He stared, crestfallen. She explained.
“The King’s Dragoons are at St. Mary Ottery, seeking, ferreting, inquiring. Within the hour they will be here. Depend on’t. They will find you, and it will be best so. Better for her — less anguishing a thousand times that she should mourn you dead than mourn you faithless. You’ll leastways leave a fragrant memory behind you.”
His face had paled under its healthy tan.
“God!” he gasped. “Did ye not send me word that I no longer stand in danger?”
She looked him straight between the eyes, her face merciless.
“I was mistook,” said she. “Ye stand in imminent danger. Yet if you love your life it shall be yours so that you swear to use it for that child’s happiness, and fulfil the promise you have made her.”
“I have made her none,” he thundered, angry now.
“Not in words, perhaps — though even that I doubt. But you have made her believe that you love her and that you are sincere.”
“And so I do, faith! But if all love is to lead to marriage a man would —”
She cut him short.
“Your philosophy needs no expounding, sir. I know its shamelessness. You stand ’twixt life and death, Stephen. I await your choice.”
For the first time in his shallow, amiably irresponsible existence he was conscious of guilt, stung by the shame of detection; and he stood sullenly silent a moment. Then with a shrug that was boyish in its petulance he turned aside and moved towards the window. Then he faced her again, his countenance in shadow.
“Are you bidding me to marry her?” he asked, his voice charged with incredulity.
“I am bidding you do no more than fulfil your undertaking.”
“But it is monstrous!” he protested.
“It is,” she agreed.
“Besides, are we not betrothed, Mary, you and I?”
“I thought I had made it clear that you are free of that.”
“But I do not want my freedom. Mary,” he cried petulantly, “I love you. You are the wife for me. I have never ceased to love you. As for this little rustic child. Oh, sink me! Can’t you understand?” he ended impatiently.
“I think I can,” said she, her voice ice-cold.
“But consider,” he begged her. “How could I marry her? How could I? Why, you must see ’twere midsummer madness.”
And half-sullenly he turned his shoulder upon her and stared through the window across the bridge and up the long dusty road. Then he rapped out an oath. He swung around, and his face had undergone a woeful change. It reflected abject fear.
“They are coming, Mary. They are coming — the soldiers!” he cried, and halted, dismayed, angered, speechless before her icy calm that even his imminent peril could not conquer.
“You have the less time in which to determine,” she informed him.
He looked at her, breathing hard; realized that she was immovable, and clenched his hands despairingly.
“Tell me where I stand,” he asked, his voice thickening.
Briefly she announced the terms of the pardon she had obtained for him.
“You depart for Ireland with your bride,” she ended, “or I suppress the pardon and you hang.”
“You cannot do it!” he cried. “You cannot!”
“I can and will,” said she; and as he looked deep into her stern eyes, he doubted no longer.
The thud of hoofs grew faintly audible, and then the inner door opened, and Lucy stood regarding them from the threshold. Her face was ashen, and her blue eyes gleamed a smoldering anger. But they misread the signs, and supposed her pallor to spring from fear for her fine lover.
Moreover, Vallancey was more concerned with thoughts of himself at the moment. A cunning inspiration had come to his aid. Let him agree now to Lady Mary’s proposal and obtain the pardon. He need not carry out his part of the bargain afterwards.
It was a knavish thing to do — to give his word without intending to fulfil it; but then, her ladyship forced it upon him, he reflected, resentfully. She gave him a choice of evils, and he must accept the lesser.
And as he stood there pondering this, Lucy’s fierce eyes never left his face.
The hoofs came nearer.
“It shall be as you wish,” he said suddenly.
“You pledge me your word?” quoth Lady Mary.
“On my honour, madam,” he replied without hesitation. “And now the pardon.”
From her bosom Lady Mary drew the document she had obtained from Jeffreys. He held out a trembling hand for it.
“No,” she said. “I prefer to give it to your little bride.”
Lucy saw him wince at the term before she turned her eyes to Lady Mary and received the paper.
