LII
WHICH BRINGS US TO THE JOURNEY'S END
I may confess to you, my dears, that Mr. Gilbert Stair's parting tiradedid not move me greatly, since I would set down everything he had saidto the one account--the miser's.
Yet when I came to second thoughts upon it, this account balanced butindifferently. Why should he be so eager to make me think small ofMargery's love for Richard Jennifer? And why, misliking me, as I madesure he did, should he be so hot to make the shadow marriage a thing ofsubstance? From the miser-father's point of view, Richard, with hisgoodly heritage of Jennifer House, was a match to be angled for; yethere was the man in whose eye house and lands loomed largest flying intorage because I sought to put his daughter in the way of marrying them.
I was pondering thoughtfully on this, giving the pinching old man creditfor any and every motive save that which he had so cursingly avowed, towit, the furthering of his daughter's happiness, when there came a tapat the door and Mistress Margery entered.
"Dear heart! Do they limit you to a single candle when my back isturned?" she said, in mock pity; and saying it, went to light thecandles in the mantel sconces.
The sight of her standing a-tiptoe to touch off the candles on thechimney breast set the old lovespell at work to make my heart beatfaster. What if there were a hint of truth in Gilbert Stair's wrathfulprotest? What if, after all, she cared less for Richard and more for me?
Do not, I pray you, my dears, think too hardly of the man who thus laysbare the secret thoughts of his heart for you. 'Twas but a passing gustof the tempest of disloyalty, and I was not swept wholly from mymoorings. Nay, when she came to sit on the hassock at my feet, as sheused to do in that other halcyon-time of convalescence, I was myselfagain and could look upon her sweet face with eyes that saw beyond herto the camp or battle-field where my dear lad was spending himself.
For a time we sat in silence, and 'twas she who spoke first.
"My father has been with you," she said. "I hope you did not quarrelwith him."
"No," I denied, salving my conscience with the remembering that it takestwo to make a quarrel; and I had done none of the cursing. "He came togive me this," I added, handing her the will.
She opened the folded parchment, reading a line of it here and theresoftly to herself.
--"'Being of sound mind, doth bequeath and devise to his loving wife,Margery--' Ah, had you been writing it you would not have written it so,would you, Monsieur John?"
"'Tis but a form," I would say. "All wives are 'loving' in lawyers'speech."
She smiled up at me so like an innocent and fearless child that for themoment I could figure her no otherwise. Yet her rejoinder was a woman's.
"I say you would not have written it so; is not that the truth?"
I would not let her pin me down.
"If I should write it now, it should be written in great letters, dearlady. Though it is but a form, though that which followed was butanother form, you have not failed in any wifely duty, Mistress Margery."
"Not once?"
"No, not once. Three times you have done what the lovingest wife coulddo to save a husband's life; and I do greatly suspect there was a fourthand earlier time. Tell me, little one; was it not you who sent theIndian to Captain Forney to tell him a patriot spy was to be executed atday-dawn in the oak glade?"
She would not answer me direct.
"'Twas I who brought you to that pass," she said, speaking soft and low."But for my riding down upon you one other morning in that same oakglade, you would not have had Sir Francis Falconnet's sword in yourshoulder. And but for that sword wound, nothing that followed would havefollowed."
Saying this she fell silent for a space, and when she spoke again shewas become by some subtle transmutation my trusting little maid of theby-gone halcyon-time.
"Do you remember how you used to make a comrade of me in the old days,Monsieur John, telling me things my elder brother might have told me,had I had one?"
I said I remembered; that I was not likely to forget.
"Are you strong enough to stand in that elder brother's place againto-night?"
"Try me and see, dear lady."
"Not whilst you say 'dear lady,'" she pouted. "'Twas 'Margery' and'Monsieur John' a year agone."
"Have it as you will; I will even call you 'Madge' if it pleases youbetter."
"No," she said; "that is Dick's name for me; and--and it is of Dick thatI would speak. You love him well, do you not, Monsieur John?"
I said I could never make her, or any woman, fully understand the bondthere was between us.
"Truly?" There was the merest flavor of playful sarcasm in the uptilt ofthe word, but it was gone when she went on.
"Being so good a friend to Dick, then, you can advise me the better.Tell me, if you please, must I marry him--when--"
"When you are free to do it?" I finished for her. "Why should you not,my dear?"
She was pulling the threads from the lace edging of her kerchief andwould not for a king's ransom let her eyes meet mine.
