Rightly has the Latin poet sung of the _dura ilia_ of the Fates, who
either resistless rout all human resolutions, or, where the mind has
been hardened to meet the attack, turn the poor wretch's flank, and
lo! while he squares his shield, and shortens his spear to meet the
occasion, _habet_--he has it under the fifth rib.
So it was with me. While I dreamed of resistance, and would harden my
heart and set fast my feet, fate cross-buttocked me; and I fell, not
knowing. The Countess's coach bore me away, unresisting; and Smith,
whom I hated as I never hated even Ferguson, gave me the word. From my
plain clothes, to the long curled peruke, the cravat, ruffles, and
fine suit in which I had once before paraded myself, was but a step; I
took it perforce, and being conducted, when I was ready, into the
Countess's chamber, to wait her pleasure, could have fancied the last
six months a dream--could have fancied the conspirators still at work,
Captain Barclay still pacing the Piazza, my lord still a stranger to
me, the library a vision; in a word, I could have fancied all those
events, which had filled half a year, to be no more than creatures of
the imagination, so unchanged was the great silent room, where my
lady, while I waited, played piquet with Monterey, amid the
gorgeousness of her rose-and-silver suite.
The monkey gibbered as of old, and the parrot vied with the broidered
parrots on the wall; and now, as then, the air was heavy with scent
and musk, while the light, cunningly arranged, fell on the part where
the Countess sat, now grumbling and now swearing, or now, while the
cards were dealing, thumping the floor impatiently with her stick. She
had so perfectly the grand air of a past generation, that when her eye
turned in my direction I trembled, and thought no more of resistance;
yet when she resumed the game, she gradually--and more and more
completely, as I watched--sank into a querulous, feeble, fierce old
woman, whose passion, where it did not terrify, moved to derision, and
whose fads and fancies, as patent as the day, placed her at the mercy
of all who cared to flatter or cozen her.
Madame was about it now; letting her win, and again gaining a slight
advantage; mingling hints at old vanities and conquests (whereat my
lady grew garrulous) with new scandals, coarse and spiteful; whining a
little when my lady, in a fury caused by a bad hand, struck her across
the face with a fan to teach her to be awkward, but cheering up at
once when the Countess's mood changed with the cards. In a word, as
she had betrayed me young, she cozened my lady old; but seeing her
features grown hard with time, and her eyes grown lifeless, and the
devil grinning more plainly from behind the mask, that once had been
so fair, it was a wonder to me that even the Countess was deceived.
Presently my lady threw down her cards in a rage, and calling her
opponent a cheating slut, proceeded to turn her anger on me.
"What is the gaby doing, standing there like a gawk?" she shrieked.
"Why is he not about his business?"
Monterey whispered her that I had not had my instructions.
"Then give them, and let him go!" she cried. "Where is the ring? Here,
you daw in peacock's feathers--like my son, indeed? About as like as
that squinting vixen Villiers is to a beauty! Take that, and ride with
Matthew Smith, and give it to the gentleman you will meet at the inn
at Ashford, and say--Monterey, tell him what to say."
"Say, 'Colonel Talbot sends this ring, and his service.' And if the
gentleman asks 'Whither?' or this, or that, to whatever he asks,
answer thus: 'I am not here. Sir John, to answer questions. Favour me
by conveying that ring and my services whither you are going. I do not
talk, but when the time comes I shall act.'"
"_C'est tout!_" said the Countess, nodding approval. "If you are not
man enough to repeat that, whip you for a noodle! Say it, man."
But when I went to say it, first I could not remember it, and broke
down; and then when, my lady storming at me for a fool and an
imbecile, I had got the sentences into my head, I but whimpered them,
bringing no heart to the task. My lady, when she saw that, flew out at
me afresh, and threw first the vapours bottle and then her cane at me,
which, breaking a piece of china, put her fairly beside herself. "Come
here!" she shrieked, swaying to and fro in her chair. "Do you hear,
you puling, psalm-singing canter? Come here, I say!" And when,
trembling and scared, I had approached, she leant forward, and seizing
hold of my ear, as Ferguson had once seized it, she twisted it with
such unexpected strength and spite that I roared with pain, and fairly
fell on my knees beside her.
