"THE HONEST LOVER."[1]"Would any doubting maid discoverWhat's he that is a worthy lover:His is no fine fantastic breath,But lowly mien and steadfast faith.For he that so would move her,By simple art,And humble heart,Why, he's the honest lover."His is a heart that never playedThe light-o'-love to wife or maid,But reverenced all womankindBefore he found one to his mind.For he that so would move herBy simple art,And humble heart,Why, he's the honest lover."And if he quake to meet her eyes,Stammer and blush whene'er he triesHis worship'd lady to address,Be sure she'll love him none the less,For he that so would move herBy simple art,And humble heart,Why, he's the honest lover."
"Would any doubting maid discoverWhat's he that is a worthy lover:His is no fine fantastic breath,But lowly mien and steadfast faith.
For he that so would move her,
By simple art,And humble heart,
Why, he's the honest lover.
"His is a heart that never playedThe light-o'-love to wife or maid,But reverenced all womankindBefore he found one to his mind.
For he that so would move her
By simple art,And humble heart,
Why, he's the honest lover.
"And if he quake to meet her eyes,Stammer and blush whene'er he triesHis worship'd lady to address,Be sure she'll love him none the less,
For he that so would move her
By simple art,And humble heart,
Why, he's the honest lover."
Footnote 1: The song is written by Harold Child, Esq., to whom the author is indebted for it.
This was the song to which I listened as I sat—the dishonest outlaw in the dark library of Applegarth.
"It is my daughter Dorothy," said Mr. Curwen, with a smile. "In talking of our youngest martyr I had forgotten her;" and he took a step towards the door. But at his first movement the youngest martyr—Heaven save the mark!—had risen from his chair with a foolish abruptness.
"Nay, Mr. Curwen," he cried in disorder; and then he stopped, for the truth is, he shrank in very shame from standing face to face with the singer of that song.
"But," and I seized the first excuse, "I have this long while been wandering on the fells, and am in no way fitted for the company of ladies. Your servant even would have no truck with me, and I think you too were taken aback." I looked down at my garments as I spoke.
"My servant," he began, and he looked towards the other door through which I had entered with a timorous air, as though he would fain see whether or no she was listening on the far side of it, "Mary Tyson," he said, lowering his voice, "is a strange and unaccountable person. A good servant, but——" and very wisely he tapped his forehead. "For myself," he continued, his voice softening with a great wistfulness, "it was something very different from the stains of your journey that gave me pause. Lord Derwentwater may have told you that I had once a son. He was much of your height and figure, and the room is dim, and old men are fanciful."
I bowed my head, for whenever he made mention of his misfortunes, he spoke with so brave and simple a dignity that any word of sympathy became the merest impertinence. For a moment he stood looking down at me and revolving some question in his mind.
"Yes," said he, and more to himself than to me, "I will speak to her and give her the order. Why should I not?" He walked slowly halfway to the bell and stopped, "Yes," he repeated, "I will speak to her;" and with a word of excuse to me and a certain bracing of the shoulders, he went out of the room.
I had no doubt that it was with Mary Tyson that he wished to speak. I remained, half-hoping, half-afraid that the chords of the spinet would wake to the touch again, and the voice again ring out, sprinkling its melody through the room like so much perfume from a philtre. But there was no recurrence of the music. I walked idly to the table, and my eyes fell upon that great tome in which Mr. Curwen had been so absorbed at the moment of my interruption. In wonderment I bent more closely over it. I had expected to see some laborious monument of philosophy gemmed with unintelligible terms. Unintelligible terms there were, in truth, but not of the philosopher's kind. They were curious old terms of chivalry.
I remembered how Mr. Curwen had hesitated over the mention of his books, and I took the lamp from the table, and glanced about the book-shelves. The books were all of a-piece with that great folio on the table—romaunts, and histories of crusades, and suchlike matters.
I wondered whether "Don Quixote de la Mancha" had found a place amongst them, and with an impertinent smile I began to glance along the letterings in search of it, but very soon I stopped, and stood staring at a couple of volumes which faced me, and bore upon their backs the title of the "Morte D'Arthur."
I set the lamp again upon the table. The old man was right, I thought sadly. There was in that room philosophy which it would indeed profit me to study.
Mr. Curwen returned, rubbing his long, delicate hands one against the other in a flush of triumph.
"I have given orders," he said, and with a gentle accent of conscious pride he repeated the phrase—"I have given orders, Mr. Clavering. You will sleep in my boy's room, and since you are, as I say, very like to him in size——" But his voice trembled, and he turned away and lifted the lamp from the table.
"I will show you the room," he said.
I followed him into the hall, up the staircase, and down a long passage to the very end of the house.
A door stood open. Mr. Curwen led me through it. The room was warmly furnished, and hung with curtains of a dark green, while a newly-lit fire was crackling in the hearth. A couple of candles were burning on the mantelpiece, and Mary Tyson was arranging the bed. She took no notice of me whatever as I entered, being busy with the bed, as I thought.
"You can go, Mary," said Mr. Curwen, with a timid friendliness plainly intended to appease.
Mary sniffed for an answer, and as she turned to go I saw that she had been crying.
"She was Harry's nurse, poor woman," explained Mr. Curwen. "You must forgive her, Mr. Clavering." And then, "He died at Malplaquet."
He crossed over to the bed, and stood looking down at it silently in a very fixed attitude. Then he took up from it a white silk stocking. I approached him, and saw that a suit of white satin was neatly folded upon the white counterpane.
"It is a fortunate thing," he said, with a smile all the more sad for its effort at cheerfulness, "that you and he are alike;" and he drew the stocking slowly through his fingers. "He died at Malplaquet, and Marlborough—the Marlborough of Malplaquet—spoke to him as he died." His voice broke on the words, and laying the stocking down, he turned towards a japan toilette with a "Even a father has no right to ask for more than that." But Harry's shoe-buckles were laid upon the chintz-coverlid, and he took them in his hands one after the other, repeating, "He died at Malplaquet. I have given you this room," he said, "for a reason. See! These two windows point down the valley, and are set high above the ground. But this"—and he crossed over to a smaller window set in the wall near the fireplace—"this looks on to the hillside, and since the ground rises against the house, a man may drop from it and come to no harm. To the left are the stables, or what serves us for stables. We lock no doors at Applegarth, Mr. Clavering, fearing no robbers. You will find a horse in the stables, should there be need for you to flee."
