The Highwayman (Bailey)/Chapter VII
With grim irony Harry congratulated himself on his decision. When first he came into the house he heard Alison singing. There was indeed (as he told himself clearly) nothing wonderful about her voice—it resembled the divine only in being still and small. Yet he could not (he called himself still more clearly a fool) keep away from it, and so he slunk into Lady Waverton's drawing-room. Only duty and stated hours were wont to drag him there. Lady Waverton showed her appreciation of his unusual attendance by staring at him across the massed trifles of the room with sleepy and insolent amazement. But it was not the glassy eyes of Lady Waverton which convinced Harry that flight was the true wisdom. Over Alison at the harpsichord, Geoffrey hung tenderly: their shoulders touched, eyes answered eyes, and miss was radiant. She sang at him with a naughty archness that song of Mr. Congreve's:
"Thus to a ripe consenting maid,<poem>
Poor old repenting Delia said,
Would you long preserve your lover?
Would you still his goddess reign?
Never let him all discover,
Never let him much obtain.
Men will admire, adore and die
While wishing at your feet they lie;
But admitting their embraces
Wakes 'em from the golden dream:
Nothing's new besides our faces,
Every woman is the same."
She contorted her own face into smug folly by way of illustration. Then she and Geoffrey laughed together. "I vow you're the most deliciously wicked creature that ever was born a maid."
"D'ye regret it, sir? Faith, I could not well be born a wife."
"No, ma'am, that's an honour to be won by care and pains."
"Pains! Lud, yes, I believe that. But, dear sir, I reckon it the punishment for folly. Why,"—she chose to see Harry—"why, here is our knight of the rueful countenance!"
Mr. Waverton laughed. "It is related of the Egyptians—"
"God help us," Alison murmured.
He went on, giggling. "It is related of the Ancient Egyptians that they ever had a corpse among the guests at their feasts."
"Were their cooks so bad?" said Alison.
"To remind them that all men are mortal. Now you see why we keep Harry."
"I wonder if he looked as happy when he was alive," said Alison, surveying his wooden face.
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't like it known."
Colonel Boyce, who had listened to the song and the first coruscations of wit with the condescending smile of a connoisseur, now exhibited some impatience. "Egad, Harry, why will you dress like a parson out at elbows?"
"His customary suit of solemn black," said Geoffrey.
"He is in mourning for himself, of course," Alison laughed.
"I have two suits of clothes, ma'am," said Harry meekly. "This is the better."
"Poor Harry!" Geoffrey granted him a look of protective affection. "I vow we are too hard on him, Alison." And then in a lower voice for her private ear. "A dear, worthy fellow, but—well, what would you have?—of no spirit." Alison bit her lip.
"Oh, Mr. Waverton," Harry protested, "indeed, I am proud to be the cause of such wit."
Colonel Boyce stared at his son with an enigmatic frown. Alison's eyes brightened. But Geoffrey suspected no guile. "Not witty thyself, dear lad, but the cause of wit in others, eh? Odds life, Harry, you are invaluable."
"'Tis your kindness for me makes you think so, Mr. Waverton. And, to be sure, I could ask no more than to amuse your lady."
Alison said tartly, "Oh, it takes little to amuse me, sir."
"I am sure, ma'am," Harry agreed meekly.
"It's a happy nature." and he bowed to Geoffrey, humbly congratulating him on a lady of such simple tastes.
Geoffrey, who had now had enough of his good tutor, eliminated him by a compliment or so on Alison's voice and the demand that she should sing again. He found her in an awkward temper. She would not sing this, she would not sing that, she found faults in every song known to Mr. Waverton. Yet in a fashion she was encouraging. For this new method of keeping him off was governed by a queer adulation of him: no song in the world could be worth his distinguished attention; her little voice must be to his accomplished ear vain and ludicrous; the kind things he was so good as to say were vastly gratifying, to be sure, but they were merely his kind condescension. And, oh Lud, it was time she was gone, or poor, dear Weston would be imagining her slaughtered on the highway.
