The Nest of the Sparrowhawk: A Romance of the XVIIth Century
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CHAPTER XXIII
THE ABSENT FRIEND
The prince kept his word, and she was fairly free to see him at leastonce a week, somewhere within the leafy thicknesses of the park or inthe woods, usually at the hour when dusk finally yields to theoverwhelming embrace of night.
Sir Marmaduke was away. In London or Canterbury, she could not say, butshe had scarcely seen him since that terrible time, when he came backfrom town having left Richard Lambert languishing in disgrace and inprison.
Oh! how she missed the silent and thoughtful friend who in those days ofpride and of joy had angered her so, because he seemed to stand forconscience and for prudence, when she only thought of happiness and oflove.
There was an almost humiliating isolation about her now. Nobody seemedto care whither she went, nor when she came home. Mistress de Chavassetalked from time to time about Sue's infatuation for the mysteriousforeign adventurer, but always as if this were a thing of the past, andfrom which Sue herself had long since recovered.
Thus there was no one to say her nay, when she went out into the gardenafter evening repast, and stayed there until the shades of night hadlong since wrapped the old trees in gloom.
And strangely enough this sense of freedom struck her with a chill senseof loneliness. She would have loved to suddenly catch sight of Lambert'swatchful figure, and to hear his somewhat harsh voice, warning heragainst the foreigner.
This had been wont to irritate her twelve weeks ago. How mysteriouslyeverything had altered round her!
And yearning for her friend, she wondered what had become of him. Thelast she had heard was toward the middle of October when Sir Marmaduke,home from one of his frequent journeyings, one day said that Lambert hadbeen released after ten weeks spent in prison, but that he could not saywhither he had gone since then.
All Sue's questionings anent the young man only brought forth violentvituperations from Sir Marmaduke, and cold words of condemnation fromMistress de Chavasse; therefore, she soon desisted, storing up in herheart pathetic memories of the one true friend she had in the world.
She saw without much excitement, and certainly without tremor, the rapidadvance of that date early in November when she would perforce have toleave Acol Court in order to follow her husband whithersoever he choseto command her.
The last time that they had met there had been a good deal of talkbetween them, about her fortune and its future disposal. He declaredhimself ready to administer it all himself, as he professed a distrustof those who had watched over it so far--Master Skyffington, the lawyer,and Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, both under the control of the Court ofChancery.
She explained to him that the bulk of her wealth consisted ofobligations and shares in the Levant and Russian Companies, her motherhaving been the only daughter and heiress of Peter Ford the greatLevantine and Oriental merchant; her marriage with the proud Earl ofDover having caused no small measure of comment in Court circles inthose days.
There were also deeds of property owned in Holland, grants of monopoliesfor trading given by Ivan the Terrible to her grandfather, and receiptsfor moneys deposited in the great banks of Amsterdam and Vienna. MasterSkyffington had charge of all those papers now: they represented nearlyfive hundred thousand pounds of money and she told her husband that theywould all be placed in her own keeping, the day she was of age.
He appeared to lend an inattentive ear to all these explanations, whichshe gave in those timid tones, which had lately become habitual to her,but once--when she made a slip, and talked about a share which shepossessed in the Russian Company being worth L50,000, he corrected herand said it was a good deal more, and gave her some explanations as tothe real distribution of her capital, which astonished her by theirlucidity and left her vaguely wondering how it happened that he knew.She had finally to promise to come to him at the cottage in Acol on the2d of November--her twenty-first birthday--directly after her interviewwith the lawyer and with her guardian, and having obtained possession ofall the share papers, the obligations, the grants of monopolies and thereceipts from the Amsterdam and Vienna banks, to forthwith bring themover to the cottage and place them unreservedly in her husband's hands.
And she would in her simplicity and ignorance gladly have given everyscrap of paper--now in Master Skyffington's charge--in exchange for areturn of those happy illusions which had surrounded the early historyof her love with a halo of romance. She would have given this mysteriousprince, now her husband, all the money that he wanted for this wonderful"great work" of his, if he would but give her back some of thatenthusiastic belief in him which had so mysteriously been killed withinher, that fateful moment in the vestry at Dover.