III
Many a round of wine had been served to the young revelers, and, under its influence, each one was revealing a little more of his real self. They had all laid aside their muddy riding boots and heavy riding coats, and were lounging in picturesque undress. Lord Farquhart, who was easily the leader of the four, had thrown aside the cynical veneer that had for some time marred the dark, Oriental beauty of his face, and was humming a love song. Lindley’s comely Irish face was slightly flushed, and he was keeping time on the white table with the tip of his sword to the ditty that floated from Lord Farquhart’s lips. Treadway, London’s dapperest beau, was smirking at his own reflection in a small hand mirror he carried, while Ashley, who had drunk more heavily than any of the others, permitted a definite scowl to contract his brows and droop his lips.
“I’m trying – I’m trying,” murmured Lord Farquhart, “to change that last song I wrote for Sylvia into a song for Barbara! The rhyme and the rhythm go the same, I think.” He stood up and sang the words out loud, repeating the verses several times, inserting sometimes Sylvia’s name and sometimes Barbara’s.
Lips that vie with the poppy’s hue,
Eyes that shame the violet’s blue,
Hearts that beat with love so true,
Sylvia, sweet, I come to you!
Barb’ra, sweet, I come to you!
His eyes questioned Treadway.
“Is it not quite the same? Does it not go to one name as well as to the other? To me it seems I’ve no need to write a new verse for my new love.”
“How will the fair Sylvia take her congé in a fortnight’s time?” demanded Ashley, in an undertone, of Lindley.
And it was in the same tone that Lindley answered: “Let’s wonder, rather, if the fair Sylvia’ll be given her congé in a fortnight’s time!” But the sneer in Lindley’s voice was for Ashley, who had asked the impertinent question, not for Farquhart, whose honor he, apparently, doubted. “Lord Farquhart’s not to blame, as you know well enough. The mess is of Lord Gordon’s making, for Lord Gordon holds in trust even the barren lands that came to Percy with his title.”
Ashley’s resentment of Lindley’s tone was apparent on his face, and his fingers were again on his sword. He was under no promise to his lady not to fight with Lindley, and his blood cried out for a fight with some one. But at that instant there was a loud clamor in the courtyard. A horse’s hoofs on the flags, a fretted whinny, the oaths of stable boys, all combined into an uproar.
“Can it be the Lady Barbara?” cried Percy Farquhart, sobered suddenly, and reaching for his plumed hat.
“Nay, my lord, ’tis but one horse,” answered Marmaduke, hurrying to the door. “’Tis a riderless horse,” he added, in a second.
“A riderless horse!” echoed all of the young men in chorus, springing to their feet.
“Ay, a riderless horse,” called Marmaduke, from the darkness without; “’tis a woman’s horse, too; a woman’s cushioned seat.”
The guests were crowding about the door, all save the lad who had been slumbering so deeply. He, roused by the sudden clamor, and apparently frightened by the sudden realization that he had unwittingly trespassed upon Lord Farquhart’s privacy, slipped softly up the stairs.
“A woman’s horse!” cried Lindley. “Is it possible that some woman has fallen victim to the Black Devil? Here, almost within earshot of our revelings? To the rescue!”
“Nay, we must think first of the Lady Barbara’s safety,” interrupted Ashley, holding back and barring the doorway with a peremptory arm. “We must not risk the Lady Barbara for the sake of some chance damsel. Rather let us mount and ride to meet the Gordon coach.”
“There is no sign whatsoever of foul play,” reported Marmaduke, coming in from the yard. “The lines are knotted loosely, and a tethering strap is broken. The beast has doubtless but strayed from some neighboring house.”
“If ’tis from some neighboring house, good Marmaduke, would you not know the horse and trappings?” queried Treadway. “Is there nothing to show the lady’s name or rank?”
“There’s no mark of any kind,” answered Marmaduke. “’Tis a white horse with a black star between the eyes, and the trappings are of scarlet. That is all I can tell you, your honor. In all likelihood some stable boy’ll be along shortly to claim the creature.”
The young men were again sitting about the table, and Ashley called for another round of wine.
