"Ah; then there was a cause. Tell it me."
"Nay, that I may not."
Though she was hurting me sorely in the wound-dressing, and knew it, she laughed.
""Tis most ungallant to deny a lady, sir. But I shall know without the telling; "twas about a woman. Tell me, Captain Ireton, is she fair?"
Seeing that her mood had changed again, I tried to give her quip for jest; but what with the pain of the sword-thrust and the sweet agony of her touches I could only set my teeth against a groan. She went on drawing the bandagings, little heedful how she racked me, I thought; and yet when all was done she stood beside me all of a tremble, as any tender-hearted woman might.
"There," she said; ""tis over for a time, and I make no doubt you are glad enough. Now you have nothing to do save to lie quiet till it heals."
"And how long will that be, think you?"
"We shall see; a long time, I hope. You shall be punished properly for your hot temper, I promise you, Captain Ireton."
With that she left me and went to stand in the window-bay; and from lying mouse-still and watching her over-steadily I fell asleep again.
When I awoke the day was in its gloaming and she was gone.
After this I saw her no more for six full circlings of the clock-hands, and grew fair famished for a sight of her sweet face. But to atone, she, or some messenger of Richard Jennifer"s, brought me my faithful Darius, and he it was who fetched me my food and drink and dressed my wound.
From him I gleaned that the master of Appleby Hundred had returned from Queensborough, and that there were officers in red coats continually going back and forth, always with a hearty welcome from Gilbert Stair.
Now, though the master of my stolen heritage had little cause to love me, I thought he had still less to fear me; so it seemed pa.s.sing strange that he came not once to my bedchamber to pa.s.s the time of day with his unbidden guest, or to ask how he fared. But in this, as in many other things, I reckoned without my enemy, though I might have known that Sir Francis would be oftenest among the red-coated officers coming and going.
But stranger than this, or than my lady"s continued avoidance of me, was the lack of a visit from Richard Jennifer. Knowing well my dear lad"s loyalty to the patriot cause, I could only conjecture that he had finally broken Margery"s enforced truce to go and join Mr. Rutherford"s militia, which, as Darius told me, was rallying to attack a Tory stronghold at Ramsour"s Mill.
With this surmise I was striving to content myself on that evening of the third day, when Mistress Margery burst in upon me, bright-eyed and with her cheeks aflame.
"Captain Ireton, I will know the true cause of this quarrel which, failing in yourself, you pa.s.s on to Richard Jennifer!" she cried. "Was it not enough that you should get yourself half slain, without sending this headstrong boy to his death?"
Now in all my surmisings I had not thought of this, and truly if she had sought far and wide for a whip to scourge me with she could have found no thong to cut so deep.
"G.o.d help me!" I groaned. "Has this fiend incarnate killed my poor lad?"
"No, he is not dead," she confessed, relenting a little. "But he has the baronet"s bullet through his sword-arm for the sake of your over-seas disagreement with Sir Francis."
I could not tell her that though my quarrel with this villain was but the avenging of poor d.i.c.k Coverdale"s wrongs, Richard Jennifer"s was for the baronet"s affront to her. So I bore the blame in silence, glad enough to be a.s.sured that my dear lad was only wounded.
"Why don"t you speak, sir?" she snapped, flying out at me in a pa.s.sion for my lack of words.
"What should I say? I have not forgot that once you called me ungenerous."
"You should defend yourself, if you can. And you should ask my pardon for calling my father"s guest hard names."
"The last I will do right heartily. "Twas but the simple truth, but it was ill-spoken in your presence, Mistress Stair."
At this she laughed merrily; and in all my world-wanderings I had never heard a sound so gladsome as this sweet laugh of hers when she would be on the forgiving hand.
"Surely any one would know you are a soldier, Captain Ireton. No other could make an apology and renew the offense so innocently in the same breath." Then her mood changed again in the dropping of an eyelid, and she sighed and said: "Poor d.i.c.k!"
As ever when she was with me, my eyes were devouring her; and at the sigh and the trembling of the sweet lips in sympathy I found that curious love-madness coming upon me again. Then I saw that I must straightway dig some chasm impa.s.sable between this woman and me, as I should hope to be loyal to my friend. So I said: "He loves you well, Mistress Margery."
She glanced up quickly with a smile which might have been mocking or loving; I could not tell which it was.
"Did he make you his deputy to tell me so, Captain Ireton?"
Now I might have known that she was only luring me on to some pitfall of mockery, but I did not, and must needs burst out in some clumsy disclaimer meant to shield my dear lad. And in the midst of it she laughed again.
