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CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE,
LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES,
AND
OTHER STORIES.
BY "OUIDA,"
AUTHOR OF "IDALIA," "STRATHMORE," "CHANDOS,"
"GRANVILLE DE VIGNE," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1900.
CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE,
AND OTHER STORIES.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The Publishers have the pleasure of offering to the many admirers of the
writings of "Ouida," the present volume of Contributions, which have
appeared from time to time in the leading Journals of Europe, and which
have recently been collected and revised by the author, for publication
in book-form.
They have also in press, to be speedily published, another similar
volume of tales, from the same pen, together with an unpublished romance
entitled "UNDER TWO FLAGS."
Our editions of Ouida's Works are published by express arrangement with
the author; and any other editions that may appear in the American
market will be issued in violation of the courtesies usually extended
both to authors and publishers.
PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1867.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE; OR, THE STORY OF A BROIDERED SHIELD 11
LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS; OR, OUR MALTESE PEERAGE 37
LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; OR, THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE.--
_In Three Seasons_:--
Season the First.--The Eligible 84
Season the Second.--The Ogre 121
Season the Third.--The Climax 164
A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE; OR, PENDANT TO A PASTEL BY LA TOUR 211
I. The First Morning 212
II. The Second Morning 218
III. Midnight 227
"DEADLY DASH." A STORY TOLD ON THE OFF DAY. 235
THE GENERAL'S MATCH-MAKING; OR, COACHES AND COUSINSHIP 265
THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD; OR, A DOUBLED-DOWN LEAF IN A MAN'S
LIFE 306
THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR; OR, NOT AT ALL A PROPER PERSON 339
A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE: PENDANT TO A PORTRAIT BY MIGNARD 368
CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE;
OR,
THE STORY OF A BROIDERED SHIELD.
Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of her county and her line, the
handsomest of all the handsome women that had graced her race, when she
moved, a century and a half ago, down the stately staircase, and through
the gilded and tapestried halls of Lilliesford. The Town had run mad
after her, and her face levelled politics, and was cited as admiringly
by the Whigs at St. James's as by the Tories at the Cocoa-tree, by the
beaux and Mohocks at Garraway's as by the alumni at the Grecian, by the
wits at Will's as by the fops at Ozinda's.
Wherever she went, whether to the Haymarket or the Opera, to the 'Change
for a fan or the palace for a state ball, to Drury Lane to see Pastoral
Philips's dreary dilution of Racine, or to some fair chief of her
faction for basset and ombre, she was surrounded by the best men of her
time, and hated by Whig beauties with virulent wrath, for she was a Tory
to the backbone, indeed a Jacobite at heart; worshipped Bolingbroke,
detested Marlborough and Eugene, believed in all the horrors of the
programme said to have been plotted by the Whigs for the anniversary
show of 1711, and was thought to have prompted the satire on those fair
politicians who are disguised as _Rosalinda_ and _Nigranilla_ in the
81st paper of the _Spectator_.
Cecil Castlemaine was the greatest beauty of her day, lovelier still at
four-and-twenty than she had been at seventeen, unwedded, though the
highest coronets in the land had been offered to her; far above the
coquetteries and minauderies of her friends, far above imitation of the
affectations of "Lady Betty Modley's skuttle," or need of practising the
Fan exercise; haughty, peerless, radiant, unwon--nay, more--untouched;
for the finest gentleman on the town could not flatter himself that he
had ever stirred the slightest trace of interest in her, nor boast, as
he stood in the inner circle at the Chocolate-house (unless, indeed, he
lied more impudently than Tom Wharton himself), that he had ever been
honored by a glance of encouragement from the Earl's daughter. She was
too proud to cheapen herself with coquetry, too fastidious to care for
her conquests over those who whispered to her through Nicolini's song,
vied to have the privilege of carrying her fan, drove past her windows
in Soho Square, crowded about her in St. James's Park, paid court even
to her little spaniel Indamara, and, to catch but a glimpse of her
brocaded train as it swept a ball-room floor, would leave even their
play at the Groom Porter's, Mrs. Oldfield in the green-room, a night
hunt with Mohun and their brother Mohocks, a circle of wits gathered
"within the steam of the coffeepot" at Will's, a dinner at Halifax's, a
supper at Bolingbroke's,--whatever, according to their several tastes,
made their best entertainment and was hardest to quit.
The highest suitors of the day sought her smile and sued for her hand;
men left the Court and the Mall to join the Flanders army before the
lines at Bouchain less for loyal love of England than hopeless love of
Cecil Castlemaine. Her father vainly urged her not to fling away offers
that all the women at St. James's envied her. She was untouched and
unwon, and when her friends, the court beauties, the fine ladies, the
coquettes of quality, rallied her on her coldness (envying her her
conquests), she would smile her slight proud smile and bow her stately
head. "Perhaps she was cold; she might be; they were personnable men? Oh
yes! she had nothing to say against them. His Grace of Belamour?--A
pretty wit, without doubt. Lord Millamont?--Diverting, but a coxcomb. He
had beautiful hands; it was a pity he was always thinking of them! Sir
Gage Rivers?--As obsequious a lover as the man in the 'Way of the
World,' but she had heard he was very boastful and facetious at women
over his chocolate at Ozinda's. The Earl of Argent?--A gallant soldier,
surely, but whatever he might protest, no mistress would ever rival with
him the dice at the Groom Porter's. Lord Philip Bellairs?--A proper
gentleman; no fault in him; a bel esprit and an elegant courtier;
pleased many, no doubt, but he did not please her overmuch. Perhaps her
taste was too finical, or her character too cold, as they said. She
preferred it should be so. When you were content it were folly to seek a
change. For her part, she failed to comprehend how women could stoop to
flutter their fans and choose their ribbons, and rack their tirewomen's
brains for new pulvillios, and lappets, and devices, and practise their
curtsy and recovery before their pier-glass, for no better aim or stake
than to draw the glance and win the praise of men for whom they cared
nothing. A woman who had the eloquence of beauty and a true pride should
be above heed for such affectations, pleasure in such applause!"
