Book: The Blue Pavilions

S >> Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch >> The Blue Pavilions




"I refuse to say."

"Well, well, the affair seems to need some explanation, but doubtless
admits of a very good one. It is none of my business, and I do not
ask you to satisfy me. But I cannot help thinking that Roderick Salt
will be hardly more astonished to find that his son is a man of large
estates than disposed to make inquiries."

"What do you mean, my lord?"

"I mean that, as father and son happen at this moment to lie aboard
the same vessel, the _Good Intent_--"

The chair which Captain Barker had been grasping and tilting
impatiently fell to the floor with a crash.

"--I foresee a scene of happy recognition and mutual explanations.
We will suppose the father to learn the truth before to-morrow's
punishment is inflicted. We will picture his feelings"--the Earl
paused, and fired a shot more or less at a venture--"when he becomes
aware that, though by law enabled to buy his son off from military
service, he has by chicanery been rendered powerless. We will
imagine him an enforced spectator, wincing as each stroke draws
blood."

"You will do this thing! You will tell him!"

"My dear sirs, I shall hate to do it. In proof that I speak
sincerely, let me say that my offer still remains open. May I now
count on your accepting it?"

"No!" thundered the little man, springing forward in a fury.
Captain Jemmy caught him by the arm, however, and forced him back to
the arm-chair. The Earl shrugged his shoulders.

"Truly you are a Roman parent," said he, bowing ironically; "but you
will excuse me if I find it time to seek the lad's natural father.
Remember, if you please, gentlemen, your promise of silence."

He opened the door and passed quietly through the hall and out of the
house. In the road at the foot of the garden a sergeant stepped out
of the shadow and saluted him.

The Earl gave a muttered order.

"Where is my horse?" he asked.

"A little up the road, my lord. The orderly is walking him up and
down to keep him warm."

The Earl nodded and walked on. A hundred yards farther he came up
with them, and, climbing into the saddle, trotted off towards
Harwich, the orderly at his heels.

At the Cock and Pye Stairs a boat was waiting. He dismounted and,
giving his horse over to the orderly, stepped on board and was rowed
swiftly out towards the harbour, where the lights of the squadron
flickered and its great hulls brooded over the jet-black water.
As the boat crossed under the tilted stern and high, flaming lanterns
of Rear-Admiral Rooke's ship, the _Foresight_, the sentry on deck
sang out his challenge.

It was answered. The boat dropped alongside and the Earl climbed
upon deck. Turning at the top of the ladder, he gave his boatman the
order to wait for half an hour, and acknowledging the sentry's
salute, made his way aft, and down the companion-stairs to the cabin
set apart for him.

In the passage below was a second sentry, pacing up and down; and by
the Earl's door an orderly standing ready.

"Send Captain Salt to me. After that, you may retire."

The man saluted and went off on his errand, and the Earl stepped into
his cabin. The furniture of this narrow apartment consisted of a
hanging-lamp, a chair or two, a chest heaped with dispatch-boxes and
a swing-table upon which a map of the Low Countries was spread amid
regimental lists and reports, writing materials, works on
fortification, official seals and piles of papers not yet reduced to
order. Pushing aside the map and a treatise by the Marechal de
Vauban that lay face downwards upon it, the Earl drew a blank sheet
of paper towards him, dipped pen in ink, and after a moment's
consideration scribbled a sentence. Then, sprinkling it quickly with
sand, he folded the paper, and was about to seal it, when a light tap
sounded on the cabin-door.

"Come in," said the Earl quietly, holding the sealing-wax to the
flame, and without troubling to turn.

The man who stood on the threshold demands a somewhat particular
description.

He was tall and of an eminently graceful figure. The uniform which
he carried--that of a captain in the 1st or Royal Regiment of Foot--
well set off his small waist, deep chest and square shoulders.
His complexion was clear and sanguine, albeit no longer retaining the
candour of youth; his wig was carefully curled, and in colour a light
golden-brown. Though in fact his age was not far short of fifty, he
looked hardly a day older than thirty-five.

In many respects his resemblance to Tristram was exceedingly close.
The stature and proportions were Tristram's; the nose like Tristram's
in shape, but slightly longer; the eyes of the same greyish blue,
though in this case deep lines radiated from the outer corners.
Above all, there was a fugitive, baffling likeness, that belonged to
no particular feature, but to all. On the other hand, the difference
in expression between the two faces was hardly less striking: for
whereas Tristram's beamed a modest kindliness on his fellows, this
face looked out on the world with an unshrinking audacity. Beside it
the Earl of Marlborough's handsome countenance seemed to lack
intelligence; but the Earl's countenance was then, and remains
to-day, an impenetrable mask.

