THE JESTER'S INFERNO
Between the two men who were left not a word passed for many minutes. Nap
prowled to and fro with his head back and his own peculiarly insolent
smile curving the corners of his mouth. There was a ruddy glare in his
eyes, but they held no anger.
Lucas, still leaning on his crutch, stood with his back turned, his face
to the fire. There was no anger about him either. He looked spent.
Abruptly Nap ceased his pacing and came up to him. "Come!" he said. "You
have had enough of this. I will help you to your room."
Slowly Lucas lifted his heavy eyes. "Send Hudson to me," he said.
Nap looked at him sharply. Then, "Lean on me," he said. "I'll help you."
"No. Send Hudson." The words ended upon a stifled groan.
Nap turned swiftly and dragged forward the settee. "Lie down here for a
minute, while I fetch him. Don't faint, man! You will be easier
directly. You have been on your feet too long. There! Is that better?"
Lucas drew a long, shuddering breath and slowly suffered his limbs to
relax. His face was ghastly though he forced himself to smile.
"Yes, I am better. Don't call Hudson for a minute. Nap!"
Nap bent.
"Put your hand under my shoulders. Ah! That's a help. I always like your
touch. Say, Boney," the words came gaspingly, the sunken eyes were heavy
with pain, "you'll think me a mean brute. I am, dear fellow, I am; a
coward, too, from the same point of view. But--ill or well, I've got to
say it. You've been running amok to-day, and it's been altogether too
lively to be just pleasant. You've got to pull up. I say it."
Nap's smile had utterly departed. It was some other impulse that twitched
his lips as he made reply.
"Whatever you say is law."
"Thanks! I'm duly grateful. Do you mind wiping my forehead? I'm too lazy
to move. Boney, old chap, he's a well-behaved youngster on the whole.
What do you want to bait him for?"
"Because I'm a jealous devil," Nap said through his teeth.
"Oh, rats, dear fellow! We are not talking in parables. You're a bit of a
savage, I know, but--"
"More than that," threw in Nap.
"No--no! You can hold yourself in if you try. And why jealous, anyway?
We're all brothers. Say, Boney, I'm going to hurt you infernally. You hit
the youngster below the belt. It was foul play."
"What can you expect?" muttered Nap.
"I expect--better things. If you must be a beast, be a clean beast. If
you must hit out now and then, give him a chance to hit back. It's kind
of shabby--the game you played today."
"Are you going to make me apologise?" asked Nap grimly.
"Shucks, no; He would think you were laughing at him. Clap him on the
back and tell him not to be a fool. He'll understand that."
"And wish him luck with the parson's daughter?" said Nap, with a sneer.
"Why not, old chap?"
"You really mean to let him marry the first girl who runs after
his dollars?"
"It isn't the dollars," said the millionaire gently. "And she isn't
running after him either. She's running away."
"Same thing sometimes," said Nap.
"Oh, don't be cynical, Boney! It's so damned cheap! There! I've done
swearing at you for the present. It's wonderful how you fellows bear with
me. Find Hudson, will you? And then go and tell Lady Carfax that I am
afraid I can't visit her this evening as I had hoped."
"Do you know she talks of leaving tomorrow?" said Nap.
"Yes, I know. Guess she is quite right to go."
"She's not fit for it," said Nap, in a fierce undertone. "It's madness. I
told her so. But she wouldn't listen."
"She is the best judge," his brother said. "Anyway, she is in an
intolerable position. We can't press her to prolong it. Besides--whatever
he is--her husband has first right."
"Think so?" said Nap.
"It is so," Lucas asserted quietly, "whether you admit it or not."
Nap did not dispute the point, but his jaw looked exceedingly
uncompromising as he departed to find the valet.
When a little later he asked for admission to Anne's presence, however,
his bitter mood seemed to have modified. He entered with the air of one
well assured of his welcome.
"Are you in a mood for chess tonight?" he asked.
"Now, you're not to plague her, Nap," put in Mrs. Errol. "She isn't going
to spend her last evening amusing you."
"Oh, please," protested Anne. "It is your son who has had all the
amusing to do."
Nap smiled. "There's for you, alma mater!" he remarked as he sat down.
"Lady Carfax is much too forbearing to say anything else," retorted
Mrs. Errol.
"Lady Carfax always tells the truth," said Nap, beginning to set the
chess-board, "which is the exact reason why all her swains adore her."
"Well," said Mrs. Errol very deliberately, though without venom, "I guess
that's about the last quality I should expect you to appreciate."
"Strange to say, it is actually the first just now," said Nap. "Are you
going, alma mater? Don't let me drive you away!"
He rose, nevertheless, to open the door for her; and Mrs. Errol went,
somewhat with the air of one complying with an unspoken desire.
Nap came softly back and resumed his task. "P'r'aps you will be good
enough to refrain from referring to me again as the august lady's son,"
he said. "She doesn't like it."
"Why not?" said Anne in astonishment.
He glanced up at her as if contemplating something. Then, "You see, the
benign mother is not over and above proud of me," he drawled. "If it were
Bertie now--well, I guess even you will admit that Bertie is the flower
of the flock."
His manner mystified her, but it was not her way to seek to probe
mysteries. She smiled as she said, "I have yet to discover that you are
so very despicable."
"You have yet to discover--many things," said Nap enigmatically. "Will
you be pleased to make the first move?"
