The Nest of the Sparrowhawk. Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy
asked Sir Marmaduke for his opinion?"
"I need not to ask him. I ask you to go."
"Go? Whither?" he asked blandly.
"Out of my sight and off these grounds at once, ere I rouse the servants and have you whipped off like a dog!" she said, angered beyond measure at his audacity, his irony, his manner, suggestive of insolent triumph. His muffled voice with its curious foreign accent irritated her, as did the shadow of his perruque over his brow, and the black silk shade which he wore over one eye.
Even now in response to her violent outburst he broke into renewed laughter.
"Better and better! Ah, mistress," he said with a shake of the head, "of a truth you are more blind than I thought."
"You are more insolent, master, than I had thought possible."
"Yet meseems, fair lady, that in the lonely and mysterious stranger you might have remembered your humble and devoted servant," he said, drawing his figure up towards her.
"You! an old friend!" she said contemptuously. "I have ne'er set eyes on you in my life before."
"To think that the moon should be so treacherous," he rejoined imperturbably. "Will you not look a little closer, fair mistress, the shadows are somewhat dark, mayhap."
She felt his one eye fixed upon her with cold intentness, a strange feeling of superstitious dread suddenly crept over her from head to foot. Like a bird fascinated by a snake she came a little nearer, down the steps, towards him, her eyes, too, riveted on his face, that curious face of his, surrounded by the heavy perruque hiding ears and cheeks, the mouth overshadowed by the dark mustache, one eye concealed beneath the black silk shade.
He seemed amused at her terror and as she came nearer to him, he too, advanced a little until their eyes met—his, mocking, amused, restless; hers, intent and searching.
Thus they gazed at one another for a few seconds, whilst silence reigned around and the moon peered down cold and chaste from above, illumining the old house, the neglected garden, the vast park with its innumerable dark secrets and the mysteries which it hid.
She was the first to step back, to recoil before the ironical intensity of that fixed gaze. She felt as if she were in a dream, as if a nightmare assailed her, which in her wakeful hours would be dissipated by reason, by common sense, by sound and sober fact.
She even passed her hand across her eyes as if to sweep away from before her vision, a certain image which fancy had conjured up.
His laugh—strident and mocking—roused her from this dreamlike state.
"I … I … do not understand," she murmured.
"Yet it is so simple," he replied, "did you not ask me awhile ago if nothing could be done?"
"Who … who are you?" she whispered, and then repeated once again: "Who are you?"
"I am His Royal Highness, Prince Amédé d'Orléans," said Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse lightly, "the kinsman of His Majesty, King Louis of France, the mysterious foreigner who works for the religious and political freedom of his country, and on whose head le roi soleil hath set a price … and who, moreover, hath enflamed the romantic imagination of a beautiful young girl, thus winning her ardent love in the present and in the near future together with her vast fortune and estates."
He made a movement as if to remove his perruque but she stopped him with a gesture. She had understood. And in the brilliant moonlight a complete revelation of his personality might prove dangerous. Lady Sue herself might still—for aught they knew—be standing in the dark room behind—unseen yet on the watch.
He seemed vastly amused at her terror, and boldly took the hand with which she had arrested his act of total revelation.
"Nay! do you recognize your humble servant at last, fair Editha?" he queried. "On my honor, madam, Lady Sue is deeply enamored of me. What think you of my chances now?"
"You? You?" she repeated at intervals, mechanically, dazed still, lost in a whirl of conflicting emotions wherein fear, amazement, and a certain vein of superstitious horror fought a hard battle in her dizzy brain.
"The risks," she murmured more coherently.
"Bah!"
"If she discover you, before … before … "
"Before she is legally my wife? Pshaw! … Then of a truth my scheme will come to naught … But will you not own, Editha, that 'tis worth the risk?"
"Afterwards?" she asked, "afterwards?"
"Afterwards, mistress," he rejoined enigmatically, "afterwards sits on the knees of the gods."
And with a flourish of his broad-brimmed hat he turned on his heel and anon was lost in the shadows of the tall yew hedge.
How long she stood there watching that spot whereon he had been standing, she could not say. Presently she shivered; the night had turned cold. She heard the cry of some small bird attacked by a midnight prowler; was it the sparrow-hawk after its prey?
From the other side of the house came the sound of slow and firm footsteps, then the opening and shutting of a door.
Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had played his part for to-night: silently as he had gone, so he returned to his room, whilst in another corner of the sparrow-hawk's nest a young girl slept, dreaming dreams of patriots and heroes, of causes nobly won, of poverty and obscurity gloriously endured.
Mistress de Chavasse with a sigh half of regret, half of indifference, finally turned her back on the moonlit garden and went within.
CHAPTER IX
SECRET SERVICE
Master Hymn-of-Praise Busy was excessively perturbed. Matters at the Court were taking a curious turn. That something of unusual moment had happened within the last few days he was thoroughly convinced, and still having it in his mind that he was especially qualified for the lucrative appointments in my Lord Protector's secret service—he thought this an excellent opportunity for perfecting himself in the art of investigation, shrewdly conducted, which he understood to be most essential for the due fulfillment of such appointments.
Thus we see him some few days later on a late afternoon, with back bent nearly double, eyes fixed steadily on the ground and his face a perfect mirror of thoughtful concentration within, slowly walking along the tiny footpath which wound in and out the groups of majestic elms in the park.
Musing and meditating, at times uttering strange and enigmatical exclamations, he reached the confines of the private grounds, the spot where the surrounding wall gave place to a low iron gate, where the disused pavilion stood out gray and forlorn-looking in the midst of the soft green of the trees, and where through the woods beyond the gate, could just be perceived the tiny light which issued from the blacksmith's cottage, the most outlying one in the village of Acol.
Master Hymn-of-Praise leaned thoughtfully against the ivy-covered wall. His eyes, roaming, searching, restless, pried all around him.
"Footprints!" he mused, "footprints which of a surety must mean that human foot hath lately trod this moss. Footprints moreover, which lead up the steps to the door of that pavilion, wherein to my certain knowledge, no one hath had access of late."
Something, of course, was going on at Acol Court, that strange and inexplicable something which he had tried to convey by covert suggestion to Mistress Charity's female—therefore inferior—brain.
Sir Marmaduke's temper was more sour and ill even than of yore, and there was still