The Nest of the Sparrowhawk

Fate for once favored him; a half-contemptuous desire to do something for this out-at-elbows Kentish squire who had certainly been a loyal adherent of the Commonwealth, caused my Lord Protector to favor his application. The rich daughter of the Marquis of Dover was placed under the guardianship of Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse with an allowance of £4,000 a year for her maintenance, until she came of age. A handsome fortune and stroke of good luck for a wise and prudent man:—a drop in an ocean of debts, difficulties and expensive tastes, in the case of Sir Marmaduke.

A prolonged visit to London with a view either of gaining a foothold in the new Court, or of drawing the attention of the malcontents, of Monk and his party, or even of the Royalists, to himself, resulted in further debts, in more mortgages, more bitter disappointments.

The man himself did not please. His personality was unsympathetic; Lady Sue's money which he now lavished right and left, bought neither friendship nor confidence. He joined all the secret clubs which in defiance of Cromwell's rigid laws against betting and gambling, were the resort of all the smart gentlemen in the town. Ill-luck at hazard and dice pursued him: he was a bad loser, quarrelsome and surly. His ambition had not taught him the salutary lesson of how to make friends in order to attain his desires.

His second return to the ancestral home was scarcely less disastrous than the first; a mortgage on his revenues as guardian of Lady Sue Aldmarshe just saved him this time from the pursuit of his creditors, and this mortgage he had only obtained through false statements as to his ward's age.

As he told his sister-in-law a moment ago, he was at his last gasp. He had perhaps just begun to realize that he would never succeed through the force of his own individuality. Therefore, money had become a still more imperative necessity to him. He was past forty now. Disappointed ambition and an ever rebellious spirit had left severe imprints on his face: his figure was growing heavy, his prominent lips, unadorned by a mustache, had an unpleasant downward droop, and lately he had even noticed that the hair on the top of his head was not so thick as of yore.

The situation was indeed getting desperate, since Lady Sue would be of age in three months, when all revenues for her maintenance would cease.

"Methinks her million will go to one of those young jackanapes who hang about her," sighed Mistress de Chavasse, with almost as much bitterness as Sir Marmaduke had shown.

Her fortunes were in a sense bound up with those of her brother-in-law. He had been most unaccountably kind to her of late, a kindness which his many detractors attributed either to an infatuation for his brother's widow, or to a desire to further irritate his uncle the Earl of Northallerton, who—a rigid Puritan himself—hated the play-actress and her connection with his own family.

"Can naught be done, Marmaduke?" she asked after a slight pause, during which she had watched anxiously the restless figure of her brother-in-law as he paced up and down the narrow hall.

"Can you suggest anything, my dear Editha?" he retorted roughly.

"Pshaw!" she ejaculated with some impatience, "you are not so old, but you could have made yourself agreeable to the wench."

"You think that she would have fallen in love with her middle-aged guardian?" he exclaimed with a harsh, sarcastic laugh. "That girl? . . . with her head full of romantic nonsense . . . and I . . . in ragged doublet, with a bald head, and an evil temper . . . Bah!!! . . . But," he added, with an unpleasant sneer, "'tis unselfish and disinterested on your part, my dear Editha, even to suggest it. Sue does not like you. Her being mistress here would not be conducive to your comfort."

"Nay! 'tis no use going on in this manner any longer, Marmaduke," she said dejectedly. "Pleasant times will not come my way so long as you have not a shilling to give me for a new gown, and cannot afford to keep up my house in London."

She fully expected another retort from him—brutal and unbridled as was his wont when money affairs were being discussed. He was not accustomed to curb his violence in her presence. She had been his helpmeet in many unavowable extravagances, in the days when he was still striving after a brilliant position in town. There had been certain rumors anent a gambling den, whereat Mistress de Chavasse had been the presiding spirit and which had come under the watchful eye of my Lord Protector's spies.

Now she had perforce to share her brother-in-law's poverty. At any rate he provided a roof over her head. On the advent of Lady Sue Aldmarshe into his bachelor establishment he called on his sister-in-law for the part of duenna.

At one time the fair Editha had exercised her undoubted charms over Marmaduke's violent nature, but latterly she had become a mere butt for his outbursts of rage. But now to her astonishment, and in response to her petulant reproach, his fury seemed to fall away from him. He threw his head back and broke out into uncontrolled, half-sarcastic, almost defiant laughter.

"How blind you are, my dear Editha," he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "Nay! an I mistake not, in that case there will be some strange surprises for you within the next three months. I pray you try and curb your impatience until then, and to bear with the insolence of a serving wench, 'Twill serve you well, mine oath on that!" he added significantly.

Then without vouchsafing further explanations of his enigmatic utterances, he turned on his heel—still laughing apparently at some pleasing thought—and walked upstairs, leaving her to meditate.

