A WOMAN'S LETTER.
The next night Father Sholto, who was lodged in Lord Fordingbridge's
house, took a hackney coach through the fields to Chelsea Church, and
so was ferried across to Battersea. Then, because the evening was soft
and mild and there was a young moon, he decided to walk on by the road
to the next village, namely Wandsworth, which lay half an hour further
on.
"Poor Kitty," he thought to himself, as he felt the packet she had
confided to him press against his breast, "poor Kitty! Why could she
not have believed in Bertie's truth? Surely anything might have been
set against the word of such a creature as Simeon Larpent, pupil of
mine though he be. _Peste!_ why was not I in Paris when all was
happening? By now they would have been happy. They could have lived in
France or Italy. We, the Society," and he crossed himself as he went
on, "would have found the wherewithal; or even in America they might
have, perhaps, been safe. Yet now! Now! Elphinston is a heartbroken
man; Kitty, a heartbroken woman. Alas! alas!"
With meditations such as these, for political Scotch Jesuit as
Archibald Sholto was, and fierce partisan of his countrymen, Charles
Stuart and his father James, there beat a kindly heart within him, he
reached the long, straggling village street of Wandsworth. Then,
turning off somewhat sharply to the right, he emerged after another
five minutes upon a road above the strand of the river, on which, set
back in shady gardens, in which grew firs, cedars, and chestnut trees,
were some antique and picturesque houses built a hundred years before.
At one of these, the first he came to, he knocked three times on the
garden gate and rang a bell, the handle of which was set high in the
door frame; and then in a moment a strong, heavy tread was heard
coming from the house to the gate.
"Who is it?" a man's voice asked from within.
"_Nunquam triumphans_,"[1] was the priest's answer, softly given, and
as he spoke the postern door was opened, and a tall man stood before
Sholto. In a moment their hands were clasped in each other's and their
greetings exchanged.
"'Tis good of you, Archie, to come again to-night," his younger
brother said to him; "have you brought more news? How fares it with
those in the Tower?"
"Ill," replied the other. "As ill as may be. The trials are
fixed, 'tis said, for July at latest. One will, however, escape.
Tullibardine----"
"The Marquis of Tullibardine escape! Why, then, there is hope for the
others!"
"Ay!" replied the elder brother, "there is, by the same way.
Tullibardine is dying in the Tower. His life draws to a close."
"Pish! What use such an escape? But come in, Archie. Bertie looks ever
for you." Then he stopped on the gravel path and, gazing into the
other's face as it shone in the moonlight, he said, "What of Kitty?
Have you told her he is in London?"
"Ay," replied the Jesuit, "and have on me now a letter to him from
her, suing, I believe, for forgiveness. Douglas!" he exclaimed,
seizing the other by the arm, "Bertie must pardon her. You must make
him. Otherwise----"
"What?"
"I fear I know not what. Her love for him is what it ever was,
stronger, fiercer, may be, because of the treachery that tore them
asunder; she thinks of him alone. And if she grows desperate Heaven
knows what may be the outcome of it. Murder of Simeon! betrayal of
him! Self-slaughter! She is capable of all or any, if goaded too far.
He must forgive her."
"Forgive her!" exclaimed his younger brother. "Forgive her! Why, who
shall doubt it; what possesses your mind? There is no fear of that.
No, that is not what there is to fear."
"What then?" asked Archibald, bewildered.
"That if they should once again meet no power on earth could ever part
them more. Even now he broods all day, and night too, on finding her,
on carrying her off by force. There are scores of our countrymen in
London in disguise who would do it for him at his bidding or help him
to do it as well as to slay Fordingbridge. I tell you, Archie, he
would stand at nothing. Nothing! Why, man, as we fought side by side
at Prestonpans he muttered a score of times, 'Kate, Kate, Kate.' And
once, as he cut down an officer of Fowke's dragoons, he exclaimed,
'Each Hanoverian dog who falls brings us so much the nearer to London
and me to Kate.' Faith! though the battle lasted but four minutes, he
muttered her name ten times as often."
"Come," said the other, "let us go in to him. I would I knew what is
best to do. Ah, well! most affairs settle themselves. Pray Heaven this
one may."
Over a fire, burning in an ancient grate constructed for the
consumption of wood alone, they found Bertie Elphinston brooding, as
his friend had described. And as all the Scotch had done who had
sought a hiding-place in London after the defeat of the Stuart army in
Scotland, any marks that might proclaim their nationality had been
carefully exchanged--where the purse allowed--for more English traits
and characteristics. Therefore Elphinston was now clad as any other
gentleman of the time might be, plainly but well--a branched velvet
coat with a satin lining, a black silk embroidered waistcoat, and
breeches of velvet in keeping with the coat constituting his dress,
while he wore his own hair, of a dark-brown colour and slightly curly.
Against the side of the large open-mouthed grate and near to his hand
there reclined an ordinary plate-handled sword, with the belt hanging
to it as when unbuckled from the body; deeper in a recess might be
seen two claymores, with which weapons the Scotch had recently
inflicted such deadly slaughter on the Duke of Cumberland's troops.
