Chapter XVIII The Den of the Highwayman
Prue allowed James to direct the chairmen to Marlborough House, but, a short distance away, she stopped them, and giving them a crown, desired them to carry her with the utmost speed to Essex Street, where she would reward them amply for their diligence. Scenting an intrigue, with the usual accompaniment of a generous douceur for their share in it, they trotted off at a pace that gave their light burden hard work to keep her seat.
With all their haste, it was dark before they reached Essex Street, where Prue desired them to seek out “Pip’s Coffee-House,” a small hostelry of retiring, not to say furtive aspect. A flickering oil-lamp hung over the entrance, and through the red-baize window-curtain a dull glimmer penetrated.
Excited as she was, Prue was not without alarms at the sinister possibilities of this adventure, so vastly different from the sparkling follies of her giddy career. But “Cowards fayle,” and Prue was no coward, nor was she capable of drawing back when curiosity and inclination combined to thrust her on. She descended, and bidding the chairmen wait, boldly entered the house and knocked at the first door she came to.
A voice called out, “Come in,” and she obeyed. The room was of moderate size, divided into small compartments, each containing a rough wooden table and a couple of benches to match. The floor was sanded, the ceiling low and smoke-blackened, but there was no appearance of squalor, and the few occupants, who were reading the News sheet or playing dominoes, looked respectable and orderly enough.
Reassured, Prue approached the man in charge of the little curtained bar, and in a timid voice inquired for “Mr. Steve Larkyn.”
He stared at her, but her veil effectually hid her face, though the sweetness of her voice and the distinction of her bearing could not be disguised.
“Steve Larkyn? I’ll call him, my lady,” said the man.
“I’m no lady,” retorted Prue sharply. “If I were I should not be asking for Steve Larkyn!”
She was sorry for her quickness the next moment, for the man laughed rather rudely, and opening a door behind him, called out, “Hullo, Steve, here’s a lady asking for thee, that says she ain’t no lady.”
The Steve Larkyn who came hurrying out was so unlike the one she had seen in disguise, that she was about to repudiate him, when with a sudden grimace he changed himself back into the rustic foot-boy, all but the shock of tow-colored hair, which no longer covered his sleek brown head. The change passed like a ripple of wind over a smooth pool, but it reassured Prue.
“Can you come outside a minute?” she said, in a very low voice; “I must speak with you.”
He followed her into the street, and once out of range of observant eyes and ears, she grasped him by the arm, and demanded to be taken instantly to the captain.
“I can take a message,” said Steve, hesitating. “It will attract less notice than a visit from a lady.”
“Waste no time in idle objections,” she cried, almost fiercely. “I must see him; what I have to say is for his ear alone, and even if otherwise, ’twould be a waste of precious time to tell my tale twice over. Lead me to him instantly or take the responsibility of his certain death upon your own head!”
“Come, then,” he replied; “but you must come afoot. ’Tis ill enough to take a woman into a secret, without a pair of spying lackeys to boot. Can you walk a short distance? The road is dark and rough.”
“No matter, I can walk it.” She paid the chairmen liberally, and dismissing them, followed Steve down a steep and narrow lane leading to the riverside. It was unlighted, and she slipped and stumbled on the miry, uneven causeway until Steve, in pity, begged her to lean upon his arm. “’Tis not far now,” he said, less gruffly, and a few yards farther they came to a huge and gloomy gateway, within which a little door admitted them into a dark hall. Steve struck a light and led the way across the echoing emptiness and up a broad staircase. He scratched with his nail upon a door, which was promptly opened by Robin himself, fully equipped for a journey.
“Steve!” he exclaimed. “What has happened, and who is this with you?”
Before he could answer. Prue stepped forward and throwing off her veil replied, “Your wife!”
“Lady Prudence!” he cried, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses. “In the name of Heaven, what brings you here? Why are you so pale and excited? Something terrible has happened?”
“No; but will happen unless you instantly escape.” She came into the room and closed the door, leaving Steve outside. “Oh! Robin, Robin,” she cried, clasping her hands and looking at him with reproachful eyes, “I know all that happened last night. How could you be so mad? You can not hope to escape again if you are arrested for this.”
