Patsy Part 26

They are voyaging from lands of summer, and are already sorry they came.

For here the winter still holds grim, black and yet somehow raw, which was the fault of the yellow sea-fog.

Stair had been up that morning long before the tardy January dawn, Whitefoot had been sent from the farm the night before with the news that Jean would meet him in the bed of the Mays Water opposite Peden's Stone. There was now more freedom of moving about, for the freezing of the snow enabled both man and beast to pa.s.s over it without leaving a footmark.

He found Jean standing there in the dim orange-coloured dawn. She was s.h.i.+vering dislike of the morning, which was at once clammy and freezing hard, so that every stone and even the banks were covered with the frozen fog. Jean had a great red shawl that had come from Holland about her head and neck, and so kept herself as comfortable as might be while she waited for her brother.

Stair had had to watch the signs of the countryside before he dared risk letting himself down into the dark of the Glen. For the sea was always open, and a landing party from the _Britomart_ might have lain unseen in any of the fir copses or hidden behind the knolls.

Black and narrow ran the Mays, that at other times flowed so wide and brown and free. The frost had bound it tightly, all save a trickle in the centre, black as ink, and everywhere about clung the icicles, some thick as a man's arm.

"Oh, Stair, here are letters--one for Mr. Julian and one for you," Jean gasped, the sea-fog in her throat, "thankful I am to see you! I thought you would never come. Here, too, are the provisions--be canny with the eggs. They are on the top in a box by themselves, packed in sawdust, but do not be throwing them down wi' a brainge to get at your letters. And there in a big bag are the linen and clothes--cleaner and sweeter could not be, though I say it that washed and laundried them."

"Is Patsy well?" queried Stair, for he knew that Jean must have a letter of her own which she had read already.

"Famous," said Jean--"of course she is well. Are they not going to marry her to a prince--?"

"Not Lyonesse?" The voice of Stair grew suddenly hoa.r.s.e and threatening.

He looked capable of setting off to London with his musket over his shoulder, to finish the job he had begun.

"Goose," quoth his sister, "no--of course not. Somebody she likes--a young and handsome prince from Germany, or maybe Austria, and a great friend and near neighbour of the Princess, when she is at home."

"You are mocking me," said Stair, regaining some of his composure. "It is sheer nonsense that you are talking."

"Well," said Jean, adjusting the red Amersfort shawl about her head and neck, "go back and read your letter. You will no doubt find it all written there!"

Stair stood and watched her till she disappeared along the edge of the Water of Mays. He could not ask her any further questions, having Patsy's prohibition before him. Besides, there was his own letter, along with one for her Uncle Julian. The last was by far the thickest, and he wondered greatly as he turned it over in his hand, what it might contain.

He could not read his letter down under the overhanging brow of the copse. It was too dark down there at the water's edge, and so by a great detour he made for the Lost Folk's Acre--that port of final harbourage to which the drowned were brought. It lay high on the cliffs, so lonely that if the Lost Ones were to sit evident on their crumbling head-boards and watch for s.h.i.+ps all day long, not even a pa.s.sing gull would be frighted.

"Dear Stair" (the letter read), "it is no use telling you about all the grand doings I have been at. For you never take the least notice. But I can tell you one bit of news that will interest you.

My Lord Duke of Lyonesse is better of his wound, for I have seen him twice. He looks nearly quite right when he is riding on a horse, but when he came with his brother York the other day to see us at Hanover Lodge, he carried a Malacca cane all banded with gold and he limped badly. I don't think he will ever get over it altogether. Of which I was glad, and also proud that you could take so good an aim in the dark. For of course you had no practice in shooting Dukes.

"The Princess was particularly haughty that day, and would hardly ask them to sit down. I said nothing, but bent over my needlework like the good child keeping quiet in the corner. Oh, but they are stupid, these royal people, all except my own Princess and the dear old Queen at Windsor. Neither York nor Lyonesse knew in the least what to say, and the Princess let them stammer on without helping them. I could have laughed.

