The Touchstone of Fortune Part 24

"But what if your cousin will not go home until she is ready, and does not desire your escort?" asked Frances.

"In that case, I should advise her to make ready at once," I replied.

"And if she does not want your advice?" returned Frances.

"In that case, I should limit my advice to a mere recommendation that she wash the ink stains from her lips, eyes, and cheeks. Master Hamilton has pretty well covered the ground with overgrown beauty patches."

Betty laughed softly, and fat old Lilly chuckled as he resumed his place at his desk.

There being no mirror in the room, Frances put her hand to her face and found traces of printers' ink on her fingers, whereupon she blushed and laughed and was so beautiful that we all laughed from the sheer delight of looking at her.

"Again Baron Ned is right, Frances," said Hamilton, offering to lead her toward the St. George door. "You must not remain. We may be surprised by the sheriffs at any moment, in which case you would suffer in reputation and I might not be able to escape."

We pa.s.sed into the tapestried room, and after Hamilton had closed the St. George door, we paused for a moment before leaving. Presently I started to go, but Frances held back. I had reached the outer door and was waiting, somewhat impatiently, when Betty came up to me, opened the door, drew me outside, closed the door, and whispered:--

"Don't you understand? They would be alone a moment."

"Do you think so, Betty?" I asked, laughing at her earnestness.

"I know it," she returned emphatically.

When George and Frances were alone, she said: "I shall never again give you cause to say that I am cruel, for I shall never again see you." She tried to keep back the tears, but failed, and after a moment, continued, unheeding them, "If you could but know the joy this meeting has given me and the grief of parting, you would understand my sorrow for having wronged you, and would know the deep pain of farewell."

"I have not spoken of my love for you," said George, "because it is so plain that words are not needed to express it, and because you have known it far better than I could tell it ever since the sweet days on the Bourne Path. To speak it would seem to mar it by half expression. But it will be yours always, and I shall take it to my grave. It has been my redemption, and, as long as I live, no other woman shall enter my heart."

He fell to his knee, catching her hands and kissing them pa.s.sionately, but she raised him, saying:--

"If it is your will, I shall refuse the Duke of Tyrconnel, regardless of my duty to my father and my house, and shall wait for you, happy even in the waiting, or share your fortune, be it good or ill, from this hour.

Which shall it be?"

"Soon I shall be an exile, or climbing the steps of a scaffold on Tyburn Hill. This must be our farewell. Do not remain a moment longer. May G.o.d help me and bring happiness to you!" said Hamilton, answering her question all too plainly.

She drew his face down to hers and kissed his lips, till from very fear of himself he thrust her from him and led her weeping to the outer door.

When Frances came out to Betty and me, she was holding her handkerchief to her eyes and her vizard was hanging by its chain.

Sympathetic Betty lifted the vizard, saying: "Cover your face till we go to my room. Poor mistress! It must be all awry with your love, and I have heard that there is no pain like it."

We climbed the steps, and, as we were going across the yard, Betty twined her arm about Frances's waist. Wis.h.i.+ng to comfort her by changing the subject, she said:--

"I have neither powder nor rouge in my room, but I have black patches, though I have never dared to use one, fearing to be accused of aping the great ladies."

"Betty, there are no great ladies so good and beautiful as you," said Frances, trying to check her weeping. "If I were a man, you should not go long without a chance for a husband."

"Oh, I've had chances in plenty," answered Betty, proudly. "But father says I'm too hard to suit and will die a maid. He says I want a gentleman, and--" (Here she sighed and glanced involuntarily toward me.) "He is right. I will have none other."

"Seek lower and fare better," said Frances.

"I don't know how it will all turn out," replied Betty with a sigh.

The topic seemed to be alive with sighs. "A woman may not choose, and I suppose I shall one day take the man my father chooses, having no part in the affair myself, though it is the most important one in my life."

"Nonsense, Betty," returned Frances. "You are like the rest of us, and when the right one comes, you will seek him if need be--in a cellar. Take my advice, Betty, when the right one comes, help him, and thank me ever after."

When we entered the house, Frances went with Betty to her room, leaving me in the tap-room, waiting to take my foolish cousin home.

