is a rare honour," he said at length. +"You're to understand, ma'am, that I was furnished with letters of +credence from certain of the Jacobite agents in England--John Rogers and +Mrs. White, I remember. How they were come by, I cannot now tell, though +I may guess, for it is plain that there was no stint of money in the +affair. So I came easily to speech with the Prince and his secretary, my +Lord Middleton. And I will ever maintain that His Royal Highness is +altogether such as a prince should be. Being of a dark complexion and a +melancholy dignity, there is in him no lightness of thought or word. To +me he was, I profess, very flattering, showing me courtesies beyond my +rights or expectations. He received me, in a word, most favourably, and +being influenced, as I regret I cannot doubt, by my person and address, +was easily inclined to ride out to Pontoise. Only my Lord Middleton made +difficulties. He is of a sardonic turn, and permits his wit to outrun his +civility. He set me questions in a fashion which my honour could not +brook. Yet I can relate that in the end I prevailed over my Lord +Middleton's jealousy. For he said to the Prince: '_Enfin_, sir, I can +tell no reason why you should not go see this Colonel if you choose. If +there were any guile in the business, faith, they would never have +trusted it to this fellow!' + +"So the thing was agreed. In the morning we rode for Pontoise, the +Prince, my Lord Middleton, myself. His Royal Highness was pleased to +limit himself to one servant. The man with whom Colonel Boyce had +provided me went on to carry advice of our coming. We came to Pontoise +towards evening. Colonel Boyce had put up at the Lion d'Or. He was +waiting for us in the courtyard and received us, as I thought, something +shortly, hurrying us into the house. But once inside, he made ceremony +enough, with endless speeches about the condescension of His Royal +Highness. All this too obsequious, in a boorish taste, so that the Prince +bade him have done and come to business. Therewith Colonel Boyce was as +full of apologies as he had been of servilities. I vow I never heard him +so copious as that night. + +"He took us, you are to understand, to an upper room. And what first +moved my suspicion was that he bade me be gone. Then my Lord Middleton +countered him with, 'I believe, sir, the gentleman had best stay.' +Immediately Colonel Boyce was all smiles over his blunder, and we sat +down about the table in that upper room and came to the substance of his +negotiation. He kept, I'll allow, to the purposes which, from the first, +he had pretended to me: whether Prince James, if assured of support from +Marlborough and his friends, would choose to avow himself Protestant; but +he made so many conditions over it, he was so vague and wary that 'twas +hard to tell what he would be at. When my Lord Middleton tried to pin him +to something plain and certain he would ever evade, till it began to grow +late and the Prince talked of supper and bed. This Colonel Boyce took up +very heartily, and was indeed giving his orders when there came a noise +in the courtyard and he ran to the window and looked out. + +"My Lord Middleton was behind him, with a 'What's your anxiety, sir?' + +"'Why, my lord, I would not have these roysterers break upon the Prince's +incognito. Pray, sir, this way and you'll be secure'; he points to an +inner door. + +"'I believe we are as safe here, sir,' says my Lord Middleton. + +"'Egad, sir, come away,' says Colonel Boyce; and he was in fact dragging +the Prince across the room when the door bursts open and in comes a +stranger, a little man. He flung himself across the room upon Colonel +Boyce, making some play with a pistol. There was some grappling and +wrestling. I recall that they gasped and breathed hard. But it's odd, I +believe, that there was no word spoken. Then Colonel Boyce freed himself +and bolted through that inner door. The stranger fired a shot after him, +and while we were all deaf and sneezing with it and utterly amazed he +turns on us. 'That's a miss,' says he. 'Please God they'll bag him below. +Eh, Charles,' he wags his head at my Lord Middleton, 'I thought you had +more sense,' + +"'Damme,' says my lord, 'it's Hector McBean. And prithee what's all this +ruffling, Mac?' + +"'Why, you have let His Majesty walk into a stinking trap. That fellow +Boyce, he hath been Marlborough's spy, Sunderland's spy, the devil's spy +this twenty year.' + +"'Why, I thought he had something the smack of it,' says my lord. +'And yet--' + +"'Who's this now?' Captain McBean turned on me. 'Yours or his?' + +"'His ambassador in fact,' My lord looked me over and took snuff. 'You +won't tell me that hath any guile in it. Prithee, what is it you have +against the man Boyce?' + +"'Eh, did ye see him run?' says Captain McBean. 'A man's not in that +hurry if he hath a good conscience. If ye'll please to have him up, maybe +we'll hear a tale.' + +"But as he spoke there came into the room a French officer of dragoons, +who, saluting the Prince, asked Captain McBean if he had found his rogue. +On which 'Have I found him?' Captain McBean cries out, 'Eh, sir, did he +not run into your arms?' But it appeared that Colonel Boyce had not been +caught, and they determined at last that he must have made his way out by +a door at the back of the inn and won clear away. But I am sorry to tell +you, ma'am, that he hath not yet been found. For if they catch him in +France, he may count on a hanging." + +"Pray, sir, how did you dodge the rope?" Harry said. "Did you talk them +to death, your Pretender and his tail?" + +"You're too eloquent for me, Mr. Waverton," Alison yawned. "I can't tell +what you want to say. What is this mighty crime which you and Colonel +Boyce were compassing?" + +"Sneers become you ill, ma'am," says Mr. Waverton magnificently. "I +repudiate any charge whatsoever; and tell my story my own way. Some hot +words passed between Captain McBean and the Frenchman, each blaming the +other for Colonel Boyce's escape. Then Captain McBean says 'The fellows +that were drinking in the tap, I suppose you've let them dodge you too? +No? Well, that's a wonder. Tie this rogue up with them and have them in +guard.' So he mocked at me, but the Prince brought him up roundly. + +"'You go too fast for me, my good captain,' quoth he. 'What's your charge +against the gentleman?--who is to my mind a very simple gentleman.' So +His Royal Highness was pleased to honour me." + +"Egad, he was right, Waverton," Harry laughed. + +"I think I know how to value your fair words now, sir," says Mr. Waverton +grandly. "Be pleased to spare them. Upon that, as I was saying, Captain +McBean lost command of himself and was grossly violent. Roaring that I +was none the less a knave because I was so natural a fool, and the like +empty insolence. Accusing me of being art and part in a vile plot with +Colonel Boyce to kidnap and murder His Royal Highness." + +"Now we have it," Alison murmured and looked at Harry strangely. + +"Aye, ma'am. Now, perhaps (though late enough) your eyes are opened," +said Mr. Waverton with relish. "Well, I let the man run on. He was indeed +not to be stopped. A rude, vehement fellow. When he was exhausted, I +addressed His Royal Highness." + +"Lack a day, I believe you," says Harry. + +"I made it clear to him, sir, that my birth and position must warrant me +innocent of any treachery, and though I might well disdain to answer +these reckless charges I owed it to myself to remark to His Royal +Highness that, but for my desire to serve him, I had never meddled in the +affair. So that when I had done, my Lord Middleton says, laughing, 'Egad, +sir, it seems you owe this fine gentleman thanks for his kindly +condescension to you'; and the Prince was pleased to answer, 'We are too +small for his notice, faith. But is he finished yet?' Then I bowed to His +Royal Highness and sat down, well enough pleased, as you may believe. + +"But this Captain McBean called out in his rude fashion, 'Eh, sir, he may +e'en be the booby he pretends. The better decoy, I allow. But by your +leave, we'll look into it more narrowly. Would Your Majesty please to +permit me have up the other rogues?' + +"This, in a word, they did, and Captain McBean and my Lord Middleton (who +is to my mind something more of the attorney than becomes a man of rank) +questioning the fellows shrewdly, it was made put--I crave your +attention, madam--it was made out that Colonel Boyce had undertaken for +the service of the Hanoverian junto here to kidnap or kill Prince James. +And the plan was to bring the Prince out to Pontoise and so drag out +affairs that he passed the night there. Then in the night they were to +invade his room and command him to follow them. They pretended indeed +that they meant only to carry him off. But 'tis not to be doubted that +they looked for resistance and a bloody issue to the affair. So, ma'am, +here is the trade of the family of Boyce--to procure murder, and the +murder of a prince of the blood royal, of our lawful king. I give you joy +of the name you bear." + +Alison bent her head. "You may well be proud of your part, Mr. +Waverton." + +"They let you go, did they?" says Harry; "your captain and your lord and +your prince?" + +"Let me go, sir? There is nothing against me. I defy your impudence. Nay, +I thank you, I thank you. You lead me gracefully to the end of my story." + +"Good God! It has an end!" + +"When these rogues were questioned about me, not a man of them could +pretend to have anything against me. They openly confessed that Colonel +Boyce had warned them that I must be kept in innocence of the affair lest +I should thwart it. For he said that he had brought me into it to show a +good face to the Prince as one beyond suspicion of treachery. Nay and +moreover--and here's my last word to you, ma'am--he avowed that he chose +me because he wanted me out of England where I stood between his own son +and a pretty heiress. At which, as I remember, my Lord Middleton chose to +be amused." + +"Damme, I like that man," says Harry. + +"So, ma'am," Mr. Waverton tossed his head. "Here you have it. I am drawn +into a murderous, vile, base treason that I may be kept out of the way +while Mr. Boyce prosecutes his designs upon you. I give you joy of the +loyal fidelity which yielded to him. I leave you to enjoy him with what +appetite you may." + +He made a majestic bow, he turned and was gone. + +Harry and Alison were left staring at each other. + +From behind came a small strained voice: "Colonel Boyce--he--he is safe, +then?" It was Mrs. Weston. + +The two turned with a start, surprised by her existence. + +Harry laughed. "Oh aye, he is safe. He would be." + +Mrs. Weston rose slowly and then made a rush for the door. + +The husband and wife were left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HARRY IS DISMISSED + + +Alison turned and stared into the fire. Harry filled himself a glass of +port and drank it and laughed. She looked round at him. "Faith, Mr. +Waverton is mighty good entertainment," he explained. + +"Is that all you want to say?" + +Harry would not be awed by that ominous voice. "Oh Lud, how could I dare +talk after him? Our poetic orator!" He made flourishes in the air after +Mr. Waverton's manner. "Nay, but I would give my new wig to have been in +that upper chamber at Pontoise. Dear Geoffrey on his defence booming +noble periods--and the Prince, poor gentleman, with his fingers in his +ears! If dear Geoffrey was telling the truth. I wonder." + +"Oh, is that what you'll pretend?" + +"Pretend? I pretend nothing, ma'am. Why, to be sure, our Geoffrey always +means to tell the truth--having, God bless him, no imagination. But +you'll remark what when he tells a tale, it's Mr. Waverton has always the +_beau rôle_. He sees the world like that, dear lad. So I should be glad +to hear the Caledonian gentleman's notion of what happened." + +"I see. You'll make that your defence. Geoffrey imagined it all." + +"Egad, ma'am, you may lower your tone. I have nothing to defend, nor are +you set in judgment." + +Alison started up. "Do you suppose all this is to make no change?" +she cried. + +"You're a splendid creature, by heaven," says Harry, tilting his chair +back and watching her with a little epicurean smile, the proud vigour of +her, the blood in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, and the sweep of the +white arm. + +"I could hate you for that," she said, and her lips set. + +"Yes. I think you're in a fair way to it," says Harry. "I wonder if you +know why." + +"Because I have come to despise you," she cried sharply. + +"You will be solemn, will you?" says Harry. "Much good may it do you. And +so, egad, have at you heartily. For you have said things which both of us +will find it hard to forget." + +"Oh, you can feel that?" + +"Look 'e, ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each +other like a pair of puppies. Now, what's happened?" + +"You have to ask that? My God, if you have to ask, there's no use in +words between you and me." + +"Oh Lud, don't be mystical. Mr. Waverton comes here to do his poor +possible to make mischief between us. I suppose you saw that. He tells us +that he went blundering with my father into a muddle of a plot." + +"He tells us that your father planned a vile base murder and sought to +make him, a man of honour, part in it. Pray, sir, is that not infamous?" + +"Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?" + +"Yes." + +"We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell +you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find +matter for blackening me." + +Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father +would not stay to face them." + +"Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero." + +"Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was +an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you +think shameful." + +Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I +never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these +political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? +And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton +went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not +understand." + +"He went in your place. You should have gone with your father." + +"Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?" + +"Perhaps." + +Harry started up. "Oh, say it out. I knew we should go far to-night." + +They stood close, fronting each other fiercely. "My God, is it strange +if I wish you had gone? Your father is a base wretch who should be on the +gallows, and I am to be his son's wife and bear the name, and the while +he goes bragging that he took Geoffrey Waverton off so that you should be +free to come at me." + +"Aye, that. To be sure, that rankles. But you have known it long. I +showed you the letter he left me which said he had taken Geoffrey out of +my way and bade me snatch my chance of you. And you made light of that, +ma'am. Oh, it was a base thing, if you will, but you know well enough it +went for nought. We had done our work before. By God, Alison, Geoffrey +there or Geoffrey here, you would have come to me." + +"Ah!" It was like a cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, +I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were +all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I--what was I?" She +shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would +taunt me with that." + +"Egad, you're in a frenzy," says Harry. "You cry aloud and cut yourself +with knives. You will be hurting yourself." + +"I loathe you for that calm way of yours," she cried. "You mock me till +I am mad, and then you please to be grave and lofty. You--I took you out +of the gutter." + +"What now, ma'am?" Harry stiffened. + +"It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your +face--your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you +strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a +fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. +"You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would +take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I +remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst +stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. But he +knew you better. That's your trade, the highwayman, faith, the +highwayman! You trick us all and prey upon us, as you dare. So you marked +me down, who was rich and a girl, and you have caught me, and you have +rifled me, and, for what you care I may now go hang. I ask you for my +pride again, my honour, and you mock at me. Oh, I am ashamed for a fool +and worse, and you know it, God help me, but you--you--" + +Harry shrugged. "I suppose we have come to the end now," he said coolly. +"Well, ma'am, to be sure we married in haste, and it seems we have both +come to repentance. As for wrong that I have done you--why, I can't make +you a maid again, and, if you please, more's the pity. My apologies and +regrets. For the rest, all of your money that hath been spent on me will +go in a small purse, and, I promise you, you shall spend no more. So you +may sleep sound, and I wish you good night." + +She watched him cross the room, and, as he was opening the door, cried +out, "What do you mean?" + +He turned. "Why, would you still be talking?" Their eyes met in +defiance. "You can go," she said. + +"I have had the honour to tell you so," he said, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ALISON FINDS FRIENDS + + +It was on the second day after that Susan Burford and Mr. Hadley rode in +to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. They found Alison and Mrs. Weston together, +and both sewing--a fact which failed to interest Mr. Hadley, but +surprised Susan, who knew Alison, without a taste for needlework. + +"My dear," says Susan, embracing Alison physically and spiritually in her +large, buxom, genial way. + +"You have been a long time finding me," says Alison and put her off. "I +suppose I know why you kindly come to me now." + +"B-r-r-r-r!" Mr. Hadley made the sound of one who comes into a cold +draught. "The truth is, Susan has been so busy improving herself that she +has had no time for her friends. In fine, she has been trying to make +herself worthy the honour of my affections and large enough to support +the burden of my dignity. I don't say she satisfies me, but she does her +best." He propelled Susan forward with his one hand. "'A poor thing, +ma'am, but mine own.'" + +"Oh, he is amusing himself, you see," says Susan, in her leisurely +fashion. + +"Damme, Susan, you're so mighty innocent that sometimes I believe you +are innocent." + +"But you have known me so long," Susan protested. + +Alison stood up with an air of ceremony. Her pale face constrained itself +at last to smile at them. "My dear, I wish you may be very happy," says +she, and gave Susan a matronly kiss. "Mr. Hadley, you're a fortunate +man." She put out a stately hand. + +Having bowed over it. "B-r-r-r," says Mr. Hadley. + +"Damn these east winds. Susan, you're a plague with your affections. You +will have me talk about you, and I can't make you interesting, I hope, +ma'am, we find Mr. Boyce well?" + +Alison drew back. "Why do you ask that? You have seen Mr. Waverton, +of course." + +Mrs. Weston put down her work and folded her hands upon it. + +"Why, yes, I have seen Geoffrey; and what's worse, heard him. I hope he +did not plague you too long." + +"Pray, Mr. Hadley, don't be ironical. You can spare me that. Mr. Waverton +told us his story the night before last. Thereupon Mr. Boyce and I parted +company. He left my house immediately and I do not know where he is." + +Mr. Hadley distinguished himself by containing an oath. Susan said, "Oh, +my dear," in that slow, calm way which might mean anything. + +It was Mrs. Weston who cried out, "Alison, you never told me." + +"You asked once or twice where he was, and I told you I did not know. +What does it matter?" + +"You quarrelled with him?" + +"Quarrelled!" + +"Because of what this Mr. Waverton said?" + +"Do you think it could make no difference?" + +Mrs. Weston clasped her hands and swayed in her chair. + +"Alison; we had no guess of this. I am sorry. I am so sorry," Susan said. + +"There is no need." Alison held her head high. + +"If we have, in some sort, forced your confidence, I beg you believe, +ma'am, it was not meant," So Mr. Hadley in the grand style. "For I +protest it never came into my head that Geoffrey would make mischief +between you and Mr. Boyce." + +"You say that?" Alison stared at him. "Oh, you mean I was so besotted +with him." + +Mr. Hadley relapsed to his ordinary manner. "Damme, d'ye think we came +for nothing but to jeer at you? I promise you we have pleasanter matter +to hand. Neither to jeer at you, nor to meddle with you, Alison, but +friendly. So take us friendly in God's name. If you will go about to find +a sneer in every word, why, a sneer you'll find, but not of my making. We +bring you nothing but goodwill, and want nothing more of you. But if we +irk you, why, let us go and we'll see you again in good time." + +"That's a pretty speech to begin with an oath," Alison said, through the +flicker of a smile. "And, faith, I should be slow to take offence at you. +For we quarrelled before, because you were at pains to warn me. Well, +sir, I humble myself before your wisdom." + +There was a pause. "Oh. Now we are all ill at ease," says Susan. + +"Odso, ma'am, it's not fair," Mr. Hadley cried. "I am not here to say, 'I +told you so,' I am not so proud of it. Well, damme, I have no temptation +to be meddling in your affairs. But I think you will have to know. It is +with Mr. Waverton I have fallen out now." + +"With Mr. Waverton?" Alison repeated. "What is there between you and +him?" + +"I believe he had the impertinence to expect my sympathetic admiration. +While I was thinking him a low fellow. Which I took occasion to tell him. +Without result." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "But I believe he did not feel it. +It's a thick hide." + +"And what was your difference?" + +"Why, this precious story of his." + +There was some little time of silence. "You don't believe it," Alison +said slowly. "Come, you must say more than that." + +"I profess, ma'am, I have no will to say anything. Whatever I say, I'll +be impertinent." + +"Oh. Shall we mark it in you?" Susan said. + +"Well, sir, you were not always so shy of scolding me," says Alison, and +again with a faint smile. + +"Scold you! God warn us, I have no commission. I can tell you what I +thought of Waverton and his tale. Did I believe it? Ods fish, I never +remember believing Geoffrey. If he had to tell you two and two was four, +he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know +what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some +plot which some other fellows smoked. Maybe it was even such as Geoffrey +said, kidnapping and murder to follow. These plots, they grow nastier and +nastier the longer they are afoot. And Colonel Boyce--well, by your +leave, I don't think him delicate. But for the rest of it, I'll wager +that's Geoffrey's sprightly invention. You know very well, ma'am, I have +no kindness for your Mr. Boyce. But, damme, he never thought of tricking +Geoffrey out of the way to give himself a free hand with you. And it's a +low trick in Geoffrey to go about with that tale." + +"Oh! But he is stupid," Susan said. + +"What if Colonel Boyce thought of the trick?" says Alison. + +"Egad, Mr. Boyce is unfortunate in his father. Maybe he knows that as +well as we. But--damme, ma'am, you will have it--I believe there was not +much trick in his affair with you." + +"I believe you once warned me of his tricks," Alison said coldly. "It's +no matter now. I tease you with my affairs." + +"If I can serve you, I'm heartily at your command." + +"Oh, you have worked hard to make the best of a bad business. But I can +do that for myself, and I like my own way of it." + +Mr. Hadley bowed. + +"Oh! Let us go home," Susan said. + +Alison looked at her in some surprise, and, as she stood up, came quickly +to kiss her. "Have I been rude?" she whispered. + +"That would be no matter," Susan said, "You choose to be angry with me?" +Alison stiffened. + +"Oh! One isn't angry. One is sorry," Susan said. + +Alison let her go, and Mr. Hadley, ceremonious but with visible relief, +went after her. + +Then Mrs. Weston said suddenly, quickly, "Where is he?" + +"He?" Alison chose to be slow. "Mr. Boyce? I have no notion." + +"You drove him out?" + +"I could not endure him longer. Or he could endure me no longer. He went +heartily enough. I think we were both glad it was over." + +"You taunted him till he had to go?" + +"Weston, dear!" Alison laughed at the sudden fierceness of the meek. +"What's the matter?" + +"I have heard you mocking him." + +"Maybe. We both have sharp enough tongues." + +"You used to jeer at him for being poor." + +"Good lack, are you calling me to account, ma'am?" + +"Yes, you may well be ashamed! Where is he?" + +"Ashamed? What do you mean, Weston? What is the man to you?" + +"I am his mother," Mrs. Weston said. + +"You!... You! Oh, but this is mad!" + +"I am not mad." + +"But, Weston, dear, you knew nothing about him till he came; nor he of +you. How could he be your son?" + +"I had never seen him since he was a baby. I was not married." + +"That is why you would not tell me? Oh, Weston, dear!" + +"I did not mean to tell you now. I knew it would hurt him with you. But I +suppose it's no matter now. But these are my affairs, not yours." + +"My dear--" + +"You need not pity me." + +"What am I to say?" Alison held out her arms. + +"You have nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never +been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady +hands and turned away. