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“MY MERRY ROCKHURST”
* * * * * *
By Agnes & Egerton Castle
THE PRIDE OF JENNICO
“IF YOUTH BUT KNEW!”
THE SECRET ORCHARD
ROSE OF THE WORLD
THE STAR-DREAMER
THE HOUSE OF ROMANCE
THE BATH COMEDY
INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS
THE HEART OF LADY ANNE
[Illustration]
By Egerton Castle
YOUNG APRIL
THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY
CONSEQUENCES
MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER
LE ROMAN DU PRINCE OTHON
THE JERNINGHAM LETTERS
ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES
SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE
ETC.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Through the open window, out of the darkness, gathered a
heavy rumble of wheels; then again uprose the call of the bell, the cry
of the hoarse voice: “Bring out your dead!”
(_See p. 293._)]
“MY MERRY ROCKHURST”
Being
Some Episodes in the Life of Viscount
Rockhurst, a Friend of King Charles
the Second, and at One Time Constable
of His Majesty’S Tower
of London
Recounted by
AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE
Authors of
“The Pride of Jennico,” “‘If Youth But
Knew!’” “Rose of the World,” etc.
New York
The Macmillan Company
1907
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1907,
by the Macmillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1907.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
RANDOLPH HENRY STEWART
ELEVENTH EARL OF GALLOWAY
HEAD OF THE ANCIENT HOUSE OF STEWART
THIS STORY IS DEDICATED
WITH THE
AUTHORS’ AFFECTIONATE REGARD
SEPT. 1, 1907.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE KING’S COMRADE 1
I. The State Crust 3
II. Cavalier and Capitan 21
FARRANT CHACE 43
I. Farrant Chace 45
II. The Lady in the Snow 58
III. The Ransom 64
IV. Under the Stars 78
THE ENIGMA OF THE LOCKET 87
I. Little Satan 89
II. Whitehall Stairs 106
III. The Linnet’s Song 124
THE PEACOCK WALK 145
I. June Roses 147
II. Fatherly Wisdom 168
III. The New French Pass 186
THE KING’S CUP 197
I. Little Satan 199
II. The Venetian Glass 225
III. The Phial of Acquetta 236
LADY CHILLINGBURGH’S LAST CARD-PARTY 251
I. Lincoln’s Inn Fields 253
II. Love’s Reproach 267
III. The Plague-Cart 281
BROKEN SANCTUARY 297
I. The Haven of Refuge 299
II. The Gold Whistle 308
III. Nemesis 323
THE RED DESOLATION 339
I. The Watchers 341
II. The Testament 351
III. The Last Command 368
ILLUSTRATIONS
“Through the open window, out of the
darkness, gathered a heavy rumble of wheels;
then again uprose the call of the bell, the
cry of the hoarse voice: ‘Bring out your
dead!’” (See page 293) FRONTISPIECE
OPP. PAGE
“The single contemptuous exclamation fell
like the cut of a whip” 68
“She felt at last that she had power” 132
“Lionel took place beside him and from
narrowed lids looked smilingly at the young
man’s happy countenance” 184
“The huddled figure in the great chair.
The face of her that had so stout a heart,
conquered in death—but less piteous, less
awful sight than the living face of the
French madam” 314
“Harry gave a deep groan, covered his face
with his hands, and fell upon the bench” 364
THE KING’S COMRADE
THE KING’S COMRADE
I
THE STATE CRUST
The early September night had descended upon Bruges,—“City of
Bridges,”—once the seat of the most luxurious court in Europe, now so far
away, fallen from its high if not from its wealthy estate. The life of
the little town, never very active or varied under the Spaniard’s rule,
seemed this evening to have been swept into a stillness emphasised only
by an occasional footfall upon the cobbles of its winding streets, some
husky cry from a barge gliding ghost-like down a canal, or the far-away
barking of dogs on the farm lands beyond the walls. A sea mist had crept
from the north, muffling even these sounds of silence, rolling in thicker
volumes along the many sluggard waters that intersect the old Flemish
Mart and bring prosperity to her comfortable merchants, as it were in
their sleep. It hung itself in loose wisps around the carven towers of
the Cathedral, the giddy heights of the belfry—whence, as the hours
slipped on, deep bell voices answered clear bell voices, like spirits
communing from their heights across the petty lives below.
* * * * *
The corner house of a row of solid burgher mansions, flanking the canal
on the Quai Vert, stood slightly apart with an air of greater importance
than the rest, giving to the street on the one side through courtyard
and wrought-iron gate, and on the other sheer over the water that lazily
lipped the green, slimy foot of its walls.
The second floor of this house had been the dwelling of my lord Viscount
Rockhurst ever since—that is, some two years before—Charles had
transferred to Bruges his penurious little court of English Cavaliers,
exiles like himself since the fateful days of Worcester, of Boscobel, and
Whiteladies.
In a long, low room overlooking the canal, two men sat together, one on
each side of an open hearth, lost in deep musings. The curtains were
undrawn; one window stood open, and ever and anon admitted a wreath of
the sea-fog that swirled a moment and swiftly fainted away. The only
light in the apartment was the ruddy glow of a driftwood fire, now
cheerfully burning, although the acrid savour that still hung in the air
betrayed its recent stubbornness and explained the gaping casement. It
seemed as if the two lacked the energy either to shut out the gloom of
night or call for the enlivening of candle or lamp; as if the paralysing,
sodden weight lying upon the world without had laid hold of their souls.
