CHAPTER VI
UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS
Her head full of romantic nonsense! Well! perhaps that was the truekeynote of Sue's character; perhaps, too, it was that same romantictemperament which gave such peculiar charm to her personality. It wasnot mere beauty--of which she had a plentiful share--nor yet altogetherher wealth which attracted so many courtiers to her feet. Men who knewher in those days at Acol and subsequently at Court said that Lady Suewas magnetic.
She compelled attention, she commanded admiration, through that veryromanticism of hers which caused her eyes to glow at the recital ofvalor, or sorrow, or talent, which caused her to see beauty of thoughtand mind and character there where it lay most deeply hidden,there--sometimes--where it scarce existed.
The dark figure of her guardian's secretary had attracted her attentionfrom the moment when she first saw him moving silently about the houseand park: the first words she spoke to him were words of sympathy. Hislife-story--brief and simple as it had been--had interested her. Heseemed so different from these young and old country squires whofrequented Acol Court. He neither wooed nor flattered her, yet seemedto find great joy in her company. His voice at times was harsh, hismanner abrupt and even rebellious, but at others it fell to infinitegentleness when he talked to her of Nature and the stars, both of whichhe had studied deeply.
He never spoke of religion. That subject which was on everybody'stongue, together with the free use of the most sacred names, herigorously avoided, also politics, and my Lord Protector's government,his dictatorship and ever-growing tyranny: but he knew the name of everyflower that grew in meadow or woodland, the note of every bird as ittrilled its song.
There is no doubt that but for the advent of that mysterious personalityinto Acol village, the deep friendship which had grown in Sue's heartfor Richard Lambert would have warmed into a more passionate attachment.
But she was too young to reflect, too impulsive to analyze her feelings.The mystery which surrounded the foreigner who lodged at the Quakeress'scottage had made strong appeal to her idealism.
His first introduction to her notice, in the woods beyond the park gateon that cold January evening, with the moon gleaming weirdly through thebranches of the elms, his solitary figure leaning against a tree, hadfired her imagination and set it wildly galloping after mad fantasies.
He had scarcely spoken on that first occasion, but his silence wasstrangely impressive. She made up her mind that he was singularlyhandsome, although she could not judge of that very clearly for he worea heavy mustache, and a shade over one eye; but he was tall, above theaverage, and carried the elaborate habiliments which the Cavaliers stillaffected, with consummate grace and ease. She thought, too, that thethick perruque became him very well, and his muffled voice, when hespoke, sounded singularly sweet.
Since then she had seen him constantly. At rare intervals at first, formaidenly dignity forbade that she should seem eager to meet him. He wasignorant of whom she was--oh! of that she felt quite quite sure: shealways wore a dark tippet round her shoulders, and a hood to cover herhead. He seemed pleased to see her, just to hear her voice. Obviously hewas lonely and in deep trouble.
Then one night--it was the first balmy evening after the winterfrosts--the moon was singularly bright, and the hood had fallen backfrom her head, just as her face was tilted upwards and her eyes glowingwith enthusiasm. Then she knew that he had learnt to love her, notthrough any words which he spoke, for he was silent; his face was inshadow, and he did not even touch her; therefore it was not through anyof her natural senses that she guessed his love. Yet she knew it, andher young heart was overfilled with happiness.
That evening when they parted he knelt at her feet and kissed the hem ofher kirtle. After which, when she was back again in her own little roomat Acol Court, she cried for very joy.
They did not meet very often. Once a week at most. He had vaguelypromised to tell her, some day, of his great work for the regenerationof France, which he was carrying out in loneliness and exile here inEngland, a work far greater and more comprehensive than that which hadsecured for England religious and political liberty; this work it waswhich made him a wanderer on the face of the earth and caused hisfrequent and lengthy absences from the cottage in which he lodged.
She was quite content for the moment with these vague promises: in herheart she was evolving enchanting plans for the future, when she wouldbe his helpmate in this great and mysterious work.
In the meanwhile she was satisfied to live in the present, to consoleand comfort the noble exile, to lavish on him the treasures of her youngand innocent love, to endow him in her imagination with all those mentaland physical attributes which her romantic nature admired most.
