"Dick, I am angry at you"
"That will do. It is a worse punishment than I should have given you. Norfolk! There is only one word between it and the plantations. At this time of the year, it is a clay pudding full of villages. Give me your arm, Dick; I shall play no more until my luck turns again. Losing cards are dull company indeed."
"I am very sorry that you have been losing.I came to ask for the loan of a hundred pounds, grandmother."
"No, sir, I will not lend you a hundred pounds; nor am I in the humour to do anything else you desire."
"I make my apology for the request. I ought to have asked Katherine."
"No, sir, you ought not to have asked Katherine. You ought to take what you want. Jack Capel took every shilling of my fortune and neither said 'by your leave' nor 'thank you.' Did the Dutchman tie the bag too close?"
"Councillor Van Heemskirk left it open, in my honour. When I am scoundrel enough to touch it, I shall not come and see you at all, grandmother."
"Upon my word, a very pretty compliment! Well, sir, I'll pay you a hundred pounds for it. When do you start?"
"To-morrow morning."
"Make it afternoon, and take care of me as far as your aunt Julia's. The duke is of the royal bed-chamber this month, and I am going to see my daughter while he is away. It will make him supremely wretched at court to know that I am in his house. So I am going there, and I shall take care he knows it."
"I have heard a great deal of his new house."
"A play-house kind of affair, Dick, I assure you,—all in the French style; gods and goddesses above your head, and very badly dressed nymphs all around, and his pedigree on every window, and his coat of arms on the very stairs. I have the greatest satisfaction in treading upon them, I assure you."
"Why do you take the trouble to go? It can give you no pleasure."
"Imagine the true state of things, Dick. The duke is at court—say he is holding the royal gold wash-basin; but in the very sunshine of King George's smile, he is thinking, 'That snuffy old woman is lounging in my white and gilt satin chairs, and handling all my Chinese curiosities, and asking if every hideous Hindoo idol is a fresh likeness of me.' I am always willing to take some trouble to give pleasure to the people I like; I will gladly go to any amount of trouble to annoy the people I hate as cordially as I hate my good, rich, noble son-in-law, the great Duke of Exmouth."
"Will you play again?"
"No; I lost seventy pounds to-night."
"I protest, grandmother, that such high stakes go not with amusement. People come here, not for civility, but for the chance of money."
"Very well, sir. Money! It is the only excuse for card-playing. All the rest is sinning without temptation. But, Dick, put on the black coat to preach in,—why do they wear black to preach in?—and I am not in a humour for a sermon. Come to-morrow at one o'clock; we shall reach Julia's before dinner. And I dare say you want money to-night. Here are the keys of my desk. In the right-hand drawer are somerouleausof fifty pounds each. Take two."
The weather, as Lady Capel said, was "so very Decemberish" that the roads were passably good, being frozen dry and hard; and on the evening of the third day Hyde came in sight of his home. His heart warmed to the
She was softly singing to the drowsy child
lonely place; and the few lights in its windows beckoned him far more pleasantly than the brilliant illuminations of Vauxhall or Almacks, or even the cold splendours of royal receptions. He had given Katherine no warning of his visit—partly because he had a superstitious feeling about talking of expected joys (he had noticed that when he did so they vanished beyond his grasp); partly because love, like destiny, loves surprises; and he wanted to see with his own eyes, and hear with his own ears, the glad tokens of her happy wonder.
So he rode his horse upon the turf, and, seeing a light in the stable, carried him there at once. It was just about the hour of the evening meal, and the house was brighter than it would have been a little later. The kitchen fire threw great lustres across the brick-paved yard; and the blinds in Katherine's parlour were undrawn, and its fire and candle-light shone on the freshly laid tea-table, and the dark walls gleaming with bunches of holly and mistletoe. But she was not there. He only glanced inside the room, and then, with a smile on his face, went swiftly upstairs. He had noticed the light in the upper windows, and he knew where he would find his wife. Before he reached the nursery, he heard Katherine's voice. The door was a little open, and he could see every part of the charming domestic scene within the room. A middle-aged woman was quietly putting to rights the sweet disorder incident to the undressing of the baby. Katherine had played with it until they were both a little flushed and weary; and she was softly singing to the drowsy child at her breast.
It was a very singular chiming melody, and the low, sweet, tripping syllables were in a language quite unknown to him. But he thought that he had never heard music half so sweet and tender; and he listened to it, and watched the drowsy, swaying movements of the mother, with a strange delight,—
"Trip a trop a tronjes,De varkens in de boonjes,De keojes in de klaver,De paardeen in de haver,De eenjes in de waterplass,So groot mijn kleine Joris wass."
