The Fortunes of Lal Faversham

by Rafael Sabatini

  “And thereby bring suspicion upon myself, and risk my own neck?” I sneered. “Not I. But attend to me, Lord Goring, I can smuggle you out of the castle and out of Perth if I so choose, and this much I—who am convinced of your innocence of treason— am willing to do.”

  “Oh, thanks! A thousand thanks, my preserver, my—”

  “Get up, you fool,” I broke in harshly. “Come, let me look at you. Yes, you will do. Your figure is much of the King’s height, and you may thank Heaven also that your shape is similar to his, for to-night you will have to impersonate the King.”

  I explained my meaning fully, and to all that I proposed he eagerly concurred, for truly he deemed himself a drowning man, and the business I suggested was his straw.

  Bidding him on no account quit my chamber, I left him to go in quest of Giles. To my ready-witted servant I made known my wants, and the outcome of it was that by nine o’clock we had tricked out his lordship in a suit of black with gold lace borrowed from His Majesty’s wardrobe. His golden locks we concealed ’neath a ponderous black wig that was the very counterpart of His Majesty’s hair; his creamy white skin we stained with walnut juice to the gypsy tint of the King’s complexion. With a burnt cork Giles drew him a pair of long black eyebrows, so that in the end he looked not at all like Lord Goring and sufficiently like Charles Stuart to play by night the part I assigned to him. And when we had given him a cloak, and he had flung it across his shoulders so that it masked his chin and mouth, his resemblance to the King was wondrous true.

  Moreover, his lordship was an able mimic, and entering into the spirit of the business, he assumed before us such characteristic attitudes of Charles that he must needs be lynx-eyed who could see through the deception, particularly when considered that ’twould but be seen in the fitful light of torch or lanthorn.

  It wanted a quarter to ten when we quitted my room, and going by the south gallery we made our way—Goring and I—to the King’s apartments. His Majesty being, as I had conjectured, still at supper, the antechamber was empty and but dimly lighted. But I had scarcely pushed my companion into the embrasure of a window when the sound of steps and voices announced the King’s approach.

  I sprang forward as he entered.

  “So you are here, Lal?” he exclaimed. “I was marveling at your absence from the table.”

  “Sire,” I whispered hurriedly, “I beseech you bid your attendants wait without, and permit me to close the door.”

  He looked up in surprise, but there was that in my voice that impelled him to grant my request.

  “Why, what folly is this, Lal?” said he when the door was shut.

  “Sire, I pray you ask me no questions now. There is to be no entertainment to-night at the Watergate. But if your Majesty will enter your chamber, and see no one until my return, I promise you a narrative of ample entertainment.”

  Naturally, he was inquisitive, but I urged him so, and spoke so fearfully of a matter where lives were involved that in the end he consented to do my will, and I held his chamber door for him.

  “Now, my lord,” I whispered, drawing Goring from his hiding place. “Play the King, and you are saved.”

  We crossed the antechamber; then as I held wide the door, and those without bowed low before him, I was astounded to hear what was for all the world the King’s voice issue from the folds of his cloak.

  “Oddsfish, Lal, ’tis a mad conceit!” He inclined his head to the throng of unsuspecting courtiers and strode on before me.

  In the courtyard, before entering his chair, he must needs sniff the air, and for the benefit of those assembled.

  “Oddsfish, Lal,” he cried in the voice of Charles, “the air is chill.” Then to the bearers who stood waiting, “Step on apace, my good fellows,” quoth he.

  Chancing to turn as the chair was lifted, I beheld Gillespie watching us from the gate, and I was glad that Goring had spoken.

  It was a bright, moonlight night, and the chair swung rapidly along. I stalked beside it down the High Street, Sir John following, some fifty yards behind. As we reached the corner of Maiden Lane, half a dozen men emerged from the by-street and stood there while we passed, then started to follow. I fell behind, and a moment later Ruthven was beside me.

  “You have done wisely, Mr. Faversham,” he sneered. “There is your paper. You had best see to the saving of your own neck.”

