Leroy Scott - "No. 13 Washington Square"

F. Marion Crawford - "Don Orsino"

David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher - "Secret Societies"

Leon Heuzey (1831 1922) - "Mythes chaldeens"

Books: Book review: 'The Mercy Papers' and 'Downtown Owl'
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The Touchstone of Fortune written by Charles Major

C >> Charles Major >> The Touchstone of Fortune




Betty laughed softly, and fat old Lilly chuckled as he resumed his place
at his desk.

There being no mirror in the room, Frances put her hand to her face and
found traces of printers' ink on her fingers, whereupon she blushed and
laughed and was so beautiful that we all laughed from the sheer delight
of looking at her.

"Again Baron Ned is right, Frances," said Hamilton, offering to lead her
toward the St. George door. "You must not remain. We may be surprised by
the sheriffs at any moment, in which case you would suffer in reputation
and I might not be able to escape."

We passed into the tapestried room, and after Hamilton had closed the
St. George door, we paused for a moment before leaving. Presently I
started to go, but Frances held back. I had reached the outer door and
was waiting, somewhat impatiently, when Betty came up to me, opened the
door, drew me outside, closed the door, and whispered:--

"Don't you understand? They would be alone a moment."

"Do you think so, Betty?" I asked, laughing at her earnestness.

"I know it," she returned emphatically.

When George and Frances were alone, she said: "I shall never again give
you cause to say that I am cruel, for I shall never again see you." She
tried to keep back the tears, but failed, and after a moment, continued,
unheeding them, "If you could but know the joy this meeting has given me
and the grief of parting, you would understand my sorrow for having
wronged you, and would know the deep pain of farewell."

"I have not spoken of my love for you," said George, "because it is so
plain that words are not needed to express it, and because you have known
it far better than I could tell it ever since the sweet days on the
Bourne Path. To speak it would seem to mar it by half expression. But
it will be yours always, and I shall take it to my grave. It has been
my redemption, and, as long as I live, no other woman shall enter my
heart."

He fell to his knee, catching her hands and kissing them passionately,
but she raised him, saying:--

"If it is your will, I shall refuse the Duke of Tyrconnel, regardless of
my duty to my father and my house, and shall wait for you, happy even in
the waiting, or share your fortune, be it good or ill, from this hour.
Which shall it be?"

"Soon I shall be an exile, or climbing the steps of a scaffold on Tyburn
Hill. This must be our farewell. Do not remain a moment longer. May God
help me and bring happiness to you!" said Hamilton, answering her
question all too plainly.

She drew his face down to hers and kissed his lips, till from very fear
of himself he thrust her from him and led her weeping to the outer door.

When Frances came out to Betty and me, she was holding her handkerchief
to her eyes and her vizard was hanging by its chain.

Sympathetic Betty lifted the vizard, saying: "Cover your face till we go
to my room. Poor mistress! It must be all awry with your love, and I have
heard that there is no pain like it."

We climbed the steps, and, as we were going across the yard, Betty twined
her arm about Frances's waist. Wishing to comfort her by changing the
subject, she said:--

"I have neither powder nor rouge in my room, but I have black patches,
though I have never dared to use one, fearing to be accused of aping the
great ladies."

"Betty, there are no great ladies so good and beautiful as you," said
Frances, trying to check her weeping. "If I were a man, you should not go
long without a chance for a husband."

"Oh, I've had chances in plenty," answered Betty, proudly. "But father
says I'm too hard to suit and will die a maid. He says I want a
gentleman, and--" (Here she sighed and glanced involuntarily toward me.)
"He is right. I will have none other."

"Seek lower and fare better," said Frances.

"I don't know how it will all turn out," replied Betty with a sigh.
The topic seemed to be alive with sighs. "A woman may not choose, and
I suppose I shall one day take the man my father chooses, having no part
in the affair myself, though it is the most important one in my life."

"Nonsense, Betty," returned Frances. "You are like the rest of us, and
when the right one comes, you will seek him if need be--in a cellar. Take
my advice, Betty, when the right one comes, help him, and thank me ever
after."

When we entered the house, Frances went with Betty to her room, leaving
me in the tap-room, waiting to take my foolish cousin home.

To say that I was troubled would feebly express my state of mind. All my
dreams of fortune for Frances and glory for her family had vanished. I
did not know at that time that she and Hamilton had agreed never to meet
again, though had I known, I should have put little faith in the compact.




