St. George and St. Michael

G >> George MacDonald >> St. George and St. Michael

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'Master, master!' he gurgled, 'let me go. I will swear any oath you
please--'

'And break it any moment YOU please,' returned Richard through his
set teeth, and caught with his other hand the coverlid, dragged it
from the bed, and, twisting it first round his face, flung the
remainder about his body; then, threatening to knock his brains out
if he made the least noise, proceeded to tie him up in it with his
garters and its own corners. No sound escaped poor Tom beyond a
continuous mumbled entreaty through its folds. Richard laid him on
the floor, pulled all the bedding upon the top of him, and gliding
out, closed the door, but, to Tom's unspeakable relief, as his ears,
agonizedly listening, assured him, did not lock it behind him.

Tom's sole anxiety was now to get back to his garret unseen, and
nothing was farther from his thoughts than giving the alarm. The
moment Richard was out of hearing--out of sight he had been for some
stifling minutes--he devoted his energies to getting clear of his
entanglement, which he did not find very difficult; then stepping
softly from the chamber, he crept with a heavy heart back as he had
come through a labyrinth of by-ways.

About half an hour after, Dorothy came gliding through the house,
making a long circuit of corridors. Gladly would she have avoided
passing Amanda's door, and involuntarily held her breath as she
approached it, stepping as lightly as a thief. But alas! nothing
save incorporeity could have availed her. The moment she had passed,
out peeped Amanda and crept after her barefooted, saw her to her joy
enter the chamber and close the door behind her, then 'like a tiger
of the wood,' made one noiseless bound, turned the key, and sped
back to her own chamber--with the feeling of Mark Antony when he
said, 'Now let it work!'

Dorothy was startled by a slight click, but concluded at once that
it was nothing but a further fall of the latch, and was glad it was
no louder. The same moment she saw, by the dim rushlight, the signs
of struggle which the room presented, and discovered that Richard
was gone. Her first emotion was an undefined agony: they had
murdered him, or carried him off to a dungeon! There were the
bedclothes in a tumbled heap upon the floor! And--yes--it was blood
with which they were marked! Sickening at the thought, and
forgetting all about her own situation, she sank on the chair by the
bedside.

Knowing the castle as she did, a very little reflection convinced
her that if he had met with violence it must have been in attempting
to escape; and if he had made the attempt, might he not have
succeeded? There had certainly been no fresh alarm given. But upon
this consoling supposition followed instantly the pang of the
question: what was now required of her? The same hard thing as
before? Ought she not again to give the alarm, that the poor wounded
boy might be recaptured? Alas! had not evil enough already befallen
him at her hand? And if she did--horrible thought!--what account
could she give this time of her discovery? What indeed but the
truth? And to what vile comments would not the confession of her
secret visit in the first grey of the dawn to the chamber of the
prisoner expose her? Would it not naturally rouse such suspicion as
any modest woman must shudder to face, if but for the one moment
between utterance and refutation. And what refutation could there be
for her, so long as the fact remained? If he had escaped, the alarm
would serve no good end, and her shame could be spared; but he might
be hiding somewhere about the castle, and she must choose between
treachery to the marquis--was it?--on the one hand, and renewed
hurt, wrong, perhaps, to Richard, coupled with the bitterest
disgrace to herself, on the other. To weigh such a question
impartially was impossible; for in the one alternative no hurt would
befall the marquis, while from the other her very soul recoiled
sickening. Thus tortured, she sat motionless in the very den of the
dragon, the one moment vainly endeavouring to rouse up her courage
and look her duty in the face that she might know with certainty
what it was; the next, feeling her whole nature rise rebellious
against the fate that demanded such a sacrifice. Ought she to be
thus punished for an intent of the purest humanity?

There came a lull, and with the lull a sense of her position: she
sat in the very, jaws of slander! Any moment mistress Watson or
another might enter and find her there, and what then more natural
or irrefutable than the accusation of having liberated him? She
sprang to her feet, and darted to the door. It was locked!

