Lochinvar: A Novel

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER VII

  MISTRESS MAISIE LENNOX, DIPLOMATIST

  When they reached the outer air, Wat drew a long breath. He was stillalive and still a soldier of the States-General, and now at last he hada whole week's time to think uninterruptedly of Kate. But first of allhe must see her. He was for starting off in the direction of ZaandpoortStreet, but the thoughts of his companion were thirsty thoughts.

  "I declare," he cried, "my throat is parched like an Edinburghash-backet on these accursed roads. Let us go to a change-house andslake our thrapples with a draught of Hollands and water. 'Tis the poorbest that the country affords."

  But Wat had other things than Hollands in his mind--the distractingripple of Kate's hair, and the way she had of holding the fingers ofone hand on her side when she stood for a moment pensive.

  He searched in his belt for a silver thaler, and gave it to Scarlett.

  "Go drink, and meet me at the camp to-morrow," he said. Then hestrode away towards the street of Zaandpoort, leaving his companionalternately looking at the broad unclipped silver piece in his hand,and staring after him in astonishment.

  "The young fool is either mad or in love," confided Scarlett to theworld at large; "but he has not forgotten how to draw a good blade--sohe cannot be so very deeply in love as yet!"

  Wat started out boldly and bravely enough, but so soon as he reachedthe lilac-bushes which were planted at the foot of the dam ofZaandpoort he began to feel his shyness returning trebly upon him.He had not been afraid during the night when he stood surrounded byassassins and enemies. Joyously and lightheartedly he had crossedswords with the greatest master-of-arms in Europe. But now, when hewas at the foot of a little wooden stairway, the thought of a simple,slim-figured girl at the top of it caused the hot blood to tingle inhis cheek, and little helpless pulses to throb and sting in his palms.Gladly would he have turned and fled. His hands had grown suddenlygreat and dirty. His military coat appeared so frayed and draggled withthe night dews and the accidents of the way that he dared not venturein such a guise into the presence of the lady of his dreams.

  But it chanced that Will Gordon, his cousin, had been shaving at asmall mirror which he had set against a twisted chimney-stack on theroof, both because it was a fine morning and because in the lodging inthe street of Zaandpoort the chambers were small.

  "Welcome back, Wat!" he cried, craning his neck over the parapet, andwiping the soap from the razor upon the high stone coping. "Went yournight-ride to rights?"

  "It went most mightily to wrongs!" cried Wat, as cheerfully.

  "Nevertheless, in spite of it you are here, safe and sound. Come up,man, therefore, and tell us the tale. My little lass will doubtlesshave something fragrant for breakfast in a moment."

  Whereupon he cried lustily down to Maisie, his wife, who was at the panin the kitchen: "Put on a full platterful more. Here is our adventurerreturned with a torn coat, a piteous tale, and a right hungry stomach!"

  There was clearly no escape now, so Wat, with his heart in his boots,strode as manfully as he could up the stair which he had been wont toclimb but a day or two before with such complete and careless lack ofthought.

  When he opened the outer door, a cheerful smell of morning cookery tookhim gratefully by the nostrils, for the long ride and brisk adventurehad quickened his appetite.

  "Hither, cousin mine!" cried a light and pleasant voice from thekitchen.

  "And welcome home again!" Maisie added, as he appeared in the doorway.

  She had both her hands busy with eggs and flour about the cooking-pan.

  "I cannot shake hands with you, Wat," she said, "but to spite William Iwill give you a nice kiss."

  And she came straight to him where he stood balancing himselfuncertainly just within the threshold. Wat hesitated for the smallestpart of a second.

  "Do it quickly, or the eggs will be spoiled," she said, standing ontiptoe with her floury hands behind her.

  "A kiss is worse spoiled by haste than ever an egg can be," said Wat,as with the kindly pressure of her lips his words and his confidencebegan to come back to him.

  At his first entering in he had seen Kate stand at the other side ofthe fire from Maisie, but now he looked in vain for her. Yet she hadnot left the room. Only at the first word of kissing she had entrenchedherself behind a great oaken settle and on the farther side of a wideDutch table, where, with her head bent upon an earthenware bowl, shebegan to prepare a salad with the most absolute attention and studiouscare.