The spring had come, clothing the weird branches of the elms with atender garb of green, the anemones in the woods yielded to the bluebellsand these to carpets of primroses and violets. The forests of Thanetechoed with songs of linnets and white-throats. She was happy and shewas in love.
With the lengthened days came some petty sorrows. He was obviouslyworried, sometimes even impatient. Their meetings became fewer andshorter, for the evening hours were brief. She found it difficult towander out so late across the park, unperceived, and he would nevermeet her by day-light.
This no doubt had caused him to fret. He loved her and desired her allhis own. Yet 'twere useless of a surety to ask Sir Marmaduke's consentto her marriage with her French prince. He would never give it, anduntil she came of age he had absolute power over her choice of ahusband.
She had explained this to him and he had sighed and murmured angrywords, then pressed her with increased passion to his heart.
To-night as she walked through the park, she was conscious--for thefirst time perhaps--of a certain alloy mixed with her gladness. Yet sheloved him--oh, yes! just, just as much as ever. The halo of romance withwhich she had framed in his mystic personality was in no way dimmed, butin a sense she almost feared him, for at times his muffled voice soundedsingularly vehement, and his words betrayed the uncontrolled violence ofhis nature.
She had hoped to bring him some reassuring news anent Sir Marmaduke deChavasse's intentions with regard to herself, but the conversation roundthe skittle-alley, her guardian's cruel allusions to "the foreignadventurer," had shown her how futile were such hopes.
Yet, there were only three months longer of this weary waiting. Surelyhe could curb his impatience until she was of age and mistress of herown hand! Surely he trusted her!
She sighed as this thought crossed her mind, and nearly fell up againsta dark figure which detached itself from among the trees.
"Master Lambert!" she said, uttering a little cry of surprise, pressingher hand against her heart which was palpitating with emotion. "I had nothought of meeting you here."
"And I still less of seeing your ladyship," he rejoined coldly.
"How cross you are," she retorted with childish petulance, "what have Idone that you should be so unkind?"
"Unkind?"
"Aye! I had meant to speak to you of this ere now--but you always avoidme ... you scarce will look at me ... and ... and I wished to ask you ifI had offended you?"
They were standing on a soft carpet of moss, overhead the gentle summerbreeze stirred the great branches of the elms, causing the crisp leavesto mutter a long-drawn hush-sh-sh in the stillness of the night. Fromfar away came the appealing call of a blackbird chased by some maraudingowl, while on the ground close by, the creaking of tiny branchesbetrayed the quick scurrying of a squirrel. From the remote and infinitedistance came the subdued roar of the sea.
The peace of the woodland, the sighing of the trees, the dark eveningsky above, filled his heart with an aching longing for her.
"Offended me?" he murmured, passing his hand across his forehead, forhis temples throbbed and his eyes were burning. "Nay! why should youthink so?"
"You are so cold, so distant now," she said gently. "We were such goodfriends when first I came here. Thanet is a strange c
ountry to me. Itseems weird and unkind--the woods are dark and lonely, that persistentsound of the sea fills me with a strange kind of dread.... My home wasamong the Surrey hills you know.... It is far from here.... I cannotafford to lose a friend...."
She sighed, a quaint, wistful little sigh, curiously out of place, hethought, in this exquisite mouth framed only for smiles.
"I have so few real friends," she added in a whisper, so low that hethought she had not spoken, and that the elms had sighed that patheticphrase into his ear.
"Believe me, Lady Sue, I am neither cold nor distant," he said, almostsmiling now, for the situation appeared strange indeed, that thisbeautiful young girl, rich, courted, surrounded by an army ofsycophants, should be appealing to a poor dependent for friendship. "Iam only a little dazed ... as any man would be who had been dreaming ...and saw that dream vanish away...."
"Dreaming?"
"Yes!--we all dream sometimes you know ... and a penniless man likemyself, without prospects or friends is, methinks, more prone to it thanmost."
"We all have dreams sometimes," she said, speaking very low, whilst hereyes sought to pierce the darkness beyond the trees. "I too ..."