So she would put them all aside and turn the tables on her friends, and
go on her own way, proud, peerless, Cecil Castlemaine, conquering and
unconquered; and Steele must have had her name in his thoughts, and
honored it heartily and sincerely, when he wrote one Tuesday, on the
21st of October, under the domino of his Church Coquette, "I say I do
honor to those who _can be coquettes and are not such_, but I despise
all who would be so, and, in despair of arriving at it themselves, hate
and vilify all those who can." A definition justly drawn by his keen,
quick graver, though doubtless it only excited the ire of, and was
entirely lost upon, those who read the paper over their dish of bohea,
or over their toilette, while they shifted a patch for an hour before
they could determine it, or regretted the loss of ten guineas at crimp.
Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of the Town: when she sat at Drury Lane
on the Tory side of the house, the devoutest admirer of Oldfield or Mrs.
Porter scarcely heard a word of the _Heroic Daughter_, or the _Amorous
Widow_, and the "beau fullest of his own dear self" forgot his
silver-fringed gloves, his medallion snuff-box, his knotted cravat, his
clouded cane, the slaughter that he planned to do, from gazing at her
where she sat as though she were reigning sovereign at St. James's, the
Castlemaine diamond's flashing crescent-like above her brow. At church
and court, at park and assembly, there were none who could eclipse that
haughty gentlewoman; therefore her fond women friends who had caressed
her so warmly and so gracefully, and pulled her to pieces behind her
back, if they could, so eagerly over their dainty cups of tea in an
afternoon visit, were glad, one and all, when on "Barnabybright,"
Anglice, the 22d (then the 11th) of June, the great Castlemaine chariot,
with its three herons blazoned on its coroneted panels, its laced
liveries and gilded harness, rolled over the heavy, ill-made roads down
into the country in almost princely pomp, the peasants pouring out from
the wayside cottages to stare at my lord's coach.
It was said in the town that a portly divine, who wore his scarf as one
of the chaplains to the Earl of Castlemaine, had prattled somewhat
indiscreetly at Child's of his patron's politics; that certain cipher
letters had passed the Channel enclosed in chocolate-cakes as soon as
French goods were again imported after the peace of Utrecht; that
gentlemen in high places were strongly suspected of mischievous designs
against the tranquillity of the country and government; that the Earl
had, among others, received a friendly hint from a relative in power to
absent himself for a while from the court where he was not best trusted,
and the town where an incautious word might be picked up and lead to
Tower Hill, and amuse himself at his goodly castle of Lilliesford, where
the red deer would not spy upon him, and the dark beech-woods would tell
no tales. And the ladies of quality, her dear friends and sisters, were
glad when they heard it as they punted at basset and fluttered their
fans complacently. They would have the field for themselves, for a
season, while Cecil Castlemaine was immured in her manor of Lilliesford;
would be free of her beauty to eclipse them at the next birthday, be
quit of their most dreaded rival, their most omnipotent leader of
fashion; and they rejoiced at the whisper of the cipher letter, the
damaging gossipry of the Whig coffee-houses, the bad repute into which
my Lord Earl had grown at St. James's, at the misfortune of their
friend, in a word, as human nature, masculine or feminine, will ever
do--to its shame be it spoken--unless the _fomes peccati_ be more
completely wrung out of it than it ever has been since the angel Gabriel
performed that work of purification on the infant Mahomet.
It was the June of the year '15, and the coming disaffection was
seething and boiling secretly among the Tories; the impeachment of
Ormond and Bolingbroke had strengthened the distaste to the new-come
Hanoverian pack, their attainder had been the blast of air needed to
excite the smouldering wood to flame, the gentlemen of that party in the
South began to grow impatient of the intrusion of the distant German
branch, to think lovingly of the old legitimate line, and to feel
something of the chafing irritation of the gentlemen of the North, who
were fretting like stag-hounds held in leash.
Envoys passed to and fro between St. Germain, and Jacobite nobles,
priests of the church that had fallen out of favor and was typified as
the Scarlet Woman by a rival who, though successful, was still bitter,
plotted with ecclesiastical relish in the task; letters were conveyed in
rolls of innocent lace, plans were forwarded in frosted confections,
messages were passed in invisible cipher that defied investigation. The
times were dangerous; full of plot and counterplot, of risk and danger,
of fomenting projects and hidden disaffection--times in which men,
living habitually over mines, learned to like the uncertainty, and to
think life flavorless without the chance of losing it any hour; and
things being in this state, the Earl of Castlemaine deemed it prudent to
take the counsel of his friend in power, and retire from London for a
while, perhaps for the safety of his own person, perhaps for the
advancement of his cause, either of which were easier insured at his
seat in the western counties than amidst the Whigs of the capital.
