H. C. Bailey

“ Geoffrey smiled. "I doubt our Harry has no turn for soldiering."
"You are always right, Mr. Waverton," Harry nodded at him.
"It is not only soldiers who fight our battles, Mr. Waverton," said the Colonel with dignity. "There's danger enough for a quick wit and a cool judgment far behind the lines. And you need not go to Flanders to find the war. It's flaming all over England, all over—France," he dropped the last word in a lower tone, as if his heat had carried him away and it was a blunder. He flung himself back and emptied his glass, and looked gloomily at the empty decanter. ”

“ If Geoffrey had his mother's wit, faith, I should never dare come here at all."
"It is not my wit which you need ever fear, Alison," Geoffrey's eyes were ardent upon her.
"Why, you are merciful. Or is it modest?"
"I can be neither, Alison. I am a man."
"My dear Geoffrey, I am sorry for all your misfortunes." She turned from him to Mr. Hadley, who was content in a corner. "Have we quarrelled?"
"We never loved each other well enough."
"Is that why I am always very glad to see Mr. Hadley?"
"It is why he can tell Miss Lambourne that she looks divinely beautiful."
"That means inhuman, sir." ”

“ The men whom Harley and Bolingbroke had driven from power had no mind to submit to impotence. They well knew what they wanted: the Hanoverian, the lawful, limited king upon the throne and themselves as his ministers. They were not delicate about the means they used. Since there were treason and plots, they too turned their hands to plotting and with a vigour and ruthless resolution of which the other camp was innocent.
So the wise and eminent were busy while Harry Boyce and his Alison made trial of their marriage. Harry lived in a dream of bewildered happiness. ”

“ For all the daintiness, her lips, a proud pair, were richly red (stained of raspberries, in Charles Hadley's sneer) , and with the black masses of her hair and grey eyes almost as dark, gave her an aspect of, what neither man nor woman ever denied her, eager and passionate life. All this was flowering out of her peacock blue velvet, and Harry, I infer, went mad.
She never expanded into the larger extravagances of the hoop, preferring to trust to her own shape. Her waist made no pretence of fine-ladyship, but the bodice was close laced à la mode to parade the riches of her bosom. ”

“ What in the world was worth so much as the rose petals of her face, the round swell of her breast?
"Damme, Harry, a man's a fool to be ambitious," so his father broke in upon this tumult. "Why do we fret and trick after a place, or a purse, or a trifle of power?"
Harry stared at him. "Lord, sir, why are you so moral?"
And then Colonel Boyce began to laugh. "I grow old, I think. Oh, the devil, I never had regrets worse than the morning's headache for last night's wine. I suppose if you live long enough, life's a procession of morning headaches. ”

“ What will the world say of me if I let you run into a gang of murderers? We can maintain the house against them till our friends come seeking us. In the open we are outnumbered desperately. Nay, sir, be advised; what is to lose by waiting? If you go, you grasp at a shadow and may throw away your life for it."
"I say, my lord, I do not thank you for your care of me, which is careless of my honour and your own. I am promised to our friends. Do you desire me to go afoot, my lord?"
"I have done, sir." My lord bowed and went out.
"Sir, I believe they will not spare you," says Harry. ”

“ Harry shrugged his shoulders. "'Poor, dear lad,' says she, 'and to be sure I am a sad, bad woman. But I think I'll die a queen.' What then, sir?"
"I don't say you are wrong, Harry. She's more like to drown the lad in tears than right him. And meanwhile our rightful king, James the Pretender, is left to his vin ordinaire. Faith, it's a proper liquor, for rightful heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. ”

“ Boyce."
"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?"
"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?"
"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows why she runs after me."
"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless maid indeed which runs after a man"—she made him a curtsy. "But what is the man who runs away from a maid?"
Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep water. ”

“ Harry stiffened.
"It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your face—your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. "You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. ”

“ There is a moss on the birch trunks which makes a colour of singular charm, a soft, delicate, grey green. A hood of that colour embraced Alison's black hair and the glow of the dark eyes and her raspberry lips. The cloak of the same colour she drew close about her with one gauntleted hand, so that it confessed her shape.
The birches could still show a few golden leaves, though each moment another went whirling away as the crests bowed and tossed before the wind. In the brown bracken beneath Harry Boyce stood waiting. His graces were set off with his customary rusty black. ”

“ The Colonel laughed. "He has me there, the rogue. The truth is, gentlemen, I have not seen him in these six years. Damme, Harry, you are grown no fatter."
"Servitors don't make flesh," said Harry.
"And soldiers don't make money. Still; there's enough for two now, boy."
"I am glad you have been fortunate," the tone suggested that though the father had quite enough for two; there would be none to spare for the son.
"Why, sir," Waverton was grandly genial, "I hope you don't mean to rob me of Harry. He's the most useful fellow, and, I promise you; I value him." ”

“ Who should care a pinch of snuff for "a scholar just from his college broke loose" with a penny farthing in his pocket, who had to pioneer young gentlemen through their Horace and their Tully for his bed and board? When you meet him, Harry Boyce was happy in having caught for his pupil a young fellow who had not merely money but brains, and so sublime a condescension that Harry was not sent away from table with the parson when the puddings came. Mr. Geoffrey Waverton was pleased to have a value for him, and defended him from his natural duty of being gentleman usher to Lady Waverton. ”