Geoffrey could not make much of this, but was pleased to take it as flattering feminine homage to his magnificence. By way of reward, he announced an intention of riding home with her carriage. "Faith, you are too good"—her eyes were modestly hidden—"but then you are too good to everybody. Is he not, Mr. Boyce?"
"Oh, ma'am, we all practise on his kindness," Harry said.
"A good night to your mourning," she said sharply, "dear Lady Waverton." They kissed. "Colonel Boyce, I hold you to your promise."
"With all my heart, ma'am. Your devoted."
She was gone, and Harry, with a look of significance at his father, went off too.…
In that shabby upper chamber of his, Harry again offered the Colonel a choice between the bed and the one chair. Colonel Boyce made a gesture and an exclamation of impatience, and remained standing. "Now, what the devil do you want with me?" he complained.
"I want to be very grateful. I want to enlist with you. When shall we start?"
His father frowned, and in a little while made a crooked answer, "Do you know, Harry, you are too mighty subtle. I was so at your years. It's very pretty sport, but—well, it won't butter your parsnips. The women can't tell what to make of it. Having, in general, no humour, pretty creatures."
"I am obliged for the sermon, sir. Shall we leave to-morrow?"
"Egad, you are in a fluster," his father smiled. "Well, to be sure, he is a teasing fellow, the beautiful Geoffrey."
Harry made an exclamation. "You'll forgive me, sir, if I say you are talking nonsense."
"Oh Lud, yes," his father chuckled.
"Whether I am agreeable to women, whether Mr. Waverton is agreeable to me—odds life, sir, I don't trouble my head about such things. Pray, why should you? As well sit down and cry because my eyes are not the same colour."
"No. No. There is something taking about that, Harry," his father remonstrated placidly.
"When you please to be in earnest, sir," Harry cried, "if this affair of yours is in earnest—"
"Oh, you may count on that." Colonel Boyce was still enjoying himself.
"Then I am ready for it. And the sooner the better."
"Hurry is a bad horse. The truth is, something more hangs on this affair than Mr. Harry's whims. Oh, damme, I don't blame you, though. He is tiresome, our Geoffrey."
"Why, sir, if we have to waste time, we might waste it more comfortably than with the Waverton family. Shall we say to-morrow?"
Colonel Boyce tapped his still excellent teeth. "Patience, patience," he said, and considered his son gravely. "As for to-morrow, I have friends to see, and so have you. Your pretty miss engaged me to ride over with you to her house. And behind the brave Geoffrey's back, if you please. She is a sly puss, Harry." He expected so obviously an angry answer that Harry chose to disappoint him.
"I shall be happy to take leave of Miss Lambourne. And shall I ride pillion with you, sir? For I have no horse of my own."
"Bah, dear Geoffrey will lend me the best in the stable."
"I give you joy of the progress in his affections."
Colonel Boyce laughed. "You are pledged for the forenoon then," he paused. "And as to that little affair of mine—you shall know your part soon enough."
"It cannot be too soon, sir."
"No." Colonel Boyce nodded. "I think it's full time."
He took leave of his son with what the son thought superfluous affection.
Half an hour afterwards he was in Mr. Waverton's room—a place very precious. Everything in it—and there were many things—had an air of being strange. Mr. Waverton slept behind curtains of black and silver. His floor was covered with some stuff like scarlet velvet. There was a skull in the place of honour on the walls, flanked by two Venetian pictures of the Virgin, and faced by a blowsy Bacchus and Ariadne from Flanders. The chairs were of the newest Italian mode, designed rather to carry as much gilding as possible than to comfort the human form. Colonel Boyce, regarding them with some apprehension, stood himself before the fire and waved off Geoffrey's effusive courtesy.
"I hope you have good news for me, Mr. Waverton?" So he opened the attack.
