Chapter 9. "The Course Of True Love"

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_ CHAPTER IX. "THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE"

When Geoffrey awakened on the morning after the coaching party, he lay for some minutes dreamily revolving in his head the events of the last two days. He felt that he had reached a crisis in his life, and as he stretched himself on his narrow bed he groaned inwardly at the perplexity and danger of the situation in which he found himself. After his lonely existence he was suddenly in the vortex of the whirlpool. He had promised his life to Sir John Dacre and to his country to be staked upon a hazard, which he thought to be hopeless, and knew to be desperate. He did not think of swerving from this promise, for he felt that he must be true to his order and to high patriotism.

He winced, too, as he thought of the scene with Mrs. Carey in the ruins of the Cathedral. He knew that he could not have averted it, for it had broken upon him with the suddenness of a summer shower. He had entered into a dangerous conspiracy, and had made a deadly enemy on the same day.

He was sure that Miss Windsor had seen the affair in the ruins. He had given the ribbons on the drive home to Dacre, and had taken his place by Maggie's side on the back seat, but she had been cold and constrained, and had answered his remarks with monosyllables. The party was so gloomy that it was a positive relief when a cold drizzling rain set in, and mackintoshes and cloaks covered up the faces of all, and made conversation difficult. But, after thinking of the dark side of the medal, Geoffrey gave a shrug of his shoulders, and cast off for a moment gloomy thoughts, as a duck shakes off water from its oily plumage.

"Mrs. Carey was right," he said; "love is the great thing, after all; and I love Maggie Windsor. I have little enough to offer her, not even my life, for that I promised to John Dacre, and the reversion is not worth much, I fear. My title! Ah, that is an offering indeed; a title by courtesy, in a democracy which at the same time sneers at and cringes to it. But I love her, and if a man comes to a woman with a sincere love he will at least be heard."

Then the thought of his promise to Dacre filled his mind and heart, and he groaned aloud.

"How can I speak to her of love, when I am on the verge of this emeute at Aldershot? And yet I cannot give up life without having had the satisfaction of its one joy, its one reality! I love Margaret Windsor, and there is a chance, a bare chance, of her loving me. Why did she pick out my old house, when she knew that I was living here, if she did not wish to see me again? Conspiracy or no conspiracy, my poverty, her riches, go hang. I shall ask for her love this very day."

He had finished a very elaborate toilet for him, and Reynolds appeared to summon him to his breakfast, which the faithful servitor cooked and served to him in the old sitting-room. As Geoffrey cracked his eggs and drank his coffee, Reynolds looked wistfully at his master's handsome face, for he saw a new expression there--a look bright with hope and the consciousness of an awakened soul--and the old servant wondered whether the beautiful woman, who had visited the house two nights before, had changed his master's face so. He noticed, too, that Geoffrey was smartly dressed, and that he had tied his neck-tie with great care, and had put on a coat from one of the crack New York tailors, so that when the old servitor disappeared to polish his master's boots he said to himself:

"The young earl is going courting, for a certainty, and a fine lady he will bring home as his bride. Will she buy back his house and lands for him, I wonder?" And Reynolds smiled to himself as he pictured the head of his beloved family restored to his own again and Ripon House under the faithful Reynolds, major-domo.

The dinner at Ripon House after the coaching-party had been dull indeed. Mrs. Carey had sent her excuses to Miss Windsor, and the latter, who had seen her head upon Geoffrey's shoulder in the Cathedral in the morning, was relieved at hearing them.

For within Maggie's tender heart a love for Geoffrey Ripon had gained the mastery since the interview in the secret chamber. Long had that love haunted her gentle heart, a shade at first, which flitted away for a while, only to return again and trouble her. But just as she had installed her love in the innermost sanctuary, fair and godlike, she had discovered, as she thought, that her idol had feet of clay; that the man whose lips and tongue told her that he loved her on the one day was on the next saying the same thing with the same lying lips to another woman.

Mrs. Carey had been Geoffrey's first love. Sir John had told her that, she remembered. "He loves her still and he pretends to care for me because I am rich," she said to herself as she lay tossing sleepless during the night, a dull pang racking her heart with a real physical pain. In the early morning she arose and looked out of the window over toward Geoffrey's house, down over the lawn and the cliff path and the leafy chestnut trees.

"He is false," she said to herself, thinking of our hero who was sleeping so soundly under the little roof in the valley. "He tried to talk with me on the drive home as if nothing had happened. He is an actor who plays at love, and his eyes and his tongue are under his control as if he were the walking gentleman in the comedy, who kisses the maid while he is waiting in the parlor for the mistress. He does not love Margaret Windsor; he loves her father's stocks and bonds, and he longs for riches, even with the encumbrance of a wife."