She paused abruptly, and was quite still for a moment, almost holdingher breath, he thought, as if she were listening. But not a sound cameto disturb the silence of the woods. Blackbird and owl had ceased theirfight for life, the squirrel had gone to rest: the evening air wasfilled only by the great murmur of the distant sea.
"Tell me your dream," she said abruptly.
"Alas! it is too foolish! ... too mad! ... too impossible...."
"But you said once that you would be my friend and would try to cheer myloneliness."
"So I will, with all my heart, an you will permit."
"Yet is there no friendship without confidence," she retorted. "Tell meyour dream."
"What were the use? You would only laugh ... and justly too."
"I should never laugh at that which made you sad," she said gently.
"Sad?" he rejoined with a short laugh, which had something of his usualbitterness in it. "Sad? Mayhap! Yet I hardly know. Think you that thepoor peasant lad would be sad because he had dreamed that the fairyprincess whom he had seen from afar in her radiance, was sweet andgracious to him one midsummer's day? It was only a dream, remember: whenhe woke she had vanished ... gone out of his sight ... hidden from himby a barrier of gold.... In front of this barrier stood his pride ...which perforce would have to be trampled down and crushed ere he couldreach the princess."
She did not reply, only bent her sweet head, lest he should perceive thetears which had gathered in her eyes. All round them the wood seemed tohave grown darker and more dense, whilst from afar the weird voice ofthat distant sea murmured of infinity and of the relentlessness of Fate.
They could not see one another very clearly, yet she knew that he wasgazing at her with an intensity of love and longing in his heart whichcaused her own to ache with sympathy; and he knew that she was crying,that there was something in that seemingly brilliant and happy younglife, which caused the exquisite head to droop as if under a load ofsorrow.
A broken sigh escaped her lips, or was it the sighing of the wind in theelms?
He was smitten with remorse to think that he should have helped to makeher cry.
"Sue--my little, beautiful Sue," he murmured, himself astonished at hisown temerity in thus daring to address her. It was her grief which hadbrought her down to his level: the instinct of chivalry, of protection,of friendship which had raised him up to hers.
"Will you ever forgive me?" he said, "I had no right to speak to you asI have done.... And yet ..."
He paused and she repeated his last two words--gently, encouragingly.
"And yet ... good master?"
"Yet at times, when I see the crowd of young, empty-headedfortune-seeking jackanapes, who dare to aspire to your ladyship's hand... I have asked myself whether perchance I had the right to remainsilent, whilst they poured their farrago of nonsense into your ear. Ilove you, Sue!"
"No! no! good master!" she ejaculated hurriedly, while a nameless,inexplicable fear seemed suddenly to be holding her in its grip, as heuttered those few very simple words which told the old, old tale.
But those words once uttered, Richard felt that he could not now drawback. The jealously-guarded secret had escaped his lips, passion refusedto be held longer in check. A torrent of emotion overmastered him. Heforgot where he was, the darkness of the night, the lateness of thehour, the melancholy murmur of the wind in the trees, he forgot that shewas rich and he a poor dependent, he only remembered that she wasexquisitely fair and that he--poor fool!--was mad enough to worship her.
It was very dark now, for a bank of clouds hid the glory of the eveningsky, and he could see only the mere outline of the woman whom he sopassionately loved, the small head with the fluttering curls fanned bythe wind, the graceful shoulders and arms folded primly across herbosom.
He put out his hand and found hers. Oh! the delight of raising it to hislips.
"By the heaven above us, Sue, by all my hopes of salvation I swear toyou that my love is pure and selfless," he murmured tenderly, all thewhile that her fragrant little hand was pressed against his lips. "Butfor your fortune, I had come to you long ago and said to you 'Let mework for you!--My love will help me to carve a fortune for you, which itshall be my pride to place at your feet.'--Every nameless child, so 'tissaid, may be a king's son ... and I, who have no name that I can ofverity call mine own--no father--no kith or kindred--I would conquer akingdom, Sue, if you but loved me too."
