Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  He turned away. But he had not taken two paces before Sir Robert touched his shoulder, and with that habit of command which few questioned. “Wait, sir,” he said, “Wait, if you please. You do not escape me so easily. You will attend to me one moment, if you please. Mr. Flixton accompanied Miss Vermuyden, as did her man and maid, to Miss Sibson’s house. She gave that address to Lady Worcester, in whose care she was; and I sought her there this afternoon. But she is not there.” Sir Robert continued, striving to read Vaughan’s face. “The house is empty. So is the house on either side. I can make no one hear.”

  “And you come to me for news of her?” Vaughan asked in the tone he had used throughout. He was very sore.

  “I do.”

  “You do not think that I am the last person of whom you should ask tidings of your daughter?”

  “She came here,” Sir Robert answered sternly, “to see Lady Sybil.”

  Vaughan stared. The answer seemed to be irrelevant. Then he understood. “Oh,” he said, “I see. You are still under the impression that your wife and I are in a conspiracy to delude you? Your daughter also? You think that she is in the plot? And that she gave the schoolmistress’s address to deceive you?”

  “No!” Sir Robert cried. But, after all, that was what he did think. Had he not told himself, more than once, that she was her mother’s daughter? Had he not told himself that it could not have been by chance that Vaughan and she met a second time on the coach? He knew that she had left London and gone to her mother in defiance of him. He knew that. And though she had entwined herself about his heart, though she had seemed to him all gentleness, goodness, truth — she was still her mother’s daughter! Nevertheless, he said “No!” — and said it angrily.

  “Then I do not know what you mean!” Vaughan retorted.

  “I believe that you can tell me something, if you will.”

  Vaughan looked at him. “I have nothing to tell you,” he said.

  “You mean, sir, that you will tell me nothing!”

  “That, if you like.”

  For nearly half a century the old man had found few to oppose him; and now by good luck he had not time to reply. A man running out of the darkness in the direction of Unity Street — the open space was full of moving groups, of alarms and confusion — caught sight of Vaughan’s face, checked himself and addressed him.

  “Mr. Vaughan!” he said. “They are coming! They are making for the Palace! The Bishop must be got away, if he’s not gone! I am fetching the Colonel! The Mayor is following with all he can get together. If you will give warning at the Palace, there will be time for his lordship to escape.”

  “Right!” Vaughan cried, glad to leave his company. And he started without the loss of a moment. Even so, he had not gone twenty paces down the Green before the head of the mob entered it from St. Augustine’s, and passed, with hoarse shouts, along the south side, towards the ancient Archway which led to the Lower Green. It was a question whether he or they reached the Archway first; but he won the race by a score of yards.

  The view from the Lower Green, which embraced the burning gaol, as well as all Queen’s Square and the Floating Basin that islanded it, had drawn together a number of gazers. These impeded Vaughan’s progress, but he got through them at last, and as the mob burst into the Lower Green he entered the paved passage leading to the Precincts, hurried along it, turned the dark elbow near the inner end, and halted before the high gates which shut off the Cloisters. The Palace door was in the innermost or southeast corner of the Cloisters.

  It was very dark at the end of the passage; and fortunately! For the gates were fast closed, and before he could, groping, find the knocker, the rabble had entered the passage behind him and cut off his retreat. The high wall which rose on either side made escape impossible. Nor was this all. As he awoke to the trap in which he had placed himself, a voice at his elbow muttered, “My God, we shall be murdered!” And he learned that Sir Robert had followed him.

  He had no time to remonstrate, nor thought of remonstrance. “Stand flat against the wall!” he muttered, his fingers closing upon the staff in his pocket. “It is our only chance!”

  He had basely spoken before the leaders of the mob swept round the elbow. They had one light, a flare borne above them, which shone on their tarpaulins and white smocks, and on the huge ship-hammers they carried. There was a single moment of great peril, and instinctively Vaughan stepped before the older man. He could not have made a happier movement, for it seemed — to the crowd who caught a glimpse of the two and took them for some of their own party — as if he advanced against the gates along with their leaders.