"You sent for me, my lord?" Captain Salt's voice was silvery in tone
and pleasant to hear as running water.

"I did," said the Earl, pressing his seal upon the letter and sitting
down to direct it. "You have the lists?"

The other drew a bundle of papers from his breastpocket, and
advancing, laid them upon the table. The Earl put the letter aside,
opened the bundle and ran his eye over its contents.

"You are sure of all these men?"

"Quite."

"You seem to have enough. We mustn't overdo this, you understand?
It wouldn't do for the affair to--succeed."

Captain Salt smiled.

"If they carry off a vessel or two," the Earl went on, "it's no great
loss, and it will give Saint Germains the agreeable notion that
something is about to happen. They've been plaguing me again.
This time it's an urgent letter in my royal master's own hand.
He calls on me to bring over the whole army in the very first
action--the born fool! Can he really believe I love him so dearly?
Has he really persuaded himself that I've forgotten--?"

He checked himself; but for the first time that evening his face was
suffused with a hot flush. For, in fact, he was thinking of his
sister, Arabella Churchill; and John Churchill, though he had made no
scruple to profit by his sister's shame, had never forgiven it.

Captain Salt filled up the pause in his dulcet voice: "We want, my
lord, such a mutiny as, without succeeding, shall convince England of
the strong dissatisfaction felt by our forces at the favouritism
shown by his Majesty towards the Dutch."

"Salt," said his lordship, eyeing him narrowly, "you are remarkably
intelligent."

"Why, my lord, should I conceal my thoughts when they tally with my
honest hopes? I look around, and what do I see? Dutchmen filling
every lucrative post; Dutchmen crowding the House of Lords; Dutchmen
commanding our armies; Dutchmen pocketing our fattest revenues.
England is weary of it. I, as an Englishman, am weary of it.
My lord, if I dared to say it--"

"Would you mind looking out and observing if the sentry is at his
post?"

Captain Salt stepped to the door and opened it. The sentry was at
the far end of the passage, engaged in his steady tramp to and fro.

"My lord," he said, closing the door softly and returning, "let this
mutiny fail! It will serve its purpose if it brings home to the
understanding of Englishmen the iniquity of this plague of Dutchmen.
Let that feeling ripen. You will return before the winter, and by
that time you may strike boldly. Then, from your place in the House
of Lords, you can move an address--"

"Go on," murmured the Earl, as he paused for a moment.

"--An address praying that all foreigners may be dismissed from his
Majesty's service."

The Earl looked up swiftly and checked his fingers, which had been
drumming on the table.

"Decidedly you are intelligent," he said very slowly.

"What can William do if that address is carried, as it may be?
To yield will be to discard his dearest friends: to resist will mean
a national rising. He will lose his crown."

"And then?"

"My lord, _may it not be possible to eject William without restoring
James?_"

"Ah!"

"There is the Princess Anne."

The Earl looked into his companion's eyes and read his own thoughts
there. James was a Papist, William a Dutchman; but the Princess Anne
was an Englishwoman and a Protestant. And the Earl and his Countess
held the Princess Anne under their thumbs. Let her succeed to the
throne, and he would be, to all intents, King of England. Nay, he
would hold the balance of Europe in his palm.

"My friend," he said, under his breath, "you are too dangerous."
Aloud he gave the talk a new turn.

"This mutiny will not succeed," he observed reflectively. "The men
who intend to rise must be informed against."

"It appears so."

"But not too soon. They must not succeed, as I said; but they must
have time enough to show their countrymen that the discontent is
serious, and to convince James that only an accident has prevented
their coming over to him in a body."

"That is clear enough."

"The only question," the Earl pursued, "is--who is to give the
information at the proper moment?"

"Undoubtedly that is a difficulty."

"I thought--excuse me if I come to the point--I thought that _you_
might do so."

"My lord!"

"You object?"

"Decidedly I do. Already I have risked too much in this business."

"I can think of nobody," said the Earl coldly, "so well suited for
the task. William thinks you are his spy, and would receive your
information without suspicion. He does not guess that, owing to my
knowledge of your past--of the affair of the dice at Antwerp, for
instance, or that trivial letter from Saint Germains which I happen
to possess--"

Captain Salt's sanguine cheeks were by this time white as death.