The castle of Lilliesford was bowered in the thick woods of the western
counties, a giant pile built by Norman masons. Troops of deer herded
under the gold-green beechen boughs, the sunlight glistened through the
aisles of the trees, and quivered down on to the thick moss, and ferns,
and tangled grass that grew under the park woodlands; the water-lilies
clustered on the river, and the swans "floated double, swan and shadow,"
under the leaves that swept into the water; then, when Cecil Castlemaine
came down to share her father's retirement, as now, when her name and
titles on the gold plate of a coffin that lies with others of her race
in the mausoleum across the park, where winter snows and sumer sun-rays
are alike to those who sleep within, is all that tells at Lilliesford
of the loveliest woman of her time who once reigned there as mistress.
The country was in its glad green midsummer beauty, and the
musk-rosebuds bloomed in profuse luxuriance over the chill marble of the
terraces, and scattered their delicate odorous petals in fragrant
showers on the sward of the lawns, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to
what she termed her exile. The morning was fair and cloudless, its
sunbeams piercing through the darkest glades in the woodlands, the
thickest shroud of the ivy, the deepest-hued pane of the mullioned
windows, as she passed down the great staircase where lords and
gentlewomen of her race gazed on her from the canvas of Lely and
Jamesone, Bourdain and Vandyke, crossed the hall with her dainty step,
so stately yet so light, and standing by the window of her own
bower-room, was lured out on to the terrace overlooking the west side of
the park.
She made such a picture as Vandyke would have liked to paint, with her
golden glow upon her, and the musk-roses clustering about her round the
pilasters of marble--the white chill marble to which Belamour and many
other of her lovers of the court and town had often likened her. Vandyke
would have lingered lovingly on the hand that rested on her stag-hound's
head, would have caught her air of court-like grace and dignity, would
have painted with delighted fidelity her deep azure eyes, her proud
brow, her delicate lips arched haughtily like a cupid's bow, would have
picked out every fold of her sweeping train, every play of light on her
silken skirts, every dainty tracery of her point-lace. Yet even painted
by Sir Anthony, that perfect master of art and of elegance, though more
finished it could have hardly been more faithful, more instinct with
grace, and life, and dignity, than a sketch drawn of her shortly after
that time by one who loved her well, which is still hanging in the
gallery at Lilliesford, lighted up by the afternoon sun when it streams
in through the western windows.
Cecil Castlemaine stood on the terrace looking over the lawns and
gardens through the opening vistas of meeting boughs and interlaced
leaves to the woods and hills beyond, fused in a soft mist of green and
purple, with her hand lying carelessly on her hound's broad head. She
was a zealous Tory, a skilled politician, and her thoughts were busy
with the hopes and fears, the chances for and against, of a cause that
lay near her heart, but whose plans were yet immature, whose first blow
was yet unstruck, and whose well-wishers were sanguine of a success they
had not yet hazarded, though they hardly ventured to whisper to each
other their previous designs and desires. Her thoughts were far away,
and she hardly heeded the beauty round her, musing on schemes and
projects dear to her party, that would imperil the Castlemaine coronet
but would serve the only royal house the Castlemaine line had ever in
their hearts acknowledged.
She had regretted leaving the Town, moreover; a leader of the mode, a
wit, a woman of the world, she missed her accustomed sphere; she was no
pastoral Phyllis, no country-born Mistress Fiddy, to pass her time in
provincial pleasures, in making cordial waters, in tending her
beau-pots, in preserving her fallen rose-leaves, in inspecting the
confections in the still-room; as little was she able, like many fine
ladies when in similar exile, to while it away by scolding her
tirewomen, and sorting a suit of ribbons, in ordering a set of gilded
leather hangings from Chelsea for the state chambers, and yawning over
chocolate in her bed till mid-day. She regretted leaving the Town, not
for Belamour, nor Argent, nor any, of those who vainly hoped, as they
glanced at the little mirror in the lids of their snuff-boxes, that they
might have graven themselves, were it ever so faintly, in her thoughts;
but for the wits, the pleasures, the choice clique, the accustomed
circle to which she was so used, the courtly, brilliant town-life where
she was wont to reign.
So she stood on the terrace the first morning of her exile, her thoughts
far away, with the loyal gentlemen of the North, and the banished court
at St. Germain, the lids drooping proudly over her haughty eyes, and her
lips half parted with a faint smile of triumph in the visions limned by
ambition and imagination, while the wind softly stirred the rich lace of
her bodice, and her fingers lay lightly, yet firmly, on the head of her
stag-hound. She looked up at last as she heard the ring of a horse's
hoofs, and saw a sorrel, covered with dust and foam, spurred up the
avenue, which, rounding past the terrace, swept on to the front
entrance; the sorrel looked wellnigh spent, and his rider somewhat worn
and languid, as a man might do with justice who had been in boot and
saddle twenty-four hours at the stretch, scarce stopping for a stoup of
wine; but he lifted his hat, and bowed down to his saddle-bow as he
passed her.
