Shrewsbury Part 32

She shivered, but retained the same att.i.tude, her eyes on the floor.

"Can I do anything for you?" I persisted; but this time I spoke more coldly; her silence began to annoy me.

She looked up then with a wan smile; and, with lips so dry that they scarcely performed their office, spoke. "You can let me escape," she said.

"That is impossible," I answered promptly--to put an end to such notions. And then to comfort her, "Besides, what can they do to you!"

I said confidently. "Nothing! You are not a man, and they do not burn women for treason now, unless it is for coining. Cheer up! They----"

"They will send me to the Compter--and whip me," she muttered, shuddering so suddenly and violently that the chair creaked under her.

And then, "If you can get me away," she continued, moistening her lips and speaking with her eyes averted, "Well! But if not you had better leave me. You do me no good," she added, after a slight pause, and with a sob of impatience in her voice.

I knew that it was not unlikely that the House of Correction would be her fate; and that such a fate, even to a decent woman--and she was a girl!--might be less tolerable than death. And I felt something of the horror and lurking apprehension that parched her mouth and strained her eyes. The hall was growing dark round us, and the throng of persons of all sorts that filled it, poisoning the air with their breathing and the odour of their clothes, I experienced an astonishing loathing of the confinement and the place. I saw this the beginning of the dreary road which she had to travel; and my heart revolting with the pity of it, and the future of it, I fell into a pa.s.sion, and did a thing I very seldom did. I swore.

And then--heaven knows how I went on to a thing so unwise and reckless, and in every way so unlike me! Certainly it was not the mere opportunity tempted me--though a chance more favourable, the general attention being completely engrossed by the two n.o.blemen, could not have been conceived--yet it was certainly not that, I say, for I did it on the impulse of the moment, in sheer blind terror, not looking to see whether I were watched or not. Nor did it arise from any farther suggestion on the girl's part. In fact, all I remember of it is that, in a paroxysm of pity, feeling rather than seeing that the people round us completely hid us, I touched the girl's shoulder, and that she looked up with a wild look in her eyes--and that determined me. So that without thinking I unlocked the door in a trembling, fumbling sort of manner, and pa.s.sed her through it, and followed her, no one except Ca.s.sel, the prisoner who sat next her, being the wiser. Had I been prudent, or acted under anything but the impulse of the moment, I should have let her go through, and trusting to her woman's wits to get her clear of the house, have remained on guard myself as if nothing had happened; and certainly this would have been the safer way, since I could have sworn, when I was challenged, that no one had pa.s.sed through the door. But I had not the nerve to think of this or remain, and I went with her.

The thing once done, my first thought, and the natural, if foolish, impulse on which I acted was to take her to my room, hers to follow where I led. The pa.s.sage beyond the door was dark, but taking no thought of slip or stumble, in a moment I had her up the small staircase which led to the first floor, and through the door at the head of the flight into the long corridor, which, s.p.a.cious, lofty, and comparatively light--in every way the strangest opposite to the crowded hall below--ran from the well of the great staircase into the depths of the house. By involving her in this upper part of the house, whence escape was impossible, and where prolonged search must inevitably discover her, I was really doing a most foolish thing. But in the event it mattered nothing, for as we reached the corridor, and paused to cast a wary glance down its length this way and that--I, for my part, shaking like an aspen, and I doubt not as white as a sheet--a single footstep rang on the marble floor that edged the matting of the pa.s.sage, and the next moment the Duke himself, issuing from a doorway no more than five paces away, came plump upon us.

The surprise was so complete that we had no time to move, and we stood as if turned to stone. Yet even then, if I had retained perfect presence of mind, and bethought me that he might not know the girl, and would probably deem her one of his household--a still-room maid or a seamstress--all might have been well. For though he did, in fact, know the girl, having questioned her not half an hour before, it was on me that his eye alighted; and his first words were proof that he suspected nothing.

