Patsy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (read aloud TXT) 📖

any mercy.
And the Princess said, 'Ah, I thought it was only women whom the
Regent abused without mercy--I think your brother Cumberland told me
so!'
"And this made York burst into a roar of laughter, but Lyonesse grew
very red and angry, for he fancies himself the favourite of his
lordly eldest brother. Then the Princess said to me, 'Go and see
that the maids have closed the windows of my room. I am going up
there as soon as these gentlemen have gone!'
"Upon which I escaped, and after a little while the Princess
followed me, smiling, and apparently quite pleased with herself.
"'Now I wonder,' said she, 'what good they suppose they have done
themselves by that. I am convinced it was the fault of that gipsy
hat with the second ring of roses climbing over the crown. Ah, there
is Eitel--I shall be down presently. Go and entertain him! I hope
they met him coming through the park. He would be sure to scowl at
them!'
"Shall I tell you who Eitel is? Well, if you are nervous and
unaccustomed to shocks, sit down in the biggest and strongest chair
in the Bothy and take hold of both arms. There--one, two, three.
Shut your eyes and grip.
"Well, Eitel is a Prince, Prince Eitel of Altschloss, who wants to
marry me! There. Of course you will not believe it, and indeed, to
tell the truth, I hardly do either. But they all want me to--even
the dear Queen would be pleased. She said as much only yesterday. I
think she was sorry about having helped to stop Elsa marrying Uncle
Julian a long time ago.
"And the young man--well, he is a good soldier--has fought a lot
against Napoleon, and will fight again. To look at?--Oh, he is big
and round and rosy, with yellow moustaches and cheeks like apples,
nice plump red apples. He goes 'Hum-hem-hum' in his throat when he
speaks to me, and he always kisses my hand. Generally he calls me
'Most Noble Lady,' and then I wonder how many hundred yards I could
give him and beat him in a mile race along the sands. I daresay he
would be quite nice if I cared about princes--because he does not
swear all the time, nor gamble away his money with Hangers and
Beaujolais and suchlike cattle. Nor does he habitually get so drunk
that he has to be carried to bed. In his way he is quite a pattern
prince, and if I marry him I shall be the Perfect Princess! But
shall I? What do you advise? The Principality of Altschloss is not
large, but it is rich and the people are very well off and
contented, that is when 'Bony' lets them alone. So the Princess
says, and she knows all about it, for she lives, as it were, just up
the next street--I mean in the next Principality or Duchy or
whatever it is.
"They have got me into a corner, Stair, and here in London among
great folk I do not see how to get out. If it were only dodging them
among the pine of the Glenanmays woods or losing them among the
sand-dunes at the Abbey Burnfoot, my feet would trip as lightly as
ever they did in the yellow sandals--I think the Prince has written
to my father, and I know that the Princess has enclosed a letter to
Uncle Julian." (Stair could feel it at that moment between his
finger and thumb.)
"So, Stair, they have arranged with everybody, or are in the way of
arranging with everybody--except one, Stair--except one.
"They have not yet heard Patsy Ferris speak her mind. They are, poor
people, taking a great deal for granted. And there are things in
this little girl's mind that she has not told to any one.
"If I married the Prince, I know I should make him desperately
unhappy. Yet how to cheat all these wise plan-making people who love
me and wish me, according to their lights, the very best sorts of
Well--I do not yet see. It will come to me, however. Do you remember
how we used to play hide-and-seek so that you could not find me, not
even with your dog--I could cheat you so cunningly. Well, Stair, I
am not caught yet. If I am hard pressed on land, there is still wind
among the tree tops.
"Say nothing of all this screed to Uncle Julian. He will most likely
spend the day in writing. Do you go out somewhere (unless the day is
too wet) and write also. I needed to tell you, for though every one
here is kind, I cannot be sure of this one or that. And I fear me
there is no help for _this_ trouble in the gun you carry over your
shoulder, Stair. It is not the same sort of carrying off as that of
the White Loch, and the Prince with all his apple face and his body
like a comfortable bolster means everything that is most honourable
and princely. I cannot have him shot.