"Why, sir, I have considered my engagements," Geoffrey said magnificently. "I believe I could hold myself free for some months—if the enterprise were of weight."
"You relieve me vastly. I'll not disguise from you, Mr. Waverton, that I am something anxious to secure you. I could not find a gentleman so well equipped for this delicate business. You'll observe, 'tis of the first importance that we should have presence, an air, the je ne sais quoi of dignity and family."
"Sir, you are very obliging." Geoffrey swallowed it whole.
"When I came here I confess I was at my wit's end. Indeed, I had a mind to go alone. The gentlemen of my acquaintance—either they could not be trusted with an affair of such value, or they had too much of our English coarseness to be at ease with it. Faith, when I came to see my poor, dear Harry, little I thought that in his neighbourhood I should find the very man for my embassy." The two gentlemen laughed together over the incompatibility of Harry with gentlemanly diplomacy.
"Not but what Harry is a faithful, trusty fellow," said Mr. Waverton, with magnificent condescension.
"You are very good to say so. A dolt, sir, a dolt; so much the worse for me. Now, Mr. Waverton, to you I have no need of a word more on the secrecy of the affair. Though, to be sure, this very morning I had another note from Cadogan—Marlborough's âme damnée you know—pressing it on me that nothing should get abroad. So when we go, we'll be off without a good-bye, and if you must leave a word behind for the anxieties of my lady, let her know that you are off with me to see the army in Flanders."
"I profess, Colonel, you are mighty cautious."
"Dear sir, we cannot be too cautious in this affair. There's many a handsome scheme gone awry for the sake of some affectionate farewell. Mothers, wives, lady-loves—sweet luxuries, Mr. Waverton, but damned dangerous. Now here's my plan. We'll go riding on an afternoon and not come back again. Trust my servant to get away quietly with your baggage and mine. We must travel light, to be sure. We'll go round London. I have too many friends there, and I want none of them asking where old Noll Boyce is off to now. Newhaven is the port for us. There is a trusty fellow there has his orders already. I look to land at Le Havre. Now, the Prince, by our latest news, is back at St. Germain. As you can guess, Mr. Waverton, to be seen in Paris would suit my health even less than to be seen in London. Too many honest Frenchmen have met me in the wars, and, what's worse, too many of them know me deep in Marlborough's business. I could not show my face without all King Louis's court talking of some great matter afoot. What I have in mind is to halt on the road—at Pontoise maybe—while you ride on with letters to Prince James. I warrant you they are such, and with such names to them, as will assure you a noble welcome. It's intended that he should quit St. Germain privately with you to conduct him to me. Then I warrant you we shall know how to deal with the lad." He paused and stared at Geoffrey intently, and gradually a grim humour stole into his eyes. He began to laugh. "Egad, I envy you, Mr. Waverton. To be in such an affair at your years—bah, I should have been crazy with pride."
"You need not doubt that I value the occasion, sir," Geoffrey said grandly. "Pray, believe that I shall do honour to your confidence."
"To be sure you will. Odds life, to chaffer with a king's son about kingdoms, to offer a realm to a prince in exile (if only he will be a good boy)—it's a fine, stately affair, sir, and you are the very man to take it in the right vein."
"Sir, you are most obliging. I profess I vaunt myself very happy in your kindness. Be sure that I shall know how to justify you."
"Egad, you do already," Colonel Boyce smiled, still with some touch of cruelty in his eyes.
"Pray, sir, when must we start?"
"When I know, maybe I shall need to start in an hour."
"I shall not fail you. I shall want, I suppose, some funds in hand?"
Colonel Boyce shrugged. "Oh Lud, yes, we'll want some money. A matter of five hundred pounds should serve."
"I will arrange for it in the morning," said Mr. Waverton, too magnificent to be startled. "Pray, what clothes shall we be able to carry?"
"Damme, that's a grave matter," said Colonel Boyce, and with becoming gravity discussed it.