CHAPTER VIII

IN FEAR OF THE KING


When Frances came downstairs, she and I started home, walking first down
Gracious Street, and then through Upper Thames Street toward Temple Bar.
It was no time to scold her, since I was sure that she knew quite as well
as I could tell her the folly and the recklessness of what she had just
done. I also believed there must have been an overpowering motive back of
it all, and that being true, I knew that nothing I could say would in any
way induce her to repent at present or forbear in future. I might bring
her to regret, but regret is a long journey from repentance. If her heart
had gone so far beyond her control as to cause her to seek Hamilton, as
she had done that day, it were surely a profitless task for me to try to
put her right. If she, who was modest, honest, and strong, could not
right herself, trying as I knew she had tried, no one else could do it
for her.

Even my silence seemed to be a reproach, so I tried to think of something
to say which would neither bear upon what she had done nor seem to avoid
it.

After a moment or two, Betty, that is, thoughts of her, came to my
relief, and I said: "If Betty were at court, she would rival the best of
the beauties. There's a charm about the girl which grows on one. I have
known her since she came from school in France, over a year ago, and the
more I see of her the better I like her. She has grace of person and
manner, is well educated, tender of heart, honest, and has wonderful
eyes."

"And dimples," suggested Frances. "You might win her, Baron Ned. I should
like to see you do something foolish to bring you down to my level."

There was a distinct note of sarcasm in her voice, and I felt sure that
if I remained silent there was more to come. I was not disappointed, for
presently, after two or three false starts, she continued:--

"I do not care to hear your comments on what I have just done. I know
quite as well in my simplicity as you in your wisdom the many good
reasons why I should not have visited the Old Swan to-day. I knew before
I started, but I should have gone had the reasons been multiplied a
thousand fold in number and cogency. Therefore, I do not care to hear
your comments on the subject. I should have gone just the same had I
feared that death awaited me. I had but one purpose in life, and for
weeks have had but one--to see him. If I was willing to put aside the
love of my father and all other considerations dear to me, nothing that
you can say will do you any good or be of advantage to me."

"My dear Frances," I replied, "I find no fault with you. I am sorry
you had to do it, but I know it could not be avoided. You were helpless
against an overpowering motive. I am sorry for you, yet I admire you more
than ever before, because of your recklessness. I have always thought you
were cold, or at least that you were wise enough to keep yourself cool,
but now I know that beneath your beauty there is a soul that can burn, a
heart that can yearn, and a reckless disregard of consequences that on
occasion may make a blessed fool of you. It is such women as you who keep
alive the spark of Himself which God first breathed into man. I do not
blame you. I pity you, and am lost in wondering what will come of it
all."

After a long pause, she spoke, sighing: "Although you may not understand
what I mean, there was a great deal of right as well as wrong in what I
did. I owed to his love, which I knew to be true, an acknowledgment of
mine, but more, I had wronged him grievously, and it was right that I
should make what poor amends I could. But right or wrong, I did what I
had to do, and I do not intend to blame myself, nor to hear blame from
any one else. I am perfectly willing that the whole world should know
what I have done--that is, I should be were it not for father."

"Again I say I do not blame you," I returned, "though I wish sincerely
you had not gone."

"Why did you follow me, and how did you know where I had gone?" asked
Frances.

I told her of my visit to her father's house and how, upon my failure to
find her there, I went to the Old Swan.

"I thought it would be better that you should leave the Old Swan with me
than alone," I said. "It would have been better had you taken me with
you."

"Would you have gone with me, knowing my errand?" she asked.

"Yes, gladly," I answered. "When a woman deliberately makes up her mind
to do a thing of this sort, she does it sooner or later, despite heaven,
earth, or the other place to the contrary. I should have gained nothing
by opposing you; I could at least have given color of propriety by going
with you."

We walked up Thames Street till we came to the neighborhood of Baynard's
Castle, where we took boat and went to Whitehall, each of us in silent
revery all the way.

While I was paying the waterman, Frances ran up the stairs to the garden,
and when I followed I saw her talking to the king, so I stopped ten or
twelve paces from them and removed my hat. Being in their lee, the wind
brought the king's words to me, and I imagined, from the loud tone in
which he spoke, that he intended me to hear what he had to say. Perhaps
he suspected that I had helped Frances in her morning's escapade.

"I am greatly disappointed, my angel, my beauty," said the king, "that
you have taken this morning's excursion."

So he knew of her "excursion," and doubtless had instigated the visit of
the sheriffs to the Old Swan.