"Was it the long-looked-for messenger with definite news from St.
Germain?" wondered Lady Cecil, as her hound gave out a deep-tongued bay
of anger at the stranger. She went back into her bower-room, and toyed
absently with her flowered handkerchief, broidering a stalk to a
violet-leaf, and wondering what additional hope the horseman might have
brought to strengthen the good Cause, till her servants brought word
that his Lordship prayed the pleasure of her presence in the
octagon-room. Whereat she rose, and swept through the long corridors,
entered the octagon-room, the sunbeams gathering about her rich dress as
they passed through the stained-glass oriels, and saluted the new-comer,
when her father presented him to her as their trusty and welcome friend
and envoy, Sir Fulke Ravensworth, with her careless dignity and queenly
grace, that nameless air which was too highly bred to be condescension,
but markedly and proudly repelled familiarity, and signed a pale of
distance beyond which none must intrude.
The new-comer was a tall and handsome man, of noble presence, bronzed by
foreign suns, pale and jaded just now with hard riding, while his dark
silver-laced suit was splashed and covered with dust; but as he bowed
low to her, critical Cecil Castlemaine saw that not Belamour himself
could have better grace, not my Lord Millamont courtlier mien nor whiter
hands, and listened with gracious air to what her father unfolded to her
of his mission from St. Germain, whither he had come, at great personal
risk, in many disguises, and at breathless speed, to place in their
hands a precious letter in cipher from James Stuart to his well-beloved
and loyal subject Herbert George, Earl of Castlemaine. A letter spoken
of with closed doors and in low whispers, loyal as was the household,
supreme as the Earl ruled over his domains of Lilliesford, for these
were times when men mistrusted those of their own blood, and when the
very figure on the tapestry seemed instinct with life to spy and
betray--when they almost feared the silk that tied a missive should
babble of its contents, and the hound that slept beside them should read
and tell their thoughts.
To leave Lilliesford would be danger to the Envoy and danger to the
Cause; to stay as guest was to disarm suspicion. The messenger who had
brought such priceless news must rest within the shelter of his roof;
too much were risked by returning to the French coast yet awhile, or
even by joining Mar or Derwentwater, so the Earl enforced his will upon
the Envoy, and the Envoy thanked him and accepted.
Perchance the beauty, whose eyes he had seen lighten and proud brow
flush as she read the royal greeting and injunction, made a sojourn near
her presence not distasteful; perchance he cared little where he stayed
till the dawning time of action and of rising should arrive, when he
should take the field and fight till life or death for the "White Rose
and the long heads of hair." He was a soldier of fortune, a poor
gentleman with no patrimony but his name, no chance of distinction save
by his sword; sworn to a cause whose star was set forever; for many
years his life had been of changing adventure and shifting chances, now
fighting with Berwick at Almanza, now risking his life in some delicate
and dangerous errand for James Stuart that could not have been trusted
so well to any other officer about St. Germain; gallant to rashness, yet
with much of the acumen of the diplomatist, he was invaluable to his
Court and Cause, but, Stuart-like, men-like, they hastened to employ,
but ever forgot to reward!
Lady Cecil missed her town-life, and did not over-favor her exile in the
western counties. To note down on her Mather's tablets the drowsy
homilies droned out by the chaplain on a Sabbath noon, to play at
crambo, to talk with her tirewomen of new washes for the skin, to pass
her hours away in knotting?--she, whom Steele might have writ of when he
drew his character of _Eudoxia_, could wile her exile with none of these
inanities; neither could she consort with gentry who seemed to her
little better than the boors of a country wake, who had never heard of
Mr. Spectator and knew nothing of Mr. Cowley, countrywomen whose
ambition was in their cowslip wines, fox-hunters more ignorant and
uncouth than the dumb brutes they followed.
Who was there for miles around with whom she could stoop to associate,
with whom she cared to exchange a word? Madam from the vicarage, in her
grogram, learned in syrups, salves, and possets? Country Lady
Bountifuls, with gossip of the village and the poultry-yard? Provincial
Peeresses, who had never been to London since Queen Anne's coronation? A
squirearchy, who knew of no music save the concert of their stop-hounds,
no court save the court of the county assize, no literature unless by
miracle 't were Tarleton's Jests? None such as these could cross the
inlaid oak parquet of Lilliesford, and be ushered into the presence of
Cecil Castlemaine.
So the presence of the Chevalier's messenger was not altogether
unwelcome and distasteful to her. She saw him but little, merely
conversing at table with him with that distant and dignified courtesy
which marked her out from the light, free, inconsequent manners in vogue
with other women of quality of her time; the air which had chilled half
the softest things even on Belamour's lips, and kept the vainest coxcomb
hesitating and abashed.