She smiled bitterly as she thought of the breaking up of her dream of love, and she almost cursed the riches which had weighed her down and had filled her with suspicion of all the men who had ever asked her hand in marriage. She had thought that Geoffrey had been prevented from asking for it two years before because he had felt that she was rich and he was poor. When he had bade her farewell in Paris he had hesitated and tried to say something to her, she remembered, but had compressed his lips into a forced smile and taken his leave of her.

As she looked out the window she heard a rumble of wheels and saw the phaeton rolling Mrs. Carey down to the station.

"What is that woman doing at this hour in the morning?" Maggie asked herself, looking with hot, jealous eyes at the beauty as she sat back in the phaeton. "It is dreadful to have such a person under one's roof. I hope that she is gone and that she will not return. I suppose, though, that she is to meet Lord Brompton somewhere."

And so it happened that at the moment that Geoffrey felt the first pulsing strength of his love for her, and vowed that he would, despite her riches and his entanglements, strive to gain her, Maggie was strangling her old love for him, and her heart was filled with jealous fears; and the woman whose wild passion had ruffled the current of their true love was speeding to London to work their ruin.

Breakfast at Ripon House was a straggling, informal meal, and the men came down in pink coats. They were going hunting on an anise-seed trail, and ordered what they wished, standing by the side-board and eating. Maggie, after the men had followed the hounds, left the other ladies gossiping together in the library before the fire.

She walked down the cliff path which led to the shingle beach, upon which the small craft of the fishermen in the little village were hauled up.

Against one of the boats a fisherman, dressed in oil-skins, was leaning. He had a paint-brush in his hand, and he was gazing out ruefully over the bay, which was lashed into white caps by the strong breeze. When he saw Maggie, he pulled at his forelock and set to work vigorously with his paint-brush on the stern of his boat, daubing with the black paint over the name of the craft. As the fisherman obliterated the name, Maggie noticed that his hand trembled and that he turned his head away from her that she might not see his face.

"What are you doing, my good man?" she asked, coming near him, for she saw that he was in distress.

"Painting and caulking my old boat, miss," answered the fisherman, blotting out the last letters with a long smear of paint.

"But you are painting out the name?" said Maggie, inquiringly.

"I have a new name for the craft, miss," he answered, in a hoarse voice: "the 'Lone Star'; and I am painting out the old name, the Mary Mallow, which I gave her after my wife; but, saving your presence, miss, she desarted me these six months ago; I was too rough and common for her, I suppose."

He put his rough hand over his eyes. "It goes against my heart to paint her name out; but, as things are now, the 'Lone Star' is better."

Maggie could not help smiling at the unconscious poetry of the poor fellow and at the likeness between her lot and his.

"I am sorry for you, my man," she said, and she slipped a coin into his hand. "Put in a gilt star on the stern with this. It will be a comfort to you to have your boat smart." The man took the coin and looked at it vacantly. Maggie left him and kept on her way over the beach, past the boats and the drying nets, and the great heaps of seaweed and kelp, to the headland which jutted out into the sea beyond the village. Once there she seated herself in a deep recess of the cliff which commanded a view of the bay.

"And now I am alone, entirely alone, and I cannot be disturbed," she said to herself.

Down below her the breakers rolled in over the seaweed-covered rocks, and dashed into a deep chasm in the rocks, cleft by the attrition of ages, breaking with a dull sough upon the farthermost end of the cleft.

Maggie could see nothing from her perch but the sea, and the opposite cliff upon which Ripon House stood. A few wheeling sea-gulls, and a small fishing-boat, beating out of the harbor, were the only living objects in the view. The waves, crest over crest, hurried toward the headland, and beat into foam at her feet. Her mind was soothed by watching the torn waters, as each wave dashed out its life, in a thousand swirls and white bubbles of foam.

Suddenly she was startled from her reverie by hearing Geoffrey call her name, and she saw him on the rocks below her.

He looked more than pleased at getting so good a chance to see her alone.

"Ah, Lord Brompton," she said, coldly, looking at him, but not inviting him to come up by her. "What has brought you out here?"

"You. I was on my way to make a call upon you, and just as I reached the top of the cliff I saw you on the beach, talking with a fisherman. May I come up to you?"

Maggie glanced down at him, and saw that he was dressed with more than ordinary care; in spite of her hard feelings toward him she could not help smiling at the thought that he had been prinking all the morning to look well when he came courting.

Geoffrey saw her smile, and started to climb up to her side.

"There is not room up here for two, I am afraid," she said in a determined voice.

"I will sit on the sharpest edge of the rock," pleaded Geoffrey.

"It would make me uncomfortable to see you suffer, just as it would to see anything in pain," she added hastily. "What did it matter to her," she thought, "whether Lord Brompton suffered or not?"