“Indeed,” said Robin grimly, “if I am taken this time, ’twill be worse than hanging! But I’ll never be taken alive—”
“There is time to escape,” she urged. “Your retreat is known and you will be arrested to-night. Lord Beachcombe has discovered where he was brought yester night—”
“Ah!” said Robin, with a bitter smile. “I should have taken extra precautions against the bloodhound instinct of hatred! And so, Dear Heart,” he went on, in a very different tone, “you came to warn me of danger? ’Twas very noble of you, for if you had left me to my fate, in a few hours you might have been a free woman.”
Prue burst into tears. “Oh! you are cruel, cruel,” she sobbed. “I do not want freedom—that way.”
“I believe it,” he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips. “Do not grieve, my hunted life is not worth one of those tears—”
“But hasten,” she interrupted, listening attentively and holding up her hand to silence him. “I know who you are and that you are concerned in Jacobite plots. Soldiers will surround the house and you will be arrested and taken to the Tower as a traitor. You have very little time to escape—”
He glanced at some papers on the table and began to gather them up and conceal them about him. In doing this, he uncovered a jewel-case of purple velvet embroidered in gold with the royal arms.
Prue uttered a faint shriek and covered her eyes, as if to shut out the sight that confirmed her worst fears.
“Oh! Robin!” she gasped. “The queen’s necklace—!”
“Was it the queen’s?” he replied carelessly. “Well, now it is yours, if you care to have it.” He opened the case and displayed the diamonds flashing like a string of fire. “‘My faith! the gems are gorgeous; they will look well on the peerless neck of my beautiful Prue.”
“I wear the queen’s diamonds! You must be mad! What possessed you to take them? Oh, I hoped so that it was a mistake and that you were innocent of this.”
“Innocent of what? Do you really think I stole the necklace? My dear Lady Prudence, I am a highwayman when occasion serves, but I am not a thief. Last night, on the king’s business, I waylaid the wrong man, and all I got for my pains was this fine casket, which I never opened until now. Evidently I robbed the thief, confound him! and the papers I was commanded to secure are God knows where!”
“Oh! Robin, I am so glad!” she cried. “They said Robin the highwayman was at his tricks again, and had stolen the queen’s necklace from Marlborough House, and oh, I was so ashamed to think such a thing could be said of—-my husband!”
She half turned away, murmuring the last words so softly that only the ears of love could have caught them.
“Oh! Prue—angel—is it really possible that you think of me as your husband? Oh! I know there has been an empty ceremony which meant nothing to you, and to me only vain longing and a mad dream of unattainable happiness; but what a fool I am! Of course I ought to have understood that you fear to be brought to shame if it should be suspected that the thief of the queen’s necklace is your—”
Prue’s eyes flashed and her little high-heeled shoe tapped angrily on the floor.
“You are indeed a fool!” she exclaimed. “I do not know why I have any patience at all with you. Will you begone from here at once, sir, and not offend me by tarrying when I have risked so much to save your life?”
He started and flushed guiltily. “Selfish brute that I am! I forgot the danger to you. A thousand thanks, dear Lady Prudence, for your warning. I will profit by it when I have conducted you to safety.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” she retorted imperiously. “When I arrived you were preparing to depart; do so at once, for if you wait for the house to be surrounded by the soldiers it will be too late. Even now, if you leave it alive, you may fall into an ambush. Is there no exit except into the street?”
“Yes; this room opens on a terrace overlooking the river, and although I believed myself safe in London for a few days, I have a boat in readiness in case I should be forced to leave in a hurry,” said Robin. “There are hiding-places in Southwark and Lambeth where the queen’s whole army might hunt a week for me in vain.”
“Be cautious then, for that may be known to your enemies; and, above all, be speedy—”
While she was speaking, the door was flung open abruptly and Steve Larkyn—his face blazing with fury—darted in.
“You are betrayed, Captain!” he ejaculated. “This woman has brought the soldiers with her. For the love of God, do not stop to listen to her, but escape while there is time—”
“You hear?” cried Prue, in a frenzy. “Go—go instantly! I command you!”
“What, go away and leave you here to meet the soldiers alone? Never!” said Robin, with a calmness that contrasted strongly with the excitement of the others.
“Then I will remain with you, and when the soldiers come I will declare that I helped you enter Marlborough House, and show the diamonds to prove that I was your accomplice; nay, I will say that my familiarity with the duchess’ apartments gave me access where you could not have entered and that I stole the diamonds and gave them to you!”
“You will do this?” he gasped, utterly stupefied.
“I will; and if necessary I will proclaim myself your wife and let them think I have had my share in whatever you are accused of.”
