Chapter Eighteen.
The Doctor makes a Suggestion and Frank is Startled.
“Your mother must be a favourite with the Princess, and no mistake,” said Andrew one morning, “or after that business of your father’s you would never be allowed to stay.”
“If you come to that,” said Frank in retort, “if one half of what I know about were to get abroad, where would you be?”
“Perhaps in two pieces, with the top bit carefully preserved, as a warning to treasonable people—so called.”
“I don’t think that,” said Frank gravely; “for they would not go to such lengths with a mere boy.”
“Who are you calling a mere boy?”
“You,” replied Frank coolly. “You are quite as young as I am in some things, though you are so much older in others.”
“Perhaps so,” said Andrew rather haughtily. “Anyhow, I don’t feel in the least afraid of my principles being known. You can’t tell tales, being one of us.”
“I—am—not—and—never—will—be!” said Frank, dividing his words as if there were a comma between each pair, and speaking with tremendous emphasis.
“Oh, all right,” said Andrew, with a merry laugh. “I should like to hear you say that to Mr George Selby.”
“I’d say it plainly to him and the whole of the members of his club,” said Frank hotly.
“Not you. Wouldn’t dare. Come with me on Friday and say it.”
“I? No. Let them come to me if they want it said.”
“They don’t. They’ve got you, and they’ll keep you.”
“Time will prove that, Drew. I’m very glad, though, that you have given up going.”
“Given up what?”
“Going to those dangerous meetings; and, I say, give up being so fond of staring at yourself in the glass. I never did see such a vain coxcomb of a fellow.”
“H–r–r–ur!” growled Andrew, as he swung round fiercely upon his fellow-page. “Oh, if I had not made up my mind that I wouldn’t quarrel with a brother! Ah! you may laugh; but you’ll repent it one of these days.”
The lad clenched his fist as he spoke; but he was met by such a good-tempered smile that he turned away again more angry than ever.
“I can’t hit you—I won’t hit you!” he gasped.
“I know that,” cried Frank. “You can’t hit a fellow who is fighting hard to make you sensible. I say, who is this Mr George Selby?”
“Never you mind.”
“But I do mind. I want to know.”
“Well, a great friend of him over the water.”
“How came you to get acquainted with him first?”
“You wait, and you’ll know.”
“Don’t tell me without you like; but he’s a dangerous friend, and I’m very glad you’ve given up seeing him.”
“Are you?” said Andrew, with a curious smile. “Why, I’ve seen him again and again.”
“You have!” cried Frank, in astonishment. “When?”
“Oh, at different times. Last evening, for instance, in the Park, while you were with your mother. He came to feed the ducks.”
“You won’t be happy till you are sent away in disgrace.”
“That’s very true, Franky; but I don’t think I shall feel the disgrace. What would you say, too, if I told you that I have been three times to the city?”
“Impossible!”
“Oh no; these things are not impossible to one who wants to do them.”
“Oh, Drew, Drew!” cried Frank.
“There, don’t you pity me. You are the one to be pitied.”
“I say, hadn’t we better talk about something else?”
“Yes. Has Lady Gowan heard from Sir Robert?”
Frank shook his head gloomily.
“What, not written yet?”
“No.”
“Then they’re stopping his letters!” cried Andrew.
Frank started violently.
“That’s it. Just the mean thing that these people would do. I’m sure your father would not have let all this time pass without sending news.”
“Oh, they would not do that!” cried Frank. “He is waiting till he is settled down, and then we shall go and join him.”
“You will not,” said Andrew. “They’ll keep you both here, as you’ll see. But, I say, hadn’t we better talk about something else?”
“If you like,” said Frank coldly.
“Well, then, I haven’t heard, for I haven’t seen Captain Murray or the doctor. What news have you heard of Steinberg?”
“He’s getting better, and going home to Hanover as soon as he can bear to travel.”
“That’s good news,” cried Andrew. “I wish he’d take the King and his court with him.”
Frank gave him an angry look, then a sharp glance round to see if his companion’s words had been heard, and the latter burst out laughing.
“Poor old Frank!” he said merrily. “There, I won’t tease you by saying all these disloyal things. But, I say, your acts give the lie to your words. You’re as true to us as steel. Come, don’t be cross.”
This sort of skirmishing went on often enough, for the two lads were always at work trying to undermine each other’s principles; but they dropped into the habit of leaving off at the right time, so as to avoid quarrelling, and the days glided on in the regular routine of the court. But a great change had taken place in one who so short a time before was a mere schoolboy, and Lady Gowan could not help remarking it in the rather rare occasions when she had her son alone, and talked to him and made him the repository of her troubles.
“I could not bear all this, Frank,” she said one day, “if it were not for the Princess’s kindness. Some day we shall have your father forgiven, and he will be back.”
“But some day is so long coming, mother. Why don’t we go to him?”
“Because he wishes us to stay here, and he will not expose me to the miseries and uncertainties of the life he is leading.”
“But we would not mind,” cried Frank.
“No, we would not mind; but we must do that which he wishes, my dear.”
This was three months after Sir Robert’s enforced departure from the court, and when Andrew Forbes’s words respecting the communications sent by Sir Robert being stopped had long proved to be unjust.
“Is he still in France?” asked Frank.
“Yes, still there,” said Lady Gowan, with a sigh.
“And we can’t join him. Don’t you think, if you tried again, the Princess might succeed in getting him recalled?”
“I have tried till I dare try no more, for fear of disgusting one who has proved herself my great friend by my importunity. We must be content with knowing that some day your father will be recalled, and then all will be well again.”
Lady Gowan did not explain to her son by what means she had letters from her husband, and once when he asked her point-blank she did not speak out, and he did not dare to press the matter.
And still the time went on.
Baron Steinberg was declared by the doctor well enough to take his journey; and one day, to Frank’s relief, Andrew met him with the news that the German noble had taken his departure.
“I saw him go,” said Andrew; “and, as he came out to the carriage, looking as thin as a herring, I couldn’t help smiling, for all the bounce seemed to be gone out of him, and he was walking with a stick.”
