Читать книгу Collected Works (Historical Novel) - D. K. Broster - Страница 93

It was late, after eleven o’clock, when Ewen left Mr. Galbraith’s house in Westminster, and started to walk back to Half Moon Street, off Piccadilly, where he lodged over a vintner’s. All the time he wished that he were walking eastwards, towards the Tower. But what would be the use? He could not gain admission if he were.

The hand of Care lay fast upon his shoulder, and to dull the pressure he turned his thoughts, as he walked, to the one bright spot in the last few weeks—Alison’s visit to Glenbuckie. Unknown to him, Mrs. Stewart had contrived to get word of his condition to Ardroy, and the convalescent woke one day to feel his wife’s lips upon his brow. He had made much more noticeable progress towards recovery after that.

There were other patches of sunlight, too, in those heavy days; little Peggy Stewart had made one of them. More than once, in the early part of his illness, he had wakened to find beside him a small, sedate and very attentive watcher whose legs dangled from the chair in which she was installed, and who said, when he opened his eyes, “I will tell Mamma that you are awake, sir,” and slipped importantly down from her sentry-post. Later had come conversation: ‘Have you a little girl, sir?’ and the comment, made with great decision, when the small damsel heard of two boys, that she thought a little girl would be better. Another time it was, ‘You never eated my bread mannie! Mamma found it in your pocket.’ ‘I am very sorry, Peggy,’ Ewen had meekly replied. ‘I am sure it would have been very good.’ Peggy also expressed regret that his hair had been cutted off; and this was the first intimation which Ewen received that his fevered head had been shorn, and that when he was restored to the outer world he would in consequence have to wear a wig—as, indeed, most men did.

Alison on her arrival, like Peggy, had lamented that operation, and when her husband, making a jest which for him held a pang, suggested that he might take the opportunity of wearing a black wig in order to change his appearance, Alison had cried out in horror. She did not desire his appearance changed . . . and then, understanding the reason of his speech, was all for anything which would serve to disguise him, particularly when she found, to her dismay, that he was set upon going to London directly the journey was possible for him, entirely abandoning his long-cherished idea of engaging an advocate for himself at Edinburgh. To that course, in the end, she became at least partially reconciled, and longed to accompany him, separated from him so long as she had been, and feeling that he would not be fit to look after himself for a while yet. But the great obstacle to this plan had been, not the children, since Aunt Margaret was back at Ardroy now, but the stark, bare obstacle which wrecks so many desires—want of money. Alison had brought her husband all that she could raise at the moment, but it would barely suffice for his own outfit, journey and maintenance in London. So she must stay behind. “And besides,” as she said bravely, “what could I do towards saving the Doctor, Ewen? I am not his wife, and cannot play the part of Lady Nithsdale.”

Lady Nithsdale! Here, within three miles of the Tower, those words of Alison’s came back to him, and Mr. Galbraith’s of this afternoon, who had said that part would never again be played with success. Had it any chance of prospering, then that brave woman, Jean Cameron, who was Archie’s wife, was of the stuff to play it. But she was in France.

Ewen could not throw off the shadow which dogged him. Why, why had he ever persuaded his cousin to shelter in the woodcutter’s hut? Indeed, if the fairies had put it there, as Archie had suggested, it had been for no good purpose. He saw it again, accursed little place, as he walked up St. James’s Street in surroundings so widely different, glancing back at the Palace front as he crossed to the farther side. And it occurred to him how strange it was that he should be walking about London perfectly unmolested, when if the authorities here knew of his doings at Fort William and Glenbuckie, or if he were to meet Lord Aveling coming out of one of the clubs or coffee-houses which abounded in this region—as well he might, though not perhaps at so late an hour as this . . . But he felt beyond troubling over his own fate.

As yet the Highlander hardly knew his way about London, and at the junction of Bennet Street with Arlington Street made a mistake, turned to the left instead of to the right, and, being deep in thought, went on without at once realising that he was in a cul-de-sac. Then, brought up by the houses at the end, he stopped, wondering where he had got to. As he tried to take his bearings the door of a house on the opposite side, almost in the angle, opened a little way, and a gentleman muffled in a cloak slipped very quietly, almost stealthily, out. A man who must have been waiting for him outside stepped forward and took the burning torch out of its holder by the door to light him home—though Arlington Street itself was sufficiently well lit. The two crossed over near Ewen, whom perhaps they did not notice, and made for the little street up which he had just come. Ewen turned quickly and looked after them. For the cloaked gentleman had spoken to his attendant in Gaelic, bidding him, somewhat sharply, hold the torch more steady.

The two were Highlanders then! Ewen stifled the half-impulse to follow and accost them which the sound of that beloved tongue had raised in him. After all they were no concern of his, and he certainly did not know the speaker, who was young and wore his reddish hair unpowdered, for his hat cocked at a rakish angle suffered the torchlight to gleam for an instant upon it.

Some Highlander, Jacobite or Whig—more probably the latter—who knew intimately a man of position, to judge from the elegant new brick house from which he had emerged. Well, God knew he only wished that he had a friend with influence, living in this street, which looked as if it housed people of importance.