His voice broke in a sob. Ashamed of his outburst he tried to hide hisconfusion from her, by sinking on one knee on that soft carpet of moss.From the little village of Acol beyond the wood, came the sound of thechurch bell striking the hour of nine. Sue was silent and absorbed,intensely sorrowful to see the grief of her friend. He was quite lost inthe shadows at her feet now, but she could hear the stern efforts whichhe made to resume control over himself and his voice.
"Richard ... good Richard," she said soothingly, "believe me, I am very,very sorry for this.... I ... I vow I did not know.... I had nothought--how could I have? that you cared for me like ... like this....You believe me, good master, do you not?" she entreated. "Say that youbelieve me, when I say that I would not willingly have caused you suchgrief."
"I believe that you are the most sweet and pure woman in all theworld," he murmured fervently, "and that you are as far beyond my reachas are the stars."
"Nay, nay, good master, you must not talk like that.... Truly, truly Iam only a weak and foolish girl, and quite unworthy of your deepdevotion ... and you must try ... indeed, indeed you must ... to forgetwhat happened under these trees to-night."
"Of that I pray you have no fear," he replied more calmly, as he roseand once more stood before her--a dark figure in the midst of the darkwood--immovable, almost impassive, with head bent and arms folded acrosshis chest. "Nathless 'tis foolish for a nameless peasant even to talk ofhis honor, yet 'tis mine honor, Lady Sue, which will ever help me toremember that a mountain of gold and vast estates stand between me andthe realization of my dream."
"No, no," she rejoined earnestly, "it is not that only. You are myfriend, good Richard, and I do not wish to see you eating out your heartin vain and foolish regrets. What you ... what you wish couldnever--never be. Good master, if you were rich to-morrow and Ipenniless, I could never be your wife."
"You mean that you could never love me?" he asked.
She was silent. A fierce wave of jealousy--mad, insane, elementaljealousy seemed suddenly to sweep over him.
"You love someone else?" he demanded brusquely.
"What right have you to ask?"
"The right of a man who would gladly die to see you happy."
He spoke harshly, almost brutally. Jealousy had killed all humility inhim. Love--proud, passionate and defiant--stood up for its just claims,for its existence, its right to dominate, its desire to co
nquer.
But even as he thus stood before her, almost frightening her now by theviolence of his speech, by the latent passion in him, which no longerwould bear to be held in check, the bank of clouds which up to now hadobscured the brilliance of the summer sky, finally swept away eastwards,revealing the luminous firmament and the pale crescent moon which nowglimmered coldly through the branches of the trees.
A muffled sound as of someone treading cautiously the thick bed of moss,and the creaking of tiny twigs caused Richard Lambert to look upmomentarily from the form of the girl whom he so dearly loved, and topeer beyond her into the weirdly illumined density of the wood.
Not twenty yards from where they were, a low wall divided the parkitself from the wood beyond, which extended down to Acol village. At anangle of the wall there was an iron gate, also the tumble-down pavilion,ivy-grown and desolate, with stone steps leading up to it, through thecracks of which weeds and moss sprouted up apace.
A man had just emerged from out the thicket and was standing now to thefarther side of the gate looking straight at Lambert and at Sue, whostood in the full light of the moon. A broad-brimmed hat, such ascavaliers affected, cast a dark shadow over his face.
It was a mere outline only vaguely defined against the background oftrees, but in that outline Lambert had already recognized the mysteriousstranger who lodged in his brother's cottage down in Acol.
The fixed intensity of the young man's gaze caused Sue to turn and tolook in the same direction. She saw the stranger, who encountering twopairs of eyes fixed on him, raised his hat with a graceful flourish ofthe arm: then, with a short ironical laugh, went his way, and was oncemore lost in the gloom.
The girl instinctively made a movement as if to follow him, whilst aquickly smothered cry--half of joy and half of fear--escaped her lips.She checked the movement as well as the cry, but not before RichardLambert had perceived both.
With the perception came the awful, overwhelming certitude.
"That adventurer!" he exclaimed involuntarily. "Oh my God!"
But she looked him full in the face, and threw back her head with agesture of pride and of wrath.
"Master Lambert," she said haughtily, "methinks 'twere needless toremind you that--since I inadvertently revealed my most cherished secretto you--it were unworthy a man of honor to betray it to any one."