“Poor wretch!” said Frank.
“Nonsense! Got what he deserved. Some of these foreign officers seem to think that they wear swords and learn to use them for nothing else but to enable them to play the part of bullies and insult better men, force them to a fight, and then kill them. I’m only too glad one of them has had his lesson.”
“But it’s very horrible,” said Frank thoughtfully.
“Of course it is,” said Andrew, purposely misunderstanding him. “He’d have killed your father with as little compunction as he would a rat.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” said Frank, with a shiver.
“But he won’t be so ready to insult people next time; and next time will be a long way off, I know. But, I say, it’s sickening, that it is.”
“What is?”
“The fuss made over a fellow like that. Baron indeed! He’s only a foreign mercenary; and here is your poor father sent out of the country, while my lord has apartments set aside for him in the Palace, and he’s petted and pampered, and now at last he goes off in one of the King’s carriages with an escort.”
“Oh, well, as far as he is concerned, it does not matter.”
“Oh, but it does. I say it’s shameful that such preference should be shown to foreigners. If matters go on like this, there’ll be no old England left; we shall be all living in a bit of Germany.”
“Well, he has gone,” said Frank; “so let it rest.”
“I can’t, I tell you; it makes my blood boil.”
“Go and drink some cold water to cool it.”
“Bah! You’ll never make a good outspoken Englishman, Frank.”
“Perhaps not. I shall never make a quarrelsome one,” said Frank quietly.
“What! Oh, I like that! Why, you’re the most quarrelsome fellow I ever met. I wonder we haven’t had our affair in the Park before now. If it hadn’t been for my forbearance we should.”
Frank stared at his companion in astonishment, for it was quite evident that he was speaking sincerely.
“Come along,” said Andrew.
“Where?”
“Out in the Park, where we can breathe the fresh air. I feel stifled in these close rooms, breathing the air of a corrupt court.”
“No, thank you,” said Frank.
“What? You won’t come?”
“No, thank you.”
“Why? We’re quite free this morning.”
“I’m afraid.”
“What, that I shall challenge you to fight somewhere among the trees?”
“No; I don’t want to go and feed the ducks.”
“There, what did I say?” cried Andrew. “You really are about as quarrelsome a fellow as ever lived. No, no; I don’t mean that. Come on, Frank, old lad; I do want a breather this morning. I’ll do anything you like—run races if you wish.”
“Will Mr George Selby be out there on the look-out for you?”
“No,” said Andrew, with a gloomy look. “Poor fellow! I wish he would. Honour bright, we shan’t meet any one I sympathise with there.”
“Very well then, I’ll come.”
“Hurrah!” cried Andrew eagerly.
“It is stuffy and close in here. I did hope that we should have been down at the old house by this time.”
“Yes, that holiday got knocked on the head. Has Lady Gowan heard from your father again?”
“Hush!”
“Oh, very well; I’ll whisper. But there are no spies here.”
“Mother hasn’t heard now for some time, and she’s growing very uneasy. She has been getting worse and worse. Oh, what a miserable business it is! I wish we were with him.”
“Yes, I wish we were; for if matters go on like this much longer, I shall run away. Here, what do you say, Frank? I’m sick of being a palace poodle. Let’s go and seek adventures while we’re searching for your father.”
“Seek nonsense!” said Frank testily. “Life isn’t like what we read in books.”
“Oh yes, it is—a deal more than you think. Let’s go; it would be glorious.”
“Nonsense! Even if I wanted to, how could I? You know what my father said—that I was to stay and protect my mother.”
“She’d be safe enough where she is, and she’d glory in her son being so brave as to go in search of his father.”
“No, she would think it was cowardly of me to forsake her, whatever she might say; and if I went off in that way, after the kind treatment we have received from the Prince and Princess, it would make my poor mother’s position worse than ever.”
“I don’t believe that the Prince and Princess would mind it a bit. For I will say that for him—he isn’t such a bad fellow; and I nearly like her. He isn’t so very easy, Frank, I can tell you. He’s pretty nearly a prisoner. The King won’t let him go and live away, because he’s afraid he’d grow popular, and things would be worse than they are. Look how the people are talking, and how daring they are getting.”
“Are they?”
“Oh yes. There’ll be trouble soon. Come on.”
“Mind, I trust to your honour, Drew.”
“Of course. Then you won’t come off with me?”
“No—I—will not.”
Andrew laughed.
“I say, though,” he said, as they went past the quarters the baron had occupied, “it was rather comic to see that cripple go. Just before he got into the carriage, he turned to thank the doctor, and he caught sight of me.”
“What! did he recognise you?”
“I don’t think so; but I was laughing—well no, smiling—and he smiled back, and bowed to me, thinking, I suppose, that I was there to say good-bye to him. He little knew, what I was thinking. Well, good riddance. But the doctor—”
“Eh?” said a sharp voice, and the gentleman named stepped out of one of the dark doorways they were passing in the low colonnade.
“Want to see me, my lads?”
“N–no,” stammered Andrew, thoroughly taken aback. “We—were talking about you starting the baron off.”
“Oh, I see,” said the doctor, smiling. “Of course, I saw you there. Yes, he’s gone. Hah! Yes! That was a very peculiar wound, young gentlemen; and I honestly believe that not one in a hundred in my profession could have saved his life. I worked very hard over his case, and he went off, without so much as giving me a little souvenir—a pin or a ring, or a trifle of that kind—seal, for instance.”
“What could you expect from one of those Germans, sir?” said Andrew contemptuously.
“Yes, what indeed!” said the doctor, taking snuff, and looking curiously at Frank. “Bad habit this, young man. Don’t you follow my example. Dirty habit, eh? But, I say, young fellow,” he added, turning to Andrew, “a still tongue maketh a wise head. Wise man wouldn’t shout under the Palace windows such sentiments as those, holding the German nation up to contempt. There, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse. Here, Gowan, what’s the last news?”
“I don’t know of any, sir.”
“Come, come! I’m a friend of his. You needn’t be so close with me. I mean about your father.”
“I have none, sir.”
“Eh? Don’t you know where he is?”
