My Lady's Lord

T was the year of grace 1695. The king in possession was King William III., whom no Englishman loved. He was not a man easy to love. The king by right, the king in exile, at St. Germain en Laye, eating the bounty of Louis le Grand, was James II., whom some few Englishmen still contrived to love; whom none, though much desirous, could respect.

The sun of a July afternoon made the air languid in the rose-garden of Fairford. Crimson and white and cream-yellow the roses hung above two fair women. On a low seat cut in the turf bank sat Mistress Kitty Islip and Lady Tranmere. My Lady Tranmere—it is she in the pale-blue linen gown—lies back against the turf, and her eyes are closed. You mark a form bourgeoning [sic] to its full womanly glory. The bright light reveals the delicious tints of face and neck, hawthorn white touched with peach-blossom, and makes her golden curls all glistening. It is Mistress Kitty Islip—the gown of cream silk—who is pulling the spaniel's ears. Small and dainty she is of face and form, with rosy cheeks and glossy brown hair, and mirth in her eyes and her lips. She has pulled the spaniel's ears so hard that he rises and walks away. You observe his air of his outraged virtue as he flops down again out of reach. If it were not so hot he would have yelped.

Mistress Kitty Islip is left to her own thoughts.

“Dorothy,” says she in a moment, “Dorothy, do you never want a husband?”

Lady Tranmere opened her eyes. “No,” she said placidly. “But, you see, I have one.”

“Oh, of course. I always forget.”

“So do I,” said Lady Tranmere; and shut her eyes again.

Mistress Kitty Islip plucked a yellow rose and played with it. “Dorothy,” said she, “what is he like?”

Lady Tranmere opened her eyes again. “Who?” she asked. “Oh, Lord Tranmere. Why, I have not seen him in nine years. At our wedding I remember he was all hands and feet.”

“But all boys are like that. And he was quite a small boy,” said Kitty Islip, who looked back upon eighteen whole years.

“I was eleven and he was fifteen,” said Lady Tranmere, and shut her eyes.

“Perhaps he is good to look at now,” Kitty suggested. But either my Lady Tranmere thought it impossible or felt no interest in the looks of her lord, for she made no answer and began to doze....

That babe's marriage of nine years ago had been a mere traffic. Dorothy's father thought my Lord Tranmere's acres worth securing betimes. So, like many another pair, boy and babe were wed and parted at the church door. But the speculation went amiss. Two years after the marriage came the Revolution. Dorothy's father changed sides with ease and skill. But Dorothy's husband, with a boy's silly loyalty, stood by his rightful king. He followed King James to exile. His estates were forfeit. He was proclaimed traitor. After all her father's schemes my Lady Tranmere was left the wife of an outlawed pauper. Her father, kind friends said, died of disgust. But the girl's years passed happily enough. No sorrow for that stupid loyal soul, her husband, troubled her. How could she care for a boy she had seen for only ten minutes of her life? Why should she think of him as husband? She scarce yet knew what womanhood was.

My Lady Tranmere sat under the roses sleepily happy.

Kitty Islip started up. “Dorothy, I love you, and you are a darling,” she said in a swift low voice, “but I cannot endure your brother.”

Lady Tranmere opened her eyes. “Nor I,” she said. “Is he coming? Let us go.”

They wandered away arm in arm behind the yew hedge. It was clipt into fantastic shapes—peacocks and other wild fowl (according to the Dutch taste of King William III., of whom, as the giver of places, pensions, and all good gifts, my Lord Fairford, Lady Tranmere's brother, was an ardent courtier)—but still it afforded some grateful shade.

Amid flower-beds severely rectangular with flowers tight packed and tortured into triangles and pentagons in the true Dutch manner, they came to the front of Fairford House. There they found a fine gentleman dismounting. With his coat and stockings of orange silk, his vest and breeches of blue velvet, his full black periwig, his lace neck-cloth in calculated disarray, he said the last word of sixteen hundred and ninety-five's fashion. For himself it was plain that his person had once been handsome, and, as the Duc de St. Simon said of another gentleman, “he still preserved the remains.”

Such was the Earl of Lenham.