  The peril indeed, or the worst of it, was over the moment they fell into the ranks. “Hammers to the front!” was the cry. And Sir Robert and Vaughan were thrust back into the second line, that those who wielded the hammers might have room. Vaughan tipped his hat over his face, and the villains who pressed upon the two and jostled them, and whose cries of “Burn him out! Burn the old devil out!” were dictated by greed rather than by hate, were too full of the work in hand to regard their neighbours closely. In three or four minutes — long minutes they seemed to the two inclosed in that unsavoury company — the bars gave way, the gates were thrown open, and Vaughan and Sir Robert, hardly keeping their feet in the rush, were borne into the Cloisters.

  The rabble, with cries of triumph, raced across the dark court to the Palace door and began to use their hammers on that. Vaughan hoped that the Bishop had had warning — as a fact he had escaped some hours earlier. At any rate he and his companion could do no more, and under cover of the darkness they retreated to the porch of a smaller house which opened on the Cloisters. Here they were safe for the time; and, his heart opened and his tongue loosed by the danger through which they had passed, he turned to his companion and remonstrated with him.

  “Sir Robert,” he said, “this is no place for a man of your years.”

  “England will soon be no place for any man of my years,” the Baronet answered bitterly. “I would your leaders, sir, were here to see their work! I would Lord Grey were here to see how well his friends carry out his hints!”

  “I doubt if he would be more pleased than you or I!” Vaughan answered. “In the meantime — —”

  “The soldiers! Have a care!” The alarm came from the gate by which they had entered, and Vaughan broke off, with an exclamation of joy. “We have them now!” he said. “And red-handed! Brereton has only to close the passage, and he must take them all!”

  But the rioters took that view also, and the alarm. And they streamed out panic-stricken. When the soldiers rode in, Brereton at their head, not more than twenty or thirty remained in the Precincts. And on that followed the most remarkable of all the scenes that disgraced Bristol that night; the scene which beyond others convinced many of the complicity of the troops, if not of the Government, in the outrage.

  Not a man could leave the Palace except with the troops’ good-will. Yet they let the rascals pass. In vain a handful of constables — who had arrived on the heels of the military — exerted themselves to seize the worst offenders, and such as passed with plunder in their hands. The soldiers discouraged the attempt, and even beat back the constables. “Let them go! Let them go!” was the cry. And the nimbleness of the scamps in effecting their escape was greeted with laughter and applause.

  Vaughan and the companion whom fate had so strangely joined saw it with indignation. But Vaughan had made up his mind that he would not approach Brereton again; and he controlled himself, until a blackguard bolting from the Palace with his arms full of spoil was seized, close to him, by an elderly man, who seemed to be one of the Bishop’s servants. The two wrestled fiercely, the servant calling for help, the soldiers looking on and laughing. A moment and the two fell to the ground, the servant undermost. He uttered a cry of pain.

  That was too much for Vaughan. He sprang forward, dragged the ruffian from his prey, and with his other hand he drew his staff. He was about to strike his pri
soner — for the man continued to struggle desperately — when a voice above them shouted “Put that up! Put that up!” And a trooper urged his horse almost on the top of them, at the same time threatening him with his naked sword.

  Vaughan lost his temper at that. “You blackguard!” he cried. “Stand back. The man is my prisoner!”

  For answer the soldier struck at him. Fortunately the blade was turned by his hat and only the flat alighted on his head. But the man, drunk or reckless, repeated the blow, and this time would certainly have cut him down if Sir Robert, with a quickness beyond his years, had not turned aside the stroke with his walking-cane. At the same time “Are you mad?” he shouted peremptorily. “Where is your Colonel?”

  The tone, rather than the words, sobered the trooper. He swore sulkily, reined in his horse, and moved back to his fellows. Sir Robert turned to Vaughan, who, dazed by the blow, was leaning against the porch of the house. “I hope you are not wounded?” he said.

  “It’s thanks to you, sir, he’s not killed!” the man whom Vaughan had rescued, replied; and he hung about him solicitously. “He’d have cut him to the chin! Ay, to the chin he would!” with quavering gusto.