But by degrees she observed that the Envoy was a man who had lived in
many countries and in many courts, was well versed in the tongues of
France and Italy and Spain--in their belles-lettres too, moreover--and
had served his apprenticeship to good company in the salons of
Versailles, in the audience-room of the Vatican, at the receptions of
the Duchess du Maine, and with the banished family at St. Germain. He
spoke with a high and sanguine spirit of the troublous times approaching
and the beloved Cause whose crisis was at hand, which chimed in with her
humor better than the flippancies of Belamour, the airy nothings of
Millamont. He was but a soldier of fortune, a poor gentleman who, named
to her in the town, would have had never a word, and would have been
unnoted amidst the crowding beaux who clustered round to hold her fan
and hear how she had been pleasured with the drolleries of _Grief a la
Mode_. But down in the western counties she deigned to listen to the
Prince's officer, to smile--a smile beautiful when it came on her proud
lips, as the play of light on the opals of her jewelled stomacher--nay,
even to be amused when he spoke of the women of foreign courts, to be
interested when he told, which was but reluctantly, of his own perils,
escapes, and adventures, to discourse with him, riding home under the
beech avenues from hawking, or standing on the western terrace at curfew
to watch the sunset, of many things on which the nobles of the Mall and
the gentlemen about St. James's had never been allowed to share her
opinions. For Lady Cecil was deeply read (unusually deeply for her day,
since fine ladies of her rank and fashion mostly contented themselves
with skimming a romance of Scuderi's, or an act of _Aurungzebe_); but
she rarely spoke of those things, save perchance now and then to Mr.
Addison.
Fulke Ravensworth never flattered her, moreover, and flattery was a
honeyed confection of which she had long been cloyed; he even praised
boldly before her other women of beauty and grace whom he had seen at
Versailles, at Sceaux, and at St. Germain; neither did he defer to her
perpetually, but where he differed would combat her sentiments
courteously but firmly. Though a soldier and a man of action, he had an
admirable skill at the limner's art; could read to her the Divina
Commedia, or the comedies of Lope da' Vega, and transfer crabbed Latin
and abstruse Greek into elegant English for her pleasures and though a
beggared gentleman of most precarious fortunes, he would speak of life
and its chances, of the Cause and its perils, with a daring which she
found preferable to the lisped languor of the men of the town, who had
no better campaigns than laying siege to a prude, cared for no other
weapons than their toilettes and snuff-boxes, and sought no other
excitement than a _coup d'eclat_ with the lion-tumblers.
On the whole, through these long midsummer days, Lady Cecil found the
Envoy from St. Germain a companion that did not suit her ill, sought
less the solitude of her bower-room, and listened graciously to him in
the long twilight hours, while the evening dews gathered in the cups of
the musk-roses, and the star-rays began to quiver on the water-lilies
floating on the river below, that murmured along, with endless song,
under the beechen-boughs. A certain softness stole over her, relaxing
the cold hauteur of which Belamour had so often complained, giving a
nameless charm, supplying a nameless something, lacking before, in the
beauty of The Castlemaine.
She would stroke, half sadly, the smooth feathers of her tartaret falcon
Gabrielle when Fulke Ravensworth brought her the bird from the
ostreger's wrist, with its azure velvet hood, and silver bells and
jesses. She would wonder, as she glanced through Corneille or Congreve,
Philips or Petrarca, what it was, this passion of love, of which they
all treated, on which they all turned, no matter how different their
strain. And now and then would come over her cheek and brow a faint
fitful wavering flush, delicate and changing as the flush from the
rose-hued reflexions of western clouds on a statue of Pharos marble, and
then she would start and rouse herself, and wonder what she ailed, and
grow once more haughty, calm, stately, dazzling, but chill as the
Castlemaine diamonds that she wore.
So the summer-time passed, and the autumn came, the corn-lands brown
with harvest, the hazel-copses strewn with fallen nuts, the beech-leaves
turning into reddened gold. As the wheat ripened but to meet the sickle,
as the nuts grew but to fall, as the leaves turned to gold but to
wither, so the sanguine hopes, the fond ambitions of men, strengthened
and matured only to fade into disappointment and destruction! Four
months had sped by since the Prince's messenger had come to
Lilliesford--months that had gone swiftly with him as some sweet
delicious dream; and the time had come when he had orders to ride north,
secretly and swiftly, speak with Mr. Forster and other gentlemen
concerned in the meditated rising, and convey despatches and
instructions to the Earl of Mar; for Prince James was projecting soon to
join his loyal adherents in Scotland, and the critical moment was close
at hand, the moment when, to Fulke Ravensworth's high and sanguine
courage, victory seemed certain; failure, if no treachery marred, no
dissension weakened, impossible; the moment to which he looked for
honor, success, distinction, that should give him claim and title to
aspire--_where_? Strong man, cool soldier though he was, he shrank from
drawing his fancied future out from the golden haze of immature hope,
lest he should see it wither upon closer sight. He was but a landless
adventurer, with nothing but his sword and his honor, and kings he knew
were slow to pay back benefits, or recollect the hands that hewed them
free passage to their thrones.
Cecil Castlemaine stood within the window of her bower-room, the red
light of the October sun glittering on her gold-broidered skirt and her
corsage sewn with opals and emeralds; her hand was pressed lightly on
her bosom, as though some pain were throbbing there; it was new this
unrest, this weariness, this vague weight that hung upon her; it was the
perils of their Cause, she told herself; the risks her father ran: it
was weak, childish, unworthy a Castlemaine! Still the pain throbbed
there.
Her hound, asleep beside her, raised his head with a low growl as a step
intruded on the sanctity of the bower-room, then composed himself again
to slumber, satisfied it was no foe. His mistress turned slowly; she
knew the horses waited; she had shunned this ceremony of farewell, and
never thought any would be bold enough to venture here without
permission sought and gained.