“Ladies, your most devoted,” with a bow to the ground. And the ladies fell curtseying before him. “The poor ancients knew but one Venus. My happy eyes enjoy two.”

“Could you find no wiser thing to say than that, my lord?” said my Lady Tranmere coldly.

“Why, lady, I spoke the truth—and who but a fool does that?”

There was something of pain in my Lady Tranmere's fair face. “Why does it please you to talk so, my lord?” she asked, and her voice was low.

“How should I talk to please you?”

“Like a man.”

My Lord Lenham gave a shrug of self-contempt. “I am not a man, I am a fine gentleman.”

“But why—why?” My lady's honest blue eyes met his and grew bright. “Indeed, my lord, you might do great things if you would.”

Again my lord gave his shrug of self-contempt. “If any one wished it—I might. But since no one cares what I do—why, I do not care, neither.”

“You are unfair, my lord.” Again the honest blue eyes met his. “I care.”

A moment my Lord Lenham was silent. Then he bowed slightly. “You honour me—too much,” he said in a low voice. “I thank you—I thank you.” And again he bowed and passed into the house.

From first to last his bearing, his manner, had been admirable. From his eyes glowed due admiration of her beauty, but always it was tempered with deep respect and a sad modesty. Behind his mockery of himself loomed consciousness of strength. He showed remorse for wasted years and gratitude for her trust.

Nothing could be better designed to make a man live in a woman's thoughts.

“I hate him!” said Kitty Islip.

“Kitty!” My Lady Tranmere was amazed and pained. “Indeed! then there was no need for you to stay with us,” she said coldly.

It was Kitty's turn to be amazed. “Dorothy, dear! You could not possibly, possibly want to be alone with him?”

The lovely white and peach-blossom tints of my Lady Tranmere's face were hidden in rosy red. She made no answer at all. But as the girls wandered on through the garden their arms unlinked, they drew a little apart.

The Earl of Lenham was received in the library by my Lord Fairford, my Lady Tranmere's undesired brother. There was no exuberance in their greeting. My Lord Fairford, in fact, was not apt at exuberance. He possessed a clear-cut face of some delicacy, with eyes set close together and a narrow brow. His undistinguished form was attired in black and silver. “And how runs the course of true love?” he sneered.

My Lord Lenham was making himself a mirror of a silver cup, “Faith,” says he, “if my dear had not a husband already I might be he within the month.”

“You are mighty sure of the girl.”

My Lord Lenham smiled into his mirror. “I know the signs,” said he. “I have seen enough. If only sweet Dorothy were decently widowed she would be a blushing bride betimes. But how to make her widow I do not see. If the fool were in England we could have him taken off quietly enough. But as he is where he is, he is the devil.”

“In effect, my lord, 'tis checkmate by the existent husband,” said Dorothy's brother.

“'Od's bones! the fool is a plague. He can have no joy of her himself, yet he keeps her from me. Nay, rot the prigster!” My Lord Lenham grew warm. “'Od burn him! I say. What's he to her? A puppy that put a ring on her finger when they were both scarce weaned! Is he to claim her for eternity?”

“Why, my lord,” said Dorothy's brother with a shrug, “Dorothy may be yours in this world, but she'll be far enough from you in the next.”

My Lord Lenham snorted. “Gadsbud, Fairford, what was your father seeking, to make so curst a match?”

“What his son seeks in making another curst match, my lord—profit. Tranmere was a child? He was the richest child in England. He is a Jacobite? We were all Jacobites then. Who could tell that he would not have the sense to rat, like ourselves? Well, he had not. He is begging his bread in France. I profess, my lord, I care for Tranmere now no more than I should for you if you were he....” Dorothy's brother laughed gently. “But from all your heat, my lord, I infer you are vastly desirous of Dorothy?”

My Lord Lenham's handsome wrinkles grew red. “Faith, I never desired a wench so much,” he said in a low voice.

My Lord Fairford looked at him with curiosity. The state of desiring a wench was not within my Lord Fairford's experience.... Then he smiled and looked at his own finger-nails. “I spoke, my lord,” says he in the softest of voices, “I spoke of some little arrangement concerning your place on the Irish establishment.”

My Lord Lenham flung away with an impatient gesture. “Oh, ay! I am ready to pay for her,” he cried.

