"LOVE BORE SUCH BITTER AND SUCH DEADLY FRUIT."
Leonard Tregonell went slowly up the steep narrow lane with his dogs at
his heels. It was a year since he had been this way. Good as the cover
round about the waterfall was said to be for woodcock, he had carefully
avoided the spot this season, and his friends had been constrained to
defer to his superior wisdom as a son of the soil. He had gone farther
afield for his sport, and, as there had been no lack of birds, his
guests had no reason for complaint. Yet Jack Vandeleur had said more
than once, "I wonder you don't try the Kieve. We shot a lot of birds
there last year."
Now for the first time since that departed autumn he went up the hill to
one of the happy hunting-grounds of his boyhood. The place where he had
fished, and shot, and trapped birds, and hunted water-rats, and climbed
and torn his clothes in the careless schoolboy days, when his
conception of a perfectly blissful existence came as near as possible to
the life of a North American Indian. He had always detested polite
society and book-learning; but he had been shrewd enough and quick
enough at learning the arts he loved:--gunnery--angling--veterinary
surgery.
He met a group of people near the top of the hill--all the party except
Christabel and the Baron. One glance showed him that these two were
missing from the cluster of men and women crowding through the gate that
opened into the lane.
"The waterfall is quite a shabby affair," said Miss St. Aubyn; "there
has been so little rain lately, I felt ashamed to show Mr. Faddie such a
poor little dribble."
"We are all going back to tea," explained her mother. "I don't know what
has become of Mrs. Tregonell and the Baron, but I suppose they are
loitering about somewhere. Perhaps you'll tell them we have all gone on
to the farm."
"Yes, I'll send them after you. I told my wife I'd meet her at the
Kieve, if I could."
He passed them and ran across the ploughed field, while the others went
down the hill, talking and laughing. He heard the sound of their voices
and that light laughter dying away on the still air as the distance
widened between him and them; and he wondered if they were talking of
his wife, and of his seeming indifference to her folly. The crisis had
come. He had watched her in blank amazement, hardly able to believe his
own senses, to realize the possibility of guilt on the part of one whose
very perfection had galled him; and now he told himself there was no
doubt of her folly, no doubt that this tinselly pretender had fascinated
her, and that she was on the verge of destruction. No woman could
outrage propriety as she had been doing of late, and yet escape danger.
The business must be stopped somehow, even if he were forced to kick the
Baron out of doors, in order to make an end of the entanglement. And
then, what if she were to lift up her voice, and accuse him--if she were
to turn that knowledge which he suspected her of possessing, against
him? What then? He must face the situation, and pay the penalty of what
he had done. That was all.
"It can't much matter what becomes of me," he said to himself. "I have
never had an hour's real happiness since I married her. She warned me
that it would be so--warned me against my own jealous temper--but I
wouldn't listen to her. I had my own way."
Could she care for that man? Could she? In spite of the coarseness of
his own nature, there was in Leonard's mind a deep-rooted conviction of
his wife's purity, which was stronger even than the evidence of actual
facts. Even now, although the time had come when he must act, he had a
strange confused feeling, like a man whose brain is under the influence
of some narcotic, which makes him see things that are not. He felt as in
some hideous dream--long-involved--a maze of delusion and bedevilment,
from which there was no escape.
He went down into the hollow. The high wooden gate stood wide
open--evidence that there was some one lingering below. The leaves were
still on the trees, the broad feathery ferns were still green. There was
a low yellow light gleaming behind the ridge of rock and the steep
earthy slope above. The rush of the water sounded loud and clear in the
silence.
Leonard crept cautiously down the winding moss-grown track, holding his
dogs behind him in a leash, and constraining those well-mannered brutes
to perfect quiet. He looked down into the deep hollow, through which the
water runs, and over which there is that narrow foot bridge, whence the
waterfall is seen in all its beauty--an arc of silvery light cleaving
the dark rock above, and flashing down to the dark rock below.
Christabel was standing on the bridge, with de Cazalet at her side. They
were not looking up at the waterfall. Their faces were turned the other
way, to the rocky river bed, fringed with fern and wild rank growth of
briar and weed. The Baron was talking earnestly, his head bent over
Christabel, till it seemed to those furious eyes staring between the
leafage, as if his lips must be touching her face. His hand clasped
hers. That was plain enough.