“I hope he will make you happy, child,” said her ladyship, but there was doubt and some pity in her eyes. “This is my wedding-gift to you.”
Lucy glanced at the paper and uttered a short, hard laugh that startled them.
“It is more than that, I think,” said she. “It is the price at which I am to be wed; the price at which Stephen is to commit this mid-summer madness.”
And she laughed again, whilst Lady Mary and Vallancey realised — the latter in utter dismay and fear — that she had overheard all that had passed between them.
“Lucy!” he cried, and checked there, not knowing what to add.
“But the price need not be paid, and so you will be saved, Stephen, from this monstrous wedding.” As she spoke her fingers tightened over the paper and crumpled it into her palm. “And since there is to be no wedding, my lady, the wedding-gift will not be needed.
And she flung the crumpled pardon into the blazing fire. Then her laughter shrilled higher with the hysteria of a heart surcharged.
With an oath Vallancey sprang to rescue that precious document. But a fluttering film of ash was all that remained — a symbol of the life which his wantonness had forfeited.
Hoofs rattled on the cobbles of the yard, and a heavy knock fell upon the door.
ANNABEL’S WAGER
I once knew a man who, being under sentence of death, was fretted, the night before they hanged him, at having taken cold — which may serve as an instance of how it is not so much the greater of foreshadowed ills that harasses us as the more imminent. To this construction of the human mind I may set it down that, lying besieged in Penhilgon Castle, with the assurance that should we fall into the hands of the Roundheads that were besetting us there was an overwhelming likelihood of a short shrift in payment for our obstinate resistance, I was a thousand times more plagued and vexed by the coldness of Sir Andrew Penhilgon’s daughter than by any contemplation of what might befall did His Majesty’s move from Oxford fail to take place in time to save us.
You may say that I was a fool not to discern that a maid could hardly opine the season one for dalliance; but defer your judgment until you have heard what else I have to tell.
A time there had been when it had seemed that my suit with Annabel was like to prosper, and this it had done but for the coming to Penhilgon of Master Steele — a man as out of place in that stern garrison as a shaveling monk in a regiment of cavalry. He was a pretty fellow — thus much justice I will do his looks — but it would seem that Nature jested in that he had been born a man. At heart, I’ll swear, he was a woman. He had a woman’s daintiness of speech, a woman’s mincing ways of gesture; like a woman, he inclined to the pursuit of flowers and verses, and he was stirred by all a woman’s gentle horror of war and bloodshed. He started did a musket crack, and the flash of a drawn sword would make him blench and shudder, whilst the sight of blood turned him as squeamish as the sight of virtue might old Satan.
It was over-strange how Annabel, the child of a warlike race, should come to suffer the attentions of this feeble creature, scented like a nosegay and beribboned like a church in time of victory. Yet this she did; and whilst I went about my duties at the castle in sombre, jealous moodiness, and Sir James scowled damnably upon the business, Mast
er Steele sunned himself in her smiles, walked with her in the quadrangle or upon the ramparts, sat with her at the spinet, and, in short, was never from her side. That he was named Steele was but another irony. Had I had the naming of him I would have called him Water.
Enough was Sir James put about by the siege, and I dared not intrude my grievance upon the anxiety wherewith already he was over-burdened. Moreover, for all that he disliked good Master Steele, yet were his views less rancorous than mine, for, after all, he was but Annabel’s father; and a father is oft wont to be less troubled by his daughter’s choice of a lover than are other men.
I stood one night upon the ramparts to the north, looking down upon the lights gleaming in the Parliamentarian lines, and wondering how soon the King would come. There was a bloody bandage about my head, for there had been sharp work that day, and though we had repulsed the enemy effectively for the time, yet the victory had been dearly bought in lives and limbs. Annabel approached me softly in the dark, and her voice was tender as a caress.
“My poor Jocelyn, does your head hurt?”
I started round, and, my mood being boorish and surly with jealousy.