The blue-tipped flames that leaped round the logs flung now one brooding
countenance in relief, now the other. Upon the right, the dark head of
the exiled King of England, still in the very ripeness of young manhood,
would be sketched against the leather-backed chair upon which it wearily
rested. But not all the geniality of the blaze could give sanguine hue or
gleam of cheerfulness to the sallow, harsh visage. In utter dejection,
the long figure—“a tall man, above two yards high,” so had run the
description on the Council of State’s Warrant for the apprehension of
Charles Stuart—extended itself as if unconsciously to the warmth, chin
sunk upon breast, eyes fixed and moody under drooping lids and singularly
bushy eyebrows.
Upon the left, the fitful tongues of flame revealed a face of equal
melancholy if of greater energy and comeliness. My lord Rockhurst sat
forward, supporting his cheek upon his hand. His was a type such as
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, some few years before, had loved to fix in his
incomparable line and colour. Like his King he was dark, but with
chestnut lights and a crispness in the waves of hair falling upon his
shoulders absent from the heavy locks of Charles. Against the glow his
profile stood out, fine-cut and pale-hued as a carving in ivory. Older
by some years, there yet was a youthful air of alertness about his whole
personality, even as he sat motionless, that was conspicuously lacking in
the apathetic figure facing him.
Ever and anon his eyes, hawk-like in their keenness and the quick
dilation of their pupils, would shift from the wistful contemplation
of fire-pictures to the royal countenance, where they would rest in
scrutiny, and, it seemed, in deepening concern. Ever and anon, upon the
withdrawal of this gaze, a slight sigh escaped him.
Suddenly Charles gathered his long limbs into a more erect posture, and
jerking his head toward his companion:—
“And there you go again, Harry, with your heigh-ho’s. I fled but an hour
ago from the long faces of my lord Gerard, of Erskine, and Armorer—”
“My lord Gerard, gentleman of the Bedchamber, Messieurs Erskine and
Armorer, Cupbearer and Comptroller of the Household—” murmured Rockhurst,
with a humorous twist of bitterness.
“Gentleman of the Straw Pallet and Wooden Stool … Comptroller of the
State Crusts! As for Mr. Cupbearer Erskine, he had to-day to pledge in
pawn the last silver pot for fear of arrest.… Marry! I took refuge with
you, who at least, God be praised, never weary me with talk of debts.
Yet even you must need treat me to sighs! Upon my soul, a man would no
more cheerful company than that of this Court of mine to put him in fit
frame for the monastery—How say you, Harry? Is’t perchance the one issue
left us? There is Royal, aye, Imperial example for it. Do you see in me
proper material for a Trappist? ‘_Brother, we must die_’—Nay, ‘_Brother,
we are dead_’ would better suit our case! No Cistercian wall could hold a
drearier prospect than this dismal town of Bruges.”
He rose as he spoke, and dragged himself with slouching steps to the
window:—
“Faugh! the smell of those dead waters—the stillness of them!… I vow I
can hear the drip from yonder leafless poplars on the bank! Aye, Charles
is dead, and Bruges is his tomb! ’Tis no lofty withdrawal from life, like
his great namesake’s, but a very sordid end, my good Harry. Death of
credit, death of hopes.… Here we are, in a town of merchants, a community
of buyers and sellers, and we have not wherewithal to pay for a supper,
nay, not even for a bottle to help us forget that we have not supped.”
The other man had risen in his turn and approached the window.
“Why, now!” he cried, and his voice in its brisk, manly tone formed a
strong contrast to the other’s melancholy drawl, “’tis surely but this
pestilent fog keeps Mr. Secretary Hyde and my lord of Bristol from
rejoining us with the promised supplies; faith, and who knows? with news
that may cheer our hearts, my liege.”
“Harry,” said the other, wheeling round and facing him with something
of humour in his rueful visage, “this _my liege_ of yours to my empty
stomach savours most damnably of mockery. For love of Heaven, if thou
wouldst help me to bear it, remember we are but comrades in bad straits
together. Here is poor Charles, and there stands poor Harry. Liege?
Majesty? Psho! Our own country will have none of us; our friends abroad
have failed us; the wise burghers of this town will no longer recognise
the value of a signature of mine—and as for thee.…”
“My last remittance, overdue this month; intercepted, I make no doubt,
by Old Noll’s—” Rockhurst made a gesture toward the casement: yonder
to the north, but a score of miles, perhaps, Cromwell’s well-found
ships were cruising, as he knew, close in shore. “Well, better luck
next venture!” he went on. “Our friends at home—the one certainty in
these uncertain times—do not forget us. Sighs! Did I sigh? ’Twas at the
thought that, though there is still firewood in the house you deigned
to honour to-night, there is ne’er a bottle left for your Majesty’s
entertainment—and.…”
In eloquent conclusion, the Cavalier pulled out a silk purse and crushed
its emptiness between his palms with a smile, which the anxious gaze he
fixed upon his visitor markedly belied.
“My last angel gone to the surly porter of Mynheer Tratsaert’s house of
business this afternoon. I had better have kept it for our supper. But
who would have thought that Mr. Secretary Hyde, Councillor, Chancellor of
the Exchequer, would allow such lack.…”
“And who would have thought who knew the fortunes of Charles that he
was ever destined to do aught but lack? The fox hath his hole and the
birds of the air have nests … but Charles shall not even have a stone
whereon to lay his head. Aye—you may well stare, Harry, to hear me quote
Scripture. The waters are at lowest ebb with us, good friend; and like
the rest of the world, in our extremity, we turn to the texts.”