"Are you better?" he said, pausing with the kindness and consideration that so well became him--nay, that became no other man so well. "I am glad to see that you are about. We shall want you presently. What was it?"

And then, if I had answered him at once, I have no doubt that he would have pa.s.sed on; but my teeth chattered so pitiably that I could only gape at him; and on that, seeing in a moment that something was wrong, he looked at my companion, and recognised her. I saw his eyes open wide with astonishment, and his mouth grew stern. Then, "But what--what, sir, is this?" he cried. "And what do you----"

He said no more, for as he reached that word the door beside me opened gently, and a man slid round it, looked, saw the Duke, and stood, his mouth agape, a stifled oath on his lips. It was Ca.s.sel, his hands shackled.

At this fresh appearance the Duke's astonishment may be imagined, and could scarcely be exceeded. He stared at the door as if he questioned who still remained behind it, or who might be the next to issue from it. But then, seeing, I suppose, something whimsical and bizarre in the situation--which there certainly was, though at the time I was far from discerning it--and being a man who, in all circ.u.mstances, retained a natural dignity, he smiled; and recovering himself before any one of us, took a tone between the grave and ironical. "Mr.

Ca.s.sel?" he said. "Unless my eyes deceive me? The gentleman I saw a few minutes ago?"

"The same," the conspirator answered jauntily; but his anxious eyes roving beside and behind the Duke belied his tone.

"Then, perhaps," my lord answered, taking out his snuff-box, and tapping it with a good-humoured air, "you will see, sir, that your presence here needs some explanation? May I ask how you came here?"

"The devil I know or care, your Grace!" Ca.s.sel answered. "Except that I came into your house with no good-will, and if I could have found the door should not have outstayed my welcome."

"I believe it," said my lord drily, "if I believe nothing else. But you have lost the throw. And that being so, may I beg that you will descend again? I am loth to use force in my own house, Mr. Ca.s.sel, and to call the servants would prejudice your case. If you are wise, therefore, I think that you will see the wisdom of retiring quietly."

"Have no fear, I will go," the man answered with sufficient coolness.

"I should not have come up, but that I saw that Square-toes there smuggle out the girl, and as no one was looking it seemed natural to follow."

"Oh!" said the Duke, flashing a glance at me that loosened my knee-joints. "He smuggled her out, did he?"

"He could not do much less," the conspirator answered. "She saved his life yesterday."

"Indeed!"

"Ay, when Ferguson would have hung him like a dog! And not far wrong either! But mum! I am talking. And save him or no, I did not think the creature had the s.p.u.n.k to do the thing. No, I did not."

"Ah!" said my lord, looking at him attentively.

"No, and as for the wench, your Grace----" and with the word Ca.s.sel dropped his voice, "she is no more than a child. You have enough. It is all over. _Sacre nom de Dieu_, let her go, my lord. Let the girl go."

The Duke raised his eyebrows. "I see no girl," said he, slowly. "Of whom are you talking, Mr. Ca.s.sel?"

I do not know who was more astonished at that, Ca.s.sel or I. True, the girl was gone; for a moment before, the Duke's back being half-turned, she had slipped into a doorway a couple of paces away, and there I could hear her breathing even now. But that my lord had failed to detect the movement I could no more believe than that he had failed to see the girl two minutes before, when, as clearly as I ever saw anything in my life, I had seen him examine her features.

Nevertheless, "I see no girl," he repeated coolly. "But I see you, Mr.

Ca.s.sel; and as the alarm maybe given at any moment, and I do not choose to be found with you, I must beg of you to descend at once. Do you, sir," he continued, addressing me sharply, "go with him, and when you have taken him back to the hall bring me the key of the door."

"Well, I am d----d!" said Ca.s.sel.

For the first time the Duke betrayed signs of anger. "Go, sir"; he said. "And do you"--this to me--"bring me the key of that door."

