Complete weird tales of.., p.139
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 139
“He said — to — to tell you if I saw you in Pittsburg — to — to — I mean that I was to say to you that Sir William had changed his mind—”
“About what?” I demanded, irritably.
“Our betrothal.”
“Our betrothal?”
“Yes. I am not to wed you.”
“Of course not,” I said, rather blankly; “but I thought Sir William desired it. He said that he did. He said it to me!”
“He no longer wishes it,” said Silver Heels.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, faintly.
I was hurt.
“Oh, very well,” I observed, resentfully, “doubtless Sir William has chosen a wealthy gentleman of rank and distinction for you. He is quite right. I am only a cornet of horse, and won’t be that long. All the same, I cannot see why he forbids me to wed you. He told me he wished it! I cannot see why he should so slight me! Why should he forbid me to wed you?”
“Do you care?” asked Silver Heels.
“Who — I? Care? Why — why, I don’t know. It is not 284 very pleasant to be told you are too poor and humble to wed your own kin if you wish to. Suppose I wished to?”
After a moment she said: “Well — it’s too late now.”
“How do you know?” I said, sharply. “I do not see why I should be driven away from you! It is unfair! It is unkind! It is mortifying and I don’t like it! See here, Silver Heels, why should Sir William drive me away from you?”
“You have never needed driving,” said Silver Heels.
“Yes, I have!” I retorted. “Didn’t you drive me away for Bevan?”
After a silence she stole a glance at me.
“Would you come back — now?”
Something in her voice startled me.
“Why — yes,” I stammered, not knowing exactly what she meant; “I cannot see that there is such difference in rank between us that Sir William should forbid me to wed you. Of course you would not wed beneath you, and, as for me, I’d sooner cut my head off!”
“I was afraid,” she ventured, “that perhaps — perhaps Sir William thought you had become too fine for me. I could not endure to wed you if that were true.”
This was a new idea. Was it true that my quality unfitted me to mate with Silver Heels? The idea did not gratify me now.
“I’ll tell you this,” said I, “that if I loved you in that way — you know what I mean! — I’d wed you anyhow!”
“But I would not wed you!” she said, haughtily.
“You would not refuse me?” I asked, in amazement.
“I should hate you — if you were above me — in rank!”
“Even if you loved me before?”
“Ah, yes — even if I loved you — as I love — him whom I love.”
Her clear eyes were looking straight into mine now. Again her voice had stirred some new and untouched chord which curiously thrilled, sounding stealthily within me.
She lowered her eyes to the blue blossom in her fingers, and I saw her crush it. What soft, white fingers she had! The flushed tips, crushing the blossom, fascinated me.
Again, suddenly, my heart began to beat heavily, thumping in my throat so strangely that I shivered and passed my hand over my breast.
Silver Heels bent lower over her idle hands; her fingers, so exquisite, were still now.
Presently I said, “Who is this fool whom you love?”
I had not thought to fright or hurt her, but she flushed and burned until all her face was surging scarlet to her hair.
“Silver Heels,” I stammered, catching her fingers.
At the touch the strange thrill struck through my body and I choked, unable to utter a word; but the desire for her hands set me quivering, and I caught her fingers and drew them, interlocked, from her eyes. Her eyes! Their beauty amazed me; their frightened, perilous sweetness drew my head down to them. Breathless, her mouth touched mine; against me her heart was beating; then suddenly she had gone, and I sprang to my feet to find her standing tearful, quivering, with her hands on her throbbing throat. I leaned against a sapling, dazed, content to meet her eyes and strive to think. Useless! In my whirling thoughts I could but repeat her name, endlessly. Other thoughts crept in, but flew scattering to the four winds, while every pulse within me throbbed out her name, repeating, ceaselessly repeating, in my beating heart.
We were so poor in years, so utterly untried in love, that the strangeness of it set us watching one another. Passion, shaking frail bodies, startles, till pain, always creeping near, intrudes, dismaying maid and youth to love’s confusion.
With a sort of curious terror she watched me leaning there, and I saw her trembling fingers presently busied with the silken hat ribbons under her chin, tying and retying as though she knew not what she did. Then of a sudden she dropped on the rock and fell a-weeping without a sound; and I knelt beside her, crushing her shoulders close to me, and kissing her neck and hands, nay, the very damask on her knees, and the silken tongue of her buckled shoon among the buttercups.
