Читать книгу A Pageant of Victory - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 6

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George Charteris, fourth earl of Wrybourne, lived in an almost royal estate and medieval splendour, with a staff of gentlemen-in-waiting, each the scion of a noble house; with an army of liveried servants to his behest, and numberless black slaves to till his wide lands and tend his rich plantations. His Steward of the Household was a stately personage, his Clerk of the Kitchen, his Bailiff of Husbandry, his Brewer of Beer, these all were personages and esteemed themselves as such.

To-day proudest gentlemen and humblest slaves were in full force and glory; jewels glittered, gracious ladies curtseyed in billowing satins, gentlemen bowed gallantly with swirl of embroidered coat-skirts, while soft-footed servants went to and fro to their refreshment, for the day was warm, ranks of negro slaves rolled great eyes and flashed white teeth.

Here to-day was gathered the quality of Virginia and Maryland, and more constantly arriving, grand folk all, blue-blooded aristocrats, offshoots from noble English stock, and though so far from their ancestral halls, English one and all and Tory to the very core, and, every one of them, journeying hither, to this England out of England, to grace my lord's sixtieth birthday and take counsel with this right potent and very noble Englishman how best to stem the rising tide of unrest in the North and keep these English Colonies as English and law-abiding as of yore.

Just at present my lord's many visitors were congregated upon the wide lawns, sitting or strolling across this soft, thick turf that was eloquent of ceaseless care and labour, a brilliant assemblage waited upon by lacqueys in my lord's rich liveries, while the sunny air was joyful with the babble of merry voices and happy laughter.

Hitherwards about noon came Anthony, the Sagamore stalking at his heels, but, in the shade of a lofty tree remote from the throng, he paused to gaze upon the bright and animated scene, a pageant of vivid colours that moved in splendour against the wide frontage of the Great House.

Now as he stood seeking among this assemblage for the face of friend or acquaintance, out from a pleached walk hardby sped a vision of fluttering, silken loveliness, a small, dainty creature who catching sight of Anthony and the Sagamore, checked in full career, threw up small, jewelled hands, screamed prettily and stood gazing at him with wide blue eyes, an exquisite creature from dainty shoe to powdered hair and perfectly aware of it.

"An--thony!" she gasped. "Is it ... can this be twooly you?"

"None other," he laughed, bowing cap in hand. "And you, I perceive are your own radiant self as ever, Priscilla."

"But ... oh Anthony! Why these fwightful twappings? ... so savage! Is it a jest to tease your wuncle?"

"No no, I assure you, Priscilla. You see his message reached me far in the wilderness and I had to come as I was, or not at all."

"But why oh why dwess yourself like a howid Wedskin?"

"Because leather garments are best suited to travel in thorny places and--"

"Then why twavel in thorny places, Anthony?" But as she spoke from the shadowy pleached walk a baritone voice called:

"Priscilla!"

"Oh," she laughed, "there's your nice cousin Fwank Wilding looking for me." At this moment rose another voice, somewhat further afield, a flutey tenor wailing:

"Oh, Priscilla!"

"And there's your wich cousin, lord Charles. And they're both twying to pwopose to me, and I'm in a dweadful quandawy for Charles is so wich and a lord, and Fwank is so handsome but only a lawyer, and you, Anthony, that I pwomised to mawwy when we were children, are gwown into such a fwightful wild man."

"Ho--Priscilla!" "Priscilla--hoy!" cried tenor and baritone in unison. And forth together from shadowy yew walks, though from different directions, emerged two resplendent young gentlemen who, beholding their lovely quarry hanging on the arm of this outlandish leather-clad anomaly, halted to stare, then came striding amain.

"By God, it's Anthony!" exclaimed Mr. Wilding pausing again in very evident surprise. "It's Cousin Falconbridge!"

"Demme if it isn't!" quoth lord Charles, pausing also. Thus for a long moment the three cousins surveyed each other speechlessly; all three were young, comely and marked with that same indefinable air of high breeding, yet each the other's opposite. Anthony in his travel-worn deerskins, lord Charles magnificent in brocade and silk from glossy wig to sparkling shoe-buckles, Francis Wilding, who wore his own brown hair unpowdered and tied in a queue, as elegant though more soberly clad in dark blue and silver.

"Well," exclaimed his lordship at last, "Tony, I'm glad to see thee, but why, oh demme why in such outlandish rig--?"

"Nay now," said Priscilla, "I pwotest it becomes him extwemely, Charles!"

