KENILWORTH

THERE are some very pleasant shops in Warwick, and if you have time and

no money you can spend some very agreeable mornings wandering from one

shop to another, asking the prices of things you have all the will but

none of the means to buy. If you have money and time you will buy a few

of the things whose prices you have asked. Edward bought a ring, crystal

with brilliants around it, very lovely and very expensive, and some

topazes set in old silver, quite as beautiful but not so dear.

Then they went to the old-furniture shops, where he excited the vexed

admiration of the dealers by his unerring eye for fakes. He bought an

oak chest, carved with a shield of arms, the date 1612, and the initials

"I. B."

"If we were really married," he told her, "I should be vandal enough to

alter that 'I' to make it stand for your name."

"I should not think it a vandal's act--if we were married," she

answered, and their eyes met. He bought tables and chairs of oak and

beech; a large French cupboard whose age, he said, made it a fit mate

for the chest; he bought a tall clock with three tarnished gold pines

atop, and some brass pots and pewter plates. She strayed away from him

at the last shop, while he was treating for a Welsh dresser with brass

handles, and when he had made his bargain he followed her, to find her

lovingly fingering chairs of _papier-mâché_ painted with birds and

flowers and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There was a table, too,

graceful and gay as the chairs, and a fire-screen of fine needlework.

"You hate anything that isn't three or four hundred years old," she

said. "It's dreadful that our tastes don't agree, isn't it? Don't you

think we ought to part at once? 'They separated on account of

incompatibility of furniture.'"

"But don't you like the things we have been getting?"

"Of course I do, but I like these, too. They're like lavender and

pot-pourri, and ladies who had still-rooms and made scents and liqueurs

and confections in them, and walked in their gardens in high-heeled

shoes and peach-blossom petticoats."

"Why not buy them, then?"

"I would if I had a house. If I were buying things I should first buy

everything I liked, and not try to keep to any particular period. I

believe the things would all settle down and be happy together if you

loved them all. Did you get your precious dresser? And are you going to

buy that Lowestoft dessert-service to go on it?"

He bought the Lowestoft dessert-service, beautiful with red, red roses

and golden tracery; and next day he got up early and went around and

bought all the painted mother-of-pearly things that she had touched. He

gave the man an address in Sussex to which to send everything, and he

wrote a long letter to his old nurse, whose address it was that he had

given.

They had had dinner in the little private sitting-room over the front

door, the smallest private room, I believe, that ever took an even

semi-public part in the life of a hotel. It was quite full of curly

glass vases and photographs in frames of silver and of plush, till

Edward persuaded the landlady to remove them, "for fear," as he said,

"we should have an accident and break any of them."

They breakfasted here, and here, too, luncheon was served, so that they

met none of the other guests at meals, and in their in-goings and

out-comings they only met strangers. Mr. Schultz might still have been

at Tunbridge Wells, for any sense they had of him.

Presently and inevitably came the afternoon when they motored to

Kenilworth.

"I've always wanted to see Kenilworth," she told him, "almost more than

any place. Kenilworth and the Pyramids and Stonehenge and the Lost City

in India--you know the one that the very name of it is forgotten, and

they just found it by accident, all alone and beautiful, with panthers

in it instead of people, and trees growing out of the roofs of the

palaces, like Kipling's Cold Lairs."

"I get a sort of cold comfort from the thought of that city," he said.

"That and Babylon and Nineveh and the great cities in Egypt. When I go

through Manchester or New Cross or Sheffield I think, 'Some day grass

and trees will cover up all this ugliness and flowers will grow again in

the Old Kent Road.'"

"It is cold comfort," she said. "I wish flowers and grass could cover

the ugliness, but I should like them to be flowers planted by us living

people--not just wild flowers and the grass on graves."

The first sight of Kenilworth was naturally a great shock to her, as it

always is to those who know of it only from books and photographs and

engravings.

"Oh dear," she said, "how horrible! Why, it's pink!"

It is, bright pink, and to eyes accustomed to the dignified gray

monochrome of our South Country castles, Bodiam and Hever, Pevensey and

Arundel, Kenilworth at first seems like a bad joke, or an engraving

colored by a child who has used up most of the paints in its paint-box

and has had to make shift with Indian red and vermilion, the only two

tints surviving. But when you get nearer, when you get quite near, when

you look up at the great towers, when you walk between the great masses

of it, and see the tower that Elizabeth's Leicester built, and the walls

that Cromwell's soldiers battered down, you forgive Kenilworth for being

pink, and even begin to admit that pink is not such a bad color for

castles.

At Kenilworth you talk, of course, about Queen Elizabeth, and the one

who has read the guide-books tells the one who hasn't that when the

Queen visited Leicester he had a new bridge built over his lake so that

she might enter the castle by a way untrodden by any previous guest.

Also that during her visit the clock bell rang not a note and that the

clock stood still withal, the hands of it pointing ever to two o'clock,

the hour of banquet. Further, that during her visit of seventeen days

Kenilworth Castle managed to put away three hundred and twenty

hogsheads of beer.

