CHAPTER XI.
APPLEGARTH.
When I fell asleep the sun was just climbing above the shoulder ofSkiddaw; when I waked again, it was down very close above the Isle ofMan, so that I could see the surf flash in a line of gold as it brokeagainst the rocks. Tash had brought with him some cheese and a loaf ofbread; and being hard set with my long fast, I spent no great whileover grace, but fell to and moistened the food with the sweetest waterthat ever I drank, fetching it from a little stream which bubbled bythrough the grass a few yards away. Tash pointed me out a valley whichcleft the mountains westwards a little to our left and made a rightangle with the ridge on which we lay. At the end of the valley I sawthe corner of a lake. The valley, he told me, was called Gillerthwaiteand the lake Ennerdale Water. Mr. Curwen's house was built upon thebanks of the Water, but was invisible to us, since it lay in a kind ofbay to the north behind some projecting cliffs of a reddish stone.
"But we will wait here till nightfall," he said; and nothing loth Iturned over on my back and fell to resolving, so well as I could, theperplexities in which I was coiled. I now saw very clearly thatRookley's plot had not, as I had imagined, been aimed against myself,but rather against Anthony Herbert; and my new knowledge that myworthy cousin was a Government spy gave me some light to conjecture ofa cause. For I reflected that Herbert had come suddenly to Keswick atthe very time when rebellion was a-brewing in these parts; that he hadmade Lord Derwentwater's acquaintance and had painted his lady'sportrait; that upon my coming to Blackladies, Lord Derwentwater hadput me into relations with the man; and that I too had commissioned aportrait of him. Now Lord Derwentwater was suspected of favouring theStuart claims, and certainly Rookley knew that I not merely favouredthem but was working to further them. It would be, then, a naturalsuspicion for Rookley to draw that we were all three implicated in thesame business, and that Herbert was merely using his skill as aconcealment of his genuine purpose. Moreover, I thought of a sudden,there was that medal in Mr. Herbert's apartment. True, I had seen himlock it up. But he must bring it out again to copy it, and he was notof that orderliness which would ensure his replacing it. What ifRookley had seen the medal in Herbert's lodging? Joined to hissuspicions, that one certain fact would change those suspicions toconvictions. Rookley would believe, and would have reason to believe,that Herbert was a Jacobite agent. Granted that presumption, andRookley's conduct became clear. He was marking time with King Georgeand stepping forward with King James. He would lay Herbert by theheels in the one interest and leave me untouched in the other, so longas it was doubtful which way the wind was setting. I found anadditional reason to credit this hypothesis in this, that it wasplainly Rookley's intention to bring about Herbert's arrest secretly,or at all events without my knowledge.
"I had thought to find you in the garden," Herbert had said; the wordscame back to me in a flash. I sprang to my feet in some excitement.Tash in a flurry asked me what it was I saw; but I moved away withoutanswering him, certain that I had a hold upon the key of the plot,fearful lest I should lose it.
"I had thought to find you in the garden"--and the soldiers were inthe garden. Moreover, there was but one man who could have led Mr.Herbert to believe that he would find us in the garden--JervasRookley. And Jervas Rookley had every reason in the world to feelassured that neither Mrs. Herbert nor myself would be discoveredthere.
I had no longer a shadow of doubt. Anthony Herbert had been beguiledto Blackladies that his arrest might be brought about with secrecy.Only Jervas Rookley had made one mistake: he had presumed in hisvictim the same cunning and concealment of which he was masterhimself. Mr. Herbert had defeated the secrecy of the plan by hisoutburst in his lodging; but for that outburst, the arrest would havebeen effected with all the secrecy which Rookley desired.
From that point in my speculations I went forward to a resolve. I knewHerbert to be in no way concerned with our plans and hopes. Indeed, Idoubted whether he cared a straw which King occupied the throne, solong as he could continue in the exercise of his art. But, on theother hand, there was the medal in his possession, and I distrustedthe impartiality of justice in a matter where passions were soinflamed. My resolve, then, was no more than this: that if by anymeans a man could, I would secure Mr. Herbert's enlargement, if onlyas an act of reparation, and if it cost me my life. But to tell thetruth, my life at this moment had not the least savour of sweetness,and to let it go seemed the easiest thing in the world.
