Few men are condemned to such an ordeal as that through which I had passed; and though some who read this, and are as remote from death as the wife, that may be any day, and must be one day, is from the young bachelor--though some, I say, and in particular those who never saw blade drawn in anger in their lives, but have done all their fighting in the cock-pit, may think that I carried it poorly in the circumstances, and with none of the front and bravado suitable to the occasion, I would have them remember the old saying,Ne sutor supra crepidam, and ask of a scholar only a scholar's work. I would have them remember that in the shadow of the scaffold, even a man so gallant by repute as the Lord Preston of that day, stooped to be an evidence; and that in the same situation the family pride of Richard Hampden availed as little as the reckless courage of Monmouth, or the effrontery of Sir John Fenwick, to raise its owner above the common level.
Simpliciter, it is one thing to vapour at the Cocoa-tree among wits and beaux, and another to take the hazard when the time comes, as no less a person than my Lord Bolingbroke discovered, and that no farther back than '14. I would have large talkers to remember this. For myself I am content that I came through the trial with my life; and yet, not with so much of that either, that anything surer than instinct guided my steps when all was over to the Duke's home in St. James's Square, where arriving, speechless and helpless, it was wonderful I was not put to the door without more. Fortunately, my lord, marvelling at my failure to return before, and mindful, even in the turmoil of that evening, of the service I had done him in the day, had given orders in my behalf; and on my arrival I was recognised, half dead as I was, and taken to the steward's room, and being let blood by a surgeon who was hastily called in, was put to bed, all who saw me supposing that I was suffering from vertigo, or some injury, though no marks of blows on the head could be discovered.
That was a night long remembered in London. Messengers with lights, attended by files of soldiers, were every hour passing through the streets, searching houses and arresting the suspected. From mouth to mouth rumours of the conspiracy flew abroad; at nine o'clock it was stated, and generally believed, that the King was wounded; at ten that he had been seized; later that he was dead. Early in the evening the draw-bridge at the Tower was drawn, and the sentries were doubled; the City gates were closed and guarded; a whole battalion stood all night under arms at Kensington; the Council was in perpetual sitting; many houses were lighted from eve to dawn; nor since the great panic of Beachy Head in '90 had there been an alarm so deep or widespread.
If this was so in the city generally, at the Secretary's residence, whither many of the prisoners were brought for examination as soon as they were taken, the excitement was at its height. The Square outside, then unenclosed, was occupied all night by successive groups of sight-seers, or of persons more nearly interested in the event. One consequence of this was that, with all this astir without, my case attracted the less notice within; and, unheeded and almost forgotten--which, perhaps, was the better for me--I was left in peace to sleep off the shock and fright I had experienced, of which the severity may be gauged by the fact that the afternoon of the next day was well advanced before I awoke, and finding myself in bed in a strange room, with cold broth and a little wine standing on a stool at my elbow, sat up, and looked round me in amazement. The steep slope of the ceiling towards the window, and the heavy flattened eaves which projected over the latter, soon apprised me that I lay under the leads of a great house; but this was the extent of my knowledge. However, my stomach presently called for food, and I took it; and my head ceasing to swim, I began to recall what had happened to me; and rising, and going to the window, I recognised the great and fashionable Square on which my window looked. At that and the thoughts of what I had gone through, and the danger I had escaped, I fell to quaking again, and for a moment the dizziness returned. But presently, the cheerful aspect of the room much aiding me, I recovered myself, and dressing, and finishing the food, I prepared to descend.
No need to say that I wondered much at all I saw, and particularly at the handsome and stately proportions of the staircase, which I descended without seeing any person until I reached the landing on the first floor. Here, looking timidly over the balustrade, I discovered that the buzz and hum of voices which I had heard as soon as I opened my door, came from the hall below, which appeared to be paved with heads. First and nearest to where I stood were clustered on the lower steps of the staircase a number of persons whom I took to be servants, and who, standing as if in the boxes of a theatre, were taken up with staring at what went on on the floor below them, and particularly at a row of eight or nine men, who seated on chairs along one side of the hall, seemed to be in the charge of a messenger and some tipstaves, and to be prisoners awaiting examination. Between these last and the stairs occupying the floor of the hall, and both moving and standing still, were a crowd of persons of condition, the greater part, to all appearance, clients of the Duke, or officers and persons who, having theentrée, had stepped in out of curiosity to see the sight.