“’Tis naught,” said I. “The graze of a pike. A little more and it had made an end of me; yet I know gentler hands that deal wounds less bloody but more hurtful.”
“’Tis perhaps that you wound yourself upon the weapons of those hands.”
“Mistress,” I answered, “I have not a poet’s mind to grasp these nice distinctions. Master Steele,” I went on, with my back turned, “I pray you make clear to me her meaning.”
“To whom are you speaking?” she asked. “Master Steele is not here.”
“Is he not!” I cried in feigned surprise, and turning as if to assure myself of his absence : “why, what hath chanced that he is not beside you? And just as I so needed him! Lackaday!”
“Jealousy lends you a poor wit,” said she, “and outrivals Nature in making you a dullard.”
“Madam,” said I with a great dignity, “a wounded head is a not over-useful thing to think with.”
She came a step nearer at that, but ere she could speak there was a heavy tread behind us, and Sir Andrew’s voice.
“Is it not strange, Jocelyn,” said the knight, “with what insistence they press us here on the northern side?”
“I had indeed remarked it,” I replied. “Our weakness in this quarter cannot be apparent to them from without, yet, by a singular ill-chance, each attack has been directed against it.”
“Ay,” he growled sourly, “it would almost seem as if they had information from within.”
“Impossible,” I answered quickly.
“So you say, yet I cannot repress the suspicion. There is one here of whom we know but little save that he fled to us for shelter.”
“Monstrous!” cried Annabel, divining of whom he spoke.
He laughed contemptuously, and looked to me for an answer.
I hesitated for a moment. The rivalry that lay between Steele and me made me pause before uttering what otherwise I had spoken boldly. Yet in the end, deeming the season other than one for scruples, and realising how much foundation there was for Sir Andrew’s suspicion, “It might not be ill,” I hazarded, “to apply some test.”
“’Tis what I had thought,” he agreed, whereupon Annabel cried “Monstrous” again; then turning to me, “’Tis cowardly in you,” she exclaimed. “Master Steele is an honourable gentleman, and I would as soon suspect you of being the traitor.”
I smiled wistfully, and held up my left hand, from which the two middle fingers had been lopped by a Puritan sword some months ago.
“’Odd’s life, Annabel,” I answered, “I wear the signs of my loyalty for all to read.”
“And so does he, for those that have discerning eyes. He is aglow with loyalty. Could you but see the verses he has written on the King —”
“Bah!” snarled Sir Andrew, rudely interrupting her.
“Verses are but words,” said I, “and words need not express our true sentiments. Of what value, for instance, is a liar’s word?”
“You dub him liar now!” she cried, with a woman’s faculty for subverting a man’s meaning. “I vow ’tis very noble of you!”
Whereupon, seeing how her mood had grown of that quality in which the merest word offends, I held my peace.
But coming later to ponder what Sir Andrew had said — and aided, maybe, in some unconscious way by my dislike for Steele — I grew more and more distrustful of the youth; to such a degree at last that, seeking Sir Andrew on the morrow, I counselled that some measure of test be applied.
“Do what you will,” said he. “I mislike the coxcomb with his oily, insidious ways; and if you do no more than prove him a craven, and cure Annabel of her unaccountable kindness for him, ’twill be something.”
He set his hand on my shoulder, and, letting his eyes meet mine, he sighed.
“Before he came to us it seemed that Annabel was growing fond of you, Jocelyn.” Then, bracing himself : “Make your experiment, lad. Put him to some test; and may Heaven send you success, and prove him a rogue!”
With that encouragement I set to work. And, my plans being laid, I went in quest of good Master Steele that evening. I found him in one of the rooms overlooking the courtyard. He sat with Annabel, citing lines — whose virtues he was extolling — from the words of one Thomas Campion. Annabel, who reclined in a great chair, listened with great show of attention.
“Master Steele,” said I, as politely as may be.