Ca.s.sel turned as if to go; then with difficulty lifting his hands to his head he took off his hat. "My lord," he said, "you are well called the King of Hearts. For a Whig you are a d----d good fellow!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI

What was preparing, or what my lord intended by conduct so extraordinary I had no time to consider. For though I got Ca.s.sel into the hall again undetected--which was of itself a marvel--when it came to taking the key from the lock my hand shook so violently with fear and excitement that the first attempt failed. Before I had succeeded the steward bustled up through the crowd, and seeing what I was about, bade me desist with some roughness.

"Do you want an escape that way?" said he, bursting with importance.

"Leave it to me. Here, hands off, man." And he drew me into the hall and locked the door.

So there I was, fixed as it were in the girl's empty place, with Ca.s.sel grinning at me on one side and the steward grumbling on the other, and the crowd so thick about us that it was impossible for me to budge an inch. It amazed me that the girl's absence had not yet been noticed, but I knew that in no short time it must be, and my misery was in proportion. Presently "Hallo," cried the steward, peeping first on one side of me and then on the other. "Where is that s.l.u.t that was here?"

"In with your master," said Ca.s.sel coolly.

"But Charnock is with him."

"Well, I suppose he can have two at a time if he pleases, Mr.

Pudding-head! Thousand devils! Are we going to be kept in this crowd all night?"

The steward sniffed his indignation, but the answer satisfied him for the time; and the messengers and tipstaves being engaged at the farther end of the hall in shepherding their prisoners on the side of the house-door, and being crowded upon besides by gentlemen whom they feared to offend, had no notion of what had happened or that their tale was not complete. Someone had lowered and lighted a round lanthorn that hung in the middle of the hall; but the light hanging low, and being intercepted by the heads of those before us, barely reached the corner in which I stood. Still I knew that this was but a respite, and my relief and joy were great, when a cry of "Price!

Price!" was raised, and "Price! Who is he? His Grace wants Price!"

pa.s.sing from lip to lip, the steward thrust me forward, and called to the nearest to make a way for me; and this being done I was speedily pa.s.sed through the crowd to a door at the farther side of the hall, where two servants who stood on guard there, having satisfied themselves that I was the man, I was admitted.

I knew that I was not yet out of the wood. Moreover I had cause to doubt how I now stood in the Duke's favour, or what might be his intentions towards me. But at least I had escaped from the hall and from the steward whom I had begun to regard with a mixture of fear and hatred; and I prepared to face the ordeal before me with a courage that now seems astonishing. However, for the moment my courage was not to be proved. The room in which I found myself was large and lofty, lined for the most part with books, and adorned with marble busts, that gleamed ghostly in the obscured corners, or stood out bright and white where the radiance of the candles fell on them. In the middle of the rich dark carpet that covered the floor stood a table, furnished with papers, pens, and books; and this, with three inquisitorial chairs, set along the farther side of it, had a formidable air. But the three persons for whose accommodation the chairs had been placed, were now on their feet, standing in a group before the hearth, and so deeply engrossed in the subject under discussion that, if they were aware of my entrance, they took no notice of it.

The Earl of Marlborough, the more handsome and courtly of the two n.o.blemen whom I had seen pa.s.s through the hall, a man even then of a great and splendid presence and address, though not what he afterwards became, was speaking, when finding myself unheeded, I gathered my wits to listen. "I have no right to give advice, your Grace," he was saying in suave and courtly accents, "But I think you will be ill-advised if you pay much attention to what these rogues allege, or make it public."

"No man will be safe!" urged his companion, with, it seemed to me, a note of anxiety in his voice.

"Better hang them out of hand," responded the Earl blandly. And he took snuff and delicately dusted his upper lip.

"Yet I do not know," answered the Duke, who stood between the two with his eyes on the fire, and his back towards me. "If we go too fast, people may say, my lord, that we fear what they might disclose."

The Earl laughed blandly. "You had little gain by Preston," said he, "and you kept him long enough."