“Quick!” said I, turning again to Mrs. Herbert “Madam, help me in this matter, if you can. Think! The officer put to you questions concerning me?”
“Oh!” she cried, waking from her lethargy, “I cannot help you. You must save yourself, as best you may. I do not remember what they said. It was of you they spoke and not at all of Anthony.”
“It is just for your husband’s sake,” I said, “that I implore you to remember.”
And she looked at me blankly.
“God!” I exclaimed, taking the thought “You believe that I journeyed hither to you in your loneliness at this hour, to plague you with questions for my safety’s sake!” And I paused, staring at her.
“Well,” she replied, in an even voice, “is the belief so strange?”
There was no sarcasm in the question, and hardly any curiosity. It was the mere natural utterance of a natural thought. My eyes, I know, fell from her face to the floor.
“Madam,” I replied slowly, “when I set out to-night, I thought that the cup of my humiliation was already full. You prove to me that my thought was wrong. It remained for you very fitly to fill it to the brim;” and again I lifted my eyes to her. “I had no purposes of my own to serve in riding hither. I know the charge against myself to its last letter. It is the charge against your husband brings me here. Neither do I know whither he has been taken. Yet these two things I must know, and I came to you on the chance that you might help me.”
I saw her face change as she listened. She leaned forward on her elbows, her chin propped upon her hands, her eyes losing their indifference. A spark of hope kindled in the depths of them, and when I had ended, she remained silent for a little, as though fearing to quench that spark by the utterance of any words. At last she asked, in almost a timid voice:
“But why — why would you know?” And she bent still further forward with parted lips, breathless for the answer.
“Why?” I answered. “Forgive me! I should have told you that before, but, like a fool, I put the questions first. They are foremost in my thoughts, you see, being the means, and as yet unsolved. The end is so clear to me, that I forgot it in looking for the road which leads to it. I believe that Mr. Herbert has been seized, on the ground that he shares my — treason, let us call it, for so our judges will. Of that charge I know him innocent, and maybe can prove him so. And if I can, be sure of this — I will.”
“But how can you?” she interrupted.
“If I know the charge, if I know whither he has been taken, the place of his trial, then it may be that I can serve him. But until I know, I am like one striking at random in the dark. Suppose I go to meet the sheriff and give myself up, not knowing these things, I shall be laid by the heels and no good done. They may have taken him to London. He may be in prison for months. Meanwhile I should be tried — and they would not need Mr. Herbert’s evidence to secure a verdict against me.”
“You would give yourself up?” she asked.
“But I must know the place, I must know the charge. It would avail your husband little without that knowledge. They would keep me in prison cozening me with excuses, however urgently I might plead for him. It is enough that a man should be suspected of favouring King James. To such they dispense convictions; they make no pother about justice.”
“But,” said she, “it would mean your life.”
“Have you not said yourself that payment must be made?”
“Yes, but by us,” she said, stretching out a hand eagerly. “Not by you alone.”
“Madam,” said I, “you will have your share in it, for you will have to wait — to wait here with such patience as you can command, ignorant of the issue until the issue is reached. God knows but I think you have the harder part of it.”
We stood for a little looking into each other’s eyes sealing our compact.
“Now,” I continued, “think! Was any word said which we could shape into a clue? Was any name mentioned? Was your husband’s name linked with mine? Oh, think, and quickly!”
She sat with her face covered by her hands while I stood anxiously before her.
“I do not remember,” she said, drawing her hands apart and shaking them in a helpless gesture. “It all happened so long ago.”
“It happened only yesterday,” I urged.
“I know, I know,” she said with the utmost weariness. All that light of hope had died from her eyes as quickly as it had brightened them. “But I measure by a calendar of pain. It is so long ago, I do not remember. I do not even remember how I returned here.”
There was no hint plainly to be gained from her, and I had stayed too long, as it was. I took up my hat.
“You will stay here?” I asked. “I do not say that you will hear from me soon, but I must needs know where you are.”
“I will stay here,” she replied. She almost stretched out her hand and drew it in again. “Goodbye.”
I went to the door. She followed me with the lamp and held it over the balusters of the landing.
“Nay,” said I, “there is no need for that.”
“The staircase,” said she, “is very dark.” As I came out from the houses at the bottom of the hill I heard again the watchman’s voice behind me bawling out the hour. It was half-past one, and a cloudy morning, it may be, but the clouds were lighter in the north, as I remarked with some anxiety. I was still riding along Newlands valley when the morning began to break. As I reached the summit of Buttermere Hause I looked backwards over my shoulder. The sky in the north-east was a fiery glow, saffron, orange, and red were mingled there, and right across the medley of colours lay black, angry strips of cloud. The blaze of a fire, it seemed to me, seen through prison bars. It was daylight when I passed by Buttermere, sunlight as I rode down Gillerthwaite. The sweet stillness of the morning renewed my blood. The bracken bloomed upon the hillsides, here a rusty brown, there in the shadow a blackish purple, and then again gold where the sunlight kissed it Below me, by the water’s side, I could see the blue tiles of Applegarth. And as I looked about me the fever of my thoughts died, they took a new and unfamiliar quietude from the stable quietude of the hills. I felt as if something of their patience, something of their strength was entering into me. My memories went back again to the Superior’s study in the College at Paris; and in my heart of hearts I knew that the Superior was wrong. The mountains have their message, I think, for whoso will lend an ear to them, and that morning they seemed to speak to me with an unanimous voice. I can repair, I thought, this wrong. It was then more to me than a thought. It seemed, indeed, an assured and simple truth, assured and simple like those peaks in the clear air, and, like them, pointing skywards, and the Superior’s theory no more substantial than a cloud which may gather upon the peaks and hide them for a little from the eyes.
