PLOTTING WITHOUT THE EARL
Later in the day of Van Volkenberg’s disgrace, Lady Marmaduke and I were
talking together in no very pleasant frame of mind. We both knew the
far-reaching power of the Red Band, and the extremes to which the
patroon would go in order to carry out his designs. He now knew that it
was I who had brought his disgrace upon him. People are always likely to
suspect and hate those whom they have injured beyond repair. The death
of Ruth was enough to account for any blow that the patroon might aim at
me. Add to this motive the fact that I had brought humiliation upon him,
that I had been the cause of his expulsion from the council, and one can
easily imagine how little reason there was to believe that I should be
overlooked in his subsequent meditations. The injury I had done to the
patroon not only held him up to ridicule and scorn, but also, by
removing him from the governor’s council, deprived him of his most
potent means of plotting against the Earl. Take it all in all, I was
treading in dangerous water, and both Lady Marmaduke and I knew it.
“How do you expect to escape his vengeance?” she said in a significantly
despondent tone. “How will you keep your head on your shoulders till
tomorrow morning or next day?”
I smiled grimly, but made no reply to her question. In fact, I was all
at sea as to what to do, and I knew that she was in the same state of
mind. For several minutes there was silence between us; neither of us
had a word further to say. Of a sudden my mistress snapped her fingers
and a light as of a new idea began to sparkle in her eyes.
“He is a Catholic,” she said. “I wish the laws that apply to priests
would apply to him.” She muttered these words half aloud as if she was
talking to herself. But her next sentence was addressed to me. “You know
that when a Jesuit priest steps across the boundary of our province we
hang him. That is our law.” She dropped her eyes again and seemed, as
before, to muse aloud. “Poor little Ruth. Such sweet, sweet eyes; so
sad. They were not sad at first—they grew sad. Had it been only trouble
that won her young life away! But to be robbed of it by a Roman
Catholic. If you could have seen her face, so cold and pale when I went
to see the mark of the hot iron!” She turned her eyes towards me
suddenly. “Have you ever smelt burning flesh?” she demanded.
“For God’s sake!” I cried. “You pierce me to the heart.”
Words cannot express the agony I felt at this mention of the manner of
my sister’s death; but, in spite of my misery, Lady Marmaduke went on
without pity.
“He did not brand her, but he did worse. He went to her room at night
and murdered her in bed. Why? Because—”
I put out my hand in a gesture of appeal. She left the sentence
unfinished and began anew.
“Can you not see, friend Michael, why I twist this knife of recollection
till it galls you to the quick? Le Bourse, did you love your sister?”
“What of that?” I answered hoarsely, wondering why she asked me such a
question.
“Do you think that you will be able to keep your life in your body for a
week now that you have given such offense to the leader of the Red Band?
You hesitate. Nay, answer me honestly. Unless you skulk like a coward
and hide yourself inside my house, how long will you escape their
vengeance?”
I shook my head. Indeed there was no limit of time too brief to suit the
truth.
“Did you love your sister?”
“Why do you ask that question as if you doubted it?” I answered
petulantly. “Do you not know that—”
“Tut, tut, I do not doubt you, but I wonder whether you will stand the
test. This is no common enemy you have to deal with. He is a wily man
and wields much power. By your own reckoning your life is not worth
that.” She snapped her fingers. “You must take the game into your own
hands. If you should die, who would avenge Ruth?”
“Or Sir Evelin?” I responded.
Her brows darkened. A flush spread slowly over her swarthy features like
a storm cloud. I knew that I was standing before the Black Lady
Marmaduke, and from that moment I understood why they had given her that
name. She was the very image of deep passion, yet of passion that was
under control withal. She was such a leader as a man could trust himself
to in full confidence of finding bravery, loyalty and—for I had no doubt
of the result—victory.
“Yes,” she answered. “Or Sir Evelin! Ruth and Sir Evelin! You and I must
keep alive. Will you make a desperate cast for the prize? Will you stake
all upon one bold throw?”
The swift nervous clutch of her hand on my shoulder which accompanied
her last words, and the sound of her breath, hard and rasping like a
person in a trance, told me better than words why she had been probing
me to the depths of my misery. I knew that the plan she was about to
propose would be full to the brim of peril.
“I’ll play it,” I answered, responding in every nerve to the spell of
her fierce passions. “What is the cast?”
“Your life.”
“Explain.”
“You cannot live as it is. Assume a disguise. Be someone else.”
“That is easy, but to what does it lead?”
“To the house of the Red Band. You have still the silver buttons that
the buccaneer gave you. Take them boldly, according to your first
intention, and present them to the patroon. Tell him you want to enlist
in the Red Band. With you in the very center of the board, we can soon
sweep it clean.”