However, I had no eyes for these, for with a beating heart I recognised among the dejected prisoners seated along the wall, four whom I knew. King, Keyes, Cassel, and Ferguson himself, and I had anything but a mind to stay to be recognised in my turn. I was in the act of withdrawing, therefore, as quietly as I could, when I saw with a kind of shock that the prisoner at the end of the row, the one nearest to me and farthest from the door, was a girl. It scarcely needed a second glance to tell me that the girl was Mary. The light at that inner extremity of the hall was waning, and her face, always pale and now in shadow, wore an aspect of grey and weary depression that, natural as it was under the circumstances, went to my heart, and impressed me deeply in proportion as I had always found her hard and self-reliant. But moved as I was, I dared not linger, since to linger might be to be observed. With a light foot, therefore, I carried out my first intention, and drawing back undiscovered, sneaked up the staircase to my room.
My clue in the circumstances was clear. Plainly it was to lie close and keep quiet and shun observation until the crisis was passed; then by every means in my power--saving always the becoming an evidence in court, which was too dangerous--to deserve the Duke's favour; and as to the pledge I had given to Smith, to be guided by the future.
Such a line of conduct was immensely favoured by the illness to which I had so fortunately succumbed. Once back in my bed, I had only to lie there, and affect weakness; and in a day or two I might hope that things would be so far advanced that my share in them and knowledge of them would go for little, and I, on the ground of the personal service I had done his Grace, might keep his favour--yet run no risk.
In fact nothing could seem more simple than such a line of conduct; on which, the western daylight that still lingered in the room, giving my retreat a most cheerful aspect, I felt that I had every reason to hug myself. After the miseries and dangers of the past week I was indeed well off. Here, in the remote top floor of my lord's great house in the Square, I was as safe as I could be anywhere in the world, and I knew it.
But so contrary is human nature, and so little subject to the dictations of the soundest sense, that I had not lain in my bed five minutes, congratulating myself on my safety, before the girl, and the wretchedness I had read in her face, began to trouble me. It was not to be denied that she had gone some way towards saving my life--if she had not actually saved it; and I had a kind of feeling for her on that account. True, things were greatly altered since we had agreed to go to Romford together,et nuptias facere; I had got no patron then, nor such prospects as I now had, these troubles once overpast. But for all that, it troubled me to think of her as I had seen her, pale and downcast; and by-and-by I found myself again at the door of my room with my hand on the latch. Thence I went back, shivering and ashamed, and calling myself and doubtless rightly a fool; and tried, by watching the crowd in the Square--but timidly, since even at that height I fancied I might be recognised--to divert my thoughts. With so little success in the end, however, that presently I was stealing down the stairs again.
I knew that it was impossible I could pass down the main staircase and through the servants unobserved, but I took it that in such a house there must be a backstairs; and coming to the first floor I turned craftily down the main corridor leading into the heart of the house, and pretty quickly found that staircase--which was as good as dark-- and crept down it still meeting no one; a thing that surprised me until I stood in the long passage on the ground floor corresponding with the corridor above, and found that the door, which from its position should cut it off from the front hall, was fastened. Tantalised by the murmur of voices in the hall, and my proximity, I tried the lock twice; but the second effort only confirming the result of the first, I was letting down the latch as softly as I could, hoping that I should not be detected, when the door was sharply flung open in my face, all the noise and heat of the hall burst on me, and in the opening appeared a stout angry man, who glared at me as if he would eat me.
"What are you doing here?" he cried, "when twice I have told you----" There he stopped, seeing who it was, and "Hallo!" he continued in a different and more civil tone, "it is you, is it? Are you better?"
Afterwards I learned that he was Mr. Martin, my lord's house-steward, but at the time I knew him only for someone in authority; and I muttered an excuse. "Well, come through, now you are here," he continued sharply. "But the orders are strict that this door be kept locked while this business is going. You can see as well, or better, from the stairs. There, those are the men. And a rare set of Frenchified devils they look! Charnock is in with my lord now, and I hope he may not blow him up with gunpowder or some fiendish trick."
He had scarcely told me when, a stir in the body of the hall announcing a new arrival, a cry was raised of "Room for my Lord Marlborough and my Lord Godolphin!" and the press falling to either side out of respect, I had a glimpse of two gentlemen in the act of entering; one, a stout and very noble-looking man of florid complexion, the other stout also and personable, but a trifle smug and solemn. The steward had no sooner heard their names announced, than in a great fluster he bade me keep the door a minute; and pushing himself into the throng, he went with immense importance to receive them.