It was some while after Mr. Curwen had left me, before I could make up my mind to don these clothes. I might be like to what Harry Curwen was in size and figure, but there the likeness ended, and the sharpest contrast in the world set in. I unfolded the suit, and spread it out upon the bed. The coat was of white velvet, the waistcoat and breeches of white satin, and all richly laced with an embroidery of silver. A fragrant scent of lavender, which breathed from the dress, coupled with its freshness as of a suit worn but once or twice and so laid aside, lent an added sadness to the thought of young Harry Curwen. I imagined him stripping off these fine clothes in a fumbling excitement one night, in this very room, kicking from his feet those lacquered shoes—these with their soles and red-heels upturned now to the fire for the guest who was so like him! I imagined him pulling on his boots, and riding off from Applegarth with, I know not what, martial visions in his eyes, and hardly a glance, maybe, for the old man and the sister standing in the light of the porch, to join his troop and perish on the plains of Flanders. Well, he had died at Malplaquet, and the great Marlborough—not the huckstering time-server whom we knew—the Marlborough of Malplaquet had spoken to him as he lay a-dying, and no father had a right to look for more than that. I picked up the stockings, and drew them through my fingers as the father had done.
At that, however, I bethought me that the father and his daughter were awaiting me downstairs, and so dressed in a hurry, and combing out my peruke to such neatness as I could, I got me down into the hall.
Supper was already laid out in the dining-room, and Mr. Curwen waiting. In a little I heard a light step upon the stair and the rustle of a dress. Instinctively I turned my face towards the window-curtains, my back to the door. I heard the door open, but I did not hear it shut again.
"Mr. Clavering," said the old man.
I was forced to turn. His daughter stood in the doorway, her lips parted, her eyes startled.
"Mr. Clavering—my daughter Dorothy."
I bowed to her. She drew in her breath, then advanced to me frankly, and held out her hand.
"My father told me you were like," she said, "but since your back was turned, I almost thought I saw him."
I took the hand by the finger-tips.
"He was very dear to you?"
"Very."
"Miss Curwen," said I, gravely, "I would, with all my heart, that you had seen him, and that I had died in his place at Malplaquet."
Her face clouded for an instant, and she drew her hand quickly away, taking my speech, no doubt, for nothing more than an awkward and ill-timed compliment. But compliment it was not, being, indeed, the truth and summary of my recent thoughts quickened into speech against my will. She was of a slender figure, with a rosebud face, delicate as her father's. Her hair was drawn simply back from a broad, white forehead, and in colour was nut-brown, gleaming where it took the light as though powdered with gold-dust. She was dressed in the simplest gown of white, set off here and there with a warm ribbon. But I took little note of her dress, beyond remarking that no other could so well become her. From the pure oval of her face, her eyes big and grey looked out at me, each like a quiet pool with a lanthorn lighted somewhere in its depths, and she seemed to me her voice incarnate. She was unlike to her father in the proportion of her height, for she was not tall—and like to him again in a certain wilfulness which the set of her lips betokened, and again unlike in the masterful firmness of her rounded chin; so that she could put off and on, with the quickest change of humours, the gravity of a woman and the sunny petulance of a child.
"It is our homely fashion," said Mr. Curwen, "to wait upon ourselves." And we sat down to the table.
It was a fashion, however, which the guest, much to his discomfort, was not that night allowed to follow. For father and daughter alike joined to show him courtesy. The daughter would have waited on me, even as Lady Derwentwater had done, and began, like her, to fill my glass. But this time I could not permit it.
"Madam," I cried hoarsely, "you must not Your kindness hurts me."
"Hurts you?" she asked, and from her tone I knew it was she who was hurt.
"You do not know. If you did, your kindness would turn to the bitterest contempt."
I spoke without thought and barely with knowledge of what I said, but in a passion of self-reproach.
"Mr. Clavering," she replied very gently, "you are overwrought, and I do not wonder. Else would you know that it must honour any woman to serve any man who has so served his King."
I dropped my head into my hands. My very soul rose against this praise.
"If I had served my King," I exclaimed in a despairing remorse, "I should have been in France this many a week back."
"France!" repeated Mr. Curwen, suddenly looking up. "You take the delay too much to heart. For it need be nothing more than a delay, and a brief one besides." He spoke with some significance in his tone. "Lord Derwentwater mentioned in his letter that he would discover a means to set you across in France, but perhaps"—and his voice became almost sly—"perhaps we may find a more expeditious way." He checked himself abruptly, like one that has said too much, and shot a timid glance towards his daughter. I noticed that her face grew a trifle grave, but she did not explain or comment on his words, and Mr. Curwen diverted his talk to indifferent topics. I fear me that I must have proved the dullest auditor, for I gave little heed to what he said, my thoughts being occupied in a quite other fashion. For since his daughter sat over against me at the table, since each time that I lifted my eyes, they must needs encounter hers; since each time that she spoke, the mere sound of her voice was as a stern rebuke; I fell from depth to depth of shame and humiliation. I was sheltering there under the same roof with her, to all seeming an honourable refugee, in very truth an impostor, and bound, moreover, to continue in his imposition. The very clothes which I was wearing forced the truth upon me. I had, indeed, but one thought wherewith to comfort me, and though the comfort was of the coldest, I yet clung to it as my only solace. The thought was this: that I had already determined, at whatsoever cost to me, whether of liberty or life, to repair, so far as a man could, the consequence of my misdoing. It was not that I took any credit from the resolve—I was not, thank God, so far fallen as that—but what comforted me was that I had come to the resolve up there on the hillside between Brandreth and Grey Knotts before I had descended into Ennerdale, before I had set foot within Applegarth; before, in a word, I had heard Dorothy Curwen sing or looked into her eyes. I did not explain to myself the comfort which the thought gave me; I was merely sensible of it. "It was before," I said to myself; and over and over again I gladly repeated the thought.
However, a word which Mr. Curwen spoke, finally aroused my attention, for he made mention of the garden of Blackladies. I suppose that I must by some movement have shown my distaste for the subject, and—
"You do not admire it," he said.
"It is very quaint and ingenious, no doubt," I replied, "but the ingenuity seems misplaced there."
Miss Curwen nodded.
"It is like a fine French ribbon on a homespun gown," said she.
I remembered on the instant something which Lord Derwentwater had said to me concerning Dorothy Curwen.
"You know Blackladies?" I inquired, and perhaps with some anxiety.
"Very well," said she, with a smile of amusement.
"So I thought," said I.
"Yes," she continued, "my father was very familiar with Sir John Rookley;" and her eyes rested quietly upon mine.
"A hard man, people said, Mr. Clavering," interrupted Mr. Curwen, "but a just man and to my liking. If he was hard, God knows he had enough in Jervas to make him so."
I glanced at the daughter. She was regarding the beams which roofed the room, with supreme unconsciousness, but the very moment that I looked at her she dropped her eyes to the level of mine.
"You lack something, Mr. Clavering," said she with great politeness.
"Indeed!" said my host, rising from his chair in the excess of his hospitality.
"Indeed, sir, no; I beg of you!" I replied in confusion. And Dorothy Curwen laughed.
