"Why, no," I answered, mustering a cool smile. "Folly such as that goes by with youth."
"Your age is twenty-four?"
"Yes, I am twenty-four."
"And you love her no longer?"
"I tell you, no longer, sir."
The Vicar opened his box and took a large pinch.
"Then," said he, the pinch being between his finger and thumb and just half-way on the road to his nose, "you love some other woman, Simon."
He spoke not as a man who asks a question nor even as one who hazards an opinion; he declared a fact and needed no answer to confirm him. "Yes, you love some other woman, Simon," said he, and there left the matter.
"I don"t," I cried indignantly. Had I told myself a hundred times that I was not in love to be told by another that I was? True, I might have been in love, had not----
"Ah, who goes there?" exclaimed the Vicar, springing nimbly to the window and looking out with eagerness. "I seem to know the gentleman.
Come, Simon, look."
I obeyed him. A gentleman, attended by two servants, rode past rapidly; twilight had begun to fall, but the light served well enough to show me who the stranger was. He rode hard and his horse"s head was towards the Manor gates.
"I think it is my Lord Carford," said the Vicar. "He goes to the Manor, as I think."
"I think it is and I think he does," said I; and for a single moment I stood there in the middle of the room, hesitating, wavering, miserable.
"What ails you, Simon? Why shouldn"t my Lord Carford go to the Manor?"
cried the Vicar.
"Let him go to the devil!" I cried, and I seized my hat from the table where it lay.
The Vicar turned to me with a smile on his lips.
"Go, lad," said he, "and let me not hear you again deny my propositions.
They are founded on an extensive observation of humanity and----"
Well, I know not to this day on what besides. For I was out of the house before the Vicar completed his statement of the authority that underlay his propositions.
CHAPTER XXI
THE STRANGE CONJUNCTURE OF TWO GENTLEMEN
I have heard it said that King Charles laughed most heartily when he learnt how a certain gentleman had tricked M. de Perrencourt and carried off from his clutches the lady who should have gone to prepare for the d.u.c.h.ess of York"s visit to the Court of France. "This Uriah will not be set in the forefront of the battle," said he, "and therefore David can"t have his way." He would have laughed, I think, even although my action had thwarted his own schemes, but the truth is that he had so wrought on that same devotion to her religion which, according to Mistress Nell, inspired Mlle. de Querouaille that by the time the news came from Calais he had little doubt of success for himself although his friend M. de Perrencourt had been baffled. He had made his treaty, he had got his money, and the lady, if she would not stay, yet promised to return. The King then was well content, and found perhaps some sly satisfaction in the defeat of the great Prince whose majesty and dignity made any reverse which befell him an amus.e.m.e.nt to less potent persons. In any case the King laughed, then grew grave for a moment while he declared that his best efforts should not be wanting to reclaim Mistress Quinton to a sense of her duty, and then laughed again. Yet he set about reclaiming her, although with no great energy or fierceness; and when he heard that Monmouth had other views of the lady"s duty, he shrugged his shoulders, saying, "Nay, if there be two Davids, I"ll wager a crown on Uriah."
It is easy to follow a man to the door of a house, but if the door be shut after him and the pursuer not invited to enter, he can but stay outside. So it fell out with me, and being outside I did not know what pa.s.sed within nor how my Lord Carford fared with Mistress Barbara. I flung myself in deep chagrin on the gra.s.s of the Manor Park, cursing my fate, myself, and if not Barbara, yet that perversity which was in all women and, by logic, even in Mistress Barbara. But although I had no part in it, the play went on and how it proceeded I learnt afterwards; let me now leave the stage that I have held too long and pa.s.s out of sight till my cue calls me again.
This evening then, my lady, who was very sick, being in her bed, and Mistress Barbara, although not sick, very weary of her solitude and longing for the time when she could betake herself to the same refuge (for there is a pride that forbids us to seek bed too early, however strongly we desire it) there came a great knocking at the door of the house. A gentleman on horseback and accompanied by two servants was without and craved immediate audience of her ladyship. Hearing that she was abed, he asked for Mistress Barbara and obtained entrance; yet he would not give his name, but declared that he came on urgent business from Lord Quinton. The excuse served, and Barbara received him. With surprise she found Carford bowing low before her. I had told her enough concerning him to prevent her welcome being warm. I would have told her more, had she afforded me the opportunity. The imperfect knowledge that she had caused her to accuse him rather of a timidity in face of powerful rivals than of any deliberate design to set his love below his ambition and to use her as his tool. Had she known all I knew she would not have listened to him. Even now she made some pretext for declining conversation that night and would have withdrawn at once; but he stayed her retreat, earnestly praying her for her father"s sake and her own to hear his message, and a.s.serting that she was in more danger than she was aware of. Thus he persuaded her to be seated.
"What is your message from my father, my lord?" she asked coldly, but not uncivilly.
"Madame, I have none," he answered with a bluntness not ill calculated.
"I used the excuse to gain admission, fearing that my own devotion to you would not suffice, well as you know it. But although I have no message, I think that you will have one soon. Nay, you must listen." For she had risen.
"I listen, my lord, but I will listen standing."
"You"re hard to me, Mistress Barbara," he said. "But take the tidings how you will; only pay heed to them." He drew nearer to her and continued, "To-morrow a message will come from your father. You have had none for many days?"
"Alas, no," said she. "We were both on the road and could send no letter to one another."
"To-morrow one comes. May I tell you what it will say?"
"How can you know what it will say, my lord?"
"I will stand by the event," said he st.u.r.dily. "The coming of the letter will prove me right or wrong. It will bid your mother and you accompany the messenger----"
"My mother cannot----"
"Or, if your mother cannot, you alone, with some waiting-woman, to Dover."
"To Dover?" cried Barbara. "For what purpose?" She shrank away from him, as though alarmed by the very name of the place whence she had escaped.
He looked full in her face and answered slowly and significantly:
"Madame goes back to France, and you are to go with her."
Barbara caught at a chair near her and sank into it. He stood over her now, speaking quickly and urgently.
"You must listen," he said, "and lose no time in acting. A French gentleman, by name M. de Fontelles, will be here to-morrow; he carries your father"s letter and is sent to bring you to Dover."
"My father bids me come?" she cried.
"His letter will convey the request," answered Carford.
"Then I will go," said she. "I can"t come to harm with him, and when I have told him all, he won"t allow me to go to France." For as yet my lord did not know of what had befallen his daughter, nor did my lady, whose sickness made her unfit to be burdened with such troublesome matters.
"Indeed you would come to no harm with your father, if you found your father," said Carford. "Come, I will tell you. Before you reach Dover my lord will have gone from there. As soon as his letter to you was sent the King made a pretext to despatch him into Cornwall; he wrote again to tell you of his journey and bid you not come to Dover till he sends for you. This letter he entrusted to a messenger of my Lord Arlington"s who was taking the road for London. But the Secretary"s messengers know when to hasten and when to loiter on the way. You are to have set out before the letter arrives."
Barbara looked at him in bewilderment and terror; he was to all seeming composed and spoke with an air of honest sincerity.
"To speak plainly, it is a trick," he said, "to induce you to return to Dover. This M. de Fontelles has orders to bring you at all hazards, and is armed with the King"s authority in case my lord"s bidding should not be enough."
She sat for a while in helpless dismay. Carford had the wisdom not to interrupt her thoughts; he knew that she was seeking for a plan of escape and was willing to let her find that there was none.
"When do you say that M. de Fontelles will be here?" she asked at last.