So by a strange piece of luck at the moment that the check of his presence was withdrawn, I found myself standing within three feet of the girl, whose seat was close to the door; moreover, the movement, by thrusting those who had before occupied the floor back upon the line of prisoners, had walled us in, as it were, from observation. Under these circumstances our eyes met, and I looked for a flush of joy and surprise, a cry of recognition at least; but though Mary started, and for an instant stared at me wide-eyed, her gaze fell the next moment, and muttering something inaudible, she let her chin sink back on her breast.
I did not remember that she, supposing I had informed, and ignorant of the scene which had bound me to the Duke of Shrewsbury, would see nothing surprising in my presence in his house, and more deeply wounded than I can now believe possible by her demeanour, I bent over her.
"Don't you know me?" I whispered. "Mary!"
She shivered, but retained the same attitude, her eyes on the floor.
"Can I do anything for you?" I persisted; but this time I spoke more coldly; her silence began to annoy me.
She looked up then with a wan smile; and, with lips so dry that they scarcely performed their office, spoke. "You can let me escape," she said.
"That is impossible," I answered promptly--to put an end to such notions. And then to comfort her, "Besides, what can they do to you!" I said confidently. "Nothing! You are not a man, and they do not burn women for treason now, unless it is for coining. Cheer up! They----"
"They will send me to the Compter--and whip me," she muttered, shuddering so suddenly and violently that the chair creaked under her. And then, "If you can get me away," she continued, moistening her lips and speaking with her eyes averted, "Well! But if not you had better leave me. You do me no good," she added, after a slight pause, and with a sob of impatience in her voice.
I knew that it was not unlikely that the House of Correction would be her fate; and that such a fate, even to a decent woman--and she was a girl!--might be less tolerable than death. And I felt something of the horror and lurking apprehension that parched her mouth and strained her eyes. The hall was growing dark round us, and the throng of persons of all sorts that filled it, poisoning the air with their breathing and the odour of their clothes, I experienced an astonishing loathing of the confinement and the place. I saw this the beginning of the dreary road which she had to travel; and my heart revolting with the pity of it, and the future of it, I fell into a passion, and did a thing I very seldom did. I swore.
And then--heaven knows how I went on to a thing so unwise and reckless, and in every way so unlike me! Certainly it was not the mere opportunity tempted me--though a chance more favourable, the general attention being completely engrossed by the two noblemen, could not have been conceived--yet it was certainly not that, I say, for I did it on the impulse of the moment, in sheer blind terror, not looking to see whether I were watched or not. Nor did it arise from any farther suggestion on the girl's part. In fact, all I remember of it is that, in a paroxysm of pity, feeling rather than seeing that the people round us completely hid us, I touched the girl's shoulder, and that she looked up with a wild look in her eyes--and that determined me. So that without thinking I unlocked the door in a trembling, fumbling sort of manner, and passed her through it, and followed her, no one except Cassel, the prisoner who sat next her, being the wiser. Had I been prudent, or acted under anything but the impulse of the moment, I should have let her go through, and trusting to her woman's wits to get her clear of the house, have remained on guard myself as if nothing had happened; and certainly this would have been the safer way, since I could have sworn, when I was challenged, that no one had passed through the door. But I had not the nerve to think of this or remain, and I went with her.
The thing once done, my first thought, and the natural, if foolish, impulse on which I acted was to take her to my room, hers to follow where I led. The passage beyond the door was dark, but taking no thought of slip or stumble, in a moment I had her up the small staircase which led to the first floor, and through the door at the head of the flight into the long corridor, which, spacious, lofty, and comparatively light--in every way the strangest opposite to the crowded hall below--ran from the well of the great staircase into the depths of the house. By involving her in this upper part of the house, whence escape was impossible, and where prolonged search must inevitably discover her, I was really doing a most foolish thing. But in the event it mattered nothing, for as we reached the corridor, and paused to cast a wary glance down its length this way and that--I, for my part, shaking like an aspen, and I doubt not as white as a sheet--a single footstep rang on the marble floor that edged the matting of the passage, and the next moment the Duke himself, issuing from a doorway no more than five paces away, came plump upon us.
The surprise was so complete that we had no time to move, and we stood as if turned to stone. Yet even then, if I had retained perfect presence of mind, and bethought me that he might not know the girl, and would probably deem her one of his household--a still-room maid or a seamstress--all might have been well. For though he did, in fact, know the girl, having questioned her not half an hour before, it was on me that his eye alighted; and his first words were proof that he suspected nothing.
"Are you better?" he said, pausing with the kindness and consideration that so well became him--nay, that became no other man so well. "I am glad to see that you are about. We shall want you presently. What was it?"
