Part 21

With the coming of winter there had been strange happenings at the Purcells’ house in Pall Mall, for my lady had died the night after Stephen Gore’s going, with no one to comfort her but Mrs. Jael. The servants had all fled, and the house stood deserted save for the live woman and the dead one; the very tradesmen shirked the steps; friends had business elsewhere; and Dr. Hemstruther himself, being a keen Protestant when popery was especially perilous, kept his distance, knowing that my Lord Gore’s influence had been paramount there in heart and body. For my Lord Gore was one of the Catholic gentlemen upon whom the Plot-men longed to lay their hands.

It happened that when poor Anne Purcell died that there was some store of silver and of plate in the house, also her jewels and trinkets, and sundry precious things that belonged to the Purcell family. Mrs. Jael showed some little care for the corpse by covering it with a clean sheet, but she showed far more care for her own concerns and for the valuables that were at her mercy. She ransacked the whole house, gathering every small thing of value into a heap on the floor of one of the attics, gloating and smiling over it, and promising herself great joys. For Mrs. Jael had picked up a sweetheart, a rough, sturdy fellow from Aldgate way, and she crept out one night to warn him of her good-fortune, and to persuade him to help in spiriting away the plunder. The man was a common thief, and had tricked even the smooth, sly Jael for three months past, pretending that he was in the cloth trade, and that he hankered greatly after a comely widow. He was ready enough to join in the adventure, and cared as little for small-pox as for the reek of an open drain. And thus Mrs. Jael let him into the house by night, and they packed up the plunder between them in a couple of sacks, and so went their way into the darkness. But the man no longer had any desire for the voluptuous embraces of a widow, and in some way Mrs. Jael came to her end that night, and was found weeks later afloat in the Thames, an unrecognizable and nameless body.

Now Jael, during the time that she was gathering the treasure together, had left lights burning in my lady’s room to make people think that Anne Purcell was still alive. She had put new candles to burn the very night she had fled out to her death, and so an eerie thing befell, for officers in quest of papists, and my Lord Gore in particular, broke into the house, having heard the rumor of small-pox and considered that it might be a trick. But they found Anne Purcell lying dead in her bed, a sheet covering her, and the candles burning, not a living soul in the whole house, and every chest and cupboard rifled. So the Law stepped in, beat round for witnesses, and buried my lady at night with a bushel of quick-lime and extra pay to the man who buried her. Then there was a learned to-do, much hunting out of documents, and much puzzling over facts. For Mistress Barbara Purcell was her father’s heiress after her mother’s death, and Mistress Barbara had come within the chancellor’s ken by reason of unsound mind, yet no living soul seemed able to tell where this same Barbara Purcell was. The lawyers looked wise over it, and sat down cheerfully to make their pickings, Chancery claiming authority in the case, and not caring greatly how long the dilemma lasted so long as they handled the property. For every man’s mind was full of the Plot those months, and not for many years had the wigs boasted so much business.

Titus Oates had come toward full notoriety in October by harrowing the public with the fulminations of a furious imagination. Then had followed Sir Edmundbury Godfrey’s murder, the seizing of Coleman’s correspondence, and a panic in London, with mobs shouting in the streets. The Protestant beacon had been fired, and blazed with terrified fury, while Oates threw fagot after fagot to feed the flames. Catholic peers were cast into the Tower; two thousand or more smaller people were arrested; all papists commanded to leave London. The train-bands marched through the streets; executions were soon to begin; it was nothing but Plot—Plot—Plot—from Parliament to Pulpit.

