The Bow of Orange Ribbon Part 31

Above all, she had that nameless charm which comes from a freedom from all anxious thought for the morrow; that charm of which the sweet secret is generally lost after the twentieth summer. Her basket of seeds was clasped to her side within the hollow of her left arm, and with her right hand she lifted a long petticoat of quilted blue satin. Above this garment she wore a gown of wood-coloured taffeta, sprigged with rose-buds, and a stomacher of fine lace to match the deep rufflings on her elbow-sleeves.

Little Joris was with his mother, running hither and thither, as his eager spirits led him: now pausing to watch her drop from her white fingers the precious seed into its prepared bed, anon darting after some fancied joy among the pyramidal yews, and dusky treillages, and cradle walks of holly and privet. For, as Sir Thomas Swaffham said, "Hyde garden looked just as if brought from Holland;" and especially so in the spring, when it was ablaze with gorgeous tulips and hyacinths.

She had heard much of Lady Capel, and she had a certain tenderness for the old woman who loved her husband so truly; but no thought of her entered into Katherine's mind that calm evening hour. Neither had she any presentiment of sorrow. Her soul was happy and untroubled, and she lingered in the sweet place until the tender touch of gray twilight was over fen and field. Then her maid, with a manner full of pleasant excitement, came to her, and said,--

"Here be a London pedler, madam; and he do have all the latest fashions, and the news of the king and the Americans."

Now, for many reasons, the advent of a London pedler was a great and pleasant event at the Manor House. Katherine had that delightful and excusable womanly foible, a love of fine clothing; and shops for its sale were very rare, even in towns of considerable size. It was from packmen and hawkers that fine ladies bought their laces and ribbons and gloves; their precious toilet and hair pins, their paints and powders, and India scarfs and fans, and even jewellery. These hawkers were also the great news-bearers to the lonely halls and granges and farmhouses; and they were everywhere sure of a welcome, and of such entertainment as they required. Generally each pedler had his recognized route and regular customers; but occasionally a strange dealer called, and such, having unfamiliar wares, was doubly welcome. "Is it Parkins, Lettice?"

asked Katherine, as she turned with interest toward the house.

"No, ma'am, it isn't Parkins; and I do think as the man never showed a face in Hyde before; but he do say that he has a miracle of fine things."

In a few minutes he was exhibiting them to Katherine, and she was too much interested in the wares to notice their merchant particularly.

Indeed, he had one of those faces which reveal nothing; a face flat, hard, secret as a wall, wrinkled as an old banner. He was a hale, thick-set man, dressed in breeches of corduroy, and a sleeved waistcoat down to his knees of the same material. His fur cap was on the carpet beside his pack; and he had a fluent tongue in praise of his wares, as he hung his silks over Lettice's outstretched arm, or arranged the scarfs across her shoulders.

There was a slow but mutually satisfactory exchange of goods and money; and then the pedler began to repack his treasures, and Lettice to carry away the pretty trifles and the piece of satin her mistress had bought.

Then, also, he found time to talk, to take out the last newspapers, and to describe the popular dissatisfaction at the stupid tyranny of the Government toward the Colonies. For either from information, or by some process rapid as instinct, he understood to which side Katherine's sympathies went.

"Here be the 'Flying Postman,' madam, with the great speech of Mr. Burke in it about the port of Boston; but it won't do a mossel o' good, madam, though he do tell 'em to keep their hands out o' the Americans'

pockets."

"The port of Boston?"

"See you, madam, they are a-going to shut the port o' Boston, and make Salem the place of entry; that's to punish the Bostonians; and Mr.

Burke, he says, 'The House has been told that Salem is only seventeen miles from Boston but justice is not an idea of geography, and the Americans are condemned without being heard. Yet the universal custom, on any alteration of charters, is to hear the parties at the bar of the House. Now, the question is, Are the Americans to be heard, or not, before the charter is broken for our convenience?... The Boston bill is a diabolical bill.'"

He read aloud this bit of Mr. Burke's fiery eloquence, in a high, droning voice, and would, according to his custom, have continued the entertainment; but Katherine, preferring to use her own intelligence, borrowed the paper and was about to leave the room with it, when he suddenly remembered a scarf of great beauty which he had not shown.

"I bought it for my Lady Suffolk," he said; "but Lord Suffolk died sudden, and black my lady had to wear. It's forrin, madam; and here it is--the very colour of affradiles. But mayhap, as it is candle-teening, you'd like to wait till the day comes again."

