CHAPTER V
The dreariness of the time that followed is beyond my power of description. I besought Mr. Chiffinch to let me go abroad again, but he forbade me very emphatically; and I owed so much to him that I could not find it in my heart to disobey. For so desperate was I, at the ruin of all my hopes, that the thought even came to me that I would go back and try to be a monk again; for how, thought I, can I keep my word even to Dolly herself? Every prospect I had was ruined; my coronet was gone like the dream which it had always been; I had failed lamentably and hopelessly; and it was through her father's treachery and malice that all had come about. This I felt in my heaviest moods; but Mr. Chiffinch would hear none of it. He said that it was but a question of time, and His Majesty would come round once more; that he would never be content until I was reinstated; that he had not for an instant lost heart. Besides, he said, I was of use in another way, and that was to make Hoskyns disclose himself. Hoskyns would never rest, he said, till he had made at least one more attempt upon me; and next time, he hoped, he would catch him at it, and get rid of the fellow once and for all.
Neither could I even go to Hare Street; for how could I live again even for an hour in the house of my Cousin who had betrayed me? I could not even tell Dolly all that had fallen; for I was as sure as of anything in the world that her father would tell her nothing, and I did not have the heart to disgrace him in her eyes. I but wrote to her that I was a little out of favour with His Majesty at present, though I kept my lodgings, and that I must not stir from Court till I had regained my position. Meanwhile I reserved what I had to say to my Cousin Tom, until I should meet with him alone. I had no doubt whatever that he had done what he had, thinking to get rid of me as his daughter's lover.
The time dragged then very heavily; for I did not care to go much into the society of others, and had nowhere else to go, since I must not leave Whitehall; for it soon became known that I was out of favour, though I do not suppose that the reason was ever named. I spent my days principally in my own lodgings, and did a good deal of private work for Mr. Chiffinch, which occupied me. I went to the play sometimes, taking my man James with me; and I rode out with him usually, down Chelsea way, or to the north, coming back for dinner or supper. I never went alone, by Mr. Chiffinch's urgent desire.
* * * * *
It was after Christmas that matters were brought to a head, and that the last great adventures of my life came about that closed all that I thought to be life at that time. Even now, so many years after, I can scarce bear to write them down, though, as I look back upon them now, there were at least two matters for which I should have thanked God even then. I thank Him now.
* * * * *
It was on the last Thursday but one, in January, to be precise, that I was coming back from a ride, having been down the river-bank past Chelsea, where I had seen, I remember, Winchester House—that great place with all its courts—and my Lord Bishop returning in his coach: I do not remember anything else that I saw, for I was very heavy indeed and more than ever determined that, if matters did not mend very soon, I would be off to France (where, six months later, I should be obliged to go in any case when my estates would come to me), if not to Rome. It was near five months now that I had lived in disgrace, His Majesty not speaking to me above three or four times all that while, and then only to avoid incivility.
I could not understand why it was that he behaved so to me. He must know by now, surely, that I had never been anything but faithful to him; and I strove to put away the thought that it was mere caprice, and that he often behaved so to others. But I am afraid that such was the case. There were plenty of folks at Court, or who had left it, who had once been in high favour and had ceased to be, through no fault of their own. Neither would I seek consolation from any other source. The Duke was civil to me whenever we met, and I suppose he knew that I was in trouble, but he never spoke of it. Indeed it was a sad change from the time when I had returned so joyfully, and found my new lodgings waiting for me.
* * * * *
As we came up through Westminster I was riding alone, for I had bidden my man James to go aside to a little shop that was almost on our route, behind the abbey, to buy me something that I needed—I think it was a pair of cuffs; but I am not sure. It was very near dark, and the lamps were not yet lighted.
As I came towards the gate of Whitehall, I was riding very carelessly and heavily, paying little attention to anything, for I was thinking, as it happened, of Dolly, with an extraordinary misery in my heart, and of how I should ever tell her (unless matters mended soon) of what her father had done; and whether in some manner he would not yet contrive to separate us. My horse swerved a little, and I pulled him up, for there were a couple of fellows immediately crossing before me. I saw that they looked hard at me; but I noticed no more, for at that instant I heard a horse coming up behind me, and turned to see that it was James. He looked a little strange, thought I, but he said nothing: only he came up, right beside me, and so rode with me through the gate.
He said nothing then, nor did I; and it was not until I was dismounted and a fellow had run out to take the horses that he asked if he might speak with me.
"Why, certainly," said I; and we turned together into the Court.
"Sir," he said, so soon as we were out of earshot of the guard, "did you see those two fellows without the gate?" I said that I had.
"Sir," he said, "they were following you all the way from Chelsea. I saw them at Winchester House; and I have seen them before to-day, too."