“I, for one, have had wine enough and to spare,” declared Treadway. “The Lady Barbara must be here soon, and, to my thinking, ten minutes of sleep would not be amiss. You, too, my lord, could you not meet the lady with a better grace after at least forty winks?” He linked his arm in Lord Farquhart’s and led him toward a door at the side of the room. “Come to my room and we’ll pretend to imitate the lad with the good conscience and the good wine atop of it. Why, the lad’s gone! Slipped away like a frightened shadow, doubtless, when he found the company he’d waked into. Unless the Lady Barbara comes, give us fifteen minutes, Marmaduke. Not a second more, on your life. Fifteen minutes will unfuddle a brain that’s – that’s not as clear as it might be, but more than that will make it dull.”
Together the two men entered Treadway’s room, caroling aloud the love song that had been writ to Sylvia and changed to Barbara.
Ashley and Lindley, left alone over the table, sat for a moment in silence. Then the latter, forgetting his resentment toward Ashley as easily as it had been roused, spoke in a laughing, rallying voice.
“Cheer up, Hal! A fortnight’s a goodly time in which a slip may come between unwilling lips and a lagging cup. It seems to me that for a lover’s heart, yours is a faint heart. The Lady Barbara is unwon yet – by Percy, I mean.” The last words were added with a laugh at Ashley’s gloomy countenance.
“Yes, the lips are unwilling enough,” Ashley agreed, in a grudging voice, “and the cup lags, undoubtedly, but there’ll be no slip; old Gordon will force the lips, and old Gordon holds the handle of the cup. Mistress Barbara is but wax in her father’s hands, and as for Farquhart – well, unless he marries the Lady Barbara, Lord Gordon will ruin him. The old man has sworn that he will have his way, and have it he will, or I’m much mistaken.”
“But,” remonstrated Lindley, “wax can be molded by any hand that holds it. If the lady is wax in her father’s hands through fear, ’twould seem to me that – why, that love is hotter than fear, that love might mold as well, if not better, than fear.”
“Ay, if love had a chance to mold,” answered Ashley, with more animation, but the mask of reserve fell quickly over his features. “Enough of me and my affairs, though. How is it with you? Have you won the lady of your own heart’s desire? When last I saw you, you were lamenting, the obduracy of some fair one, if I remember right.”
“Alas and alack, no, I’ve not won her,” mourned Lindley, his Irish eyes and his Irish lips losing their laughter. “I’m in a fair way never to win her, I think. In my case, though, it’s the father that’s wax in the daughter’s hands. ’Tis a long time since he gave his consent to my wooing the maid, but the maid will not be wooed. She knows how to have her own way, and has always known it and always had it, too. She tyrannized over me when she was a lass of six and I was a lad of ten. Now she will not even meet me. When I visit at her house, she locks herself in her own chamber, and even I lose heart when it comes to wooing a maid through a wooden door. Ay, I tried it once, and only once. To my last letter, a hot, impassioned love letter, her only reply was to ask whether I still would turn white at a cock fight. The minx remembers well enough that I did turn white at a fight between two gamecocks, which she, mind you, had arranged in her father’s barnyard at that same time, when she was six and I was ten.”
“Well, I wish you luck,” answered Ashley, who had given little heed to Lindley’s words. “But to my mind such a maid would not be worth the wooing. ’Tis to be hoped that Treadway has cleared Farquhart’s addled wits as well as he has cleared his voice,” he added, after a moment’s silence.
Floating down from Lord Farquhart’s room came the last words of the song to Sylvia.
Hearts that beat with love so true!
Sylvia, sweet, I come to you!
Yet at that very instant, in young Treadway’s room, Lord Farquhart was snoring in unison with young Treadway. Lord Farquhart’s head was pillowed next to the head of young Treadway. And, stranger yet, at that very instant, too, there sprang from Lord Farquhart’s window a figure strangely resembling Lord Farquhart himself, decked out in Lord Farquhart’s riding clothes, that had been cast aside after the miry ride from London town, and tucked away in one corner of Lord Farquhart’s room were the dark riding coat and breeches of the youth who had slumbered before the hearth of The Jolly Grig.