A moment the elder man stood gazing through the gloom which in the
falling firelight was gathering ever more closely about them, at the face
of his royal master. Then he said in a low voice which more concealed
than betrayed emotion:—
“When the tide is at lowest, ’tis but nearest to the turn.”
“Nay,” broke from the other with ever-increasing bitterness, “if that
is where thy hopes lie, I am sorry for thee. There is no turn in such
fortunes as mine, but an ever-sapping drain. Why, there is not a kinsman
can afford to show countenance to such a falling house, not a lady in
Europe who has heart enough to risk her fate with my hopes. Nay, there’s
not even a fat tallow merchant of Flanders who thinks it worth his while
to risk a present guilder for future favour. You would do better, my
lord, to go seek your peace with the powers that be—and for this you have
recent high precedent—rather than remain to share the last ruin of our
line.”
“Sire,” exclaimed Rockhurst then, “how shall my house stand if yours
fall? How shall my body keep health if yours ail? Where is my country
but with you, or my hopes but with yours?”
Charles answered the steady tones with an attempt at lightness which
failed to cover completely a certain tender break in his own voice.
“The more fool you, then, Harry! Easy terms would be made to the Viscount
Rockhurst. He could dwell on his fat lands once more in power and
opulence instead of wasting them in fines—he could bring up his heir in
leisure; nay, he could wed him a new wife and beget him a fresh family,
all in merry England.”
“My son,” answered the other, “is in good hands—and my sister in the
farm-house where she hath refuge brings him up even in such wise as I
should myself. As for a new wife, poor Charles,”—his lips broke into a
smile as they spoke the words,—“believe your poor Harry, he is as little
likely to seek one as he is to seek a new master—But, Heaven forgive
me!” he went on with brisk change of tone, “this outer fog seems to have
befogged my inner wits. The house can at least afford us lights. Nay, I
will close the casement upon the dull, wet world. Another log or two on
the hearth!” He added action to speech, and a cheerful roar and blaze
answered the ministration. “The curtain across the casement—so! Now we
were in worse straits after Worcester. Have you forgotten how we stole a
sheep and killed it and brought you the reeking leg, and you yourself cut
it into collops and set them in the pan? Good lack—how tough they were!
Yet ’twas a merry supper. Back to your chair by the warmth, my dearest
Sire. An hour’s patience, and it will go ill with me if I serve you not a
meal—and wine to it—fit wine for the pledge it shall wash.”
“Aye, and how will you manage that, my merry Rockhurst?” asked Charles
Stuart listlessly, as he suffered himself to be led back to his chair.
“Why, by a fight or a kiss, a laugh or a lie!” cried his companion gaily.
“Since the French king has thrust us out to please England’s Protector;
since the Don neglects to maintain us in proper state, why then, the
Don’s land must be made to provide!” He took up his sword which lay
on the table to his hand and buckled it round his lean figure as he
spoke. “A joke will bring a man far along sometimes; or, if not, then a
prodigious bit of deceit. I am ready, too, to kiss, my good liege, or
kill. Is not all fair in love and war? And are we not at war still, aye,
and with the whole world too,—and as much in love as out of it? There are
women in this Flemish town, and they have hearts for a man, or how could
even this Bruges subsist?”
He stood in the full light of the racing hearth-flame, the points of the
thin mustache quivering with his smile. So handsome, although worn with
anxiety and privation; so tall and proper a man, so dashing a presence in
such tattered and faded garb.
Charles turned his dark eyes slowly on his friend.
“Art a likely figure, in verity, to go courting the prude burgher’s
daughter!” he drawled upon a yawn. “Aye, well—off with thee, then, and
I’ll have a nap to pass the weary time. _Qui dort dine_, as the French
say—though my sleek cousin of France would scarce put up with the
alternative!—But mind how you play, my lord, with your kisses and your
blade—I can ill afford to lose my last friend!”
Rockhurst answered but by a look of affectionate devotion. Then, after a
little pause:—
“I will send Chitterley with candles,” said he, “and bid him lay the
table against my return.”
Upon which, he made as low a bow toward the languid figure as if the
exile sat in state upon his throne, and withdrew from the room.
In the entrance-hall, dimly lit by a tallow candle thrust in an iron
sconce, he paused, and an air of concentration succeeded the spurt of
enforced gaiety.
Charles had indeed summed up the situation. The English Royalists,
bankrupt of credit, bankrupt at last of hope, the King himself reduced
to pledge his orders, even his favourite silver-hilt sword, the royal
dinner “dwindled to one dish”; withal the taste of wine like to some
receding memory! It would require an inspiration of audacity this evening
to provide the rashly promised guerdon. But Rockhurst had a soul to which
emergency was a sure spur. He wasted no further time upon reflection,
since reflection served but to show ever more sternly that in this
night’s foray he must suffer chance and his own boldness to guide him.
Going to the door of the servants’ quarters, he called for the French
factotum—a clever rascal, cook, valet, groom,—who, with his faithful
English attendant, represented the household of the whilom sumptuous Lord
Viscount.
“Marcelin!”
“Monseigneur?” The word rang back in brisk interrogation from the
underground kitchen.
“Get thee a lantern and attend me. We go foraging, you understand?”
“Oh, yes, monseigneur!” There was something of a joyous ring in the
prompt answer.
“Chitterley!”
“Yes, my lord!”
“His Majesty himself is with us to-night! Take up candles and lay the
supper table—”
“Yes—my lord.” The quavering response was given in tones of doubt and
wonder.
