Part 8

With immovable gravity, the elder man submitted to these boisterous confidences; then, holding his cousin from him at arm’s length, surveyed him with an irony which must have pierced through anything less thick-skinned:—

“What a blade you are! There will be no holding you at Whitehall!”

He suddenly sighed, dropped his hands, shook his head, and assumed a tone of melancholy:—

“Heigho, but we must get thee to Court first! And these adieus will undo all. ’Slife, man, she’s ripe for love. ’Tis rebound, ’tis nature. After the cold fit, the hot one. After old Harcourt, the old husband promptly and happily demised, Harry Rockhurst the stripling, live and young!… After eighty, eighteen.…”

“Nay,” interrupted Edward, sapiently. “Harry Rockhurst is twenty.”

“Aye,” mused Lionel, “and so is our pretty Di. Lord! your worthy mother had scarce called out, ‘Oh,’ of Diana, before my Lady Rockhurst began her, ‘Ah,’ of that young whelp! Well, by this time, these babes will have plighted their troth, if the gods interfere not.” He turned on Hare, his fierce temper escaping him for an unguarded moment: “Why the foul fiend did you let her ride over here to-day?”

Ned swelled with dudgeon.

“I? How could I prevent it, pray?”

“Poor numskull, how couldst thou?” echoed the other, half aside.—“Well, well, I fear me, I am caught in my own springe! They might have philandered all summer and naught have come of it.… But I must needs work upon Grandam Chillingburgh, persuade her to summon the naughty grandchild in all haste from a bad match—and ’tis the parting will ruin all!”

He paused, biting his lip over vexed thoughts. Then his alert ear caught the fall of distant footsteps.

“Ah!” he cried, starting, “yonder they come! Let us to the upper terrace, Ned, and watch them from above.”

Sir Edward, who had been endeavouring to hit a bumblebee with his whip, and was lost in the excitement of the sport, burst into a roar of self-applause at an unexpectedly successful stroke:—

“Saw you that? I hit him. I hit him!… A great bumblebee!”

Ratcliffe clenched his hand, exasperated. Then, recalling his self-control, shrugged his shoulders, caught his cousin by the arm, and marched him determinedly toward the upper terrace stairs.

* * * * *

The two whose doings were exciting so much interest in Lionel Ratcliffe’s mind, came slowly along the Peacock Walk and halted beneath the watchers: a pair so well-matched in youth and looks as well to justify apparently the jealous kinsman’s fears.—Harry Rockhurst, stripling just hardening into manhood, keeping some of his boy graciousness in the virility of the newer stage, sunburnt, vigorous; with brown curls tossed back from a broad forehead, and brilliant hazel eyes, keen and bold of vision, as should be those of the noted follower of hounds and hawk: by his side, as tall nearly as her cavalier, Diana Harcourt, the young widow, radiant with the sun on her auburn hair!

As her lover spoke to her, she listened, not unwillingly, and her glance rested on his face with pleasure. Yet there was something well-nigh maternal in this complacence which might have bidden him pause.

“Diana,” the boy cried passionately, “you must hear me; I will speak.”

She moved a pace from him and, sitting down on the bench, drew a hanging branch of wild rose to the wild rose of her cheek.

“The last of my country flowers,” she murmured.

“Stay,” he exclaimed. “Let me pluck you a posy!”

High over their unconscious heads, Lionel Ratcliffe, peering cautiously over the balustrade, had a sneer for the childish eagerness. But Diana took the flowers with a simple grace.

“Thank you, and thank you.… Nay, how sweet they are! And to think that to-morrow evening we shall be so far away. ’Tis hard to leave the garden for the town.”

* * * * *

(“Mark you, now,” whispered Ratcliffe overhead, nipping Hare by the arm, “and take a lesson in Dan Cupid’s ways. ’Twill be: ‘Think of me, and do not forget me!’ And a prate of hopes, and a whisper of pledges. And then the word will hop out like a hot coal, Love! and their little world will be all ablaze—And ’twill be Love … Love … Love, and everything lost if some one be not at hand to spray cold water at the right moment.”

“The garden can?” suggests the practical Ned, in a mouthing undertone.

“Hush! lad,” murmured the other, “hast yet to learn metaphor. Nay—hark! Not a breath, on thy life.”)

* * * * *

“I shall dream, I think, of the gardens of Rockhurst,” Diana was saying.

“The gardens?” echoed Harry. He was leaning against the wall, by the bench, looking down at her, bending close. “Gardens? Is that all you regret, Mistress Harcourt?”