"I would not suffer when I am near you," said Geoffrey, a little plaintively, wondering why he was treated so badly.

"If you came you would not be more entertaining than Heine, would you?" asked Maggie, looking mockingly down into his gray eyes.

"Damn Heine," thought Geoffrey, as he lifted himself up over the rocks. Miss Windsor huddled herself far into a corner of the niche. There was plenty of room for two there after all; yet Geoffrey seated himself in a most uncomfortable attitude, with his stick over his knees, and looked earnestly at her.

"He has come after the stocks and bonds," said Maggie to herself, as she steeled her heart against his winning face and his manly simplicity of manner. She tried to say something about the sea and the view, but he looked at her earnestly, and said, in a low, hurried voice:

"Miss Windsor, I have sought you out to-day with a definite purpose. I sincerely hope that you were not displeased at seeing me. You know why I wish to see you."

Maggie turned away her head; there was a sincere ring to his voice; could it be possible that he really cared for her, loved her, Maggie Windsor? Ah, no; she remembered Mrs. Carey, and said nothing.

"Miss Windsor--Maggie," he said, "I know that I have no right to ask you to marry me, save that I love you with a single heart."

"Oh, Mr. Doubleface," she thought, "how fair you talk!" She still said nothing, but tapped the stone in front of her nervously with the end of her little boot.

"I have nothing to offer you," continued Geoffrey, "except my love and my name; I do not even know whether I even have a life to give you."

Maggie was startled by this; she did not understand it at all. Geoffrey waited for her to say something, and there was a depressing pause for a moment.

She felt that she had grown pale, and her fingers twitched convulsively at the handle of her parasol. Here was her lover saying to her all that she had dreamed he might say, saying in an earnest, trembling voice that he loved her; in a voice so different to his customary tone of banter, that she for a moment almost believed in his sincerity; yet as she averted her face and looked over the bay she could see clearly in her mind's eye the little picture which had remained in it from yesterday--her lover holding Mrs. Carey in his arms.

"Lord Brompton," she finally said, in a slow, deliberate voice, from which all passion, even all affection was wanting, "I am sorry that you have spoken to me in this way, very sorry."

Poor Geoffrey had expected a different answer, and as he sat there looking at Maggie's pale, agitated face, he felt that there was a wall between them, where he had always found a kindly sympathy and an affectionate interest before. He had expected, perhaps, that she might not care about him enough to marry him, for he was not so young or conceited as to imagine that the priceless treasure of a woman's heart is to be lightly won at the first asking, but he had thought that his sweetheart would sympathize with him at his loss of her; with the touching pity which at such times is so akin to love and often its forerunner. Still he boldly went on with his declaration, feeling that he did not wish to leave a word unsaid of all that had swelled his heart with love and hope. If his love were all poured out and spurned, would not the chambers of his heart be swept and garnished for the future?

Yet what a desolate, haunted chamber it will be, he bitterly thought.

"I could not have told you a week ago that I loved you, Maggie," he said. "But I did, though; only I did not know it. I must have loved you since the day I first met you at the ball. You remember it, do you not? When you first smiled at me I felt that we had always known each other; and that evening I was content. Will you make me so for all my life?" He leaned over toward her and tried to take one of her hands; she edged it away from him, and turned toward him with flashing eyes and thin, compressed lips.

"It is not possible that I shall ever care for you, Lord Brompton, in the way in which you pretend to care for me."

"Pretend to care for you!" he said, angrily. "What do you mean by that? Why should I come to you with pretences? What should I gain by making a lying love to you?"

"Everything," she answered, coldly.

"I do not care to argue this, Miss Windsor," he said, turning his face away, pained to the heart. "I am in such a position that I may not; but I wished, while I had a chance, to tell you that I loved you. Good-by, Maggie, good-by. I do not wish to be melodramatic; but you may never see me again."

He kissed one of her hands, which lay at her side, and lifting himself from the rock, climbed down the cliff, a mist of tears before his eyes; and Maggie sat looking over the bay silent and sad, trying to reconcile the evident genuineness of Geoffrey's entreaty with what she knew of him.

Late that evening Mary Lincoln was sitting in her bedroom, in an arm-chair by the fire. Her thoughts were of Sir John Dacre.

In him she saw the hero of whom she had dreamed during her girlhood; the young prince clad in golden armor, and in quest of adventures and opportunities for self-sacrifice, who should awake her sleeping heart with a kiss.

The ordinary warm-hearted but pleasure-loving and easy-going man cannot stir the depths of a nature like Mary Lincoln's. An earnest, ardent spirit, even if it be Quixotic, so that it see before it, like a clear flame, some duty to be done, or some war to be waged, attracts to it the devotion of a strong woman's heart.

