AN INTERRUPTED WOOING
Sir Charles pushed forward the big chair for Patricia, and himself
dropped upon a stool at her feet. Taking her fan from her, he began to
play with it, lightly commenting on the picture of the Rape of Europa
with which it was adorned. Suddenly he closed it, tossed it aside, and
leaning forward, possessed himself of her hand.
"Madam, sweet cousin, divinest Patricia," he exclaimed in a carefully
impassioned tone; "do you not know that I am your slave, the captive of
your bow and spear, that I adore you? I adore you! and you,
flinty-hearted goddess, give no word of encouragement to your prostrate
worshiper. You trample upon the offering of sighs and tears which he
lays at your feet; you will not listen when he would pour into your ear
his aspirations towards a sweeter and richer life than he has ever
known. Will it be ever thus? Will not the goddess stoop from her throne
to make him the happiest of mortals, to win his eternal gratitude, to
become herself forever the object of the most respectful, the most
ardent, the most devoted love?"
He flung himself upon his knee and pressed her hand to his heart with
passion not all affected. He had come to consider it a piece of
monstrous good luck, that, since he must make a wealthy match,
Providence (or whatever as a Hobbist he put in place of Providence),
had, in pointing him the fortune, pointed also to Patricia Verney. But
the night before, in the privacy of his chamber, he had suddenly sat up
between the Holland sheets with a startled and amused expression upon
his handsome face, swathed around with a wonderful silken night-cap, and
had exclaimed to the carven heads surmounting the bed-posts, "May the
Lard sink me! but I'm in love!" and had lain down again with an
astonished laugh. While sipping his morning draught he made up his mind
to secure the prize that very day, in pursuance of which determination
he made a careful toilet, assuming a suit that was eminently becoming to
his blonde beauty. Also his valet slightly darkened the lower lids of
his eyes, thereby giving him a larger, more languishing and melancholy
aspect.
Patricia, from the depths of the Turkey worked chair, gazed with calm
amusement upon her kneeling suitor.
"You talk beautifully, cousin," she said at length. "'Tis as good as a
page from 'Artemene.'"
Sir Charles bit his lip. "It is a page from my heart, madam; nay, it is
my heart itself that I show you."
"And would you forsake all those beautiful ladies who are so madly in
love with you?--I vow, sir, you told me so yourself! Let me see, there
was Lady Mary and Lady Betty, Mistress Winifred, the Countess of ---- and
Madame la Duchesse de ----. Will Corydon leave all the nymphs lamenting
to run after a little salvage wench who does not want him?"
"'S death, madam! you mock me!" cried the baronet, starting to his
feet.
"Sure, I meant no harm, cousin; I but put in a good word for the poor
ladies at Whitehall. I fear that you are but a recreant wooer."
"Will you marry me, madam?" demanded Sir Charles, standing before her
with folded arms.
She slowly shook her head. "I do not love you, cousin."
"I will teach you to do so."
"I do not think you can," she said demurely. "Though I am sure I do not
know why I do not. You are a very fine gentleman, a soldier and a
courtier, witty, brave and handsome--and this match"--a sigh--"is my
father's dearest wish. But I do not love you, sir, and I shall not marry
you until I do."
"Ah!" cried Sir Charles, and sunk again upon his knee. "You give me
hope! I will teach you to love me! I will exhibit towards you such
absolute fidelity, such patient devotion, such uncomplaining submission
to your cruel probation, that you will perforce pity me, and pity will
grow by soft degrees into blessed love. I do not despair, madam!" He
pressed her hand to his lips and cast his fine eyes upward in a killing
look.
Patricia gave a charming laugh. "As you please, Sir Charles. In the mean
time let us be once more simply good friends and loving cousins. Tell me
as much as you please of Lady Mary's charms, but leave Patricia Verney's
alone."
Sir Charles rose from his knees, smarting under an amazed sense of
failure, and very angry with the girl who had discarded him, Charles
Carew, as smilingly as if he had been one of the very provincial youths
whom he awed into awkward silence every time they came to Verney Manor.
