Chapter II: The Gold Whistle

Presently there approached, along the flags of Whitehall, the sound of steady footfalls. They mounted the steps and halted before the door; a key grated in the lock, and Lord Rockhurst led Mistress Diana Harcourt across the threshold.

She entered without a word, let herself fall in her turn like one worn out, into the King’s chair, and lifted her face toward him—a face blanched indeed with the miseries of the night, its terrors, the long vigil, the weary wandering, yet full of a brave, sweet strength.

None of her serenity was reflected on Rockhurst’s countenance. His face was dark as with an inner conflict; he averted his eyes as hers sought them. There was a moment’s heavy silence. He broke it, at length, standing over the fireless hearth, without looking at her.

“Now that you are under my roof, Diana, I trust you will consider yourself as if already—” he hesitated, and then brought out the words harshly, “as if already in your father’s house.—I fear me,” he went on, after a pause, “you are dead weary after our wanderings this night … fruitless search for shelter—the flaming cross barring us from every threshold … when it was not mean selfishness and childish fears that drove us to the street again!—Your brother fled basely.…”

She interrupted, wincing under the bitterness of his accents.

“Ah, poor Ned,” she pleaded; “he is but a boy. And his wits are never of the strongest.… In his way, he loves me. And, truly, I am glad he has escaped.”

“You have a strong heart, child!”

Though the words were kind, voice and look were hard. She shivered and drooped her head.

“You are cold,” he went on, with a sudden softening in his tone. “Indeed, ’tis the chill hour of the day.” He glanced hastily round the room, and catching sight of the spilt wine and the soiled cup, frowned, then laughed contemptuously. “So—even old Chitterley hath forgot his duty! These, in sooth, are days of test. I will rouse him, and you shall have fire and refreshment.”

She heard his tread on the stairs, the opening and shutting of doors within the house. Quickly he came back to her.

“Aye, even my old Chitterley gone! …” he cried, with a bitter twist of the lip. “Neither brotherly love, nor life-long service and companionship.… Nay, what should still hold, these times, when no man knows the hour when his life will be withdrawn? Oh, are you human—you, Diana, who sit so still and have no woman’s plaint?”

His voice broke with sudden passion. She raised her eyes and strove to smile; but the shudder of fatigue seized her.

Without another word he lifted the cresset of charcoal from its stand, blew upon the expiring glow, cast fresh fuel upon it; then, the flame once more enkindled, flung the whole on the hearth. She watched him, and gave a little feminine cry of protest as he next seized the first thing at hand, a couple of books, and tore them up ruthlessly to feed the fire.

“O, my lord!” she began, as the flame roared up the chimney. But the faint laugh died on her lips when she met his glance.

“I must leave you,” he said, when he had thrown in a couple of logs. “I must leave you; it will go ill indeed, if, within the hour, I return not with coach and horses. If I have to plead King’s Service, I shall carry you out of the infection.”

* * * * *

The door closed on him. Left alone, Diana sighed deeply. All the bright look of courage faded from her face. How harshly he had spoken! how coldly he had looked upon her—when not averting his eyes as from something troubling!…

Diana Harcourt, widow of twenty, bound by a freak of fate, through the merest impulse of womanly pity, to Rockhurst’s young son,—so faithful a lover, so gallant a youth,—knew her heart given to Rockhurst himself! What shame—what treachery! Moments were when she thought to guess her hidden love as returned; and then she felt herself strong and proud, and took a kind of high spiritual glory in the thought of how true they both would remain to honour and plighted troth. “Loved he not honour more,” as the chivalrous song had it, she would have none of his love.… But, to feel it in this sacred silence, in this noble self-denial, that was a kind of pain more exquisite than any joy she had ever known.

Yet moments were, again, such as this, when his formal manner, the sombreness of his gaze, smote her with distressing conjecture. Was his solicitude but for his boy’s sake, after all? Was the self-betrayal—sweet and terrible—that had so often seemed to hover on his lips, but the gallantry of the high-bred courtier? Or—worse suspicion yet!—had he read her folly, and was it but compassion that spoke in his lingering gaze?

As she sat staring dully into the fire he had kindled for her, vividly the troubled scenes of this night of catastrophe rose before her.

* * * * *

Her grandmother’s great card-room, lit and decked as usual; the dwindled company, each with the heavy knowledge of the peril without and about stamped upon his countenance, each with his hypocrite smile for my Lady Chillingburgh, who glared upon them from out her chair, and forbade the pestilence to exist, since she would have none of it.…

Next, the fair French lady from the Court courtesying in her waves of amber satin, and fixing her, Diana,—aye, and the Lord Constable, too,—with such singular eyes. She recalled to mind, truly, how those fierce eyes had followed Rockhurst, and how Cousin Lionel had smiled as he watched.… Tush, the poor creature knew not what she was doing—was she not stricken ill and in fever?—She might well have mad eyes.…

It was Lionel who had brought her. Lady Chillingburgh’s own grandson who had given the citadel to the enemy it had so long defied! In rapid succession the horrid events reënacted themselves in Diana’s brain:—

She heard her brother screaming on the stairs, saw him break in upon them, a foolish country lad, frenzied in his panic.

