The Master of Appleby Part 67

"Yis, Missa. He say tell yo' he gwine tek it mighty hawd yo' no come ter gib him de sti'up-cup."

"And my father?"

"Gone to de lib'ry to wait fo' Ma.s.sa Pengarbin; yis, Missa."

She turned away, shuddering at this mention of the factor for whose coming the master would wait long and in vain, and I heard her murmur: "Oh, the horror of this night!" But in a moment she came back to me, and was her cool, calm self again.

"For that I am here, alive and well, I thank you, Captain Ireton. Need I say more?"

I can not tell you what was in the words to make me hot with anger, as I had but now been hot with love. But the new wound in my shoulder was bleeding freely, and I would not let her see I was hurt; and if aught will stanch a wound, 'tis anger.

"You need not say so much," I retorted, bowing low. "You have spoken now and then of certain duties binding upon those who are knotted up, ever so loosely, in the marriage bond; I have my part in these as well as you, Mistress Margery."

She bit her lip and was upon the edge of tears. I saw what I had done and would curse the masterless tongue that must needs add its word-thong to the night's whip of scourgings.

When she spoke again it was to say: "This is your own house, Captain Ireton; what will you do?"

"One question first, is Richard Jennifer safe?"

"He is."

"Then, by your good leave, I shall do what I came to do."

She bent her head in acquiescence.

"You will find the--the person whom you wish to see in your old room in the north gable. Shall I have Anthony light you up?"

"No; I can find the way."

My hand was on the stair rail when the cruel irony of it struck me like a blow. She had planned the loosing of the bond in the very room where we had knelt to take the good father's blessing upon it.

I stepped back, stumbled, I should say, for a curious weakness had come upon me, and drew her arm in mine.

"We will go together, if you please, my lady. 'Tis only just to me that you should hear what I must say to Father Matthieu."

And so, dear heart! she bore with me to the last; and together we climbed the stair to come into the upper corridor with the room of destiny at its farther end.

We came as far as the door; I mind it perfectly, for I remember marking that the wooden bar my father had put upon it was gone, and the iron brackets as well. But whilst I was groping for the latch there came a taste of blood in my mouth, and I heard my dear lady's voice as if she were calling to me across the eternal abysses. "Monsieur John!--you are hurt!" And then, from a still remoter distance: "Oh, Father Matthieu--d.i.c.k! come quickly! He is dying!"

LI

IN WHICH THE GOOD CAUSE GAINS A CONVERT

Which one of you, my dears, faring across the frontier of the shadow land of dreams into the no less mysterious country of the real, can not recall the struggle of the waking senses to knot up the gossamer filament of the night's fantasies with the coa.r.s.er web of reality?

For a time, longer or shorter as the dream thread holds, the vagaries of the night are shuttled into the warp of life. But presently comes the master-weaver Reason to point out this or that fantastic pattern; to bid the ear listen to the measured clacking of the day-loom, and the eye to mark that the web of reality has grown never an inch for all the shuttlings of the sleeping-time. Whereupon, full-blood consciousness regains her sway, and you sigh, gladly or sorrowfully, and say, "Dear G.o.d, 'twas but a dream I dreamed!"

Some such awakening came to me on a day whereof I knew not the name or its number in the calendar.

I was lying in bed in my old room at Appleby Hundred. The armored soldier was glowering down upon me from his frame over the chimney piece; the great blackened clothes-press loomed darkly in its corner; the show of curious china filled the shelves where my boyhood books had rested; and there was the same faint smell of lavender in the bed linen that once--was it yesterday or months ago?--had minded me of my mother.

When I sought to move me on the pillows the dream seemed more than ever dream-sure. The pain of a sword wound was grinding at my shoulder, and I was bandaged stiff as I had been that other day.

So I said, as you have said in like awakenings, "Dear G.o.d,'twas but a dream!" and saying it, would turn my head to see if Mistress Margery were sitting where I last remembered her.

She was there, in very deed and truth, deep in the hollow of the great chair of Indian wickerwork; and as before, the soft graying of the evening sky was mirrored in her eyes.

I sighed, and there was a catching of the breath at the bottom of it.

Truly, the wondrous dream had had its agonies, but there were also beat.i.tudes to tip the scale the other way. For I had dreamed this sweet-faced watcher was my wife--in name, at least.

'Twas while I looked, minding not the eye-ache the effort cost, that she rose and came softly to the bedside. She said no word, but, as once in the dream-time, she laid a cool palm on my forehead. Weak as I was--and surely King David was not weaker when he wrote his bones were gone to water--the old love-madness of that other day came to thrill me at her touch, and I made as if I would take her hand and press it to my lips.

"Nay, sir," she said, with a swift return to sick-room discipline, "you must not stir; you have been sorely hurt."

"Aye," said I; "I do remember; 'twas in a duel with one Francis Falconnet. He said he would make you his--"

Now the soft palm was laid on my lips, and I kissed it till she s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

"_Ma foi!_" she cried; "I think you are in a hopeful way to recover now, Captain Ireton. I do protest I shall go and send old Anthony to sit with you."

"Anthony?" said I; "he was in the dream, too, putting up the chain on the hall door."

"Ah, _mon Dieu_!" she said softly, as if to herself, "he is wandering yet." At which, as if to try to help me: "'Twas no dream; you did see him putting on the chain."

"Did I? I made sure I dreamed it. But tell me another thing; was it not yesterday that I met Sir Francis Falconnet under the oaks in the wood field and got this pair of redhot pincers in my shoulder?"

She turned away, and if I ever saw a tear there was one trembling in her eyelashes.

"'Twas three full weeks ago," she said. "And it was not in the wood field--'twas in the wine cellar. Never tell me you do not remember; I--I could never--ah, Mother of Sorrows! that would be worse than all."

Here was a curious coil, but I could break one strand of it, at least, and so I did.

"I remember well enough," I hastened to say. "But being here, and seeing you there in the great chair, carried me back to that other time, making all the interval stand as a dream. Have I been ailing?"

"You have been terribly near to death, Monsieur John; so near that Doctor Carew has twice given you over."

"No," said I; "there was no fear of that. I am like that man in the old German folk tale who made a compact with the Evil One, selling thereby his chance to die. Death would not take me as a gift, Mistress Margery; I have tried him too often."

"Hush!" she said; "'tis an ill thing to jest about. Why should you want to die?"

"Rather ask why I should choose to live. But this is beside the mark.

You should have let me die, dear lady; but since you did not, we must e'en make the best of it."

She faced me with a smile that struggled with some deeper stirring of the heart; I knew not what.