At Thorn, in Sussex, my Lord of Gore hid himself from the knowledge of all these things, a man shrunken strangely from his former buxom self, a man without nerve or energy for the moment, vacillating between plans on a dash across the Channel for France, and the timidity of a hunted thing that fears to leave its hiding-place for the open. Even as Monmouth the Protestant prince at the head of an army differed from Monmouth the panic-obsessed fugitive skulking in a ditch, so the Stephen Gore of Whitehall differed from the Stephen Gore of Thorn. Some blight seemed to have fallen on him, turning his manhood into a white-faced, memory-haunted thing afraid of the very shadow of its own thoughts. That brief, fierce burst of winter may have helped to chill the marrow in the courtier’s bones, with the wailing of the wind and the whirling of the snow. For a man cannot do without food and fire, and Stephen Gore had to turn drudge to his own need. At first he had tried to dispense with a fire for fear the smoke should betray him, but when he had shivered and ached for two days his caution surrendered to the lust for warmth, and he brought in fagots and with great trouble made a blaze. He had found a store of salted meat, ship’s biscuits, and other stuffs still left in the place, and though Thorn had a horror for him, he clung to it like a fox to his “earth,” knowing of no other place wherein to hide himself. For there seemed hardly a better place in the kingdom than Thorn, for Pinniger and his woman had not been molested all those weeks. There would be a score of open ways for a bold and resolute man to take later, but the heart was utterly out of Stephen Gore, and the spirit of yesterday was not the spirit of to-day.

Yet what, after all, had he to fear, setting visions of judgment and other worlds aside, but the passing fury of a Protestant mob and the wild tale of a double murder? A month ago these menaces would have stung the self in the man to thrust them aside with audacity and resolution. But a climax had come and gone; something was breaking in him and taking his cool self-trust away, and he felt like Samson shorn of his hair. Perhaps the bile had congealed in him with the cold, for nothing can make a man more tame and listless than a clogged and sluggish liver. Perhaps he had lost faith in his own genius for success. Perhaps he was penitent. This last would have been the pretty, saintly end, confession and absolution, penance, the lighting of tapers and saying of masses, and all the saints in the calendar stretching out succoring hands. Yet there is something incongruous in the idea of a strong, selfish, cynical man huddling himself feverishly into the habit of religiosity when Retribution comes knocking at the door. It often fails to impress the conscience. It is not always convincing, even in romance.

Probably the secret of all this crumbling up of courage lay in the nature of the man’s very self. Vanity may be a rare cement in the walls of a man’s fortune so long as there is no corroding acid in the air. And Stephen Gore’s genius had rested upon his vanity, not in his dress alone, but in all those attributes that a man desires to see given to his splendor. His vital force had been fed upon the pleasant things of life; he was a self-inflated, artificial creature, who was strong so long as he could be flattered. But, like an orthodox believer smitten to the heart with doubt, he began to find his convictions dissolving into chaos, and the adulations of self-worship becoming a mockery despite his efforts to believe them real.

Voices—sharp, sneering, sardonic voices that he had had the strength to stifle of old—began to cut him with his own cleverness, using the very gibes against him that he had used in the gay salons to his own glory. For when a cynic falls into misfortune he is likely to discover that he has nurtured a devil that will use its claws upon the master who has reared it.

Stephen Gore had often said that—

“A man who begins to think his virtue shabby is a man who cannot afford to pay his tailor—the priest.”

“Never confess to yourself any cause for shame, or you will soon find your feet in the mire.”

“Men may regret; only women and fools repent.”

“Consciousness is life; therefore a man ought to suffer himself to be conscious only of pleasant things.”

And my Lord of Gore was having a wider consciousness forced upon him in the narrow world of that ruined house. And where were the studied pleasantries of consciousness? A fine gentleman feeding on salt beef and onions, scraping his own fire together, and living in devout horror of a prosaic thing called death. So much so that he was possessed by a species of “morsomania” grim enough to prevent him seeing the cynically comic side of his own condition.

XLI

A man in love is not supposed to think of his lady’s clothes, but only of the brightness of her eyes and the beauty of her body, the way her lips curve when she smiles, and how she may look coy or mischievous, or sad and silent with some mysterious desire. Yet there is a delight in practical things when shoes are for certain feet, and the petticoats to hide a certain comely pair of ankles. John Gore had inquired of Mrs. Winnie as to the shops in Battle Town, and qualified her enthusiasm somewhat to himself when she vowed that Mr. Bannister’s mercery and haberdashery shop might have served the Queen.