Just then the spaniel stirred, and rustled the dank dead
leaves--Christabel started, and looked up towards the trees that
screened her husband's figure. A guilty start, a guilty look, Leonard
thought. But those eyes of hers could not pierce the leafy screen, and
they drooped again, looking downward at the water beneath her feet. She
stood in a listening attitude, as if her whole being hung upon de
Cazalet's words.
What was he pleading so intensely? What was that honeyed speech, to
which the false wife listened, unresistingly, motionless as the bird
spell-bound by the snake. So might Eve have listened to the first
tempter. In just such an attitude, with just such an expression, every
muscle relaxed, the head gently drooping, the eyelids lowered, a tender
smile curving the lips--the first tempted wife might have hearkened to
the silver-sweet tones of her seducer.
"Devil!" muttered Leonard between his clenched teeth.
Even in the agony of his rage--rage at finding that this open folly,
which he had pretended not to see, had been but the light and airy
prelude to the dark theme of secret guilt--that wrong which he felt most
deeply was his wife's falsehood to herself--her wilful debasement of
her own noble character. He had known her, and believed in her as
perfect and pure among women, and now he saw her deliberately renouncing
all claim to man's respect, lowering herself to the level of the women
who can be tempted. He had believed her invulnerable. It was as if Diana
herself had gone astray--as if the very ideal and archetype of purity
among women had become perverted.
He stood, breathless almost, holding back his dogs, gazing, listening
with as much intensity as if only the senses of hearing and sight lived
in him--and all the rest were extinct. He saw the Baron draw nearer and
nearer as he urged his prayer--who could doubt the nature of that
prayer--until the two figures were posed in one perfect harmonious
whole, and then his arm stole gently round the slender waist.
Christabel sprang away from him with a coy laugh.
"Not now," she said, in a clear voice, so distinct as to reach that
listener's ears. "I can answer nothing now. To-morrow."
"But, my soul, why delay?"
"To-morrow," she repeated; and then she cried suddenly, "hark! there is
some one close by. Did you not hear?"
There had been no sound but the waterfall--not even the faintest rustle
of a leaf. The two dogs crouched submissively at their master's feet,
while that master himself stood motionless as a stone figure.
"I must go," cried Christabel. "Think how long we have stayed behind the
others. We shall set people wondering."
She sprang lightly from the bridge to the bank, and came quickly up the
rocky path, a narrow winding track, which closely skirted the spot where
Leonard stood concealed by the broad leaves of a chestnut. She might
almost have heard his hurried breathing, she might almost have seen the
lurid eyes of his dogs, gleaming athwart the rank undergrowth; but she
stepped lightly past, and vanished from the watcher's sight.
De Cazalet followed.
"Christabel, stop," he exclaimed; "I must have your answer now. My fate
hangs upon your words. You cannot mean to throw me over. I have planned
everything. In three days we shall be at Pesth--secure from all
pursuit."
He was following in Christabel's track, but he was not swift enough to
overtake her, being at some disadvantage upon that slippery way, where
the moss-grown slabs of rock offered a very insecure footing. As he
spoke the last words, Christabel's figure disappeared among the trees
upon the higher ground above him, and a broad herculean hand shot out of
the leafy background, and pinioned him.
"Scoundrel--profligate--impostor!" hissed a voice in his ear, and
Leonard Tregonell stood before him--white, panting, with flecks of foam
upon his livid lips. "Devil! you have corrupted and seduced the purest
woman that ever lived. You shall answer to me--her husband--for your
infamy."
"Oh! is that your tune?" exclaimed the Baron, wrenching his arm from
that iron grip. They were both powerful men--fairly matched in physical
force, cool, hardened by rough living. "Is that your game? I thought you
didn't mind."
"You dastardly villain, what did you take me for?"
"A common product of nineteenth-century civilization," answered the
other, coolly. "One of those liberal-minded husbands who allow their
wives as wide a license as they claim for themselves."
"Liar," cried Leonard, rushing at him with his clenched fist raised to
strike.
The Baron caught him by the wrist--held him with fingers of iron.