She saw the frightened faces of their guests, and Lionel’s ever-mocking smile—“Sheer poltroonery!”—he was saying. And ever and again she sought and found the comfort of Rockhurst’s strong protective glance.

And then came the end.… The huddled figure in the great chair. The face of her that had had so stout a heart, conquered in death—but less piteous, less awful sight than the living face of the French madam. “_The plague is there_—” She heard Lionel’s cry of warning, and then all is black about her.

And now she relived the moment when she had awakened from her swoon; darkness and silence all about her. She thought that the nightmare of the card-room had given way to some exquisite dream.… Rockhurst’s arm was supporting her, her head rested on his shoulder, and the solitude of a sombre night held them safe. Above their heads, outstretched tree branches swayed murmurously as the breeze stirred. She heard his heart-beats beneath her ear, and an unknown joy ran like music in her veins: life, reality, seemed thrust as far away from her as yonder flickering lights in the black distance. It seemed indeed a dream, and surely one may accept happiness in a dream! Sighing, she had yielded herself to it one moment—one moment—alas, even as she stirred, lo, it was hers no longer! Beneath her hands was fine turf, in her nostrils the scent of fading roses; she knew where she was—somewhere under the beeches of Chillingburgh House gardens. She remembered, she understood. He had snatched her, unconscious, from the danger of the infected house. And as she moved, his clasp relaxed; he spoke to her, coldly enough, she thought:—

“You are better? It is well.”

* * * * *

… Then had begun their strange pilgrimage through the London streets, the long, long night. She went beside him, through the tangle of unknown, unlit ways; seeing him only ever and anon, painted as it were against the darkness by the glare of the smoky street fires in the more open spaces. In his white hand, the sword drawn, guarding her from the prowling thieves of the night. Inhuman wretches, to whom the stricken city’s extremity was fortune’s boon, slinking after them like pariah dogs…! They had spoken little: mostly words of bare need. But once he had told her she was brave; and once that she was strong indeed.… She had at one moment noticed a great pity in his eyes.—Ah, he need never have pitied her; she had been happy, being with him.

* * * * *

She started from her heavy revery: some one was knocking at the casement.

Outside the window the lines of a man’s head and shoulders, a man hatless, with disordered periwig, were silhouetted blackly against the morning light. She sprang to her feet, terror stifling the scream in her throat. She remembered the marauders that had slunk after them in the night, more to be dreaded these desperate days than pestilence itself. But it was her own name that met her ear, urgently cried:—

“Diana, open!—’Tis I, Lionel.”

Before the words had penetrated to sense, she had recognised the voice. Upon the impulse of her relief, she hastened to the window and flung the casement apart.

“Cousin Lionel…!”

But this was a Cousin Lionel she had never before known. About his livid face the dank curls hung in wild dishevelment—he, whose person had ever seemed as sedately ordered as his mind. He motioned her from him so fiercely that she fell back in fresh alarm.

“Aye, Diana,” said he, answering her look, “you may well be afraid—’tis like enough I have it! And were it not that I am here to save you from worse than plague, for the sheer love I bear you, there should be leagues between us—Stand where you are, Diana! Come not a step nearer!”

He drew himself with effort up to the window-sill, from some ledge whereon he had climbed; then, seated, he looked in upon her again; and to his pallid countenance came a ghostly semblance of the old sarcastic smile:—

“Never enquire how I tracked you. I knew that the Rakehell, who chivalrously took you from the charge of your own kin—to rescue you from the plague, forsooth!—would find no shelter for you but that of his own honourable habitation!”

“Lionel…!”

Sudden anger drove all fear from her. He went on:—

“You would have been safer at Chillingburgh House, once the stricken Frenchwoman gone. And so my lord knew as well as I. Our grand dame never died of the sickness, child, but of a fit of anger—and not before her time, either! But let that pass. I saw thee on the Strand, Diana, a while ago—marked thee hither and knew the trick played on thee. A-tramp the whole night, till your body and your spirit be worn out. Is’t not so? And my lord … so tender, so protecting, so fatherly. Is’t not so?”

“Lionel…!”

The man changed his tone:—

“Diana, ’tis but a few hundred paces to her Majesty’s House of the Blue Nuns, in St. Martin’s Lane, where our kinswoman, Madam Anastasia, would shelter you in honour and safety. Come forth now, from this place; ’tis worse, I tell you, than the Pest-house! I will go before thee; I can yet protect thee along the street, if I may not approach thee.…”

Never had Diana heard that ring of passion from his lips; even when he had pleaded for her love, there had always run an undercurrent of mockery and cynicism in the tenderest word. Truly, these days changed all men’s nature. But Diana was not swayed: she was afire at the odiousness of the slander cast on him she loved.

