The Highwayman Part 18

"I'll take what I want, not ask for it."

"Why, now you brag! And if there is not in me what monsieur wants?"

"So much the worse for us both. But you should have thought of that before."

"Faith, Harry, you take it sombrely." She made a wry mouth at him. "Pluck up heart. I vow I'll satisfy you."

"You'll not deny me anything you have."

She paused a moment. "Amen, so be it. And must we never smile again?"

"I wonder"--he took her hands; "I wonder, will you be smiling to-morrow when I am away to France."

"Oh, are you still set on that fancy?" She gave a contemptuous laugh.

"Prithee, Harry, shall I like you the better for waiting till you have French lace at your neck and a frenchified air?"

"You'll please to wait till I bring Miss Lambourne a fellow who has done something more than snuffle over a servitor's books. I want to prove myself, Alison."

"You have proved yourself on me, sir. What, am I a lean wench in despair to hunger for a snuffling servitor? If you were that, I were not for you.

But I know you better, G.o.d help me, my Lord Lucifer. Why then, take the goods the G.o.ds provide you and say grace over me." Harry shook his head, smiling. "Lord, it's a mule! Pray what do you look to do in France?"

"I am pledged to my father and his policies--to go poking behind the curtains of the war and deal with the go-betweens of princes."

"So. You talk big. Well, I like to hear it. What is the business?"

"My father, if you believe him, has Marlborough's secrets in his pocket and is sent to chaffer for him. You may guess where and why. Queen Anne hath a brother."

Her eyes sparkled. "You like the adventure, Harry?"

"Egad, I begin to think so."

"I love you for that!" she cried, and it was the first time she spoke the word. "Why then, first go with me to church and call me wife!"

He drew in his breath. "By G.o.d, do you mean that?"

"Why, don't you mean me honourably?" She gave an unsteady laugh, her eyes mistily kind.

He sprang at her.

CHAPTER XI

ABSENCE OF MR. WAVERTON

It was always in after life alleged by Mr. Hadley that his steady interest in the family of his uncle was nothing but a desire to keep the old gentleman out of mischief. Sir John Burford was indeed of a temper too irascible to be safe with his bucolically English mind: a man who in throwing tankards at his servants and challenges at his friends was a source of continuous anxiety to his reasonable kinsfolk. But he had also a daughter.

She received the benevolent Mr. Hadley when on the morning after the explosions in Alison's house he came to see whether Sir John was still dangerous or his daughter any thinner. It was the latter purpose which he professed to Susan Burford. She was not annoyed. In her cradle she had been instructed that she was a jolly, fat girl, and through life she accepted the status, like every other which was given her, with great good humour. She was, in fact, no fatter than serves to give a tall woman an air of genial well-being. It was conjectured by her friends that her father, needing all his irascibility for himself, had allowed her to inherit only his physical qualities. She had indeed the largeness of Sir John and his open countenance. Her supreme equanimity perhaps came from her mother. She was by a dozen years at least younger than Mr. Hadley, and always thought him a very clever boy.

"Sir John is gone out to the pigs, Mr. Hadley. Perhaps you'll go too,"

she said, and looked innocent.

"Well, they are peaceful company, Susan. And you're so surly."

"I thought you would find some joke in that," said Susan, with kindly satisfaction.

"Damme, don't be so maternal. It's cloying to the male. Be discreet, Susan. You will talk as though you had weaned me but a year or two, and still wanted me at the breast."

Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of."

"Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You don't know what I mean."

"To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?"

"Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you think men are nought but casks--things to fill with drink and victuals.

Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, Susan; just one of those plump, s.p.a.cious dames as healthy as milk and peaches, and blandly jolly about it."

Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay dinner, Mr. Hadley?"

"Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?"

Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you will say. Can you?"

"You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you thinking, ma'am?"

"Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for the guinea.

Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?"

"Yes, indeed. You're so comical."

Mr. Hadley surrendered the guinea, looked at his empty left sleeve and made a wry face. "Lord, yes, I am comical enough. A lop-sided grotesque."

"That's not fair!" He had at last made her blush. "You know well I did not mean that. I think it makes you look--n.o.ble."

"It makes me feel a fool," said Mr. Hadley. "Lord, Susan, one arm's not enough to go round you."

"So we'll kill the Elstree hog for Christmas;" that apposite interruption came in her father's robust voice. Sir John strode rolling in. "What, Charles! In very good time, egad. You can come with me."

"What, sir, back to the swine? I profess Susan makes as pretty company."

Sir John was pleased to laugh. "Ay, the wench pays for her victuals, too.

Damme, Sue, you look good enough to eat." He chucked her chin paternally.

"Well, my lad, I ha' thought over that business and I'm taking horse to ride over to Tetherdown."

"Oh Lord," said Mr. Hadley. "And what then, sir?"