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I am going out of your house. Away from you." + +"But, Weston--not now, not to-night. Where can you go? What can you do?" + +"I can do well enough without you, as he can.... Why don't you tell me +that I have been living on your money? You told him so often enough." + +"Oh ... you're cruel," Alison said. + +"What does it matter? You'll not be hurt. You are too hard." She hurried +to the door. + +"Ah, don't go like this," Alison cried. "Weston, let's part kindly. I +could not know. I have done nothing against you." Mrs. Weston laughed. +"Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father--is Colonel +Boyce--?" + +"Yes, there it is. That is all you want--to pry into all the story. It is +nothing to you. He is nothing to you now." + +The door closed behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Harry was not gone far. In Long Acre stood a tavern calling itself 'The +Hand of Pork.' This had always tempted Harry, whose tastes were of the +people. While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with +satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he +brought his small, battered box. + +He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. +"Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of +Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. +But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, +and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be +concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. If you +can imagine him seriously arguing over that money--a thing impossible--he +would have said that the guineas were of consequence to him and none to +Geoffrey and Alison, that whether he had dealt honestly by them or not, +it would not better his case to pay them back a few shillings. You have +seen that he had qualms of conscience over the rights of Geoffrey's +service and Alison's arms. But the ugly, awkward details gave him no +trouble. He may, if you please, have swallowed a camel or so, but he +never strained at a gnat. + +Now that he was done with Geoffrey and Alison, both, his first feeling +was comfort. It was a huge relief to be his own man again. He told +himself indeed that he was mighty grateful to Geoffrey for bringing on +the final explosion. For one thing, it wiped off all Geoffrey's score. If +Master Geoffrey had been treated shabbily, Master Geoffrey had played a +shabby trick. They could call quits--a pleasant sensation. It would have +been awkward if Geoffrey had chosen to be magnanimous nobility. But he +was never intelligent, the poor Geoffrey. + +He had done his best to be damaging, bless him, and in all ways had been +a benefactor. For, in fact, it was a great relief to be done with Alison. +What with her fretful discontent, her rages, her industrious hate, she +had made herself intolerable. I do not suppose that he forgot, even in +the heat of the divorce, the exquisite pleasure which for a while she had +given him. I think he was always ready to acknowledge that to himself, +for it is certain that he bore her no malice, and if he blamed her for +their catastrophe, blamed himself as much. He might make the most or more +of all the taunts, of her zeal to find occasions for despising him. He +forgot nothing and forgave her nothing; he wrote her down a cruel enemy. +But he did not pay her back with equal hate; he dismissed all the warfare +and the wounds with a shrug of sagacious cynicism. + +She hated him? She had the right, she was his wife. And perhaps she was +in the right too. He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her +beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was +essentially a nobody--a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. +She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have +known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a +bar-sinister or a disreputable father. Certainly Madame Alison could +plead something of a case. + +You are not to suppose Harry in an ecstasy of meek devotion. He was quite +sure that she had behaved to him very badly. He admitted no excuse for +her eagerness to hurt him as soon as she was tired of him. She might hate +him; but after all there were obligations of courtesy, of decency, of +womanhood, and her venomous temper had broken them all. He was well rid +of her. In fine, she and he could call quits as well as he and Geoffrey. +There was no occasion to rage against her. She had treated him badly, +but, first, he had brought her into an awkward mess. Faith, she ought not +to have hurried into a marriage for passion if passion was so soon to +sate her. But then, what man would blame a woman for marrying for +passion? Not the man she married, who might rather humble himself because +he had not been able to keep her passion alive. Well, it was over, and +since it was over, nothing for it but to part. God be with her! She had +given him his hour. And he--why, at least she had lived with him moments +she would not forget. A glorious woman. It is probable that in these +first hours of their parting he began to love her. + +So much for his emotions. But you will not suppose that Harry Boyce was +wholly occupied with emotions. He could not indeed afford it. He had to +make some provision for keeping alive. Perhaps you will be surprised to +hear that he had a friend or two. There was an usher at Westminster, and +a hack writer of Lintot's in Little Britain. He did not propose to live +on them, who had hardly enough to feed themselves. But he looked for them +to put him in the way of some pittance, and they did. The usher had news +that, after Ascension-Day, Westminster would be wanting a writing master, +for the man in possession hoped by then to marry the dean's cook and set +up an ale-house. The author procured a commission to write two lampoons +and a pamphlet against French wines. In the intervals of this occupation, +Harry looked for his father. + +It would be hard to guess--Harry himself could not have told--what he +hoped to gain by that. He wanted, of course, to find out the truth of the +mission to France. Whether his father was likely to tell it, he could not +make up his mind. What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, +he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father +could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined +himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. +A nightmare joke. + +Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The +first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay +him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should +have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to +oblige his enemies. It was incredible, too, that he would go long into +hiding. Away from the importance of bustle and intrigue he could not +exist. Therefore he would certainly come back to London: therefore sooner +or later he would be found at one of the coffee-houses favoured by the +brisk fellows in the underworld of politics--at Tom's, or the British, or +Diggory's by the Seven Dials. He might be heard of among the fire-eating +Jacobites of Sam's. There were not so many likely places, but Harry laid +down more pennies than he could spare at the bars, and all in vain. + +He sat in Sam's on an afternoon chopping Greek tags with a jolly, +fanatical old parson. The days were fast lengthening, and for one reason +or another--the company at Sam's were not too fond of light--only a +candle here and there was burning. A little man came in with a party very +obsequious to him. As he walked up to the bar Harry had a glimpse of a +lean, brown face. He remembered it and yet no more than faintly, and +could not tell where he had seen it. It did not much engage him, and he +went on with his Greek and his parson. The little man made some noise +with the pretty girl behind the bar, claiming the privileges of an old +friend and a good deal of liquor, and it was a little while before he was +established at a table with his party. Harry chose to mouth out something +Homeric and sounding. The little man stopped in the middle of lighting +his pipe. "I know that roll, _pardieu_!" he muttered, and in a florid +fashion declaimed, "Fol de rol de row," and laughed alcoholically. "Who's +talking Hebrew here?" + +One of his party pointed out Harry and the parson. The little man blinked +through the smoky twilight. He stood up, took his candle and lurched +across the room to Harry. Down under Harry's nose he put the candle with +a bang. Harry jerked back and glared at him, and he, rocking a little and +blinking, said thickly, "It's a filthy likeness, after all, it is." + +"No, sir, there's only one of me," said Harry. "If you see two, give God +the glory and go to bed." + +"I'm saying, bully, I'm saying," the little man's accent became more +Caledonian and he clutched at Harry's shoulder. "I'm saying, my +laddie--" + +"Damme, that's what I complain of." + +"I'm saying I do not like your complexion. It's yellow, my jo, it's a +wee rotten orange, it is so." His company, a faithful tail, shook +with laughter. + +"Sleep it off, sir," says Harry, with a shrug. + +"What's your will? Clip it off, do ye say so? Losh, you would have a face +or two to spare. Eh, but I'm doubting you know too much o' clipping. +There's clippit ears, and maybe you have a pair." He twitched Harry's bob +wig awry; and with singular luck reeled out of the reach of Harry's +answering blow. "Ay, and there's clippit shillings and maybe ye make your +filthy living by their parings and shavings. Well a well, and there's +clippit wings; and I'll clip yours, my bonny goose, the night." He +clutched at the wig again and tossed it into the fire. + +Harry sprang up and struck at him. He flung himself backwards into the +arms of his friends and with a surprising adroitness plucked out his +sword. "Have at ye, my man;" he giggled and made a pass. + +"Easy, Captain," says one of his company. "The boy hath no sword." + +"Oh ay, 'tis the Lord that's a man of war. The devil was aye for peace. +Well, what ails ye not to lend the imp a bodkin?" + +The fat old keeper of the coffee-house waddled into the midst. "Sure, +Captain, you don't mean it. I would need to set my lads upon you. 'Tis +disorderly homicide, indeed. Ye can't mean it. Not downstairs. I'll not +deny there's the elegant parlour on the first floor." + +"Ye're a canting old devil, Sam," says the little man. "But I'll oblige +you. Come up, my bully, and I'll show you a thing." + +"Here's for you, cully." One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword. + +"Oh, by your leave,"--Harry waved it oft--"I don't fight a drunken man." + +"Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to +mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school +you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. +I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. +I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give +us your staff." + +"Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I +fight the whole platoon?" + +"You're peevish, do you know, you're peevish. Here, Fraser, give him your +hanger. Do you second the bairn, Donald? Come, Patrick, I'll have you. +There's one for you and one for me, my man, and damn all favours." + +It seemed to Harry that the little man's company were something surprised +at this turn, but they took it in a disciplined silence. So the party of +four marched up the stairs. You will believe that Harry liked the +business ill enough. He shot glances at the two chosen for seconds. There +was nothing sottish about them. They were very soberly alert, they had +the tan and the vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit +comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, +they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the +affair--rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken +brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn +care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the +candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out +of his coat, asked if he needed anything, gravely advised to risk nothing +and play close. + +"We are at your service, Mr. O'Connor," says Donald. + +"At your pleasure, Mr. Mackenzie," says the other. + +Harry was set against the little man and the swords crossed. It then +occurred to him that the little man was very suddenly recovered from his +liquor. The blustering chatter had been cut off as soon as they started +up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the +unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He +had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same +manner, a correctness exact and staccato, about this sword play. + +The knave can never have been drunk, Harry said to himself as he +sweated and was the more embarrassed by bewilderment. But he dared not +let himself think. The little man was urgently dangerous, and Harry +knew enough to know it. Harry had no pretensions to science. All he +could use was the rudiments. He had kept his head at singlestick, held +his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a +point. The little man had the speed and certainty of a _maître +d'armes_. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind +numb and dazed under the strain, expecting--hoping--every moment the +thrust that would make an end. + +It did not come. The ache and fever of the fight went on and on. Still +the little man was masterful and precise. Still he demanded all Harry's +vigour and more than all, kept him struggling desperately, beset by fear +on the edge of death. Harry felt himself weakening, faltering, and still +the opposing blade searched his defence sharply, still the little man was +an exemplar of easy precision. And yet Harry's maladroitness always +sufficed to save his skin. He was puzzled, and blundered and fumbled the +more. The play grew slower and slower, and he was the more tortured, +enduring many times the shame and the pain of defeat. + +At last he had hit upon the truth. He was wondering in a dazed fashion +why that other sword seemed always to wait on him when he made a gross +mistake. Visibly, palpably, the little man's blade halted to give him +time for a parry. Harry dropped his point and gasped out, "Damme, sir, +you are playing with me." + +"What's your will? I fight my own way. At your convenience, sir." + +"The Captain's within his right, sir," says Harry's solemn second. + +"Damn you, for a pack of mountebanks!" Harry cried. + +"On guard, sir," says the little man. + +Harry gave him an oath and dashed at him. There was a moment's wild +fighting and then the little man forced it back to order. They were at +the old game again, precise scientific thrust, pause, and blundering +parry, when to Harry's amazement the little man's sword wavered and flew +from his hand. + +Through a long minute Harry stood staring at him, and he waiting unarmed +for Harry's thrust. Again Harry lowered his sword. At once the little +man stooped and picked up his. "Do you demand to continue, Captain?" +says his second. + +"You're a fool, Patrick," quoth the little man. + +The impenetrable second saluted and turned to his fellow. "Another bout, +if you please, Mr. Mackenzie." + +"Would you grant it, sir?" says Harry's solemn Scot. + +"Egad, we are all mad here," Harry wiped his brow. "Oh, play it +out to hell." + +The little man saluted formally and again they engaged. And now Harry was +enveloped in another kind of fighting. Scientific it might be, but +science far beyond his understanding. The little man's point was +everywhere upon him and he thrusting blindly at the air. He might have +been pinked a score times over, he was for all he knew. And then on a +sudden his own point touched something. Next moment it was struck up to +the ceiling. Some one called out "A hit." He saw the two seconds standing +between the swords and a red scratch on the little man's cheek. + +"_Touché_," says he with a bow. "My compliments, if you please. It's some +while since a man marked me. I am glad to know you, sir. Pray, what's +your name?" + +"Harry Boyce, sir." + +"Egad, it's wonderful!" says the little man, with a laugh which appealed +to Harry. "Hector McBean, at your service." Harry stared. "Aye, aye, I'm +thinking we'll explain ourselves. Will you walk, sir?" + +"If you please." + +Captain McBean took his arm, said over his shoulder to the two seconds +"To-morrow," and marched off with him. Once they were out in the +street, "So you are Colonel Noll Boyce's son," says Captain McBean with +an odd look. + +"He has often told me so." + +"If you had not such a look of him I wouldn't believe it. Oh, pardon, +monsieur, _mille pardons_, _ma foi._ I have been insolent to you in all +this affair. You'll please to observe that the whole of it, and the +issue, is to your honour. Will I have to say more?" + +"Oh Lud, no. Pray, let's talk sense." + +"I take to you marvellously, _mon enfant_. Well now, have you +heard of me?" + +"Enough to want much more." + +"What, has father been talking?" + +"D'ye know where he is, Captain McBean?" + +"I wish I did." + +"So do I. It was Mr. Waverton who told the tale. Now you know why I am +eager to hear what you can say of my father or my father of you." + +"Are you a good son, Mr. Boyce?" + +"I pay my debts." + +"There's a crooked answer. Are you in the Colonel's secrets?" + +"I have no reason to think so." + +"I guess he did not trust you. I guess he was right. Do you remember +where you met me first?" + +"I remember that I can't remember." + +"And me that thought I was a beauty! Well, but you were busy. You were +making mud pies with Ben." + +"I have it. You were his captain on the horse. Pray, sir, what was my +Benjamin's mystery?" + +"I am going to trust you, Mr. Boyce. I shall not require you to trust me +unless you choose. I tell you frankly I hope for it. And so--come in +with you." + +They turned out of the Strand into Bow Street. Captain McBean let +himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. +"D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." +He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now, +_mon cher_, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?" + +"I never could tell." + +"Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. +If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. +Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's +son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? Now there is +something I must say to you. But how much I say is a question. I have no +desire to embarrass you with awkward knowledge. So which is your king, +_mon enfant_, James or George?" + +"I care not a puff of smoke for either." + +"So. I suppose there is something you care for. Well--you asked about +Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the +Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. +Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor +for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his +dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to +negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old +villain had some black design in his head again, and it was thought that +if we could turn over his private papers, we should know where to have +him. It was certified that he had with him something from his agents +abroad. Well, we missed him, and how deep he is dipped in this business, +I know no more than you. + +"Now I come to your father, _mon enfant_, and I promise you I will be as +delicate as I may. Do you know, _par exemple_, how Colonel Boyce is in +the mouths of gentlemen?" + +"Oh, sir, that's another of the matters for which I care nothing." + +"_Tenez donc_. You were born old, I think. Well, Colonel Boyce has been +in some few plots, devices, and manoeuvres. No man ever denied him wit, +nor will I, _mordieu_. But it's his virtue that neither his friends nor +his enemies were ever sure of him. I believe, Mr. Boyce, that if he heard +me he would thank me for a compliment. _Bien_--I come back to my tale. + +"It was known to us poor Jacobites in England that Colonel Boyce was +making salutes to St. Germain. Which much intrigued us, for we would not, +by your leave, have him of our side. They don't know him there as we do, +and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine." + +"Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug. + +"You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have +him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from +Colonel Boyce full of windy promises--_verbosa et grandis epistola_. D'ye +keep up your humanities?