“Fie,” smiled she, “I am not so ungrateful. Shall I not regret my friends, my neighbours, good Mistress Rockhurst, and yourself?”

The boy drew back and straightened himself, galled to the quick.

“My aunt—and me! Truly, I am, madam, I am proud.” He flung himself away, his shoulder turned ostentatiously on Diana. She laughed with indulgence; then sighed. And, in heart-broken fashion, Harry caught up the sigh.

* * * * *

(“First stage, sighs,” reflected the watcher. “’Tis most harmless.”)

* * * * *

Young Rockhurst’s dudgeon was not of long duration. He edged along the wall to the bench and bashfully took seat.

“So ends the year,” he said softly, “that brought me the happiness of paradise—Diana.”

“Master Rockhurst.…”

“Must it end thus?” Suddenly bold, he tried to take the fair hand idly clasping the posy.

“Take care, sir,” she cried mischievously, “there are thorns here.”

“Ah,” he breathed, “so that I might gather the roses.…”

* * * * *

(And above their heads, Lionel Ratcliffe: “Second stage: hand-clasps and protestations. Next will come kneeling work, and next the lips.—Wary now, for it goes rapidly!”)

* * * * *

“Pray you, pray you, Harry!” Diana chid, endeavouring gently to free her hand.

But the boy had slipped the leash of his ardour and was not to be hushed.

“O my sweet life, hear me, hear me!”

“I vow,” she said, half rebuking, “I never knew you in this mood!”

“Ah, I am bold,” he panted. “Must I not be bold indeed for that I dare to love you!” Saying which, he fell on both knees before her.

* * * * *

(“Is’t not time to stop them?” whispered Hare into Ratcliffe’s ear. “I could drop a little stone on sister Di’s head.”

“Soft,” interposed the other, with his contemptuous patience. “Let the children play a little while longer; ’twill be the finer sport to slip in ’twixt cup and lip!”)

In truth, Ratcliffe was beginning to suspect that he had overrated Harry Rockhurst’s influence. If he knew women, his fair cousin, below yonder, had given no real response. He had caught the note of indulgence which the wooer himself was too inexperienced to mark in her accents. True, there might lurk some danger even in this; yet not such as to call for indiscreet interference. He smiled sardonically as the lover’s pleading rose passionately in the air.

* * * * *

“Give me hope, Diana—one word. Ah, madam, give me hope!”

But Mistress Harcourt rose and disengaged herself with some decision from the young man’s grasp.

“Stay, Master Rockhurst, how can I listen to you? In truth, dear lad, you are over young to dream of such matters yet. Why, and what would my Lord Rockhurst say, could he but hear? Indeed, Harry, ’tis undutiful of you, without your noble father’s sanction—I dare swear without even his knowledge.”

“My father!” cried the boy, as if the words had struck him. “Alack,” he added despairingly, “this sudden departure, upon which you have resolved, has thwarted all my plans. Yet, madam, you are wrong; my father does know. I have writ him all my heart.”

Diana turned the pale, fresh beauty of her face full in surprise upon the speaker.

“Aye—have you, indeed?” cried she. “And what says his lordship?”

The youth, emboldened afresh, pressed forward; but she kept him sweetly at arm’s length, menacing him with her posy.

“He has not answered yet—could not have answered yet, madam. Natheless, I am his only child; he loves me: there can be but one answer. Diana, if that be all that stands between us—”

“Nay,” she teased, “and shall I tell you your father’s answer? ‘Ah, Harry’ (will his lordship say), ‘have I kept thee secluded in the country, that thou mightest grow strong in health and virtuous in mind’—for these, we are told, are my Lord Rockhurst’s reasons—‘and hast seen a young gentlewoman for the first time? Pack up, lad, pack and ride with me to London town; and in a week will’t have forgotten her very existence!’”

“How little you know my father … how little you know me!” exclaimed the lover, with dignity.

“Alas, child, this is country innocence. Do I not know something of the ways of the great world! Your education has not yet begun, all respect to his lordship’s judgment. When he has shown you the Court, the town, the quality—”

Harry Rockhurst interrupted her with a vexed laugh:—

“The Court, the town, the quality—why, madam, he will not even tell me of them. ’Tis only his duty as Captain of the King’s Yeomen and Constable of the Tower that keeps him from living here among us—the only life he deems worthy of a true gentleman: that of the owner on his estates. London, he says, is contamination. Therefore keepeth he me here, though it part him and me.”