"Take care," he said. "Two can play at that game. If it comes to
knocking a man's front teeth down his throat I may as well tell you that
I have given the 'Frisco dentists a good bit of work in my time. You
forget that there's no experience of a rough-and-ready life that you
have had which I have not gone through twice over. If I had you in
Colorado we'd soon wipe off this little score with a brace of
revolvers."
"Let Cornwall be Colorado for the nonce. We could meet here as easily as
we could meet in any quiet nook across the Channel, or in the wilds of
America. No time like the present--no spot better than this."
"If we had only the barkers," said de Cazalet, "but unluckily we
haven't."
"I'll meet you here to-morrow at daybreak--say, sharp seven. We can
arrange about the pistols to-night. Vandeleur will come with me--he'd
run any risk to serve me--and I daresay you could get little Monty to do
as much for you. He's a good plucked one."
"Do you mean it?"
"Unquestionably."
"Very well. Tell Vaudeleur what you mean, and let him settle the
details. In the meantime we can take things quietly before the ladies.
There is no need to scare any of them."
"I am not going to scare them. Down, Termagant," said Leonard to the
Irish setter, as the low light branches of a neighbouring tree were
suddenly stirred, and a few withered leaves drifted down from the rugged
bank above the spot where the two men were standing.
"Well, I suppose you're a pretty good shot," said the Baron coolly,
taking out his cigar-case, "so there'll be no disparity. By-the-by there
was a man killed here last year, I heard--a former rival of yours."
"Yes, there was a man killed here," answered Leonard, walking slowly on.
"Perhaps you killed him?"
"I did," answered Leonard, turning upon him suddenly. "I killed him: as
I hope to kill you: as I would kill any man who tried to come between me
and the woman I loved. He was a gentleman, and I am sorry for him. He
fired in the air, and made me feel like a murderer. He knew how to make
that last score. I have never had a peaceful moment since I saw him
fall, face downward, on that broad slab of rock on the other side of the
bridge. You see I am not afraid of you, or I shouldn't tell you this."
"I suspected as much from the time I heard the story," said de Cazalet.
"I rarely believe in those convenient accidents which so often dispose
of inconvenient people. But don't you think it might be better for you
if we were to choose a different spot for to-morrow's meeting? Two of
your rivals settled in the same gully might look suspicious--for I dare
say you intend to kill me."
"I shall try," answered Leonard.
"Then suppose we were to meet on those sands--Trebarwith Sands, I think
you call the place. Not much fear of interruption there, I should think,
at seven o'clock in the morning."
"You can settle that and everything else with Vandeleur," said Leonard,
striding off with his dogs, and leaving the Baron to follow at his
leisure.
De Cazalet walked slowly back to the farm, meditating deeply.
"It's devilish unlucky that this should have happened," he said to
himself. "An hour ago everything was going on velvet. We might have got
quietly away to-morrow--for I know she meant to go, cleverly as she
fenced with me just now--and left my gentleman to his legal remedy,
which would have secured the lady and her fortune to me, as soon as the
Divorce Court business was over. He would have followed us with the idea
of fighting, no doubt, but I should have known how to give him the slip.
And then we should have started in life with a clean slate. Now there
must be no end of a row. If I kill him it will be difficult to get
away--and if I bolt, how am I to be sure of the lady? Will she come to
my lure when I call her? Will she go away with me, to-morrow? Yes, that
will be my only chance. I must get her to promise to meet me at Bodmin
Road Station in time for the Plymouth train--there's one starts at
eleven. I can drive from Trebarwith to Bodmin with a good horse, take
her straight through to London, and from London by the first available
express to Edinburgh. She shall know nothing of what has happened till
we are in Scotland, and then I can tell her that she is a free woman,
and my wife by the Scottish law,--a bond which she can make as secure as
she likes by legal and religious ceremonies."
The Baron had enough insight into the feminine character to know that a
woman who has leisure for deliberation upon the verge of ruin is not
very likely to make the fatal plunge. The boldly, deliberately bad are
the rare exceptions among womankind. The women who err are for the most
part hustled and hurried into wrong-doing--hemmed round and beset by
conflicting interests--bewildered and confused by false
reasoning--whirled in the Maelstrom of passion, helpless as the hunted
hare.