"You used to say--in that other time--that love should go before amarriage; did you not? Or do I remember badly?"
"You remember well. I said it then, and I say it again at this present.But Dick loves you well and truly, sweetheart; and you--"
She looked up quickly with the little laugh that used to mind me ofhappy children at play.
"And I?--now you will read a woman's heart for me, Monsieur John. Tellme; do I love him as his mistress should?"
"Nay, surely," said I, gravely, for somehow her laugh jarred upon me,"surely that is for you to say. But you have said it, long since."
"Have I?" she queried, with an arch lifting of the penciled brows thatcame straight from her French mother. "Mayhap you overheard me say it,Monsieur Eavesdropper?"
"God help me, little one--so I did," said I.
All in a flash her laughing mood was gone and she stood before me likean accusing goddess.
"You told me once the past was like a dream to you; you must havedreamed that part of it, sir. And yet you said a little while ago thatI had not failed in any wifely duty!"
"The time and circumstance were their own best excuse. Sure I am farfrom blaming you, my dear. But let it pass, 'tis enough that I know youlove him as he loves you."
Again her mood changed in the twinkling of an eye. She sank down uponthe hassock, laughing merrily.
"O wise Monsieur John! how well you read a woman's heart! 'Tis youshould be the lover, instead of Dick. He rides a-courting as he wouldcharge a legion on a battle-field. But nothing would ever tempt you tobe so masterful rough, would it, Monsieur John? You would look deep intoyour sweetheart's eyes and say--Tell me what you would say, _mon ami_?"
Ah, my dears, I hope no one of you will ever be tempted as I was temptedthen. I forgot my dear lad, forgot honor, forgot everything save that Ihad leave to tell her how I had loved her from the first; how I shouldgo on loving her to the end. So for a moment I hung trembling on thebrink; and then she pushed me over.
"Is this how you would do, Monsieur--Monsieur Ogre?--sit stock still andglower at the poor thing as if you were between two minds as to lovingher or eating her?"
I bent quickly, took her face between my hands and kissed hertwice--thrice.
"That is what I should do. Now that you have made me what I was notbefore, are you satisfied?"
'Twas long before she gave me a word. And when she spoke it was only tosay: "Are you not most monstrous ashamed, Monsieur John?"
"No!" said I. "I am but a man, and you have roused that part of me thatknows neither shame nor remorse. I love you, Mistress Margery; do youhear? I have loved you since that day in June when I came back fromdeath's door to find you sitting here to bear me company."
She locked her fingers across her knee and would not look at me.
"But by your own showing you should be ashamed, sir," she insisted."What of the dear friend to whom you would give up even the love of yourmistress?"
"
You may flay me as you will; I shall neither flinch nor go back from myword. You are mine, and I shall give you up to no man. I know I have notyour love--shall never have it. Also, I know that I have gained an enemywhere once I had a loving friend. Richard Jennifer may kill me if heplease--he shall have the chance to do it; but you are mine and shall bewhilst I live to claim and hold you."
There was something less than anger in the blue-gray eyes when she letme see them; nay, I could have sworn there was a flash of playfulmockery in them when she said: "Dear heart! how masterful rough youhave grown, all in a moment, my Lord." And then the beautiful eyesfilled and she said, "Poor Dick!" in a way to make me suffer all thetorments of that old myth-king who could never quaff the water that wasever rising to his lips.
"Aye, you may love him, if you must and will," I gloomed. "God pity me!I know you do love him."
She looked up quickly. "So you have said a dozen times before. Tell me,Monsieur Oracle, how do you know it?"
"If I tell you, you will hate me more than you do now."
"That would be hard, indeed," she murmured. "Yet I would hear you sayit."
"Listen, then: once, when we three were at the very door and thresholdof death, you wrote the cry of your heart out on a bit of paper for aleave-taking and sent it to the man you loved. You said, 'Though youmust needs believe my love is pledged to your dear friend and mine, 'tisyours, and yours alone.' Were not these your very words?"
Her "yes" was but the lightest whisper, but I heard it and went on."That is all, save this; the Indian bearer of your letter blundered andgave it me instead of Dick."
She looked me full in the eyes and my soul went all afire. Then she laidher cheek against my knee and I heard her dear voice as it had been achime of sweet-toned joy-bells:
"Ah, Monsieur John; how blind this thing called love can make us all.Suppose--suppose the Indian did not blunder, dear lord and master ofme?"
The Master of Appleby Page 54