Her first thought was relief: she had no longer to decide; her
second, that she was a prisoner--till, horror of horrors! the
soldiers of the guard came to seek Richard and found her, or stern
mistress Watson appeared, grim as one of the Fates; or, perhaps, if
Richard had been carried away, until she was compelled by hunger and
misery to call aloud for release. But no! she would rather die. Now
in this case, now in that, her thoughts pursued the horrible
possibilities, one or other of which was inevitable, through all the
windings of the torture of anticipation, until for a time she must
have lost consciousness, for she had no recollection of falling
where she found herself--on the heap in the middle of the floor. The
gray heartless dawn had begun to peer in through the dull green
glass that closed the one loophole. It grew and grew, and its growth
was the approach of the grinning demon of shame. The nearer a man
can arrive to the knowledge of such feelings as hers is the
conviction that he never can comprehend them. The cruel light seemed
gathering its strength to publish her shame to the universe.
Blameless as she was, she would have gladly accepted death in escape
from the misery that every moment grew nearer. Now and then a faint
glimmer of comfort reached her in the thought that at least the
escape of Richard, if he had escaped, was thus ensured, and that
without any blame to her. And perhaps mistress Watson would be
merciful--only she too had her obligations, and as housekeeper was
severely responsible. And even if she should prove pitiful, there
was the locking of the door! It followed so quickly, that some one
must have seen her enter, and wittingly snared her, believing most
likely that she was not alone in the chamber.

The terrible bolt at length slid back in the lock, gently, yet with
tearing sound; mistress Watson entered, stood, stared. Before her
sat Dorothy by the side of the bedstead, in her dressing-gown, her
hair about her neck, her face like the moon at sunrise, and her
eyelids red and swollen with weeping. She stood speechless, staring
first at the disconsolate maiden, and then at the disorder of the
room. The prisoner was nowhere. What her thoughts were, I must only
imagine. That she should stare and be bewildered, finding Dorothy
where she had left Richard, was at least natural.

The moment Dorothy found herself face to face with her doom, her
presence of mind returned. The blood rushed from her heart to her
brain. She rose, and ere the astonished matron, who stood before her
erect, high-nosed, and open-mouthed like Michael Angelo's Clotho,
could find utterance, said,

'Mistress Watson, I swear to you by the soul of my mother, that
although all seeming is against me, W--'

'Where is the young rebel?' interrupted mistress Watson sternly.

'I know not,' answered Dorothy. 'When first I entered the chamber,
he had already gone.'

'And what then hadst thou to do entering it?' asked the housekeeper,
in a tone that did Dorothy good by angering her.

Mistress Watson was a kind soul in reality, but few natures can
resist the debasing influence of a sudden sense of superiority.
Besides, was not the young gentlewoman in great wrong, and therefore
before her must she not personify an awful Purity?

'That I will tell to none but my lord marquis,' answered Dorothy,
with sudden resolve.

'Oh, by all means, mistress! but an' thou think to lead him by the
nose while I be in Raglan,--'

'Shall I inform his lordship in what high opinion his housekeeper
holds him?' said Dorothy. 'It seems to me he will hardly savour it.'

'It would be an ill turn to do me, but my lord marquis did never
heed a tale-bearer.'

'Then will he not heed the tale thou wouldst yield him concerning
me.'

'What tale should I yield him but that I find--thee here and the
prisoner gone?'

'The tale I read in thy face and thy voice. Thou lookest and talkest
as if I were a false woman.'

'Verily to my eyes the thing looketh ill.'

'It would look ill to any eyes, and therefore I need kind eyes to
read, and just ears to hear my tale. I tell thee this is a matter
for my lord, and if thou spread any report in the castle ere his
lordship hear it, whatever evil springs therefrom it will lie at thy
door.'

'My life! what dost take me for, mistress Dorothy? My age and
holding deserves some consideration at thy hands! Am I one to go
tattling about the courts forsooth?'

'Pardon me, madam, but a maiden's good name may be as precious to
Dorothy Vaughan as a matron's respectability to mistress Watson. An'
you had left me with that look on your face, and had but spoken my
name to it, some one would have guessed ten times more than you
know--or I either for that gear.'

'I must tell the truth,' said mistress Watson, relenting a little.

'Thou must, or I will tell it for thee--but to the marquis. Thou
shalt be there to hear, and if, after that, thou tell it to another,
then hast thou no mother's heart in thee.'

Dorothy gave way at last and burst into tears. Mistress Watson was
touched.

'Nay, child, I would do thee no wrong,' she rejoined. 'Get thee
to bed. I must rouse the guard to go look for the prisoner, but I
will say nothing of thee to any but my lord marquis. When he is
dressed and in his study, I will come for thee myself.'

Dorothy thanked her warmly, and betook herself to her chamber,
considerably relieved.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

JUDGE GOUT.