About the figure, as it sped along the road, was a long black cloak, over its head was drawn a wide French cap, and over the face was a black mask, but on the lips, under the mask, were the words of Lord Farquhart’s song to Sylvia, the song wherein the name of Sylvia had so lately given place to Barbara.
Hearts that beat with love so true!
Barb’ra, sweet, I come to you!
IV
The exchange of confidences between the two young men lasted for a few moments more. Then Ashley, examining the fastenings of his sword belt, exclaimed:
“Assuredly the Lady Barbara must arrive soon, whatever the state of the roads may be. I will go and look to the men and horses. Doubtless the former are as mad as their masters, and, doubtless, too, they have consumed as much of Marmaduke’s heady wine.”
Lindley, left to himself, drew a letter from some place not far distant from his heart and read it.
It was written in a clerkly hand, and was, for the first part, clearly a dictation.
I regret to say, my dear Cecil, that I can give you no better word from my daughter, Judith. She declares roundly that she will have nothing to do with you, that she will not listen to your suit, and she commands me to advise you to put her out of your head for all time. I cannot, as you know, say aught against my girl.
“I should not let him if he would.”
In her duty to me she is all that I could ask, but in every other respect her madcap moods seem but to grow upon her. She spends much of her time shut up in her own room, and I have discovered quite recently that she rides much alone – through our own forests only, however. I would not for the world convey to you the idea that Judith is indiscreet. She has stripped from the trappings of her horse every sign of our name and station – or so the stable boys have reported to me. And not ten days since one of the maids ran to me in a great pother and told me that Mistress Judith was stamping about her chamber, behind locked doors, conversing at the top of her voice with herself or with the empty air. When I took her to task on the subject she explained that she was merely rehearsing to join some play actors she had seen performing on the common. Neither locks nor bars will hold her, for I have tried both. I would not dare to coerce her in any smallest degree, for I know not what might happen. So I hope you will see, my dear Cecil, that it would be indeed wise if you could take her advice and put her out of your mind. I fear that, as she says, she has given me all the love of which she is capable.
From this point the letter ran on in the same hand, but in another vein.
So far, dear coz, I’ve written according to my revered father’s words. You know I’m the only scholar in the family. The pen fits his hand but sadly, while every implement of love and war rests easily in mine. With the foils I – But, alas and alack, you care not for tales of that sort. I hear you say: “Fie, fie, Ju! Why play with a man’s toys?” To return to the subject in hand. Will you put me quite out of your mind and thoughts? Can you? If so, I pray you do so. For I love you not at all. ’Tis so absurd of you to want to marry the little red-haired termagant you used to play with. And believe me, I’m naught now save a big red-haired termagant. And I love you not one whit more than I did in the old days when I used to hate you. Perhaps ’twould be folly to say that I never will love you. I might meet you somewhere, at some odd chance, and find that you were the man for my inmost heart. And at that same meeting you might find that you loved me not at all. You think, doubtless, that I know nothing of love, and yet I do know that it lies all in the chance of meeting. If I might meet you in my mood of to-day I’d hate you, whereas to-morrow I might love you. To defend myself against my father’s charges I’ll not try. Yet why should I not ride alone? And am I alone with my beloved Star? Ay, even though it is only a black star between two starry eyes blacker than night? Why should I not have stripped my father’s name and rank from my horse’s trappings when I go abroad? Suppose I should join the play actors – and they do tempt me sorely – why should my father’s name and rank be known and defamed? And, truly, I grant you, I’m as likely to join the play actors as to enter a nunnery, the one as the other and the other as the one. Both draw me strangely, and I’m likelier to do either than to marry you. Here’s my hand and seal on that, or, rather, here’s my hand and a kiss, for a kiss is more binding than a seal. And now for the last word – will you put me out of your mind? Or will you wait for that chance meeting?
Judith, your Cousin. Also, Judith, dutiful daughter of James Ogilvie.