--in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord +Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. +If Sunderland and Stair were ready to turn honest, then _pardieu_, there +was hope of the devil himself. Oh, I don't blame the King nor even +Charles Middleton, though he is old enough to be slow. The times are +changing, and maybe Stair and Sunderland they see it as well as we, and +mean to find salvation. I can't tell. But the thing looked ill. Stair and +Sunderland--there is no treachery too foul for those names. And if they +meant honestly, why--saving your presence, _mon enfant_--why did they +choose Colonel Boyce for their agent? It was no good warranty. So we +adventured a counter. We have friends enough now in the Government, _mon +cher_, and it was arranged that the Colonel should be arrested as a +Jacobite. A good stroke, I think. It was mine. Only the old gentleman +dodged it." + +"Pray, what did you know of Mr. Waverton?" + +"That sheep's-head!" McBean laughed. "Why, a letter came to hand in which +the Colonel talked of taking the pretty gentleman to France. So he was +joined in the warrant. _D'ailleurs_--it made a good appearance. However, +we missed him; but we found something in his papers which made me queasy. +So I e'en was off to France after him. + +"The Colonel stayed at Pontoise and sent your Waverton off to St. Germain +with a mighty plausible letter about secret proposals from the chiefs of +the Whigs, which brought the King out to hear them secretly. _Ma foi_! I +think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever +trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could +think that peacock would be in anything crafty? At Pontoise I tumbled in +upon them, and your father, _mon cher_, he ran off on sight of me. +Observe, I press nothing against him. I allow that the best evidence I +have against him is just that--he ran away when he saw me. Secondly, he +had with him some three-four rascals whose faces would hang them. And +thirdly and lastly, beloved brethren, these fellows, when put to it and +charged with a plot to murder King James, were frightened for their lives +and babbled wildly, of which the sum was that they had been brought but +to kidnap him. I grant ye, they may have lied, and I would not hang a dog +(who was not a Whig) upon their word. But confess, _mon cher_, the thing +is black enough. What did the Colonel want with King James alone? Why did +he need his bullies? Why did he run away? I leave it with you." + +Harry knocked out his pipe. "I am obliged for the story, sir. Why did +you tell it?" + +"You have a cold blood in you, _mon enfant_" says Captain MacBean. +"Observe, I look for nothing wonderful from you. I allow your position is +very difficult to a man of honour. And with all my heart--" + +"Oh Lud, sir, let's have nothing pathetic." + +"Aye, aye," McBean bowed. "Mr. Boyce! I do profess I feel the delicacy of +the affair, and I detest it, _pardieu_. But I dare not absolve ye from +your duty." + +"Oh, sir, you are very sublime." + +"Hear me out, Mr. Boyce. I have shown you cause to fear that your +father has it in mind to compass a vile treachery, perhaps a murder. +Would you deny it?" + +"Damme, sir, I am not the day of judgment." + +"_Bien_. I believe that is an answer. I declare to you there is yet a +chance that he may succeed, aye, here in London." + +Harry swore. "If your friends must go walking into traps what is +it to me?" + +"Well, sir, though you will own no loyalty to king or queen or country, +I'll not be deceived. I call on you for your aid. It's believed your +father is in London. It is likely he will seek you out, as he did before. +Maybe at this hour you know where he is." + +"If I did, should I betray him to you, sir?" + +"I ask no treachery. But I do call on you, discover his purpose if you +can, and if he intends violence to the King, prevent it. Lord, sir, it's +to save your father from infamy, and your own name." + +"The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried. + +"I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he +said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For +what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my +life. But I believe I should thank you." + +"Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I +think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CONSOLATIONS BY A FATHER + + +Do you remember how frightened Swift was of the Mohocks? How he came +home early, and even (that was bitter) spent some pence on being carried +in a sedan chair to avoid the "race of rakes that play the devil about +this town every night, slit people's noses," and so forth? He had some +reason to fear. + +"Was there a Watchman took his hourly rounds +Safe from their blows or new invented wounds" + +in these last days of Queen Anne? Their way was to gather and take +plenty of liquor, "then make a general sally and attack all that are +so unfortunate as to walk the streets through which they patrol. Some +are knocked down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed." The +women would be turned upside down or clapped into barrels and rolled +over the stones. + +It was a dark night with but a glimpse of the new moon when Harry left +Captain McBean. From Bow Street to the "Hand of Pork" in Long Acre was +only a few hundred yards, but murky enough, and Harry took Mr. Gay's +advice for such night walking: + +"Let constant Vigilance thy footsteps guide, +And wary Circumspection guard thy side." + +Nevertheless, as he was coming by the corner into Long Acre, he was +surprised by a sound at his heels. He stepped quickly aside and turned +upon it, felt a blow upon his head, saw flashes of light and the street, +whirling round, rose up to meet him, and he knew no more. + +When he came to himself he was in a room with fire and lights. He raised +himself and heard voices. Then some one was standing over him. He looked +up into his father's face. "Who was that?" he said feebly. + +"Don't you see yet, Harry? It will soon pass off." + +"Lord, I know you. Who are the others?" + +"There is none here but me," said Colonel Boyce. + +Harry looked painfully round the room and saw that it had become empty. +"What was it? A pistol?" said he, and began to feel his head. + +"Egad, nothing so gentlemanly. A cudgel, by the look of the bruise. A +Mohock's club, I suppose. I found you lying in the kennel as I was +coming home." + +"Oh, you're at home are you?" Harry laughed stupidly. "And where is +home?" + +"These are my lodgings in Martin's Lane, Harry, and you are welcome. But +what have you to do in town? Young husbands should not be night walkers." + +Harry stared at him for a moment. "I thought you knew everything," he +said. Then, beginning to scramble up, he became aware that his clothes +were all undone--coat, shirt, even breeches. "Odso, why were you +stripping me?" + +"I found you so. They shave you close, the Mohocks." + +"They are a queer crew, your Mohocks." Harry looked at his father. "What +should I carry inside my shirt?" Then he thrust his hands into his +pockets. "Well, I had not much, but all's gone." + +"Damned rogues," said his father with honest indignation. "How much have +you lost, Harry?" + +"Five guineas or so." + +"I can make that good at least. But what is it to you? You are a warm +fellow now. What, you've made no hole in Madame Alison's money bags yet." + +"You're offensive, do you know?" Harry said. "I have been itching to +tell you so." + +Colonel Boyce's face set. "What now? Are you against me, sirrah?" + +"Ods fish, you're a martyr, ain't you?" Harry laughed. But we are +beginning at the end, I think. If you remember, sir, you promised to take +me to France and went off without me." + +"D'ye quarrel with that? Why, you had a fatter fish to fry than you could +catch with me. So I left you at her and you ha' dined upon her. What's +the matter then?" + +"You were not honest with me--" + +Colonel Boyce laughed, "Ah, bah, you will be a Puritan. It must be your +mother in you." + +"My mother! Thank you. We'll come to her. But one tale at a time. You let +me think I was to go with you till you were gone without me. You took +Waverton and told me nothing of that till you had him safe away." + +"Egad, boy, it was all for your good." + +"Perhaps you did think so," said Harry after a moment. "In fact it's what +I complain of. You want to play Providence to me. Pray, sir, go about +your business." + +Colonel Boyce shrugged. "You're a proper grateful son. So be it. You have +your wealthy wench and want no more of me. Well, go to the devil your own +way, Harry." + +"By your leave, I prefer it. But there's more, sir. Now comes Mr. +Waverton and declares to my wife and me that you enticed him into a vile +plot: for your pretence of a mission to the Pretender was nothing but a +device for murder." + +"Mr. Waverton said that to Mrs. Harry Boyce? Egad, it wasn't civil of Mr. +Waverton. And what did the lady say to him?" + +"That's no matter. What do you say to him, sir? Did you intend murder?" + +"Lud, Harry, you talk like a ranting parson. It was not your way. Who has +put this buzz of morality into your head? I suppose your pretty wife +would have you break with your father. He's a low, coarse fellow, faith, +who might want some of her money." + +"We will leave my wife out, if you please. She will not trouble you. She +and I have parted." + +"God's my life! What's the quarrel?" + +Harry shrugged. "Does one ever know? I was not good enough for her, I +believe. And perhaps she was not good enough for me." + +"Damn you for a prig," says his father. + +"If you like. But you'll remark that I do not complain of her." + +"Bah, you make me sick, sir! Not complain of her! That luscious piece! +Egad, you should be drunk with her. But you're not a man, Harry, you're +a parson." + +"Oh, command your emotions! She rebelled against being wed to a man whose +father ran about the world compassing murder, to a man who was withal a +low fellow, a bastard. So far, it is your affair." + +"I see you are no hand with a woman." + +"Do I take after you, sir? We came upon a woman who said she was Mrs. +Oliver Boyce and could not live with him, and boasted vehemently that she +was no mother of mine." + +Colonel Boyce plucked at his mouth. "So dear Rachel has got her finger +into the pie. Why, Harry, you have had no luck." + +"She is your wife, then. Oh, I admire your taste, sir. And pray, who was +my mother?" + +Colonel Boyce began to say something and stopped. "It's no matter. I +believe she would not wish you to know. Why, Harry, I profess I am sorry. +If we had been married, better for us all." + +"Oh, you will be mysterious still. I suppose you are as tender of her +honour as of mine or your own. And this matter of murdering the +Pretender, pray, is that a mystery too?" + +Colonel Boyce became restless. "Ods life, sirrah, there is no matter +of murder. Who told you so? The fool Waverton. And where did he get +the tale?" + +"A gentleman who runs away tells his own tale." + +"Now mark, Harry. The plan was but to bring Prince James to England--" + +"Dead or alive," Harry laughed. + +"Pshaw. I had him at Pontoise and was doing well with him. Then in comes +a swashbuckling Scots Jacobite which is my private enemy, and a dozen +bullies at his tail. Well, I had no mind to have him stick me or turn me +over to the French as a spy of Marlborough's, so I went off. The fool +Waverton let himself be taken. I make no doubt the Scot filled him to the +brim with slanders of me. But is that my fault?" + +"So you're done with the Pretender?" + +Colonel Boyce gave his son a queer look. "Why, there's not much to be +done with him in Martin's Lane, boy." + +"Then what are you doing?" + +"Egad, Harry, I should think you want to lay an information against +me. Waiting for better times is all my business now. My bolt's shot. +And pray, sirrah, what may be your business now you've cut loose from +Mrs. Alison?" + +Harry laughed. "Living on my means." + +"Why, does she settle something on you?" + +Harry looked at his father without affection. "Do you know, sir, I am not +always proud of your name." + +"Egad, but you must have money somehow." + +"The family motto, I suppose. Well, sir, I write for the Press." + +"Good God, not for the newspapers? You have not fallen to that?" + +"Oh, sir, the shillings are clean by comparison." + +They looked at each other for a minute or two. "You walk abroad late, Mr. +Author," says Colonel Boyce. "Do you make friends in your profession?" + +"I believe I have two in the town--a hack writer for Lintot and an usher +at Westminster. And what then, pray?" + +"You were with them to-night?" + +"You are paternal on a sudden, sir. Do you think of putting me out to +nurse again?" + +"So." Colonel Boyce stood up as if he had finished and then forced a +laugh and slapped his son's shoulder, "Come, Harry, why quarrel? There's +room enough for you here. I allow I owe you something. Join in with me." + +"I have no luck in mysteries, sir. I'll wish you goodnight." + +"Now you bear me a grudge," his father protested. + +"What, for getting me born? Sometimes, perhaps." + +"Egad, Harry, I should like to do something for you." + +"Then give me a sword." + +"A sword? And what for i' God's name?" + +"In case I meet any more of your Mohocks." + +Colonel Boyce was taken aback for a moment. Then he cried out heartily: +"Damme, the rogues took five guineas from you too. Here, fill your purse, +child." He shot out gold on the table. + +"I'll take back my five guineas," said Harry, and counted them, while +his father watched with a frown. + +"There are swords of mine below," said Colonel Boyce. + +They went down and from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger +with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves +loaded with lead--just such as the Mohocks used. + +"And where do you lodge?" says Colonel Boyce. + +"At the 'Hand of Pork' in Long Acre. Goodbye, sir." + +Colonel Boyce nodded, and for some time after he had gone stood at the +door, watching. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO'S COMPANY + + +Alison was gone back to her house at Highgate--and immediately regretted +it. She took her adventures in a youthful, egoistic fashion: saw herself +as a lovely woman made the prey of man and robbed of her right to her +own life, a tender, confiding soul deceived and tortured into despair. +The Lincoln's Inn Fields became the abomination of desolation, her fine +society was dust and ashes and mankind in general all mocking villainy. +So it was natural that she should retire from the world and become a +recluse of tragic dignity. What other part is there for the deserted +wife to play? + +But she came upon awkward difficulties. The world would not be left +behind. It was much more closely about her among the woods and meadows of +Highgate than in her London drawing-room. The would-be fine ladies and +gentlemen of her routs and her card parties, so the sweetmeats and the +wines and strong waters were good enough, cared nothing whether she had a +husband upstairs or somewhere else. Out in the country every one, gentle +and simple, had a curious eye upon her. The very woods and meadows must +be jogging her memory and putting her questions. Every one had known Miss +Lambourne of the Hall and gone whispering about her strange, passionate +marriage. Each pleasant path and lane had seen something of that first +wild happiness. All day long she was driven back upon herself and what +she had lost. + +There is no doubt that she suffered. Of course she still told her heart +wonderful tales about the shame that she had to bear and her torturing +wrongs, and beyond doubt she believed most of them. For she could still +profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of +no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's +villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion +that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who +acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she +could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! +Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been +overthrown by passion. The more she tried to despise Harry, the more that +fancy shamed her. But there was in her a strength which refused to be +content with that. She would still boast to herself that she was not the +woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to +take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable +question--if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her +magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her +insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very +pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give +him all that a man could ask. Little by little she forced herself to +believe that she had failed of that. After all, he had offered her +nothing but himself, poor, friendless, of no repute, indolent, careless +of all the world--and she had professed content. What his father might do +was no matter to that. He had offered her what he was and given it +faithfully. And she had not played fair. When she found herself +confessing that, she discovered a new power of being wretched. All the +romantic, egoistic melancholy went down the wind. The finest, proudest of +her, her own honour, told of a torturing wound. + +"I'll satisfy you"--that had been the boast before the wild marriage was +done. And after all she had chosen to deny him. Nothing else could +matter. There could be no excuse. It was he that she had taken, not his +name or what he might be, and he had not changed. It was herself that she +had promised--what other honour for woman or man than to give like for +like?--and she had broken faith. She was humiliated--a state of all +others the most dolorous for Alison. + +To it came on a merry spring day Mr. Waverton. She was in two minds +whether to let him see her, and then--too proud to hide from him or +greedy of a chance to hurt him--had him in. + +Mr. Waverton had decorated himself for a house of mourning. His large +form was all black and silver and drooped sympathetically. His handsome +face was set in a chastened melancholy as of one who grieves for +another's trouble with a modest satisfaction. "Dear lady," says he +tenderly, and bowed over her hand. + +"Dear Geoffrey," says she. "Here's a new song." + +"Madame?" + +"'Vengeance is mine' was the refrain last time. Now it's weeping over the +penitent prodigal. How I love you, Geoffrey." + +Mr. Waverton made a gesture of emotion, an exclamation. "I wronged you, +Alison," he said in a deep voice. "Nay, but you must forgive me. I have +suffered too. Remember! I had lost all." + +"Ah, no," says Alison tragically, "you had still yourself, Geoffrey." + +His emotion was understood to be too much for Mr. Waverton. In a little +while, "We have both been the sport of villainy," he said. "Forgive me, +Alison. I remember that I spoke bitterly. Can you wonder? I had dreamed +of you in his arms. To see you there in that knave's power--ah, I was +beside myself. And he laughed, do you remember, he laughed!" + +"He never would take you to heart, in fact." + +"A treacherous hound!" said Mr. Waverton with startling vehemence. + +"Oh, he was honest when he laughed." + +Mr. Waverton swept Harry out of the conversation. "Forgive me, Alison, I +should have known. My heart should have told me." + +"Oh Lud, and is your heart to give tongue now?" + +"My heart," said Mr. Waverton with dignity, "my heart is always crying to +you. And now--now that the first agony is past, I know all." + +"I wish I did," said Alison and looked in his eyes. + +"But even then--ah, Alison, I have blamed myself cruelly--even then I +should have known that when your eyes were opened, when you knew the +truth, you would have no more of him." + +"You might have known," Alison said slowly. "You might have judged me by +yourself." + +"Aye, that indeed," says Mr. Waverton heartily. "For we are very like, +Alison, we are of the same spirit, you and I." + +"You make me proud." + +"It's our tragedy: we so like, so made to answer each other, should be +betrayed to our ruin by this same vile trickster. Oh, I blame you no more +than myself." + +"This is too generous." + +"No," says Mr. Waverton. "No. When I came on that woman of yours, that +Mrs. Weston--faith, I am glad that you have cut her off too. I never +liked that woman." + +"Yes, she is poor." + +"There it is! I doubt she was in Boyce's pay." + +Alison opened her eyes at him. "Oh, Geoffrey, you surpass yourself +to-day. Go on, go on." + +"If you please," says Mr. Waverton, something ruffled. "I believe he +hired her to play his game with you. Had you a suspicion of it when you +sent her packing?" + +"By God, Geoffrey, I could suspect anyone when you talk to me." + +"She is bitter against you. When I heard from her that you had driven +the fellow away from you, I was on fire to come to you." + +"To forgive the prodigal! Oh, your nobility, Geoffrey. And pray where did +you meet Mrs. Weston?" + +"Why, in the High Street here. She lodges in one of those wretched +cottages behind the street." + +"She is here?" Alison shivered a little. + +"Perhaps she has some game to play yet. She may be his spy. Be warned +against her." + +Alison leant forward in her chair. Her face was hidden from him. "You are +giving me a lesson, Geoffrey. I'll profit by it, I promise you!" + +"Alison!" Mr. Waverton gave a laugh of triumph. "I fight for us both. And +I promise you I am eager enough. As soon as I learnt that you had left +him, why, he was delivered into my hand. By heaven, he shall find no +mercy now. Already I have him watched. I went to an attorney much +practised in these treasonous cheating plots, and of him I have hired +trusty fellows who know all the rogues in London and their hiding-holes. +You said something?" + +But Alison was laughing. + +"I believe there is some humour in it," Mr. Waverton conceded grandly. +"Well, they have tracked him down. Our gentleman lies at a filthy tavern +in the Long Acre. The 'Leg of Pork,' or some such lewd name. He haunts +Jacobite coffeehouses and the like low places. They believe that he makes +some dirty money by scribbling for the Press. A writer in the newspapers! +He is sunk almost to his right depth. They make no doubt that before +long we shall catch him dabbling in some new treasonous matter. And +then--" he made gestures of doom. + +"Well? And then?" + +"The law may revenge us on the treacherous rogue," said Mr. Waverton +with majesty. + +Alison stood up. Mr. Waverton, always polite, started up too. "I give you +joy, Geoffrey," she said very quietly. + +"Not yet! Not yet!" Mr. Waverton put up a modest hand. + +"I believe there is nothing you could feel." Mr. Waverton recoiled +and stared his bewilderment. "You carry a sword, Geoffrey. Oh, that I +were a man!" + +"To use it upon him! Bah, such rogues are not worth the honour of steel." + +"Oh! Honour! Honour!" she cried and flung out her arms, trembling. "The +honour of you and me!" + +What was Mr. Waverton to make of that? "I believe I have excited +you," says he. + +"By God, it is the first time," Alison cried and turned on him so +fiercely that he started back. + +There was a servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then +Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid +simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's +tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much +engaged to hear or be aware of her. + +"Here is Miss Burford," said Waverton in a hurry. + +Alison whirled upon her. "You! You have nothing to do here." + +"My dear Alison!" Waverton protested. "Miss Burford, your very obedient." + +Susan made him a small leisurely curtsy and sat down. "Oh, please give me +a dish of tea," she said. + +"We have not seen you at Tetherdown in this long while," Mr. Waverton +complained genially. + +"I believe not," says Susan. + +Alison stared at her. "Why do you come here? You know you despise me." + +"I do not come to people I despise," says Susan placidly. + +"Well. I am private with dear Geoffrey, if you please." + +"My dear Alison! I must be riding. We have finished our business, I +think. I'll not fail to be with you again soon. I hope to have news for +you. Miss Burford, your most obedient." Susan bent her head. "Alison--" +he held out his hand and smiled at her protective affection. + +"Geoffrey," said Alison, and looked in his eyes. She did not take the +hand. She was very pale. + +Mr. Waverton's smile was withered. He took himself out with a jauntiness +that sat upon him awkwardly. + +Then Alison turned again upon Susan. "You want to know what I have to do +with him?" she said fiercely. + +"No," says Susan. + +Alison stared at the fair, placid face and cried out: "You are a fool." + +"Oh, my dear," says Susan. + +"I hate that cold, flabby way of yours. You think it is all good and +wise and kind. It's like a silly mother with a spoilt child. You've not +spirit enough to scold, and all the while you are thinking me vile and +base and mean." + +"But that is ridiculous. Nobody could think you mean," Susan said. + +"There it is again. You believe it is kind to talk so, and it drives me +mad. I am shameful--do you hear? I am shameful and perhaps I want to be, +and I loathe myself. Now, go. I shall not stay with you. Go." + +Susan stood up. "Alison, oh, Alison," she said. Alison flung out +of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE HOUSE IN KENSINGTON + + +Late in that evening one of Alison's servants rode up to the "Hand of +Pork" and inquired for Mr. Boyce. After some parley, he was told that Mr. +Boyce had not been in the tavern that day. So he left a letter in the tap +and rode back to Highgate. + +That letter, which was not heard of till long afterwards, ran thus: + +"Mr. Boyce,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear.