told the story, though 'twas sure that if he went to Wickben he came
back to town for a few hours at least, for there were those who saw him
the next day, but only one there was who spoke with him, and that one
my Lady Dunstanwolde herself.
Her ladyship rode out in the morning hoping, 'twas said, that the
fresh air and exercise would restore her strength and spirits. She rode
without attendant, and towards the country, and in the high road Sir
John Oxon joined her.
"I did not know he had been out of town," she said, when the mystery
was discussed. "He did not say so. He returned to Dunstanwolde House
with me, and we had talk together. He had scarce left me when I
remembered that I had forgot to say a thing to him I had wished to say.
So I sent Jenfry forth quickly to call him back. He had scarce had time
to turn the street's corner, but Jenfry returned, saying he was not
within sight."
"Whereupon you sent a note to his lodgings, was't not so?" asked Sir
Christopher.
"Yes," answered her ladyship, "but he had not returned there."
"Nor ever did," said Sir Christopher, whenever the mystery was referred
to afterwards; "nor ever did, and where he went to from that hour only
the devil knows, for no man or woman that one has heard of has ever
clapt eyes on him since."
This was, indeed, the mysterious truth. After he entered the Panelled
Parlour at Dunstanwolde House it seemed that none had seen him, for the
fact was that by a strange chance even the lacquey who should have been
at his place in the entrance hall had allowed himself to be ensnared
from his duty by a pretty serving-wench, and had left his post for a
few minutes to make love to her in the servants' hall, during which
time 'twas plain Sir John must have left the house, opening the
entrance-door for himself unattended.
"Lord," said the lacquey in secret to his mates, "my gizzard was in my
throat when her ladyship began to question me. 'Did you see the gentle,
man depart, Martin?' says she. ''Twas you who attended him to the door,
of a surety.' 'Yes, your ladyship,' stammers I. ''Twas I--and I marked
he seemed in haste.' 'Did you not observe him as he walked away?' says
my lady. 'Did you not see which way he went?' 'To the left he turned,
my lady,' says I, cold sweat breaking out on me, for had I faltered in
an answer she would have known I was lying and guessed I had broke her
orders by leaving my place by the door--and Lord have mercy on a man
when she finds he has tricked her. There is a flash in her eye like
lightning, and woe betide him it falls on. But truth was that from the
moment the door of the Panelled Parlour closed behind him the
gentleman's days were ended, for all I saw of him, for I saw him no
more."
And there was none who saw him, for from that time he disappeared from
his lodgings, from the town, from England, from the surface of the
earth, as far as any ever heard or discovered, none knowing where he
went, or how, or wherefore.
Had he been a man of greater worth or importance, or one who had made
friends, his so disappearing would have aroused a curiosity and
excitement not easily allayed; but a vicious wastrel who has lost hold
even on his whilom companions in evil-doing, and has no friends more
faithful, is like, indeed, on dropping out of the world's sight, to
drop easily and lightly from its mind, his loss being a nine days'
wonder and nothing more.
So it was with this one, who had had his day of being the fashion and
had broken many a fine lady's brittle heart, and, living to be no
longer the mode, had seen the fragile trifles cemented together again,
to be almost as good as new. When he was gone he was forgot quickly
and, indeed, but talked about because her ladyship of Dunstanwolde had
last beheld him, and on the afternoon had been entertaining company in
the Panelled Parlour when the lacquey had brought back the undelivered
note with which Jenfry had waited three hours at the lost man's
lodgings in the hope that he would return to them, which he did no
more.
"'Tis a good riddance to all, my lady, wheresoever he be gone," said
Sir Christopher, sitting nursing his stout knee in the blue parlour a
week later (for her ladyship had had a sudden fancy to have the
panelled room made wholly new and decorated before the return of his
Grace from France). "Tis a good riddance to all."
Then he fell to telling stories of the man, of the creditors he had
left in the lurch, having swindled them of their very hearts' blood,
and that every day there was heard of some poor tradesman he had
ruined, till 'twas a shame to hear it told; and there were worse
things--worse things yet!
"By the Lord!" he said, "the ruin one man's life can bring about, the
heartbreak, and the shame! 'Tis enough to make even a sinner as old as
I, repent, to come upon them face to face. Eh, my lady?" looking at her
suddenly, "thou must get back the roses thou hast lost these three days
nursing Mistress Anne, or his Grace will be at odds with us every one."