Chris Jennifer was riding into Battle that week, for the wind had backed into the southwest, and the snow had thawed in a day. And John Gore set forward to ride with Mr. Jennifer, Mrs. Winnie whispering to him that her man could carry a power of things, being accustomed to suffer all manner of commissions. For Barbara had nothing but the clothes she stood in, and was wearing a pair of Mrs. Winnie’s shoes when she went down the garden path to watch John Gore mount for Battle. Mrs. Jennifer was always taking her man by the coat-tails when these “young things” were about together. Poor Christopher had no peace in his own house, being ordered out of the way wherever he might go, and told that he was a blind booby for not keeping the corner of an eye open, and for not thrashing those lazy, gossiping rogues—his men—for loitering and hanging about the buildings. Yet Christopher took it all very patiently, going out to the stable to smoke his pipe and teach son William to make “jumping-jacks” and bird snares and pop-guns out of elder wood.

Mr. Jennifer and John Gore came to Battle Town that day and pulled up outside Mr. Bannister’s shop, where Mill Street ran toward Mountjoy and The Mills. Chris Jennifer had business at the farrier’s and the grocer’s, so he left John Gore to his own affairs, promising to be back in half an hour in order to help load the baggage. John Gore called a boy to hold his horse, and went into Mr. Bannister’s shop with the grim air of an Englishman who is tempted to feel shy.

A young woman came forward with ribbons in her cap, and a saucy, giggling look that seemed to rally the gentleman on his surroundings. John Gore had no use for her at all. He looked round the shop and saw no one else but a little old woman carding wool.

“Is Mr. Bannister in?”

The girl stared, and the old lady put down her wool. John Gore took off his hat to her.

“May I see Mr. Bannister himself, madam?”

“Titsy, go and see where the master is.”

And Titsy went, with a flaunting fling of the shoulders, for the man had not taken off his hat to her.

Mr. Bannister was a mild man in rusty brown. John Gore could see that he had just washed his hands and bustled into his Sunday wig, for he had put it on awry. He came forward with the walk of a man who suffered from chronic rheumatism about the spine, and he was wearing at least five pairs of stockings, to judge by his bulgy legs.

John Gore persuaded him to the end of the counter next the door, not at all pleased to see that Titsy of the ribbons had come back into the shop and was listening with both her ears.

“Good-day, sir. In what way may I serve you?”

“I want some of these stuffs here, God knows what you call them, stuff for gowns and petticoats—and—and—things!”

The need seemed rather vague and extensive. Mr. Bannister worked his mouth about, and wondered who the stranger was and whether he had proper money. The girl Titsy began to giggle, and John Gore half wished that he had let Mrs. Winnie come and do the shopping for him, though her taste was crude and monstrous in many ways.

“The fact is, sir, I have been made the guardian of a young gentlewoman, and I find that she is not clothed in the style she should be. Come here to the door, sir, to get out of range of that confounded girl of yours, whose manners might be mended. Now, Mr. Bannister, I have heard your shop well spoken of, and I want proper stuffs for a wardrobe. The—the—you know what I mean—I leave it to you; but show me your cloths and silks and ribbons.”

Mr. Bannister was a man of tact, especially when a gentleman produced a purse. He turned Titsy and the old lady out of the shop, locked the door, and commenced business. John Gore was soon handling all manner of dainty stuffs: silks, brocades, cloth of red and green and blue, cottons, and the like. Mrs. Winnie had truly praised Mr. Bannister’s store of treasures, and the lover soon had all that he listed for the glorifying of his lady.

Gold passed across the counter. Mr. Bannister had begun piling certain dainty linen aside with the mystery of a man of sentiment.

“Can I send these by the carrier, sir?”

“Thanks; my friend and I can take them, if you will cord the stuff so that we can carry it aboard our horses.”

“Very good, sir, very good.”

Mr. Jennifer came in at that moment, his hat on the back of his head and his face trying to kill a grin. Mr. Bannister glanced at him a little severely, and was more surprised to see the stranger own him as the friend he had referred to.

“What be all these doings here, Mister Bannister, in Battle, hey?”

“What doings may you be referring to, Mr. Jennifer?”

