Chapter III Sir Geoffrey’s Arrival
Lady Drumloch was not really half so ill as she fancied herself, and no better medicine could have been prescribed to hasten her convalescence than the gaiety and cheerfulness that her two granddaughters infused into the atmosphere of the little house in Mayfair, as soon as they had recovered from the fatigues of their journey.
Instead of lying in bed grumbling at the length of the lonely days and pain-weary nights, her ladyship allowed herself to be cajoled into rising and reclining on a couch, which was then wheeled into the adjoining room by James and the faithful Lowton. At first this was only for an hour or two a day, and the invalid, refusing to admit that she could be, in any way, benefited by the lively gossip of her granddaughters, had insisted that the reading of sermons and other pious works suited better with her age and infirmities than plays and poetry. But by the end of the week she had abandoned Atterbury and Taylor for the Tatler and the latest works of Pope and Prior, and was thirsting for yet more exciting entertainment, which she knew to be tantalizingly near at hand.
As soon as the return of the cousins became known, their numerous friends, who had contented themselves with polite inquiries after the invalid, while Lowton was the sole dispenser of news, displayed a touching solicitude about her condition. Every afternoon Lady Prue held quite a little levee—at which the sickness of the old countess up-stairs did not interfere greatly with the gaiety below. Day by day these cheerful sounds grew more and more exasperating to Lady Drumloch, whose passion for scandal was only whetted by the comments of the two girls, and who chafed rebelliously under the restrictions of the doctor, and led the devoted Lowton the life of a dog.
“Did I hear voices and laughter this afternoon?” she demanded, one evening, when her granddaughters came to bid her a dutiful good night.
“’Twas but Mary Warburton and Lady Limerick, who came to inquire after the health of their beloved cousin,” said Prue demurely.
“No one else? It seemed to me that a dozen times, at least, the door was thundered at as though a queen’s messenger demanded entrance.”
“In very truth, your ladyship’s penetration is marvelous!” cried Prue eagerly. “Her Majesty most graciously bade Lady Limerick inquire the latest news of ‘the dear countess’ gout’—and also, if my duties at your bedside left me leisure to attend the court.”
“And, pray, what answer did you make?” Lady Drumloch inquired suspiciously.
“In good faith, I was put to it for excuses, since I had admitted the favorable change in your symptoms, and received the congratulations of many anxious friends,” returned Prue pathetically. “’Tis true I have no heart for frivolous pleasures while my dear grandmother is ill—but the court is another thing, and people begin to wonder at my absence.”
“Well, what is the matter? Why make excuses at all? I am not aware that I have imposed any restrictions upon you,” said the old lady crisply. “Lowton has taken very good care of me for a year, and you may still venture to trust me to her for a few hours. ’Tis news to me that you should be so averse to ‘frivolous pleasures’ that you need make me an excuse for giving them up.”
“Indeed, dear Grandmother, it was no vain excuse—’twas the truth,” Prue protested. “Yet not the whole truth, for my baggage is still at Bleakmoor, whence we fled in such a hurry that we brought naught away with us but what we traveled in!”
“Well? Are there no milliners and mantua-makers in London?” inquired the countess, with an air of surprise.
“Several hundred, I should think—and every one of them threatening me with the law’s worst penalties for debt! The wretches! they were eager enough to fling their wares under my feet, when they believed me rich—or likely to be. But now—never a mercer or tailor will trust me for a gown!”
“What! not with the prospect of a husband in Parliament?” cried her grandmother, laughing maliciously.
“Indeed no, Grannie,” sighed Prue piteously; “not unless I pay, at least, for what I order now.”
“They have learned wisdom at last,” retorted Lady Drumloch coldly, “and that is more than can be said of you, who during four or five years of widowhood have jilted half the peerage, made yourself the byword of the court, and now go in fear of the debtors’ prison!”
“There was no talk of a debtors’ prison for me when I was Queen Anne’s favorite lady-in-waiting,” said Prue, with a touch of arrogance, “but now they only remember that I was banished from court—”
“And that the rich lovers you jilted have married other women, while you are still ‘the Widow Brooke,’” Lady Drumloch interrupted.
