A lady's honor; a chronicle of events in the time of Marlborough

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — Cold water i

II. — The visitor at the Red Bodice ... 22

Chapter I

It is reckoned, I fancy, a difficult achievement to fall in love with a lady whose face you have never seen. In many situations it may well be so, but my case was not one of them. My cousin Katherine was always in my ideas a figure of sweetness and grace. In early times she was my champion, unseen but inestimable, in all my fights and escapades. When, later, I donned my first red coat in the County Yeomanry it was the thought of her bright eyes, though many miles away, which flushed and gladdened me. Still, I was in Norfolk, and she far distant in a sleepy German t6wn, already, I sometimes drove myself to consider, greatly in love with somebody else.

From the cousinly letters she would write to me just once and again, I had, in what I thought a clever way, made myself a pretty complete picture of Katherine. She was a small being, I decided, with dimples and an appealing mouth. She was soft and slight, with ridiculously tiny feet and hands, and a waist I might clasp in my palms. But were I at a point to give evidence of these particulars, it is the fact that I had none; for neither my father nor I had ever set eyes on the lady. She had been sent to Belgium to school, and when her mother, my father’s sister, had died in England, she had stayed on in Antwerp, where she had found a home with her godmother, the Countess Vanburton. Yet though we had never met, she and I, being nearly of an age, had corresponded at uneven intervals, and it was a practice which had brought me great pleasure.

Colonel Adam Crighton, which was my father’s name and title, had, through the war in Ireland, fought bravely under Lord Marlborough (he had a fine painting of his lordship always hanging in his bed-chamber); but at the siege of Limerick he was wounded so that he was able to fight no mgre. I remember his home-coming, with his grave face, and his sword-arm limp and useless by his side, and he knew that for him there would be no more fighting.

At that time I was eighteen and he no more than five-and-forty, and we fell together as brothers might. We rode to hounds and chopped the fox and fenced with button foils (until my spirit grew too much for his left arm), and we spent some time in reading and devotion. I think, too, in these days I knew as much about the qualities of pasture-lands and their fitness for seed and sickle as many young farmers. Besides, I was greatly concerned in the breeding of Norfolk ponies, which was a fancy of my father’s.

Thus we lived on the lands our fathers had held before us; spent our mornings with our horses and our exercise, our afternoons at our business, and our evenings at our dinner. Then my father told me of his times in Ireland, of the greatness of Marlborough, and of the glory and music of the profession of arms, until my heart was full of longing to do that which he least wished me — leave my home and fight for my fortune. My father was shy and grave by nature (two traits of character into which I but partly followed him), but he was a soldier to the buttons of his shoe; and he spent several hours in every day in the study of strategy in armies and the tactics of forces in the field.

He was greatly liked by women, but his devotion to my mother was such that after her death, which occurred when I was aged five, he appeared to care no more for any lady.

My father’s brother — Dr. Peter Crighton — came to us for a time once in each year, and acted as our news-sheet in the affairs of the city. He told us of its riots and rumors, and of the wars that were to come, and of the schemes of the Queen and her ministers. He told us too of the fame and rise of Marlborough, and the great times that were before us. Then happened my twentieth birthday, and at the night’s dinner a discussion of my fate in life. Adam’s a man to-day,” my uncle commences, and I ask you — what is to be done with the lad? Twenty years aged, fine grown and active, and yet knows nothing good for him.” My uncle had a short quick way of talking, which, as he was somewhat stout of body and lethargic of disposition, seemed a manner he had borrowed from another.

Is it good he would learn in the town? ” my father answered quickly, divining his intention to take me away.

World’s wisdom, brother,” my uncle rejoins.

“ My boy is as wise as he needs be,” says my father; “ if he holds a poor head for books, he has a skilled sword, a sure pistol, and as brave a seat as any in the county.”

“ Then,” says my uncle, “ why keep the boy here among the turnips? Is he not man enough to fight in the crowd like his fellows? Were you when a boy coddled like a cucumber? Tuh! — you don’t make men out of flour and water. Good Lord, brother, Adam might be a girl.”

My boy is no girl,” says my father quickly.

Then,” says my uncle, let him make himself a man. What’s the boy for? Surely I think any employment better than this spud-and-barley business. Well enough, I daresay, for a hobbledehoy, but for a lad of spirit, damn me, it is pitiful.”

