"It is--most displeasing."
"Well, then, why did you lead me on?"
"How dare you suggest such a thing."
"Do you mean to say that you have not encouraged me?"
"Your insolence is unbearable."
Jasper had raised his voice, and she echoed him with fine spirit. They
made quite a pretty quarrel of it, Nance playing the part of beauty
affronted, Jasper very much the rude and aggressive male. They hushed
the affair, and smothered an intense desire to laugh. De Rothan was
within a few yards of them. His saluting of Nance was a royal function;
his glance at Benham a kingly threat.
"Mees Durrell, may I have the felicity to think that I am at your
service?"
"O, Chevalier----"
"You go to the deuce," said Jasper under his breath.
De Rothan looked him over with cool scorn.
"Meester Benham, I think your presence here is unnecessary. I will
conduct Mees Durrell back to Stonehanger."
"Please, if you will, Chevalier. This gentleman----"
"Mees Nance, I am full of understanding."
He bowed in the saddle to Jasper, and blessed him with a serene sneer.
"Meester Benham, I must ask you to relieve us of your presence."
Even though he was fooling the man, Jasper felt savage.
"What business is it of yours, sir?"
"I stand for courtesy--and chivalry, Meester Benham."
"Puss in Boots! I shall want a word with you, sir."
"I shall be at your service, when I have escorted Mees Durrell home."
"Good. In the lane?"
"Wherever you please."
Jasper caught Nance's eyes. She gave him a quick and secret smile as De
Rothan dismounted to put himself at her side. They went off together up
the lane, leaving Jasper standing beside Devil Dick. He watched them
with curious and contradictory emotions, and a hatred of De Rothan that
was not to be appeased by the thought that he had the man in a tight
corner.
His eyes fixed themselves finally upon Nance, and he discovered infinite
delight in watching her slim figure moving between the green banks of
the lane. Everything about her was adorable, her anger, her perplexity,
her slow drifting toward trust in him. That glint of mischief in her
eyes! And how she had taken up the game with De Rothan! What a change in
the course of an hour! He had ridden out in a puritanical mood and here
he was ready to go down and kiss those two small feet.
Jasper smiled to himself and moved on up the lane. The gateway of
Stonehanger appeared under the dark shade of the hollies and laurels.
Nance was just passing through it, De Rothan standing hat in hand and
holding the gate open. There was something infinitely offensive to
Jasper in the bending of the man's figure toward Nance. He remembered
how he had felt when he had seen them together on the terrace. Things
had changed in a sense since then, but his grudge remained against the
Frenchman.
De Rothan waited for him, a supercilious and flaunting figure that
looked very tall in the shadow of the shrubs. He resembled a victorious
captain waiting with arrogance for a beaten enemy to deliver up his
sword. Jasper felt a stinging lust to smite burning in his right arm.
They met with frank enmity.
"You wish to speak to me, Meester Benham. I, too, have words to say. Let
us lead our horses down the lane."
They walked on side by side, leading their horses by the bridles. De
Rothan's nostrils were dilated, his eyes full of an angry glare. Jasper
looked dogged.
"I must advise you to mend your manners, Meester Benham. I am a
gentleman of France."
"Thanks, sir, thanks."
"In the future you will not thrust yourself upon Mees Durrell."
"Why not?"
"Because she does not desire it."
"Did she tell you so?"
"And because I forbid it."
"That hardly convinces me."
A common instinct made both men leave their horses standing and face
each other in the lane. The days of the wearing of the small sword had
passed. But men who are angry can quarrel without swords.
"So you have my orders, Meester Benham."
"I return them. On second thoughts I feel inclined to throw you and them
into the nearest ditch."
"Sir!"
"Frenchmen can fight only with their cooking-spits."
In a flash De Rothan struck at Jasper's face with his open hand. The
blow was caught, and the wrist seized with the grip of a man who was
savagely angry. Jasper twisted De Rothan's arm, a schoolboy's trick, and
De Rothan, with a snarl of pain, was driven to twist about so that his
back was toward Jasper. The sinews cracked about the shoulder-joint,
while Jasper tilted the Frenchman's hat over his nose.
"How does it please you, monsieur?"
"Dog!"
Jasper flung De Rothan's arm aside. The Frenchman swung round, and they
were at each other like a couple of dogs. De Rothan was the taller man,
but Benham was thickly built and very powerful about the loins and
shoulders. Moreover, he had been the rough-and-tumble champion at a
country school. He had De Rothan round the middle, and crumpled him
backward as though he were a sheaf of corn.
The Frenchman beat a fist in Jasper's face, and for the moment Jasper
crushed him in his arms for the grim joy of feeling the cracking of De
Rothan's ribs. Then he half lifted and half hustled him to the side of
the lane.
The ditch was not a deep one and it was dry, but that was no saving of
De Rothan's dignity. He emerged, dusty and speckled with spittle-blight,
a man furious with physical shame.
"I do not fight like a ploughboy. You shall hear from me."
He felt his wrenched shoulder, and recovered some of his haughtiness.
"You have strained my shoulder-joint."
"Rest it for a few days, or months."
"Your insolence may cost you dear."
"I shall be at your service whenever you choose to fight."
He gave De Rothan a steady stare, and then climbed into the saddle.
"The fat's in the fire," he thought, as he rode off down the lane,
"but--God! it was good crushing that fellow's ribs."
De Rothan's face was a study in malignant cynicism as he brushed his
clothes and picked up his hat.
"Very well, very well, Mr. Benham; to-morrow, or the next day, I shall
kill you. There shall be no mistake about that."
XXI
Grimly elated, Jasper rode back to Rush Heath. The day had given him far
more than he had dared to desire. He had thrashed his man and made a
second conquest of Nance Durrell's confidence. His jealousy had
dispersed like a thunder-cloud, leaving a clear and adventurous sky.
At Rush Heath he found Jeremy Winter and Cousin Rose in the thick of a
quarrel. Rose had driven over from Beech Hill, ostensibly to sit at
Squire Kit's bedside, and treat him to some of her frank and pious
opinions.
"Uncle Christopher, you shall listen to good words. It fills me with
pity, to hear an old man curse and blaspheme."
Mr. Benham had leaned against his pillows and glared at her with a man's
disgust. She had talked on and on, and though he had shut his eyes and
pretended to snore, she had not been turned from thrusting her piety
upon him. It had ended in Squire Kit hammering the floor with the stick
he kept on the bed, and Jeremy had arrived to rescue him.
"Jeremy, I say,--Jeremy----"
Winter had understood things at a glance. He had hooked up her arm, and
walked her off by main force, and that was why they were quarrelling in
the oak parlour.
"I wonder you don't keep away from here, Mr. Winter. You never do any
good to Uncle Christopher and Jasper."
Jeremy was the imperturbable fencer whose laughing eyes and sage,
sardonic mouth always filled Rose with anger. Her attacks amused him,
and Rose Benham insisted upon being taken very seriously.
"So you think I have debased the whole household; Jasper, too, eh?"
"You have always been an irreligious man. You would have led poor father
into all sorts of foolishness if we had not prevented it."
"Poor man!"
"I hate your flippancy."
"What a world it is! I have seen my share of it, and upon my soul there
is nothing to touch English piety. And there is no one who knows so much
about everything as a good back-country English gentlewoman. I suppose
she has it all straight from the Almighty."
Rose sat very straight and stiff in her chair.
"That's right, Mr. Jeremy Winter, be blasphemous. At your age----"
"At my age, Miss Benham, you will be a very old woman. As it is, the
women still fall in love with me."
"Oh, you wretched old reprobate."
Jeremy went off into huge yet quiet laughter, and it was in the midst of
it that Jasper entered with the steady, gleaming eyes of a man who had
desires to satisfy and enemies to grapple.
"Hallo!"
He had one glimpse of Rose's stiff and implacable face.
"What have you been doing, Jerry?"
"I? Nothing, sir, nothing. But Miss Benham will have it that I am a
disgusting old reprobate and not fit to be in this house."
His smile exasperated Rose. It was so good-tempered, so sly, so
unanswerable.
"You ought to know Jeremy Winter by this time, Rose."
"Thank you. I know a little, and that has always been too much."
"Oh, come now!"
She felt that he was on Winter's side, the man's side, and it angered
her.
"You men are all alike. You love old ruffians who tipple and tell bad
stories."
"Now, how on earth do you come at that, Miss Benham? Keyholes, eh?"
"Mr. Winter, should I listen to your voice through a keyhole!"
Both men laughed, and Rose stood up. She looked thinner and
sharper-featured when she was angry.
"Jasper, tell your man to bring my horses round."
And she whirled away from Rush Heath in a dust cloud of indignation. The
cat in her knew and feared the dog in Jeremy.
Jasper rejoined Winter in the parlour. Jeremy was lighting his pipe, and
looking humorously down his nose.
"Are you going to marry your cousin?"
"What, marry Rose!"
"You be careful, young man; she'll ask you the question and have your
immortal soul in her reticule before you can say 'gammon'."
"I don't think she will, Jerry."
"That's good. You seem most deucedly pleased with yourself. What is it?"
