Oddsfish! by Robert Hugh Benson (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📖

"what do you want?"

He saw that I was a gentleman by my dress; and he answered me very civilly.

"My master is benighted, sir," said he; "and he bid me come and ask whether he might lie here to-night. There is no inn in the place."

"Why, who is your master?" I asked.

He did not seem to hear my question, for he went on immediately.

"There are only five of the party, sir," he said. "Two gentlemen and three servants."

I saw that my Cousin Tom was behind me now; and that Dolly was looking from the door of the Great Chamber.

"You have not yet told us," I said, "what your master's name is."

"I think, sir, he had best answer that," said the fellow.

Now this might very well be a Catholic, and perhaps an important person who had heard of Mr. Jermyn, but did not wish to advertise who himself was. I looked at my Cousin Tom; and thought from his look that the same thought had come to him.

"Well, Cousin?" I said.

"They had best come in--" he said shortly. "Dolly, rouse some of the servants. They will want supper, I suppose."

He nodded to the man, who went back immediately; and a minute later two gentlemen came up the flagged path, also in great cloaks that appeared soaked with the rain.

"By God, sir!" said the first of them, "we are grateful to you. This is a wild night."

My Cousin, Tom said something civil, and when the door was shut, helped this man off with his cloak, while I helped the other. The former was explaining all the while how they were on their way to town from Newmarket; and how they had become bogged a little after Barkway, losing their road in the darkness. They had intended to push on to Waltham Cross, he said, or Ware at the least, and lie there. He spoke with a merry easy air that shewed him for a well-bred and pleasant fellow. My own man said nothing, but left it all to the other.

When I turned to see the one who spoke, I was more surprised than ever in all my life before; for it was no other than the Duke of Monmouth himself. He looked a shade older than when I had last seen him in the park above a year ago; but he was the very same and I could not mistake him. As for me, he would not know me from Adam, for he had never spoken with me in all his life. I did not know what to do, as to whether I should make to recognize him or not; but he saved me the trouble; for as I followed the others into the Great Chamber, he was already speaking.

"It is very good of you, Mr. Jermyn," he said, "to receive us like this. My name is Morton, and my friend's here Mr. Atkins. You can put us where you will--on the floor if you have no other place."

"We can do better than that, sir," said Tom. "There is only my daughter here and Mr. Mallock my cousin. My daughter is gone to call the servants."

The Duke looked very handsome and princely as he stood on the hearth, although there was no fire, and surveyed the room. He was in a dark blue riding-suit, darker than it should be upon the shoulders with the rain that had soaked through his cloak; but it was of the colour of his eyes that were very fine and attractive; and he wore his own hair. The other man looked pretty mean beside him; and yet he was not ill-looking. He was a fair man, too, with a rosy face; in a buff suit.

"We can manage two changes of clothes, Mr. Morton," went on my Cousin Tom, "if you fear to take a cold; or you can sup immediately; as you will."

"Why, Mr. Jermyn; I think we will sup first and go to bed afterwards. The clothes can be dried, no doubt, before morning."

In spite of all his efforts, he spoke as one born to command and with a kind of easy condescension too; and certainly this had its effect upon poor Tom; for he was all eagerness and welcome, who just now had been a shade surly. He was beginning to say that it was for his guests to choose, when my Cousin Dolly came in suddenly through the open door.

"Why here is my little maid, gentlemen--" he said; and Dolly did her reverence.

Now I had in my mind no thought of jealousy at all; and yet when I saw how the Duke bowed to my cousin, I am bound to say that a touch of it pierced me like a dart--there and gone again, I thought. But it had been there. I thought how few gentlemen poor Dolly saw down here in Hare Street: beyond the parson--and he was a man who would go out before the pudding in a great house, and marry the lady's maid--there was scarce one who might write Esquire after his name; and the breeding of most of the squires was mostly rustical. As for her, she did her reverence very prettily, without a trace of the country in it; and, strange to say, her manner seemed to change. I mean by that, that she seemed wholly at her ease in this new kind of company, fully as much as with her maids.

"You have had a very wet ride, sir," she said, without any sign of confusion or shyness; "the maids are kindling a fire in the kitchen, to dry your clothes before morning: and your men shall have beds in the attic."

