Chapter XXIV A Supper for Three
Prue’s delight at the restoration of her necklace was so great that she forgot her fatigue, and Peggie found her dancing before a mirror and trying a variety of coquettish poses to show off the sparkling jewel and the fair throat it adorned. At first she could not resist the temptation of teasing Peggie by feigning to take Mr. Aarons’ proposal seriously.
“Fancy, dear coz,” she cried; “this Croesus tells me his strong-box literally bursts with diamonds only awaiting my acceptance. He promises me the finest of town-houses, with equipages and retinue to turn the grandest of our duchesses green with envy—the purse of Fortunatus, which will only be the fuller the more I spend! How pleased grannie will be to own Lady Prudence Aarons for a granddaughter!”
Peggie broke into smiles. “Lady Prudence Aarons! Picture grannie’s face when you present the new grandson-elect to her ladyship.”
“But seriously, Peg,” Prue went on more soberly, “this man aspires to marry me, and would have bestowed my own necklace upon me as a gift, had I not insisted upon paying him.”
“Paying him!” cried Peggie, in accents of the most profound astonishment. At the same moment her eye fell upon the little table and she pounced upon the neglected bank-notes with amazement too intense for words.
“He left the money!” exclaimed Prue, gazing at the notes as Peggie wildly fluttered them before her. “I have done Aarons injustice. He must be really in love with me.”
“Prue! where on earth did this come from?” demanded Peggie, utterly mystified.
“Not from Aarons,” replied Prue, a tender smile creeping over her lips as she took the notes with an almost caressing touch. “Don’t be afraid; I am not yet sold to the devil. But come, Peggie, we have no time to waste. We must dress for Lady Rialton’s dinner and I must show myself at half-a-dozen routs and balls before I can even spare time to think. Oh! I wonder where Barbara is going to-night!”
“You are bound to meet her somewhere,” said Peggie consolingly, “and if not, you may be sure she’ll take good care of your Robin, so don’t be uneasy.”
Prue gave her a half-comical, half-reproachful glance. “I never saw Barbara look as charming as she did to-day,” she pouted. “Those tall lace heads are certainly very becoming to her kind of figure—they make her look quite slender—and the touch of hair-powder gave an extra sparkle to her eyes.”
“’Twas not the powder on her hair, but the rouge on her cheeks that made her eyes sparkle,” quoth Peggie, who was a trifle jealous of Barbara’s influence.
“Do you think so? Would a little rouge improve me, do you think? I am sure I look faded.” Prue peered anxiously into a mirror, but the sight that greeted her eye was reassuring. “I wish I had kept him here; we could have hidden him somewhere,” she said, with a regretful sigh.
“Where?” cried Peggie trenchantly. “Under grannie’s bed, belike! Any other place might have been searched if Lord Beachcombe had brought a constable with a warrant!”
“He is capable of that, even now,” Prue agreed. “Barbara’s coquetry is more dangerous to me, perhaps, but safer for Robin.”
Poor Prue was doomed to a good many heart-pangs that evening, and without even the accustomed support of Peggie’s sympathy. After Lady Rialton’s dinner the cousins separated. Peggie returned home, and Prue, with less heartiness than usual, pursued the round of social functions. Her first inquiry at every house was for Barbara Sweeting. No one was surprised at that, because the two were known to be the closest allies; but she had not been seen anywhere, a circumstance that caused some remark in so pious a pilgrim of pleasure. Various reasons were suggested, such as an attack of vapors, the return of General Sweeting’s gout, or chagrin at not having been invited to take part in the amateur theatricals at Marlborough House, none of which satisfied Prue, who, perhaps for the first time in her life, felt the serpent-tooth of jealousy.
But if Barbara’s absence disturbed her, she was goaded almost beyond endurance by the persistence of Lord Beachcombe, who followed her like a shadow, ignoring alike her snubs and the gibes of those who fancied themselves on the trail of a renovated infatuation. In self-defense she kept Sir Geoffrey in close attendance, reckless of significant glances from curious eyes that were swift to mark his air of triumphant proprietorship, until at last, worn out with disappointment and fatigue, she begged him to call her chair, as she was dying to go home and get to bed.
“And do, I implore you, leave me to go away alone, Sir Geoffrey,” she entreated, in most pathetic tones. “I am too weary to entertain any one; you must see for yourself that I am almost too tired to speak.”
