Joscelyn Cheshire Part 27

"And will be again ere nightfall. What you propose is folly,--worse than folly; it is death to you and betrayal to me. There are double guards everywhere, for Colonel Tarleton is as much policeman as soldier. You could not leave this house and cross the street alive!"

"Then what must I do?"

"Why, in sooth, since you cannot go, you must remain." There was just a touch in her voice and smile which made him think of their early days of quarrel and make-up. It was such an intoxicating change from her manner of a moment ago that he lost his head and caught her for a moment in his strong arms. But she broke away, and gathering up the pitcher and platter prepared to go.

"There is just one thing," she said hesitatingly, "your despatches--?"

He tapped his forehead. Again she paused irresolutely, the colour coming and going in her delicate cheeks. "I am saving you, not your despatches; do you understand?"

"You do not mean--?"

"Yes, I mean that Greene must learn nothing from you if you escape."

But his hand was over her mouth before she could go on. "You cannot make a request so unworthy of you and of me! Think you for one instant that I would buy my safety with the information that may save my comrades? No, no, Joscelyn dear; you did not ask such a thing of me, for you would not dishonour me, although you say you do not love me. I make no such bargain with you; either I carry my despatches to my general, or I walk out of your house this minute, and let the first ball that can hit me put an end to my life."

His hand was on the door, but she dragged him back; her face like ashes.

"No, no, Richard; I will not ask it--indeed, I will not!"

Silently he kissed the hand upon his sleeve, and as they stood thus looking into each other's eyes, there came a sharp rapping at the door below. She went deathly pale for a moment, then waving him back, she stepped out into the hallway.

"It is only mother," she said, after listening a moment; "she has been over to Aunt Clevering's to make my peace for last night's rudeness.

What I said was in desperation; I know not what evil genius put me to it."

He took her hand reverently for a moment. "'Twas no evil genius, but a brave spirit of self-sacrifice."

She locked the door, and went down the stair singing. At the foot she called out, "Coming, mother!" and ran to hide the dishes she carried, then back to the door and undid it, still singing her merry ditty.

"Why should you bolt the door, my daughter, seeing I was to be gone only a few minutes?"

"I was upstairs straightening things a bit, and the town is so full of confusion that I felt a trifle nervous."

"But here was the sentinel to protect you."

"Oh, I quite forgot him!" she smiled with deprecating politeness at the sentinel, who had paused at the steps and was watching her with an ugly frown upon his sullen face. He touched his hat with a shrug, and moved on upon his beat.

But a new terror came to the girl; evidently the man suspected her, and of course his suspicion would be carried to Tarleton. Why had she lingered upstairs talking with Richard? Everything she did worked the wrong way. Would the day never end? She strove to make amends for her false step by singing Tory songs as she went about the house, and by sending the guard a dainty luncheon. It was perhaps an hour before she remembered to ask her mother the result of her interview with Aunt Clevering.

"Oh, but I had a sad scene of it! Joscelyn, your tongue will be the ruin of us; I know it, I know it! Neighbour after neighbour has taken offence at your outspoken Toryism; and now Ann Clevering, dear to me as a sister, says she hopes you will never darken her door again. And if you go not, why, neither can I; and so I am cut off from my best friend by your unneighbourly caprice! And think what we have been to each other!"

Here sobs choked the unhappy woman's utterance, and she could only turn her eyes reproachfully upon her daughter.

Joscelyn was deeply moved, as she always was, to wound her mother; but she put the best face possible on it in order to cheer the disconsolate old lady.

"There, mother dear, 'tis not worth crying over. Not go to see Aunt Clevering because I cannot go? Why, that is nonsense. Of course you will go, and she will come here just the same. I will keep out of her way until she forgives me--for she will forgive me, never you fear. I am not surprised at her anger, but it will all come out right in the end; so don't cry, little mother, you break my heart with your tears."

But in her heart was serious question whether she would ever again be received upon friendly footing in the house over the way, which had been to her as a second home. She would never tell that she had made that speech to turn inquiry from her own house, where Richard was hiding; and she now doubted much if he would escape to tell the story himself. She sang no more that afternoon, but sat silently over her knitting. The weather did not tend to mend her spirits; for the drizzle of the morning had turned into a steady downpour, and the wind moaned about the gables and up the throat of the wide chimney like a lost spirit hopelessly seeking its reincarnation. Her mother was still brooding over the break with the Cleverings, and now and then lifting her kerchief to her face in a gesture that was a reproach to Joscelyn, who strove not to see it; and yet she watched for it persistently out of the tail of her eye. She grew more miserable each moment; and so hailed with delight the entrance of Barry and a fellow-officer, who had come to bask in the warmth of her smile.

"Your visit is a charity, gentlemen," she said gayly, as she gave them chairs; "this weather serves one's spirits and one's ruffles alike, in that it leaves them both limp and frowsy."

"Your mother seems more out of sorts than you."

"Yes; mother is doing penance for my sin of last night, Captain Barry."

"Your sin? Why, methinks you never committed anything more heinous than a misdemeanour. Come, make me your confessor, and I promise you complete and immediate absolution."