Jasper went to the wine-cupboard and brought out a decanter and two
long-stemmed glasses.
"Drink her health, Jerry."
"Miss Benham's?"
"Don't be a tease. Her health, and God bless her. By George, I have had
my money out of De Rothan."
"How?"
"I landed him in a ditch. Do you know what it feels like to crush a
man's ribs in, Jerry? It's a gorgeous feeling. I gather there will be a
fight."
Winter looked serious.
"You may have thrown him all right, lad, but----"
"I have looked him in the eyes, Jeremy, and I can match him. Besides, I
am going through with it--for the sake of Nance Durrell."
"O you youngsters! I've done it myself, too. Run your chest up against a
sword-point because a girl glimmers her eyes. Tell me about it."
And Jasper told him.
Jeremy sat for a while in thought.
"Why don't you pounce on the man? Have him arrested. It would save a lot
of trouble."
"I want to keep Durrell out of it. You see, Jerry, if I work this
through quietly, it will save no end of a mess."
"Will it?"
"Yes."
"You seem cocksure."
"Haven't I got my devil back these few days with the foils? And look
you, Jerry, do you remember fighting when you were in love?"
"I do."
"Were you beaten?"
"No."
"It makes you grim, quick as lightning, cool as cold steel. That's how
it works with me."
Jeremy nodded his head sagely.
"Well," said he, "we'll spend the next two days fighting each other. And
you bang away with your pistols. How do they carry?"
"I can hit a card five times out of six at twenty paces."
"I've got twice the nerve since I've seen her to-day."
"Confound you, I used to be just the same."
In the cool of the evening these two spent an hour in fencing together
on the lawn by the cedars. The great black shadows of the trees lay in
dark capes and promontories upon the green sea of the grass. The
standard roses were in bloom, and the scent of the clover pinks in the
borders filled the air. Swallows glided in and out, threading their way
among the cedars, and circling round the tall chimneys of the house.
Parson Goffin hobbled up the drive, and sat down on a bench to watch
Jeremy Winter and Jasper fencing. He had watched them at swordplay years
ago, and there was nothing new in it to awaken curiosity.
Goffin was in one of his growling moods. He had a sore tongue from too
much smoking, and England was going to the dogs.
"They say that we may have Villeneuve in the Channel any day during the
next month. They don't know where he is; they expect him to swoop out of
the blue. Boney will get across, and we shall be licking his shoes."
"A pretty angel of hope you are, Goffin!"
"Sir, we have been drinking too much these fifty years. The Almighty may
be sending something to sober us."
"He gave us the Hanoverians to help us to drink! You are down at the
heel, parson. If you could prove to me that Nelson is at the bottom of
the sea, I might be ready to howl with you."
"So he may be, sir, so he may be, for all we know."
"Jasper, send for a good stiff glass of rum; Mr. Goffin is feeling a
little faint and vapourish this evening. Yes, that was the best tussle
we've had. It took me all I knew to keep your point out."
Parson Goffin's gloom was in sympathy with the gloom that overshadowed
England during those months of May, June, and July. At Boulogne Napoleon
waited for the chance that should give him control of the narrow
sea--even for three days. Off Rochefort, Ferrol, and Brest the ships of
Calder and Cornwallis kept up their grim blockade, while out yonder upon
the Atlantic, Fate, Villeneuve, and Nelson faltered on the edge of the
unknown. Nelson and his fleet had sailed away into the west, and men
asked themselves what news the Atlantic would disgorge. Would it be the
thunder of the French guns in the Channel, the breaking out of the ships
blockaded in Brest and Rochefort, the sweeping of the Dover Straits, the
red horror of invasion?
At Stonehanger Nance sat on the terrace wall and looked out toward the
sea. The sunlight played upon her face and in her eyes, and gave them a
brown radiance. There was a warmth and graciousness about her, a sadness
that found its recompense in the richness of her thoughts and musings.
Her spiritual attitude toward her father was one of astonishment and
compassion. She could pity him, even though she could not understand his
motives. De Rothan was the scapegoat upon whom she laid the guilt and
the burden of her resentment, though how Anthony Durrell had been
inveigled into such schemes she could not imagine. What quarrel had he
with England? He was a morose man, a silent man, and perhaps in a vague
way she felt that he had been disappointed. Nance's nature was the very
opposite of her father's. She was direct, generous, less ready to feel
aggrieved. The flaming discontent of the fanatic is incomprehensible to
healthy, humour-loving, sanguine people. There are men who will backbite
their own country out of sheer hereditary cussedness. They are against
everything that is--and Anthony Durrell was such a man.
He came out upon the terrace while Nance was there, and walked up and
down under the house with his hands behind his back. There was a
restless uncouthness even in the way he moved, for Durrell was one of
those men who had been a sop at school, and a greenhorn at college. He
had thrown a ball like a girl, and his legs and arms were not made to
work like the limbs of a virile male. Books, philosophy, and theorising
had filled his circle of consciousness. His liver had grown sluggish
with a sedentary life, and now he was nothing but a lean and embittered
figure of denunciation and discontent, impatient, ineffectual,
passionate, yet weak.
Nance felt a kind of pity for him as she watched him go to and fro. She
could not help contrasting him with Jasper Benham. As for De Rothan, he
was a sinister figure dogging the footsteps of this lean, white-haired,
narrow-shouldered man.
She crossed over to her father.
"Would you like a walk on the common? It is cooler now."
He glanced at her as though he had only just discovered her presence.
"No, no; I'm busy, thinking."
"You can think while you walk, and I'll keep quiet."
"Thank you. I wish to be alone."
His strung forehead and irritable eyes repulsed her. Intuition warned
Nance that it would be useless to attack him openly, even with the power
of compassion. Some men are mad, even when they are sane. It is useless
to argue with them. They have to be strait-jacketed by the common sense
of the community and kept from doing themselves and other people harm.
XXII
Parson Goffin was still grumbling on the bench under one of the cedars
when Jack Bumpstead appeared from the direction of the stables.
"Here be a man for to see you, Master Jasper."
"Who is it, Jack?"
"Thomas Stook o' Bramble End."
"Send him round. Wait, though, I'll come myself. Where did you leave
him, Jack?"
"In the yard."
Jasper found Tom Stook sitting on the horse-block and tickling himself
pensively with a straw. His brown face remained shy and stolid when he
saw Jasper. He stood up, slouching his shoulders, the straw tucked away
in one corner of his mouth.
"Well, Tom, what is it?"
Stook surveyed the yard, and scrutinised the kitchen windows with
sneering suspiciousness.
"Them turmit-flies o' wenches; always poppin' about. Maybe, sir, you
might like to see them signal lights at Stonehanger. I wouldn't be for
promising, but I have my sense o' smell. They say that Mounseer Jerome
be comin' ashore to-night."
"The smuggling rogue! How do you know, Tom?"
Stook grinned, and looked expressively at Jasper.
"Maybe a little bird dropped ut down t' chimney. Maybe there'll be kegs
on t' beach. It be'unt no business o' mine, but you can see Stonehanger
from my cottage."
"So these devils of smugglers play two games. They ought to sink Jerome
and his boat. Tom, you've got some sense."
"Thank 'ee, sir."
"Get into the stable and saddle the new brown cob, not Devil Dick. And
keep your mouth shut, see."
"I will--sure, Master Jasper."
Jasper went in by the back entry and made his way noiselessly upstairs.
He took his pistols and a hanger, and rejoined Tom Stook in the stable.
Jeremy and Parson Goffin were arguing together under the cedars, and
Jasper left them at it, wishing to get away without being questioned.
Coming out with Tom Stook and the cob he took the field path that turned
aside under the orchard hedge.
The western horizon was a level band of yellow light, with blue-black
hills below and a sky of lapis-lazuli above. The full moon was a great
silver buckler on a field of blue. Big stars were beginning to glitter
as Jasper and Tom Stook turned down by one of the high hedges with the
long grass and weeds brushing their knees. The hedge hid them from Rush
Heath, a hedge that smelt of honeysuckle, and trailed the pink sprays of
the wild rose over the green of the hazel, thorn, and holly.
Twilight fell as they made their way toward Bramble End, and the world
became a world of amethyst and of silver. The Stonehanger uplands were
dim and vague in the distance. The colour had melted out of the western
sky when they reached the rough track that led to Bramble End. Jasper
had mounted the cob, and Tom Stook swung along ahead on his long and
lumbering legs, a length of straw still dangling from one corner of his
mouth.
Stook's cottage had the shape of a hay-rick. It was built of stone and
thatched with heather. A tumble-down shed or lodge stood half hidden by
three elder trees that grew close together in the hedge. All about the
place lay a tangle of brambles, furze, blackthorn, and bracken.
"I'll put t' nag in t' lodge, Master Jasper."
"Right, Tom."
Jasper made his way to the back of the cottage. There was a piece of
vegetable ground here shut in by a low hedge. A yew-tree grew close to
the cottage, and a seat made of the rotting tail-board of a cart had
been laid upon two logs. Away to the north rose Stonehanger Common, and
in the twilight Jasper could distinguish the grey mass of Durrell's
house.
He sat down under the yew-tree, and Tom Stook came round from the lodge.