“I thank you, cousin,” she returned coldly. “But I have placed myself under Lord Rockhurst’s protection; and since you have been pleased to watch me, sir, you will have seen the Lord Constable leave this house but a few moments ago. It was in search of a coach, and it is his purpose to escort me out of the town, even this day, to my own home.”

The man on the window-sill gave a fierce laugh.

“Art as simple, Diana, as thou wouldst fain make out? Dost really believe thy protector—’tis a fine name, in sooth—will find thee that coach?”

“Not a word more!” broke in the other. She had as strong a spirit as his own. “Who should know Lord Rockhurst better than I? Ah, who has better reason to know him? If all the world were to believe evil of him, yet would I still trust him with my life.”

“And is there naught you value more than life?”

“How dare you, cousin!”

“Is your good name nothing to you?” he insisted.

“How dare you!” she repeated.

“Nay, Diana, listen to me!—Shall I tell thee what’s to happen? The Rakehell will return to thee in a little while, dejected, aye, heart-broken! Far and wide, not a horse, not a coach, not a driver to be had for love or money. He has bargained, pleaded, threatened, in vain. So thou must even trust thyself to him further—to him who is as thy father.…”

Diana started, bit her lip. The words struck her; and vehemently she thrust them from her.

“Then, Diana,” went on Ratcliffe, ever more cuttingly, “will he discover something strange in the character of his protective feelings.… Thou, too, will read in thine own … filial … heart. Behold, the end is not difficult to guess!”

“Oh, foul-mouthed!” cried the young widow, recoiling.

Indignation and terror mixed were in her voice. To have the veil thus torn by sacrilegious hands from the innermost shrine; the sanctuary of her tender secret thus broken!… Ratcliffe clutched the window-frame with both hands and thrust his face into the room, his features working again with that unwonted passion:—

“Diana—ah, Diana, for heaven’s sake, you must understand! These days, it seems, all barriers are broken down, all laws violated with impunity. And even now, even you, Diana, will surely pay the price, if you accept the protection of Rakehell Rockhurst!”

Diana swept a gesture of final scorn:—

“Begone, Lionel! Away with you as you came! I pity you … thief of men and women’s good report. Alas! cousin, do I not know what purpose you have in this slander? Shame that these days of terror should wake you to no worthier mind!”

The man fixed her, a breathing space or two, without speaking. Had she been less incensed, she might have noted something in his look singularly belying the thoughts she imputed to him—might have seen a purpose as earnest as it was selfless.

“One word, then, and I go—Di, from the days when we were children together, I have loved thee. Dost remember how I called thee my little wife? You’ll have none of my warning now—so be it! In a little while you’ll want me, you’ll call on me. I shall be near, I shall hear thee.—Stay; here is the gold whistle you once gave me—that Easter—years ago! You have, of course, forgotten it. I have kept it close, you see.”

He hesitated a second, poising the bauble at the end of its long ribbon, frowning. Then he cast it into the room.

“Risk for risk—all is risk!… My lips have not touched it since the pestilence came so nigh them. Di, hark to me, Di. When you want my help this day, you have but to whistle, I’ll hear and help.… I go. Yet not so far but what I can guard my own.”

She stood, her head averted; her foot beating the floor, image of scornful defiance. He slipped down from his perch to the ledge and poised himself yet a second, looking in on her as when he had first appeared:—

“Thou, in the Rakehell’s hands—and the world gone mad around thee…! Ah, shall’t whistle sooner than thou thinkest!”

She wheeled to silence him; he was gone. A bitter conflict rose in her mind as she stood staring at the blank window space. In spite of herself, the memory of his look, of the deep earnestness of his voice, began to shake her sense of security.… He thought he had the sickness, yet he came to warn her!… Another man would have had little reck of aught but himself, with that shadow of doom spread over him.… Yet he hated Rockhurst—oh, how he hated him!—and had he not all but killed Rockhurst’s son for aspiring to her?… With the perspicacity of his relentless love for her, he had read her secret. Reason enough, then, that he should strive to poison her mind against one whom she knew so noble.… Yet again, unscrupulous, daring, cruel even in his very love for her, Ratcliffe had taken piteous pains to guard her against himself. Now, he was lurking in the lanes below, for her sake, instead of hying him to the nearest physician, so urgent did he believe her danger.… Was there, could there be danger?

Her ear caught the sound of the key in the lock; she knew it was Rockhurst returning. On a sudden impulse she picked up the whistle and thrust it into her bodice. Her heart beat to suffocation as she heard his hand on the door.