Heralds of Empire Part 39

"Confound him!" muttered Radisson, as we both went stumbling over footstools into the dark of Sir John's great drawing-room, "Confound him!

An a man treats a man as a man in these stuffed match-boxes o' towns, looking man as a man on the level square in the eye, he only gets himself slapped in the face for it! An there's to be any slapping in the face, be the first to do it, boy! A man's a man by the measure of his stature in the wilderness. Here, 'tis by the measure of his clothes----"

But a great rustling of flounced petticoats down the hallway broke in on his speech, and a little lady had jumped at me with a cry of "Pierre, Pierre!" when M. Radisson's long arms caught her from her feet.

"You don't even remember what your own husband looked like," said he.

"Ah, Mary, Mary--don't dear me! I'm only dear when the court takes me up! But, egad," says he, setting her down on her feet, "you may wager these pretty ringlets of yours, I'm mighty dear for the gilded crew this time!"

Madame Radisson said she was glad of it; for when Pierre was rich they could take a fine house in the West End like my Lord So-and-So; but in the next breath she begged him not to call the Royalists a gilded crew.

"And who is this?" she asked, turning to me as the servants brought in candles.

"Egad, and you might have asked that before you tried to kiss him! You always did have a pretty choice, Mary! I knew it when you took me!

That," says he, pointing to me, "that is the kite's tail!"

"But for convenience' sake, perhaps the kite's tail may have a name,"

retorts Madame Radisson.

"To be sure--to be sure--Stanhope, a young Royalist kinsman of yours."

"Royalist?" reiterates Mary Kirke with a world of meaning to the high-keyed question, "then my welcome was no mistake! Welcome waits Royalists here," and she gave me her hand to kiss just as an elderly woman with monster white ringlets all about her face and bejewelled fingers and bare shoulders and flowing draperies swept into the room, followed by a serving-maid and a page-boy. With the aid of two men, her daughter, a serving-maid, and the page, it took her all of five minutes by the clock to get herself seated. But when her slippered feet were on a Persian rug and the displaced ringlets of her monster wig adjusted by the waiting abigail and smelling-salts put on a marquetry table nearby and the folds of the gown righted by the page-boy, Lady Kirke extended a hand to receive our compliments. I mind she called Radisson her "dear, sweet savage," and bade him have a care not to squeeze the stones of her rings into the flesh of her fingers.

"As if any man would want to squeeze such a ragbag o' tawdry finery and milliners' tinsel," said Radisson afterward to me.

I, being younger, was "a dear, bold fellow," with a tap of her fan to the words and a look over the top of it like to have come from some saucy jade of sixteen.

After which the serving-maid must hand the smelling-salts and the page-boy haste to stroke out her train.

"Egad," says Radisson when my lady had informed us that Sir John would await Sieur Radisson's coming at the Fur Company's offices, "egad, there'll be no getting Ramsay away till he sees some one else!"

"And who is that?" simpers Lady Kirke, languis.h.i.+ng behind her fan.

"Who, indeed, but the little maid we sent from the north sea."

"La," cries Lady Kirke with a sudden livening, "an you always do as well for us all, we can forgive you, Pierre! The courtiers have cried her up and cried her up, till your pretty savage of the north sea is like to become the first lady of the land! Sir John comes home with your letter to me--boy, the smelling-salts!--so!--and I say to him, 'Sir John, take the story to His Royal Highness!' Good lack, Pierre, no sooner hath the Duke of York heard the tale than off he goes with it to King Charles!

His Majesty hath an eye for a pretty baggage. Oh, I promise you, Pierre, you have done finely for us all!"

And the lady must simper and smirk and tap Pierre Radisson with her fan, with a glimmer of ill-meaning through her winks and nods that might have brought the blush to a woman's cheeks in Commonwealth days.

"Madame," cried Pierre Radisson with his eyes ablaze, "that sweet child came to no harm or wrong among our wilderness of savages! An she come to harm in a Christian court, by Heaven, somebody'll answer me for't!"

"Lackaday! Hoighty-toighty, Pierre! How you stamp! The black-eyed monkey hath been named maid of honour to Queen Catherine! How much better could we have done for her?"

"Maid of honour to the lonely queen?" says Radisson. "That is well!"

"She is ward of the court till a husband be found for her," continues Lady Kirke.

"There will be plenty willing to be found," says Pierre Radisson, looking me wondrous straight in the eye.

"Not so sure--not so sure, Pierre! We catch no glimpse of her nowadays; but they say young Lieutenant Blood o' the Tower shadows the court wherever she is----"

"A well-dressed young man?" adds Radisson, winking at me.

"And carries himself with a grand air," amplifies my lady, puffing out her chest, "but then, Pierre, when it comes to the point, your pretty wench hath no dower--no property----"

"Heaven be praised for that!" burst from my lips.

At which there was a sudden silence, followed by sudden laughter to my confusion.

"And so Master Stanhope came seeking the bird that had flown," twitted Radisson's mother-in-law. "Faugh--faugh--to have had the bird in his hand and to let it go! But--ta-ta!" she laughed, tapping my arm with her fan, "some one else is here who keeps asking and asking for Master Stanhope. Boy," she ordered, "tell thy master's guest to come down!"

Two seconds later entered little Rebecca of Boston Town. Blus.h.i.+ng pink as apple-blossoms, dressed demurely as of old, with her glances playing a shy hide-and-seek under the downcast lids, she seemed as alien to the artificial grandeur about her as meadow violets to the tawdry splendour of a flower-dyer's shop.

"Fie, fie, sly ladybird," called out Sir John's wife, "here are friends of yours!"

At sight of us, she uttered a little gasp of pleasure.

"So--so--so joysome to see Boston folk," she stammered.

"Fie, fie!" laughed Lady Kirke. "Doth Boston air bring red so quick to all faces?"

"If they be not painted too deep," said Pierre Radisson loud and distinct. And I doubt not the coquettish old dame blushed red, though the depth of paint hid it from our eyes; for she held her tongue long enough for me to lead Rebecca to an alcove window.

Some men are born to jump in sudden-made gaps. Such an one was Pierre Radisson; for he set himself between his wife and Lady Kirke, where he kept them achattering so fast they had no time to note little Rebecca's unmasked confusion.

"This is an unexpected pleasure, Rebecca!"

She glanced up as if to question me.

"Your fine gallants have so many fine speeches----"

"Have you been here long?"

"A month. My father came to see about the furs that Ben Gillam lost in the bay," explains Rebecca.

"Oh!" said I, vouching no more.

"The s.h.i.+p was sent back," continues Rebecca, all innocent of the nature of her father's venture, "and my father hopes that King Charles may get the French to return the value of the furs."

"Oh!"

There was a little silence. The other tongues prattled louder. Rebecca leaned towards me.

"Have you seen her?" she asked.

"Who?"

She gave an impetuous little shake of her head. "You know," she said.

"Well?" I asked.