"A good look-out, Master Jasper."
"No wonder you could see the lights, Tom. What time do they show them up
yonder?"
"Must have been nigh on midnight when I've seen 'em afore."
"That means three hours' sentry work. Have you had your supper?"
"No, I ain't."
"You go in and get it. I'll keep a watch here. If it should come to a
scuffle, Tom, are you ready to see it through?"
Stook scratched a meditative chin.
"Sure, Master Jasper, so long as it be'unt with Sussex folk."
"You don't mind beating a Frenchman?"
"They be nasty beasts with their knives and pistols."
"You can leave that part of it to me, Tom."
"Oh--I doan't say as I be afraid."
Jasper kept watch there in the dusk, with the light of the moon becoming
more brilliant as night gave her the darkness that she needed.
"Pee-weet, pee-weet" wailed a plover somewhere over the furze. From an
oak wood in the valley came the "burring" of a night-jar. With steady
patience Jasper kept his eyes on the place where Stonehanger house cut
the sky-line. Once he saw the distant twinkle of a candle, coming from
Nance's window, so far as he could judge. The furzelands were vague,
black, and desolate under the moon, strange eerie wastes where anything
might happen.
Jasper's thoughts dwelt upon Nance, though the reverie of a man in love
is rather a visualising of the woman beloved than a meditation upon her
mystery. The white face of the moon and the dusky elf-locks of the night
were wholly feminine. Jasper imagined himself walking with Nance in the
dark old shrubbery behind Stonehanger, looking into the dim dearness of
her face, touching her hand, and uttering her name.
Tom Stook's clumsy figure drifted across these passionate imaginings. He
was wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and looking toward
Stonehanger.
"What may you be after, sir?"
"I am out hunting, Tom, to catch a fox of a Frenchman. And look you
here, I want you to keep your mouth shut about all this, the lights up
yonder, and the comings and goings. It will be worth your while."
"Sure, Master Jasper, you be a gen'leman o' sense. It be'unt no business
o' mine."
"There is some one who has to be protected. I want to lay a rogue by the
heels without harming innocent people."
Stook brought out a short clay pipe, and a little leather bag in which
he kept tobacco. He had to go indoors to get a light from the wood fire
that he had lit to cook his supper. When he emerged, the bowl of his
pipe glowing, he had one very characteristic remark to make.
"It be powerful cold f' June."
Jasper felt for his pocket flask. He knew that it was inward warmth that
the man needed.
"One pull, Tom, and no more. We must keep our heads clear to-night."
Two hours passed, and the vague, moonlit slopes of the common began to
suggest all manner of mysterious movements to Jasper's tired eyes.
Stonehanger was a dim outline against the sky. He had begun to doubt
whether anything was going to happen when a bright, yellow point flashed
out suddenly in the north. It remained there for some ten seconds, and
then disappeared as though a curtain had been jerked forward to cover
it.
"You seed ut, sir!"
"Was that from Stonehanger, Tom?"
"Sure."
They waited awhile, and in due course the light flashed out a second
time and died back into the night with equal suddenness.
"What do they mean by that?"
"Mounseer Jerome be about somewhere."
Jasper meditated.
"I tell you what, Tom, we will make our way up to Stonehanger."
"Better try t' owld quarry, sir."
"They meet there?"
"I reckon they do."
"Have you got a lantern?"
"Sure."
"Fetch it, and bring a thick stick with you."
They left the cottage, Jasper with his hanger and pistols, Tom Stook
carrying a lantern, and a stout hollywood cudgel. Tom took the lead,
pushing his way along a narrow, winding path half overgrown by
straggling furze, their figures melting away into the blackness of the
moor.
After twenty minutes of this rough going, Tom Stook stopped abruptly,
and stood listening. Jasper paused close to him. There was no wind, and
no stirring of the furze in the clear sheen of the moonlight.
"T' quarry be yonder, sir."
"Where?"
"Just down over t' bank."
They spoke in whispers, bending forward and looking across the moor.
"Can you hear anything, Tom?"
"Not me."
He put the lantern down, and scratched his chin.
"I reckon I'll go on, Master Jasper, and take a look into t' quarry."
He went down on all-fours, and Jasper saw his long, loosely knit body go
crawling along the path like some big beast of prey. He disappeared with
nothing more than a faint rustling of the furze, and Stonehanger Common
seemed as still and as empty as a becalmed sea at midnight. Tom Stook
was away twenty minutes. He came back, walking, his holly-stick over his
shoulder.
"There be'unt no one--yet."
"Well, then, we had better take cover in the quarry."
They went on and clambered down through the furze into the mouth of the
quarry. A rough trackway led into it, and Tom Stook seemed to know the
place as well as he knew his own garden. There was some open ground in
the centre, though dwarf-trees, brambles, and furze made a tangled mass
along the walls. Stook chose a place near the entry, a kind of nest shut
in by the wild undergrowth, and under the black shadow of the quarry
wall. A gap between two furze bushes gave them a view of the open space,
and of the trackway leading into the quarry.
"I'll have t' lantern ready, Master Jasper."
He took off his coat, produced a tinder-box, and, going down on his
knees, proceeded to get a light.
"She's got a shade, sir, and I'll put her on under t' bush with m' coat
to make it safe."
The lantern was lit and hidden away, and they were both growing stiff
and rather tired of waiting when Tom Stook touched Jasper's shoulder.
"Did ye hear that?"
Through the stillness of the moonlit night a faint sound reached them, a
sound as of some one brushing through the furze. It might, have been a
strayed sheep, or even a rabbit scuttling among the dry stems of the
furze, but for the distinctive scraping of feet over the rough ground.
Jasper crept forward, and stood waiting in the gap between the two furze
bushes. He had borrowed Stook's holly-cudgel, and was in the deep
shadow, and not likely to be seen.
The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and paused outside the quarry. A
deep and grumbling voice growled sulkily as though its owner were tired
and out of temper. Then the man entered the quarry, passing close by the
place where Jasper stood.
Benham saw him as a shortish, thick-set man with a great round head, and
a slouching walk. It was just a glimpse, for Jasper made his leap,
springing out from the black shadow into the moonlight. The man swung
round with a quick snarl of surprise.
"Tonnerre!"
The holly-stick swung just before a pistol flashed, and the bullet
thudded against the wall of the quarry. Jasper knocked the pistol out of
the man's hand, gave him a tap on the skull, and then closed. So far as
the tussle went, it was not a very serious affair. Youth was well served
in handling this little round cask of a man. He was rolled over, and
pinned flat on his back, while Jasper wrenched a second pistol and a
knife out of his belt and threw them away into the undergrowth.
"Tom, bring your lantern. Quick, man, quick!"
XXIII
Tom Stook came running out with the lantern.
"Have ye got him, Master Jasper?"
"It looks rather like it, Tom--eh!"
The light fell upon a fat, swarthy, and sullen face that blinked its
eyes at the lantern.
"Mounseer Jerome--sure!"
The man heaved, and swore savagely.
"Sacre bleu,--give off my chest!"
"Lie still."
Jasper was in no mood for wasting time, since he desired the business
over and done with before De Rothan or Durrell should appear.
"Tom, take him by the wrists and hold his hands above his head. Quiet,
will you, or I'll give you a crack with the stick."
Jerome glared and lay still, his arms extended above his head like the
arms of a man upon the rack. Jasper unbuttoned the Frenchman's coat, and
went through all his pockets. He found nothing there save a pipe, and a
tobacco-box. Something lying under the man's shirt betrayed itself as
Jasper passed his hand over Jerome's broad chest. As Jasper tore the
shirt open the Frenchman's body squirmed like the body of a man who
stiffens his muscles to resist.
"Hold on, Tom."
"Help, there,--help!"
"Lie quiet, or by George, I'll put a bullet through your head."
Jasper drew out a flat, leather pocket-book or case that was fastened by
a string round Jerome's neck. Jasper snapped the string, and turned
aside toward the lantern to examine the plunder. It contained several
sheets of paper neatly folded and covered with what appeared to be a
jumble of dots, lines, and letters. Jasper's brown face showed grim and
intent by the light of the lantern.
"Cipher, to be sure! This is what I expected to find."
He put the sheets back into the leather case, and thrust it into the
inner pocket of his coat. The sea-captain's eyes were watching him with
evil interest, and he had the air of one who listened.
Jasper understood. Captain Jerome expected a rescue.
"Tom, I want to be rid of this gentleman, and I don't want the red-coats
to get hold of him, either."
"Sir?"
"March him down to within a mile of the sea, and send him off with a
blessing."
"I'll do't, Master Jasper."
"Monsieur Jerome, it is lucky for you that I am giving you this chance.
Clear out, and let us hear no more of you. If ever I hear of you showing
your face on this side of the Channel, I'll have you taken and shot as a
spy. You understand?"
"I speak no English."
"Nonsense. You get off back to France, and pray to God to keep you from
playing at carrying secret signals. Up with him, Tom. Here, put one of
my pistols in your belt."
Tom Stook grinned, and swung the Frenchman to his feet. Jasper gave him
a pistol and the hollywood cudgel.