Why she wept I knew not, nor did she — nor did I ask her why. Her frail hands fell listlessly, scarcely moving under my lips. Once she laid her arm about my neck, then dropped it as though repelled. And never a word could we find to break the silence.
I heard the wind blowing somewhere in the world, but 286 where, I cared not. I heard blossoms discreetly stirring, and dusky branches interlacing, taking counsel together behind their leafy, secret screens. My ears were filled with voiceless whisperings, delicate and noiseless words were forming in the silence, “I love you”; and my dumb tongue and lips, unstirring, understood, and listened. Then, when my sweetheart had also heard, she turned and put both arms around my neck, linking her fingers, and her gray eyes looked down at me, beside her knees.
“Now you must go,” she was repeating, touching her little French hat with tentative fingers to straighten it, but eyes and lips tenderly smiling at me. “My Lady Shelton and Sir Timerson Chank will surely return to catch you here if you hasten not — dear heart.”
“But will you not tell me when you first loved me, Silver Heels?” I persisted.
“Well, then — if you must be told — it was on the day when you first wore your uniform, and I saw you were truly a man!”
“That day! When you scarcely spoke to me?”
“Ay, that was the reason. Yet now I think of it, I know I have always loved you dearly; else why should I have been so hurt when you misused me; why should I have cried abed so many, many nights, vowing to my heart that I did hate you as I hated no man! Ah — dear friend, you will never know—”
“But,” I insisted, “you grew cool enough to wed Lord Dunmore—”
“Horror! Why must you ever hark back to him when I tell you it was not I who did that, but a cruelly used and foolish child, stung with the pain of your indifference, maddened to hear you talk of mating me as though I were your hound! — and my only thought was to put myself above you and beyond your reach to shame me—”
“Oh, Silver Heels!” I murmured, aghast at my own wickedness.
But she was already smiling again, with her slender hands laid on my shoulders.
“All that tastes sweetly — now,” she said.
“It is ashes in my mouth,” I said, bitterly, and upbraided myself aloud, until she placed her fingers on my face and silently signed me to turn around.
At the same instant a wheezy noise came to my ears, and the next moment, over the edge of the slope, a large, round face rose like the full moon.
Fascinated, I watched it; the wheezing grew louder and more laboured.
“Lady Shelton! Oh, go! go!” whispered Silver Heels. But it was too late for flight had I been so minded.
Suddenly my Lady Shelton’s fat feet began to trot as though of their own notion, for her cold, flabby features expressed no emotion, although, from the moment her moon-like face had risen behind the hill, I saw that her eyes were fixed on me.
After her puffed the fat gentleman, Sir Timerson Chank, and behind him came mincing Lord Dunmore, fanning his face with a lace handkerchief, his little gold-edged French hat under his arm. Faith, he was in a rare temper.
Lady Shelton paddled up to Silver Heels, halted, and panted at her. Then she turned on me and panted at me until her voice returned. With her voice, her features assumed a most extraordinary change; billows of fat agitated the expanse of chin and cheek, and her voice, babyish in fury, made me jump, for it sounded as though some tiny, pixy creature, buried inside of her, was scolding me.
Sir Timerson Chank now bore down on my left and presently rounded to, delivering his broadside at short range; but I turned on him savagely, bidding him hold his tongue, which so astonished him that he obeyed me.
As for Dunmore, his shrill prattle never ceased, and he danced and vapoured and fingered his small-sword, till my hands itched to throw him into the blackberry thicket.
“If,” said I, to Lady Shelton, “you are pleased to forbid me your door, pray remember, madam, that your authority extends no farther! I shall not ask your permission to address my cousin, Miss Warren — nor yours!” I added, wheeling on Sir Timerson Chank.
“Sir Timerson! Sir Timerson! Arrest him! You are a 288 magistrate. Sir Timerson! Arrest him! Oh, I’m all of a twitter!” panted Lady Shelton.
But Sir Timerson Chank made no sign of compliance.
