REVELATIONS
Harry was kept a long time in a guard room. Once or twice an officer came
in and looked him over, but he was asked no questions, and he asked none.
He was ill at ease. Not, I believe, from any fear for himself. He knew,
indeed, that he might hang for his pains. What he had done for the
Pretender was surely treason, or would be adjudged treason, with the
Whigs in power and the Hanoverian King. But death seemed no great matter.
He was not a romantic hero, he had no faith, no cause to die for, and he
saw the last scene as a mere horror of pain and shame. Only it must be
some relief to come to the end. For he was beset by a hopeless, reckless
distrust of himself. Everything that he did must needs go awry. He was
born for failure and ignominy. Memories of his wild delight in Alison
came stabbing at his heart, and he fought against them, and again they
opened the wounds. Yes, for a little while he had been given the full
zest of life, all the wonder and the glory--that he might know what it
was to live maimed and starving. It was his own fault, faith. He should
never have dared venture for her, he, a dull, blundering, graceless fool.
How should he content her? Oh, forget her, forget all that and have done.
She would be free of him soon, and so best. Best for himself, too; it was
a dreary affair, this struggling from failure to failure. Whatever he put
his hand to must needs go awry. Save the Pretender from the chance of a
fight and deliver him into the hands of Marlborough! Marlborough, who
would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why,
but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free.
Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for
the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce
should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of
cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher.
And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her
beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget
her, forget her as she lay in his arms.
The door opened. The guard was beckoning to him. He was marched to a
room in which one man sat at a table, a small man of a lean, sharp
face. Unbidden, Harry flung himself into a chair. He must have been a
ridiculous figure, overwhelmed by the black wig and the rich clothes
too big for him. The sharp face opposite stared at him in
contemptuous disgust.
"Your name?"
"La, you now!" Harry laughed. "I don't know you neither. And, egad, I can
do without."
"I am the Earl of Sunderland."
"Then, damme, I am sorry for you."
"Your name, I say?"
"Why, didn't your fellows tell you? They told me."
"Impudence will not serve you. I warn you, the one chance to save
yourself is to be honest with me."
Harry began to hum a song, and, between the bars, he said, "You may go to
the devil. I care not a curse for anything you can do. So think of your
dignity, my lord. And hold your silly tongue."
Sunderland considered him keenly. A secretary came in and whispered. "I
will see him," Sunderland said, and lay back in his chair.
It was Colonel Boyce who broke in, Colonel Boyce something flushed and
out of breath. "Egad, my lord," he began. Sunderland held up his hand.
Colonel Boyce checked and stood staring at his son.
Harry began to laugh. "Oh, sir, you're infinitely welcome. It only needed
you to complete my happiness."
"Od's life, sirrah." Colonel Boyce advanced upon him. "Are you crazy?
What damned folly is this?"
"You know him then?" says Sunderland.
"Oh, my lord, it's a wise father knows his own son. And he is not
wise, you know. Are you, most reverend? No, faith, or you would never
have begot me. No, faith, nor enlist me to do murder neither. For I do
but bungle it, you see. And make a fool of my Lord Sunderland, God
bless him."
"Is he mad?" says Sunderland.
"I profess I begin to think so." Colonel Boyce frowned. "Lud, Harry,
stop your ranting. What brought you here?"
"You, sir, you. Your faithful striving to do my Lord Sunderland's murders
for him. _Imprimis_, that work of grace. But, finally, some good soldiers
who assured me I was the man my lord wanted to murder."
"You came here with the Pretender?"
Harry laughed and began to sing a catch:
"'Tis nothing to you if I should do so,
And if nothing in it you find,
Then thank me for nothing and that will be moe
Than ever I designed."
"What a pox are you doing in his clothes, sirrah?" Colonel Boyce cried.
"Faith, I try to keep them on me. Which is more difficult than you
suppose. If I were to stand up in a hurry, my lord, we should all
be shamed."
"The lad is an idiot," said Sunderland, with a shrug.
"Come, Harry, you have fooled it long enough. I had a guess of this mad
fancy of yours. But the game is up now, lad. King George is king to-day,
and his friends have all power in their grip. There's no more hope for
your Jacobites. Tell me now--the Pretender is in your clothes, I
see--where did you part from him?"
"Why, don't you know?" Harry stared at him. "Oh, faith, that's bitter
for you. You who always know everything! And your friends 'with all
power in their grip,' Oh, my dear lord, I wonder if there's those who
don't trust you?"
Some voices made themselves heard from outside. Sunderland and Colonel
Boyce looked at each other, and my lord bit his fingers. The Colonel
muttered something in Sunderland's ear.