Dorothy had hardly reached her room when the castle was once more
astir. The rush of the guard across the stone court, the clang of
opening lattices, and the voices that called from out-shot heads,
again filled her ears, but she never once peeped from her window. A
moment, and the news was all over the castle that the prisoner had
escaped.

Lord Charles went at once to his father's room. The old man woke
instantly. He had but just laid his hand on his mane, not mounted
the shadowy steed, and was ill pleased to be already, and the second
time, startled back to conscious weariness. When he heard the bad
tidings he was silent for a few moments.

'I would Herbert were at home, Charles, to stop this rat-hole for
me,' he said at length. 'Let the roundhead go--I care not. I had but
half a right to hold him, and he deserves his freedom. But what a
governor art thou, my lord? Prithee, dost know the rents in thine
own hose, who knowest not when thy gingerbread bulwarks gape? Find
me out this rat-hole, I say, or I will depose thee and send for thy
brother John, whom the king can ill spare.'

'Have patience with me, father,' said lord Charles gently. 'I am
more ashamed than thou art angry.'

'Thou know'st I did but jest, my son. But in truth an'thou find it
not I will send for lord Herbert. If he find what thou canst not,
that will be no disgrace to thee. But find it we must.'

'Think you not, my lord, it were best set mistress Dorothy on the
search? She hath a wondrous gift of discovery.'

'A good thought, Charles! I will even do as thou sayest. But search
the castle first, from vane to dungeon, that we may be assured the
roundhead hath indeed vanished.'

As he spoke the marquis turned him round, to search the wide gray
fields again for the shadowy horse that roamed them tetherless. But
the steed would not come to his call; he grew chilly and asthmatic,
tossed to and fro, and began to dread an attack of the gout.

The sun rose higher; the hive of men and women was astir once more;
the clatter of the day's work and the buzz of the day's talk began,
and nothing was in anybody's mouth but the escape of the prisoner.
His capture and trial were already of the past, forgotten for the
time in the nearer astonishment. Lord Charles went searching,
questioning, peering about everywhere, but could find neither
prisoner nor the traitorous hole.

Meantime mistress Watson was not a little anxious until she should
have revealed what she knew to the marquis, for the prisoner was in
her charge when he disappeared. In the course of the morning lord
Charles came to her apartment to question her, but she begged to be
excused, because of a certain disclosure she was not at liberty to
make to any but his father. Lord Charles, whom she had known from
his boyhood, readily yielded, and mistress Watson, five minutes
after he had left his room, followed the marquis to his study,
whither it was his custom always to repair before breakfast. He was
looking pale from the trouble of the night, which had resulted in
unmistakeable symptoms of the gout, listened to all she had to tell
him without comment, looked grave, and told her to fetch mistress
Dorothy. As soon as she was gone, he called Scudamore from the
antechamber, and sent him to request lord Charles's presence. He
came at once, and was there when Dorothy entered.

She was very white and worn, and her eyes were heavily downcast. Her
face wore that expression so much resembling guilt, which indicates
the misery the most innocent feel the most under the consciousness
of suspicion. At the sight of lord Charles, she crimsoned: it was
one thing to confess to the marquis, and quite another to do so in
the presence of his son.

The marquis sat with one leg on a stool, already in the gradually
contracting gripe of his ghoulish enemy. Before Dorothy could
recover from the annoyance of finding lord Charles present, or open
her mouth to beg for a more private interview, he addressed her
abruptly.

'Our young rebel friend hath escaped, it seems, mistress Dorothy!'
he said, gently but coldly, looking her full in the eyes, with
searching gaze and hard expression.

'I am glad to hear it, my lord,' returned Dorothy, with a sudden
influx of courage, coming, as the wind blows, she knew not whence.

'Ha!' said the marquis, quickly; 'then is it news to thee, mistress
Dorothy?'

His lip, as it seemed to Dorothy, curled into a mocking smile; but
the gout might have been in it.

'Indeed it is news, my lord. I hoped it might be so, I confess, but
I knew not that so it was.'

'What, mistress Dorothy! knewest thou not that the young thief was
gone?'

'I knew that Richard Heywood was gone from his chamber--whether from
the castle I knew not. He was no thief, my lord. Your lordship's
page and fool were the thieves.'

'Cousin, I hardly know myself in the change I find in thee! Truly, a
marvellous change! In the dark night thou takest a roundhead
prisoner; in the gray of the morning thou settest him free again!
Hath one visit to his chamber so wrought upon thee? To an old man it
seemeth less than maidenly.'