"A strange man was Jervas Rookley," continued Mr. Curwen, and there could be no doubt whatever about the sincerity of his unconsciousness. "He came warped from his cradle. But you will have heard of him, I doubt not, more than we know, though at one time he honoured us not infrequently with his company. But that was before I knew of his transgression in the matter of the wad-mines."
"Oh," said I, "I thought that that was not generally known."
"Nor is it," replied Mr. Curwen. "I had the story from Sir John's lips. He was a very just man, and since Jervas came to visit me frequently, he thought that I ought to know."
Again my eyes went to the daughter's face. But this time she was already looking at me.
"I am sure, Mr. Clavering, that you need something," said she very anxiously.
"Indeed, no!" I replied in confusion.
And she smiled with the pleasantest air of contentment in the world.
Mr. Curwen did not on this occasion rise to satisfy my imaginary needs, but remained absorbed in thought.
"I suppose," he said dreamily, "that Jervas Rookley was a fairy's changeling."
I started at the words; they were not spoken in jest. I looked at him; he was seriously revolving the question in his mind.
"What do you think?" he asked of me.
His daughter bent forwards across the table with something of appeal in her eyes.
"The theory," said I, "would most easily explain him;" and the appeal in her eyes changed to gratitude.
This was not the only strange remark he made to me that night, for he accompanied me up to my bedroom and closed the door carefully behind him.
"By this time you should have been in France?" he asked, lowering his voice.
"Yes," said I, doubtfully. For since his Most Christian Majesty was at death's door, and all thought of a rising abandoned for the moment, there was no longer any call for me to hurry to Lorraine with the information I had gathered; while, on the other hand, there was the greatest need that I should remain in England, since once out of England I was powerless even to attempt anything towards Anthony Herbert's liberation.
"I spoke at supper," he continued in a yet more secret voice, "of a more expeditious way than Lord Derwentwater's." He glanced around him and came nearer to me. "It was no idle boast," he said with a little chuckle, "but I have a ship," and he nodded in a sort of childish guilefulness. "I have a ship." He went tip-toeing to the door as though already he had stayed too long. "Snug's the word," he whispered with a finger on his lip; and in the sweetest tone of encouragement, again, "I have a ship." And so he went gently from the room and descended the stairs.
His manner no less than his words somewhat bewildered me. I thought it, in truth, a very unlikely thing that he should possess a ship, seeing that he had made no concealment of his poverty, and that if indeed he did, his ship would be a very unlikely thing for a man to put to sea in. But in this I made a great mistake, since his ship not merely existed, but had a very considerable share in the issue from those misfortunes which were so soon to befall us. At the time, however, I was not greatly troubled with the matter one way or the other, for while Mr. Curwen had been speaking, I had been standing at the open window. The slope of the hillside was in front of me, a corner of the stable-roof was just visible to my left; but most clearly of all I saw as in a vision the picture of a woman seated in a lonely lodging at Keswick with a crumpled paper spread before her, whereon was scribbled one single line: "He is not dead." I shall not be particular to account for the reason why that vision should now of a sudden stand fixed within my sight, though I could give a very definite opinion concerning it I will only state that it was there, so vivid and distinct that I could read the paper she so sadly fingered; and reading it, the one line written thereon called on me for a supplement and explanation.
I opened the door and hurried quietly along the passage. I heard Mr. Curwen's step in the hall below, and holding my candle in my hand leaned over the balusters.
"Mr. Curwen," I said in a breathless whisper, "you told me of a horse which stood ready in your stables, should my safety call for it."
"Yes," said he looking up at me.
"There is the greatest need in the world that I should make use of your kindness this night. It is a need that imperils my safety, but my honour is concerned, or rather, that poor remnant of my honour which I have left to me. When I fled from Blackladies, there remained something to be done and to be done by me, and it remains undone. Some small part of the omission I may haply repair to-night."
He answered me, as I knew he would, with the strangeness gone from his manner and replaced with a kindly gravity. He was the truest of gentlemen, with all a gentleman's simple code of faith.
"Mr. Clavering," he said, "so long as you are my guest I am the trustee of your safety. But there are things of greater value than a man's safety, of which you have mentioned one. I shall look to seeing you in the morning."
He asked no questions; that word "honour" was enough for him; it stamped my purpose in his eyes with a holy seal. He came up the stairs towards me and shook me by the hand, and so passed on to his own chamber.
I went back to my own room, changed my dress, and carrying my boots in one hand and my candle in the other, went softly down the stairs. By the clock in the hall I could see that it was five minutes after ten o'clock. I drew on my boots in the porch, saddled the horse by the candle-light, led it past the house along a strip of grass, and when I thought the sound of its hoofs would be no longer heard, I mounted and rode up the pathway. The sky was cloudy but the valleys clear of mist I could have wished for no better night for my purpose except in one respect: I mean that now and again a silver brilliancy would be diffused through the air, making the night vaguely luminous. And looking up I would see a patch of cloud very thin and very bright, and behind that cloud I knew the moon was sailing. I chose that road of which Tash had spoken. Towards the head of Gillerthwaite the track turned northwards over a pass they call the Scarf Gap, and thence westwards again past Buttermere lake to Buttermere village. At the point where the hill descends steeply from the lake, I dismounted. I could see the scattered village beneath me. It slept without a sound, nor was there a light to be seen in any window. But none the less I dreaded to ride through it; its very quietude frightened me. I feared the lively echoes which the beat of my horse's shoes would send ringing about the silent cottages. I descended, therefore, on foot, leading my horse cautiously by the bridle, and in a little I came to a gateway upon the right which gave on to a field. I crossed the field and several others which adjoined it, and finally came out again upon the track beyond the village, where it climbs upwards to Buttermere Hause. From the farther side of the Hause I had a clear road of six miles down Newlands valley to Portinscale, and I spurred my horse to a gallop. Once or twice the clouds rifted and the moon shone out full, so that I rode in a tremor of alarm, twisting every shadow that fell across my path from rock or tree into the shadow of a sentinel. But the clouds closed up again and canopied me in a gracious obscurity as I drew near to Keswick.
