Shrewsbury Part 34

"Yes, your Grace," Martin answered, making hideous faces at me.

"Then leave us. Shut the door."

If my lord had spoken the moment that was done and we were alone, I think it would have relieved me. But he continued to search among the papers on the table, and left me to sink under the weight of the stately room with its ordered rows of books, its ticking dial, and the mute busts of the great dead. The Duke's cloak lay across a chair, his embroidered star glittering on the breast; his sword and despatch-box were on another chair; and a thing that I took to be the signet gleamed among the papers on the table. From the lofty mantel-piece of veined marble that, supported by huge rampant dogs, towered high above me (the work as I learned afterwards of the great Inigo Jones), the portrait of a man in armour, with a warden in his mailed hand, frowned down on me, and the stillness continuing unbroken, and all the things I saw speaking to me gravely and weightily, of a world hitherto unknown to me--a world wherein the foot exchanged the thick pile of carpets for the sounding tread of Parian, and orders were obeyed unspoken, and sable-vested servants went to and fro at a sign--a world of old traditions, old observances, and old customs revolving round this man still young, I felt my spirits sink--the distance was so great from the sphere I had known hitherto. Every moment the silence grew more oppressive, the ticking of the clock more monotonous; it was an immense relief when the Duke suddenly spoke, and addressing me in his ordinary tone, "You can write?" said he.

"Yes, your Grace."

"Then sit here," he replied, indicating a seat at the end of the table, "and write what I shall tell you."

And before I could marvel at the ease of the transition, I was seated, quietly writing; what I can no longer remember, for it was the first only of many hundred papers, of private and public importance, which I was privileged to write for his signature. My hand shook, and it is unlikely that I exhibited much of the natural capacity for such work which it has been my lot to manifest since; nevertheless, his Grace after glancing over it, was pleased to express his satisfaction. "You learned to do this with Brome?" said he.

"Yes, your Grace."

"Then how," he continued, seating himself--I had risen respectfully--"Tell me what happened to you yesterday."

I had no choice but to obey, but before I told my story, seeing that he was in a good humour and so favourably inclined to me, I spoke out what was in my mind; and in the most moving terms possible I conjured him to promise me that I should not be forced to be an evidence. I would tell him all, I would be faithful and true to him, and ask nothing better than to be his servant--but be an informer in court I dared not.

"You dare not?" he said, with an odd look at me. "And why not, man?"

But all I could answer was, "I dare not!"

"Are you afraid of these villains?" he continued, impatiently. "I tell you, we have them: it is they who have to fear!"

But I still clung to my point. I would tell, but I would give no evidence; I dared not.

"I am afraid, Mr. Price," he said at that, and with an air of some contempt, "that you are something of a coward!"

I answered, grovelling before him, that it might be--it might be; but----

"But--who of us is not?" he answered, with a sudden gesture between scorn and self-reproof. "Do you mean that, man?" And he fixed his eyes on me. "Well, it is true. Who of us is not?" he repeated, slowly; and turning from me, he began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him; so that before he had made a single turn it was easy to see that he had forgotten my presence. "Who of us is not afraid--if not of these scoundrels, still of the future, of the return, of Jacobus _iracundus et ingens_, of another 29th of May? To be safe now and to be safe then--who is not thinking of that and living for that, and planning for that?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: AND TURNING FROM ME, HE BEGAN TO PACE THE ROOM, HIS HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM]

He was silent a moment, then with something of anger in his voice, "My Lord Marlborough, dipped to the lips in '88, who shall say that for all that he has not made his peace? And has good reason to urge us to let sleeping dogs lie? And G.o.dolphin, is it only at Newmarket he has hedged--that he says, the less we go into this the better? And Sunderland who trusts no one and whom no one trusts? And Leeds--all things for power? And Clarendon, once pardoned? And Russell, all temper? Who knows what pledges they have given, or may give?

Devonshire--Devonshire only has to lose, and stands to lose with me.

With me!"

As he spoke thus he seemed to be so human, and through the robe of state and stateliness in which he lived the beating of the poor human heart was so plainly visible, that my heart went out to him, and with an eagerness and boldness that now surprise me, I spoke to him.

"But, your Grace," I said, "while the King lives all goes well, and were anything to happen to him----"

"Yes?" said he, staring at me, and no little astonished at the interruption.

"There is the Princess Anne. She is here, she would succeed, and----"

"And my Lord Marlborough!" said he, smiling. "Well, it may be. But who taught you politics, Mr. Price?"

"Mr. Brome," said I, abashed. "What I know, your Grace."

"Ha! I keep forgetting," he answered, gaily, "that I am talking to one of the makers of opinion--the formers of taste. But there, you shall be no evidence, I give you my word. So tell me all you know, and what befell you yesterday."

I had no desire but to do so--on those terms, and one small matter excepted--and not only to do that, but all things that could serve him. Nevertheless, and though I had high hopes of what I might get by his grace and favour, I was far from understanding that that was the beginning of twenty years of faithful labour at his side; of a matter of fifteen thousand papers written under his eye; of whole ledgers made up, of estate accompts balanced and tallies collected; of many winters and summers spent among his books, either in the placid shades of Eyford or in the dignified quiet of St. James's Square. But, as I have said, though I did not foresee all this, I hoped much, and more as, my tale proceeding, my lord's generous emotion became evident.