Rockhurst adjusted his cloak,—a garment more weather-stained and damaged
even than the suit it covered,—flung upon his head the battered beaver
with its derision of a Cavalier plume, and was unlocking the door when
Marcelin emerged.
“I have taken the liberty to bring a basket, monseigneur,” said the man,
casting the object (which was of bloated dimensions) on the floor whilst
he settled his lantern to better trim. “Foraging?—Good news, my faith,
for it’s a weary time since we have had but Poor-John or a sandhill
rabbit to our stringy cabbage! Monseigneur has his plan, no doubt?”
“None as yet,” said Rockhurst. “But, at whatever cost, Marcelin, we
return not here empty-handed.”
“As soon die of a knock on the head as of famine,” said the Frenchman
lightly. “Milord hardly conceives with what joy I am of his enterprise.
I would follow milord at all times, but to-night there is hardly a crime
I do not feel capable of after these days of stock-fish and clear water.”
The strokes of nine were falling slow and grave from the Cathedral tower,
somewhere high above the fog, as they turned into the street. All Bruges,
wrapped in her blanket of mist, lay to their will: a town asleep, or soon
to be, for your Fleming is a creature of early hours.
The hungry Cavalier had instinctively shaped his course through the High
Street toward the Grande Place, in or about which purlieus lay the few
taverns that remained open during night hours—dismal holes enough, which
brought sighing remembrance of jovial London meetings. But no hostelry
good or vile is a place of promise to him who, in the local parlance,
“lodge but the Devil in his purse.” And much to Marcelin’s disappointment
his lordship passed pensively on to outlying districts. There was, as
he had admitted, as yet no definite plan in his mind; but he sought
those quarters of the town where the evening fare was likely to be most
succulent. Was he not to cater for a king?
With one or two of the great houses which rose on the quay of the
Augustines, isolated from each other by the length of high-walled
gardens, he had had in earlier and slightly more prosperous days of exile
a passing acquaintance. Had a forgotten shutter, an undrawn curtain, but
given him a glimpse of some pleasantly lighted family repast, he would
have made bold to ply knocker and bell and demand a loan, trusting to the
hour of mellow conviviality and his own winning address. But not even a
ray was suffered this night to send its cheerful message into the street
from those carefully barred balconies and windows. The burgher filled
himself from his good fleshpots—the English exile or Spanish soldier
might roam, ragged and empty, in the cold.
“Has monseigneur any definite purpose in making his promenade through the
fog, which—saving monseigneur’s respect—is as searching as the devil?
If I might venture to suggest,” murmured Marcelin at last, in tones of
apologetic weariness, drawing close to Rockhurst’s elbow, “if monseigneur
would visit the Three Flags tavern, or the Cellar at the Sluys Gate, he
might perhaps deign to win a few pistoles from some Spanish coronel or
some French gentleman prisoner on parole. Then—”
“Marcelin,” interrupted Rockhurst, “the lining of our purse admits of
no such suggestion, however otherwise sagacious. Do not attempt to
interfere with the guidance of fate. The night is foggy, ’tis true;
natheless is fog more substantial to take into your empty carcass than
mere airs. These houses do not present a hospitable front, yet each one
holds gold both in purse and in flagon. The question is how to get it.
That question is fate’s business to solve for us. March.”
He swung into as quick a pace as the uncertain gloom and the rough
pavement permitted; and, as if his servant’s words had started it in his
memory, began to sing, not loudly, but in a voice of some sweetness, the
air of a swaggering popular Spanish song that was much on the lips, this
autumn, of Don John’s soldiery.
Hardly had he reached the second stave when, overhead, a window guarded
with ornamental bowed iron grille-work was cautiously opened, and a
woman’s voice took up the refrain as gently as a swallow twitters.
Rockhurst instantly halted, and doffing his hat with gallant alertness,
glanced up at the square of faint light, against which a woman’s head,
leaning forward behind the curving bars, was just visible.
“Hist—” The warning sound dropped sibilantly.
“Hist!” promptly responded Rockhurst, ready for all emergency.
Then through the bars a hand fluttered a second.
“_La llave del jardin_,” breathed the timid tones, in a Spanish which
even his own foreign ear recognised as more Flemish than Castilian. Upon
which something fell with a muffled clang at his feet: the key of the
garden door.
“My soul…!” responded Rockhurst in his most ardent whisper.
His Spanish did not go very far; but he had at least that nodding
acquaintance with it which residence in Flanders rendered necessary to a
Cavalier. Fortunately, more was not required of him; for the house wall
grew blank again with the closing window.
But fate had pointed her finger.
Stooping, he groped for the key. It was wrapped in a fine kerchief which
had a fragrance of angelic water, and he sniffed with amused anticipation
ere he thrust it in his breast. He was weighing the heavy key in his hand
as Marcelin crept up to him again.
“If monseigneur had only deigned to inform me that it was a rendezvous…!”
he thought plaintively. “Here am I very foolish, with my basket instead
of good cutlass to keep watch over his _bonne fortune_!”
The honest fellow’s head was in a complete whirl. That milord should
abandon the King for the sake of a lady was milord all over, it was
true; nevertheless an astounding proceeding, and milord’s manner of
conducting the affair confusing in the extreme. But his master’s next
words brought illumination:—
“Look you now, Marcelin, did I not tell you Fortune would solve the
riddle? Has she not brought us to the most opulent house of the whole
row? And if it were not for the fog, her servant, would that sweet lady
have mistaken me for her Spanish lover? Come, now, the garden door must
lurk in this wall to the right.”
He moved on a few steps, running his hand along the brick. Marcelin
followed, lost in admiration.