"If you insist--" he stammered in a hoarse voice that bore no
resemblance to his natural tone.

"I'm afraid I must. At the same time I mean to reward you," the Earl
continued pleasantly; "and a portion of the reward shall be paid in
advance. My dear captain, I have the most delightful surprise for
you. You were once a married man, and the lady you married was a
native of this port."

"Thank you, my lord; I was aware of the fact."

"You left her."

"I did."

"And in your absence she bore you a son."

"I have since heard a rumour to that effect," said Captain Salt
coldly.

"Cherish that son, for his worth to you is inestimable. He lies, at
this moment, on board the _Good Intent_--I regret to say in irons.
His Majesty enlisted him this afternoon, somewhat against his will,
and he began very unluckily by kicking his superior officer from one
end of the frigate to the other. It was the natural ebullition of
youth, and the sergeant was a Dutchman. Therefore in this letter I
have pardoned him. Take it--a boat is waiting for you--and convey it
to his captain. Thereafter seek the poor lad out and imprint the
parental kiss upon both cheeks. Reveal yourself to him!"

"Your lordship is excessively kind, but I stand in no immediate need of
filial love."

"My dear sir, I promise you that this son means thousands in your
pocket. He means to you a calm old age, surrounded by luxuries which
are hardly to be gained by espionage, however zealously practised."

"In what way, may I inquire?"

"I will inform you when you have done the small service I asked just
now."

Captain Salt took the letter and moved towards the door.

"By the way," the Earl said, "it may be painful to you to be reminded
of your former connection with Harwich; but did you happen to know,
in those days, two gentlemen, captains in King Charles's Navy, and
natives, I believe, of this town--Barker and Runacles?"

"I did. They were both, at one time, suitors for the hand of my late
wife."

"Indeed? I have been trying to enlist them for this business of the
mutiny."

"They were a simple pair, I remember, and would serve our purpose
admirably."

"I found them a trifle too simple. Well, I won't keep you just now.
Remember the help I expect from you; but we will talk that over in a
day or two. Meanwhile, keep a parent's eye upon your son (he's
called Tristram), for through him your reward will be attained.
Good night."



CHAPTER VII.


THE CAPTAINS MAKE A FALSE START.

It was past midnight when Captain Runacles left his friend's pavilion
and let himself through the little blue door to his own garden.
The heavens were clear and starry, and he paused for a moment on the
grass-plot, his hands clasped behind him, his head tilted back and
his eyes fixed on the Great Bear that hung directly overhead.

"Poor Jack!" he muttered, shaking his head at the constellation, as
if gently accusing Fate. His nature had been considerably softened
by the little man's distress, and he had come away with a generous
trouble in his heart.

"I shan't sleep a wink to-night," he decided; and went on
inconsequently, "After all, a girl is less anxiety than a boy.
People don't find it worth their while to kidnap a girl and flog her
with a cat-o'-nine-tails. A turn of a die, and I'd have been in
Jack's shoes to-night; while, as it is--"

As it was, however, he seemed hardly to enjoy his good fortune, for
he added, still looking up:

"Plague seize it! I shan't sleep a wink--I know I shan't. What a
magnificent show of stars! Let me see, how long is it before
daybreak? One-two-three-five hours only. I won't go to bed at all--
I'll have a turn at the telescope."

He stole into the house softly and climbed up the spiral staircase.
A faint light shone out on the first landing from the half-open door
of his workroom. He entered and turned up the lamp.

Its light revealed a scene of amazing disorder. The walls were
covered with books and charts; the floor was littered with
manuscripts, mathematical instruments, huge folios, piled
higgledy-piggledy, carpenter's tools, retorts, bottles of chemicals.
In one corner, beside a door leading to his bedroom, stood a
turning-lathe three inches deep in sawdust and shavings; in another,
a human skeleton hung against the wall, its feet concealed by the
model of a pumping-engine. Hard by was nailed a rack containing a
couple of antique swords, a walking-cane and a large telescope.

Captain Runacles took down this telescope and tucked it under his
arm. Then, unhitching a dressing-gown of faded purple from a peg
behind the door, he turned the lamp low again and stepped out upon
the landing. Here he paused for a minute and listened. The house
was still. From the floor below ascended the sound of breathing,
regular and stertorous, which proved that Simeon was asleep.

