IN WHICH I AM WOOED AND WON.
I WAS quite joyfully startled at the Captain’s course.
“Now what’s the fellow mean by this?” I whispered to the lad. “Is it
to give you one more chance while his back is turned, out of pure
compassion, or is he fool enough to trust you?”
“He is fool enough to trust me, madam,” says the lad, haughtily I
thought.
“Very charming of him,” I admitted. “There must be a deal of poetry
in his soul. But come, sir! there is not one second to be lost. Steal
upstairs and get your skirts off, while I find some guineas for you,
and letters to recommend you to the consideration of some southern
friends.”
This drew fierce looks from him, but he exchanged them when he spoke
for a haggard smile.
“Ah, madam,” he said, “you do not understand.”
“I understand only too well,” I sighed. “Tyburn Tree, my lad, and an
end to everything. But for the love of heaven, cease this babbling! Off
with you at once, or your chance is gone for ever.”
“But the Captain is fool enough to trust me, madam,” he repeated.
“Then you refuse to fly?” I demanded, trembling in my eagerness.
“I do,” says he.
“Then I hope you’ll hang,” I cried; “yes, simpleton that you are, I
hope you’ll hang.”
However, at the mention of his certain fate, I was no longer mistress
of myself, for I sat down suddenly in a very unreasonable fashion,
covered my eyes with my hands, and allowed my tears to break forth
in the most uncontrollable flood I’ve ever shed. When I desisted
somewhat from this, and next looked up, the prisoner was at my side,
and bending over me with a tenderness that added to my woe. Hardly a
minute had fled since last I had seen his face, yet in that little time
it appeared to have aged by twenty years. Great as my own pains were,
I knew them to be equalled by his own, for he was plainly suffering a
very bitter agony.
“Madam,” he said, with his native bluntness refined into a strange
sweetness by his grief, “would to God I had never known you! You make
the thought of death terrible hard to bear.”
“Oh!” I sobbed, with a ridiculous riot in my breast, “I thought I was
never in your style; I thought you never cared; I thought----”
“You are a wonderful, brave woman,” he says, in a whisper, “a wonderful
brave woman.”
One of his tears fell down upon my shoulder. Sore was I tempted to
indulge myself with weeping, too, but knowing well that the prisoner
had not a hope of life other than one that I might find him, I fought
against my weakness till in a measure it was overcome. But the face of
the prisoner was before me always, and again did my eyes grow dark and
heavy with their tears.
“Child, do not be afraid,” I said, trying for conscience sake to affix
on him the guilt that was my own. “Be brave; the matter is not so cruel
as it looks.”
He did not answer, but his smile was grim. And it seemed wonderful to
me that the faculties of his mind should remain so keen when Death’s
shadow was darkening his heart.
“Madam,” he said gently, after a miserable silence, “give me your hand
just once in parting, and I shall consider that the climax to a life
that never was unhappy. For your courage, madam, is the sweetest memory
I have; and I mean to bear it ever.”
“No, no,” I said, while my tears broke forth again, “do not afflict me
with farewells. They are more than I can suffer. Oh, my lad, I cannot
let you go like this! My life begins and ends with you.”
“But for you, my fair, sweet lady,” he replied, “I could receive death
easily. But I can rejoice that I’ve known you, and that you have
been my friend. And now it were better that I took my leave, for the
longer that we are together the sharper will the separation be.” I
heard a half-checked groan escape him. Afterwards he said: “Oh, what a
loveliness grief hath lent you! Never did you look so beautiful before
to-day.”
“Yes,” I sobbed, “you always said you liked ’em clinging.”
“Let us say good-bye,” he whispered. “At least, let us have done with
this.”
“Child, be brave,” I recommended him, with a depth in irony that it was
well he could not fathom.
“I blame you for my cowardice,” he said.
There was a quiver in his face that even he could not conceal. I felt
almost happy when I saw it, for it told me that at last even the
untameable was tamed.
“You do not want to die?” I asked him, softly.