“Eh, by the little dog of St. Roch!” he cried, “does monseigneur intend—?”
“Certes, my friend, and to make the lady glad of the exchange,” answered
the Cavalier in his quiet voice. “Ha, here is the nail-studded wood: here
with your lantern.”
II
CAVALIER AND CAPITAN
Even as he spoke, bending to look for the lock, there came along the
cobbles of the lane a clink of spurs that rang to the rhythm of a martial
tread. And presently a rather husky voice was uplifted into that same
conquering lilt—the tune of the marching Spaniards—that had come to
Rockhurst’s mind a few moments before.
Lilt and step fell into sudden silence at the corner of the house. The
newcomer had halted, apparently struck by the sight of the two figures,
shadowed as they were through the vapours at the garden gate by the
lantern light. Rockhurst’s head as he bent over the lock was lit up
fantastically. The bold features, the thin, upturned mustache, quivering
now with a mischievous smile, the peaked beard, black as raven’s wing,
and the hat with its challenging tilt and its incredible plume, all
seemed to proclaim in him one of Don John’s own rakish soldiers of
fortune.
The key turned in the lock. The next instant the Capitan (the red plume
sweeping over the hat-brim proclaimed his rank) sprang forward with a
growl like an angry dog’s and plucked at Rockhurst’s cloak, even as the
latter was pushing the door open.
“Hey, there, comrade!” he whispered, “you are caught at it—breaking into
an honest burgher’s house! Out of this, sharp!”
“Breaking in, camarado? Why, not at all,” responded Rockhurst, in his
own Franco-Spanish. “Merely entering where I am expected, and my servant
there holds the light.—Come in, Marcelin.”
He stepped lightly through the doorway, leaving his cloak in the other’s
grasp. His voice, in the undertone they both deemed prudent to adopt, yet
conveyed the perfection of mockery.
“Expected? _Cuerpo de Dios!_” said the gallant, and fell back a step,
blank surprise robbing him, it seemed, of all other emotion for the
present.
“Even so, Señor Caballero, witness this key. (Up with the light,
Marcelin, that the señor may see for himself.) Witness the token.”
He brandished first the key, then the scented handkerchief, with gay
gesture. “May I trouble you for my cloak? Then I shall wish you good
night.”
Marcelin, grinning, stood between the two, his back against the
door-post, the basket on his arm, holding up the lantern. The light fell
full on the Spaniard’s visage: young and handsome enough it was, though
now livid with fury. Still speechless, he seemed rooted to the spot, his
black eyes starting, the wings of his nostrils distended upon his angry
breath.
Rockhurst waited a second or two, then with a laugh:—
“Marcelin,” he ordered, “relieve the noble Capitan of my cloak: he will
understand my impatience.”
The little valet, shifting the lantern into the basket, put out his hand
obediently for the ragged garment in question. But here the newcomer,
suddenly leaping into active ferocity, made a headlong rush into the
garden, and had not Rockhurst by a dexterous step aside avoided the
onslaught, would have seized his rival by the throat.
“Come in, Marcelin, and shut the door,” came the mocking voice from the
darkness. “Let us unravel this little question of precedence in snug
privacy. We shall want your lantern, my friend.”
The garden, tree-shaded and high-walled on all sides, seemed to shut
in and concentrate the night’s gloom. The sound of two swords, hissing
out of the scabbards even as the words were spoken, was sinister in the
darkness.
Rockhurst quickly drew once more within the faint circle of light.
The lantern held aloft (now in a somewhat nervous clutch, it must be
said) revealed the silent laughter that rippled over his features like
wild-fire, as he flung himself into an extravagantly truculent fencing
attitude. The Spaniard, stamping on the sod like a bull enraged, filled
the air with guttural execrations, while he swung Rockhurst’s cloak in
frantic circles over his left arm. His rapier gleamed one moment aloft,
then, low-aimed, shot forward like a flash.
Marcelin involuntarily shouted warning; but Rockhurst, with the coolness
of the experienced fighting man, had already slipped from the stroke of
death as airily as the practised dancer to the turn of the tune. On the
instant he had plucked his dilapidated beaver from his head, and beating
with it the menacing blade widely aside, brought down his own steel
whistling upon the wrist that palely showed behind the gilt Toledo hilt.
With a muffled scream of rage and pain the Spaniard dropped his weapon,
fell on one knee, feverishly shaking the cloak off his arm to nurse his
helpless, bleeding hand.
Rockhurst’s skill, guided by luck, had inflicted, at the first pass, one
of those disabling wounds that cause pangs singularly disproportionate
to their seriousness. He sheathed his rapier with much deliberation,
picked up his cloak and flung it around him as it were a royal mantle,
smoothed out the feather in his hat,—not improved in any way by its
buckler service,—and set it back on his head at the right jaunty cock. He
was about to pass the Capitan with a taunting _buenas noches_, when some
impulse of careless good nature bade him change his mind.
“Nay, I am sure,” he said, “that our fair one within will support my
invitation when I bid you to sup and converse. In your own Castilian
phrase: Will you not enter into this your house?—Marcelin, support the
Señor Capitan; he waxes, methinks, somewhat weakly.”
And, upon a further spur of magnanimity, he himself returned the fallen
sword to the defeated man’s side.
Faint chinks of light cut upon the darkness showed them where the house
door stood, slightly ajar, upon the garden. And as the trio approached,
the feet of the wounded man shuffling along the tiled path, the soft
voice called out, in its broken Spanish:—
“Señor Ramon, is that you?—For the love of God, what has happened?”