  With that piece of advice he left me, and for some moments I watched the little procession as it moved toward the Watergate. I glanced at the paper, and by the light of the moon I could make out that it was the document I had signed at the Rose. Then I turned and ran every foot of the way back to the castle.

  I entertained His Majesty that evening with a narrative of what had taken place, with, however, certain slight alterations that I held necessary, and whose purport it is not difficult to guess.

  Nor is it difficult to imagine what befel when Sir John Gillespie discovered what manner of king it was he was bearing to Cromwell. A warrant was issued next day for his arrest. But he was not seen again in Perth; nor was my Lord Goring.

  OF WHAT BEFEL AT BAILIENOCHY

  I had conceived how with senses ensnared by the seductions of the hour a man might stumble upon love. A tepid atmosphere; the scent of flowers; the song of birds; in your eyes the sunlight and the springy turf to your feet; a mind well rid of care, and a heart that sings within you to the lilt of nature’s melodies—then let her appear, and whilst the poetry that the time affords doth lull you, the thing may come to pass.

  But it came not thus to me. ’Twas chill October, and the trees stood gaunt and stripped, mere frameworks of their summer glory; the ground was hard with the touch of an early frost; the sky dull and sullen. There was scant poetry in the hour, and my nose I’ll swear was blue with the sting of the blast that faced us from the Grampians. Thus did love find me; in a flash, it came, as wrapped tight in my cloak I stepped along beside my lady, ’neath the wall of the castle of Bailienochy.

  I was no boy. Indeed, at the time I scarce held myself young, for albeit no more than twenty-seven, the much that I had lived gave me the feeling of a riper age. I had taken three wounds and looked on a field of stricken battle ere my wisdom teeth were cut.

  As in war, so in love, too, had I served my apprenticeship—for ever in the wake of Mars stalks Cupid. But in the presence of my sweet lady Margaret I blushed for very shame at the memory and wished—as sinners wish for Heaven—that there had been less of it. For until that hour of a verity I had not known real love.

  She was a little slip of a girl, numbering, perchance, some twenty years, with a sweet, winsome face, dark hair and gray eyes, amid a smile that would have made of hell a heaven. Proud she was, for all her sweetness, and arch and witty beyond all women that I had known.

  Her father was Sir Everard Fitzmorris, a gentleman who, like myself, had been beggared by the Stuart cause, and who in this forlorn castle of Bailienochy had sought and found a refuge from Cromwell’s canting bloodhounds.

  Hither a week since was I also come, to crave an asylum against the Covenanters, from whom I had good reason to fear hard usage. I had been one of the abettors in that ill-starred flight of Charles from Perth—that which is now known as “the Start,” and which but for the timidity of Wilmot and Buckingham might have spared my liege and master ten years of penurious wandering.

  With me had come my Lord Carleston—whose plight was no better than mine own—and Sir Everard had received us graciously and kindly, as also had his sister, Lady Grizel—our real hostess, and the owner of Bailienochy—and his daughter Margaret. To us and our retinue—my servant, Giles, and the two attendants who accompanied my Lord Carleston—had been assigned the northern wing of the castle, and there for a week we had lain secure and at peace.

  And during that week my love for Mistress Margaret had crept into life, until of a sudden it had stood revealed before me on the morning whereof I write, and had thrown me into a silence that must have made me passing tiresome
to my companion, for presently she left me upon some trifling pretext and went within.

  Scarce was she gone when Lord Carleston stepped out onto that barren strip of soil which they misnamed a terrace, and approached me with a cynical smile upon his high-bred face.

  “Faversham, you rogue,” quoth he, “have a care! It is an hour since you and Mistress Margaret came forth, and she hath but returned within this instant.”

  I knew him for a libertine, yet no worse than most of us that had been nurtured at the court of the Second Charles. He was a youth of parts, and gifted with a caustic tongue, and during the week that was sped we had been much together. Over our sack we had sat of nights, and entertained each other with the narrative of past adventures. I had grown fond of him as a man will of another with whom he exchanges confidences, yet at that moment I wished him far from Bailienochy.

  “The lady is the daughter of our host,” I said, sternly, thinking to rebuke him.

