Read Ebook: Denounced: A Romance by Bloundelle Burton John

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Ebook has 1238 lines and 87628 words, and 25 pages

"Have no fear," she said, "I can protect myself. I shall be back ere Lady Belrose takes part in the next dance," saying which she turned and went down the walk that led between the grassy lawn and the arbours, in each of which now twinkled the many-coloured oil lamps. And, as she so turned, that portion of the maskers in which was the man dressed as the headsman passed by the chair she had just vacated, and she knew that he must have seen her rise and move away.

A few moments later she was aware that such was the case. A heavy tread sounded behind her--she had now advanced considerably down the path and had almost reached a rustic copse, in which were two or three small arbours--another instant, and the voice she longed yet feared to hear, the voice that she thought trembled a little as it spoke, addressed her:

"Is Lady Fordingbridge not afraid to separate herself from her party thus?" she heard Bertie Elphinston say--surely his voice quivered as he spoke. "Or does pity prompt her to do so; pity for another?"

"Lady Fordingbridge," she replied, knowing that her own voice was not well under control, "has no fear of anyone, unless it be of those whom, all unwittingly, she has injured." Then, scarcely knowing what she said, or whether her words were intelligible, and feeling at a loss what else to say, she gazed up at him and exclaimed, "You come to these festivities in a strange garb, sir. Surely the executioner's is scarcely a suitable one for a night of rejoicing."

"Oh, Mr. Elphinston!" she exclaimed suddenly, interrupting him, "it was not to hear such words as these that I came here to-night. You know why I have sought this meeting; have you nought to say to me but this?"

"Yes," he replied, "yes. But let us not stand here upon the path exposed to the gaze of all the crowd. Come, let us enter this arbour. We shall be unobserved there."

She followed him into the one by which they were standing, and--for she felt her limbs were trembling beneath her--sank on to a rustic bench. And he, standing above her, went on:

"The letter that you sent to me asked that I should pity and forgive you. Kate, we meet again, perhaps for the last time on earth; let me say at once, there is nothing for me to forgive. If fault there was, then it was mine. Let mine, too, be the blame. I should have told you that Elphinston of Glenbervy was about to marry Mademoiselle Baufremont. Yet, he had sworn me to silence, had bidden me, upon our distant kinsmanship, to hold my peace, had sought my assistance to enable him to wed the woman whom he loved. How could I disclose his secret even to you? How could I foresee that a scheming devil would turn so small a thing to so great an account?"

"But," she said, gazing up at him and noticing--for both had instinctively unmasked at the same time--how worn his face was, how, alas! in his brown hair there ran grey threads though he was still so young; "but why, to all those letters I sent, was no answer vouchsafed? I thought from one or from the other some reply must surely come. Have you forgotten how, for many years now, we four--Douglas and Archibald, you and I--had all been as brothers and sister--until--until," she broke off, and then continued: "how we had vowed that between us all there should be a link and bond of friendship that should be incessable?"

"I have forgotten nothing," he replied, "nothing. No word that was ever spoken between us, no vow, nor promise ever made."

Again the soft blue eyes were turned to him, imploringly it seemed; begging by their glance that he should spare her. And, ceasing to speak of his remembrance of the past, he continued: "Circumstances, strange though they were, prevented any one of us from receiving your letters--or from answering them in time. I was lying ill of Roman fever at the English College; Archibald Sholto was in Tuscany in the train of Charles Edward, Cardinal Aquaviva having provided their passports; Douglas was with De Roquefeuille, and received your letter only on his return to Paris, where it had been sent back to him. Kate, in that stirring time, when the prince was passing from Rome to Picardy, was it strange no answer should come?"

"No, no," she replied. "No," and as she spoke she clasped both of her hands in her lap, and bent her head to hide her tears. Then she muttered, yet not so low but that he could hear her: "Had I but waited! but trusted!"

"It would have been best," he said very gently. And as he spoke, as though in mockery of their sad hearts, many of the maskers went by laughing and jesting, and the quadrille being finished the band was playing the merry old tune of "The Bird that danced the Rigadoon."

"You hear the air?" she said, looking up suddenly again. "You hear? Oh! my heart will break."

"Yes," he answered, "I hear."

"FORTUNE! AN UNRELENTING FOE TO LOVE."