“Ah, love, all-conquering love!” my Lord Fairford sighed poetically. “Well, my lord, you have also at Lenham Castle a picture to my taste—the Traversari Raphael!”

“No, damme!” my Lord Lenham snapped. “'Tis the gem of the gallery.”

“The rest indeed is of little worth,” my Lord Fairford agreed. “But you seem to forget, my dear lord, that I must have some requital for bringing on my sister the grief of womanhood.”

My Lord Lenham stared. His lips framed a silent question.

My Lord Fairford laughed. “If it proves worth while.”

“I' gad, do it at once, and you may have what you will.... In reason, in reason.”

And so my Lord Fairford contracted to kill his sister's husband for a place of two thousand pounds on the Irish establishment and a Raphael Madonna and Child.

In St. Germain en Laye, in a dingy garret, sat the husband, my Lord Tranmere. The air came hot and fetid from the street. My Lord Tranmere sat with his chin on his hand staring out at the sun-glare, and thought of his lost home amid the fragrant Cheshire meadows.

He looked far older than his years. The bold, irregular features that nature meant to be humorous were curved and lined with gloom. None of the best things in life had fallen to the lot of my Lord Tranmere. He had found neither work nor love. Seven years before, with a boy's loyalty, he followed King James into exile. He fought for King James's cause in Ireland as long as a man might, and far longer than the brave king himself. For King James he flung away home and wealth and country; then, like many another, was taught that the sacrifice was made for one unworthy, that a base heart beat in his king. There were no thanks for him, not even courtesy. Of all his wealth, King James grudged him a pittance for livelihood. My Lord Tranmere must have starved, as Dunfermline starved at his king's door, but for the secret bounty of his father's friends in England.

England and home were lost to him. His head was forfeit if he touched the English shore. He must needs drag out his life in idle exile, eating the bitter bread of charity. Such was the reward of loyalty to King James....

In the Faucon Noir some gentlemen of the Bourbonnais were amusing themselves with wine and song. The chorus was borne in through the oven window to my Lord Tranmere.

“To live like the beasts”—that certainly was in his power.... It did not commend itself to my Lord Tranmere.

He sat long, scarce moving at all, breathing the hot odours, staring out through the torrid glare. But what he saw was the dappled shadows on an English brook. He smelt an English wind over English meadows.... So it was with him many a day....

The man of the house brought him up a letter. My Lord Tranmere turned it over curiously. It was addressed in an unknown hand. The seal was plain. He broke it, and read:

The cry rang true to my lord's ear. But to go to England was to risk a rebel's death.

My Lord Fairford, you will agree, had written that letter well. His scheme, you must needs admit, was ingenious. His ingenuity has been neglected by historians, who have made it an occasion of mere moral reprobation.

In the autumn of that year King William III. made a progress through middle England. They gave him a stag to hunt in Sherwood, and drank a hundred gallons of punch in his honour at Warwick Castle. He dined with his grace of Shrewsbury at his mansion of Stow in the Wold, and came back through Burford and Oxford to town. All the way my Lord Fairfax, a devout courtier, was by the royal side. My lord was accompanied by his sister—for whom his affection had of late vastly increased. He was uneasy if she was out of his sight. My Lady Tranmere found him less endurable than ever. The Earl of Lenham also had become a little tedious. He too suffered from the vice of never effacing himself.... He of course (poor man!) had his excuse. He needed a friend ... some one to trust him and help him. But one could have trusted him better if one had seen him less.

My Lord Fairford brought his sister back to his town house in Whitehall, over against the Cockpit, and was more at his ease. There all comings and goings were under his own eye. Lest my Lord Tranmere should first seek his lady in the country, my lord sent a Secretary's messenger (the day of the Bow Street runner was not yet) to watch Fairford House. But the messenger laid hands on a good farmer riding to Witney to bargain for his year's clip, and haled him before the justices as my Lord Tranmere, and was thereafter the mock of the country-side, so that, in weariness of being laughed at, he fled back to town.

