Читать книгу The Carolinian - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 10

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IN an upper room of his handsome house on the Bay, Mr. Harry Latimer was at his toilet with the assistance of Johnson. He was exchanging the clothes and the grime proper to Dick Williams for garments more suited to his real station. But when Johnson respectfully asked his honour what he would wear, his honour bade him lay out a riding-suit, and meanwhile give him a bedgown. Wrapped in this, he sat listless and dejected before his toilet-table, what time his valet busied himself with the clothes Mr. Latimer was presently to don.

When all was ready, instead of proceeding to dress, he dismissed the valet, and continued sunk in thought. Thus Julius, the butler, found him when he came a quarter of an hour later with a silver chocolate service which he set down at his master's elbow. Julius, a short, slight, elderly negro, in a sky-blue livery, and with a head of crisply curling white hair that looked like a wig, poured a cup of the steaming brew, and then, in obedience to a curt dismissal, withdrew again.

Mr. Latimer sat on, alone with his thoughts. He had succeeded in his aims that morning beyond anything that you may yet suspect. Once he had seen that list which Lord William had shown him, there had been no need for any further questions. He had learnt all that he sought to know. And yet his success, far from bringing him elation, had plunged him into a dejection deeper than any he had yet experienced. For that list was in a hand that he knew as well as he knew his own. It was the hand of a man of his own age, a man named Gabriel Featherstone, who was the son of Sir Andrew Carey's factor at Fairgrove. This factor had been in Sir Andrew's service for thirty years, and not only himself, but also his son, were held by Sir Andrew in warm affection. So much had this been the case that at one time when, as a boy, Latimer had been given a tutor, Gabriel Featherstone had been sent to share his lessons. For two years—until Latimer had gone to England to complete his studies—Gabriel and he had worked side by side at their schoolbooks, and for some time afterwards they had corresponded. It was no wonder, then, that he knew the hand so well.

The discovery that it was Gabriel Featherstone who had supplied that list to Lord William, and who was, therefore, the traitor in their ranks, had led Latimer straight to certain very definite and irresistible conclusions. And he was left wondering now at his own dullness in never having suspected these things which were suddenly rendered so appallingly clear.

From the moment that Gabriel Featherstone joined the Carolinian Sons of Liberty and procured his election to the General Committee of the Provincial Congress, Latimer should have considered the possibility of some such purpose as he now perceived. Perhaps his own sudden conversion to the cause had made him take the conversion of Featherstone too much for granted. Yet he should have known that self-interest must have restrained a man who, through his own father, was largely dependent upon Sir Andrew. He should have known that Sir Andrew's bigotry would have dictated the instant dismissal of a man who was the father of a rebel. Since this had not happened, it followed that he was a party to what had taken place. Possibly—indeed, probably—it was at Sir Andrew's own instigation that Gabriel had been sent to act as a spy upon the doings of the Provincial Congress.

And now Latimer found himself face to face with the clear duty to announce his discovery. The extemporaneous secret committee by which he had been empowered to make his investigation was to assemble again that evening at six o'clock at the house of Henry Laurens to receive his report. Make it, he must, at whatever cost. Of that there was no doubt in his mind. But the cost was heavy, indeed.

It was not that he pitied or sympathized with Featherstone. Whatever tenderness he might have had for him was eclipsed by the fact that, in spite of the past, Featherstone had never hesitated to place a rope round Latimer's neck. The fellow was revealed to him for a venal scoundrel upon whom only a fool would waste his pity. But there was Sir Andrew. There was the breach already existing between himself and the man who had been his guardian and dearest friend, and who was Myrtle's father. That breach, the hope of healing which had been strong until this moment, must now be rendered utterly irreparable. For, if he denounced Featherstone, there could be no doubt of what must follow. Whatever the feelings and hesitations of the others, Gadsden would see to it that the man be dealt with by mob-law. And if, through Latimer's denunciation, Featherstone should lose his life as a punishment for activities in which Sir Andrew himself had engaged him, it would be idle for Harry Latimer to hope that his adoptive father would ever forgive him. Myrtle would then, indeed, be lost to him irrevocably.

Yet denounce Featherstone he must.

There you have the two horns of the terrible dilemma upon which as a result of his success Mr. Latimer now found himself. And it was a long time before there dawned upon him the possibility of a middle course, which, by removing Featherstone and thus putting a term to his espionage, might yet spare his life.