"Ay but," said my lord, shaking his head, "Gad's life, Tony, my honoured sire will like as not fall into convulsions at mere sight o' thee!"

"Why then, Charles, I'll bide here out o' sight."

"But han't you any civilized clothes, Tony?"

"Alas not a stitch ... and yonder I think is one of your father's gentlemen, seeking you." Even as he spoke the gentleman in question ventured to approach breathless with haste to bow, and, glancing askance at Anthony, begged to announce that my lord the Earl was about to make his appearance and demanded his son's instant attendance. So perforce away went lord Charles and with him Priscilla and Francis.

"See you anon, Tony!" smiled Priscilla, blowing a kiss.

"I'd like a word with you later, Anthony, anent these troubles in Boston," said Francis Wilding.

Anthony smiled and doffed his cap and leaning back to the mighty tree-bole, gazed dreamily upon the scene before him, yet saw little of it for before the eyes of his mind was a sullen beautiful face lit by black-lashed, tawny eyes ... the strange wild passion of her ... good or evil ...?

So lost was he that he started at a touch on his arm and the Sagamore's soft spoken words.

"My brother ... behold he comes, this great one!"

Anthony glanced up as forth into the sunshine, his son Charles upon his right hand, his gentlemen behind him, stepped George Charteris, fourth Earl of Wrybourne.

My lord walked leisurely, toes delicately pointed, hat in one hand, laced handkerchief in the other, glancing serenely this way and that, until he had reached a horse-block covered with an Oriental rug whereon he mounted the better to see and be seen.

A quaint and imposing figure was my lord the Earl, bedight in the stately magnificence of a bygone generation; upon his head a lofty, full-bottomed, curling peruke (none o' your scratch, tie or bob wigs for him); his velvet coat, of royal purple, was full skirted and enriched with gold braid and jewelled buttons; jewels sparkled in the snowy lace at his throat, they gleamed in his shoe-buckles and in the gold hilt of his sword, that famous weapon wherewith his grandfather (the wild Charteris and boon companion of the Merry Monarch) had killed his best friend on a point of honour (when gentlemen were gentlemen, demme! and a gentleman's honour very precious and delicate as his garments). Thus as my lord the earl stood looking down upon his many guests, so superbly sure of himself and his world, he might have just stepped from the bygone splendour of the Great Louis' Court, nay indeed he might almost have been a reincarnation of the Grand Monarch, Le Roi Soleil himself.

"My lords," said he in rich, full-throated tones, "ladies and gentlemen, good friends all, be welcome. This, as you know, is my sixtieth birthday. But it is with a graver and I think even a worthier object that I have convoked you here this day. I allude to the growing spirit of lawlessness displayed by certain ignorant mobs fostered and fomented by the irreconcilable Irish, those haters of England and all law and order. I have summoned you here then that you, and I, being gentlemen of Virginia and Maryland, are first and always gentlemen of England and loyal subjects of his Majesty the King, that we may take counsel together how best to check this wave of lawlessness and stem this tide of rebellion. But this shall be later; for the present my pleasure is to greet you, one and all, personally and to make joyous festival on this my birthday."

So saying, my lord descended from his pedestal, whereat unseen musicians struck up, filling the air with melodious strains now sweetly plaintive, now gay and heartening, but each and every songs of Old England, while my lord went to and fro among his guests bowing, smiling, kissing the hands of noble ladies, grasping the hands of noble gentlemen, talking and laughing with everyone until four gigantic negroes in gorgeous livery marched forth, two and two, and summoned the company to the banquet with flourish and fanfare of trumpets.

The great banqueting hall of Wrybourne, modelled exactly on my lord's ancestral hall in England, was lofty and spacious, its panelled walls hung with antique arms and armour, its mighty roof-beams richly carven, and, with a minstrel's gallery whence my lord's musicians were discoursing sweet melodies. Here were long tables covered with snowy damask whereon gold and silver gleamed and cut glass sparkled; and at these tables my lord's guests were seated according to rank, that is to say, the humbler their degree the further were they from that lofty table where sat their noble host.

Thus Anthony presently found himself placed very far from his stately uncle, which, under the circumstances, he deemed fortunate, the more so indeed when he espied Blodwen seated opposite to him. But his smiling bow she hardly noticed and, despite her finery of silks, patches and powder, he thought her more sullen and ungracious than ever, and was seized of a cold wonderment that he could ever have thought her beautiful.