The Duke made a pretty answer, which she took as prettily.

"And a cold supper shall be in immediately," she said.

Then my Cousin Tom must needs begin upon the maid, as if she were a child, or idiotic; and say what a good housekeeper his little maid was to him, and how she could do so many things; and the Duke took it all with courtesy, yet did not encourage it, as if he understood her ways better than her father did--which was, very likely, true enough.

"And you come up to London, mistress," he said, "no doubt," with a look at her dress that was not at all insolent, and yet very plain. And it was indeed a pretty good one; and I remember it very well. It was cut like a French sac--a fashion that had first come in about ten years before, and still lasted; and was a little lower at the throat than many that she wore. It was of a brownish kind of yellow, of which I do not know the name, and had white lace to it, and silver lace on the bodice. She was sunburnt again, but not too much, as I had first seen her; and her blue eyes looked very bright in her face; and she wore a ring on either hand, as she usually did in the evening, and had her little pearls round her neck. It was strange to me how I observed all this, so soon as the Duke had drawn attention to it; whereas I had not observed it particularly before.

Wen we went into supper it was the same with the Duke and her. He behaved to her with the greatest deference, yet not at all exaggerated so as to be in the least insolent. He treated her, it appeared to me, as he would have treated one of his own ladies, though there had been every excuse, especially with Cousin Tom's way of speaking to her, and the deep country we were in, if he had not noticed her at all. Mr. Atkins, as he called himself, followed suit; but said very little. Once, when the dishes had to be taken away, and Dolly rose to do it--before I could move--(my Cousin Tom, of course, sat there like a dummy)--I observed the Duke make a little movement with his eyes towards Mr. Atkins, who immediately rose up and did it for her.

The effect of all this upon me was to make me do my best in talk; but it was not very easy without betraying that I knew more of the Court than might be supposed; but the Duke outdid me every time. He listened with the greatest courtesy; and then said something a little better. I think I have never seen a man do better; but it was always so with him. Five years later he won the hearts of all the drapers in Taunton, in that terrible enterprise of his, besides ranging on his side some of the noblest blood in England. Twenty-six young maids in that town gave him a Bible and a pair of colours worked by their hands; and twenty-six young maids, it was said, went away after it in love with him. He did not prove himself very much of a hero in the field; but from his manner in company one could never have guessed at that. He had all the bearing of a prince, and all the charm of a boy with it.

My Cousin Tom said something when supper was ending about Dolly's skill in music; and how she and her maid sang together.

"May we not hear it for ourselves?" asked the Duke.

"But you are wet, sir," said my Cousin Tom.

The Duke smiled.

"I shall not think of that, sir," he said, "if Mistress Dorothy will sing to us."

Well; so it was settled. The maid was in the kitchen, and was presently fetched; and she and Dolly sang together once or twice, though it was now after eleven o'clock. They sang Mr. Wise's "Go, perjured man," I remember, again; and then M. Grabu's "Song upon Peace." The Duke sat still in the great chair, shading his eyes from the candlelight, and watching my Cousin Dolly: and once, when my Cousin Tom broke in upon the second song with something he had just thought of to say, he put him aside with a gesture, very royal and commanding, and yet void of offence, until the song was done.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jermyn," he said a moment afterwards, "but I have never been so entranced. What was it that you wished to say?"

As Dolly came towards him he stood up.

"Mistress Dorothy," he said, "you have given us a great deal of pleasure." And he said this with so much gravity and feeling that she flushed. It was the first evident sign she had given that he had pleased her.

"And I mean it," he went on, "when I say it is a pity you do not come to town more often. Such singing as that should have a larger audience than the two or three you have had to-night."

Dolly smiled at him.

"Thank you, sir," she said. "But I know my place better than that."

This was all a little bitter to me; for by this time a wild kind of jealousy had risen again in me which I knew to be unreasonable, and yet could not check. It was true that I myself took the greatest pains never to forget my manners; but I knew very well that novelty has a pleasantness all of its own; and the novelty of such company as this, charged with the peculiar charm of the Duke's manner, must surely, I thought, have its effect upon her.

"Well," said he, "I could spend all night in this chamber with such