He put his hand on the stair-rail and ascended to the next floor,
passing his daughter's room on tiptoe. Above this, a flight of steps
that was little more than a ladder led up into the obscurity of the
attics. He climbed these steps, and, entering a lumber-room, where
he had to duck his head to avoid striking the sloping roof, felt his
way to a shuttered window, with the bolt of which he fumbled for a
moment. When at length he drew the shutter open, a whiff of cold air
streamed into the room and a parallelogram of purple sky was visible,
studded with stars and crossed by the bars of a little balcony.

Captain Runacles stepped out upon this balcony. He had constructed
it two years before, and it ran completely round the roof. Under his
feet he heard the pigeons murmuring in their cote. Below were spread
the dim grass-plots and flower-beds of the two gardens; and, far upon
his right, the misty leagues of the North Sea. Full in front of him,
over Harwich town, hung the dainty constellation of Cassiopeia's
chair, and all around the vast army of heaven moved, silent and
radiant. One seemed to hear its breathing up there, across the deep
calm of the firmament.

He turned to the western horizon, to the spot where the Pleiades had
just set for the summer months, and lifting his glass moved it slowly
up towards Capella and the Kids, thence on to Perseus, and that most
gorgeous tract of the Milky Way which lies thereby. Now, in the
sword-handle of Perseus, as it is called, are set two clusters of
gems, by trying to count which the Captain had, before now, amused
himself for hours together. He was about to make another attempt,
and in fact had reached fifty-six, when he felt a light touch on his
elbow.

He faced quickly round. Behind him, on the balcony, stood his
daughter.

"Don't be angry," she entreated in a whisper. "I heard you come up.
I couldn't sleep until I saw you."

He looked at her sternly. Her feet were bare, and she wore but a
dark cloak over her night-rail. In the years since we last saw her
she had grown from an awkward girl into a lovely woman. Thick waves
of dark hair, disarranged with much tossing on her pillow, fell upon
her shoulders and straggled over the lace upon her bosom. The face
they framed was pale in the starlight, but the lips were red, and the
black eyes feverishly bright.

"Father," she went on, "I have something I must tell you."

Then, as he continued to regard her with displeasure, she broke off,
and put the question that of all her trouble was uppermost.

"What has become of Tristram?"

"He has gone to make the campaign against the French. He was
enlisted to-day. It was--unexpected," her father answered slowly,
with his eyes fixed on hers.

"He went unwillingly," she said, speaking in a quick whisper; "he
was dragged off--trepanned! Simeon told me about it, and besides, I
know--"

"What do you know?"

"I know he never went willingly. Oh, father, listen"--with a swift
and pretty impulse she stepped forward, and reaching up her clasped
hands laid them on his shoulder--"Tristram--Tristram is very fond of
me."

"Good Lord!"

Captain Jemmy raised a hand to disengage her grasp from his shoulder,
but let it fall again.

"He told me so this morning at sunrise," she went on rapidly. "You
see, it was May morning, and I went out to gather the dew, and he was
there, in the garden already, and he said--well, he said what I told
you; and being so masterful--"

"I can't say I've observed that quality in the young man; but no
doubt you've had better opportunities of judging."

"You shan't talk like that!" she broke out almost fiercely. It was
curious that this girl, who until this moment had always trembled
before her father, now began to dominate him by force of her passion.

"Oh, I mustn't, eh? Devil take the fellow! He tumbles out of one
mess into another, and plays skittles with my peace of mind, and in
return I'm not allowed a word!"

"Father, you will fetch him back?"

"Now, how the--"

"But you must."

"Indeed!"

"Because I love him dearly--there! I have nobody left but you,
father." She knelt and caught his hand, exchanging audacity for
entreaty in a second.

"Little maid," said her father, with a tenderness as sudden,
"get up--your feet must be as cold as ice, on these slates.
Go in, and go to bed."

"Let me stay a little. I can't sleep indoors. It was so happy this
morning, and to-night the trouble is so heavy!"

Captain Jemmy vanished into the lumber-room for a moment, and
reappeared, tugging an old mattress after him and bearing a tattered
window-curtain under his left arm. He spread the mattress on the
balcony, motioned his daughter to sit, and wrapped her feet warmly in
his purple dressing-gown. Then, as she lay back, he spread the
curtain over her, tucking it close round her young body. She thanked
him with dim eyes.

"Sophia," he began, with much severity, "you say you have only your
old father in the world, and I'm bound to say you seem to find it
little enough. My dear, are you aware that you've just been
disappointing my dearest hopes?"

"Don't say that!"