--A." + +An ungainly, confused composition, as you see, but it set forth very +clearly the state of Alison's unhappy mind. She was revolted, of course, +by Geoffrey's scheme of spying and trapping, loathed him for +propounding it to her, and was eager to warn Harry against it and clear +herself of any part in the vile business. But she would not have Harry +suppose that she was praying him to come back to her. This time, at +least, there should be no wooing on her side. If she wanted him +hungrily, shamefully, he should not know till he chose to take her. But +he must come to her and be told all the tale, and hold her free of any +part in Geoffrey's baseness. + +So she fought with herself and wrote of her strife, and, as things +went, it mattered nothing to Harry, for he never knew of it till much +else had happened. + +When he woke on the morning after his affairs with Captain McBean and the +Mohocks and his father--woke with a sore head and a very stiff shoulder, +he was a prey to puzzled excitement. There is no doubt that McBean had +engaged his affections. He was not, indeed, very grateful for the +fantastic duel. Of all men, Harry Boyce was the least likely to be +pleased by oddity or an extravagance of chivalry. He always thought, I +believe, that Captain McBean was a little mad, and liked him none the +better for it. But he confessed that with the madness there was allied a +most persuasive mind, a very reasonable reason. The combination may not +be so surprising to you as to Harry Boyce. He thought that McBean's +exposition of the affair of his father, and his consequent duty, was +exactly and delicately true--which means, of course, that it agreed with +his own temper. He had no more doubt than McBean that his father had +planned, was planning, treachery which, win or lose, would disgrace him. +He admitted that it was his own wretched duty to do what he might to make +an end of these plans. + +You smile, perhaps, at Harry Boyce claiming for himself the commands of +duty. He was eminently not a saint. He was not delicate. And yet, thrust +upon an awkward choice, it is certain that he chose what must be +difficult, hazardous, and distressing, rather than stand aloof and let +his father's villainy go its way. + +I make no pretence of exalting him into a tragic fellow. He had no +affection for his father, no respect. Merely to work against his father's +will, to smash his father's schemes, would certainly not have cost him +one twinge. He had no hate for his father either, not the least ambition +to ruin him or make him suffer. But he would heartily have liked to bring +these murderous plots to nothing and yet save his father from vengeance. +Harry had his share of the common human instinct to keep one's family out +of mischief--or at least out of the newspapers. + +And it is not to be denied that there was also active in him a simple +human animosity. He bore his father a grudge for being publicly a knave: +a man who had received nothing from his parents but the gift of birth +might fairly demand that they should not bother him with their rogueries. +He did not extenuate his father's share in the catastrophe of the +marriage. Perhaps it was in itself fated to miscarry, but if Colonel +Boyce had not mixed up his affairs with it, the end need not have been +ignominious. Harry vigorously condemned the old gentleman's meddling. It +was an impertinence at the best to manipulate other folks, and a father +who did it so stupidly as Colonel Boyce was a pestilent nuisance. But all +this, I believe, rankled less than the behaviour of Colonel Boyce on the +night before. If the old gentleman had acknowledged his offences, if he +had even been content to talk of them frankly, man to man, he might have +been forgiven. But his affectation of profound wisdom, his patronage, and +above all, his parade of mystery infuriated Harry's lucid mind. + +It sought further causes of offence and had no difficulty in finding +them. Everything about that conversation was suspicious. For how did it +begin? With a broken head, with every button of his clothes torn open as +though he had just been searched to the skin, he woke up in his father's +presence. The father might pose as a good Samaritan who had come upon a +sufferer by the wayside, but he should not have shown so nervous an +anxiety to know what the sufferer had been about. The father talked of +Mohocks; but what Mohocks were these who knocked a man down before making +sport of him and, not content with taking his money, went through all his +clothes? Why was a Mohock's club lying there beneath the father's swords? +Harry made a ready guess at the riddle. His father must have fellows +watching McBean's house. They had knocked him down to search him for +papers. Then the father must have known that he had been with McBean, and +those anxious questions were to discover how much he was McBean's friend. +Colonel Boyce must have a lively interest in the affairs of McBean--and +yet he professed that he had now nothing in hand. What if he knew of the +secret of the Pretender's coming to London? What if he was still seeking +a chance to accomplish his plot of murder? + +Well, Captain McBean expected no less of him. Captain McBean was in the +right of it. It became a good son's duty to confound his father's +politics. There's no denying that Harry went into the business with zest. + +While he ate his breakfast in the taproom, he caught sight of a fellow +lurking about outside. Whose spy this was is, in fact, not certain. +Afterwards Colonel Boyce vehemently denied that he had commissioned any +man against Harry. Though you may not believe him, it is possible that +the fellow was one of those in Waverton's pay. Harry made no doubt that +his father was the offender. + +He went upstairs again and put a book in his pocket. (He had been +commissioned for a translation of Ovid, which, let us be thankful, never +came into print.) Thus characteristically provided, he went out to +baffle the spy and the father. In the courts between Drury Lane and Bow +Street he did some ingenious marching and counter-marching whereby--he +was always confident and we cannot be quite sure--the spy was shaken +off. He then came into St. Martin's Lane by the north end, and dodging +in and out of it more than once, made for a tavern close to his father's +lodging. He planted himself inside by a window, called for a tankard and +a pipe, and divided his attention between the Tristia and his father's +door across the lane. + +It soon appeared that Colonel Boyce was to have a busy morning. By ones +and twos a dozen men went into his house. They were not, even to Harry's +hostile eye, brazenly ruffians. Something of the bully they might have +about them, for they ran to brawn and swagger, but they were trim enough +and brisk, and had no smack of debauch--a company of old soldiers, by the +look of them, and still not past their prime. They were with Colonel +Boyce a long time, and Harry grew very sick of the Tristia, and had to +drink more beer over it than was his habit of a morning. + +They came out at last singly, and yet with very short intervals between +them. They all turned the same way--across Leicester Fields. There seemed +to Harry something so uncommon in this that he was moved to follow. He +made his way out by the back door and the tavern yard. As he came into +Leicester Fields, he saw that the units had already amalgamated into +three companies. They were all steadily marching westward. Keeping behind +a cart he followed them, and after a while bought for twopence a lift in +an empty hay wagon. I record all this because he seems to have been very +proud of it, which is characteristic of his simple nature. The hay wagon +rumbled him past two companies of them halted and coalescing at an inn. +The first still headed him at a good round pace all the way to +Kensington. + +The wagon was going through Kensington village when he saw that this +vanguard too had found an inn. A little farther on he abandoned his +wagon and, buying bread and cheese at a farm, made his dinner under +the hedge. It was a long while before he saw anything more of the +gentlemen of the inn, and lying among primroses and cowslips he nearly +forgot all about them and his excitement and his wonderful tactics. He +was, in fact, becoming sentimental, and had made three neat +hendecasyllabics to the cowslips when the gentlemen came out again. +They split into pairs and marched on briskly. Harry went through the +hedge, and from behind it he watched them pass. Then, as now, the road +ran straight, and it was not safe to come out and follow them till they +were far ahead. While he waited he heard more tramping, and in a little +while the rest of the company went by. He peeped out after them and saw +an odd thing: though the road ran straight for a mile or more, the +first party had vanished already. + +Harry climbed a tree. It was some little time before he discovered the +lost party. They had scattered, they had taken to the fields and, under +hedges, they were making southward. The rest of the company did likewise. +Soon he saw what they were after. There was a lane running from the high +road towards Fulham. A little way back from it, in a good garden, stood a +house of modest comfort, doubtless the place to which some gentleman +about town came for his pleasures or a breath of fresh air. About its +grounds the company went into hiding. + +Harry came down from his tree in a hurry and, like an honest man, took to +the high road. It was, you know, his one uncommon capacity to go easily +at a round pace. He did his best along the road and down the lane and, +though he caught a glimpse of a coat here and there, unchallenged he came +up the drive and across the garden to the door of the house. He had +hardly knocked before he was being inspected through a peep-hole. The +door was opened and instantly shut behind him. He was in darkness dimly +lit by one candle. The windows had their shutters closed and barred. + +"What's your will, sir?" says the man who let him in. + +"The master of the house, if you please," Two other men lounged +into the hall. + +"And your name, sir?" + +"You may say that I came from Captain McBean." + +The man appeared to think it over. "That's true enough, faith," says +another, advancing out of the shadow. Harry recognised one of the solemn +seconds of the duel, Patrick O'Connor. "Will I serve your turn, sir?" + +"If you're master here." + +"I am not. Come on now." He led the way to a room where a cadaverous man, +richly dressed, sat huddled over a fire. "'Tis a gentleman from the +captain, my lord. Mr. Boyce, my Lord Sale." + +Harry bowed. My lord yawned. "You've a devil of a name, Mr. +Boyce," says he. + +"I deplore it, and hope to disgrace it." + +"Is it possible?" said my lord, and yawned again. + +"I had the honour to tell you, my lord, that I answer for the gentleman," +says Mr. O'Connor. + +"You may endorse the devil, if you please," my lord sneered. + +Harry struck in, "I came to tell you, my lord, that your house is +watched, and by now surrounded." + +"Damn them, they have found it out, have they?" says my lord, and spread +out his lean hands to the fire. + +"How many, if you please?" says O'Connor. + +"A dozen or so. They marched out this morning, scattered, and met again +in the village and came here across country. They are well-armed, I +believe, and look men who would fight." + +"Ods fish, that nets this hole," says my lord. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, when +will they put the ferret in?" Harry shrugged. "Oh, there's a limit to +your kindness, is there? Do you choose to tell us who sent them?" + +Harry was silent a moment and then blurted out: "They came from Colonel +Boyce's lodging." + +My lord laughed. + +"Sure, 'tis an honour to know you, sir," says O'Connor, and bowed to +Harry. + +"Damned filial, indeed," my lord chuckled. + +O'Connor turned upon him. "They have you beat easily, my lord," he said +fiercely. "Damned courageous indeed." But my lord only nodded at him. +"What, we be six--to count Mr. Boyce. Sure, we could hold the house +against the devil's christening." + +There came in briskly a tall fellow crying: "Come, Sale, it's full time, +I believe." + +My Lord Sale got on his feet, "Stap me, sir, I believe not," he drawled. +"We must stay at home. They have smoked us. Here's a gracious youth come +to tell us that his Whiggish friends beset the house." + +The Pretender frowned and seemed slow to understand. Harry looked him +over. He was certainly a fine figure of a man, and bore himself gallantly +enough. His face was darkly handsome in a melancholy fashion, not unlike +the youth of his uncle, Charles II. He turned upon Harry. "What is all +this, sir?" + +"Oh, sir, it's that old rogue Noll Boyce," my lord put in. "And here's +his son betraying the father." + +"Faith, my lord, I'll remind you of that," O'Connor said. "Sir, the +gentleman is an honest gentleman." + +"Colonel Boyce--he is your father, sir?" the Pretender bent his black +brows over Harry. + +"He begot me, he says." Harry shrugged. "I desire to defend you from him. +He has surrounded your house here with a dozen sturdy knaves who intend +you, I believe, the worst." + +"I am obliged by your service, sir," says the Pretender coldly. "Pray, my +lord, is the coach ready?" + +My lord shook his head. "I don't advise it, sir. The good Mr. Boyce +cannot be lying. Or allow the knaves mean but to frighten you. I dare not +risk your person." + +"Dare? You dare too much, my lord, who command neither my person nor my +honour. I do not thank you for your advice. You will have the coach +brought instantly." + +"I ask your pardon, sir, and beg you to consider. What will the world +say of me if I let you run into a gang of murderers? We can maintain +the house against them till our friends come seeking us. In the open +we are outnumbered desperately. Nay, sir, be advised; what is to lose +by waiting? If you go, you grasp at a shadow and may throw away your +life for it." + +"I say, my lord, I do not thank you for your care of me, which is +careless of my honour and your own. I am promised to our friends. Do you +desire me to go afoot, my lord?" + +"I have done, sir." My lord bowed and went out. + +"Sir, I believe they will not spare you," says Harry. + +"I have heard you," the Pretender said haughtily, and waved him away. + +"I'll not be put off so." The Pretender turned upon him. "Sir, I have +done what I could to save your life from a base plot. If it succeeds, the +shame of it must fall upon me and my name, for it's my cursed father that +planned it. And you choose to run upon the danger. I entreat you, do me +right. Your blood should not be upon my head." + +"You have done your duty, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender bowed. "I thank you. +But I must do mine." + +"Why, faith, sir, 'tis the right principle of war to wait the rogues +here," says O'Connor. "You will not?" + +"Go to, man, I say it again and again." + +For the first time in their acquaintance, Harry saw Mr. O'Connor smile. +"I have the honour to take your orders, sir. But sure, we are not at the +end of our tactics. I'll presume to advise you. Let the coach come to the +door, and me and the other gentlemen will make some display of mounting +her and guarding her; she moves off slowly; it's any odds the rogues will +believe we have you with us and deliver their main attack, while you'll +be mounting quietly in the yard with my lord and ride off with him to +Kensington." + +"The plan is well enough. Have it so," said the Pretender carelessly. + +O'Connor went out in a hurry and Harry followed him. "I'll join you, if +you please, Mr. O'Connor." + +O'Connor laughed. "Oh, your servant, your servant. No offence, Mr. +Boyce. I profess I have an admiration for you. But, faith, you are not a +man of war. Do you go round to the stable-yard, now, and watch there to +see they prepare nothing against us from the back." He bustled off, +calling up his fellows. + +So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the +house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign +of his father's legion. In a moment the groom, with one of O'Connor's +men to help him, was busy again in the stable. Still the legion did not +reveal themselves. O'Connor's man ran back into the house, leaving two +horses saddled in the stable. Then the Pretender and my lord hurried +out, and the horses were brought to meet them. As they mounted, Harry +heard the clatter of the coach and then pistols and shouts, and the +clash of fighting. + +The Pretender spurred off, my lord taking the lead of him through the +gate. As they passed, a shot was fired out of the hedge. My lord swayed, +fumbling at his holsters, and crying out: "Ride on, sir, ride," fell from +the saddle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse +dragged him along the ground. + +Harry ran up and snatched the bridle. "How is it with you, my lord?" + +"I have enough, I believe," my lord gasped. "Damme, sir, don't fumble at +me. Mount and after him." + +So Harry went bumping in the saddle after the Pretender. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD + + +The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he +hit?" + +"He has it in the body and he suffers." + +The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you +see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce." + +"You can do me no harm, sir. God knows if I can do you any good." + +The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my +own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me." + +"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we +are going now?" + +"This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and +die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way." + +"Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined +up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?" + +The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that +he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy. + +"Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me, +where is this damned palace?" + +"Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please." + +So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the +trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you +know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the +disinherited king. + +"Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies +watching for you." + +"And I believe I have not thanked you." + +It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to +the family of Boyce." + +"I shall not forget." + +"He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father." + +"I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too +proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself." + +Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he +was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy +lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the +Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he +would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for +any other in the world. + +Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on +the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham, +sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not +by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden +wall upon the London side. + +There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a +"Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to God nothing has +fallen out amiss?" + +"There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends +are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here." + +Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I +feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady +much troubled for her. By God, we have left it late. And the ministers +must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We +must be swift and downright with the Council." + +Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to +face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was +to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she +presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good +plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the +will to make it work. + +Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy +stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a +hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As +they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation +and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham +plunged after them and wildly waved them on. + +"What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled. + +"Oh God, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard +now," and he muttered to himself. + +"You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go +before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on. + +Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company +below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare +nobility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no +forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach, +the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in +disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were +staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had +betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder +Lord Masham was uneasy for his head. + +They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham, +brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in +a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I +believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard +another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words, +like a baby's cry or an animal's. + +Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim +splendour, and as they passed the door Harry made out what that feeble +voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep +the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew +why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if +they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled. + +A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire +sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was +not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid +mass. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed. +Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it +change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and +it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he +looked there came to him a sense of death. + +Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich +stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her +neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings. + +There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with +something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the +Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded +imperiously at Masham. + +"The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried. + +The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and +shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be +loud," she complained. + +"Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it +is Prince James." + +The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?" +he said heavily. + +The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, +and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like +King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why +does he come? The Council is waiting." + +"I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said. + +"What does he say, Abbie?" the Queen turned to Lady Masham and took her +hand and fondled it feebly. "I am alone. There is none left to me. My boy +is dead. My babies--I am alone. I am alone." + +"I am your brother and your King," the Pretender cried. + +She fell back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble +came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to +shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a +while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, +tap of her hand beat through the room. + +Lady Masham took command. "Nay, sir, leave her. You can do no more now. +Let her be. I will handle her if I can." She rustled across the room +and struck a bell. "Masham, bring Dr. Arbuthnot. He irks her less than +the rest." + +Harry followed the Pretender into the outer room, shambling +awkwardly. The progress from failure to failure dazed him. He recalled +afterwards, as many petty matters of this time stayed vivid in his +memory, a preposterous blunder into a chair. The Pretender sat down +and stretched at his ease. "We are too late, I think," he said coldly. +"It is the genius of my family." He took snuff. "You may go, if you +will, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry looked up and struggled to collect himself. "Not till you are in +safety," he said, and was dully aware of some discomfort. The dying +woman, the sheer ugliness of death, the sordid emotions about her numbed +the life in him. He felt himself in a world inhuman. Yet, even +afterwards, he seems not to have discovered anything ignoble in his +admired Pretender. The blame was fate's that mocked coldly at the hopes +and affections of men. + +"I am obliged, sir," said the Pretender, and so they waited together.... + +After a little while of gloomy silence in that bare room, Masham broke +in, beckoning and muttering: "Sir, sir, the Queen is dead." + +The Pretender stood up. "_Enfin_" said he, with a shrug. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +SAUVE QUI PEUT + + +"Sir, you must be gone instantly," says Masham. + +"You are officious, my lord." The Pretender stared at him. "I have +nothing to fear." + +"I warrant you have," Masham cried. "And so have others." + +"I believe that, _pardieu_. Come, my lord, command yourself. Where is +this Council? I may still show myself to the lords and challenge them." + +"Damme, you cannot be so mad! 