The Touchstone of Fortune Part 36

I sprang at the idea, but immediately sprang back, saying: "But it is not entirely proper for us to travel to Calais together, even though you are my sister-cousin."

"We may take father," she suggested. "Sarah wants to visit Lady St.

Albans, and she can go if we take father with us. And, Baron Ned; I have another suggestion to offer. Let us take Bettina."

I sprang at that proposal and did not spring back. So we went first to my uncle, who said he would go with us, and then we went to see Bettina. She had recovered from her sprains and bruises, although she was still pale and not quite strong.

When Frances asked her to go with us, she answered, "Ay, gladly, if father consents."

Pickering, who was sitting with us at the time in Bettina's cozy parlor, turned to me, laughing, and said:--

"You would suppose, from Betty's remark, that I am master here, but the truth is my soul is not my own, and now her modest request for permission is made for effect on the company."

Betty ran to her father, sat on his knee, twined her arm about his neck, and kissed him as a protest against the unjust insinuation.

"You see how she does it," said Pickering. "No hammer and tongs for Betty; just oil and honey."

"And lots and lots of love, father," interrupted Betty.

Well, our journey was soon arranged on a grand scale. Pickering lent us his new coach, just home from the makers in Cow Street. It was cus.h.i.+oned and curtained and had springs in place of thorough-braces. It also had gla.s.s in the windows and doors; a luxury then little known in England even among the n.o.bles. There was a prejudice against its use in coach windows because of the fact that two or three old ladies had cut their faces in trying to thrust their heads through it.

The new coach was a wonderful vehicle, and Frances and I, as well as Betty, were very proud of our grandeur. Pickering sent along with the coach and horses two l.u.s.ty fellows as drivers, and gave us a hamper almost large enough to feed a company of soldiers. I was to pay all expenses on the road.

Almost at the last hour Sir Richard concluded not to go, but insisted that Frances, Bettina, and I take the journey by ourselves. As Pickering offered no objection, Frances shrugged her shoulders in a.s.sent, I shrugged mine, and Betty laughed, whereby we all, in our own way, agreed to the new arrangement, and preparations went forward rapidly.

By the time we were ready to start, the king, the duke, the d.u.c.h.ess, and many ladies and gentlemen of the court circle had gone to Bath, thus giving us an opportunity to make our journey without the knowledge of any one in Whitehall; a consideration of vast importance to us under the circ.u.mstances. Some of our grand friends at court might have laughed at our taking the journey with an innkeeper's daughter, in an innkeeper's coach, but Frances and I laughed because we were happy.

There are distinct periods of good and bad luck in every man's life, which may be felt in advance by one sensitive to occult influences, if one will but keep good watch on one's intuitions and leave them untrammelled by will or reason. At this time "I felt it in my bones,"

as Betty would have said, that the day of our good luck was at hand.

All conditions seemed to combine to our pleasure when, on a certain bright spring morning, Betty, Frances, and I went down to the courtyard of the Old Swan, where we found the coach, the horses, and even the drivers all glittering in the suns.h.i.+ne.

There was ample room in the back seat of the coach for the three of us, so Betty took one corner, Frances made herself comfortable in another, and I took what was left, the pleasant place between them.

After Betty had kissed her father at least a dozen times, and had shed a few tears just to make her happiness complete, the driver cracked his whip and away we went, out through the courtyard gate, down Gracious Hill and across London Bridge before a sleepy man could have winked his eyes.

At first we thought we were in haste, but when we got out of Southwark and into the country, the dark green gra.s.s, the flowering hedges, the whispering leaves of the half-fledged trees, the violets by the roadside, and the smiling sun in the blue above, all invited us to linger. So we told the driver to slow his pace, and we lowered every window in the coach, there being no one in the country whose wonder and envy we cared to arouse by a display of our gla.s.s.

There was not room in Betty's little heart for all the great flood of happiness that had poured into it, so presently, to give it vent, she began to sing the little French lullaby we had so often heard, whereupon Frances and I ceased listening to the birds, and I was more thoroughly convinced than ever before that there were at least distinct periods of _good_ fortune in every man's life.

Before reaching Gravesend, we halted at a gra.s.sy spot near the river bank, where we ate our dinner. When the horses had rested, we set off for Rochester, in which place we expected to spend the night at the Maid's Garter, a famous old inn kept by a friend of Pickerings.