Women love adventurous, single-minded men, and will die for them, if need be, gladly and silently; but such men, intent on their object, seem oblivious to the wealth of love that might be theirs for the asking, were they not too absorbed to ask for it. And so it was with John Dacre and Mary Lincoln. He was drawn to her unconsciously by her lovely womanhood; but his great dream seemed to fill his mind, and that fulfilled, the world had nothing in store for him. He wished no rewards, no life for himself, but to see his King returned and Great Britain proud among the nations; yet he liked to sit by Mary Lincoln and ponder his cherished dream.

Of course he would not speak to her of it; he knew the danger of his project; yet she read his heart and knew that he was deep in some adventure which filled his life so that she had no part in it. Still, she saw that she attracted him, even if he did not know it, and they talked together about the glories of the past history of their country, and lived with the great men who, with brain, and sword, and pen had wrought for the honor and fame of their native land.

It was no courtship, no wooing, only a meeting, for a brief space, of two human beings who had been made for each other, but whom fate separated by a rift which could not be bridged. Mary Lincoln knew this, John Dacre did not; but as he had bade her good-night just before, he felt a sadness steal over his heart, and his voice had trembled as he spoke. Even into the heart of this man of one idea, on the eve of this dangerous conspiracy, all unawares the love god had stolen with muffled feet, so that he did not know his presence. But Mary knew.

There was a little tap at the door, and she heard Maggie Windsor's voice asking:

"May I come in?"

Mary arose quickly and unbolted the door, and Maggie Windsor entered.

"You will excuse me for disturbing you, will you not?" asked Maggie, whose eyes were red with weeping, and whose hair had a dishevelled look, as if it had been buried deep in a pillow. "But I felt so lonely and troubled to-night that I have come to talk to you."

Mary leaned over and kissed her with tenderness. "My dear Miss Windsor," she said, "I am touched that you should come to me."

"Oh, please do not call me Miss Windsor, call me Maggie: I cannot tell you anything if you call me Miss Windsor. You know I never had a mother; and there are some things which a girl must tell to some one."

"Maggie, dear," said Mary gently, "tell me everything. It will ease your mind, even if I cannot help you in any way."

"You cannot help me; no one can help me," sobbed Maggie, as her friend put her arm around her waist, and gently stroked her hair. "It is only that I love him so, and he is unworthy of it."

"Do you mean Geoffrey Ripon?" asked Mary.

"Yes, yes."

"Geoffrey Ripon unworthy of a woman's love!" exclaimed Mary. "That cannot be. John Dacre--" She blushed and turned away her face, that Maggie might not see her as she spoke his name. "John Dacre says that he is the soul of honor and his life-long friend."

"Oh! men have such different ideas of honor from ours," exclaimed Maggie. Then she told her friend in broken speech of her love for Geoffrey; that she had supposed that he had not told her he loved her because he felt that he had nothing to offer her; that she had come to England to see him again; and then she told of the dreadful scene in Chichester, and how she had coldly rejected him in the morning because she believed he loved Eleanor Carey, and that he wished to marry for money.

The story seemed shameful to her as she told it: her forwardness in coming to England, and her shattered faith in her lover.

"And yet he seemed in earnest this morning, and he appeared to love me," she said to Mary, when she had told her story, "and when I told him, when he asked me what he had to gain by a pretence of loving me, that he had everything to gain, his face was deadly white and his eyes were filled with tears. Oh, I almost believed in him then, and I should have relented; I fear I should have been weak enough to have relented if he had not left me; and now it is all over!"

She burst into tears, and Mary's face was full of sympathy, as she whispered words of comfort in the unhappy girl's ear.

"I own that appearances are against him," she urged, "but they may be explained away. Mrs. Carey is a very dangerous and bad woman; at the moment when Geoffrey appeared to you the worst he may have loved you the most. Have heart, dear, if he loves you, and if he is a good and true man, as I think he must be, for John Dacre trusts him--"

Maggie raised her head, looked into her friend's eyes and read her secret. Then two hands clasped together tightly, and they kissed and wept together.

"You will see him again," whispered Mary, as Maggie was leaving the room. "You will see him soon, and everything will be right."

"No, I am afraid everything will not," said Maggie; "but if I have lost a lover, I have found a friend, have I not?"

And they did not meet soon again, for Geoffrey was dispatched by Dacre upon most important duty--to make arrangements for the concealment of the King when he should arrive in the country to return to his own again. He went into the enterprise heart and soul; that is to say, with that part of his heart which was left him. Still he feared the end of the affair, and seemed to foresee the ruin to which the troubled waters in which he swam were sweeping the King's men. _

Read next: Chapter 10. King George The Fifth

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