  “And a sweet lass to boot,” he answered flippantly.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Come, Faversham,” he cried, no whit abashed, as he linked his arm in mine. “Damn your sour looks! She is a winsome maid; she hath the brightest eye, the sweetest lips, the daintiest ankle—”

  “A plague on you! Have you not grace enough to see that such as we are unfit to touch the hem of her garment!”

  “Go your way, hypocrite,” he broke, “I swear that line is from the Scriptures. The hem of her garment, forsooth! Pshaw, you make me sick! Who seeks to touch it? Did you say her lips now—”

  I drew my arm from his, and stood still, the flush of anger mounting to my brow.

  “Carleston,” I began; but again he interrupted me with a laugh. “Oh, have done! I’ll say no more. Yet if you are to wager me fifty gold caroluses that within three days I shall have won a touch of those saintly lips—”

  “Blood and wounds!” I began, then changed my anger to contempt and gave vent to it in a laugh “Pshaw, were it less blasphemous, I would win your money to teach you to curb your vanity. For neither in a week nor in a month will you so much as gain her consent to soil her finger tips with your mustachios.”

  “Oddslife!” he cried, tossing his fine head, “say you so, Master Faversham. Well, since you’ll not wager, I do now bind myself to kiss the fingers of this sweet lady, the hem of whose petticoat we are unfit to touch, within the week; and failing to do so, I swear by my honor to pay you two hundred caroluses.”

  I looked at him in wonder for a moment, then:

  “Look to it, Carleston, that you employ no force,” I said.

  “Pshaw, you pay me a poor compliment.”

  “I mean not only the force of strength, but the force of fair, false speeches and lying promises. Remember her simplicity, her innocence, and remember, too, that you are a gentleman.”

  He changed color at that, and we stood measuring each other with our eyes. Then he laughed and shook his golden love-locks.

  “Gadzooks, Faversham, these Scotch mists have addled your Kentish brains. But there, my caroluses are yours if I fail. I have sworn it. Of what may follow, time enough to deal with it when it comes.”

  We parted thus—not lovingly, as you may think. And with every hour the breach betwixt us grew wider. Carleston opened the campaign that night. He appeared at supper tricked out in the gaudiest doublet he had brought with him, with a ribbon wherever he could stick one, and a score of other fripperies. His fine, white hands were all bejeweled, and his love-locks scented like a court lady’s lap-dog. Sir Everard looked twice at him as he took his seat beside Mistress Margaret, while my Lady Grizel opened wide her eyes; then—being a woman—she glanced from him to her niece, and smiled softly to herself. For mine own part as I gazed upon his handsome, courtly figure I felt that I had never truly hated a man until that hour.

  The comedy that was begun that night was pursued upon the morrow, and so every day for a week. And during that week I scarce had two words with Margaret, for Carleston was ever at her side, and—what embittered me the more—she appeared no-wise averse to this. I grew sullen and morose, and my temper suffered sorely. Had it been an honest contest betwixt us for her love, I might have borne the burden of it with a better grace. But knowing that ’twas no more than a matter of my Lord Carleston indulging his vanity, my heart hardened, and I swore that did he earn her affection and permission to kiss her hand, then come to me with a laugh and the boast of it, I would desire him to take a turn with me on the braes of Angus, and there I would leave him cold and stiff with a pink stain on his pretty doublet.

  On the morning of the seventh day after my lord had embarked upon this undertaking I observed them together in the garden. A few moments later Carleston entered the hall where I was pacing, and I remarked that his face, usually so gay and reckless, wore now a scowl of sour displeasure.

  “You are glum, my lord,” I sneered. He forced a laugh in answer.

  “Crush me! I have good reason to be. That artless jade is like to cost me two hundred caroluses. But rat me,” he added, as he turned away, “I have not lost yet. Not until to-night.”

  I answered nothing and he departed.

  In that same hall I came toward noon upon my lady. She greeted me with a smile, and her, clear gray eyes were fixed for a moment on my face.

  “You are looking pale, Mr. Faversham,” said she, with kindly concern in her voice, “and sad of late I have remarked. I am afraid this enforced captivity tries you sorely, and that you pine to be gone from Bailienochy.”