For Mistress Anne had been ailing, and her sister being anxious and
watching over her had lost some of her glorious bloom, which was indeed
a new thing to see. At this moment the roses had dropped from her
cheeks and she smiled strangely.
"They will return," she said, "when his Grace does."
She asked questions of the stories Sir Christopher had told and showed
anxiousness concerning the poor people who had been so hardly treated.
"I have often thought," she said, "that so rich a woman as I should set
herself some task of good deeds to do. 'Twould be a good work to take
in hand the undoing of the wrongs a man who is lost has left behind
him. Why should not I, Clo Wildairs, take in hand the undoing of this
man's?" And she rose up suddenly and stood before him, straight and
tall, the colour coming out on her cheeks as if life flooded back
there.
"Thou!" he cried, gazing at her in loving wonder. "Why shouldst _thou_,
Clo?" None among them had ever understood her and her moods, and he
surely did not understand this one--for it seemed as if a fire leaped
up within her, and she spoke almost wildly.
"Because I would atone for all my past," she said, "and cleanse myself
with unceasing mercies, and what I cannot undo, do penance for--that I
may be worthy--worthy."
She broke off and drew her hand across her eyes, and ended with a
strange little sound, half laugh.
"Perhaps all men and women have been evil," she said, "and some
are--some seem fated! And when my lord Duke comes back, I shall be
happy--happy--in spite of all; and I scarce dare to think my joy may
not be taken from me. Is joy _always_ torn away after it has been
given to a human thing--given for just so long, as will make loss,
madness?"
"Eh, my lady!" he said, blundering, "thou art fearful, just as another
woman might be. 'Tis not like Clo Wildairs. Such thoughts will not make
thee a happy woman."
She ended with a laugh stranger than her first one, and her great black
eyes were fixed on him as he had remembered seeing her fix them when
she was a child and full of some wild fancy or weird sadness.
"'Tis not Clo Wildairs who thinks them," says she; "'tis another woman.
'Twas Clo who knew John Oxon who is gone--and was as big a sinner as
he, though she did harm to none but herself. And 'tis for those
two--for both--I would have mercy. But I am a strong thing, and was
born so, and my happiness will not die, despite--despite whatsoever
comes. And I _am_ happy, and know I shall be more; and 'tis for that I
am afraid--afraid."
"Good Lord!" cried Sir Chris, swallowing a lump which rose, he knew not
why, in his throat. "What a strange creature thou art!"
His Grace's couriers went back and forth to France, and upon his
estates the people prepared their rejoicings for the marriage-day, and
never had Camylott been so heavenly fair as on the day when the bells
rang out once more, and the villagers stood along the roadside and at
their cottage doors, courtesying and throwing up hats and calling down
God's blessings on the new-wed pair, as the coach passed by, and his
Grace, holding his lady's hand, showed her to his people, seeming to
give her and her loveliness to them as they bowed and smiled
together--she almost with joyful tears in her sweet eyes.
In her room near the nurseries, at the window which looked out among
the ivy, Nurse Halsell sat, watching the equipage as it made its way up
the long avenue, and might be seen now and then between the trees, and
her old hands trembled in her lap, for very joy. And before the day was
done his Grace, knocking on the door gently, brought his Duchess to
her.
"And 'twas you," said her Grace, standing close by her chair, and
holding the old hand between her own two, which were so white and
velvet warm, "and 'twas you who held him in your arms when he was but a
little new-born thing, and often sang him to sleep, and were so loved
by him. And he played here--" and she looked about the apartment with a
tremulous smile.
"Yes," said his Grace, with a low laugh of joyful love, "and now I
bring you to her, and 'tis my marriage-day."
Nurse Halsell gazed up at the eyes which glowed above her.
"'Tis what his Grace hath waited long for," she said, "and he would
have died an unwedded man had he not reached it at last. 'Tis sure what
God ordained." And for a minute she looked straight and steady into the
Duchess's face. "A man must come to his own," she said, and bent and
kissed the fair hand with passionate love, but her Grace lifted the old
face with her palm, and stooped and kissed it fondly--gratefully.
Then the Duke took his wife to the Long Gallery and they stood there,
he holding her close against his side, while the golden sun went down.