  Having kissed Maisie most dutifully, Wat went forward to offer his handto Kate. She gave hers to him quickly, and yet, as it seemed to him,reluctantly also. Instinctively she kept a chair between them as shedid so.

  "See, it is all over with oil and chopped lettuce," she said, lookingplaintively at her hand, as though Wat had been personally responsiblefor the defilement.

  Maisie was at the farther end of the room, bending over her saucepans.Wat leaned quickly across the table to Kate.

  "Are you glad I have come back?" he asked, in a low voice.

  "You had a fine morning for your ride," she replied, looking downat the salad and mixing the ingredients with the most scrupulousexactitude.

  Wat straightened himself instantaneously as if on parade, and stalkedwith much dignity to the end of the room at which Maisie was still busy.

  And this caused him to miss a singular look which Kate cast afterhim, a look of mingled pity and entreaty, wholly wasted on the squareshoulders and erect head, but from which, had Wat caught it, he mighthave learned that though it may sometimes be well to appear proud witha girl, nevertheless, if you love her, not too soon and not too often.

  Presently Will Gordon came bustling down to breakfast, having cleanedhis accoutrements and adorned himself with such sober trappings aswere permitted by the Spartan taste of the Covenanting regiment.Will had still that noisily cheerful self-consciousness which alwayscharacterizes the very young husband doing the unaccustomed honors ofhis house.

  "Sit down and be welcome, Wat, lad," he cried, "and tell us all thetale of your journeying."

  And so at the table which Maisie had covered with plain coarse Dutchlinen, very unlike the fine cloths which she had left behind herin Scotland, the four sat down. It was a heartsome meal, and aftera little while Lochinvar began to tell his tale, giving himselflittle honor, making nothing of the danger, and dwelling much on theridiculous aspect of Haxo the Bull, his ill-favored Calf, and hisbald-headed Killer.

  As the tale proceeded Will kept up a constant fire of interjections,such as "That was well thought on!" "Bravely! my lad!" and "Well done,Glenkens!" But presently Maisie left her seat, and came round to sitbeside Wat as he began to tell of entering alone at midnight into thedark house of Brederode with the unknown danger before and the threetraitors behind. All the time Kate sat still, saying nothing and eatingnothing, her lips a little open and tremulous, and her dark eyesshining with a light in them like a sunbeam in the still water of a seacave.

  And when it came to the telling of the combat, and the little chance oflife that he had, it so fared that Wat raised his eyes to Kate's, andlo! tears were running silently down her face and falling unregarded onher white gown.

  In a moment more she had risen and left the table, slipping like agleam of light into the next room.

  Maisie looked up with much astonishment as she caught the waft of thegirl's gown.

  "Why, Kate!" she exclaimed, and without another word sped after her.When she reached the little room where Kate slept, she found the girlstanding by the window, leaning her head against the thin curtain. Shekept her back to her friend, and did not turn round at her entrance.Maisie carefully closed the door and went up quickly to Kate. Silentlyshe put her arm about the slim and supple waist.

  "I--I am not crying--I am not indeed!" said Kate, a little indignantly,putting her hand on her friend's wrist as if to push it away.

  "No--no, of course you are not," said Maisie, making (to say the leastof it) an affirmation the truth of whic
h was not wholly obvious. Forthe girl's tears dropped steadily upon her white gown, a great one evenfalling warm upon Maisie's hand at her waist, while all her slenderbody was shaken with sobs.

  "It was only--" Kate began, and then stopped.

  Maisie sighed as she sat down on the white bed, which, as was itsoccupant's custom, had been made up with military precision quite anhour before. She drew Kate down beside her gently till the girl's headrested on her shoulders.

  "There, there, my lamb," she whispered, soothingly, when at last Katefound what most she wanted--a soft and comfortably sympathetic surfaceto cry upon. Maisie's hand passed lightly over the shapely head withits straying and enticing thatch of dark love-locks, and her voicecrooned and cooed over her friend like a dove over its mate in thenest. Then for a long time she continued to hush the girl in her arms,as if she had been but a little ailing child.

  Once there came the sound of a foot heavily masculine in the passage,and a hand was laid on the latch. Kate made a motion to rise and dryher face, but Maisie's arms held her tight.

  "Go away, William! Go away at once!" she cried, with instant change oftone, her voice ringing out in such imperious fashion that Will Gordon,her husband, fled back to the sitting-room, feeling that he had justsaved himself on the brink of some absolutely fatal mistake.