A singular look of speculation came into Katherine's face. She examined the scarf without delay; and, as she fingered the delicate silk, she led the man on to talk of Lady Suffolk, though, indeed, he scarcely needed the stimulus of questioning. Without regard as to whether Katherine was taking any interest or not in his information, he detailed with hurried avidity the town talk that had clung to her reputation for so many years; and he so fully described the handsome cavalry officer that was her devoted attendant that Katherine had no difficulty in recognizing her husband, even without the clews which her own knowledge of the parties gave her.

She stood in the gray light by the window, fingering the delicate satin, and listening. The pedler glanced from his goods to her face, and talked rapidly, interloping bits of news about the court and the fashions; but going always back to Lady Suffolk and her lover, and what was likely to take place now that Lord Suffolk was out of the way.

"Though there's them that do say the captain has a comely wife hid up in the country."

Suddenly she turned and faced the stooping man: "Your scarf take: I will not have it. No, and I will not have anything that I have bought from you. All of the goods you shall receive back; and my money, give it to me. You are no honest hawker: you are a bad man, who have come here for a bad woman. You know that of my husband you have been talking--I mean _lying_. You know that this is his house, and that his true wife am I.

Not one more word shall you speak.--Lettice, bring here all the goods I bought from this man; poisoned may be the unguents and scents and gloves. Of such things I have heard."

She had spoken with an angry rapidity that for the moment confounded the stranger; but at this point he lifted himself with an insolent air, and said, "The goods be bought and paid for, madam; and, in faith, I will not buy them back again."

"In faith, then, I will send for Sir Thomas Swaffham. A magistrate is he, and Captain Hyde's friend. Not one penny of my money shall you have; for, indeed, your goods I will not wear."

She pointed then to the various articles which Lettice had brought back; and, with the shrug of a man who accepts the inevitable, he replaced them in his pack, and then ostentatiously counted back the money Katherine had given him. She examined every coin, and returned a crown. "My piece this is not. It may be false. I will have the one I gave to you.--Lettice, bring here water in a bowl; let the silver and gold lay in it until morning."

[Ill.u.s.tration: She stood in the gray light by the window]

And, turning to the pedler, "Your cap take from the floor, and go."

"Of a truth, madam, you be not so cruel as to turn me on the fens, and it a dark night. There be bogs all about; and how the road do lay for the next house, I know not."

"The road to my house was easy to find; well, then, you can find the road back to whoever it was sent you here. With my servants you shall not sit; under my roof you shall not stay."

"I have no mind to go."

"See you the mastiff at my feet? I advise you stir him not up, for death is in his jaw. To the gate, and with good haste! In one half-hour the kennels I will have opened. If then within my boundaries you are, it is at your life's peril."

She spoke without pa.s.sion and without hurry or alarm; but there was no mistaking the purpose in her white, resolute face and fearless att.i.tude.

And the pedler took in the situation very quickly; for the dog was already watching him with eyes of fiery suspicion, and an occasional deep growl was either a note of warning to his mistress, or of defiance to the intruder. With an evil glance at the beautiful, disdainful woman standing over him, the pedler rose and left the house; Katherine and the dog so closely following that the man, stooping under his heavy burden, heard her light footsteps and the mastiff's heavy breathing close at his heels, until he pa.s.sed the large gates and found himself on the dark fen, with just half an hour to get clear of a precinct he had made so dangerous to himself.

For, when he remembered Katherine's face, he muttered, "There isn't a mossel o' doubt but what she'll hev the brutes turned loose. Dash it!

women do beat all. But I do hev one bit o' comfort--high-to-instep as she is, she's heving a bad time of it now by herself. I do think that, for sure." And the reflection gave him some gratification, as he cautiously felt his steps forward with his strong staff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter heading]

XIV.

"_Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds._"

In some respects, the pedler's antic.i.p.ations were correct. Katherine had "a bad time by herself" that night; for evil has this woful prerogative,--it can wound the good and the innocent, it can make wretched without provocation and without desert. But, whatever her suffering, it was altogether her own. She made no complaint, and she offered no explanation of her singular conduct. Her household, however, had learned to trust her; and the men and women servants sitting around the kitchen-fire that night, talked over the circ.u.mstance, and found its very mystery a greater charm than any possible certainty, however terrible, could have given them.