"Ha, Archie!" exclaimed the young man, springing up from his chair and
grasping the Jesuit's hand, "welcome, old friend. So you have found
your way here once more. _A la bonne chance!_ Yet," he went on, while
his handsome face clouded again with the gloomy look that it had borne
before lighting up at the entrance of their friend, "why say so! You
can bring us no good news now--you can," he said in a lower voice,
"bring me none. Yet speak, Archie, how is it with our poor friends?"
"As before. There is no news, except that their trials are fixed.
Yet all bear up well, the head of your house especially so. He jests
ever--p'raps 'tis to cheer his wife more than for aught else. She is
admitted to see him, and brings and takes our news, and he sends
always, through her, his love to you. Also he bids you begone from out
of England, you and Douglas both, since there can be no safety for you
in it. The king is implacable, he will spare none."
"And the Prince, our Prince," asked Elphinston, "what of him; is he
safe?"
"He is not taken," replied the other. "We know nought else. But in
truth, it is partly to endorse Lord Balmerino's injunction that I am
here to-night. Both of you must begone. London is no place for
Jacobites of any degree; for those who have recently fought the peril
is deadly. Already the whole town is searched from end to end. The
Tower is full of prisoners. From noble lords down to the meanest, it
is crammed with them. Gallows are already being put up on Kennington
Common; soon the slaughter will begin. My boys, you must back to
France."
"Douglas may go if he will," replied Elphinston, looking at his
comrade. "I remain here. I have something to do." Then he said
quietly, "Where is Lord Fordingbridge?"
"At present in London, but he leaves for his seat in Cheshire
to-morrow. Bertie," the Jesuit exclaimed, "if what you have to do is
with him it must be postponed. To seek out Fordingbridge now would be
your undoing."
"And his wife--does--does she go too?"
"No," the other replied, "she stays in London. Bertie, I have brought
you a letter from her."
"A letter from Kate--Lady Fordingbridge--to me! To me! What does it
mean? What can have caused her to write to me?"
"Best read the letter," replied the other. "And as you read it
think--try to think--kindly of her. Remember, too, that whatever she
was to you once, she is now another man's wife. However great a
villain he may be, remember that."
"Give me the letter," Elphinston said briefly.
Sholto took from his pocket the little packet; then, as he gave it to
the other, he said, "Douglas and I will leave you to its perusal. The
night is fine, he can walk with me to Battersea. Farewell."
"Farewell," returned Elphinston. "And--and--tell her ladyship if there
is aught to answer such answer will be sent."
"Be careful of your messengers. Remember. Danger surrounds you."
"I shall remember."
When they were gone, his friend saying he would be back in an hour's
time, the young man turned the letter over more than once ere he broke
the seal--it bore no address upon it, perhaps for safety's sake--and
then, at last, he opened it and commenced its perusal. And as he did
so and saw the once familiar handwriting, he sighed profoundly more
than once. Yet soon he was engrossed in the contents. They ran as
follows:
"I hear you are in London and that at last is it possible for me
to do what I have long desired--though hitherto no opportunity has
arisen--namely, to explain that which in your eyes may seem to be my
treachery to you.
"Mr. Elphinston, when you and I last parted, I was your affianced
wife; I write to you now as the wife of another man to ask you for
your pardon. If I set down all as it came to pass it may be that, at
least, you will cease to hate my memory--the memory of my name.
Nightly I pray that such may some day be the case. Thereby at last I
may know ease, though never again happiness in this world.
"When you quitted Paris a year ago you went, as you said you were
going, to Rome on a message to the Pope connected with the Cause.
Alas! you and Father Sholto had not been sped a week ere very
different tidings reached me. My father--God forgive him!--first
poisoned my ears with rumours--which he said were spread not only over
all Paris but also at St. Germains, Vincennes, and Marly--that it was
on no political matter that you had departed. It was known--even I
knew so much, I had jested with you about it, had even been sore on
the subject--that Madeleine Baufremont, of the Queen's Chamber,
admired you. Now, so said my unhappy father, with well-acted misery,
it was whispered that she and you had gone away together. Moreover, he
said there was no doubt that you and she were married. He even named
the church at which the marriage had taken place at Moret, beyond
Fontainebleau."
"So, so," muttered Bertie Elphinston, as he read. "I see. I begin to
see. 'Tis as I thought, though I did not know this. Well, a better lie
than one might have hoped."
"Next," the letter continued, "there came to me the man who is now my
husband--then, as you know, the Honourable Simeon Larpent, his father
being still alive. Needless to tell you, Mr. Elphinston, of how this
man had ever sought my love; first, because of our poverty, in a
manner alike disgraceful to both, and next, when that design failed,
in a more honourable fashion. Yet, of no avail when you---- But
enough. You also know well how every plea of his was rejected by me.