Again a burning blush overspread poor Dorothy's countenance. But she
governed herself, and spoke bravely, although she could not keep her
voice from trembling.

'My lord,' she said, 'Richard Heywood was my playmate. We were as
brother and sister, for our fathers'lands bordered each other.'

'Thou didst say nothing of these things last night?'

'My lord! Before the whole hall? Besides, what mattered it? All was
over long ago, and I had done my part against him.'

'Fell you out together then?'

'What need is there for your lordship to ask? Thou seest him of the
one part, and me of the other.'

'And from loving thou didst fall to hating?'

'God forbid, my lord! I but do my part against him.'

'For the which thou hadst a noble opportunity unsought, raising the
hue and cry upon him within his enemy's walls!'

'I would to God, my lord, it had not fallen to me.'

'Thinking better of it, therefore, and repenting of thy harshness,
thou didst seek his chamber in the night to tell him so? I would
fain know how a maiden reasoneth with herself when she doth such
things.'

'Not so, my lord. I will tell you all. I could not sleep for
thinking of my wounded playmate. And as to what he had done, after
it became clear that he sought but his own, and meant no
hair's-breadth of harm to your lordship, I confess the matter looked
not the same.'

'Therefore you would make him amends and undo what you had done? You
had caught the bird, and had therefore a right to free the bird when
you would? All well, mistress Dorothy, had he been indeed a bird!
But being a man, and in thy friend's house, I doubt thy logic. The
thing had passed from thy hands into mine, young mistress,' said the
marquis, into the ball of whose foot the gout that moment ran its
unicorn-horn.

'I did not set him free, my lord. When I entered the prison-chamber,
he was already gone.'

'Thou hadst the will and didst it not! Is there yet another in my
house who had the will and did it?' cried the marquis, who, although
more than annoyed that she should have so committed herself, yet was
willing to give such scope to a lover, that if she had but confessed
she had liberated him, he would have pardoned her heartily. He did
not yet know how incapable Dorothy was of a lie.

'But, my lord, I had not the will to set him free,' she said.

'Wherefore then didst go to him?'

'My lord, he was sorely wounded, and I had seen him fall fainting,'
said Dorothy, repressing her tears with much ado.

'And thou didst go to comfort him?'

Dorothy was silent.

'How camest thou locked into his room? Tell me that, mistress.'

'Your lordship knows as much of that as I do. Indeed, I have been
sorely punished for a little fault.'

'Thou dost confess the fault then?'

'If it WAS a fault to visit him who was sick and in prison, my
lord.'

The marquis was silent for a whole minute.

'And thou canst not tell how he gat him forth of the walls? Must I
believe him to be forth of them, my lord?' he said, turning to his
son.

'I cannot imagine him within them, my lord, after such search as we
have made.'

'Still,' returned the marquis, the acuteness of whose wits had not
been swallowed up by that of the gout, 'so long as thou canst not
tell how he gat forth, I may doubt whether he be forth. If the
manner of his exit be acknowledged hidden, wherefore not the place
of his refuge? Mistress Dorothy,' he continued, altogether averse to
the supposition of treachery amongst his people, 'thou art bound by
all obligations of loyalty and shelter and truth, to tell what thou
knowest. An' thou do not, thou art a traitor to the house, yea to
thy king, for when the worst comes, and this his castle is besieged,
much harm may be wrought by that secret passage, yea, it may be
taken thereby.'

'You say true, my lord: I should indeed be so bound, an' I knew what
my lord would have me disclose.'

'One may be bound and remain bound,' said the marquis, spying
prevarication. 'Now the thing is over, and the youth safe, all I ask
of thee, and surely it is not much, is but to bar the door against
his return--except indeed thou didst from the first contrive so to
meet thy roundhead lover in my loyal house. Then indeed it were too
much to require of thee! Ah ha! mistress Dorothy, the little blind
god is a rascally deceiver. He is but blind nor' nor' west. He
playeth hoodman, and peepeth over his bandage.'

'My lord, you wrong me much,' said Dorothy, and burst into tears,
while once more the red lava of the human centre rushed over her
neck and brow. 'I did think that I had done enough both for my lord
of Worcester and against Richard Heywood, and I did hope that he had
escaped: there lies the worst I can lay to my charge even in
thought, my lord, and I trust it is no more than may be found
pardonable.'

'It sets an ill example to my quiet house if the ladies therein go
anights to the gentlemen's chambers.'

'My lord, you are cruel,' said Dorothy.

