第53章 ANNA,LADY BAXBY(3)

She was still in the shadow of the wall on the west terrace,waiting for the sentinel to be quite out of the way,when her ears were greeted by a voice,saying,from the adjoining shade -'Here I be!'

The tones were the tones of a woman.Lady Baxby made no reply,and stood close to the wall.

'My Lord Baxby,'the voice continued;and she could recognize in it the local accent of some girl from the little town of Sherton,close at hand.'I be tired of waiting,my dear Lord Baxby!I was afeard you would never come!'

Lady Baxby flushed hot to her toes.

'How the wench loves him!'she said to herself,reasoning from the tones of the voice,which were plaintive and sweet and tender as a bird's.She changed from the home-hating truant to the strategic wife in one moment.

'Hist!'she said.

'My lord,you told me ten o'clock,and 'tis near twelve now,'

continues the other.'How could ye keep me waiting so if you love me as you said?I should have stuck to my lover in the Parliament troops if it had not been for thee,my dear lord!'

There was not the least doubt that Lady Baxby had been mistaken for her husband by this intriguing damsel.Here was a pretty underhand business!Here were sly manoeuvrings!Here was faithlessness!

Here was a precious assignation surprised in the midst!Her wicked husband,whom till this very moment she had ever deemed the soul of good faith--how could he!

Lady Baxby precipitately retreated to the door in the turret,closed it,locked it,and ascended one round of the staircase,where there was a loophole.'I am not coming!I,Lord Baxby,despise ye and all your wanton tribe!'she hissed through the opening;and then crept upstairs,as firmly rooted in Royalist principles as any man in the Castle.

Her husband still slept the sleep of the weary,well-fed,and well-drunken,if not of the just;and Lady Baxby quickly disrobed herself without assistance--being,indeed,supposed by her woman to have retired to rest long ago.Before lying down,she noiselessly locked the door and placed the key under her pillow.More than that,she got a staylace,and,creeping up to her lord,in great stealth tied the lace in a tight knot to one of his long locks of hair,attaching the other end of the lace to the bedpost;for,being tired herself now,she feared she might sleep heavily;and,if her husband should wake,this would be a delicate hint that she had discovered all.

It is added that,to make assurance trebly sure,her gentle ladyship,when she had lain down to rest,held her lord's hand in her own during the whole of the night.But this is old-wives'

gossip,and not corroborated.What Lord Baxby thought and said when he awoke the next morning,and found himself so strangely tethered,is likewise only matter of conjecture;though there is no reason to suppose that his rage was great.The extent of his culpability as regards the intrigue was this much;that,while halting at a cross-road near Sherton that day,he had flirted with a pretty young woman,who seemed nothing loth,and had invited her to the Castle terrace after dark--an invitation which he quite forgot on his arrival home.

The subsequent relations of Lord and Lady Baxby were not again greatly embittered by quarrels,so far as is known;though the husband's conduct in later life was occasionally eccentric,and the vicissitudes of his public career culminated in long exile.The siege of the Castle was not regularly undertaken till two or three years later than the time I have been describing,when Lady Baxby and all the women therein,except the wife of the then Governor,had been removed to safe distance.That memorable siege of fifteen days by Fairfax,and the surrender of the old place on an August evening,is matter of history,and need not be told by me.

The Man of Family spoke approvingly across to the Colonel when the Club had done smiling,declaring that the story was an absolutely faithful page of history,as he had good reason to know,his own people having been engaged in that well-known scrimmage.He asked if the Colonel had ever heard the equally well-authenticated,though less martial tale of a certain Lady Penelope,who lived in the same century,and not a score of miles from the same place?

The Colonel had not heard it,nor had anybody except the local historian;and the inquirer was induced to proceed forthwith.