MY LADY OF CLEEVE
[Illustration: “‘I give the lives of these gentlemen to you. Your
secret is your own’”
[p. 180]]
MY LADY OF
CLEEVE
BY
PERCY J. HARTLEY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HARRISON FISHER
AND
HERMAN PFEIFER
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1908
By DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
Published, January, 1908
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I OF HOW WE CAME TO CLEEVE 1
CHAPTER II OF THE LIGHT THAT SHONE IN THE FOG 17
CHAPTER III OF THE KING’S ERRAND AND OF MY LADY’S WELCOME 34
CHAPTER IV OF MY LADY’S MISSION TO EXETER 55
CHAPTER V OF HOW THREE GENTLEMEN OF DEVON DRANK THE
KING’S HEALTH 77
CHAPTER VI OF HOW I PLAYED KNIGHT-ERRANT AND OF MY LADY’S
GRATITUDE 97
CHAPTER VII OF CERTAIN PASSAGES IN THE ROSE GARDEN 117
CHAPTER VIII OF THE DUEL IN THE WOOD 136
CHAPTER IX OF HOW MY LADY PLAYED DELILAH 156
CHAPTER X OF HOW MY LADY PLAYED DELILAH--(_continued_) 176
CHAPTER XI OF WHAT BEFELL ON THE TERRACE 193
CHAPTER XII OF THE GENTLEMAN ABOARD THE GOOD SHIP “PRIDE OF
DEVON” 209
CHAPTER XIII OF THE LONELY HUT ON THE SHORE 230
CHAPTER XIV OF THE HOMECOMING OF HIS GRACE OF CLEEVE 248
CHAPTER XV OF THE COMING OF THE DUTCH DRAGOONS 269
CHAPTER XVI OF HOW I REPAID THE DEBT I OWED MY LADY 288
ILLUSTRATIONS
“‘I give the lives of these gentlemen to you.
Your secret is your own’” (p. 180) _Frontispiece_
“Descending the steps, she stood facing me
not ten paces distant” _facing_ 40
“‘You!’ my lady gasped in a choking voice” “ 90
“He leaned against its knotted trunk, while
the blood dripped steadily upon the grass” “ 146
“A very brief examination sufficed to assure
me that the fellow was but stunned” “ 224
“On the threshold stood the Earl of Cleeve
himself” “ 262
MY LADY OF CLEEVE
CHAPTER I
OF HOW WE CAME TO CLEEVE
“YONDER is Cleeve!” said the sergeant.
I held up my hand and the troopers halted. The rain, which had been
falling steadily since noon, had now ceased; and a watery gleam
of sunshine bursting from the sullen stormclouds overhead lighted
up the crest of the hill upon which we stood, and the well-wooded
Cleeve valley below us, than which there is none more beautiful in
all Devonshire. Behind us lay the barren surface of the torrs--mile
upon mile of rock-strewn, wind-swept summits--thrusting their gaunt
and rugged outlines high into the air in spurs as varied as they were
fantastical. But at our feet the ground fell sharply away, covered
with a wealth of golden gorse and bracken and scattered clumps of
timber that grew ever thicker toward the bottom of the valley;
yielding nevertheless the glimpse of a white road which wound its way
serpentlike down the centre.
Here and there also the glitter of water showed through the trees,
where some streamlet kissed by the sun’s rays shone with the radiance
of burnished silver. From thence the woods rose in one dense mass upon
the opposite slope, until they broke at length upon the very edge of
the rocky cliffs that guard this portion of the coast, and beyond these
again were the dark green waters of the Channel.
It was a scene that at any other time would have compelled my ardent
admiration. The fertile valley nestling at our feet, clothed with
its rich carpet of oaks and beeches, and rendered doubly welcome by
contrast with the bleak, treeless surface of the torrs through which
we had toiled since daybreak. But befouled with mud, wet and weary,
we were in no condition to mark its beauties or to appreciate them.
Moreover, though it was yet early June, a cold wind was rising,
rustling in the treetops below us and bringing with it the odour of the
sea.
As we sat there upon the brow of the hill, the steam from our jaded
horses rising around us, we shivered in our saddles. For the last two
hours, save for a muttered oath from one or other of the troopers
when their weary animals stumbled, we had ridden for the most part in
silence. Even Graham--gayest and most debonnaire of cornets--had scarce
opened his lips save to answer some remark in monosyllables. And that
fact alone was more significant than words to prove to what a state of
depression the lonely torrs and the falling rain had reduced us. He had
fallen somewhat behind with De Brito, but they spurred forward now upon
seeing me halt. I had, I confess, no great liking for Cornet Brito;
though to give him his due, had he paid less attention to the wine
bottle he had the making of a good sword. But his was a coarse, brutal
nature--sullen, revengeful, and without restraint--alien alike in every
respect to my own. For I hold that a man may be forced to live by the
wits that Nature has provided him with--he may be forced to sell his
sword and service to the highest bidder--but he need not forget, thank
God, that he was born a gentleman.