The question, however, which weighed on me was how I should accomplishhis enlargement; for I did not know and had no means of knowingwhither he had been taken. They might have carried him to London,there to be examined. Suppose that was true and I went down into thevalley and gave myself up? Why, I had not sufficient trust in theauthorities to be certain that Herbert would get the benefit of myevidence. I could prove that the medal belonged to me; but should I beallowed to tender that proof on Herbert's behalf? I might lie inprison the while he was brought to his trial. No, before I gave myselfup I must know whither Anthony Herbert had been taken. And as far as Icould tell, there was but one man who could give me the information.Could I force it from Jervas Rookley? I asked myself, and even in theasking laughed. For here was the darkness coming up out of the sea andwrapping the mountains about, and here was I hiding in the midst ofthem, a hunted outlaw. Tash called to me that it was time for us toset out, and we started down the hillside into Gillerthwaite, heleading as before, I as before following him, but no longer in thedaze and stupor of yesternight. Rather, on the contrary, I walked witheyes needlessly alert and with feet over-timorous and careful. For ifI got no other profit from my reflections, I had drawn from them thisone conviction, and I was sensible of it as of a sheer necessity: Imust be ready, I thought--since I knew so little, I must be ready toseize any occasion of Mr. Herbert's enlargement, at the instant of itsdiscovery. So that as we scrambled down the slope with the mistgathering around us, I came to fear a slip with an extraordinaryapprehension; where the grass steepened, I straightway imagined afatal precipice; and when a stone slid beneath my heel, I felt all theblood drain from my heart and leave me shaking in a panic. The nightin consequence had completely fallen by the time we came to apony-track in the bed of the valley. I remember that I askedcarelessly whither it led from Ennerdale, and Tash told me that itpassed into the valley called Newlands, which runs parallel withDerwentwater, and is only separated from the lake by that line ofhills along which we had walked during the night.
"Then," said I carelessly, "it is a path by which one may travel toKeswick."
"Ay," he replied; and for the moment I thought no more of the matter.
Before we had come to the head of Ennerdale Water, the moon was up andshining fitfully through a wrack of clouds. The valley, however, wasclear of mist, so that I was able to distinguish the house ofApplegarth, while I was as yet at some distance from its doors. It wasa long, plain building, which promised comfort within by its very lackof ornamentation without, built in a single story and painted a whitecolour. But it seemed to me, even in that uncertain light, to bear themarks of neglect and decay. There was a little garden in front of thehouse separated from the lake-shores by an unkempt hedge, and plantedonly with a few fuchsia bushes; the walls of the house were here andthere discoloured, and once or twice as I passed up the garden-path Istepped upon a broken tile.
A woman-servant opened the door and I asked for Mr. Curwen. She lookedme over for a second.
"And what may be your business with Mr. Curwen?"
"That I can hardly tell you," said I with a laugh.
"Ah, but you must," said she. She was a woman of some bulk, and shestood with her arms akimbo, filling the doorway. "Is it his last fewguineas you might be wanting?" she asked with a slow sarcasm.
"Why, goodwife," I answered impatiently, "do you look for gentlemen ofthe road in Ennerdale?"
"Goodwife!" she said with a toss of the head. "Goodwife to aninny-hammer!" and she looked me over ag
ain. Indeed, I doubt not butwe cut sufficiently disreputable figures. "Not I! And you'll just tellme your business. There are others besides gentlemen of the road whoput their fingers into pockets which don't belong to them."
"Hold your noise, Mary Tyson!" said Tash, behind my shoulder. "Do youknow me?"
"Oh," said she with a start, "it's William Tash from----"
"That'll do," he broke in; "no need to speak names. Show the gentlemanto Mr. Curwen."