And then, if I had answered him at once, I have no doubt that he would have passed on; but my teeth chattered so pitiably that I could only gape at him; and on that, seeing in a moment that something was wrong, he looked at my companion, and recognised her. I saw his eyes open wide with astonishment, and his mouth grew stern. Then, "But what--what, sir, is this?" he cried. "And what do you----"
He said no more, for as he reached that word the door beside me opened gently, and a man slid round it, looked, saw the Duke, and stood, his mouth agape, a stifled oath on his lips. It was Cassel, his hands shackled.
At this fresh appearance the Duke's astonishment may be imagined, and could scarcely be exceeded. He stared at the door as if he questioned who still remained behind it, or who might be the next to issue from it. But then, seeing, I suppose, something whimsical and bizarre in the situation--which there certainly was, though at the time I was far from discerning it--and being a man who, in all circumstances, retained a natural dignity, he smiled; and recovering himself before any one of us, took a tone between the grave and ironical. "Mr. Cassel?" he said. "Unless my eyes deceive me? The gentleman I saw a few minutes ago?"
"The same," the conspirator answered jauntily; but his anxious eyes roving beside and behind the Duke belied his tone.
"Then, perhaps," my lord answered, taking out his snuff-box, and tapping it with a good-humoured air, "you will see, sir, that your presence here needs some explanation? May I ask how you came here?"
"The devil I know or care, your Grace!" Cassel answered. "Except that I came into your house with no good-will, and if I could have found the door should not have outstayed my welcome."
"I believe it," said my lord drily, "if I believe nothing else. But you have lost the throw. And that being so, may I beg that you will descend again? I am loth to use force in my own house, Mr. Cassel, and to call the servants would prejudice your case. If you are wise, therefore, I think that you will see the wisdom of retiring quietly."
"Have no fear, I will go," the man answered with sufficient coolness. "I should not have come up, but that I saw that Square-toes there smuggle out the girl, and as no one was looking it seemed natural to follow."
"Oh!" said the Duke, flashing a glance at me that loosened my knee-joints. "He smuggled her out, did he?"
"He could not do much less," the conspirator answered. "She saved his life yesterday."
"Indeed!"
"Ay, when Ferguson would have hung him like a dog! And not far wrong either! But mum! I am talking. And save him or no, I did not think the creature had the spunk to do the thing. No, I did not."
"Ah!" said my lord, looking at him attentively.
"No, and as for the wench, your Grace----" and with the word Cassel dropped his voice, "she is no more than a child. You have enough. It is all over.Sacré nom de Dieu, let her go, my lord. Let the girl go."
The Duke raised his eyebrows. "I see no girl," said he, slowly. "Of whom are you talking, Mr. Cassel?"
I do not know who was more astonished at that, Cassel or I. True, the girl was gone; for a moment before, the Duke's back being half-turned, she had slipped into a doorway a couple of paces away, and there I could hear her breathing even now. But that my lord had failed to detect the movement I could no more believe than that he had failed to see the girl two minutes before, when, as clearly as I ever saw anything in my life, I had seen him examine her features.
Nevertheless, "I see no girl," he repeated coolly. "But I see you, Mr. Cassel; and as the alarm maybe given at any moment, and I do not choose to be found with you, I must beg of you to descend at once. Do you, sir," he continued, addressing me sharply, "go with him, and when you have taken him back to the hall bring me the key of the door."
"Well, I am d----d!" said Cassel.
For the first time the Duke betrayed signs of anger. "Go, sir"; he said. "And do you"--this to me--"bring me the key of that door."
Cassel turned as if to go; then with difficulty lifting his hands to his head he took off his hat. "My lord," he said, "you are well called the King of Hearts. For a Whig you are a d----d good fellow!"
What was preparing, or what my lord intended by conduct so extraordinary I had no time to consider. For though I got Cassel into the hall again undetected--which was of itself a marvel--when it came to taking the key from the lock my hand shook so violently with fear and excitement that the first attempt failed. Before I had succeeded the steward bustled up through the crowd, and seeing what I was about, bade me desist with some roughness.
"Do you want an escape that way?" said he, bursting with importance. "Leave it to me. Here, hands off, man." And he drew me into the hall and locked the door.
So there I was, fixed as it were in the girl's empty place, with Cassel grinning at me on one side and the steward grumbling on the other, and the crowd so thick about us that it was impossible for me to budge an inch. It amazed me that the girl's absence had not yet been noticed, but I knew that in no short time it must be, and my misery was in proportion. Presently "Hallo," cried the steward, peeping first on one side of me and then on the other. "Where is that slut that was here?"