As for Cornet Graham, he was a merry, careless-hearted boy in
appearance, with an eye for every comely maid, and a mind, one would
have thought, running only upon the sit of his peruke or the latest
fashion in sword knots. Yet his slight figure and fair boyish face
belied his nature, which was as keen and ruthless as any of the
troopers plodding at our heels. Even now I noted at a glance that
though he was as wet through as the rest of us, no mud splash soiled
his clothes. And his white cravat limp though it was, was yet tied in a
fashion that would have done credit to the Mall or St. James’s. Indeed,
to him London was the world.
“A curse on these endless hills!” said De Brito sullenly, as they drew
rein at my side. “Why do we halt?”
For answer I pointed to where some three miles to our right, on the
opposite side of the valley, and perched apparently upon the very
edge of the cliff, the grey stone chimneys of a house rose above the
surrounding trees. Beyond this the mighty head of Cleevesborough reared
itself into the sky. And at its foot, marked by the smoke which hung,
motionless, in the heavy air above it, lay the little port of Cleeve,
to which it gives its name.
“Yonder is our goal!” I said curtly.
’Twas a sight to see the way in which his dark face brightened at the
prospect.
“Then push on, in the devil’s name!” he cried querulously. “There is an
inn at Cleeve?”
“I do not know,” I answered shortly, my mind running at the time upon
far other matters.
“Who talks of inns at such a moment?--though an inn there is, and a
good one!” said Cornet Graham. “But there is a woman yonder,--to see
whose face is worth twenty such wettings.”
“Perdition take the woman!” growled De Brito in reply. “Give me a
roaring fire and a cup of sack to keep out this cursed wet! Burn me!
Women are as plentiful as blackberries; aye, and as cheap for the
plucking.”
“But not such as this one!” cried the younger man with some heat. “’Tis
five years ago, I swear, since I saw her first in London. But she was
accounted then the toast of the Court by those most competent to judge
in such matters; aye, even by King Charles himself--may the devil rest
his soul! He deserved well of his people, seeing that he did his best
to be a father to them.”
“So that, but for the accident of his death, we might have had a
second Castlemaine,” I put in sneeringly. The mention of this woman,
about whom the cornet had raved unceasingly since he had learned our
destination, jarred upon my ears. He shook his head in dubious fashion.
“You do not know her,” he answered reflectively. “Proud as Lucifer,
she is no woman to play the wanton, even to a king! Cold as proud, she
is----”
“Pshaw, man! For shame! ’Tis my belief you think more of this paragon
of virtue’s face than of the business that we have in hand.”
“Why not?” he cried quickly. “’Fore gad! Spies and Papists are common
enough at present, but there is only one Lady Lettice Ingram, and--why,
curse it, Cassilis, she is one of the loveliest women in England--the
favourite toast of every tavern in town!”
“Such is fame!” I remarked caustically, and fell to scanning the house
again. And I confess that the longer I gazed, the more difficult
appeared my task.
For these were stirring times, and it behooved every man to keep a
still tongue and a ready blade. All England was divided into two
factions. The one still clinging to the restoration of the Stuart in
the person of James II, the other content to follow the fortunes of
Dutch William. Moreover, in every shire throughout the country were
the spies and agents of the French king, working in secret to foment a
rising among the Catholics. For Louis XIV. must have a finger in every
European pie.
It was to arrest one of these agents--no less a person than the Marquis
de Launay--that I had been sent hastily from Exeter, information coming
to the authorities that he was in hiding at Cleeve Manor, an old Tudor
mansion on the coast of Torbay belonging to the Ingram family, who
were staunch upholders of the old religion, and the head of whom it
was whispered was already with King James in Ireland, and high in his
favour.
As I sat now, pondering upon the best way to carry out my orders, I
saw at a glance that, standing as it did upon the edge of the cliff,
to ride up to the front of the manor would be to render it an easy
task for our quarry to escape by sea. Clearly, by some means we must
gain the beach, in order to cut off any such method of escape from the
rear. Accordingly, I told off the sergeant and a dozen men for this
duty, with whom I purposed going myself, bidding the two cornets to lie
hidden with the remainder of the troop until dark, and to then follow
the road leading to the manor. Arrived there, Cornet Graham was to
surround the front of the house, but to await an agreed signal between
us ere he attempted to force an entrance. Meanwhile, De Brito and
twenty troopers would ride on and overawe the village, a task which I
knew would be both welcome and congenial to his temperament; nor was I
wrong in so thinking. As I made an end of my instructions, he drew his
thick and grizzled brows together in a sullen scowl that boded mischief.