A man of quick decisions and of rather sanguine temperament, he decided to act at once upon the idea. Indeed, if it was to be acted upon at all there was no time to lose. He rose at last, and rang for his valet. When the man came, he bade him send a messenger to ask Mr. Izard to step round to see him, and then return, to assist him to dress.

Now at just about the time that Mr. Latimer was beginning to make his toilet—which would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of noon—Captain Mandeville was setting out from Meeting Street with intent to ride to Fairgrove, the imposing seat of Sir Andrew Carey on the Back River.

Seen on his tall black horse, in his scarlet, gold-laced coat, white buckskins and lacquered riding-boots, the Captain was a figure calculated to gladden the eyes of any maid that might happen to peep through one or another of the green jalousies veiling the windows under which he passed.

Charles Town had been planned by Culpeper a hundred years ago, at a time and in a place that admitted of generous spaces and regular lines such as were not to be found in the Old World. Meeting Street in the European eyes of the Governor's equerry was a pleasant avenue, fringed with elms, and deriving a sense of width from the garden spaces between the houses on either side. Some of these, and mainly the more recent ones, of mellowing red brick, clothed in vine and honeysuckle, jasmine and glossy cherokee, were half-concealed amid the luxuriance of their gardens: others, of wood, but very solidly built, mainly of the timber of the black cypress, stood sideways to the thoroughfare, presenting to it no more than a gabled end, whilst the long fronts with their wide deep piazzas faced inwards upon the gardens, which were enclosed behind high brick walls. The scent of late-flowering bulbs, which early Dutch settlers had procured from Holland, mingled with the heavier perfume of jasmine and honeysuckle and the pungent fragrance which the sun was drawing from the pines.

The Captain turned off into Broad Street, and rode past the Church of Saint Michael with its lofty steeple, so reminiscent of the work of Wren and so greatly resembling Saint Martin's-in-the-Fields. He crossed the open space at the Corner presided over by the statue of Pitt, which had been enthusiastically erected there five years ago to mark the province's appreciation of the Great Commoner who had championed the cause of the colonies in the Stamp-Act troubles.

And here the bustle of life and traffic was such that the Captain found it in the main impossible to proceed at more than a walking pace. There were groups of seafaring men of all degrees from the ships in the harbour, standing to gape upon the sights of the town. Now it was a party of negro field servants in brightly coloured cottons, shepherded by a swarthy overseer, that claimed their attention; now it was a file of three Catawba Indians, feather-crowned and mantled in gaudy blankets, each leading a pack-horse laden with the merchandise against which they had traded the pelts from their distant settlements beyond Camden. More than once Captain Mandeville was compelled to draw rein altogether to give passage to the lumbering mahogany coach of some wealthy planter, the tall phaeton driven by a young colonial macaroni, with his liveried negro groom sitting like a statue of bronze behind, or the sedan chair slung between its black porters bearing a lady of fashion on her shopping excursions. For all of the towns in North America this was the one in which the luxury and refinements of the Old World were combined in the highest degree with the wealth and abundance of the New. And, as was natural, their sybaritism governed their politics. There were, of course, firebrands, republican extremists such as Christopher Gadsden and this new convert to republicanism Mr. Harry Latimer, and there was an unruly mob of mechanics and artisans and the like who with little to stake were ready enough for adventure; but in the main the wealthy oligarchy of planters and merchants which had so long held undisputed sway in South Carolina, whilst sympathizing with the grievances of the North and the opposers of the oppressive royal rule, was restrained from overt action by self-interest. The security of person and property which they now enjoyed might be lost to them in an upheaval. And the same incubus of passivity sat upon the spirit of the avowed tories. In their ranks, too, there were extremists, like Sir Andrew Carey and the Fletchalls, who left everything but a fanatical duty to the King out of their calculations. But in the main they were as anxious as those on the other side to avoid an open rupture.

Thus it was the destiny of the Carolinians to follow, since follow they must, but never to lead, in this conflict with authority. News of the skirmish at Lexington last April had rudely shaken them. But things had settled down again. Congress had met to frame a petition to the King, and the hope that all would yet be adjusted and that a reconciliation would be effected was held as stoutly as men hold the hopes of things they desperately desire.

Captain Mandeville's views on colonial matters were pessimistic, and it also happened that he loved antitheses as well as any man with a sense of irony. Therefore, it was with mildly amused detachment that he returned the salutes of some of these ubiquitous blue-coated officers of the provincial militia—a body more or less constitutionally brought together against the need for unconstitutional emergencies—who doffed their black-cockaded hats to him as he rode by. He reflected that, despite their superficial friendliness, they regarded his scarlet coat much as a bull might regard it, and that notwithstanding their friendly smiles of greeting—for many of them were men with whom he gamed and hunted and laid wagers on a main of cocks or a horse race—they might very possibly be cutting his throat before the week was out.

