The state in which I crawled back to the house after this encounter
maybe conceived but not described. From an exaltation of mind to which
the epithet delirious might be applied with propriety, I fell in an
instant to a depth of abjectness as monstrous as my late felicity, but
more real and reasonable. All the things, on my escape from which I
had been congratulating myself, now lay before me, and formed a vista
as gloomy as the point to which it tended was dreadful. To be a slave
to the woman and man who had ruined my youth; to live outwardly at
ease, while inwardly devoured by daily and hourly terror; to hang
between the choice of danger or baseness, comfort or treachery; to
discern in my own destruction or my patron's the inevitable ending;
beyond all, to foresee that I should choose the evil and eschew the
good, and to wish it otherwise and be powerless to change it--these
things, and particularly the last, filled me with anticipations of
misery so great that I rolled on my bed, and cursed Providence and my
fate; and next day went down so pale, and ill, and woe-begone that the
servants took note of it.
"Pheugh, Mr. Price," said Martin, "you might be Charnock himself, or
Keyes, poor devil! You could not look more like hanging! What is it?"
I muttered that I was not well.
"It is Keyes I am sorry for," continued the steward, who was taking
his morning draught, "if so be they go to the end with him. I have
heard of a master given up by his servant, but never before of a
servant hung on his master's evidence--and his master the one that
drew him into it! Hang Captain Porter, say I! A fine Captain!"
"Oh, they will let the poor devil live," said another.
"Keyes?"
"Ay."
"Not they!" said Mr. Martin with great appearance of wisdom. "He was
in the Blues, do you see, my man, and if it spread there? No, he will
swing. He will swing for the example. Don't you think so, Mr. Price?
You are in there with my lord, and should know."
But I muttered something and escaped, finding solitude and my own
reflections as tolerable as their gossip. A little later, my lord,
sending for me, kept me close at work until evening; which was so far
fortunate, as the employment, by diverting my thoughts, helped to lift
me out of the panic into which I had fallen. True, the news that the
three conspirators were found guilty and were to die the following
Monday, exactly as Smith had foretold, threw me again into the cold
fit, and heralded another night of misery. But as it is not possible
for mortals to lie long under the same peril without the sense of
danger losing its edge, in three days I began to find life bearable.
The stateliness of the household, the silence and books that
surrounded me, the regular hours and steady employment soothed my
nerves; and Smith making no sign, and nothing occurring to indicate
that he meant to keep his word or summon me to fulfil mine, I lulled
myself into the belief that all was a dream.
Yet I was very far from being happy: to be that, with such
apprehensions as never quite left me, was beyond my philosophy. And I
had rude awakenings. One day it was the execution of Charnock, King,
and Keyes at Tyburn, followed by the hawking of their last dying
speeches and confessions in the streets, that jogged me out of my
fancied security, and sent me sick and white-faced from the windows.
Another it was the sentence on Sir John Friend and Sir William
Perkins, the two elderly citizens whom I had twice seen among the
plotters, and never without wondering how they came to be of the gang.
A little later, three more suffered, and again the Square rang with
the shrill cries of the chapmen who peddled their last speeches from
door to door. Against all these Captain Porter and a man commonly
called "Scum Goodman," both _participes criminis_, and persons of the
most infamous character, bore witness; their evidence being
corroborated by that of a man of higher standing, Mr. Prendergast.
Whether they could not prove against Cassel and Ferguson, or reasons
of State intervened, these, with several of their fellows, lay in
prison untried; a course which, in other circumstances, might have
involved the Government in obloquy. But so keen at this time was the
general feeling against the plotters, and so high the King's
popularity that he might have shed more blood had he chosen. Here,
however, the executions stopped; and his Majesty showing mercy if not
indulgence, the hue and cry, despite the popular indignation,
gradually slackened until it was restricted to Sir John Fenwick, who
was believed to be still in hiding in the country, and on whose
punishment the King was reported to be firmly set.
How deeply these events and rumours, which formed the staple of
conversation during the summer of '96, troubled my existence, I leave
to the imagination; provising only that in proportion to the outward
quiet of my life was the power to agitate which they exerted.