“You need fear no trouble from that quarter,” he said grimly. “I know
my work too well.”
“Aye, but none of your devil’s tricks here!” I retorted sharply. “We
are not in Tangiers!”
For a moment his swarthy face wore an ugly look and his fingers sought
his hilt. But he thought better of it.
“Leave me to do my own business in my own way!” he muttered sullenly.
“Give me the village and the tavern--and slit me if I interfere with
you in the matter of the dainty doves yonder!” And he nodded in the
direction of the house.
His tone was one of such studied insolence that at any other time I
should have called him to account. As it was, I shrugged my shoulders
contemptuously and turned to Cornet Graham. On my life, he had pulled a
little comb from his pocket and with this he was endeavouring to smooth
his matted periwig.
“Remember,” I said warningly, “M. de Launay is to be taken alive.”
“If he is there at all,” he answered, “and this does not prove a fool’s
errand!”
“It is like enough to be that,” I said carelessly, “since it is a
king’s. But be consoled. At least, you will see this Venus!”
He cried out something at that, but I did not stay to hear. I gathered
up my reins and, with a wave of the hand, rode after the troopers.
They had halted at the edge of the road awaiting my orders, and I
saw that the sergeant had made a careful selection for the arduous
work they had before them. As they sat there in their saddles, their
fierce, swarthy faces bronzed to a coppery hue by the scorching suns of
Tangiers, their coats, once red--worn and faded to a mottled purple,
they were as ill-favoured a set of rogues as one could meet, not even
excepting Kirk’s Lambs. I placed myself at their head, therefore, and
leaving the road behind us, we plunged at once into the woods. So
dense were these that ere we had proceeded more than a quarter of a
mile I was compelled to dismount the men and to send back our horses
in charge of two of their number. With the remaining troopers at my
heels, I essayed to make the ascent on foot. Nor was it an easy task
even then. From every branch the raindrops dripped upon us, so that,
wet before, we were doubly so ere we had advanced but a short distance.
Tripping over roots, torn by brambles, a dozen times we came down upon
our faces, rendering us in a truly pitiable condition when at length we
reached the summit. Nor did luck befriend us even then.
In front of us and on either side the woods spread to the edge of
the cliff, the latter falling sheer away to give us a sight of the
white-capped rollers, over which the gulls were wheeling, three hundred
feet below, and with no sign of a path by which we might gain the
shore. We separated now, making our way right and left as fast as
the thick growth and the slippery nature of the ground would permit,
while in my heart I cursed the delay, for the light was fading fast.
It was not long before a shout from one of the troopers proclaimed
that he had stumbled upon that which we sought. I made my way to his
side as quickly as possible, and found him standing on the brink of a
little combe, a mere cleft in the hillside, its sides thickly wooded,
and with a swift stream, swollen by the rains from the torrs above,
flowing in a succession of white-lipped falls down its centre. It was
not an inviting road to take, and I would willingly have sought for a
more open spot, but we had already lost more time than we could well
spare, and dusk had fallen on the silent woods. Moreover, the heavy
grey clouds, drifting low from the direction of the sea, momentarily
grew darker and more threatening, giving promise of further rain. I
rallied the troopers, therefore, at the head of the combe, and with the
sergeant at my heels, plunged into the glen.
At first the ground was fairly open, and we were enabled to make good
progress through the thickets of alders and rushes that fringed the
banks of the stream, but ever as we advanced the green walls of the
glen grew steeper and narrower, until we were forced to take to the
stream itself, making our way from stone to stone that lay mossgrown
and prostrate in its bed, or at times wading ankle deep through some
shallow pool. It was as if we were cut off from the world. A damp,
earthy smell, begotten of the winter’s leaves’ decay, filled the air.
There was no sound save the song of the water swirling at our feet
as it brawled amongst the pebbles and chafed in its narrow course,
the occasional fall of a branch upon the hillside above, and in the
distance the ever-increasing murmur of the sea.
For over half a mile we proceeded thus, so that it was with no little
satisfaction that at length we saw the light, such as it was, gradually
strengthening in front of us. Now the trees grew thinner, admitting a
breath of sea air, which stole through their twisted trunks and fanned
our faces. As we continued to advance, the glen as suddenly receded,
and a moment or two later we came out upon the beach.