She had suggested a desperate enterprise indeed, one that took my breath
away. Yet, upon consideration, I found it no more desperate than the
situation as it stood at that moment. Of course I should not consent to
hide myself away from danger, in which course, according to Lady
Marmaduke, lay my only hope of safety. Nor could I expect to escape the
patroon’s wrath in any other way. The members of the Red Band were not
above the secret blow under cover of the night, and I might fall at any
moment. Perhaps, after all, it was really safer for me to go boldly into
the midst of my enemies than to let them come at me from a distance. Yet
I hesitated.
“Are you afraid?” flashed Lady Marmaduke in scornful anger.
“Had I been afraid, madam, I had never hesitated,” I replied.
[Illustration:
“SHE THRUST HER HAND
INTO THE CANDLE FLAME.”—_p. 160_
]
What really troubled me and made it hard for me to decide was not the
danger, nor even a doubt of my success. On the contrary, I hesitated
over a point of honor. I knew very well that the Earl would not approve
of this. Could I? I had never, save on the night before, played the part
of a spy, and my own name was the last thing in the world I should be
ashamed to own. I could fight; but no—I could never be capable of this
kind of work. Then I glanced at Lady Marmaduke. There were tears in her
eyes, and I knew she must be thinking of her husband. Could I desert her
now? I had sworn to be her man. Was it honest and just to turn away from
her in the critical moment—the first time she had desired my help? My
mind was swaying in the opposite direction when the thought of what Ruth
would have said clutched my wavering mind back to the side of truth and
honor.
Lady Marmaduke must have seen all this passing in my mind or shadowed in
my face. It was time for her to put her firm hand upon me and force me
the way she would have me go, whether I would or not. It was to my brute
passions she appealed, not to my reason.
When I had entered the room ten minutes before, she was writing letters,
and the candle she used to soften her wax with was still burning upon
the table. She took a step towards me and as she did so I noticed the
candle flame wave delicately to one side.
“Michael,” she said, putting her hand upon my shoulder. “You hesitate
and I am ashamed of you.” Her hand moved along my shoulder till her
fingers played upon my neck. “I said that I saw no mark upon her body.
What if there were prints upon her neck?” At that instant her iron
fingers closed on my throat with a grip that made me cry out.
“Hush, fool,” she said fiercely, relaxing her grip. “I am not going to
choke you; but her throat was delicate and you know how it feels.” Then
her manner changed. She spoke quickly and looked towards the candle. “He
said he branded her. Perhaps he did. It was night when I looked at her
body. One cannot see plain by night. Perhaps he did after all. Did you
ever see a person branded? Smell, Michael, smell.”
She thrust her left hand into the candle flame.
“For God’s sake!” I cried, trying to snatch her hand away.
“Stop,” she replied, in her terrible deep voice. At the same moment she
caught my rescuing hand and held it in a vise.
“Smell. This is what it is like to be branded.”
A spell seemed to take hold of me. I had no power to move, but stood
still watching her finger scorch in the tall flame. Once I saw it
tremble, but she bit her lip and grew steady again. The flesh began to
shrivel and then—my God! I caught that horrible stench of burning flesh.
“Stop,” I shrieked.
“Oh Ruth, Ruth, how I pity you in your pain,” cried my mistress, who
held on, enduring that bitter agony to make me succumb to her will.
Then the sickening smell came again stronger than ever.
“Ruth, Ruth, Ruth! The bloodhound! Stop. I’ll go, I’ll go. Oh my God, my
God, my God!”
I threw up my hands with a cry of horror and shut my eyes upon the
terrible suggestion of that cruel sight. Lady Marmaduke bent close to me
and spoke in my ear.
“Methinks I can hear her scream in agony. God, how she must have
suffered!”
My mistress told me afterwards that I groaned and reeled backward. I
should have fallen had she not caught me by the arm. In a moment the
passion spent itself and I was sane once more. But the temptation of
that smell had prevailed against the prompting of my conscience. I
determined to run the risk. My life if it must be! Yes, my life, but his
too.
So I resolved to join the Red Band. The elaborate precautions I took
before I assumed my disguise were not excessive. There were many
accidents to be provided against. In the first place, though Lady
Marmaduke would be able to account plausibly for my disappearance from
New York, I might be tolerably sure that the patroon would scent danger
in the circumstance. I must be doubly careful not to leave any tracks
that would point either forward or backward from the moment I changed my
identity.