I had noticed a twinkle in Pickering's eyes when he directed us to go to this tavern, but did not understand the cause of his merriment until I learned that by a curious old custom, a maid seeking entrance for the first time must contribute one of her garters before being admitted. The worst feature of the usage was that the garter must be taken off at the door, and then and there presented to the porter, who received it on the point of his official staff.

After entering Rochester, we went to the Maid's Garter and at once drove into the courtyard, as the custom is with travellers intending to remain all night.

When we left the coach and started to climb the steps to the great door, we found the landlord and his retinue waiting to receive us. Frances was in the lead, and when we reached the broad, flat stone in front of the door, the head porter stepped before her, bowed, and asked humbly:--

"Is my lady maid or madam?"

Frances looked up in surprise, and he repeated his question.

"What is that to you, fellow?" asked Frances.

"It is this, my lady," returned the porter. "If my lady be a maid, she must pay me one of her garters as her admission fee to this inn. If she be madam, she enters free. It is a privilege conferred on the Maid's Garter by good St. Augustine when he was Bishop of Canterbury, so long ago that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

"What nonsense is this?" asked Frances, turning to me, and Bettina asked the same question with her eyes. I explained the matter, and Frances, turning to the porter, said:--

"I'll buy you off with a jacobus or a guinea."

"Not a hundred guineas would buy me off, my lady," answered the porter, bowing, "though I might say that a s.h.i.+lling usually goes with the garter."

"Well, I'll send you both the s.h.i.+lling and the garter from my room," said Frances, moving toward the inn door.

"The garter must be paid here, my lady. The s.h.i.+lling may be paid at any time," returned the porter, with polite insistence.

Frances was about to protest, but Betty, more in sympathy with the eccentric customs of inns, modestly lifted her skirts, untied her garter and offered it to the porter, telling him very seriously:--

"I am a maid."

The porter thanked her gravely, whereupon Frances, turning her back on the audience in the doorway, brought forth her garter, gave it to the porter, and we were admitted.

Our supper, beds, and breakfast were all so good that they reconciled Frances and Bettina to the payment of the extraordinary admission fee, and when we left the next morning, curiosity prompted them to pa.s.s near the garter rack in the tap-room, where garters were hanging which had been taken from maids whose great granddaughters had become great grandmothers. The garters that had belonged to Frances and Bettina, being the latest contributions, hung at the bottom of the rack, neatly dated and labelled, and, as I left the room, I overheard Bettina whisper to Frances:--

"I'm glad mine was of silk."

We made a short drive to Maidstone, where we stopped over night. The next day a longer journey brought us to Canterbury, where we spent two nights and a day, visiting the cathedral both by sunlight and moonlight; the combination of moonlight and Bettina being very trying to me.

From Canterbury we drove in the rain to Dover, where we lodged at that good inn, the Three Anchors, to await a fair wind for Calais.

During the next three days the wind was fair, but it was blowing half a gale, and therefore the pa.s.sage was not to be attempted. Though I was enjoying myself, I was anxious to post our letters, as mine gave a full account of several matters at court concerning which I knew George ought to be informed.

Among other news, I told him that King Charles had sent a messenger into France carrying a personal letter to King Louis, asking his help in finding the man Hamilton, who had threatened Charles's life. I also suggested in my letter that the king of France was trying to buy the city of Dunkirk from King Charles, and that because of the friendly negotiations then pending, Louis might give heed to our king's request.

In that case, it might be well, I thought, for Hamilton to leave France at once.

With this urgency in mind, I suggested to Frances and Betty that I cross to Calais alone, regardless of the weather, leaving them at Dover till my return. But they would not be left behind, so we all set sail on a bl.u.s.tery morning and paid for our temerity with a day of suffering. In Calais we posted our letters, having learned that a messenger would leave that same day for Paris, and two days later we returned to Dover.

Our journey home was made in the rain, Bettina sleeping with her head on my shoulder a great part of the way. And I enjoyed the rain even more than I had enjoyed the suns.h.i.+ne.

We reached London nearly a week before the king's return, so that nothing was known of our journey at court.

CHAPTER XI

"ALL SUNs.h.i.+NE MAKES THE DESERT"