"Here I stood and heard that you were born," he said, and kissed her
red, tender mouth. "Here I stood in agony and fought my battle with my
soul the first sad day you came to Camylott." And he kissed her slow
and tenderly again, in memory of the grief of that past time. "And here
I stand and feel your dear heart beat against my side, and look into
your eyes--and look into your eyes--and they are the eyes of her who is
mine own--and Death himself cannot take her from me."
_CHAPTER XXIX_
_At the Cow at Wichben_
The happiness he had dreamed of was given to him; nay, he knew joy and
tenderness even more high and sweet than his fancy had painted. As
Camylott had been in his childhood so he saw it again--the most
beauteous home in England and the happiest, its mistress the fairest
woman and the most nobly loving. As his own father and mother had found
life a joyful thing and their world full of warm hearts and faithful
friends, so he and she he loved, found it together. The great house was
filled once more with guests and pleasures as in the olden time, the
stately apartments were thrown open for entertainment, gay cavalcades
came and went from town, the forests were hunted, the moors shot over
by sportsmen, and the lady who was hostess and chatelaine won renown as
well as hearts, since each party of guests she entertained went back to
the homes they came from, proclaiming to all her wit and gracious
charm.
She rode to hunt and leapt hedges as she had done when she had been Clo
Wildairs; she walked the moors with the sportsmen, her gun over her
shoulder, she sparkling and showing her white teeth like a laughing
gipsy; and when she so walked, the black rings of her hair blown loose
about her brow, her cheeks kissed fresh crimson by the wet wind, and
turned her eyes upon my lord Duke near her and their looks met, the man
who beheld saw lovers who set his own heart beating.
"But is it true," asked once the great French lady who had related the
history of the breaking of the horse, Devil, "is it true that a poor
man killed himself in despair on her last marriage, and that she lives
a secret life of penance to atone--and wears a hair shirt, and peas in
her beautiful satin shoes, and does deeds of mercy in the dark places
of the big black English city?"
"A man, mad with jealous rage of her, disappeared from sight," said an
English lady present. "And he might well have drowned himself from
disappointment that she would not wed him and pay his debts; but 'twas
more like he fled England to escape his creditors. And 'tis true she
does many noble deeds in secret; but if they be done in penance for Sir
John Oxon, she is a lady with a conscience that is tender indeed."
That her conscience was a strangely tender thing was a thought which
moved one man's heart strongly many a time. Scarce a day passed in
which her husband did not mark some evidence of this--hear some word
spoken, see some deed done, almost, it seemed, as if in atonement for
imagined faults hid in her heart. He did not remark this because he was
unused to womanly mercifulness; his own mother's life had been full of
gentle kindness to all about her, of acts of charity and goodness, but
in the good deeds of this woman, whom he so loved, he observed an
eagerness which was almost a passion. She had changed no whit in the
brilliance of her spirit; in the world she reigned a queen as she had
ever done; wheresoever she moved, life and gayety seemed to follow,
whether it was at the Court, in the town, or the country; but in both
town and country he found she did strange charities, and seemed to
search for creatures she might aid in such places as other women had
not courage to dive into.
This he discovered through encountering her one day as she re-entered
Osmonde House, returning from some such errand, clad in dark, plain
garments, her black hood drawn over her face, being thereby so
disguised that but for her height and bearing he should not have
recognised her--indeed, he thought, she had not seen and would have
passed him in silence.
He put forth his hand and stayed her, smiling.
"Your Grace!" he said, "or some vision!"
She threw the black hood back and her fair face and large black eyes
shone out from beneath its shadows. She drew his hand up and kissed it,
and held it against her cheek in a dear way which was among the
sweetest of her wifely caresses.
"It is like Heaven, Gerald," she said, "to see your face, after
beholding such miseries."
And when he took her in his arm and led her to the room in which they
loved best to sit in converse together, she told him of a poor creature
she had been to visit, and when she named the place where she had found
her, 'twas a haunt so dark and wicked that he started in alarm and
wonder at her.
"Nay, dear one," he said, "such dens are not for you to visit. You must
not go to them again."
She was sitting on a low seat before him, and she leaned forward, the
black hood falling back, framing her face and making it look white.
"None else dare go," she said; "none else dare go, Gerald. Such places
are so hideous and so noisome, and yet there are those who are born and
die there, bound hand and foot when they are born, that they may be
bound hand and foot to die!" She rose as if she did not know she moved,
and stood up before him, her hand upon her breast.