  Vaughan was regaining his coolness. He tried to smile. “I hardly saw — what happened,” he said. “I am only sure I am not hurt. Just — a rap on the head!”

  “I am glad that it is no worse,” Sir Robert said gravely. “Very glad!” Now it was over he had to bite his lower lip to repress its trembling.

  “You feel better, sir, now?” the servant asked, addressing Vaughan.

  “Yes, yes,” Vaughan said. But after that he was silent, thinking. And Sir Robert was silent, too. The soldiers were withdrawing; the constables, outraged and indignant, were following them, declaring aloud that they were betrayed. And for certain the walls of the Cathedral had looked down on few stranger scenes, even in those troubled days when the crosslets of the Berkeleys first shone from their casements.

  Vaughan thought of the thing which had happened; and what was he to say? The position was turned upside down. The obligation was on the wrong person; the boot was on the wrong foot. If he, the young, the strong, and the injured, had saved Sir Robert, that had been well enough. But this? It required some magnanimity to take it gracefully, to bear it with dignity.

  “I owe you sincere thanks,” he said at last, but awkwardly and with constraint.

  “The blackguard!” Sir Robert cried.

  “You saved me, sir, from a very serious injury.”

  “It was as much threat as blow!” Sir Robert rejoined.

  “I don’t think so,” Vaughan answered. And then he was silent, finding it hard to say more. But after a pause, “I can only make you one return,” he said with an effort. “Perhaps you will believe me when I say, that upon my honour I do not know where your daughter is. I have neither spoken to her nor communicated with her since I saw her in Queen’s Square in May. And I know nothing of Lady Sybil.”

  “I am obliged to you,” Sir Robert said.

  “If you believe me,” Vaughan said. “Not otherwise!”

  “I do believe you, Mr. Vaughan.” And Sir Robert said it as if he meant it.

  “Then that is something gained,” Vaughan answered, “besides the soundness of my head.” Try as he might he felt the position irksome, and was glad to seek refuge in flippancy.

  Sir Robert removed his hat, and stood in perplexity. “But where can she be then?” he asked. “If you know nothing of her.”

  Vaughan paused before he answered. Then “I think I should look for her in Queen’s Square,” he suggested. “In that neighbourhood neither life nor property will be safe until Bristol comes to its senses. She should be removed, therefore, if she be there.”

  “I will take your advice and try the house again,” Sir Robert answered. “I think you are right, and I am much obliged to you.”

  He put his hat on his head, but removed it to salute his cousin. “Thank you,” he repeated, “I am much obliged to you.” And he departed slowly across the court.

  Halfway to the entrance, he paused, and fingered his chin. He went on again — again he paused. He took a step or two, turned, hesitated. At last he came slowly back.

  “Perhaps you will go with me?” he asked.

  “You are very good,” Vaughan answered, his voice shaking a little. Was it possible that Sir Robert meant more than he said? It did seem possible.

  But after all they did not go out that way. For, as they approached the broken gates, shouts of “Reform!” and “Down with the Lords!” warned them that the rioters were returning. And the Bishop’s servant, approaching them anew, insisted on taking them through the Palace, and by way of the garden and a low wall conducted them into Trinity Street. Here they were close to the Drawbridge which crossed the water to the foot of Clare Street; and they passed over it, one of them walking with a lighter heart, notwithstanding Mary’s possible danger, than he had borne for weeks. Soon they were in Queen’s Square, and, avoiding as far as possible the notice of the mob, were knocking doggedly at Miss Sibson’s door. But by that time the Palace, high above them on College Green, had burst into flames, and, a mark for all the countryside, had flung the red banner of Reform to the night.

  XXXIII

  FIRE

  Sir Robert and his companion might have knocked longer and more loudly, and still to no purpose. For the schoolmistress, prepared to witness a certain amount of disorder on the Saturday, had been taken aback by the sight which met her eyes when she rose on Sunday morning. And long before noon she had sent her servants to their friends, locked up her house, and gone next door, to dispel by her cheerful face and her comfortable common sense the fears which she knew would prevail there. The sick lady was not in a state to withstand alarm; Mary was a young girl and timid; and neither the landlady nor Lady Sybil’s maid were persons of strong mind. Miss Sibson felt that here was an excellent occasion for the display of that sturdy indifference with which firm nerves and a long experience of Bristol elections had endowed her.