Mary Tyson stood aside from the door. I stepped into the hall.
"You'll find him in the room," she said with a curt nod towards a doorfacing me.
I crossed to it and rapped on the panels, but got no answerwhatsoever. It is true I could hear a voice within, but the voiceseemed to be declaiming a speech. I rapped again.
"Oh, the dainty knuckles!" cried Mary; and pushing roughly past me shebanged upon the door with a great fist like a ham and threw it openwithout further ceremony. The voice ceased from its declamation. Ientered the room. It was very dark, being panelled all about withbook-cases and the ceiling very low. A single lamp glimmered on atable in the centre of the carpet An old gentleman rose from before agreat folio spread out upon the table.
"What is it, Mary?" he asked in a tone of gentle annoyance. "Youinterrupt me."
"A visitor, he says," replied Mary, "though----"
The hostility of her eyes and a great heave of her shoulders filled upthe gap.
"A visitor!" said the old gentleman, his voice changing on the instantto an eager politeness. "A visitor is always welcome at Applegarth atwhatever hour he comes."
I heard not so much a sigh as a snort behind me, and the door wasslammed. The old gentleman advanced a few steps towards me and thencame to a sudden stop. I was neither hurt nor surprised at his evidentdisappointment and perplexity, for Mary's behaviour had shown mepretty clearly what sort of a picture I made.
"It is not a visitor, Mr. Curwen," said I, "but a fugitive;" and Ihanded to him Lord Derwentwater's letter.
"Indeed?" said he, all his suavity rekindling. "A fugitive!" and hespoke as though to be a fugitive was a very fine and enviable thing."You will take a chair, Mr.----"
"Clavering," I added.
"Of Blackladies?" he inquired
"Of Blackladies," said I.
"You are very welcome, Mr. Clavering," said he, and he broke open theseal and read the letter through, with many interruptions of "Shieldus!" and "To be sure!" and with many a glance over his spectacles atme. He was a tall man, though his shoulders stooped as if he spentmany an evening over his folio, and I should say of sixty years andmore. He wore his own white hair, which was very long and fine, makinga silver frame to as beautiful a face, except one, as it has ever beenmy lot to see. The features, it may be, were over-delicatelychiselled, the cheeks too bloodless, the eyes too large, if you lookedfor a man of dominating activity. It was the face of a dreamer, nodoubt, but there would be nothing ignoble in the dreams.
"You are yet more welcome, Mr. Clavering," said he as he folded up theletter; "shelter indeed you shall have, and such comfort as we can addthereto, for so long as you will be pleased to stay with us. Nay,"said he, checking me, "I know what you would say, but we are solitarypeople here and the debt will be with us."
"That can hardly be," said I, "since I bring danger to you by mypresence."
"Some while ago," he replied, "I would not have denied it, though Ishould have welcomed you no less. But since my fortunes have declinedand I have grown into years, I have taken little part in politics andkeep much within my doors. They will not come here, I think, to lookfor you. It is a consolation for my poverty," said he with thesimplest dignity, "that I can therefore offer you a safer harbourage.But indeed it is with you that the times have gone hard. We are not sosolitary but that now and again a scrap of news will float to us, andwe have heard of you. You were much at one time in Paris?" And hisvoice of a sudden took on a pleasant eagerness.
"Yes," I replied, "though I saw little of the town."
"Ah," said he with a nod of the head, "to gain and lose Blackladies inso short a space--it is a hard case, Mr. Clavering."
In the hurry and stress of these last two days I had given no thoughtto what the loss Blackladies meant, but the meaning rushed in upon mewinged with his words.
"Ay," I answered, and my voice trembled as I spoke, so that the oldman came over to me and laid a hand upon my shoulder, "for it is theKing who loses it, and through my folly, for I might have known."