He who was just adjured answered only by a groan; whereupon Rockhurst,
stepping up to the chink and speaking in low but cheerful tones,
addressed the invisible lady in French this time:—
“Dear madam, if you will but admit us, you shall have explanation. The
Capitan Ramon has met with a slight misadventure, and needs but your
smile, a bandage, and a tass of brandwein to restore him.”
“Ah, heavens!” answered she, and the door was flung wide open. A woman,
evidently of the rich burgher class, young, and very fair of colouring,
stood in the passage, a small lamp in her hand. Her face blanched as the
half-fainting man was assisted across the threshold, and she caught her
free hand to her lips as if to stifle a rising scream. It was evident,
thought Rockhurst, that there were those in the house whom she feared to
disturb.
The danger of her own situation weighing apparently upon her even more
than the condition of her lover, she gathered herself quickly together;
and, imploring caution by gesture, ran light-footed up the passage,
beckoning as she went. She thus inducted the whole party into a panelled
room, which seemed built at the most distant end from the front. It
was gaily lighted by a hanging crown of candles, warmed by a stove,
furnished in brown oak, with dressers and shelves upon which gleamed
much pewter and brass of high polish. Upon a table covered with fair
red and white napery stood revealed an unmistakable supper for two,
with abundance of good things, at sight of which Rockhurst and Marcelin
exchanged a deep glance of meaning.
As she closed the door upon their entrance, the young woman drew a deep
breath of relief, exclaiming in her Flemish French:—
“Here we are safe!—In the passage,” she added, turning to Rockhurst, “the
servants, sir, might have heard us from their quarters.”
The simple air with which she spoke, the round blue eyes she fixed
upon them, the practical candour with which she excused herself for a
seeming want of hospitality before attending to her groaning lover, gave
Rockhurst swift insight into the nature they had to deal with. Here was
a matter-of-fact young vrow, not even pretty,—at least to a fastidious
English eye—for, with her little moon face and her hemp-coloured hair,
she might have emerged from a canvas by Master Gerard Dow, yet with much
that was agreeable about her manner, about the gentle irregularity of her
features, but above all about her engaging youthfulness. Here certainly
was none of your vaporous dames. She showed no undue emotion at sight
of the Spaniard’s blood-dyed hands; but, as she turned to help him, was
neatly careful to twitch her dress from too close proximity and to push
her lace cuffs higher up her plump arms.
After examining the gash with crooning sympathy, she poured water into
one of the bright pewter dishes that stood on the sideboard; then,
cutting a napkin into strips with the carving-knife, addressed the
Cavalier:—
“If you will kindly give him the brandwein—it is in the square glass
bottle beside the pasty.”
Rockhurst started from his amused contemplation and turned to the damaged
gallant. This latter, installed by Marcelin with mock solicitude in
a chair near the table, sat collapsed, with his head on his breast.
Rockhurst conceived a shrewd suspicion that the Capitan’s prolonged
weakness was more feint than reality, an opinion apparently shared by the
servant, whose face was wreathed in satiric smiles. And when the wounded
man pettishly pushed aside the brandy and demanded _del vino_, the doubt
became certainty.
“Wine, Marcelin,” ordered the Cavalier briefly, as one in his own house.
After having drained a rummer of Rhenish, the Capitan recovered
sufficiently to roll his head toward his lady as she knelt on his right,
laving the languid, bleeding hand.
“Ah, traitress!” he observed scathingly.
“Madam,” interjected Rockhurst, as the pale blue eyes were raised in
wonder from their task, “your valiant friend refers, I imagine, to your
having honoured me with a song, an invitation, a token, and a key. It is
because of his failure to understand the right of a lady to dispose of
all favours at her will that he met with the little accident to which he
now owes the honour and the joy of your sweet ministration.”
“Sir…!” cried Ramon the Capitan, lifting his olive-hued countenance
to fling an uncertain glare across the table. Then, no fresh
argument apparently occurring to him, he repeated resentfully,
“Traitress—traitress!”
“In heaven’s name,” she cried, pausing in her task, “was it not you?—How,
sir, was it you?”
She turned her childish gaze from one to the other, her blond head, as
she knelt, just emerging above the table. For all answer, Rockhurst drew
key and kerchief from his breast and pushed them toward her.
The Spaniard drew breath for a fresh compliment. But, Marcelin putting a
second glass opportunely to his hand, he plunged his mustache again into
the wine.
“Ah, what a mistake!” murmured the vrow, returning placidly to her
ministrations. “Alas, what a cut!—it must be tended by the surgeon, but I
will draw the lips together and bandage. You can give yourself time for
supper first.”
She wound the strips firmly as she spoke, though the patient spluttered
in his cup, winced, and whistled. To complete the artistic effect she
took the handkerchief that lay on the table and tied it neatly over all.
Rockhurst was shaken with his silent laughter over the singular pair of
lovers.
“Sir,” said the little hostess, rising to her feet and addressing him,
then, not without dignity: “I know not whom you may be, but your presence
here is the result of a misunderstanding. That you may not misunderstand
further, let me inform you that I receive the Capitan Ramon at this hour
only because my husband, who went off to-day to Antwerp, has forbidden
him to enter his house.”
“Madam,” said Rockhurst, as he rose in his turn and bowed, concealing
under an air of preternatural gravity his delight at the simple
statement, “had I the honour of standing in your husband’s shoes, I
should be jealous of every dog that looked at you.”
“But, sir,” she exclaimed, her gaze widening upon him, “but my husband is
old and fat.”
