So they stood face to face, the Occident and the Orient, until the
tact of the woman, the subtlety of the man--suggested the compromise
of an exchanged smile.
"After all it is very Ancient History.... I think," said Katharine
with a gleam of mirth in her eyes of gold and bramble-dew, "that your
ancestor was discourteous, and mine--"
"A little bit premature. Or tardy from another point of view,--in
asking for what he'd got already. For Sir Hew and my ancestress had
been married a week or so back--by a Catholic friar who had baptised
Judith--after having received her abjuration of her Jewish faith.
Between them they broke the news to Issachar Hazaël, 'who at first
made naught of the Lady Judith's entreaties, but after many tears,
embraces and cajoleries, suffered himself to be persuaded to sit with
them at meat.'"
"Did he? ... I should have suspected--"
"Rats--if I'd been in the sandals of the Lady Judith--and I'd have
made an inner bull if I had! '_He would taste of no
dish_'--according to my Twelfth Century scribe--but he '_filled an
ancient silver cup with the best wine of Kir Saba, and touched it
with his lips once: seeming to drink while dropping into the goblet
under cover of his beard, which was white as the snow of Herman, and
fully an ell long--a ring of black onyx incarven very curiously,
having a head of the Greek Hercules-with his club and lion-mask._'"
"The ring you wear. The fellow to my ring! And it was poisoned?"
"This ring I wear--the signet from his hand. There's a little
compartment with a spring-lid, back of the setting, so I suppose it
held poison--as you say, when he '_did hand the goblet to the Lady
Judith, bidding her pledge him. But Sir Hew, stretching forth his
hand in sport, laid hold of the goblet, whereupon said Hazaël: "Drink
first, my Lady Forbis!" and she answered: "That will I right gladly,
O my father! but thou and mine husband must kiss me first!" So she
took the kisses and gave them back, and quaffed off the cup right
merrily--and died as though she had been struck by lightning, not
falling down, but sitting stiff and smiling in her chair...._'"
There was a silence in the room. Then Katharine murmured, still
vibrating:
"Women knew how to love in those days!" ...
"And men knew how to hate!" ...
"And is that all?"
"All, except that Sir Hew leaped up, and cried, when the corpse fell
down out of the chair upon the daïs strewn with lion-skins: '_We were
wed by a priest! I dealt honourably by her!_' And Issachar
said,--and I think he comes out of it pretty well on the whole:
'_What is honour in thine esteem is dishonour in mine! For the girl,
she was begotten of these my loins.... Take what is thine, Sir
Knight, and depart an' thou will to thine own adopted country. I
deal as I choose with that which is mine own!_' Straight off the
ice, I call that. Fine old fellow!"
Katharine said, a little breathlessly, for the thrill of a great
tragic happening seemed to be in the air:
"Yes, it was great, and terrible and merciless...."
"Hardly to Judith. When he'd once got her over in Britain, Hew would
have gone back to the Beauty Chorus. For I'm not over struck on
Hew," said John Hazel with a queer quirk of his fleshy underlip. "He
appears to have anticipated the Profiteer's motto of the present
date. Perhaps you've heard it? '_Self first, me next, and I'll take
whatever's left over!_' Now I've gone and made you wild with me all
over again!"
His huge size, and his genuine ruefulness, contrasted so queerly that
Katharine, still tingling to the finger-tips at the insult to Sir
Hew, was forced to smile.
"It is a mercy we are not likely to meet often, Mr. Hazel. We should
quarrel inevitably. And yet--" There was sweetness in the smile of
her eyes of cairngorm brown as she stretched out her long arm and
offered her hand to him, saying: "And yet, in a tight place, I would
trust you before most men!"
"Give me the chance, Miss Forbis!" His black eyes flashed in their
deep caves as her white hand was engulfed in his huge brown one.
"If there is need," she said, "I will not fail to!"
"It's a bargain then!" said John Hazel, and released the hand. "Now
I must be going. I have trespassed on your time most frightfully."
He turned and reached down to the floor and picked up the cowskin
bag....
"One moment, Mr. Hazel!" For he was striding towards the door, and
urgently as she desired to be quit of her strange untimely visitor,
the sacred bond of old fidelity, exerted its strong invisible
influence between these two, so utterly dissimilar--making her add,
even as she laid her hand on Whishaw's summoning bell: "You
would--would you not wish to attend my father's funeral?"
"I meant to, whether you were willing or not! ..."
The tone robbed the assertive words of all offence. She answered:
"Thank you. He will be laid to rest in the vault in our little
private burying-ground the day after to-morrow. Monday morning,
immediately after the Requiem Mass at ten. If it will be difficult
or bad for you,"--her glance was kind for the hollow cheeks and the
bagginess of the khaki on the great wasted body--"to drive over from
Cauldstanes in this sharp weather at so early an hour--I know my
father would have been glad to--to have you stay...." She added as
Whishaw opened the door: "Perhaps you would dine with us to-morrow
and sleep the night here?"
