CHAPTER XIII.I DISPLAY MY INFINITE RESOURCES.
Themorrow was full of anxiety and incident. There was a skirmish with my aunt—a diversion to be sure, but one of peril. There was also my distrust. I was compelled to keep an unceasing eye on Mr. Anthony, on Mrs. Emblem, on the soldiers, on my Lady Grimstone, on Captain Grantley and the document he held, and most of all on my own susceptibilities. There was here plenty of material for mischief. The conduct of the Captain was abominable. Of the six troopers quartered on us, five were despatched at daybreak to scour the surrounding country for the rebel; the remaining one, the Corporal, was retained in the library to protect his commanding officer from the wiles of woman. Never a doubt that Mr. Anthony had spoken true, and that this prudent cowardice had struck my only weapon from my hand. Only one means could save his lordship now—the sacrifice of the poor young fugitive.
I suppose it is the curse of persons of condition that the sword of pride swings above their heads, suspended tenderly on a single hair. The first breath of calumny brings it down. The Governmenthad merely to receive the paper setting forth what was said to be his lordship’s part in the prisoner’s escape, and ignoring all other consequences, not the least would be the hawking of his name in every filthy print of Fleet Street. It would be extremely difficult to bear. Yet bear it I must, and perchance his committal to the Tower, and divers horrid businesses, unless the lad was betrayed to his enemies at once.
However, I did not consider that harsh alternative. I could not apply it an I would. But something must be done, as the Captain took occasion to remind me. On the evening of the sixth day he sent this polite missive to my room.
“Madam:—To-morrow evening the term expires. Unless the rebel is discovered to me by the hour of six in the afternoon, my duty will compel me to acquaint His Majesty’s Government of the whole affair. Madam, I pray you in your own interest to consider deeply of your course, for I am persuaded that you have a knowledge of the rebel’s whereabouts. Let me remind you that the consequences must be inevitably of great prejudice to the Earl, your father, if you permit this matter to proceed.—I have, Madam, the honour to be your duteous, humble servant,J. Grantley.”
“Madam:—To-morrow evening the term expires. Unless the rebel is discovered to me by the hour of six in the afternoon, my duty will compel me to acquaint His Majesty’s Government of the whole affair. Madam, I pray you in your own interest to consider deeply of your course, for I am persuaded that you have a knowledge of the rebel’s whereabouts. Let me remind you that the consequences must be inevitably of great prejudice to the Earl, your father, if you permit this matter to proceed.—I have, Madam, the honour to be your duteous, humble servant,
J. Grantley.”
Miss Prue was sitting at my tea-table when I read this; and this keen observer saw me grow red with passion at its contents.
“From a dear friend, I’ll bet a shilling,” he confided to a tea-cup.
“Very,” says I, crumpling up the Captain’s insolence and throwing it in the grate; and added, “Prue, you must excuse me for five minutes; I must see that dear friend of ours, the Captain, on something of importance.”
“The Captain!” says he, all attention.
I was too preoccupied to heed him in any way whatever, and foolishly repaired to the library without troubling to set at rest any suspicion of the facts he might entertain. I found the Captain and his bodyguard, the Corporal, playing backgammon and smoking the horridest tobacco that ever did offend me.
“Your pardon, gentlemen,” says I, “and as you are at such an important matter, ’twere best that I withdraw perhaps.”
The Captain put his pipe down and begged me to be seated, while the Corporal, evidently acting under orders, rose, stepped to the door, but did not go outside.
“Sir,” I began, “I am come to ask you again to revise that paper. I will not have his lordship saddled with a misdemeanour which he never did commit. ’Twas I that set the rebel free, and ’tis I that will abide the consequence.”
The Captain grimly shook his head.
“My dear lady,” he replied, “it cannot be. Your father is morally responsible for the crime that hath been wrought in his house against the King.You must either produce me the prisoner to-morrow by the hour of six, or submit his lordship to the severe alternative.”
“Captain, this is an absurdity,” says I, tartly; “and to be brief, sir, your conversation seems extremely like a simpleton’s. Produce you the prisoner? Ods my life, what a folly do you talk! Ask me to produce you the devil, and I shall produce him just as easily.”
“Not a doubt about it,” says the Captain, laughing at the anger in my eyes.
Before I could retort upon him, my attention was distracted by the sudden opening of the door. To my horror I saw the apparition of the rebel. His mouth was stern, and there was a high sparkle in his eyes. One glance and I read all the contents of his mind. By some strange means he had discovered the dilemma I was in, and to spare me the inconvenience that I suffered had come to deliver his person up to justice. His purpose was distinctly written in his face.