I felt his hand patting me with a helpless consolation. "So we allsay, after the event. It is a hard thing to bear, but philosophy willhelp us. You must study philosophy while you are here, Mr. Clavering.I have books"--and he glanced round the room and then came to anabrupt pause--"I have books," he repeated in a lame fashion, "whichyou may find profit in studying;" and as he spoke, the music of a songquivered up from the next room like a bird on the wing. I understoodthat "we," which had much perplexed me in his talk; I remembered whereand when I had heard of Applegarth before. You may talk, if you will,of Cuzzoni and Faustina and the rest of the Italian women who havefilled Heidegger's pockets; doubtless they made more noise, but notone of them, I'll be sworn, had a tenth of the sweetness and purity ofthe voice which sang this song. Give to a lark a human soul and thenmaybe you will hear it. For it was more than a voice that sang; it wasas though the wings of a soul beat and throbbed in the singer'sthroat. I lack words to describe the effect it wrought on me. All theshame I had been sensible of during the long hours since that pistolrang out in the garden of Blackladies, came back to me massed withinthe compass of a second, and on that shame, more and ever more. I knowthat I buried my face in my hands to hide the anguish of my spiritfrom Mr. Curwen; and sitting there with my fingers pressed upon myeyes I listened. The words came clearly to my ears through the doorwaybehind my chair; the voice carried my thoughts back to Paris, was thecrystal wherein I saw pitilessly plain all the dreams I had fashionedof what I would do, had I but liberty and the power to do it; thencarried me again to England, and showed me the miserable contrastbetween those airy dreams and the solid truth. I saw myself now ridingto Lorraine; now lingering in Mr. Herbert's apartment And the words ofthat song pointed my remorse--how bitterly! Even now, after thisinterval of thirty-five years, the humiliation and pain I enduredreturn to me with so poignant a force that I can hardly bring myselfto write of them. I could not indeed at all, but for this faded yellowsheet of paper which I take up in my hands. It was given to me upon anoccasion notable within my memory, and the words of this very song areinscribed upon it, blurred and well-nigh indecipherable, but I do notneed the writing to help me to remember them. The song was called "TheHonest Lover," and I set it down here since here it was that I firstheard it.
"THE HONEST LOVER."[1]
"Would any doubting maid discover What's he that is a worthy lover: His is no fine fantastic breath, But lowly mien and steadfast faith. For he that so would move her, By simple art, And humble heart, Why, he's the honest lover.
"His is a heart that never played The light-o'-love to wife or maid, But reverenced all womankind Before he found one to his mind. For he that so would move her By simple art, And humble heart, Why, he's the honest lover.
"And if he quake to meet her eyes, Stammer and blush whene'er he tries His worship'd lady to address, Be sure she'll love him none the less, For he that so would move her By simple art, And humble heart, Why, he's the honest lover."
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Footnote 1: The song is written by Harold Child, Esq., to whom theauthor is indebted for it.
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This was the song to which I listened as I sat--the dishonest outlawin the dark library of Applegarth.
"It is my
daughter Dorothy," said Mr. Curwen, with a smile. "Intalking of our youngest martyr I had forgotten her;" and he took astep towards the door. But at his first movement the youngestmartyr--Heaven save the mark!--had risen from his chair with a foolishabruptness.
"Nay, Mr. Curwen," he cried in disorder; and then he stopped, for thetruth is, he shrank in very shame from standing face to face with thesinger of that song.
"But," and I seized the first excuse, "I have this long while beenwandering on the fells, and am in no way fitted for the company ofladies. Your servant even would have no truck with me, and I think youtoo were taken aback." I looked down at my garments as I spoke.
"My servant," he began, and he looked towards the other door throughwhich I had entered with a timorous air, as though he would fain seewhether or no she was listening on the far side of it, "Mary Tyson,"he said, lowering his voice, "is a strange and unaccountable person. Agood servant, but----" and very wisely he tapped his forehead. "Formyself," he continued, his voice softening with a great wistfulness,"it was something very different from the stains of your journey thatgave me pause. Lord Derwentwater may have told you that I had once ason. He was much of your height and figure, and the room is dim, andold men are fanciful."