I tied up my horse in a thicket of trees half a mile from the town, and slunk from house to house in the shadow. Never before or since have I known such fear as I knew that night in Keswick, so urgent had the necessity that I must keep free, become with me during these last hours since I had climbed from Brandreth down to Applegarth. If the wind drove the leaves of the trees fluttering up the roadway, I cowered against the wall and trembled. If a dog barked from a farmhouse in the distance, I stood with my heart fainting in my breast, listening—listening for the rhythmic tread of soldiers; and when I saw on the opposite side of the street, some yards above me, a light glimmering in a window, I stopped altogether, in two minds whether or no to turn back. I looked irresolutely up and down the street It was so dark, so still; only that one steady light burned in a window. The melancholy voice of a watchman, a couple of streets away, chanted out, "Half-past twelve, and a dull, cloudy morning." The phrase was repeated and repeated in a dwindling tone. I waited until it had died away, and afterwards. But the light burned wakeful, persistent, a little heart of fire in a body of darkness. I felt that I dared not pass it. Some one watched beside that lamp, with eyes fixed on the yellow path it traced across the road. My fears fed upon themselves and swelled into a panic. I turned and took a step or two down the hill, and it was precisely that movement which brought me to my senses and revealed to me the cowardice of the action. For if I dared not pass that lamp, still less dared I return to Applegarth with the night's work undone. I retraced my steps very slowly until I came opposite to the window, and then, so great was the revulsion of my feeling that I reeled back against the wall, my heart jerking, my whole strength gone from me. For there at the window, beside the lamp, her face buried in her hands, was the woman I had come to seek. I might have known, I thought! For who else should be watching at this lone hour in Keswick if not this woman? I might have guessed from the position of the house in the street. It was a beacon which I had seen, this glimmering lamp, and I had taken it for no more than a wrecker's light.
I looked about me. The street was deserted from end to end I crossed it, and picking up a pebble flung it lightly at the window. The pebble cracked against the pane—how loudly, to my impatient ears! Mrs. Herbert raised her head from her hands. I sent a second pebble to follow the first. She opened the sash, but so noisily I thought!
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Hush!" said I.
She leaned forward over the side of the window and peered into the darkness.
"You!" she whispered in a tone of wonderment, and again with a shiver of repulsion; "you!"
"Let me in!" said I.
She made a movement as if to close the window.
"You close the window on your hopes," I said. "Let me in!"
"You bring news of—of Anthony?" she asked, with a catch in her voice.
"The smallest budget," said I, "but a promise of more;" and as she, undecided, still leaned on the sill, "If I am captured here to-night, there will be no news at all."
"Captured?" she began, and breaking off hurriedly came down the stairs and opened the door.
I followed her up into the room and drew the curtains across the window. She stood by the table in the full light of the lamp, her eyelids red, her eyes lustreless, her face worn; the very gloss seemed to have faded off her hair.
"How you have suffered!" I said, and again faltered the words, "How you have suffered!"
"And you?" she asked with a glance towards me, and nodded her head as though answering the question. "I said that payment would be made," she remarked simply. "It is beginning."
"My servant brought a note to you?"
"Yes. Was it true? I did not believe that it was true." She spoke in a dull voice. "He came yesterday night after the soldiers had been here."
"The soldiers," I cried, lifting my voice. The sound of it warned me; I realized that I was standing between the lamp and the window, and that if any one should pass down the street, it was my figure which would be seen. I crossed over to get behind the chair.
"Do you sit there!" said I, pointing to her former seat.
She obeyed me like a child.
"So the soldiers came here?"
"Twice."
"When?"
"The first time, that evening—I was not here—we were in the garden of Blackladies. They searched the house and took his papers away."
"His papers!" said I. I looked over to that box in which the medal had been locked. The lid was shut I crossed to it and tried it The lid lifted, the lock was broken and the medal gone.
"The second time they came," said Mrs. Herbert, "was the afternoon of the next day."
"That would be a few hours after I had escaped. They searched the house again?"
"Yes. For you."
"For me?" I exclaimed; and her eyes flashed out at me.
"For whom else should they come to search, here in my lodging?"
My eyes fell from her face.
"But did they question you?" I continued. "What did they ask? For perchance I may find help in that."
But Mrs. Herbert had relapsed into her dull insensibility.
"They questioned me without end," she answered wearily, "but I forget the questions. It was all concerning you, not a word about Anthony, and I forget."
"Oh, but think!" I exclaimed, and I heard the watchman crying the hour in the distance. I stopped, listening. The cry grew louder. The man was coming down the street. This window alone was lighted up, and once already the soldiers had been here to search for me. I heard the watchman's footsteps grow separate and distinct. I heard the rattle of his lantern as it swung in his hand, and beneath the window he stopped. I counted the seconds. In a little I found myself choking, and realized that in the greatness of my anxiety I was holding my breath. Then the man moved, but it seemed to me, not down the road, but nearer to the wall of the house. A new fear burst in on me.
"You left the door below unlocked?" I whispered to Mrs. Herbert.
She nodded a reply.
What if he opened that door and came stumbling up the stairs? What if he found the door not merely unlocked but open, and roused the house? To be sure he would have no warrant in his pocket. But for her sake—for the sake of that tiny chance I clung to with so despairing a grip, that perhaps—perhaps I might restore to her her husband, no rumour must go out that I or any man had been there this night I crept to the door of the room and laid my hand upon the handle. What I should do I did not think. I was trying to remember whether I had closed the door behind me, and all my faculties were engrossed in the effort I was still busy upon that profitless task, when I heard—with what relief!—the watchman's footsteps sound again upon the stones, his voice again take up its melancholy cry.
"Quick!" said I, turning again to Mrs. Herbert "Madam, help me in this matter, if you can. Think! The officer put to you questions concerning me?"
"Oh!" she cried, waking from her lethargy, "I cannot help you. You must save yourself, as best you may. I do not remember what they said. It was of you they spoke and not at all of Anthony."
"It is just for your husband's sake," I said, "that I implore you to remember."
And she looked at me blankly.
"God!" I exclaimed, taking the thought "You believe that I journeyed hither to you in your loneliness at this hour, to plague you with questions for my safety's sake!" And I paused, staring at her.
"Well," she replied, in an even voice, "is the belief so strange?"
There was no sarcasm in the question, and hardly any curiosity. It was the mere natural utterance of a natural thought. My eyes, I know, fell from her face to the floor.
"Madam," I replied slowly, "when I set out to-night, I thought that the cup of my humiliation was already full. You prove to me that my thought was wrong. It remained for you very fitly to fill it to the brim;" and again I lifted my eyes to her. "I had no purposes of my own to serve in riding hither. I know the charge against myself to its last letter. It is the charge against your husband brings me here. Neither do I know whither he has been taken. Yet these two things I must know, and I came to you on the chance that you might help me."
I saw her face change as she listened. She leaned forward on her elbows, her chin propped upon her hands, her eyes losing their indifference. A spark of hope kindled in the depths of them, and when I had ended, she remained silent for a little, as though fearing to quench that spark by the utterance of any words. At last she asked, in almost a timid voice:
"But why—why would you know?" And she bent still further forward with parted lips, breathless for the answer.
