# Lord Jerningham

Extracted from Everybody's magazine, Dec 1905, pp. 735–743. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
Illustration: WITH A CRY, HE TURNED AND STRUCK AT THE CAPTAIN'S BLADe WITH HIS BARE LEFT HAND
Lord Jerningham
By Booth Tarkington Author of “The Gentleman from Indiana,” “Monsieur Beaucaire,” “The Beautiful Lady,” etc.
Illustrations by Bernard Rosenmeyer
I HAD some knowledge of George Vestries five years before he doffed the Stuart colors and joined us, when there was a stir in London over his betrothal to Anne Wilding, maid of honor to Henrietta Maria. Half England talked of this lady, of her beauty, gaiety, wit, and of her charities. Those were sharp days. For my part, I was employed in dangerous fomentations, but, like the town, I found time to hear of this alliance. Then the embers flamed up betwixt Court and Parliament. Vestries's father, Lord Hampton, went with the sovereign; but the young man remained ready to range himself with the opposing forces. Thus, this prudent pair made out to save their goods; for, when the King was brought to book, Hampton must flee the country, but the noble estates lay fallow for his son and were not confiscated. Old Sir Henry Wilding followed Charles Stuart to his own mortal cost; his two sons were shot at Naseby; and, himself being taken in Scotland, he was declared a traitor and done to death in Edinburgh by Argyle.
His daughter, the maid of honor, was fled, none knew whither; some said to the Queen in France; while Vestries (thoughtful of his fields in Hampshire) allowed it to be said that his betrothal was set aside; and, lamenting ostentatiously the course his own father had pursued, rarely spoke of Sir Henry, and did not lift his hand when the old man came to trial.
The common rumor had it that Vestries was too stanch a Parliament man and Mistress Anne too bitter (she had reason!) on the other side to speak kindly with each other this side of Judgment Day; yet it was believed that she had loved him dear; and that he, for his part, had greater affection for her than for all else in this world save the keeping of the great estates. For this latter was the first principle with him; it was the marrow of his heart; and he regarded it preciously as a point of honor with posterity.
Time was when I liked him very well; for upon the happy fight at Naseby, which made me a Colonel of Horse, he joined us of the Parliament side, in the field, and soon after became a captain in my regiment. He was a man of parts, and, bearing a lively sword in action, he could show a most engaging front to his companions in arms at the board. He was drawn to select service with my command by hearing that among us a man was not like to be shot for an oath nor damned for a bottle of wine, the officers enjoying some acquaintance beyond the pale of the Psalms and the peregrinations of Joshua. For this (when they had whispers of it) the Levelers mouthed and spat sulfur, at us whiles, but our work—and we had enough—was our reply. I boast there were never soldiers more precise in their duty, nor, at that time, more devoted to Oliver; but we were concerned in the political issue, not the religious; we nourished the Republic in its cradle with our glad blood; and faith! a divine, or a ranting corporal in our camp might only curse us into sweeter drowsing. Vestries was, in seeming, a man of the temper of those who fought about me. Sooth, we all liked him, 'tis the truth; he became my near friend and familiar; and so I came to know true case between him and Anne Wilding.
The King had done with cheating, with tricking us, and with life, and the block was set away. It was an October morning, and we lay in a wood, near Oxford, encamped. I was seated on a fallen log, writing, when a ragged fellow darted by me and lost himself in the underbrush. Vestries came flying in pursuit, passed me; then, after I had helped him to beat up the bush, in vain, he came and flung himself down, groaning, in my bivouac. He reached up and handed me a scribbled paper.
“Read it,” he said. “It is from a lady you must know of.”
It was a letter from Mistress Wilding. He knew not where she hid herself, he told me, but two months past had found means to get a letter to her through a Scots prisoner, who was very secret with him, and would only tell him how to set the missive upon the first stage of its journey. He had written this letter, he groaned, in an hour of acute remembrance of her, an hour of agony when it seemed he must have her, could not face the years without her; and now this tattered lackey had come out of nowhere, had squeezed the answering script into his hand, and, stealing off, while Vestries read it, vanished lightly, as I saw.
“Read it,” said Vestries again. “It's a word from the only woman ever I had eyes for! And be sure she writes to the most unhappy wretch in England!”