I bowed my head, for whenever he made mention of his misfortunes, hespoke with so brave and simple a dignity that any word of sympathybecame the merest impertinence. For a moment he stood looking down atme and revolving some question in his mind.
"Yes," said he, and more to himself than to me, "I will speak to herand give her the order. Why should I not?" He walked slowly halfway tothe bell and stopped, "Yes," he repeated, "I will speak to her;" andwith a word of excuse to me and a certain bracing of the shoulders, hewent out of the room.
I had no doubt that it was with Mary Tyson that he wished to speak. Iremained, half-hoping, half-afraid that the chords of the spinet wouldwake to the touch again, and the voice again ring out, sprinkling itsmelody through the room like so much perfume from a philtre. But therewas no recurrence of the music. I walked idly to the table, and myeyes fell upon that great tome in which Mr. Curwen had been soabsorbed at the moment of my interruption. In wonderment I bent moreclosely over it. I had expected to see some laborious monument ofphilosophy gemmed with unintelligible terms. Unintelligible termsthere were, in truth, but not of the philosopher's kind. They werecurious old terms of chivalry.
I remembered how Mr. Curwen had hesitated over the mention of hisbooks, and I took the lamp from the table, and glanced about thebook-shelves. The books were all of a-piece with that great folio onthe table--romaunts, and histories of crusades, and suchlike matters.
I wondered whether "Don Quixote de la Mancha" had found a placeamongst them, and with an impertinent smile I began to glance alongthe letterings in search of it, but very soon I stopped, and stoodstaring at a couple of volumes which faced me, and bore upon theirbacks the title of the "Morte D'Arthur."
I set the lamp again upon the table. The old man was right, I thoughtsadly. There was in that room philosophy which it would indeed profitme to study.
Mr. Curwen returned, rubbing his long, delicate hands one against theother in a flush of triumph.
"I have given orders," he said, and with a gentle accent of consciouspride he repeated the phrase--"I have given orders, Mr. Clavering. Youwill sleep in my boy's room, and since you are, as I say, very like tohim in size----" But his voice trembled, and he turned away and liftedthe lamp from the table.
"I will show you the room," he said.
I followed him into the hall, up the staircase, and down a longpassage to the very end of the house.
A door stood open. Mr. Curwen led me through it The room was warmlyfurnished, and hung with curtains of a dark green, while a newly-litfire was crackling in the hearth. A couple of candles were burning onthe mantelpiece, and Mary Tyson was arranging the bed. She took nonotice of me whatever as I entered, being busy with the bed, as Ithought.
"You can go, Mary," said Mr. Curwen, with a timid friendliness plainlyintended to appease.
Mary sniffed for an answer, and as she turned to go I saw that she hadbeen crying.
"She was Harry's nurse, poor woman," explained Mr. Curwen. "You mustforgive her, Mr. Clavering." And then, "He died at Malplaquet."
He crossed over to the bed, and stood looking down at it silently in avery fixed attitude. Then he took up from it a white silk stocking. Iapproached him, and saw that a suit of white satin was neatly foldedupon the white counterpane.
"It is a fortunate thing," he said, with a smile all the more sad forits effort at cheerfulness, "that you and he are alike;" and he drewthe stocking slowly through his fingers. "He died at Malplaquet, andMarlborough--the Marlborough of Malplaquet--spoke to him as he died."His voice broke on the words, and laying the stocking down, he turnedtowards a japan toilette with a "Even a father has no right to askfor more than that." But Harry's shoe-buckles were laid upon thechintz-coverlid, and he took them in his hands one after the other,repeating, "He died at Malplaquet. I have given you this room," hesaid, "for a reason. See! These two windows point down the valley, andare set high above the ground. But this"--and he crossed over to asmaller window set in the wall near the fireplace--"this looks on tothe hillside, and since the ground rises against the house, a man maydrop from it and come to no harm. To the left are the stables, or whatserves us for stables. We lock no doors at Applegarth, Mr. Clavering,fearing no robbers. You will find a horse in the stables, should therebe need for you to flee."