"Bundle him off, Tom. I want him out of the way. I am staying on here to
see what happens."
Stook took the sea-captain by the collar.
"Come along, you barrel o' sour beer. No shouting, mind ye, and no
tricks. Come along."
Jasper heard them go blundering along down the path, Stook helping the
Frenchman along with vigorous bumps of the bent knee. Jasper smiled to
himself and picked up the lantern, and, returning to his lurking-place,
he put out the light and sat down to wait.
It was De Rothan whom he expected, this insolent and sneering
_émigré_, who dabbled his hands in midnight treacheries. Jasper did
not doubt that the packet of cipher he had taken from the smuggling
sea-captain Jerome would compromise not only De Rothan but Anthony
Durrell and his daughter. Jasper's attitude was one of shrewd and
patient restraint. A scheme that was defeated might be considered to be
non-existent, and there would be no need to swoop upon the lesser dupes
when the dominant spirit had been dealt with.
Something crackled into a clump of briers close to where Jasper lay in
ambush. It was a stone flung from above as a signal to Jerome, who
should have been waiting in the quarry. Jasper kept very still. He heard
some one pushing through the furze and brushwood round the rough lip of
the quarry. Footsteps came down toward the entrance. Then there was
silence.
Jasper leaned forward and peered round one of the furze bushes. A man
was standing in the trackway leading into the quarry, his face turned
toward the sea. By his height and build, and by the arrogant throw-back
of the head, Jasper knew him for De Rothan. He stood there like a figure
carved in black basalt, motionless, watchful, full of a fine yet
sinister suggestiveness.
Jasper watched him. How easy it would be to bring the man down, wing
him, put an end to all his weavings of treachery. He did not doubt but
that De Rothan was armed. They might make a fight of it there, but
Jasper was not given to shooting in the dark. He wanted to prove the
whole case against De Rothan, to convince himself and Nance of the man's
double dealing.
Minutes passed, and De Rothan showed a growing impatience. He began to
walk to and fro along the trackway, stopping from time to time to listen
or stare out over the stretch of moonlit furze. It was evident that he
had not heard the report of Jerome's pistol, and that he suspected
nothing in the way of intervention. The smuggler had failed to appear;
that was what made De Rothan restless.
For an hour the Frenchman walked up and down while Jasper lay behind the
furze bushes and kept watch. Once De Rothan paused within three yards of
him and stood listening, muttering angrily over the absence of Jerome.
His patience gave out at last. Jasper saw him walk to the entrance of
the quarry, stare into the distance, and then turn, and clamber up the
bank. Jasper held back till the sound of De Rothan's footsteps had died
down into the night. Then he pushed Tom Stook's lantern under a bush,
climbed out of the quarry, and, striking the path that led toward
Stonehanger, followed it with some of the caution of an Indian working a
trail.
Jasper neither heard nor saw anything of De Rothan till he came in sight
of the chimneys of Stonehanger rising above the ridge of ground that hid
the lower part of the house from view. Jasper paused here instinctively,
and it was well that he did so. A black figure rose into view on the
rising ground above and stood with the grey oval of its face turned
toward the sea.
Then De Rothan disappeared. Jasper pushed on, topped the rising ground,
and over the furze saw Stonehanger grey and glaring in the light of the
full moon. Chimneys, parapet, window frames, even the individual stones
in the walls were clear and distinct. The thorns and yews were bunches
of black foliage rising above the grey line of the terrace wall.
Jasper could not help asking himself why Jerome had chosen such a night
for landing, and how he had been able to avoid the patrols.
"Money and rum work wonders. These smugglers squeeze in everywhere."
He saw De Rothan mount the steps to the terrace and stand there looking
at the windows of the house. Jasper seized his chance to slip forward
and gain the shelter of some furze bushes that straggled close to the
terrace wall.
He heard voices on the terrace. Anthony Durrell had been waiting for De
Rothan, and but for his short sight he would have seen Jasper make his
dash across the open grounds for the shelter of the furze bushes under
the wall.
"Jerome has failed us. I waited more than an hour."
De Rothan glanced at Nance's window.
"Is madam asleep?"
"Yes. Speak softly, she mustn't know that you are here. Perhaps we
mistook Jerome's light."
"No, I'm sure of that. Hallo--!"
The voices broke off abruptly like the voices of two plotters who hear
the sound of stealthy footsteps coming toward them. Jasper had made his
way to the terrace wall. He flattened himself against it, expecting to
see a head appear over the edge of the parapet.
Then he heard some one calling, "Who's there?"
It was Nance's voice, and the moonlight seemed to quiver with it. She
had thrown her lattice open and was leaning out, and scanning the
terrace. Durrell had drawn De Rothan under the dense shadow cast by one
of the yews.
They remained there motionless, till Nance disappeared for a moment from
the window.
"Quick, round to the back of the house."
"This game of hide-and-seek is all nonsense, Durrell. You had much
better let the girl know the truth."
"No, no, she's not to be trusted."
"My dear sir, I'll make her trustworthy. You do not know how to manage
women."
They had crossed the terrace and passed down the passage that led to the
offices and stables. Durrell was agitated and impatient, De Rothan a
little scornful. He was tiring of Durrell's moods and eccentricities. If
everything went well, the fanatic would have served his purpose in the
course of the next few weeks. He would be thrown aside like a broken
tool.
"Jerome won't come to-night. I'll be off; I left my nag round under the
wall."
Durrell was full of vague fears.
"I hope nothing has happened."
"Bah! Jerome found the moon too bright. Besides, the news we expect is
too important to be risked with a shrug of the shoulders. If Villeneuve
can only get into the Channel and hold it for three days! Fate will spin
the coin for us before long."
Meanwhile Jasper had crept cautiously along the front of the wall and
reached the steps. He climbed them slowly, pausing when his head came on
a level with the terrace. It was deserted. Grass, flower-beds, and
stone-paved walk lay white in the light of the moon.
Jasper climbed the last steps, and stood looking up at Nance's window. A
passionate exultation possessed him, and for the moment he was ready to
take the maddest of risks. He wanted to see Nance, to speak with her, to
feel that they were conspiring together against De Rothan and the
French.
The chance was nearer to him than he imagined. There was the click of a
key turning in a lock, and the garden door opened, showing an oblong
shadow in the moonlit wall. Some one was standing there in the shadow,
and Jasper, caught in the full moonlight, laid a hand upon the pistol in
his belt.
The figure in the doorway moved out into the moonlight. It was Nance.
She had slipped on an old gown, and a pair of shoes, and come down,
shivering, to brave the truth.
"Nance!"
She hung back a moment, and then came gliding out across the grass, the
moonlight making a silver mist of her loosened hair. Mouth and eyes were
round shadows.
"You! Is it you?"
She was so close now that Jasper could see the moonlight in her eyes.
The pupils were large and black, and swimming with a kind of fear.
"Was it you I heard?"
"No. De Rothan and your father."
"Where are they?"
"They have gone round to the back. I have something that I must tell
you. And we may be seen here."
They stood looking into each other's eyes. The clatter of a horse's
hoofs came from the lane, followed by the slamming of a door.
Nance started, and a shiver of excitement went through her.
"It is so light here, and we shall be heard--"
Jasper reached out, and caught her hand. She did not flinch or resist
him.
"Quick! Down the steps."
They fled away, hand in hand, like a couple of children.
XXIV
They were on Stonehanger Common among the furze bushes with the
moonlight shining down on them, and the silence of night over the land.
The horizon was an horizon of silvery distances, woodland, sea, and
hill. There was no wind moving, and the air was fresh and fragrant with
dew.
Jasper still held Nance's hand. They had taken one of the grass paths
that wound down over the common to the fields and woods. The moonlight
was on their faces, and they said but little for the moment. They had
passed suddenly into a new world, and were somewhat awed by its
strangeness and its beauty.
There was an audacity, too, about the thing that thrilled them both.
Youth called to youth. They looked at each other as though there were
wonderful things to be discovered in each other's eyes.
"What have you to tell me?"
Jasper had taken off his hat, and was walking bareheaded beside her. At
such a season every gesture has an exquisite significance. There is
homage, passionate utterance, in every movement of the head and body.
"I have many things to tell you."
She caught the man's meaning and turned it back with a shy smile.
"I mean--about this man De Rothan."
"I am afraid that I have been playing the spy."
"You?"
"It was for good ends, and to help you and yours."
She looked at him anxiously.
"Have you found out anything more?"
"A little. Look at this."
He dropped her hand gently, and pulled out the leather case that he had
taken from the sea-captain, Jerome.
"I robbed some one of this to-night--yes, fairly and squarely--down in
the quarry. It was their go-between, their secret letter-carrier from
France--a smuggling captain. These dispatches should be in De Rothan's
hands. He came down to the quarry, but we had packed his man off with
the fear of God in him."
Nance's head was very close to Jasper's shoulder as she bent to look at
the papers.
"What are they?"
"Messages in cipher. One has to find out the code. But you see what all
this means."
She did see it, and her face was white and serious in the moonlight.
"It means danger for us."
"Unless we smother it."
"But what will you do?"
He replaced the case in his pocket.