"Lady Cecil, I could not go upon my way without one word of parting.
Pardon me if I have been too rash to seek it here."
Why was it that his brief frank words ever pleased her better than
Belamour's most honeyed phrases, Millamont's suavest periods? She
scarcely could have told, save that there were in them an earnestness
and truth new and rare to her ear and to her heart.
She pressed her hand closer on the opals--the jewels of calamity--and
smiled:
"Assuredly I wish you God speed, Sir Fulke, and safe issue from all
perils."
He bowed low; then raised himself to his fullest height, and stood
beside her, watching the light play upon the opals:
"That is all you vouchsafe me?"
"_All?_ It is as much as you would claim, sir, is it not? It is more
than I would say to many."
"Your pardon--it _is_ more than I should claim if prudence were ever by,
if reason always ruled! I have no right to ask for, seek for, even wish
for, more; such petitions may only be addressed by men of wealth and of
high title; a landless soldier should have no pride to sting, no heart
to wound; they are the prerogative of a happier fortune."
Her lips turned white, but she answered haughtily; the crimson light
flashing in her jewels, heirlooms priceless and hereditary, like her
beauty and her pride:
"This is strange language, sir! I fail to apprehend you."
"You have never thought that I ran a danger deadlier than that which I
have ever risked on any field? You have never guessed that I have had
the madness, the presumption, the crime--it may be in your eyes--to love
you."
The color flushed to her face, crimsoning even her brow, and then fled
back. Her first instinct was insulted pride--a beggared gentleman, a
landless soldier, spoke to her of love!--of love!--which Belamour had
barely had courage to whisper of; which none had dared to sue of her in
return. He had ventured to feel this for her! he had ventured to speak
of this to her!
The Envoy saw the rising resentment, the pride spoken in every line of
her delicate face, and stopped her as she would have spoken.
"Wait! I know all you would reply. You think it infinite daring,
presumption that merits highest reproof----"
"Since you divined so justly, it were pity you subjected yourself and me
to this most useless, most unexpected interview. Why----"
"_Why?_ Because, perchance, in this life you will see my face no more,
and you will think gently, mercifully of my offence (if offence it be to
love you more than life, and only less than honor), when you know that I
have fallen for the Cause, with your name in my heart, held only the
dearer because never on my lips! Sincere love can be no insult to
whomsoever proffered; Elizabeth Stuart saw no shame to her in the
devotion of William Craven!"
Cecil Castlemaine stood in the crimson glory of the autumn sunset, her
head erect, her pride unshaken, but her heart stirred strangely and
unwontedly. It smote the one with bitter pain, to think a penniless
exile should thus dare to speak of what princes and dukes had almost
feared to whisper; what had she done--what had she said, to give him
license for such liberty? It stirred the other with a tremulous warmth,
a vague, sweet pleasure, that were never visitants there before; but
that she scouted instantly as weakness, folly, debasement, in the Last
of the Castlemaines.
He saw well enough what passed within her, what made her eyes so
troubled, yet her brow and lips so proudly set, and he bent nearer
towards her, the great love that was in him trembling in his voice:
"Lady Cecil, hear me! If in the coming struggle I win distinction,
honor, rank--if victory come to us, and the King we serve remember me in
his prosperity as he does now in his adversity--if I can meet you
hereafter with tidings of triumph and success, my name made one which
England breathes with praise and pride, honors gained such as even you
will deem worthy of your line--then--then--will you let me speak of
what you refuse to hearken to now--then may I come to you, and seek a
gentler answer?"
She looked for a moment upon his face, as it bent towards her in the
radiance of the sunset light, the hope that hopes all things glistening
in his eyes, the high-souled daring of a gallant and sanguine spirit
flushing his forehead, the loud throbs of his heart audible in the
stillness around; and her proud eyes grew softer, her lips quivered for
an instant.
Then she turned towards him with queenly grace:
"_Yes!_"
It was spoken with stately dignity, though scarce above her breath; but
the hue that wavered in her cheek was but the lovelier, for the pride
that would not let her eyes droop nor her tears rise, would not let her
utter one softer word. That one word cost her much. That single
utterance was much from Cecil Castlemaine.
Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a delicate, costly toy of lace,
embroidered with her shield and chiffre; he stooped and raised it, and
thrust it in his breast to treasure it there.
"If I fail, I send this back in token that I renounce all hope; if I can
come to you with honor and with fame, this shall be my gage that I may
speak, that you will listen?"
She bowed her noble head, ever held haughtily, as though every crown of
Europe had a right to circle it; his hot lips lingered for a moment on
her hand; then Cecil Castlemaine stood alone in the window of her
bower-room, her hand pressed again upon the opals under which her heart
was beating with a dull, weary pain, looking out over the landscape,
where the golden leaves were falling fast, and the river, tossing sadly
dead branches on its waves, was bemoaning in plaintive language the
summer days gone by.
