Читать книгу Hugh Gwyeth: A Roundhead Cavalier - Beulah Marie Dix - Страница 4

Table of Contents

“You must have known at last, but I had not thought it would be so soon,” Master Oldesworth went on. “’Twas folly ever to have kept it from you.”

In a blind way Hugh had groped for a chair and sat down with his elbow on the table and his forehead pressing hard upon his hand. His face was toward the window and he was aware of the brightness flooding in through it, but he could see clearly only his grandfather’s thin, clean-shaven lips and searching eyes. “Tell me,” he found voice to say at last, “I want to know all. My father—he has been alive all these years? You knew?”

Master Oldesworth nodded.

“You deceived me?” Hugh’s voice rose shrill and uncontrollable. “You knew you were deceiving me? You had no right, ’twas wickedness, ’twas—”

“It was your mother’s wish.”

The burst of angry words was choked in Hugh’s throat; with a little shudder of the shoulders he dropped his head upon his folded arms. “Will you tell me wherefore, sir?” he asked in a dull tone.

“Because of the never-dying folly of woman,” Master Oldesworth replied, with a sudden fierce harshness of tone that made Hugh lift his head. He felt that, if the revelation of the letter had not made every other happening of that day commonplace, he would have been surprised at the sudden lack of control that made his grandfather’s sallow cheeks flush and his thin lips move. But in a moment Master Oldesworth was as calm of demeanor as before and his voice was quite colorless when he resumed: “Hear the truth at last, Hugh, and you, too, will have reason to curse the folly of womankind. She, your mother, my best-beloved daughter, was most wilful, even from a child. Though you have none of her look I have noted in you something of her rash temper. Her own impulse and desire must always be her guides, and well they guided her. For there came a swashbuckling captain of horse out of Germany, with a brisk tongue and an insolent bearing, for which that mad girl put all her love on him, worthless hackster though he was.”

“’Tis my father whom you speak of so?” Hugh cried, with an involuntary clinching of the hands.

“Your mother’s work again!” said Master Oldesworth with a flicker of a smile, that was half sad and half contemptuous. “She fled away from her father’s house to marry this swaggering rascal; she followed him into Germany; and there she found true all her kinsmen had told her of his worthlessness and wickedness. So she took her child and gladly came back to us again.”

“She never uttered word of this to me,” Hugh maintained doggedly.

“I urged her to,” Master Oldesworth continued, “but, with the weakness of her sex, before six months were out she had forgot his unworthiness and baseness. She remembered only that she loved him and she blamed herself that she had left him; indeed, she would have returned if she had been assured he would receive her back. But I forbade her hold communication with him while she dwelt beneath my roof, and he himself did not care to seek her out, though she long looked for him. When he did not come she was the more convinced the fault was hers, and, since she had robbed her son of his father, as she phrased it, she would at least give him a true and noble conception of that father to cherish. Perhaps she held it compensation for the wrong she thought she had worked Alan Gwyeth that she sketched him unto you a paragon of all virtues. And partly for that he was dead to her, and partly for that she would not have the shame of her flight, as she called her most happy deliverance, be known to you, she gave him out to you as dead. ’Twas ill done, but I suffered her to rule you as she would; I had ever a weak fondness for her.”

With a sudden jarring noise Hugh thrust back his chair and stumbling to the window stood so Master Oldesworth could not see his face. His poor mother, his poor mother! Because he knew in his heart she had done ill to him with her weak deceptions he loved her and pitied her all the more, and his eyes smarted with repressed tears that he could not see her nor tell her that it all mattered little, the agony this disillusionment was costing him; he knew she had meant it kindly and he thanked her for it.

He was still staring out between the elms at the sloping lawn, where, he remembered as if it had happened years back, he had played that very morning like a boy, when his grandfather’s dry tones reached him: “This man would seem to have roistered through life without thought of her. Of late I did not know myself whether he were dead or living, but it seems he is sailing on the high waves of royal favor and has found himself fitting comradeship among the profligates and traitors of King Charles’s camp.”

Hugh swept his hand across his eyes and faced about squarely. His father a profligate who had abandoned his mother! Who dared say it or believe it? His mother’s face as she had looked before she died came back to him. A true-hearted gentleman and a gallant soldier, like his father,—like his father.