The Baron had pleaded his cause eloquently, as he thought--had won
Christabel almost to consent to elope with him--but not quite. She had
seemed so near yielding, yet had not yielded. She had asked for
time--time to reflect upon the fatal step--and reflection was just that
one privilege which must not be allowed to her. Strange, he thought,
that not once had she spoken of her son, the wrong she must inflict upon
him, her agony at having to part with him. Beautiful, fascinating
although he deemed her--proud as he felt at having subjugated so lovely
a victim, it seemed to de Cazalet that there was something hard and
desperate about her--as of a woman who went wrong deliberately and of
set purpose. Yet on the brink of ruin she drew back, and was not to be
moved by any special pleading of his to consent to an immediate
elopement. Vainly had he argued that the time had come--that people were
beginning to look askance--that her husband's suspicions might be
aroused at any moment. She had been rock in her resistance of these
arguments. But her consent to an early flight must now be extorted from
her. Delay or hesitation now might be fatal. If he killed his man--and
he had little doubt in his own mind that he should kill him--it was
essential that his flight should be instant. The days were past when
juries were disposed to look leniently upon gentlemanly homicide. If he
were caught red-handed, the penalty of his crime would be no light one.
"I was a fool to consent to such a wild plan," he told himself. "I ought
to have insisted upon meeting him on the other side of the Channel. But
to draw back now might look bad, and would lessen my chance with her.
No; there is no alternative course. I must dispose of him, and get her
away, without the loss of an hour."
The whole business had to be thought out carefully. His intent was
deadly, and he planned this duel with as much wicked deliberation as if
he had been planning a murder. He had lived among men who held all human
life, except their own, lightly, and to whom duelling and assassination
were among the possibilities of every-day existence. He thought how if
he and the three other men could reach that lonely bend of the coast
unobserved, they might leave the man who should fall lying on the sand,
with never an indication to point how he fell.
De Cazalet felt that in Vandeleur there was a man to be trusted. He
would not betray, even though his friend were left there, dead upon the
low level sand-waste, for the tide to roll over him and hide him, and
wrap the secret of his doom in eternal silence. There was something of
the freebooter in Jack Vandeleur--an honour-among-thieves kind of
spirit--which the soul of that other freebooter recognized and
understood.
"We don't want little Montagu," thought de Cazalet. "One man will be
second enough to see fair-play. The fuss and formality of the thing can
be dispensed with. That little beggar's ideas are too insular--he might
round upon me."
So meditating upon the details of to-morrow, the Baron went down the
hill to the farm, where he found the Mount Royal party just setting out
on their homeward journey under the shades of evening, stars shining
faintly in the blue infinite above them. Leonard was not among his
wife's guests--nor had he been seen by any of them since they met him at
the field-gate, an hour ago.
"He has made tracks for home, no doubt," said Jack Vandeleur.
They went across the fields, and by the common beyond Trevalga--walking
briskly, talking merrily, in the cool evening air; all except Mopsy,
from whose high-heeled boots there was no surcease of pain. Alas! those
Wurtemburg heels, and the boots just half a size too small for the
wearer, for how many a bitter hour of woman's life have they to answer!
De Cazalet tried in vain during that homeward walk to get confidential
speech with Christabel--he was eager to urge his new plan--the departure
from Bodmin Road Station--but she was always surrounded. He fancied even
that she made it her business to avoid him.
"Coquette," he muttered to himself savagely. "They are all alike. I
thought she was a little better than the rest; but they are all ground
in the same mill."
He could scarcely get a glimpse of her face in the twilight. She was
always a little way ahead, or a little way behind him--now with Jessie
Bridgeman, now with Emily St. Aubyn--skimming over the rough heathy
ground, flitting from group to group. When they entered the house she
disappeared almost instantly, leaving her guests lingering in the hall,
too tired to repair at once to their own rooms, content to loiter in the
glow and warmth of the wood fires. It was seven o'clock. They had been
out nearly nine hours.
"What a dreadfully long day it has been!" exclaimed Emily St. Aubyn,
with a stifled yawn.
"Isn't that the usual remark after a pleasure party?" demanded Mr.
FitzJesse. "I have found the unfailing result of any elaborate
arrangement for human felicity to be an abnormal lengthening of the
hours; just as every strenuous endeavour to accomplish some good work
for one's fellow-men infallibly provokes the enmity of the class to be
benefited."