She smiled and shook her head:—

“And how shall I find favour in the eyes of this strict gentleman?” she said, in the same fond tone of mockery. “I who am gay, and think not so ill of the town, and have no mind for sad faces and dull clothes! I fear me, Harry, your father is at heart a puritan!”

“My lord a puritan,” cried the boy, in fine scorn—“the King’s own private friend in exile, the hero of Worcester’s evil day … why, Diana, villainous Noll set a higher price on my father’s head than upon any other in England, save his most gracious Majesty’s own—sweet Mistress Harcourt, if that were your only fear—”

Greatly daring, he flung out his arm to encircle her. Swayed by his artless passion, Mistress Harcourt suffered the embrace, but it was with a kind of friendly tolerance.

A loud shout from above drove them apart.

“Cousin Di!—where can she be? Cousin Di, Master Rockhurst…!”

There was Lionel Ratcliffe, on the terrace above them, shouting into space through the hollow of his hands; and beside him Edward Hare, consumed with laughter.

Young Rockhurst stamped his foot; but Diana (not displeased, perhaps, at the interruption) glanced calmly up.

“Here I am, Cousin Lionel—and here, as you can see, is Harry.”

Ratcliffe leant across the balustrade, wiping his face as though heated.

“Oh, how I have sought for you!” he called.

“So it seems,” retorted she, ironically, “with apparently never a thought to cast a glance over the wall.”

He grinned. She was the dearer to him for her sharp wits, and for a tongue that was even a match for his own. But what answer he would have made was lost in a new interruption: the sound of a postboy’s horn rose swelling through the quiet airs, and almost immediately the bell clanged from the castle’s gate. Then came calls, shouts, and rumours. Ratcliffe straightened himself from his leaning posture:—

“What have we here?” he cried. “Ha—Mistress Alicia!”

A stout, elderly lady appeared at the head of the terrace steps.

“Pardon me, madam, a moment,” said Harry to Diana, and ran to meet his aunt. The lady was beckoning with great energy:—

“News, lad, news from your noble father, from my dear brother!” She turned on the second step and raised her voice (never a soft one) in vigorous expostulation to some hidden person: “Hither, fellow, hither, thou laggard, and commend thee for a lazy loon!”

Stirred by these expostulations the postboy, covered with dust and sweat, emerged upon the terrace above at a limping run. Harry bounded up the steps to snatch a letter from his hands. He broke the seal and gave a cry of joy:—

“These are news indeed! My father will be with us to-night, nay, toward the fifth hour afternoon, so he writes.—Rascal, you have tarried indeed!—In good truth, these are news!”

His joyful exclamations were lost in a deep outburst of lamentation from Mistress Rockhurst.

“To-day!” quoth she, clapping her palms together. “Murrain take me, if these be not the ways of men! Gilian! Basil!—get thee to the buttery, knave!—Robin! … Robin! the flag!”

But the excellent housewife was not of those who waste their energies upon mere speech. As hastily as her bulk would permit, she was already hying her way back toward the castle. And the clamour of her voice was lost behind the yew hedges. Harry bent over the parapet, calling to Diana, who stood pensively where he had left her.

“Give me joy, madam; my father will be here instantly!”

Ratcliffe brushed past him and came down the steps toward his kinswoman. He laid a hand upon her arm, and looking toward his host:—

“Then,” cried he, “shall we leave you to your filial transport.” He dropped his voice, to continue maliciously, in the young widow’s ear: “Di, what says’t thou? Shall we not ride instantly? Gad, were it but a meeting ’twixt lover and mistress ’twere something to wait for—but this business! ‘My worthy father.… My beloved son!’ ’Twas ever a feast of cold veal, since the days of the prodigal—Though faith,” he laughed, “’tis the father, here, comes from the husks to seek the calf at home!”

And while Diana gazed upon his sharp face with wonder and disfavour, Ratcliffe hailed Rockhurst once more: “Therefore, I say, good Master Harry, pray you bid them call up our horses.”

Young Rockhurst protested. But Diana, to Ratcliffe’s surprise and greatly to his satisfaction, instantly backed the request:—

“Indeed, Lionel is right; our presence is out of place at this meeting.”

“Nay,” implored Harry, and ran headlong down into the Peacock Walk again to catch her hand, “for pity’s sake … no and indeed no, madam.”

The lady disengaged herself, settled her roses, gathered her gloves and whip from the bench and looped her riding skirts. Then she turned, and, smiling, courtesied:—

“Indeed and indeed, yes, sir! And since farewell it must be, why, then, farewell!”