After he was gone my Lord Tranmere did indeed come to Fairford House, and learnt that his wife was in London, and went thither. So, while my Lady Tranmere sat alone in a room that looked over the mellow autumn leaves in Whitehall garden, a serving-man brought her a letter. My Lady Tranmere's blue eyes opened wide at it. For it said only, “A messenger front your husband waits below.”

There was ushered into her presence a tall fellow wrapped in a weather-beaten cloak. As he bowed she saw the bold, irregular features of a tanned face.

“You come from my—from my Lord Tranmere, sir?” The man bowed again. My lady became conscious that his keen eyes were curiously intent. The pale blue silk on her bosom moved faster. “Pray, sir, what is your errand?”

“Sure, my lady, you know.” There was a strange thrill in his voice. The keen eyes had begun to glow.

“I, sir? I know?”

“What answer could your husband make? Dorothy!” he started forward and caught her hand.

Her lovely white neck grew rosy, like a cloud at the touch of dawn. “You—you—you are—are my Lord Tranmere?” she stammered.

“Ay; come to you at last.” His hand pressed hers; he was drawing her closer.

“But why?” Blue eyes were wide in passionless wonder. “Why are you here now, my lord? Indeed”

“Why? Did you dream that I would not come? How else should I answer? Dorothy”

“Answer, my lord? Answer what? Indeed I have asked you nothing.”

He dropped her hand. “What! Did you not bid me?”

“Who? I, my lord?”

Slowly the glow of passion died from his keen eyes. He fumbled in his breast and drew out the letter. “Is not this, then, of your writing?” he asked gruffly.

Dorothy took it, and as she read, “'Tis not my hand!” she cried, and her neck and face grew crimson. “Indeed, how could you think I would write so?”

My Lord Tranmere snatched the letter from her hand and stared at her with the lines on his tanned face deepening into a sneer. Then, with a mirthless laugh, he turned on his heel.

But Dorothy caught his arm. “My lord, you are in sore danger here. If any should know you” her blue eyes were dark now. “Ah, my lord, you thought I wrote that, and you risked your life to come to me.”

Tranmere laughed again. “Oh, ay! I have walked into the trap,” he said, and put her aside.

“Trap?” Dorothy gasped.

Then came a cry, “In the King's name! Open!” and the door was flung wide. A posse of Secretary's messengers poured into the room, and one was crying, “Hugh Bevil, Lord Tranmere, in the king's name, I”

But my Lord Tranmere whipped out his sword and was through a man's shoulder in an instant, and broke away. Downstairs he went headlong, and past two who tried to stay him, out at the first door he found. The messengers tumbled after him, howling “A Jacobite!—a Jacobite!”

My Lord Tranmere had come into the palace precinct, and he ran hotfoot down the narrow alley to the privy garden. The thudding feet were close after him, and the yells “Jacobite!—Jacobite!” Two men filled the path before him and at the din they turned. One was plucking at his sword-hilt, but the other, a lean creature in black, stood still waiting with empty hands. My Lord Tranmere shortened his sword to stab as he ran. The man in black offered his breast to the point. “I am your king, sir, if 'tis my life you seek,” he said.

My Lord Tranmere checked sharply and an oath broke from him.

“Your sword,” the king demanded curtly, and held out his hand for it.

“Not to an usurper,” growled Tranmere, and broke the blade across his knee and flung the pieces away and folded his arms and glared at the king.

King William shrugged his thin shoulders. “An heroical person, Shrewsbury,” he remarked to his companion, “Who is he?” But his grace of Shrewsbury, who knew not, could not tell.

Then, howling, the messengers came up and fell upon my Lord Tranmere, and, thrusting in among them, were two fine gentlemen, much agitated, who cried, “Gadsbud, knaves, grip him now!” and “Make sure now, fellows, make sure!”

“Eh! who are these zealots?” said the king. “My Lord Fairford? My Lord Lenham? Why, are you turned ?”

My Lord Fairford, somewhat dishevelled and breathless, extricated himself and made a bow: “To preserve your Majesty's life from a curst Jacobite murderer.”

“Who came out of my Lord Fairford's house,” said his Majesty drily.

My Lord Fairford bowed again. “I confess it, sir, with shame. I am the more thankful that I arrived in time to preserve your Majesty's life.”