"Oh, it has all been awfully enjoyable, don't you know," said Miss St.
Aubyn; "and it was very sweet of Mrs. Tregonell to give us such a
delightful day; but I can't help feeling as if we had been out a week.
And now we have to dress for dinner, which is rather a trial."
"Why not sit down as you are? Let us have a tailor-gown and
shooting-jacket dinner, as a variety upon a calico ball," suggested
little Monty.
"Impossible! We should feel dirty and horrid," said Miss St. Aubyn. "The
freshness and purity of the dinner-table would make us ashamed of our
grubbiness. Besides, however could we face the servants? No, the effort
must be made. Come, mother, you really look as if you wanted to be
carried upstairs."
"By voluntary contributions," murmured FitzJesse, aside to Miss
Bridgeman. "Briareus himself could not do it single-handed, as one of
our vivacious Home Rulers might say."
The Baron de Cazalet did not appear in the drawing-room an hour later
when the house-party assembled for dinner. He sent his hostess a little
note apologizing for his absence, on the ground of important business
letters, which must be answered that night; though why a man should sit
down at eight o'clock in the evening to write letters for a post which
would not leave Boscastle till the following afternoon, was rather
difficult for any one to understand.
"All humbug about those letters, you may depend," said little Monty, who
looked as fresh as a daisy in his smooth expanse of shirt-front, with a
single diamond stud in the middle of it, like a lighthouse in a calm
sea. "The Baron was fairly done--athlete as he pretends to be--hadn't a
leg to stand upon--came in limping. I wouldn't mind giving long odds
that he won't show till to-morrow afternoon. It's a case of gruel and
bandages for the next twenty-four hours."
Leonard came into the drawing-room just in time to give his arm to Mrs.
St. Aubyn. He made himself more agreeable than usual at dinner, as it
seemed to that worthy matron--talked more--laughed louder--and certainly
drank more than his wont. The dinner was remarkably lively, in spite of
the Baron's absence; indeed, the conversation took a new and livelier
turn upon that account, for everybody had something more or less amusing
to say about the absent one, stimulated and egged on with quiet malice
by Mr. FitzJesse. Anecdotes were told of his self-assurance, his vanity,
his pretentiousness. His pedigree was discussed, and settled for--his
antecedents--his married life, were all submitted to the process of
conversational vivisection.
"Rather rough on Mrs. Tregonell, isn't it?" murmured little Monty to the
fair Dopsy.
"Do you think she really cares?" Dopsy asked, incredulously.
"Don't you?"
"Not a straw. She could not care for such a man as that, after being
engaged to Mr. Hamleigh."
"Hamleigh was better form, I admit--and I used to think Mrs. T. as
straight as an arrow. But I confess I've been staggered lately."
"Did you see what a calm queenly look she had all the time people were
laughing at de Cazalet?" asked Dopsy. "A woman who cared one little bit
for a man could not have taken it so quietly."
"You think she must have flamed out--said something in defence of her
admirer. You forget your Tennyson, and how Guinevere 'marred her
friend's point with pale tranquillity.' Women are so deuced deep."
"Dear Tennyson," murmured Dopsy, whose knowledge of the Laureate's works
had not gone very far beyond "The May Queen," and "The Charge of the Six
Hundred."
It was growing late in the evening when de Cazalet showed himself. The
drawing-room party had been in very fair spirits without him, but it was
a smaller and a quieter party than usual; for Leonard had taken Captain
Vandeleur off to his own den after dinner, and Mr. Montagu had offered
to play a fifty game, left-handed, against the combined strength of
Dopsy and Mopsy. Christabel had been at the piano almost all the
evening, playing with a breadth and grandeur which seemed to rise above
her usual style. The ladies made a circle in front of the fire, with Mr.
Faddie and Mr. FitzJesse, talking and laughing in a subdued tone, while
those grand harmonies of Beethoven's rose and fell upon their half
indifferent, half admiring ears.
Christabel played the closing chords of the Funeral March of a Hero as
de Cazalet entered the room. He went straight to the piano, and seated
himself in the empty chair by her side. She glided into the melancholy
arpeggios of the Moonlight Sonata, without looking up from the keys.