"In with your master," said Cassel coolly.
"But Charnock is with him."
"Well, I suppose he can have two at a time if he pleases, Mr. Pudding-head! Thousand devils! Are we going to be kept in this crowd all night?"
The steward sniffed his indignation, but the answer satisfied him for the time; and the messengers and tipstaves being engaged at the farther end of the hall in shepherding their prisoners on the side of the house-door, and being crowded upon besides by gentlemen whom they feared to offend, had no notion of what had happened or that their tale was not complete. Someone had lowered and lighted a round lanthorn that hung in the middle of the hall; but the light hanging low, and being intercepted by the heads of those before us, barely reached the corner in which I stood. Still I knew that this was but a respite, and my relief and joy were great, when a cry of "Price! Price!" was raised, and "Price! Who is he? His Grace wants Price!" passing from lip to lip, the steward thrust me forward, and called to the nearest to make a way for me; and this being done I was speedily passed through the crowd to a door at the farther side of the hall, where two servants who stood on guard there, having satisfied themselves that I was the man, I was admitted.
I knew that I was not yet out of the wood. Moreover I had cause to doubt how I now stood in the Duke's favour, or what might be his intentions towards me. But at least I had escaped from the hall and from the steward whom I had begun to regard with a mixture of fear and hatred; and I prepared to face the ordeal before me with a courage that now seems astonishing. However, for the moment my courage was not to be proved. The room in which I found myself was large and lofty, lined for the most part with books, and adorned with marble busts, that gleamed ghostly in the obscured corners, or stood out bright and white where the radiance of the candles fell on them. In the middle of the rich dark carpet that covered the floor stood a table, furnished with papers, pens, and books; and this, with three inquisitorial chairs, set along the farther side of it, had a formidable air. But the three persons for whose accommodation the chairs had been placed, were now on their feet, standing in a group before the hearth, and so deeply engrossed in the subject under discussion that, if they were aware of my entrance, they took no notice of it.
The Earl of Marlborough, the more handsome and courtly of the two noblemen whom I had seen pass through the hall, a man even then of a great and splendid presence and address, though not what he afterwards became, was speaking, when finding myself unheeded, I gathered my wits to listen. "I have no right to give advice, your Grace," he was saying in suave and courtly accents, "But I think you will be ill-advised if you pay much attention to what these rogues allege, or make it public."
"No man will be safe!" urged his companion, with, it seemed to me, a note of anxiety in his voice.
"Better hang them out of hand," responded the Earl blandly. And he took snuff and delicately dusted his upper lip.
"Yet I do not know," answered the Duke, who stood between the two with his eyes on the fire, and his back towards me. "If we go too fast, people may say, my lord, that we fear what they might disclose."
The Earl laughed blandly. "You had little gain by Preston," said he, "and you kept him long enough."
"My Lord Devonshire is anxious to go into the matter thoroughly."
"Doubtless he has his reasons," Lord Marlborough answered, shrugging his shoulders. "The question is--whether your Grace has the same."
"I know none why we shouldnotgo into it," the Duke answered in measured tones which showed pretty clearly that in spite of his good-nature he was not to be led blindfold. "They can have nothing to say that will reflect on me. And I am sure," he continued, slightly inclining his head in courteous fashion, "that the same may be said of Lord Marlborough."
"Cela va sans dire!" answered the Earl in a voice so unconstrained and with a gesture so proud and easy that if he lied--as some have been found ready to assert--he showed a mastery of that art alike amazing and incredible. "And of Lord Godolphin also."
"By God, yes!" that peer exclaimed, in such a hurry to assent that his words tumbled over one another.
"Just so. I say so, my lord," the Earl repeated with a faint ring of scorn in his tone, while Lord Godolphin wiped his forehead. "But innocence is no shield against calumny, and if these rogues can prolong their lives by a lie, do you think that they will not tell one? Or even ten?"
"Ay, by God, will they!" cried Godolphin. "Or twenty. I'll lay thee long odds to that."
My lord bowed and admitted that it was possible.
"So possible," Lord Marlborough continued, lightly and pleasantly, "that it is not long since your Grace, unless I am mistaken, suffered after that very fashion. I have no mind to probe your secrets, Duke--God forbid! I leave such tasks to my Lord Portland! But, unless I am in error, when you last left office advantage was taken of some"--he paused, and then with an easy motion of his white hands--"some trifling indiscretion. It was exaggerated and increased tenfold, and placed in a light so false that"--he paused again to take a pinch of snuff from his box--"that for a time even the King was induced to believe--that my Lord Shrewsbury was corresponding with France. Most amusing!"