“From a gentleman who had no mind to take it,” said his Majesty. “I am duly your debtor, my lord. Since you were the gentleman's host, pray who is he?”

“He is, sir,” said my Lord Fairford, with honest horror, “the traitor who calls himself Lord Tranmere.”

For a moment the king's gleaming eyes rested on my Lord Fairford's delicate face. “Your brotherly interest in him interests me,” he said. “Come to my cabinet.”

Fairford bowed. “Let me but despatch the fellow to the Tower, sir.”

“He also interests me,” said the king. “Lead me the way.”

My Lord Fairford was left no choice.

So in the upper room with the dark tapestry Tranmere stood captive before the usurping king and, vastly disgusted with all the world, glowered scornfully down at the skeleton in black clothes and black wig, the pallid emaciated face, the hook nose and gleaming eyes.

My Lord Fairford was fidgety.

The king paid no heed to him. The king was paying Tranmere stare for stare. “And why have we the joy of your presence, my lord?” he asked.

Tranmere gave a sharp, scornful laugh, but no other answer.

Fairford struck in in a hurry: “He will say, your Majesty—the fellow, I doubt not, sir, will say—that he came because my sister, his wife, desired him. He”

“Pray, my Lord Tranmere, will you say that?” the king asked quickly.

“Ay,” growled Tranmere.

The king looked at Fairford. “You are strangely accurate in prophecy,” said he.

“But, i' gad, 'tis all a lie,” cried Fairford. “He came for his own traitorous ends, My sister wishes only never to see him again.”

“Is yours so fashionable a wife, my Lord Tranmere?” the king asked.

“Ah, bah, have done with the farce!” cried Tranmere, flushing. “Your curst trick has won. You wanted my head. You”

“Who? I?” said the king quickly. “My lord, you value yourself too high. Your death interests me as little as your life. I profess I never thought of either till now.”

“Then whose trick was that?” cried Tranmere, and tossed on the table the crumpled letter—that letter signed with his wife's name.

Slowly, carefully, the king smoothed out the folds and began to read. Then my Lord Fairford forgot etiquette, and leant forward to see over the royal shoulder. My Lord Lenham stretched his neck to look from afar. His grace of Shrewsbury regarded the pair with some surprise. The king made an end of reading. Again he looked at Tranmere. “Of such a letter, my lord, a husband might be proud,” he said gravely.

My Lord Fairford cried out in a hurry: “This is false, sir. This is a cheat. This is not in my sister's hand.”

Tranmere gave a mirthless laugh.

The king turned in his chair till he faced my Lord Fairford. “Not in your sister's hand?” he repeated slowly. “Pray, my lord, in whose hand is it?”

“Why, sir, 'tis plain enough! That paper never came from my sister's hand, never came from England at all. 'Tis of the fellow's own concoction. He brought it so that if he were caught at his treacheries he should have a fair excuse for coming here.”

Tranmere laughed again.

But the king looked curiously at Fairford. “You are vastly subtle, my lord,” said he, and saw behind Fairford a smile on his grace of Shrewsbury's handsome face. “Eh! what are you thinking, Shrewsbury?” he inquired.

“I am thinking, sir, that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field,” said Shrewsbury, smiling still.

There was the trace of an answering smile on the king's lean lips. “And that some one is vastly anxious to have my Lord Fairford's sister a widow?” he inquired.

“I had inferred that, sir,” said Shrewsbury.

“Ah!” For the first time the king's gleaming eyes turned to my Lord Lenham. “At first I could not account for you, my lord,” he said pleasantly.

My Lord Lenham's handsome wrinkles crimsoned. He stammered something—Fairford and he together; but there was a cry at the door—a cry that drowned all else. “If the king be there I will come to him! I will!”

Into the room broke Dorothy. The fair round cheeks were flushed, and across them in glistening disorder fell strands of her golden hair. Her dress was borne away behind her by her speed—the lace fell away from her white arms.

Swiftly she glanced from one to other—the king sitting in the seat of judgment, Tranmere standing captive before him. Then, heedless of all else, “My Lord Tranmere is your Majesty's prisoner?” she cried.

“Precisely that,” said the king, and took snuff.

