Lochinvar: A Novel

"Ah, Lochinvar," she cooed, "what is this we have heard of you? You come on board the Sea Unicorn off the isle of Suliscanna with one fair maid; you left the city of Amersfort with another. I fear me you have as little as ever of the grace of constancy. But after all, young men, alas! still will be young men. And indeed the age is noways a constant one!"

And my lady sighed as if the fatal gifts of constancy and continence had been the ever-present blights of her own life.

Then, suddenly as the lightning that shines from east to west, it flashed upon Wat how foolish he had been not to tell Kate all the story of the Little Marie. He realized now how easily, nay, how inevitably, all that had happened at the prison and among the sand-dunes might be used to his hurt. So, flushing to the temples, he stood silent.

Kate turned to her lover. A happy light of confidence shone in her eye.

"Tell my lady," she said, "that in her eagerness to think well of you according to her lights, she has given ear to false rumors. Tell her that it was to rescue me from the cruel treachery of my Lord Barra that you broke the prison bars and came over land and sea to take me out of his hands."

Barra smiled subtly, looking keenly at Wat from under the drooping eyelids of his triangular eyes, which glittered like the points of bayonets.

"It is indeed true," said Wat, at last, forcing himself to speak, "that I – that I escaped out of prison and traced this maid over land and sea till I found her a captive on the island of Suliscanna. It was my intention – "

"To return her to her father's care, no doubt," said Barra, dropping his words carefully, like poison into a bowl.

"To beseech her to wed with me so soon as I should reach the main-land," said Wat, bravely.

A change came over the countenance of my Lady Wellwood at the words. Though she had married Roger McGhie, it was not in her nature to let any former gallant cavalier escape her snares, nor yet to permit her plans of great political alliances in the future, based upon the girl's union with Barra, to be brought to naught.

But again the sneering voice of Barra cut the embarrassing silence.

"It was, then, I doubt not, in the company of this lady, whose hand you hold, that you drugged the jailer of Amersfort, broke the prison, and escaped. It was this lady who, being well acquainted with the purlieus of that temple of harlotry, the Hostel of the Coronation, stole three horses from Sheffell, the landlord, and rode with you and your boon companion Scarlett – a man false to as many services as he has sworn allegiance to – out to the sand-dunes of Lis, where you and she abode till you found a passage to England. In all this you had, doubtless, the companionship and assistance of no other woman than this lady, whom with such noble and honorable condescension you now desire to marry. She it was (declare it briefly, true swain) who lied for you, stole for you, fought for you, abode with you, died for you – as the catch has it, 'all for love and nothing for reward.'"

At the close of Barra's speech Kate turned to Wat.

"Tell them," she said, "that there was no such woman with you."

CHAPTER XLI

LOVE THAT THINKETH NO EVIL

Wat stood silent, his face turning slowly from red to ashen white. What an arrant fool he had been, not to tell her all in those sweet hours on the island of Fiara – a score of Little Maries had mattered nothing to her then. Then everything would have been plain and easy. His conscience was indeed perfectly clear. But, partly because with the willing forgetfulness of an ardent lover he had forgotten, and partly because he had shrunk from marring with the name of another those precious hours of blissful communion of which he had hitherto enjoyed so few, he had neglected to tell Kate the tale. He saw his mistake now.

"Tell them, Wat," urged Kate, confidently, "tell them all."

"Aye, tell them all," repeated Barra, grimly, between his teeth, "tell them all your late love did for you, beginning with the favors of which your cousin Will and I were witnesses in the gilded room of the Hostel of the Coronation. Begin at the bottom – with the lady's shoe and the toast you drank out of that most worthy cup!"

Wat still stood silent before them. Kate dropped his hand perplexed, looking into his tragic face with bewildered, uncomprehending eyes.

"Why, Wat, what is the matter, dear love – tell them everything, whatever it is. Do not fear for me," whispered Kate, her true, earnest eyes, full of all faith and love, bent upon him without doubt or question.

"I cannot," he said, hoarsely, at last; "I ought to have told you before – it is so difficult now. But I will tell you all – there is no shame in it when all is told. No, do not take my hand till I have finished."

Then quite clearly and briefly Wat recounted all that had happened to the Little Marie – not sparing himself in the matter of the Inn of the Coronation, where he had been found by Will Gordon and Barra, but chiefly insisting upon the noble self-sacrifice of the girl and her death, welcome and sweet to her because of her love and repentance.