'Tis packed with Whigs. They must have wind +of you, curse them. Marlborough is there, and Argyll and Sunderland, burn +his foxy face. It might have gone amiss though the Queen armed you to her +chair. Now she is dead, there is no hope for you. Go to the Council! Go +to the Tower--go to the block." + +The Pretender turned to Harry with a smile and a shrug. "He trims his +sails quickly." + +"That's unworthy, by God," Masham cried. + +"My lord is in the right, sir," Harry said. "It's true enough, +Marlborough is here and he makes sure. You'll but extinguish yourself to +try more now. The need is to bring you safe to your friends." + +"You also!" The Pretender shrugged again. "Faith, Mr. Boyce, you +show yourself vastly anxious for my life. You are not much concerned +for my honour." + +"Egad, sir, I should have thought your honour was to maintain your cause. +You'll not do that from a prison or coffin." + +"Who knows?" the Pretender said. "My grandfather--" + +Masham was stamping with impatience. "Oh Lud, sir, must we gossip +about your grandfather? Stay here, you cannot. It is not decent. The +Queen's a corpse behind that door. Why, and if they take you in the +palace, it's ruin for you and for us all. Oh, we shall not be spared +if you are caught." + +"Yes. I am a curse to my friends." The Pretender laughed drearily. "Well, +my lord, you shall be delivered at least. Lead the way." Masham hurried +out on the word. As they followed the Pretender took Harry's arm. "I wish +you may be right, Mr. Boyce," he said. "But my heart bids me stay." + +"Oh, sir, a king has no right to a heart," says Harry. + +They were suddenly thrown upon Masham as he checked and drew back without +warning. He had come upon a woman who was leaving the Queen's apartments, +a woman who had once been handsome, and was still proud of it. She +stared haughtily at Masham and his companions, and swept on before them. +He was much agitated. + +"What alarms you, my lord?" The Pretender sneered. + +"Carrots from Somerset, egad," Masham muttered, gazing after the +disdainful lady's red head. "It's the Duchess of Somerset, sir, the +damnedest Whig, and she came from the Queen. Now they will all know the +Queen is gone. Come on, sir, come on for God's sake." + +They hurried after him through the palace. All was quiet enough. +Afterwards, indeed, Harry could hardly believe that fancy had not played +tricks with his memory; for the emptiness, the silence of the corridors +must needs have been a dramatic invention of his own mind and no reality. +But it is true that as they hurried their retreat he was haunted by the +quiet of the place--the quiet of death, a quiet ominous of storm. + +They were down at the door by which they had entered, and Masham's +servant-in-waiting there was dispatched for the horses. Masham fumed at +the minutes of delay, ran out and in again, and then with some +awkwardness apologized for himself. "Egad, sir, I warrant you we have +done what we could. It is for you I fear, by God. I promise you, I doubt +damnably how things may go. Pray, sir, put yourself in safety." + +"I am grateful for your emotions, my lord." + +Masham stared at him and then cried out, "Ods life, what now?" The horses +were coming, but before the horses came two of the Guards at the double. +They halted at the door, panting, and grounded their muskets. "What the +devil's this, my lad?" says Masham. + +"None is to leave the palace, my lord." + +"Damme, sirrah, you know me?" + +"It won't do, my lord. That's the order. You must go speak with the +captain at the main gate." + +"Come, sir, I have no time. Forget that you were here soon enough to stop +me. You shall not lose by it." + +"It won't do, my lord. Nay, nay, don't force me to it." The corporal +crossed muskets with his fellow as Masham was thrusting by. "Order is to +spare none." + +"Damme, sir, what do your mean?" + +"Sure, my lord, you know better than that." The corporal grinned. "Ask +the captain, if you please." + +Masham recoiled and drew the others back into the palace. They heard the +corporal shout: "Put the nags up, my bully. My lord won't ride to-day." + +"They know you are here, sir," Masham said, with a very white face. "Damn +the Somerset! She lost no time. What is to do now?" + +"It seems my own plan was the best, gentlemen. If I had gone into the +Council we should at the worst have been in no worse case." + +"Oh Lud, sir, must we wrangle that out again?" + +"You are impudent, my lord. I will do without your company." + +"Good God, sir, it's no time for forms. What would you be at?" + +"I shall go to the main gate of your palace and see who will stand +in my way." + +"That's ruin for certain," Masham groaned. + +"Be easy, my lord. I shall not boast myself your guest." + +"Oh, you are mad." + +"By your leave, sir," says Harry. "We need not so soon despair, I think, +nor you run upon your death. There is something more to be tried. These +sentries, they'll be on the watch for a gentleman of your distinction and +in my lord's company or of some noble attendance. But a common fellow may +pass them. If you would lend me your fine clothes and that great wig, and +condescend to my subfuse and bob, there's no one would take so shabby a +fellow for yourself. Maybe I might make a show to break out one way, +while you slipped past by another." + +"And left you to bear the brunt for me? I complain of you again, Mr. +Boyce--you do not much value my honour." + +"And I say again, sir, your honour is to maintain your cause. Nay, but +what can they do to me? Faith, it's no sin to wear fine clothes. And +I--well, I think the Whigs will never bring me into court. I know too +much of my father." + +"Oh, you are specious, Mr. Boyce," the Pretender smiled at him. "Nay, if +all my friends were such as you, I should not be in this queer plight." +He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "How am I to thank you, sirrah?" + +"Pray, sir, do as I advise." + +The hand pressed harder. "Be it so then." + +"Egad, I like it very well," says Masham heartily. The two exchanged a +shrug and a sneer at him. "If Mr. Boyce will risk it, he may make a show +of marching out by the garden entrance while you slip away by the +servants' wicket beyond." + +"I believe I can trust you to get rid of me, my lord," the Pretender +shrugged. "Pray, where may we exchange our characters--and our breeches?" + +"Oh, sir, follow me; we must be private about that." + +Harry burst out laughing. "Aye, faith, he is a gentleman of delicacy, our +Masham," the Pretender said. + +But my lord had no ears or no understanding for irony. He brought them to +his own quarters and, fervidly entreating them to lose no time, shut them +in and mounted guard outside the door. + +They cut queer figures to their own eyes when they came out, and Masham +was distressed by their laughter. "What ails you?" he protested +nervously. "It does well enough, I swear." + +"I am flattered by your admiration, _pardieu_," says the Pretender, with +a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, +and a clutch at the bob-wig's jauntiness. + +"Some are born great," says Harry, "and some have greatness thrust upon +'em. I believe I can keep inside your periwig, sir, but damme if I am +sure about your breeches. They disdain me, egad." + +"God's life, sir, if you make a jest of it you'll ruin us all," Masham +cried. "I vow it's not seemly, neither. The Queen's dead but this +half-hour, and--and, by God, our own heads are loose on our shoulders." + +"My lord's in the right, sir. It's no laughing matter," says Harry. + +"Aye, he's all noble feeling," the Pretender shrugged. + +"Come on, sir, in God's name," Masham groaned. + +"Look you, thus it goes. I'll bring you within sight of the garden +entry. Then you make to go out, Mr. Boyce, with what parade you can. And +you, sir, I'll take you to the head of the back stairs. You have but to +go straight down and out, and I wish you God speed with all my heart. +Come, come!" + +They marched along the corridor and must needs pass the end of that which +led to the Queen's apartments. Masham was a little ahead of the others. +He passed the corner. Then he checked and he turned sharp about and +charged back on them, crowding them against the wall, trying to stand in +front of both of them and hide them. + +It was Marlborough who alarmed my lord, Marlborough who came, alone, +pacing slowly from the room where the Queen lay dead. No dismay, no +emotion troubled his supreme grace. He disdained his splendours and his +beauty with the wonted calm. + +He saw them, could not but see them, huddled together as they were and +striving not to be seen. His face betrayed nothing. He paced slowly up to +them. It seemed to Harry that from the first his placid eyes looked at +none of them but the Pretender. "We have met before, sir, I think," he +said gently. + +"On the field of battle," says the Pretender in French. + +Marlborough bowed. "Give me your company." + +"Oh, your family has always been too kind to mine." + +Marlborough pointed the way. + +The Pretender shrugged, and "_Enfin_," says he with a bitter laugh, and +marched on with an air. + +Masham, leaning against the wall and very white, muttered to himself, "My +God, my God!" + +Harry ran forward to look after them. He saw Marlborough glance over the +Pretender's shabby clothes and then, making some ostentation of it, put +on his hat. The Pretender with a stare of disdain put on his--or Harry's. +They came to the head of the grand staircase and went down. The servants +in the hall sprang up and ran to open the doors for His Grace. Harry +heard a din and a clang and saw a flash of steel as the guard outside +presented arms. The two passed out and out of sight. For a little while +the servants stood staring after them, and then came back to their chairs +whispering. + +Harry turned round to Masham. "What now?" + +"Now?" Masham stared. "Now we may go hang ourselves." + +"Like Judas? Damme, I don't feel the obligation. Do you, my lord?" + +Masham swore at him and began to walk off. + +"Can you lend me a humbler coat, my lord?" Harry cried. "I am no more +use in this." + +"I'll do no more in it," Masham growled. "Look to yourself." + +"_Enfin,_ as His Majesty says," quoth Harry with a laugh, and went on to +look for the garden entry or any other humble door. He found it soon +enough and was going through it--to be instantly beset by a sergeant's +party and a joyful shout, "Odso, 'tis himself, 'tis the Chevalier." + +"You flatter me," says Harry, and they marched him off. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +REVELATIONS + + +Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came +in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none. +He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew, +indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the +Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the +Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter. +He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he +saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be +some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless +distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was +born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison +came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they +opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full +zest of life, all the wonder and the glory--that he might know what it +was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should +never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool. +How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done. +She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was +a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put +his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a +fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who +would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, +but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. +Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for +the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce +should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of +cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. +And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her +beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget +her, forget her as she lay in his arms. + +The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a +room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp +face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a +ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes +too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in +contemptuous disgust. + +"Your name?" + +"La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can +do without." + +"I am the Earl of Sunderland." + +"Then, damme, I am sorry for you." + +"Your name, I say?" + +"Why, didn't your fellows tell you? They told me." + +"Impudence will not serve you. I warn you, the one chance to save +yourself is to be honest with me." + +Harry began to hum a song, and, between the bars, he said, "You may go to +the devil. I care not a curse for anything you can do. So think of your +dignity, my lord. And hold your silly tongue." + +Sunderland considered him keenly. A secretary came in and whispered. "I +will see him," Sunderland said, and lay back in his chair. + +It was Colonel Boyce who broke in, Colonel Boyce something flushed and +out of breath. "Egad, my lord," he began. Sunderland held up his hand. +Colonel Boyce checked and stood staring at his son. + +Harry began to laugh. "Oh, sir, you're infinitely welcome. It only needed +you to complete my happiness." + +"Od's life, sirrah." Colonel Boyce advanced upon him. "Are you crazy? +What damned folly is this?" + +"You know him then?" says Sunderland. + +"Oh, my lord, it's a wise father knows his own son. And he is not +wise, you know. Are you, most reverend? No, faith, or you would never +have begot me. No, faith, nor enlist me to do murder neither. For I do +but bungle it, you see. And make a fool of my Lord Sunderland, God +bless him." + +"Is he mad?" says Sunderland. + +"I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry, +stop your ranting. What brought you here?" + +"You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders +for him. _Imprimis_, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers +who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder." + +"You came here with the Pretender?" + +Harry laughed and began to sing a catch: + +"'Tis nothing to you if I should do so, + And if nothing in it you find, +Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe + Than ever I designed." + +"What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried. + +"Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you +suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all +be shamed." + +"The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug. + +"Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad +fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day, +and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for +your Jacobites. Tell me now--the Pretender is in your clothes, I +see--where did you part from him?" + +"Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter +for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all +power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who +don't trust you?" + +Some voices made themselves heard from outside. Sunderland and Colonel +Boyce looked at each other, and my lord bit his fingers. The Colonel +muttered something in Sunderland's ear. + +Harry laughed. "Do you bite your thumb at me, my lord? No, sir, says he, +but I bite my thumb. Odso, I bite my thumb." + +"Be silent, sirrah," Sunderland cried. + +The door opened. "Announce me," says a placid voice, and the secretary +cried out in a hurry: "His Grace the Duke of Marlborough." + +Harry went on laughing. The contrast of Marlborough's assured calm and +the agitation of the others was too impressive. "Oh, three merry men, +three merry men, three merry men are ye," he chanted. "No, damme, it's +more Shakespeare. The three witches, egad. And I suppose Duncan is +murdered in the next act. When shall you three meet again? In--" + +"Oh, damn your tongue, Harry," his father exploded. + +Marlborough was not disturbed. His eye had picked out Sunderland. "Is +this the whole conspiracy, my lord?" said he. + +"I beg your Grace's pardon," Sunderland started up. "You see, I am not +private," and he called out: "Guard, guard." + +"No," Marlborough said, and, as the soldiers came in, dismissed them with +"You are not needed." + +Sunderland fell back in his chair. "Oh, if you please," he cried +peevishly. "At your Grace's command." + +"You have no secrets from Mr. Boyce, my lord." He turned to Harry. "Sir, +we have met before," and he bowed. + +"Yes. The first time your wife was stuck in the mud. Now it's you." + +"Sir, you have obliged me on both occasions," Marlborough said. "Well, my +lord? You had Mr. Boyce under examination. Pray go on." + +"I don't understand your Grace," Sunderland said sulkily. "I have done +with the gentleman." + +Colonel Boyce thrust forward. "By your Grace's leave, I'll take the lad +away. Time presses and--" + +"You may be silent," said Marlborough. For the first time in their +acquaintance Harry saw his father look at a loss. It was an ugly, +ignominious spectacle. Marlborough turned to Harry, smiling, and his +voice lost its chill: "Well, Mr. Boyce, how far had it gone? Were they +asking you what you had done with Prince James?" + +Harry stared at the bland, handsome condescension and hated it. "Oh, +you have always had the devil's own luck," he cried. "Devil give you +joy of it, now." + +"You mistake me, I believe. I can forgive you more easily than some +others." He turned upon Sunderland. "I will tell you where Prince James +is, my lord. Safe out of your reach. On his way to France." + +Sunderland made a petulant exclamation and spread out his hands. "Your +Grace goes beyond me, I profess. Do you choose to be frank with me?" + +"Frank?" Marlborough laughed. "You know the word, then? By all means let +us be frank. I found Prince James in the palace. He accepted my company. +We had some conversation, my lord. I present to you the results. You have +used my name to warrant a silly, knavish plot for murdering Prince James +in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this +mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against +the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete +your blunders--but for the chance that I came upon him and took him +through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our +hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your +obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being confused with these +imbecilities." + +Sunderland, who had been wriggling and become flushed, cried out: "I'll +not submit to this. I don't choose to answer your Grace. You shall hear +from me when you are cooler." + +"My compliments," Marlborough laughed. "I do not stand by my friends? I +lose my temper? You will easily convince the world of that, my lord. +Colonel Boyce!" Before Harry's wondering eyes his father came to +attention and, with an expression much like a guilty dog's, waited his +reward. "You have had some of my confidence and I think you have not lost +by it. You have repaid me with an impudent treachery. I shall arrange +that you have no more opportunity at home or abroad." + +"Pray leave to ask your Grace's pardon," Colonel Boyce muttered. "I +swear--" + +"You may be silent," Marlborough said, and turned away from them. "Pray, +Mr. Boyce, will you walk?" Something bewildered by this time, Harry stood +up and they went out together. "I require a carriage for this gentleman," +said Marlborough to the sergeant of the guard, and with a smile to Harry, +"That will be convenient, I think?" + +"Egad, sir, you might say, decent," says Harry with a wary hand on +his breeches. + +"Spare me a moment while you wait," Marlborough turned into a recess of +the corridor. "Prince James expressed himself much in your debt, Mr. +Boyce. Consider me not less obliged. Thanks to you, I have freed myself +of suspicions which I profess it had irked me to bear." + +"Your Grace owes me nothing. I never thought of you. Or if I did you were +the villain of the piece." + +Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so +distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?" + +Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so +great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you +and bring you down to our own level." + +"You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my +compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in +your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the +pleasure of commanding me." + +"Oh, your Grace does everything magnificently," says Harry, with a wry +smile, and liked him none the better. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD + + +There is reason to believe that the Earl of Sunderland and Colonel Boyce +fell out. Sunderland, never an easy man, suspected that he had been +ridiculous and was nervously eager to make some one smart for it. Colonel +Boyce was in a despondent rage that any one should have heard Marlborough +rate him so. They seem to have had some cat and dog business before they +parted: each, I infer, blaming the other for their ignominy. + +But they took it in very different fashions. Colonel Boyce suffered in +the more respectable part of his soul. Sunderland merely fumed and felt +venomous. For it is certain (if absurd) that Colonel Boyce had a sincere +reverence for Marlborough. He much desired (one of his few simple human +emotions) that Marlborough should think well of him. If he had tacked +Marlborough's name to a dirty business about which Marlborough knew +nothing, he had honestly believed that His Grace would be very well +content to know nothing of the means, and profit by the end. That his +hero should retort upon him disgust and contempt wounded him painfully. +Final proof of his devotion--he never thought of questioning +Marlborough's judgment. He had no doubt that he had managed the affair +with miserable stupidity, and bowed a humiliated head. + +Unfortunately, he was not ready to bow it before Sunderland. If there was +to be scolding between him and Sunderland, he had a mind to give as much +as he took. My lord had been art and part in the whole affair, and could +have his share, too, in the disaster. But Sunderland had no notion of +accepting Marlborough's opinion of him. Sunderland had no reverence for +any of God's creatures, and with Marlborough safe out of the room, +snarled something about an old fellow in his dotage. This much enlivened +the quarrel, and they parted in some exhaustion, but still raging. + +The night brought counsel. Sunderland might tell himself and believe that +Marlborough had become only the shadow of a great name. But the great +name, he knew very well, was valuable to himself and his party, and he +had no notion of throwing it away for the sake of his injured dignity. In +his way, Colonel Boyce was quite as necessary to my lord. The fellow knew +too much to be discarded. Moreover, he would still be valuable. His +talents for intrigue and even that weakness of his, his fertility in +multiplying intrigue, much appealed to Sunderland. So before noon on the +next day, Colonel Boyce was reading a civil letter from my lord. He +sneered over it, but it was welcome enough. He did not want to be idle, +and could rely on Sunderland to find him agreeable occupation. He walked +out to wait on my lord, and they made it up, which was perhaps +unfortunate for Mr. Waverton. + +Later in the day my lord heard that a gentleman was asking to speak with +him, a gentleman who professed to have information about the Pretender +which he could give only to my lord's private ear. Thereupon my lord +received a large and imposing young gentleman, who said: "My Lord +Sunderland? My lord, I am Geoffrey Waverton of Tetherdown, a gentleman of +family (as you may know) and sufficient estate. This is to advise you +that I am in need of no private advantage and desire none, but only to do +my duty against traitors." + +"You are benevolent, sir, but I am busy." + +"I believe you will be glad to postpone your business to mine, my lord," +says Mr. Waverton haughtily. "Let me tell you at this moment of anxious +doubt," Mr. Waverton hesitated like one who forgets a bit of his prepared +eloquence,--"let me tell you the Pretender has come to these shores. He +has come to England, to London. He was in Kensington yesterday." + +"You amaze me, Mr. Waverton." + +"My lord, I can take you to the house." + +"You are very obliging. Is he there now?" + +"I believe not, my lord." + +"And I believe not too. Mr. Waverton, the world is full of gentlemen +who know where the Pretender was the other day. You are tedious. Where +is he now?" + +"My lord, I shall put in your power one who is in all his cunning +secrets: one who is the treasonous mainspring of the plot." + +Sunderland, who was something of a purist, made a grimace: "A treasonous +mainspring! You may keep it, sir." + +"You are pleased to be facetious, my lord. I warn you we have here no +matter for levity. I shall deliver to your hands one who is deep in the +most dangerous secrets of the Jacobites, art and part of the design +which at this moment of peril and dismay brings the Pretender down upon +our peace." + +"Mr. Waverton, you are as dull as a play. Who is he, this bogey of +yours?" + +"He calls himself Boyce," said Mr. Waverton, with an intense sneer. +"Harry Boyce, a shabby, scrubby trickster to the eye. You would take him +for a starveling usher, a decayed footman. It's a lurker in holes and +corners, indeed, a cringing, grovelling fellow. But with a heart full of +treason and all the cunning of a base, low hypocrisy. Still a youth, but +sodden in lying craft." + +Sunderland picked up a pen and played with it, and through the flutter of +the feather he began to look keenly at Mr. Waverton. "Pray spare me the +rhetoric," says he. "What has he done, your friend, Harry Boyce?" + +"He has this long time past been hand and