The hard brilliancy of the Cavalier’s eye softened: here was a remark
which betrayed the logic of a perfectly childish mind.
“The poor Capitan Ramon,” she went on, “has so little money and gets such
poor fare. I think it but right to help him.”
“Madam,” said Rockhurst, “you have described my own case. I bless the
hour when I was inspired to pass beneath the window of so tender-hearted
a lady!”
“Indeed,” she said, and her creamy skin flushed to the roots of her hair,
“if you will share the supper, too, I shall be glad of it.”
Again the Spaniard rolled his glare of sullen doubt. Rockhurst had not
lived the life of camps for so many years without becoming familiar with
every variety of your _soldado_. He was able, by this time, to read very
clearly that here was but one of those ubiquitous “officers of fortune”
who, behind a punctilious manner and a conquering exterior, screen
anything but a chivalric soul—mercenaries who, no doubt, will fight
when occasion is imperative, but who reckon upon looks as much as upon
“derring-do” for the securing of this world’s comforts. The attack in
the garden, under the spur of sudden fury, upon the invader of his own
conquered province, had exhausted the Capitan’s pugnacity: Rockhurst saw
that, in the further progress of the night’s adventure, this Ramon need
no longer be taken into account.
“I should be churl, indeed,” said he to the lady, as he sat down at
the table, “to decline your gracious courtesy. Nay, madam, pray take
your seat; my servant will even pass the dishes. Natheless, if you
will so honour me, a glass of wine from your fair hand?… I give you
thanks.—Marcelin, you can feed the Señor Capitan.”
* * * * *
So the odd supper party began; the hostess unconsciously admiring; the
Spaniard all a-frown; Rockhurst rattling his compliments with fascinating
courtliness—his heart the while in the bare lodgings of the Quai Vert
with his unprovided King; his brain intent upon turning the tide of
events to the channels of his own purpose. He could see nothing thus far,
but to await the moment when the Spaniard, sufficiently fuddled with
wine after his blood-letting, might be conveyed back to the street by
Marcelin and handed over to the next patrol. Then, thought Rockhurst, the
gentle vrow would be left to the unhampered diplomacy of her uninvited
guest (who felt prepared to wield it as profitably, and justify it as
gallantly, as any Castilian in Bruges), and all would be plain sailing.
The astute valet seemed to have divined the scheme, and was plying
the bottle sedulously upon his charge. Fate, however, upon which the
wanderers had hitherto so blindly reckoned, again wielded the key.
Marcelin had hardly drawn the first sweep of the knife upon the goose’s
breast when the house reverberated to the sound of distant knocking. The
little dame went as white as the kerchief at her bosom; a far greater
discomfiture fell upon her than she had manifested at sight of her
gallant’s wound.
“Heaven’s mercy!” she gasped; “it is from the street!”
She ran to the inner door and listened in the passage; the knocking was
resumed, from no patient or weakling hand, in peculiar cadence.
“It is my husband,” she said then, coming back into the room, with the
calmness of despair. “It is my husband, and I am lost.”
The Spaniard rose to his feet and stood swaying, a look of dismay and
helplessness upon his countenance. Instinctively she turned to Rockhurst,
and pointing to the sorry figure, she cried:—
“My husband will never forgive me … no, Josse will never forgive me! He
bought Ramon out when they had billeted him on us, last month. He bought
him out and I was forbidden ever to speak to him again. I thought I was
safe to-night … I am lost!”
The thunder of the husband’s rapping accompanied her lament with swelling
rhythm.
“Oh!” she went on, “Josse told me this morning he was going to Antwerp.
It was a trap!”
“A trap!” exclaimed the Cavalier gaily. “But there is a way out, madam, a
way out, since there was a way in!”
“To the devil with this night’s work!” suddenly gurgled the Capitan. “To
the devil, say I, with women and fools!”
His lady’s wine had not been without effect upon his wits; but he was
sober enough to seize the situation and act on his rival’s hint. In three
staggering steps he was at the door, and they could hear him break into
a kind of groping run down the passage.
In the midst of her terror the Dutchwoman’s eye flashed with sudden scorn.
“Truly,” said Rockhurst, as if in answer, “’tis a valiant heart! Yet,
madam, with him is your chief anxiety removed. Whilst you play with bolts
and delay your lord with fond embrace, we, on our side, vanish by the
garden whence we came. Aye, and let out the señor, for ’tis still I who
have the key.—Go, dear madam; leave the rest to us.”
“Alack, alack!” she moaned, “this supper table, laid for two, will yet
betray me!”
“Say you so!” exclaimed Rockhurst, his wits leaping to the humorous
opportunity. “Nay, then shall the supper vanish, too! Your Flemish
household still sleeps heavily; our chances are good. Madam, before you
hurry to the door, you had better put some dishevelment in your attire
to show you had but just descended from your bedchamber, where you were
doubtless already disrobing.—Marcelin, you rogue, you have a reputation
for a smart table servant; deserve it!”
Even as he spoke the hurried words, he had begun himself to toss goose
and pasty into the basket and to stuff a brace of the long flagons
securely in the interstices.
There was a stir overhead; the household was awaking.
“Monseigneur,” cried Marcelin, on an inspiration, “no time for niceties!
If monseigneur will take one end of the cloth, I will take the other.
We can carry the victualling wholesale into the garden and there advise
about packing—Madam will see to the bloody basin, no doubt?”
Upon these words, with all presence of mind, the valet ransacked the
dresser of everything it bore in the shape of good cheer, cakes and ham,
brawn and an eel pie, and many flagons (not forgetting the square-faced
bottle), and made a pile of the booty upon the table.