"Oh, you do amuse me mightily, _mon Capitaine_," she cried. "I do protest I shall come to see you oftener. Tis as good as any play!"
"Saw you ever a play in this backwoods wilderness?" I asked, glad of any excuse to change the talk and keep her by me.
"No, indeed. But you are not to think that no one has seen the great world save only yourself, Captain Ireton. What would you say if I should tell you that I, too, have seen your London, and even your Paris?"
Here I must blunder again and say that I had been wondering how else she came by the Parisian French; but at this her jesting mood vanished suddenly and she spoke softly.
"I had it of my mother, who came of the Huguenots. She spoke it always to me. But my father speaks it not, and now I am losing it for want of practice."
How is it that love transforms the once contemptible into a thing most highly to be prized? My eight years of campaigning on the Continent had given me the French speech, or so much of it as the clumsy tongue of me could master, and I had always held it in hearty English scorn. Yet now I was eager enough to speak it with her, and to take as my very own the little cry of joy wherewith she welcomed my hesitant mouthing of it.
From that we fell to talking in her mother"s tongue of the hardships of those same Huguenot _emigres_; and when I looked not at her I could speak in terms dispa.s.sionate and cool of this or aught else; and when I looked upon her my heart beat faster and my blood leaped quickly, and I knew not always what it was I said.
After a time--"twas when Darius fetched me my supper and the candles--she went away; and so ended a day which saw the beginning of a struggle fiercer than any the turbaned Turk had ever given me. For when I had eaten, and was alone with time to think, I knew well that I loved this woman and should always love her; this in spite of honor, or loyalty to Richard Jennifer, or any other thing in heaven or earth.
V
HOW I LOST WHAT I HAD NEVER GAINED
Though I dared not hope she would keep her promise and was sometimes so sorely beset as to tremble at her coming, Margery looked in upon me oftener, and soon there grew up between us a comradeship the like of which, I think, had never been between a woman loved and a man who, loving her, was yet constrained to play the part of her true lover"s friend.
If I played this part but stumblingly; if at times the madness of my pa.s.sion would not be denied the look or word or hand-clasp not of poor cool friendship; I have this to comfort me: that in after time, when my dear lad came to know, he forgave me freely--nay, held me altogether blameless, as I was not.
Of what these looks and words and hand-clasps meant to Margery I had no hint. But in my hours of sanity, when I would pa.s.s these slippings in review, I could recall no answering flash of hers to salt the woundings of the conscience-whip. So far from it, it seemed, as this sweet comradeship budded and blossomed on the stock of a better acquaintance, she came to hold me more as if I were some cross between a father or an elder brother, and some closer confidant of her own s.e.x.
You are not to understand that she was always thus, nor over-often. More frequently that side of her which I soon came to call the mother"s was turned to me, and I was made to stand a target for her wit and raillery.
But she was ever changeful as a child, and in the midst of some light jesting mood would sober instantly and give my age its due.
In some of these, her soberer times, I felt her lean upon me as my sister might, had I had one; at others she would frankly set me in her father"s place, declaring I must tell her what to say or do in this or that entanglement. Again, and this came oftener as our friendship grew, she would talk to me as surely woman never talked to any but a kinsman, telling me navely of her conquests, and sparing no gallant of them all save only Richard Jennifer.
And of d.i.c.k and his devotion she spoke now and then, as well, though never mockingly, as of the others. Nay, once when I pressed her on this point, asking her plainly if my dear lad had not good cause to hope, she would only smile and turn her face away, and say that of all the men she knew the hopeful ones pleased her best. So I was thus a.s.sured that if it were a scale for love to tip, my lady"s heart would fall to Richard.
Now I took this to be a hopeful sign, that she would tell me freely of these her little heart affairs; and seeing her so safe upon the side of friendship, held the looser rein upon my own unchartered pa.s.sion. So long as I could keep my love well masked and hidden what harm could come to her or any if I should give it leave to live in prison? None, I thought; and yet at times was made a very coward by the thought. For love, like other living things, will grow by what it feeds upon, and once full-grown, may haply come to laugh at bonds, however strong or cunningly devised.
With such a fever in my veins it was little wonder that my wound healed slowly. As time pa.s.sed by, with never a word of news from the world without--if Margery knew aught of the fighting she would never lisp a syllable to me--and with Gilbert Stair still keeping churlishly beyond the sight or sound of me, I fretted sorely and would be gone.