It was some while after Mr. Curwen had left me, before I could make upmy mind to don these clothes. I might be like to what Harry Curwen wasin size and figure, but there the likeness ended, and the sharpestcontrast in the world set in. I unfolded the suit, and spread it outupon the bed. The coat was of white velvet, the waistcoat and breechesof white satin, and all richly laced with an embroidery of silver. Afragrant scent of lavender, which breathed from the dress, coupledwith its freshness as of a suit worn but once or twice and so laidaside, lent an added sadness to the thought of young Harry Curwen. Iimagined him stripping off these fine clothes in a fumbling excitementone night, in this very room, kicking from his feet those lacqueredshoes--these with their soles and red-heels upturned now to the firefor the guest who was so like him! I imagined him pulling on hisboots, and riding off from Applegarth with, I know not what, martialvisions in his eyes, and hardly a glance, maybe, for the old man andthe sister standing in the light of the porch, to join his troop andperish on the plains of Flanders. Well, he had died at Malplaquet,and the great Marlborough--not the huckstering time-server whom weknew--the Marlborough of Malplaquet had spoken to him as he laya-dying, and no father had a right to look for more than that. Ipicked up the stockings, and drew them through my fingers as thefather had done.
At that, however, I bethought me that the father and his daughter wereawaiting me downstairs, and so dressed in a hurry, and combing out myperuke to such neatness as I could, I got me down into the hall.
Supper was already laid out in the dining-room, and Mr. Curwenwaiting. In a little I heard a light step upon the stair and therustle of a dress. Instinctively I turned my face towards thewindow-curtains, my back to the door. I heard the door open, but I didnot hear it shut again.
"Mr. Clavering," said the old man.
I was forced to turn. His daughter stood in the doorway, her lipsparted, her eyes startled.
"Mr. Clavering--my daughter Dorothy."
I bowed to her. She drew in her breath, then advanced to me frankly,and held out her hand.
"My father told me you were like," she said, "but since your back wasturned, I almost thought I saw him."
I took the hand by the finger-tips.
"He was very dear to you?"
"Very."
"Miss Curwen," said I, gravely, "I would, with all my heart, that youhad seen him, and that I had died in his place at Malplaquet."
Her face clouded for an instant, and she drew her hand quickly away,taking my speech, n
o doubt, for nothing more than an awkward andill-timed compliment. But compliment it was not, being, indeed, thetruth and summary of my recent thoughts quickened into speech againstmy will. She was of a slender figure, with a rosebud face, delicate asher father's. Her hair was drawn simply back from a broad, whiteforehead, and in colour was nut-brown, gleaming where it took thelight as though powdered with gold-dust. She was dressed in thesimplest gown of white, set off here and there with a warm ribbon. ButI took little note of her dress, beyond remarking that no other couldso well become her. From the pure oval of her face, her eyes big andgrey looked out at me, each like a quiet pool with a lanthorn lightedsomewhere in its depths, and she seemed to me her voice incarnate. Shewas unlike to her father in the proportion of her height, for she wasnot tall--and like to him again in a certain wilfulness which the setof her lips betokened, and again unlike in the masterful firmness ofher rounded chin; so that she could put off and on, with the quickestchange of humours, the gravity of a woman and the sunny petulance of achild.
"It is our homely fashion," said Mr. Curwen, "to wait upon ourselves."And we sat down to the table.
It was a fashion, however, which the guest, much to his discomfort,was not that night allowed to follow. For father and daughter alikejoined to show him courtesy. The daughter would have waited on me,even as Lady Derwentwater had done, and began, like her, to fill myglass. But this time I could not permit it.
"Madam," I cried hoarsely, "you must not Your kindness hurts me."
"Hurts you?" she asked, and from her tone I knew it was she who washurt.
"You do not know. If you did, your kindness would turn to thebitterest contempt."
I spoke without thought and barely with knowledge of what I said, butin a passion of self-reproach.