The letter was short; there was none of the fripperies or elegance and shepherdizing that now find vogue:
    “Disloyal to the King, couldst thou be loyal to me? Thou needst not protest and filly-fally with a lady that is not for bearing with thee much further, yet likes thee dear. Ah, sir, my love has gone a great way; thine shrank back at the first hardship—but now comes, still reaching timid hands after me! Would have me—and fears to have me! Thy father almost lost thee Hampshire. Thy sweetheart might tip it out of the scale and set it wasting under the butcher? Even in this anguished missive of thine, there is hinting and hold-back a-plenty. Even so, I wear it on my heart! Was it conscience set thee under Cromwell? I may prate of conscience a little, for loyalty hath rewarded our folk sadly, making it a sore task to write to one under such arms as you bear.
    “Yet do I put love over conscience—nay! con science is the finer part of love! Couldst thou leave all to follow either? 'Tis the only way thou shalt ever have me, and if thou canst take me so, thou shalt have me. And though that time last but one little moment, it shall be worth all. If I could see thee of my way of thinking, death would be naught. So, I will put thee to the test. Thou hast sworn much and plead much, but ever words—words! I will put thee to the test—see thou to it that thou be ready, dear one. Leave all and follow love when I come. Look to see me in thy camp before a year is gone. Beware my coming with fire and sword, for, know you, dear enemy, I bear arms—I bear arms, and fight on the border for the Martyr's memory, and I plot through the realm for the blessed young Majesty, King Charles the Second!
    “Shalt hear no more till I come; then be ready, love, be ready! If thou wilt be true for that space, one little moment shall be worth all.”
“A mighty seditious document!” quoth I.
“Heaven help me!” cried the Captain from the ground. “For God knows what she may do! She is sweet as May, with May's soft humors, but there was always a wildness in her.... A strange woman, very beautiful, but ... strange, strange! If I could know what she means!” He rubbed his brow with his hands. “If I could get her off safely to the Continent——”
“If you could, it might be well if it were done soon. Captain Vestries,” I said. “I make sure she is in a perilous mix-up; these are evil days for enemies to the Commonwealth, such as she confesses—nay, professes herself. If I were in your place——”
“You!” he broke out loudly. “You would clap her in jail to be tried! But you shall not come near her!”
“I hope not,” I answered earnestly.
“I am no machine of war!” he cried. “I am a man of heart, do you understand? Lord, Lord, she has endured such miseries! You do not know her nor what she might do, in her desperation, and having no one in the world but me—and I against her!” He struck his hands together like one in despair. “My cousin Jerningham should have had her; he would have had her out of all this, and kept her safely to a woman's work, if it took a beating, and he would have beat her, if it needed! For he is as tempestuous a hare-brain as herself. He loved her very weU, long ago. He went to sea, and when he came back, I had won her; so he sailed again and forgot her. Yes, I won her—wo worth us both! What is to be done? Not that I dream you can tell me!”
“I can tell you nothing but to come at some means to get her to the Dutch or to France. The plain truth is best, Vestries: friends of the Stuarts are to grow very few.” I spoke slowly, that he might weigh the words as I did. “I say these are bad times for such; even the slip of a word or two is a chancy thing wherever it happens. Get her away if you can.”
“Get her away!” he groaned. “How can I? If I knew how to reach her, could I move in the matter? You say the truth; a word or two goes a long way these times. What could I do if I knew? She would not go! You are a sweet comforter, Col. Thomas Breed! Oh, mercy! She bears arms, she says—and on a lost side! And she so gently reared!”
I left him lying there in that strange folly and returned to my writing. He was a man in love; in spite of all that came, I affirm it. Moreover, he was capable of a marvelous loyalty, but it was neither to man nor woman, but to the senseless stretch of earth of which some scribbled sheets declared him master. And if this faith he kept with his estates could have gone with his love to Anne Wilding, I think it would have made that love she sought so eagerly, what sort she held to be worth all—even in one moment.
From that day of her last letter to him, a wan apprehension sat upon the soul of George Vestries, and was visible to me. He was full of a loud gaiety in company, but the mood beneath his manner mocked him. And though the autumn waned and the winter wore away, and his mistress had not descended upon our lines, yet she was a lady of her word, and, to most ways of thinking, desperate. He was a whiter-faced man each month, in the waiting for her coming.