"My lady ... Sue," he said, feeling half-dazed, bruised and crushed bythe terrible moral blow, which he had just received, "I ... I do notquite understand. Will you deign to explain?"
"There is naught to explain," she retorted coldly. "Prince Ameded'Orleans loves me and I have plighted my troth to him."
"Nay! I entreat your ladyship," he said, feeling--knowing the while, howuseless it was to make an appeal against the infatuation of a hot-headedand impulsive girl, yet speaking with the courage which ofttimes is bornof despair, "I beg of you, on my knees to listen. This foreignadventurer ..."
"Silence!" she retorted proudly, and drawing back from him, for of atruth he had sunk on his knees before her, "an you desire to be myfriend, you must not breathe one word of slander against the man I love...."
Then, as he said nothing, realizing, indeed, how futile would be anyeffort or word from him, she said, with growing enthusiasm, whilst herglowing eyes fixed themselves upon the gloom which had enveloped themysterious apparition of her lover:
"Prince Amede d'Orleans is the grandest, most selfless patriot thisworld hath ever known. For the sake of France, of tyrannized, oppressedFrance, which he adores, he has sacrificed everything! his position, hishome, his wealth and vast estates: he is own kinsman to King Louis, yethe is exiled from his country whilst a price is set upon his head,because he cannot be mute whilst he sees tyranny and oppression grinddown the people of France. He could return to Paris to-day a rich andfree man, a prince among his kindred,--if he would but sacrifice thatfor which he fights so bravely: the liberty of France!"
"Sue! my adored lady," he entreated, "in the name of Heaven listen tome.... You do believe, do you not, that I am your friend? ... I wouldgive my life for you.... I swear to you that you have been deceived andtricked by this adventurer, who, preying upon your romantic imagination..."
"Silence, master, an you value my friendship!" she commanded. "I willnot listen to another word. Nay! you should be thankful that I deal notmore harshly with you--that I make allowances for your miserablejealousy.... Oh! why did you make me say that," she added with one ofthose swift changes of mood, which were so characteristic of her, andwith sudden contrition, for an involuntary moan had escaped his lips."In the name of Heaven, go--go now I entreat ... leave me to myself ...lest anger betray me into saying cruel things ... I am safe--quite safe... I entreat you to let me return to the house alone."
Her voice sounded more and more broken as she spoke: sobs were evidentlyrising in her throat. He pulled himself together, feeling that it wereunmanly to worry her now, when emotion was so obviously overmasteringher.
"Forgive me, sweet lady," he said quite gently, as he rose from hisknees. "I said more than I had any right to say. I entreat you toforgive the poor, presuming peasant who hath dared to raise his eyes tothe fairy princess of his dreams. I pray you to try and forget all thathath happened to-night beneath the shadows of these elms--and only toremember one thing: that my life--my lonely, humble, unimportantlife--is yours ... to serve or help you, to worship or comfort you ifneed be ... and that there could be no greater happiness for me than togive it for your sweet sake."
He bowed very low, until his hand could reach the hem of her kirtle,which he then raised to his lips. She was infinitely sorry for him; allher anger against him had vanished.
He was very reluctant to go, for this portion of the park was somedistance from the house. But she had commanded and he quite understoodthat she wished to be alone: love such as that which he felt for hissweet lady is ever watchful, yet ever discreet. Was it not natural thatshe did not care to look on him after he had angered her so?
She seemed impatient too, and although her feelings towards him hadsoftened, she repeated somewhat nervously: "I pray you go! Good master,I would be alone."
Lambert hesitated a while longer, he looked all round him as ifsuspicious of any marauders that might be lurking about. The hour wasnot very late, and had she not commanded him to go?
Nor would he seem to pry on her movements. Having once made up his mindto obey, he did so without reserve. Having kissed the hem of her kirtlehe turned towards the house.
He meant to keep on the tiny footpath, which she would be bound totraverse after him, when she returned. He felt sure that something wouldwarn him if she really needed his help.
The park and woodland were still: only the mournful hooting of an owl,the sad sighing of the wind in the old elms broke the peaceful silenceof this summer's night.