“ Then what would you make of my boy, brother? ” asked my father. “ I would have him no Court ninny, nor a peeping lawyer, nor yet a physician. As for a soldier, if it had pleased God I should still serve my king in the profession I honor, then I had watched over his advancement. As it is, you, having no love for the trade of arms, on whbm have I to look? ”

'' What of my Lord Marlborough? ” asks my uncle.

Ah,” my father rejoins, “ we were together at Limerick when the place was stormed and burned; but now he is in a high place— the great Lord Marlborough — ” and then he falls into a rumination.

Many such talks were scattered over several years during my uncle’s visits to our home; but there was always the one outcome — whether or not I should return with him to London. Yet as to my career there it was as vague as moonlight. Whether I should be a soldier like my father, or a physician like my uncle, or a courtier or a churchman like neither, depended together on my own industry and the interest they could command for me.

I knew in my moods and dreams I saw myself in many places. It would be a mighty thing, I sometimes imagined, to be consulted as a courtier by the Queen in council. ‘‘ What is the opinion of my lord so-and-so? ” I could hear her saying. Or in robes of scarlet and ermine, to hold the scale of justice betwixt great interests in the Court of the Queen’s Bench. .Or — greatest of all — to charge, in the glory of bugle and steel, when General Marlborough should thrash the French through Europe.

Silent as I kept myself, these dreams and grand ideas my father seemed to divine, for in many ways he tried to disillusion me. “ Adam Crighton,” he would say, “ has little money, little influence, but a great deceit. Granted he has a fine arm for a fight, yet muscle wins little in a world of schemers.”

“ I can learn to scheme, sir, as I have learned to fight,” say I.

“ Yes, lad,” says my father sadly, “ but though a fighter sometimes keeps his skin, a schemer never keeps his character.”

What had for its consequence a great event happened when I came of age. On that day we learned that Marlborough was again appointed Captain-General of the army. The spirit of war was eager in the land; and my father looked woefully at the old swords which hung in our hall, and he called for his black mare. Smoker o’ Coals, which he only rode when his spirit was at the lowest. And that day my father made a journey to town. I had no doubt our news stirred again his sleeping resolutions, and he hoped perhaps' to see my Lord of Marlborough and offer his service (or mayhap his son’s) in the great wars to come. We knew that many swords hitherto held in disregard were now earnestly called for.

What passed with Marlborough I had never means of knowing. It is possible even that my father’s shyness and dislike of self-assertion prevented his seeing him at all; but this too, as it turned out, was a question never determined.

My father set out in the early morning. Although he had left no word as to his return, it was probable, I thought, that he would be back that night, as he never cared to sleep away from home. When, however, dark came down, and my uncle and I sat down to our dinner by ourselves a late post brought me a letter from my cousin Katherine. A post from Europe was always a great aflair to me, and doubtless that evening I thought mostly of my cousin and her letter, and little of my father. Not that there was such stuff in the note whereon a man, without lively imagination, could find satisfaction.

“ Adam dear,” she wrote in a clear friendly way, “ are you pleased to have my letter-writing or would you prefer to see the face or even the hand at the end of the quill? The latter is a white hand, but much stained with ink (as I look at it) at the finger tips. Your last letter was a very woeful one, full of vows and vanities, and, I fear, most untruthful. You are the only cousin I have in this whole world, and I for my part wish I might see you. It is a little hard that we may not — do you not think so? One might consider from your writing that we were quite well acquainted, and it is odd for me to think that we have never seen each other. Well, it is here that I am saying nothing more. I have cut out a paper pattern in my mind of what you should resemble. From you endearing habit of blowing bubbles with your g’s, I believe I should like you, but one can never tell. Therefore I will have no more imaginings, but remain.

Thine: Katherine.”

On this I went to bed full of a vaulting ambition and brave hopes unwarranted; for I saw the world as a playground and myself as its Prince Imperial. Youth is too splendid to need excuse; its foolishness even is of a kingly sort. I lay abed, which was roses to me, because of a half-dozen scratches from the pen of a mere woman. To dream of her smiling or in tears, sleeping or waking, amiable with me or out of humor, was a delight, unsullied by any fact or lO prejudice, in that I had never seen her. And I might conjure any image I pleased. My life had been worked through and through by my thoughts of Katherine. I did not pretend to drive them out, or to make excuses to my will. The thing was done. I had started with a woman, and had added thereto many qualities properly speaking the possession of the angels, and the whole had crystallized itself into my cousin Katherine.