“No, sir,” said Frank sadly.
“Humph! Pity!” said the doctor, taking a fresh pinch of snuff. “Because, if you had known, you might have written to tell him that I’ve cured the baron, and sent him away. Yes, I worked very hard over his case. Many’s the night I sat up with him, so that he shouldn’t, slip through my fingers. For it would have been so much worse for your father if he had.”
“Yes, horrible,” said Frank.
“I say, you ought to get him back now. Have a try.”
“But what can I do, sir?” cried Frank eagerly.
“Oh, I don’t know. No use to ask me, boy. Politics are not in my way. If you like to come to me with a broken bone, or a cut, or a hole in you anywhere, I’m your man, and I’ll try and set you right. Or if you want a dose of good strong physic, I’ll mix you up something that will make you smack your lips and shout for sugar. But that other sort of thing is quite out of my way. What do you say to our all signing a round robin, and sending it into the King? for we all want Gowan back.”
“Yes, sir—capital!” cried Frank; but Andrew smiled contemptuously.
“Or look here. You’re a boy—smart lad too, with plenty of brains,” continued the doctor, who had noticed Andrew’s sneer; “sensible sort of boy—not a dandy, gilded vane, like Forbes here. Ah! don’t you look at me like that, sir, or next time you’re sick I’ll give you such a dose as shall make you smile the other way.”
“Come along, Frank,” said the lad angrily. “You wait a minute. I haven’t done with him yet. Look here, boy,” he continued, clapping Frank on the shoulder; “there’s nothing a man and a father likes better than a good, natural, straightforward, manly sort of boy. I don’t mean a fellow who spends half his time scenting himself, brushing his hair to make it curl, and looking at himself in the glass.—Here, hallo! what’s the matter with you, Forbes? I didn’t say you did. Pavement warm? Cat on hot bricks is nothing to you.”
Andrew tightened his lips, and the doctor went on.
“Look here, Gowan; I tell you what I’d do if I were you. I should just wait for my chance—you’ll get plenty—and then I should go right in front of the King, dump myself down on one knee, and when he asks you what you want, tell him bluntly, like a manly boy should, to forgive your father, who is as brave an officer as ever cried ‘Forward!’ to a company of soldiers.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Andrew.
“Bo!” cried the doctor. “Good-looking gander! What do you know about it?—You ask him. As the offended king, he may feel ready to say no; but as the man and father, he’ll very likely be ready to say yes.”
“Oh, I never thought of that!” cried Frank excitedly.
“Then think about it now, my boy. That’s my prescription for a very sore case. You do it and win; and if your mother doesn’t think she’s got the best son in the world, I’m a Dutchman, and we’ve got plenty without.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, doctor!” cried Frank.
“Wish you luck, boy. Do that, and you may be as proud as a peacock afterward—proud as Andrew Forbes here, and that’s saying a deal.”
The doctor nodded to them both, took a fresh pinch of snuff loudly, and went off.
“Bah!” growled Andrew, as he went off at a great rate toward the Park. “Ridiculous! How can an English gentleman advise such a degrading course. Go down on your knees to that Dutchman, and beg!”
“I’d go down on my face to him, Drew,” cried Frank excitedly.
“You won’t follow out his advice?”
“I will, and when everybody is there,” cried Frank. “He’s right, and I believe that the King will.”
Andrew was silent for some minutes, and they walked on, inadvertently going down by the water-side, and directing their steps to the clump of trees where the duel had taken place.
They passed over the ground in silence, each picturing the scene, and then went slowly on, so as to pass round the end of the canal—for such it was in those days—and return by the other side.
Andrew was the first to break the silence, Frank being plunged in deep thought over the doctor’s advice.
“You ought to be very proud of your father, Frank,” he said.
“I am,” was the laconic reply.
“My father, when I told him, said he behaved most gallantly, but that he ought to have killed his man.”
“Your father!” cried Frank, staring. “Why, when did you see your father?”
“Can’t people write?” said Andrew hastily; and he looked slightly confused. “I did learn how to read and write,” he added, with a forced laugh.
Frank was silent for a few moments.
“I say,” he said at last, “doesn’t it seem strange that we should be both like this—each with his father obliged to keep abroad?”
“Very,” said Andrew drily, and he glanced sidewise at his companion; but Frank was thinking with his brow all in lines, till they came round opposite to the house overlooking the Park, where he stopped to gaze up at the windows.
“Poor old place looks dismal,” said Andrew, “with its shutters to and blinds drawn-down. I wonder your mother doesn’t let it.”
“What, our house?” cried Frank, flushing. “Oh, they wouldn’t do that.”
“Seems a pity for such a nice place to be empty. But there is some one in it of course?”
“Only our old housekeeper and a maid. Come along; it makes me feel miserable to look at the place.”
“But doesn’t your mother go there now?”
“No; she has not been since—since—”
He did not finish his sentence, for a curious sensation of huskiness affected his throat, and he felt determined now to follow out the doctor’s suggestion, so that there might be some one to take interest in the old town house again.
He took a step or two, and then waited, for Andrew appeared to be attracted more than repelled by the gloomy aspect of the blank-looking place, and then, all at once, Frank’s heart seemed to stand still, and a stifling sense of suffocation to affect him, so that it was some moments before he could speak, and then it was in a tone of voice that startled his companion.
“Come away!” cried Frank angrily, and with singular haste. “Don’t stop there staring at the windows; it looks so absurd.”
Andrew made no reply then, but walked sharply off with his companion till they were some hundred yards away.
“Don’t be cross with me, Franky,” he said gently. “It isn’t my fault, and you ought to know. I feel it as much as you do. I always liked Sir Robert, and you know how much I care for Lady Gowan.”
Frank turned to him warmly.
“Yes, I know you do,” he said, with a wild and wistful look in his eyes; and his lips parted as if he were eager to say something particular to his companion.
“There, don’t take on about it. Things seem all out of joint with us all; but they’ll come right some day. And don’t you take any notice of me. I feel sometimes as if I’d turned sour, and as if everything was wrong, and I was curdled. I can’t help it. Perhaps the doctor’s right. You do as he said, and ask the King boldly. For some things I should like to see Sir Robert back.”