Over and over, softer and slower, went the melody. It was evident that the boy was asleep, and that Katherine was going to lay him in his cradle. He watched her do it; watched her gently tuck in the cover, and stand a moment to look down at the child. Then with a face full of love she turned away, smiling, and quite unconsciously came toward him on tiptoes. With his face beaming, with his arms opened, he entered; but with such a sympathetic understanding of the sweet need of silence and restraint that there was no alarm, no outcry, no fuss or amazement. Only a whispered "Katherine," and the swift rapture of meeting hearts and lips.
Chapter heading
"Death asks for no man's leave,But lifts the latch, and enters, and sits down."
The great events of most lives occur in epochs. A certain period is marked by a succession of important changes, but that ride of fortune, be it good or ill, culminates, recedes, goes quite out, and leaves life on a level beach of commonplaces. Then, sooner or later, the current of affairs turns again; sometimes with a calm, irresistible flow, sometimes in a tidal wave of sudden and overwhelming strength. After Hyde's and Katherine's marriage, there was a long era noticeable only for such vicissitudes as were incident to their fortune and position. But in May, A.D. 1774, the first murmur of the returning tide of destiny was heard. Not but what there had been for long some vague and general expectation of momentous events which would touch many individual lives; but this May night, a singular prescience of change made Hyde restless and impatient.
It was a dull, drizzling evening; and there was an air of depression in the city, to which he was unusually sensitive. For the trouble between England and her American Colonies was rapidly culminating; and party feeling ran high, not only among civilians, but throughout the royal regiments. Recently, also, a petition had been laid before the king from the Americans then resident in London, praying him not to send troops to coerce his subjects in America; and, when Hyde entered his club, some members were engaged in an angry altercation on this subject.
"The petition was flung upon the table, as it ought to have been," said Lord Paget.
"You are right," replied Mr. Hervey; "they ought to petition no longer. They ought now to resist. Mr. Dunning said in the House last night that the tone of the Government to the Colonies was, 'Resist, and we will cut your throats: acquiesce, and we will tax you.'"
"A kind of 'stand and deliver' government," remarked Hyde, whistling softly.
Lord Paget turned upon him with hardly concealed anger. "Captain, you, sir, wear the king's livery."
"I give the king my service: my thoughts are my own. And, faith, Lord Paget, it is my humour to utter them when and how I please!"
"Patience, gentlemen," returned Mr. Hervey. "I think, my lord, we may follow our leaders. The Duke of Richmond spoke warmlyfor Boston last night. 'The Bostonians are punished without a hearing,' he said; 'and if they resist punishment, I wish them success.' Are they not Englishmen, and many of them born on English soil? When have Englishmen submitted to oppression? Neither king, lords, nor commons can take away the rights of the people. It is past a doubt, too, that his Majesty, at the levee last night, laughed when he said he would just as lief fight the Bostonians as the French. I heard this speech was received with a dead silence, and that great offence was given by it."
"I think the king was right," said Paget passionately. "Rebellious subjects are worse than open enemies like the French."
"My lord, you must excuse me if I do not agree with your opinions. Was the king right to give a government to the Canadians at this precise time? What can his Protestant North-American subjects think, but that he designs the hundred thousand Catholics of Canada against their liberties? It is intolerable; and the king was mobbed this afternoon in the park, on the matter. As for the bishops who voted the Canada bill, they ought to be unfrocked."
"Mr. Hervey, I beg to remind you that my uncle, who is of the see of St. Cuthbert, voted for it."
"Oh, it is notorious that all the English bishops, excepting only Dr. Shipley, voted for war with America! I hear that they anticipate an hierarchy there when the country is conquered. And the fight has begun at home, for Parliament is dissolved on the subject."
"It died in the Roman-Catholic faith,"laughed Hyde, "and left us a rebellion for a legacy."
"Captain Hyde, you are a traitor."
"Lord Paget, I deny it. My loyalty does not compel me to swear by all the follies and crimes of the Government. My sword is my country's; but I would not for twenty kings draw it against my own countrymen,"—then, with a meaning glance at Lord Paget and an emphatic touch of his weapon,—"except in my own private quarrel. And if this be treason, let the king look to it. He will find such treason in every regiment in England. They say he is going to hire Hessians: he will need them for his American business, for he has no prerogative to force Englishmen to murder Englishmen."
"I would advise you to be more prudent, Captain Hyde, if it is in your power."