"What made her more angry still was the way they spoke about Uncle Ju. They said they were sure of getting him, and that the Regent was furious about his killing Wargrove. He could not expect any mercy.

And the Princess said, 'Ah, I thought it was only women whom the Regent abused without mercy--I think your brother c.u.mberland told me so!'

"And this made York burst into a roar of laughter, but Lyonesse grew very red and angry, for he fancies himself the favourite of his lordly eldest brother. Then the Princess said to me, 'Go and see that the maids have closed the windows of my room. I am going up there as soon as these gentlemen have gone!'

"Upon which I escaped, and after a little while the Princess followed me, smiling, and apparently quite pleased with herself.

"'Now I wonder,' said she, 'what good they suppose they have done themselves by that. I am convinced it was the fault of that gipsy hat with the second ring of roses climbing over the crown. Ah, there is Eitel--I shall be down presently. Go and entertain him! I hope they met him coming through the park. He would be sure to scowl at them!'

"Shall I tell you who Eitel is? Well, if you are nervous and unaccustomed to shocks, sit down in the biggest and strongest chair in the Bothy and take hold of both arms. There--one, two, three.

Shut your eyes and grip.

"Well, Eitel is a Prince, Prince Eitel of Altschloss, who wants to marry me! There. Of course you will not believe it, and indeed, to tell the truth, I hardly do either. But they all want me to--even the dear Queen would be pleased. She said as much only yesterday. I think she was sorry about having helped to stop Elsa marrying Uncle Julian a long time ago.

"And the young man--well, he is a good soldier--has fought a lot against Napoleon, and will fight again. To look at?--Oh, he is big and round and rosy, with yellow moustaches and cheeks like apples, nice plump red apples. He goes 'Hum-hem-hum' in his throat when he speaks to me, and he always kisses my hand. Generally he calls me 'Most n.o.ble Lady,' and then I wonder how many hundred yards I could give him and beat him in a mile race along the sands. I daresay he would be quite nice if I cared about princes--because he does not swear all the time, nor gamble away his money with Hangers and Beaujolais and suchlike cattle. Nor does he habitually get so drunk that he has to be carried to bed. In his way he is quite a pattern prince, and if I marry him I shall be the Perfect Princess! But shall I? What do you advise? The Princ.i.p.ality of Altschloss is not large, but it is rich and the people are very well off and contented, that is when 'Bony' lets them alone. So the Princess says, and she knows all about it, for she lives, as it were, just up the next street--I mean in the next Princ.i.p.ality or Duchy or whatever it is.

"They have got me into a corner, Stair, and here in London among great folk I do not see how to get out. If it were only dodging them among the pine of the Glenanmays woods or losing them among the sand-dunes at the Abbey Burnfoot, my feet would trip as lightly as ever they did in the yellow sandals--I think the Prince has written to my father, and I know that the Princess has enclosed a letter to Uncle Julian." (Stair could feel it at that moment between his finger and thumb.)

"So, Stair, they have arranged with everybody, or are in the way of arranging with everybody--except one, Stair--except one.

"They have not yet heard Patsy Ferris speak her mind. They are, poor people, taking a great deal for granted. And there are things in this little girl's mind that she has not told to any one.

"If I married the Prince, I know I should make him desperately unhappy. Yet how to cheat all these wise plan-making people who love me and wish me, according to their lights, the very best sorts of Well--I do not yet see. It will come to me, however. Do you remember how we used to play hide-and-seek so that you could not find me, not even with your dog--I could cheat you so cunningly. Well, Stair, I am not caught yet. If I am hard pressed on land, there is still wind among the tree tops.

"Say nothing of all this screed to Uncle Julian. He will most likely spend the day in writing. Do you go out somewhere (unless the day is too wet) and write also. I needed to tell you, for though every one here is kind, I cannot be sure of this one or that. And I fear me there is no help for _this_ trouble in the gun you carry over your shoulder, Stair. It is not the same sort of carrying off as that of the White Loch, and the Prince with all his apple face and his body like a comfortable bolster means everything that is most honourable and princely. I cannot have him shot.