Frank made a quick gesture as if to speak out, but Andrew checked him with a laugh.
“Oh, I mean it,” he said. “I’d rather he joined us.”
Frank gave an indignant start.
“There, there! Don’t be cross. I won’t say any more. You ask the King. He’s only a man, if he is a king; and if he doesn’t grant your petition, I shall hate him ten times as much as I do now. Why, what a fellow you are! You’re all of a tremble, and your face is quite white.”
“Is it?” said Frank, with a strange little gasp.
“Yes; either thinking about that petition, or the sight of your poor, dismal old house, or both of them, have regularly upset you. Come along, and don’t think about them. I must say this, though, for I want to be honest: if I were placed as you are, with a father who had stood so high in George’s service, I think perhaps I should be ready to do what the doctor said for the sake of my mother if she was alive.”
Again Frank gave his companion that wistful look, and his lips parted, but no words came; and they went on down by the water-side, without noticing that a shabby-looking man was slouching along behind them, throwing himself down upon the grass, as if idling away the time. And all the while that the two lads were in the Park he kept them in sight, sometimes close at hand, sometimes distant, but always ready to follow them when they went on.
Frank noticed it at last, as they were standing by the water’s edge, and whispered his suspicions that they were being watched.
“Who by? That ragged-looking fellow yonder?”
“Yes; don’t take any notice.”
“No, I’m not going to,” said Andrew, stooping to pick up a stone and send it flying over the water. “Spy, perhaps. Well, we’re not feeding the ducks to-day. He’s a spy for a crown. Well, let him spy. The place is full of them. I’ve a good mind to lead him a good round, and disappoint him. No, I will not; it might lead to our being arrested for doing nothing, and what would be the good of doing that?”
The man did his work well, for he kept them in sight without seeming to be looking at them once, till they went back to the Palace, where they parted for a time, and Andrew said to himself:
“I wish I had not talked as I did about his father and mother. Poor old fellow; how he was upset!”
Chapter Nineteen.
It was not Fancy.
Andrew Forbes would have felt more compunction had he seen Frank when he was alone; for the lad hurried to his room, where he stood trembling with agitation and thinking of what he should do.
His first thought was to go to his mother; but he knew that he could not see her at that hour, and even if it had been possible, he shrank from telling her, partly from dread of the state of agitation in which his news would plunge her, partly from the thought that he might have been mistaken—that fancy had had a great deal to do with it.
“But I’ll put that to the test as soon as it’s dark, if I can get away unseen,” he said to himself; and then he walked up and down his room, wondering whether Andrew had seen anything—coming to the conclusion at last that if he had he would have spoken out at once.
Then came another vein of thought to trouble him, and he was mentally tossed about as to whether he ought not to have confided in his companion. Then again he tortured himself as to whether he ought not to go at once to Captain Murray and confide in him. Question after question arose till his head felt dizzy, and he was so confused that he was afraid to go and join his companion at the evening meal.
But at last his common sense told him that all this worry of thought was due to the cowardly desire to get help, when, under the circumstances, he knew that he ought to have sufficient manliness to act and prove whether what he had seen was fancy or the reality.
If it proved to be real—
He trembled at the thought; but making a brave effort, he well bathed his aching temples with cold water, and went down to the evening meal, made a show of eating, and then excused himself on the plea of a very bad headache, got up, and was leaving the room, when, to his horror, Andrew joined him.
“Here,” he said, “I don’t like to see you in this way. I helped to give you this headache. Let’s go and have a walk up and down the courtyard.”
“No, don’t you come,” said Frank, so earnestly that Andrew gave way and drew back.
“Very well,” he said. “Go and lie down for a bit; you’ll be better then.”
Frank made as if to go to his room, but took his hat and cloak and slipped out, forcing himself to cross the courtyard calmly and walk carelessly by the sentries, turning off directly after in the opposite direction to that in which he wished to go, and without seeming to pay any attention kept his eyes travelling in all directions in search of the man they had seen in the afternoon.
But he was nowhere visible, and to make more sure the lad took off his hat to fan himself, the evening being warm, and in so doing purposely dropped his glove, so that in stooping to recover it he could give a good look to the rear to see whether he was followed.
But there was no one suspicious-looking in sight, and, taking advantage of the darkness of the soft, warm evening, he began to walk more sharply, going through the Park till he was opposite to the house, and after glancing to right and left, to make sure that he was not observed, he began to examine it carefully. Those to right and left had several windows illumined, but his old London home was all in complete darkness, though he felt that if he went round to the street front he would see a light in the housekeeper’s room.
Dark, everywhere dark; no gleam showing anywhere, not even at the window upon which his eyes had last rested when he was there that afternoon.
“Fancy,” he thought; and he breathed more freely. “Yes, it must have been fancy.”
“No, it was not fancy!” and his heart began to throb violently, his breath came short, and he looked wildly to right and left, and then walked across the road to stand beneath the trees to make sure that no one was watching from there.
But he was quite alone as far as he could see, and he ran lightly back to the railings, wild with excitement now, and stood gazing across the little garden at that back window which was heavily curtained; but right up in the left-hand corner there was a faint glow, which he soon proved to himself could not be a reflection on the glass from outside.
Then he was right; and, panting now as if he had been running heavily, he went round into the street, reached the front of the house, where, as he had expected, he could see low down the faintly illumined blind of the housekeeper’s room, and then rang gently.
He waited, and there was no response; and he rang again, but the time passed again; minutes—more probably moments—elapsed before he heard a window opened softly overhead.
“What is it?” said a woman’s voice.
“Come down and open the door, Berry,” said the boy quickly.
“You, Master Frank?”
“Yes; make haste.”
“Is—is any one with you?” said the woman in a whisper, “because I don’t like opening the door after dark.”
“No, I’m quite alone. Make haste.”
The woman did not stop to close the window, and the next minute Frank heard the bolts drawn softly back, the key turned, and as the door was being opened he stepped forward, but only to stop short on the step, for the housekeeper had not removed the chain.