  “Madame, you do me an injustice. The cause of the king I serve is in a state to make all loyal men look pale and sad. But for the rest, sweet lady, there is that at Bailienochy that makes me sigh rather at the thought of going hence than at the time that I am like to spend here.”

  I gazed at her as I spoke, my boldness springing, I doubt not, from the discomfiture that a while ago I had remarked in Carleston. She dropped her eyes before my glance, and some of the color left her cheeks. That she took my meaning was clear, since she asked no questions, and an awkward silence followed. To my rescue came the quick patter of feet without. The door was flung open, and into the apartment dashed one of Sir Everard’s gillies with wild eyes and a scared countenance.

  “Ou, ou!” he wailed, in his barbarous northern accent, “the laird o’ Carleston, the bonnie laird!”

  “What of him, fool?” I cried.

  “Droonit, nae less,” he blurted out.

  “Drowned!” gasped Margaret, with horror.

  “Nay, nay,” came another voice, “not drowned we hope. There is life in him yet.” And across the threshold come Carleston’s two attendants carrying their dripping master. His arms trailed limp beside him as they set him down before the fire; his eyes were closed and his cheeks a deadly hue. But his heart still beat, and he breathed, albeit faintly. In a trice, Margaret’s fingers had undone the collar of his doublet. She called for usquebaugh, and kneeling beside him set herself to chafe his brows and hands.

  “See, Mr. Faversham,” cried Margaret, “he breathes more freely.”

  At that moment Carleston sighed deeply, and opened his eyes. He encountered Margaret’s gaze, and for a second or two he returned it vacantly. Then:

  “’Tis you, sweet mistress,” he murmured. “And I am not dead! ’Tis you who have brought me back to life!”

  He had caught her hand in his, and slowly he was carrying it to his lips.

  ’Twas a natural enough action as matters stood, yet even as I remarked it I guessed the trick that was being played. I remembered that Carleston was a stout swimmer; that the blue tint of his cheeks was no more than the very natural fruit of an October immersion in the icy waters of Loch Esk, and like one fascinated I watched the hand drawing closer to his lips. He had those slender fingers within their own breadth of his mustachios, when of a sudden the hand was whisked away. It was poised for an instant in the air, then it descended with a resounding cuff upon his lordship’s ear.

  “There,
my lord,” quoth Margaret, with a scornful laugh, “that will do much to aid to restore your circulation. For the rest you may pay Mr. Faversham the two hundred caroluses, for even this pretty trick hath failed you, and methinks ’tis unlikely now you’ll essay another.”

  I stood aghast, scarce believing that I had heard aright, whilst Carleston got on his feet with an alacrity little to have been looked for in his exhaustion of a moment back. His brow grew black in a most formidable scowl, and the anger in his eyes was a thing to make a man look to his weapons.

  “Damnation!” he snarled, turning upon me. “You have played me false, you knave!”

  “Knave in your teeth, my lord,” I answered coldly. “You have lied!”

  With a bunch of oaths, he put his hand to his bilbo, but before he could draw Margaret had got between us.

  “Gentlemen,” she cried, “let this matter go no further. Mr. Faversham has not played you false, my lord. I myself heard your boast. I could not help it, for yours is the common failing of boasters—you speak over-loudly.”

  “So, pretty lady,” he muttered with a sneer that made me burn to strike him, “since you played eavesdropper, I marvel not at the turn affairs have taken. But as for letting the matter go no further,” he vented a mirthless laugh, “by Heaven, madame, it shall go further. Further than is dreamt of by you or this cavalier of yours.”

  “My lord,” I began, when Margaret again interposed.

  “Enough, and more, has been said already, Mr. Faversham. Lord Carleston will doubtless see fit to depart.”

  He left Bailienochy an hour later, without word of farewell or thanks to his host.

  For another week we had peace, and—for my own part—happiness at Bailienochy. That which had passed served to draw my lady and me closer together, and much time we spent in each other’s company. So much, indeed, and so kind was she, that one fine day words that I had never meant to say were spoken, and I—a cavalier of fortune, a penniless adventurer—knelt to that pure, sweet lady as one might kneel before a shrine.