But the tale was told on board the Sea Unicorn under a double burden of difficulty. For the teller was conscious that he ought long ago to have confessed all this to his love; and then the story itself, simple and beautiful in its facts, was riddled and blasted by the bitter comments of Barra, and tinctured to base issues by his blighting sneers.

As Wat went on Kate drooped her head on her breast and clasped her hands before her. Even the love-light was for the moment dimmed in her proud eyes, but only with indignant tears, that her love should so be put to shame before those whom she would have given her life to see compelled to hold him in honor.

The heavy weight of unbelief against which he felt himself pleading in vain, gradually proved too much for Wat Gordon. He stopped abruptly and flung his hand impatiently out.

"I cannot go on," he said; "my words are not credited – of what use is it?"

"As you say, my Lord Lochinvar, of what use is it?" sneered Barra. "That you know best yourself. You were asked a plain question – whether the maid who accompanied you on the first part of your wondrous Ulysses wanderings was the same with whom you arrived on board the Sea Unicorn. To that plain question you have only returned a very crooked answer. Have you nothing else that you can say to finish the lie in a more workmanlike fashion?"

"Jack Scarlett – Scarlett, come hither!" Wat cried, suddenly.

And the master-at-arms, who very characteristically had gone forward to berth with the sailors, came aft as the men on deck passed the word for him.

"Will you tell this lady," said Wat, "what you know of my acquaintance with the Little Marie?"

Whereupon, soberly and plainly, like a soldier, John Scarlett told his tale. But for all the effect it had upon the listeners he might just as well have spoken it to the solan-geese diving in the bay. Wat saw the unbelief settle deeper on the face of Roger McGhie, and the very demon of jealousy and malice wink from under the eyelids of my Lady Wellwood.

"I have a question to ask you, my noble captain of various services," said Barra, "a question concerning this girl and your gallant companion. What did you first think when this Marie joined you with the horses – in page's dress, as I have heard you say – and what when she told you that she had stabbed your friend's enemy and hers to the death?"

"I thought what any other man would think," answered Scarlett, brusquely.

"And afterwards among the sand-dunes of Lis you discovered that all this devotion arose merely from noble, pure, unselfish, platonic love?"

The old soldier was more than a little perplexed by Barra's phrases, which he did not fully understand.

"Yes," he answered at last, with a hesitation which told more against his story than all he had said before.

Barra was quick to seize his advantage.

"You see how faithfully these comrades stick to each other – how touching is such fidelity. The intention is so excellent, even when truth looks out in spite of them through the little joins in the patchwork."

"God!" cried Scarlett, fiercely. "I would I had you five minutes at a rapier's end for a posturing, lying knave – a pitiful, putty-faced dog! I cannot answer your words, though I know them to be mere tongue-shuffling. But with my sword – yes, I could answer with that!"

Barra pointed to his side.

"Had your friend – your friend's friend, I should say – not had me at her dagger's end, I should have been most honored. But the lady has spoilt my attack and parry for many a day. Nevertheless, I suffered in a good cause. For without that our general lover had hardly been allowed to enjoy the Arcadian felicities of the sand-dunes of Lis, nor yet his more recent, and I doubt not as agreeable, retirement to the caves and sea-beaches of my poor island of Fiara."

"You are the devil," cried Scarlett, writhing in fury. "But I shall live to see you damned one day!"

But Barra only smiled as he turned to confer apart a while with Roger McGhie and my lady.

Kate walked to the bulwarks and looked over. Wat stood his ground on the spot on which he had told his story; but Scarlett, as soon as he had finished, stalked away with as much dignity as upon short notice he could import into a pair of very untrustworthy sea-legs.

When the conference was over it was Roger McGhie who spoke, very quietly and gently, as was ever his ancient wont.

"Kate, my lass," he said, "I have never compelled you to aught all my life – rather it hath been the other way, perhaps too much. And I will not urge you now. Do you still wish to forsake your father for this man, whose tale you have heard – a tale which, whatever of truth may be in it, he hath certainly hid from you as long as possible? Or will you return to your own home with me, your father, and with this noble lady, to whom I give you as a daughter?"

Kate stood clasping her hands nervously and looking from one to the other of them.

But it was to Wat that she spoke.

"My true-love, I do not distrust you – do not think that," she said, with her lips pale and trembling, her color coming and going. "I believe every word in spite of them all. Aye, and shall always believe you. For, indeed, I cannot do otherwise and live. But oh, my lad" (here for the first time she broke into a storm of sobs), "if you had only trusted me – only told me – I should not have cared. She could not help loving you – but it was I whom you loved all the while."