At last I think I slept, for I awoke of a sudden with a cry tingling my ears. I sprung from my bed and listened. Moonlight filled my room, and through the open window I looked out over the still country. Again, from the far end of our grounds, came the call, and, between, the sharp hit of steel. I ran into my father’s room, snatched a primed pistol from his table, and in my night-clothes sprang through his window on to the lawn. Thus barefooted I kicked and trampled my way through ferns and flowerbeds until I came to the drive. There, as I turned the corner, I came upon a sight which struck me all cold and numb. In the open, under the bright light of moon and stars, two horsemen were fighting with swords, whilst a third was mounted some ten paces off, waiting

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it seemed the issue. It was all deadly clear to me; for one of the horsemen was my father. He had striven to get through from London that night and had been attacked on the road by ruffians. For a time, I suppose, he had held them off, but two, it seemed, had followed him and run him down almost to his door.

These reasons ran in my head as I came across the open towards them. I, a white running figure with a pistol in my hand, was a very ready object to be seen, and there was a shout — from whom I cannot tell — as I came on. Then, as I was a hundred yards off, I saw the third man (he that had been waiting) rush in under my father’s sword arm. I saw the swinging out of the man’s hand and the little jumping flash of a dagger, and then my father fell forward in a heap under his horse’s hoofs. I was too late. Yet, as the two turned their horses towards the open road, I stood stiff and fired my pistol after the man who had made the blow. From the lift he gave in the saddle I judged I had hit him in the shoulder. He gave a cry of pain that rang out in the night; it seemed to me then a very young voice, clear and unused to trouble. The two rode furiously onward. Pursuit I knew to be useless, yet for the greater part of two miles I labored after them barefoot along the road, one of the two waving for me to come on, and now and again sending a pistol-shot over me. At last, very sick at heart, 1 gave up the attempt, and slowly made my way back again. Once only I stopped to pick up a silver case which I saw lying bright on the hedgeway.

At last I came to where my father had fallen, and found him lying all drawn together and still, with the blood of his wound running through his clothes. As I came up, I saw my uncle and our old gardener standing beside him. I will get a mount and follow them,'^ I cried breathlessly, coming at once to the point. “ It is useless, lad,’' said my uncle calmly; “ they have a great start; you are not dressed; and we are too old for fighting,” meaning by the latter the gardener and himself, who other than myself were the only men on the place. It was certain he was right, but it hurt me to hear him talk in this matter-of-fact way. To me death was a pitiful thing; to him, a physician, it might appear differently. He knelt by my father’s side, but, spite his skill, he could do nothing, for my father was dead when we came to him. We made our way back again, sorrowfully enough,

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to the great still house, carrying my father between us.

Later, when I had dressed, we — my uncle and I — sat alone staring at each other along the dining-room table, he sitting in my father’s tall chair. Talking then was not after my heart. Besides, I had only seen my uncle at long intervals, and was always shy before him. In London, Doctor Peter Crighton had, I knew, the reputation of a person of great skill but small scruple. He was a famous healer in certain maladies, yet I knew my father never liked him, nor, but for their relationship — for he was his only brother — would have had him in the house. He was a small man with quick eyes, and suave ways. My father said, “ He had good manners but bad customs.” He came to us just once in the year to stay a month, and I am sure we were both heartily glad when he was gone. Like many another, he was mean with all but himself, with whom he was woefully extravagant, and he was constantly in a strait for money. I knew he had the entail of the estate after my father’s death. It seemed he only came to watch my father’s health, and to observe that the ground and buildings were profitably kept up. It was there-

H fore small pleasure for me to see him in my father's place.

Your sire is dead, Adam," said he, after a long wait.

“ Yes, sir," said I, not caring to show emotion before him.

“ He was a deal better man than I," said he.

“ He was that," I answered.

‘‘ It is a pity that the family law puts you out of seat," he continued.

“ It is a pity for me," I agreed.

‘‘ Ah," he muttered wearily, ‘‘ if human nature were not resentful, there would be more philosophers amongst us." '

My father is dead," I cried with some heat, “ and is it not my duty clear to find the hand that wrought this trouble? "

“ I should certainly say not," he answered, “ because, my son," he added, there is not the slightest chance of your succeeding."

He was your own brother," said I.

“ And," he added musingly, “ I’d be moderately glad to see his murderer hanged; although," he continued, I’d surely be the poorer were my brother alive."

“ It would be bad for him if I find him — there would be no execution," said I.

'' You are biting the mist,” said my uncle. “ You cannot scent him as a Hampshire dog a truffle.”