Lindley’s lips had touched the paper more than once, and half a dozen sighs had crossed them, when suddenly he sprang to his feet.
A black star! Judith’s horse, then, had a black star on its forehead! And the horse with the black star that had but now strayed into the stable yard! Could that be Judith’s horse? Was Judith in danger or distress? In another instant Lindley was out through the door, calling aloud for the white horse with the black star between its eyes.
“But, my master,” gasped a stable lad, “a squire from Master Ogilvie’s led the beast away not ten minutes ago. ’Twas Mistress Ogilvie’s horse, he said, strayed from the woods where the lady had been gathering wild flowers.”
And it was then at that moment that the Lady Barbara’s mud-bespattered outriders dashed into the courtyard, crying out that their lady’s coach was but a short distance behind them.
V
The Lady Barbara’s coach was wobbling slowly along the moonlit road that led to The Jolly Grig. Fast enough it traveled, however, according to Lady Barbara’s way of thinking, in spite of the fact that, at the tavern, she would find a lover and love awaiting her; the lover, Lord Percy Farquhart, to whom she was betrothed, to whom she would, indeed, be married in a fortnight’s time, and love in the person of Harry Ashley, who had loved her long, and whom she thought she loved. Under her gauntlet Lord Percy’s betrothal ring chafed her finger. On her breast lay the red rose she wore always, for no other reason than that Ashley had asked her so to do.
Querulous to the ancient dame who traveled with her she had been from the start, and more than querulous to the two black-eyed maids whose sole apparent duties were to divine my lady’s wishes before they could be expressed in words.
“Absurd; I say it is absurd that I should be dragged up to London in all this mire,” Lady Barbara cried, in a petulant, plaintive voice. “What do I want with the latest fallals and fripperies to catch my Lord Farquhart’s fancy when he never so much as looks at me? I know full as well as he that his Mistress Sylvia in rags would be more to him than I would be if I were decked in the gayest gauds the town could offer.”
“Sylvia!” gasped her attendant dame.
“Ay, Sylvia, I said,” answered the Lady Barbara. “Don’t think that I’m deaf to London gossip, and don’t imagine that I’m the unsophisticated child my father thinks me, merely because I acquiesce in this brutal plan to marry me to a man I hate. I know how my Lord Farquhart entertains himself. Not that I’d have his love, either. I’d hate him offering love more than I hate him denying it.”
The petulant voice ran on and on, its only vehemence induced by the muddy ruts in the road. Mistress Benton, using every force to keep awake, interjected monosyllabic exclamations and questions. The two maids, exerting all their powers to fall asleep, gave little heed to their mistress’ railings.
The outriders, lured onward by an imagined maltiness in the air, had permitted an ever-increasing distance between themselves and their lady’s coach. It was certainly some several moments after they had passed a moon-shadowed corner that the lumbering coach horses stumbled, wavered and stopped short. Sleepy Drennins recovered his seat with difficulty, the sleepy coach boys sprang to the horses’ heads, Mistress Benton squawked, and the young maids squeaked with terror. Only the Lady Barbara was quite calm. But it must be remembered that the Lady Barbara would welcome delay in any form. But even she drew back in some alarm from the masked face that appeared at the coach door.
“Aaaaay! God help us!” screamed Mistress Benton. “’Tis the Black Devil himself.”
The two maids clung to each other and scurried into an anguished unconsciousness.
The mask had opened the coach door, and his face was close to the Lady Barbara’s.
“A word in your ear, sweet cousin Babs,” he whispered. “But first order your men, on pain of death, to stand each where they are.”
The Lady Barbara recognized dimly a familiar tone in the voice. She saw Lord Farquhart’s coat.
“Lord Farquhart! Percy!” The cry was faint enough in itself, but it was muffled, too, by the gauntleted hand of the highwayman.
“Only for your eyes, my cousin,” he answered. “Only for your ears.”
“What prank is this?” she demanded, haughtily, and yet she had, indeed, given her orders to her men to stand each in his place on pain of death.