“But they will change their tone when they find that the queen has forgiven me,” said Prue, ignoring her grandmother’s last thrust, “and now she has sent me such a gracious message by Lady Limerick—but, alack the day!—what am I saying? How can I present myself before Her Majesty without a decent gown to my back? Oh, Grandmother—” She fell on her knees, and would have clasped the pale, slender hand that lay on the coverlet. But Lady Drumloch drew back out of her reach and regarded her with resentful eyes.
“Well?” she queried in her driest voice. “What do you propose to do? You have a plan, no doubt, to accomplish what you have set your heart upon.”
“No—I have no plan,” cried Prudence despairingly, “but surely you, dear Grandmother, will not let your little Prue lose her last chance of winning back the queen’s favor, for lack of a few guineas to buy a gown!” and once more she tried to get possession of the reluctant hand.
But Lady Drumloch pushed her away with such force, in her anger, that she almost overturned her on the floor. “I thought I should soon come at the cause of all your pretty speeches, you false jade!” she shrieked. “Is it not enough that I give you shelter in the home you have disgraced with your reckless follies, that I have to admit your wanton companions—only Mary Warburton and Lady Limerick, forsooth! Do you think I am so deaf as not to have heard the voices of half a dozen men, and your dear friend, Barbara Sweeting, sharer and inspirer of half the mad frolics that have made you notorious?—but I must pay your debts and give you money, when I’m so poor I can only afford one woman to wait on me, and can not go out for an airing because a carriage is too great a luxury for me—even a hired one! C’est honteux—c’est infame”—and the angry old woman, who seldom lapsed into French, except in moments of great agitation, burst into hysteric cries and weeping, at which Lowton hurried in, and the girls, with scared faces, fled.
“She is much worse than she used to be,” whispered Peggie. “Formerly, when you asked for money, she used to tell you to go to the devil, and scold you roundly—but she gave it after all. And now—I do not think she will.”
“If she waits until I ask her, she certainly never will,” said Prudence proudly. “To-morrow I will go to old Aarons—though I vowed the last time should be the very last.”
The girls were still lingering upon the staircase, listening to the soothing murmurs of Mrs. Lowton and the outcries of the invalid, gradually sinking into whimpers, when a loud knocking announced the arrival of a visitor of importance, and James presently came up with a petition from Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert for a few words with the Lady Prudence, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour.
“The lateness of the hour! Why, ’tis barely nine o’clock,” cried Prue, blushing and sparkling with delight. “Go, James, and tell Sir Geoffrey I will be with him immediately. Come, Peggie.”
And away she flew to reassure herself, by a glance at her mirror, that her scene with Lady Drumloch had not dishevelled her luxuriant curls, and to disguise the shabbiness of her gown with a lace kerchief and a knot of ribbon.
“A plague on all milliners and tailors,” she pouted; “to think that I should have to receive my betrothed after three weeks’ separation, looking more like my lady’s scullery-maid than her granddaughter.”
“Sir Geoffrey will never know what you wear, if you sit away from the lamp, where he can just see your eyes by the firelight,” counseled Margaret. “No man cares to look at your gown, who can see your face.”
“Flatterer!” cried Prue; but she kissed her cousin on both cheeks, and certainly gave no sign of doubting her veracity.
Sir Geoffrey was impatiently waiting in the dim drawing-room, where James had reluctantly lighted a pair of candles in an ancient silver sconce that Benvenuto Cellini himself may have chiseled. The two ladies swept the most ceremonious of curtseys, but at the sight of Prue’s radiant loveliness, her visitor dropped on one knee, and taking both her little hands in his, kissed first one and then the other with unaffected ardor.
“How have I lived all these centuries?” he cried—“they can not have been merely weeks—without my Goddess, my Star—” and so on, after the highflown fashion of the days of Pope and Dryden. To which Prue was well accustomed, and did not find any too fantastic for her highly cultivated vanity.
“Rise, Sir Geoffrey,” she said very graciously, and when he obeyed, offered him her glowing cheek, upon which, one may be sure, he made haste to imprint more than one or two impassioned kisses. Then Margaret, who at first kept discreetly in the background, came forward and presented her hand, contenting herself with a salute of a more perfunctory nature.
“When did you return to town, Sir Geoffrey?” Prue inquired.
“Can you ask?” he said reproachfully. “You may be sure I have only waited to shake off the dust of travel, before hastening to throw myself at your feet.”
“And how did you leave Bleakmoor?” she went on, “and have you seen our host and his friends since we left them?”