CHAPTER V

THE LEGAL ASPECT

Mistress de Chavasse sat musing, in that high-backed chair, for some considerable time. Anon Sir Marmaduke once more traversed the hall, taking no heed of her as he went out into the garden. She watched his broad figure moving along the path and then crossing the rustic bridge until it disappeared among the trees of the park.

There was something about his attitude of awhile ago which puzzled her. And with puzzlement came an inexplicable fear: she had known Marmaduke in all his moods, but never in such an one as he had displayed before her just now. There had been a note almost of triumph in the laughter with which he had greeted her last reproach. The cry of the sparrowhawk when it seizes its prey.

Triumph in Sir Marmaduke filled her with dread. No one knew better than she did the hopeless condition of his financial status. Debt—prison perhaps—was waiting for him at every turn. Yet he seemed triumphant! She knew him to have reached those confines of irritability and rebellion against poverty which would cause him to shrink from nothing for the sake of gaining money. Yet he seemed triumphant!

Instinctively she shuddered as she thought of Sue. She had no cause to like the girl, yet would she not wish to see her come to harm.

She did not dare avow even to herself the conviction which she had, that if Sir Marmaduke could gain anything by the young girl's death, he would not hesitate to . . . Nay! she would not even frame that thought. Marmaduke had been kind to her; she could but hope that temptation such as that, would never come his way.

Hymn-of-Praise Busy broke in on her meditations. His nasal tones—which had a singular knack of irritating her as a rule—struck quite pleasingly on her ear, as a welcome interruption to the conflict of her thoughts.

"Master Skyffington, ma'am," he said in his usual drawly voice, "he is on his way to Dover, and desired his respects, an you wish to see him."

"Yes! yes! I'll see Master Skyffington," she said with alacrity, rising from her chair, "go apprise Sir Marmaduke, and ask Master Skyffington to come within."

She was all agitation now, eager, excited, and herself went forward to meet the quaint, little wizened figure which appeared in the doorway.

Master Skyffington, attorney-at-law, was small and thin—looked doubly so, in fact, in the black clothes which he wore. His eyes were blue and watery, his manner peculiarly diffident. He seemed to present a perpetual apology to the world for his own existence therein.

Even now as Mistress de Chavasse seemed really overjoyed to see him, he backed his meager person out of the doorway as she approached, whereupon she—impatiently—clutched his arm and dragged him forward into the hall.

"Sit down there, master," she said, speaking with obvious agitation, and almost pushing the poor little man off his feet whilst dragging him to a chair. "Sir Marmaduke will see you anon, but 'twas a kind thought to come and bring me news."

"Hem! . . . hem! . . ." stammered Master Skyffington, "I . . . that is . . . hem . . . I left Canterbury this morning and was on my way to Dover . . . hem . . . this lies on my way, ma'am . . . and . . ."

"Yes! yes!" she said impatiently, "but you have some news, of course?"

"News! . . . news!" he muttered apologetically, and clutching at his collar, which seemed to be choking him, "what news—er—I pray you, ma'am?"

"That clew?" she insisted.

"It was very slight," he stammered.

"And it led to naught?"

"Alas!"

Her eagerness vanished. She sank back into her chair and moaned.

"My last hope!" she said dully.

"Nay! nay!" rejoined Master Skyffington quite cheerfully, his courage seemingly having risen with her despair. "We must not be despondent. The noble Earl of Northallerton hath interested himself of late in the search and . . ."

But she shrugged her shoulders, whilst a short, bitter laugh escaped her lips:

"At last?" she said with biting sarcasm. "After twelve years!"

"Nay! but remember, ma'am, that his lordship now is very ill . . . and nigh on seventy years old. . . . Failing your late husband, Master Rowland—whom the Lord hath in His keeping—your eldest son is . . . hem . . . that is . . . by law, ma'am, . . . and with all respect due to Sir Marmaduke . . . your eldest son is heir to the Earldom."

"And though his lordship hates me, he still prefers that my son should succeed to his title, rather than Sir Marmaduke whom he abhors."

But that suggestion was altogether too much for poor Master Skyffington's sense of what was due to so noble a family, and to its exalted head.

"That is . . . er . . ." he muttered in supreme discomfort, swallowing great gulps which rose to his throat at this rash and disrespectful speech from the ex-actress. "Family feuds . . . hem . . . er . . . very distressing of a truth . . . and . . . that is . . ."

"I fear me his lordship will be disappointed," she rejoined, quite heedless of the little attorney's perturbation, "and that under these circumstances Sir Marmaduke will surely succeed."

"I was about to remark," he rejoined, "that now, with my lord's help—his wealth and influence . . . now, that is, . . . that he has interested himself in the matter . . . hem . . . we might make fresh inquiries . . . that is . . . er . . ."