“No,” he stammered, “I do not want to die.”
“And why do you not want to die?” I continued, without pity. “There was
a time, you know, when you were not so troubled with this scruple.”
“’Tis an unnecessary question,” he said, while a glance came from him
that sank into my heart.
“Is it that you have come to love me?” says I, in my monumental
innocence.
“I--a beggar?”
“Nay, sir,” says I, “not a beggar. You lack his first essential, his
humility. Suppose we say a sturdy rogue?”
“A sturdy rogue, then.”
“Well, an he loves me, I can pardon the presumption of a sturdy rogue.”
“You had better do so, then,” says he.
“That is, you love me, sir,” I demanded, sternly.
“By God I do!” he cries.
“Which is very well,” says I, “as, all things considered, sir--well,
all things considered, sir--that is, at least, I think it’s very
well. And as you love me, sir, I would have you steal out through the
window of this room, creep across the park into the wood, and I will
meet you there in half an hour with money, a disguise, and such like
necessaries.”
“And my promise to the Captain, madam?”
“The Captain is your enemy,” says I. “He seeks to kill you.”
He shook his head in defiance of my open anger.
Now here was a point that I never could distinguish. Why, in the first
place, the Captain should have dared to trust a desperate rebel upon
his simple word, was beyond my understanding; again, why, when his
enemy had been fool enough to do so, that rebel did not profit by this
credulity was even greater mystery. Of course I have heard soldiers
talk about their “honour,” and I had lately learnt to know that his
“honour” was the one flaw in the complete armour of that worldling,
my papa; but for my life I cannot see why a man should extend more
consideration to it than he would, as in this present case of young
Anthony, to death itself. And certainly I think that there is never a
woman of us all that, being put in his tight place, but would have
stretched her word a point. Bab Gossiter herself would have done so, I
can promise you.
Still the prisoner was obdurate. And if he, of all persons, refused to
connive at his own escape, verily his case was dark. But there was one
other. Who knew but that after all he might relent a little under the
fire of my eyes? The Captain had flinched before their powers once;
perchance he might again.
“My lad,” I said, turning to the prisoner, “wait here till I return. I
wish to speak a few words with the Captain.”
“On my behalf?” says he.
“Oh, no,” says I, promptly; for did I not know his disposition was
peculiar? Even as I went, however, I could see that he did not set much
value on my word, and it was a nice question whether he had accepted it.
I found the Captain sitting before the library fire. The blaze playing
on his face showed it sombre and deeply overcast with thought. When I
entered alone a visible embarrassment took hold of him, and I believe
it was because he had noted the red and inflamed appearance of my eyes.
“I am come to plead, sir,” says I, plunging at once into my bitter task.
“My dear lady, I had feared it,” he said.
“He is very young,” I said, “very misguided probably, but a youthful
error is not to be punished with the scaffold.”
“It is the law,” says he, sadly.
“Humanity is more potent than the law, sir.” My tears broke forth again.
“And,” said the Captain, with great gentleness, “Lady Barbarity at
every season and in every circumstance is always humane.”
His voice made me shiver. There was a metallic harshness creeping out
from underneath the velvet tones. His face, too, had grown dark with
sneers and sardonic meaning. I struggled to be resolute, but the Fates
were against me. The shadow of death was lying on my heart, and steel
it as I might it could not forbear from trembling at the Captain’s
words, that were as cold as doom, and twice as cruel.
“My Lady Barbarity is ever humane,” the Captain said. “There would be
no pretext for her title else.”
“I will confess, sir,” says I, “that I never had any particular
compassion for fools. In my opinion, sir, it is no worse to trample on
a fool than it is to beat a dog.”
“Well, madam,” says the Captain, very like a judge, “that, I think, is
a matter for your conscience. But is it not rather a flaw in policy,
don’t you think, to come to a fool on whom you have trampled with a
plea for mercy?”
“Captain Grantley,” says I, warningly.