"Why?" I answered. "Forgive me! I should have told you that before, but, like a fool, I put the questions first. They are foremost in my thoughts, you see, being the means, and as yet unsolved. The end is so clear to me, that I forgot it in looking for the road which leads to it. I believe that Mr. Herbert has been seized, on the ground that he shares my—treason, let us call it, for so our judges will. Of that charge I know him innocent, and maybe can prove him so. And if I can, be sure of this—I will."
"But how can you?" she interrupted.
"If I know the charge, if I know whither he has been taken, the place of his trial, then it may be that I can serve him. But until I know, I am like one striking at random in the dark. Suppose I go to meet the sheriff and give myself up, not knowing these things, I shall be laid by the heels and no good done. They may have taken him to London. He may be in prison for months. Meanwhile I should be tried—and they would not need Mr. Herbert's evidence to secure a verdict against me."
"You would give yourself up?" she asked.
"But I must know the place, I must know the charge. It would avail your husband little without that knowledge. They would keep me in prison cozening me with excuses, however urgently I might plead for him. It is enough that a man should be suspected of favouring King James. To such they dispense convictions; they make no pother about justice."
"But," said she, "it would mean your life."
"Have you not said yourself that payment must be made?"
"Yes, but by us," she said, stretching out a hand eagerly. "Not by you alone."
"Madam," said I, "you will have your share in it, for you will have to wait—to wait here with such patience as you can command, ignorant of the issue until the issue is reached. God knows but I think you have the harder part of it."
We stood for a little looking into each other's eyes sealing our compact.
"Now," I continued, "think! Was any word said which we could shape into a clue? Was any name mentioned? Was your husband's name linked with mine? Oh, think, and quickly!"
She sat with her face covered by her hands while I stood anxiously before her.
"I do not remember," she said, drawing her hands apart and shaking them in a helpless gesture. "It all happened so long ago."
"It happened only yesterday," I urged.
"I know, I know," she said with the utmost weariness. All that light of hope had died from her eyes as quickly as it had brightened them. "But I measure by a calendar of pain. It is so long ago, I do not remember. I do not even remember how I returned here."
There was no hint plainly to be gained from her, and I had stayed too long, as it was. I took up my hat.
"You will stay here?" I asked. "I do not say that you will hear from me soon, but I must needs know where you are."
"I will stay here," she replied. She almost stretched out her hand and drew it in again. "Goodbye."
I went to the door. She followed me with the lamp and held it over the balusters of the landing.
"Nay," said I, "there is no need for that."
"The staircase," said she, "is very dark." As I came out from the houses at the bottom of the hill I heard again the watchman's voice behind me bawling out the hour. It was half-past one, and a cloudy morning, it may be, but the clouds were lighter in the north, as I remarked with some anxiety. I was still riding along Newlands valley when the morning began to break. As I reached the summit of Buttermere Hause I looked backwards over my shoulder. The sky in the north-east was a fiery glow, saffron, orange, and red were mingled there, and right across the medley of colours lay black, angry strips of cloud. The blaze of a fire, it seemed to me, seen through prison bars. It was daylight when I passed by Buttermere, sunlight as I rode down Gillerthwaite. The sweet stillness of the morning renewed my blood. The bracken bloomed upon the hillsides, here a rusty brown, there in the shadow a blackish purple, and then again gold where the sunlight kissed it Below me, by the water's side, I could see the blue tiles of Applegarth. And as I looked about me the fever of my thoughts died, they took a new and unfamiliar quietude from the stable quietude of the hills. I felt as if something of their patience, something of their strength was entering into me. My memories went back again to the Superior's study in the College at Paris; and in my heart of hearts I knew that the Superior was wrong. The mountains have their message, I think, for whoso will lend an ear to them, and that morning they seemed to speak to me with an unanimous voice. I can repair, I thought, this wrong. It was then more to me than a thought. It seemed, indeed, an assured and simple truth, assured and simple like those peaks in the clear air, and, like them, pointing skywards, and the Superior's theory no more substantial than a cloud which may gather upon the peaks and hide them for a little from the eyes.
I rode down, therefore, in a calmer spirit than I had known for some long time. The difficulties which beset my path did not for the moment trouble me. That my journey that night had in no way lightened them I did not consider. I felt that the occasion of which I was in search would of a surety come, only I must be ready to grasp it.
I had passed no one on the road. I had seen, indeed, no sign of life at all beyond the sudden rush of a flock of sheep, as though in an unaccountable panic, up the hillside of the Pillar mountain, while I was as yet in the narrow path of Gillerthwaite. I had reason, therefore, to think that I had escaped all notice, and leading the horse back to the stable with the same precautions I had used on setting out, I let myself in at the door and got quietly to bed.
I was at the breakfast-table, you may be sure, that morning no later than my host and his daughter. Mr. Curwen greeted me with an evident relief, but neither then nor afterwards did he ever refer to the journey I had taken during the night. On the contrary, his talk was all of Paris and France, plying me with many questions concerning the French generals, the Duc de Vendôme, Maréchal Villars, the Duc de Noailles, and the rest which I was at some loss to answer. Often and often would he return to that subject with something of a boyish zest and enthusiasm. He had never been in France, he informed me, yet would tell me many stories concerning the Court and the magnificence of Versailles and the great hunting-parties at Meudon when Monsieur was alive, with so much detail that but for a certain extravagance, as of one whose curiosity, through much feeding upon itself, has grown fantastic, I could not but have believed that he had himself been present at their enactment. And then he would light his pipe and look across this quiet Ennerdale water to the rugged slopes beyond, with a sigh, and so get him back to his romances. He was no less curious concerning Lorraine and the little Court at Bar-le-Duc; and when I told him that I had myself had speech with the King, his enthusiasm rose to excitement.
"Oh!" he cried, starting up, "you have seen him? you have heard his voice speaking to you, as you hear mine now?" and all at once I acquired a new honour in his eyes. "Mr. Clavering, you have something to compensate you for your outlawry."
"Yes," I replied, "he spoke to me and with the sweetest kindliness."
"And the King was hopeful—was positive in his hopes?"
"Very."
"That is right," he continued, walking about the room and smiling to himself. "That is right So a strong man should be."
"And so weak men are," said I rather sadly, for I recalled all that Lord Bolingbroke had told me.
"Mr. Clavering," said the old gentleman, suddenly pausing in his walk, "you are the last man who should say that. You have lost all that a man holds dear, and are you not hopeful?"
I bowed my head to the rebuke. It was, indeed, well-timed and just, though for a very different reason than that which had inspired Mr. Curwen to utter it.
"I was so," said I humbly, "so lately as this morning. Nay," and I rose to my feet, "I am so still. Besides," I continued, reverting to the King, "he has Lord Bolingbroke to help him, and I set great store on that."