To Mandeville, it was all in the day's work. He had come out to the colonies in the service of his King, like the 'poor devil of a younger son,' as he was wont, more affectedly than accurately, to describe himself. He was, in reality, the younger son of a younger son. He had run through the considerable fortune he had inherited from his mother—his father having married a wealthy heiress—in accordance with the best traditions of the younger sons of noble houses, and he was now in the position of dependency upon the State peculiar to British cadets, with the possible expectations that commonly delude them.

His uncle, the present Earl of Chalfont, had no issue, and Captain Mandeville was next in the succession. But as his uncle, now in his fifty-fifth year, was of a rudely vigorous constitution, and the Mandevilles were a long-lived race, the Captain was not disposed to build upon expectations which might not be realized until his own youth was spent. Therefore, in coming out to the colonies to serve his King, Captain Mandeville had it also in mind to serve himself in the manner not unusual among his kind, the manner of which his own father had set him the example, and the manner in which Lord William Campbell—also a younger son—had served himself when he married Sally Izard and a dowry of fifty thousand pounds. The colonies offered a fruitful hunting-ground, and colonial heiresses afforded covetable prizes for younger sons who knew how to make the best of family glamour. Apart from this, however, Captain Mandeville came out persuaded that in his own case the hunt need not be carried very far afield. Sir Andrew Carey, that wealthy and influential South Carolina tory, descended on the distaff side from that Mandeville who had been one of the original Lords Proprietors, was a remote kinsman of the Captain's, and so passionately proud of his descent from so ancient and distinguished a stock as to be disposed to regard the kinship as much closer than it actually was. And Sir Andrew had a daughter, an only child. What, then, more natural than that this widower, with no son of his own to succeed him, should perceive in Mandeville the son-in-law of his dreams?

The only thing omitted from the Captain's shrewd calculations was the existence of Mr. Henry Fitzroy Latimer, of Santee Broads, and of the Latimer Barony on the Saluda. And this omission might entirely have wrecked those same calculations but for the dispensation of Providence by which Latimer was guided into the paths of rebellion.

The outraged Sir Andrew let it be understood that he saw repeated between himself and Latimer the fable of the woodman and the snake, and he swore that he would play out the woodman's part.

When Captain Mandeville's eyes, which missed few things, observed thereafter the disappearance from Myrtle's finger of a certain brilliant-studded hoop of gold, he accounted the battle almost over. Nor did he permit himself to be unduly concerned by the pallid listlessness that descended upon Myrtle in those spring days.

If he curbed himself, using a masterly restraint at present while her grief endured, yet he envisaged the future confidently. He knew his world, and he knew humanity. He knew that there is no wound of the heart which time cannot heal. It was for him to contain himself until he was sure that the healing process should be well advanced. The rest should follow naturally and easily.

There was no coxcombry in his persuasion. That he was agreeable to Myrtle, she rendered evident. And in the quest for sympathy and affection which is natural to those who have been hurt as she had been, it was inevitable that her relations with her kinsman Mandeville should be strengthened in their intimacy. Add to this that he had now the assurance of Sir Andrew's entire favour and support. Sir Andrew had done more than hint it to him. There was an end to any thought of marriage between his child and the renegade Latimer, this ungrateful scoundrel to whom his house was closed, which the Captain assumed—and not without justification—to mean that the way to his own suit lay open. That suit he now cautiously pursued, and it was in the pursuit of it that he was riding to Fairgrove, bearing a choice item of news which the interview that morning with Dick Williams had supplied him.

He turned up King Street, where the traffic was less brisk, and pushed on at a better pace towards the Town Gate. On a sandy waste beyond the unfinished fortification works, undertaken some twenty years before, but subsequently abandoned, he saw a considerable party of militia at drill. It was composed largely of young men of the working-classes, the least responsible, and therefore the most inflammable material in the province. The sight of Mandeville's red coat provoked certain ribaldries, which they shouted after him, but more or less in a spirit of good-humour.

Paying little heed to them, he rode amain along the old Indian trail across the pine barrens, a desolate landscape of shallow dunes unrelieved by any vegetation other than the clumps of pine trees rearing themselves black and fragrant in the sunshine. Anon as he drew nearer to the Back River, that branch of the Cooper on which Fairgrove had been built by the present Carey's grandfather, the road led across a swamp, at the end of which at last the country assumed a more fertile aspect.