"'Tis such as I should go," she said, "I who am happy and
beloved--after all--after all! 'Tis such as I who should go, and carry
love and pity--love and pity!" And she seemed Love's self and Pity's
self, and stood transfigured.
"You are a saint," he cried; "and yet I am afraid. Ah! how could any
harm you?"
"I am so great and strong," she said, in a still voice, "none could
harm me if they would. I am not as other women. And I do not know fear.
See!" and she held out her arm. "I am a Wildairs--built of iron and
steel. If in a struggle I held aught in my hand and struck at a man--"
her arm fell at her side suddenly as if some horrid thought had swept
across her soul, like a blighting blast. She turned white and sank upon
her low seat, covering her face with her hands. Then she looked up with
awed eyes. "If one who was so strong," she said, "should strike at a
man in anger, he might strike him dead--unknowing--dead!"
"'Tis not a thing to think of," said his Grace, and shuddered a little.
"But he would think of it," she said, "all his life through and bear it
on his soul." And she shuddered, too, and in her eyes was the old look
which sometimes haunted them. Surely, he thought, Nature had never
before made a woman's eyes so to answer to her lover's and her lord's.
They were so warm and full of all a man's soul most craved for. He had
seen them flash fire like Juno's, he had seen tears well up into them
as if she had been a tender girl, he had seen them laugh like a
child's, he had seen them brood over him as a young dove's might brood
over her mate, but this look was unlike any other, and was as if she
thought on some dark thing in another world--so far away that her
mind's vision could scarce reach it, and yet could not refrain from
turning towards its shadow.
But this was but a cloud which his love-words and nearness could
dispel. This she herself told him on a time when he spoke to her of it.
"When you see it," she said, "come and tell me that you love me, and
that there is naught can come between our souls. As you said the day
you showed me the dear rose, 'Naught can come between'--and love is
more than all."
"But that you know," he answered.
Life is so full of joys for those who love and, being mated, are given
by their good fortunes the power to live as their hearts lead them.
These two were given all things, it seemed to the world which looked
on. From one of their estates to the other they went with the changing
seasons, and with them carried happiness and peace. Her Grace, of whom
the villagers had heard such tales as made them feel that they should
tremble before the proud glance of her dark eyes, found that their last
Duchess, whose eyes had been like violets, could smile no more sweetly.
This one was somehow the more majestic lady of the two, being taller
and having a higher bearing by Nature, but none among them had ever
beheld one who was more a woman and seemed so well to understand a
woman's heart and ways. Where had she learned it, they wondered among
themselves, as others had wondered the year when, as my Lady
Dunstanwolde, she had been guest at Camylott, and in the gipsy's
encampment had carried, so soft and tenderly, the little gipsy child in
her arms. Where had she learned it?
"Gerald," she said once to her husband, and pressed her hand against
her heart, "'twas always here--_here_, lying hid, when none knew
it--when I did not know it myself. When I seemed but a hard, wild
creature, having only men for friends--I was a woman then, and used
sometimes to sit and stare at the red coals of the fire, or the red sun
going down on the moors, and feel longings and pities and sadness I
knew not the meaning of. And often, suddenly, I was made angry by them
and would spring up and walk away that I might be troubled no more. But
'twas Nature crying out in me that I was a woman and could be naught
else."
Her love and tenderness for her sister, Mistress Anne, increased, it
seemed, hour by hour.
"At Camylott, at Marlowell, at Roxholm, at Paulyn, and at Mertoun," she
had said when she was married, "we must have an apartment which is
Anne's. She is my saint and I must keep a niche for her in every house
and set her in it to be worshipped."
And so it was, to whichsoever of their homes they went, Mistress Anne
went with them and found always her own nest warm to receive her.
"It makes me feel audacious, sister," she used to say at first, "to go
from one grand house to the other and be led to Mistress Anne's
apartments, in each, and they always prepared and waiting as if 'twere
I who were a Duchess."
"You are Anne! You are Anne!" said her Grace, and kissed her fondly.
Sometimes she was like a gay and laughing girl, and set all the place
alight with her witcheries; she invented entertainments for their
guests, games and revels for the villagers, and was the spirit of all.