"It seems to me that I have two causes to serve, to put an end to this
system of spying, and to save your father from ruining himself. There is
only one thing to be done; deal with De Rothan."
"But how? If you have him arrested----"
"No, nothing so clumsy as that. I began the attack by quarrelling with
him yesterday."
"After you left me?"
"Yes. I pitched him into the ditch."
Her eyes looked frightened, and there was a tremor about her mouth.
"What have you done! It means an affair of honour."
"Just so, Nance. That was why I did it. I expect to hear from him in a
few hours."
She was distressed and perplexed.
"But how can I let you do this--risking your life for us!"
"I am doing it because I like it."
"No, it is for us. I can't let you. I'll go to father and make him give
it up."
The sincerity of her distress touched him very deeply. He reached out
and caught her hands.
"Nance, I'm no boy. I'm as good a man as De Rothan. I can't go back; my
honour's in it. I've got to fight this man and beat him. Don't you see
how it will mend everything?"
She would not meet his eyes.
"But you are sacrificing yourself----"
"No--no--no. Look at it in this way. I fight De Rothan; perhaps I kill
him--perhaps I only wound him. If he comes out of it alive, I take him
by the collar, tell him what I know, and give him twelve hours in which
to leave the country. Go he shall. Then will come the time to appeal to
your father's common sense."
His blunt confidence almost persuaded her.
"Oh, you are brave enough. But as to my father's common sense----"
Jasper laughed at her quaint despair.
"Well, I shall come to him and say, 'Mr. Durrell, I happen to have
discovered about this French affair. I have some of your secret papers
in my possession. Our friend the Chevalier de Rothan is dead, or has
fled the country. The game is up. Swear to try no more plotting, and I
will not breathe a word of what I know. Otherwise I shall have to hand
you over to the authorities.'"
Her eyes flashed with approval.
"Ah, yes--that would be great. It might settle everything."
He drew her a little nearer to him.
"Not everything, Nance. But I am not here to ask for what I have not
earned."
She did not look at him, but hung her head a little.
"You are being too good to us."
"That's no credit to me. I can't help it."
His frankness brought her eyes glimmering up amusedly to meet his, and
it was then that she noticed that they had come within a hundred yards
of the big oak wood that bounded the common on the south-east. The domes
of the trees gleamed in the moonlight.
"Look! Do you see where we are?"
"By George, yes. I suppose we had better turn back."
"Please."
"But supposing they have locked us out?"
"I shall have to throw stones at father's window."
"Yes, but then----"
Her mouth wavered into mischievous curves.
"He will be told that I have been out in the moonlight looking for
voices."
"That's it--that's it."
He looked at her with fine approval.
"Yes, show spirit, that's the thing. But supposing, for the sake of
argument, that Mr. Anthony is asleep and won't be wakened?"
"There is the stable. I should not mind a bed of hay."
"And scold--before you are scolded in the morning. It is like getting in
the first blow."
Nance fell into a more serious mood as they saw Stonehanger standing
bleak and grey in the moonlight. She knew that she was to be left alone
with her own thoughts and fears, nor could she escape from some dread of
the crisis that Jasper was provoking for her sake. She was afraid of De
Rothan, and knew him for a dangerous and a masterful man.
They came to the place where the furze thinned out toward the rough
grassland below the terrace. Nance faltered and paused. Her face looked
shadowy and troubled.
"We must say good-bye here."
He looked at her very dearly.
"Good night, Nance."
Her hands seemed to wait to be taken in his, and her face was turned to
his with sudden wistfulness.
"I don't like to think of what may happen."
"Don't think of it, then."
"How can I help it?"
They looked straight into each other's eyes.
"Nance, I'm not afraid of anything--for your sake. Take heart, dear,
take heart."
Her lips quivered. Her white face and dark hair seemed to swim nearer to
him in the moonlight.
"Nance----"
Their lips met. Her upturned face dreamed for a moment with shadowy
mouth and closed eyes. Then she drew her hands away, and fled in a shy
panic across the grass.
Jasper watched her with exultant tenderness. She paused, and turned at
the steps, waved to him and disappeared. He was hidden from the house by
the furze bushes, and he kept cover there lest Anthony Durrell should be
watching from one of the windows.
Jasper made his way back toward Bramble End and Tom Stook's cottage. The
night seemed very wonderful. The black summer woods reminded him of
Nance's hair.
Three miles away De Rothan was riding slowly along lanes and field
paths, moody-eyed and savage, a man possessed by ugly emotions. Jerome's
failure to appear at the quarry had not troubled him very greatly. It
was a dull anger against the man who had toppled him into a ditch that
filled De Rothan's consciousness. He hated Jasper Benham with all the
hatred of which a strong and passionate man is capable. He meant to be
revenged, to salve his own smarting self-conceit. But even the easing of
this blood lust was an inopportune necessity thrust upon him in the
thick of many dangers. The affair had come to a head at the moment when
De Rothan least desired it, for there were the larger issues to be
remembered. In ten days--twenty days--a month, Napoleon might be in
England. De Rothan wanted those days free and untrammelled. If he could
only fight this man in some secret corner, and leave him lying hidden in
a ditch! Yes, but would Jasper Benham consent to such conditions? Would
it be possible for them to fight without a living soul knowing of the
quarrel? De Rothan felt sore and savage over the problem. It threatened
confusion to his plans, promised to interfere with the delicate
balancing of possible events.
He reached the Brick House about three in the morning, stabled his
horse, and was let in by the man Gaston. Supper had been laid in the
long parlour, and De Rothan sat down and ate with the morose
deliberation of a man who is vexed by his own thoughts. He was tired,
too, and thirsty, and wine was a welcome sustainer. The long night spent
in the open made itself felt. De Rothan fell asleep in his chair, while
the two candles on the table burned steadily toward the sockets.
The light of the dawn was just touching the windows when a man came up
the brick path to the porch and hammered at the oak door. The sound woke
De Rothan, who sat up in his chair and stared at the candles. The
knocking at the door was loud and persistent. De Rothan took a hanger
down from over the fireplace, picked up one of the candles, and went out
into the hall. There was a grill in the door, closed by a little wooden
shutter. De Rothan set the candlestick on the floor, pushed back the
shutter, and, looking through, saw a piece of greyish sky, and a man's
right shoulder.
"Hallo--who's there?"
"Jerome."
"The devil! You are late, and at the wrong place."
"You'll thank me for being here at all."
De Rothan unbolted the door and let Monsieur Jerome in. He looked tired
and sulky, with a shock-haired head that resembled the head of a wild
beast. His forehead showed a big, purpling bruise.
He was a bearer of bad news, and he looked it. De Rothan guessed that at
the first glance.
"What has gone wrong?"
"I'm thirsty. I'll drink first."
"Good, my child. Is it Dutch courage you want?"
"Look you here, Monsieur de Rothan, if I have come here to save your
neck, keep your accursed tongue out of your cheek. I'll have none of
it."
He looked savage and dangerous. They passed into the parlour. There were
glasses on the table, and De Rothan took a spirit bottle from an oak
cupboard, and mixed Jerome a stiff glass of grog.
"Sit down, man. What has happened? Why didn't you come to the quarry?"
"I came there right enough."
"So----!"
"Yes, to be knocked on the head and have the cipher stolen."
De Rothan's figure stiffened like a sword that has been bent against the
floor, and is allowed to spring back into shape.
"You have lost the dispatches!"
"I say they were taken from me."
"By whom?"
"That fellow whom Mees Nance was kind to at Stonehanger, that Jasper
Benham."
De Rothan's face grew dusky.
"God--you great fool--how did it happen?"
"Keep your big words to yourself. He and a man of his were in hiding.
They knocked me on the head and had me on my back before I could take
aim with a pistol. Then I was marched down to the sea by a lanky devil
of a peasant, and left there to find the boat. They promised to have me
hanged if I said a word, and didn't jump the Channel. I put out, and
managed to sneak in and land again in the marshes--to save your
neck--see! A lot of gratitude you seem to show me."
De Rothan stood resting his hands on the back of a chair. He did not
speak for some seconds.
"Jerome, you have done me a service. I shall not forget it."
The sea-captain finished his grog, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He
glanced at the windows that were going grey with the dawn.
"Time to make a run for it. The game is up."
De Rothan's forehead was one fierce frown.
"No, by heaven, it is not! I have these dispatches to recover--and to
cut out Mr. Jasper Benham's tongue."
XXV
Jerome had gone, and De Rothan walked up and down the brick-paved path
between the porch and the gate, with the two yew-trees cut in the shape
of peacocks spreading their tails on either side. There were climbing
roses flowering over the rust-red front of the house. The stone pillar
of the sun-dial had an edging of rank, green grass.
De Rothan stood by the sun-dial and stared at it reflectively. What a
thing was Time, how trivial and yet how urgent with its little droppings
of sand or the slow stealing of a shadow! And time, delay, was
everything to De Rothan for the moment. It was as though a marvellous
clock had been constructed; that he had set it going and was waiting to
hear it chime all manner of tunes at the hour of noon, when chance, in
the shape of a Sussex squire, threatened to send a pistol bullet into
the works, and to ruin the whole mechanism.