The Duke did not answer for a moment; then in a voice that shook a little, "It is an age of false witnesses," he said.
"Precisely," Lord Marlborough answered, shrugging his shoulders with charmingbonhomie. "That is what I say. They do not greatly hurt you or me. We have clear consciences and clean hands; and can defy these ruffians. But the party must be considered."
"There is something in that," said the Duke, nodding and speaking in his natural tone.
"And smaller men, as innocent, but more vulnerable--they too should be considered."
"True," said Lord Godolphin, nodding. "True, by God."
The Duke assented thoughtfully. "I will bear it in mind," he said. "I think it is a questionable policy."
"In any event I am sure that your Grace's prudence will steer the matter to a safe issue," Lord Marlborough answered in his courtliest fashion. "I thank Heaven that you are here in this emergency, and not Portland or Auverquerque, who see a foe to the King in every Englishman."
"I should be sorry to see any but an Englishman in the Secretary's office," the Duke said, with a little heat.
"And yet that is what we have to expect," Lord Marlborough answered placidly. "But we are detaining your Grace. Come, my lord, we must be going. I suppose that Sir John is not taken?"
"Sir John Fenwick?"
"Yes."
"It has not been reported."
With that the two noblemen took a formal farewell, and the Duke begging them to go out by his private door that they might avoid the press in the hall, they were crossing the room in that direction, when a sudden hubbub arose outside and a cry of alarm, and before they had more than raised their eyebrows, asking one another politely what it meant, the door beside which I stood was opened, and a gentleman came in. He looked with a flustered face at the Duke. "Your Grace's pardon," he said hurriedly. "One of the prisoners has escaped!"
"Escaped!" said the Duke. "How?"
"The woman has somehow slipped away. Through the crowd it is believed, your Grace. The messenger----"
But at that moment the unfortunate official himself appeared in the doorway, looking scared out of his life, "What is this?" said the Duke sharply.
The man whimpered. "'Fore God it is not my fault," he cried. "She never passed through the door! May I die if she did, your Grace."
"She may be still in the hall?"
"We have searched it through and through!" the man answered desperately. "It remains only to search the house, your Grace--with your permission."
"What!" the Duke cried, really or apparently startled. "Why the house?"
"She must have slipped into the house, for she never went out!" the man answered doggedly. "She never went out!"
The Duke shrugged his shoulders and turned to Lord Marlborough. "What do you think?" said he.
The Earl raised his eyebrows. By this time half the concourse in the hall had pressed to the doorway, and were staring into the room. "Call Martin," said the Duke. "And stand back there a little, if you please," he continued haughtily. "This is no public court, but my house, good people."
It seemed to me--but I, behind the door, was in a boundless fright--that the steward would never come. He did come at last, and pushing his way through the crowd, presented himself with a bustling confidence that failed to hide his apprehensions. Nor was the Duke's reception of him calculated to set him at his ease.
"Stand out, man!" he said harshly, and with a nearer approach to the tyrannical than I had hitherto seen in a man, who was perhaps the best-natured of his species. "Stand out and answer me, and no evasions. Did I not give you an order of the strictest character, to lock the inner door and leave it for nothing, and no one--while this business was forward?"
Martin gasped. "May it please your Grace," he said, "I----"
"Answer, fool, what I ask," the Duke cried, cutting him short with the utmost asperity. "Did I not give you those orders?"
The man was astonished, and utterly terrified. "Yes," he said. "It is true, your Grace."
"And did you obey them?"
Poor Martin, seeing that all the trouble was like to rest on his back, answered as in all probability the Duke expected. "I did, your Grace," he said roundly. "I have not been an arm's length from the door, nor has it been unlocked. I have the key here," he continued, producing it and holding it up.
"Has anyone passed through the door while you have been on guard?"
The steward had gone too far to confess the truth now, and swore positively and repeatedly that no one had passed through the door or could have passed through the door; that it was impossible; that the door had been locked all the time, and the key in his possession: finally, that if the girl had gone through the door she must have gone through the keyhole, and was a witch. At which some present crossed themselves.
"I am satisfied," said the Duke, addressing the messenger. "Doubtless she slipped through the crowd. But as you are responsible and will have to answer for the girl, I would advise you to lose no time in searching such of Mr. Ferguson's haunts as are known to you. It is probable that she will take refuge in one or other of them. However, I will report the matter as favourably as I can to the council. You can go. Lodge the others according to the warrants, and make no second blunder. See these people out, Martin. And for you, my lords, I am sorry that this matter has detained you."