"Bolingbroke!" cried Mr. Curwen, and seldom have I seen a man's face change so suddenly. A flame of anger kindled in his eyes and blazed across his face, shrivelling all the gentleness which made its home there. "Bolingbroke!" he cried wildly—"a knave! a debauched, villainous knave! God help the man, be he king or serf, that takes his counsel! Look you, Mr. Clavering, a very dishonest, treacherous knave;" and he wagged his head at me. I was astonished at the outburst, since the Jacobites were wont to look with some deference towards Lord Bolingbroke.
"He is my kinsman," I said meekly, "and a very good friend to me;" and while Mr. Curwen was still humming and hawing in some confusion, his daughter came into the room, and gazing at his troubled face with some anxiety, put an end to the talk.
This was by no means, however, the last I was to hear of the matter, and in truth Lord Bolingbroke, through merely arousing Mr. Curwen's indignation, was to prove a much better friend to me than ever I had looked for. For when we were again alone together:
"I regret the words I spoke to you," he said a little stiffly and with considerable effort in the apology. "I did not know Lord Bolingbroke was your kinsman;" and then in a rush of sincerity: "But far more than the words, I regret your relationship with the man."
I began to make such defence of my kinsman as I could, pointing to his industry, and declaring how his services had always been thwarted by his colleagues while he was in power.
"And what of the Catalans?" he asked.
Now, I knew very little about the Catalans.
"Well, what of the Catalans?" I asked doubtfully.
"Why, this," he returned. "We instigated them to war; we made them our allies against Philip of Spain by the promise of restoring them their ancient liberties. They fought with us, spilled their blood on the strength of that promise, and then Lord Bolingbroke patches up his peace of Utrecht, and not a word in it from end to end about their liberties. They continue the war alone, and he finds nothing better to do than to sneer at their obstinacy. They still continue, and he is ready to send an English fleet to help in their destruction."
His voice increased in vehemence with every word he spoke, so that I feared each moment another outburst against my kinsman. It may be that he feared it too, for he checked himself with some abruptness, and it was his daughter who revived the subject later on during that same day.
It was after dinner. I had taken a book with me, and climbed up to the orchard behind the house. But little I read in the book. The sun had set behind the hills, but the brightness of that morning lingered on my thoughts. I was, as Mr. Curwen had said, hopeful, though with no great reason, and being besides weary with the fatigue I had undergone, fell into a restful state between sleep and waking. With half-closed eyes I saw Dorothy Curwen come from the back of the house, and talk for a little with Mary Tyson. Then she mounted towards the orchard. I watched her, marked the lightness of her step, the supple carriage of her figure, the delicate poise of her head, and then rose from the grass and went forward to meet her.
"Mr. Clavering," she began very decidedly, and paused in some difficulty. Then she stamped her foot with a little imperious movement. "You talk too much of France and Paris and the great world to my father. You will not do so any more."
She spoke with the prettiest air of command imaginable the while she looked up at me, and it was the air I smiled at, not the command.
"No!" she said, "I mean it. You will not do so any more;" and she coloured a little and spoke with a yet stronger emphasis.
"Madam," said I with a bow, "since you wish it——"
"I do wish it, Mr. Clavering," she interrupted me.
"I did not think——" I began.
"No," says she, "you are young and imprudent. I have noticed that already." And with great stateliness and dignity she walked for ten yards down the hillside. Then she began to hum a tune, and laughed as though mightily pleased with herself and her stately walk changed to a dance. A few yards further on, she sat down in the bracken with her back towards me and began plucking at the grasses. I remained where she had left me, quite content to watch from that distance the coils of hair nestling about her head, and to hearken to the rippling music of her song. But after a little she turned her head with a glance across her shoulder towards me, and so back again very quickly. I went down to her.
"The lecture is not ended?" said I, gravely.
She gave a start and looked at me, as though my presence there was the last thing she expected, or indeed wished for. Then in an instant her whole manner changed.
"I will tell you the truth of it," she said. "Something you will perhaps have guessed already, the rest you would discover did not I tell you."
I sat down by her side, and she continued, choosing her words.
"My father is not altogether—strong, and these stories do no good." Then she stopped. "It is more difficult to tell you than I thought."
"There is no need," said I, "that you should say another word."
"Thank you," said she very gratefully; and for a little we were silent.
"Has he spoken to you of a ship?" she asked slowly; and I started. "Ah! he thinks it is a secret from us. But we know, for he sold the land not so long ago wherewith to buy it He is the noblest man in the world," she continued hurriedly. "The thought of any one suffering touches him to the quick; the thought of oppression kindles him to anger, and he will do his part, and more than his part, in relieving the one and fighting against the other. So that unless Mary and I did what we could, he would not possess to-day so much as a farthing."
"I understand," said I, "Mary's welcome to me yesterday."
She looked at me with a smile.
"Yes," said she, "but your looks warranted her. The ship was to be fitted out to help the Catalans. It lies at Whitehaven now. He was there but a few days ago."
"He spoke of it to me," said I, "with some hint that he might put me across to France."
"But you will not go?" she said, turning to me quickly. "Any day the country may rise and every arm will be needed—I mean every young arm."
I shook my head.
"The French King is dying, maybe is dead, and without his help will the country rise? Besides, so long as I stay here, I endanger you."
I spoke reluctantly enough, for though I had no intention whatever to seek a refuge in France, I felt that if once Mr. Curwen definitely promised to send me thither, I could not remain at Applegarth at however small a risk to him and his. I must needs accept the offer and—betake me again to the hillside, in which case there was little probability that I should be able to effect anything towards Anthony Herbert's enlargement before I was captured myself.
"There is no danger to us," she said. "For, some while since, we persuaded my father to take no active share in the plans. There will be no danger," and she stopped for a second, "if you will put out your candle when next you leave it in the stables."
"My candle?" I stammered, taken aback by her words. "I left it burning?"
"Last night," said she.
"I beg your pardon."
"There is very great reason that you should," she said with a laugh. "For I must needs hurry on my clothes and put it out. As I said, you are very imprudent, Mr. Clavering;" and with that she tripped down to the house, leaving me not so much concerned with what she had hinted about her father, as with my own immediate need to secure the knowledge I was after quickly, and avert by my departure the smallest risk from Applegarth.
I was on that account the more relieved when, late upon the third night afterwards, Tash knocked at the door, and brought me a letter from Lord Derwentwater. I opened it eagerly, and read it through. It told me much which is common knowledge now, as that the Earl of Mar had summoned his friends in Scotland to meet him at Aboyne on the 27th, upon the pretext of a great hunting-party; that the mug-house riots in London were daily increasing in number and violence; but that with the French King, so near to his dissolution, and the precautions of the English Government in bringing over Dutch troops, and thronging the Channel with its ships, Lord Bolingbroke was all for delay. "But God knows," he added, "whether delay is any possible, and I fear for the event. We have many of the nobles on our side—but the body of our countrymen? It will be like a game of chess in which one side plays without pawns. We have Bishops and Knights and Castles, but no pawns."
