_ The sun having come out, and John Paul not returning by two,--being
ogling, I supposed, the ladies in Hyde Park,--I left him a message and
betook myself with as great trepidation as ever to Dorothy's house. The
door was opened by the identical footman who had so insolently offered
me money, and I think he recognized me, for he backed away as he told me
the ladies were not at home. But I had not gone a dozen paces in my
disappointment when I heard him running after me, asking if my honour
were Mr. Richard Carvel.
"The ladies will see your honour," he said, and conducted me back into
the house and up the wide stairs. I had heard that Arlington Street was
known as the street of the King's ministers, and I surmised that Mr.
Manners had rented this house, and its furniture, from some great man who
had gone out of office, plainly a person of means and taste. The hall,
like that of many of the great town-houses, was in semi-darkness, but I
remarked that the stair railing was of costly iron-work and polished
brass; and, as I went up, that the stone niches in the wall were filled
with the busts of statesmen, and I recognized among these, that of the
great Walpole. A great copper gilt chandelier hung above. But the
picture of the drawing-room I was led into, with all its colours, remains
in the eye of my mind to this day. It was a large room, the like of
which I had never seen in any private residence of the New World,
situated in the back of the house. Its balcony overlooked the fresh
expanse of the Green Park. Upon its high ceiling floated Venus and the
graces, by Zucchi; and the mantel, upon which ticked an antique and
curious French clock, was carved marble.
On the gilt panels of the walls were wreaths of red roses. At least a
half-dozen tall mirrors, framed in rococos, were placed about, the
largest taking the space between the two high windows on the park side.
And underneath it stood a gold cabinet, lacquered by Martin's inimitable
hand, in the centre of which was set a medallion of porcelain, with the
head in dark blue of his Majesty, Charles the First. The chairs and
lounges were marquetry,--satin-wood and mahogany,--with seats and backs
of blue brocade. The floor was polished to the degree of danger, and on
the walls hung a portrait by Van Dycke, another, of a young girl, by
Richardson, a landscape by the Dutch artist Ruysdael, and a water-colour
by Zaccarelli.
I had lived for four months the roughest of lives, and the room brought
before me so sharply the contrast between my estate and the grandeur and
elegance in which Dorothy lived, that my spirits fell as I looked about
me. In front of me was a vase of flowers, and beside them on the table
lay a note "To Miss Manners, in Arlington Street," and sealed with a
ducal crest. I was unconsciously turning it over, when something
impelled me to look around. There, erect in the doorway, stood Dolly,
her eyes so earnestly fixed upon me that I dropped the letter with a
start. A faint colour mounted to her crown of black hair.
"And so you have come, Richard," she said. Her voice was low, and tho'
there was no anger in it, the tone seemed that of reproach. I wondered
whether she thought the less of me for coming.
"Can you blame me for wishing to see you before I leave, Dolly?" I
cried, and crossed quickly over to her.
But she drew a step backward.
"Then it is true that you are going," said she, this time with a plain
note of coldness.
"I must, Dorothy."
"When?"
"As soon as I can get passage."
She passed me and seated herself on the lounge, leaving me to stand like
a lout before her, ashamed of my youth and of the clumsiness of my great
body.
"Ah, Richard," she laughed, "confess to your old play mate! I should
like to know how many young men of wealth and family would give up the
pleasures of a London season were there not a strong attraction in
Maryland."
How I longed to tell her that I would give ten years of my life to remain
in England: that duty to John Paul took me home. But I was dumb.
"We should make a macaroni of you to amaze our colony," said Dolly,
lightly, as I sat down a great distance away; "to accept my schooling
were to double your chances when you return, Richard. You should have
cards to everything, and my Lord Comyn or Mr. Fox or some one would
introduce you at the clubs. I vow you would be a sensation, with your
height and figure. You should meet all the beauties of England, and
perchance," she added mischievously, "perchance you might be taking one
home with you."
"Nay, Dolly," I answered; "I am not your match in jesting."
"Jesting!" she exclaimed, "I was never more sober. But where is your
captain?"
I said that I hoped that John Paul would be there shortly.
"How fanciful he is! And his conversation,--one might think he had
acquired the art at Marly or in the Fauxbourg. In truth, he should have
been born on the far side of the Channel. And he has the air of the
great man," said she, glancing up at ms, covertly. "For my part, I
prefer a little more bluntness."
I was nettled at the speech. Dorothy had ever been quick to seize upon
and ridicule the vulnerable oddities of a character, and she had all the
contempt of the great lady for those who tried to scale by pleasing arts.
I perceived with regret that she had taken a prejudice.
"There, Dorothy," I cried, "not even you shall talk so of the captain.
For you have seen him at his worst. There are not many, I warrant you,
born like him a poor gardener's son who rise by character and ability to
be a captain at three and twenty. And he will be higher yet. He has
never attended any but a parish school, and still has learning to
astonish Mr. Walpole, learning which he got under vast difficulties.
He is a gentleman, I say, far above many I have known, and he is a man.
If you would know a master, you should see him on his own ship. If you
would know a gentleman, you have been with me in his mother's cottage."
And, warming as I talked, I told her of that saddest of all homecomings
to the little cabin under Criffel's height.
Small wonder that I adored Dorothy!
Would that I could paint her moods, that I might describe the strange
light in her eyes when I had finished, that I might tell how in an
instant she was another woman. She rose impulsively and took a chair at
my side, and said:--
"'Tis so I love to hear you speak, Richard, when you uphold the absent.
For I feel it is so you must champion me when I am far away. My dear old
playmate is ever the same, strong to resent, and seeing ever the best in
his friends. Forgive me, Richard, I have been worse than silly. And
will you tell me that story of your adventures which I long to learn?"