"La fille--ne velait pas beaucoup?" said the Earl curiously.
"Pas de tout!" my lord answered, and smiling, shrugged his shoulders. "Rien!"
With the least inclination towards merriment I must have laughed at the face of horror with which Mr. Martin, when he went a few minutes later, to expel the last stragglers, came on me where I stood, trying to efface myself behind the door. He dared not speak, for the Duke was standing at the table a few paces from him; and I would not budge. Fortunately I remembered that a still tongue was all he need wish; and I laid my finger on my lips and nodded to him. This a little encouraged him, but not much; and in his fear of what I might, in spite of my promise, let out, if I were left alone with his master, he was still in two minds whether he should eject me or not, when the Duke spoke.
"Is Price there?" he said with his face averted, and his hands still busy with the papers. "The man I sent for."
"Yes, your Grace," Martin answered, making hideous faces at me.
"Then leave us. Shut the door."
If my lord had spoken the moment that was done and we were alone, I think it would have relieved me. But he continued to search among the papers on the table, and left me to sink under the weight of the stately room with its ordered rows of books, its ticking dial, and the mute busts of the great dead. The Duke's cloak lay across a chair, his embroidered star glittering on the breast; his sword and despatch-box were on another chair; and a thing that I took to be the signet gleamed among the papers on the table. From the lofty mantel-piece of veined marble that, supported by huge rampant dogs, towered high above me (the work as I learned afterwards of the great Inigo Jones), the portrait of a man in armour, with a warden in his mailed hand, frowned down on me, and the stillness continuing unbroken, and all the things I saw speaking to me gravely and weightily, of a world hitherto unknown to me--a world wherein the foot exchanged the thick pile of carpets for the sounding tread of Parian, and orders were obeyed unspoken, and sable-vested servants went to and fro at a sign--a world of old traditions, old observances, and old customs revolving round this man still young, I felt my spirits sink--the distance was so great from the sphere I had known hitherto. Every moment the silence grew more oppressive, the ticking of the clock more monotonous; it was an immense relief when the Duke suddenly spoke, and addressing me in his ordinary tone, "You can write?" said he.
"Yes, your Grace."
"Then sit here," he replied, indicating a seat at the end of the table, "and write what I shall tell you."
And before I could marvel at the ease of the transition, I was seated, quietly writing; what I can no longer remember, for it was the first only of many hundred papers, of private and public importance, which I was privileged to write for his signature. My hand shook, and it is unlikely that I exhibited much of the natural capacity for such work which it has been my lot to manifest since; nevertheless, his Grace after glancing over it, was pleased to express his satisfaction. "You learned to do this with Brome?" said he.
"Yes, your Grace."
"Then how," he continued, seating himself--I had risen respectfully--"Tell me what happened to you yesterday."
I had no choice but to obey, but before I told my story, seeing that he was in a good humour and so favourably inclined to me, I spoke out what was in my mind; and in the most moving terms possible I conjured him to promise me that I should not be forced to be an evidence. I would tell him all, I would be faithful and true to him, and ask nothing better than to be his servant--but be an informer in court I dared not.
"You dare not?" he said, with an odd look at me. "And why not, man?"
But all I could answer was, "I dare not!"
"Are you afraid of these villains?" he continued, impatiently. "I tell you, we have them: it is they who have to fear!"
But I still clung to my point. I would tell, but I would give no evidence; I dared not.
"I am afraid, Mr. Price," he said at that, and with an air of some contempt, "that you are something of a coward!"
I answered, grovelling before him, that it might be--it might be; but----
"But--who of us is not?" he answered, with a sudden gesture between scorn and self-reproof. "Do you mean that, man?" And he fixed his eyes on me. "Well, it is true. Who of us is not?" he repeated, slowly; and turning from me, he began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him; so that before he had made a single turn it was easy to see that he had forgotten my presence. "Who of us is not afraid--if not of these scoundrels, still of the future, of the return, of Jacobusiracundus et ingens, of another 29th of May? To be safe now and to be safe then--who is not thinking of that and living for that, and planning for that?"
p281AND TURNING FROM ME, HE BEGAN TO PACE THE ROOM, HIS HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM
He was silent a moment, then with something of anger in his voice, "My Lord Marlborough, dipped to the lips in '88, who shall say that for all that he has not made his peace? And has good reason to urge us to let sleeping dogs lie? And Godolphin, is it only at Newmarket he has hedged--that he says, the less we go into this the better? And Sunderland who trusts no one and whom no one trusts? And Leeds--all things for power? And Clarendon, once pardoned? And Russell, all temper? Who knows what pledges they have given, or may give? Devonshire--Devonshire only has to lose, and stands to lose with me. With me!"