They were a long way from the group at the fire--all the length of the
room lay in deep shadow between the lamps on the mantelpiece and
neighbouring tables, and the candles upon the piano. Pianissimo music
seemed to invite conversation.
"You have written your letters?" she asked lightly.
"My letters were a fiction--I did not want to sit face to face with your
husband at dinner, after our conversation this afternoon at the
waterfall; you can understand that, can't you Christabel. Don't--don't
do that."
"What?" she asked, still looking down at the keys.
"Don't shudder when I call you by your Christian name--as you did just
now. Christabel, I want your answer to my question of to-day. I told you
then that the crisis of our fate had come. I tell you so again
to-night--more earnestly, if it is possible to be more in earnest than I
was to-day. I am obliged to speak to you here--almost within earshot of
those people--because time is short, and I must take the first chance
that offers. It has been my accursed luck never to be with you alone--I
think this afternoon was the first time that you and I have been
together alone since I came here. You don't know how hard it has been
for me to keep every word and look within check--always to remember that
we were before an audience."
"Yes, there has been a good deal of acting," she answered quietly.
"But there must be no more acting--no more falsehood. We have both made
up our minds, have we not, my beloved? I think you love me--yes,
Christabel, I feel secure of your love. You did not deny it to-day, when
I asked that thrilling question--those hidden eyes, the conscious droop
of that proud head, were more eloquent than words. And for my love,
Christabel--no words can speak that. It shall be told by-and-by in
language that all the world can understand--told by my deeds. The time
has come for decision; I have had news to-day that renders instant
action necessary. If you and I do not leave Cornwall together to-morrow,
we may be parted for ever. Have you made up your mind?"
"Hardly," she answered, her fingers still slowly moving over the keys in
those plaintive arpeggios.
"What is your difficulty, dearest? Do you fear to face the future with
me?"
"I have not thought of the future."
"Is it the idea of leaving your child that distresses you?"
"I have not thought of him."
"Then it is my truth--my devotion which you doubt?"
"Give me a little more time for thought," she said, still playing the
same _sotto voce_ accompaniment to their speech.
"I dare not; everything must be planned to-night. I must leave this
house early to-morrow morning. There are imperative reasons which
oblige me to do so. You must meet me at Bodmin Road Station at
eleven--you must, Christabel, if our lives are to be free and happy and
spent together. Vacillation on your part will ruin all my plans. Trust
yourself to me, dearest--trust my power to secure a bright and happy
future. If you do not want to be parted from your boy, take him with
you. He shall be my son. I will hold him for you against all the world."
"You must leave this house early to-morrow morning," she said, looking
up at him for the first time. "Why?"
"For a reason which I cannot tell you. It is a business in which some
one else is involved, and I am not free to disclose it yet. You shall
know all later."
"You will tell me, when we meet at Bodmin Road."
"Yes. Ah, then you have made up your mind--you will be there. My best
and dearest, Heaven bless you for that sweet consent."
"Had we not better leave Heaven out of the question?" she said with a
mocking smile; and then slowly, gravely, deliberately, she said, "Yes,
I will meet you at eleven o'clock to-morrow, at Bodmin Road Station--and
you will tell me all that has happened."
"What secret can I withhold from you, love--my second self--the fairer
half of my soul?"
Urgently as he had pleaded his cause, certain as he had been of ultimate
success, he was almost overcome by her yielding. It seemed as if a
fortress which a moment before had stood up between him and the
sky--massive--invincible--the very type of the impregnable and
everlasting, had suddenly crumbled into ruin at his feet. His belief in
woman's pride and purity had never been very strong: yet he had believed
that here and there, in this sinful world, invincible purity was to be
found. But now he could never believe in any woman again. He had
believed in this one to the last, although he had set himself to win
her. Even when he had been breathing the poison of his florid eloquence
into her ear--even when she had smiled at him, a willing listener--there
had been something in her look, some sublime inexpressible air of
stainless womanhood which had made an impassable distance between them.
And now she had consented to run away with him: she had sunk in one
moment to the level of all disloyal wives. His breast thrilled with
pride and triumph at the thought of his conquest: and yet there was a
touch of shame, shame that she could so fall.
Emily St. Aubyn came over to the piano, and made an end of all
confidential talk.