There was more of the same kind, and I glanced through it hurriedly, until I came to that of which I was more particularly in search.
"The sheriff came with his posse to Lord's Island in the morning, so that it was well you left during the night. He is still after you. I passed his messenger yesterday near Braithwaite, so it behoves you to be wary. I do not think, however, he has winded you as yet, and as soon as I can discover an occasion I will have you sent over the water. But being myself under the cloud of their suspicions, I have to step very deliberately. Your cousin, Jervas Rookley, lives openly under his own name at Blackladies, and receives visits from the Whig attorney; and since he can only be staying there with the sufferance of the Government, you may be certain what I told you is true. By the way, Mr. Anthony Herbert, the painter, disappeared on the same day or thereabouts that you did. It is rumoured that he has been arrested, but nothing certain is known. But if the rumour is true I greatly fear that he owes his arrest to his acquaintanceship with you and myself. I suspect Mr. Rookley's finger in the pie. Since he was playing false with the Government concerning you, he would most likely be anxious to give them an earnest of loyalty in some other matter. But I do not know."
So far I read and clapped the letter down with a bang. For here was the fellow to my own suspicion.
I sat down and finished the letter. There was but another line to it.
"I got my information about Rookley from an oldish man who came secretly here from Blackladies. He seemed in some doubt as to which of yourself or your cousin he should call master, but he was very insistent that I should let you know of his coming. I had, indeed, some difficulty in comprehending him, for now he wished me to style him 'Aron' to you and now 'Ashlock.' Altogether I thought it wiser to give him no news as to your whereabouts. This, however, is certain, from what he said to me—there is a watch set about Blackladies on the chance that you might return."
This last sentence troubled me exceedingly. For it had been growing in my mind that there was but one person who could tell me fully what I needed to know, and that person Mr. Jervas Rookley; and a vague purpose was gradually taking shape within me that I would once more make use of Mr. Curwen's stables, and riding one night round by Newlands valley and Keswick, seek to take Mr. Rookley by surprise, and wrest the truth from him. That project the letter seemed to strike dead. Accordingly I took the occasion to write to Lord Derwentwater, and implored him, if by any means he could, to inform himself more particularly of Anthony Herbert's arrest, and whither he had been taken. "For upon these two points," said I, "hangs not my safety, but my soul's salvation;" and so hurried Tash off before the poor man was halfway through his supper, and waited impatiently for an answer.
Now, during this period of waiting, since each time that I found myself alone with Mr. Curwen, his talk would wander back inquisitively to the French Court, discovering there a lustre which no doubt it had, and a chivalry which it no less certainly lacked, I began of a set purpose to avoid him; and avoiding him, was thrown the more into the company of Miss Dorothy. Moreover, the frankness with which she had hinted to me the weakness of her father, brought about a closer intimacy between us as of friend and friend rather than as of hostess and guest. It was as though Mary Tyson and she were continually building up out of their love a fence around the father, and she had joined me in the work.
Many a time, when I was on the hillside behind the house I would be startled by the sight of a horse and the flash of a red-coat upon the horse's back, only to find my heart drumming yet the faster when I perceived that it was Miss Dorothy Curwen in her red cramoisie riding-habit. Maybe I would be standing no great distance from the house, and she would see me and come up the grass while I went down towards her, her hair straying about her ears and forehead in the sweetest disorder, and her cheeks wind-whipped to the rosiest pink. On the wet days, which were by no means infrequent, she would sit at her spinet and sing such old songs as that I had listened to on the first night of my coming. If the evenings were fine, we would sometimes row out upon Ennerdale water, in a crazy battered boat, so that I was more often baling out the leakage in a tin pannikin than pulling at the oars. And on afternoons, when the sunlight fell through the leaves like great spots of a gold rain we would climb up to the orchard, and I would spread an old cloak for her upon the grass, and we would sit amongst the crabbed trunks of trees. But at all times—in the dusk, when she sang and the rain whipped the panes; at night, when we rowed across the moonlit lake as across a silver mirror, in the hush of a world asleep—at all times a feverish impatience would seize on me for an answer to my letter, and a shadow would darken across our talk, so that thereafter I sat mum and glooming and heard little that was said to me. It was not, indeed, the shadow of the gallows, but rather of the fear lest while I lingered here at Applegarth, chance might thwart me of the gallows. For the girl's presence was to me as a perpetual accusation.
Upon one such occasion, when we were together in the orchard, she looked at me once or twice curiously.
"For one so imprudent," said she, a trifle petulantly, "you are extraordinary solemn."
"There are creatures," said I, with a weariful shake of the head, "who are by nature solemn."
"True," says she, placidly, "but even they hoot at night;" and she looked across the valley with extreme unconsciousness. But I noticed that her mouth dimpled at the corners as if she was very pleased.
"I know," said I, remorsefully, "that I make the dullest of companions."
She nodded her head in cordial agreement
"Perhaps you cannot help it," says she, with great sympathy.
"The truth is," I exclaimed sharply, "I have overmuch to make me solemn."
"No doubt," and the sympathy deepened in her voice, "and I am sure every one must pity you. There was a king once who never smiled again. I am sure every one pitied him too."
"He only lost a son," I replied foolishly, meaning thereby that honour was a thing of more worth.
"And you an estate," says she. "It is indeed very true," and she clasped her hands and shook her head.
"Madam," I returned with some dignity, "you put words into my mouth that I had no thought of using. It was not of a mere estate that I was speaking."
"No?" says she reflectively. "Could it be a heart, then? Dear! dear! this is very tragical."
"No," I said very quickly; and on the instant fell to stammering "No, no."
"The word gains little force from repetition. In fact, I have heard that two noes make a yes."
"Madam," said I stiffly, getting to my feet, "you persist in misunderstanding me;" and I moved a step or two apart from her.
"I do not know," she said demurely, "that you use any great effort to prevent the mistake."
That I felt to be true. I wondered for a moment whether she had not a right to know, and I turned back to her. She was sitting with her head cocked on one side and glancing whimsically towards me from the tail of her eye. The glance became, on the instant, the blankest of uninterested looks. I plumped down again on the grass.
"That evening," I began, "when I left the candle burning in the stables, I rode into Keswick. There was something I should have done before I came hither," and I stumbled over the words.
She took me up immediately with a haughty indifference, and her chin very high in the air.
"Nay, I have no desire to pry into your secrets—not the least in the world."
"Oh," said I, "I fancied you were curious."
"Curious?" she exclaimed, with a flash of her eyes. "Curious, indeed! And why should I be curious about your concerns, if you please?" And she spoke the word again with a laugh of scorn, "Curious!"