To say that I was troubled would feebly express my state of mind. All my dreams of fortune for Frances and glory for her family had vanished. I did not know at that time that she and Hamilton had agreed never to meet again, though had I known, I should have put little faith in the compact.

CHAPTER VIII

IN FEAR OF THE KING

When Frances came downstairs, she and I started home, walking first down Gracious Street, and then through Upper Thames Street toward Temple Bar.

It was no time to scold her, since I was sure that she knew quite as well as I could tell her the folly and the recklessness of what she had just done. I also believed there must have been an overpowering motive back of it all, and that being true, I knew that nothing I could say would in any way induce her to repent at present or forbear in future. I might bring her to regret, but regret is a long journey from repentance. If her heart had gone so far beyond her control as to cause her to seek Hamilton, as she had done that day, it were surely a profitless task for me to try to put her right. If she, who was modest, honest, and strong, could not right herself, trying as I knew she had tried, no one else could do it for her.

Even my silence seemed to be a reproach, so I tried to think of something to say which would neither bear upon what she had done nor seem to avoid it.

After a moment or two, Betty, that is, thoughts of her, came to my relief, and I said: "If Betty were at court, she would rival the best of the beauties. There's a charm about the girl which grows on one. I have known her since she came from school in France, over a year ago, and the more I see of her the better I like her. She has grace of person and manner, is well educated, tender of heart, honest, and has wonderful eyes."

"And dimples," suggested Frances. "You might win her, Baron Ned. I should like to see you do something foolish to bring you down to my level."

There was a distinct note of sarcasm in her voice, and I felt sure that if I remained silent there was more to come. I was not disappointed, for presently, after two or three false starts, she continued:--

"I do not care to hear your comments on what I have just done. I know quite as well in my simplicity as you in your wisdom the many good reasons why I should not have visited the Old Swan to-day. I knew before I started, but I should have gone had the reasons been multiplied a thousand fold in number and cogency. Therefore, I do not care to hear your comments on the subject. I should have gone just the same had I feared that death awaited me. I had but one purpose in life, and for weeks have had but one--to see him. If I was willing to put aside the love of my father and all other considerations dear to me, nothing that you can say will do you any good or be of advantage to me."

"My dear Frances," I replied, "I find no fault with you. I am sorry you had to do it, but I know it could not be avoided. You were helpless against an overpowering motive. I am sorry for you, yet I admire you more than ever before, because of your recklessness. I have always thought you were cold, or at least that you were wise enough to keep yourself cool, but now I know that beneath your beauty there is a soul that can burn, a heart that can yearn, and a reckless disregard of consequences that on occasion may make a blessed fool of you. It is such women as you who keep alive the spark of Himself which G.o.d first breathed into man. I do not blame you. I pity you, and am lost in wondering what will come of it all."

After a long pause, she spoke, sighing: "Although you may not understand what I mean, there was a great deal of right as well as wrong in what I did. I owed to his love, which I knew to be true, an acknowledgment of mine, but more, I had wronged him grievously, and it was right that I should make what poor amends I could. But right or wrong, I did what I had to do, and I do not intend to blame myself, nor to hear blame from any one else. I am perfectly willing that the whole world should know what I have done--that is, I should be were it not for father."

"Again I say I do not blame you," I returned, "though I wish sincerely you had not gone."

"Why did you follow me, and how did you know where I had gone?" asked Frances.

I told her of my visit to her father's house and how, upon my failure to find her there, I went to the Old Swan.

"I thought it would be better that you should leave the Old Swan with me than alone," I said. "It would have been better had you taken me with you."

"Would you have gone with me, knowing my errand?" she asked.

"Yes, gladly," I answered. "When a woman deliberately makes up her mind to do a thing of this sort, she does it sooner or later, despite heaven, earth, or the other place to the contrary. I should have gained nothing by opposing you; I could at least have given color of propriety by going with you."

We walked up Thames Street till we came to the neighborhood of Baynard's Castle, where we took boat and went to Whitehall, each of us in silent revery all the way.

While I was paying the waterman, Frances ran up the stairs to the garden, and when I followed I saw her talking to the king, so I stopped ten or twelve paces from them and removed my hat. Being in their lee, the wind brought the king's words to me, and I imagined, from the loud tone in which he spoke, that he intended me to hear what he had to say. Perhaps he suspected that I had helped Frances in her morning's escapade.