“But why? In the name of God, what is the meaning of this madness?”
She stretched out her arms to him with a gesture of utter self-abandonment. “It means that I love you, Robin. I love you, and would rather die with you than live without you!”
He caught her in his arms and strained her to his breast with all the pent-up passion of his being in that fervid embrace.
“Leave you—now, my darling, my heart’s heart—”
She tore herself from his arms. “More than ever now,” she pleaded. “If you hope ever to possess me, fly, and I swear that I will come to you—if not on earth, in Heaven. Stay, I have an idea.” She snatched up a sheet of paper and thrust a pen into his hand. “Write,” she commanded, and he wrote at her dictation.
“MISTRESS BROOKE:
“Follow the bearer and you will find the queen’s diamond necklace.”
“There,” she exclaimed, laughing and crying together, “leave the rest to me, and go—if you do not wish to destroy us both. Hark! the soldiers are already at the gate,” she flung the window open—“trust to my woman’s wit,” she cried, “I shall not only be safe but covered with glory and honor.”
He pressed a burning kiss upon her willing lips and sprang through the window. “Follow your master,” she said to Larkyn, who stood by, an effigy of astonishment. He obeyed without demur, and she shut the window, closing and fastening the shutter and half-drawing the faded curtain.
Then she resumed her mantle and veil and looked around for any sign of Robin’s late occupancy. He had secured all his papers and on the table nothing was left except the purple velvet case and some writing materials, which she thrust into a drawer. In doing so she came upon a packet addressed:
“To Mistress Larkyn, “In care of Mine Hostess of “The Fox and Grapes.”
She took it up and recognized Robin’s writing. The angry blood glowed in her veins. “The insolent varlet!” she muttered. “He has been writing to a woman—‘Mistress Larkyn,’ indeed!—Mine Hostess of the ‘Fox and Grapes,’ forsooth! ’Tis some low intrigue, and I thought him my true lover and loyal husband. I will see how he addresses this creature.” She was about to tear open the packet, when a crash below stairs and the sound of hurried footsteps warned her that the soldiers had broken into the house. She hurriedly thrust it into her bosom and waited.
A voice shouted harshly, “In the queen’s name!” and the door was opened without ceremony. Half-a-dozen soldiers with drawn swords rushed in, and at sight of the little cloaked figure, came to a halt in some confusion.
But Prue, without waiting to be interrogated, threw back her veil, exclaiming, “Soldiers!” in accents of well-feigned joy and relief. “Oh! I am so glad! I was afraid, when I heard the noise, that I had fallen into a den of robbers, who would, perhaps, kill me for the sake of the queen’s necklace.”
“The queen’s necklace!” exclaimed the officer in command. “Who are you, and what do you know about the queen’s necklace?”
“I am the Viscountess Brooke,” she replied, in her loftiest tone, “and this message will explain why I am here, and what I know about the queen’s necklace.”
She landed the paper to him and watched anxiously to see its effect. He read it dubiously and turned it over and over, evidently at a loss how to deal with a matter outside of his instructions.
“You see the necklace,” she went on after a pause, taking up the emblazoned casket and opening it. “The person who brought me here disappeared when the noise began at the gate.” She looked round in every direction but the window. “I think there must be a secret panel somewhere in the room, for while my attention was distracted by the noise, she disappeared.”
“She!” cried the officer. “Did a woman bring you here? What kind of person was it? Could it not have been a man, disguised?”
“A man!” she exclaimed; “oh, no”—then the advantage of prolonging this cross-examination struck her and she continued slowly, as if pondering over the suggestion—“at least, that never occurred to me. Her voice was loud and rough ’tis true—”
“Was she—or he—tall and broad?” demanded the officer, glancing at a document in his hand and reading from it—“swarthy complexion, black eyes, black hair, without powder, worn—”
She interrupted him with a laugh. “Surely not, the woman was old, bent, no taller than myself; a toothless, blear-eyed beldame—”
“And she disappeared, you say? Sergeant, examine the room thoroughly and break in anything that seems like a secret panel. I fear, Madam,” the officer said, again addressing Prue, “that I shall be compelled to arrest you if we can not find the person we are seeking.”
