Patsy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (read aloud TXT) 📖

It was a kindly face, but infinitely sad and lined with more cares than fall to the lot of most women of her age. The ingratitude of sons, the death of daughters, the poor troubled husband, old and witless in the King Charles ground-floor suite, weeping for his lost eyesight or sitting smiling mirthlessly over his violin, had marked her. But in spite of all she had kept the cult of royalty.
Bloods should not mix. The sacred should not seek the profane.
"I know," she said, gently putting her hand out and patting the arm of the Princess, "Brunschweig was no light trial. But are you sure you would have been happier with your ambassador?"
"Yes," said the Princess Elsa quickly, "I am certain--if he stamped upon me, if he killed me, I should be happier."
"You think so," said the Queen, "and I shall not try to make you think otherwise--"
"Because, Aunt Charlotte, neither you nor any one could do that. Julian is as faithful to-day as he was twenty years ago--as loyal, as ready to sacrifice himself. He is the one man to be depended upon."
"Ah, because he has remained your lover. But there is my husband. He is a good man. We have been happy these forty years--without a word, without a quarrel, and yet, when his wits are touched, whose name comes to his lips, whose hand does he feel when I stroke his brow?--not mine--not his old wife's, but that of a woman dead these many years, whom he knew before ever he saw me!"
"Ah," said the Princess, "but you were not wedded to a hulk of corruption, and when the dear King's words are wild, he is not responsible. You know that as well as I. At any rate there is Julian, and he and I have done our duty. But I am fond of Eitel. He at least can marry whom he likes. Patsy is a gentlewoman of unblemished lineage--older than his own--and if he can win her, at least it will keep my little Eitel from making the mistake which I made."
The Queen slowly nodded her head, thinking deeply.
"After all," she meditated, "Altschloss, though a respectable house, is neither Hapsburg nor Hanover, and a new man like Eitel, come in by a turn of the dice, may please himself--but--well (here she smiled) if you have said 'Whom Elsa hath blessed let no man put asunder'--I suppose there is no more to be done!"
"I wish it were as certain as all that," sighed the Princess, "but, in fact, I am not at all sure about Patsy!"
"What," cried the Queen, surprised out of the pensiveness of her matronly gravity, "surely you do not mean to say that the girl would refuse a prince--a reigning prince?"
Elsa shook her head sadly.
"I do not know," she acknowledged, "she watches everything with those big black eyes of hers, and she smiles. She says that one man or another is much the same to her, and I can only hope for the best. But as a matter of fact I have never dared to put the offer of the Prince clearly before her. It seems better to accustom her gradually to the idea!"
"And the young man himself--your Eitel of Altschloss does not come of a very patient race--I remember an uncle of his, but no matter--what does he say? How does he take it? Has he spoken to your little Scot?"
"Frankly, I do not know," said the Princess. "I should judge not, by the excellence of their comradeship."
"Is it wounded pride because of the young man of her country--that foolish boy of old De Raincy's? He is always, as I hear, at the flounces of the Arlington."
"I don't think Patsy cares," said the Princess. "If she showed a preference, it would make it easier for me. I should begin to understand her. Little Miss Aline Minto, the chatelaine of Ladykirk, who is with us, may understand her better, but for me I own myself beaten. I cannot get a serious answer out of the girl. If Julian were here--"
"And why is not Julian here?" said the Queen. "I understand that in your position--but, after all, with Brunschweig living as he is doing, I do not see that you need deprive yourself of his occasional advice."
"Thank you, Aunt Charlotte," said the Princess, stooping and kissing her aunt's cheek, "I shall remember. But you see, Julian killed the Regent's friend Lord Wargrove in a duel for helping one of his companions to carry off Patsy. They charge him also with wounding the Duke of Lyonesse, but that he did not do. Still, he gets the credit for it with the Carlton House set, and they have a warrant out against him. Erskine has seen to that. He cannot come to London, at least not in the meantime."
"Ah," said the Queen, "so your friend delivered us from that rascal Wargrove. That was one service to good order, though of course it is wrong to duel. It is a pity that he could not be here now. If you do not take care, that little gipsy of yours will slip through your fingers. I know what happens to young ladies who flout at princes. There is always another man in the background!"
"Aunt Charlotte, I am quite sure you are wrong about Patsy," said the Princess.


CHAPTER XXIV
THE LOST FOLK'S ACRE
It was a high day and a holiday at the Bothy of the Wild of Blairmore--a high day though a short one--one of the shortest of all the year, though by this time it was well into January. But that made little difference on our misty moors. There the frozen sea-fog bound us and the wind, when there was one, stung extraordinarily bitter.