On the first of March, I lay overnight with three squadrons of horse at Rochester. That evening I and Major Hatton, Captain Vestries, Captain Merrifield, Lieutenant Chesley, of my regiment, and Colonel Lorrimer and a half-score of other officers of a division of foot, which was quartered at Rochester, supped at “The Parliament Man,” an inn, late “The King's Arms,” redubbed again since that day. 'Tis the honest hosts of England and their signs that are the politicians' almanac.
Vestries was our host, making the feast in honor of his kinsman, Jerningham, who had just come up from the sea (where he had served our cause) to join us at Rochester.
The men who sat at the board were such as I would have picked from the whole world for battle or bout; and how warmly they come before my mind's eye to-day, as they sang and laughed that night! A burly group in carelessness; cuirasses doffed; long swords depending from chair-backs; great limbs at ease, great hearts in cheer; Hatton, Chesley, Merrifield—could I evoke those stalwarts from the past to ride at my side once more, I might not need to lay my exiled old bones among the Dutch! Poor Merrifield!—a soldier, not too quick to do his own thinking, but unquestioning and fateful in his strokes for the right cause; as kindly a companion at the table as a squire might wish, a hearty drinker and a hearty doer—he had ill-luck!
The Cavaliers will tell you that our troops and their officers were one fanatical crew; but we had some who could do as noble trencher-service as any gartered lackey about the court to-day; and we proved it in our first toast to Jerningham, for it showed the clean bottom of the punch-bowl.
John Lawrence, Viscount Jerningham, was a big young man, long-faced and high-featured, and something singular to look upon, for his hair was very light-colored, almost white, but his eyes were dark, beneath black brows. These arched extremely at all times, most, however, when he talked, in a fashion of genial deference to his listener, so that the latter was betrayed into thinking himself had long since said whatever Jerningham was saying. This was part of the manner in which he veiled himself, an exquisite manner, and one rare to us, though we had seen some hints of it in Captain Vestries. His reputation (which had lately gone over the country) led us to expect another man, something of the rough blade, for he had commanded a sloop whose doings cost Parliament no little stress of imagination to acquit of piracy. She had fought wildly on many coasts, ever with such stirring abandon as brought her off safely; so we looked to discover in her master a spice of the bravo, but we found such flavor lacking in him. He carried about him, rather, the air of the antechamber. When he bowed, we felt the soldier, but the soldier at court; there were rustling of gowns and murmur of silken whisperings; yet he had the free, strong voice of a sailor; and his was a laugh to win your liking at the first sound of it. But I thought him the lighter kind of cynic, one with a humorous condescension toward life, and little care of it; and deep in the dark of his eyes there glinted a spark that might flame up in the right wind; a glow hinting suddenness of temper, strange capacities, and not altogether sane; so that I could understand his cousin's having called him “tempestuous” and “harebrained.” Such was he, the man of most spirit I ever saw.
We had small need of the candles on our table, for it was a bitter night without, and a heaping fire blazed on the hearth and filled the room with a ruddy light that danced on bowl and beaker and hilt and buckle. The big war-worn faces shone and reddened, but more than the fire had to do with that. After the third refilling of the bowl, most of the company waxed more boisterous, argumentative, gentle or even melancholy, according to their mood in liquor, and George Vestries, half neglectful of his duties as host, fell into a noticeable gloom.
But the guest of honor carried the gaiety of the evening upon his broad shoulders very winningly. After a number of general choruses, he answered our pressure for a song with a Cavalier ballad, which he said he offered as a curiosity for our inspection. He sang well and was heartily applauded, though I felt it needful to question the propriety of repeating Cavalier sentiments except as evidence before judges. My courtesy was not equal to Lord Jerningham's.
“I hope, sir,” quoth I, growing red, “you own to no feeling of disaffection toward our leaders?”
“Nay,” said he, with his rich laugh, “if I did I trust you would not believe me so foolhardy as to let it be known to Colonel Breed! I have often heard of you, sir, and I esteem the honor I assume for myself in pledging you.”
With that we sent the healths around, giving throat to many a jovial song, pledging every member of the company in turn, and when the echo of the last shout was lost among the rafters and we were all reseated, my lord remained upon his feet.
