In Honour's Cause Part 85

She looked at him half resentfully, and then drew him to her breast.

Before he left her he once more drew from her the promise that she would fulfil the instructions he gave her, and call in Queen Anne Street, go up, see Drew Forbes, and take the message from his father.

"I don't understand it," said the lad to himself, as he left his mother's apartments; "but it must mean something respecting my father's prospects of escape--some instructions perhaps. Oh, everything must give way now to saving his life."

Then thinking and thinking till his brain began to swim, he went to his own room, feeling utterly exhausted, but unable to find rest.

In the morning he ran round, and found that the doctor was with his mother; and as the great physician came out he shook hands with the lad.

"Yes?" he said smiling; "you wish to know whether I think Lady Gowan will be able to go and pay that visit this afternoon? Most certainly.

Her illness is princ.i.p.ally from anxiety, and I have no hesitation in saying that she would be worse if I forbade her leaving her apartments.

I will be here to see her in the evening after her return."

Frank entered his mother's room to find her wonderfully calm, but there was a peculiarly wild look of excitement in her eyes; and as the lad gazed inquiringly at her, she said softly:

"Have no fear, dear. I shall be strong enough to bear it. You will come, and see me start! The carriage will be here at two."

"And you will go round home first?" said Frank softly.

"Yes," she cried, with the excited look in her eyes seeming to grow more intense. "But, my boy, my boy, if I could only have you with me! Frank dear, we must save him. But do you think that these people can and will help him?"

"I feel sure, mother," replied Frank. "Take the message Drew brings to you, and see what my father says."

"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "I feel that they will help, for these people are staunch to each other. They helped the Pretender to escape."

"It was not the Pretender, mother," whispered Frank; "it was Drew's father. And he has vowed that he will not leave England and seek safety until my father is safe."

"Then Heaven bless him!" cried Lady Gowan, pa.s.sionately. "I had my doubts as to whether it would be wise to bear his message to your father, but I am contented now. Leave me, my dearest boy. I want strength to bear the interview this afternoon, and the doctor told me that, unless I rested till the last moment, I should not have enough to carry me through. But you will be here?"

"I will be here," he said tenderly; and once more they parted, Frank going across to Captain Murray, and telling him of his mother's visit.

"It is too much for her to bear," he said sadly. "Surely she has not the strength!"

"You don't know my mother's determination," said the boy proudly. "Oh yes, she will go."

"Heaven give her the fort.i.tude to bear the shock!" muttered the captain.

"Can I do anything--see her there?" he asked.

"No, no," said Frank hastily. "She must go alone. The carriage will take her and wait. But you; how is the side?"

"Oh, I have no time to think about a little pain, my boy. Frank, we are all trying what we can do by a pet.i.tion to his Majesty. The colonel will present it when it is ready. He must--he shall show mercy this time; so cheer up, boy. No man in the army has so many friends as your father, and the King will see this by the names attached to our prayer."

But these words gave little encouragement, and Frank felt that in his heart he had more faith in some bold attempt made by his father's friends. He thought, moreover, from Drew's manner, that there must be something more in progress than he divined, and going back to his duties--which he did or left undone without question now--he waited impatiently for the afternoon.

But never had the hours dragged along so slowly, and it seemed a complete day when, at a few minutes before two, he went round to his mother's apartments, and found one of the private carriages with the servants in plain liveries waiting at the door.

On ascending to his mother's room, he found her seated there, dressed almost wholly in black, and with a thick veil held in her hand. She was very pale and stern; but her face lit up as the boy crossed to her, and took her cold, damp hands in his.

"There," she said tenderly, "you see how calm I am."

"Yes; but if I could only go with you, mother!" he said.

"Yes; if you could only go with me, my boy! But it is impossible. No, not impossible, for you will be with me in spirit all the time. I take your love to your father--and--ah!"

Her eyes closed, and she seemed on the point of fainting, but, struggling desperately against the weakness, she mastered it and rose.

"Take me down to the carriage, Frank," she said firmly. "It is the waiting which makes me weak. Once in action, I shall go on to the end.

You will be here to meet me on my return? It will be more than two hours--perhaps three. There, you see I am firm now."

He could not speak, and he felt her press heavily upon his arm, as he led her downstairs and handed her into the carriage.

Then for the first time a thought struck him.

"Mother," he whispered, as he leaned forward into the carriage. "You ought not to go alone. Some lady--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Not a word to weaken me now. I ought to go alone," she said firmly. "I could not take another there. I could not bear her presence with me. It is better so. Tell the men to drive to Queen Anne Street first."

The door was closed sharply, he gave the servants their instructions, and then stood watching the carriage as it crossed the courtyard. But as it disappeared he felt that the excitement was more than he could bear, and, in place of going back to the Prince's antechamber, he hurried out into the Park, to try and cool his heated brain.

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.

CAPTAIN MURRAY'S NEWS.

The walk in the cool air beneath the trees seemed to have the opposite effect to that intended, for the boy's head was burning, and his busy imagination kept on forming pictures of what had pa.s.sed and was pa.s.sing then. He saw his mother get out of the carriage at their own door, that weak, sorrow-bent form in black, and enter, the carriage waiting for her return. He followed her up the broad staircase into the half-darkened drawing-room, where Drew was waiting to give her the important message from his father.

"Yes," thought the boy; "it will be a letter of instructions what he is to do, for they have, I feel certain now, made some plan for his escape.

But what?"

Then, with everything in his waking dream, he saw his mother descend and leave the house again, enter the carriage, the steps were rattled up, the door closed, and he followed it in imagination along the crowded streets to the dismal front of Newgate, where, with vivid clearness, he saw her enter the gloomy door and disappear.

"I can't bear it," he groaned, as he threw himself on the gra.s.s; "I can't bear it. I feel as if I shall go mad."

At last the hot, beating sensation in his head grew less painful, for the vivid pictures had ceased to form themselves as he mentally saw his mother enter the prison, and in a dull, heavy, despairing fas.h.i.+on he reclined there, waiting until fully two hours should have pa.s.sed away before he attempted to return to his mother's apartment to await her return.

The time went slowly now, and he lay thinking of the meeting that must be taking place, till, feeling that if he lay longer there he should excite attention, he rose and walked slowly on, meaning to go right round the Park, carrying out his original intention of trying to grow calm.

He went slowly on, so as to pa.s.s the time, for he felt that it would be unbearable to go back to his mother's room, and perhaps have the nurse and maid fidgeting in and out.

The result was that he almost crept along thinking, but in a different strain, for there were no more vivid pictures, his brain from the reaction seeming drowsy and sluggish. Half unconscious now of the progress of time, he sauntered on till the sight of the back of their house roused the desire to go and see if Drew were still there; and, hurrying now, he made his way round to the front, knocked, heard the chain put up, and as it was opened saw the old housekeeper peering out suspiciously.

The next minute he was in the hall, with the old woman looking at him anxiously.

"Did my mother come?" he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Poor dear lady! Yes, my dear, looking so bent and strange she could hardly speak to me; and when she lifted her veil I was shocked to see how thin and pale she was."