"And oh, I forgot--the second time that the Royal Dukes--the same
pair as before--came hither to Hanover Lodge, Prince Eitel was there
and he stood over me all the time they stayed like a soldier on
guard, asking me funny questions about my embroidery, in which, I am
certain, he was not interested a little bit! But they knew well
enough that he was the Prince Eitel who had been at Austerlitz and
Wagram, and that he could demand of them as a right the satisfaction
which they might deny to a commoner. So I was grateful to him for
cowing them, though I really believe that your way is the best,
Stair. There is nothing like a charge of slugs in the back for
teaching a royal duke manners!
"If the worst comes to the worst, do not be surprised if--but I
cannot write it down. At any rate do not be surprised at anything I
may do--only be ready to help me when I do it. And remain always, as
I shall, faithful to the memory of the White Loch.
"PATSY."


CHAPTER XXV
THE HIGH STILE
Having finished, Stair seemed to wake as from a dream. He had read and re-read the letter. The words buzzed in his ears, mingled with the sharp pain at his heart. Patsy a princess--a real prince making love to her, a man who could be her husband, who might even now have rights upon her, yet whom it would be impossible to deal with as he had dealt with the Duke of Lyonesse! He felt desperately lonely up there.
The escarpments of the cliffs sank away beneath him into the chill turmoil of the winter sea. He had been sitting on a flat tomb, one of the few cut in stone. The yellow fog had vanished. The moors spread away vague and simple, the fine wreath-curves of the snow only interrupted here and there by the brutal rigidity of the tall stone dykes with the easterly snow-blast still clinging in the chinks and stuffing the crevices.
Everything was colourless, the ground of a bluish lilac, fading imperceptibly into a livid sky. Still half-dazed, Stair looked about him, Patsy's letter in his hand, surprised to find himself out there and alone. The written characters danced before his eyes, and it was only the strongest sense of duty which turned his face towards the Bothy and Julian Wemyss. He was carrying, he knew it well, a letter from the Princess, enclosing and doubtless supporting a demand for the hand of Patsy Ferris.
Whitefoot slunk along at his master's side, his tail and ears eloquently drooped, and his doleful aspect reflecting admirably the mood of his master. But Stair set his teeth and went forward. He found his breakfast waiting for him, and Julian Wemyss took the letter with his usual grateful urbanity. He was not slow in noticing the depressed state of his companion, though, naturally, he put it down to his having been kept waiting so long in the raw fog.
"I suppose Jean could not come exactly to the moment?" he said, his letter still unopened in his hand.
"No," said Stair, "she was waiting for me, but I came back by the cliffs and the Sailors' Graveyard."
Julian, who knew that Stair never did anything without a reason, asked him if he had found everything clear from the lookout.
"Oh, all clear," said Stair, and sat down to make a pretence of breakfasting. But he could not keep his eyes from wandering in the direction of Julian Wemyss, who, seated in the great chair between the window and the fire, was presently bending his brows over the packet he had received. Eight sheets of a fine and light handwriting like that of the address--from the Princess Elsa, of that there could be no question. Julian read on and on, wrapped up in the daintily written words, unconscious of the thick enclosure on paper like parchment, which had slipped down on the floor of the Bothy. Stair could see the huge black downstrokes of the superscription. He stopped eating and began to clear away.
Julian looked up from his reading at the sudden clattering of pottery.
"Hold there," he said, "it is my day--you must not forget. I claim my rights."
But Stair continued with a smile to prepare for that part of the work which is the curse of every bachelor menage--the washing-up after.
"I think," he said quietly, "that you will have enough to do with your correspondence--I take everything upon me for to-day. Your pardon, Mr. Wemyss, but I am afraid you have dropped something!"
"Ah, so I have--it is nothing--I am much obliged to you."
He spoke the truth. It was nothing to him--what, indeed, could be anything in comparison with those eight closely written sheets of large letter paper from his Princess--only the half of which he had yet mastered. Elsa of Saxe-Brunschweig had never written him so long a letter since the day when they agreed, long ago in Vienna, that for the good of her house and country she must marry the old duke-elector.
So it came to pass that Julian Wemyss was grateful to Patsy for bringing him such good fortune. Nor was he surprised out of measure when