Seeing himself thus disdainfully ignored, and for no imaginable reason, he felt hurt, then angry; and becoming aware of his many neighbours' curious or supercilious glances, he kept his frowning gaze on his plate, grew morose, and when any ventured to address him, answered only in monosyllables; so that he was presently shunned altogether; then being painfully aware he must seem the veriest boor, became only the more angry.

So this birthday feast progressed, courses came and went, glasses were emptied only to be instantly refilled, voices waxed louder and laughter more strident until this very festive babblement was suddenly hushed and all eyes turned where stood the Earl, wineglass aloft.

"Ladies," said he, "my lords and gentlemen, I give you his Majesty the King!"

The toast was drunk standing and with vociferous acclaim, during which my lord mounted his chair and stood, jewelled hand upraised until once again came an expectant silence. Quoth he:

"Good friends all, we have pledged and honoured the toast to His Majesty the King, presently I shall call on you all to drink confusion to his enemies. But first I demand who are the King's enemies? Sirs, His Majesty's enemies are all such as break his peace and show themselves inimical to established law and order, and, being the King's enemies, they are and must be ours also. Gentlemen, there hath been trouble in the North, rioting and bloodshed, at first 'twas a small matter but one that hath grown daily, fomented by such evil-disposed wretches as John Hancock and Samuel Adams, nursed and encouraged by rebellious and loud-voiced demagogues, in particular a certain Patrick Henry and many other of those Irish that are known the world over as natural breeders of strife and bitter faction, and passionate haters of England. It is such as these that are, even now, endeavouring to widen the breach between these our colonies and our beloved England, to open the rift in the lute, whereby, 'stead of sweet harmony shall be hateful discord; to inflame and keep open the wound in our body politic whereby shall come present suffering and possibly a future dissolution. But, sirs, we gentlemen of England though here resident far from that blessed isle, yet carry, ay each one of us, England within our hearts--" Here my lord's voice was drowned in such shouts of fervent acclaim that the lofty roof rang, until my lord's white hand once again imposed silence on his eager auditory.

"Therefore I am persuaded, my good lords and gentlemen of England, should this braggart talk of arms and war ever materialize into open rebellion, sure am I that no man in whose veins leaps the unconquerable blood of the true Anglo-Saxon, but will himself leap, sword in hand, for the preservation of law and order and to bind these great colonies yet closer to that small yet mighty country whence the best of us came. For this, gentlemen, if needs be, we will fight to make of these United Colonies an England of the West, which, though severed by ocean, yet still undivided in soul and spirit, shall together be one mighty England, one heart, one hand, one set of laws, to bring peace and order into this troubled world and be the salvation of Mankind--"

Here there went up a universal shout, gentlemen rose the better to cheer, ladies wept or fluttered scarves and handkerchiefs, until once again the Earl's upraised hand quelled this wild enthusiasm.

"And now, my lords, ladies and gentlemen," said he in his clear, dominating tones, "I ask you to charge your glasses, bumpers all! I ask you--" My lord's voice seemed to fail him suddenly, his lips, parted for speech, were dumb, for his eyes, rolling in the fervour of his oratory, had lighted upon a vision that seemed to freeze him to momentary silence; and this the leather-clad form of Anthony and the eagle feathers of Mahtocheega the Sagamore standing motionless behind his chair.

His lordship choked, glared and thus fixing Anthony with terrible eye, at last became articulate.

"You, sir, that, despite redskin fripperies, show the features of a civilized white man, be so good to stand forth and be so obliging to permit myself and these my friends, better sight of you."

Meekly Anthony obeyed, and being conscious of the many hostile and scornful faces all about him, frowned and bowed his head.

"Now, God ... bless ... my ... soul!" exclaimed the Earl with a dreadful deliberation. "Ladies and gentlemen I am astounded! I am amazed, nay I am indeed almost shamed to recognize in this ... anomaly, one who should be of ourselves, my own only sister's only child and therefore a gentleman of noble birth and breeding, my nephew, Anthony Falconbridge."

Here from the staring company went up a murmur very like a groan above which rose a woman's hysterical laugh that ended in a gasp as my lord proceeded:

"Nephew Anthony we demand why you, a gentleman born, present yourself before us like a Redskin savage?"

"My lord," answered Anthony in voice meek as his look, "I am but lately from the Indian country."

"Nephew Anthony," pursued my lord inexorably, "we demand of you why, since you stoop to garb yourself as a mere Indian savage, why you are not daubed as Indian savage should be? Where, sir, is your warpaint? Where your reeking scalp-locks?"