Two months came and went, the beech-boughs, black and sear, creaked in
the bleak December winds that sighed through frozen ferns and over the
couches of shivering deer, the snow drifted up on the marble terrace,
and icedrops clung where the warm rosy petals of the musk-rosebuds had
nestled. Across the country came terrible whispers that struck the
hearts of men of loyal faith to the White Rose with a bolt of ice-cold
terror and despair. Messengers riding in hot haste, open-mouthed
peasants gossiping by the village forge, horsemen who tarried for a
breathless rest at alehouse-doors, Whig divines who returned thanks for
God's most gracious mercy in vouchsafing victory to the strong, all told
the tale, all spread the news of the drawn battle of Sheriff-Muir, of
the surrender under Preston walls, of the flight of Prince James. The
tidings came one by one to Lilliesford, where my Lord Earl was holding
himself in readiness to co-operate with the gentlemen of the North to
set up the royal standard, broidered by his daughter's hands, in the
western counties, and proclaim James III. "sovereign lord and king of
the realms of Great Britain and Ireland." The tidings came to
Lilliesford, and Cecil Castlemaine clenched her white jewelled hands in
passionate anguish that a Stuart should have fled before the traitor of
Argyll, instead of dying with his face towards the rebel crew; that men
had lived who could choose surrender instead of heroic death; that _she_
had not been there, at Preston, to shame them with a woman's reading of
courage and of loyalty, and show them how to fall with a doomed city
rather than yield captive to a foe!
Perhaps amidst her grief for her Prince and for his Cause mingled--as
the deadliest thought of all--a memory of a bright proud face, that had
bent towards her with tender love and touching grace a month before, and
that might now be lying pale and cold, turned upwards to the winter
stars, on the field of Sheriff-Muir.
A year rolled by. Twelve months had fled since the gilded carriage of
the Castlemaines, with the lordly blazonment upon its panels, its
princely retinue and stately pomp, had come down into the western
counties. The bones were crumbling white in the coffins in the Tower,
and the skulls over Temple-bar had bleached white in winter snows and
spring-tide suns; Kenmuir had gone to a sleep that knew no wakening, and
Derwentwater had laid his fair young head down for a thankless cause;
the heather bloomed over the mounds of dead on the plains of
Sheriff-Muir, and the yellow gorse blossomed under the city walls of
Preston.
Another summer had dawned, bright and laughing, over England; none the
less fair for human lives laid down, for human hopes crushed out;
daisies powdering the turf sodden with human blood, birds carolling
their song over graves of heaped-up dead. The musk-roses tossed their
delicate heads again amidst the marble pilasters, and the
hawthorn-boughs shook their fragrant buds into the river at Lilliesford,
the purple hills lay wrapped in sunny mist, and hyacinth-bells mingled
with the tangled grass and fern under the woodland shades, where the red
deer nestled happily. Herons plumed their silvery wings down by the
water-side, swallows circled in sultry air above the great bell-tower,
and wood-pigeons cooed with soft love-notes among the leafy branches.
Yet the Countess of Castlemaine, last of her race, sole owner of the
lands that spread around her, stood on the rose-terrace, finding no joy
in the sunlight about her, no melody in the song of the birds.
She was the last of her name; her father, broken-hearted at the news
from Dumblain and Preston, had died the very day after his lodgment in
the Tower. There was no heir male of his line, and the title had passed
to his daughter; there had been thoughts of confiscation and attainder,
but others, unknown to her, solicited what she scorned to ask for
herself, and the greed of the hungry "Hanoverian pack" spared the lands
and the revenues of Lilliesford. In haughty pride, in lonely mourning,
the fairest beauty of the Court and Town withdrew again to the solitude
of her western counties, and tarried there, dwelling amidst her women
and her almost regal household, in the sacred solitude of grief, wherein
none might intrude. Proud Cecil Castlemaine was yet prouder than of
yore; alone, sorrowing for her ruined Cause and exiled King, she would
hold converse with none of those who had had a hand in drawing down the
disastrous fate she mourned, and only her staghound could have seen the
weariness upon her face when she bent down to him, or Gabrielle the
falcon felt her hand tremble when it stroked her folded wings. She stood
on the terrace, looking over her spreading lands, not the water-lilies
on the river below whiter than her lips, pressed painfully together.
Perhaps she repented of certain words, spoken to one whom now she would
never again behold--perhaps she thought of that delicate toy that was to
have been brought back in victory and hope, that now might lie stained
and stiffened with blood next a lifeless heart, for never a word in the
twelve months gone by had there come to Lilliesford as tidings of Fulke
Ravensworth.
Her pride was dear to her, dearer than aught else; she had spoken as was
her right to speak, she had done what became a Castlemaine; it would
have been weakness to have acted otherwise; what was he--a landless
soldier--that he should have dared as he had dared? Yet the sables she
wore were not solely for the dead Earl, not solely for the lost Stuarts
the hot mist that would blind the eyes of Cecil Castlemaine, as hours
swelled to days, and days to months, and she--the flattered beauty of
the Court and Town--stayed in self-chosen solitude in her halls of
Lilliesford, still unwedded and unwon.
The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the sunny beauty of the
morning but weighed with heavier sadness on her heart; the song of the
birds, the busy hum of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell
round her pet fawn's neck, as it darted from her side under the drooping
boughs--none touched an answering chord of gladness in her. She stood
looking over her stretching woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she
heard no step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush of the
deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, sprang up from his
hiding-place under the beechen branches, and stood on the terrace before
her, craving her pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned,
bending on him that glance which had made the over-bold glance of
princes fall abashed. The boy was but a little tatterdemalion to have
ventured thus abruptly into the presence of the Countess of Castlemaine;
still it was with some touch of a page's grace that he bowed before her.
"Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me watch for you, though
I watched till midnight."
"Your master?"
A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, rose to her face
for an instant, then faded as suddenly. The boy did not notice her
words, but went on in an eager whisper, glancing anxiously round, as a
hare would glance fearing the hunters.
"And told me when I saw you not to speak his name, but only to give you
this as his gage, that though all else is lost he has not forgot _his_
honor nor _your_ will."
Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out her hand and took
it--her own costly toy of cambric and lace, with her broidered shield
and coronet.
"Your master! Then--he lives?"
"Lady, he bade me say no more. You have his message; I must tell no
further."
She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow-white hand, yet one
that held him now in a clasp of steel.
"Child! answer me at your peril! Tell me of him whom you call your
master. Tell me all--quick--quick!"
"You are his friend?"
"His friend? My Heaven! Speak on!"
"He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest anger; but if you
_are_ his friend, I sure may speak what you should know without me. It
is a poor friend, lady, who has need to ask whether another be dead or
living!"
The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess's blanched face, she signed him
on with impetuous command; she was unused to disobedience, and the
child's words cut her to the quick.
"Sir Fulke sails for the French coast to-morrow night," the boy went on,
in tremulous haste. "He was left for dead--our men ran one way, and
Argyll's men the other--on the field of Sheriff-Muir; and sure if he had
not been strong indeed, he would have died that awful night, untended,
on the bleak moor, with the winds roaring round him, and his life ebbing
away. He was not one of those who _fled_; you know that of him if you
know aught. We got him away before dawn, Donald and I, and hid him in a
shieling; he was in the fever then, and knew nothing that was done to
him, only he kept that bit of lace in his hand for weeks and weeks, and
would not let us stir it from his grasp. What magic there was in it we
wondered often, but 'twas a magic, mayhap, that got him well at last; it
was an even chance but that he'd died, God bless him! though we did what
best we could. We've been wandering in the Highlands all the year,
hiding here and tarrying there. Sir Fulke sets no count upon his life.
Sure I think he thanks us little for getting him through the fever of
the wounds, but he could not have borne to be pinioned, you know, lady,
like a thief, and hung up by the brutes of Whigs, as a butcher hangs
sheep in the shambles! The worst of the danger's over--they've had
their fill of the slaughter; but we sail to-morrow night for the French
coast--England's no place for my master."
Cecil Castlemaine let go her hold upon the boy, and her hand closed
convulsively upon the dainty handkerchief--her gage sent so faithfully
back to her!
The child looked upon her face; perchance, in his master's delirium, he
had caught some knowledge of the story that hung to that broidered toy.
"If you _are_ his friend, madame, doubtless you have some last word to
send him?"
Cecil Castlemaine, whom nothing moved, whom nothing softened, bowed her
head at the simple question, her heart wrestling sorely, her lips set
together in unswerving pride, a mist before her haughty eyes, the
broidered shield upon her handkerchief--the shield of her stately and
unyielding race--pressed close against her breast.
"You have no word for him, lady?"
Her lips parted; she signed him away. Was this child to see her yielding
to such weakness? Had she, Countess of Castlemaine, no better pride, no
better strength, no better power of resolve, than this?
The boy lingered.
"I will tell Sir Fulke then, lady, that the ruined have no friends?"
Whiter and prouder still grew the delicate beauty of her face; she
raised her stately head, haughtily as she had used to glance over a
glittering Court, where each voice murmured praise of her loveliness and
reproach of her coldness; and placed the fragile toy of lace back in the
boy's hands.
"Go, seek your master, and give him this in gage that their calamity
makes friends more dear to us than their success. Go, he will know its
meaning!"
* * * * *
In place of the noon chimes the curfew was ringing from the bell-tower,
the swallows were gone to roost amidst the ivy, and the herons slept
with their heads under their silvery wings among the rushes by the
riverside, the ferns and wild hyacinths were damp with evening dew, and
the summer starlight glistened amidst the quivering woodland leaves.
There was the silence of coming night over the vast forest glades, and
no sound broke the stillness, save the song of the grasshopper stirring
the tangled grasses, or the sweet low sigh of the west wind fanning the
bells of the flowers. Cecil Castlemaine stood once more on the
rose-terrace, shrouded in the dense twilight shade flung from above by
the beech-boughs, waiting, listening, catching every rustle of the
leaves, every tremor of the heads of the roses, yet hearing nothing in
the stillness around but the quick, uncertain throbs of her heart
beating like the wing of a caged bird under its costly lace. Pride was
forgotten at length, and she only remembered--fear and love.
In the silence and the solitude came a step that she knew, came a
presence that she felt. She bowed her head upon her hands; it was new to
her this weakness, this terror, this anguish of joy; she sought to calm
herself, to steel herself, to summon back her pride, her strength; she
scorned herself for it all!
His hand touched her, his voice fell on her ear once more, eager,
breathless, broken.
"Cecil! Cecil! is this true? Is my ruin thrice blessed, or am I mad, and
dream of heaven?"