“Doings! Why, there be old Squire Oxenham out on his gray ’oss on t’ Green, with a pair of sodgering fellows in red, and half a score yeomen, and Lawyer Gibbs, and a little gen’leman in a great wig, with a face like a raw side of beef.”

Mr. Bannister had heard of none of these doings, and they went to the door, all three of them, and stood on the footway, looking toward the Green. Squire Oxenham was there, sure enough, with a couple of troopers and the yeomen—all mounted, and one or two more gentlemen to watch the mounted men, who were keeping their horses moving, all save Squire Oxenham, the lawyer, and the red-faced man in the big black periwig.

“What be ut, Garge?”

Mr. Jennifer accosted a man in a leather apron who came swinging along the sidewalk.

“Devil a bit I knows. Some of these papistry gentry to be taken, I guess. Squire Oxenham’s keeping mum.”

Mr. Bannister pulled out a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and took stock of the scene. He had hardly adjusted the spectacles when the two troopers came riding up the street, followed by the yeomen, Squire Oxenham, and the rest. A rabble of small boys followed at their heels, till the Squire made free with the whip he carried and drove the boys back like a lot of dogs. They swept past Mr. Bannister’s shop, Chris Jennifer running forward to hold the heads of his and John Gore’s horses. They saw the cavalcade go westward past the Watch Oak, the Squire’s gray horse and the red coats of the troopers standing out vividly from the duller tints of the rest.

Mr. Bannister folded up his spectacles and remarked that “the times were troubled, and that a king who gave all his days to women could not keep a kingdom clean.” And he looked severely at the row of heads protruding from the windows all down the street, and caught Miss Titsy’s beribboned cap bobbing back to escape his censure.

“The parcels yonder are for you, Mr. Jennifer.”

The farmer went in to survey the bales on the counter, while John Gore passed three doors down the street to a cobbler who sold gentlewomen’s shoes. He bought a pair of red leather slippers with silver buckles, and also some strong, stout shoes fit for the wet grass-lands in winter, for it was his desire that Barbara should bide at Furze Farm till he knew how matters fared in other quarters.

Christopher Jennifer was a genius at piling baggage about a horse, and they were soon on the homeward road, John Gore thinking not a little of the things he had seen in Battle Town, and wondering whither that cavalcade had ridden, and what their business might be. For when a man has a secret in his heart he is always jealous of the vaguest threat, and ready to imagine that his secret may be meddled with by all the law and the prophets. And John Gore had no wish for the tragedy of Thorn to be dragged into the light as yet. He thought of Barbara before all else, and of any peril that might threaten her new-found health and hope.

Son William was packed off to bed early that night, and Chris Jennifer went out into the wood-lodge to cut logs for the fire. In the parlor were the bales that John Gore had brought in from Battle, and Mrs. Winnie’s fingers itched to open them, but Barbara knew nothing.

It was after supper that John Gore took his knife and cut the cords, and, turning back the sacking, left Barbara and Mrs. Winnie to look at the things together. He left them to it because he was the giver, and because he knew that there were some matters that he could have no hand in. He had told Mrs. Winnie what to say, for Barbara had fallen to like Mrs. Winnie very greatly, and Chris Jennifer’s wife was no less fervent in her eagerness to mother “the little lady.”

John Gore was sitting alone before the kitchen fire when the parlor door opened very softly and a shadow fell athwart the clean red bricks. Barbara was standing there with some ruddy silken stuff held up over her bosom and falling in rich folds to her feet.

He turned in his chair, smitten with the thought of how fair she looked with her swarthy beauty and that ruddy sheen of silk to heighten it. There was just a flash of woman’s vanity in her eyes that moment, a thing new in her since he had come.

“Barbe!”

She came to him, holding the stuff in her two hands, and they could hear Mrs. Winnie singing with purposeful vigor in the parlor.

“John, how good of you! But you must let me—”

“Let you do what, my soul?” And he rose and stood looking at her very dearly.

“Pay you, John.”

“What pride—and nonsense! But that silk is sweet, now, is it not?”

