Denounced. John Bloundelle-Burton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ is understood. The Secretary of State for Scotch affairs, from whom I receive my instructions, knows your lordship's desire, without a doubt."

      "Precisely. It is with him I have been in communication. Yet, still, I would make one other request. It is that Father Sholto may not be arrested in my house. That would be painful to-to-Lady Fordingbridge, a young and delicate woman. He can easily be taken outside, since he quits the house fearlessly each day."

      "That too," replied Morris, "I will make a note of for the Secretary's consideration. I wish you now, my lord, good evening," saying which he bowed and went toward the door.

      "If I could possibly prevail on you to refresh yourself," said Fordingbridge, as he followed him to it, "I should be happy," and he held out his hand as he spoke.

      But the captain, who seemed busy with his sash, or sword belt, did not perhaps see the extended hand, and muttering that he required no refreshment, withdrew from the room.

      Nevertheless, when he reached the bar in the passage below he asked the smiling landlady if she could give him a glass of cordial to keep out the rawness of the night air, and to fortify him for his ride. Also he asked, in so polite a manner as to gratify the good woman's heart, if he might scrawl a line at her table whereat she sat sewing and surrounded by her bottles and glasses. Buxom landladies rarely refuse politenesses to persons of Captain Morris's position, especially when so captivatingly arrayed as he was in his undress bravery, and as he wrote his message and sealed it she thought how gallant a gentleman he was.

      Then he looked up and enquired if there was any ostler or idle postboy about the place who could ride for him with a letter to-morrow morning to Dunstable, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, paid for his cordial, the hire of the next morning messenger and his horse's feed, and so bade her a cheerful good-night.

      In the yard, while his animal was being brought out, he looked with some little interest at his lordship's travelling carriage, inspected the crest upon its panels and the motto, and, tossing the fellow who brought the nag a shilling, and seeing carefully to his holsters, rode away into the night.

      Upstairs, my lord, standing before the fire, noticed the unemptied glass of wine, and, remembering that the captain had not chosen to see his outstretched hand, cursed him for an ill-conditioned Hanoverian cur. Downstairs, the hostess, being a daughter of Eve, turned over the captain's letter addressed to "Josias Brandon, Esq., Justice of the Peace," and would have given her ears, or at least a set of earrings, to know what its contents were. Had she been able to see them they probably would have given her food for gossip for a twelvemonth, brief as they were. They ran:

      "The Viscount Fordingbridge passes through Dunstable to-morrow in his coach on his road to Cheshire. From the time he does so until he returns through your town to London, he is to be followed and watched and never lost sight of. Let me be kept acquainted with all his movements-by special courier, if needful. – Noel Morris, Captain."

      CHAPTER VI

      KATE MAKES AN APPOINTMENT

      Between Lady Fordingbridge and her father a better state of things existed than that which prevailed between her and her husband. Indeed, Kitty, who could not forgive the treachery of the man who was now her husband, could not, at the same time, bring herself to regard her father's share in that treachery in as equally black a light. She knew that it was the actual truth that he had been much in debt to Simeon Larpent (as he was then), and she had persuaded herself also to believe that which he constantly assured her was the truth-and, perhaps, might have been-that Larpent would have proceeded against him for his debt, in spite of the story Fane had been instructed to tell to the effect that the other was very willing to continue their creditor. Moreover, old and feeble as her father was now-broken down and unable any longer to earn bread to put in their mouths, she did not forget that, until the events of the last few unhappy months, he had been an excellent parent to her. For, hardly and roughly, by long days of weary work, the bread had been earned somehow, the roof kept over their heads, the clothes found for their backs. Hour after hour, as she remembered, the worn-out old Irish gentleman-once the brilliant young military adventurer had stood in the room set apart for the fencing school, giving his lessons to men young enough to be his sons; and also she recalled how every night, it seemed to her, he was more fatigued than before, his back a little more bowed, his weariness greater. And as-even after the marriage had taken place into which she had been hoodwinked-she thought of all this, and of how he had grown older and more feeble in his fight to keep the wolf from the door, she almost brought herself to forgive him entirely for the great wrong he had done her.

      She sat thinking over all this on the morning after her lord's departure for the country, while opposite to her, toasting his feet in front of the fire, her father sat. The old man was well dressed now; he was comfortable and without care-an astute Irish attorney settled in Paris had tied the viscount up as tightly as possible in the matter of jointure, settlements and dowry for Kitty, not without remonstrance from Fordingbridge, which was, however, unavailing; and out of her own money she had provided for her father. And as her eyes rested on him she felt that, badly as he had behaved to her, she was still glad to know that his laborious days were past. At this time Kitty was very near to forgiving him altogether; her strong, loving heart remembering so much of all he had done for her in the past, and forgetting almost all of his wrongdoing.

      "What do your letters say to ye, Kitty, this morning?" asked Doyle Fane, who, after more than forty years' absence from his native land, still retained some of its rich raciness of tone and accent. "Ye've a big post there before ye, me child."

      "Very little of any importance," she replied. "The night coach through St. Albans brings me a letter from his lordship trusting I shall be happy during his enforced absence. Faugh! Also there is one by the French packet from Kathleen Muskerry. Her uncle, the priest at Marly, is removed to St. Roch. Lady Belrose, whose acquaintance I made a month ago at Leicester House, writes desiring me to accompany her to the masquerade at Vauxhall."

      "Good, me child, good. And what for not? 'Twill do ye good to see some life, to-"

      "To see some life!" she repeated, "see some life! In the midst of death all around us!"

      "Death!" the old man repeated. "Death! Faith, I did not know it. What death is there around us?"

      "Father!" she exclaimed, looking at him, "is there not death all around-threatening those whom we love-whom we loved once? Do you not know that London is at the present moment full of followers of the unhappy prince, who, if they are caught, must be doomed? Do you not know that the Tower, Newgate, the New Gaol over the water in Southwark, is crowded with such men, all of whom have soon to stand their trial for high treason-men of whom we have known many, some of whom were your pupils? Father, this is no time for masquerades."

      For a moment the old man gazed at her with solemn eyes, as though endeavouring to penetrate her mind, to discover if behind her words there lay any hidden meaning; then he asked:

      "Are there any-any whom-we know particularly well among these threatened men? You may tell me, Kitty. You may trust me-now."

      "Is not Father Sholto in jeopardy?" she asked, while her eyes also rested on him much as his had dwelt on her. Perhaps she, too, was wondering if he guessed to whom, more than all others, her remarks applied. "If he were discovered would he not share the gaol, if not the scaffold? He told us yesterday that there was a newly-made law against any Jesuit priests from France who should be found in England."[Note B]

      "Are there any-any others?" he almost whispered. But still her clear blue eyes regarded him, and she spoke no word.

      "Well, well," he said a moment after. "Perhaps it may be, even after so many years, that I do not deserve СКАЧАТЬ