She wafted a kiss from her roses toward him.

“Ah, no!” he implored, still endeavouring to arrest her.

“’Slife!” cried Lionel, impatiently looking up. “There rises the flag … there flies the noble blazon! Let it be the signal for us. Come Di—go, hurry the horses, Ned!” he shouted to Hare, who, astride on the upper balustrade, sat gaping down at them. “Blessings upon the Rakehell,” he muttered to himself, as Diana motioned Harry on one side with decisive gesture.

“Nay, it is good-by,” she was saying.

The boy caught her fingers and the roses together:—

“Oh, madam, will you turn all my joy into sorrow?”

Here the gate-bell clanged again.

“My father,” cried Harry, starting toward the steps.

“Farewell,” said Diana, “and—”

“Ah, no,” cried the poor lover, distractedly, and ran back to fling himself once more before her. “But a few minutes, dearest Diana!”

She hesitated before his distress. Lionel irritably seized her arm.

“Nay, child, you must come!” The touch, the tone were overmasterful. She flashed a haughty look upon him.

“Must! Cousin Lionel?”

Harry, seeing his advantage, pressed it ardently.

“Delay but for five minutes! Sure, ’tis not much to ask!”

“You foolish lad!” said Diana, gently. Then, smiling into the passionate eyes, “Yet I would not seem churl to you. And I will even wait these five minutes in the rose garden yonder. Your arm so far, an it please you, Lionel. But, I pray you, remember that there must be no musts from you to me.”

She moved away with a very stately grace, Lionel, biting his lips upon a bitter smile, walking at her side. Harry stood gazing after her as one lost in a dream.

II

FATHERLY WISDOM

My Lord Rockhurst approached the wall of the upper terrace and looked down upon his son. His countenance, naturally grave, and stamped now with the pallor and fatigue of his lengthy ride, grew graver as he watched. Beside him, his sister threw up scandalised hands. But, as she was about to give voice to her feelings, he arrested her with a gesture, and went slowly to the top of the stairs. There he paused and called,—

“Harry!”

The boy started, wheeled round, rushed up the steps, and dropped on one knee before his father.

“My lord … my dear father!”

Lord Rockhurst raised him, looked a second keenly at the young face; then laying his hand upon his shoulder, walked down with him toward the bench, where, still without speaking, he took seat. Shaking her head at her nephew, Mistress Rockhurst followed them at some distance.

“Oh, sir,” cried Harry, impetuously, “’tis ten months and two days since I last beheld your countenance!”

So saying, he was about to cast himself upon his father’s breast; when, with the faintest motion of the hand, Rockhurst restrained him.

“And yet, didst show, even now, no undue haste to greet me. ’Tis the first time, Harry,” he proceeded in softer tones, “that thou hast failed to welcome me before the gates.… I had looked forward to that moment.”

“And indeed, nevvy,” added Mistress Alicia, as she halted, panting, before him, “’twas not pretty acted. ‘Where’s Harry?’ says his lordship. And ’twas old Giles held the stirrup, which had been thy privilege, Harry, since thou wert five years old.”

Blushes chased each other over the boy’s face. He could but stammer:—

“Oh, sir … oh, father!”

“Nay, no excuses!” bade the Lord Constable.

His son’s cheek grew a darker crimson still.

“The lady, sir,” he murmured, “the lady I wrote of—”

Mistress Rockhurst snorted with increased indignation, but Lord Rockhurst was now smiling dreamily.

“A lady! sayst thou?… Boy Harry and his lady! Nay, then, a petticoat is like charity and must needs cover a multitude of sins!”

“Petticoats, indeed,” ejaculated under her voice the irate dame—“The hussy!”

Lord Rockhurst had no thought to spare for his sister’s opinions just now. Holding Harry at arm’s length, he surveyed him with shining eyes.

“Thou art grown a goodly lad. In faith, well-nigh a man!”

He drew him into his embrace and held him close a second. Then, releasing him, fell back with a sigh of ease upon the bench; flung off his mantle and unbuckled his sword, both of which Harry respectfully received from his hand.

The traveller sighed, took off his hat, and ran his fingers through his hair with the gesture of contented weariness.

“Another drop of cordial, my lord,” cried his sister, rising, all eager for service.