“Lord Dunmore,” I said, “by what privilege do you assume to vapour and handle the hilt of your small-sword in Miss Warren’s presence?”
“Sink me!” cried Lord Dunmore. “Sink me now, Mr. Cardigan; you should know that I have privileges, sir. I will have you to know that I have privileges, sir! Crib me! but I will assert my rights!”
“Your — what?” I replied, contemptuously.
“My rights! My privilege to defend Miss Warren — my rights, sir! I stand upon them, crib me, if I don’t!”
“Shame on you!” cried Lady Shelton, panting angrily at me. “Shame on you — you mannerless, roving, blustering, hectoring rebel! — you — you boy! Oh, I’m all of a twitter! Sir Timerson, I’m all of a twitter!—”
“Oh tally!” broke in Dunmore, peeping at me through his quizzing-glass. “The lad’s moon-mad! A guinea to a china orange that the lad’s moon-mad. You may see it in his eyes, Sir Timerson. You may see he’s non compos — eh, Sir Timerson? Sink me if he isn’t!”
How I controlled myself I scarcely know, but I strove to remember that a hand raised to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, meant the ruin of my plans for the night. As I stood staring at the wizened macaroni, aching to take his sword, break it, and spank him with the fragments, I saw Jack Mount and the Weasel cautiously reconnoitring the situation from the hill’s edge.
Ere I could motion them away they had made up their minds that I was in distress, and now they came swaggering into our circle, thumbs hooked in their shirts, saluting poor Silver Heels with a flourish that drew a thin scream from Lady Shelton.
“Trouble with this old scratch-wig?” inquired Mount, nodding his head sideways towards Lord Dunmore.
“Damme!” gasped Dunmore. “Do you know who I am, you beast?”
“I know you’re a ruddled old hunks,” said Mount, carelessly. “Who may the other guinea wig-stand be, Mr. Cardigan?”
As he spoke he looked across at Sir Timerson Chank, then suddenly his eyes grew big as saucers and a low whistle escaped his lips.
“Gad!” he exclaimed. “It’s the magistrate or I’m a codfish!”
“Fellow!” roared Sir Timerson, his face purpling with passion. “Fellow! Thunder and Mars! Lord Dunmore, this is Jack Mount, the highwayman!”
For an instant Dunmore stood transfixed, then he screamed out: “Close the gates! Close the gates, Sir Timerson! He shall not escape, damme! No, he shall not escape! Call the constables, Sir Timerson; call the constables!”
Mount had paled a little, but now as Sir Timerson began to bellow for a constable, his colour came back and he stepped forward, laying a heavy hand on the horrified magistrate’s shoulder.
“Come now; come now,” he said; “stop that bawling, or I’ll put your head between your knees and truss you up like a basted capon!” And he gave him a slight shake which dislodged Sir Timerson’s forty-guinea wig.
“You Tory hangman,” said Mount, scowling, “if I ever took a penny from you it was to help drive you and your thieving crew out of the land! Do you hear that? Now go and howl for your thief-takers, and take his Lordship, here, with you to squall for his precious constables!” And he gave Sir Timerson a shove over the grassy slope.
Lady Shelton shrieked as Sir Timerson went wabbling down the hill, but Mount turned fiercely on Dunmore and shook his huge fist under his nose.
“Hunt me down if you dare!” he growled. “Move a finger to molest me and the people shall know how you stop public runners and scalp them, too! Oho! Now you scare, eh? Out o’ my way, you toothless toad!”
Dunmore shrank back, almost toppling down the hill, which he hurriedly descended and made off after Sir Timerson towards the pavilion.
“Come,” said I, “that will do for the present, Jack. Look yonder! Your friend, the magistrate, is toddling fast to trap you. You should be starting if you mean to get out of this scrape a free man.”
“Pooh!” replied Mount, swaggering. “I’ve time to dine if I chose, but I’m not hungry. Come, Cade; we needs must kick some planks out of that stockade below us, if they guard the gates. But we have time to stroll.”
The Weasel did not appear to hear him, and stood staring at Silver Heels with an expression so strange that it was almost terrifying. For a moment I feared he had gone stark mad.