Moreover, there were times when a terror more substantial trespassed
on my peace. One day going hastily into the hall I found the servants
all peeping, Mr. Martin holding open the door, a dozen faces staring
curiously in from the sunshine of the Square, and my lord standing,
very stiff, on the threshold of his room, while in the middle of the
floor stood a scowling man, flashily dressed.
The Duke was speaking when I appeared. "At the office, sir," I heard
him say. "You misunderstood me. I can see you there only."
"Your Grace is hard on me," the man muttered with a glance that would
be rebellious, and was hang-dog. "I have done the King good service,
and this is the way I am requited. It is enough----"
"It is more than enough. Captain Porter," my lord said, quietly taking
him up. "At the office, if you please. This house is for my friends."
"And the King's friends? They may shift for themselves?" the
wretch--who even then wore finery bought with blood--cried bitterly.
"The King is served in many ways," my lord answered with a fine air of
contempt. "Martin, the door! And remember, another time I am not
within to Captain Porter. At three in the office, sir, if you please."
The man slunk away at that; but as he passed through the doorway, I
heard him mutter that when Sir John Fenwick was taken he would see;
and that proud as some people were now, they might be glad to save
their necks when the time came. He passed out of sight then, and
hearing my lord speak, I turned, and saw Matthew Smith, whom I had not
before noticed, waiting on him with a letter. The Duke, pausing on the
threshold of the library, broke the seal, and ran his eye over the
paper.
"I will send an answer," he said, "later in the day. Or----" and he
looked up quickly. "Are you returning, sir?"
"If your Grace pleases."
"It shall be ready then by two o'clock," my lord answered stiffly.
"Good-morning."
"Good-morning, your Grace."
And my lord went in. The colloquy had been of the slightest; but I had
noted that my patron's tone, when he spoke to Smith, was guarded and
civil, if distant, and that through the few formal words they had
exchanged peered a sort of understanding. This shook me; and when
Smith turned to me, a faint sneer on his lips, and told me that I was
a bold man, my heart was water. He was at home here as everywhere;
what could I do against him?
"Do you understand, Mr. Price?" he repeated. "Or are you a bigger fool
than I take you for?"
"Why?" I stammered.
"Why? Why, to push in on Porter after that fashion," he muttered under
his breath--for Martin was making towards us. "Lucky he did not
recognize you and denounce you! For a groat he would do it--or to
spite the Duke! Take care, man," he continued seriously, "if you do
not want to join Charnock, whose head is in airy quarters to-night."
This left me the prey of a new terror; for remembering that I had once
seen Porter at Ferguson's lodging, I could not shut my eyes to the
reasonableness of the warning. I saw myself beset by dangers on that
side also, went for a time on eggs, and trembled at every sound;
indeed, for a full fortnight I never passed the threshold--excusing
myself on the ground of vertigo, if ordered to go on errands. In the
course of that fortnight I had a thousand opportunities of contrasting
the quiet in which I lived, behind the dull windows of the great
house, with the dangers into which I might at any moment be flung; and
if any man ever repented of anything, I repented of my lack of candour
respecting Smith. From time to time I saw him pass--grim, reserved, a
walking menace. When he looked up at the windows, I read mastery and a
secret knowledge in his eye; while the way in which he went and came,
free and unquestioned, was itself a monition; was it to be wondered
that I feared this man, who, while Charnock's head mouldered on a
spike on Temple Bar, and Friend and Perkins passed to the gallows,
walked the Strand, and lounged in the Mall, as safe in appearance as
my lord himself?
I knew that at any moment he might call upon me to fulfil my word.
Whether in that case, the demand being such as to allow me leisure to
forecast the consequences, I should have complied, or taking my
courage in my hands, have thrown myself on my lord's indulgence, I
cannot now say; for in the issue a sudden and unforeseen shifting of
scene prevented my calculations, and hurried me onwards, whether I
would or no.