"I begin to think I mustn't say anything. I have brought you up
carefully, instructing you in all polite learning, and even in some
of the abstruser sciences. I have meant you, all along, to be the
ornament of your sex, and now--the devil take it!--you prefer, after
all, to be an ornament of the other! I intended you, by your
accomplishments, to make that young man look foolish."

"And I assure you, father dear, he did look foolish this morning, and
again this afternoon in the summer-house."

"Now, upon my soul, Sophia! I call your attention to the fact I've
been suspecting ever since you began to speak, that you're at the
bottom of all to-day's mischief. If that unfortunate youth hadn't
been making love to you when he should have been attending to the
bees, the chances are they would never have taken it into their heads
to swarm upon that accursed arch, and consequently . . ."

There was nothing which Captain Runacles enjoyed so thoroughly as to
discover the connection between effects and their causes. When such
a chance offered, it was a common experience with him to be drawn
into prolixity. But he was pained and surprised, nevertheless, after
twenty minutes' discourse (in which he proved Sophia, and Sophia
alone, to be responsible for the disasters of the day), to find that
she had dropped asleep. He looked down for a minute or so upon her
closed lids, then moved to the rail of the balcony and ejaculated
under his breath:

"O woman--woman! Wise art thou as the dove, and about as harmless as
the serpent!"

He considered the heavens for some moments, and added with some
tartness but with a far-off look at the stars, as though aiming the
remark at the late Mrs. Runacles:

"Her charm, at any rate, is not derived from her mother!"

He turned abruptly and considered her as she slept under the stars.
Stooping after a minute or two, and lifting her very gently, he bore
her into the house and down to her own room. As they descended the
ladder from the attic, she stirred and opened her eyes drowsily:

"You will bring Tristram back?" she murmured, but so softly that he
had to bend his head to catch the syllables.

Her eyes closed again before he could answer. He carried her to her
bed and laid her upon it; then, after waiting a while to assure
himself that she was fast asleep, retraced his steps softly to the
little balcony.

He was pacing it, round and round, like a caged beast, when the stars
grew faint and the silver ripple of the dayspring broke over the sea.
For two hours and more he had been thinking hard, and he rested his
elbows on the balcony and paused for a minute or two to watch the red
ball of the sun as it heaved above the waters. To the north, beyond
the roofs of Harwich, he saw the lights of the royal squadron still
clear in the grey dawn. Next his gaze turned to the triumphal arch
in the road below, which wore a peculiarly dissipated look at this
hour. Then it strayed back to the garden below him and beyond the
party hedge; and was suddenly arrested.

On a rustic seat, in the far corner, sat Captain Barker, trying to
read in a book.

The little man, too, had obviously passed the night out of his bed.
His clothes were dishevelled and his attitude was one of extreme
dejection. He kept his head bowed over the book and was wholly
unaware of the eyes that watched him from the opposite pavilion.

But his friend above on the balcony displayed the most nervous
apprehension of being seen. He took his hand from the rail, as if
fearful of making the slightest sound, and stole back through the
window into the lumber-room. Once within the house, however, he
behaved with the briskest determination. Descending first of all to
his own room, he washed his face and towelled it till it glowed.
Then, changing his coat and wig, he took up hat and cane, descended
to the front-door, and crossing the grass-plot, let himself into
Captain Barker's garden.

Captain Barker still sat and read in his book; and as he read the
tears coursed down his wrinkled cheeks. For it was the first of the
famous green volumes.

He looked up as his friend advanced; and Captain Jemmy was forced to
regard the weathercock on the roof for a minute or so to make sure of
the quarter in which the wind lay.

"It's due west," said Captain John, as he stared up; "and it's
ebb-tide till nine o'clock. They'll sail early."

"H'm; I shouldn't wonder. You're early out of bed."

"Well, for the matter of that, so are you--eh?"

"I haven't been to bed."

"Nor have I."

"I've been thinking," said Captain Runacles.

"And I've been trying not to think."

"Well, but I've come to a conclusion. Go and get your hat, Jack."

"Why?"

"We've got to fetch Tristram back."

"How?"

"By tossing our consciences over the hedge and going to see King
William."

The little man shook his head.

"No, Jemmy. You mean it kindly, and God bless you! But I can't do
it."

"Why not? If _I_ can do it--"

"You'd repent it, Jemmy. You're letting your love for me carry you
too far."

"What put it into your head that I'd do this for love of _you_?"

"For Tristram, then."

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