“ Harry persisted deliberately; "too beautiful to be good company."
"That will not serve, sir. You are not so inflammable. Being more in the nature of a tortoise."
"If you had a flaw or so: if your nose had a twist; if your cheeks had felt the weather; if—I fear, ma'am, I grow intimate. In fine, if you were less fine, you would be a comfort to a man. But as it is—permit the tortoise to keep in his shell."
"I advise you, Mr. Boyce—I resent this."
Harry bowed. "I dare to remind you, ma'am—I did not demand the conversation."
"The conversation!" Her eyes flashed. "What do I care if a lad's impudent? ”

“ She would still boast to herself that she was not the woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable question—if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give him all that a man could ask. ”

“ Benjamin cried. "Why, rot you, did you want a share then? You should ha' said so, bully. Come on now, my dear, let's up. We do be gentlemen and share fair enough."
"I warrant you I am having my share," Harry laughed; "and I like it very well. But oh, Benjamin, there would have been nought to share if I had not come up. No fun at all, Benjamin." He wrenched the pistol away. "'Tis I have made the business joyous. You are a dull fellow by yourself."
"Rot you," said Benjamin frankly. "When Ned comes back he'll shoot you like vermin." ”

“ Marlborough, who would send him to the scaffold with the noblest air in the world! Why, but for that silly meddling at Kensington, the lad might have won free. Now he and his cause must die together before a jeering mob. So much for the endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her beauty! ”

“ Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such an air, Harry. You carried it off à merveille. My lord was a whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable."
"You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled with you."
"Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. ”

“ It had been just rediscovered that women could be leaders in the world—at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his enemies the government of England. It was a woman—another duchess—who beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some humour, of imagining Harry Boyce a Marlborough. ”

“ Mrs. Weston's eyes grew wide, and her face was white and drawn, and she swayed. As Harry bowed to her, a lacquered box was swept off the table with a great clatter, and Colonel Boyce cried, "Odds life, Harry, you are a clumsy fellow. Here, man, here," and made a great commotion over picking it up.
Alison had her arm about Mrs. Weston: "Why, Weston, dear, what is it? Are you seeing a ghost?" She laughed. "Pray, Mr. Boyce, come to life."
"I ask pardon, ma'am." Harry rose with the box.
"'Bid me to live and I will live,'" said the Colonel, with a grand air. ”

“ Hadley said. "But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man."
"I do not desire it, sir."
"I may hold my tongue and mind my own business, eh? Why not take me friendly?"
"I intend you no harm, Mr. Hadley."
"That's devilish good of you, Mr. Boyce. To be plain with you, what do you want here?"
"Here? Oh Lord, sir, I come to smoke my pipe!"
"And what if I come to smoke you? Odds life, I know you are no fool. Do me the honour to take me for none. And tell me, if you please, why do you choose to be Master Geoffrey's gentleman in waiting? You are good for better than that, Mr. Boyce." ”

“ She appeared to him then, as to later generations, a woman ineffectual and without interest; a dull woman physically, mentally, and perhaps morally; just the woman upon whom it would be hardest to make an encomium of any splendour. So he was heartily ingenious over his alcaics, and relished them.
From this you may divine much that you have to know about the soul of Harry Boyce. It was more given to mockery than enthusiasms, apter to criticisms than devotion, not very gentle nor very kind, and so quite satisfied with itself and by itself. ”

“ But together and singly they set going many strange secret schemes which were to make a new king, a new England, and new magnificence for themselves, singly or together. All which the mass of England watched with shrewd, incurious eyes. It could not long be a secret that plots were afoot. To shoulder out of power all who were committed friends of the lawful order was a confession of designs against it. As if that were not enough, Bolingbroke and Harley so managed their business that everything they did was wrapped in a mist of trickery and intrigue. ”

“ There was life and laughter in that calm Greek face, and the vivid, delicate colour of it maddened him. The great crown of black hair was just what her brow needed for its royalty. He could find no fault in the irksome wench. Even her dress, dark grey as her eyes, perfectly became her, perfectly pleased in its generous modesty. And she knew of her power too. There was a mocking confidence in every line of her.
"But who is this, Lady Waverton?" she was saying again. ”

“ The hero whom Horace was celebrating, you know, was the man superior to the common herd. Now common men (as even Harry might be aware) are all overbearing. It is this quality in the vulgar which most distresses fine souls (like Mr. Waverton) who desire nothing but their just rights.
"I dare say it is," Harry yawned. "If Horace had wanted to mean that, he would have said so."
"I often think, Harry, you dry scholars have no sense for the thought of a poet," said Mr. Waverton elegantly, and lay back in his chair and surveyed Harry.
He was a handsome lad and knew how to set it off. ”

“ Marlborough laughed. "And now you are sorry to find I am not so distinguished. Why is it a pleasure to despise me, Mr. Boyce?"
Harry had to laugh too. "It's a hit, sir. I suppose your Grace is so great a man that we all envy you and are eager for a chance to defame you and bring you down to our own level."
"You're above that, Mr. Boyce," Marlborough said. "I make you my compliments on your conduct in the affair. And pray remember that I am in your debt. I don't know your situation. If I can serve you, do me the pleasure of commanding me." ”

“ There was too proud a force in her life for her to admit a dread of being defeated. Her man must live and be safe, because she needed him. Harry could not fail her. But she was desperately impatient. She wanted him every instant, and even more she wanted to stand before him and accuse herself, confess herself. For the truth is that Geoffrey Waverton had profoundly affected her. When she found Geoffrey daubing her with patronizing congratulations, when he dared to claim her as ally in mean tricks against her husband, she discovered that she must be miserably in the wrong. ”