“What is it, my dear?” she said.
She had not brought a light, and Frank could dimly see her face at the narrow opening.
“What is it?” cried Frank impatiently. “Take down the chain, and let me in. Don’t keep me standing here.”
“But her ladyship gave me strict orders, my dear, that I wasn’t to admit any one after dark, for there are so many wicked people about.”
“Did my father tell you not to admit me?” whispered Frank, with his face close to the narrow slit.
“What! before he went abroad, my dear?” faltered the woman.
“No, no—yesterday, to-day—whenever he came back.”
“Sir Robert, my dear?” whispered the woman, with her voice trembling.
“Don’t be so stupid. I must—I will see him. I saw his face at the window this afternoon.”
“Oh, my dear, my dear!” stammered the woman.
“There, take down the chain, Berry.”
“I—I don’t think I ought, my dear. Stop a minute, and I’ll go and ask him.”
“No, no. Let me go up at once. You’ll be quite right in letting me.”
The woman uttered a gasp, closed the door, and softly unhooked the chain, after which she opened the door just sufficiently for the boy to pass in, and closed and fastened it again.
The hall was dark as could be, save for a faint gleam from the fanlight; but Frank could have gone blindfold, and dashing over the marble floor to the foot of the staircase, he bounded up two steps at a time, reached the door of the back room, beneath which shone a line of light, and turned the handle sharply. As he did so, there was a dull sound within, and the light was extinguished.
“Open the door, father,” whispered the boy, with his lips to the keyhole. “It is I—Frank.”
There was the dull tremor of a heavy step crossing the floor, the door was unlocked, and the boy sprang forward in the darkness, the door was closed and relocked, and he was clasped in a pair of strong arms.
“Oh, dad, dad, dad!” cried the lad, in a panting whisper.
“My own boy! Then you saw me this afternoon?”
“Yes, just a faint glimpse of you. Oh, father, father, it wasn’t safe for you to come back!”
“No, not very, my boy; but I couldn’t stop away any longer. How is the dear one?”
“Quite well—only she looks thin and pale, father. She’s fretting so because you are away.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Sir Robert, in a long-drawn sigh. “I felt that she must be, and that helped to draw me back. Heaven bless her!—Frank lad, as you have found me out— But stop, did you tell her you had seen me?”
“I haven’t seen her since, father; and if I had, I shouldn’t have dared. What would she think?”
“Bullets and bayonets, or worse, my boy. Quite right; spoken like the brave, thoughtful lad you are growing. But it’s very hard, Frank. Don’t you think you could manage to bring her over here—say this time to-morrow evening?”
“Yes, father, easily,” said Frank.
“My boy. Oh, if you knew how I long to see her again!”
“Yes, father,” said Frank bitterly, “I could bring her, but for what?—to see you arrested for coming back. It would be madness. There are spies everywhere. I had to be so careful to get round here without being followed.”
Sir Robert groaned as he stood there in the darkness, holding his son by his arms in a firm grip.
“I can’t help it, father. I must tell you the truth,” cried the boy passionately.
“Yes, you are quite right, boy, and I’m weak and foolish to have proposed such a thing. But it’s hard, my lad—very, very hard.”
“Don’t I know, father?”
“Yes, yes, boy. But tell me, does she talk about me to you much?”
“She talks of nothing else, father. But listen; I’m going to petition the King myself. I’m going to kneel to him, and beg him to give you leave to return.”
“You are, my boy?”
“Yes, father,” cried Frank excitedly, “directly I get a chance.”
“No, Frank, don’t do that,” said Sir Robert, rather sternly.
“You don’t wish me to, father?” Sir Robert drew a deep breath, and then hoarsely: “No. I desire that you do not. Your mother has through the Princess prayed and prayed in vain. No, Frank, you shall not do that.”
“Very well, father,” said the boy drearily. “Hist! Some one!” whispered Sir Robert; and Frank turned sharply to see light gleaming beneath the door, and his father stepped away from him, and something on the table grated softly as it was taken up. Then a soft voice said:
“Wouldn’t you like a light, Sir Robert? I saw yours was out.”
“Yes,” came from close to where Frank stood with his hands turning wet in the darkness, and then he felt his father brush by him, the door was unlocked, and the housekeeper’s white face was seen lit up by the candle she carried.
“Thank you, Berry,” said Sir Robert; and he took the candle and relocked the door after the woman.
The light dazzled Frank for a few minutes, and then he was gazing wonderingly in his father’s face, to see that it was thin and careworn, while the lines in his forehead were deepened.
His sword and pistols lay upon the table close to some sheets of paper, the inkstand showing that he had been writing when he was interrupted by his visitor; and the boy noticed, too, that there was a heavy cloak over a chair back, and the curtains were very closely drawn.
“Don’t look so smart as in the old days, Frank, eh?” said Sir Robert, with a sad smile.
“You look like my father,” said the boy firmly.
“And you like my son,” cried Sir Robert, patting the boy’s head.
“Then you really would not like me to venture to ask the King, father?”
Sir Robert pointed to a chair close by his own, and they sat down, the father still retaining his boy’s hand.
“No, Frank,” he said gravely. “I should not now. It is too late.”
“But it would mean bringing you back, father.”
“I am not a clever man, Frank lad,” said Sir Robert. “I am fair as a soldier, and I know my duties pretty well; but when we get into the maze of politics and social matters, I am afraid that I am very stupid. Here, however, I seem to see in a dim sort of way that such a thing as you propose would be only weak and romantic. It sounds very nice, but it would only be raising your hopes and— Stop. Does your mother know that you think of doing this?”
“Oh no, father; the doctor only just suggested it—now that Steinberg has recovered.”
“Very good of the doctor, and I am deeply in his debt for saving that wretched German baron’s life. Not pleasant to have known that you had killed a man in a quarrel, Frank.”
“Horrible, father!” said the boy emphatically.