“And you never suspected anything of the truth ere this?” Master Oldesworth pursued.

“Once, months back, Aunt Delia told me a story somewhat like this,” Hugh’s voice came low but so firm it surprised him, “but I held it only some of her spitefulness and I did not believe it.”

Master Oldesworth looked up with a curious expression. “Do you believe it now?” he asked.

“No,” Hugh answered honestly, then quickly added, “I crave your pardon, sir, but I cannot believe it.”

“Have back this letter of yours,” Master Oldesworth said, rising, and as Hugh came up to him he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You have a loyal heart, Hugh Gwyeth,” he said dryly, “and ’tis no shame of yours you have such a father.”

“I am not ashamed of him, sir,” Hugh replied stoutly.

“You are your mother over again,” said the old man, in a tone that held something of vexation and something of amusement, yet more of kindliness than he was accustomed to show his orphan grandson.

Hugh was in no mood to note this, however, but, delaying only to take his precious letter, left the east parlor at a brisk step that verged upon a run. Once in the open air, where he was freed from the restraint of his grandfather’s presence, he leaped down the low terrace and, hallooing at the top of his lungs, raced full speed across the lawn. But when the shadow of the tall oaks on the border of the park fell upon him the noisiness of his joy somewhat abated. He rambled on more slowly with a happy under-consciousness of the dusky green of the old trees about him and the shimmer of the stray sunbeams; he wondered that the dull, familiar park seemed so joyous and beautiful a place.

Not till he had crossed the grassy roadway that led to the manor house, and plunged into the thicker growth of trees, did he come again to the power of framing connected thoughts. Little by little he let his pace slacken, till at length he flung himself down in the shade of a beech tree and pulling out Frank’s letter read the last sentences aloud. His father was alive, an officer in the king’s army, at Nottingham, only the width of two counties away. Hugh clasped his hands behind his head and lying back gazed up unwinkingly at the cloudless blue sky; in his heart there was no room for any feeling save that of pure happiness, of which the bright day seemed a mere reflection. For he neither remembered nor heeded the words his grandfather had spoken of Alan Gwyeth; he only knew that a few score miles away the tall man with reddish hair and blue eyes, who used to carry him upon his shoulder, was alive and waiting for him.

The resolve formed in these hours of reflection he told to Lois Campion, when, late in the afternoon, he crashed his way out to the edge of the park with the briskness of one who has made up his mind. The girl was playing at shuttlecock with Martha Oldesworth, but at sight of Hugh she quickly laid aside her battledoor and came to him where he was lingering for her beneath the oaks. “Where have you been?” she cried. “We missed you at dinner, and Peregrine, who was honey-tongued as ever, said you were sulking. But I knew ’twas some witchery in that letter.”

Hugh laughed excitedly. “Witchery? Ay, ’twas that indeed, Lois. Can you believe it? My father is alive, at the king’s camp; and I have determined to go to him.”

With that he made her sit down beside him and told her all, so confidently and happily she dared not venture more than one objection: “But ’tis a long way to Nottingham, Hugh.”

“I can walk it. Take no heed to the way, Lois, but think of the end.”

“When shall you go?” she asked, playing absently with some acorns she had gathered in her hand.

“To-morrow night.”

“So soon?” The acorns fell neglected to the ground.

“Nay, ’tis delaying over-long. I would set out this very night, but I suppose I should take some time for preparation.”

“And you must run from home by night?” she repeated sadly.

“Like Dick Whittington. I wonder if I have such good fortune as he.”

“How happy your father will be to see you!” Lois continued.

“’Twill be naught but happiness for us all,” Hugh ran on boisterously. “Ah, must you go, Lois?”

“I must finish my game with Martha,” the girl answered steadily. Hugh saw, however, that she did not go near Martha but walked away to the house, and he was vexed because she did not care enough about his departure to stay to talk with him.

It was well for Hugh the day was nearly spent, if his plans were to be kept secret; for he longed to speak of them, and, now Lois would not listen, there was no one in whom he could safely confide. Moreover, Sam Oldesworth was so curious about the letter that it was a perilously great temptation to hint to him just a little, especially when the two boys were preparing for bed. Since the Millingtons had come to Everscombe Sam and Hugh had been obliged to sleep together, an arrangement never acceptable to the older boy and this night even dangerous. Fortunately he realized his weakness enough to reply shortly to all his companion’s eager questions, however gladly he would have told something of his secret, till Sam at last grumbled himself to sleep. But Hugh turned on his side and for hours lay staring into the dark of the chamber, planning for his journey and sometimes wondering where he would be in the blackness of the next night.