"'Tis not your absolution, but Mistress Clevering's that I need; she has excommunicated me for telling of the attic closet," she spoke with an air of mock penitence that set her visitors off in a roar.

But Mistress Cheshire stopped them with a fresh burst of tears, "'Tis no matter for jesting with me, sirs. I am a subject of King George and wish him well, but he cannot take the place of Ann Clevering in my heart!"

"True, true," said Joscelyn, still with her air of pretence, only now it was playful; "she loves her king, but, you see, she lives not neighbours with him; and so, forsooth, she cannot compare her loaves with his on a baking day, nor ask the loan of his pie pans, nor offer her mixing bowl in return. Ah, gentlemen, there is a homely charm in proximity of which the poets wot not!"

And so the talk ran on for a few minutes, and the visitors agreed they had never found Mistress Joscelyn so charming or so witty. Then they fell to talking of the military news, of Tarleton's determination to ferret out the hidden spy, and of the burning of the Reverend Hugh McAden's library by that division of the army stationed at Red House, a few miles distant. To all of the first she listened with an outward show of indifference, but with an inward quaking. The other news interested her less; but for obvious reasons was also less embarra.s.sing.

"I pray you, Captain Barry, why should the soldiers burn the reverend gentleman's library? 'Twas innocent enough, and he himself has been dead this twelvemonth."

"Well, they found from his books he was a Presbyterian; and being that, he must perforce be also a rebel."

"And they consigned his books to the same fate they believed him to be enjoying--the fire? Pray you, sir, were the flames _blue_? Being the very essence of Presbyterianism, they should have been blue, you know."

"Capital! I shall tell his lordship of your excellent joke."

She hated herself for her little pleasantry, for she had sincerely admired the minister, whom she had known since childhood; but she must keep up a show of gayety, that these young men might carry a good report of her to headquarters.

With the growing cloudiness the day was visibly shortened. Joscelyn, glancing now and then at the window, watched the going of the light with secret satisfaction. Already the opposite houses were becoming indistinct, and as the shadows grew apace, just in proportion did her spirits rise; the danger was drifting away, and the man upstairs now had a chance for life. But just as she was congratulating herself that the ordeal was past, there came a trampling of hoofs at the door; and Tarleton's voice, giving some order, made her realize that the crisis had perchance but just now come. For one awful moment the power of motion forsook her; then with a masterly effort at calmness, she said:--

"Mother, entertain the gentlemen while I see why Samuel does not bring the lights."

She managed to walk with becoming leisure to the parlour door; but once outside she almost flew up the stairs. Down on her knees before the fire in her room, she wrote rapidly upon a sc.r.a.p of paper:--

"Be ready. Tarleton has come. They shall search _my room first_; that must be your refuge. When I open the attic door, stand thou close behind it; I will direct attention to the chest and shelves at the far end--then, if any, is your chance."

She rose to her feet; the hall below was full of manly voices, above which her mother called, "Joscelyn, Joscelyn, come at once, here are more visitors."

"Yes, mother." Then with a crash she dropped the key basket, which she had s.n.a.t.c.hed up, just in front of the attic door, and while gathering up the spilled keys with one hand, she slipped the note under the door with the other, and instantly felt it grasped and drawn away to the other side. She knew Richard could read it by means of his tinder-box. Then flinging the keys into the basket, she ran downstairs. As she entered the parlour, and saw before the hearth the short, square figure of Tarleton, the tremor pa.s.sed out of her limbs. All day she had been starting and quaking; now in the presence of the real danger, she was calm and collected. She greeted the colonel with a fair show of hospitality, and fell immediately to talking of those ill-fated volumes of McAden. It was anything to gain time that the last lingering daylight might go. Tarleton let her run on for a few minutes, even let Barry repeat her poor little joke about the blue flames; then he cleared his throat and began:--

"Mistress Joscelyn, it behooves--"

But she interrupted him. "Why, dear me, did not mother give you a cup of tea? You must have one at once to kill that cold in your throat. What a terrible ride you must have had to-day in this storm. A soldier's life is indeed a hard one, and n.o.bly does he win the fame which illumines his name! Two lumps, or three? Ah, you have a sweet tooth."

But she could not stave him off after he had drained his cup. She wanted to tell him how they came by the tea since the tax had stopped its sale, but he cut her short.

"Another time, Mistress Joscelyn, I shall be glad to listen to your story, which is no doubt an interesting one. But just now I have graver matters to discuss with you."

"Grave matters with me?" she repeated, with feigned surprise and a ripple of laughter that was like the tinkle of a silver bell. "That is an unusual kind of discussion for a soldier to hold with a woman. Are you going to ask my advice about your morning coffee or your next campaign? But I pray you, sir, proceed; I am all attention."

There was not a glimmer of daylight through the unshuttered window-sash.

She felt the sinews in her hands and arms grow like iron, and her pulses beat with the perfection of rhythm. So does a great crisis sometimes steady a woman's nerves.

The short colonel rocked himself from toe to heel a moment as he looked at her half in unbelief, half in admiration of her coolness. Truly she was superb. Then he said:--