FATHER AND DAUGHTER
WHEN Lady Clancarty ascended the water stairs on her return from the
Tower she was outwardly calm, the floodtide of her emotion having spent
itself in the outburst at the Traitor’s Gate. Young Mackie, still
acting as her sole escort, came up the steps behind her and the two,
pausing at the top, saw dawn breaking over the river. Like a wraith the
fog rolled up along the water, the sky grew pale and in the far east a
light shone, keen and cold. The streets were unusually quiet; it was a
little before the hour when a city stirs for its first breath; darkness
lay deeply in the narrow lanes, and silence. On the river, which
bristled with a forest of masts, some ships put up their sails.
Suddenly they heard a woman’s scream and saw two figures struggling
at the mouth of the lane before them. Mackie started toward them,
but the woman broke away and ran screaming to the water side, almost
brushing against Lady Clancarty, and as she did so there was a cry of
recognition and she fell upon her neck, weeping and exclaiming. It was
Alice Lynn. Sir Edward seized the man.
“You rogue!” he exclaimed, “you would abuse a woman, would you?”
But the fellow, struggling lustily for his liberty, broke out with an
Irish oath, and Mackie knew him.
“You are Lord Clancarty’s man,” he said in surprise, releasing him;
“what means this? I am Sir Edward Mackie.”
“Faix, there’s naything the matther,” replied Denis sullenly, rubbing
his neck; “I was jist givin’ thet dasignin’ hizzy a shaking fer
bethrayin’ me Lord Clancarty—curse her!”
“You are mistaken, my man,” said Mackie, understanding Denis’s error,
“I was at Secretary Vernon’s when Lord Spencer came in for the warrant.
Lady Clancarty has just come from the Tower where she would fain have
shared your master’s imprisonment. Her woman here, I doubt not, is as
faithful.”
“The saints be praised!” exclaimed Denis piously, “I couldn’t b’lave
ill of her ladyship, but whin there’s snake wurrk loike this, yer
honor, I’m afther looking fer th’ woman; ’twas a woman, sir, that
started in these dalings with th’ ould serpent himself. Me lord’s as
good as did now,—woe’s me!”
“Say nothing like that to my lady, I charge you,” said Mackie sharply,
“she cannot bear it.”
At the moment, Betty called Denis, having heard Alice’s story and
divining his mistake.
“I will forgive you, Denis,” she said, “since it was for my lord’s
sake; but you have nearly killed my poor girl with fright and she was
only seeking me.”
“Forgive me, your ladyship,” he said humbly, “I can but die fer ye, me
poor lord—” he broke down, and Lady Clancarty said no more; she, too,
was overcome.
It did not occur to Denis to apologize to the victim of his mistaken
vengeance, but when he learned that Lady Clancarty intended to make
another attempt to get into the Tower, he joined himself to her party,
without asking permission, and followed on, determined to go with her
to his master, ignoring Alice’s abhorrence.
It was with this strangely assorted company that Lady Clancarty
returned at daybreak to her father’s house. Not to remain, as she told
young Mackie, for never again would she dwell under the same roof with
the man who had betrayed her husband.
The events of the night, quite as exciting at home as abroad, had
made the Earl of Sunderland wakeful, so it happened that he was out
of bed when his daughter sought him in his own room. She found him,
clad in a great shag gown, sitting in an armchair by the fire, calmly
sipping a cup of chocolate, his bland countenance showing no sign of
perturbation, no matter what his emotions might have been. Nor did he
express any surprise at his daughter’s appearance in her strange guise
at that unusual hour. He smiled upon her quite benignly and waved her
toward a chair.
“A cup of chocolate, my love,” he said, “you look fatigued.”
Betty looked at him sadly. She knew only too well how hard it was to
touch his heart under that polished exterior, if heart he had at all,
and she had often doubted it.
“You will not sit down?” he asked with apparent surprise; “you must be
tired.”
“I do not wish to rest here,” she replied sadly, “I cannot under the
same roof with Spencer,”—she would not call him her brother; “I know
you have heard all, sir,” she added, watching him keenly—hoping,
fearing; “I have come here to pray your good offices with the king—to
ask you to help your own daughter to save her husband from death!”