"I would advise you to mind your own affairs, Lord Paget."
"It is said that you married an American."
"If you are perfectly in your senses, my lord, leave my affairs alone."
"For my part, I never believed it; and now that Lady Suffolk is a widow, with revenues, possibly you may"—
"Ah, you are jealous, I perceive!" and Hyde laughed scornfully, and turned on his heel as if to go upstairs.
Lord Paget followed, and laid his hand upon Hyde's arm.
"Hands off, my lord. Hands off all that belongs to me. And I advise you also to cease your impertinent attentions to my cousin, Lady Suffolk."
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Hervey, "this is no time for private quarrels; and, Captain, here is a fellow with a note for you. It is my Lady Capel's footman, and he says he comes in urgent speed."
Hyde glanced at the message. "It is a last command, Mr. Harvey; and I must beg you to say what is proper for my honour to Lord Paget. Lady Capel is at the death-point, and to her requests I am first bounden."
It was raining hard when he left the club, a most dreary night in the city. The coach rattled through the muddy streets, and brought, as it went along, many a bored, heavy countenance to the steaming windows, to watch and to wonder at its pace. Lady Capel had been death-stricken while at whist, and she had not been removed from the parlour in which she had been playing her last game. She was stretched upon a sofa in the midst of the deserted tables, yet covered with scattered cards and half-emptied tea-cups. Only Lady Suffolk and a physician were with her; though the corridor was full of terrified, curious servants, gloating not unkindly over such a bit of sensation in their prosaic lives.
At this hour it was evident that, above everything in the world, the old lady had loved the wild extravagant grandson, whose debts she had paid over and over, and whom she had for years alternately petted and scolded.
"O Dick," she whispered, "I've got to die! We all have. I've had a good time, Dick."
"Shall I go for cousin Harold? I can bring him in an hour."
"No, no. I want no priests; no better thanwe are, Dick. Harold is a proud sinner; Lord, what a proud sinner he is!" Then, with a glint of her usual temper, "He'd snub the twelve apostles if he met them without mitres. No priests, Dick. It is you I want. I have left you eight thousand pounds—all I could save, Dick. Everything goes back to William now; but the eight thousand pounds is yours. Arabella is witness to it. Dick, Dick, you will think of me sometimes?"
And Hyde kissed her fondly. Ugly, heartless, sinful, she might be to others; but to him she had been a double mother. "I'll never forget you," he answered; "never, grandmother."
"I know what the town will say: 'Well, well, old Lady Capel has gone to her deserts at last.' Don't mind them, Dick. Let them talk. They will have to go too; it's the old round—meat and mirth, and then to bed—a—long—sleep."
"Grandmother?"
"I hear you, Dick. Good-night."
"Is there anything you want done? Think, dear grandmother."
"Don't let Exmouth come to my funeral. I don't want him—grinning over—my coffin."
"Any other thing?"
"Put me beside Jack Capel. I wonder—if I shall—see Jack." A shadow, gray and swift, passed over her face. Her eyes flashed one piteous look into Hyde's eyes, and then closed forever.
And while in the rainy, dreary London twilight Lady Capel was dying, Katherine was in the garden at Hyde Manor, watching theplanting of seeds that were in a few weeks to be living things of beauty and sweetness. It had ceased raining at noon in Norfolk, and the gravel walks were perfectly dry, and the air full of the fragrance of innumerable violets. All the level land was wearing buttercups. Full of secrets, of fluttering wings, and building nests were the trees. In the apple-blooms the bees were humming, delirious with delight. From the beehives came the peculiar and exquisite odour of virgin wax. Somewhere near, also, the gurgle of running water spread an air of freshness all around.
She was stretched upon a sofa
And Katherine, with a little basket full of flower-seeds, was going with the gardener from bed to bed, watching him plant them. No one who had seen her in the childlikeloveliness of her early girlhood could have imagined the splendour of her matured beauty. She had grown "divinely tall," and the exercise of undisputed authority had added a gracious stateliness of manner. Her complexion was wonderful, her large blue eyes shining with tender lights, her face full of sympathetic revelations. Above all, she had that nameless charm which comes from a freedom from all anxious thought for the morrow; that charm of which the sweet secret is generally lost after the twentieth summer. Her basket of seeds was clasped to her side within the hollow of her left arm, and with her right hand she lifted a long petticoat of quilted blue satin. Above this garment she wore a gown of wood-coloured taffeta, sprigged with rose-buds, and a stomacher of fine lace to match the deep rufflings on her elbow-sleeves.