“Let us annul these cups,” said he. “Let us begin again” (whereupon there went up a great cheer), “and for the first toast, I propose something sweeter and less rusty than ourselves. Does ever a soldier fall without a name upon his lips as his soul is spent? It is in that final test he finds which name he loved the best—for a soldier does not live long enough to discover it before!”
“There spake the sailor!” shouted Chesley.
“Pledge the name,” Jerningham pursued, laughing. “The name you dream might come upon your lips if you fell to-night, though God forbid the thought! Drink to something better and worse than war or men. And I call the officer who defends the fidelity of landsmen!”
Thus challenged, Chesley rose.
“To Phœbe!” he said gallantly. “I have no need to die to learn the name! To Phœbe, peerless among her sex, unversed in the arms of Mars, but wise in the arts of Venus!”
“Nevertheless,” quoth Lord Jerningham, with a bow to Chesley, “we hope that though unversed in the arms of Mars, the lady may not long prove entirely unacquainted with those of a valiant son of his.”
And Chesley, in confusion, called Captain Vestries.
Those of us who were acquainted with his story were curious to see what he would do. I knew him; I thought he would not toast his love in any company of Parliament men who might recognize “Anne” as the Royalist Mistress Wilding; yet he had won the girl from Jerningham, and must feel a bitter shame if, under his cousin's eyes, he dared not name her; and yet—Hampshire haunted him. 'Twas a dangerous time, and a little thing might divorce old lands from old names. The man's hesitation was palpable. He uttered a half-incoherent plea for excuse, not rising, while many eyes were bent upon him curiously. Then Jerningham himself came to his relief.
“Cousin,” he said, as Vestries fidgeted, “there is a rare comfit of the low countries in a little silver box in my chamber above. I should like our friends to judge of it, if you will oblige me by fetching it hither. You know how loutish lazy I am, and you were always the quicker. I believe when we taste the comfits we shall accept your service in fetching them to acquit you of a toast.”
There was some noisy protest at this, but Vestries, with a quick look of gratitude toward his kinsman, hastily quitted the room, and Jerningham suggesting that we fill the time with a song, we roared forth “Fill the Bowl” with good will. At the conclusion we discovered the landlord bobbing in the doorway.
“Is your business pressing?” asked my lord, as the song ceased and we fell silent. “Have we drunk the house dry?”
The landlord explained that a gentleman had arrived at the inn; that the place being full, he could obtain no lodging; he had traveled a great distance since morning, was chilled with the wind; the night was now far advanced, and he refused to go farther. He craved our permission to sit quietly by our fire, since we occupied the main room of the inn. He wished not to intrude, but the kitchen, where the menials sat, was his only other shelter and he disliked turning the poor hinds out of doors to the sheds on such a night.
This last set me a-thinking; it was high-tainted with Cavalier; moreover, it seemed to my quick suspicion that the gentleman misspoke himself, and that to intrude must be precisely his desire. I had my mouth open to say so, but Jerningham at once bade the landlord to entreat the gentleman's presence, and, almost as he spoke, the stranger appeared upon the threshold and bowed with grace, though not uncovering.
The picture he made, framed in the low doorway, I can see well to-day, here in my exile among the Dutch. Cavalier from head to foot! Not tall, delicately fashioned, a proud, slender figure wrapped in a long riding cloak; with muddy boots of buff; a long rapier in a frayed velvet scabbard; a great, plumed, flapping hat; a strange, thin face, wan in its shadows, and brown hair a-tangle about it, blown by the winds of the March night; violet depths under the large eyes, the features sharpened by either sickness or hunger; nevertheless, there was, in the mien and looks of the storm-tossed apparition, a certain wild brightness, the like of which I never saw, and, flecked with mud and weary-white as he was—even the deep lace at his throat and wrists torn, wet, and splashed with the road—his bearing was at once dainty and magnificent.
Jerningham bowed to the ground.
“We shall be honored to have you join us,” he said.
The stranger bowed again, and begged our excuses in a low voice, which methought something too high-keyed for the length of his rapier.
“Nay, sir,” said Jerningham heartily, as the stranger moved toward a settee by the hearth. “We beg you, do us the honor to join us at the board, and you may sit upon the fire side of it, and dry yourself at your ease. I am John Lawrence; pray, let me make these gentlemen known to you.”