In the morning, when he first woke and lay gazing at the familiar room, it gave him a feeling of surprisingly keen regret to tell himself that this was his last day at Everscombe. Perhaps it was the outward aspect of the day that made him feel so depressed, for a slow, drizzling rain was falling and the sky was thick with gray clouds.

All the morning Hugh avoided his cousins, and even Lois, against whom the resentment of the previous afternoon still lasted, and prowled restlessly about the house to pay farewell visits to the rooms that he had known. Thus his Aunt Delia found him, loitering upon the garret stairs, and sharply bade him go about his business, so Hugh, his sensitive dignity a-quiver, drew back to his chamber, where he pretended to choose equipments for his journey. In reality it was a simple matter; he would wear his stuff jacket and breeches,—he owned no other suit of clothes,—and his one pair of stout shoes. He did not trouble himself about clean linen, but he took pains to see that his pistol was in order; it was an old one that had belonged to Peregrine, before he received a case of new ones in keeping with his position as cornet in the Parliament’s army. Peregrine’s old riding boots had also fallen to Hugh’s share; they were a trifle too big and were ill patched, but there was something trooper-like about them that made him sorry when he realized that he could not take them with him. He reluctantly dropped them back into the wardrobe, and then, the sight of them reminding him he had yet to bid farewell to his friends the horses, he spattered out through the rain to the stables.

The stones of the stable yard were slippery and wet; at the trough in the centre three horses, with their coats steaming, were drinking, while the man at their heads, one of Tom Oldesworth’s newly levied troopers, joked noisily with a little knot of his comrades. Inside the big dark stable a great kicking and stamping of horses was rumblingly audible above the loud talk of the men at work. Hugh loitered into the confusion and, making his way through the main building, entered the quieter wing, where were the old family horses with whom he had acquaintance. But when he stepped through the connecting door he perceived that even here others were before him; standing with hands behind him and legs somewhat wide, as befitted a veteran horse-soldier, was Tom Oldesworth, a close-shaven, firm-mouthed man of thirty, in talk with his lieutenant, Roger Ingram. Near by stood Peregrine Oldesworth, a heavy-featured, dark lad, who was bearing his part in the conversation quite like a man. Whatever the matter was, they seemed too merry over it for any business of the troop, so Hugh thought it no harm to saunter over to them.

“Looking for a commission, eh, Hugh?” Tom Oldesworth broke off his talk to ask jestingly.

“Not under you, sir,” Hugh retorted, rather sharply.

Oldesworth laughed and patted his head. “Never mind, my Roundhead,” he said cheerfully, as Hugh ducked out of his reach, “your turn’ll come soon. No doubt Peregrine will get a ball through his brains ere the winter be over, and then I promise you his place.”

“Then you think the war will last till winter?” questioned Ingram.

“Till winter? I tell you, Roger, we’re happy if we have a satisfactory peace in the land two full years hence.”

“You’re out there, Captain. These gallants of the king’s will stand to fight here no better than they stood against the Scots. They’ll be beat to cover ere snow fall—”

“Pshaw!” replied Oldesworth, convincingly. “Look you here, Roger.” Thereupon the two fell to discussing the king’s resources and those of Parliament, and comparing the merits of commanders, and quoting the opinions of leaders, till Hugh tired of it all and strolled away.

He passed slowly down the line of stalls, caressing the soft muzzles of the kindly horses, and lingered a time to admire the big black charger that belonged to Captain Oldesworth. In the next stall stood a clean-limbed bay, which thrust out its head as if expecting notice; Hugh hesitated, then began stroking the velvety nose, when Peregrine swaggered up to him with a grand, “Don’t worry that horse of mine, Hugh.”

“I was not worrying him,” Hugh answered hotly. “But you can be sure I’ll never touch him again.” He turned and walked away toward the open door.