  Yet all the while Maisie offered her friend not a word of sympathy,only the comforting of silent understanding, the touch of loving lipsand hands, and the pressure of loving arms. Kate (she said to herself)would tell her what she wished at her own time. Maisie had a woman'stact and did not press for an explanation of a girl's wayward moods, aseven the wisest of men would have done on such an occasion.

  "Oh, he might have been killed," at last Kate's words came in a rushingwhisper, as she lifted her face a little higher on Maisie's shoulder."And I had sent him away so cruelly. And when he came back I nevertold him that I was glad to see him, Maisie. I snatched away my hand."She added the last words as if that indefensible action had onlycrowned a long series of enormities.

  "Well," answered her friend, smiling very lovingly down at her, "he isnot gone yet. Come back and say it now. I dare say he will forgive you,if you look at him like that."

  But Kate only sadly shook her head, a little reproachfully that sucha revolutionary proposal should come from one of Maisie's pretendedsympathy and understanding.

  "How can I go back?" she said, hopelessly. "They _saw_ me crying, andthey would sit and look at me all the time--like--like--" (and Katepaused while she searched the universe for a comparison to express themost utter and abject stupidity) "well, just like men."

  Yet she sighed and turned her face a little more inward towardsMaisie's shoulder. "No, decidedly," she said, as if after all she hadbeen considering the question; "I cannot go back."

  Maisie loosened her arms from about Kate's neck. "Then you shall not,sweeting," she said, with determination, as if a coercive army had beenat hand; "lie you still there and I will get them away. Trust me, theyshall know no more than it is good for men to know."

  And she nodded her head to express the limited capacity of mankind,and the absolute necessity that there was for the wiser portion of therace to maintain them in a condition of strictly defined and diplomaticignorance.

  Before she went out of the bedroom Maisie set by the girl's side asmall bottle of the sweet-scented water of Cologne, one which Wathimself had brought back from his last campaign. "He carried thatnearly a year in his haversack," Maisie said, irrelevantly, as she setthe vial within reach of Kate's hand. "I will go send him to take abath. He must have ridden both hard and fast to be back from Brederodeby six o'clock in the morning."

  "You will not tell them," whispered the girl, faintly, catching atMaisie's hand as she went out, "nor let him think that I am--foolish?"

  "Trust to me," said Maisie Lennox, nodding her head and smilingserenely back as she went out.

  In the sitting-chamber she found the two young men still at the tabletalking together. They stopped with badly assumed masculine ease asshe entered. Since Will's rebuff at the chamber door they had satconversing in perfunctory and uncomfortable sentences, their earsdirected towards the door like those of a dog that hears an unkennedfoot on the stair, their attention anywhere but upon the subjectconcerning which they were speaking.

  Maisie began at once in the hushed and important tone of the messengerfresh from the seat of war. "Kate could not sleep last night for thenoise of the wooden sabots upon the street outside. She has had aheadache all this morning, and I ought not to have let her listen toWat's tale of horrors--"

  "I trust I did not--" Wat began, suddenly conscience-stricken.

  "No, no," said Maisie, motioning him to sit down, "it was all my fault,not yours at all--I should have bethought me in time. She will be quitewell after she has slept. Be sure you remember to walk quietly withyour great boots," she added, looking viciously at her husband.

  At this hint Wat rose to go. In doing so he accidentally pushed hisstiff wooden chair back from the table with a loud creak, and thenabjectly recoiled from Maisie's face of absolute horror.

  He sat down again disconsolately. Will Gordon and he cast a patheticlook at each other. Their place was obviously not here. So one afterthe other they bent and pulled off their heavy foot-gear, while Maisiewatched them with uplifted finger of the most solemnizing caution. Thenvery softly the two men stole down the stairs, carrying their boots intheir hands.

  Maisie listened till they were fairly out of the house. Then she wentdirectly to Kate's door. She opened it and set her head within. Therewas an expression of almost heavenly peace and serenity upon her face.The consciousness of infinite well-doing dwelt upon it.

  "It is all right!" she said, "they will never so much as guess why.They went out like lambs--carrying their boots under their arms!" Andagain Maisie nodded her head with smiling encouragement.

  And yet diplomatists are usually selected from among men.