  “La, my dear,” was her first remark, “it’s all noise and nonsense! They look fierce, but there’s not a man of them all, that if I took him soundly by the ear and said, ‘John Thomas Gaisford, I know you well and your wife! You live in the Pithay, and if you don’t go straight home this minute I’ll tell her of your goings on!’ — there’s not one of them, my dear,” with a jolly laugh, “wouldn’t sneak off with his tail between his legs! Hurt us, my lady? I’d like to see them doing it. Still, it will be no harm if we lock the door downstairs, and answer no knocks. We shall be cosy upstairs, and see all that’s to be seen besides!”

  These were Miss Sibson’s opinions, a little after noon on the Sunday. Nor, when the day began to draw in, without abating the turmoil, did she recant them aloud. But when the servant of the house, who found amusement in listening at the locked door to the talk of those who passed, came open-eyed to announce that the people had fired the Bridewell, and were attacking the gaol, Miss Sibson did rub her nose reflectively. And privately she began to wonder whether the prophecies of evil, which both parties had sown broadcast, were to be fulfilled.

  “It’s that nasty Brougham!” she said. “Alderman Daniel told me that he was stirring up the devil; and we’re going to get the dust. But la, bless your ladyship,” she continued comfortably, “I know the Bristol lads, and they’ll not hurt us. Just a gaol or two, for the sake of the frolic. My dear, your mother’ll have her tea, and will feel the better for it. And we’ll draw the curtains and light the lamps and take no heed. Maybe there’ll be bones broken, but they’ll not be ours!”

  Lady Sybil, with her face turned away, muttered something about Paris.

  “Well, your ladyship knows Paris and I don’t,” the schoolmistress replied respectfully. “I can fancy anything there. But you may depend upon it, my lady, England is different. I know old Alderman Daniel calls Lord John Russell ‘Lord John Robespierre,’ and says he’s worse than a Jacobin. But I’ll never believe h
e’d cut the King’s head off! Never! And don’t you believe it, either, my lady. No, English are English! There’s none like them, and never will be. All the same,” she concluded, “I shall set ‘Honour the King!’ for a copy when the young ladies come back.”

  Her views might not have convinced by themselves. But taken with tea and buttered toast, a good fire and a singing kettle, they availed. Lady Sybil was a shade easier that afternoon; and, naturally of a high courage, found a certain alleviation in the exciting doings under her windows. She was gracious to Miss Sibson, whose outpourings she received with languid amusement; and when Mary was not looking, she followed her daughter’s movements with mournful eyes. Uncertain as the wind, she was this evening in her best mood; as patient as she could be fractious, and as gentle as she was sometimes violent. She scouted the notion of danger with all Miss Sibson’s decision; and after tea she insisted that the lights should be shaded, and her couch be wheeled to the window, in order that, propped high with pillows, she might amuse herself with the hurly-burly in the Square below.

  “To be sure,” Miss Sibson commented, “it will do no good to anyone, this; and many a poor chap will suffer for it by and by. That’s the worst of these Broughams and Besoms, my lady. It’s the low down that swallow the dust. It’s very fine to cry ‘King and Reform!’ and drink the Corporation wine! But it will be ‘Between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the bar!’ one of these days! And their throats will be dry enough then!”

  “Poor misguided people!” Mary murmured.

  “They’ve all learned the Church Catechism,” the schoolmistress replied shrewdly. “Or they should have; it’s lucky for them — ay, you may shout, my lads — that there’s many a slip between the neck and the rope — Lord ha’ mercy!”

  The last words fitted the context well enough; but they fell so abruptly from her lips that Mary, who was bending over her mother, looked up in alarm. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Only,” Miss Sibson answered with composure, “what I ought to have said long ago — that nothing can be worse for her ladyship than the cold air that comes in at the cracks of this window!”