Book: Richard Carvel, Volume 8

W >> Winston Churchill >> Richard Carvel, Volume 8




I knew full well she meant it, and the terror of losing her kept me
silent. She put down the cup, placed another pillow behind my head with
a marvellous deftness, and then began feeding me in dainty spoonfuls
something which was surely nectar. And mine eyes, too, had their feast.
Never before had I seen my lady in this gentle guise, this task of
nursing the sick, which her doing raised to a queenly art.

Her face had changed some. Years of trial unknown to me had left an
ennobling mark upon her features, increasing their power an hundred fold.
And the levity of girlish years was gone. How I burned to question her!
But her lips were now tight closed, her glance now and anon seeking mine,
and then falling with an exquisite droop to the coverlet. For the old
archness, at least, would never be eradicated. Presently, after she had
taken the cup and smoothed my pillow, I reached out for her hand. It was
a boldness of which I had not believed myself capable; but she did not
resist, and even, as I thought, pressed my fingers with her own slender
ones, the red of our Maryland holly blushing in her cheeks. And what
need of words, indeed! Our thoughts, too, flew coursing hand in hand
through primrose paths, and the angels themselves were not to be envied.

A master might picture my happiness, waking and sleeping, through the
short winter days that came and went like flashes of gray light. The
memory of them is that of a figure tall and lithe, a little more rounded
than of yore, and a chiselled face softened by a power that is one of the
world's mysteries. Dorothy had looked the lady in rags, and housewife's
cap and apron became her as well as silks or brocades. When for any
reason she was absent from my side, I moped, to the quiet amusement of
Mrs. Manners and the more boisterous delight of Aunt Lucy, who took her
turn sewing in the window. I was near to forgetting the use of words,
until at length, one rare morning when the sun poured in, the jolly
doctor dressed my wounds with more despatch than common, and vouchsafed
that I might talk awhile that day.

"Oh!" cries he, putting me as ever to confusion, "but I have a guess
whom my gentleman will be wishing to talk with. But I'll warrant, sir,
you have said a deal more than I have any notion of without opening your
lips."

And he went away, intolerably pleased with his joke.

Alas for the perversity of maiden natures! It was not my dear nurse who
brought my broth that morning, but Mrs. Manners herself. She smiled at
my fallen face, and took a chair at my bedside.

"Now, my dear boy," she said, "you may ask what questions you choose, and
I will tell you very briefly how you have come here."

"I have been thinking, Mrs. Manners," I replied, "that if it were known
that you harboured one of John Paul Jones's officers in London, very
serious trouble might follow for you."

I thought her brow clouded a little.

"No one knows of it, Richard, or is likely to. Dr. Barry, like so many
in England, is a good Whig and friend to America. And you are in a part
of London far removed from Mayfair." She hesitated, and then continued
in a voice that strove to be lighter: "This little house is in Charlotte
Street, Mary-le-Bone, for the war has made all of us suffer some. And we
are more fortunate than many, for we are very comfortable here, and
though I say it, happier than in Arlington Street. And the best of our
friends are still faithful. Mr. Fox, with all his greatness, has never
deserted us, nor my Lord Comyn. Indeed, we owe them much more than I can
tell you of now," she said, and sighed. "They are here every day of the
world to inquire for you, and it was his Lordship brought you out of
Holland."

And so I had reason once more to bless this stanch friend!

"Out of Holland?" I cried.

"Yes. One morning as we sat down to breakfast, Mr. Ripley's clerk
brought in a letter for Dorothy. But I must say first that Mr. Dulany,
who is in London, told us that you were with John Paul Jones. You can
have no conception, Richard, of the fear and hatred that name has aroused
in England. Insurance rates have gone up past belief, and the King's
ships are cruising in every direction after the traitor and pirate, as
they call him. We have prayed daily for your safety, and Dorothy--well,
here is the letter she received. It had been opened by the inspector,
and allowed to pass. And it is to be kept as a curiosity." She drew it
from the pocket of her apron and began to read.

"THE TEXEL, October 3, 1779

"MY DEAR Miss DOROTHY: I would not be thought to flutter y'r Gentle
Bosom with Needless Alarms, nor do I believe I have misjudged y'r
Warm & Generous Nature when I write you that One who is held very
High in y'r Esteem lies Exceeding Ill at this Place, who might by
Tender Nursing regain his Health. I seize this Opportunity to say,
my dear Lady, that I have ever held my too Brief Acquaintance with
you in London as one of the Sacred Associations of my Life. From
the Little I saw of you then I feel Sure that this Appeal will not
pass in Vain. I remain y'r most Humble and Devoted Admirer,

"JAMES ORCHARDSON."