"Now you are both here, do give us that delicious little duet of
Lecocq's," she said: "we want something cheerful before we disperse.
Good gracious Mrs. Tregonell, how bad you look," cried the young lady,
suddenly, "as white as a ghost."
"I am tired to death," answered Christabel, "I could not sing a note for
the world."
"Really, then we mustn't worry you. Thanks so much for that lovely
Beethoven music--the 'Andante'--or the 'Pastorale'--or the 'Pathétique,'
was it not? So sweet."
"Good-night," said Christabel. "You won't think me rude if I am the
first to go?"
"Not at all. We are all going. Pack up your wools, mother. I know you
have only been pretending to knit. We are all half asleep. I believe we
have hardly strength to crawl upstairs."
Candles were lighted, and Mrs. Tregonell and her guests dispersed, the
party from the billiard-room meeting them in the hall.
These lighter-minded people, the drama of whose existence was just now
in the comedy stage, went noisily up to their rooms; but the Baron, who
was usually among the most loquacious, retired almost in silence. Nor
did Christabel do more than bid her guests a brief good-night. Neither
Leonard nor his friend Jack Vandeleur had shown themselves since dinner.
Whether they were still in the Squire's den, or whether they had retired
to their own rooms no one knew.
* * * * *
The Baron's servant was waiting to attend his master. He was a man who
had been with de Cazalet in California, Mexico, and South America--who
had lived with him in his bachelorhood and in his married life--knew all
the details of his domestic career, had been faithful to him in wealth
and in poverty, knew all that there was to be known about him--the best
and the worst--and had made up his mind to hold by an employment which
had been adventurous, profitable, and tolerably easy, not entirely free
from danger, or from the prospect of adversity--yet always hopeful. So
thorough a scamp as the Baron must always find some chance open to
him--thus, at least, argued Henri le Mescam, his unscrupulous ally. The
man was quick, clever--able to turn his hand to anything--valet, groom,
cook, courier--as necessity demanded.
"Is Salathiel pretty fresh?" asked the Baron.
"Fit as a fiddle: he hasn't been out since you hunted him four days
ago."
"That's lucky. He will be able to go the pace to-morrow morning. Have
him harnessed to that American buggy of Mr. Tregonell's at six o'clock."
"I suppose you know that it's hardly light at six."
"There will be quite enough light for me. Pack my smallest portmanteau
with linen for a week, and a second suit--no dress-clothes--and have the
trap ready in the stable-yard when the clock strikes six. I have to
catch a train at Launceston at 7.45. You will follow in the afternoon
with the luggage."
"To your London rooms, Sir?"
"Yes. If you don't find me there you will wait for further instructions.
You may have to join me on the other side of the channel."
"I hope so, Sir."
"Sick of England already?"
"Never cared much for it, Sir. I began to think I should die of the
dulness of this place."
"Rather more luxurious than our old quarters at St. Heliers ten years
ago, when you were marker at Jewson's, while I was teaching drawing and
French at the fashionable academies of the island."
"That was bad, Sir; but luxury isn't everything in life. A man's mind
goes to rust in a place of this kind."
"Well, there will not be much rust for you in future, I believe. How
would you like it if I were to take you back to the shores of the
Pacific?"
"That's just what I should like, Sir. You were a king there, and I was
your prime minister."
"And I may be a king again--perhaps this time with a queen--a proud and
beautiful queen."
Le Mescam smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.
"The queenly element was not quite wanting in the past, Sir," he said.
"Pshaw, Henri, the ephemeral fancy of the hour. Such chance
entanglements as those do not rule a man's life."
"Perhaps not, Sir; but I know one of those chance entanglements made
Lima unpleasantly warm for us; and if, after you winged Don Silvio,
there hadn't been a pair of good horses waiting for us, you might never
have seen the outside of Peru."
"And if a duel was dangerous in Lima, it would be ten times more
dangerous in Cornwall, would it not, Henri?"
"Of course it would, Sir. But you are not thinking of anything like a
duel here--you can't be so mad as to think of it."
"Certainly not. And now you can pack that small portmanteau, while I
take a stretch. I sha'n't take off my clothes: a man who has to be up
before six should never trifle with his feelings by making believe to go
to bed."