“Yes, horrible, lad. But the doctor is a better man at wounds than he is at giving counsel. No, Frank, under any circumstances it would not have done. King George is too hard and matter-of-fact a man of the world to be stirred by my boy’s appeal. His German folk would look upon it as weakness, and would be offended. He cannot afford to offend the German people, for he has no real English friends, and between the two stools he’d be afraid of coming to the ground. No, you shall not humble yourself to do this; and,” he said firmly, “it is too late.”
There was something so commanding in the way these last words were said that Frank drew a deep sigh of regret, and the hopeful vision faded away behind the cloud his father drew over it. But the minutes were precious, and he could not afford time to regret the dashing of his hopes, when he had him for whose benefit they were designed sitting there holding his hand.
“Then you are going to stay here now, father?” he said.
“Here? No, Frank. It is only a temporary hiding-place. I shall be off to-morrow.”
“Where to, father?”
“Humph! Don’t know for certain, my boy. As you say, the place swarms with spies, and though I have had to give up my gay uniform, plenty of people know my face, and I don’t even feel now that they are not hunting me down.”
“But if they did, what would happen?”
“A fight, Frank—don’t tell your mother this; she suffers enough. I can’t afford to be captured, and—you know what they do with the poor wretches they take?”
Frank shivered, and glanced at his father’s sword and pistols.
“Loaded, father?” he said in a whisper. “Yes, boy.”
“And is your sword sharp?”
“As sharp as the cutler could make it. And I know how to use it, Frank; but a man who carries a sword—if he is a man—is like a bee with its sting; he will not use it save at the last extremity. You must remember that with yours.”
“Yes, father. But do think again; we are both so unhappy there at the court.”
“What, in the midst of luxury and show!” said Sir Robert banteringly.
“Pah! What is the use of all that when we know that you are driven away and dare not show your face? Oh, do think again. Can’t you let us come and join you?”
“It is impossible, my boy. Don’t press me. I have too many troubles as it is. Look here, Frank; you are growing fast into a man, and you must try to help me as you did just now when I turned weak and foolish. The intense longing to see your mother was too much for me, but I have mastered it. You two are safe and well-cared for at the Palace, where the Princess is your mother’s friend. I am nobody now, and what I do will not count as regards your mother and you. So try and be content, and stay.”
“But you, father? Surely the King will forgive you soon.”
“Never, boy,” said Sir Robert sternly. “So be careful. A hint dropped of my whereabouts would give your mother intense suffering and dread for my life; so she must not know.”
“But your friends, father? Captain Murray—the doctor. Every one likes you.”
“They must not know, so be cautious. I feel quite a young man, Frank, and don’t want to have my life shortened, nor my body neither,” he added, with a grim smile.
“Oh, father!” cried the boy, with a shudder.
“We must look the worst in the face, Frank. By my return here my life is forfeit, and the King’s people would be justified in shooting me down.”
“Oh, but, father, this is horrible.”
“Not to a soldier, Frank,” said Sir Robert, smiling. “Soldiers get used to being shot at, and they don’t mind so much, because they know how hard it is for any one to hit a mark. There, you are warned now, so let’s talk of pleasanter things.”
“Yes, of course, father; but I may come and see you again often?”
“If you wish to see me taken.”
Frank shuddered again.
“No. This must be your only visit. I am glad you have come; but I can’t afford to indulge in good things now.”
“You are going to stay in England, father?” cried Frank anxiously.
“I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“That I cannot tell either, my boy; and if I did know, for your mother’s and your peace of mind I would not tell you.”
“That isn’t trusting me, father,” said Frank gloomily.
“And that is not trusting me, Frank—to know what is best.”
“Oh, but I do trust you, father. Now tell me,” cried the boy eagerly, “what shall I do to help you?”
“Stay where you are patiently, and watch over and help your mother.”
“Is that all, father?” said the boy, in a disappointed tone of voice.
“All? Is it not enough to be trusted to keep my secret, the knowledge which means your father’s life, boy, and to have the guardianship of the truest and best woman who ever lived—your mother? And you ask ‘Is that all?’”
“Don’t be angry with me, father. I am very young and stupid. I will be as contented as I can; only it is so hard to know that you are in danger, and to be doing nothing to help you.”
“You will be doing a great deal to help me, for you will be giving me rest of mind—and I want it badly enough. There, now you had better go. You may be asked for, and you can’t make the excuse that you have been to see your father.”
“No,” sighed Frank. “But I shall see you again soon?”
“Perhaps. I may come here sometimes. An extra hole is useful to a hunted animal, Frank; but don’t question me, my boy, even if I seem mysterious. As your father, I can tell you nothing.”
Frank sighed and clung to his father’s arm.
“There, I’ll run one risk. You may come here sometimes. It will not look suspicious for you to visit your mother’s empty house.”
“My father’s empty house,” said the boy.
“No, your mother’s. Your father is an exile, an outcast, without any rights in England. I am dead in the eyes of the law, Frank, and when you come of age you can reign in my stead. Why, boy, if you liked to make a stand for it, they would, I dare say, tell you that you are now Sir Frank Gowan.”
He looked so merrily in his son’s face, that the boy joined in his mirth.
“You must go now, my boy. I have work that will take me all night. But if you do come here in the hope of seeing me—”
“I shall not come,” said the boy firmly.
“Why?”
“Because, to please myself, I will not do anything to make your position dangerous.”
“Well said, Frank; but come now and then for my pleasure, and if I am not here, do this.”
He rose and walked to a portrait framed in the wainscotting over a side table, pointed to one little oval nut in the carving, twisted it slightly, and the picture swung forward, showing a shallow closet behind fitted with shelves, and in which were swords and pistols, with flasks of powder and pouches of ball.
“You can look in there; and if I have been, you will find a letter, written for you and your mother, by a Mr Cross to apparently nobody. I am Mr Cross, Frank. There. Try if you can open it.”
He closed the picture door, and the boy tried, and opened and shut the panel easily, noting at the same time how ingeniously the carving tallied with portions on the other side of the framing.
“Now, then, sharp and short like a soldier, Frank. Heaven bless and protect you and your mother, who must not know I have been here. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye, father,” cried the boy in a choking voice as he clung to the strong, firm man, who pressed him to his breast, and then snatched himself away, and caught up sword and pistol from the table.