Little Joris was with his mother, running hither and thither, as his eager spirits led him: now pausing to watch her drop from her white fingers the precious seed into its prepared bed, anon darting after some fancied joy among the pyramidal yews, and dusky treillages, and cradle walks of holly and privet. For, as Sir Thomas Swaffham said, "Hyde garden looked just as if brought from Holland;" and especially so in the spring, when it was ablaze with gorgeous tulips and hyacinths.
She had heard much of Lady Capel, and she had a certain tenderness for the old woman who loved her husband so truly; but no thought of her entered into Katherine's mind that calm evening hour. Neither had she any presentiment of sorrow. Her soul was happy anduntroubled, and she lingered in the sweet place until the tender touch of gray twilight was over fen and field. Then her maid, with a manner full of pleasant excitement, came to her, and said,—
"Here be a London pedler, madam; and he do have all the latest fashions, and the news of the king and the Americans."
Now, for many reasons, the advent of a London pedler was a great and pleasant event at the Manor House. Katherine had that delightful and excusable womanly foible, a love of fine clothing; and shops for its sale were very rare, even in towns of considerable size. It was from packmen and hawkers that fine ladies bought their laces and ribbons and gloves; their precious toilet and hair pins, their paints and powders, and India scarfs and fans, and even jewellery. These hawkers were also the great news-bearers to the lonely halls and granges and farmhouses; and they were everywhere sure of a welcome, and of such entertainment as they required. Generally each pedler had his recognized route and regular customers; but occasionally a strange dealer called, and such, having unfamiliar wares, was doubly welcome. "Is it Parkins, Lettice?" asked Katherine, as she turned with interest toward the house.
"No, ma'am, it isn't Parkins; and I do think as the man never showed a face in Hyde before; but he do say that he has a miracle of fine things."
In a few minutes he was exhibiting them to Katherine, and she was too much interested in the wares to notice their merchant particularly.
Indeed, he had one of those faces which reveal nothing; a face flat, hard, secret as a wall, wrinkled as an old banner. He was a hale, thick-set man, dressed in breeches of corduroy, and a sleeved waistcoat down to his knees of the same material. His fur cap was on the carpet beside his pack; and he had a fluent tongue in praise of his wares, as he hung his silks over Lettice's outstretched arm, or arranged the scarfs across her shoulders.
There was a slow but mutually satisfactory exchange of goods and money; and then the pedler began to repack his treasures, and Lettice to carry away the pretty trifles and the piece of satin her mistress had bought. Then, also, he found time to talk, to take out the last newspapers, and to describe the popular dissatisfaction at the stupid tyranny of the Government toward the Colonies. For either from information, or by some process rapid as instinct, he understood to which side Katherine's sympathies went.
"Here be the 'Flying Postman,' madam, with the great speech of Mr. Burke in it about the port of Boston; but it won't do a mossel o' good, madam, though he do tell 'em to keep their hands out o' the Americans' pockets."
"The port of Boston?"
"See you, madam, they are a-going to shut the port o' Boston, and make Salem the place of entry; that's to punish the Bostonians; and Mr. Burke, he says, 'The House has been told that Salem is only seventeen miles from Boston but justice is not an idea of geography, and the Americans are condemned withoutbeing heard. Yet the universal custom, on any alteration of charters, is to hear the parties at the bar of the House. Now, the question is, Are the Americans to be heard, or not, before the charter is broken for our convenience?... The Boston bill is a diabolical bill.'"
He read aloud this bit of Mr. Burke's fiery eloquence, in a high, droning voice, and would, according to his custom, have continued the entertainment; but Katherine, preferring to use her own intelligence, borrowed the paper and was about to leave the room with it, when he suddenly remembered a scarf of great beauty which he had not shown.
"I bought it for my Lady Suffolk," he said; "but Lord Suffolk died sudden, and black my lady had to wear. It's forrin, madam; and here it is—the very colour of affradiles. But mayhap, as it is candle-teening, you'd like to wait till the day comes again."
A singular look of speculation came into Katherine's face. She examined the scarf without delay; and, as she fingered the delicate silk, she led the man on to talk of Lady Suffolk, though, indeed, he scarcely needed the stimulus of questioning. Without regard as to whether Katherine was taking any interest or not in his information, he detailed with hurried avidity the town talk that had clung to her reputation for so many years; and he so fully described the handsome cavalry officer that was her devoted attendant that Katherine had no difficulty in recognizing her husband, even without the clews which her own knowledge of the parties gave her.