It was a terrible instant, and only a wonderful decision could stave off fatality. I sprang up and sailed towards him ere he could speak the word that would betray him, and pushed him by main force past the Corporal, and over the threshold of the door.
“Oh, Prue, you prying rogue!” I cried, laughing with a heartiness that was intended to be heard. “You spy, you suspicious wretch, you are dying I can see, to get an inkling of this matter;but I’ll stake my soul that you do not overhear a word.”
I had no sooner expelled him from the room with this peremptory mirth, than I whispered feverishly in his ear:
“For God’s sake do not do it now! Go back to my room, and I will follow and talk the matter over.”
Thereupon I boldly rejoined the Captain and the Corporal, and slapped the library door in the face of the prisoner standing on the mat. The suspicions I had aroused by a course so strange must be soothed at any cost. Unlimited lying came greatly to my aid. I ordered the puzzled Corporal to turn the key upon the lady.
“She is just burning with curiosity,” I laughed; “but I’ll take care that she shall not satisfy it.”
’Twas a mercy that the Captain’s leg was in such a posture, that his back was to the door, and though he must have heard sounds of a woman’s entrance, and that I was in a flutter of one kind or another, and had been excited to strange steps, he could not possibly have seen Miss Prue, and happily his injury forbade him turning round to look. Again, the Corporal was of such a primitive intelligence that he never suspected anything at all. Finding the Captain as resolute as ever, I took an early chance to quit the arbitrary wretch, and sought the rebel.
His appearance in the library was simple to explain. He had got a hint of my predicament, andto relieve me was ready to sacrifice himself. He was in my room awaiting me. Entering, I closed the door, turned the key and put it in my pocket.
“Would you spoil all, then?” I bitterly began.
“You have told lies,” says he in his coarse fashion.
“For you,” says I, swiftly.
My look caused the deepest tawny to creep into his face.
“You swore upon your oath,” says he, “that to harbour me would place you in no danger. Madam, you have lied.”
“I shall be glad for you to prove that,” I answered languidly.
I should have been inclined to enjoy his anger and his insolence I think, had there not been a note of warning in his tone that frightened me. That he had made his mind up on this point was very plain.
“I will prove it in three words,” says he. “First I read the paper you crumpled up and cast into the grate. My other information I have pulled out of Mrs. Polly Emblem.”
“Oh, the wretched wench!” cries I, and summoned her from my dressing-room immediately.
The fool came as limp as rags, and cowered from my anger pitifully.
“If you please, your la’ship,” she whimpered, “’a fairly tore it from my breast. I could not help myself, my lady—’deed I couldn’t—that’s a fact.”
“You silly trout, I’ve a mind to boil you, and that’s another fact. But no, you half-wit, it were better to dismiss you on this instant. Off, you slut, and pack your boxes and do not offend me with your face another hour.”
“Oh, please, please, my lady,” sobbed the simpleton falling on her knees.
“Enough of this Bab,” says Miss Prue, sternly, with a fine indignation in her eyes. “Leave the poor creature be. She says she couldn’t help herself, and I’m here to vouch it. I fetched it out of her like anything, for she’s but a woman after all. Bab, drop it; do you hear me?”
The rogue slapped his hand upon the table with the grandeur of an emperor. Thereupon I rated her the more soundly for her fault. The miserable Emblem first looked at her champion, and then at me in the most piteous manner. Thereat Miss Prue’s countenance became a blaze of anger.
“Damn it, Bab,” says she, “if you only were a man!”
In the effort to contain her wrath she went striding up and down the room. Suddenly she dealt a vicious kick at a Sheraton what-not, inlaid with pearl, that was worth as much as the blood-money on her head, brought it down in pieces, and smashed to atoms a priceless china vase. Then she turned on me.
“Bab, you are a perfect brute!” and then said to Emblem, softly, “Poor wench! But don’t you fret, my dear, for I will see you are not hurt.”
Having delivered his mind thus freely, he strode to the door and tried it.
“No, boy, you don’t,” says I, and ran to the door the other side of the chamber that led into my dressing-room. Hastily I secured that also, and took the custody of the key.
“Now sit down,” I did command him; “for I am to have a talk with you, my friend.”
“I hope you will enjoy it,” he said, “as it is to be the last.”
“Surely,” says I, “you cannot have the folly to be resolute in this? Would you yield your life up for a whim? Doth not your very soul turn dark at the thought of death—and such a death?”
I shivered as I spoke, and the lad turned paler.
“No,” says he, “that is—at least,” he dropped his tone, “I do not think about it.”
“You will have to do,” I answered, with the slow unction of a priest. “And you so full of lusty youth. Do I not see health sparkling in your eyes? The world must be lovely to you, I am certain. Your heart is fed on sunshine, and the singing of the birds is the only sound you hear. And are there no ambitions in you? Have you never dreamt of glory?”