"There is for you, _gros cochon!_" she cried. "So you _can_ speak up
when you like! Now go to the end of the room, my man, and play your
part again, and play it better! Or, by ----, I will have up those who
shall lash your back to the bone. Hoity toity! These are fine times,
when scum like you, my lad, put on airs!"
This was not the discipline, nor were these the threats, to give an
actor courage; but in sheer desperation, I spoke up, and, this time,
had the good fortune to please her; and, Monterey mocking me, and
pushing me this way and that, I went through my part a dozen times. At
length the Countess expressed herself satisfied, and with a grim nod,
and an "Odds my life, he is not so unlike, after all!" gave me leave
to go. But when I was half way to the door, she called me back, and
after I had timidly obeyed, she sat awhile, glowering at me in
silence. At last, "No," she said irritably, "it is too late!" and she
struck on the floor with her stick. "It is too late to turn back! The
cross devil did nothing but thwart me to-day, and what he will not do
_bon gre_, he shall do perforce. He has brought it on himself, and he
must abide his _destin!_ Yet--Monterey!"
The woman was at her side in a moment. "Yes, madam!"
"I suppose that there is no danger of a _contretemps_," she said,
stirring restlessly in her chair. "Sir John will get away? They will
not take him, and find the ring on him--and learn whose it is?"
On that, if I had been quick, and had had both wits and courage at
command, I should have thrown myself at her feet; and so I might have
opened her eyes. But I wavered, and before I had found heart to do it,
the waiting-woman, smooth and watchful, was in the breach.
"Ashford, my lady, is only three hours' riding from Dymchurch in the
Marsh," she said, "where the boat waits for him to-morrow night. Sir
John is well mounted, and it will be odd, if, after baffling pursuit
for months, he should be taken in that time."
"Yes, yes!" my lady said querulously. "Let him go! Let him go! Though
you are a fool to boot. A man is taken or not taken in less than three
hours. Even now, if that contrary devil of a son of mine had not
argued with me, and argued with me to-day--but, let him go! Let him
go!"
The woman lost no time in taking her at her word, and hurrying me out;
not by the main entrance through which I had come in, but by the
little side door, leading to the dingy closet at the head of the
private staircase. In the closet a bright, unshaded lamp burned on the
dusty table, and beside it stood Matthew Smith, wearing a cloak,
riding-boots, and a great flapped hat. He looked eagerly at the woman,
his eyes shining in the glare of the lamp; but he did not speak until
she had closed the door behind her. Then, "Is it right?" he whispered.
She nodded.
"You have got the ring?"
She gave it to him with a smile of triumph.
He looked at it, and with a grim face slipped it into his pocket.
"Good," he said, "and now, my friend, the sooner we are away, the
better."
But my gorge rose. On the table beside him, in the full glare of the
lamp, lay a cloak and holsters, a mask, sword, and riding-whip. I knew
what these objects meant, and for whom they were prepared; and at the
prospect of the plunge into the dark night, of the journey, and the
perils of the unknown road, I cried out that I would not go! I
would not go! And I tried to force my way back into the Countess's
room--with what intention heaven knows.
But Smith whipped between me and the door. "You fool!" he said,
pushing me back. "Are you mad? Or don't you know me yet?" "I know you
too well!" I cried, beside myself with rage, and with apprehensions of
the plunge on the brink of which I stood. "You have cursed me from the
first day I saw you at Ware! You have been the curse of my life! You,
and that Jezebel!"
[Illustration: SHE CAME A STEP NEARER TO ME, AND PEERED AT ME]
"Are you mad?" he said again; and threatened me with his hand.
But she came a step nearer to me, and peered at me; and after one look
took the lamp from the table and held it to my face. "At Ware?" she
said. "At Ware?" And then, putting the lamp back on the table, she
fell to laughing. "He is right!" she said. "I know him now. But you
told me that his name was Taylor."
"Taylor?" he said wrathfully. "So it is; and Price, and half a dozen
other names, for all I know. What does it matter what his name is?"
"Oh, it matters very much," she said, affecting to ogle me in an
exaggerated fashion. "He is an old flame of mine. His face always
brought something to my mind--but I thought that it was his likeness
to the Duke."
He cursed her old flames, and the Duke. And then, "What does it mean?"
he said. "Who is he?"