"And she knew it was from Commodore Jones?" I asked, in astonishment.

"My dear," replied Mrs. Manners, with a quiet smile, "we women have a
keener instinct than men--though I believe your commodore has a woman's
intuition. Yes, Dorothy knew. And I shall never forget the fright she
gave me as she rose from the table and handed me the sheet to read,
crying but the one word. She sent off to Brook Street for Lord Comyn,
who came at once, and, in half an hour the dear fellow was set out for
Dover. He waited for nothing, since war with Holland was looked for at
any day. And his Lordship himself will tell you about that rescue.
Within the week he had brought you to us. Your skull had been trepanned,
you had this great hole in your thigh, and your heart was beating but
slowly. By Mr. Fox's advice we sent for Dr. Barry, who is a skilled
surgeon, and a discreet man despite his manner. And you have been here
for better than three weeks, Richard, hanging between life and death."

"And I owe my life to you and to Dorothy," I said.

"To Lord Comyn and Dr. Barry, rather," she replied quickly. "We have
done little but keep the life they saved. And I thank God it was given
me to do it for the son of your mother and father."

Something of the debt I owed them was forced upon me.

They were poor, doubtless driven to make ends meet, and yet they had
taken me in, called upon near the undivided services of an able surgeon,
and worn themselves out with nursing me. Nor did I forget the risk they
ran with such a guest. For the first time in many years my heart
relented toward Mr. Marmaduke. For their sakes I forgave him over and
over what I had suffered, and my treatment of him lay like a weight upon
me. And how was I to repay them? They needed the money I had cost them,
of that I was sure. After the sums I had expended to aid the commodore
with the 'Ranger' and the 'Bon homme Richard', I had scarce a farthing to
my name. With such leaden reflections was I occupied when I heard Mrs.
Manners speaking to me.

"Richard, I have some news for you which the doctor thinks you can bear
to-day. Mr. Dulany, who is exiled like the rest of us, brought them. It
is a great happiness to be able to tell you, my dear, that you are now
the master of Carvel Hall, and like to stay so."

The tears stole into her eyes as she spoke. And the enormity of those
tidings, coming as they did on the top of my dejection, benumbed me.
All they meant was yet far away from my grasp, but the one supreme result
that was first up to me brought me near to fainting in my weakness.

"I would not raise your hopes unduly, Richard," the good lady was saying,
"but the best informed here seem to think that England cannot push the
war much farther. If the Colonies win, you are secure in your title."

"But how is it come about, Mrs. Manners?" I demanded, with my first
breath.

"You doubtless have heard that before the Declaration was signed at
Philadelphia your Uncle Grafton went to the committee at Annapolis and
contributed to the patriot cause, and took very promptly the oath of the
Associated Freemen of Maryland, thus forsaking the loyalist party--"

"Yes, yes," I interrupted, "I heard of it when I was on the Cabot. He
thought his property in danger."

"Just so," said Mrs. Manners, laughing; "he became the best and most
exemplary of patriots, even as he had been the best of Tories. He sent
wheat and money to the army, and went about bemoaning that his only son
fought under the English flag. But very little fighting has Philip done,
my dear. Well, when the big British fleet sailed up the bay in '77, your
precious uncle made the first false step in his long career of rascality.
He began to correspond with the British at Philadelphia, and one of his
letters was captured near the Head of Elk. A squad was sent to the Kent
estate, where he had been living, to arrest him, but he made his escape
to New York. And his lands were at once confiscated by the state."

"'Then they belong to the state," I said, with misgiving.

"Not so fast, Richard. At the last session of the Maryland Legislature
a bill was introduced, through the influence of Mr. Bordley and others,
to restore them to you, their rightful owner. And insomuch as you were
even then serving the country faithfully and bravely, and had a clean and
honourable record of service, the whole of the lands were given to you.
And now, my dear, you have had excitement enough for one day."