For there was a sharp, impatient knocking on the panel of the door, and Sir Robert whispered:
“We have stayed too long!”
Chapter Twenty.
Lady Gowan at Bay.
Obeying the impulse of the moment, Frank snatched the remaining pistol from the table, and drew his sword, seeing his father nod approval, as he stretched out his hand to extinguish the light; but before he had dashed it out, the knocking was repeated, and they heard a well-known voice.
“Robert—Robert! Open quickly, dearest. It is I.”
“Ah!” cried Frank, with his heart giving a tremendous bound, while Sir Robert unlocked and flung open the door, and clasped his wife to his breast.
Lady Gowan was half swooning and speechless from excitement; but, making a brave effort, she recovered herself, and panted out as she struggled to free herself from her husband’s firm arms:
“Quick! Not a moment to lose. Escape for your life.”
“What! They know?”
“Yes. The Princess came to my room to warn me. The spies have traced you here; information has been given at the Palace. The King has been told, and the Princess bade me try to save your life before the guard came to arrest you.”
“Hah! Sharp work for us, Frank lad. Well, I have seen and kissed you, darling. Now I must try and save your husband’s life.”
As he spoke he buckled on his sword belt, thrust his pistols in his pockets, Frank handing him the second, and took up his hat and the heavy cloak from where they lay.
“Good-bye, darling. Frank knows how I can get a letter to you through him.”
“Yes, yes; but you are killing me, Robert; for pity’s sake, fly!”
“My own! Yes,” he whispered, as he folded Lady Gowan in his arms again.
“Ah!” cried Frank wildly, for a heavy series of blows from the front-door knocker resounded through the house.
“Too late!” cried Lady Gowan wildly, as Frank dashed out of the door to the front room to peer through the window.
He was back in a few moments, to find his mother clinging to his father, ghastly with the horrible dread which had attacked her.
“Soldiers—a dozen at least in front!” panted Frank.
There was another loud knocking at the street door.
“Quick, father, out by that window. You can drop from the balcony.”
“Yes, my boy, easily.”
“Then get over the railing and cross the Park. Go straight through by the Palace. No one would think you likely to take that way.”
“Good advice, boy. Out with the candle. That’s right.”
Lady Gowan blew out the light, and Frank quickly drew the heavy curtain aside, and uttered a groan, for the garden was full of armed men, dimly seen in the gloom amid the shrubs.
“Trapped, Frank,” said Sir Robert quietly, the danger having made the soldier cool.
Lady Gowan uttered a faint, despairing cry.
“Hush, dear!” said Sir Robert firmly. “Be a woman—my wife. I may escape yet. See Berry, and keep her from opening the door, no matter what they say or do.”
“Yes, yes,” said Lady Gowan excitedly; “but, Robert, what will you do?”
“Escape, if you help me. Now be calm. Let them break in, and when they do face them. You were alarmed, and did not know what evil was abroad. You need no excuse for refusing to have your house—and it is your house—opened to a riotous party of drunken soldiers for aught you know. Now go down. Do anything you can to gain time for me. Heaven bless you, darling, till we meet again!”
Lady Gowan’s answer was to hurry out on the staircase, where the place was echoing to the resounding knocks and orders to open in the King’s name. She was just in time to seize the old housekeeper by the arm, while a hysterical crying came from the maid below.
“Oh, my lady, my lady! They’re going to break in. I was about to unfasten the door.”
“Silence! Touch it at your peril,” cried Lady Gowan imperatively. “Let them break in if they dare. Go below to that foolish, sobbing girl, and stay there keeping her quiet.”
“But they’ll break down the door, my lady.”
“Let them,” said Lady Gowan coolly.
But she started as one of the narrow side windows was shivered by the butt of a musket, and the fragments of glass fell inside with a tinkling sound.
“That’s right; now reach in and shoot back the bolts.”
A hand and arm were thrust in through the hammered iron scroll work which covered the glass in the place of iron bars across the narrow window for protection, rendering it impossible for a man to creep past.
But the arm came freely right up to its owner’s shoulder, and in the gloom could be seen feeling about, the hand strained here and there to reach bolt, bar, or lock. Vainly enough, for they were far out of reach; and at last, after several more angry orders, it was withdrawn.
“Try the other window!” cried the voice of the officer in command. “Quick, men; don’t shilly-shally. Use your butts.”
Crash, crash and tinkle, tinkle went the broken glass as it fell upon the marble floor beyond the mat; but the hole made was not in the best place, and there was another crash as the butt of a musket was driven through higher up, and simultaneously there was the loud report of the piece used as a battering-ram.
“What are you doing?” roared the officer.
“Went off, sir.”
“Went off, idiot! You must have touched the trigger.”
“No, sir. Both hands hold of the barrel.”
“Silence, sir! How dare you!” roared the officer—“how dare you! Any one hurt, sergeant?”
“No, sir; bullet went too high; but it’s gone through a window opposite.”
Proof came of the truth of the man’s word, for a window on the other side of the street was thrown open, and a voice shouted angrily:
“Hallo there! What are you doing? Want to shoot people?”
“Go in, and shut your window!” cried the officer, in an authoritative tone.
“Yes, that’s all very well,” cried the voice; “but you’ve no right to—”
“Silence, sir! in the King’s name!” roared the officer. “Here, four rear rank face about, make ready, present!”
There was a shuffling sound, and the ring of muskets being brought up to the shoulder; but before the command Fire! could be uttered, even if it had been intended, the window opposite was banged down, and a laugh arose.
“Now then there,” said the officer to the man who had thrust in his arm on the other side of the door, “can you reach?”
There was no reply for a time, while the man strained and reached out up and down, his hand making a peculiar whispering sound as it passed over the panelled woodwork between the door and window.
“Can’t reach, sir.”
“Here, let me try.”
A faint light appeared at the window for a few moments, and then there was a chinking sound as it was darkened again, and Lady Gowan, as she stood panting there, dimly made out that a sword was thrust through, an arm followed, and she could hear the blade ring and scrape as it was used to feel for the fastenings, clicking loudly against the ironwork and the chain which hung at the side ready for hanging across the door, to pass over a spiral hook on the other side.