"What has your angel done this morning to displease her king?" asked
Frances, with a laugh so merry that one might well have supposed it
genuine.

"What has she done this morning?" repeated the king. "She has been to
visit the man who seeks the king's life. That is what she has done."

He had hit the nail squarely on the head at the first stroke, but whether
his accuracy was a mere guess, or the result of knowledge, I did not
know. I trembled, awaiting the outcome of my cousin's conference.

At first Frances appeared to be horror-stricken, and her surprise seemed
to know no bounds, but after a moment of splendid acting, her manner
changed to one of righteous indignation, touched with grief, because the
king had so wrongfully accused her.

"Your Majesty horrifies me!" she exclaimed, stepping back from the king.
"Is there a man in all England who would seek his king's life?"

"There is," returned his Majesty. "And you have been to visit him."

Frances denied nothing. She was simply stunned by grief and benumbed by a
sense of outrage put upon her by the king. So after a moment of
inimitable pantomime, she answered, speaking softly:--

"I fear a gentle madness has touched your Majesty's brain, else you would
not so cruelly accuse me. You have so many weighty affairs to trouble you
and to prey on your mind that it is no wonder--"

"Did you not set out this morning with the avowed purpose of going to
your father's house?" asked the king.

"Yes, your Majesty," she answered soothingly, almost pityingly. "What
then?"

"Did you go there?" asked Charles.

"No, your Majesty."

"Where did you go?"

"Am I a prisoner in Whitehall that I may not come and go at will?" she
asked indignantly, knowing well the maxim of battle that the best way to
meet a charge is by a countercharge. "If so, I pray leave to go home to
my father, where I shall not be spied upon and suspected of evil if I but
go abroad for an hour."

Her grief had changed to indignation, and she turned her face from the
king, drying the supposed tears and exhibiting her temper in irresistible
pantomime. The king was but a man, so of course Frances's tears and her
just anger routed him. A brave man may stand against powder and steel,
but he must flee before fire and flood.

Immediately the king became apologetic: "I do not suspect you of evil,
but of thoughtlessness, my beautiful one," he said, trying to take her
hand, but failing. "Nor have I spied upon you. I heard that you had gone
to the Old Swan to see Hamilton, whom it is said you love."

Pantomime to show great grief and a deep sense of cruel injury, but the
tears ceased to flow because of the fact that she was past tears now.

"I'll leave Whitehall this day!" she said, shaking her head dolefully. "I
am not strong enough to bear your Majesty's unjust frown. I have tried to
do right, tried to please you and the duchess--everybody, and this is my
reward! I know little of Master Hamilton, having seen him only a few
times in all my life. If I had no other cause to shun him, his character
would be sufficient."

Again the handkerchief was brought to the eyes effectively, for the
purpose of giving the king a little time in which to see how grievously
he had wronged her. It required but little time for him to realize how
cruel he had been, and in a moment he said pleadingly:--

"Your king asks your forgiveness. I do not suspect you of having gone
to see Hamilton. I am convinced that I was wrong. But won't you tell
me, please, why you visited the Old Swan? It is a decent tavern, I
understand, but a public place of the sort should not be visited by one
such as you unescorted."

"Your Majesty is right, and I thank you for the reprimand," returned
Frances, drying her eyes. "But Pickering, who is the host of the Old
Swan, has a daughter, Bettina, who is a good girl, far above her station.
She is my friend. I went to see her this morning to drink a cup of
wormwood wine with her. Now you know my reason for going."

Wormwood wine was considered a toper's drink.

Her confusion and modest hesitancy in confessing to the wormwood wine
were so pretty and so convincing that the king laughed and seized her by
the arm affectionately:--

"Ah, at last it is out!" he cried. "I have discovered your sin! I knew
you must have one tucked about you somewhere. Wormwood wine! Absinthe!
The drink of our depraved French friends! Who would have suspected you of
using it?"

"Yes," murmured Frances, glad to be found guilty of the wrong sin.

"Ah, well, we'll have it together here at home," said the king, "so that
you need not go abroad for it hereafter."

"No, no, I shall never again drink wormwood," protested Frances. "Betty
Pickering tells me it causes vapors in the head, horrid waking dreams,
and in the end incurable spasms."

"Your resolution is well taken," returned the king. "We shall seek a
harmless substitute."

At this point in the conversation his Majesty looked toward me, whispered
a word to Frances, and they walked down the garden path to the fountain,
while I waited at Bowling Green for Frances's return. When she came back,
she told me in detail all that passed between her and the king.