I rode down, therefore, in a calmer spirit than I had known for some long time. The difficulties which beset my path did not for the moment trouble me. That my journey that night had in no way lightened them I did not consider. I felt that the occasion of which I was in search would of a surety come, only I must be ready to grasp it.
I had passed no one on the road. I had seen, indeed, no sign of life at all beyond the sudden rush of a flock of sheep, as though in an unaccountable panic, up the hillside of the Pillar mountain, while I was as yet in the narrow path of Gillerthwaite. I had reason, therefore, to think that I had escaped all notice, and leading the horse back to the stable with the same precautions I had used on setting out, I let myself in at the door and got quietly to bed.
CHAPTER XIII.
DOROTHY CURWEN.
I WAS AT the breakfast-table, you may be sure, that morning no later than my host and his daughter. Mr. Curwen greeted me with an evident relief, but neither then nor afterwards did he ever refer to the journey I had taken during the night. On the contrary, his talk was all of Paris and France, plying me with many questions concerning the French generals, the Duc de Vendôme, Maréchal Villars, the Duc de Noailles, and the rest which I was at
some loss to answer. Often and often would he return to that subject with something of a boyish zest and enthusiasm. He had never been in France, he informed me, yet would tell me many stories concerning the Court and the magnificence of Versailles and the great hunting-parties at Meudon when Monsieur was alive, with so much detail that but for a certain extravagance, as of one whose curiosity, through much feeding upon itself, has grown fantastic, I could not but have believed that he had himself been present at their enactment. And then he would light his pipe and look across this quiet Ennerdale water to the rugged slopes beyond, with a sigh, and so get him back to his romances. He was no less curious concerning Lorraine and the little Court at Bar-le-Duc; and when I told him that I had myself had speech with the King, his enthusiasm rose to excitement.
“Oh!” he cried, starting up, “you have seen him? you have heard his voice speaking to you, as you hear mine now?” and all at once I acquired a new honour in his eyes. “Mr. Clavering, you have something to compensate you for your outlawry.”
“Yes,” I replied, “he spoke to me and with the sweetest kindliness.”
“And the King was hopeful — was positive in his hopes?”
“Very.”
“That is right,” he continued, walking about the room and smiling to himself. “That is right So a strong man should be.”
“And so weak men are,” said I rather sadly, for I recalled all that Lord Bolingbroke had told me.
“Mr. Clavering,” said the old gentleman, suddenly pausing in his walk, “you are the last man who should say that. You have lost all that a man holds dear, and are you not hopeful?”
I bowed my head to the rebuke. It was, indeed, well-timed and just, though for a very different reason than that which had inspired Mr. Curwen to utter it.
“I was so,” said I humbly, “so lately as this morning. Nay,” and I rose to my feet, “I am so still. Besides,” I continued, reverting to the King, “he has Lord Bolingbroke to help him, and I set great store on that.”
“Bolingbroke!” cried Mr. Curwen, and seldom have I seen a man’s face change so suddenly. A flame of anger kindled in his eyes and blazed across his face, shrivelling all the gentleness which made its home there. “Bolingbroke!” he cried wildly— “a knave! a debauched, villainous knave! God help the man, be he king or serf, that takes his counsel! Look you, Mr. Clavering, a very dishonest, treacherous knave;” and he wagged his head at me. I was astonished at the outburst, since the Jacobites were wont to look with some deference towards Lord Bolingbroke.
“He is my kinsman,” I said meekly, “and a very good friend to me;” and while Mr. Curwen was still humming and hawing in some confusion, his daughter came into the room, and gazing at his troubled face with some anxiety, put an end to the talk.
This was by no means, however, the last I was to hear of the matter, and in truth Lord Bolingbroke, through merely arousing Mr. Curwen’s indignation, was to prove a much better friend to me than ever I had looked for. For when we were again alone together:
“I regret the words I spoke to you,” he said a little stiffly and with considerable effort in the apology. “I did not know Lord Bolingbroke was your kinsman;” and then in a rush of sincerity: “But far more than the words, I regret your relationship with the man.”
I began to make such defence of my kinsman as I could, pointing to his industry, and declaring how his services had always been thwarted by his colleagues while he was in power.
“And what of the Catalans?” he asked.
Now, I knew very little about the Catalans.