“My lord, he looks like a bloody-hearted Stuart man,” whispered Merrifield, at his elbow.
“Let us have no politics, in heaven's name,” laughed the Viscount softly, laying his hand on Merrifield's shoulder, “over a bowl of punch!”
The stranger let his hand fall negligently upon the back of the settee, turned with some languor toward Jerningham, and said:
“For this courtesy I thank my Lord Jerningham, who, if I mistake not, has but lately returned from the high seas where he has been serving against the King?”
Merrifield uttered a great oath; angry and amazed faces were turned toward the young man from every part of the table. I half rose to my feet, but the Viscount laughed aloud.
“'Against the King of Spain,' the gentleman would say if you gave him time to finish,” he cried. “Is it not so, sir?”
The newcomer looked at him and then at us, with a sudden gay look strangely like that of a teasing girl.
“Aye, sirs,” and he laughed with Jerningham. “Against the King of Spain!”
Upon this Merrifield humbly craved pardon for his blunder, and the laugh went round the company—until it reached me; for I did not join it.
“You cannot refuse us, sir,” said my lord gaily. “In the name of my cousin. Captain Vestries, whose entertainment this is, I make you welcome and answer for his eager entreaty. Come, sir, we shall be glad of your assistance with a fresh bowl which should not be ill known to you.”
The guest bowed; said quietly, “Indeed, I take it as a great honor that I may join such loyal hearts—and my name is Charlton,” and accepted the chair which the Viscount himself placed for him at the curve of the table near the fire.
As he took his seat, George Vestries re-entered the room. I saw a faint look of surprise in the Captain's face as he beheld a new figure at the table, and then Jerningham's broad back cut off my view of him, as he went to take the box of comfits. With that there rose the roistering clamor of a drinking-song; and I remember that I saw (without noting it) the Viscount introducing Vestries to Mr. Charlton. The latter had risen and the three gentlemen were bowing very low.
When I next glanced at Vestries he was again in his chair (across from Charlton) sitting sidewise, in a heaped-up fashion, with a multitude of fine drops on his brow and cheeks, which were so sickly pale that it startled me, until I thought the liquor might have gone far with him—it seemed he would be first under the table.
“Gentlemen,” said our new guest, as the song came to a finish, “I think you were passing the toasts before I came in, and I would not interrupt you. May I ask how far they had been honored?”
“Up to Captain Vestries,” said Fanshawe of the foot, a good man but heavy. “We were drinking to our Ladies of Heart, sir.”
“Much honored they!”
“Vestries!” cried Fanshawe. “'Tis your turn, Captain!”
“I seem to recall he had given his,” interposed Jerningham, “before he went for the comfits.”
“He had not,” shouted Fanshawe, laughing, and pounding on the table. “Vestries! Vestries!”
“Nay,” said my lord, still striving to spare his relative, “I do remember we excused him for fetching the comfits.”
“We did, indeed,” seconded Chesley, who repented his thoughtlessness.
But “Vestries! Vestries!” shouted the leaden-headed Fanshawe, while the others were obliged to take it up. “I appeal to Mr. Charlton as, perforce, an impartial judge!” he cried.
“Escape appears difficult for you, Captain Vestries,” said Charlton. “To the lady of your heart—if, mayhap, there be one?”
I marked that my lord, who was regarding his relative with some sympathy, turned sharply toward the stranger as though struck with something in his tone. Charlton looked up; their eyes met; then Charlton's gaze fell slowly till it rested upon George Vestries.
The Captain unsteadily got to his feet; the fluid from his glass fell in great red stains upon the cloth where his eyes remained fixed. He supported himself by the back of his chair; and several, considering him far gone, nudged their neighbors.
“I drink,” he said thickly, “to loyalty!”
“Loyalty to your lady?” It was Charlton's high, dear voice.
“Loyalty—to country,” answered the Captain, with a catch in the throat. “Fidelity to honor!”
I truly believe that he did not know that he meant Hampshire when he spoke, and that this was the finest way out of his dilemma of which he was capable. He dropped suddenly into his chair.
“I call Colonel Breed,” he ended, half audibly.
