GILES'S MASTER AGAIN
Giles's master took Dick into a small panelled room, lighted by the
setting sun only, and seating himself in a carved arm-chair, motioned
Dick to a stool at his side.
"And who told you Giles was dead?" he asked, after speaking in French
for some moments to a gentleman at the door.
This meant the telling of Dick's disappearance from Lumley, saved
from disgrace by Master Purvis, as he thought. He had scarcely begun
the recital before a door at the far end of the room opened, and a
gentleman in a white velvet suit stood on the threshold, bowing.
Dick stopped.
"Go on," said Giles's master. "The gentleman is a friend of mine.
My lord, will you have the goodness to wait in the window yonder?
Thanks. Well, Dick. They told you there was an order out for your
arrest and so forth?"
Dick went on again. His confidence in the gentleman's kindness was
restored, and as he had spoken to him at Lumley so he spoke now, and
told him all about the Seven Thorns, and of his flight across the
fields, and how the Lady Dorothy Byng befriended him, and then turned
out to be his cousin. But there the gentleman stayed him.
"The Lady Dorothy Byng was your father's first wife's niece," he
said. "She was your step-brother's cousin, not yours, Dick."
Dick sighed. "That's a pity," he said. "She asked me to have her
for a cousin. I was very glad to. Anyone would, I think."
Giles's master laughed, and the gentleman in the window half-turned
round.
"So they told you Giles was dead?" said his master. "Were you
grieved then?"
Dick did not answer. He bit his lips, but the tears would come.
"Sorrow no longer," said the gentleman quickly. "Giles is alive!"
"Alive!" Dick cried, so loud and so joyously that the man in the
window took a step into the room, quite startled.
"Alive and well," said Giles's master quietly. "Why did you never
try to find out? Why, if we may enquire, did you never find your way
back to your friends and learn the truth?"
"I dare not, sir," said Dick, hanging his head.
"Ha! the bogey of a proclamation? All a make-believe, my child.
There was never anything but kindness waiting for you with Giles and
his--master."
"But I didn't know," said Dick. "Cousin Dorothy said it could not be
true, indeed, but I did not believe her. She--she said my idea of my
own importance was sadly exaggerated." He imitated her manner a
little.
"Nay, if you'd had the least idea of your own importance you'd have
got back to us in spite of John Dent's trickery. 'Twas all John
Dent, Dick. Why, Giles--he broke his heart when we failed to find
you. And I--why," he said, touching his high forehead, with a smile,
"I fancy a new wrinkle came here with puzzling about your so sudden
disappearance. Yes, indeed!"
Dick laughed.
"So the Lady Dorothy did not believe the proclamation story?" resumed
the gentleman.
"No," said Dick, blushing. "She would have had me come to Arncastor
weeks ago, but I would not. She said I was a coward--" He stopped
abruptly, but went on in a second: "I must have been, too. If I'd
come--but I dare not be taken, and--and disgraced before you and--and
the others."
"Yet you came to-day?"
"To try and save her," Dick said.
"She should not have called you a coward, I think," Giles's master
observed. "But, come. Why does she want saving? We will have that
part now."
"She has promised to marry John Dent," Dick began; and whilst he told
of his cousin's goodness, and John Dent's cruelty, the gentleman in
white drew nearer, unobserved.
"Sir, you will help me, won't you?" Dick entreated.
The gentleman in white took a step forward, but Giles's master begged
him to have patience a little longer, and he returned to his window
in silence.
"I will help you to the best of my ability," said Giles's master,
taking Dick's hand kindly, "and for your sake. The lady herself
seems of a variable temper. As I said before, she should not have
called you a coward."
"Ah, sir," Dick cried, "she's all goodness--all kindness! She never
meant to hurt me, and she begged my pardon--she, a great lady. I
love her very much, more than anyone, except Giles. We agreed on
everything in the world, I think--except Giles," he added.
"Ha!" said the gentleman. "And what ailed her Ladyship of Giles?"
Dick explained as well as he could that it appeared that great ladies
could not appreciate courage and virtue when they went in rags. And
he felt the gentleman upon whose knee he leant shake with laughter.
"Ay," he said, "that's it, Dick. These great ladies! They will send
their slaves to the ends of the earth to fetch them a bodkin. Call
them cowards, yet expect their hearts to be laid at their feet with a
'Do me the honour to tread here, madam'! And you are bent upon
serving this fastidious dame, Dick? And upon making me serve her
too?"
"For me," said Dick, "I would die for her. I have said what she hath
done for me. And there is another reason, if I have not shown you,
sir, why I must help her."
"And the other reason?"