"Eh?" said I, a little startled.
Then he told me he had seen them for the last fortnight, three or four times at least, and that he was sure they were after some mischief. Once before to-day too, as we were riding in Southwark, and he had delayed for a stone in his horse's foot, he had seen them run out from behind a wall, but that they had made off when they saw him coming.
Now I knew very well what he meant. London was very far from being a safe place in those days for a man that had enemies. There was scarcely a week passed but there was some outrage, in broad daylight too, in less populated parts, and in the various Fields, and after dark men were not very safe in the City itself.
A year ago I should have thought nothing of it; but I was down in the world now, I knew very well, and I had enemies who would stick at nothing. It was true that they had let me alone for a while—no doubt lest any suspicion should attach to them—but the winter was on us now, and the mornings and evenings were dark; and, too, a good deal of time had elapsed. I remembered what Mr. Chiffinch had said to me at the beginning of the trouble.
"You did very well to tell me," I said. "Would you know them again if you saw them?"
"I think so, sir," he said.
"Well," I said, "I have no doubt that they are after me. You will tell my other men, will you not?"
"I told them a week ago," he said.
I said no more to him then; but instead of going immediately to my lodgings, I went first to see Mr. Chiffinch, and found him just come in. I told him very briefly what James had told me; but made no comment. He whistled, and bade me sit down.
"They are after you then," he said. "I thought they would be."
"But who are they?" said I, a little peevishly.
"If I knew their names," said the page, "I could put my hands on them on some excuse or other. But I do not know. It is the dregs of the old country-party no doubt."
"And what good do they think to get out of me?"
"Why, it is revenge no doubt," he said. "They know that you are down with the king and have not many friends; and they suspect that you are still in with the secret service, no doubt."
"They are after my life, then?" I asked.
"I should suppose so."
He considered a minute or two in silence. At last he spoke again.
"I will have a word with His Majesty. He is treating you shamefully, Mr.
Mallock; and I will tell him so. And I will take other measures also."
I asked what those might be.
"I will have my men to look out closely when you go about. You had best not go alone at all. Within Whitehall you are safe enough; but I would not go out except with a couple of men, if I were you."
I told him I always took one, at least.
"Well; I would take two," he observed. "There was that murder last week, in Lincoln's Inn Fields—put down to the Mohocks. Well; it was a gentleman of my own who was killed, though that is not known; and it was no more Mohocks than it was you or I."
* * * * *
As we were still talking my man James came up to seek me, with a letter that he had found in my lodgings, waiting for me. I knew the hand well enough; and I suppose that I shewed it; for when I looked up from reading it, Mr. Chiffinch was looking at me with a quizzical face.
"That is good news, Mr. Mallock, is it not?"
I could not refrain from smiling; for indeed it was as if the sun had risen on my dreariness.
"It is very good news," I said. "It is from my cousin—the 'pretty cousin,' Mr. Chiffinch. She is come to town with her maid; and asks me to sup with her."
"Well; take your two men when you go to see her," said he, laughing a little. "They can entertain the maid, and you the mistress."
* * * * *
I cannot say how wonderfully the whole aspect of the world was changed to me, as I set out in a little hired coach I used sometimes, with my two men, half an hour later, for my old lodgings in Covent Garden where, she said, she had come that evening. It was a very short letter; but it was very sweet to me. She said only that she could wait no more; that she knew how ill things must be going with me, and that she must see with her own eyes that I was not dead altogether. I had striven in my letters to her to make as light as I could of my troubles; but I suppose that her woman's wit and her love had pierced my poor disguises. At least here she was.
* * * * *
She was standing, all ready to greet me, in that old parlour of mine where I had first met her six years ago; and she was more beautiful now, a thousand times, in my eyes, than even then. The candles were lighted all round the walls, and the curtains across the windows; and her maid was not there. She had already changed her riding dress, and was in her evening gown with her string of little pearls. As I close my eyes now I can see her still, as if she stood before me. Her lips were a little parted, and her flushed cheeks and her bright eyes made all the room heaven for me. I had not seen her for six months.
"Well, Cousin Roger," she said—no more.
* * * * *
Presently, even before supper came in, she had begun her questioning.
"Cousin Roger," she said—(we two were by the fire, she on a couch and I in a great chair)—"Cousin Roger, you have treated me shamefully. You have told me nothing, except that you were in trouble; and that I could have guessed for myself. I am come to town for three days—no more: my father for a long time forbade me even to do that. If he were not gone to Stortford for the horse-fair I should not be here now."
"He does not know you are come to town!" I cried.
She shook her head, like a child, and her eyes twinkled with merriment.