"And oh, I forgot--the second time that the Royal Dukes--the same pair as before--came hither to Hanover Lodge, Prince Eitel was there and he stood over me all the time they stayed like a soldier on guard, asking me funny questions about my embroidery, in which, I am certain, he was not interested a little bit! But they knew well enough that he was the Prince Eitel who had been at Austerlitz and Wagram, and that he could demand of them as a right the satisfaction which they might deny to a commoner. So I was grateful to him for cowing them, though I really believe that your way is the best, Stair. There is nothing like a charge of slugs in the back for teaching a royal duke manners!

"If the worst comes to the worst, do not be surprised if--but I cannot write it down. At any rate do not be surprised at anything I may do--only be ready to help me when I do it. And remain always, as I shall, faithful to the memory of the White Loch.

"PATSY."

CHAPTER XXV

THE HIGH STILE

Having finished, Stair seemed to wake as from a dream. He had read and re-read the letter. The words buzzed in his ears, mingled with the sharp pain at his heart. Patsy a princess--a real prince making love to her, a man who could be her husband, who might even now have rights upon her, yet whom it would be impossible to deal with as he had dealt with the Duke of Lyonesse! He felt desperately lonely up there.

The escarpments of the cliffs sank away beneath him into the chill turmoil of the winter sea. He had been sitting on a flat tomb, one of the few cut in stone. The yellow fog had vanished. The moors spread away vague and simple, the fine wreath-curves of the snow only interrupted here and there by the brutal rigidity of the tall stone d.y.k.es with the easterly snow-blast still clinging in the c.h.i.n.ks and stuffing the crevices.

Everything was colourless, the ground of a bluish lilac, fading imperceptibly into a livid sky. Still half-dazed, Stair looked about him, Patsy's letter in his hand, surprised to find himself out there and alone. The written characters danced before his eyes, and it was only the strongest sense of duty which turned his face towards the Bothy and Julian Wemyss. He was carrying, he knew it well, a letter from the Princess, enclosing and doubtless supporting a demand for the hand of Patsy Ferris.

Whitefoot slunk along at his master's side, his tail and ears eloquently drooped, and his doleful aspect reflecting admirably the mood of his master. But Stair set his teeth and went forward. He found his breakfast waiting for him, and Julian Wemyss took the letter with his usual grateful urbanity. He was not slow in noticing the depressed state of his companion, though, naturally, he put it down to his having been kept waiting so long in the raw fog.

"I suppose Jean could not come exactly to the moment?" he said, his letter still unopened in his hand.

"No," said Stair, "she was waiting for me, but I came back by the cliffs and the Sailors' Graveyard."

Julian, who knew that Stair never did anything without a reason, asked him if he had found everything clear from the lookout.

"Oh, all clear," said Stair, and sat down to make a pretence of breakfasting. But he could not keep his eyes from wandering in the direction of Julian Wemyss, who, seated in the great chair between the window and the fire, was presently bending his brows over the packet he had received. Eight sheets of a fine and light handwriting like that of the address--from the Princess Elsa, of that there could be no question.

Julian read on and on, wrapped up in the daintily written words, unconscious of the thick enclosure on paper like parchment, which had slipped down on the floor of the Bothy. Stair could see the huge black downstrokes of the superscription. He stopped eating and began to clear away.

Julian looked up from his reading at the sudden clattering of pottery.

"Hold there," he said, "it is my day--you must not forget. I claim my rights."

But Stair continued with a smile to prepare for that part of the work which is the curse of every bachelor menage--the was.h.i.+ng-up after.

"I think," he said quietly, "that you will have enough to do with your correspondence--I take everything upon me for to-day. Your pardon, Mr.

Wemyss, but I am afraid you have dropped something!"