“Nay,” said he, motioning her back; “I have all the cordial I need here, Alicia. Come close, Harry. Dost know,” proceeded the Lord Constable, as his son knelt beside him, “dost know I have ridden two hundred miles these days, with scarce as many minutes’ rest, to put order into thy business? That to-morrow I must e’en be jogging back again, for his Majesty has need of me? Thou presumptuous rogue!” He struck the lad on the shoulder as he spoke, and seriousness underlay his tone of banter. “Wouldst plot to make a grandsire of me already? Mark those pleading eyes, sister.… Even so did they look up at me when he stood no higher than my knee, and it was: ‘Father, John blacksmith has so fair a pony to sell,’ or ‘Giles vows he will drown the red setter pup! O father, I want it!’ Aye, child, thou hast a father, and ’tis well for thee!” His mouth twisted with a light contempt under the upturned moustache. “A widow!” he said.

“Aye,” put in Aunt Alicia vindictively, “and a delicate, fine lady to boot.—Ah, nephew, did I not tell thee his lordship would set order here? What doth Mistress Harcourt care for still-room or buttery? Could she brew a bottle of gilly water? Nay—much less turn thee a pasty—?”

“Peace, peace, sister,” rebuked his lordship. “Harry—” he turned tender, relentless eyes upon his son’s quivering face, “thou, who wouldst get thee to begetting heirs already, what dost thou know of life?”

The youth rose to his feet, withdrew a pace, and looked earnestly at him.

“As much, my lord,” he answered then, “as you have allowed me to know.”

A moment the elder man seemed struck. He gazed down at his linked hands and reflected. Then he, too, got up. It was with an air of finality:—

“Faith, aptly replied! Therefore, son—” he took the lad’s arm, “thou must still believe my will best for thee.”

Harry caught up his father’s hand.

“Nay, my lord, God forbid I should even question the wisdom of your dealings with me! Truly, I have never hankered after the town; and, if I have seen you ride forth alone with a heavy heart, it has only been because of the longing for your gracious company. But, father—” he clasped his other hand over the gloved one he held, “she loves the country, too, let Aunt Alicia say what she will.” He shot a flaming look of reproach at the buxom lady. “And … and, we should be full content to dwell here forever if we were married, sir.”

“Married!” echoed Rockhurst. He pulled his hand from his son’s clasp and passed it caressingly over the beardless chin. “Aye, there’s a cheek for a husband, truly!” (Mistress Alicia broke into good-humoured laughter and struck her knees in applause.) “When thy beard is grown, we’ll talk of such matters again.”

“Oh, my lord,” pleaded the lover. “What of my age?—since you yourself were married when no older than I am, as our Bible leaf shows. Say nothing, at least, till you have seen her! She is here, father, even now, in the rosary! Alack, she has ridden hither to bid farewell, for to-morrow she sets out for London town. And, oh, father, may I not escort her?”

“To London!” exclaimed the father. His face grew dark with a heavy frown. “To London! No, sir, not within fifty miles of the Babylon! How now, art grown so bold?”

“I thought not of the town,” stammered Harry; “I thought but of the perils of the road for her.” Then, gaining assurance, he proceeded: “Even here there is talk of Claud Du Vall and such bold ruffians. Sir Edward, her brother … Sir Edward, in truth, is a poor fool, my lord—And Mr. Ratcliffe, her cousin, who rides with them, him I mightily mistrust. You have given me your blood, father—will you blame me now because it will not run obediently when I think of danger to my lady?”

“Nay, if thy body kept pace with thy spirit,” mocked Rockhurst, “what a beard wouldst soon have, my callow son!” Yet, though he mocked, anger had fled from his glance to be replaced by fatherly pride.

The tears rose to Harry’s eyes. The young can endure severity better than irony.

“Indeed, I am a child no longer,—I am ever your dutiful son, sir,—but I cannot give up Diana. My lord, do but see her; see her now…!”

“Now?” cried the other, surprised. Then recollecting himself: “True, didst say she was in the garden.” His eye grew ever more indulgent. “See her, lad,” he went on, “aye, truly. For what other purpose had I ridden all these weary miles?”

With the youth, all was once more sunshine, where, before, there had been but clouds.

“Ah, father, I knew your indulgence would never fail me. Nay, I will conduct her to you, on the instant.”

He started to run, as he spoke. Rockhurst watched the figure out of sight, then laughed low to himself and turned to his sister.

“I will conduct her to you, on the instant,” he repeated. “Aha—and doubtless the pretty widow will come as meekly at his bidding to display herself as ever heifer to the fair. _O rustica simplicitas!_” And laughing, he came back to the bench and sat down.