She stood in the gray light by the window, fingering the delicate satin, and listening. The pedler glanced from his goods to her face, and talked rapidly, interloping bits of news about the court and the fashions; but going always back to Lady Suffolk and her lover, and what was likely to take place now that Lord Suffolk was out of the way. "Though there's them that do say the captain has a comely wife hid up in the country."
Suddenly she turned and faced the stooping man: "Your scarf take: I will not have it. No, and I will not have anything that I have bought from you. All of the goods you shall receive back; and my money, give it to me. You are no honest hawker: you are a bad man, who have come here for a bad woman. You know that of my husband you have been talking—I meanlying. You know that this is his house, and that his true wife am I. Not one more word shall you speak.—Lettice, bring here all the goods I bought from this man; poisoned may be the unguents and scents and gloves. Of such things I have heard."
She had spoken with an angry rapidity that for the moment confounded the stranger; but at this point he lifted himself with an insolent air, and said, "The goods be bought and paid for, madam; and, in faith, I will not buy them back again."
"In faith, then, I will send for Sir Thomas Swaffham. A magistrate is he, and Captain Hyde's friend. Not one penny of my money shall you have; for, indeed, your goods I will not wear."
She pointed then to the various articles whichLettice had brought back; and, with the shrug of a man who accepts the inevitable, he replaced them in his pack, and then ostentatiously counted back the money Katherine had given him. She examined every coin, and returned a crown. "My piece this is not. It may be false. I will have the one I gave to you.—Lettice, bring here water in a bowl; let the silver and gold lay in it until morning."
She stood in the gray light by the window
And, turning to the pedler, "Your cap take from the floor, and go."
"Of a truth, madam, you be not so cruel as to turn me on the fens, and it a dark night. There be bogs all about; and how the road do lay for the next house, I know not."
"The road to my house was easy to find; well, then, you can find the road back to whoever it was sent you here. With my servants you shall not sit; under my roof you shall not stay."
"I have no mind to go."
"See you themastiff at my feet? I advise you stir him not up, for death is in his jaw. To the gate, and with good haste! In one half-hour the kennels I will have opened. If then within my boundaries you are, it is at your life's peril."
She spoke without passion and without hurry or alarm; but there was no mistaking the purpose in her white, resolute face and fearless attitude. And the pedler took in the situation very quickly; for the dog was already watching him with eyes of fiery suspicion, and an occasional deep growl was either a note of warning to his mistress, or of defiance to the intruder. With an evil glance at the beautiful, disdainful woman standing over him, the pedler rose and left the house; Katherine and the dog so closely following that the man, stooping under his heavy burden, heard her light footsteps and the mastiff's heavy breathing close at his heels, until he passed the large gates and found himself on the dark fen, with just half an hour to get clear of a precinct he had made so dangerous to himself.
For, when he remembered Katherine's face, he muttered, "There isn't a mossel o' doubt but what she'll hev the brutes turned loose. Dash it! women do beat all. But I do hev one bit o' comfort—high-to-instep as she is, she's heving a bad time of it now by herself. I do think that, for sure." And the reflection gave him some gratification, as he cautiously felt his steps forward with his strong staff.
Chapter heading
"Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments: love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds."
In some respects, the pedler's anticipations were correct. Katherine had "a bad time by herself" that night; for evil has this woful prerogative,—it can wound the good and the innocent, it can make wretched without provocation and without desert. But, whatever her suffering, it was altogether her own. She made no complaint, and she offered no explanation of her singular conduct. Her household, however, had learned to trust her; and the men and women servants sitting around the kitchen-fire that night, talked over the circumstance, and found its very mystery a greater charm than any possible certainty, however terrible, could have given them.
"She be a stout-hearted one," said the ostler admiringly. "Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates. With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and her eyes a-shining like candles."
"It would be about the captain he spoke."
The remark was ventured by Lettice in a low voice, and the company looked at each other and nodded confidentially. For the captain was a person of great and mysterious importance in the house. All that was done was in obedience to some order received from him. Katherine quoted him continually, granted every favour in his name, made him the authority for every change necessary. His visits were times of holiday, when discipline was relaxed, and the methodical economy of life at the manor house changed into festival. And Hyde had precisely that dashing manner, that mixture of frankness and authority, which dependents admire. The one place in the whole world where nobody would have believed wrong of Hyde was in Hyde's own home.