“Bleakmoor, deprived of the sunshine,” said Sir Geoffrey, including the two girls in a low bow, “has by now been given over to the bats and owls. Brooke hath betaken himself to Malvern, and his friends are scattered to their own homes. The hunting is better since the thaw, but I have lost all taste for the field when Prue no longer leads the hunt.”
“We scarcely expected that you would follow us so soon,” remarked Peggie.
“Was I in too great haste?” he demanded. “Had I been warned of your sudden journey, I might, perhaps, have offended by offering my escort.”
“You would have had a chance of playing the knight-errant,” said Prue, “and coming to the rescue of two forlorn damsels set upon by footpads and forced to resort to all kinds of feminine wiles to protect their jewels.”
The baronet rapped out an oath. “The fellows attacked you and I was not there to make mincemeat of them!” he exclaimed. “By Jove, these rascals become more and more audacious every day. A band of them attacked Will Battersea and myself on the North Road, where we had the good fortune to capture the ringleader and hand him over to the officers of justice.”
“Bravo!” cried Margaret, clapping her hands. “Tell us all about it, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Oh! ’twas the usual thing,” he began. “We were on a lonely road, not far from Willesden—Will and I riding in front, with our fellows close behind—when several masked horsemen appeared from behind a clump of bushes, and covering us with their firearms, demanded our money or our lives—”
(“Stand and deliver—” murmured Peggie, with a covert glance at her cousin.)—“We proceeded to argue the matter,” Sir Geoffrey continued, “and either by accident or to intimidate us, one of the rascals let fly and hit my man Brown in the shoulder. Instantly, there was a mêlée, in the midst of which approaching shouts were heard and the highwaymen, at the word of command, dashed off, pursued by Will Battersea and myself. A parting shot, fired at random, brought down the horse of one of the highwaymen, who threw his rider into a ditch and rolled over him. There we found him with a broken collarbone, and handed him over to the mounted constabulary, who had arrived so opportunely.”
“I shudder to think what might have happened,” said Prue gravely, “had their arrival been less well-timed.”
“Spare your tremors, my dearest,” replied Sir Geoffrey, rather nettled by her tone. “You surely do not think that Will and I were in any peril from half-a-dozen highwaymen? To say nothing of our men, who were both sturdy rustics and had served in the West-Riding Yeomanry. I vow I was disappointed at the interruption, and would rather have taken Robin Freemantle with my pistol at his ear, than pulled him out of a ditch with the help of a constable.”
“Robin Freemantle!” the two ladies exclaimed simultaneously. Then the blood rushed so tumultuously to Prue’s face, that she was thankful for the dim light that hid her confusion.
“What! was it he that assailed you on Bleakmoor? The fellow is ubiquitous!” cried Sir Geoffrey. “I will not forget to add this to his other crimes, when I am witness on his trial. The man who has dared to attack the fairest lady in England—the protégée of her Grace of Marlborough—should be drawn and quartered; hanging is too good for him.”
“Sir Geoffrey! I forbid you to mention my name!” she exclaimed, in a great flutter. “It may not be the same man—besides, he took nothing from us, did he, Peggie? Nothing, that is to say of any—any—”
“My dear Prudence—the mere fact of his attacking you would rouse the country,” cried her lover, rather pompously. “It would have more effect upon the jury than a dozen ordinary highway robberies—”
“I do not wish to rouse the country,” interrupted Prue. “What! am I to be discussed by lawyers and jurymen, and lampooned, forsooth, in the Flying Post! My grandmother would never forgive it—”
“Dearest Prue, pardon me for suggesting anything that could for one moment distress you; it was but my eagerness to punish the scoundrel for his crimes. Let us relegate him to oblivion. Such subjects are not for the lips and ears of Beauty. Tell me, sweet Prue, when may I hope to see Lady Drumloch and implore her sanction to my suit?”
“I have already broken the matter to her,” replied Prue, “but, as we anticipated, without any great success, at present. She is, as you know, an ardent Jacobite and can not be expected to approve your politics, which are considerably more important to her than my happiness. Mayhap, when she becomes acquainted with you she may blame me less. You must exercise your eloquence on her as you did on me,” she added, with a coquettish smile, “and then I think I can safely leave our cause in your hands. My prayers shall accompany you, and if necessary we will kneel side by side and implore the ancestral benediction.”