“Oh, you can touch him now and then,” Peregrine replied, as he followed after him out into the courtyard, where the rain had somewhat abated. “But he’s too brave a beast for you youngsters to be meddling with all the time. You’d spoil his temper.” Then, as Hugh still kept a sulky silence, his cousin asked abruptly, “What’s amiss with you to-day?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve not been friendly of late. I believe you are jealous that I have a commission.”

“I do not want your commission,” Hugh replied, and to show he spoke the truth he forced a laugh and tried to say carelessly, as he might have said a month before, “Tell you what I do want, though: a new flint for my pistol. Will you not give me one, Peregrine?”

“Are you going to shoot Cavaliers?” the elder boy asked, as he halted to fumble in his pockets.

“Maybe.”

Peregrine drew out three bits of flint, turned them in his hand, then gave the least perfect to Hugh. “I took it from my new pistol this morning,” he explained. “’Tis good enough for any service you’ll need of it.”

Hugh bit his lip, but with a muttered word of thanks took the flint.

“I was furbishing up my weapons this morning,” Peregrine went on. “We go on real service next week; we determined on it yesterday at the conference.”

“I thought Uncle Tom said the troop would not be in fit condition to serve for a fortnight.”

“Not all the troop. But Uncle Tom, and I, and Lieutenant Ingram, are to take some thirty men that are in trim and go into Staffordshire to see what can be done among the godly people thereabouts.”

“Good luck to you, Peregrine,” Hugh forced himself to say, then shook off his companion and, passing from the stable yard, trudged away through the wet grass, with the old jealous pang worrying him as savagely as ever. But soon he told himself that his father would probably give him a horse and good weapons too, and, being a colonel in the king’s army, would very likely let him go to the wars with him, perhaps even give him a commission; and, thinking still of his father, by the time he returned to the house he had quite forgotten Peregrine.

The rain had nearly ceased; there seemed even a prospect of a clear sunset, and with the lightening of the weather Hugh cast aside the heavy feeling of half-regretful parting which had weighed on him all day and grew impatient for darkness, when he could set out on his journey. But the night came slowly, as any other night, with a rift of watery sunset in the west and mottled yellow clouds, that fading gave place to the long, gray twilight, which deepened imperceptibly.

Hugh started early to his room, which was in the east wing, so he went by the staircase from the little hall. Halfway up, as he strode two steps at a time, he almost stumbled over a slight figure that caught at his arm. “Lois!” he cried.

The girl rose to her feet. “Why are you angry with me, Hugh?” she asked, and though he could not see her face he knew by her voice she was almost sobbing.

“Why did you run away from me yesterday?” he replied, feeling foolish and without excuse.

“No matter. I have forgot. But I wanted to have speech with you.”

“You waited here to bid me farewell? ’Twas good of you, Lois,” Hugh blurted out. “I am sorry I was so rough to you about yesterday.”

“Then we’ll part still friends?” Lois said eagerly. “And here is something you are to take with you.”

“Your five shillings?” Hugh broke out, as she pressed the coins into his hand. “Nay, Lois, I cannot.”

“You must; ’twill be a long journey, and you have little money, I know. And I shall never have need of such a hoard. Prithee, take it, Hugh, else I shall think you still are angry because I left you yesterday. But truly, ’twas only that I could not bear the thought of your going.” She was crying now in good earnest, and Hugh tried awkwardly to soothe her and whisper her some comfort: he wished she were a boy and could go with him, perhaps even now he could come back some time and fetch her; he never would forget what a good friend she had been to him; and much more he was saying, when Martha’s voice came from below in the dusk of the hall: “Lois.”

“I must go,” the girl whispered. “Farewell, Hugh.”

“Farewell, Lois.”

“God keep you, dear, always.”

He heard her go slowly down the stairs and wished she had stayed with him longer; he might have said more cheering things. Then he heard the footsteps of the two girls die away in the hall, and he went on to his room.

He had placed his pistol on a chair beneath his cloak and hat, and had just lain down in his undergarments and stockings beneath the coverings, when Sam came in full of conversation, which Hugh’s short replies quickly silenced. But after the boy had lain down Hugh remembered that this was the last night they would sleep together, and, repenting his shortness, he said gently: “Good night, Sam.”

“What’s wrong with you?” asked his cousin, which made Hugh feel foolish and answer curtly, “Nothing.”

