A SUBJECT OF KING GEORGE.
The month of May, 1746, was drawing to a close, and June was already
giving signs of its approach, as my Lord Viscount Fordingbridge sat in
the library of his house in Kensington-square and warmed his feet at
the fire which, in spite of the genial spring weather, burned
pleasantly on the hearth. By his side, on a table, lay the morning
papers of the day to which he constantly referred, and which, after
each occasion of doing so, he threw down with a very palpable
expression of satisfaction.
"In truth," he muttered to himself, "nought could have gone much
better. I am safe and--and the necks of all the rest are jeopardised.
Jeopardised! Nay! 'tis much worse than that. Those who are caught must
surely die, those who are not caught must be so ere long. As for
Charles Edward himself he hath escaped. Well, let him go; I have no
quarrel with him."
Again he took up one of the journals and read:
"This morning his Majesty's ship of war, Exeter, arrived from
Scotland, having on board the Earls of Cromartie and Kilmarnock, and
the Lord Balmerino. They have been committed prisoners to the Tower on
a charge of high treason." "Ah," he mused, "that's well, so far as it
goes, though for myself I care not whether their lordships finish on
Tower Hill or are set free. Fools all! Yet they were near winning, the
devil seize them! had they but pushed on from Derby they must have
won, and the German who now sits secure would never have had my
allegiance. Charles Edward would have transformed my title into that
of a marquis, I doubt me if George will do as much in reward for my
change of politics. But what I would fain know is, where is the
wolf Elphinston, Balmerino's cousin? He fought at Culloden, I know
well--recklessly, like a man sick of life. Perhaps 'twas for his lost
love, Kitty! At least in Hawley's despatch he is mentioned as having
killed four men of Barrell's regiment with his own blade. May Fate
confound him! if taken his life is forfeit, but where is he?"
A knock came at the library door as he mused, and in reply to his
answer Mr. Archibald entered. As usual, certainly since he left
France, he was clothed as became the part he had now assumed, of a
well-to-do Scotch merchant, there being only one new addition to any
portion of his dress. His hat, which he threw carelessly upon the
table, on the top of his lordship's journals, bore in it the _black_
cockade!
"Ha, ha! my worthy merchant," exclaimed Lord Fordingbridge, as his
quick eye perceived this, "my worthy dealer in brocades, broadcloth,
and Colchester baize, so already thou trimmest the sails to catch the
favouring German breezes. 'Tis well."
"Stop this fooling," said the Jesuit, looking angrily at him; "is this
the time for you to be joking and jeering when everything is lost? You
have the journals there, you know well what has happened. The
principals of the noblest cause, of the most sublime restoration that
would have ever taken place, are prisoners with their lives in
forfeit, some in London, some in Carlisle gaol, and some at Inverness,
and you sit gibing there. _Pardieu!_ sometimes I think you are a fool
instead of the knave I once deemed you."
"If," said the viscount, scowling at the other as he spoke, "you deem
yourself called upon to address me in such a manner, I shall be
forced, Mr. Archibald, to also alter my style of address to you, and
to speak both to and of you as the Reverend Archibald Sholto, priest
of the Society of Jesus, and an avowed Jacobite. And you will remember
that here, in England, at such a moment as this, to be so proclaimed
could not be otherwise than fraught with unpleasant consequences to
you. Moreover, you will have the goodness to remember that now--since
the disastrous events, to your side, of Culloden, the Viscount
Fordingbridge is a fervent Hanoverian."
"I will remember," said the priest, "that however desirous the
Viscount Fordingbridge may be to espouse the cause of the House of
Hanover, it is not in his power to do so, so long as there remains one
Stuart to assert a claim to the throne of his ancestors. When that
race ceases to exist, when no living Stuart is left to call for aid,
then perhaps, you may be permitted to become Hanoverian, not before.
Now, my Lord Fordingbridge, listen to me, while I go over the cards I
hold in my hand against Simeon Larpent, my whilom scholar at St. Omer,
who----"
"Nay!" exclaimed the other, "do nothing of the sort. I retract, I had
forgotten. Recall nothing. Yet, for my safety, I must appear an
adherent of King George. Indeed, to-morrow I attend his levée."
"For the good of the Stuart cause," the other said, "you will continue
as you have begun since your return to this country, to appear an
adherent of this King George; for the good of the cause that is not
yet lost. There will be another rising ere long, be sure of that; if
it comes not before, it will do so at the death of the present
usurper. Now, listen to the news I bring you."
"What is it?" the other asked, while he paled as he did so. "What?"
"The worst that you can hear. Elphinston is in London."
"Elphinston here! Is he mad? His life is not worth an hour's
purchase."
"He knows that," replied the Jesuit coolly, "as well as you or I do.
Yet he heeds it not. Why should he? Are not other men's lives doomed
who are now in London? Men who," he went on, speaking coldly and with
great distinctness, "brought money into England to aid the cause;
men," still his voice fell more and more crisp upon the other's ear,
"who did endeavour to compass the death of George as he returned from
his last visit to Herrenhausen; men who----"
"Silence, you Jesuit devil," interrupted the other. "Sometimes I
wonder that you do not fear to speak as you do; that you do not dread
that your own death may be compassed."
"I have no fear," replied the priest, taking snuff as he spoke, "so
long as the walls of St. Omer contain my papers. Rather should I fear
for those whose secrets would be divulged if I were to die. To die
even suddenly, without being assassinated."
"Well! to your news," exclaimed the other. "What of Elphinston! Where
does he hide himself away?"