As he spoke thus he seemed to be so human, and through the robe of state and stateliness in which he lived the beating of the poor human heart was so plainly visible, that my heart went out to him, and with an eagerness and boldness that now surprise me, I spoke to him.
"But, your Grace," I said, "while the King lives all goes well, and were anything to happen to him----"
"Yes?" said he, staring at me, and no little astonished at the interruption.
"There is the Princess Anne. She is here, she would succeed, and----"
"And my Lord Marlborough!" said he, smiling. "Well, it may be. But who taught you politics, Mr. Price?"
"Mr. Brome," said I, abashed. "What I know, your Grace."
"Ha! I keep forgetting," he answered, gaily, "that I am talking to one of the makers of opinion--the formers of taste. But there, you shall be no evidence, I give you my word. So tell me all you know, and what befell you yesterday."
I had no desire but to do so--on those terms, and one small matter excepted--and not only to do that, but all things that could serve him. Nevertheless, and though I had high hopes of what I might get by his grace and favour, I was far from understanding that that was the beginning of twenty years of faithful labour at his side; of a matter of fifteen thousand papers written under his eye; of whole ledgers made up, of estate accompts balanced and tallies collected; of many winters and summers spent among his books, either in the placid shades of Eyford or in the dignified quiet of St. James's Square. But, as I have said, though I did not foresee all this, I hoped much, and more as, my tale proceeding, my lord's generous emotion became evident. When I had done, he said many kind things to me respecting the peril I had escaped; and adding to their value by his manner of saying them, and by the charm which no other so perfectly possessed, he left me at last no resource but to quit the room in tears.
Treated thus with a kindness as much above my deserts as it was admirable in one of his transcendent rank, and assured, moreover, by my lord's own mouth that henceforth, in gratitude for the service I had done him in Ferguson's room, he would provide for me, I should have stood, I ought to have stood, in the seventh heaven of felicity. But as suffering moves unerring on the track of weakness, and no man enjoys at any moment perfect bliss, I had first to learn the fate of the girl whose evasion I had contrived. And when a cautious search and questions as crafty had satisfied me that she had really effected her escape from the house--probably in a man's dress, for one of the lacqueys complained of the loss of a suit of clothes--I had still a care; and a care which gnawed more sharply with every hour of ease and safety.
Needless to say, the one matter on which I had been reticent, the one actor whose presence on the scene I had not disclosed to my lord, lay at the bottom of my anxiety. Kind in action and generous in intention as the Duke had shown himself, his magnanimity had not availed to oust from my mind the terror with which Smith's threats had imbued it; nor while confessing all else had I been able to bring myself to denounce the conspirator or detail the terms on which he had set me free. Though I had all the inducement to speak, which the certainty that his arrest would release me, could present, even this, and the security of the haven in which I lay, failed to encourage me to the point of hazard. So strong was the hold on my fears which this man had compassed; and so complete the slavery to which he had reduced my will.
But though at the time of confession, I found it a relief to be silent about him, this same silence presently left me alone to cope with him, and with fears sufficiently poignant, which his memory awakened: the result being that with prospects more favourable and a future better assured than I had ever imagined would be mine, or than any man of my condition had a right to expect, I still found this drop of poison in my cup. It was not enough that all things--and my patron--favouring me, I sank easily into the position of his privy clerk, that I retained that excellent room in which I had first been placed, that I found myself accepted by the household as a fact--so that never a man saved from drowning by a strand had a right to praise his fortune as I had; nor that, the wind from every quarter, seeming at the same time to abate, the prisoners went for trial, and nothing said of me, while Ferguson, of whose complicity no legal proof could be found, lay in prison under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, and kept silence; nor even that a note came from Mary, ostensibly from Dunkirk, and without compromising me informed me of her safety. It was not enough, I say, that each and all of these things happened beyond my hopes; for in the midst of my prosperity, whether I stood writing at my lord's elbow in the stillness of the stately library, or moved at ease through the corridor, greeted with respect by my fellow-servants, and with civility by all, I was alike haunted by the thought and terror of Smith, and the knowledge that at any moment, the conspirator might appear to hurl me from this paradise. The secrecy which I had maintained about him doubled his power; even as the ease and luxury in which I lived presented in darker and fouler colours the sordid scenes and perils through which I had waded to this eminence.