CHAPTER LIV

MORE DISCOVERIES

All that morning I pondered over the devious lane of my life, which had
led up to so fair a garden. And one thing above all kept turning and
turning in my head, until I thought I should die of waiting for its
fulfilment. Now was I free to ask Dorothy to marry me, to promise her
the ease and comfort that had once been hers, should God bring us safe
back to Maryland. The change in her was little less than a marvel to me,
when I remembered the wilful miss who had come to London bent upon
pleasure alone. Truly, she was of that rare metal which refines, and
then outshines all others. And there was much I could not understand.
A miracle had saved her from the Duke of Chartersea, but why she had
refused so many great men and good was beyond my comprehension. Not a
glimpse of her did I get that day, though my eyes wandered little from
the knob of the door. And even from Aunt Lucy no satisfaction was to be
had as to the cause of her absence.

"'Clare to goodness, Marse Dick," said she, with great solemnity, "'clare
to goodness, I'se nursed Miss Dolly since she was dat high, and neber one
minnit obher life is I knowed what de Chile gwine t' do de next. She
ain't neber yit done what I calcelated on."

The next morning, after the doctor had dressed my wounds and bantered me
to his heart's content, enters Mr. Marmaduke Manners. I was prodigiously
struck by the change in him, and pitied him then near as much as I had
once despised him. He was arrayed in finery, as of old. But the finery
was some thing shabby; the lace was frayed at the edges, there was a neat
but obvious patch in his small-clothes, and two more in his coat. His
air was what distressed me most of all, being that of a man who spends
his days seeking favours and getting none. I had seen too many of the
type not to know the sign of it.

He ran forward and gave me his hand, which I grasped as heartily as my
weakness would permit.

"They would not let me see you until to-day, my dear Richard," he
exclaimed. "I bid you welcome to what is left of our home. 'Tis not
Arlington Street, my lad."

"But more of a home than was that grander house, Mr. Manners."

He sighed heavily.

"Alas!" said he, "poverty is a bitter draught, and we have drunk deep of
it since last we beheld you. My great friends know me no more, and will
not take my note for a shilling. They do not remember the dinners and
suppers I gave them. Faith, this war has brought nothing but misery,
and how we are to get through it, God knows!"

Now I understood it was not the war, but Mr. Marmaduke himself, which had
carried his family to this pass. And some of my old resentment
rekindled.

"I know that I have brought you great additional anxiety and expense,
Mr. Manners," I answered somewhat testily. "The care I have been to Mrs.
Manners and Dorothy I may never repay. But it gives me pleasure to feel,
sir, that I am in a position to reimburse you, and likewise to loan you
something until your lands begin to pay again."

"There the Carvel speaks," he cried, "and the true son of our generous
province. You can have no conception of the misfortunes come to me out
of this quarrel. The mortgages on my Western Shore tobacco lands are
foreclosed, and Wilmot House itself is all but gone. You well know, of
course, that I would do the same by you, Richard."

I smiled, but more in sadness than amusement. Hardship had only degraded
Mr. Marmaduke the more, and even in trouble his memory was convenient as
is that of most people in prosperity. I was of no mind to jog his
recollection. But I wanted badly to ask about his Grace. Where had my
fine nobleman been at the critical point of his friend's misfortunes?
For I had had many a wakeful night over that same query since my talk
with McAndrews.

"So you have come to your own again, Richard, my lad," said Mr.
Marmaduke, breaking in upon my train. "I have felt for you deeply, and
talked many a night with Margaret and Dorothy over the wrong done you.
Between you and me," he whispered, "that uncle of yours is an arrant
knave, whom the patriots have served with justice. To speak truth, sir,
I begin myself to have a little leaning to that cause which you have so
bravely espoused."

This time I was close to laughing outright. But he was far too serious
to remark my mirth. He commenced once more, with an ahem, which gave me
a better inkling than frankness of what bothered him.

"You will have an agent here, Richard, I take it," said he. "Your
grandfather had one. Ahem! Doubtless this agent will advance you all
you shall have need of, when you are well enough to see him. Fact is,
he might come here."

"You forget, Mr. Manners, that I am a pirate and an outlaw, and that you
are the shielder of such."

That thought shook the pinch of Holland he held all over him. But he
recovered.

"My dear Richard, men of business are of no faction and of no nation.
Their motto is discretion. And to obtain the factorship in London of a
like estate to yours one of them would wear a plaster over his mouth,
I'll warrant you. You have but to summon one of the rascals, promise him
a bit of war interest, and he will leave you as much as you desire, and
nothing spoken."

"To talk plainly, Mr. Manners," I replied, "I think 'twould be the height
of folly to resort to such means. When I am better, we shall see what
can be done."