He turned still paler at this speech, and a sort of grim joy took hold of me when I saw how my unaccustomed gravity was sinking in his mind.
“But you?” he said.
“I am not to be regarded. I have less to losethan you. Life itself in your case; in mine only a new story for the town.”
“Do you forget that they can attaint you of high treason?” he replied. “And that would mean a long imprisonment, and you would find it a tedious and very weary thing. I know, for I have tried it.”
“High treason—imprisonment!” says I; “these are bogies for a child. Politics are wonderful affairs, but if they can clap Bab Gossiter in the ‘Jug’ and diet her on bad bread and dirty water, let ’em do it, boy, by every means, and I’ll admire ’em for it.”
“But if they threaten others?” he replied. “For instance, your papa, the Earl.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” I laughed; but in my breast there was no levity. “A peer of the realm!”
“He is not to blame for being that,” he answered, slyly, “and they will not the less respect him for it I am sure. And what of Derwentwater, Kenmare, Nithsdale in the late rebellion?”
Being properly hipped on this, I tried new tactics.
“Ah, I see,” says I, “you wish to play at Hero, do you? Want a pretext to make the world ring by your devotion to a lady’s little finger. A truce, boy, to these palpable devices.”
He coloured high. Ridicule is the sovereign remedy for poetic notions in the young. He merely sniffed my black draught, however, and flung it from him.
“Very shrewd of you,” says he, “but I never was afraid of being laughed at.”
I turned to Emblem with a frank amazement.
“Go you for a bodkin, girl, and I will prick him with it, for I would fain discover if this child of ours is actually made of blood and flesh. Not afraid of being laughed at!”
Straight I fell into a peal to prove how monstrously he lied. He chewed his lip, and struggled to cover up his very evident vexation.
“Sneer,” says he, with anger darting from his eyes, “but my determination’s taken. A week ago I swore that a single hair of my Lady Barbara should not suffer for her mercy. And when I make an oath I keep one, whatever others do.”
He rose. A glance assured me that he was in an ugly mood of heroism. He held his hand out for the key. I glanced into his face, saw all the muscles in it tight, and his mouth locked in a silence that seemed to render the gravest word ridiculous.
“Oh come,” I cries, “enough of claptrap! Have I done all this to be thwarted by a child? Do you not see if you persevere in this proud folly that the Captain triumphs? And I, a victorious rebel, should find it easier far to endure the Tower than the humiliations of defeat.”
“Alas! these palpable devices,” he sighed. “But it’s the key I want, not trickeries.”
Again I had a taste of my impotence with him. Hitherto my lightest whim was a law for the greatestor the meanest; this moment, though, a very beggar defied my imperious command. Nor would he budge from his perverseness. Pretty soon his intolerable behaviour made my anger rise. It was increased when I remembered his utter dependence and his low condition. And yet I took a kind of admiration of him too. He was so bold, so contradictory, so brazenly impertinent withal, that I began to feel there was more in his sex than I had suspected.
“Child,” says I, “I am dreadfully enraged with you and with your ways, but,” I added, musingly, while I read the decision in his face, “do you know I have half a mind to love you for them.”
“Pray don’t,” says he, uneasily.
“I have, though. I think you’ll make the prettiest man that ever was. You are not a bit according to the pattern. You appear to even have a will, a very unusual circumstance in anything that’s masculine. Child,” I says, “do you know that I have half a mind to make a husband of you? I like you, my lad. You are headstrong, but I think you are a charming boy.”
I patted him upon the shoulder with an air of high approval. He knit his teeth, and cried in a crimson heat:
“Confound you, woman, I am not your pussy-cat, nor your King Charles’ spaniel.”
“No,” says I; “and that is why I like you. You are so unstrokable.”
“The key,” says he.
“Understand me, sir,” says I, severely. “If I am ever at all tender to a person, I become very much his friend and delight to serve him. Now I can best serve you by denying you this key. And while we are on this argument I should be glad to ask you whether there is anything you owe me?”
“My life,” he answered, promptly.
“Very well,” says I; “and are you to be so thankless as to throw away that which I have given you?”
“Oh well,” says he, nervously, and dropped the boldness of his look, “if that is how you put it—but, madam, for the world I would not have your name imperilled or your father’s. Why, ’tis gratitude that makes me so contumacious in this matter.”
“Now,” says I, “here’s something I should like you to reflect upon. I refuse most absolutely to yield up your person to the State. And should you do this of your own accord I will not forgive you for it; no, sir, I will not! And I will not even go to Tyburn to see how prettily you hang. And my vanity will sicken horribly. For in every enterprise I crave to be victorious, and I support a whipping as badly as you do a thoroughly polite behaviour.”