Paradoxical as it sounds, I must accomplish my disguise without the help
of any disguise at all. If my bold plan succeeded and resulted in my
becoming a member of the Red Band, I must be able to strip and wash
myself before my fellow members, or to stand a merry bout of leapfrog or
wrestling in the servants’ quarters. In such a situation I could not
guard myself against discovery by means of a painted face that would
wash off at the first touch of water, nor rely upon a wig or any other
outward changes of my face. I could put on different clothes; I could
cut off my beard and moustache; for the rest, I must trust to the very
boldness of the deception to bring me through with safety.
When night came I had prepared a plan by which I hoped to annihilate
every trace of my presence as completely as if I had flown away on the
wings of the wind. In the course of the day it got abroad that I should
set out early the next morning for Albany on business of Lady
Marmaduke’s. In this simple way was my disappearance on the morrow to be
accounted for.
About midnight Pierre and I left the city stealthily and paddled in a
canoe to the shore of Long Island. Little Pierre, as I have said, was a
barber. He had brought his shaving utensils with him, and by the light
of the moon he shaved me, lip and chin. I then put on the one suit of
clothes that I had brought with me and which, fortunately, I had not yet
worn in public. Pierre made a bundle of my discarded garments and
prepared to set out with them to Marmaduke Hall. We shook hands at the
edge of the water. Pierre tried once or twice to say something, but he
could not find the voice. He seemed to feel the danger of the situation
even more than I did. At last he blurted out:
“Well, if we don’t see you again, here’s luck.”
He gave the canoe a prodigious shove. A moment later he was paddling
steadily towards the North River. I watched him until he was lost in the
darkness; then I set out across the island to Gravesoon, for I intended
to repeat the journey that I had formerly made when I first came to New
York. If, when I appeared at the manor-house, Van Volkenberg should
doubt the truth of the story I was going to tell him, he would be likely
to inquire into the circumstances of my arrival. I resolved to let him
trace me to the very edge of the broad Atlantic. There he might stare to
his heart’s content. He would see nothing but the wide blue circle of
the sea.
Fortune was on my side that morning. By day-light I was standing on the
shore of the cove where I had been set down a few days before by Captain
Tew. There was, by accident, at that very moment a great ship hull down
in the offing. The presence of this vessel did me good service. When I
approached the ordinary at Gravesoon, in spite of the early hour of the
morning, I found a number of people about the door. One of them held a
spy-glass in his hand and was trying to make out the identity of the
distant ship.
I was much relieved to find, when I came to speak with the landlord,
that he had but the vaguest recollection of my former appearance. To be
sure, he had seen me only once; yet he had a slight remembrance of the
fact. When I hinted pretty plainly that I had come ashore from the ship,
which by that time was almost out of sight, he said:
“You are the second man this week. The other fellow came at night and,
bless you! not a word would he say of where he came from or where he was
going to.” This reassured me, for I had inquired after Van Volkenberg,
and I was glad that the landlord had forgotten the fact. Then he said
abruptly, “Can you blow a shell?”
I assured him that I could.
“Well, he couldn’t; he was a poor piece.”
That ended our consultation. By noon I had left the ordinary at
Gravesoon far behind me and had crossed the East River once more into
New York. On different occasions during the day I met both my mistress
and the Earl of Bellamont. I smiled to myself to think how I could have
astonished them had I wished to speak out. I spent so much of the
afternoon bartering for a horse and attending to other small matters
that it was nearly sunset before I was ready to set out for the
manor-house. To tell the truth, I had another reason for delay. I was
minded to put my disguise to a more thorough test before I threw myself
into the power of the patroon. With this end in view, I presented myself
at Marmaduke Hall and inquired for the mistress.
I had not forgotten what she had told me about the title to her estate,
nor that Van Volkenberg had vowed that he would get possession of it in
spite of all law to the contrary. So, when I sent my new name, Henrie
St. Vincent, to Lady Marmaduke, I sent word also that I was a messenger
from Patroon Van Volkenberg and wished to see her on business concerning
her estate. She received me in a high state of dignity, standing erect
at one end of the long room with her hand gripped on the collar of a
dog.
“Madam,” said I, and got no further before she interrupted me.
“Sir,” she replied. “I understand that you come from Kilian Van
Volkenberg. I can guess your errand. Will you be pleased to follow me.”
She was very angry, for which I could see no reason since she had not
heard a word of what I had to say. Perhaps it was the mere impudence of
a messenger from the patroon. She strode out of the apartment with me
trooping behind her, wondering what she was going to do next. She led
the way through the kitchen to the little outbuilding where I had seen
the huge iron pots a few days before. Fire raged under three of them.
The massive covers tilted and rocked above the steam. Lady Marmaduke
signed to the servants to remove one of the lids. They caught hold of
the chains and began to pull. As the lid rose a cloud of steam filled
the room. I could feel my newly shaved cheeks go damp and moist with the
vapor. Lady Marmaduke looked at me, but I could only see her face at
times, for the steam came and went in clouds between us.
