Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War, R. D. Blackmore [free ebook reader for ipad .TXT] 📗

while Carne maintained his dreary watch, with his mood becoming darker. As the sound of joyful voices, and of good-will doubled by good fare, came to his unfed vigil from the open windows of the dining-room, his heart was not enlarged at all, and the only solace for his lips was to swear at British revelry. For the dining-room was at the western end, some fifty yards away from him, and its principal window faced the sunset, but his lurking-place afforded a view of the southern casements obliquely. Through these he had seen that the lamps were brought, and heard the increase of merry noise, the clapping of hands, and the jovial cheers at the rising of the popular Marquis.

At last he saw a white kerchief waved at the window nearest to him, the window of the Admiral's little study, which opened like a double door upon the eastern grass-plat. With an ill-conditioned mind, and body stiff and lacking nourishment, he crossed the grass in a few long strides, and was admitted without a word.

“What a time you have been! I was giving it up,” he whispered to the trembling Dolly. “Where are the candles? I must strike a light. Surely you might have brought one. Bolt the door, while I make a light, and close the curtains quietly, but leave the window open. Don't shake, like a child that is going to be whipped. Too late now for nonsense. What are you afraid of? Silly child!”

As he spoke he was striking a light in a little French box containing a cube of jade, and with very little noise he lit two candles standing on the high oak desk. Dolly drew a curtain across the window, and then went softly to the door, which opened opposite the corner of a narrow passage, and made pretence to bolt it, but shot the bolt outside the socket.

“Come and let me look at you,” said Carne, for he knew that he had been rough with her, and she was not of the kind that submits to that. “Beauty, how pale you look, and yet how perfectly lovely in this evening gown! I should like to kill the two gentlemen who sat next to you at dinner. Darling, you know that whatever I do is only for your own sweet sake.”

“If you please not to touch me, it will be better,” said the lady, not in a whisper, but a firm and quiet voice, although her hands were trembling; “you are come upon business, and you should do it.”

If Carne had but caught her in his arms, and held her to his heart, and vowed that all business might go to the devil while he held his angel so, possibly the glow of nobler feelings might have been lost in the fire of passion. But he kept his selfish end alone in view, and neglected the womanly road to it.

“A despatch from London arrived today; I must see it,” he said, shortly; “as well as the copy of the answer sent. And then my beauty must insert a NOT in the order to be issued in the morning, or otherwise invert its meaning, simply to save useless bloodshed. The key for a moment, the key, my darling, of this fine old piece of furniture!”

“Is it likely that I would give you the key? My father always keeps it. What right have you with his private desk? I never promised anything so bad as that.”

“I am not to be trifled with,” he whispered, sternly. “Do you think that I came here for kissing? The key I must have, or break it open; and how will you explain that away?”

His rudeness settled her growing purpose. The misery of indecision vanished; she would do what was right, if it cost her life. Her face was as white as her satin dress, but her dark eyes flashed with menace.

“There is a key that opens it,” she said, as she pointed to the bookcase; “but I forbid you to touch it, sir.”

Carne's only reply was to snatch the key from the upper glass door of the book-shelves, which fitted the lock of the Admiral's desk, though the owner was not aware of it. In a moment the intruder had unlocked the high and massive standing-desk, thrown back the cover, and placed one candlestick among the documents. Many of them he brushed aside, as useless for his purpose, and became bewildered among the rest, for the Commander of the Coast-defence was not a man of order. He never knew where to put a thing, nor even where it might have put itself, but found a casual home for any paper that deserved it. This lack of method has one compensation, like other human defects, to wit, that it puzzles a clandestine searcher more deeply than cypher or cryptogram. Carne had the Admiral's desk as wide as an oyster thrown back on his valve, and just being undertucked with the knife, to make him go down easily. Yet so great was the power of disorder that nothing could be made out of anything. “Watch at the door,” he had said to Dolly; and this suited her intention.

For while he was thus absorbed, with his back towards her, she opened the door a little, and presently saw the trusty Charles come hurrying by, as if England hung upon his labours. “Tell my father to come here this moment; go softly, and say that I sent you.” As she finished her whisper she closed the door, without any sound, and stood patiently.

“Show me where it is; come and find it for me. Everything here is in the vilest mess,” cried Carne, growing reckless with wrath and hurry. “I want the despatch of this morning, and I find tailors' bills, way to make water-proof blacking, a list of old women, and a stump of old pipe! Come here, this instant, and show me where it is.”

“If you forget your good manners,” answered Dolly, still keeping in the dark near the door, “I shall have to leave you. Surely you have practice enough in spying, to find what you want, with two candles.”

Carne turned for a moment, and stared at her. Her attitude surprised him, but he could not believe in her courage to rebel. She stood with her back to the door, and met his gaze without a sign of fear.

“There are no official papers here,” he said, after another short ransack; “there must have been some, if this desk is the one. Have you dared to delude me by showing the wrong desk?”

Dolly met his gaze still, and then walked towards him. The band had struck up, and the company were singing with a fine patriotic roar, which rang very nobly in the distance—“Britannia, rule the waves!” Dolly felt like a Briton as the words rolled through her, and the melody lifted her proud heart.

“You have deluded yourself,” she said, standing proudly before the baffled spy; “you have ransacked my father's private desk, which I allowed you to do, because my father has no secrets. He leaves it open half the time, because he is a man of honour. He is not a man of plots, and wiles, and trickery upon women. And you have deluded yourself, in dreaming that a daughter of his would betray her Country.”

“By the God that made me, I will have your life!” cried Carne in French, as he dashed his hand under his coat to draw his dagger; but the pressure of the desk had displaced that, so that he could not find it. She thought that her time was come, and shrieked—for she was not at all heroic, and loved life very dearly—but she