His face plainly showed his disappointment.

"To be sure," he said, in a whining tone, "I had forgotten your friends,
Lord Comyn and Mr. Fox. They may do something for you, now you own your
estate. My dear sir, I dislike to say aught against any man. Mrs.
Manners will tell you of their kindness to us, but I vow I have not been
able to see it. With all the money at their command they will not loan
me a penny in my pressing need. And I shame to say it, my own daughter
prevents me from obtaining the money to keep us out of the Fleet. I know
she has spoken to Dulany. Think of it, Richard, my own daughter, upon
whom I lavished all when I had it, who might have made a score of grand
matches when I gave her the opportunity, and now we had all been rolling
in wealth. I'll be sworn I don't comprehend her, nor her mother either,
who abets her. For they prefer to cook Maryland dainties for a living,
to put in the hands of the footmen of the ladies whose houses they once
visited. And how much of that money do you suppose I get, sir? Will you
believe it that I--" (he was shrieking now), "that I, the man of the
family, am allowed only my simple meals, a farthing for snuff, and not a
groat for chaise-hire? At my age I am obliged to walk to and from their
lordships' side entrances in patched clothes, egad, when a new suit might
obtain us a handsome year's income!"

I turned my face to the wall, completely overcome, and the tears scalding
in my eyes, at the thought of Dorothy and her mother bending over the
stove cooking delicacies for their livelihood, and watching at my bedside
night and day despite their weariness of body. And not a word out of
these noble women of their sacrifice, nor of the shame and trouble and
labour of their lives, who always had been used to every luxury! Nothing
but cheer had they brought to the sickroom, and not a sign of their
poverty and hardship, for they knew that their broths and biscuit and
jellies must have choked me. No. It remained for this contemptible
cur of a husband and father to open my eyes.

He had risen when I had brought myself to look at him. And as I hope for
heaven he took my emotion for pity of himself.

"I have worried you enough for one day with my troubles, my lad," said
he. "But they are very hard to bear, and once in a while it does me good
to speak of them."

I did not trust myself to reply.

It was Aunt Lucy who spent the morning with me, and Mrs. Manners brought
my dinner. I observed a questioning glance as she entered, which I took
for an attempt to read whether Mr. Marmaduke had spoke more than he
ought. But I would have bitten off my tongue rather than tell her of my
discoveries, though perhaps my voice may have betrayed an added concern.
She stayed to talk on the progress of the war, relating the gallant
storming of Stony Point by Mad Anthony in July, and the latest Tory
insurrection on our own Eastern Shore. She passed from these matters to
a discussion of General Washington's new policy of the defensive, for
Mrs. Manners had always been at heart a patriot. And whilst I lay
listening with a deep interest, in comes my lady herself. So was it
ever, when you least expected her, even as Mammy had said. She curtseyed
very prettily, with her chin tilted back and her cheeks red, and asked me
how I did.

"And where have you been these days gone, Miss Will-o'the-Wisp, since the
doctor has given me back my tongue?" I cried.

"I like you better when you are asleep," says she. "For then you are
sometimes witty, though I doubt not the wit is other people's."

So I saw that she had tricked me, and taken her watch at night. For I
slept like a trooper after a day's forage. As to what I might have said
in my dreams--that thought made me red as an apple.

"Dorothy, Dorothy," says her mother, smiling, "you would provoke a
saint."

"Which would be better fun than teasing a sinner," replies the minx, with
a little face at me. "Mr. Carvel, a gentleman craves the honour of an
audience from your Excellency."

"A gentleman!"

"Even so. He presents a warrant from your Excellency's physician."

With that she disappeared, Mrs. Manners going after her. And who should
come bursting in at the door but my Lord Comyn? He made one rush at me,
and despite my weakness bestowed upon me a bear's hug.

"Oh, Richard," cried he, when he had released me, "I give you my oath
that I never hoped to see you rise from that bed when we laid you there.
But they say that love works wondrous cures, and, egad, I believe that
now. 'Tis love is curing you, my lad."

He held me off at arm's length, the old-time affection beaming from his
handsome face.

"What am I to say to you, Jack?" I answered. And my voice was all but
gone, for the sight of him revived the memory of every separate debt of
the legion I owed him. "How am I to piece words enough together to thank
you for this supreme act of charity?"

"'Od's, you may thank your own devilish thick head," said my Lord Comyn.
"I should never have bothered my own about you were it not for her. Had
it not been for her happiness do you imagine I would have picked you out
of that crew of half-dead pirates in the Texel fort?"