In one of their retrospective hours, Osmonde had told her of the
thoughts he had dreamed on, as they had ridden homeward from the
encampment of the gipsies--of his fancies of the comrade she would make
for a man who lived a roving life. She had both laughed and wept over
the story, clinging to his breast as she had told her own, and of her
fear of his mere glance at her in those dark days, and that she had not
dared to sit alone but kept near her lord's side lest she should
ponder and remember what 'twas honest she should forget.
But afterwards she planned, for their fanciful pleasure, rambling long
jaunts when they rode or walked unattended, and romanced like children,
eating their simple food under broad greenwood trees or on the wide
moors with a whole world of heather, as it seemed, rolled out before
them.
On such a journey, setting out from London one bright morning, they
rode through Essex and stopped by chance at a little village inn. 'Twas
the village of Wickben, and on the signboard which hung swinging on a
post before the small thatched house of entertainment was painted a
brown cow.
None knew 'twas a Duke and his Duchess who dismounted and entered the
place. They had made sure that by their attire none could suspect them
of being more than ordinary travellers, modest enough to patronise a
humble place.
"But Lord, what a fine pair!" said the old fellow who was the landlord.
"Adam and Eve may have been such when God first made man and woman, and
had stuff in plenty to build them."
He was an aged man and talkative, and being eager for a chance to wag
his tongue and hear travellers' adventures, attended them closely. He
gave them their simple repast himself in small room, and as he moved
to and fro fell to gossiping, emboldened by their friendly gayety of
speech and by her Grace's smiling eyes.
"Your ladyship," he began at first, in somewhat awkward, involuntary
homage.
"Nay, gaffer, I am no ladyship," she answered, with Clo Wildairs's
unceremonious air. "I am but a gipsy woman in good luck for a day, and
my man is a gipsy, too, though his skin is fairer than mine. We are
going to join our camp near Camylott village. These horses are not ours
but borrowed--honestly. Is't not so, John Merton?" And she so laughed
at his Grace with her big, saucy eyes, that he wished he had been
indeed a gipsy man and could have kissed her openly.
"Art the Gipsies' queen?" asked the old man, bewitched by her.
"Not she," answered his Grace, "but a plain gipsy wench who makes
baskets and tells fortunes--for all her good looks. Thou'rt flattering
her, old fellow. All the men flatter her."
"'Tis well there are some to flatter me," said her Grace, showing her
white teeth. "Thou dost not. But 'tis always so when a poor woman weds
a man and tramps by the side of him instead of keeping him at her
feet."
And then they led their old host on to talk, and told him stories of
what gipsies did, and of their living in tents and sleeping in the
open, and of the ill-luck which sometimes befel them when the lord of
the manor they camped on was a hard man and evil tempered.
"'Tis a Duke who rules over Camylott, is't not?" the old fellow asked.
"Ay," was her Grace's answer, nodding her head. "He is well enough, but
his lady--Lord! but they tell that she was a vixen before her marriage
a few years gone!"
"I have seen her," said his Grace. "She is not ill to look at, and has
done us no harm yet."
"Ay, but she may," says her Grace, nodding wisely again. "Who knows
what such a woman may turn out. I have seen _him_!" She stopped, her
elbows on the little round wooden table, her chin on her hands, and
gave her saucy stare again. "I'll pay thee a compliment," she said. "He
is a big fellow, and not unlike thee--though he be Duke and thou naught
but a vagabond gipsy."
Their host had hearkened to them eagerly, and now he put in a question.
"Was not she the beauty that was married to an old Earl who left her
widow?" he said. "Was not she Countess Dunstanwolde?"
"Ay," answered her Grace, quietly.
"Ecod!" cried the old fellow, "that minds me of a story, and 'twas a
thing happened in this very house and room. Look there!"
He pointed with something like excitement to the window. 'Twas but
seldom he had chance to tell his story, and 'twas a thing he dearly
loved to do, life being but a dull thing at the Cow at Wickben, and few
travellers passing that way. A pair so friendly and gay and ready to
hearken to his chatter as these two he had not seen for years.
"Look there!" he said. "At that big hole in the wall."
They turned together and looked at it in some wonder that her ladyship
of Dunstanwolde should have any connection with it. 'Twas indeed a big
hole, and looked as if the plaster of the wall under the sill had been
roughly broken and hacked.