Without doubt she deserved the condign punishment which it was in his
power to inflict by sailing away upon the next ship which should leave
for England. But he was now obstinately bent upon winning her. If not
to-day, to-morrow; and if not to-morrow, the next day; and if not that,
the day after. He was of the school of Buckingham and Rochester. He
could devote to the capture of a woman all the tireless energy, the
strategic skill, the will, the patience, the daring, of a great general.
He could mine and countermine, could plan an ambuscade here, and lead a
forlorn hope there, could take one intrenchment by storm, and another by
treachery. And victory seldom forsook her perch upon his banners.
Life in Virginia was pleasant enough, and he could afford to devote
several months to this siege. As to how it would terminate he had not
the slightest doubt. But just now it was the course of wisdom to retreat
upon the position held yesterday, and that as quickly as possible. So he
smoothed his face into a fine calm, modulated his voice into its usual
tone of languor, and said with quiet melancholy:--
"You are pleased to be cruel, madam. I submit. I will bide my time until
that thrice happy day when you will have learnt the lesson I would
teach, when Love, tyrannous Love, shall compel your allegiance as he
does mine."
"A far day!" said Patricia with soft laughter. "You had best return to
Lady Mary. I do not think that I shall ever love."
She lifted her white arms, and clasping them behind her head, gazed at
him with soft, bright, untroubled eyes and smiling lips. The sunlight,
filtering through the darkened windows in long bright stripes, laid a
shaft of gold athwart her shoulder and lit her hair into a glory. From
out the distance came the colonel's voice:--
"In his train see sweet Peace, fairest Queen of the sky,
Ev'ry bliss in her look, ev'ry charm in her eye.
Whilst oppression, corruption, vile slav'ry and fear
At his wished for return never more shall appear.
Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,
In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."
Some one outside the door coughed, and then rattled the latch
vigorously. These precautions taken, the door was opened and there
appeared Mistress Lettice, gorgeously attired, and with an extra row of
ringlets sweeping her withered neck, and a deeper tinge of vermilion
upon her cheeks,--for she had waked that morning with a presentiment
that Mr. Frederick Jones would ride over in the course of the day. Sir
Charles rose to hand her to a chair, but she waved him back with a thin,
beringed hand.
"I thank you, Sir Charles; but I will not trouble you. I am going down
to the summer-house by the road, as I think the air there will cure my
migraine. Patricia, love, I am looking for my 'Clelie,'--the fourth
volume. Have you seen it?"
"No, Aunt Lettice."
"It is very strange," said Mrs. Lettice plaintively. "I am sure that I
left it in this room. 'Tis that careless slut of a Chloe who deserves a
whipping. She hides things away like a magpie."
"Look in the window; you may have left it there," said Patricia.
Mrs. Lettice approached the window, laid a hand upon the curtain, and
started back with a scream.
"What is it, madam?" cried the baronet.
"'Tis a man! a horrid, horrid man hiding there, waiting to cut all our
throats in the dead of night as the Redemptioner did to the family at
Martin-Brandon! Oh! Oh! Oh!" and Mrs. Lettice threw her apron over her
head, and sank into the nearest chair.
Patricia started up. Sir Charles, striding hastily towards the window,
his hand upon his sword, was met by the emerging figure of Landless.
The two gazed at each other, Sir Charles' first haughty surprise fast
deepening into passion as he remembered that the man before him had
assisted at the scene of a while before, had witnessed his discomfiture,
had seen him upon his knees, baffled, repulsed, even laughed at!
He was the first to speak. "Well, sirrah," he said between his teeth,
"what have you to say for yourself?"
"That I ask your pardon," said Landless steadily. "I should have made
known my presence in the room. But at first I thought you aware of it;
and when I discovered that you were not, I ... it seemed best to remain
silent. I was wrong. I should have made some sign even then. Again, I
beg your pardon." He turned to Patricia, who stood, tall, straight, and
coldly indignant, beside the chair from which she had risen. "Madam," he
said in a voice that faltered, despite himself, "I crave your
forgiveness."