Dick looked round. The light was very dim now, but he could see the
gentleman in white impatiently tapping his leg with his
rapier-sheath, his face turned to the window.
"'Tis about my brother, who is dead," said Dick in a low voice.
"'Tis her story, told me in--in confidence. But I think, sir, no one
should hear it but you, and you because you will help."
"Quite right," said Giles's master, with a swift glance towards the
window. "You may whisper." He bent his head, and Dick, slipping his
arm round his neck, whispered his tale.
The gentleman in white stood so strangely still he might have been
fairly accused of holding his breath to hear the whisper.
"Well," said Giles's master at the close, "I hold you're right, Dick.
Your very life is hers so long as she needs it. Should she ever find
anyone else to make her happy, will you come to me? I confess I
should like you about me. True, I have Giles; but Giles, you may
have noticed, Giles is a very remarkable person."
"Ay, indeed!" was Dick's hearty response.
"And to be trusted," continued his master, "with great matters. I
have to send him from me; and then--well, Dick--I have no one near me
quite so faithful as Giles. I don't know whether I am called a good
master or not. It seems to me I bring my servants nothing but
misfortune and privation--sometimes death." He sighed.
Dick laid his hand on his friend's affectionately. "I'd never care
for that, sir," he said earnestly. "I've been near death. It
doesn't matter. If I could be with you, and sometimes see dear
Giles, I'd be quite happy, if Cousin Dorothy was happy too. Why,
sir, I've been beaten and been hungered by those I served. Do you
think mere privation with you and Giles would be hard?"
Just then the door opened softly, a curtain was drawn back, and a
servant appeared with lights.
"If you would have the goodness to say we do not need them," said
Giles's master to the gentleman in white. "Thanks."
The servant retreated, bowing; but Dick had seen the lights fall on
the gentleman in white--a figure as superb as Prince Rupert's and a
dress beautiful and rich. A jewel had flashed in his sword-hilt, and
a "George" hung from a blue ribbon at his neck. What a thing to be a
courtier!
As the gentleman came back he shot a piercing glance at the two
figures in the dusk, and, pointing especially at Dick, he said
something in a voice so low that Dick only caught the last
words--"The audacity!" The boy resented it, and Giles's master
seemed to disagree with the sentiment also, for he put his arm round
the boy's shoulder, with a slight laugh, and, stooping, kissed him
lightly on the brow.
"No audacity!" he said. "Are you jealous, my lord? Dick once told
me he loved Giles with all his heart because there was no one else to
love--no father and no mother. And his brother, whilst he lived, I
suppose, had never even looked at him. Yet Dick knows how to love,
and should not lack a return of it. No doubt, my lord, you have
heard something of the tale he's been telling me. Perchance you
found it somewhat interesting?"
The gentleman in white bowed.
"As to that which we took care you should not hear," proceeded
Giles's master, "suffice it, for the completion of the story, that
the Lady Dorothy Byng once had a fancy for my friend, Dick's brother.
And, we might add--might we not, Dick?--that she cherishes his memory
still--more or less."
Dick said gravely: "She loves him still."
"Therefore Dick is bound to help her now. And I have bound myself to
help Dick. And I must beg you, my lord, to see Giles helps us all.
We'll place the matter, Dick, in the hands of Giles--a delicate
revenge for her scorn of him, eh? He shall order all he needs, and
take this traitor, John Dent, if he can catch him, send him hither
for trial, and have done with him. He shall scatter John Dent's
friends, if he hath any, to the winds. He shall take you home to the
Lady Dorothy Byng, with my greetings. And our dear, good Giles shall
ask her if she cannot--it will be hard if she cannot--find some other
companion and give you to me. There! Have we marked the part of
each player and disposed of the villain of the piece?"
The gentleman in white bowed, whilst Dick enthusiastically thanked
his friend. Giles's master made as if to rise, so Dick stood up.
"Where shall I find dear Giles?" he asked excitedly.
"Dear Giles, eh? Oh, he will be with you as soon as I am gone!" He
held Dick's hand a moment, looking down at him half with amusement
half with tenderness, glanced up at the other gentleman, and moved
towards the door. There, stopping suddenly, he looked back.
"I have recalled one person for whom no part is assigned," he said.
"The parson, Dick; be sure he is treated well, sir. I could wish
Giles would find some use for him. Maybe he will."
The gentleman in white drew back the curtain and opened the door.
"Sir!" cried Dick, springing after him, "one moment! Will you tell
me your name?"
"Charles," said Giles's master.
"Charles?" Dick repeated. "Charles what?"
"Stuart," the gentleman answered. And the door shut.