glove with the Jacobites of +Sam's. I have evidence of it. Now mark you what follows. Yesterday +betimes he slunk out to Kensington, using much cunning secrecy. And there +he made his way to a certain house--I wonder if you know it, my lord? It +was close watched yesterday, and a coach that came from it was beset. I +wonder if you have been asking yourself how the Pretender evaded that +watch. I can dispel the mystery. This fellow Harry Boyce went in with +news of the guard about the house. It was in his company that the +Pretender rode away." + +"Why do you stop?" said Sunderland. + +"Where they went then I cannot tell you. You will please to observe, my +lord, that I am precisely honest with you and even to this knave Boyce +just. But it is certain that in the evening when Harry Boyce came back to +the low tavern where he lodges--and he came, if you please, in a handsome +coach--he was wearing the very clothes of the Pretender--aye, even to the +hat and wig. I believe I have said enough, my lord. It will be plain to +you that the fellow is very dangerous to the peace of the realm and our +good and lawful king. If you lay hands on him, which I advise you to do +swiftly, you will quench a treason which has us all in peril, and well +deserve the favour of King George. For my own part I seek neither favour +nor reward, desiring only to do my duty as a gentleman." Mr. Waverton +concluded with a large bow in the flamboyant style. + +"Your name is Waverton?" Sunderland said coldly. Mr. Waverton was +stupefied. That such eloquence should not raise a man's temperature! That +he should not have made his name remembered! He remained dumb. "Pray when +did you turn your coat?" + +"Turn my coat?" Mr. Waverton gasped. + +"You once professed yourself Jacobite. You went to France with a certain +Colonel Boyce. You quarrelled with him because he was not Jacobite. Now +you desire to get his son into trouble. You do not gain upon me, Mr. +Waverton." + +"I can explain, my lord--" + +"Pray, spare me," says Sunderland. "You are not obscure. I see that you +have a private grudge against the family of Boyce. Settle it in private, +Mr. Waverton. It is more courageous." + +Mr. Waverton stared at him and began several repartees which were +only begun. + +"I find you tiresome," Sunderland said. "I advise you, do not make me +think of you again," and he struck his bell. But when Mr. Waverton was +gone: "I fear he has not the spirit of a louse," my lord remarked to +himself with a shrug. + +Thus Mr. Waverton's virtue was left to seek its own reward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN THE TAP + + +When Harry came back to his tavern, he was, you'll believe, not anxious +to be seen. He made one step from the coach to the door, scurried through +the tap and upstairs. But the coming of a coach, and a coach of some +splendour, to the humble "Hand of Pork" had brought folks to the windows, +and at the staircase window Harry bumped into his landlady, who gasped at +him and began a "Save your lordship--" which ended in "God help us, it's +Mr. Boyce." + +"Cook me a steak, Meg," Harry said, and went up the stairs three +at a time. + +She screamed after him "Ha' you seen your letter? There's a letter for +you in the tap." + +When Harry came down in his natural clothes, his best and one remaining +suit, and shouted for his supper she was quarrelling with the potman and +searching the shelves: "Meg, you villain--Meg, where's my steak?" + +"Lord love you, it's to the fire. I be looking for your letter. Ain't you +had it now? Days it's been here, I swear, and I saw it again only this +morning. By the black jar of usquebaugh it was, George, Od rot you." + +"Burn the letter," says Harry. "Go, bring me that steak, you slut." + +"Oh, God save you," Mrs. Meg cried in a pet, and so for Alison's letter +there was no more search. But indeed they would not have found it. + +Harry, if he ever thought about it, supposed it one of the grumbling +screeds of the bookseller for whom he scribbled and was glad to be rid of +it so easily. But he was in no case to think usefully of anything. The +amazement of his deliverance left him in a queer state of excited +lassitude. His nerves were all tremulous, he must needs do everything +vehemently, and felt the while as if he were being whirled along, +passive, in the grip of some force outside himself One moment he was +dreaming himself capable of miracles, the next he was limp with weariness +and utterly impotent. And naturally, as soon as he had food inside him, +weariness won and he was overwhelmed with great waves of languor. He +hardly dragged himself up to his attic before he was asleep. + +When he woke, the world was grey. He could survey himself cynically and +wonder why he had been such a fool as to be in a fluster overnight. +Faith, it was a grand exploit to dabble in conspiracies and come out with +your head still (for a while) on your shoulders. And that only by a turn +of the luck, not any wit of his. Well! Neither winners nor losers would +want more of the blundering offices of Mr. Harry Boyce. He was back again +after his conversation with royalty--and royal breeches--a hack writer +in his garret. And Alison as far away as ever. The wonderful Alison! The +beauty of her flashed into his squalor. He felt her passionate life. Be +hanged to Alison! Let the hack writer get to his writing. + +All that day he strove with the fluency of Ovid, and to this hour his +labours, much flaccid verse, survive in a decent obscurity. It was late +in the afternoon before he yielded to his growing disgust with the +whinings of the Tristia and sought relief in the open air. + +There was not much movement in the air of Long Acre. The day had been +warm and languorous, with heavy showers steaming up again in the sun. +Clouds were darkening across the twilight for more rain. Harry turned off +to stretch his legs and find some freer air across the fields by the +Oxford road. But he was soon tired of them. The moist heat oppressed him +still and lowering darkness across the sky threatened a storm. He had no +desire for a wetting and an evening spent in the Pretender's clothes. He +made for his tavern again by St. Martin's Lane and there came full upon +his father. + +Colonel Boyce touched his hat. Harry touched his, gave him the wall +and was going by. Then the Colonel laughed and caught his son's arm. +"Well met, Harry. I was coming to seek you." (It's not known whether +that was true.) + +"And I, sir--I had no notion of seeking you." + +"Fie, don't be haughty. I bear no malice." + +"Egad, sir, that's kind in you," Harry sneered and pushed on. + +Colonel Boyce linked arms with him. "Why, what's the matter? You +went off with the honours. Od's heart, you left us like a pair of +whipped dogs." + +"You've to thank yourself for that, sir. Not me." + +"No, zounds, you did very well. I profess I was proud of you, Harry." + +"Then I have to envy you." + +Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you +need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such +an air, Harry. You carried it off _à merveille_. My lord was a +whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. +It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable." + +"You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled +with you." + +"Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford +to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. +Why the devil should you snarl at me?" + +They were now turning into Long Acre and the coming storm had already +brought darkness. Harry stopped and freed himself from his father's arm. +"If you please, we'll have no more of this. I've no will to make an enemy +of you. But if you seek to be friends, enemies we must be." + +"Why then? Harry, you are not so mad as to declare Jacobite now? It's a +lost cause, boy. There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work +and not a guinea for your pains. You--" + +"Aye, now we have it!" Harry laughed. "You want to be in my +secrets. Sir, I'm obliged to you, and by your leave I'll +discontinue your company." + +"I swear I wish you nothing but well," his father cried. + +"Dear sir, it's your good wishes that I dread. Pray cut me off without a +blessing." He waved his hand to his father and strode off. + +For a moment Colonel Boyce looked after him--shrugged--went his way. + +So Harry walked alone upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was +passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. +They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but +hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and +staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were +borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their +swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared through +his body and he fell. + +Colonel Boyce heard the clatter of ash and steel and turned at his +leisure to look. It was a moment before he made out Harry in the midst +of the mêlée. Then he shouted of help and threats and ran on with +ready sword. + +He came too late. Harry was down and the dripping blades again at his +body. Colonel Boyce had one fellow pinked before they were aware. The +others bore upon him furiously and he was hard beset. He made a good +fight--it's the best thing in his life--he understood the sword, and they +were but hackers and hewers, they were in a mad hurry to finish him and +he had a perfect calm. But he was hampered and overborne. He would not +give ground for fear of more thrusts into the body at his feet, and they +closed upon him and he could not break them. + +But now doors were opening and heads out of windows. From Harry's tavern +a man came at a run. As Colonel Boyce reeled back with a point caught in +his shoulder, gripping at the blade and thrusting at empty air, another +sword shot into the fight. One man went down upon Harry's body. The other +three broke off and bolted down the court by which they had come. + +"_Canaille_," says the deliverer mildly, and plucked at the cloak of the +man he had overthrown to wipe his sword. "Is that a friend of yours +underneath, sir?" + +"Egad, they have tickled me," quoth Colonel Boyce, feeling at his +shoulder. "Pray, lend me your hand, sir." + +The deliverer looked him over without much sympathy: "And, egad, it's the +ancient Boyce," he said. "Oh, you'll survive, _mon vieux_. Who is this in +the mud?" He rolled his own victim, who groaned effusively, off Harry's +body. "It's the boy, _mordieu_!" he cried. + +"In effect, Captain McBean, it's the boy," says Colonel Boyce, who was +trying to fix a pad of handkerchief on his own wound. + +McBean was down on his knees beside Harry, handling him gently. "Twice +through the body, by God," says he. "What does this mean, Boyce? Damme, +did you set your fellows on him?" + +"I am not an imbecile," Colonel Boyce said fiercely, stared at McBean +and laughed his contempt. Then with another manner, he turned to the +little crowd which was mustered: "Bring me a shutter, good lads. We've a +gentleman here much hurt. And some of you call the watch." + +McBean rose with bloody hands. "He has it I believe," he muttered. +"Hark in your ear, Boyce. If this is your work, I'll see you dead, by +God, I will." + +"Oh, damn your folly," says Colonel Boyce. "I struck in to help him. I +know nothing who the knaves were. Your own tail, maybe." + +"Aye, aye," McBean looked at him queerly. "You would say that. Well, +maybe this rogue can speak. He groans loud enough." Down he dropped again +by his victim to cry out "Ben! You filthy rogue! Ben! Who a plague set +you to this business?" + +"Oh, you've found a friend, then?" Colonel Boyce sneered. + +The man who groaned was Harry's old friend, Ben the fat highwayman of the +North Road. He rolled his eyes and made hoarse, grievous noises. +"Captain! Lord love you, captain, I didn't know you was in it. Oh, gad, +and you ha' been the death o' me,' + +"I shall be if you lie," quoth McBean. "You rogue, who set you on +Mr. Boyce?" + +"How would I know he was a friend of yours? 'Twas a squire out of +Hornsey. Squire Waverton of Tetherdown. Paying handsome to have him +downed. Oh, gad, captain, don't be hard. I ha' had no luck since you +turned me off." + +Now the constables came running up and Colonel Boyce turned to them: +"Secure that fellow. He and some others which have escaped stabbed my +son who lies there. I am Colonel Boyce at the Blue House in St. +Martin's Lane." + +The wretched Ben was haled off, groaning. + +Harry, lifeless still and bleeding, for all McBean's work, they lifted +and carried away to his father's lodging. + +"What's your Waverton in this, sir?" says McBean. + +"The silly gentleman wanted Harry's wife. Egad, I never thought he had so +much gall in him." + +"I believe I'll be letting some of it out," says McBean. + +"You'll be pleased to leave that to me," quoth Colonel Boyce. + +McBean looked up at him oddly. "_Ventrebleu_, I wonder if I'll make you +my apologies. Have you bowels after all, sir?" + +"You're impertinent." + +"If you like." McBean cocked a wicked eye at him. + +"You concern yourself with the affairs of my family. I resent it, +Captain McBean." + +"I believe you, _mon vieux_." + +"You have done me a notable service to-night and I am ready to forget +the older injuries, your ill offices with my son. Let us call quits and +part, sir." + +"It won't do," said McBean with a grin. + +"What now, sir?" + +"I must know how Harry does and make sure that he has the best there is +for him. Surgery and friends--he will need both, sound and sure." + +"Be satisfied. I shall well provide him." + +Captain McBean shook his head. + +"Damn your infernal impudence." Colonel Boyce's temper gave way. "Od's +life, sir, this is infamous. You put upon me that I would mishandle my +own son as he lies wounded and near death! I shall murder him, I +suppose. You had that against me before. Shall I rob him too, or +torture him maybe? This is raving. Carry it where you will, I'll none +of it. You may go." + +"Fie, what a heat!" says McBean placidly. + +They were now come to Colonel Boyce's lodging and he bade the bearers +take Harry up to his own room. + +"I sent a brisk lad for Rolfe," says McBean. "I could but stop the blood. +He'll be here soon enough. It's but a step to Chancery Lane. He knows +more of wounds than any man in the town." + +Colonel Boyce was for a moment speechless. "I shall send for Dr. +Radcliffe and Sir Samuel Garth," says he majestically. "I wish you good +night, sir." + +"I believe they have sense enough to do no harm," said McBean. "And now, +Boyce, a word with you. Not in the street." + +"I don't desire it, sir," which McBean answered by passing in front of +him into the house. Colonel Boyce came after, fuming. "Egad, sir, you +presume upon my wound," he cried. "You--" + +"Not I. Patch yourself up and I'll meet you at your convenience. There's +more urgent matter. When the boy comes to himself--if ever he comes to +himself--I must have speech of him." + +Colonel Boyce, who now completely commanded himself, had grown very pale. +"You have gone too far, Captain McBean. I desired to forget that I have +you in my power. You force me to use it. If you thrust yourself upon me I +shall have you arrested as a traitor." + +McBean flushed. "Odso, then there is some villainy of yours in the +affair! Devil take you, I have a mind to finish you now, a wounded man as +you are." He had his hand on his sword. + +"Will you go, sir?" + +"Not I. If you ha' murdered him, you"--he slapped his sword home +again--"no, _mordieu_, I can't touch you so. And you may meddle with me +if you dare." + +"Oh, you have a great devotion to the boy," Colonel Boyce sneered with +pallid lips. "You would have him deeper dipped in your mad treasons? I +think you have done him harm enough." He struck his bell. + +"Harm?" McBean cried. "Is it harm? You that begat him for the heir to +your damned infamy? You that soured him with your husk of a soul and your +cold cunning? You that made a dirt-heap of his life to suit your muddling +need? You--" + +But Colonel Boyce swayed in his seat and fell sideways fainting. + +A moment McBean surveyed him as if he thought this too a trick. Then, +"_Ventrebleu_" says he, "here's Providence takes a hand," and he +whistled, and it is not to be denied that he looked covetously at the +cabinet which held Colonel Boyce's papers. "The poor old devil," he said +with a shrug. "He grows old, in fact. I suppose there's more blood in his +shirt now than his damned body," and he knelt down and began to feel +about the wound. + +He was at that when a woman announced the surgeon. "Mr. Rolfe? Never more +welcome. Here's old Colonel Boyce with a hole in his shoulder, and young +Mr. Boyce with two holes through and through. A street brawl. Pray go up, +sir, the lad's in bad case." + +"Faith, it's Captain McBean," says Rolfe, a brisk, big man, as they shook +hands. "What have you to do with Noll Boyce?" + +"A friend of the family," says McBean. "Away with you to the lad;" and he +knelt again and ministered to the unconscious Colonel. "A friend of the +family, old gentleman," says he with a grin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +ALISON KNEELS + + +So all this while Alison lacked an answer to her letter. She fretted at +the delay, she grew angry soon, but it does not appear that she allowed +herself any new pique against Harry. She was angry with circumstance, +with herself, and something much more than angry with Mr. Waverton. It +was detestable of Geoffrey to dare spy and plot against Harry, +intolerable in him to suppose that she would favour the villainy. But she +had been a fool and worse to give him any chance of insulting her so. And +yet she might have hoped that her letter--sure, she had been humble +enough in it--that her letter would bring Harry back in a hurry. It was +maddening that some trick of circumstance should have kept it from him or +him from her. For she had no notion that he would read the letter and +toss it aside or delay to come. There was nothing petty about Mr. Harry, +no spite. Nothing of the woman in him, thank God. + +What had happened that he gave her no answer? For certain the letter had +gone safely to the tavern. She could be sure of her servant. Harry was +living at the tavern. The people there gave assurance of that. It was +strange that he made no sign. The servant, indeed, had waited for an +answer late into the night and seen nothing of him. Perhaps he had +discovered Geoffrey's spies and gone into hiding. It would be like +Geoffrey to devise some mighty cunning villainy and so manage it that it +was futile. Perhaps Harry really was at some secret politics, captured +again by his father and sent off to France, or too deep in some matter of +danger to show himself. Perhaps--perhaps a thousand things, so that she +made no doubt of Harry. He would not deny her when she came seeking him. + +She had no fear either. Her nature could not imagine perils or disasters. +There was too proud a force in her life for her to admit a dread of being +defeated. Her man must live and be safe, because she needed him. Harry +could not fail her. But she was desperately impatient. She wanted him +every instant, and even more she wanted to stand before him and accuse +herself, confess herself. For the truth is that Geoffrey Waverton had +profoundly affected her. When she found Geoffrey daubing her with +patronizing congratulations, when he dared to claim her as ally in mean +tricks against her husband, she discovered that she must be miserably in +the wrong. Approved by Geoffrey, annexed, used by Geoffrey--faith, she +must have sunk very low before he could dare venture so with her. She +received illumination. She saw herself in the wrong first and last, the +sole sufficient cause of their catastrophe, a petty mean creature, +snarling and spiteful and passionate for trivialities--just like +Geoffrey, just such a creature as she hated most. Pride and honour +instantly demanded that she must seek Harry, indict herself and read her +recantation. She needed that, longed for it, and to satisfy herself, not +him. It is possible that she then began to love. + +So monsieur must be found instantly, instantly. When she thought of all +her tale of sins, she must needs think also of Mrs. Weston. Poor Weston +had enough against her too--Weston--his mother. It still seemed almost +incredible that poor, grey, puritan Weston should be mother to Harry. But +if she was indeed, she might know something of him. At least, it would be +good to make peace with her again; it was necessary. And so on the day +that Harry fell, Mrs. Alison marched off to the little cottage behind the +High Street. + +It was a room that opened straight from the path, and it seemed very +full. Susan was sitting there, who was now Susan Hadley. Her fair +placidity admitted no surprise. She smiled and said, "Alison!" + +Mrs. Weston stood up in a queer frozen fluster. "What do you need, +ma'am?" says she. + +"Oh, Weston, dear, don't take me so," Alison cried, and she edged her way +between the little table and the stiff chairs, holding out her hands. + +Mrs. Weston flushed. "Your servant, ma'am," says she with a curtsy, but +she ignored the hands. + +Then Susan stood up. "I must go, I believe," she smiled, and bent to +offer one fair cheek to Mrs. Weston. The other was then given to Alison. +She smiled upon them both benignly and made for the door. + +"Susan! You'll dine with me to-morrow," Alison put in. + +"Oh. Mr. Hadley will be at home." + +"But of course you bring him." + +"Thank you then." The door shut behind her, and the room was larger. + +"I can't tell why you have come," says Mrs. Weston tremulously. + +"To say I was wrong and I'm sorry. Oh, Weston, dear, to say I have been a +peevish wicked fool." + +Mrs. Weston sat down again. "Where is Harry?" she said. + +"I have writ to him to beg him come back to me." + +"I am asking you to come back to us." + +"You--" + +"Where is he?" + +"Ah, you don't know then?" + +"I have not seen him since he left your house." + +"He has been living at a tavern in the Long Acre. I have made sure of +that, and I wrote to him there. But he has not answered me. He does not +answer me. I can't tell if he has gone away." + +"Where is his father?" Mrs. Weston asked quickly. + +"His father? Colonel Boyce? Oh, Weston! Colonel Boyce is his +father, then?" + +"Did you come to pry?" Mrs. Weston flushed. + +"I do not deserve that," Alison said, and then very gently, "Oh, my dear, +but I have been cruel enough to you." + +"It's very well," Mrs. Weston said faintly. "Where is Colonel Boyce?" + +"I know nothing. Does it matter, Weston, dear? He cannot help us +to Harry." + +"I am afraid of him. Oh, it's all wrong maybe. I am so weak and stupid. +But I am afraid what he may do with Harry." + +"Indeed, I think Mr. Harry can keep his head even against Colonel Boyce," +Alison smiled. + +"His head?" Mrs. Weston looked puzzled. "I don't mean that, I believe. I +am afraid he may win Harry to be like himself. He is so clever and +dazzling, and he is full of wickedness. He cares for nothing but his own +will and to have power. When I saw him so friendly with Harry I thought I +should have died." + +"My poor Weston," Alison said gently. "But I am not afraid of that. Mr. +Harry won't be dazzled." + +"You dazzled him." + +"Oh, and am I full of wickedness too?" Alison laughed. "Dear, +forgive me." + +"No, but you are strong and hard as his father was." + +Alison drew in her breath. "I shall teach you not to call me that, +Weston," she said. "And Harry--well, Harry shall find me for him." + +There was silence for a while, and Alison watched with new emotions the +tired, wistful face. "Weston, dear, I want you to come back to me. I want +Mr. Harry to find you with me when he comes home." + +Mrs. Weston cried out, "He does not know who I am!" in anxious fear, and +clutched at Alison's hand. + +"No, indeed. But he loves you already, I think." + +"But I do not want him to know," Mrs. Weston cried. "I--I was not married +to Colonel Boyce." + +"Weston, dear," Alison pressed the hand. + +"I lived at Kingston. My father reared us strictly. He was harsh. I think +that was because my mother died so young. Mr. Boyce--he was a gentleman +in the Blues then, and very fine, much gayer than Harry and more +handsome. He used to ride out to Hampton Court to an old cousin of his, +who had a charge at the Palace. He met me one day by the river. I don't +know why he set himself upon me. I was never much to his taste, I think. +But I thought him the most wonderful man in the world. I let him do what +he would with me. I don't blame him for that. He never promised me +anything. In a while he grew tired. Then Harry came. My father could not +forgive me. Afterwards they said that I had killed him. Harry was born. I +lay very ill and they believed that I should die. I never knew whether it +was my father or my brother sent for Mr. Boyce. My