It would be something after two o'clock in the afternoon when Mandeville brought his now foam-flecked horse to the tall, wrought-iron gates of Fairgrove, and the broad avenue bordered with live-oaks, nearly a mile long, which clove the parklands about the stately home of Andrew Carey.

This house of Fairgrove was a noble four-square mansion of Queen Anne design, with very tall, white-sashed windows, equipped with white-slatted jalousies. It had been built fifty years or so ago, of brick, now mellowed by age and weather, brought out as ballast by the ships from England. Emerging from the avenue on to a wide semi-circular sweep of gravel, you might have conceived yourself confronting an English country house of Kent or Surrey. Wide lawns were spread on either hand, under the shade of massive cedars, whilst a flight of terraces on the northern side broke the harsh slope by which the land fell away sharply to the river.

A negro groom led away the Captain's horse. Remus, the negro butler, ushered him into the house, and into the long, cool dining-room, where Sir Andrew, who had just come in from the plantation, was refreshing himself with a morning punch. He was in riding-boots, and his gloves and long silver-mounted switch lay on the table where he had flung them a moment since. His daughter was ministering to him, but mechanically and listlessly. She had that morning received Harry's letter from Savannah, and so different was it from what she had hoped and expected that it left her with a feeling that life was at an end.

Sir Andrew, a big, bluff man, looking in his grey riding-frock and buckskins like a typical English squire, heaved himself up to greet his visitor.

'Robert, my boy, we're favoured. Remus, a punch for Captain Mandeville.'

The words were naught. The cordiality of the welcome lay in the ringing voice, the beaming countenance, the outstretched hand.

And Myrtle, slim, tall, and ethereal in a hooped gown of lilac, a dark curl coiling on her milk-white neck, gave him, as he bowed to kiss her finger-tips, a greeting that was as frank and friendly as her listlessness permitted, whereafter she sought to busy herself with Remus at the great mahogany sideboard in the preparation of the Captain's punch.

'Time hangs on your hands,' Sir Andrew rallied him, 'and it's plain the Governor and his Council don't overwork you.'

'They may be doing so before long, Sir Andrew. And, faith, the sooner, the better.' He paused to receive the punch, which old Remus proffered on a salver, and gracefully to thank Miss Carey for her part in its preparation.

'Confusion to all rebels,' he said lightly as he raised the glass to his lips.

'Amen to that! Amen!' boomed solemnly the voice of Sir Andrew, whilst Myrtle looked on with a face that was white and drawn.

They sat down, the Captain and his host facing each other across the dark, glossy board on which glass and silver seemed to float, reflected as in a pool, Myrtle on a window-seat, perhaps instinctively placing her back to the light that her troubled countenance might escape notice.

Sir Andrew filled himself a long pipe from a silver box, and Remus attended him with a lighted taper.

'No use to offer you a pipe, I know,' the Baronet mumbled, the stem between his teeth. And the fastidious Mandeville, who loathed the stench of tobacco smoke, smilingly agreed.

'You miss a deal, Bob. You do so. And this is fine leaf, of that scoundrel Latimer's own growing.' His face was momentarily darkened. He fetched a sigh. 'The fellow learnt the trick of curing it in Virginia. But he kept the secret to himself. A secretive dog in that as in other things. You should try a pipe, man. It's a great soother.' But the Captain merely smiled again, and shook his head. 'And what's the news in Charles Town? We're out of the world up here. You'd be at old Izard's ball last night. I'd ha' been there myself, but Myrtle wouldn't go. Moping over the black ingratitude of a damned scoundrel who isn't worth a thought.'

'You must bring her to Mrs. Brewton's ball on Thursday.'

'Aye, to be sure.'

'I don't think...' Myrtle was beginning in hesitation, when the Captain gently interrupted her.

'Nay, now, my dear Myrtle. It is a duty, no less. The ball is being given in the Governor's honour. It becomes an official function. In these sad times Lord William requires the support of every loyal man and woman. Indeed, Sir Andrew, he desires me to say that he deplores your absence from Charles Town just now and that he would be the better for your presence.'

Sir Andrew swore roundly and emphatically that in that case he would return to town at once, however much the stench of treason in it might turn his stomach.

It was not, indeed, usual for him to be on his plantation at this time of year, and he would certainly not have remained there since Lord William's coming but for the circumstances of his last departure from Charles Town, and the oath he had then sworn that he would not return until the vile place was purged of its rebellious spirit.

