A TALK WITH LORD DERWENTWATER. I ESCAPE.
"Lawrence!" he exclaimed, starting back at the sight of me, and with a
cry Lady Derwentwater came forward and took my hand. In truth, I must
have cut a sufficiently pitiable figure, for my dress was all fouled
from head to foot, and my face, I have no doubt, the complement of my
dress.
"The soldiers are after me," I gasped out.
"Ah! Jervas Rookley!" cried Lord Derwentwater, with a bang of his fist
upon the table, the while his wife got me some brandy from a
sideboard. "But I warned you, Lawrence! I warned you, when I caught
sight of him in Keswick."
"I know," I answered. "But you did not warn me he was a traitor. All
this while Jervas Rookley has been my steward at Blackladies."
"Your steward!" exclaimed Lord Derwentwater; "and you did not know."
"Nay," I replied, "it was not so much that. But I would not know. I
pledged my word to him." With that I drank off the brandy.
"Oh, if you had only told me this!" he cried.
"I could not," I answered "I had but conjectures, and they were not
enough to warrant me. There was but one fact in all the business which
was clearly known to me: I had pledged my word to him."
"Nay," said Lady Derwentwater, and she laid a pitying hand upon my
shoulder, "he was right, since he had given his word;" and I--why, I
groaned aloud and let my face fall forward on my arms. "Ah, poor boy!"
she exclaimed. "All this day he has been out upon the hills, and here
we stand plaguing him with questions, when we should be ransacking the
pantry. We deserve to be whipped."
She cautiously slipped out of the room.
But it was not any bodily want that troubled me so much as the
unmerited kindliness of her tone and gesture. It wrought on me,
indeed, with such a melting compulsion that had she remained within
the room, I verily believe I should have blurted out that other story,
with a "Withold your pity until it is deserved."
Lord Derwentwater locked the door behind his wife and began to walk
about the room.
"Lawrence," said he, "I am in some way to blame for this. But I did
not know the fellow was masquerading at Blackladies as your steward.
He was disinherited, you know. But do you know why?"
"Because he was a Jacobite," I replied.
"Because he was a spy," cried Lord Derwentwater. "A spy--do you
understand?--paid by the Government to worm himself into the Jacobite
councils. I know, for his father told me, and told me on his
death-bed. Sir John was a Whig, you know, but an honest one and a
gentleman, and the shock the knowledge caused him, caused his death."
"A spy!" I exclaimed. "And I might have known! I might have known it
at Commercy."
"At Commercy?" said he with a start
"I might have known it in mid-channel. It was the letter his hands
were searching for;" and noticing Lord Derwentwater's perplexity, I
related to him the whole story of Rookley's coming to Paris, the
promise I made to him there, the journey to Lorraine.
"You had speech with the King!" he exclaimed, "and Jervas Rookley
knew. You carried a letter----"
"In the King's hand, to the Duke of Ormond."
"And Jervas Rookley knew!"
"Ay, for he tried to steal it," and a great silence fell upon us both.
We looked into each other's eyes; I know I held my breath. With a
swift, stealthy movement, more significant to me than even the silence
was, he unlocked the door again and peered into the passage.
"We were speaking over-loud, Lawrence," he said, in a hushed whisper.
He was on the point of locking the door again, when Lady Derwentwater
returned, bearing a loaded tray.
"It is a bad case you are in," said Lord Derwentwater. "You had best
fall to. It must not be known you were here to-night. I would gladly
hide you."
"Nay," said I, "I have brought you near enough to danger as it is."
He waved the remark aside.
"There is no sense in such talk between friends. But Lord's Island is
no safe place for you. I am suspected; you are known for my friend.
Here will they come first to search for you."
"But to-morrow," interrupted his wife, "not to-night"
"It were best he leave to-night," replied Lord Derwentwater.
"Ah, no, James," she returned, "it would be ill-usage in any case to
dismiss so easily a friend so hard put to it, and the worst usage in
the world towards Mr. Clavering. For look, what the boy most needs is
a bed."
"And what if he were taken in it! That would be worse usage still.
Anna, we cannot risk his life for the sake of our manners."