It was impossible to contradict her, for her pale face and clouded eyes betrayed intense nervous strain. Sir Geoffrey contented himself with obtaining permission to inquire after her health at an early hour next day, and repaired to his club, where he speedily found distraction at the card-table.
But Prue, tired as she was, had no intention of going home without one more attempt to see Barbara, to whose mansion in Park Lane she was forthwith conveyed. Her friend was at home and the servants, aware of the intimate relations between the two ladies, did not hesitate to admit Prue, and inform her that supper was then being served in the Painted Room, a charming apartment, where Barbara was in the habit of holding high revelry with her closest intimates, and giving gay supper-parties at which gambling for high stakes, charades imitated from the entertainments of the French court, and similar amusements kept gossip on the qui vive.
There was no gathering of wits and beauties to-night, however. The room (which took its name from the mythological paintings with which the ceiling and walls were decorated) was brightly lighted, but unoccupied, and in the small conservatory opening out of it, at a little table set for two among the banks of blossoming plants and cages of bright-hued birds, sat Barbara coquetting with Robin Freemantle—highwayman and outlaw!—who was in the very act of raising her hand to his lips when the door opened to admit Prue.
“My dearest Prue—here you are at last—I had almost given up expecting you!” cried Barbara, greeting her with effusion.
“Did you really expect me?” asked Prue, with irrepressible irony. “Meeting you nowhere, I feared you might be indisposed, but I am vastly relieved to find that you reached home without mishap.”
“Nothing could be more triumphantly successful than our escape,” cried Barbara, gaily ignoring Prue’s loftiness; “and as you see, I am taking excellent care of my captive.”
“Dearest Barbara, I know well what an incomparable hostess you are,” she replied dryly, “and now that I have seen for myself that you are safe, and not too greatly incommoded by your exploit, I will take my leave, as I am positively sinking with fatigue.”
And she made as though to withdraw without deigning a second glance toward Robin, who had risen, and stood there a veritable statue of amazement and mortification.
But Barbara caught her by both hands and drew her to the table. “Nonsense, Prue!” she laughed, “Do you think I am going to let you run off like that? Sinking with fatigue indeed! I’ll warrant you will flutter from ball-room to ball-room for the next two hours if I do not keep you here. Captain de Cliffe and I were about to bore each other to death over a tête-à-tête supper and you have come like a good fairy to preserve us from yawning in each other’s face—(Prue smiled satirically)—at least sup with me, dear Gossip; ’twill rest you more than going home to bed.”
“My chair waits—” Prue began, though not without signs of hesitation.
“What matters that? It shall be dismissed and I will send you home in mine.”
“The temptation of returning in such state as that is well-nigh irresistible,” Prue conceded, feeling that she had been sufficiently coaxed to do what she particularly wanted to do without sacrificing her dignity. She began to unfasten the mantle in which she was enveloped, but when Robin sprang forward to assist her, she allowed it to drop to the floor and walked away, leaving him to pick it up if he pleased.
“You will stay, then,” cried Barbara; “that is delightful. I will order another cover and a bottle of your favorite Chambertin, and we will have a little festival to wish your friend bon voyage.”
And she rustled away; more out of compassion for Robin’s disconcerted aspect than the mere impulse of hospitality.
Prue seated herself behind a bank of flowering shrubs, as far away as the little conservatory would allow, and after a momentary hesitation, Robin followed.
“Have I been so unfortunate as to incur your displeasure, dearest?” he inquired anxiously.
“My displeasure, sir? Certainly not,” she replied. “What can it matter to me how many ladies’ hands you kiss?”
At this Robin (who, although a novice in love, was no fool,) was completely relieved. He was even quite elated over the little display of jealousy which proved that Prue was far from indifferent to him. “When I am not with you, dear Prue,” he said in a tone of gentle reproach, “my heart is so full of you that it flows over with gratitude to any one who will but utter your name. If you had heard what Lady Barbara was saying about you, you would not have been surprised to see me embrace her feet instead of her hand.”
“What did she say?” asked Prue, her curiosity overcoming her petulance.