“You must forgive my bluntness, madam,” he continued, “but I, a fool,
have been compelled to suffer greatly at your hands. You may have
forgotten last year in London, and this very room but a week ago,
but I can assure you, madam, that I have not. I have passed through
a purgatory of hope and jealousy, and for what reason, madam? Simply
that, to serve your private ends, you have deigned to shoot a few
smiles out of your eyes. And under your pardon, madam, I will say those
eyes of yours are poisoned daggers that corrupt everything they strike.
At least, I know they have corrupted my very soul.”
He ended this strange speech with a groan. There was a still passion in
him that was alarming. If ever a man meant mischief, surely this was he.
“But, sir,” I said, “you must understand that I am not pleading for
myself.”
“No, only for the man you love,” says he.
I saw he was white to the lips.
“Sir,” says I, “if this were not so nonsensical, I should deem it an
impertinence.”
“It is only to saints that plain truths are inoffensive,” the Captain
answered.
Again and yet again I returned to the attack, only to discover that I
had to deal with a cold man kindled. Here was a person not to be fired
easily; a chance spark would not light him; but once ablaze and he
would not cease burning until the whole of him was ashes. I had only to
look at his face observantly to find proofs of the havoc I had caused.
His eyes were bright and hollow; his cheeks had fallen in. Hitherto I
had held these the signs of the mind’s anxiety at his long captivity
and his prisoner’s escape. But had I plumbed deeper to the sources
of his malady I should have found that they sprang from the bitter
sufferings of his heart. And whatever the shining qualities of this
gentleman, I knew from the beginning that magnanimity was not among
them. He had endured the pain that I had wantonly inflicted on him,
bravely and proudly, but he had also abided his time. Alas, that his
time was now!
Looking at his cold eyes, and the scorn of his lips, I knew that he
meant to punish me. There was not one relenting glance to give me
hope. I do not think that I am a greater coward than my sisters, but
somehow all at once I felt my courage go. This patient foe seemed too
powerful and wary; I was but as a reed in his hands; he could break me
now and cast me to the ground. I shall not describe my long, fervent
pleadings with him. I was made to command and not to pray; therefore,
I believe a creature of a humbler mind would have borne this matter
more effectively. For my every plea fell on a heart of stone. At last
I cried out from the depths of desperation: “Is there no price in the
world that would tempt you to spare him?”
His answer was startling.
“Yes, madam, one,” he said.
“Name it, sir!” I cried, springing to my feet in my excitement. “Name
it, sir, and please God it shall be paid!”
“Become my wife, madam. On that condition only do I release your lover.”
You have seen the actors in the playhouse strike their attitudes,
and deliver their high speeches with the most poignant effect. You
know that you are pierced, not by a natural emotion, but by art and a
studied utterance. I had this feeling in the most intensified degree
when my subtle enemy announced, with wonderful seeming candour, the
price I had to pay. Of a sudden, however, his gravity was exchanged for
a laughter equally insincere. At first I took it for the mere brutality
of mockery in the playhouse manner, but as again and again it returned
upon him, and rose to a horrible hysteria, it was presently borne
upon me that I was not so much the object of his hollow mirth, as the
agonised James Grantley.
Despite the magnitude of his demand, I was not slow to answer. Though
I had an instinct that this momentous circumstance demanded at least
a day and a night for ponderation, I felt quite incapable of coolly
considering it for twenty seconds. Conscious of nothing beyond the
blood droning in my brain, I replied to my enemy:
“Captain, I accept the conditions you have named.”
Perhaps the man was not prepared for this, for his face grew painful in
its pallor, while the fire burned deeper in his eyes.
“Madam,” says he, in a voice hardly to be endured. “I suppose you are
aware that this will ruin me?”
“And you, sir,” I said, politely, “that I shall be damned eternally?”
“Take a more cheerful view of it, dear lady,” he mockingly invited me.
“Captain,” says I, “do you know that you most remind me of an angry
wasp? You are prepared to destroy yourself to gratify the lust of your
revenge.”
Thus with these sweet speeches was our wooing done!