I seconded him in his advice, for though I was dropping with fatigue,
and Lady Derwentwater's words called up I know not what sweet visions
of lavender sheets, I knew that at any moment the sheriff's messenger
might come rapping at the doors. Lady Derwentwater accordingly said no
more, but betook herself to filling my glass and heaping up my plate
with an air of such maternal tenderness as pierced me to the heart. If
she only knew, I thought--if she only knew what manner of man she
tended on! And again I was very near to blurting out my story.
"There is one thing," said I, "which I do not understand. For if
Rookley meant my ruin, why should he wait so long to accomplish it? He
had the means to hand, the day that I set foot in England."
Lord Derwentwater stopped suddenly in his walk.
"You received my letter yesterday?"
"A letter?" said I. "No! What time of the day was it sent?"
"In the afternoon."
I remembered that I had seemed to hear the hoofs of a horse upon the
drive when I was in the parlour. Lord Derwentwater slipped out of the
room. In a little he came back with a scared face.
"The letter was handed to your steward," he said. "The man I sent was
a new servant, else he would have known who the steward was."
"But what was in the letter?"
"It was a message from Harry St John, enclosed in a letter which came
to me. It said the French King was dying, and no help was to be
expected from the Regent, who would follow him. It said the rising was
to be deferred."
"Then I understand!" I exclaimed, starting to my feet "I had promised
Rookley to restore the estate when the King came to his own. So long
as there was a chance of that, he would let me go free. But when that
chance failed, he might buy back Blackladies by selling me."
"Ay," said Derwentwater, "that is Jervas Rookley from top to toe. He
would have one foot marking time with King George, and the other
stepping forward with King James."
And again he paced musingly about the room whilst I betook myself to
my supper. At last--
"I know," he said; and then turning to me, "I was thinking whither I
should send you. There is old Ralph Curwen. You will be safe with him
at Applegarth."
It seemed to me that I had heard the name before, but on what occasion
I could not at the moment remember.
"He lives in Ennerdale," continued he; "an honest Jack, but he is old,
and since his son died, has known little company beyond his books. You
will be safe with him."
"Ay, but will he be safe with me?" I objected.
"No doubt of that He has taken no part in these quarrels of ours for
many a day, and they will not look for you in Ennerdale."
He sat down and wrote a letter.
"I will send you thither," he said, "with a servant I can trust, and
as soon as may be we'll get you out of England;" and he rose, he
crossed over to a table, and unlocking a drawer took out a little
diary.
"Let me see!" he said. "To-day is St. Bartholomew's Day. It may be
that I can send you across to France. Why, what ails you?"
"It is nothing," I replied hastily.
It was, indeed, the mere mention of the date which made me sway like a
man falling and grasp at the table. To-day was St Bartholomew's Day.
Then yesterday was the Eve, the Eve of St. Bartholomew. My thoughts
went back to the preacher I had heard in Paris and to the picture of
the dead man speaking, who had seemed in my imagination to thunder out
at me, "The Eve of St. Bartholomew."
Lord Derwentwater went from the room to give his orders, and ten
minutes later I was being rowed across the lake towards Silver Hill
and watching two heads at the lighted window diminish into specks.
There was but the one man in the boat besides myself--Lord
Derwentwater's servant Tash. Accordingly, on disembarking in a little
wood on the west shores of Derwentwater, we drew the boat on to dry
ground, and striking up the hillside walked southwards along the
slopes of Catbells and Maiden Moor. But for my part I took little note
of our direction. My head nodded on my shoulders, my feet stumbled
behind my guide's in a mechanic progression. Had he led me back into
Keswick town I should have followed him. I walked in a daze of
weariness, sensible of but two things in the world: one that the fresh
smell of the grass and parsley-fern was every way as sweet as lavender
to lie in; the other that I must still walk on, since there was
something to be done that I and I alone could do.
In the morning we moved yet higher up the slopes, and so walking ever
southwards past Dale Head Tarn and Honister, came to a lofty ridge
between Grey Knotts and Brandreth about nine o'clock of the morning.
There my guide called a halt, and pulling my hat over my eyes I
plumped down on the grass and slept without more ado.