He had fled from it in a rage in the middle of last February, on the day following that 17th, appointed by the Provincial Congress to be a day 'of fasting, humiliation, and prayer before Almighty God, devoutly to petition Him to inspire the King with true wisdom, to defend the people of North America in their just title to freedom, and avert the calamities of civil war.'

To Sir Andrew it seemed impossible that anything more blasphemous than this lay within the possibility of human utterance. But when he heard tell that every place of worship in Charles Town was crowded with wicked fools who went to offer up that seditious prayer, when with his own eyes he beheld the members of the Provincial Congress going in solemn procession to Saint Philip's, with Lowndes, the Speaker of the Commons House, at their head in his purple robes and full-bottomed wig, the silver mace borne in state before him, Sir Andrew's indignation forbade him to remain in a place upon which he hourly expected some such visitation as that which overtook Sodom and Gomorrah.

He raged in impotent loyalty, and raged the more because there was little else that he could do to signify his execration of the event. That little, however, he performed. He made his protest, and it took the shape of closing his residence in Tradd Street, and shaking the rebellious dust of that place of treason from his loyal feet.

On his plantation he had since remained, and there he would have continued but for this viceregal summons, which he pronounced it his sacred duty unquestioningly to obey.

'We'll be there by to-morrow, Bob, dead or alive, to swell the muster of the King's friends.' Dismissing the matter upon that, he craved for news.

He received from Mandeville, whose face was grave to the point of sadness, an account of the morning's interview with Cheney and Dick Williams, and the latter's accusation against Latimer of turpitude in his dealings with less powerful neighbours.

Sir Andrew's brows were scowling. But he thrust out a doubting nether lip. 'That is not like Harry Latimer,' he said slowly.

And Myrtle rose abruptly from her window-seat.

'It isn't true,' she said with heat.

'I scarcely could believe it, myself,' Mandeville agreed smoothly. 'Men are not often dishonest without motive, and what motive could there be for such petty pilferings on the part of the wealthy Mr. Latimer? And yet...' He paused a moment, a man hesitating between thoughts. 'And yet, when a man practises the dishonesty of being false to his duty to his King...' He left it there.

'Aye, aye,' assented Sir Andrew on a deep growl.

'Oh, you are wrong. Wrong!' his daughter insisted. 'There is all the world between the two deeds. Whatever Harry may be, he is not a thief, and no one will make me believe it.'

Captain Mandeville deplored to observe that Time had not yet begun to do the work which he had been content to leave to it.

'No one could have made you believe him a traitor,' her father answered her. 'No one could have made you believe him secretive and furtive—a fellow that comes and goes by stealth like a thief in the night.'

'Which reminds me,' said Captain Mandeville, 'that he is in Charles Town at present.'

Their startled glances questioned him.

'I had it from this same fellow Williams. He told me he had seen him this morning.'

'Then why in God's name don't you arrest him?'

'Don't, father!' Myrtle laid a restraining hand upon his shoulder.

'Pshaw, my girl! The fellow's no longer anything to you.'

Captain Mandeville wished he could share the opinion. Meanwhile he answered Sir Andrew's fierce question.

'Lord William would have signed the warrant already but that...' He checked.

'Well? But that what?'

'I persuaded him not to do so.'

'You persuaded him?' Sir Andrew showed his amazement. 'Why?'

'For one thing, it would not be politic. We want to avoid strife and any act that may lead to strife. Mr. Latimer is something of a hero with the mob; and we do not wish to provoke the mob into acts that might call for reprisals.'

'It's what they need, by God!'

'Maybe. And yet it has its dangers. Lord William saw that. Also, Sir Andrew, I had other reasons. This Mr. Latimer, after all, in spite of what he has done, has thrust certain roots into your heart.'

'I've torn them out,' Sir Andrew protested vehemently.

'And then, there is Myrtle,' the Captain sighed.

'How good you are!' Myrtle rewarded him, her eyes shining moistily.

'Good!' growled the Baronet. 'Good!—to neglect his clear duty!'

'I doubt if I should ever do my duty at the cost of hurting either of you, however slightly. You have become so very dear to me in the months I have been in this exile that I could never leave your feelings out of consideration in anything I did.'

And then, before either of them could find the right words in which to answer that pledge of affection, Remus opened the door to make the dramatic announcement:

'Massa Harry, Sir Andrew.'

It had never occurred to the old butler that there could be any doubt of admitting Master Harry, and so he had conducted him straight to the dining-room where Sir Andrew sat.