“Well, what of the Catalans?” I asked doubtfully.
“Why, this,” he returned. “We instigated them to war; we made them our allies against Philip of Spain by the promise of restoring them their ancient liberties. They fought with us, spilled their blood on the strength of that promise, and then Lord Bolingbroke patches up his peace of Utrecht, and not a word in it from end to end about their liberties. They continue the war alone, and he finds nothing better to do than to sneer at their obstinacy. They still continue, and he is ready to send an English fleet to help in their destruction.”
His voice increased in vehemence with every word he spoke, so that I feared each moment another outburst against my kinsman. It may be that he feared it too, for he checked himself with some abruptness, and it was his daughter who revived the subject later on during that same day.
It was after dinner. I had taken a book with me, and climbed up to the orchard behind the house. But little I read in the book. The sun had set behind the hills, but the brightness of that morning lingered on my thoughts. I was, as Mr. Curwen had said, hopeful, though with no great reason, and being besides weary with the fatigue I had undergone, fell into a restful state between sleep and waking. With half-closed eyes I saw Dorothy Curwen come from the back of the house, and talk for a little with Mary Tyson. Then she mounted towards the orchard. I watched her, marked the lightness of her step, the supple carriage of her figure, the delicate poise of her head, and then rose from the grass and went forward to meet her.
“Mr. Clavering,” she began very decidedly, and paused in some difficulty. Then she stamped her foot with a little imperious movement. “You talk too much of France and Paris and the great world to my father. You will not do so any more.”
She spoke with the prettiest air of command imaginable the while she looked up at me, and it was the air I smiled at, not the command.
“No!” she said, “I mean it. You will not do so any more;” and she coloured a little and spoke with a yet stronger emphasis.
“Madam,” said I with a bow, “since you wish it — —”
“I do wish it, Mr. Clavering,” she interrupted me.
“I did not think — —” I began.
“No,” says she, “you are young and imprudent. I have noticed that already.” And with great stateliness and dignity she walked for ten yards down the hillside. Then she began to hum a tune, and laughed as though mightily pleased with herself and her stately walk changed to a dance. A few yards further on, she sat down in the bracken with her back towards me and began plucking at the grasses. I remained where she had left me, quite content to watch from that distance the coils of hair nestling about her head, and to hearken to the rippling music of her song. But after a little she turned her head with a glance across her shoulder towards me, and so back again very quickly. I went down to her.
“The lecture is not ended?” said I, gravely.
She gave a start and looked at me, as though my presence there was the last thing she expected, or indeed wished for. Then in an instant her whole manner changed.
“I will tell you the truth of it,” she said. “Something you will perhaps have guessed already, the rest you would discover did not I tell you.”
I sat down by her side, and she continued, choosing her words.
“My father is not altogether — strong, and these stories do no good.” Then she stopped. “It is more difficult to tell you than I thought.”
“There is no need,” said I, “that you should say another word.”
“Thank you,” said she very gratefully; and for a little we were silent.
“Has he spoken to you of a ship?” she asked slowly; and I started. “Ah! he thinks it is a secret from us. But we know, for he sold the land not so long ago wherewith to buy it He is the noblest man in the world,” she continued hurriedly. “The thought of any one suffering touches him to the quick; the thought of oppression kindles him to anger, and he will do his part, and more than his part, in relieving the one and fighting against the other. So that unless Mary and I did what we could, he would not possess to-day so much as a farthing.”
“I understand,” said I, “Mary’s welcome to me yesterday.”
She looked at me with a smile.
“Yes,” said she, “but your looks warranted her. The ship was to be fitted out to help the Catalans. It lies at Whitehaven now. He was there but a few days ago.”
“He spoke
of it to me,” said I, “with some hint that he might put me across to France.”
“But you will not go?” she said, turning to me quickly. “Any day the country may rise and every arm will be needed — I mean every young arm.”
I shook my head.
“The French King is dying, maybe is dead, and without his help will the country rise? Besides, so long as I stay here, I endanger you.”
I spoke reluctantly enough, for though I had no intention whatever to seek a refuge in France, I felt that if once Mr. Curwen definitely promised to send me thither, I could not remain at Applegarth at however small a risk to him and his. I must needs accept the offer and — betake me again to the hillside, in which case there was little probability that I should be able to effect anything towards Anthony Herbert’s enlargement before I was captured myself.
“There is no danger to us,” she said. “For, some while since, we persuaded my father to take no active share in the plans. There will be no danger,” and she stopped for a second, “if you will put out your candle when next you leave it in the stables.”
“My candle?” I stammered, taken aback by her words. “I left it burning?”
“Last night,” said she.
“I beg your pardon.”
“There is very great reason that you should,” she said with a laugh. “For I must needs hurry on my clothes and put it out. As I said, you are very imprudent, Mr. Clavering;” and with that she tripped down to the house, leaving me not so much concerned with what she had hinted about her father, as with my own immediate need to secure the knowledge I was after quickly, and avert by my departure the smallest risk from Applegarth.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 230