brother boasted +afterwards that it was he made him relieve them of the baby. And I--I did +not die, you know. When I began to be well again my baby was gone. My +father lay dying then. He would not see me. My brother was the head of +the family, and he--I could not stay there. I tried to find Mr. Boyce, +but he had left the regiment. He had gone to Holland, they said, after +the Duke of Monmouth. I could do nothing. And my brother had told me that +Mr. Boyce would soon find a way to be rid of my baby. I--I believed that +he had. I never saw Harry again till--you know. I never saw his father +till that day at Lady Waverton's. He told me afterwards that they had +said to him I was dying, and he supposed me dead. I believe that is +true. He would not have troubled himself with the child else." + +"Oh, Weston, dear," Alison murmured, and caressed her. + +Mrs. Weston pushed back the hair from her wrinkled brow. "Mr. Boyce +promised me that Harry need know nothing of me now. I do not know if he +has kept his word about that." + +"There's nothing about Harry that is not safe with me," Alison said. "Oh, +my dear, now I know where Harry has his strength from and his +gentleness." + +Mrs. Weston looked at her in a puzzled fashion. "I wonder what he is +doing now?" she said wearily. "I think I have told you everything, +Alison. Oh! Your father. Your father was very kind to me. When I did not +know what to do--I had no money left--they gave me five pounds--I went to +him. He used to come to my father's house, you know, when he had business +in Kingston. He used to go all over the country about his trading. My +father said he was a godless man, but he was always kind to me. I told +him everything. He took me into his house, and indeed I did not know +where to go for food. I was your mother's servant while she lived, but I +think she doubted me. Your father never told her anything, and she--but +she let me be." + +"Oh, Weston, Weston," Alison said. "And you have spent all your life +caring for me." + +"There was nothing else to do. But I was glad to do that." She looked +at the girl with strange, puzzled, wistful eyes and saw Alison's eyes +full of tears. She put out her hand shyly, awkwardly, and touched +Alison's cheek. + +Alison smiled, laughed with a sob in her voice. "It is a long while since +I cried," she said, and put her arms round Mrs. West on and laid her head +on Mrs. Weston's bosom and cried indeed. + +Mrs. Weston held her close. "Alison! But this isn't like you." + +"Indeed it is," Alison sobbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +EMOTIONS BY MR. WAVERTON + + +You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the +best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its +severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. +Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat +upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly +over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his +clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the +window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with +profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and +glower down at its emptiness--and repeat the motions in a different +order. He must be theatrical even without an audience. + +But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his +conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, +you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it. + +The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, +and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of +being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung +himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far +away. In a little while came the beat of rain--slow, big drops. That was +soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke. + +Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited +maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious +invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who +admonished her and made her worse. + +Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming +rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a +night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!" + +"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr. +Waverton, in much agitation. + +"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, +dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. +Waverton's. + +"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He +advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a +great clatter of crockery. + +"Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed +into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it." + +"What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said. + +"Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the +ready, the hundred guineas?" + +"Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped. + +"Out with the cole, burn you." + +Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at +it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr. +Waverton cried. + +Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's +dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts." + +Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low +voice. "Ned--was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went +on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth. +"Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight +from my goldsmith, man. Tell me--you said you would force a fight on +him. Did he--" + +"Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows +that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?" + +"I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base +rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise." + +"Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money. +"Where's that damned rum?" + +"You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it. +Nay, but, Ned--how did he take it?" + +"Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?" + +"He said nothing?" + +"Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?" + +"Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him." + +"Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?" + +The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the +bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are +impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his +end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by +a noble lord in high place." + +"Then it's worth more than a hundred megs." + +"You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you." + +"Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I +must quit." + +"It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed. + +"Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that +while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender +thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces." + +"You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on +the table. + +"Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march. +Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and +out he went. + +Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great +mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry +rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow, +hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might +even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender +had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a +pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such +ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined +to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of +Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that +the rogue should have had a chance to fight--that generous chivalry which +had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The +wretched creature had been properly punished--stamped out by knaves of +his own class in a vulgar street brawl--a dirty hole-and-corner end. +Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt +with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet. + +So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily +delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism +steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the +powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need +not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on +her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her +was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence, +and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased +him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very +tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from +too much humility.... + +He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of +the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure, +damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A +tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But, +perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had +paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she +had sunk by yielding to him. + +Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing: + +"MR. BOYCE,--I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have +to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the +truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have +you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that +we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may +have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall +which I hope you would not have me bear. + +"A." + +Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes. + +It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never +quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The +treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover, +then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr. +Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she +was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust +after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved +her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would +have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh. + +But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second +time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of +her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay, +faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She +must be shown that--oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a +touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who +moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all +his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very +furiously. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +CAPTAIN McBEAN TAKES HORSE + + +Captain McBean, healthily red and brown, showed no sign of having been +out of bed all night. From cold water and a razor in his own lodgings he +came back at a round pace to St. Martin's Lane. He found his aide, Mr. +Mackenzie, taking the air on the doorstep of the Blue House, and rebuked +him. "I bade ye bide with the lad, Donald." + +"The surgeon has him in hand, sir." + +"_Tiens_. He's a brisk fellow, that Rolfe." + +"I'm thinking Mr. Boyce will need him." + +"Eh, is there anything new?" + +"I would not say so. But he's sore hurt. And I'm thinking he takes it +hard." + +"Aye, you're the devil of a thinker, Donald." Captain McBean grinned. +"And the Colonel, has he made a noise?" + +"He's in the way of calling for liquors, but he's peaceable, the +women say." + +"You'll go get your breakfast and be back again. And bring O'Connor with +you. I'll hope to need the two of you." Captain McBean relieved guard on +the doorstep till the surgeon came down. "I'm obliged to you, Mr. Rolfe. +What do you make of him?" + +"Egad, Captain, you're devoted. Why, the old gentleman has put in for +some fever, but I doubt he will do well enough." + +"Be sure of it. What of the young one?" + +Mr. Rolfe pursed his lip. "Faith, there's no more amiss. But--but--why, +he was hard hit, I grant you--but you might take the young one for the +old one. D'ye follow me? The lad hath no vigour in him." + +McBean nodded. "I'll be talking to him, by your leave." + +"Od's life, I would not talk long. I don't like it, Captain, and there's +the truth. Go easy with him. I will be here again to-day." + +Captain McBean went up to the room where Harry lay as white as his +pillows. A woman was feeding him out of a cup. "You made it damned salt, +your broth," says Harry, in a feeble disgust. + +"'Tis what you lack, look you." Captain McBean sat himself on the bed and +took the cup and waved the woman off. "'Tis the natural, hale salinity +and the sanguineous part which you lose by a wound, and for lack of it +you are thus faint. Therefore we do ever administer great possets of salt +to the wounded, and--" + +"And pickle me before I be dead," says Harry. "Be hanged to your jargon." + +"You'll take another sup, my lad, if I hold your long nose to it. And you +may suck your orange after." + +Harry made a wry face, swallowed a mouthful and lay back out of breath. +After a while, "You were here all night, weren't you?" he said. + +"I am body physician to the family of Boyce, _mon brave_." + +"My father?" + +"Has a hole in his shoulder, praise God, and a damned paternal temper. He +will do well enough." + +"How do you come into it?" McBean grinned. "Who were they?" + +"I am here to talk to you, _mon cher_. You will not talk to me, for it is +disintegrating to your tissues. _Allons_, compose yourself and attend. +Now I come into it, if you please, out of gratitude. Mr. Boyce--I have it +in command from His Majesty to present you with his thanks for very +gallant and faithful service." + +"Oh, the boy got off then?" + +"King James is returned to France, sir," says McBean with dignity. +"Look 'e, tie up your tongue. His Majesty charged me to put this in +your hands and to advise you that he would ever have in memory your +resource and spirit and your loyalty. Which I do with a great +satisfaction, Mr. Boyce." + +Harry fingered a pretty toy of a watch circled with diamonds, and wrought +with a monogram in diamonds and sapphires. "Poor lad," says he. + +"It's his own piece and was his father's, I believe. _Pardieu_, sir, +there's many will envy you." + +Harry's head went back on its pillows. "It's a queer taste." + +"Mr. Boyce, you may count upon it that when His Majesty is established in +power, he--" + +"He will have as bad a memory as the rest of his family. Bah, what does +it matter? You are talking of the millennium." + +"You will talk, will you?" says McBean. "I'll gag you, _mordieu_, if you +answer me back again. Come, sirrah, you know the King better. It's a +noble, generous lad. So leave the Whiggish sneers to your father. So much +for that. Now, _mon ami_, you have put me under a great obligation. It +was a rare piece of work, and to be frank, I did not think you had it in +you. But I did count upon you as a gentleman of high honour, and, +_pardieu_, I count myself very fortunate I applied to you. I speak for my +party, Mr. Boyce, when I thank you and promise you any service of mine." + +Harry mumbled something like, "Damn your eloquence." + +But McBean was not to be put off. "You will like to know that the King +when he was quit of Marlborough--egad, the old villain hath been a +gentleman in this business--made straight for me and was instant that I +should concern myself for you. I held it my first duty to get His Majesty +out of the country. Between ourselves, I was never in love with this plan +of palace trickery and Madame Anne. But the thing was offered us, and we +could not show the white feather. _Bien_, His Majesty took assurance from +Marlborough of your safety, so I had no great alarm for you. I could not +be aware of your private feuds. But now, _mordieu_, I make them my own. I +promise you, it touches me nearly that you should be hacked down, and +egad, before my eyes." + +Harry tried to raise himself and said eagerly, "Who was in it? Who +were they?" + +Captain McBean responded with some more of the salt broth. "Now I'll +confess that I had some doubts of your father. As soon as I was back in +London I made haste to find you. I was waiting at that tavern of yours +when I heard the scuffle. You were down before I could reach you, and +there was your father fighting across you most heroical. Faith, I did not +know the old gentleman had it in him. He had pinked one, I believe, but +he is slow, and they were too many for him. He took it badly in the +shoulder as I came. But they were not workmen. I put one out at the first +thrust, and the rogues would not stand. I tickled one in the ham as he +ran, but missed the sinew in his fat. So it ended. Now I'll confess I did +the old gentleman a wrong. I guessed the business might be one of his +damned superfine plots. It would be like him to have you finished while +he made a brag of fighting for you. But I was wrong. _Mordieu_, I believe +he has a kindness for you, Harry." + +"What?" says Harry, startled by the name. + +"Oh, _mon ami_, you must let me be kindly too. Egad, you command my +emotions, sir. No, the old gentleman hath his humanity. He would have +died for you, Harry, and faith he is so rheumatic he nearly did. No, it +was not he played this damned game. Who d'ye think it was that I put on +his back? That rascal Ben--you remember Ben of the North Road? I put the +villain to the question who set him on you. _Bien_ he was hired to it by +that fine fellow Waverton." + +"Geoffrey!" Harry gasped. + +"Even so. Now, Harry, what has Master Geoffrey Waverton against you? If +he wanted to murder your father I could understand it. That affair at +Pontoise is matter enough for a life or two. Though he should take it +gentlemanly. But why must he murder you?" + +"I am not dead yet," said Harry, and his mouth set. + +Captain McBean laughed. "Not by fifty year:" and he contemplated Harry's +pale drawn face with benign approval. "But why does Mr. Waverton want you +dead now?" + +"That's my affair," said Harry. + +"_Enfin_." Captain McBean shrugged, with a twist of the lip and a cock +of the eye. + +"Is there more of that broth?" says Harry. + +Captain McBean administered it. "I go get another cup, Harry." He nodded +and went out. + +His two aides, Mackenzie and O'Connor, were waiting below. "Donald, go +up. The same orders. None but Rolfe is to come to him without you +stand by. And shorten your damned long face, if you can. Patrick, we +take horse." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +PERPLEXITIES OF CAPTAIN McBEAN + + +Captain McBean and Mr. O'Connor halted steaming horses before the door of +Tetherdown. The butler announced that Mr. Waverton had gone out, and then +impressed by the evidence of haste and the martial elegance of McBean, +suggested that my lady might receive the gentleman. + +"How? The animal has a mother?" says Me Bean in French, and shrugged and +beckoned the butler closer. "Now, my friend, could you make a guess where +I should look for Mr. Waverton?" and money passed. + +"Sir, Mr. Waverton rides over sometimes to the Hall at Highgate. Miss +Lam--Mrs. Boyce's house;" the butler looked knowing. + +"Mrs. Boyce? Eh, is that Colonel Boyce's lady?" + +The butler smiled discreetly. "No, sir, to be sure. Young Boyce--young +Mr. Boyce, sir." + +Captain McBean wheeled round in such a hurry that the butler was almost +overthrown. They clattered off. + +It was not till they were riding through the wood that McBean spoke: +"Patrick, my man, would you say that Harry Boyce is the man to marry +wisely and well?" + +"Faith, I believe he would not be doing anything wisely. That same is +his charm." + +"_Tiens_, it begins now to be ugly. Why must the boy be married at all, +_mordieu_?" + +"It will be in his nature," says O'Connor. "And likely to a shrew." + +"If that were all! Ah, bah, they shall have no satisfaction in it. But no +more will I..." + +There were at the Hall two women who had almost become calm by mingling +their distress and their tears. It's believed that they slept in each +other's arms, and slept well enough. In the morning another messenger was +sent off to the Long Acre tavern. If he came back with no news it was +agreed they should move into town. They said no more of their fears. Each +had some fancy that she was putting on a brave face for the other's sake. +There is no doubt that they found the stress easier to bear for +consciousness of each other's endurance. + +So Mr. Hadley and his Susan were received by an atmosphere of gentle +peace. Much to Mr. Hadley's surprise, who would complain that venture +into Alison's house was much like a post over against the Irish Brigade; +for a man never knew how she would break out upon him, but could count +upon it that she would be harassing. + +"We are so glad," says Susan. + +"She loves to march her prisoner through the town. It's a simple, +brutish taste." + +"Oh. I am so, I believe," says Susan, and contemplated Mr. Hadley with +placid satisfaction. + +"She is too honest for you, Mr. Hadley," Alison said. + +"Oh Lud, yes, ma'am. The mass of her overwhelms me, and it's all plain +virtue--a heavy, solemn thing. Look you, Susan, you embarrass madame with +your revelations." + +"It is curious. He is always ill at ease when I am with him." + +"Because you make me tedious, child." + +"That's your vanity, Mr. Hadley." Alison tried to keep in tune with them. + +"Look you, Susan, I am cashiered by marriage. Once I was Charles. Now I +am without honour." + +"Mr. Geoffrey Waverton," quoth the butler. + +Alison's hand went to her breast and she was white. + +"Dear Geoffrey!" Mr. Hadley murmured. "I do not know when last I saw dear +Geoffrey," and he turned a sardonic face to the door. + +Susan leaned forward. "Alison, dear--if you choose--" she began in +a whisper. + +"Sit still," Alison muttered. "Stay, stay." + +Mr. Waverton came in with measured pomp, stopped short and surveyed the +company and at last made his bow. "Madame, your most obedient. I fear +that I come untimely." + +Alison could not find her voice, so it was Mr. Hadley who answered, "Lud, +Geoffrey dear, you're never out of season: like mutton." + +"I give Mrs. Hadley joy," says Geoffrey. "Such wit must be rare company." + +Alison was staring at him. "You have something to say to me? You may +speak out. There are no secrets here." + +"Is it so, faith? Egad, what friendship! But you have always been +fortunate. And in fact I bring you news of more fortune. You are free +of your Mr. Boyce, ma'am. You are done with him. He has been picked up +dead." He smiled at Alison, Alison white and still and dumb. Mrs. +Weston gave a cry and fell back in her chair and her fingers plucked at +her dress. + +Mr. Hadley strode across and stood very close to Geoffrey. "Take care," +says he in a low voice. + +"Well. Tell all your story," Alison said. + +"They found him lying in the kennel in Long Acre," Geoffrey smiled. "Oh, +there was some brawl, it seems. He was set upon by his tavern cronies in +a quarrel about a wench he had. A very proper end." + +"Geoffrey, you are a cur," says Mr. Hadley in his ear. + +"You are lying," Alison cried. + +Mr. Waverton laughed and waved his hand. "Oh, ma'am, you are a chameleon. +The other day you desired nothing better than monsieur's demise. Now at +the news of it you grow venomous. I vow I cannot keep pace with your +changes. I must withdraw from your intimacy. 