“ Look at this,” I inconsequently answered, and I laid on the table that which I had found on the road.

As it lay before him I saw that it was a small flat silver case, perhaps three inches square, and in one corner was a broken fragment of chain of fine texture. I thought it was evident it had hung from the neck.

My uncle looked at me closely and then glanced at the case. ‘‘ Is this from your cousin? ” he asked pleasantly.

“ I found it on the road,” I answered; and at this he took it in his hand. At once his finger seemed to find a spring, and the case flew open before him. I could see across that it contained a pastel painting of a face, but of what form of face I could not tell. My chief interest was in my uncle. He sat staring at the picture with changing shadows in his eyes. Then, of a sudden, and without any warning, with his hand clutching the case, he fell forward on the table in a dead faint.

When he recovered — which he did very quickly— he made himself a concoction. ‘‘ I i6 suppose our trouble has unsettled me,” he remarked with a white smile — a fact which to myself I made bold to misbelieve.

“ Would you please return me the case? ” I asked.

“ It is a pretty lady; do you think so? ” he asked.

“ I have hot seen it,” I answered.

‘‘ No,” said he; “ then it will be best for me to keep it.”

“ Pardon me, but I found it,” I suggested.

Yes,” he said in a tone to which I felt there could be no comment, “ but I keep it.”

The whole bitter day, both at meal-times and between, we sat and eyed each other always* more or less suspiciously, and neither caring to break silence. Any liking my uncle Peter had for me formerly seemed in this afternoon to drip gradually away, as if the vessel of his good-will had suddenly sprung a leak. As for the case which he had held when he fainted forward, he made no further reference either to the thing or to the affair. In the evening he had our two best roans out of the stable, and, much to my relief, started to drive to town, and in that lonely house I was left to myself and my reflections, which were not of a pleasant sort. Everything about me brought memories of him I had lost. His pipes, his books, his swords slung from the walls, his dog asleep by my chair, all drove my thoughts back on the associations of the past. His death, so abrupt and meaningless, seemed a fancy which an awakening would dissipate. Gradually its certainty seemed to freeze into me, and left me with a cold helpless feeling, as if all the sunshine were gone out of the world.

In the morning niy uncle returned. His wig was crisp and his linen immaculate, and everything upon him spick and fresh, but he looked very white and weary. Only his bright eyes shone, and in his yellow face they looked 'like diamonds in a parchment frame. “ I’ve been up the whole night, boy,” he said wearily, and then I could not save her life.” A look of strenuous disappointment shot over his face.

She had beauty, wealth, and religion — but I could not save her life.” Doubtless it was right enough and reasonable that a physician should regret to lose a life he might perhaps have saved, when with my father there was never any hope. Yet here we were all of one blood, and I was angered that he had said nothing either here or before in sorrow for my father, whilst with me my heart was all aching.

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“ Were you well acquainted with the lady? ” I asked.

“ Why, lad, I had never seen her before. Why do you inquire? ”

“ I was thinking of my father,” said I.

“ Were you not considering,” my uncle asked, “ that whereas I am deeply concerned at the death of a stranger, I am unmoved at the loss of my brother? ”

“ The deduction is not unreasonable,” I answered.

“ Yet,” said he, the lady’s life I might have saved, but for your father there was never a chance.” He continued, “ It is true I am not grieved. But then I am never grieved at death. It is life which distresses me. You are shocked at Death. I am not. We are old friends. We nod grimly to each other when we meet — that is all. He can afford magnanimity; for he will always win in the end. Assuredly you are thinking of your father,” he went on. Well, I am not. At twenty I too lost my father, but the next summer I wore a pink coat with white lace. It was a brocaded coat. You see I am old and wicked. You are young, and — praise be to the saints — virtuous. Therefore we’ll never agree.”

After this, which was for him a very long speech, he stopped and took snuff very deliberately from his box.

“ Do you know,” he continued with a touch of frankness and leaning over the table towards me, “ you would be happier with, instead of a table, a county between us.”

“ I suppose so,” said I after a while.

“ When’ll you start? ” said he.

“ Now if you like.”

Gently, gently,” said my uncle; ‘‘ I am not poisonous.”

I asked his pardon and he went on: “To-morrow will be in plenty of time. Then we can see how matters stand, and I will take you up to town myself.”

To this, perforce, I could make no objection. As a fact, I was glad of any way to be ultimately rid of my uncle, and to escape from surroundings which were painful. It was true I had but the few hundred pounds my father had saved for me, but I was keen to strike a line for myself. I had many more hopes than misgivings.