When I had done, he said many kind things to me respecting the peril I had escaped; and adding to their value by his manner of saying them, and by the charm which no other so perfectly possessed, he left me at last no resource but to quit the room in tears.

Treated thus with a kindness as much above my deserts as it was admirable in one of his transcendent rank, and a.s.sured, moreover, by my lord's own mouth that henceforth, in grat.i.tude for the service I had done him in Ferguson's room, he would provide for me, I should have stood, I ought to have stood, in the seventh heaven of felicity.

But as suffering moves unerring on the track of weakness, and no man enjoys at any moment perfect bliss, I had first to learn the fate of the girl whose evasion I had contrived. And when a cautious search and questions as crafty had satisfied me that she had really effected her escape from the house--probably in a man's dress, for one of the lacqueys complained of the loss of a suit of clothes--I had still a care; and a care which gnawed more sharply with every hour of ease and safety.

Needless to say, the one matter on which I had been reticent, the one actor whose presence on the scene I had not disclosed to my lord, lay at the bottom of my anxiety. Kind in action and generous in intention as the Duke had shown himself, his magnanimity had not availed to oust from my mind the terror with which Smith's threats had imbued it; nor while confessing all else had I been able to bring myself to denounce the conspirator or detail the terms on which he had set me free.

Though I had all the inducement to speak, which the certainty that his arrest would release me, could present, even this, and the security of the haven in which I lay, failed to encourage me to the point of hazard. So strong was the hold on my fears which this man had compa.s.sed; and so complete the slavery to which he had reduced my will.

But though at the time of confession, I found it a relief to be silent about him, this same silence presently left me alone to cope with him, and with fears sufficiently poignant, which his memory awakened: the result being that with prospects more favourable and a future better a.s.sured than I had ever imagined would be mine, or than any man of my condition had a right to expect, I still found this drop of poison in my cup. It was not enough that all things--and my patron--favouring me, I sank easily into the position of his privy clerk, that I retained that excellent room in which I had first been placed, that I found myself accepted by the household as a fact--so that never a man saved from drowning by a strand had a right to praise his fortune as I had; nor that, the wind from every quarter, seeming at the same time to abate, the prisoners went for trial, and nothing said of me, while Ferguson, of whose complicity no legal proof could be found, lay in prison under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, and kept silence; nor even that a note came from Mary, ostensibly from Dunkirk, and without compromising me informed me of her safety. It was not enough, I say, that each and all of these things happened beyond my hopes; for in the midst of my prosperity, whether I stood writing at my lord's elbow in the stillness of the stately library, or moved at ease through the corridor, greeted with respect by my fellow-servants, and with civility by all, I was alike haunted by the thought and terror of Smith, and the knowledge that at any moment, the conspirator might appear to hurl me from this paradise. The secrecy which I had maintained about him doubled his power; even as the ease and luxury in which I lived presented in darker and fouler colours the sordid scenes and perils through which I had waded to this eminence.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

I think that I had spent a week, or it might be more, in this situation of mingled ease and torment, when on coming down one morning after a hag-ridden night I heard a stir in the hall; and, going that way to learn what it meant, met the servants returning in a crowd from the front, and talking low about something. Martin, who was foremost, cried, "Ha, you are too late!" And then drawing me aside, into a little den he had beside the pa.s.sage, "They have taken him to the office," he said. "But, lord's sakes, Mr. Price," he continued, lifting his eyebrows and pursing up his lips to express his astonishment, "who would have thought it? Her ladyship will be in a taking! I hope that there may be no more in it than appears!"

"In what?" said I.

"In this arrest," he answered, eyeing me with meaning, and then softly closing the door on us. "I hope it may end there. That is all I say!

Between ourselves."

"You forget," I cried with irritation, "that I know nothing about it!

What arrest? And who is arrested?"

"Mr. Bridges's man of business."

"What Mr. Bridges?" I cried.

"Lord, Mr. Price, have you no wits?" he answered, staring at me. "My lord's mother's husband. The Countess's, to be sure! You must know Mr.

Smith."

It needed no more than that; although, without the name, we might have gone on at cross purposes for an hour. But the name--the world held only one Smith for me, and he it seemed was arrested.

He was arrested! It was with the greatest difficulty that I could control my joy. Fortunately the little cub, where we stood, was ill-lighted, and Martin, a man too much taken up with his own consequence to be over-observant of his companions. Still, for a moment, I was perfectly overcome, the effervescence of my spirits such that I could do nothing but lean against the wall of the room, my heart bounding with joy and my head singing a paean of jubilation.

Smith was taken! Smith was in the hands of justice! Smith was arrested and I was free.

The first rapture past, however, I began to doubt; partly because the news seemed to be too good to be true, and partly because, though Martin had continued to babble, I had heard not a word. Wild, therefore, to have the thing confirmed, I cut him short; and crying, "But what Smith is it, do you say? Who is he?" I brought him back to the point at which he had left me.

"Why, Mr. Price," he answered, "I thought everyone knew Mr. Smith. Mr.

Smith, Mr. Bridges's factotum, land-steward, what you will! He married the Countess's fine madam--madame they call her in the household, though she is no French thing but Hertfordshire born, as I knew by her speech when my lord first took up with her. But not everyone knows that."

"When my lord took up with her?" I said, groping among half-recognised objects, and beginning--so much light may come through the least c.h.i.n.k--to see day.