She bit her coral under lip, and looked at him from under veiled
eyelids. It was a cruel look, very expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and
perhaps of fear.
"My father hath many unmannerly servants," she said coldly and clearly,
"who often provoke me. But I pardon them because they know no better. It
seems that like allowance cannot be made for you. However," she smiled
icily, "I shall not complain of you to my father, which assurance will
doubtless content you."
Landless turned from burning red to deadly white. His eyes, fixed upon
the floor, caught the rich shimmer of her skirts as she moved towards
the door; a moment and she was gone, leaving the two men facing each
other.
Between them there existed a subtle but strong antagonism. Sir Charles
Carew, courtier in a coarse and shameless court masquerading under a
glittering show of outward graces, had taken lazy delight in heaping
quiet insults upon the man who could not resent them. This amusement had
beguiled the tedium of the Virginia voyage; and when chance threw them
together upon a Virginia plantation, where life flowed on in one long,
placid lack of variety, the sport became doubly prized. It had to be
pursued at longer intervals, but pursued it was. Heretofore the
amusement had been all upon one side; now, Sir Charles felt a chagrined
suspicion that it was he who had afforded the entertainment.
Simultaneously with arriving at this conclusion he arrived at a point
where he was coldly furious.
Landless returned his look coolly and boldly. He considered that he had
made quite sufficient apology for an offense which was largely
involuntary, and he was in no mood for further abasement.
"You are an insolent rascal," said the baronet smoothly.
Landless smiled. "Sir Charles Carew should be a good judge of
insolence."
Sir Charles took a leisurely pinch of snuff, shook the fallen grains
from his ruffles, snapped the lid of the box, looked languishingly at
the miniature that adorned it, replaced the box in his pocket, and
remarked, "Well, I am waiting!"
"And for what?"
"To hear your petition that I forbear to bring this matter to the notice
of your master. The lady mercifully gave you her promise. I suppose I
must follow so fair an example."
"Sir Charles Carew may wait till doomsday to hear that or any other
request made by me to him or to the lady--who does not seem always
mercifully inclined--" he broke off with a slight and expressive smile.
Sir Charles took another pinch of snuff. "May the Lard blast me," he
drawled, "if they do not teach repartee at Newgate! But I forget that
the tongue is the only weapon of women and slaves."
"Some day I hope to teach you otherwise."
The other laughed. "So the slave thinks he can use a sword? Where did he
learn? In Newgate, from some broken captain, as payment for imparting
the trick of stealing by the Book?"
Landless forced himself to stand quiet, his arms folded, his fingers
tightly clenching the sleeves of his coarse shirt. "Shall I tell Sir
Charles Carew where I first used my sword with good effect?" he said in
an ominously quiet voice. "At Worcester I was but a stripling, but I
fought by the side of my father. I remember that, young as I was, I
disabled a very pretty perfumed and ringleted Cavalier. I think he was
afterwards sold to the Barbadoes. And my father praised my sword play."
"Your father," said the other, bringing his strong white teeth together
with a click. "Like father, like son. The latter a detected rogue,
gaol-bird, and slave; the former a d--d canting, sniveling Roundhead
hypocrite and traitor, with a text ever at hand to excuse parricide and
sacrilege."
Landless sprang forward and struck him in the face.
He staggered beneath the weight of the blow; then, recovering himself,
he whipped out his rapier, but presently slapped it home again. "I am a
gentleman," he said, with an airy laugh. "I cannot fight you." And
stood, slightly smiling, and pressing his laced handkerchief to his
cheek whence had started a few drops of blood.
Mrs. Lettice, whom curiosity or the search for the fourth volume of
"Clelie" had detained in the room, screamed loudly as the blow fell; and
Colonel Verney, appearing at the door, stopped short, and stared from
one to the other of the two men.