“She said many things in praise of the dearest of women,” said Robin, taking courage to seat himself beside her, “but, best of all, she assured me that not one of all your scores of suitors could boast of half the interest you had shown to-day in the poor outlaw. Do you wonder that I kissed her hand?”
“Barbara is very indiscreet,” said Prue, smiling a little. “Besides, she has the most beautiful hands in the world!”
“Are they beautiful? I was thinking too much of her kind words to notice aught else. Yet she warned me that my love for you is hopeless, and indeed she is right. I must leave England in a few hours, perhaps for ever—”
“And what right has Barbara to think our love other than hopeless? She knows nothing about it! I have a good mind,” cried Prue, “to tell her all and see what she says then! But no! she would think me a fool for throwing myself away upon a man who loves me so little that he can bear to talk of leaving me for a day, let alone for ever—”
“I love you more than my own life and soul,” said Robin, “more than anything except honor and duty; but their call I dare not disobey. My life does not belong to myself, but to the cause of my king, and a felon’s death may end it at any moment. It would be infamous for me to hold you bound by such a marriage as ours—”
“Do you know me so little as to suppose that I would hold myself bound by it if I wished for freedom?” she retorted. “I did think you loved me, but I see it is not so; a man who loved me would fling discretion to the winds and busy himself with plans for keeping me whether I would or no. Out on such scruples! I will not be set free. If there is anything infamous about our marriage, the infamy is mine, and I take the consequences and glory in them. Leave me now, if honor and duty call you. We are young and who knows what may happen? The king who calls you away now, will bring you back in triumph some day, then, perhaps, it may be Beachcombe’s turn to be hunted and driven from his country.” Then suddenly remembering the cause of Lord Beachcombe’s fierce pursuit, she brought out the little packet, somewhat crumpled, but otherwise intact. “I had almost forgotten to return this,” she said; “I found it after you had escaped by the river on Tuesday and methinks ’tis for this he seeks you.”
Robin took the packet and glanced at the superscription. “’Tis indeed this,” he exclaimed. “By a miracle it fell into your hands instead of his. Prithee keep it, dear one; there is that in this envelope in exchange for which Beachcombe would give all his earthly possessions, and mayhap, some day when I am not here to protect you, it may be worth much to you to hold the secret that compelled him to take me out of Newgate, and has kept him thirsting for my life ever since.”
“I am but a weak woman,” said Prue, smiling archly, as she replaced the precious packet in her bosom. “Can you trust me with such a secret?”
“’Tis the secret of my birth,” said Robin gravely, “and belongs as much to my wife as to me.”
“I discovered that secret for myself this afternoon,” Prue began, but Barbara, thinking she had given the lovers ample time to make up their quarrel, now came back on hospitable thoughts intent, and the trio, in a very pleasant mood, sat down to supper.
It was long past midnight, when Prue, after several fainthearted suggestions, at last rose resolutely and announced that she really must go home, and refusing Barbara’s urgent offer of her new sedan-chair, declared she would have Robin’s escort and walk the short distance to Lady Drumloch’s house.
“It will be safer for him to come away now, than to wait until daylight,” she said.
“It would be safest, I think, for him to stay here for a few days,” Barbara proposed seriously. But the mutinous pout, and glance of arch defiance with which Prue received her suggestion, provoked her to hearty laughter, and she received Robin’s thanks for her protection and the farewells of both her guests with an air of such thorough comprehension, that Prue felt constrained to whisper in her ear, “I will come to confession to-morrow, dear Gossip,” and blushingly hurried away on Robin’s arm.
Late as it was, they lingered on the way and managed to eke ten minutes’ walk into forty. Robin had so much to say—so many vows of eternal fidelity to pledge, and such repeated assurances to give of his swift return—that it was not until a near-by church-clock struck two, that Prue quickened her steps a little, and declared with a sigh that the parting moment had really come.
“You will be careful, dear Robin,” she pleaded. “Do not run any risks, and if we can not meet again safely before you leave for France, write me by some sure hand, and I will do the same. Remember—I forbid you to attempt to visit me—but oh! I shall count the hours until I see you again.”
With the prospect of a long and perhaps fatal parting, their farewells were not soon over; each last kiss was but an excuse for one more, until the tramp of the approaching night-watch warned them of the danger of delay, and Prue tore herself from his arms and without trusting herself to a backward glance, hurried into the house.