After they had left me, the king began to talk, and Frances seldom
interrupted him save to draw him out, knowing that a talking man sooner
or later tells a great deal that he should have left unsaid. This is
especially true if a shrewd listener reads between his words.

"Nelly Gwynn tells me that you love George Hamilton," said the king, "and
in my eyes, that is his greatest crime."

Already his Majesty had told a great deal.

"I am surprised at Mistress Gwynn's imagination and her lack of
truthfulness," returned Frances. "I told her I hated him, and she herself
heard me deny that I knew him when he offered to speak to me two months
ago or more at the Old Swan. Mistress Gwynn kissed him. I refused to
recognize him. I should say that the evidences of affection were against
her rather than me."

"She says, also," continued the king, "that you believe Master Hamilton
killed Roger Wentworth; that you recognized him the night of the
tragedy."

"I said nothing of the sort," answered Frances, emphatically. "I saw but
one man's face distinctly. Here at court I have often seen the man who
killed Roger Wentworth, and I shall tell you his name if you insist. He
is near of kin to your Majesty."

The king knew that she meant his son Crofts, so he hastened away from the
subject.

"Yes, yes, I have suspected as much, but I beg you, Frances, to spare me
the pain of hearing the truth."

"Yes, the truth is a frightful thing," sighed Frances. "Why cannot the
world be made up of pleasing lies? But tell me, does your Majesty mean to
say that the wretch, Hamilton, seeks your life?"

She was seeking information.

"He does, he does," returned the king. "While he was sick at the Old
Swan, one standing outside his door heard him declare his intention to
kill the king. When I heard of the threat, I summoned his physician, one
Doctor Lilly, who, being questioned, admitted that while in a delirium
Hamilton had made threats against the king's life, but that he, Lilly,
had supposed the French king was meant. Lilly is a good faithful subject,
and I often use his astrological knowledge, which is really great, but in
this case I suspect he is trying to shield Hamilton, believing, perhaps,
that the threats meant nothing because they were made in delirium."

"It is horrible to think upon," answered Frances, shivering. "But he has
gone to France, and, thank Heaven, your Majesty is safe. Perhaps he has
gone to kill King Louis."

"How do you know he has gone to France?" asked the king, much interested.

"I had a letter from him. He imagines he is in love with me," answered
Frances, speaking in the letter of truth and with a fine air of calmness.
She had received a letter from George in France, but it was before his
return to England.

"Ah, indeed!" exclaimed the king. "Your news contradicts your avowal that
you are not in love with him."

"Shall I be in love with all who say they are in love with me?" asked
Frances, glancing up to the king.

"God forbid!" he answered. "I would have you in love with but one--one
who loves your voice, your beauty, your goodness."

"Your Majesty may at least rest easy so far as Hamilton is concerned,"
she returned.

"But I am glad that he is out of the country, and shall see to it that he
doesn't come back," said the king.

His Majesty had talked too long, for Frances had learned that his
suspicions of her love of Hamilton were not allayed, despite his pretense
to the contrary.

"I care not where he be so long as he doesn't trouble me," answered
Frances, sighing.

"But if it is not one it is another," said the king, ruefully. "I hear
that the Duke of Tyrconnel is mad for love of you."

This was a welcome opportunity to Frances, and she quickly used it. "Yes.
At least, he says he is. What does your Majesty advise? Shall I marry him
or not?"

"By all means, not!" returned the king, with strong emphasis. "He would
take you from court. Do you return his love?"

"Well--" answered Frances, drooping her head and pausing to allow the
king to fill the blank.

"But you shall not marry him," insisted the king.

"But you would not have me live a maid? Think of the humiliation of
having graven on my tombstone: 'Mistress Frances Jennings, Age 85.' I'm
going to marry the richest man that asks me."

"Odds fish! that's Tyrconnel!" exclaimed the king.

"I'll find a pretext for sending him to the Tower at once."

"If you do," returned Frances, laughing, "there is Little Jermyn. He will
be rich and an earl when his uncle dies."

"I'll send him along with Tyrconnel," declared the king.

"And there is--" began Frances, laughing.

But the king interrupted her, "I'll send every man to the Tower that
wants to marry you, if I depopulate the court."

"But here comes old Lady Castlemain," said Frances, turning to leave the
king. "I can't quarrel with her, because I can't swear with her. May I
take my leave, your Majesty?"

"I am sorry to grant it, but good-by," returned the king.