"Those were great days," said Edward.

There are towers to climb at Kenilworth, as well as towers to gaze at,

and with that passion for ascending steps which marks the young the two

made their way to the top of one tower after another. It was as they

leaned on the parapet of the third and looked out over the green country

that Edward broke off in an unflattering anecdote of my Lord of

Leicester. He stiffened as a pointer stiffens when it sees a partridge.

"Look!" he said, "look!"

Two fields away sheep were feeding--a moment ago calm, white shapes

dotting a pastoral landscape, now roused to violent and unsuitable

activities by the presence among them of some strange foe, some inspirer

of the ungovernable fear that can find relief only in flight. The

scurrying mass of them broke a little, and the two on the tower saw the

shape of terror. They heard it, also. It was white and active. It

barked.

"Oh, run," said she; "it _is_ Charles. I'm almost certain it is. Oh,

run!" And he turned and ran down the tower steps. She saw him come out

and cross the grassy square of the castle at fine racing speed.

"It _is_ Charles," she assured herself. "It must be." Yet how could

even that inspired dog have escaped from the stable at Warwick where

they had left him, have followed their motor, and got here so soon. She

could not know that another motor from the hotel, coming out to pick up

a client, had overtaken Charles laboring up the hill from the top of

which you get your first view of the castle towers, and, recognizing the

dog--as who that had ever seen him could fail to do--had, so to speak,

offered him a lift. Charles had accepted, and would have been handed

over to his master's chauffeur at the Castle Gate House but that, a

little short of that goal, as the car waited for a traction engine to

pass it in the narrow way, Charles had seen the sheep, and with one

bound of desperate gallantry was out and after them before his

charioteer could even attempt restraint. And now Charles was in full

pursuit of the sheep, barking happily in complete enjoyment of this

thrilling game, and Edward was in pursuit of Charles, shouting as he

ran. But Charles had no mind to listen--one could always pretend

afterward that one had not heard, and no dog was more skilful than

Charles in counterfeiting unconsciousness, nor in those acts of cajolery

which soften the hearts of masters. His surprised delight when he should

at last discover that his master was there and desired his company would

be acted to the life and would be enough to soften any heart. If either

had looked up and back he could have seen a white speck on a red tower,

which was Herself, watching the chase. But neither of them did. More

observant and, to his own thinking, more fortunate, was another visitor

to the castle; he, to be exact, whom what we may call Charles's motor

had come to Kenilworth to pick up.

He had seen the fleecy scurrying, heard the yaps of pursuit, seen the

flying form of Edward, and entered sufficiently into the feelings of

Charles to be certain that the chase was not going to be a short one. He

now saw from the foot of Mervyn's tower the white speck against blue

sky. He made his way straight to the tower where she stood. She saw him

crossing the grassy court which Edward's flying feet had but just now

passed over. He came quickly and purposefully, and he was Mr.

Schultz--none other.

Now she was not afraid of Mr. Schultz. Why should she be? He had been

very kind, and of course she was not ungrateful, but it was a shock to

see him there--a shock almost as great as that given by the pinkness of

Kenilworth, and, anyhow, she did not want to meet him again; anyhow, not

to-day; anyhow, not on the top of a tower. And it was quite plain to her

that he had perceived her presence, had recognized her, and was coming

up expressly because of that--that his views were not hers, that he did

want to meet her again, did want to meet her to-day, did want to meet

her on top of a tower--this tower.

She looked around her "like a hunted thing," as they say, and then she

remembered a very little room, hardly more than a recess, opening from

the staircase. If she hurried down, hid there, and stood very close to

the wall, he would pass by and not notice, and as he went up she could

creep down and out, and, keeping close to the walls, get away toward

Edward and Charles and the sheep and all the things that do not make for

conversation with Mr. Schultz.

Lightly and swiftly as a hunted cat she fled down the stairs on whose

lower marches was the sound of boots coming up toward her, echoing in

the narrow tower like the tramp of an armed man. It came to her, as she

reached the little room and stood there, her white gown crushed against

the red stones, how a captive in just such a tower in the old days she

and Edward had been talking of might have seized such a chance of escape

from real and horrible danger, might have hidden as she was hiding, have

held his breath as she now held hers, and how his heart would have beat,

even as hers was beating, at the step of the guard coming toward the

hiding-place, passing it, going on to the tower-top while he, the

fugitive, crept down toward liberty and sunlight and the good green

world roofed with the good free sky.

The thought did not make for calmness. She said afterward that the tower

must have been haunted by the very spirit of fear, for a panic terror

came over her, something deeper and fiercer than anything Schultz could

inspire--at any rate, in this century--and a caution and care that such

as fear alone can teach. She slid from her hiding-place and down the

stair, and as she went she heard above her those other steps, now

returning. Nothing in the world seemed so good as the thought of the

sunshine and free air into which in another moment she would come out.