“Faith!” quoth I, rising quickly, as a buzz went round, “I've no sweetheart! I have no love, no lady wife; nor, please heaven, in no sense shall I ever own a widow. I can sigh out no toast to a whining damsel, and, being a bad hand at carpet-dancing, let me say for you: Lord save any lady from my drinking! But since it needs be a toast gallant, I pledge not a woman, but Woman, the Creator's last gift to man—and would He had been less generous! To Woman, then! A hearty health; drink deep; much happiness to her, say I! I call the guest of honor.”
Amid a great outcry against me, his lordship rose and bowed. I have been all my life a hard republican, but I like to speak of John Lawrence by his title; for he was a lordly man; and it suits him.
He inclined twice toward the assembly, addressing himself especially to Mr. Charlton, as if desirous of causing him to feel one of us, and apparently much taken, as were we all, with the odd charm of the stranger's presence. The latter gave him a quick smile, but I observed that his eyes turned sharply from Jerningham to the Captain, who was bent low over the table, his head in his hands.
“I would not offend against your patience,” said my lord. “Reproach me, but not her I honor, if the toast be long. Brothers of the board, Colonel Breed has given us a right word. Roving on many shores, I have ever found women to be alike: tender jades, harsh as flint; leal and true, fickle as the wind of this night; sweet as honey, bitter as aloes!”
“But this is a mass of contradictions!” objected Lorrimer.
Charlton, who sat next, turned to him with a little laugh. “No more nor no less!”
“No man may come nearer the truth,” said my lord, with a fine, dry smile. “If I were a painter, I could never decide whether to depict a woman pointing down and leading up, or pointing up and leading down!”
“Do both, my lord,” said Charlton. “Both—for different men.”
“True, and wisely understood,” answered Jerningham. “And such as she is, divine or too human, sweet or too sweet, we offer her our heart—sometimes from a distance! It may be better to send it, than to stand close and give it into her hand. Friends, we love her letter far than near, more in one moment than in eternity!
“'Oh, love of mine, what sorry years
I'd spend beside thee! Strange it seems,
But though thy presence, sweet, endears,
I love thee better in my dreams!'”
And thereupon there was a general protest and great remonstrance.
“You cannot prove me ungallant!” my lord responded, “for I exclude from such bad lines all true mistresses of true lovers, and, above all, the lady to whom I shall drain this glass, though she be no sweetheart of mine.”
Now, with this there was a pricking up of ears.
“A sailor roams in divers parts,” he continued. “Demoiselles, mesdames, señoritas, signorinas, signoras, señoras, all flicker before his glass; I have the honor to swear that none of these is worth the outermost tucker of a true English maiden's petticoat! I have dangled a trifle at the heels of some ladies of Spain and other lands, but I never found true love in my heart except once. Then I was not more than a lad, with my cousin, our gentle host there, and our choice fell upon the same sweetling.
“Old loves—first loves—they are the best of all! Out of the spring-time past I evoke her lively image. When I first saw her—knee-high she was—her head was crowned with the treasure of a Spanish galleon, gold, like out-of-doors in June—nor did my heart grow cold to her as it darkened! Her I evoke, the one child in my boyish mind! To her I drain this goblet and summon your deep quaffing! First love is best!”
He waved the goblet over his head and spilled not a drop. Then he brought it to his lips. His eyes passed around the line of faces; and as they swept by Charlton's, their exchange of glance seemed to me like the flashing of gems crossing their rays.
“A name! A name!” was the cry, as we rose to honor the toast. “A name!”
“Most willingly,” he answered, “and without encroachment on any man's prerogative. My dear cousin and old friend, George Vestries, will take only as I give—in friendship to him and his—this toast from the memory of the one innocent time in a life not too innocent. And I will not show myself so churlish as to mistrust your gentleness, gentlemen. I hold no surnames from this company.”
He bent his head slightly, and then: “To Mistress Anne Wilding!” he cried, and drained his goblet to the dregs.
George Vestries stood uncertainly, leaning this way and that; he grew of a yellow pallor and returned his cousin's bow with a tremulous head, while my lord's glance rested upon him kindly, but with a veiled pity.
The toast was drunk almost in silence, and then Merrifield began to bellow: “Charlton! Charlton! We call the latest guest! Charlton!”