Sea-fog breezes yellowish (let this be marked), but the mist of the fresh water moors is white with iridescent circles where the low winter sun is trying to peep through. Little sounds carry far. You can hear wild fowl calling far up in the brumous smother which hides the lift. They are voyaging from lands of summer, and are already sorry they came. For here the winter still holds grim, black and yet somehow raw, which was the fault of the yellow sea-fog.
Stair had been up that morning long before the tardy January dawn, Whitefoot had been sent from the farm the night before with the news that Jean would meet him in the bed of the Mays Water opposite Peden's Stone. There was now more freedom of moving about, for the freezing of the snow enabled both man and beast to pass over it without leaving a footmark.
He found Jean standing there in the dim orange-coloured dawn. She was shivering dislike of the morning, which was at once clammy and freezing hard, so that every stone and even the banks were covered with the frozen fog. Jean had a great red shawl that had come from Holland about her head and neck, and so kept herself as comfortable as might be while she waited for her brother.
Stair had had to watch the signs of the countryside before he dared risk letting himself down into the dark of the Glen. For the sea was always open, and a landing party from the _Britomart_ might have lain unseen in any of the fir copses or hidden behind the knolls.
Black and narrow ran the Mays, that at other times flowed so wide and brown and free. The frost had bound it tightly, all save a trickle in the centre, black as ink, and everywhere about clung the icicles, some thick as a man's arm.
"Oh, Stair, here are letters--one for Mr. Julian and one for you," Jean gasped, the sea-fog in her throat, "thankful I am to see you! I thought you would never come. Here, too, are the provisions--be canny with the eggs. They are on the top in a box by themselves, packed in sawdust, but do not be throwing them down wi' a brainge to get at your letters. And there in a big bag are the linen and clothes--cleaner and sweeter could not be, though I say it that washed and laundried them."
"Is Patsy well?" queried Stair, for he knew that Jean must have a letter of her own which she had read already.
"Famous," said Jean--"of course she is well. Are they not going to marry her to a prince--?"
"Not Lyonesse?" The voice of Stair grew suddenly hoarse and threatening. He looked capable of setting off to London with his musket over his shoulder, to finish the job he had begun.
"Goose," quoth his sister, "no--of course not. Somebody she likes--a young and handsome prince from Germany, or maybe Austria, and a great friend and near neighbour of the Princess, when she is at home."
"You are mocking me," said Stair, regaining some of his composure. "It is sheer nonsense that you are talking."
"Well," said Jean, adjusting the red Amersfort shawl about her head and neck, "go back and read your letter. You will no doubt find it all written there!"
Stair stood and watched her till she disappeared along the edge of the Water of Mays. He could not ask her any further questions, having Patsy's prohibition before him. Besides, there was his own letter, along with one for her Uncle Julian. The last was by far the thickest, and he wondered greatly as he turned it over in his hand, what it might contain.
He could not read his letter down under the overhanging brow of the copse. It was too dark down there at the water's edge, and so by a great detour he made for the Lost Folk's Acre--that port of final harbourage to which the drowned were brought. It lay high on the cliffs, so lonely that if the Lost Ones were to sit evident on their crumbling head-boards and watch for ships all day long, not even a passing gull would be frighted.
"Dear Stair" (the letter read), "it is no use telling you about all
the grand doings I have been at. For you never take the least
notice. But I can tell you one bit of news that will interest you.
My Lord Duke of Lyonesse is better of his wound, for I have seen
him twice. He looks nearly quite right when he is riding on a
horse, but when he came with his brother York the other day to see
us at Hanover Lodge, he carried a Malacca cane all banded with gold
and he limped badly. I don't think he will ever get over it
altogether. Of which I was glad, and also proud that you could take
so good an aim in the dark. For of course you had no practice in
shooting Dukes.
"The Princess was particularly haughty that day, and would hardly
ask them to sit down. I said nothing, but bent over my needlework
like the good child keeping quiet in the corner. Oh, but they are
stupid, these royal people, all except my own Princess and the dear
old Queen at Windsor. Neither York nor Lyonesse knew in the least
what to say, and the Princess let them stammer on without helping
them. I could have laughed.
"What made her more angry still was the way they spoke about Uncle
Ju. They said they were sure of getting him, and that the Regent was
furious about his killing Wargrove. He could not expect