“Cade!” repeated Mount. “What is the matter, Cade? What do you see? Not another fat magistrate? Cade! What on earth troubles you, old friend?” And he stepped quickly to the Weasel’s side, I following.
“Cade!” he cried, shaking his comrade’s arm.
The Weasel turned a ghastly face.
“Who is she?” he motioned, with his lips.
“Do you mean Miss Warren?” I asked, astonished.
“A ghost,” he muttered, shivering in every limb.
Presently he began to move towards Silver Heels, and Mount and I drew him back by the shoulders.
“Cade! Cade!” cried Mount, anxiously. “Don’t look like that, for God’s sake!”
“For God’s sake,” repeated Renard, trembling.
His eyes were dim with tears. Mount leaned over to me and whispered: “He is mad!” But the Weasel heard him and looked up slowly.
“No, no,” he said; “a little wrong in the head, Jack, only a little wrong. I thought I saw my wife, Jack, or her ghost — ay, her ghost — the ghost of her youth and mine—”
A spasm shook him; he hid his face in his hands a moment, then scoured out the tears with his withered fingers.
“Ask the young lady’s pardon for me,” he muttered; “I have frightened her.”
I walked over to Silver Heels, who stood beside Lady Shelton, amazed at the scenes which had passed so swiftly before her eyes, and I drew her aside, mechanically asking pardon from the petrified dowager.
“He is a little mad,” I said; “he thought he saw in you the ghost of his lost wife. Sorrow has touched his brain, I think, but he is very gentle and means no harm. Speak to him, Silver Heels. I owe my life to those two men.”
She stood looking at them a moment, then, laying her hand on my arm, she went slowly across to Mount and Renard.
They uncovered as she came up; the Weasel’s face grew dead and fixed, but the pathos in his eyes was indescribable.
“If you are Mr. Cardigan’s friends, you must be mine, too,” said Silver Heels, sweetly. “All you have done for him, you have done for me.”
Fascinated, Mount gaped at her, tongue-tied, clutching his coon-skin cap to his breast. But the fibre of the two men showed the difference of their grain in a startling form, for, into Renard’s shrunken frame came something that straightened him and changed him; he lifted his head with a peculiar dignity almost venerable, and, stepping forward, took Silver Heels’s small hand in his with a delicate grace that any man might envy. Then he bent and touched her fingers with his lips.
“An old man’s devotion, my child,” he said. “You have your mother’s eyes.”
“My — my mother’s eyes?” faltered Silver Heels, glancing fearfully at me.
“Yes — your mother’s eyes — and all of her. I knew her, child.”
“My — mother?”
He touched her hand with his lips again, slowly.
“I am a little troubled in my head sometimes,” he said, gravely. “Do you fear me?”
“N — no,” murmured Silver Heels.
Their eyes met in silence.
Presently I took Silver Heels by the hand and led her back to Lady Shelton.
“Madam,” I said, “if aught of harm comes to these two men, through Lord Dunmore, betwixt this hour and the same hour to-morrow, there is not a hole on earth into which he can creep for mercy. Tell this to my Lord Dunmore, and bid him stay away. I speak in no heat, madam; I mean what I say. For as surely as I stand here now, that hour in which Lord Dunmore and Sir Timerson start to hunt us down, they die. Pray you, madam, so inform those gentlemen.”
Then I turned to Silver Heels, who impulsively stretched out both hands. The next moment I rejoined Mount and Renard, and we passed rapidly through the grove and down the hill to the stockade, where Mount drove out a plank with his huge shoulder, and we were free of Roanoke Plain.
CHAPTER XVII
AT TEN O’CLOCK that night I sat in the coffee-room of the “Virginia Arms,” outwardly cool enough, I trust, but terribly excited nevertheless, and scarce able to touch the food on my plate.
Heretofore, although I have always dreaded physical pain, I may truthfully say that the prospect of it had never deterred me from facing necessary danger; and I can also maintain that, until the present moment, the possibility of disaster to me or mine had never terrified me beforehand.
Now it was different; I seemed to be utterly unable to contemplate with philosophy the chance of misfortune to Silver Heels, through failure of my plans or accident to my proper person. It was, I think, responsibility and not cowardice that frightened me; for who was there to take care of Silver Heels if anything happened to me?