We spent the evening and part of the night ^ in putting my father’s papers in order. Uncle Peter coldly scanned every leaflet through his gold eye-glass, whilst to me, standing beside his chair, it seemed rather like a business of picking my father’s bones. Fodder bills, bailiffs’ reports, statements of fruit sales, notes on horses and documents of every kind, we found neatly docketed in my father’s hand. Last of all we came to the back of a bureau, and there we fell upon two letters which seemed to me newly inscribed.

One was addressed to Miss Katherine Crighton,* at the house of the Countess Vanburton, presenting your cousin Adam Crighton, Esquire,” all written on the envelope, and sealed; and the other was sealed also in our heavy green wax and superscribed, “To His Grace The Duke of Marlborough from an old comrade, Adam Crighton, Colonel.”

For what seemed a long while we — my Uncle Peter and I — stared at these two letters, rich, I delighted to believe, as harbingers of fortune. Then my uncle struck in: “You see in these affairs, nephew, a wife and a fortune. Let me lay bare to you the probabilities. One is a young lady with more whims and lovers than

* Our family, even in marriage, always held to their own name.

you have either graces to your person or coins to your heritage.”

‘‘ But, sir, the other? ” said I.

“ Is Captain-General of the Queen’s army, whilst you are, I will not say again — a beggar.”

Chapter II The Visitor At The Red Bodice

The next day, on our arrival in London, my uncle escorted me to his house in St. James’ Street, where we partook of a solitary dinner, and afterwards — there being several patients awaiting him — he gave me his blessing and sent me about my business.

In my father’s life he had talked glibly of what he would do for me in the world, but now that the opportunity presented itself, the desire appeared to retire. I found therefore a cheap lodging off Pall Mall, and having two hundred pounds and good health set out to amuse myself. I visited Covent Garden, the Ranelagh, Sadler’s Wells, and Vauxhall, the Old Bailey trials, the Newgate hangings, and the charity children at St. Paul’s — in fact, all the sights of the town. I saw nothing of my uncle, however, although he bowed to me once in a most gracious, affectionate way as he passed me with a lady in a grand carriage. I thought a great deal of my cousin, and often stared at my Lord Marlborough’s great house in the Mall. Once indeed I presented myself in the hall, and asked if His Grace were not engaged I might see him.

‘‘ Do you come from the Queen? ” asked a liveried fellow, grinning.

“ I have an introduction,” said I.

‘‘ The Duke is not at home,” he said.

I will wait,” I answered, and sat down.

There I stayed for perhaps two hours, the fellow the while reading a news-sheet to a friend.

“ Will you have the goodness to inform me,” I said at length, growing impatient, “ if the Duke is expected to be long away.”

“ Sir,” said the man, “ the Duke is in the country. He may be a day or a week — I cannot tell.”

You’ll be sorry for this,” I cried.

'' I am frequently told that,” said he, “ by gentlemen with introductions,” and with a very hot feeling I returned to the street.

The most cheerful places in the town I found to be the chocolate houses; and I found that where the chocolate was good the talk was poor, and where the chocolate was poor the talk was animated. At one house of the latter sort, I fell in with a pleasant-mannered fellow named Cathcart, with whom I struck up a kind of acquaintance, for, like me, he had no business to do. Together we visited the fairs and the teagardens, and attended a prize-fight between Black Samuel and Chippy Rochester. At this I found more blood than science, and made several more or less desirable acquaintance. Cathcart’s profession was something of a mystery. Money and good looks he had in plenty, and he wore his ruffles and white satin coat with the grace of a gentleman of France.

“ Crighton,’’ he said to me one afternoon when I was feeling lonely and out of humor. I’ve a sort of feeling that you are not in the right set. You need your spirit brought to the top. For myself. I’d rather be a cheerful cutpurse than a depressed poet. Now to-night, at a queer place called the Red Bodice, I am meeting friends whom in the ordinary one does not come across. What if I asked you to join us? ” If it is anything to release me from this sickening respectability, for pity sake take me,” said I.

That evening I followed my guide to the streets at the back of St. Clement Church. I had never before been in this part of the town, which I knew was given over to the keepers of flash lodging-houses, and Darby-captains, and people of a base sort. The streets were dirty and ill-lit, wretched oil-lamps flickering at long intervals, and only the lanthorns and our link-boy saving us from the open sewers.