“Arrest me!” cried Prue. “Why, you will make yourself the laughing-stock of London if you arrest Lady Prudence Brooke. As to myself, I should enjoy it amazingly; I have never been arrested, and it would be something quite new for me in the way of an adventure, but I have found the queen’s necklace”—she clasped it in her arms with an air of defiance—“and you must first take me either to Marlborough House, where it was lost, or to Kensington Palace, where you will easily find out whether or no to arrest one of Her Majesty’s ladies-in-waiting.”
She threw off her veil and smiled up at him with all the alluring archness at her command. It was not thrown away, although the young soldier made a brave effort to resist her captivating arts, by ordering his men to leave no loophole of escape for the object of their search or any one who might be his accomplice. They roughly tested the walls with blows and kicks, and finding at last a hollow-sounding panel, knocked it in without delay and found, not a secret passage, but a closet containing some weapons, a saddle and a couple of cloaks. These they made into a bundle and were about to search farther, when the sounds of shouts and shots from the river drew their attention that way.
“By Heaven, they have caught him on the river!” cried the officer, hurrying to the window. He unclasped the shutter and dashing the window open, sprang out on the terrace, followed by Prue. The night was intensely dark and a drizzling rain falling, but at a short distance the blaze of torches stained the fog a dull crimson, that looked to her excited imagination like a haze of blood. She stood shivering on the terrace beside the officer, as he shouted himself hoarse in his efforts to get into communication with the crew of the boat which had intercepted Robin’s flight, but the lights drifted farther away and the shouting ceased, and, at last, she ventured to lay her hand lightly on the officer’s arm.
“Who is being pursued?” she asked, “and what is all the disturbance about?”
“Don’t you know that this is the hiding-place of the notorious highwayman, Robin Freemantle, who is also suspected of being an active agent of the Jacobite plotters in Scotland? It is strange that you should be alone here, Madam, and yet know nothing of this man’s escape! My orders are to arrest him and all persons found in his company; therefore you must consider yourself under arrest.”
“Arrest me if you will,” she replied, “but if you refuse to take me to the Duchess of Marlborough or the queen, the consequences be on your own head. Rest assured that there will be honors and promotion for the gallant soldier who protects one of the ladies of the court and brings her and the treasure she has recovered to safety. But to thrust one of my condition”—her eyes flashed and she raised her head with indignant pride—“into prison, will certainly bring disgrace or worse upon you. I have influence with the duchess and through her, with the duke.”
The officer was young and not altogether insensible either to the sweet, imperious voice, or the arguments it propounded. He hesitated, and meeting the earnest eyes raised to his, began to waver. This was evidently a great lady. Her elegant dress and haughty manner abashed him, and he began to think that if he took her to the Tower in place of Robin Freemantle, she might prove a dangerous substitute.
“Come, come, Sir Officer,” Prue went on, reading the changes of his expression with an experienced eye, “do not be so hard to convince.” She smiled up at him now with a bewitching petulance and laid her slender hand on his arm. “’Tis but a step to Marlborough House and I am in a fever to see the duchess. I was, perhaps, indiscreet in coming to this strange place alone, but the hope of finding the jewels turned my foolish head and put all other considerations out of it. I fear I ran a desperate risk; I might have been attacked by robbers, instead of rescued by soldiers! I shall never forget that I owe my safety, perhaps my life, to you!”
By this time the lieutenant was in complete subjection. “I am most fortunate, Madam, in being of some service to you!” he said gallantly. “When I came here to take a prisoner, I little expected to become a captive myself.”
Prue finished him off with a glance of irresistible archness. “Oh! I am quite reconciled to my arrest now,” she protested. “Indeed, I should claim your escort, if I did not feel sure that you would wish to see the queen’s necklace safely through its adventures. Fortunate man! there is not an officer in the duke’s army, who would not envy your good luck.”
“I can well believe it!” he cried, with an ardent glance. “I would not change places with a general!”
“The duchess appreciates devotion as much as her husband does courage,” said Prue, with tantalizing demureness.
“And the Lady Prudence Brooke—does she also appreciate devotion?” the young officer murmured hurriedly. “Oh! if I could believe so—”
“You would take me to Marlborough House instead of the Tower?” she interrupted quickly. “Prove your devotion by doing so, and afterward”—she lingered softly on the word—“we will talk about appreciation.”
The soldiers, by this time, having ransacked the house without finding anything suspicious, one of them was despatched to fetch a chair for Lady Prudence, and leaving a guard at the house in case of Robin’s return, the lieutenant and the rest of his soldiers escorted the prisoner—and the necklace—to Marlborough House.