We found ourselves in a little shingle-covered bay, the extremities of
which were shut in by the rocks, giving us no sight of what lay beyond.
Above our heads on either side towered a mighty wall of rock, its grey,
rugged surface broken here and there by patches of withered grass. And
here the sergeant, who was a few paces in front of me, suddenly stopped.
He was a grizzled, battle-scarred veteran of the wars of Flanders,
with whom I had once made a campaign upon the Rhine, and to whom for
that reason I allowed some freedom. His looks, ill-favoured enough at
best, were in no way improved by the scar of an old sword cut gained in
some wild foray against the Turk, which scar, starting from his right
eyebrow, stretched crosswise to his chin; twisting both nose and lips
to their utter detriment and imparting a peculiarly forbidding and
saturnine expression to his face.
“What is it?” I said sharply. “Why do you halt, man? The tide is out,
and the light will serve.”
“Aye,” he answered slowly, “the tide is out, but----”
“But what?” I cried impatiently. “Come, out with it if you have
anything to say!”
“Well, I like not that!” he rejoined with some hesitation, pointing out
to sea.
Following the direction of his outstretched arm, away over the surface
of the water, some two miles distant, but creeping each minute slowly
and insidiously nearer, stretched a white wall of vapour, beneath which
gleamed the foam-crested summits of the waves.
“Well?” I said contemptuously. “What of it? Have you never seen a sea
fog before, or are you afraid?” I continued with a sneer.
“Neither of man nor devil!” he retorted with some heat. And to do him
justice, I knew that he spoke truth. “But this--this is different. To
be caught against that”--he nodded toward the cliff--“and to be drowned
like rats!”
I saw that his words were not without effect. The troopers, already
wearied by the day’s exertions, glanced askance at one another and
began to mutter. At all hazards this must be stopped, and at once. I
faced round on them.
“Who talks of drowning?” I cried angrily. “Curse you for a fool, man!
’Tis but a mile to go at most. But if you fear to venture, sergeant,”
I continued, “you can return the way we came. And stay, I will send a
couple of men back with you to bear you company; you will find it dark
in the glen!”
He saluted at that, a flush of shame upon his face.
“Very well,” he said slowly; “let it be forward then. Only--I have
warned you.”
“And you others!” I continued in a fierce tone, turning upon them and
letting my hand fall lightly upon the butt of the pistol in my sash.
“Have you anything to say, or do you forget who I am, you knaves? I
will find a quicker death than yonder waves for the first man among you
who questions my orders!”
I looked them squarely in the face, and their muttering died away.
Steeped as they were in crime and license, I was their master, and they
knew it. For a moment or two longer I remained silent to give full
effect to my words, but not a man spoke.
“Forward then!” I said shortly; and we set off along the beach.
Not that their fears were altogether without foundation. The intense
loneliness of the spot, increased as it was by the gathering dusk, was
sufficient to daunt the stoutest heart. The wind was rising, moaning in
the cavernous hollows and crevices of the cliff, from which came ever
and anon the weird cry of some sea fowl, circling round its nest in the
rocky wall above. And save for this there was no other sound but the
hoarse murmur of the swift, incoming tide.
Rounding the rocks which screened the bay, we found ourselves in a
second one, a complete replica of the first. And beyond us, headland
upon headland, serrated against the darkening sky, stretched faint and
shadowy into the far distance.
Our progress was slow, for the beach was composed of small,
slate-coloured pebbles, flattened and rounded by the wash of
endless surges, and into which our heavy military boots sank deep
at every step. Here and there we were forced to skirt some mass of
lichen-covered rocks; which, torn from the cliff side, lay scattered
upon the shore at its base, their sharp, needle-like summits wreathed
with tangled seaweed and their caves and hollows filled with the
flotsam of the tides.
And now the fog rolled down upon us, at first in thin wreaths of
vapour that floated in ghost-like silence like the first sentinels
of an advancing army, but growing ever thicker and thicker as they
approached landwards, until they wrapped us completely round in their
damp embrace, blotting out everything from our vision save the wall of
cliff upon our right, which loomed dark and menacing through the mist.
The wind rose as suddenly to a gale, sending the fog wreaths eddying
around us, and bringing with it a cold rain that at every successive
gust beat in our faces, blinding and confusing us. A hundred times I
cursed my folly and recalled the sergeant’s warning. He was at my elbow
now, at times his figure appearing distorted and giant-like as the fog
thinned somewhat; anon banishing altogether from my vision, swallowed
up by the mist.