Her bosom surged in anger. “You then”—(Majesty was forgot by her scorn)—you lay in wait for him—you took him in his wife's chamber—you charge him with treason—a man that never did worse than fight you fairly—you drag him away to die!” The king again took snuff. Dorothy, gazing at the lean, pallid face, gave a strange, choked sob. Her blue eyes shone through tears. “Then—then all one hears of your being just to your foes, of your being so merciful, that means nothing—nothing!”

The king looked gravely at the beautiful, troubled face. “My lady, from what I have just heard, I suppose it does mean nothing,” he said, with a strange note of sadness in his voice. She gazed in wide-eyed, tearful wonder, not understanding.

Quick emotions were chasing each other across Tranmere's face. My Lord Fairford and my Lord Lenham were plainly aghast. His grace of Shrewsbury, a gentleman of fine taste, admired Dorothy and the scene.

When the king spoke again he used the familiar sarcastic tone. “My lord, however, is not yet dead. We are inquiring what it was that brought him to England—into my murderous hand.”

“I. It was I,” Dorothy cried. “He did not come to attack you; not to plot against you. I bade him come for me.”

“Then this letter is yours?”

Dorothy took it from his hand, and as she looked at it again, again her neck grew rosy. “I wrote this,” she said, in a low, clear voice. “I wrote it.”

“Your brother (who, indeed, seems to have known a great deal about it) says 'tis not in your hand.”

Dorothy turned with flaming eyes on her brother. “It is mine, my lord,” she cried. “I say it is mine.”

Tranmere's colour rose, and his eyes were set upon her, and glowing.

The king took snuff. “Does my Lord Fairford still deny it?” he asked.

“Sir, I learn with regret that I was wrong,” said my Lord Fairford with dignity. “I could not conceive that my sister should feel affection for a husband who was a Jacobite, a proclaimed traitor.”

“Therefore your benevolence sought to provide her with another,” said the king, with a flick of his fingers at my Lord Lenham.

Dorothy, with flaming eyes and surging bosom, turned, fiercely beautiful, upon the two fine gentlemen.

“And my Lord Lenham,” the king went placidly on, “is doubtless gratified to know that, whoever did write this letter to my Lord Tranmere, his wife is ready to write it now.”

Dorothy turned to the king with a start and a gasp of amazement.

My Lord Fairford began to cry in outraged innocence: “Your Majesty does not believe”

“My lords,” said the king sharply, “your future absence from Court will need no excuse.”

Out from his presence, with hanging heads, the two fine gentlemen went.

Then at last Tranmere's eyes turned from Dorothy's beauty to the king. “The gentleman looked,” his grace of Shrewsbury has written, “as if he had for the first time found an honest man in the world besides himself.” The keen eyes, in fact, were dim; the harsh lines of cheek and brow relaxed. My Lord Tranmere seemed almost happy.

“My lord,” said the king, “you are free to go where you will. I doubt you'll never consent to be a friend of the Usurper.”

Tranmere flushed and gulped. “Sir,” he said in a low voice, “I could never be your foe again.”

The king bowed. Then, as he looked up, a smile flickered on his lean lips, “I profess, my lord, both of us may be grateful for my Lord Fairford's subtilty.” He stood up. “You were cheated of one greeting. Let us not hinder another.” He went out, and Shrewsbury, past curtsey and bow.

My lord and my lady were left alone. Tranmere took her warm hands in his. “Dorothy,” he said in a low voice, “Dorothy....”

Crimson cheeks, wet eyes, turned to his. “Ah, it was vile! so vile!” she cried. “What must you think of us?”

“I think only of you. I have forgot all the rest. Dear, if you do my will, you will forget it too.”

“Not all,” said Dorothy, under her breath. “You came....”

For a long while, silent, Tranmere gazed down into those pure blue eyes, and they never wavered from his. “I have been your husband many a year,” he said, “but I'll have to woo you now.”

Dorothy's lips curved, her eyes rippled in that invincible smile. “Indeed, my lord, 'twill be a sorry wooing,” said Dorothy.

“Why that?”

“I'll be too easy to win,” said Dorothy, scarce heard....

And thus my Lord Fairford's benevolence helped his sister to her husband's arms.