"He is the lad we left at Ware--in the old woman's room," she
answered, her voice sinking, and growing almost soft. "Lord! it seems
so long ago, it might have happened in another life! You remember him.
Matt? You saw him with me at The Rose one night? The first night I saw
you?"
He looked at me, long and strangely. "And what does it mean?" he said
at last, scowling between wonder and suspicion.
She shrugged her shoulders. "_Sais pas!_" she answered. "Ask him!"
"You ruined me once!" I cried. "And he saved me! And now you would
have me ruin him. You are devils, you are! Devils! But I defy you!"
He did not answer, but continued to stare at me; as if he discerned or
suspected that there was more in this than appeared on the surface. At
length the woman laughed, and he turned to her, rage in his face. "I
see nothing to laugh at," he said.
"But I do!" she answered pertly. "You three all mixed up! It would
make a cat laugh my lad."
He cursed her. "Have done with that!" he said fiercely. "And say, what
is to be done?"
"Done?" she answered briskly, and in a tone of genuine surprise. "Why,
that which was to be done. What difference does this make?"
But he looked at her, pondering darkly, as if it did make a
difference. I suppose that somewhere, deep down in his nature, there
lurked a grain of superstition, which found in this singular
coincidence, this sudden stringing together of persons long parted, an
evil omen. Or it may be that he had still some scrap of conscience
left, that, seared and deadened as it was, stirred and started at this
strange upheaval of an old crime. At any rate, "I don't know," he
growled at last. "I don't like it, and that is flat. There is some
practice in this."
"There is a fool in it," she answered naively. "And there are like to
be two!"
I thought to back him up, and I braced myself against the wall, to
which I had retired. "I won't go!" I said doggedly. "I will call for
help in the streets, first!"
"You will do as you are told," she answered coolly. "And you," she
continued to Smith in a voice of stinging scorn, "are you going to
give it up now, when all is safe? Will you stand to my lord as this
poor silly fellow stands to you? Have you waited for years for your
revenge--to move aside now? Why, my G--d! the Duke is worth ten of
you. He is a man, at any rate. He is----"
"Peace, girl," he cried, with I know not what of menace in his tone.
"Then, will you go?"
"Yes, I will go!" he answered between his teeth. "But by heaven, you
slut, if ill comes of it, I will wring your neck! I will, so help me
heaven! You shall deceive no other man! If there is practice of yours
in this, if this tool is here by your connivance----"
"He is not!" she answered. "Be satisfied."
Apparently he was satisfied, for he drew a deep breath, and stood
silent. She turned to me. "Get ready," she said sharply.
"No," I muttered, summoning all my resolution. "I shall not go. I--I
have not----"
Smith turned to me, and the refusal died on my lips. The struggle with
the woman had roused the man's passions; and I read in his eyes such a
glare of ferocity as chilled my blood and unstrung my knees. Nor was
that all; for when I went, trembling, to take the cloak, "One moment,"
he said grimly, "not so fast, my friend. Let us understand one another
before we start. Mr. Price or Mr. Taylor or whatever your name is,
take note, do you hear me, of three things? One, that the business we
are on is life or death. Do you grasp that?"
I muttered a shuddering assent.
"Secondly," he continued, with the same gruesome civility, "my hand
will never be more than six inches from the butt of a pistol, until I
see this home again. Do you grasp that?"
I nodded.
"Thirdly, at the least sign of treachery or disobedience on your part,
I blow out your brains first, and my own afterwards, if that be
necessary. Do you grasp that?"
I nodded.
"That is especially well," he said. "Because the last item is
important to you. On the other hand, Mr. Price, play honest John with
me, and in forty-eight hours you shall be back in your master's house,
free and safe; and I shall trouble you no more. Do you understand
that?"
I said I did; my teeth chattering, and my eyes seeking to evade his.
"Then, now, yon may get into those things," he said. "And do you ride
when I bid you, and halt when I bid you, and speak when I say speak,
and be silent when I say be silent--do those four things, I say, and
you will die in your bed. They are all I ask."
I stooped, shaking all over, to take up the boots. "Heart up, pretty!"
cried the woman, with an odd laugh that broke off short with a sort of
quaver. "It is clear that you are not born to be hanged. And for the
rest----"
"Peace, peace, wench," said Smith impatiently. "And dress him."