"Mr. Clavering," she replied very gently, "you are overwrought, and Ido not wonder. Else would you know that it must honour any woman toserve any man who has so served his King."
I dropped my head into my hands. My very soul rose against thispraise.
"If I had served my King," I exclaimed in a despairing remorse, "Ishould have been in France this many a week back."
"France!" repeated Mr. Curwen, suddenly looking up. "You take thedelay too much to heart. For it need be nothing more than a delay, anda brief one besides." He spoke with some significance in his tone."Lord Derwentwater mentioned in his letter that he would discover ameans to set you across in France, but perhaps"--and his voice becamealmost sly--"perhaps we may find a more expeditious way." He checkedhimself abruptly, like one that has said too much, and shot a timidglance towards his daughter. I noticed that her face grew a triflegrave, but she did not explain or comment on his words, and Mr. Curwendiverted his talk to indifferent topics. I fear me that I must haveproved the dullest auditor, for I gave little heed to what he said, mythoughts being occupied in a quite other fashion. For since hisdaughter sat over against me at the table, since each time that Ilifted my eyes, they must needs encounter hers; since each time thatshe spoke, the mere sound of her voice was as a stern rebuke; I fellfrom depth to depth of shame and humiliation. I was sheltering thereunder the same roof with her, to all seeming an honourable refugee, invery truth an impostor, and bound, moreover, to continue in hisimposition. The very clothes which I was wearing forced the truth uponme. I had, indeed, but one thought wherewith to comfort me, and thoughthe comfort was of the coldest, I yet clung to it as my only solace.The thought was this: that I had already determined, at whatsoevercost to me, whether of liberty or life, to repair, so far as a mancould, the consequence of my misdoing. It was not that I took anycredit from the resolve--I was not, thank God, so far fallen asthat--but what comforted me was that I had come to the resolve upthere on the hillside between Brandreth and Grey Knotts before I haddescended into Ennerdale, before I had set foot within Applegarth;before, in a word, I had heard Dorothy Curwen sing or looked into hereyes. I did not explain to myself the comfort which the thought gaveme; I was merely sensible of it. "It was before," I said to myself;and over and over again I gladly repeated the thought.
However, a word which Mr. Curwen spoke, finally aroused my attention,for he made mention of the garden of Blackladies. I suppose that Imust by some movement have shown my distaste for the subject, and--
"You do not admire it," he said.
"It is very quaint and ingenious, no doubt," I replied, "but theingenuity seems misplaced there."
Miss Curwen nodded.
"It is like a fine French ribbon on a homespun gown," said she.
I remembered on the instant something which Lord Derwentwater had saidto me concerning Dorothy Curwen.
"You know Blackladies?" I inquired, and perhaps with some anxiety.
"Very well," said she, with a smile of amusement.
"So I thought," said I.
"Yes," she continued, "my father was very familiar with Sir JohnRookley;" and her eyes rested quietly upon mine.
"A hard man, people said, Mr. Clavering," interrupted Mr. Curwen, "buta just man and to my liking. If he was hard, God knows he had enoughin Jervas to make him so."
I glanced at the daughter. She was regarding the beams which roofedthe room, with supreme unconsciousness, but the very moment that Ilooked at her she dropped her eyes to the level of mine.
"You lack something, Mr. Clavering," said she with great politeness.
"Indeed!" said my host, rising from his chair in the excess of hishospitality.
"Indeed, sir, no; I beg of you!" I replied in confusion. And DorothyCurwen laughed.
"A strange man was Jervas Rookley," continued Mr. Curwen, and therecould be no doubt whatever about the sincerity of his unconsciousness."He came warped from his cradle. But you will have heard of him, Idoubt not, more than we know, though at one time he honoured us notinfrequently with his company. But that was before I knew of histransgression in the matter of the wad-mines."
"Oh," said I, "I thought that that was not generally known."
"Nor is it," replied Mr. Curwen. "I had the story from Sir John'slips. He was a very just man, and since Jervas came to visit mefrequently, he thought that I ought to know."