Round and round the spirals of the stone staircase went her noiseless,

flying feet; the sound of the feet that followed came louder and

quicker; a light showed at the bottom of the stairs; she rounded the

last curve with a catch of the breath that was almost a cry, and in her

eyes the vision of the fair, free outside world. She sprang toward green

grass and freedom and sunlight, and four dark walls received her. For

half-way down that tower the steps divide and she had passed the

division and taken the stairs that led down past the level of the earth.

And the light that had seemed to come through the doorway of the tower

came through the high-set window of a dungeon, and there was no way out

save by the stairs on which already she could hear feet descending. The

man who followed her had not missed the way.

To turn back and meet that man on the stairs was impossible. She stood

at bay. And she knew what the captive in old days must have felt--what

the rabbit feels when it is caught in the trap. She stood rigid, with

such an access of blind terror that the sight of the man, when he came

down the last three steps, was almost--no, quite--relief. She had not

fled from him, but from something more vague and more terrible. And when

he spoke fear left her altogether, and she asked herself, "How could I

have been so silly?"

"Miss Basingstoke?" He spoke on what he meant for a note of astonishment

and pleasure, but his acting was not so good as hers, and he had to

supplement it by adding, "This is, indeed, a delightful surprise."

"Oh, Mr. Schultz," she said, and quite gaily and lightly, too--"how

small the world is! Of all unlikely places to meet any one one knows!"

and she made to pass him and go up the stairs. But he stood square and

firm at the stair-foot.

"No hurry," he said, "no hurry--since we _have_ met. It is a wonderful

pleasure to me, Miss Basingstoke. Don't cut it short. And what have you

been doing all this long time?"

"Oh, traveling about," she answered, watching the stair-foot as the

rabbit from beside its burrow might watch the exit at which a terrier is

posted. "Just seeing England, you know. We neglect England too much,

don't you think, rushing off to the Riviera and Egypt and India and

places like that when all the while there are the most beautiful things

at home."

"I agree," he said, "the most beautiful things are in England," and lest

his meaning should escape her, added, with a jerk of a bow, "and the

most beautiful people." And still he stood there, smiling and not

moving.

"Have you your car with you?" she asked, for something to say.

"No, but I'll send for it if you like. We could have some pleasant

drives--Stratford, Shakespeare's birthplace--"

"We've been to Stratford," she put in, and went a step nearer to the

stair-foot.

"Then anywhere you like. Shall I send for the car?"

"Mr. Basingstoke," she said, quite untruly, "doesn't care much about

motoring."

"Mr.--? Oh, your brother! Well, we did very well without him before,

didn't we? Do you remember what a jolly drive we had, and a jolly

lunch; in point of fact, practically everything was jolly until _he_

turned up. I wished him far enough, I can tell you, and I hope you did.

Say you did."

"Of course I didn't," she had to say.

"Well, he'd no right to be stuffy if another fellow took care of you

when he couldn't be bothered to."

"You know it wasn't that. You know it was a mistake."

"I know a good deal," he said, "more than you think for." And he smiled,

trying to meet her eyes.

"It's cold here," she found herself saying. "I was just going up. I

don't like dungeons. Do you?"

"I like this one," said he. "Anywhere where _you_ are, don't you know--a

palace and all that--"

"I really must go," she said. "My brother won't know where I am."

"No," he said, with meaning, "he won't." And he set his two hands to the

pillars of the arch under which he stood and swayed to and fro, looking

at her.

"I must really go. Will you let me pass, Mr. Schultz, please."

"Not till you tell me to send for my car. I've set my heart on those

drives with you. Our brother can stay behind if he doesn't care for

motoring. _I_ don't want him, and I'll take care _you_ don't miss him."

"Do, please," she said, "let me pass."

"No," said he. "I've got you and I mean to keep you. Your brother--"

"He's not my brother," she said, on a sudden resolution. "We told you

that because, because--"

"Don't bother to explain," he said, smiling. That smile, in the days

when that dungeon _was_ a dungeon, might have cost him his life if the

lady before him had had a knife and the skill to use it. Even now it was

to cost him something.

"He's not my brother--we're married," she said. And at that he laughed.

"I know, my dear girl," he said. "I know all about it. But marriages

like that don't last forever, and they don't prevent another gentleman

playing for his own hand. I was there when he wasn't, and you let me

help you."

"I wish I hadn't," said she. "I wish I'd walked all the way to London

first. I didn't think--"

"You didn't think I'd got the sense to put two and two together," said

he; "but I have. Come, look here. I liked your looks from the first. I

thought-- Never mind about that, though. I was wrong. But even now I

like you better than any girl I've ever come across. Now, look here--"

"Don't say any more," she urged, almost wildly. "Don't! I am married.

You don't believe me, but I am. You were kind once; be kind now and let

me go--"

It was like a prisoner imploring a jailer.

"Let you go?" he echoed. "I know better. Not till you say, 'Send for the

motor,' and that you'll go out in it with me. Say that and you're free

as air."

And she might have said it, for the terror that lurked in that tower was

coming back, in a new dress, but the same terror. But he went on, "Come,

say it, and seal the bargain prettily."