“Will you so honor us?” said I.
The newcomer rose to his feet.
George Vestries uttered a sharp exclamation, and lifted both hands in a singular movement of protest Lord Jerningham, breathing deeply, leaned across the table with an excitement that came near agitation; but before either could speak, the stranger lifted a hand in a slight gesture which was imperial.
“Gladly, I propose a health,” he said. “I should take shame not to give you that one which should have been first of all.”
And then I heard George Vestries make a sort of moan; I saw his cousin's eyes flash again, and I understood who had come among us. “I will put thee to the test,” she had written. “Be ready, love, be ready.” No man stood before us, but there, uplifting her glass, girt with a soldier's arms, stained with a soldier's riding, stood the maid of Charles Stuart's court, the tragic waif, Anne Wilding. Vestries had known her at once, and Jerningham had recognized her—not upon her entrance, I think, but soon after (though I never knew)—and now that I understood, I marveled at the dulness of the others, who looked upon only a handsome, haggard, storm-tossed lad.
My heart was steadfast to the great purpose that had always moved it and always will; there was no relenting or easement toward this enemy of the people; yet it dazzled me to see her. She had come among her foes with no claim of privilege for her sex; nay, in such guise as to make a shame of him who should claim it for her.
So she stood and fronted us, elect to her hour: her face limned with light on the outlines, as a cunning painter draws his saints; her eyes in shadow, melancholy, wistful, fixed upon George Vestries with a serious sweetness that bore yet a tinge of fond, wild mirth; her light figure poised in gallant dignity; and for all the Cavalier's dress and ruffling sword she wore out of loyalty to the rotten cause that all her kin had died for, there was that in her look which made modesty to drape about her like a scarf.
I knew what she would do to test her lover, and I believe she thought he would fail her. He was to have the chance. And now, I still say this, as I have always said: had I been in his place—had it been a mere question of groves, meadows, villages, and a stone house with me, and had I been that lady's love, I would have seen the tawdry things at the farthermost corners of hell before I would have let her come to where she now stood! But for me the Republic was all; my youth was a dream of what it was to be; my old age is an anguish for what it might have been. I poured most of my blood in the dust for it, and now am a pariah near a Dutch grave because I gave my blood for its sake. I would have abated not one jot of my duty to the Republic though Gabriel came to bid me. But had I been George Vestries—ah, well, the old must strive for mildness; he dribbled at his fate, and the land owned him.
A party of Royalists at supper would have pledged the King in the first glass; and I saw Mistress Wilding's purpose. My duty was plain; she had borne arms against the Commonwealth, and, by her own confession, engaged in plots against it; but I was not dog enough to interrupt her before she finished with her lover and had done with what she intended. And the water came to my hard eyes as I saw the brave figure she made—a girl, alone among us, who were her enemies and her King's.
Vestries raised his head piteously; but her steadfast gaze held his and detained his purpose to speak.
“Gentlemen,” she said, “Soldiers of the Commonwealth, as you would be called, you drank to loyalty at the behest of Captain Vestries. Are there two kinds? Is loyalty to your country to be divided from loyalty to your King?”
There was a stir among us, an oath, a sharp cry of “Treason!” and George Vestries staggered back from the table. But she lifted the long glass above her head with a joyous gesture. “To King Charles! To King Charles! A speedy end to Oliver Cromwell and his traitors! Who loves me drinks the toast!”
There was an instant of incredulous silence; then with a shout and a crash of cups on the table, came turmoil and chaos. I moved toward the girl.
“You are under arrest!” I cried.
“I will not be taken alive,” she said. “Who loves me drinks my toast!”
Vestries fell in his chair with a groan and dropped his head on his arms. Never have I felt a more consuming pity than for that woman then. For one instant, for the merest flicker of time, she lost the bravery of her bearing, and I saw her lip quivering, her hand shaking wildly. I stepped toward her, my hand uplifted, when Jerningham thrust himself between us and caught my wrist as she gave one last look at her pitiful lover.
My lord released me instantly; he had not even glanced at me; his eyes were fixed on her, and in them I saw the glow of that fanatical spark I had marked, shoot up into flame.
“Look no more at him!” he cried, tossing his head back proudly, so that he seemed the tallest man I had ever seen. “Look no more at him, nor ever away from me!”