Again my eyes went to the daughter's face. But this time she wasalready looking at me.
"I am sure, Mr. Clavering, that you need something," said she veryanxiously.
"Indeed, no!" I replied in confusion.
And she smiled with the pleasantest air of contentment in the world.
Mr. Curwen did not on this occasion rise to satisfy my imaginaryneeds, but remained absorbed in thought.
"I suppose," he said dreamily, "that Jervas Rookley was a fairy'schangeling."
I started at the words; they were not spoken in jest. I looked at him;he was seriously revolving the question in his mind.
"What do you think?" he asked of me.
His daughter bent forwards across the table with something of appealin her eyes.
"The theory," said I, "would most easily explain him;" and the appealin her eyes changed to gratitude.
This was not the only strange remark he made to me that night, for heaccompanied me up to my bedroom and closed the door carefully behindhim.
"By this time you should have been in France?" he asked, lowering hisvoice.
"Yes," said I, doubtfully. For since his Most Christian Majesty was atdeath's door, and all thought of a rising abandoned for the moment,there was no longer any call for me to hurry to Lorraine with theinformation I had gathered; while, on the other hand, there was thegreatest need that I should remain in England, since once out ofEngland I was powerless even to attempt anything towards AnthonyHerbert's liberation.
"I spoke at supper," he continued in a yet more secret voice, "of amore expeditious way than Lord Derwentwater's." He glanced around himand came nearer to me. "It was no idle boast," he said with a littlechuckle, "but I have a ship," and he nodded in a sort of childishguilefulness. "I have a ship." He went tip-toeing to the door asthough already he had stayed too long. "Snug's the word," he whisperedwith a fi
nger on his lip; and in the sweetest tone of encouragement,again, "I have a ship." And so he went gently from the room anddescended the stairs.
His manner no less than his words somewhat bewildered me. I thoughtit, in truth, a very unlikely thing that he should possess a ship,seeing that he had made no concealment of his poverty, and that ifindeed he did, his ship would be a very unlikely thing for a man toput to sea in. But in this I made a great mistake, since his ship notmerely existed, but had a very considerable share in the issue fromthose misfortunes which were so soon to befall us. At the time,however, I was not greatly troubled with the matter one way or theother, for while Mr. Curwen had been speaking, I had been standing atthe open window. The slope of the hillside was in front of me, acorner of the stable-roof was just visible to my left; but mostclearly of all I saw as in a vision the picture of a woman seated in alonely lodging at Keswick with a crumpled paper spread before her,whereon was scribbled one single line: "He is not dead." I shall notbe particular to account for the reason why that vision should now ofa sudden stand fixed within my sight, though I could give a verydefinite opinion concerning it I will only state that it was there, sovivid and distinct that I could read the paper she so sadly fingered;and reading it, the one line written thereon called on me for asupplement and explanation.
I opened the door and hurried quietly along the passage. I heard Mr.Curwen's step in the hall below, and holding my candle in my handleaned over the balusters.
"Mr. Curwen," I said in a breathless whisper, "you told me of a horsewhich stood ready in your stables, should my safety call for it."
"Yes," said he looking up at me.
"There is the greatest need in the world that I should make use ofyour kindness this night. It is a need that imperils my safety, but myhonour is concerned, or rather, that poor remnant of my honour which Ihave left to me. When I fled from Blackladies, there remainedsomething to be done and to be done by me, and it remains undone. Somesmall part of the omission I may haply repair to-night."
He answered me, as I knew he would, with the strangeness gone from hismanner and replaced with a kindly gravity. He was the truest ofgentlemen, with all a gentleman's simple code of faith.
"Mr. Clavering," he said, "so long as you are my guest I am thetrustee of your safety. But there are things of greater value than aman's safety, of which you have mentioned one. I shall look to seeingyou in the morning."
He asked no questions; that word "honour" was enough for him; itstamped my purpose in his eyes with a holy seal. He came up the stairstowards me and shook me by the hand, and so passed on to his ownchamber.