She did so silently. They had played together several times before. He
had formed a habit of visiting her every evening, and though her skill
at the game was far from great, it had been a welcome diversion from the
constant anxiety that pressed so heavily upon her. Nap was an expert
player, yet he seemed to enjoy the poor game which was all she had to
offer. Perhaps he liked to feel her at his mercy. She strongly suspected
that he often deliberately prolonged the contest though he seldom allowed
her to beat him.
To-night, however, he seemed to be in a restless mood, and she soon saw
that he was bent upon a swift victory. He made his moves with a quick
dexterity that baffled her completely, and but a very few minutes elapsed
before he uttered his customary warning.
"You would do well to beware."
"Which means that I am beaten, I suppose," she said, with a smile of
resignation.
"You can save yourself if you like," he said, with his eyes on the board,
"if you consider it worth while."
"I don't think I do," she answered. "The end will be the same."
His eyes flashed up at her. "You surrender unconditionally?"
She continued to smile despite the sadness of her face. "Absolutely. I am
so accustomed to defeat that I am getting callous."
"You seem to have great confidence in my chivalry," he said, looking
full at her.
"I have--every confidence, Mr. Errol," she answered gravely. "I think
that you and your brother are the most chivalrous men I know."
His laugh had a ring of harshness. "Believe me, I am not accustomed to
being ranked with the saints," he said. "How shall I get away from your
halo? I warn you, it's a most awful misfit. You'll find it out presently,
and make me suffer for your mistake."
"You haven't a very high opinion of my sense of justice," Anne said, with
just a tinge of reproach in her gentle voice.
"No," he said recklessly. "None whatever. You are sure to forget who
fashioned the halo. Women always do."
Anne was silent.
He leaned suddenly towards her, careless of the chessmen that rolled in
all directions. "I haven't been living up to the halo to-day," he said,
and there was that in his voice that touched her to quick pity. "I've
been snapping and biting like a wild beast all day long. I've been in
hell myself, and I've made it hell wherever I went."
"Oh, but why?" Half involuntarily she held out her hand to him as one who
would assist a friend in deep waters.
He took it, held it closely, bowed his forehead upon it, and so sat
tensely silent.
"Something is wrong. I wish I could help you," she said at last.
He lifted his head, met her eyes of grave compassion, and abruptly
set her free.
"You have done what you could for me," he said. "You've made me hate my
inferno. But you can't pull me out. You have"--she saw his teeth for a
second though scarcely in a smile--"other fish to fry."
"Whatever I am doing, I shall not forget my friends, Nap," she said, with
great earnestness.
"No," he returned, "you won't forget them. I shouldn't wonder if you
prayed for them even. I am sure you are one of the faithful." There was
more of suppressed misery than irony in his voice. "But is that likely to
help when you don't so much as know what to pray for?"
He got up and moved away from her with that noiseless footfall that was
so like the stealthy padding of a beast.
Anne lay and silently watched him. Her uncertainty regarding him had long
since passed away. Though she was far from understanding him, he had
become an intimate friend, and she treated him as such. True, he was
unlike any other man she had ever met, but that fact had ceased to
embarrass her. She accepted him as he was.
He came back at length and sat down, smiling at her, though
somewhat grimly.
"You will pardon your poor jester," he said, "if he fails to make a joke
on your last night. He could make jokes--plenty of them, but not of the
sort that would please you."
Anne said nothing. She would not, if she could help it, betray to any
how much she was dreading the morrow. But she felt that he knew it in
spite of her.
His next words revealed the fact. "You are going to purgatory," he
said, "and I am going to perdition. Do you know, I sometimes wonder if
we shouldn't do better to turn and fly in the face of the gods when
they drive us too hard? Why do we give in when we've nothing to gain
and all to lose?"
She met his look with her steadfast eyes. "Does duty count as
nothing?" she said.
He made an impatient movement, and would have spoken, but she
stopped him.
"Please don't rail at duty. I know your creed is pleasure, but the
pursuit of pleasure does not, after all, bring happiness."
"Who wants pleasure?" demanded Nap fiercely. "That's only the anesthetic
when things get unbearable. You use duty in the same way. But what we
both want, what we both hanker for, starve for, is just life! Who cares
if there is pain with it? I don't, nor do you. And yet we keep on
stunting and stultifying ourselves with these old-fashioned remedies for
a disease we only half understand, when we might have all the world and
then some. Oh, we're fools--we're fools!" His voice rang wildly
passionate. He flung out his arms as if he wrestled with something.
"We've been cheated for centuries of our birthright, and we still put up
with it, still bring our human sacrifices to an empty shrine!"
And there he broke off short, checked suddenly at the height of his
outburst though she had made no second effort to stop him.
Her quiet eyes had not flinched from his. She had made no sign of
shrinking. With the utmost patience she had listened to him. Yet by some
means intangible the fiery stream of his rebellion was stayed.
There fell a brief silence. Then he rose. "I am afraid I am not fit for
civilised society to-night," he said. "I will say good-bye." He held her
hand for a moment. "You will let me see you sometimes?"
"I hope to come now and then to Baronmead," she answered quietly. "But
you will not--please--come to the Manor again."
He looked down at her with eyes that had become inscrutable. "I shall not
come against your will," he said.
"Thank you," she answered simply.
And so he left her.