Harry laughed. "Do you bite your thumb at me, my lord? No, sir, says he,
but I bite my thumb. Odso, I bite my thumb."
"Be silent, sirrah," Sunderland cried.
The door opened. "Announce me," says a placid voice, and the secretary
cried out in a hurry: "His Grace the Duke of Marlborough."
Harry went on laughing. The contrast of Marlborough's assured calm and
the agitation of the others was too impressive. "Oh, three merry men,
three merry men, three merry men are ye," he chanted. "No, damme, it's
more Shakespeare. The three witches, egad. And I suppose Duncan is
murdered in the next act. When shall you three meet again? In--"
"Oh, damn your tongue, Harry," his father exploded.
Marlborough was not disturbed. His eye had picked out Sunderland. "Is
this the whole conspiracy, my lord?" said he.
"I beg your Grace's pardon," Sunderland started up. "You see, I am not
private," and he called out: "Guard, guard."
"No," Marlborough said, and, as the soldiers came in, dismissed them with
"You are not needed."
Sunderland fell back in his chair. "Oh, if you please," he cried
peevishly. "At your Grace's command."
"You have no secrets from Mr. Boyce, my lord." He turned to Harry. "Sir,
we have met before," and he bowed.
"Yes. The first time your wife was stuck in the mud. Now it's you."
"Sir, you have obliged me on both occasions," Marlborough said. "Well, my
lord? You had Mr. Boyce under examination. Pray go on."
"I don't understand your Grace," Sunderland said sulkily. "I have done
with the gentleman."
Colonel Boyce thrust forward. "By your Grace's leave, I'll take the lad
away. Time presses and--"
"You may be silent," said Marlborough. For the first time in their
acquaintance Harry saw his father look at a loss. It was an ugly,
ignominious spectacle. Marlborough turned to Harry, smiling, and his
voice lost its chill: "Well, Mr. Boyce, how far had it gone? Were they
asking you what you had done with Prince James?"
Harry stared at the bland, handsome condescension and hated it. "Oh,
you have always had the devil's own luck," he cried. "Devil give you
joy of it, now."
"You mistake me, I believe. I can forgive you more easily than some
others." He turned upon Sunderland. "I will tell you where Prince James
is, my lord. Safe out of your reach. On his way to France."
Sunderland made a petulant exclamation and spread out his hands. "Your
Grace goes beyond me, I profess. Do you choose to be frank with me?"
"Frank?" Marlborough laughed. "You know the word, then? By all means let
us be frank. I found Prince James in the palace. He accepted my company.
We had some conversation, my lord. I present to you the results. You have
used my name to warrant a silly, knavish plot for murdering Prince James
in France. You entered upon a silly, knavish plot to murder him on this
mad visit to London, and while engaging me to aid your motions against
the Jacobites you gave me no advice of this damning folly. To complete
your blunders--but for the chance that I came upon him and took him
through your guards you would have been silly enough to plant him on our
hands in prison. I do not talk to you about honour, my lord, or your
obligations. I advise you, I resent my name being confused with these
imbecilities."
Sunderland, who had been wriggling and become flushed, cried out: "I'll
not submit to this. I don't choose to answer your Grace. You shall hear
from me when you are cooler."
"My compliments," Marlborough laughed. "I do not stand by my friends? I
lose my temper? You will easily convince the world of that, my lord.
Colonel Boyce!" Before Harry's wondering eyes his father came to
attention and, with an expression much like a guilty dog's, waited his
reward. "You have had some of my confidence and I think you have not lost
by it. You have repaid me with an impudent treachery. I shall arrange
that you have no more opportunity at home or abroad."
"Pray leave to ask your Grace's pardon," Colonel Boyce muttered. "I
swear--"
"You may be silent," Marlborough said, and turned away from them. "Pray,
Mr. Boyce, will you walk?" Something bewildered by this time, Harry stood
up and they went out together. "I require a carriage for this gentleman,"
said Marlborough to the sergeant of the guard, and with a smile to Harry,
"That will be convenient, I think?"
"Egad, sir, you might say, decent," says Harry with a wary hand on
his breeches.
"Spare me a moment while you wait," Marlborough turned into a recess of
the corridor. "Prince James expressed himself much in your debt, Mr.
Boyce. Consider me not less obliged. Thanks to you, I have freed myself
of suspicions which I profess it had irked me to bear."
"Your Grace owes me nothing. I never thought of you. Or if I did you were
the villain of the piece."
Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so
distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?"
Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so
great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you
and bring you down to our own level."
"You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my
compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in
your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the
pleasure of commanding me."
"Oh, your Grace does everything magnificently," says Harry, with a wry
smile, and liked him none the better.