The Duke's Daughter; and, The Fugitives; vol. 2/3

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Yes, dear,” said nurse, leaning over her, “your ladyship shall do better than that. Oh yes, my sweet, better days are coming. Don’t you let down your dear heart.”

“No; that would not do much good,” Lady Jane said with a sigh: but she did not remark, which was strange, that nurse was full of a secret, and that a delightful secret, exultingly dwelt upon, and ready to burst out at the least encouragement. Or perhaps she did perceive it, but was too tired to draw it forth. And she gave no encouragement to further disclosure, but went to her rest sighing, with a longing to be free, such as since the first days of her imprisonment she had not felt before. And she could not sleep that night. Lady Jane was not of a restless nature. She did not toss about upon her pillows and make it audible that she was sleepless: and she had much to occupy her thoughts, so many things that were pleasant, as well as much that it hurt her to contemplate. She put the hurtful things away and thought of the sweet, and lay there in the darkness of the winter’s night, lighted and calmed by sweet thought. When it was nearly morning, at the darkest and chilliest moment of all, there came a rustling and soft movement, which, however, did not alarm her, since it came from Nurse Mordaunt’s room. Then she perceived dimly, in the faint light from an uncurtained window, a muffled figure, with which indeed she was very familiar, being no other than that of nurse herself in a dressing-gown and nightcap, with a shawl huddled about her throat and shoulders, stealing round the room. What was nurse doing at this mysterious hour? But Lady Jane was not afraid. She was rather glad of the incident in the long monotony of the night. She turned her head noiselessly upon her pillow to watch. But the surprise of Lady Jane was great at the further operations of her attendant. Nurse arranged carefully and noiselessly a small screen between the door and the bed, then with great precaution struck a light and began with much fumbling and awkwardness to operate upon the door. What was she doing? The light, throwing a glimmer upward from behind the screen, revealed her face full of anxiety, bent forward towards the lock of the door, upon which many scratches and ineffectual jars as of tools badly managed soon became audible. The candle threw a portentous waving shadow, over the further wall and roof, of the old woman’s muffled figure, and betrayed a succession of dabs and misses at the door which Lady Jane for a long time could not understand. What did it mean? The noise increased as nurse grew nervous over her failure. She hurt her fingers, she pursed her mouth, she contracted her brows; it was work that demanded knowledge and delicate handling, but she had neither. When Lady Jane raised herself noiselessly on her arm, and said in her soft voice, “What are you doing, nurse?” the poor woman dropped the tools with a dull thump on the floor, and almost went down after them in her vexation. “Oh, my lady, I can’t! I can’t do it, I’m that stupid!” She wept so that Lady Jane could scarcely console her, or understand her explanation. At last it came out by degrees that the tools had been given her, with many injunctions and instructions, to break open the lock of the door. “By whom?” Lady Jane demanded, with a deep blush and sparkling eyes. Why she should have felt so keen a flash of indignation at her lover for thinking of such an expedient is inscrutable, but at the moment it seemed to her that she could never forgive Winton for such an expedient. But it was Lady Germaine who was the offender, and Lady Jane was pacified. She bound up nurse’s finger, and sent her off summarily to bed. Then, it must be allowed, she herself looked upon the tools long and anxiously with shining eyes. It seemed to her that it would be fighting her father with his own weapons. It would be as unworthy of her to get her freedom that way, as it was of him to make a prisoner of her. Would it be so? Lady Jane’s heart began to beat, and her brow to throb. Would it be so? The mere idea that she held her freedom in her hand filled her whole being with excitement. She locked them away into a little cabinet which stood near her bed. She was too tremulous, too much excited by the mere possibility, to be able to think at all.

That night had been a very exciting one for the Duke. Again he had been the centre of a demonstration. It did not seem to him that he could turn anywhere without hearing these words, “Half-married,” murmuring about. This time it was at the house of the Lord Chancellor that the émeute occurred. A very distinguished lady was the chief guest: not indeed the most distinguished personage in the realm, but yet so near as to draw inspiration from that fountain-head. She said, “We could not believe it,” as Mrs Coningsby had said; but naturally with far more force. “I am afraid you are not of your age, Duke.”

“There is little that is desirable in the age, madam, that any one should be of it,” his Grace replied with dignity. Here he felt himself on safe ground.

“Ah, but we cannot help belonging to it: and it is for persons of rank to show that they can lead it, not to be driven back into antiquity. All that is over,” said the gracious lady. The Duke bowed to the ground as may be supposed. “Lady Jane I hope will appear at the Drawing-Room on her marriage,” his distinguished monitress said as she passed on. The emphasis was unmistakable. And how that silken company enjoyed it! They had all gathered as close as possible, and lent their keenest ear. And there was a whisper ran round that this was indeed the way in which royalty should take its place in society. As for the Duke, he stumbled out of these gilded halls, more confused and discomfited than ever duke was. He did not sleep much more than Lady Jane did all that long and dark night. What was he to do? Must he Give In? These words seemed to be written upon the book of fate. Relinquish his prejudices, his principles, all the traditions of his race—retrace his steps, own himself in error, undo what he had done? No! no! no! a thousand times no! But then there seemed to come round him again that rush of velvet feet, that sheen of jewelled brows, the look with which the central figure waved her lily hand—— The Duke felt his forehead bedewed with drops of anguish. How could he stand out against that? he, the most loyal of subjects, and one whose example went so far? If he set himself in opposition, who could be expected to obey? He thought of nothing else all night, and it was the first thing which occurred to him when he woke in the morning. What to do? He was tired of it all, all, and tired of other things too, if he could have been brought to confess it. His heart was sore, and his soul fatigued beyond measure. He had not even his wife to lean the weight of his cares upon, and everything was going wrong. He could now at last feel the sweep of the current moving towards Niagara. It bore him along, it carried him off his feet. Ruin at hand: he would not allow himself even now to believe in it—but in his heart was aware that it was ruin. And this other matter in the foreground, occupying the thoughts which had so many other claims upon them! The reader will feel with us that the subject is too sacred, otherwise there is enough to fill a volume of the Duke’s self-communings, and perplexed, distressful thoughts. He got up in the morning, still half-dazed, not knowing what to do. But in his heart the Duke was aware he was beaten. There was no more fight in him. He swallowed his breakfast dolefully, and sat down in his vast, cheerless library by himself to settle what he was to do, when—But for this we must go back a little in the record of the family affairs.