“Do you see that?” she asked in a high voice, hard with anger. “If you
or any other of your accursed Red Band dare to set foot in Marmaduke
Hall again, I shall put you in that pot. Ay, if it is old Kilian
himself, I shall drop him in. Do you hear me?”
She looked as if she meant what she said; for all that, I could not
forbear a smile. She peered into my face for a moment and then her
expression seemed to relax a little.
“Why do you laugh?” she asked. “You are impudent like your master. I
have a mind to let my dogs loose on you. I understand that that is a
favorite trick at the manor-house. But I shall not do it. Come with me.
I have a last message to send the honorable patroon.”
When we were back in the great room again she closed the door behind
her. Then she fell into a spell of laughter which was so loud and hearty
that I thought she was in hysterics. After a moment she stopped as
violently as she had begun, though her body still shook with suppressed
merriment.
“What would they think,” she said as soon as she could get her voice.
“What would they think if they could hear me laugh like this with a man
of my sworn enemy’s at my elbow? But be sure you do not let him send you
here. I should put you in the pot if he did and that would be a great
pity. Yes, I should put you in the pot, even you, as sure as your name
is Michael Le Bourse.”
It was now my turn to be amazed. The fact that she had penetrated my
disguise was disconcerting in the extreme. She soon set me at ease,
however, by telling me that her suspicions were not aroused until I
smiled at her fierce threats.
“No one in Yorke laughs in my presence when I am angry,” was her
explanation. “But then, Michael, I knew you were somewhere about in
disguise and I have seen more of you than any one else in the city. I do
not think that you need to fear that he will recognize you.”
“I hope not,” was my answer. Another meeting that I had already had
helped to dispel my fears. On my way to Marmaduke Hall I had encountered
Pierre. I accosted him boldly and inquired my way. Yet Pierre, who had
actually seen me since my change—though, to be sure, he had seen me only
by dim moonlight—even he failed to show the least sign of recognition.
Now that my mistress knew who I was, I broached a subject that had
already been matter of conversation between us. It was whether we should
let the Earl know of our present undertaking. Lady Marmaduke had already
told me that the time would come when we should have to jog our own way
if we jogged at all. She seemed to think that that time had come, though
I had serious doubts about it.
“No, Michael, we must not tell him now. In fact, I sounded him this
afternoon in a roundabout way without mentioning names. What do you
think he said? He took up a book from the table. You know he is a great
reader and this was one of those ancient history books where he says the
old play writers got their stage stories from. He said that it told
about once upon a time when Pompey—he was a Roman general, you know—had
Caesar and Antony and Lepidus to dinner with him on one of his ships.
One of Pompey’s officers came to him and said that if he would cut the
cables that held his ship he could put out to sea and he would have all
his enemies in his power. You see Pompey was at war with the other three
and they had met to arrange a peace.”
“What did Pompey do?” I inquired of my lady.
“Just what I asked the Earl. Would you believe it? Pompey was too nice
for that kind of thing, and because he felt he could not do it honorably
himself, he got mad at his officer and cursed him roundly for not having
done it himself, instead of telling him about it. Such a service should
have been performed before he was consulted. Then it had been a service
indeed. It was very amusing to see the Earl’s eyes twinkle as he told
this story. I could not resist the temptation to tease him.
“‘What if I have acted on Pompey’s advice,’ said I, ‘and have come to
tell you that it is already done?’
“That greatly agitated him. ‘You cannot. For the world, I would not have
you take me seriously. I could not descend to such dishonest practices
as that.’
“This made me wince, and I was minded to give him a sharp answer. But I
did not. I put him off with excuses and he is none the wiser. You do not
still think we had better tell him, do you?”
I certainly did not, but, for all that, I was uneasy in my mind. I was
not at all sure but that the Earl was right and my lady wrong. However,
it was now too late to mend. That was a great comfort. I put a brave
face on the matter and resolved to carry my part through to the end.
But I was to have one more disagreeable reminder of my danger before I
set out for Van Volkenberg’s. The details of this event do not matter,
but the main fact may as well be told. Pierre, unintelligent as his face
had appeared when I met him, had recognized me. He was so proud because
he had not betrayed his knowledge that he managed a safe way to let me
know about it, bragging at length of his discretion. The only effect of
this piece of news upon me was to make me feel still more insecure and
doubtful of the reception I should meet with at the manor-house. One
thought, however, comforted me. Van Volkenberg had seen me only a few
times and then for only a few minutes at a time. I really believed that
he would not be able to recognize me after the change wrought by the
removal of my heavy beard. Yet I set out not wholly sure. I must confess
that my heart was beating a little quicker than usual in anticipation of
the result.