"At the moment," answered the priest, "he--and my brother
Douglas----"
"So he is here, too!"
"He is here, too. They dwell together in lodgings at the village of
Wandsworth. Perhaps later, if it goes ill with Balmerino, they may
remove into the City."
"To make some mad attempt to save him!"
"Possibly. Meanwhile, do you not dread to meet the man yourself! You
stole his bride from him, you will remember, and now he suspects how
you brought it about. How will you answer to him for the falsehoods by
which you persuaded her that he was already the husband of another
woman?"
"By my sword," Lord Fordingbridge replied--though at the moment he was
thinking of a far different manner in which Bertie Elphinstone should
be answered.
"It will be your only plan," Sholto said. "For by treachery you can
accomplish nothing. If Elphinston is blown upon he will know well who
is his informer and will, in his turn, inform. Inform upon the man who
plotted to have George's person seized by French pirates as he
returned to England from France, the man who spread broadcast through
England the reward offered by Prince Charles of £30,000 to whomsoever
should seize and secure George----"[Note A]
"Why," exclaimed Fordingbridge, maddened by the other's taunts, "why
do you persecute me like this? What have I ever done to you that you
threaten me thus?"
"Recall," replied the Jesuit, "your vows at St. Omer, your sins since,
your broken pledges, your cancelled oaths. Then answer to yourself why
I do these things. Moreover, remember I love my brother--he has been
my charge since his boyhood--and if Elphinston is betrayed Douglas
must fall too. Also remember, Elphinston has been ever beloved by me.
You have inflicted one deadly wound on him, you have wrecked his life
by striking him through his love--think you that I will ever permit
you to injure him again? Man!" the Jesuit said, advancing nearer to
Fordingbridge as he spoke, and standing before him in so threatening a
manner that the other shrank back from him, "if evil comes to
Elphinston through you, such evil shall in turn come to you through me
that I will rend your life for ever and always. Remember, I say again,
remember."
He took his hat from off the table as he finished, and left the room
addressing no further remark to the other. And, quietly as he ever
moved, he was about to descend the stairs when Lady Fordingbridge
coming from out an open door, stopped him.
"I wish to speak to you," she said, in a soft, low voice, "come within
a moment," and, followed by Sholto, she led him back into the room she
had just quitted. Here, too, a warm pleasant fire burned in the grate,
while an agreeable aroma of violets stole through the apartment; and
motioning her visitor to a seat her ladyship said:
"Is the news true? Are they--is Mr. Elphinston in London?"
"It is true, Kitty," he said. "Yet I know not how you heard it."
"From my father who dreads as much to meet him as the craven in his
library must do." She paused a moment, then she continued, "Have you
seen him?"
"Yes," he said, "I have seen him."
"And," she asked, wistfully, "did he send no word of pardon--to me?"
The Jesuit shook his head, though in a gentle kindly manner, ere he
replied. "No, child. He spoke not of you."
She sat gazing into the embers for a few moments more; then she went
on.
"Yet he must know, he cannot but know how basely I was deceived. You
told me months ago that he had learnt some of the story from your
brother's lips, who learnt it from you. Is there no room for pity in
his heart? Will he never forgive?"
"If he thinks aught," said the Jesuit, still very gently, to her, "it
is that you should never have believed so base a tale. So at least he
tells Douglas. To me he has never spoken of the matter."
"Alas!" she said. "How could I doubt? Lord Fordingbridge I might have
disbelieved, but my father!" and here she shuddered. "How could I
think that he would stoop to practise such lies, such duplicity, on
his own child?"
Father Sholto made no answer to this remark, contenting himself with
lifting his hands from his knees and warming the palms at the fire.
And so they sat, neither speaking for two or three moments. Then she
said:
"Father, will you take a letter to him from me?"
This time he lifted his bushy eyebrows instead of his hands, and
looked at her from underneath them. Next he shrugged his shoulders,
and then he said:
"Kitty, for you I will do anything, for you who have ever been a
dutiful daughter of the Church, ay! and a loyal adherent to a now
sadly broken cause. Yet, child, what use to write? Nothing can undo
what is done; you must make the best of matters. Solace your wounded
heart with the rank you have gained, with your husband's now
comfortable means, your reception at the Court of the Hanoverian king,
for king he is, and, I fear, must be. However great the evil that was
done, it must be borne. You and Bertie Elphinston are sundered for
ever in this world, unless----"
"Unless?" she repeated, with a swift glance from her eyes.
"You both survive him. Yet, how shall such a thing be! He is no older
than Elphinston himself, and, much as he has wronged that other, no
reparation, not even his life, would set things right. If Bertie slew
him he could not marry his victim's widow."
"Alas! alas!" said Lady Fordingbridge, "the last thing he would wish
to do now, even were I free, would be to have me for his wife. Me whom
once he loved so tenderly."
Once more the Jesuit twitched up his great eyebrows and muttered
something to himself, and then seemed bent in thought. And as Kitty
sat watching him she caught disconnected whispers from his lips.
"Douglas might do it," she heard him say; "that way the gate would be
open. Yet he cannot be spared, not yet," until at last he ceased,
after which, looking up from his reverie, he said to her:
"What do you wish to write to him, child? You, the Viscountess
Fordingbridge, must have a care as to your epistles to unmarried men."
"Be under no apprehension," she replied. "Yet, if--if--he would pardon
me, would send me one little line to say--God!--that he does not hate
me--oh! that he who once loved me so should come to hate me--then,
then I might again be happy, a little happy. Father, I must write to
him."
"So be it," he answered. "Write if you must. I will convey the
letter."