And now the future had come and they were parted for ever! No wonder that the old French song which had found its way to England grated harshly on their ears.

"Thank God, 'tis finished," he said, as the orchestra struck up a dance tune next. "For us, to our hearts, it awakens memories best left to slumber for ever." Then sitting down by her side on the rustic bench, he continued: "Kate, you wrote in your letter to me," and he touched his breast involuntarily as he spoke, so that she knew he bore it about him, "that there was private treachery to be feared. Is it to be feared from him?"

"He should be! He has all I wanted."

"To injure you," she continued, "would be, as he knows, the best way to strike at me."

"To strike at you?"

"Yes, to repay me for my scorn and contempt--my hate of him."

"You hate him!" he exclaimed.

"From the depths of my heart. How can it be otherwise? His treachery--when I learnt it--made me despise him; his conduct since has turned my contempt to hatred. Oh," she exclaimed, "it is awful, terrible for a woman to hate her husband! Yet what cause have I to do aught else? When he speaks--though I have long since ceased to reply to anything he says--his words are nothing but sneers and scorn; sometimes of you, sometimes of me. And he gloats over having separated us, of having taken your place, while at the same time he is so bitter against me that, if he dared, I believe he would kill me. Moreover, he fears your vengeance. That is another reason why, if he could betray you to the Government, he would."

"'Tis by betrayal alone that we can be injured," Bertie said, thoughtfully. "None of our names are known, nor in the proscribed list. Yet how can he do it? He it was who planned the attack upon the Fubbs to be made when the Elector crossed from Holland; he who disseminated the tracts, nay, had them printed, counselling his taking off. He was worse than any--no honest Jacobite ever stooped to assassination!--and many of us know it."

"Be sure," she replied, "that what he could do would be done in secret; Bert--Mr. Elphinston, who is that man who has passed the arbour twice or more, and looks always so fixedly at you?"

"I know not," he replied, "yet he has been ever near Douglas and me--he and another man--since we entered the gardens. Perhaps a Government spy. Well, he can know nought of me."

The man she had mentioned was a tall, stoutly-built individual, plainly enough clad in an old rusty black suit of broadcloth, patched black stockings and thick-soled shoes with rusty iron buckles upon them, and bore at his side a stout hanger. He might be a spy, it was true, but he might also have been anything else, a low follower of the worst creatures who infested the gardens, a gambling-hell tout, or a bagnio pimp. Yet his glance from under his vizard was keen and penetrating as it was fixed on them, but especially on Elphinston, each time he passed the summer house wherein they sat.

But now their conversation, which to both seemed all too short and to have left so much unsaid, was interrupted by the advent of Douglas Sholto, who came swiftly down the shell-strewn path, and, seeing them in the arbour, paused and entered at once.

"Kitty," he said, grasping her hand, "this is not the greeting I had intended to give you, though it's good to look upon your bonnie face again. But, Bertie, listen. We are watched, followed, perhaps known; indeed, I am sure of it. One of those fellows who have kept near to us, and whom we saw at Wandsworth as we set forth--I see the other down the path--spoke but now to three soldiers of the Coldstreams. Perhaps 'twas to identify us; you remember the First Battalion at Culloden," he added grimly; "perhaps to call on them for help. Bertie, we must be away at once."

"'Tis as I suspected," said Lady Fordingbridge, now pale as ashes and trembling from head to foot. "My words have too soon come true. How, how has he done it?"

"Farewell, Kate," said Bertie Elphinston, "we must, indeed, hasten if this is true. Yet first let me take you to your father and friends. Then," with a firm set look on his face, he said, "Douglas and I must see our way through this, if 'tis as he suspects. Come, Kate."

"No, no," she said, imploringly. "Wait not to think of me. Begone while there is yet time. Lose no moment. Farewell, farewell. We may meet again yet."

But ere another word could be said a fresh interruption occurred. From either end of the path that ran between the arbour and the lawn, both spies--for such they soon proclaimed themselves--advanced to where the others were; the first, the one of whom Kate had spoken, coming back from the end by the bosquet, the other from the platform where the orchestra and dancing were. And in the deepening twilight, for it was now almost dark, the three soldiers of the Coldstreams came too, followed by two others belonging to the "Old Buffs," a regiment also just brought back to London after Falkirk and Culloden. And behind these followed a small knot of visitors to the gardens who had gleaned that there was something unusual taking place, or about to do so.