“But the paper going south,” he put in, doggedly.
“Yes, I’ve thought of that, and it hath occurred to me that if your prayers, Emblem’s wit, and myresources cannot play a pretty little trick upon the Captain, the Captain’s very wise.”
’Twas then Miss Prue did prick her ears up.
“Trick!” says she, “anything daring? Aught with a spice about it? Now, Bab, let’s have it!”
“It is my intention to kidnap my good friend Corporal Flickers,” I replied.
“Kidnap Corporal Flickers,” cries he, in a voice of pregnant admiration. “Why, Bab, your heart is big enough for five. Bravo!”
“At six o’clock to-morrow evening he is to take that paper, ride to York, and catch the London mail,” says I. “But he will not get beyond our gate-house, for everything is to be most excellently planned.”
“And you will perhaps be wanting my assistance,” says he, keenly.
“Very probable indeed,” says I to pacify him somewhat, though I did not intend to risk his safety in the matter.
Thus by fair words, devices, and appeals he was prevailed upon to sit in peace, and for the present to let things pursue their courses. Much as I rejoiced in this, however, I was angry with myself for being such a tender sort of fool. For the moment, though, a more instant matter filled my thoughts. Such a nicety of performance was required in this new affair that fearing the least miscarriage, I directed my personal attention to it. Habiting myself for an evening stroll, I stepped into the heavy bitter night, winter though it was,went softly down the drive, and demanded admittance at the gate-house door.
William Goodman was the keeper and lived there, a widower, with John, his son, a sturdy six-foot yokel. They made a pair whom Heaven might have created especially for my business. They sat in the gate-house kitchen at a meal of beef and ale. William Goodman—sly, ancient, lean—was a man of sense, and proved it by being faithful as a dog to the family he had served for forty years. He had only been once before the Justices, and the occasion was when he had cracked the sconce of a man who had contumeliously hinted within William’s hearing that my Lord of Long Acre was not so handsome a nobleman as the Duke of Marlborough. After they had received me with the most horrible embarrassment, and Goodman, the younger, had had the misfortune to turn a jug of ale into his lap, I sat down and explained my mission as succinctly as I could.
“Have you a coal-hole under this kitchen?” I began.
“Yes, my lady,” said the elder.
“Exactly as I thought,” says I. “And suppose a man was put into it; could he very well get out?”
“Depends upon the man, your ladyship,” says the elder, leering like a fox.
“One who did not happen to be a friend of the family,” says I, mightily enjoying William Goodman’s face.
“He might o’ course,” says he, with his naturalcaution, “and, o’ course, he mightn’t; but, my lady, if I was betting on it, I should put my money on he mightn’t.”
“Well, Goodman,” says I, “I should like you to understand that I have put my money on ‘he mightn’t.’ Now there is a certain person to be put into that coal-hole, and out he must not come until I send the order. And let me give you a few particulars.”
These were brief and simple. Mr. Flickers must be lured into the gate-house, sprung upon, taken by surprise, laid in the cellar, and kept there both tight and privy at my pleasure; while I should be pleased if it could be contrived that a blue paper passed from his possession to my own.
“And no unnecessary violence, Goodman. I would not have unnecessary violence for the world. But do you think all this is to be done?”
“Your ladyship can call it done already,” Goodman answered. “And what was it, my lady, you thought he called his lordship?”
“Doddering old something, I believe,” says I; “cannot take a Bible oath on the exact text of it, but ‘doddering old something’ is the very synonym of what he said.”
“When the pore man falls, I hope as ’ow he won’t fall on his head,” says William, piously, but with a high significance.
“Now, no unnecessary violence,” I said; “but I’ll take my life that ‘dodder’ is the word he used.”
There was here a question as to the disposal ofhis horse. It was resolved to convey it to the High Farm, some miles up the moor, the same evening and hold it there in secret till the time was by for the Corporal’s release. And I had such a high regard for Goodman and his son that I did not hesitate to think them the equals of their word. Wherefore I went home to dress in a cheerful mood, and passed a lively evening with my aunt, his lordship, and Miss Prue.
My aunt put me quite remarkably in mind of a ferret held up by the throat. The creature was prepared to bite on the first occasion, only the season was not yet, for to attempt to do so now was to run the risk of having the life choked out of it.
“Aunt,” says I, as we sat at supper, “my dearest Prue tells me she must leave us in a day or two.”
“Niece,” says my aunt, politely, “I shall be grieved indeed to forego her charming company.”
But here the dowager’s steely smile shone out and caught my eye, and—well, I wished it had not done so.