Then there was a long silence in the dark chamber, till at length Sam was breathing deep and evenly. He was well asleep, Hugh assured himself, so, slipping quietly from the bed, he quickly drew on his outer clothes, put on cloak and hat, and tucked the pistol in his belt. He was just taking his shoes in his hand, when Sam stirred and asked drowsily: “What are you doing now?”

“I saw Martha’s battledoor out o’ doors,” Hugh mumbled. “I must fetch it or the dew will spoil it.”

Sam gave a sleepy sigh, then buried his head in the pillow again, and Hugh, waiting for no more, stole out of the room into the darkness of the corridor that was so thick it seemed tangible. He scuffed cautiously to the stairs and with his hand on the railing groped his way down. As he went he grew more accustomed to the blackness, and so, treading carefully, came without stumbling or noise to the outer door. He worked back the bolt, cautiously and slowly, and with a nervous start at each faint creak, till at last he could push the door open far enough to slip through. The grass felt cold beneath his stockinged feet; the night wind came damp and chilly against his face. With a shiver that was not all from cold he drew the door to, more quickly than he had thought, for the metal work jarred harshly.

With a feeling that the whole household must be aroused he ran noiselessly across the terrace, and, pausing only to draw on his shoes, struck briskly through the wet grass toward the park. At its outskirts he halted and, glancing back, took a last look at Everscombe, black and silent under the stars. Only in one window, that of his grandfather’s chamber in the main building, was a candle burning, and the thought of the habitable room in which it shone made the night seem darker and lonelier. Hugh looked quickly away, and calling up his resolution plunged in among the trees.

He had meant to go through to the highway by a footpath, but the woods were blacker than he had thought for; again and again he missed the track, till at last, finding himself on the beaten roadway from the manor house, he decided the quicker course was to follow it. He had covered perhaps half the distance and was trudging along with his head bent to look to his footsteps, when from the thicket just before him came a voice: “Stand, there!”

Hugh stopped where he was, half frightened for the instant, then half inclined to run, when an erect figure stepping from beneath a neighboring tree barred his path. By the long cloak and the staff on which the man leaned Hugh guessed it was his grandfather, even before Master Oldesworth spoke again: “So you are leaving us, Hugh Gwyeth?”

“Yes, sir,” Hugh replied defiantly.

“So I had judged. You are bound for the near park gate?”

Hugh nodded.

“You must bear with my company that far.”

So side by side they passed down the dark roadway, till presently the trees thinned and the starlight reached them. Then Hugh glanced up at his companion’s face but found it fixed in so stern an expression that he did not care to look again.

“You are going to your father?” Master Oldesworth queried after a time.

“Yes, sir,” Hugh replied. The defiance had gone from his tone now.

At length the dimly seen roadway ran between two huge dark pillars, half hidden by the trees; it was the park gate, Hugh saw, and beyond was the king’s highway. Involuntarily he slackened his pace, and his grandfather halted too, and stood by one of the pillars, resting both hands upon the top of his staff. “Then you have the grace to hesitate a moment,” the old man spoke, “before you leave those who have sheltered you?”

Hugh dared not trust his voice to reply, and after a moment Master Oldesworth continued slowly: “It is your mother over again. We reared her and cared for her, and she left us for Alan Gwyeth; and you—Have you not had a home here?”

“Yes, sir,” Hugh answered meekly. He knew well that the grievances which were so true when he told them to Lois would be nothing in his grandfather’s sight.

“And what has this father for whom you leave us done for you?” Master Oldesworth pursued. “You cannot answer? He broke your mother’s heart and deserted you—”

“He is my father,” Hugh replied.

“Go to him, then, as your mother did before you. But mark you this, Hugh Gwyeth: I received her back when Alan Gwyeth wearied of her, but I shall never receive you back. Go now, and you go for all time.”

“I shall never ask you to take me back.” Hugh tried to speak stoutly, but his voice faltered in an ignoble manner.

“Now consider well,” his grandfather continued. “When you pass the gate it will be to me as if you had never lived. Be not rash, Hugh,” he went on more gently. “Come back with me to the house; this folly of yours shall never be known, and I shall look to your welfare as I always have. But if you choose to go to that place of perdition, the king’s camp, and to that evil man, Alan Gwyeth, I forget you are my daughter’s son. Now make your choice between that man and me.”