"He thinks I am still minding the sheep," she said. "But that is not the point. Cousin Roger, I care nothing whatever for His Majesty's affairs, nor for secret service, nor for anything else of that kind. But I care very much that you should be in trouble and not tell me what it is."
Now I had not had much time to think what I should say, if she questioned me, as I knew she would; for it would not be an easy thing to tell her that her father was at the root of my troubles and had behaved like a treacherous hound. Yet sooner or later she must be told, unless I lost heart altogether. I might soften it and soften it—pretend that her father owed a greater duty to the King than to me, and must have thought it right to do as he had done. But she would see through it all: that I knew very well.
"Dolly," said I, very slowly, "I have not told you yet, because there was nothing in the world that you could do to help me. I have waited, thinking that matters might come straight again; but they have not. I will tell you, then, before you go home again. I promise you that. And on my side I ask you not to question me this evening. Let us have this one evening without any troubles at all."
She looked at me very earnestly for a moment without speaking; and I could see that her lightness of manner had been but put on to disguise how anxious she was. It is wonderful how a woman—in spite of her foolishness at other times—can read the heart of a man. I had said very little to her in my letters; and yet I could see now how she had suffered all the while. I had thought myself to have been alone in my unhappiness; now I understood that never for an instant had I been so; and my whole heart rose up in a kind of exultation and longing. Then she swallowed down her anxiety.
"I take you at your word, Cousin Roger," she said lightly. "I will ask no question at all."
Then Anne and my man James came in with the supper.
* * * * *
I think there is not one moment of that evening in my old lodgings that I have forgotten. As now I look back upon it it seems to me to have that kind of brightness which a garden has when a storm is coming up very quickly, and the clouds are very black, and yet the shadow has not yet reached it. I remember how the curtains hung across the windows; they were my own old curtains of blue stuff, a little faded but still rich and good; how the fire glowed in the wide chimney; how Dolly looked across the table, in her blue sac, with lace, and her wide sleeves, and her little pearls. She had dressed up, all for me, as indeed I had for her, for I was in my maroon suit, with my silver-handled sword and my black periwig. Ah! and above all I remember the very look in her eyes as she suddenly clapped her hands together. (The servants were out of the room at that instant.)
"Cousin Roger!" she said, "I shall never keep my promise unless I am distracted. We will go to the play: you and I and Anne, all together: and your man James shall wait upon us with oranges."
Well; she had said it; and I laughed at her merriment: she was so like a child on her holiday, and a stolen holiday too. The ways of God are very strange—that so much should hang upon so little! It was upon that sudden thought of hers that the whole of my life turned; and hers too! As it was, I said nothing but that it should be as she wished; and that my coach should set us down there and come again when the play was over. So the threads are caught up in those great unseen shuttles that are guided by God's Hand, and the whole pattern changed, it would appear, by a moment's whim. And yet I cannot doubt—for if I did, my whole faith would be shattered—that even those whims are part of the Divine design, and that all is done according to His Holy Will.
The rest of supper was hastened, lest we should be late for the play; and then, when James came up to tell us that the coach was waiting—though it was scarcely a hundred yards to the King's Theatre—and Dolly was gone for her hood and cloak, I stood, with a glass of wine in my hand, on the hearth, looking down at the fire.
Now I cannot tell how it was; but I suppose that the shadow that I spoke of just now, began to touch that little garden of love in which I stood; for a kind of melancholy came on me again. While she had been with cue, it had all seemed gone; we had been as merry at supper as if nothing at all were the matter; but now, even while she was in the next chamber with her maid, I fell a-brooding once more. I thought—God knows why!—of the little parlour at Hare Street which I had not seen for so long, and of the fire that burned there, upon that hearth too—the hearth on which I had stood in my foolish patronizing pride when I had first asked her to be my wife and she had treated me as I deserved. I did not think then of how we had sat there together afterwards so often; and of the happiness I had had there, but only of that miserable Christmas night when I thought I had lost her. The mood came on me suddenly; and I was still brooding when she came in again, alone. She was in her hood, and her face looked out of it like a flower.
"Cousin Roger," she said, "I have never told you why I came up to-day."
"My dear; you did," I said. "It was your father who—"
"No; no; but this day in particular. Cousin Roger, the woman came again last night."
"The woman! What woman?" I asked.
"Why—the tall old woman—to my chamber, up the stairs. You remember?
She came the night before you were sent for—why—six years ago."
I stared on her; and a kind of horror came on me.
"Ah! do not look like that," she said. "It is nothing." She smiled full at me, putting her hand on my arm.
"You saw her!" I said.
"No; no. I heard her only. It was just as it was before. But I came up to town to—to see if all were well with you. And it is: or will be. Kiss me, Roger, before we go."