'Tis too exacting for my +poor vigour. Madame, your most humble." + +"Not yet," Alison cried. + +"Let him go, ma'am," Mr. Hadley broke in sharply. "Go home, sirrah. +You'll not wait long before you hear from me." + +"From which hand?" Geoffrey flicked at the empty sleeve. "Nay, faith, it +suits madame well, the left-handed champion." + +Mr. Hadley turned on his heel. "Pray, ma'am, leave us. This is become +my affair." + +"I have not done with him yet," Alison said. + +But the door was opened for the servant to say: "Captain Hector McBean, +Mr. Patrick O'Connor," and with a clank of spurs and something of a +military swagger the little man and the long man marched in. + +Captain McBean swept a glance round the room. + +"So," says he with satisfaction and made a right guess at Alison. "Mrs. +Boyce, I am necessitated to present myself. Captain McBean." + +"What, more champions!" Geoffrey laughed. "Oh, ma'am, you have too +general a charity. My sympathy is in your way," and he made his bow and +was going off. + +"_Mordieu_, you relieve me marvellously," says McBean, and O'Connor put +his back against the door. + +Mr. Waverton waved O'Connor aside. + +"You'll be Mr. Waverton?" said O'Connor. + +"Od's life, sir, stand out of my way." But O'Connor laughed and McBean +tapped the magnificent shoulder. Mr. Waverton swung round. + +"Hark in your ear," says McBean. "You're a lewd, cowardly scoundrel, Mr. +Waverton." + +Mr. Waverton glared at him, stepped back and turned on Alison. "Pray, +ma'am, control your bullies. I desire to leave your house!" + +"Let him be, sir," Alison stood up. "Leave us, if you please, I have to +speak with him." + +"You have not," McBean frowned. "The affair is out of your hands. Come, +sir, march. There's a pretty piece of turf beyond the gates. Your friend +there may serve you." + +"Not I, sir," Mr. Hadley put in. "I have myself a meeting to require of +Mr. Waverton." + +"So? I like the air here better and better, _pardieu_. Well, Mr. +Waverton, we'll e'en walk out alone." + +"Your bluster won't serve you, sirrah. If you be a gentleman, which you +make incredible, you may proceed in order and I'll consider if I may do +you the honour to meet you." + +"Gentleman? Bah, I am Hector McBean, Captain in Bouffiers' regiment. +Come, sir, now are you warmer?" He struck Mr. Waverton across the eyes. + +Mr. Waverton, drawing back, turned again upon Alison: "My God, did you +bring your bullies here to murder me?" + +"I did not bid you here," Alison said. + +"_Lâche_," says Mr. O'Connor with a shrug. + +"_En effet_," says McBean and sat down. "Observe, Waverton: I have given +you the chance to take a clean death. You have not the courage for it. +_Tant mieux_. You may now hang." + +Mr. Waverton again made a move for the door, but Mr. O'Connor stood +solidly in the way. "Attention, Waverton. You have bungled your business, +as usual. Your fellow Ned Boon hath been taken and lies in Newgate. He +has confessed that he and his gang were hired for this murder by a +certain Geoffrey Waverton." + +"It is a lie!" + +"Waverton--I have a whip as well as a sword." + +"I do not concern myself with you, sir," says Mr. Waverton with +dignity. "You are repeating a lesson, I see. But I advise you, I shall +not permit myself to be slandered. This fellow Ned Bone--Boon--what is +his vulgar name? I know nothing of him. If he pretends to any knowledge +of me, he lies." + +"You told me that you had hired men to spy upon Mr. Boyce," Alison said. + +Mr. Waverton laughed. "Oh, ma'am, I thank you for a flash of honesty. +Here's the truth then. In madame's interest, I had arranged with her that +a party of fellows should watch her scurvy husband. She suspected him of +various villainies, infidelity, what you will. And, egad, I dare to say +she was right. But I have no more concern in it. So you may his back to +your employers, Captain Mac what's your name, and advise them that I am +not to be bullied. I shall know how to defend myself." + +Alison came nearer Captain McBean. "Sir, this is a confection of lies. It +is true the man told me he was planning a watch on Mr. Boyce. But not of +my will. And when I knew I did instantly give Mr. Boyce warning." + +"I shall deal with you in good time," McBean frowned. "_Dieu de dieu!_ I +do not excuse you. Attention, Waverton! You lie stupidly. Your bullies, +_mordieu_, blunder in your own style. It would not content them to murder +Mr. Boyce. They must have his father too. They could not do their +business quietly nor finish it. The rogue Ben was caught and the Colonel +has only a hole in his shoulder. You may know that he is not the man to +forgive you for it. So, Waverton. You have suborned murder and furnished +evidence to hang you for it. You must meddle with Colonel Boyce to make +sure that his Whiggish party who hold the government shall not spare you. +You set every Jacobite against you when you struck at Harry. However +things go now there'll be those in power urgent to hang you. Go home and +wait till the runners take you off to Newgate. March!" + +Mr. O'Connor opened the door with alacrity. + +"I am not afraid of you," Waverton cried. "And you, madame, you, the +widow--be sure if I am attacked, your loose treachery shall not win you +off. What I have done--you know well it was done for you and in commerce +with you." Mr. O'Connor took him by the arm. "Don't presume to touch me!" +he called out, trembling with rage. Mr. O'Connor propelled him out. + +"I believe Patrick will cut the coat off his back," said McBean pensively +and then laughed a little. He brushed his hand over his face and stood up +and marched on Alison. "Now for you," he said. "I beg leave of the +company." He made them a bow and waved them out of the room. + +"Sir, Mr. Boyce?" Mrs. Weston said faintly. + +"Madame, Mr. Boyce is not dead. He lies wounded. I make no apology, +_pardieu_! It is imperative to frighten the Waverton out of the +country--since he would not stand up to be killed. You, madame," he +turned frowning upon Alison, "you must have him no more in your +neighbourhood." + +Alison bent her head. Mr. Hadley came forward. "Captain McBean, you take +too much upon yourself." + +"I'll answer for it at my leisure, sir." + +"Pray go, Charles," Alison said gently. So they went out, Mrs. +Weston upon Susan's arm, and Captain McBean and Alison were left +alone, the fierce little lean man stretching every inch of him +against her rich beauty. + +"You do me some wrong, sir," Alison said. + +"Is it possible?" McBean's chest swelled to the sneer. + +"Pray, sir, don't scold. It passes me by. Nay, I cannot answer you. I +have no defence, I believe. Be sure that you can say nothing to make my +hurt worse." + +"How long shall we go on talking about you, madame?" + +Alison flushed dark, and turned away and muttered something. + +"What now?" McBean said. In another moment he saw that she was crying. +Some satisfaction perhaps, no pity, softened his stare.... + +She turned, making no pretence to hide her tears. "I beg of you--take me +to Mr. Boyce." + +"I said, madame, Mr. Boyce is not yet dead." The sharp, precise voice +spared her nothing. "I do not know whether he will live." Alison gave a +choking cry. "I do not now know whether he would desire to live." + +"What do you mean?" A madness of fear, of love perhaps, distorted her +face. + +"You well know. When I rode out this morning, I had it in mind to kill +the Waverton and conduct you to Mr. Boyce. But I did not guess that +Waverton would refuse to be killed like a gentleman or that I should find +you engaged in the rogue's infamy." + +"But that is his lie! Ah, you must know that it is a lie. You heard how +he turned on me, and his vileness." + +"_Bien_, you have played fast and loose with him. I allow that. It does +not commend you to me, madame." + +"I'll not bear it," Alison cried wildly. "Oh, sir, you have no right. Mr. +Boyce would never endure you should treat me so." + +"_Dieu de dieu_! Would you trade upon Harry's gentleness now? Aye, +madame, he would not treat you so, _mordieu_. He would see nothing, know +nothing, believe nothing. And let you make a mock of him again. But if +you please, I stand between him and you." + +"You have no right," Alison muttered. + +"It is you who have put me there. You, madame, when you played him false +with this Waverton." + +"That is a lie--a lie," she cried. + +"Oh, content you. You are all chastity. I do not doubt it. But you drove +Harry away from you. You admitted your Waverton to intimacy--you let him +hope--believe--bah, what does it matter? You were in his secrets. You +knew he put bullies upon Harry. Now he has failed and you are in a fright +and want your Harry again. Permit me, madame, not to admire you." + +"What do you want of me?" Alison said miserably. + +"I cannot tell. I want to know what I am to do with Harry. And you--you +are another wound." + +Alison shuddered. "For God's sake take me to him. I will content him." + +"Yes. For how long?" + +"Oh, I deserve it all. I cannot answer you. And yet you are wrong. I am +not such as you think me. I have never had anything but contempt for Mr. +Waverton. If he were not what he is, he must have known that. He came to +me after I left Harry. He told me that he was having Harry spied upon. +The moment he was gone I wrote to Harry and gave him warning and begged +him come back to me. He has never answered me. And I--oh--am I to speak +of Harry and me?" + +"If you could I should not much believe you. From the first, madame, I +have believed you." + +"It was I who drove him away from me. I have been miserable for it ever +since. I humbled myself." + +Captain McBean held up his hand. "I still believe you. Pray, order +your coach." + +"Where is he?" + +"He lies at his father's lodging. Observe, madame: I have said--he is +not yet dead. Whether he lives rests, I believe to God, upon what you +may be to him." + +"Then he will be well enough," she sobbed as she laughed. + +"Oh! I believe in your power," says McBean with a twist of a smile. + +She stayed a moment by the door and flung her arms wide. "What I am--it +is all for him." + +Captain McBean left alone, took snuff. "A splendid wild cat--and that +mouse of a Harry," says he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +REMORSE OF COLONEL BOYCE + + +Captain McBean was strutting to and fro for the benefit of his impatience +when Mr. O'Connor returned to him. "Patrick, you look morose. Had he the +legs of you?" + +"He had not," says O'Connor, nursing his hand. "But he had a +beautiful nose. Sure, it was harder than you would think. And I have +sprained my thumb." + +"What, did he fight?" + +"He did not--saving the tongue of him. But I had broke my whip upon him, +so I broke his nose to be even. Egad, he was beautiful before and behind. +He cannot show this long while. Neither behind nor before, faith. What +will he do, d'ye think?" + +"Oh Lud, he'll not face it out. He would dream of hangmen. He'll take the +waters. He'll go the grand tour. D'ye know, Patrick, there's a masterly +touch in old Boyce. To choose that oaf for his decoy at Pontoise! Who +could guess at danger in him? No wonder Charles Middleton saw no guile! +Yet, you observe, the creature's full of venom." + +"He bleeds like a pig," says Mr. O'Connor. "What will we be waiting +for, sir?" + +"The lady." + +"She goes to Harry? Oh, he's the lucky one. What a Venus it is!" + +"Aye, aye. She should have married you, Patrick. You would have +ridden her." + +"Ah now, don't destroy me with envy and desires," says Mr. O'Connor. +"But, sure, there was another, a noble fat girl. Will she be bespoke?" + +"She belongs to the one-armed hero." + +"Maybe she could do with another. There's enough of her for two. Oh, come +away, sir, before I danger my soul." + +They heard the wheels of the coach and marched out. Alison was coming +downstairs with Mrs. Weston. "What now?" says McBean glowering. "Do you +need a duenna to watch you with your husband?" + +"Madame is Harry's mother, sir," Alison said. + +For once Captain McBean was disconcerted. "A thousand pardons," says he, +and with much ceremony put Mrs. Weston into the coach. + +As they rode after it, "You fight too fast, sir," says O'Connor with a +grin. "I have remarked it before." + +Captain McBean 'was still something out of countenance. "Who would have +thought he had a mother here?" he growled. + +"Oh, faith, you did not suppose the old Colonel brought him forth--like +Jove plucking Minerva out of his swollen head." + +"I did not, Patrick, you loon. But I did not guess his mother would be +here with this gorgeous madame wife." + +"Fie now, is it the Lord God don't advise you of everything? 'Tis an +indignity, faith." + +Captain Me Bean swore at him in a friendly way, and they jogged on +through the Islington lanes.... + +So after a while it happened that Colonel Boyce, raising a hot and angry +head at the creature who dared open his bedroom door, found himself +looking at Mrs. Weston. "Ods my life! Kate! What a pox do you want +here?" says he. + +"You are hurt. I thought you would want nursing." + +"I do not want nursing, damme. How did you hear of the business?" + +"That Scotch captain rode out to tell us." + +"Od burn the fellow! Humph. No. Maybe he is no fool, neither. Us? Who is +us, Kate? Mrs. Alison?" + +"She is gone up to Harry now." + +Colonel Boyce whistled. "Come up and we will show you a thing, eh? That +is Scripture, Kate. You used to have your mouth full of Scripture." + +"You put me out of favour with that." + +"Let it be, can't you? What, they will make it up, then?" + +"Does that hurt you? Indeed, they would never have quarrelled but for +you." + +"Oh, aye, blame it on me. I am the devil, faith. Come, ma'am, what have I +done to the pretty dears? She's a warm piece and Harry's a milksop, and +that's the whole of it." + +"With your tricks you made her think Harry was such as you are. And that +wife you married came to Alison and told her that Harry was base-born." + +"Rot the shrew! She must meddle must she? Egad, she was always a blunder, +Madame Rachel." He swore at her fully. "Bah, what though? Why should +jolly Alison heed her?" + +"Alison knows everything now. I told her." + +"Egad, you go beyond me, Kate. You that made me swear none should ever +know the boy was yours. You go and blab it out! Damn you for a woman." + +The woman looked at him strangely. "You have done that indeed," she said. + +"No, that's too bad. I vow it is." For once Colonel Boyce was stung. He +fell silent and fidgeted, and made a long arm for the herb water by his +bed. Mrs. Weston gave it him. "Let be, can't you?" he cried, and drank +all the same. "Eh, Kate that came over my guard.... She has made you +suffer, the shrew. Egad, I could whip her through the town for it." + +"Yes. Whip her." + +"Oh, what would you have?" Colonel Boyce shifted under a rueful air, +strange in him. "I am what I am. I have had no luck in women. She was a +blunder. And you--you have paid to say of me what you will. Egad, you +have the chance now." + +"Are you in pain?" + +"Be hanged to pain! Don't gloat, Kate. That's not like you, at least." + +"Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry." + +"No, nor that neither. Damme, what should I be with you pitying me? Let +it be. Come, you want something of me, I suppose. Something for your +Harry, eh? What is it?" + +"I want nothing but that he should live. He has no need of you or me." + +"Oh Lud, he will live. But you were always full of fears." + +"Yes. You used to say that long ago." + +Colonel Boyce winced again. "Eh, you get in your thrusts, Kate, I swear I +did what I could to save him." + +"I could not have borne to come to you else." + +"Humph. I see no good in your coming. There's little comfort for you or +me in seeing each other. I suppose it's your damned duty." + +"I don't know." + +"Oh Lud, then begone and let's have done with it all." + +"I want to stay till you are well." + +"Aye, faith, it's comfortable to see me on my back and helpless." + +Mrs. Weston did not answer for a moment. She was busy with setting his +table in order. "I want to have some right somewhere. She is with Harry." + +"By God, Kate, you're a good soul," Colonel Boyce cried. + +"I am not. I am jealous of her," Mrs. Weston said with a sob. + +"Does Harry know of you?" + +"What does it matter? He'll not care now." + +"Kate--come here, child." + +"No. No. I am not crying," Mrs. Weston said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +HARRY WAKES UP + + +Harry lay asleep when Alison came into his room. + +She made sure of that and sat herself beside him to wait. It was not, you +know, a thing which she did well. She looked down at him gravely. +Afterwards Harry would accuse her that what first she felt was how little +and miserable a man she had taken to herself. + +He lay there very still and his breath hardly stirred him. Indeed, the +surgery of Mr. Rolfe had bound him up so tightly that he was in armour +from waist to neck. After a moment, she started and trembled and bent +over him and put her cheek close to his lips. She felt his breath and +rose again slowly almost as pale as he. That cheating fear had stabbed +cruelly, and still it would not let her be. His face was so thin, so +white and utterly tired. The life was drained out of him.... + +She sat beside him, still but for the beat of her bosom, and it seemed +that the consciousness in her was falling from a height or galloping +against the wind. She seemed to try to stop and could not. + +She tried to change the fashion of her thought and had no power in that +either. It was a strange, half-angry, half-contemptuous pity that moved +in her, and a fever of impatience. He was wicked to be struck down so, +rent, impotent. Why must the wretch go plunging out into the world and +measure himself against these swashbuckling conspirators? He had no +equipment for it. He was fated to end it with disaster. Faith, it was a +cruel folly to throw himself away and drag up her life by the roots as he +fell. She needed him--needed him quick and eager, and there he lay, a +shrunken thing that could use only gentleness, help, a tedious, trivial +service like a child. + +He was humiliated, a condition not to be borne in her man. As she watched +him, she saw Geoffrey Waverton rise between them, blusterous and +menacing, and his lustiness mocked at the still, helpless body. But on +that all other feeling was lost in a fever of hate of Mr. Waverton. He +was branded with every contemptible sin that she knew, she ached to have +him suffer, and (unaware of the contusions and extravasations +administered by Mr. O'Connor) tried to console herself by recalling the +ignominious condition of Geoffrey in the hands of the truculent gentlemen +at Highgate. Bah, the coward was dishonoured for ever, at least. He would +never dare show his face in town or country. How could he? Mr. Hadley +would spit him like a joint. The good Charles! She found some consolation +in the memory of Mr. Hadley's sardonic contempt. Nay, but the others, +that fire-eating little Scotsman and his lank friend, they were of the +same scornful mind about Mr. Waverton. His blusterous bullying went for +nothing with them but to call for more disdain. They had no doubt that he +cut a miserable figure, that it was he who was humiliated in the affair. +And so all men would think, indeed. It was only a fool of a woman who +could be imposed upon by his brag, only a mean, detestable woman who +could suppose Harry defeated. + +Why, Harry must needs have done nobly to enlist these men on his side. He +was nothing to Captain McBean, nothing but what he had done, and yet +McBean took up his cause with a perfect devotion, cared for nothing but +to punish his enemies, and to assure his safety. Faith, the little man +would be as glad to thrash her as to overthrow Master Geoffrey. He had +come near it, indeed. She smiled a little. The absurd imagination was not +unpleasant. Monsieur was welcome to beat her if it would bring Harry any +comfort. Aye, it would be very good for her. She would be glad to show +Harry the stripes. Nay, but it was Harry who should beat her--only he +never would. And these fantastics were swept away in a wave of +tenderness. + +Mr. Harry was not good at making others suffer. He left it to his wife, +poor lad, and she--she had done it greedily. Well. There was to be an end +of that. Pray God he might ever be strong enough to hurt her. She bent +over him in this queer mood, and her eyes were dim, and she kissed him, +and whispered to herself--to him. Yes. She must make him hurt her. She +must have pain of him to bear.... + +Harry slept on. She began to caress his pillow, and crooned over him like +a mother with her child, and found herself blushing and was still and +silent again. Indeed, she was detestable. To make a show of fondling +after having driven him to the edge of death! To chatter and flutter +about him when he had no more than strength enough for sleep! Why, this +was the very way for a light o' love. And, indeed, she was no better, +wanting him only for her pleasure, for what he would give, watching +greedily till he should be fit to serve her turn again. Yes, that was the +only way of love Mrs. Alison understood. + +It was some satisfaction to scold herself, to make herself believe that +she was vile. For she wanted to suffer, she wanted to be humbled. Not so +much for the comfort of penance, not even for the luxury of sensation +which makes self-torture pleasure, but that she might be sure of +realizing her sins against the love which was now in command of all her +being, and go on to serve it with a clean devotion. One thing only was +worth doing, in one thing only could there be honour and joy, to make him +welcome her and have delight in her... And so she fell among dreams.... + +She saw something glitter on the table by the bed, and idly put out her +hand for it. She found herself looking at the diamonds of the Pretender's +watch. How did Harry come to such a gorgeous toy? J.R., the diamonds +wrote. Who was J.R.? + +"Alison," Harry said. + +She started, stared at him, and stood up. His eyes were open, and he +frowned a little. + +"Alison? It is you?" he said, and rubbed at his eyes. + +"Yes." + +"Why have you come?" + +She fell on her knees by the bed. "Oh, Harry, Harry," she murmured, and +hid her face. + +"Is it true?" + +"I will be true," she sobbed. + +"I want to see you." + +She showed him her face pale and wet with tears.... + +After a while, "Why have you come?" he said again. + +"Harry, I knew about Geoffrey. He told me." + +"You--knew?" + +I wrote you warning. I begged you come back to me. Oh, Harry, Harry, you +are proud." + +"I had no warning. Proud? Oh, yes, I am proud. What were you with +Geoffrey?" + +"Harry! Oh, Harry! No, it's fair. Well. I tried to trick him for your +sake to save you." + +"I am obliged for your care of me." + +She cried out "Ah, God," and hid her face again. Harry lay still and +white as death.... "Oh, Harry, you torture me," she murmured. "You have +the right. No man but you has ever had a thought of me. Harry--I want to +pray you--oh, I want to lie at your feet. Only believe in me--use +me--take me again." + +"I am a fool," Harry said, and she looked up and saw that he, too, was +crying. "Oh, curse the wound," he said hoarsely. "Egad, I am damned +feeble, child." + +"I love you, I love you," she sobbed, and pressed her face to his.... +"Oh, Harry, I am wicked." + +She raised herself. "You are hurt, and I wear you out." + +"That's a brag." Harry smiled faintly, "It takes more than you can give +to kill me, ma'am." + +"Ah, don't." + +"Stand up and let me look at you." Which she did, and made parade of her +beauty, smiling through tears. "Aye, you're a splendid woman," and his +eyes brightened. + +She made him a curtsy. "It's at your will, sir." "Yes, and why? Why? What +made you come back?" + +"My dear!" She held out her arms to him. "I have wanted you ever since I +lost you. And now--now I am nothing unless you want me." + +"Oh, be easy. There is plenty of you, and I want it all." + +"Can you say so? Ah, Harry, you have known enough bad that's me, cruel +and greedy and hard and cheating. I have always taken, and given +nothing back." + +"Damn your humilities," Harry said. + +"Oh, sir, but I want them, my new humilities. I have nothing else to +cover my nakedness." + +"You look better without them, ma'am." + +"Fie, I will stop your mouth." But it was a cup of herb water that she +offered him instead of a kiss. + +"You are a cheat," Harry spluttered. "You presume on my infirmities." + +"No. No. I have made you talk too much. You must be still and rest +again." + +"Burn your maternal care! I have hardly seen you yet a minute." + +"A minute! Oh!" She looked at the jewelled watch. "Aye, sir, an hour. +And what's this pretty toy?" + +Harry laughed. "Why, now I have you. Sure, ma'am, it's a love token." + +"I shall go away, sir." + +"Not till you come by the secret. I know you." + +His ear was pinched. "J.R. Who is J.R., sir?" + +"Jemima Regina. A queen of beauty, ma'am. She fell in love with my nose. +And offered me a thousand pound for it." + +"Harry! I am going to say good night." + +"Hear the truth, Alison. Do you remember--you told me I was born to be a +highwayman--my stand-and-deliver stare--my--" + +"Oh! Don't play so. I was a fiend when I taunted you so." + +"Why, child, it's nothing. Come then--J.R., it's Jacobus Rex, the poor +lad, Prince James, who will never be a king, God help him. He gave me +that for the memory of some little service I did him. McBean brought the +toy to-day." + +Alison nodded. "I will have that story from Captain McBean, sir. You tell +stories mighty ill, do you know--highwayman. Yes, Harry, you are that. +You pillage us all. Love, honour, you win it from all. And I--I am the +last to know you." + +"Bah, you will never be a wife," Harry said. "You have too much +imagination. But you make a mighty fine lover, my dear." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Highwayman, by H.C. Bailey + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHWAYMAN *** + +This file should be named 8high10.txt or 8high10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8high11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8high10a.txt + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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