“Your servant, sir,” said he, in a tone that implied the very contrary; then added that anon he would give me his attention. I told him, with a brevity that held more peremptoriness than wit, that my business could not wait, for it was desired that within an hour, as soon as it grew dark, he should leave the castle. Before I had got further Annabel was on her feet, and eyeing me with some show of anger.
“This is your doing, Jocelyn!” she exclaimed hotly.
“In a measure it may be; yet things are not as you think. There is no question of Master Steele’s dismissal. On the contrary. I come from Sir Andrew to afford him an opportunity of very signally distinguishing himself, if he is minded to undertake the task I shall propose.”
He was toying stupidly with a lock of his hair, his jaw fallen, and his cheeks, methought, a little paler than their wont.
“Master Steele,” I resumed, seeing that he had no word to offer, “as you may in a measure realise, our circumstances here are growing sorely straitened, and we shall not be able to resist the crop-ears much longer. We have just had news that Rupert is at Stafford; and we require a messenger who, escaping the vigilance of the Puritans, will make his way to the Prince, and bring him with all despatch to our assistance. It is Sir Andrew’s wish that you undertake this.”
“But why send Master Steele?” cried Annabel. “He is not a soldier.”
“Of that,” I answered drily, “I was dimly aware. But for this work a messenger is needed, not a soldier.”
Steele stood before me in a very stricken attitude; and from the fact that he betrayed no alacrity to be about the business, I already began to think that we had misjudged him; for, were he a spy, what easier than, upon leaving us, to join the Roundheads, and tell them of our plight, leaving the message to Rupert undelivered?
“But — but,” he stammered, taken aback, “I am all unversed in these affairs. Were it not better, Master Varley, to employ one of the men of the garrison?”
“We can ill afford a single man,” I answered; “though, even if we could, matters would be no better. We require someone who will carry a message by word of mouth, and not by letter; else, did our messenger fall into Puritan hands, our condition would be discovered. We require a gentleman who will permit himself to be hanged ere he will betray us; and we can think of no likelier person than yourself.”
’Swounds! How those reassuring words of mine froze him with their foreshadowing of violence! Pale as the dead, a
nd with eyes that would not meet my glance, he stood and spake no word — he whose tongue we knew for as glib and pert as that of a hostelry wench. Annabel was watching him; and as moments passed and still he uttered never a syllable, a frown of displeasure fell between her fine eyes.
“You will go, of course, Master Steele?” said she at last.
“Why — why, yes,” he faltered, ashamed at least of the pusillanimity he was manifesting. “Since it is required of me, I’ll go. You say that I am to be sent out in an hour?”
“As soon as it is dark,” I answered.
Under pretence of making ready he left us upon the instant; and I never doubted but that it was shame that drove him to hide his palsied condition from Annabel’s eyes.
Her wrath boiled up as he departed, and like a fury — the sweetest, loveliest, daintiest fury that ever graced the realms of Pluto — she turned upon me.
“I read your motive, Master Jocelyn,” quoth she indignantly, “as plainly as though you had told me of it!”
“My motive, Madam,” said I testily, “is to get a message to Rupert by means of Master Steele.”
“Not so,” she cried. “You sought but to prove him a coward in my eyes.”
“And have I failed?”
“Most signally. For you see that he is prepared to go.”
“He could be no less, in your presence, if he would not be branded a craven by you.”
“You do him wrong,” she cried, with loyal heat, “as you yourself shall confess. You think because he is not a bloodthirsty swaggerer of your own kidney, that he has no valour; because he prefers to smell of musk rather than to reek of leather, you account him a milksop. But already has he proven you wrong, for you see that he goes.”
“Ay,” I replied unguardedly. “But he shall prove me right ere the business is concluded.”
“You confess it, then?” she cried in triumph.
I bit my lip, and swore softly to myself.
“Why, yes. It seems I do.”
She measured me with ther eyes for a moment, and a curious smile sat on her lips.
“Jocelyn,” said she at last, “have you a mind to make a wager with me touching this?”
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