"She be a stout-hearted one," said the ostler admiringly. "Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates. With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and her eyes a-shining like candles."

"It would be about the captain he spoke."

The remark was ventured by Lettice in a low voice, and the company looked at each other and nodded confidentially. For the captain was a person of great and mysterious importance in the house. All that was done was in obedience to some order received from him. Katherine quoted him continually, granted every favour in his name, made him the authority for every change necessary. His visits were times of holiday, when discipline was relaxed, and the methodical economy of life at the manor house changed into festival. And Hyde had precisely that dashing manner, that mixture of frankness and authority, which dependents admire. The one place in the whole world where n.o.body would have believed wrong of Hyde was in Hyde's own home.

And yet Katherine, in the secrecy of her chamber, felt her heart quake.

She had refused to think of the circ.u.mstance until after she had made a pretence of eating her supper, and had seen little Joris asleep, and dismissed Lettice, with all her accustomed deliberation and order. But, oh, how gratefully she turned the key of her room! How glad she felt to be alone with the fear and the sorrow that had come to her! For she wanted to face it honestly; and as she stood with eyes cast down, and hands clasped behind her back, the calm, resolute spirit of her fathers gathered in her heart, and gave an air of sorrowful purpose to her face and att.i.tude. At that hour she was singularly like Joris Van Heemskirk; and any one familiar with the councillor would have known Katherine to be his daughter.

Most women are restless when they are in anxiety. Katherine felt motion to be a mental disturbance. She sat down, and remained still as a carven image, thinking over what had been told her. There had been a time when her husband's constant talk of Lady Suffolk had pained her, and when she had been a little jealous of the apparent familiarity which existed in their relations with each other; but Hyde had laughed at her fears, and she had taken a pride in putting _his word_ above all her suspicions.

She had seen him receive letters which she knew to be from Lady Suffolk.

She had seen him read and destroy them without remark. She was aware that many a love-billet from fine ladies followed him to Hyde. But it was in accord with the integrity of her own nature to believe in her husband's faithfulness. She had made one inquiry on the subject, and his a.s.surance at that time she accepted as a final settlement of all doubts.

And if she had needed further evidence, she had found it in his affectionate and constant regard for her, and in his love for his child and his home.

It was also a part of Katherine's just and upright disposition to make allowances for the life by which her husband was surrounded. She understood that he must often be placed in circ.u.mstances of great temptation and suspicion. Hyde had told her that there were necessarily events in his daily experience of which it was better for her to be ignorant. "They belong to it, as my uniform does," he said; "they are a part of its appearance; but they never touch my feelings, and they never do you a moment's wrong, Katherine." This explanation it had been the duty both of love and of wisdom to accept; and she had done so with a faith which asked for no conviction beyond it.

And now she was told that for years he had been the lover of another woman; that her own existence was doubted or denied; that if it were admitted, it was with a supposition which affected both her own good name and the rights of her child. In those days, America was at the ends of the earth. A war with it was imminent. The Colonies might be conquered. She knew nothing of international rights, nor what changes such a condition might render possible. Hyde was the probable representative of an ancient n.o.ble English family, and its influence was great: if he really wished to annul their marriage, perhaps it was in his power to do so. She knew well how greedy rank was of rank and riches, and she could understand that there might be powerful family reasons for an alliance which would add Lady Suffolk's wealth to the Hyde earldom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She knelt speechless and motionless]

She was no craven, and she faced the position in all its cruel bearings.

She asked herself if, even for the sake of her little Joris, she would remain a wife on sufferance, or by the tie of rights which she would have to legally enforce; and then she lifted the candle, and pa.s.sed softly into his room to look at him. Though physically like the large, fair, handsome Van Heemskirks, little Joris had certain tricks of expression, certain movements and att.i.tudes, which were the very reflection of his father's,--the same smile, the same droop of the hair on the forehead, the same careless toss of the arm upward in sleep. It was the father in the son that answered her at that hour. She slipped down upon her knees by the sleeping boy, and out of the terror and sorrow of her soul spoke to the Fatherhood in heaven. Nay, but she knelt speechless and motionless, and waited until He spoke to her; spoke to her by the sweet, trustful little lips whose lightest touch was dear to her. For the boy suddenly awoke; he flung his arms around her neck, he laid his face close to hers, and said,--

"Oh, mother, beautiful mother, I thought my father was here!"