"It would put you out." His vast shoulders filled the open doorway,
the lintel of which just cleared his towering head. He added as
Whishaw faintly clacked behind him: "It's awfully good of you to
suggest finding me a bivvy, but the motor-bike that brought me over
here to-day--it belongs to the son of the landlady at the _Cross
Keys_--will hold together long enough--at least I hope so!--to carry
me over the distance again. But there's one thing I'll ask you.
Not, as a favour, mind you!--but as a right, to let me--_see him_!"
Whishaw again forgot himself so far as to clack, this time
distinctly. Miss Forbis' momentary hesitation was dissipated by the
sound. She bent her head in grave assent, took her black lace veil
and blue-check apron from the writing-table, saying to John Hazel:
"Wait here one instant!" and quitted the room, closely followed by
her ancient serving-man.
As the door shut behind them John Hazel's expression altered. His
beetling eyebrows drew into a savage line over his great hooked nose,
and his swarthy colour faded to ashen brown. His coarse mouth
hardened grimly as he crossed with long, noiseless strides to the
open terrace-window, and stood there for a moment, quietly looking
out. At the first glimpse the sunshiny terrace showed deserted of
the pacing khaki figure.... Then the crack of a kindled match broke
the silence. Yaill stepped from behind the buttress that had
sheltered him as he had paused to light another pipe. The fragrance
of the good weed came to Hazel's nostrils, as their eyes met for the
second time that day....
"Did you wish to speak to me, by any chance?"
The great menacing figure blocking the window-frame slewed its head
in the customary quarter-turn, and raised ar hand in the usual salute.
"As man to man--not as private to field-officer--I have something
urgent to say to you, Colonel Yaill."
A pale light flickered in the sorrowful grey eyes he looked at. Was
it irresolution, anger, apprehension? The actual truth he utterly
failed to guess. Relief.... The die cast, the doubt resolved, the
tangle straightened.... The path clear for the lonely feet till
death....
"Have you? Well, carry on! We have no hearers. Will you come
outside, or shall I come in? ..."
John stepped back. Yaill entered. The men confronted each other.
There was one instant's pause before Hazel said:
"This is Saturday forenoon--"
"Twelve pip emma precisely." Yaill glanced at the cheap new watch
upon his wrist. A flush burned his thin brown cheeks as he
remembered that the bauble had been Lucy's wedding-gift.
"Twelve Saturday.... The Funeral is to be on Monday at ten
o'clock...."
"You are incorrect. Monday at ten-thirty...."
"I aim at being plain and short with you, sir. If by three o'clock
on Monday afternoon you have not told Miss Forbis of your marriage, I
am going to save you the trouble, Colonel Yaill."
"Indeed?" ... Yaill's face was deathly under its sun-tan. "Perhaps
you'll tell me who the Hell you are?" ...
John answered with a grim inexpressive visage:
"You can see for yourself. A London Territorial.... Ranker as long
as this blasted old War goes on.... And a kind of--family friend of
this house of Forbis.... If you're taking any further
explanation--I'm bound to tell you you won't get it here...."
"Very well. Your name? ..." It was the crisp, curt tone that marks
the caste of the officer, making the other stiffen against his will:
"Private John Benn Hazel, No. 000. X Platoon--Company F. 4th
Battalion, 448th City of London Fusiliers, sir."
"I shall remember. Good-day to you, Private Hazel. And carry on!"
"You may be sure I will!"
The door-handle turned as the short, stern colloquy ended. Both men
looked round and saw Katharine standing near the door. Her black
lace veil draped her head with mystery. In her hand was a little
bunch of purple violets, whose perfume made rich sweetness in the
air.... She made a sign to Hazel that he should follow her, gave one
swift glance of tenderness to Edward, and left the room, followed by
his enemy....
"I was going to give him these. Perhaps you would like to?" she
said, putting the flowers in John's great hand. He mumbled something
she did not catch, but she understood that he would like to, as she
led the way down the vaulted corridor--pausing before opening the
chapel door to stroke the decrepit pointer-bitch Dawtie, who lay with
her muzzle between her forepaws, keeping guard over the sleeper who
would wake in Time no more....
Then she passed into the sacred place; bent in reverence before the
Presence in the Tabernacle, and led the way up the little aisle
closely followed by John. He heard her say in a low, clear voice, as
he stood near the feet of the old man who lay in the long oak coffin:
"Father dear, here is a friend of ours whom you have wished to see!
..."
Just as though the old man lying there had not been dead at all....
He--Sir Philip--must have been a tall man, rather narrow than
broad-chested; and in youth his fine aquiline-featured face, now set
in the sternness of death, might have belonged to his ancestor Marcus
Fabius--that Tribune of Constantine,--who superintended the building
of fortified camps on the Scottish Border--and planted millions of
barbed iron prongs on the brae-sides and in the moss-hags for the
bedevilment of naked Celtic feet.
So John laid the bunch of violets below the stiff grey hands that
were clasped over a Crucifix and had a Rosary threaded between their
rigid fingers,--and rode back on his borrowed motor-bike to the
_Cross Keys_ at Cauldstanes--an ancient stone box full of prehistoric
smells (stale beer and boiled cabbage predominating)--and slept in a
bedroom with an uphill floor, crowded with glass-fronted cases of
stuffed salmon and trout, owls, heron, and moth-eaten brocks and
foxes.