I must needs brush my cheek, then, with the sleeve of my night-rail.

"And will you give me some account of this last prodigious turn you have
done her?" I said.

He laughed, and pinched me playfully.

"Now are you coming to your senses," said he. "There was cursed little
to the enterprise, Richard, and that's the truth. I got down to Dover,
and persuaded the master of a schooner to carry me to Rotterdam. That
was not so difficult, since your Terror of the Seas was locked up safe
enough in the Texel. In Rotterdam I had a travelling-chaise stripped,
and set off at the devil's pace for the Texel. You must know that the
whole Dutch nation was in an uproar--as much of an uproar as those boors
ever reach--over the arrival of your infamous squadron. The Court Party
and our ambassador were for having you kicked out, and the Republicans
for making you at home. I heard that their High Mightinesses had given
Paul Jones the use of the Texel fort for his wounded and his prisoners,
and thither I ran. And I was even cursing the French sentry at the
drawbridge in his own tongue, when up comes your commodore himself.
You may quarter me if wasn't knocked off my feet when I recognized the
identical peacock of a sea-captain we had pulled out of Castle Yard
along with you, and offered a commission in the Royal Navy."

"Dolly hadn't told you?"

"Dolly tell me!" exclaimed his Lordship, scornfully. "She was in a state
to tell me nothing the morning I left, save only to bring you to England
alive, and repeat it over and over. But to return to your captain,--he,
too, was taken all aback. But presently he whipt out my name, and I his,
without the Jones. And when I told him my errand, he wept on my neck,
and said he had obtained unlimited leave of absence for you from the
Paris commissioners. He took me up into a private room in the fort,
where you were; and the surgeon, who was there at the time, said that
your chances were as slim as any man's he had ever seen. Faith, you
looked it, my lad. At sight of your face I took one big gulp, for I had
no notion of getting you back to her. And rather than come without you,
and look into her eyes, I would have drowned myself in the Straits of
Dover.

"Despite the host of troubles he had on his hands, your commodore himself
came with us to Rotterdam. Now I protest I love that man, who has more
humanity in him than most of the virtuous people in England who call him
hard names. If you could have seen him leaning over you, and speaking to
you, and feeling every minute for your heart-beats, egad, you would have
cried. And when I took you off to the schooner, he gave me an hundred
directions how to care for you, and then his sorrow bowled him all in a
heap."

"And is the commodore still at the Texel?" I asked, after a space.

"Ay, that he is, with our English cruisers thick as gulls outside'
waiting for a dead fish. But he has spurned the French commission they
have offered him, saying that of the Congress is good enough for him.
And he declares openly that when he gets ready he will sail out in the
Alliance under the Stars and Stripes. And for this I honour him," added
he, "and Charles honours him, and so must all Englishmen honour him when
they come to their senses. And by Gads life, I believe he will get
clear, for he is a marvel at seamanship."

"I pray with all my heart that he may," said I, fervently.

"God help him if they catch him!" my Lord exclaimed. "You should see
the bloody piratical portraits they are scattering over London."

"Has the risk you ran getting me into England ever occurred to you,
Jack?" I asked, with some curiosity.

"Faith, not until the day after we got back, Richard," says he, "when I
met Mr. Attorney General on the street. 'Sdeath, I turned and ran the
other way like the devil was after me. For Charles Fox vows that
conscience makes cowards of the best of us."

"So that is some of Charles's wisdom!" I cried, and laughed until I was
forced to stop from pain.

"Come, my hearty," says Jack, "you owe me nothing for fishing you out of
Holland--that is her debt. But I declare that you must one day pay me
for saving her for you. What! have I not always sworn that she loved
you? Did I not pull you into the coffee-room of the Star and Garter
years ago, and tell you that same?"

My face warmed, though I said nothing.

"Oh, you sly dog! I'll warrant there has been many a tender talk just
where I'm sitting."

"Not one," said I.

"'Slife, then, what have you been doing," he cries, "seeing her every day
and not asking her to marry you, my master of Carvel Hall?"

"Since I am permitted to use my tongue, she has not come near me, save
when I slept," I answered ruefully.

"Nor will she, I'll be sworn," says he, shaken with laughter.

"'Ods, have you no invention? Egad, you must feign sleep, and seize her
unawares."

I did not inform his Lordship how excellent this plan seemed to me.

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