Then Anthony raised his head and beneath their thick, black brows, his flashing eyes showed anything but meek. He glanced round about upon the many intent and stormy faces, he looked at his stately uncle, he bowed and spoke.

"My lords and ladies, since an explanation is demanded, I will answer the best I may. Uncle George, I have travelled nearly a thousand miles by wild ways, and at shortest notice, merely because you summoned me as one of the family. Then I wear these garments because, though my blood is purely English as that of any here, I am an American--"

"Hold, nephew!" cried the Earl, rising. "Hold there! You must know there are no Americans save your redskin savages,--these only are Americans. You and we, thank God, are English!"

"Nay, sir," retorted Anthony, "I maintain, with all due submission, that we are none of us gentlemen of England, but rather English gentlemen of America, and this is surely a very different matter. England should be our inspiration and beloved memory, but America, this land whereof we are now part, should be a loved and cherished reality. Again, sir, these men whom you scornfully dismiss as mere demagogues are men indeed, and most of them as English as ourselves, men, sir, who have thus identified themselves with this great country of America and are spokesmen of the many, voicing grievances which, to them as Americans, are very real--"

"I protest!" cried a choleric gentleman in scarlet and gold, his face almost red as his coat, "I protest, my lord--"

"Nay, sir," said the Earl, motioning Anthony to go on, "let us hear him."

"My lord," said Anthony, very earnestly, "I protest there is no one here that, knowing England, her noble traditions and all that she has stood for in the past, can love that little, mighty island more than I. But when her Government becomes oppressive, when the King, his guiding hand a merciless fist, becomes a tyrant--"

"My lord," roared the scarlet gentleman, "here's vile blasphemy!"

"True, sir, alas!" nodded the Earl, "yet we permit him speech, praying he shall contrive to excuse himself."

"Uncle George," continued Anthony, "I do but voice a truth which I implore you and these gentlemen to heed well. You have spoken of our Anglo-Saxon blood that brooks no injustice, sir, it is the blood of most of us colonials. It was men of this blood that battled through the ages to be free men, that for the sake of liberty suffered and were not dismayed, it was such men that later fought and endured and at last struck off a kingly head at Whitehall."

"Ha--sacrilege!" screamed the scarlet gentleman, above the sudden shocked and angry clamour.

"Enough!" cried my lord, both hands upraised. "Nephew Falconbridge, you have said too ... too much; ha, by God, sir, it was to save that same kingly head, to prevent that bloody martyrdom that our ancestors, yours and mine, died in battle or were beggared.... Anthony Falconbridge I, as a loyal subject of His Majesty King George and lover of England, disown you henceforth, disclaim all kinship and here denounce you as rebel and traitor--"

The awful words were caught up and shouted on every side; glancing about him Anthony beheld faces direly transfigured, this polite assemblage, forgetting all its affectations and restraint, was raving against him; these dainty ladies and courtly fine gentlemen had given place to that primeval savagery which despite man's long ascent from the dark, ever lies so near the surface; fists were shaken, steel flickered to menace him and, foremost of all, smiling and debonair as ever, the young Marquis.

"Pray, oh pray," cried he, "let one so kind friend oblige the gentleman with a sword."

A weapon was thrust into Anthony's hand, but instantly he bent and snapped it across his knee.

"No!" he cried, tossing the broken pieces to the Marquis' feet, "not here! If we are to meet, if blood is to spill, as I fear it must, it shall be on the battlefield. And so I--"

His words were drowned in sudden tumult at the door, struggling servants were hurled aside, a great voice roared:

"Mr. Anthony--Mist' Anthony!" And in upon the astonished company strode a long-haired, bearded giant in garments of leather who flourished a long rifle and, heedless of all others, strode towards Anthony, crying:

"It's war, Mist' Tony. It's bloody war! Red coats and minute men before Boston! Bunker Hill, sir. But, what's worse for the likes o' you and me, Mist' Anthony--the Ottawas are up! The Cagugas and Mohawks are out ... painted for battle and on the war-trail. They ha' massacred the settlement at Naylor's Forks. We ran into a party on 'em at the Crossing and fought through 'em. Here's proof lookee!" And he pointed to new scalps that dangled at his girdle.

Women screamed, men shouted, swords glittered everywhere and all was confusion and uproar until the Earl, mounting upon the table, sword high above his head, commanded them to silence.

"If it is war, so be it!" he cried. "It shall be England and America for England against these damned rebels. God save the King!"

So, with fierce cheering and warlike clamour all about him, Anthony turned and went forth of the noble hall that he was never to see again.