Lady Barbarity: A Romance

I was quite joyfully startled at the Captain’s course.

“Now what’s the fellow mean by this?” I whispered to the lad. “Is it to give you one more chance while his back is turned, out of pure compassion, or is he fool enough to trust you?”

“He is fool enough to trust me, madam,” says the lad, haughtily I thought.

“Very charming of him,” I admitted. “There must be a deal of poetry in his soul. But come, sir! there is not one second to be lost. Steal upstairs and get your skirts off, while I find some guineas for you, and letters to recommend you to the consideration of some southern friends.”

This drew fierce looks from him, but he exchanged them when he spoke for a haggard smile.

“Ah, madam,” he said, “you do not understand.”

“I understand only too well,” I sighed. “Tyburn Tree, my lad, and an end to everything. But for the love of heaven, cease this babbling! Off with you at once, or your chance is gone for ever.”

“But the Captain is fool enough to trust me, madam,” he repeated.

“Then you refuse to fly?” I demanded, trembling in my eagerness.

“I do,” says he.

“Then I hope you’ll hang,” I cried; “yes, simpleton that you are, I hope you’ll hang.”

However, at the mention of his certain fate, I was no longer mistress of myself, for I sat down suddenly in a very unreasonable fashion, covered my eyes with my hands, and allowed my tears to break forth in the most uncontrollable flood I’ve ever shed. When I desisted somewhat from this, and next looked up, the prisoner was at my side, and bending over me with a tenderness that added to my woe. Hardly a minute had fled since last I had seen his face, yet in that little time it appeared to have aged by twenty years. Great as my own pains were, I knew them to be equalled by his own, for he was plainly suffering a very bitter agony.

“Madam,” he said, with his native bluntness refined into a strange sweetness by his grief, “would to God I had never known you! You make the thought of death terrible hard to bear.”

“Oh!” I sobbed, with a ridiculous riot in my breast, “I thought I was never in your style; I thought you never cared; I thought——”

“You are a wonderful, brave woman,” he says, in a whisper, “a wonderful brave woman.”

One of his tears fell down upon my shoulder. Sore was I tempted to indulge myself with weeping, too, but knowing well that the prisoner had not a hope of life other than one that I might find him, I fought against my weakness till in a measure it was overcome. But the face of the prisoner was before me always, and again did my eyes grow dark and heavy with their tears.

“Child, do not be afraid,” I said, trying for conscience sake to affix on him the guilt that was my own. “Be brave; the matter is not so cruel as it looks.”

He did not answer, but his smile was grim. And it seemed wonderful to me that the faculties of his mind should remain so keen when Death’s shadow was darkening his heart.

“Madam,” he said gently, after a miserable silence, “give me your hand just once in parting, and I shall consider that the climax to a life that never was unhappy. For your courage, madam, is the sweetest memory I have; and I mean to bear it ever.”

“No, no,” I said, while my tears broke forth again, “do not afflict me with farewells. They are more than I can suffer. Oh, my lad, I cannot let you go like this! My life begins and ends with you.”

“But for you, my fair, sweet lady,” he replied, “I could receive death easily. But I can rejoice that I’ve known you, and that you have been my friend. And now it were better that I took my leave, for the longer that we are together the sharper will the separation be.” I heard a half-checked groan escape him. Afterwards he said: “Oh, what a loveliness grief hath lent you! Never did you look so beautiful before to-day.”

“Yes,” I sobbed, “you always said you liked ’em clinging.”

“Let us say good-bye,” he whispered. “At least, let us have done with this.”

“Child, be brave,” I recommended him, with a depth in irony that it was well he could not fathom.

“I blame you for my cowardice,” he said.

There was a quiver in his face that even he could not conceal. I felt almost happy when I saw it, for it told me that at last even the untameable was tamed.

“You do not want to die?” I asked him, softly.

“No,” he stammered, “I do not want to die.”

“And why do you not want to die?” I continued, without pity. “There was a time, you know, when you were not so troubled with this scruple.”

“’Tis an unnecessary question,” he said, while a glance came from him that sank into my heart.

“Is it that you have come to love me?” says I, in my monumental innocence.

“I—a beggar?”

“Nay, sir,” says I, “not a beggar. You lack his first essential, his humility. Suppose we say a sturdy rogue?”

“A sturdy rogue, then.”

“Well, an he loves me, I can pardon the presumption of a sturdy rogue.”

“You had better do so, then,” says he.

“That is, you love me, sir,” I demanded, sternly.

“By God I do!” he cries.

“Which is very well,” says I, “as, all things considered, sir—well, all things considered, sir—that is, at least, I think it’s very well. And as you love me, sir, I would have you steal out through the window of this room, creep across the park into the wood, and I will meet you there in half an hour with money, a disguise, and such like necessaries.”

“And my promise to the Captain, madam?”

“The Captain is your enemy,” says I. “He seeks to kill you.”

He shook his head in defiance of my open anger.

Now here was a point that I never could distinguish. Why, in the first place, the Captain should have dared to trust a desperate rebel upon his simple word, was beyond my understanding; again, why, when his enemy had been fool enough to do so, that rebel did not profit by this credulity was even greater mystery. Of course I have heard soldiers talk about their “honour,” and I had lately learnt to know that his “honour” was the one flaw in the complete armour of that worldling, my papa; but for my life I cannot see why a man should extend more consideration to it than he would, as in this present case of young Anthony, to death itself. And certainly I think that there is never a woman of us all that, being put in his tight place, but would have stretched her word a point. Bab Gossiter herself would have done so, I can promise you.

Still the prisoner was obdurate. And if he, of all persons, refused to connive at his own escape, verily his case was dark. But there was one other. Who knew but that after all he might relent a little under the fire of my eyes? The Captain had flinched before their powers once; perchance he might again.