“A lover’s prank, perhaps, my sweetheart,” the mask answered. “A prank to have a word alone with you. Come, step down upon my cloak and walk with me out into the moonlight. I would see by it your daffodil hair, your violet eyes, your poppy lips, your lily cheeks.”
A mocking, rippling laugh crossed the Lady Barbara’s lips. At once she gave her hand to her strange cavalier.
“I thought my eyes and ears were not mistaken,” she said. “Now I know in very truth that you are my cousin Percy, for that is the only lover-like speech that ever came from his lips to me. You believe in repetition, it seems.”
In spite of old Mistress Benton’s commands and prayers, the Lady Barbara had stepped from the coach and the stranger had slammed the door upon the gibbering dame.
“Ripening corn in a wanton breeze, I should call the hair to-night,” he said. “Bits of heaven’s own blue, the eyes; roses red and white, the cheeks, and ripe pomegranate the lips. Does that suit you better, Lady Babs?”
The Lady Barbara’s laughter rang back to Mistress Benton’s frenzied ears.
“The moonlight seems to infuse your love with warmth, my cousin.” The lady leaned with coquettish heaviness upon the arm that supported her hand.
“The icicle that holds your heart has chilled my love till now, my sweet,” the mask answered.
“But why did you stop me in this fashion?” The Lady Barbara had drawn back from the ardor in her escort’s voice. “What means this silly masquerade? What words would you speak to me here? In this fashion?”
“’Tis but a lover’s prank, as you said,” he answered, lightly. Then, singing softly Lord Farquhart’s song to Sylvia, he swung her lightly from him, and bowed low before her as though she were his partner in a dance.
Hearts that beat with love so true!
Barb’ra, sweet, I come to you!
She, falling in with his humor, dropped him an answering courtesy, and, drawing off her gauntlet, gave him her bare hand. He fell on his knee before her, and lightly touched the hand with his lips.
“Give me the glove, sweetheart,” he cried, “and the rose you wear on your heart and – and all these rings that mar your sweet, white hand with their gaudy reds and blues. Leave only mine to prove that you are only mine.”
He drew the jewels from her hand, and, suddenly, she started from him.
“Take off your mask, Percy, and lift your hat,” she cried, impulsively.
“You ask too much, sweet cousin.” Still he answered lightly. He was still on his knees before her. “My mask and my hat proclaim my trade, if not to you, at least to your servants.”
The roses in her cheeks faded, then blossomed once again. Again she laughed, but this time the rippling music held a tremor. Her hand caught her heart.
“For an instant,” she gasped – “oh! for an instant I thought – I was afraid that you might indeed be – ”
“And for once you thought the truth, sweet cousin. But you’ve naught to fear.” The mask’s voice had grown serious. He was on his feet and holding both her hands in his. “I am he; I am he in dread of whom all London shivers, and it was to tell you that – that I stopped you, Barbara. To tell you and to test, if not your love, at least your good intentions as my wife. The world tells me that I cannot win your love, that it has been given irretrievably to another. But your fidelity I must prove before you wear my name. I am placing my life, my safety, my honor, in the sweet jeopardy of your hands. My life is forfeit, as you know. My life is henceforth in your hands.” She was shrinking away from him, but he held her fast. “My friends – your lover – await us at The Jolly Grig. I shall be with them before you arrive. You will face them and me in ten minutes or less. If you intend to keep faith with me as my wife, you will meet me as your betrothed. You will give no sign of this new knowledge of me.”
“But – but – ” she stammered.
“There are no buts, sweet cousin, sweetheart.” Already he was leading her back to the coach. “You may cry out, if you will, when you see us, that you were held up by the black highwayman. In truth, there will be no need for you to tell the tale. Your servants will save you the trouble. In proof of the story, the fellow has stolen your rose and your glove and your rings. In ransom of your life, you swore that he should not be followed. We’ll hurry you on to town. We’ll give the alarm, and the constables and their men will have a mad and a merry chase. But from now on, this is our secret. We are one in that already.”
Courteously and slowly he drew her to the coach, pressing her forward as she held reluctantly back. Denying her all chance to answer, he handed her into the coach and disappeared.