How was the thing to be prevented?
De Rothan's consciousness of the imminent peril of a betrayal was like
the barking of dogs about a man who was trying to puzzle out some
problem. The need for immediate action importuned him. He must have
silence, for a week, two weeks, a month, silence till Napoleon's schemes
matured, till Villeneuve made his dash for the Channel, and the French
bayonets glittered in English meadows.
Supposing he killed this man?
So far as he could see, this grim attempt at a solution would only
plunge him into further difficulties. There would be a huge outcry, for
it would be next to impossible for him to hope to keep it secret. Even
if he pleaded that it had been an affair of honour, the gentry here
would not be in a mood to show much pity.
Moreover, Jasper Benham might have handed on his information, though it
had been in his possession only a few hours.
It took De Rothan some time to strike the one possible line of attack.
The idea came to him as an inspiration. He seized it, and turned it over
and over in his mind with the exultant audacity of a man recovering his
self-confidence.
De Rothan returned to the parlour, and sat down before the oak bureau by
the window. The scratching of a quill pen ran on through the silence. He
frowned, and moved restlessly in his chair as he wrote, his whole
mind-force concentrating itself upon the wording of that letter. When he
had finished it and sealed it, he sat awhile, reflecting. Some one was
moving now in the house. Gaston and the other two servants were
stirring.
De Rothan went out into the hall and waited. A door opened. Heavy
footsteps came down the stairs.
"Gaston."
"Monsieur?"
"Quick, man, come in here."
He took the slow, surly fellow into the parlour, poured him out a glass
of wine, and began to talk decisively and quickly. Gaston listened,
sipping his wine, and staring at De Rothan with the intelligence of a
shrewd and ugly dog.
"You can trust me, monsieur."
"It will not be for nothing."
"No, no, one does not risk one's neck for nothing."
"You know Rush Heath Hall; we have often ridden that way. Saddle a horse
at once, and take this letter to Mr. Jasper Benham. Give it to none but
him. Answer no questions. Wait for him if he is not at home."
"Yes, monsieur."
"I will look to things here. François and Jean will obey you, if needs
be?"
"They fear me, monsieur."
"Good. There is the south attic. We can knock staples into one of the
oak posts, and fasten rings to the floor. Off with you, Gaston. By the
Emperor, there is no time to lose."
It happened that De Rothan's man did not have to ride all the way to
Rush Heath that morning. As he was coming down Hog Lane into the road
from the direction of Bexhill, he sighted a gentleman on a brown cob
trotting toward him. Gaston was none too sure of the way, and he hailed
the man on the brown cob.
"To Rush Heath, sir?"
Jasper reined in with a stare at this queer-looking rogue in livery on a
smart-looking horse. He was riding home from Tom Stook's cottage after
two hours' sleep on a bundle of bracken, the bracken being cleaner than
Tom's bed.
"Yes. What do you want at Rush Heath?"
"I carry a letter."
"From the Chevalier de Rothan, perhaps?"
"From the Chevalier de Rothan to Meester Jasper Benham."
Gaston chewed at his broken English, for he was a man who talked as
though he were munching a crust.
"I can save you two miles. I am Mr. Jasper Benham."
Gaston eyed him critically.
"All right, monsieur, you need not doubt me being myself. I was
expecting to hear from your master."
Gaston handed the letter over.
"It is urgent, monsieur."
"No doubt."
"Good day to you, monsieur."
"Good day to you."
And they parted company, Jasper riding on toward Rush Heath.
Curiosity pinched him, and he stopped his horse under the shade of one
of the big chestnut-trees by Lavender's Forge, and opened De Rothan's
letter. It was written in a fine hand upon fine paper, and the heads and
tails of the letters ran into curls and flourishes, making it quite a
courtly document where each word kept up a kind of royal progress.
MR. JASPER BENHAM.
SIR--
I send this in haste by the hands of my servant. Seeing that I have had
news that calls me to London, and seeing that I must chastise you before
I go, I ask you to meet me in the clearing in Darvel's Wood. You will
know the place. They tell me charcoal-burners used to burn charcoal
there.
I have no time to attend to formalities and to send you my friends. I
desire to fight you as man to man, and I shall go alone to Darvel's
Wood.
Bring a sword and pistols. We will take our choice.
I shall be in the wood by seven o'clock this evening, and I shall wait
there for an hour. If you do not come to me I shall be constrained to
scorn you as a coward, and shall go my way, promising to deal with you
on my return.
DE ROTHAN.
The audacity and the informality of the challenge were all to Jasper's
liking. De Rothan was giving him the opportunity that he desired, and
its very nearness made him realise the utter seriousness of the
adventure. De Rothan would show him little consideration when their
swords crossed or their pistols pointed in the middle of Darvel's Wood.
It was a question of nerve, steadiness, and determination. Men pull
themselves together to meet such hazards, more easily perhaps when they
have learned to take big risks in some such school as the hunting field.
Moreover, Jasper Benham had pledged himself, and he was in love.
He would ride to Darvel's Wood and fight De Rothan. His confidence
steadied itself on a quiet belief in his own strength and skill. There
was just that simmer of exhilaration in his mood that makes a man a
little better than his normal self. It was his day. He felt on the top
of the game, with all the confidence of a man who attacks.
He rode on toward Rush Heath, putting his plans in order.
There was Jeremy Winter to be considered, and he had to decide that he
would tell Jeremy nothing. Winter would never consent to let him fight
upon such terms, and would insist on going with him to Darvel's Wood.
Jasper knew what Jeremy could be when he was obstinate, and that it was
hard to beat him from a position when he had once chosen it. He would
have to keep Jeremy Winter out of the adventure.
At Rush Heath Jasper found that Jeremy had ridden into Hastings, and
might not be back till supper time. This was useful in its way, and
Jasper showed his sound sense by making a light meal and going straight
to bed. He wanted steady nerves and a fresh body, and though few men
could have slept on the edge of such an adventure, Jasper accomplished
it, a point to his credit. He had told Jack Bumpstead to call him at
four o'clock, and at that hour he arose, dressed himself, went below,
and made a meal.
To get from Rush Heath to Darvel's Wood one could go by way of
Stonehanger Common, and Jasper rode that way, meaning to see Nance. A
glimpse of her would be as a cup of red wine to him, though the
melancholy of fatalism was not part of his nature. His own imagination
was not strong enough to force upon him a vision of his own body lying
dead in Darvel's Wood. He neither felt like dying nor being beaten, but
he had the sense to realise that in a couple of hours he might be dead.
The thought did not frighten him, but roused a sense of cheerful
incredulity.
Anthony Durrell had become nothing more than De Rothan's dupe, the man
of the arm-chair being the servant of the man of the sword, and Jasper
did not trouble his head about Durrell's prejudices. He rode into the
yard at Stonehanger, fastened Devil Dick to the ring by the stable door,
and, leaving his sword and pistols there, walked round the house to
Nance's garden on the terrace.
He found her there, cutting the dead blooms from the rose-bushes, and
the sight of her gave his mood the touch of deeper solemnity that it had
lacked. He felt of a sudden that life was a very serious and passionate
affair, and that no one was justified in risking it lightly. The girlish
figure bending over the rose-bushes made him bend more reverently over
her fate and his own.
"Nance----"
She had not heard his footsteps on the grass, and it was a coy, flushed
face that she turned to him. Her eyes might have shown him that she did
not regret anything. The kiss upon her mouth had enriched life for her,
and made it more dear and desirable.
"You! It is rash of you to be here!"
"I don't think so. Is your father at home?"
"No; he went out for a walk over the common."
"Either way, it does not matter."
They moved to a seat under one of the yews, Jasper's hand holding
Nance's arm just above the elbow. She looked round and up at him with
shy and shining eyes.
"How did things happen last night after I left you?"
"Quite happily. Father was waiting. He said nothing."
"What do you make of that?"
"Perhaps he does not know whether to tell me everything or nothing."
"Why not make him trust you?"
"Against his will?"
Jasper held both her hands in his.
"Nance, I shall have news for you to-morrow, news that should sweep all
these deceits aside. I shall come and talk to your father--as I
promised. And you will help me to make him see the uselessness of
further plotting with the French."
Nance's hands tightened on his. She understood what his words portended.
"You mean----"
"Nothing as yet. I may have good news."
"Then there is danger."
"Don't let the thought of that trouble you."
She looked him steadily in the eyes, compelling them to acknowledge the
truth.
"Jasper?"
"Well, dear--"
"You know you are trying to hide this from me. You are going to fight
this man."
"Well, do I look like a dead man, or one who is not sure of pulling
through? I never meant you to know this, but things will out."
"When is it?"
"In an hour or so."
"Oh, Jasper!"
He showed a fine and tender cheerfulness.
"I have been longing to fight him, Nance, and here is my chance. What's
the hour? By George, I must be going."
She caught his hands and would not let him go for the moment. Her eyes
were afraid.
"It's wrong of me to let you do this."
"No, no."
"If the wrong thing should happen!"
"Nance, it has to be; it's an affair of honour. Do you think I would let
a man like De Rothan call me a coward? No, by God, I am going to take
him by the shoulders and thrust him out of your life."