Obedient to his suggestion, the hostess had tripped out to fling the
contents of the basin upon a flower bed. She came back in a trice, found
Marcelin already loaded with the weighty, strangely bulging bag, and with
fervent words of thanks held the door open for him. Rockhurst meanwhile
was gaily blowing out candle after candle of the hanging crown. Ponderous
footsteps descending the stairs proclaimed that the porter was at length
aroused.
“One light for you, madam,” said Rockhurst; “you are just in time!” He
thrust the last unextinguished taper into her hand; then, his arm round
her waist, bending his height to her small stature, drew her toward the
door: “Good-by,” he said, “sweet hostess. Another time choose more wisely
both your hour and your cavalier.”
She turned her soft, childish face with a little sob up toward him. And
with a sudden stirring of the heart, as toward a winsome child, he bent
and kissed her.
“I shall never forget how you have saved me, this night!” she said,
her lips upon his. At which Rockhurst kissed her again to conceal his
amusement.
The sound of a bar grating reluctantly in its socket rang the urgency of
parting. Yet, she clutched him.
“You said you were poor and hungry, like him … like him who fled,” she
panted. “I had saved this for him: I had rather you had it.”
She thrust a small velvet bag into his hand, one second more pressed
clingingly against him, and the next instant was flying light-footed
away. There came a sound of a growling voice; at which Rockhurst in all
celerity flung his cloak over his shoulders and withdrew, closing the
outer door noiselessly behind him. Marcelin’s lantern flashed one ray of
guidance: yonder the gate and the end of the adventure.
The three emerged into the street. Rockhurst paused, his silent laughter
stimulated afresh at sight of Marcelin, who stood doubled in two under
the burden of the great white bag, his basket with the two bottle necks
protruding, horn-like, on his arm, and his lantern illumining a grin of
supreme satisfaction. Then he glanced down at the purse in his hand—it
lay in the hollow with a highly comforting weight—and from thence to the
Spaniard, who had begun to crawl away, supporting himself against the
wall.
“Señor Capitan,” he cried ironically after him, “I wish you once more,
and I trust finally, a very good night!—Marcelin, I’ll take that basket:
we must make good speed.”
He halted, however, yet a breathing space to gaze at the great front of
the house where, from window to window, gleamed a light on its upward
way, suggestive of a bed-going procession.
“This is how we live at Bruges!” he murmured to himself, dropped the
purse philosophically into his pocket, thrust his right arm through the
basket and, his hand pressing on his rapier hilt, the tip of the scabbard
jauntily raising the cloak behind him, started off at a swing.
Marcelin followed at a gay if uneven hobble, occasionally staggering
under his succulent burden.
Old Chitterley opened the door to his master.
“His Majesty sleeps,” said he, finger on lips; “I looked in but just now,
to place a log on the fire: his Majesty slumbered very sound, as I heard
and saw.”
Then the speaker’s eye wandered to the basket on his lordship’s arm, the
contents of which were agreeably discernible, and to the improvised sack
on Marcelin’s back, for which the latter’s jubilant face was warrant.
“Heaven be praised, my lord!” he exclaimed fervently, as he extended his
hand to relieve his master. The tragedy of events had robbed the old
servant of all sense of humour. “His Majesty shall have supper to-night;
our house is not disgraced.”
“Aye,” said the Cavalier cheerfully, tapping his breast; “and I have here
the wherewithal for many more, an I am not mistaken. See, Chitterley,
since his Majesty sleepeth so fast, an you can spread the fare without
awakening him, so that he may open his eyes upon a pleasant sight. There
has been but little pleasantness for the royal glance of late.”
“I will step like a cat, monseigneur,” said Marcelin, quicker to seize
the idea than his English comrade.
* * * * *
Whether Charles found it not worth while to rouse himself from the
only condition in which he could forget his dismal state, or whether
indeed the servants had carried out their task with true noiselessness,
he stirred not in his great chair by the fire until Rockhurst, stepping
up to him gently, laid on his lap the velvet bag with its snug weight
of coin. Then he opened a lazy eye while, instinctively, his long hand
closed upon the purse.
The King stared a moment vacantly at his devoted follower, and with a
stupendous yawn let his gaze wander round the room.
“Odd’s fish!” he cried, critically weighing the bag; “a purse, my lord,
as we live! And a fuller than these fingers have held for many a week!—Am
I dreaming, or am I but just awakened from some monstrous nightmare
of years? Is this St. Germain once again?—or has fate worked with us
benignly while we slept, and is this Whitehall at last?… Why, my merry
Rockhurst, this is never a goose I behold, on a Bruges table, flanked by
pasty and brawn! Hath our uncle of Spain paid our pension at length—or
has our Chancellor of the Exchequer chanced at last upon an Exchequer to
draw upon?—Harry, dost thou actually hold in thy hand a brimming goblet?
Aye, methinks the fragrance of it already reaches me!”
He broke off his bantering tone to add, as he dropped the purse
carelessly into his pocket and extended his hand for the glass:—
“Nay, but, prince of friends, how have such miracles been worked?”
“My liege,” said Rockhurst, with unmoved gravity, “even as I ventured to
prophesy: by a laugh, a lie, a fight, a kiss. The fight came first and
the kiss came last—and the lie, I’ll warrant, is even now being expounded
within the house of a certain mynheer of this town. As for the laugh,
your Majesty, nay, the laugh will be between you and me anon when I tell
you the tale.… But, Chitterley, bring me a glass of wine.”