And yet Katherine, in the secrecy of her chamber, felt her heart quake. She had refused to think of the circumstance until after she had made a pretence of eating her supper, and had seen little Joris asleep, and dismissed Lettice, with all her accustomed deliberation and order. But, oh, how gratefully she turned the key of her room! How glad she felt to be alone with the fear and the sorrow that had come to her! For she wanted to face it honestly; and as she stood with eyes cast down, and hands claspedbehind her back, the calm, resolute spirit of her fathers gathered in her heart, and gave an air of sorrowful purpose to her face and attitude. At that hour she was singularly like Joris Van Heemskirk; and any one familiar with the councillor would have known Katherine to be his daughter.
Most women are restless when they are in anxiety. Katherine felt motion to be a mental disturbance. She sat down, and remained still as a carven image, thinking over what had been told her. There had been a time when her husband's constant talk of Lady Suffolk had pained her, and when she had been a little jealous of the apparent familiarity which existed in their relations with each other; but Hyde had laughed at her fears, and she had taken a pride in puttinghis wordabove all her suspicions. She had seen him receive letters which she knew to be from Lady Suffolk. She had seen him read and destroy them without remark. She was aware that many a love-billet from fine ladies followed him to Hyde. But it was in accord with the integrity of her own nature to believe in her husband's faithfulness. She had made one inquiry on the subject, and his assurance at that time she accepted as a final settlement of all doubts. And if she had needed further evidence, she had found it in his affectionate and constant regard for her, and in his love for his child and his home.
It was also a part of Katherine's just and upright disposition to make allowances for the life by which her husband was surrounded. She understood that he must often be placed in circumstances of great temptation and suspicion. Hyde had told her that there were necessarily events in his daily experience of which it was better for her to be ignorant. "They belong to it, as my uniform does," he said; "they are a part of its appearance; but they never touch my feelings, and they never do you a moment's wrong, Katherine." This explanation it had been the duty both of love and of wisdom to accept; and she had done so with a faith which asked for no conviction beyond it.
And now she was told that for years he had been the lover of another woman; that her own existence was doubted or denied; that if it were admitted, it was with a supposition which affected both her own good name and the rights of her child. In those days, America was at the ends of the earth. A war with it was imminent. The Colonies might be conquered. She knew nothing of international rights, nor what changes such a condition might render possible. Hyde was the probable representative of an ancient noble English family, and its influence was great: if he really wished to annul their marriage, perhaps it was in his power to do so. She knew well how greedy rank was of rank and riches, and she could understand that there might be powerful family reasons for an alliance which would add Lady Suffolk's wealth to the Hyde earldom.
She was no craven, and she faced the position in all its cruel bearings. She asked herself if, even for the sake of her little Joris, she would remain a wife on sufferance, or by the tie of rights which she would have to legally enforce; and then she lifted the candle, and passedsoftly into his room to look at him. Though physically like the large, fair, handsome Van Heemskirks, little Joris had certain tricks of expression, certain movements and attitudes, which were the very reflection of his father's,—the same smile, the same droop of the hair on the forehead, the same careless toss of the arm upward in sleep. It was the father in the son that answered her at that hour. She slipped down upon her knees by the sleeping boy, and out of the terror and sorrow of her soul spoke to the Fatherhood in heaven. Nay, but she knelt speechless and motionless, and waited until He spoke to her; spoke to her by the sweet, trustful little lips whose lightest touch was dear to her. For the boy suddenly awoke; he flung his arms around her neck, he laid his face close to hers, and said,—
She knelt speechless and motionless
"Oh, mother, beautiful mother, I thought my father was here!"
"You have been dreaming, darling Joris."
"Yes; I am sorry I have been dreaming. I thought my father was here—my good father, that loves us so much."
Then, with a happy face, Katherine rose and gave the child cool water, and turned his hot pillow, and with kisses sent him smiling into dreamland again. In those few tender moments all her fears slipped away from her heart. "I will not believe what a bad man says against my husband—against my dear one who is not here to defend himself. Lies, lies! I will make the denial for him."
And she kept within the comfort of this spirit, even though Hyde's usual letter was three days behind its usual time. Certainly they were hard days. She kept busy; but she could not swallow a mouthful of food, and the sickness and despair that crouched at the threshold of her life made her lightest duties so heavy that it required a constant effort and a constant watchfulness to fulfil them. And yet she kept saying to herself, "All is right. I shall hear in a day or two. There is some change in the service. There is no change in Richard—none."