She met his eyes, blushed, and looked down at her own figure. And then, suddenly, she let the silken stuff fall to the floor, put her two hands up over her face, and burst into tears.

“How wicked of me—how utterly wicked!”

“Why, Barbe, child?”

“Don’t speak to me, John. To think that I should give thought to such things when all this is over you—over us both!”

He went to her, putting an arm about her shoulders, touched her hands gently with his lips.

“Weep not, dear heart, if it be wrong that you should have these pretty stuffs, it is I who am to blame for loving you.”

She let her hands fall and looked up through a mist of tears into his face.

“John, can we—can you ever forget the past? Can you forgive?”

“What have I to forgive, dear heart?”

“Ah yes; but—”

He held her at arm’s-length, his two hands upon her shoulders, and looked into her eyes.

“Barbara, it is not your heart that is hard now. God has given this love to us, and what God gives, who shall forbid?”

She hung her head and sighed.

“I am wondering, John.”

“Well, my life?”

“What will happen, what we must do—what the end may be.”

He looked at her a moment in silence, and then spoke like a man whose strength is in his own heart.

“Child, there is one good and certain thing with us—let us hold to it, you and I together. I will take shame from no man, and no lie from any living throat. If there should be dark days, let them come; I will not let you go from me—no, for here life is, nor can there be sin or shame in that which God has given.”

She looked up at him quickly with a great brightness of the eyes.

“John, I cannot, I could not, stand all alone now.”

“Why, my desire, what more can a man pray for!”

And they still heard Mrs. Winnie singing as though she were singing at a harvest-home.

In a little while they went back together into the parlor hand in hand. Chris Jennifer’s wife was standing with her back to them, posing herself before a little old mirror with a bright piece of stuff—pink roses upon a green ground—folded about her bosom. She turned with a start, and whisked the thing away as though shy of a piece of matronly vanity.

“Why, Mrs. Winnie, you have picked out the very thing!”

“Me, sir? I was only trying how my little lady would look in it gathered up over the breast—just so, Mr. John.”

“But I bought that piece of stuff for you, Mrs. Winnie.”

“Now, come, my dear good gentleman—me with pink roses!”

“Well, I should praise you in it.”

“Pink roses and a face like a side of bacon! Dear soul, but it be too young for me.”

Barbara went to her suddenly, and, taking the stuff, unfolded it, and held it to Mrs. Jennifer’s figure. And in truth she looked comely with the sweet colors of it, turning her coy, brusque face this way and that with self-conscious pride.

“You look like a bride, Mrs. Jennifer.”

“Go along with you, Mr. John, you be as bad as the rest of them with your tongue. But, by my soul, dearie, it do look sweet!”

XLII

It would almost seem that Stephen Gore was a little mad those first few days in Thorn, what with the fever of a chill he had taken in the saddle, the utter ghostliness and melancholy of the place, and the cold, raw mists that hung about the moat. The cold went to his marrow and the sinister solitude of the house to his brain, for at night Thorn was a veritable goblin castle where a man might imagine all manner of dim horrors. The wind made strange noises and whisperings of dismay; plaster crumbled and fell; slants of moonlight sprang in as the clouds drifted over the moon; the ivy rattled on the walls; worm-eaten beams creaked and cracked; and the wind was everywhere like a haunted spirit. Stephen Gore had found only one candle left in the place; it had lasted him but one night, so that when the dusk fell he had no light but the light of the fire. And he would lie awake on the couch in the kitchen, the hot blood simmering in his brain, and a sweat of shivering fear on him, while he fancied that he heard voices in the thickness of the walls and a sound as of things moving in the darkness.

However dainty and superfine a man may be, his flesh takes command of his spirit when the smaller necessities of life fall to his own hands. It would have delighted some of the cynics of Whitehall to have seen this fine gentleman in his shirt-sleeves splitting firewood with pitiful clumsiness, and disciplining his stomach in an attempt to boil salt beef. For Stephen Gore was repeating some of the experiences of a Selkirk, save that his solitude was of his own seeking, and yet not a matter of choice.