'Not a soul in the house knows it but myself, my lord,' said
mistress Watson.

'Hold there, my good woman! Whose hand was it turned the key upon
her? More than thou must know thereof. Hear me, mistress Dorothy: I
would be heart-loath to quarrel with thee, and in all honesty I am
glad thy lover--'

'He is no lover of mine, my lord! At least--'

'Be he what he may, he is a fine fellow, and I am glad he hath
escaped. Do thou but find out for my lord Charles here the cursed
rat-hole by which he goes and comes, and I will gladly forgive thee
all the trouble thou hast brought into my sober house. For truly
never hath been in my day such confusion and uproar therein as since
thou earnest hither, and thy dog and thy lover and thy lover's mare
followed thee.'

'Alas, my lord! if I were fortunate enough to find it, what would
you but say I found it where I knew well to look for it?'

'Find it, and I promise thee I will never say word on the matter
again. Thou art a good girl, and thou do venture a hair too far for
a lover. The still ones are always the worst, mistress Watson.'

'My lord! my lord!' cried Dorothy, but ended not, for his lordship
gave a louder cry. His face was contorted with anguish, and he
writhed under the tiger fangs of the gout.

'Go away,' he shouted, 'or I shall disgrace my manhood before women,
God help me!'

'I trust thee will bear me no malice,' said the housekeeper, as they
walked in the direction of Dorothy's chamber.

'You did but your duty,' said Dorothy quietly.

'I will do all I can for thee,' continued mistress Watson, mounted
again, if not on her high horse then on her palfrey, by her master's
behaviour to the poor girl--'if thou but confess to me how thou
didst contrive the young gentleman's escape, and wherefore he locked
the door upon thee.'

At the moment they were close to Dorothy's room; her answer to the
impertinence was to walk in and shut the door; and mistress Watson
was thenceforward entirely satisfied of her guilt.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

AN EVIL TIME.

And now was an evil time for Dorothy. She retired to her chamber
more than disheartened by lord Worcester's behaviour to her, vexed
with herself for doing what she would have been more vexed with
herself for having left undone, feeling wronged, lonely, and
disgraced, conscious of honesty, yet ashamed to show herself--and
all for the sake of a presumptuous boy, whose opinions were a
disgust to her and his actions a horror! Yet not only did she not
repent of what she had done, but, fact as strange as natural, began,
with mingled pleasure and annoyance, to feel her heart drawn towards
the fanatic as the only one left her in the world capable of doing
her justice, that was, of understanding her. She thus unknowingly
made a step towards the discovery that it is infinitely better to
think wrong and to act right upon that wrong thinking, than it is to
think right and not to do as that thinking requires of us. In the
former case the man's house, if not built upon the rock, at least
has the rock beneath it; in the latter, it is founded on nothing but
sand. The former man may be a Saul of Tarsus, the latter a Judas
Iscariot. He who acts right will soon think right; he who acts wrong
will soon think wrong. Any two persons acting faithfully upon
opposite convictions, are divided but by a bowing wall; any two, in
belief most harmonious, who do not act upon it, are divided by,
infinite gulfs of the blackness of darkness, across which neither
ever beholds the real self of the other.

Dorothy ought to have gone at once to lady Margaret and told her
all; but she naturally and rightly shrank from what might seem an
appeal to the daughter against the judgment of her father; neither
could she dare hope that, if she did, her judgment would not be
against her also. Her feelings were now in danger of being turned
back upon herself, and growing bitter; for a lasting sense of injury
is, of the human moods, one of the least favourable to sweetness and
growth. There was no one to whom she could turn. Had good Dr. Bayly
been at home--but he was away on some important mission from his
lordship to the king: and indeed she could scarcely have looked for
refuge from such misery as hers in the judgment of the rather
priggish old-bachelor ecclesiastic. Gladly would she have forsaken
the castle, and returned to all the dangers and fears of her lonely
home; but that would be to yield to a lie, to flee from the devil
instead of facing him, and with her own hand to fix the imputed
smirch upon her forehead, exposing herself besides to the suspicion
of having fled to join her lover, and cast in her lot with his
amongst the traitors. Besides, she had been left by lord Herbert in
charge of his fire-engine and the water of the castle, which trust
she could not abandon. Whatever might be yet to come of it, she must
stay and encounter it, and would in the meantime set herself to
discover, if she might, the secret pathway by which dog and man came
and went at their pleasure. This she owed her friends, even at the
risk, in case of success, of confirming the marquis's worst
suspicions.

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