He rose, and his arm went round her as they crossed the terrace, and
passed round to where Devil Dick waited in the stone-paved yard. The
pistol butts sticking out of the holsters, and the sword leaning against
the stable wall made Nance's mouth quiver.
"Who is going with you?"
"No one."
"Where is it to be?"
"In Darvel's Wood. I shall ride back here."
He talked so as to hearten her as they passed through the wild shrubbery
to the gate. Her tense, white face hurt him. It was so near to tears and
yet so very far from them.
"God bless you, Nance. In two hours I shall be back again."
He kissed her, and felt her lips answer his with quick and passionate
abandonment.
XXVI
Long slants of sunlight came through the trees as Jasper rode into
Darvel's Wood. The place was a smother of leaves, for the underwood had
not been cut for five years or more, and the hazel tops were up among
the lower boughs of the oaks. A broad ride ran through the wood from
north to south like a gallery tunnelling through the green gloom.
A jay screamed raucously in the distance, but save for the bird's cry
the silence was complete. The very sunlight stealing through shone upon
leaves that did not quiver. There was an eeriness about the stillness
that suggested treachery and secret threats.
For the first time Jasper felt something that was akin to fear. It was a
vast uneasiness; a primitive, physical distrust of his surroundings. The
wood threw deep shadows, and the shadows lay across his confidence. Was
he trusting De Rothan too much by meeting him alone in the middle of
this wood? The man might have been warned, and be tempted by his own
danger. Their meeting was avowedly for polite and gentlemanly murder,
but it was possible that De Rothan might put his honour in his pocket
and pull the trigger of his pistol ten seconds too soon. Jasper shivered
with a kind of chilly alertness. He found himself favouring swords
rather than pistols. There was less chance of trickery with cold steel.
He was not sorry when he came to the clearing in the centre of Darvel's
Wood. A horse tied to a tree, and a tall figure walking up and down in
the sunlight gave him something real to look at. De Rothan was waiting
for him, and he was alone.
The clearing had been used by charcoal-burners years ago, and it was
marked in the centre by a circle of sleek and vivid grass that did not
look unlike a great fairy-ring. Half of the clearing lay in shadow, the
other half in sunlight. The boles of the oak-trees rose like grey-green
pillars round it, curtained in between by the foliage of the hazels.
De Rothan swept off his hat and bowed. His grandiose courtesy made
Jasper keep a keener eye on him, for he would not have trusted this
child of St. Patrick and St. Louis behind his back. A case of pistols
and a sword lay on a black cloak at the foot of a tree.
"The very best health to you, Mr. Benham."
His politeness was ironical. The man appeared to be his conceited and
condescending self, cynically amused, and not in the least flurried.
Jasper rolled out of the saddle and fastened Devil Dick to a tree. The
vague sense of apprehension had left him. He felt hard, and grim, and
steady now that he and De Rothan were face to face.
"I am at your service, Chevalier."
"I am charmed, sir. Please choose your weapon. It is immaterial to me
whether we fight with sword or pistol."
He swaggered finely, throwing off an air of aristocratic nonchalance.
"I prefer cold steel."
"Excellent, Mr. Benham, excellent. You have given me my own desire. Let
it be cold steel. I would rather kill my man with a sword than with a
pistol."
He went to the oak-tree, picked up his sword, and came back to Jasper
with the most condescending of smiles.
"I see no reason why we should delay, Mr. Benham."
"None at all."
"Very good. We had better fight here in the shade."
They went apart, stripped off coats and waistcoats, and rolled up the
sleeves of their sword-arms. De Rothan posed, and made a series of rapid
passes and parries, ending the display with a whirl of the sword. He
felt the muscles of his right shoulder, and smiled. His forearm was thin
and white, and shaded with black hairs.
"More supple than most young men's! You have a fine arm, sir, the arm of
a ploughboy. Come--I am at your service."
They took ground, saluted, and crossed swords, De Rothan resting his
weight on his left foot, and holding his head with a kind of high
fierceness. His eyes looked dangerous yet amused.
Jasper called to mind Jeremy's advice. De Rothan was a man whose vanity
might be played with, and who might be lured into despising his
opponent. It takes a subtle swordsman to ape clumsiness, and yet to keep
a clever adversary out. Jasper tried it, and was nearly run through the
shoulder for his pains. The Frenchman's point tore his shirt.
De Rothan's face with its fierce and arrogant eyes was like a foul word
flung in Jasper's mouth. His hatred aimed for a body thrust. His
swordsmanship caught a sudden flash of brilliance. He had his chance and
took it, and saw blood on the Frenchman's shirt.
It was a skin wound, but De Rothan leapt back with a cry of savage
surprise. His eyes looked beyond Jasper for the moment to where the head
and shoulders of a man showed from behind a tree trunk.
Jasper caught the look, but had to keep face foremost and meet the
return rush of De Rothan's sword. The man Gaston had come out from
behind the tree, and had his fist raised, whirling a stone. It did no
more than strike Jasper between the shoulders, but it staggered him
sufficiently to let in De Rothan's sword.
Run through the sword-arm, he was seized from behind, thrown down, with
De Rothan, Gaston, and another man on top of him. Grim, silent, yet
violent figures, they wasted no words. Jasper's sword was kicked away.
He was rolled over on his face, his arms tied behind his back, and his
ankles lashed together. Then they lifted him between them, carried him
into the thick of the underwood, and threw him down at the foot of a
clump of hazels.
De Rothan spoke to Gaston.
"Get the horses. Don't let Benham's beast break away."
He went out into the clearing, put on his coat and waistcoat, and,
returning, stood by Jasper, looking down at him with amused contempt.
"Well, Mr. Benham--well, you are no fool with a sword."
Jasper lay in a dumb rage. The lust to resist was still strong in him,
and he was savage over the roughness the men had used. The dastardly
nature of the whole thing maddened him; also the knowledge that he had
been tricked.
"You damned cur!"
Their brevity was expressive, but the words did not appear to hurt De
Rothan.
"Mr. Benham, we are playing a critical hand in a great game--that is
all. If there is any gratitude in you, you should be grateful to me for
not having killed you. Meddlers must not complain if they are treated
without ceremony."
His complacency scourged Jasper's sense of savage humiliation.
"This comes of trusting the word of a scoundrel. I was a fool not to
have you arrested and shot."
De Rothan took out his snuff-box, and helped himself with finger and
thumb.
"So you confess to that, Mr. Benham. It is a relief to me to know that
you have been a fool. Now, if you will pardon me, we will have that
packet of cipher you stole from my friend last night."
So De Rothan had been warned! Jasper cursed his own self-confidence that
had persuaded him to try and carry the adventure through alone. No
wonder De Rothan had laid a trap. The bitterest thing of all was that
the packet of cipher lay in the breast pocket of his coat.
"Give me the gentleman's coat, François."
A wonderful smile spread over his face as he felt in the pocket and drew
out Jerome's packet.
"Mr. Benham, I am obliged to you for being so simple. This may save a
great deal of trouble. At all events, you will be spared the vexation of
deciphering it."
He put it in his pocket, looking down at Jasper with whimsical
self-satisfaction.
"You will have to be my guest for a time, Mr. Benham, and we will have
that arm of yours seen to. It may inconvenience you, but that cannot be
helped. I must keep you from meddling in my affairs."
Jasper said nothing. He was thinking quickly and angrily, and not
greatly to his own content.
"Gaston, I think you have a silk handkerchief there. We had better tie
up Mr. Benham's mouth, or he may be too talkative."
They gagged Jasper and bandaged his eyes. Dusk was falling, and De
Rothan went back to the clearing to see that the man François had taken
up Jasper's sword and pistols.
The wood grew darker each minute. De Rothan, returning, sat down at the
foot of a tree with his sword across his knees. He had sent Gaston ahead
along the ride to see that no one was loitering there.
It was nearly dark when Gaston returned. De Rothan and he spoke together
in undertones. Jasper heard them coming back through the undergrowth.
They came close, and he felt himself lifted and carried some yards
further into the wood. They placed him on the back of a horse, passed a
strap and ropes round him, and lashed him firmly to the beast's back.
Then they started out through the darkness, passed northward along the
ride, and halted awhile on the edge of Darvel's Wood. Jasper felt half
smothered by the gag, and saliva clogged his throat. The long silence
seemed threatening. He wondered what they were going to do.
Then he heard De Rothan's voice.
"Forward. François, go ahead, and keep your eyes and ears open."
They set out along a dark lane, Gaston hanging back awhile with Devil
Dick. He gave the horse a stab with a knife, and started him galloping
back into the wood. Then he hurried on, and rejoined De Rothan.
Meanwhile, at Stonehanger, Nance sat at her window, listening. Suspense
hung in the silent hush of the June night. She was waiting for Jasper to
ride back and to tell her that all was well.
XXVII
Jeremy Winter grew anxious when Jasper did not return. Squire Kit was
not in a state to be worried with alarms, and Jeremy, who knew the
inwardness of Jasper's plans, felt the responsibility to lie upon his
shoulders. He cross-questioned Jack Bumpstead, but the groom could tell
him no more than that Jasper had ridden out on Devil Dick with pistols
in his holsters.
