Springhaven by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (best story books to read TXT) 📕

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 could not take her eyes from his, nor turn to fly from the spell of them; all she could do was to step back; and she did so into her father's arms.

"Ho!" cried the Admiral, who had entered with the smile of good cheer and good company glowing on his fine old countenance; "my Dolly and a stranger at my private desk! Mr. Carne! I have had a glass or two of wine, but my eyes must be playing me extraordinary tricks. A gentleman searching my desk, and apparently threatening my dear daughter! Have the kindness to explain, before you attempt to leave us."

If the curtain had not been drawn across the window, Carne would have made his escape, and left the situation to explain itself. But the stuff was thick, and it got between his legs; and before he could slip away, the stout old Admiral had him by the collar with a sturdy grasp, attesting the substance of the passing generation. And a twinkle of good-humour was in the old eyes still--such a wonder was his Dolly that he might be doing wrong in laying hands of force upon a visitor of hers. Things as strange as this had been within his knowledge, and proved to be of little harm--with forbearance. But his eyes grew stern, as Carne tried to dash his hand off.

"If you value your life, you will let me go," said the young man to the old one.

"I will not let you go, sir, till you clear up this. A gentleman must see that he is bound to do so. If I prove to be wrong, I will apologise. What! Are you going to fire at me? You would never be such a coward!"

He dropped upon the floor, with a bullet in his brain, and his course of duty ended. Carne dashed aside the curtain, and was nearly through the window, when two white arms were cast round his waist. He threw himself forward with all his might, and wrenched at the little hands clasped around him, but they held together like clenched iron. "Will you force me to kill you?" "You may, if you like"--was the dialogue of these lovers.

The strength of a fit was in her despair. She set her bent knees against the window-frame, and a shower of glass fell between them; but she flinched not from her convulsive grasp. "Let me come back, that I may shoot myself," Carne panted, for his breath was straitened; "what is life to me after losing you?" She made no answer, but took good care not to release so fond a lover. Then he threw himself back with all his weight, and she fell on the floor beneath him. Her clasp relaxed, and he was free; for her eyes had encountered her father's blood, and she swooned away, and lay as dead.

Carne arose quickly, and bolted the door. His breath was short, and his body trembling, but the wits of the traitor were active still. "I must have something to show for all this," he thought as he glanced at the bodies on the floor. "Those revellers may not have heard this noise. I know where it is now, and I will get it."

But the sound of the pistol, and shriek of the girl, had rung through the guests, when the wine was at their lips, and all were nodding to one another. Faith sprang up, and then fell back trembling, and several men ran towards the door. Charles, the footman, met them there, with his face whiter than his napkin, and held up his hands, but could not speak. Erle Twemlow dashed past him and down the passage; and Lord Southdown said: "Gentlemen, see to the ladies. There has been some little mishap, I fear. Bob, and Arthur, come with me."

Twemlow was first at the study door, and finding it fastened, struck with all his force, and shouted, at the very moment when Carne stood before the true desk of office. "Good door, and good bolt," muttered Carne; "my rule is never to be hurried by noises. Dolly will be quiet for a quarter of an hour, and the old gentleman forever. All I want is about two minutes."

Twemlow stepped back a few yards, and then with a good start delivered a rushing kick; but the only result was a jar of his leg through the sole of his thin dress sandal.

"The window!" cried the Marquis. "We'll stop here; you know the house; take the shortest cut to the window. Whoever is there, we shall have him so. I am too slow. Boy Bob, go with him."

"What a fool I was not to think of that!" shouted Twemlow, as he set off for the nearest house door, and unluckily Carne heard him. He had struck up the ledge of the desk with the butt of the pistol he had fired, and pocketing a roll of fresh despatches, he strode across the body of the Admiral, and with a glance at Dolly--whose eyes were wide open, but her face drawn aside, like a peach with a split stone--out he went. He smiled as