Ay, that I would. I told it her, and she listened silently, save only
now and then a cry of wonder or of sympathy that sounded sweet to my
ears,--just as I had dreamed of her listening when I used to pace the
deck of the brigantine John, at sea. And when at length I had finished,
she sat looking out over the Green Park, as tho' she had forgot my
presence.
And so Mrs. Manners came in and found us.
It had ever pleased me to imagine that Dorothy's mother had been in her
youth like Dorothy. She had the same tall figure, grace in its every
motion, and the same eyes of deep blue, and the generous but well-formed
mouth. A man may pity, but cannot conceive the heroism that a woman of
such a mould must have gone through who has been married since early
girlhood to a man like Mr. Manners. Some women would have been driven
quickly to frivolity, and worse, but this one had struggled year after
year to maintain an outward serenity to a critical world, and had
succeeded, tho' success had cost her dear. Each trial had deepened a
line of that face, had done its share to subdue the voice which had once
rung like Dorothy's; and in the depths of her eyes lingered a sadness
indefinable.
She gazed upon me with that kindness and tenderness I had always received
since the days when, younger and more beautiful than now, she was the
companion of my mother. And the unbidden shadow of a thought came to me
that these two sweet women had had some sadness in common. Many a
summer's day I remembered them sewing together in the spring-house,
talking in subdued voices which were hushed when I came running in. And
lo! the same memory was on Dorothy's mother then, half expressed as she
laid her hands upon my shoulders.
"Poor Elizabeth!" she said,--not to me, nor yet to Dorothy; "I wish that
she might have lived to see you now. It is Captain Jack again."
She sighed, and kissed me. And I felt at last that I had come home after
many wanderings. We sat down, mother and daughter on the sofa with their
fingers locked. She did not speak of Mr. Manners's conduct, or of my
stay in the sponging-house. And for this I was thankful.
"I have had a letter from Mr. Lloyd, Richard," she said.
"And my grandfather?" I faltered, a thickness in my throat.
"My dear boy," answered Mrs. Manners, gently, "he thinks you dead. But
you have written him?" she added hurriedly.
I nodded. "From Dumfries."
"He will have the letter soon," she said cheerfully. "I thank Heaven
I am able to tell you that his health is remarkable under the
circumstances. But he will not quit the house, and sees no one except
your uncle, who is with him constantly."
It was what I expected. But the confirmation of it brought me to my feet
in a torrent of indignation, exclaiming:
"The villain! You tell me he will allow Mr. Carvel to see no one?"
She started forward, laying her hand on my arm, and Dorothy gave a little
cry.
"What are you saying, Richard? What are you saying?"
"Mrs. Manners," I answered, collecting myself, "I must tell you that I
believe it is Grafton Carvel himself that is responsible for my
abduction. He meant that I should be murdered."
Then Dorothy rose, her eyes flashing and her head high.
"He would have murdered you--you, Richard?" she cried, in such a storm
of anger as I had never seen her. "Oh, he should hang for the thought
of it! I have always suspected Grafton Carvel capable of any crime!"
"Hush, Dorothy," said her mother; "it is not seemly for a young girl to
talk so."
"Seemly!" said Dorothy. "If I were a man I would bring him to justice,
and it took me a lifetime. Nay, if I were a man and could use a sword--"
"Dorothy! Dorothy!" interrupted Mrs. Manners.
Dorothy sat down, the light lingering in her eyes. She had revealed more
of herself in that instant than in all her life before.
"It is a grave charge, Richard," said Mrs. Manners, at length. "And your
uncle is a man of the best standing in Annapolis."
"You must remember his behaviour before my mother's marriage, Mrs.
Manners."
"I do, I do, Richard," she said sadly. "And I have never trusted him
since. I suppose you are not making your accusation without cause?"
"I have cause enough," I answered bitterly.
"And proof?" she added. She should have been the man in her family.
I told her how Harvey had overheard the bits of the plot at Carvel Hall
near two years gone; and now that I had begun, I was going through with
Mr. Allen's part in the conspiracy, when Dorothy startled us both by
crying:
"Oh, there is so much wickedness in the world, I wish I had never been
born!"
She flung herself from the room in a passion of tears to shock me.
As if in answer to my troubled look, Mrs. Manners said, with a sigh:
"She has not been at all well, lately, Richard. I fear the gayety of
this place is too much for her. Indeed, I am sorry we ever left
Maryland."
I was greatly disturbed, and thought involuntarily of Comyn's words.
Could it be that Mr. Manners was forcing her to marry Chartersea?
"And has Mr. Lloyd said nothing of my uncle?" I asked after a while.
"I will not deny that ugly rumours are afloat," she answered. "Grafton,
as you know, is not liked in Annapolis, especially by the Patriot party.
But there is not the slightest ground for suspicion. The messenger--"
"Yes?"
"Your uncle denies all knowledge of. He was taken to be the tool of the
captain of the slaver, and he disappeared so completely that it was
supposed he had escaped to the ship. The story goes that you were seized
for a ransom, and killed in the struggle. Your black ran all the way to
town, crying the news to those he met on the Circle and in West Street,
but by the mercy of God he was stopped by Mr. Swain and some others
before he had reached your grandfather. In ten minutes a score of men
were galloping out of the Town Gate, Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Singleton ahead.
They found your horse dead, and the road through the woods all trampled
down, and they spurred after the tracks down to the water's edge.
Singleton recalled a slaver, the crew of which had been brawling at the
Ship tavern a few nights before. But the storm was so thick they could
not see the ship's length out into the river. They started two fast
sloops from the town wharves in chase, and your uncle has been moving
heaven and earth to obtain some clew of you. He has put notices in the
newspapers of Charlestown, Philadelphia, New York, and even Boston, and
offered a thousand pounds reward." _