"Good-by, your Majesty, and thank you," returned Frances, grateful for
much that the king did not know he had told her. Then she came to me and
told me what the king had said, not omitting her conclusions based on
what he had left unsaid.

Frances and I walked over to the park, where we stood for a time watching
the Duke of York and John Churchill playing pall-mall, but the day
growing cold, we soon continued our walk over to the Serpentine, where we
found Tyrconnel and several other gentlemen riding. Tyrconnel dismounted
and, leading his horse, came to us. He took no notice of me, but bowed to
Frances, saying:--

"I hear it from the king himself that Mistress Jennings has been calling
on her friend, George Hamilton, at his lodgings in the Old Swan."

"And if so, is it a matter of which you have any right to speak?" asked
Frances, smiling.

"I have a right to withdraw the proposal of marriage I so foolishly
made," he retorted.

"Yes, my lord," answered Frances, laughing softly. "But you need not be
angry if I am not. How fortunate for me that I had not accepted." Then
turning to leave and looking back at him: "May we not still be friends,
my lord? You have friends at court who are as bad as I, even if what you
say be true. You say it is true; the king says it is true; therefore it
must be true. Two men so wise and honest could not be mistaken in so
small a matter, nor would they lie solely for the purpose of injuring a
woman. No, it must be true, my lord, and I congratulate you on your
timely withdrawal."

We had not taken fifty steps till Tyrconnel gave his horse to a boy and
came running after us, infinitely more eager to retract the withdrawal
than he had been to withdraw his proposal. He protested by all things
holy his total disbelief in the scandalous story, and begged Frances not
to remember what he had said in jealous anger.

"Be careful, my lord. Do not make another mistake," said Frances,
laughing in his face. "I did visit the Old Swan this morning, and the
king told me less than thirty minutes ago that Master Hamilton lives
there. It is said by those who claim to know that he is in France, but
they must be wrong, and I must have seen him. The king says I did, and
he can do no wrong. I neither deny nor affirm, though I fancy that my
real friends will not believe me guilty of the indiscretion."

"I do not believe it," protested Tyrconnel. "I know you are all that is
good."

"Thank you, my lord," returned Frances. "If I am good, I remain so for my
own sake. As for the gossips, they may think what they please, talk about
me to their hearts' content, and go to the devil for his content, if he
can find it in them."

Seeing that Tyrconnel wanted to speak with Frances alone, I drew to a
little distance for the purpose of giving him an opportunity to press his
suit, in which I so heartily wished him success.

It is uphill work making love to a woman whose heart is filled to
overflowing with love of another man, and I was sorry for poor earnest
Tyrconnel as I watched him pleading his case with Frances. He was not a
burning light intellectually, but he entertained a just estimate of
himself and was wise enough not to take any one of the daintily baited
hooks that were dangled before him by some of the fairest anglers in
England. But manlike, he yearned for the hook that was not in the water.

I followed Frances and Tyrconnel back to the palace, and when they parted
at the King's Street Gate, he asked me to go with him to the sign of the
King's Head and have a tankard of mulled sack and a breast of Welsh
mutton right off the spit.

Tyrconnel's speech was made up of an amusing lisp grafted on the broadest
Irish brogue ever heard outside of Killarney. It cannot be reproduced in
print; therefore I shall not attempt it. But it was so comical that one
could never rid one's self of a desire to laugh, be his Lordship ever so
earnest. As a result of this amusing manner of speech, his most serious
words never produced a thoughtful impression on his hearers. It is said
that the king once laughed when Tyrconnel, in tears, told him of the
death of his Lordship's mother.

Arriving at the King's Head, Tyrconnel chose a table in a remote alcove
of the dining room. After the maid had brought us the mulled sack and had
gone to fetch the mutton, his Lordship began earnestly, but laughably, to
tell me his troubles, and I did my best to listen seriously, though with
poor result.

"I want to marry your cousin, baron," he said. "Yes, yes, go on. Laugh! I
don't mind it. I know you can't help it. But listen. I want to marry her
because she is beautiful and because I know she is good. But if she is in
love with Hamilton, as report says she is, I should not want to inflict
my suit upon her. I know that at best I am no genius, but I am not so
great a fool as to seek an opportunity to make myself appear more stupid
than I am. Of course she can never marry Hamilton, but a hopeless love
clings to a woman as burning oil to the skin and is well-nigh as
impossible to extinguish. Therefore I beg you tell me. Shall I beat a
retreat and take care of my wounded, or shall I continue the battle?"