Peveril of the Peak by Walter Scott (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📕

“You have my protection,” said the King, a little confused by an appeal so unexpected and so solemn. “Do but remain quiet with this lady, with whom your parents have placed you; neither Buckingham nor any one else shall intrude on you.”

“His Majesty,” added Buckingham, in the same tone, and speaking from the restless and mischief-making spirit of contradiction, which he never could restrain, even when indulging it was most contrary, not only to propriety, but to his own interest,—“His Majesty will protect you, fair lady, from all intrusion save what must not be termed such.”

Alice darted a keen look on the Duke, as if to read his meaning; another on Charles, to know whether she had guessed it rightly. There was a guilty confession on the King’s brow, which confirmed Alice’s determination to depart. “Your Majesty will forgive me,” she said; “it is not here that I can enjoy the advantage of your royal protection. I am resolved to leave this house. If I am detained, it must be by violence, which I trust no one dare offer to me in your Majesty’s presence. This gentleman, whom I have long known, will conduct me to my friends.”

“We make but an indifferent figure in this scene, methinks,” said the King, addressing the Duke of Buckingham, and speaking in a whisper; “but she must go—I neither will, nor dare, stop her from returning to her father.”

“And if she does,” swore the Duke internally, “I would, as Sir Andrew Smith saith, I might never touch fair lady’s hand.” And stepping back, he spoke a few words with Empson the musician, who left the apartment, for a few minutes, and presently returned.

The King seemed irresolute concerning the part he should act under circumstances so peculiar. To be foiled in a gallant intrigue, was to subject himself to the ridicule of his gay court; to persist in it by any means which approached to constraint, would have been tyrannical; and, what perhaps he might judge as severe an imputation, it would have been unbecoming a gentleman. “Upon my honour, young lady,” he said, with an emphasis, “you have nothing to fear in this house. But it is improper, for your own sake, that you should leave it in this abrupt manner. If you will have the goodness to wait but a quarter of an hour, Mistress Chiffinch’s coach will be placed at your command, to transport you where you will. Spare yourself the ridicule, and me the pain of seeing you leave the house of one of my servants, as if you were escaping from a prison.”

The King spoke in good-natured sincerity, and Alice was inclined for an instant to listen to his advice; but recollecting that she had to search for her father and uncle, or, failing them, for some suitable place of secure residence, it rushed on her mind that the attendants of Mistress Chiffinch were not likely to prove trusty guides or assistants in such a purpose. Firmly and respectfully she announced her purpose of instant departure. She needed no other escort, she said, than what this gentleman, Master Julian Peveril, who was well known to her father, would willingly afford her; nor did she need that farther than until she had reached her father’s residence.

“Farewell, then, lady, a God’s name!” said the King; “I am sorry so much beauty should be wedded to so many shrewish suspicions.—For you, Master Peveril, I should have thought you had enough to do with your own affairs without interfering with the humours of the fair sex. The duty of conducting all strayed damsels into the right path is, as matters go in this good city, rather too weighty an undertaking for your youth and inexperience.”

Julian, eager to conduct Alice from a place of which he began fully to appreciate the perils, answered nothing to this taunt, but bowing reverently, led her from the apartment. Her sudden appearance, and the animated scene which followed, had entirely absorbed, for the moment, the recollection of his father and of the Countess of Derby; and while the dumb attendant of the latter remained in the room, a silent, and, as it were, stunned spectator of all that had happened, Peveril had become, in the predominating interest of Alice’s critical situation, totally forgetful of her presence. But no sooner had he left the room, without noticing or attending to her, than Fenella, starting, as from a trance, drew herself up, and looked wildly around, like one waking from a dream, as if to assure herself that her companion was gone, and gone without paying the slightest attention to her. She folded her hands together, and cast her eyes upwards, with an expression of such agony as explained to Charles (as he thought) what painful ideas were passing in her mind. “This Peveril is a perfect pattern of successful perfidy, carrying off this Queen of the Amazons, but he has left us, I think, a disconsolate Ariadne in her place.—But weep not, my princess of pretty movements,” he said, addressing himself to Fenella; “if we cannot call in Bacchus to console you, we will commit you to the care of Empson, who shall drink with Liber Pater for a thousand pounds, and I will say done first.”

As the King spoke these words, Fenella rushed past him with her wonted rapidity of step, and, with much less courtesy than was due to the royal presence, hurried downstairs, and out of the house, without attempting to open any communication with the Monarch. He saw her abrupt departure with more surprise than displeasure; and presently afterwards, bursting into a fit of laughter, he said to the Duke, “Oddsfish, George, this young spark might teach the best of us how to manage the wenches. I have had my own experience, but I could never yet contrive either to win or lose them with so little ceremony.”

“Experience, sir,” replied the duke, “cannot be acquired without years.”

“True, George; and you would, I suppose, insinuate,” said Charles, “that the gallant who acquires it, loses as much in youth as he gains in art? I defy your insinuation, George. You cannot overreach your master, old as you think him, either in love or politics. You have not the secret plumer la poule sans la faire crier, witness this morning’s work. I will give you odds at all games—ay, and at the Mall too, if thou darest accept my challenge.—Chiffinch, what for dost thou convulse thy pretty throat and face with sobbing and hatching tears, which seem rather unwilling to make their appearance!”

“It is for fear,” whined Chiffinch, “that your Majesty should think—that you should expect——”

“That I should expect gratitude from a courtier, or faith from a woman?” answered the King, patting her at the same time under the chin, to make her raise her face—“Tush! chicken, I am not so superfluous.”

“There it is now,” said Chiffinch, continuing to sob the more bitterly, as she felt herself unable to produce any tears; “I see your Majesty is determined to lay all the blame on me, when I am innocent as an unborn babe—I will be judged by his Grace.”

“No doubt, no doubt, Chiffie,” said the King. “His Grace and you will be excellent judges in each other’s cause, and as good witnesses in each other’s favour. But to investigate the matter impartially, we must examine our evidence apart.—My Lord Duke, we meet at the Mall at noon, if your Grace dare accept my challenge.”

His Grace of Buckingham bowed, and retired.