"Your names," said the first man, who had kept watch over the movements of Elphinston, as he came close to the two comrades, while his own companion and the soldiers also drew very near, "are, if I mistake riot, Bertie Elphinston and Douglas Sholto. Is that the case?"

"My friend," said the former, "I would bid you have a care how you ask persons unknown to you, and to whom you are unknown, what their names are. It is a somewhat perilous proceeding to take liberties with strangers thus."

For answer Douglas Sholto dealt the man such a blow with his fist that he fell back shrieking that his jaw was broken; while his comrade, calling on the soldiers for aid in the name of the King against rebels who had fought at Culloden, hurled himself on Elphinston, with his sword drawn and in his hand. But the latter, drawing from his back the long lean-bladed axe, presented so formidable an appearance, that the other shrank back appalled, though he called on the soldiers still for assistance.

"Beware," said Elphinston, as he ranged himself by the side of his friend, "beware! We are not men to be played with, and, as sure as there's a heaven above, if any of you come within swing of my arm, I'll lop your heads off!"

Sir Charles Ames burst through the crowd on the outskirts of the antagonists, his own bright court rapier flashing in the air, and following him came Mr. Wynn and Doyle Fane, also with their weapons drawn.

"For shame! For shame!" said Sir Charles. "Five great hulking soldiers and two others against two men. Put up your weapons, or we'll make you."

"Put up your own," said one of the Old Buffs; "they are rebels. Curse them! We have met before," and as he spoke he lunged full at the breast of Elphinston.

"Hoot!" said Fane, the spirit of the old swordsman, the old Irishman, aroused at this, "if it's for tilting, my boys, come along. It's a pretty dance I'll teach ye. There, now, look to that." And with the easiest twist of his wrist he parried the soldier's thrust at Elphinston, with another he had slit the sleeve of the man's uniform to the elbow, while a thin line of blood ran quickly out from his arm.

"My word," he continued, "I've always said the worst hands in the world with a sword were soldiers--of these present days. Your mother's broom handles would suit ye better," whereon he turned his point towards another.

Meanwhile Sir Charles Ames had placed himself by Bertie and Douglas, and had already exchanged several passes with the others, when, stepping back a moment into the arbour, he saw to his intense astonishment the figure of Kitty, she being in a swoon, and consequently unconscious.

"Lady Fordingbridge," he murmured, "Lady Fordingbridge. So, so! A little assignation with our rebel friends. Humph! I'd scarce have thought it of her. However, 'tis no affair of mine, and as she's Molly Belrose's friend, why, I must be the same to her friends." Whereon he again took his place alongside the two Jacobites and assisted at keeping the others at bay.

But the crowd still augmented in their neighbourhood, and while the soldiers--all of whom had of late fought in Flanders as well as Scotland, and were as fierce as their chief, Cumberland--were pressing the others hardly, some of the livelier masqueraders began to feel disposed to assist one side or another. Therefore, 'twas almost a riot that now prevailed in the Spring Gardens; and as among the company there were numerous other Jacobites, who, although they had probably not been out with Charles Stuart, were very keen in their sympathies with his cause, they took the opportunity of joining the fracas on their own account and of breaking the heads of several Hanoverian supporters. And also, gathering that the scene arose from the attempted apprehension of two of their own leaning, they gradually directed their way towards the arbour where the affray had begun--summarily knocking down or tripping up all who opposed them, so that the next morning many shopboys, city clerks, and respectable city puts themselves appeared at their places of business with broken crowns, bruised faces, and black eyes.

At present nothing serious had occurred beyond a few surface wounds given on either side; the soldiers and police agents were no match for the five skilful swordsmen to whom they were opposed, and the latter refrained from shedding the blood of men beneath them.

"Yet," said Sir Charles Ames to Mr. Wynn, while he wiped his face with his lace-embroidered handkerchief, "if the canaille do not desist soon I must pink one for the sake of my gentility. Wynn, where is Lady Belrose during this pleasing interlude?"

"Safe in the supper room," replied the young beau. "She is very well. I saw to that. Ames, who are these stalwart Highlanders whose cause we espouse?"

"The constables, I imagine."

"The more the merrier! Ha! Wynn, we are borne along the path. The deuce take it, we have lost the shelter of the arbour!"

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