Lady Jane had begun the day with a sense of underlying excitement, which she covered with her usual calm, but which was not her usual calm. She had the means of escape in her power. She said nothing to nurse, who, subdued by her failure, and crushed by her lady’s first flash of indignation, effaced herself as much as possible, and left Lady Jane in the room which looked out upon the Square, which was her dressing-room (nominally) and sitting-room, undisturbed. Lady Jane could not forget that the tools were in that little carved cabinet, which, never in the course of its existence, had held anything of such serious meaning before. She could not keep them out of her mind. To use them might be unworthy of her, a condescension, putting herself on the same level as her tyrant; but after all, to think that the means were in her power! Lady Jane was very well aware that, once outside that door, her captivity was over. It was a thing that could not be repeated. Once upon the staircase, in the passage, and all the world was free to her. When you think of that after two months’ imprisonment, it is hard to keep the excitement out of your pulses. At last it overcame her so much that she got up, half-stealthily, timidly, and went to the door to examine the lock, and see whether, by the light of nature, she could make out what was to be done. It had been closed not long before to permit of the exit of the maid who carried their meals to the prisoners. The tools were in the cabinet, and in all likelihood Lady Jane would be as maladroit with those poor small white hands of hers as nurse had been. She went to the door and examined the lock closely. All at once something occurred to her which made her heart jump. She took hold of the handle, it turned in her hand. Another moment and she flung it open with a little cry of terror and triumph. Open! and she free, out of her prison. It was but one step, but that step was enough. Her amazement was so great that it turned to something like consternation. She stepped out on to the landing, which was somewhat dark on this February morning: and there she paused. She was a woman born to be a heroine, one of the Quixotic race. She paused a moment, holding her head high, and reflected. This must have been an accident: for once the jailer had made a mistake, had slept upon his post, had turned the key amiss. Was it good enough to take advantage of a mistake, to save herself by the slip of a servant? She hesitated, this spiritual descendant of the great Spanish cavalier, that noblest knight. But then Lady Jane’s sense came in. She was aware that now, at this moment, she was delivered,—that no force in the world could put her again within that door. She gathered the long skirt of her black gown in her hand, and slowly, stately, not like a fugitive, like the princess she was, went down-stairs.

The Duke was in his library thinking what to do, and the Duchess—in her morning-room, with her heart greatly fluttered by that little royal speech, which had been reported to her already—sat with, strange to say, only half a thought of Jane, looking in the face that other dark and gloomy thing,—the ruin that was approaching. She had palpable evidence of it before her, and knew that it was now a matter of weeks, perhaps of days, so that though her heart, like an agitated sea after the storm, was still heaving with the other emotion, her thoughts for the moment had abandoned Jane. But the Duke’s mind was full of his daughter. He would have to Give In! Look at it how he would, he saw no escape for that. “The women,” as Lord Germaine in his slangy way prophesied, “had made it too hot for him,” and royalty itself—clearly he could not put his head out of his door, or appear in the society of his peers again, till this was done. But how was it to be done? To make his recantation in the eye of day, in the sight even of his household, was more than he could calmly contemplate. It was no longer, What was he to do? but, How was he to do it? that was in his mind. He had got up, unable to keep still, and feeling that some step must be taken at once. When——

We had already got this length on a previous page. At this memorable crisis, when all the world seemed to his consciousness to be standing still to see what he would do, the door of the library was pushed slowly open from without. The doors in Grosvenor Square did not squeak and mutter like the wizards in the Old Testament, as our doors so often do, but rolled slowly open, majestically, without sound. This was what happened while the Duke stood still, something within him seeming to give way, his heart fluttering as if what he expected was a visitor from the unseen. He stood with his eyes opening wide, his lips apart. Was it a deputation from Mayfair? was it the royal lady herself? was it—— It was something more overwhelming, more miraculous than any of these. It was Lady Jane. The reader is already aware who was coming, but the Duke was not aware. He gasped at her with speechless astonishment, as if she had been indeed a visitor from the unseen.

She was very pale after her long incarceration, and the hollow, alas! very visible on her delicate cheek. She was dressed in a long, soft cashmere gown, black, with an air of having fitted her admirably once, but which now was too loose for her, as could be seen. But though she was thin and pale, she held her head high, and there was a sort of smile in the look with which she regarded her father. Hers was indeed the triumph. She was too high-minded, too proud to fly. She came into the room, and closed the door with a sort of indignant stateliness. “I have come to tell you,” she said, “that by some accident or misadventure my door was found unlocked this morning, and I have left my prison.” She held her head high, and he bowed and crouched before her. But yet, had she but known, her own relief and ecstasy of freedom was nothing to her father’s. It was as if the load of a whole universe had been taken off his shoulders.

“This is Martin’s fault,” he said; “the fellow shall be dismissed at once. Jane, you will believe me or not as you please, but I had meant to come myself and open the door to you to-day.”