On the fourth day her trust had its reward. She found then that the delay had been caused by the necessary charge and care of ceremonies which Lady Capel's death forced upon her husband. She had almost a sentiment of gratitude to her, although she was yet ignorant ofher bequest of eight thousand pounds. For Hyde had resolved to wait until the reading of the will made it certain, and then to resign his commission, and carry the double good news to Katherine himself. Henceforward, they were to be together. He would buy more land, and improve his estate, and live happily, away from the turmoil of the town, and the disagreeable duties of active service in a detestable quarrel. So this purpose, though unexpressed, gave a joyous ring to his letter; it was lover-like in its fondness and hopefulness, and Katherine thought of Lady Suffolk and her emissary with a contemptuous indifference.
"My dear one she intended that I should make miserable with reproaches, and from his own home drive him to her home for some consolations;" and Katherine smiled as she reflected how hopeless such a plan of separation would be.
Never, perhaps, are we so happy as when we have just escaped some feared calamity. That letter lifted the last fear from Katherine's heart, and it gave her also the expectation of an early visit. "I am very impatient to see you, my Kate," he wrote; "and as early as possible after the funeral, you may expect me." The words rang like music in her heart. She read them aloud to little Joris, and then the whole household warmed to the intelligence. For there was always much pleasant preparation for Hyde's visits,—clean rooms to make still cleaner, silver to polish, dainties to cook; every weed to take from the garden, every unnecessary straw from the yards. For the master's eye, everything must be beautiful.To the master's comfort, every hand was delighted to minister.
So these last days of May were wonderfully happy ones to Katherine. The house was in its summer draperies—all its windows open to the garden, which had now not only the freshness of spring, but the richer promise of summer. Katherine was always dressed with extraordinary care and taste. Little Joris was always lingering about the gates which commanded the longest stretch of observation. A joyful "looking forward" was upon every face.
Alas, these are the unguarded hours which sorrow surprises! But no thought of trouble, and no fear of it, had Katherine, as she stood before her mirror one afternoon. She was watching Lettice arrange the double folds of her gray taffeta gown, so as to display a trifle the high scarlet heels of her morocco slippers, with their scarlet rosettes and small diamond buckles.
"Too cold a colour is gray for me, Lettice: give me those scarlet ribbons for a breast knot;" and as Lettice stood with her head a little on one side, watching her mistress arrange the bright bows at her stomacher, there came a knock at the chamber door.
"Here be a strange gentleman, madam, to see you; from London, he do say."
A startled look came into Katherine's face; she dropped the ribbon from her hand, and turned to the servant, who stood twisting a corner of her apron at the front-door.
"Well, then, Jane, like what is the stranger?"
"He be in soldier's dress, madam"—
"What?"
She asked no further question, but went downstairs; and, as the tapping of her heels was heard upon them, Jane lifted her apron to her eyes and whimpered, "I think there be trouble; I do that, Letty."
"About the master?"
Jane lifted her apron to her eyes
"It be like it. And the man rides a gray horse too. Drat the man, to come with news on a gray horse! It be that unlucky, as no one in their seven senses would do it."
"For sure it be! When I was a young wench at school"—and then, as she folded up the loose ribbons, Letty told a gruesome story of a farmer robbed and murdered; but as she came to the part the gray horse played in the tale, Katherine slowly walked into the room, with a letter in her hand. She was white, even to her lips; and with a mournful shake of her head, she motioned to the girls to leave her alone. She put the paper out of her hand, and stood regarding it. Fully ten minutes elapsed ere she gathered strength sufficient to break itswell-known seal, and take in the full meaning of words so full of agony to her.
"It is midnight, beloved Katherine, and in six hours I may be dead. Lord Paget spoke of my cousin to me in such terms as leaves but one way out of the affront. I pray you, if you can, to pardon me. The world will condemn me, my own actions will condemn me; and yet I vow that you, and you only, have ever had my love. You I shall adore with my last breath. Kate, my Kate, forgive me. If this comes to you by strange hands, I shall be dead or dying. My will and papers of importance are in the drawer marked "B" in my escritoire. Kiss my son for me, and take my last hope and thought."
These words she read, then wrung her hands, and moaned like a creature that had been wounded to death. Oh, the shame! Oh, the wrong and sorrow! How could she bear it? What should she do? Captain Lennox, who had brought the letter, was waiting for her decision. If she would go to her husband, then he could rest and return to London at his leisure. If not, Hyde wanted his will, to add a codicil regarding the eight thousand pounds left him by Lady Capel. For he had been wounded in his side; and a dangerous inflammation having set in, he had been warned of a possible fatal result.