This went on for a few minutes, when, as with an angry exclamation the officer who had thrust his arm through paused to rest, Lady Gowan stepped forward out of the darkness, went close to the door, bent down, and caught the ring at the end of the hanging chain, and raised it to hook it across and fasten it to secure the door.
She hardly made a sound with foot or dress; but as she drew the chain tight it chinked against the hook, and the officer heard her.
“Ha!” he shouted, with his face to the broken glass. “I see you there. Open this door, or—”
Click, click went the chain into its place, and, raising the blade of his sword, the officer made a sweeping blow at the brave woman, which struck her on the shoulder as she drew back.
“Now,” he roared, “will you open?”
The answer was a faint rustling, as Lady Gowan drew back into the dark part of the hall, fortunately unhurt, for the arm which wielded the sword was the left, and thoroughly crippled by its owner’s position.
“Lucky for you I didn’t give point,” he muttered.
Then aloud: “Once more, in the King’s name, open this door!”
“I’d die first,” said Lady Gowan to herself; and she stood close to the foot of the great staircase listening, and hardly daring to breathe, as she strained her ears to catch some sound of what might be going on upstairs, her wildly dilated eyes fixed the while on the slips of windows on either side of the door. But from within the house all she could hear was a low sobbing from the housekeeper’s room below, and the murmur of her old servant’s voice as she tried to calm the hysterical girl who was nearly crazy with terror.
But her attention was taken up directly by the voices outside, which came plainly to her through the broken windows.
“Well?” said the officer sharply; and she knew by the reply that one of the men must have climbed the iron railings and been down into the area.
“Both windows covered with big iron bars, sir, and the door seems a reg’lar thick ’un.”
“How long will they be getting back, sergeant, with the hammer and crowbars?”
“’Nother ten minutes or quarter-hour, sir.”
“Bah! Well, run round to the back, and tell them to keep a sharp look-out. See that the men are well awake at the end of the street, and keep two more ready back and front to stop every one who comes out of the houses in case he tries to escape by the roof.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If any one appears on the roof, and does not surrender, fire.”
The sergeant’s heavy paces were heard going along the pavement, every step seeming to crush down Lady Gowan’s heart, as her head swam, and in imagination she saw the flash of the soldiers’ muskets, and then heard the heavy fall of one for whom she would have gladly died.
Her hand went out to catch at the bottom pillar of the balustrade, and she stood swaying to and fro in the darkness, struggling hard to master the terrible sensation of faintness which came over her.
It soon passed off, for the thought came to her that she must be firm. She was doing nothing to help her husband; but he had bidden her keep watch there over that door, and guard it against danger from within, and as a soldier’s wife she would have died sooner than neglect the duty with which he had intrusted her. For how did she know what pressure might be brought to bear upon the weak woman below? The soldiery had been into the area, where there were only the glass windows between, and a broken pane would form an easy way for passage of threats. If bidden to open in the King’s name, what might they not do? Ah, she must guard against that, and with her nerves newly strung, she stood listening for a few moments to the buzz of voices outside, and then, feeling that it was impossible for danger to assail them without warning from the front door, she went to the head of the stairs which led down into the basement.
“In the King’s name!” she said softly. “Robert is my king, and I can obey none other.”
She was herself again now—the quick, eager, brave woman, ready to do anything to save her husband’s life; and gliding down the stairs she silently passed the open door of the housekeeper’s room, where she could hear the servant girl sobbing, and the old housekeeper trying to comfort her and then to comfort herself.
The next minute, quite unheard, she was at the end of the stone passage where the big, heavy door opened into the area, and began passing her hand over bolt, bar, and lock, to find all fast; and with a sigh of relief she was in the act of softly drawing out the big key, when a movement outside told her that a sentry had been placed at that door, and that the man must have heard the movement of the key.
This made her pause, with her heart throbbing wildly; but in a minute or so she recovered herself, and almost by hairbreadths drew the great key slowly out with scarcely another sound, and crept back along the passage once more, past the open doorway through which the light streamed, and then up the stairs, and back to her former position in the dark hall, feeling confident now that no one could pass into the house from below unheard.
The voices of the soldiers came to her, and an angry inquiry or two from the officer, who was getting out of patience.
“Have they gone to the smith’s to get the things made?” he cried angrily.
“Well, sir, you see, it aren’t like muskets, or swords, or ammunition,” said the sergeant. “We don’t want pioneering tools every day.”
“But they ought to be ready for use at a moment’s notice.”
“So they are,” grumbled the sergeant to himself; “but you’ve got to get to ’em first.”
And now it appeared to Lady Gowan that an hour passed slowly away, without news of what was passing upstairs, and her agony seemed to be more than she could bear. Every sense had been on the strain, as she stood in trembling expectancy of hearing a shot fired—a shot that she knew would be at the life of her boy’s father; but the sluggish minutes crawled on, and still all was silent above, while outside she was constantly hearing little things which showed how thoroughly the soldiery were on the alert.
She had not heard the officer speak for some time, and she divined that he must have gone round to the back of the house, where it faced the open Park; but he would, she was sure, return soon, to give directions to the men who arrived with the tools for breaking in the door; and when this was done, if Sir Robert had not found a way to escape, there would be bloodshed. Her husband would never surrender while he could grasp a sword, and Frank would be certain to draw in his father’s defence, and then—
Then Lady Gowan felt, as it were, an icy stab, which passed with a shock right through her; for the thought suggested itself how easy it would be for the soldiers to get a short ladder into the garden front of the house, rear it against the balcony outside the drawing-room window, and force their way in there. No bars would trouble them, and the shutters would give but little resistance. Why had she not thought of that before?
And as she thoroughly grasped this weakness of their little fort in the rear she turned cold with horror, for there was a faint sound on the staircase behind her, and as at the same moment she heard the loud steps of approaching men on the pavement outside a hand made a quick clutch from the darkness behind at her arm.