He plunged a goblet in the wine, drew his sword and crossed it against the glass on high.
“I care no more,” he cried, “who shall call himself Protector or King than I care to know what Frenchman's lap-dog died last night. But were there death in the cup, here's a health to King Charles! A speedy end to Oliver Cromwell and his traitors!”
Then he stood at her side and faced us. There was a great shouting; greater cursing; the crash of glass and overturning of chairs, and a clattering of steel as rapiers came out of their sheaths; but I moved toward Jerningham in advance of the others.
“My lord,” I cried wildly, “the wine is in your head! We know you for a loyal servitor of the Government. We can forget your words. But—this——”
“Do not say more!” exclaimed my lord imperiously.
“If any gentleman knows aught that would misbecome me, were it spoken,” said the girl, “he will die before he speaks it!” And so my lips were sealed, and those of George Vestries.
“We have heard treason here to-night,” cried Merrifield, “and, by Heaven, you both stand trial for it!”
“I will not be taken!” whispered Anne Wilding.
“No,” said my lord.
George Vestries got to his feet and came toward us with some incoherent babbling. Two officers caught him by the arms and held him. An instant's silence fell upon us—the hatefulest pause I ever endured. Then Viscount Jerningham made a low bow to me.
“Colonel Breed,” he said, “am I to have the distinction of engaging you?”
“An honor, sir, to me,” I replied sadly. I drew and saluted him. “But your companion, my lord, is not to fight.”
He thanked me with a look.
“Friend,” he said to her, “you must leave your quarrel to me. John Lawrence never drew sword in a cause he liked so well!”
He whispered something to her rapidly, imperiously, and I made sure it was a command to escape whilst he kept our attention to the struggle. She shook her head, smiling upon him gloriously, and took his left hand and pressed it quickly to her lips. Then he thrust her suddenly behind him, leaped forward and engaged me. And even as he came at me, though that strange light, not wholly sane, played in his eyes, his face was so finely commanded by the soul of him that he seemed to be on the point of making me a friendly speech.
He was far cooler than I; and I immediately received a wound of my own making. I saw his point come searching my breast and parried wildly, and, in that quick necessity, upward. The parry came too late and the end of his blade tore through my cheek and across my forehead. The blood flew into my eyes and I made out that several of my companions ran forward to help me. I shouted to them savagely to fall back, but could not check them. Jerningham's companion sprang to meet them.
I was half blinded; I had begun for my life, thrusting again and again to the full stretch of arm and weapon; but ours was not the only steel that sang in the room. Close by—so close that the four rapiers seemed one series of sparkles from a common center, like a star—the girl had suddenly engaged Merrifield and they fought at our side.
“For God's sake, Merrifield,” I cried, “have done! Do him no hurt!”
“Why?” he panted, for the rapier was no toy in her hands.
I would have answered, but at that instant he beat down her guard and thrust behind it. I was thrusting at the same time; my lord saw Merrifield's stroke, and, with a cry, he turned and struck at the Captain's blade with his bare left hand—too late; it had gone home. His own parry was lost; I saw my sword enter his body before I could withhold it. I tried to recoil, but the first impulse had been fulfilled ere my hand obeyed its orders not to strike. So it was I killed John Lawrence, and that great pair fell together.
I stumbled back with the red sword in my hand; then I threw myself upon the floor and took his head upon my knees. “God help me, my lord, what have I done?” I said.
“Here is nothing for regret, Colonel Breed,” he answered.
He turned his eyes to where Henrietta's maid of honor lay. Merrifield, white-lipped and horror-stricken, was bending over her. From the other side of the room still came the prattle of George Vestries, where they held him.
I knew my lord's wish; I moved him gently, very gently, close to Anne Wilding.
“I would I had been a better fighter,” he whispered, as the haze stole over his bright eyes. “Still, I cherish it a matchless honor that—I—did fight—in—your cause.”
She raised herself on one arm and leaned over him.
“Sweet!” she said, and bent down and kissed him on the lips.
“First love is best,” he murmured, and he gave that half sigh that comes last of all.
Her supporting arm wavered; and she fell across his body with that arm about his neck.
So he won her from his cousin.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 78 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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