"He, too, told the same tale. He protested to me that on the morning
you left St. Germains Madeleine Baufremont set out on the same
southern road, that your carriages met and joined at Étampes, and that
thence you travelled together to Moret."
"The devil can indeed speak the truth," muttered Bertie, as he read
thus far.
"Still, I would not--I could not--believe. Our last parting was
fresh in my mind, ay! in my heart; our last vows and last farewells,
our projects for the future, our hopes of days of happiness to
come--forgive me if I remind you of them--they are wrecked now! I say
I could not believe. Yet, wherever I looked, wherever I made
inquiries, there was but one answer. The English, Scotch, and Irish
gentlemen who frequented my father's house all gave the same answer,
though none spake the words I feared. Some, I observed, regarded me
with glances that were full of pity--for which I hated them--others
preserved a silence that was worse tenfold than speech, some smiled in
their sleeves. And Larpent was ever there--always, always, always. And
one day he came to where I was sitting and said to me, 'Kitty, if you
will indeed know the truth, there is a witness below who can give it
to you. The _curé_ of Moret has come to Paris with a petition to the
king against the exactions of the Seigneur. Kitty, he it was who made
Bertie Elphinston and Madeleine Baufremont man and wife."
"'So be it,' I replied. 'Yet, remember their marriage makes ours no
nearer.' 'It will come,' he replied. 'I can not believe that my reward
will never come.' Whereon he left the room and came back with the
_curé_. Alas! he told so plain a tale, describing you with such
precision and Madeleine Baufremont also, that there was, indeed, no
room left for doubt. Yet still I could scarce believe; for even though
you had not loved me, even though your burning words, your whispers of
love had all been false, why, why, I asked again and again, should you
have stooped to such duplicity? If you had tired of me, if that other
had turned your heart from me to her, one word would have been enough;
I must have let you go when you no longer desired to stay by my side.
Mr. Elphinston, I wrote to you at Rome, to the address you had given
me and to the English College there; I wrote to Father Sholto--alas! I
so much forgot my pride, that I wrote to Douglas, who had then joined
the squadron commanded by Monsieur de Roquefeuille for the invasion of
England. I could not part from you yet"--these words were scored out
by the writer, and, in their place, the sentence began--"I could not
yet believe in your deceit, in your cold, cruel betrayal of a woman
who had trusted in you as in a god; it seemed all too base and
heartless. Yet neither from you nor the Sholtos came one line in
answer to my prayer."
Elphinston groaned bitterly as he read the words. He knew now how
easily the trap had been laid.
"Then, at last, I did believe. Then, at last, I renounced you and your
love. I denied to my own heart that I had ever known a man named
Bertie Elphinston, that I had ever been that man's promised wife. I
tore you from my heart for ever. It was hard, yet I did it. Time
passed, no intelligence came of you or Madeleine Baufremont. I even
heard that the Duc de Baufremont had petitioned the king that, if you
again entered French territory, you should be punished for abducting
his daughter. Yet, as the days went on, I allowed Simeon Larpent to
approach me no nearer on the subject. So he and my father concocted a
fresh scheme by which I was at last led to consent to become his wife.
We were, as you know, poor, horribly poor; the _Cours d'Escrime_
hardly provided for our needs. Often, indeed, I had wondered how we
managed to subsist so well on what seemed to me to be nothing. My
father talked vaguely of an allowance to him, in common with other
refugees from England, from the French king or from the Chevalier St.
George, or the Scotch Fund. Now--for at this period the old Lord
Fordingbridge died--he said we had been subsisting for some time on
money lent, or we could, if we chose, consider it given to us, by the
present lord. He would never, my father said, demand repayment;
indeed, such was his lordship's respect for him and his admiration for
me, that he would cheerfully continue his allowance, or, since he was
now very well-to-do, increase it. So I learnt that I had been
dependent for the bread I ate, the dress I wore, to this man. Need I
say more! You know that I became the wife of Lord Fordingbridge.
"A month had not passed ere I knew the truth as to how I had been
duped and deceived--as to how I had been false to you. De
Roquefeuille's squadron was driven back by Sir John Norris, and
Douglas Sholto returned to Paris. He told me all; that it was your
kinsman and namesake of Glenbervie who had left Paris with you to
espouse Madeleine Baufremont, and that you--tied under a solemn
promise to in no way let his approaching marriage with her be
known--had kept the secret even from me. Alas! had you given me one
hint, spoken one word, how different all would have been! Yet, I do
not reproach you for fidelity to your friend; I only ask that when you
think of me--if you ever think at all--as not trusting you, you will
recollect that your own silence made it possible for me to doubt.
"One word more, and I shall not trouble you further. It is to beseech
you to quit London at once, to put yourself in safety, with the seas
between you and the English Government. For, even though you might lie
hid from the vengeance that will fall on all followers of the prince
who may be caught, I fear that private malice, aided by personal fear
of you, may lead to your betrayal. Be warned, I beseech you. Farewell
and forgive.
"Catherine Fordingbridge."