“My lad,” I said, turning to the prisoner, “wait here till I return. I wish to speak a few words with the Captain.”

“On my behalf?” says he.

“Oh, no,” says I, promptly; for did I not know his disposition was peculiar? Even as I went, however, I could see that he did not set much value on my word, and it was a nice question whether he had accepted it.

I found the Captain sitting before the library fire. The blaze playing on his face showed it sombre and deeply overcast with thought. When I entered alone a visible embarrassment took hold of him, and I believe it was because he had noted the red and inflamed appearance of my eyes.

“I am come to plead, sir,” says I, plunging at once into my bitter task.

“My dear lady, I had feared it,” he said.

“He is very young,” I said, “very misguided probably, but a youthful error is not to be punished with the scaffold.”

“It is the law,” says he, sadly.

“Humanity is more potent than the law, sir.” My tears broke forth again.

“And,” said the Captain, with great gentleness, “Lady Barbarity at every season and in every circumstance is always humane.”

His voice made me shiver. There was a metallic harshness creeping out from underneath the velvet tones. His face, too, had grown dark with sneers and sardonic meaning. I struggled to be resolute, but the Fates were against me. The shadow of death was lying on my heart, and steel it as I might it could not forbear from trembling at the Captain’s words, that were as cold as doom, and twice as cruel.

“My Lady Barbarity is ever humane,” the Captain said. “There would be no pretext for her title else.”

“I will confess, sir,” says I, “that I never had any particular compassion for fools. In my opinion, sir, it is no worse to trample on a fool than it is to beat a dog.”

“Well, madam,” says the Captain, very like a judge, “that, I think, is a matter for your conscience. But is it not rather a flaw in policy, don’t you think, to come to a fool on whom you have trampled with a plea for mercy?”

“Captain Grantley,” says I, warningly.

“You must forgive my bluntness, madam,” he continued, “but I, a fool, have been compelled to suffer greatly at your hands. You may have forgotten last year in London, and this very room but a week ago, but I can assure you, madam, that I have not. I have passed through a purgatory of hope and jealousy, and for what reason, madam? Simply that, to serve your private ends, you have deigned to shoot a few smiles out of your eyes. And under your pardon, madam, I will say those eyes of yours are poisoned daggers that corrupt everything they strike. At least, I know they have corrupted my very soul.”

He ended this strange speech with a groan. There was a still passion in him that was alarming. If ever a man meant mischief, surely this was he.

“But, sir,” I said, “you must understand that I am not pleading for myself.”

“No, only for the man you love,” says he.

I saw he was white to the lips.

“Sir,” says I, “if this were not so nonsensical, I should deem it an impertinence.”

“It is only to saints that plain truths are inoffensive,” the Captain answered.

Again and yet again I returned to the attack, only to discover that I had to deal with a cold man kindled. Here was a person not to be fired easily; a chance spark would not light him; but once ablaze and he would not cease burning until the whole of him was ashes. I had only to look at his face observantly to find proofs of the havoc I had caused. His eyes were bright and hollow; his cheeks had fallen in. Hitherto I had held these the signs of the mind’s anxiety at his long captivity and his prisoner’s escape. But had I plumbed deeper to the sources of his malady I should have found that they sprang from the bitter sufferings of his heart. And whatever the shining qualities of this gentleman, I knew from the beginning that magnanimity was not among them. He had endured the pain that I had wantonly inflicted on him, bravely and proudly, but he had also abided his time. Alas, that his time was now!

Looking at his cold eyes, and the scorn of his lips, I knew that he meant to punish me. There was not one relenting glance to give me hope. I do not think that I am a greater coward than my sisters, but somehow all at once I felt my courage go. This patient foe seemed too powerful and wary; I was but as a reed in his hands; he could break me now and cast me to the ground. I shall not describe my long, fervent pleadings with him. I was made to command and not to pray; therefore, I believe a creature of a humbler mind would have borne this matter more effectively. For my every plea fell on a heart of stone. At last I cried out from the depths of desperation: “Is there no price in the world that would tempt you to spare him?”

His answer was startling.

“Yes, madam, one,” he said.

“Name it, sir!” I cried, springing to my feet in my excitement. “Name it, sir, and please God it shall be paid!”

“Become my wife, madam. On that condition only do I release your lover.”

You have seen the actors in the playhouse strike their attitudes, and deliver their high speeches with the most poignant effect. You know that you are pierced, not by a natural emotion, but by art and a studied utterance. I had this feeling in the most intensified degree when my subtle enemy announced, with wonderful seeming candour, the price I had to pay. Of a sudden, however, his gravity was exchanged for a laughter equally insincere. At first I took it for the mere brutality of mockery in the playhouse manner, but as again and again it returned upon him, and rose to a horrible hysteria, it was presently borne upon me that I was not so much the object of his hollow mirth, as the agonised James Grantley.

Despite the magnitude of his demand, I was not slow to answer. Though I had an instinct that this momentous circumstance demanded at least a day and a night for ponderation, I felt quite incapable of coolly considering it for twenty seconds. Conscious of nothing beyond the blood droning in my brain, I replied to my enemy:

“Captain, I accept the conditions you have named.”

Perhaps the man was not prepared for this, for his face grew painful in its pallor, while the fire burned deeper in his eyes.

“Madam,” says he, in a voice hardly to be endured. “I suppose you are aware that this will ruin me?”

“And you, sir,” I said, politely, “that I shall be damned eternally?”

“Take a more cheerful view of it, dear lady,” he mockingly invited me.

“Captain,” says I, “do you know that you most remind me of an angry wasp? You are prepared to destroy yourself to gratify the lust of your revenge.”

Thus with these sweet speeches was our wooing done!