The Master of Appleby Part 6

Yet this was but a pa.s.sing mood. When Margery was with me I was not ill-content to eat the bread of sufferance in her father's house, and angry pride had scanty footing. But when she was away this same pride took sharp revenges, getting me out of bed to bully Darius into dressing me that I might foot it up and down the room while I was still unfit for any useful thing.

One morning in the summer third of June my lady came early and surprised me at this business of pacing back and forth. Whereat she scolded me as was her wont when I grew restive.

"What weighty thing have you to do that you should be so fierce to be about it, Monsieur Impetuous?" she cried. "_Fi donc!_ you'd try the patience of a saint!"

"Which you are not," I ventured. "But truly, Margery, I am growing stronger now, and the bed does irk me desperately, if you must know.

Besides--"

"Well, what is there else besides? Do I not pamper you enough?"

I laughed. "I'll say whatever you would have me say--so it be not the truth."

"I'll have you say nothing until you sit down."

She pushed the great chair of Indian wickerwork into place before the window-bay, and when I was at rest she drew up a low ha.s.sock and sat at my feet.

"Now you may go on," she said.

"You have not told me what you would have me say."

"The truth," she commanded.

"'"What is truth," said jesting Pilate,'" I quoted. "Why do you suppose my Lord Bacon thought the Roman procurator jested at such a time and place?"

"You are quibbling, Monsieur John. I want to know why you are so impatient to be gone."

"Saw you ever a man worthy the name who could be content to bide inactive when duty calls?"

"That is not the whole truth," she said, half absently. "You think you are unwelcome here."

"'Twas you said that; not I. But I must needs know your father will be relieved when he is safely quit of me."

"'Twas you said that, not I, Monsieur John," she retorted, giving me back my own words. "Has ever word been brought you that he would speed your parting?"

"Surely not, since I am still here. But you must know that I have never seen his face, as yet."

"And is that strange? You must not forget that he is Gilbert Stair, and you are Roger Ireton's son."

"I am not likely to forget it. But still a word of welcome to the unbidden guest would not have come amiss. And it was none of my seeking--this asylum in his house."

"True; but that has naught to do with any coolness of my father's."

"What is it, then?--besides the fact that I am Roger Ireton's son?"

"I think 'twas what you said to Mr. Pengarvin."

"That little smirking wretch? What has he to say or do in this?"

She looked away from me and said: "He is my father's factor and man of affairs."

"Ah, I have always to be craving your pardon, Margery. But I said naught to this parchment-faced--to this Mr. Pengarvin, that might offend your father, or any."

"How, then, will you explain this, that you swore to drive my father from Appleby Hundred as soon as ever you had raised a following among the rebels?"

"'Tis easily explained: this thrice-accursed--oh, pardon me again, I pray you; I will not name him any name at all. What I meant to say was that he lied. I made no threats to him; to tell the plain truth, I was too fiercely mad to bandy words with him."

"What made you mad, Monsieur John?"

"'Twas his threat to me--to taint me with my father's outlawry. Do you greatly blame me, Margery?"

"No."

Thereat a silence came and sat between us, and I fell to loving her the more because of it; but when she spoke I always loved her more for speaking.

"My father has had little peace since coming here," she said, at length.

"He is old and none too well; and as for king and Congress, asks nothing but his right to hold aloof. And this they will not give him."

Remembering what Jennifer had told me of Gilbert Stair's tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, I smiled within.

"That is the way of all the world in war-time, _ma pet.i.te_. A partizan may suffer once for all, but both sides hold a neutral lawful prey."

'Twas as the spark to tinder; my word the spark and in her eyes the answering flash.

"I tell him so!" she cried. "I tell him always that the king will have his own again. But still he halts and hesitates; and when these rebels come and quarter on us--"

I fear she must have seen my inward smile this time, for she broke off in the midst, and I made haste to forestall her flying out at me.

"Oh, come, my dear; you should not be so fierce with him when you yourself have brought a rebel to his house to nurse alive."

She looked me fairly in the eye. "You should be the last to remind me of my treason, Monsieur John."

"Then you are free to call it treason, are you, Margery?" I said.

She looked away from me again. "How can it well be less than treason?"

Then suddenly she turned and clasped her hands upon my knee. "You must not be too hard upon me, Monsieur John. I've tried to do my duty as I saw it, and I have asked no questions. And yet I know much more than you have told me."

"What do you know?"

"I know your wound has been your safety. If you should leave this room and house to-day you would never wear the buff and blue again, Captain Ireton."

"You mean they would hang me for a spy. Will you believe me, Margery, if I say I have not yet worn the buff and blue at all?"

"_Oh_!" The little exclamation was of pure delight. "Then they were all mistaken? You are no rebel, after all?"

Was ever man so tempted since the fall of Adam? As I have writ it down for you in measured words, I was no more than half a patriot at this time. And love has made more traitors than its opposites of l.u.s.t or greed. In no uncertain sense I was a man without a country; and this fair maiden on the ha.s.sock at my feet was all the world to me. I saw in briefer time than any clock hands ever measured how much a yielding word might do for me; and then I thought of Richard Jennifer and was myself again.

"Nay, little one," I said; "there has been no mistake. For their own purposes my enemies have pa.s.sed the word that I am here as the Baron de Kalb's paid spy. That is no mistake; 'tis a lie cut out of whole cloth.

I came here straight from New Berne, and back of that from London and the Continent, and scarcely know the buff and blue by sight. But I am Carolina born, dear lady; and this King George's governor hanged my father. So, when G.o.d gives me strength to mount and ride--"