How long we struggled on thus, buffeted by the wind and rain, falling
over the jutting rocks, I do not know; but it was in a lull in the
gale, when the wind died down for a moment and the fog lifted, that I
felt myself seized by the arm and plucked violently backward. It was
none too soon. From out of the mist ahead appeared a green wall of
water capped with foam. Down it thundered, breaking upon the pebbles at
my feet, sending the salt spume flying above my head and swirling round
my knees in a cataract of foam.
Even then, so sudden was the surprise, that the backwash was like to
have swept me from my feet; but the sergeant’s grip tightened upon my
arm and dragged me back to safety. And in a moment I realised what had
happened. We had reached the end of the bay, into which the sea had
already entered. I put my lips to the sergeant’s ear.
“Back to the cliff,” I shouted, “and climb, man! Climb, or----”
There was no need to finish the sentence. Not a man there but knew our
danger. We began to retrace our steps. It had grown so dark now that
it was only when the curtain of fog parted to a more violent gust than
usual that I was enabled to distinguish the form of the trooper upon my
right. The rain which we had experienced all day was as nothing to that
which fell upon us now. It descended in sheets, drenching us to the
skin and numbing us with its icy cold. For a while, indeed, a species
of coma seized me. I thought of the cornets waiting in the roadway
above, and wondered idly whether they would succeed in achieving the
arrest of the man we had come so far to seek, and whether, by chance,
upon the morrow they would find some relic of our party floating in the
wash of the tide to tell the story of our fate, for I did not deceive
myself. To climb the cliff even in the daylight would have been a
hard enough feat; to do so at night, in the darkness and fog, was an
impossibility. And though I was willing enough for the troopers’ sake
to make the attempt--aye, and to encourage the effort--yet in my heart
I knew that there could be but one ending.
It seemed hard, I remember thinking dully, that a man who had passed
unscathed through the perils of many battlefields--hard for a man who
had made a campaign with Montecuccoli, and whose arms had held the
great Turenne as he fell from his horse, struck down by a cannon-ball
upon the banks of the Rhine--to be drowned at the last in a little
bay upon the lonely Devon coast. I was aroused from these reflections
by the sound of an oath and a heavy fall, as the trooper upon my left
stumbled over a black mass which loomed up suddenly in his path. He was
on his feet again ere I could reach his side, and gave vent to such a
ringing shout that it pierced above the gale and brought us all around
him. That which he had fallen over, very providentially as it proved
for us, was a boat anchored to the beach by a short length of rope
fastened to a stone. With renewed hope we scattered again in search of
the path which the inmates of the manor must have been in the habit of
using when passing to and fro to this small craft. At length an idea
struck me, and raising my hand to pass it carefully over the rocky wall
above me at a little above the level of my shoulder, I came upon a
ledge. By climbing upon the sergeant’s bent back, I was enabled to draw
myself up to it at the cost of a few bruises, and to clamber upon its
flat surface.
It was, as near as I could judge, some ten feet square, and in the far
corner my hands came in contact with a flight of steps leading upwards,
roughly hewn in the cliff side. Five minutes later the whole party of
us stood upon a little platform, side by side. And then, drawing a long
breath, I essayed to make the ascent.
There were eighteen steps in all, giving place to a path, a mere
narrow ledge on the surface of the cliff, at no place more than four
feet wide, and with a sheer drop upon the one side to the beach
below. Along this we crept, at every fresh gust of wind flattening
ourselves against the rocky wall upon the right and clinging to its
jagged fissures. It was a weird experience, I vow, to be suspended
thus ’twixt sea and sky; no sound save the whistling of the wind in
the crannies of the cliff, the roar of the pitiless surges below us,
or the harsh scream of a gull from the mist out at sea. Yet I have
travelled this same path since by daylight, and I have often thought
that the thickness of the fog upon that night was most fortunate for
us, sparing us, as it did, the full knowledge of the yawning which lay
at our side, the sight of which might well have turned the strongest
head giddy. Even as it was, at a place where the ledge took a sharp
turning, a sudden blast struck me with such violence that, taken off
my guard, for a moment I was in danger of being torn from my foothold,
and only by driving my nails into a crack of the rock until the fingers
themselves were left all raw and bleeding was I enabled to withstand
its boisterous pressure.
The breeze passed. And taking courage of my experience, I made haste
to round the dangerous corner, shouting back a word of warning to the
file of men creeping at my heels. Even as we ascended the noise of the
waves grew fainter, until, after travelling some twenty minutes thus,
a new sound was added to the patter of the rain upon the side of the
cliff--namely, the howl of the wind in the treetops above us.
A last effort as the way grew steeper yet, and I gained the summit, to
fling myself panting and exhausted upon the turf in the thick darkness
beyond.