It happened, I have said, suddenly. One afternoon there came a great
bustle in the Square; and who should it be but the Countess, my lord's
mother, come to visit him in her coach-and-six, with such a
paraphernalia of gentlewomen and negro pages, outriders, and running
footmen, as drew together all the ragamuffins from the mews, and
fairly brought back King Charles's days. As the great coach, which
held six inside, swung and lumbered to a stand at the door, I saw a
painted face, with bold black eyes, glaring from the window, cheek by
jowl with a parrot and three or four spaniels; and I waited to see
little more, a single glance sufficing to certify me that this was the
same lady to whose house Smith had taken me. Smith was in attendance
on her, and a gentleman in a plain black suit and wig--who was a
Papist priest if I ever saw one--and Monterey, and two or three other
gentlewomen; and, as I had no mind to be recognised by these, or for
that matter, by their mistress, I made haste to retire behind the
flock of servants whom Martin had marshalled in the hall to do the
honours.
My lord went out to the coach and brought the Countess in, with a
great show of reverence; and for three-quarters of an hour they were
closeted together in his room. I took advantage of this to retire
upstairs, and had been wiser had I stayed there, or better still,
slipped out at the back. But a craving came on me to see Monterey
again, and with the knowledge I now had, ascertain if she really was
my old mistress. This drew me to the hall again, where, the crowd
being great, and the servants taken up with teasing the Countess's
parrot and blackamoors, I managed to avoid observation, and at the
same time see what I wanted. The woman who had once been all the world
to me--and of whom I could not now think without a tender regret,
directed, not to her, but to the state of blissful, dawning passion,
of which she had been the cause, and whereof no man is twice
capable--was still handsome in a coarse fashion, and when seen at a
distance. I could not deny that. But if I desired revenge, I had it;
for not only was her complexion gone, so that her good looks vanished
when the viewer approached, but her lips had grown thin, and her face
hard, with the indescribable hardness which speaks of past sin long
grown bitter--and an hourly, daily recognition that the wage of sin is
death.
Presently, while Mr. Martin was pressing his civilities on her, and I,
from a corner near the door through which I had let Mary escape, was
curiously reading her countenance, the door of my lord's room opened,
and the Countess came out, supported on the one side by the Duke's
arm, on the other by her great ebony cane. The servants hurried to
form two lines; and I suppose curiosity led me to press nearer than
was prudent, or her eyes were of peculiar sharpness; or perhaps she
looked for me, and had I not been there would have called for me. At
any rate, she had not moved three steps towards her coach before her
gaze, roving along the line of servants, alighted on me; and she
stood.
"I'll have _that_ rascal!" she cried in her high, shrill voice--and
she pointed at me with her cane, and stood. "He looks as if butter
would not melt in his mouth, but if he is not a lad of wax, call me a
street slut! Hark you, my man; you come with me. Bid him, Shrewsbury!"
My lord, his face flushing, spoke low, and seemed to make demur; but
she persisted.
"Odd's life; you make me sick!" she cried irritably. "You will not
this, and you fancy that! The servants---- Go to for a fool! In my
time master was master, and if any blabbed, man or maid, it was strip
and whip! But now--do you quarrel with me, or do you not?"
The Duke shrugged his shoulders, and smiled uneasily. "Times are
somewhat changed, madam," he said.
"Ay, by our lord, they are," she cried, swearing roundly. "And why?
Because there are no men nowadays, but mealy-mouthed Josephs, like
that trembler yonder, whose heart is in his boots because I want him
carry a message." And she pointed to me with her long cane, while her
head quivered with excitement and age. "Sort him out; sort him out and
send him with me; or we quarrel, my lord."
"Well, madam, your will is law in this house," the Duke said;
"but----"
"But no lies!" she cried. "D'ye send him."
My lord bowed reluctantly. "Go," he said, looking at me.
"And bid him do as I tell him," she cried sharply. "But he had better,
or---- Still, tell him, tell him."
"Price," my lord said soberly, "the Countess is good enough to wish
you to do an errand for her. Be good enough to consider yourself at
her disposal, and go with the coach now. Be easy," he continued,
nodding pleasantly--it was impossible for me to hide my
apprehensions--"her ladyship needs you for a week only."
"Ay, sure!" she cried. "After that he may go to the devil for me!"