Lord Sunderland held up his hand deprecatingly.
“My love,” he said, “I feared as much! Pray do not ask the impossible!
You know how they hate me in Parliament because I am supposed to have
the king’s ear. If I meddle in this they will bring in a bill of
attainder,—it is a favorite scheme of theirs,” he added bitterly.
“But, father, they will kill my husband,” cried Betty, “they will
behead him for high treason, and he only came here to see me!”
Lord Sunderland smiled and sipped his chocolate, quite unmoved.
“He is a traitor, though, my dear,” he remarked, “and quite a notorious
one. My dear Betty, don’t make a scene—you know nothing about the man.”
“He is my husband,” she cried with passionate grief, “is that no tie?”
“I’ve known several fine ladies who did not consider it one,” replied
the earl, with a titter, “notably my Lady Shrewsbury the elder.”
“An infamous creature, and you know it!” cried Betty, with something
of her old spirit, and then she threw herself on her knees beside him;
“father, father,” she pleaded, “you were ever kind to me—oh, pity me,
help me to save him!”
Sunderland tried to raise her; he even caressed her bowed head. He
detested a scene, and he did not know how to manage this beautiful
young creature.
“My child,” he said, “this will pass; you do not know him well enough
to feel his loss. The marriage was my folly; your release—though
doubtless painful and cruel—will be a blessing in disguise.”
Betty recoiled from his touch, her face white.
“I love him,” she declared simply, “his death upon the block would kill
me.”
“Tut, tut!” replied her father heartlessly; “we young people always die
so easily.”
“I would rather die than find those of my own blood so indifferent to
my wretchedness,” cried Betty.
“Perhaps you are indifferent, too,” rejoined the earl; “your mother
lies ill now at Windsor.”
“I am sorry,” Betty said, “but I must try to save my husband. Father,
father!” she clung to his hand weeping, “if you ever loved me—as an
infant, as a child, as a young girl,—do not abandon me now. Oh, help
me to save him! Do you not remember when you used to carry me in your
arms—your little girl? Oh, you were kind to me, father, kinder than
any one else! You will not break my heart now? My mother never cared
for me as you did—never caressed me so, never brought me toys. I loved
you then, sir, and I love you now. Have you no place in your heart for
me—your daughter, your little girl, Elizabeth? Go to the king—you
have but to ask; they say he is merciful, and he trusts you. Oh, save
Donough!”
Lord Sunderland sighed. “My dear,” he said, “I would gladly help you,
but you ask the impossible. I have no power to save a traitor. You know
as well as I that even the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended on account
of that rogue Bernardi and his accomplices; you know the story of the
Fenwick attainder. How can you ask me to risk my head and my family
reputation for this Irishman? You fancy you love him, Betty, but ’tis
only your fancy. There are other men as brave,” he added, with a smile;
“you need not be a widow long.”
Betty sprang to her feet.
“You, too, insult me—and you are my father. Oh, I have no father,
then, any more—the old, dear memories are but dreams—the hand that
caressed my childish head can deal me such a blow as this! Ah, it
breaks my heart! Alas, there is no earthly hope!”
Lord Sunderland poured out another cup of chocolate.
“No,” he replied calmly, “not for Clancarty. Really, my dear, I must
be firm, I cannot and I will not risk my reputation, perhaps my life,
for—” he shrugged his shoulders, “a Jacobite rogue.”
She said nothing, but she gave him a look so eloquent that he shrank
a little, with all his effrontery, as she turned to leave the room.
At the door she paused and waved her hand to him with a gesture of
infinite sadness.
“Farewell, father,” she said softly, “farewell! I loved you—I love
you still—and I forgive you—as I pray to be forgiven. I go, your
daughter no longer—since you disown Clancarty’s wife. I have no home,
no father—only my husband! Farewell, farewell!”
He heard the low sound of her weeping as she went out, her head bowed
and her whole beautiful young figure full of dejection. She felt
herself an outcast.