Katherine was not a rapid thinker. She had little, either, of that instinct which serves some women instead of all other prudences. Her actions generally arose from motives clear to her own mind, and of whose wisdom or kindness she had a conviction. But in this hour somany things appealed to her that she felt helpless and uncertain. The one thought that dominated all others was that her husband had fought and fallen for Lady Suffolk. He had risked her happiness and welfare, he had forgotten her and his child, for this woman. It was the sequel to the impertinence of the pedler's visit. She believed at that moment that the man had told her the truth. All these years she had been a slighted and deceived woman.
This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable kind assailed her. Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back upon her memory, and fed the flame. Very likely, if she left her child and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her husband, or at least be compelled for his life's sake to submit to her visits. She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still more shameful. Perhaps the whole story was a scheme to get her up to London. Perhaps she might disappear there. What, then, would be done to her child? If Richard Hyde was so infatuated with Lady Suffolk, what might he not do to win her and her large fortune? Even the news of Lady Capel's death was now food for her suspicions. Was she dead, or was the assertion only a part of the conspiracy? If she had been dead, Sir Thomas Swaffham would have heard of the death; yet she had seen him that morning, and he had made no mention of the circumstance.
"To London I will not go," she decided. "There is some wicked plan for me. The willand the papers are wanted, that they may be altered to suit it. I will stay here with my child. Even sorrow great as mine is best borne in one's own home."
She went to the escritoire to get the papers. When she opened the senseless chamber of wood, she found herself in the presence of many a torturing, tender memory. In one compartment there were a number of trout-flies. She remembered the day her husband had made them—a long, rainy, happy day during his last visit. Every time she passed him, he drew her face down to kiss it. And she could hear little Joris talking about the work, and his father's gay laughter at the child's remarks. In an open slide, there was a rude picture of a horse. It was the boy's first attempt to draw Mephisto, and it had been carefully put away. The place was full of such appeals. Katherine rarely wept; but, standing before these mementos, her eyes filled, and with a sob she clasped her hands across them, as if the sight of such tokens from a happy past was intolerable.
Drawer B was a large compartment full of papers and of Hyde's personal treasures. Among them was a ring that his father had given him, his mother's last letter, a lock of his son's hair, her own first letter—the shy, anxious note that she wrote to Mrs. Gordon. She looked sadly at these things, and thought how valueless all had become to him at that hour. Then she began to arrange the papers according to their size, and a small sealed parcel slipped from among them. She lifted it, and saw a rhyme in her husband's writing on the outside,—
"Oh, my love, my love! This thy gift I holdMore than fame or treasure, more than life or gold."
It had evidently been sealed within a few months, for it was in a kind of bluish-tinted paper which Hyde bought in Lynn one day during the past winter. She turned it over and over in her hand, and the temptation to see the love-token inside became greater every moment. This was a thing her husband had never designed any human eye but his own to see. Whatever revelation there was in it, much or little, would be true. Tortured by doubt and despair, she felt that impulse to rely on chance for a decision which all have experienced in matters of grave moment, apparently beyond natural elucidation.
"If in this parcel there is some love-pledge from Lady Suffolk, then I go not; nothing shall make me go. If in it there is no word of her, no message to her or from her; if her name is not there, nor the letters of her name,—then I will go to my own. A new love, one not a year old, I can put aside. I will forgive every one but my Lady Suffolk."
So Katherine decided as she broke the seal with firmness and rapidity. The first paper within the cover made her tremble. It was a half sheet which she had taken one day from Bram's hand, and it had Bram's name across it. On it she had written the first few lines which she had had the right to sign "Katherine Hyde." It was, indeed, her first "wife" letter; and within it was the precious love-token, her own love-token,—the bow of orange ribbon.
She gave a sharp cry as it fell upon the desk;and then she lifted and kissed it, and held it to her breast, as she rocked herself to and fro in a passionate transport of triumphant love. Again and again she fed her eyes upon it. She recalled the night she wore it first, and the touch of her mother's fingers as she fastened it at her throat. She recalled her father's happy smile of proud admiration for her; the afternoon, next, when she had stood with Joanna at the foot of the garden and seen her lover wearing it on his breast. She remembered what she had heard about the challenge, and the desperate fight, and the intention of Semple's servant to remove the token from her senseless lover's breast, and her father's noble interference. The bit of fateful ribbon had had a strange history, yet she had forgotten it. It was her husband who had carefully sealed it away among the things most precious to his heart and house. It still kept much of its original splendid colour, but it was stained down all its length with blood. Nothing that Hyde could have done, no words that he could have said, would have been so potent to move her.
"I will give it to him again. With my own hands I will give it to him once more. O Richard, my lover, my husband! Now I will hasten to see thee."