Said I, "The word gains no force from repetition."
Dorothy Curwen gasped with indignation.
"A very witty and polite rejoinder, upon my word," she said slowly, and began to repeat that remark too, but broke off at the second word.
For a little we were silent. Then she plucked a reed of grass and bit it pensively.
"No!" she said indifferently, "since my father has lived quietly at Applegarth, I have lost my interest in politics."
"It was no question of politics at all!" I exclaimed, and—
"Oh!" she exclaimed, swinging round to me with all her indifference gone.
"No," I went on, but reluctantly, for I was no longer sure that I ought to tell her, and quibbled accordingly. "There was some one in Keswick for whom I had news which would not wait."
"News of your escape?" she interposed, with a certain constraint in her voice.
"Partly that," I replied, and continued, "and from whom I most heartily desired news."
She sat for a moment with her face averted and very still.
"And what is she like?" she asked of a sudden.
The question startled me so that I jumped and stared at her open-mouthed. But by the time I had fashioned an answer, she had no longer any need for it For "No! No!" she exclaimed. "I have no wish to hear;" and she fell unaccountably to talking of Jervas Rookley, at first in something of a flurry, and afterwards in a tone as though she found great comfort in the thought of him. "He is not so black as he is painted," was the burden of her speech, and she played many variations on the tune.
Now, I had in my pocket a certain letter from Lord Derwentwater, which was a clear disproof of her words, and, to speak the truth, her manner stung me. For whatever part of my misfortunes I did not owe to myself, that I owed to Mr. Jervas Rookley.
"And I never could bring myself to believe that story of the wad-mines," she said. "Never! Ah, poor man! What will he be doing now? It is a thought which often troubles me, Mr. Clavering. Doubtless he is somewhere tossed upon the sea. It is a very noble life, a sailor's. There is no nobler, is there?" and she asked the question as if she had no doubt whatever but that I should agree with her.
"I know nothing of that," I replied in some heat, "but as for the wad-mines I know that story to be true, for I have seen the shaft."
She shook her head at me with an air of disappointment. It seemed she thought I was slandering the man after slipping into his shoes. I whipped the letter out of my pocket and thrust it before her.
"There, Madam, there!" I exclaimed. "The thought of Mr. Rookley need no longer trouble you. I am glad, indeed, to have the opportunity of disposing of your trouble. It will be the one moment's satisfaction the man has given me. He is nowhere tossed upon the sea, in that noblest of all lives, as you will be able to perceive for yourself, if you will glance through this letter, but, on the contrary, sitting quietly in an armchair in whatever room at Blackladies pleases him best."
"I am not so short of sight," she observed sedately, "that I need the paper to be rubbed against my nose."
She took it and read it through once and a second time. I told her the story of my dealings with Mr. Rookley, from the moment of his coming to me at the Jesuit College in Paris, to the morning when I fled from Blackladies, and so much of his dealings with me as I was familiar with. It was, in fact, much the same story that I had told to my Lord and Lady Derwentwater, and contained little mention of Mr. Herbert, except the fact that he was painting my portrait, and no mention whatsoever of Mr. Herbert's wife. For I found that the whole account of my proceedings since I had come to England, fell very naturally into two halves, each of which to all seeming was in itself complete. She heard me out to the end, and then in low, penitent voice, for which it seemed to me there was no occasion—
"I knew nothing of this," she said, "or I would never so much as have uttered Mr. Rookley's name. I could not know. You will bear me out in this; I could not know." And she turned to me with the sweetest appeal in her grey eyes and a hand timidly outstretched.
"Indeed," said I, earnestly, "I will. You could not know, and I can well believe Mr. Jervas Rookley's conduct was very different to you." With that I took her hand, and again took it gingerly by the finger-tips. Thereupon she snatched it away, and got quickly to her feet.
"And for whom——" she began, and stopped, while she very deliberately fastened a button of her glove which was already buttoned.
"For whom—what?" said I.
"It is no matter," she said carelessly, and then, "For whom was the picture intended?" and as though she was half-ashamed of the question, she ran lightly down the hillside without waiting for an answer.
"For no one," I cried out after her. "It was intended to hang in the great hall of Blackladies." But she descended into the house, and I—I passed through the orchard and up the hillside behind it, and over the crest of the fell, until ridge upon ridge opened out beneath the overarching sky, and the valleys between them became so many furrows drawn by a giant's plough. And coming into that great space and solitude where no tree waved, no living thing moved, no human sound was heard, I dropped upon the ground, pressing a throbbing face down among the cool bracken, and twining my fingers about the roots of ferns. It was the blackest hour that had ever till then befallen me; mercifully I could not know that it was but a foretaste of others yet blacker which were to follow. Something very new and strange was stirring within me; I loved her. The truth was out that afternoon. I think it was her questioning which taught it me. For it brought Mrs. Herbert into my thoughts, and so I learned this truth by the bitterest of all comparisons. I saw the two faces side by side, and then the one vanished and the other remained. Here, I thought, was my life just beginning to take some soul of meaning; here was its usual drab a-flush with that rosy light, as of all the sunrises and all the sunsets which had ever brightened across the world—and I must give it up, and through my own fault. There was the hardest part of the business—through my own fault! The knowledge stung and ached at my heart intolerably. There was nothing heroical in the reparation which I purposed; here was no laying down of one's life at the feet of one's mistress, with a blithe heart and even a gratitude for the occasion, such as I had read of in Mr. Curwen's romances—and how easy that seemed to me at this moment!—it was the mere necessary payment for a sordid act of shame.
It was drawing towards night when I rose to my feet and came down the mountain-side to Applegarth, and, as the outcome of my torturing reflections, one conviction, fixed very clearly in my mind before, had gained an added impulsion. I must needs hasten on this reparation. It was not, I am certain, the fear that delay in the fulfilment would weaken my purpose, which any longer spurred me; but of those two faces which had made my comparison: one, as I say, had vanished from my thoughts, the other now occupied them altogether, and it seemed to me that if by any chance I missed the opportunity of atonement, I should be doing the owner of that face an irreparable wrong.
Miss Dorothy Curwen came late from her room to supper, and the moment she entered the parlour where Mr. Curwen and I were waiting, it appeared that something had gone amiss with her, and that we were in consequence to suffer. Her face was pale and tired, her eyes hostile, and asperity was figured in the tight curve of her lips. From the crown of her head to the toe-tips, she was panoplied in aggression, so that the very ribands seemed to bristle on her dress.
It was plain, too, that she did but wait her opportunity. Mr. Curwen provided it by a question as to her looks, and a suggestion that her health was disordered.
"No wonder," says she, and "Not a doubt of it." She snatched the occasion with both hands as it were, and said, I think, more than she intended. "I am much troubled by an owl that keeps me from my proper sleep."