Jeremy's anxiety seemed justified when a labourer arrived at Rush Heath,
leading Devil Dick by the bridle. He said that he had found the horse
grazing in the corner of a field not far from Rookhurst.
"'If that be'unt Master Benham's horse, may I be struck blind,' says I.
And look 'ee, sir, he's bin stuck in t' shoulder wid a knife."
Jeremy examined the horse, and made light of it.
"The squire has had a spill, and lost his nag."
Jack Bumpstead and the labourer shook their heads at each other with
dolorous pessimism.
"He's bin stuck wid a knife, or t' point of a hanger."
"Hedge stake, more likely."
"No, sir, it be'unt, sir. 'Tain't the sort o' mark a stake leaves."
Jeremy was vastly disturbed, but his main desire was to keep the affair
from Squire Christopher and to put the gag upon these two garrulous men.
Gossip always runs on ahead to make trouble, and Jeremy, man of the
world that he was, had learned the value of a subtle unobtrusiveness in
dealing with all happenings that touched even the edge of passion. He
took the labourer aside and dealt with him wonderfully after the manner
of a soldier and a philosopher. The fellow had to be persuaded into
taking a pride in his own discretion.
"I be'unt for sayin' a word, sir."
"That's it; you are the right sort of fellow. We may want a man of your
sense over here in a day or two. Jesse Saunders, is it? I'll keep you in
mind."
With Jack Bumpstead he played the bully.
"Saddle my nag, Jack. And look you here,--not a word about this--not one
word--see."
Nothing could be more ferocious than Jeremy when fierceness was a
necessity. Jack Bumpstead wilted before him.
"Sure, Mister Winter, sir. I'll do as ye please."
"By George, you will, Jack; I'll take care of that. Wash the horse's
wound, and plaster a little hair over it, and not a word to a living
soul."
Jeremy rode out, with pistols in his pockets, and a certain significant
tightness about the mouth. He knew the country well, and his conjectures
pointed him toward Stonehanger. Jeremy was something of a cynic.
Experience had taught him that there was truth in the saying, "Look for
the woman." He had his mind's eye on Nance, and his thoughts were none
of the kindest.
Riding up the steep lane at the back of Stonehanger, he found himself
reining in before the gate at the very moment that a girl appeared
between the two stone pillars. The hollies and laurels made a deep shade
there. The white anxiousness of the girl's face struck Jeremy at the
first glance. The startled way she looked at him provoked his
suspicions.
He raised his hat to her.
"Miss Durrell, I believe?"
The eyes that met his were big, and most honestly troubled.
"Yes, I am Miss Durrell."
"I am trying to hear something of Mr. Jasper Benham. His horse came home
this morning without him. I had an idea that he might have been at
Stonehanger."
Jeremy believed in being blunt with women. He wanted to try Nance and to
judge her by the way she reacted to his words. And react she did, in a
way that made Jeremy rearrange his notions.
"Are you a friend of Jasper's?"
She came across the stone bridge over the ditch, the white eagerness of
her face driving the cynicism out of Jeremy's mood.
"I may say so. I am his adopted uncle, and almost taught him to walk."
He eyed Nance with keen sympathy. She was all pale and intent passion.
There had been none of those self-conscious changes of colour, those
vain little manœuvres that so few women can forget. The girl was white
steel, fine-tempered, and a little fierce.
"Did Jasper tell you where he was going last night?"
"I had been away from Rush Heath all day."
"Had he told you nothing? I have been awake all night--waiting."
Jeremy's face grew grim, but his voice was gentle.
"Miss Durrell, I know a good deal. I can guess still more."
"This Chevalier de Rothan, this so-called _émigré_----"
"Ah, now we have it."
"They were to fight a duel in Darvel's Wood."
The forward thrust of Jeremy's jaw became more pronounced.
"What! And the lad never told me! He went out alone against that Irish
blackguard! Good God----!"
A quivering upper lip and a pair of brown eyes brought him back to
Nance's outlook upon life.
"Miss Durrell, you'll forgive me--"
Her hands were gripping the folds of her dress.
"You know, it was for us. Perhaps he told you? He came to Stonehanger
last night before he went to Darvel's Wood. He was so confident. He
would go. He promised to ride back and tell me how it all happened."
Jeremy--that man of many experiences--slipped out of the saddle and held
out a comrade's hand.
"I don't blame Jasper for this, but I do blame him for going alone. The
fellow De Rothan would have stabbed him in the back for the price of a
pewter pot."
Nance shivered.
"Oh, don't talk like this!"
"My dear, I ask your pardon. Winter, Jeremy Winter is my name. Where the
devil is Darvel's Wood? I'll ride there at once."
"I'll come--I'll show you."
"But----"
"I must come--I must. I was going when you rode up."
Jeremy knew when a wish was not to be gainsaid. Here was a girl who
leapt into the experiences of life with her whole heart. She was strong,
rich, and convincing.
"My dear, can you borrow such a thing as a horse?"
"No, and I can't ride."
"Well, we must take what Nature gives us. How far is it?"
"Two miles."
"I'll walk--for the sake of sympathy."
They seemed to have known each other years by the time the oaks of
Darvel's Wood rose against the white clouds of the summer sky. Their
instinctive liking for each other met and kindled in these moments of
suspense. Both of them were thinking of Jasper, but Jeremy coupled his
thoughts with the tense, white face of this young girl.
"She's true metal; she has edge and temper," he kept saying to himself.
"Confound the lad, why was he in such a damnable hurry!"
When they came to the gate that led into Darvel's Wood, Jeremy paused
and looked questioningly at Nance.
"Will you stay here?"
"No, I will come with you."
He was afraid for her sake and of what he might find. But her courage
persuaded him.
"Come, then. I'll fasten my horse to the gate-post."
And they entered Darvel's Wood.
It was close and oppressive in among the trees, and the summer foliage
shut in the ride with massive walls of green. Flies, too, were in
evidence, swarming down out of the foliage as though these two humans
had entered Darvel's Wood with the particular intention of offering
themselves as food. Jeremy, less imperturbable than usual, cursed the
black pests and smote the air with his hat.
"The insolence of the brutes! As though we mortals walked abroad for the
benefit of flies! Some day we shall wipe all these things out--and then
have the earth as clean as a Dutch kitchen."
They were anxious and under strain, and showed it by their silence.
Jeremy's face looked fierce. He was thinking how he would hunt De Rothan
into a corner, drive his sword through the man's body, and see him
double up like a doll.
Nance knew of the clearing, and Jeremy could tell that they were nearing
the place--by the sound of her breathing. He had his eyes on the tracks
left by Jasper's horse.
"Not far now?"
"We are there."
The clearing opened out before them with the horse tracks turning aside
into it. Half the place was in sunlight, the rest smothered in umbrage,
and very silent.
"Stay here, child."
He left Nance under an oak, and began to explore the place, his sharp
eyes soon discovering many suggestive facts. Another horse had been
ridden into the clearing, and there was a trampled place where men had
fought. What was more, Jeremy found the track through the underwood that
De Rothan and his men had made. Twigs were bent and broken, dead leaves
kicked up. More than one man had been responsible for this.
He returned to Nance. Her eyes questioned him--like the eyes of one in
pain.
"Yes, there are traces. Foul play, probably."
"Do you think that Jasper----?"
"My dear, I don't know. I have found nothing but trampled grass and
broken underwood. De Rothan was not alone. He had men with him."
"The coward! He laid a trap?"
"That's what I gather."
Jeremy stood smoothing his chin and staring at the ground.
"This fellow lives over beyond the ridge--Winchelsea way?"
"No, nearer than that, off a lane between Sedlescombe and Westfield. It
is called the Brick House."
"Brick House. I know the place. I shall ride there at once."
"Will you?"
"Something may be found out. I know how to deal with a man like De
Rothan."
They returned through the wood to the gate, Jeremy thinking hard and
saying nothing to his companion.
As he unfastened his horse, Nance spoke out, standing and looking over
the lulls toward the sea. Her face was set, and her eyes hard.
"If the worst has happened, we must be revenged."
Jeremy was struck by the passion in her voice.
"We will not believe the worst yet. It is possible that they may have
kidnapped Jasper for those dispatches he seized."
"Whatever has happened, my father is nearly as guilty as De Rothan."
"He may not have known."
"I have no pity. I shall make him confess everything."
Jeremy reflected a moment.
"It might be as well to let him understand that the whole business has
been discovered."
They parted at the gate, Nance pointing out to Jeremy the way he should
take. He lifted his hat to her devoutly.
"Keep your heart up, child. I will ride back and tell you what I have
discovered."
Nance walked back slowly to Stonehanger, her mouth set in a determined
line, her eyes steady with thought. She felt very bitter against her
father, and in no mood to spare him in his conspiracy with De Rothan.
Anthony Durrell was reading on the bench under the yew-tree when she
returned. He glanced up sharply as Nance crossed the grass, and she was
struck by the narrowness of his face, and ill-balanced bigotry of the
man's whole nature. But Nance had risen above fear of her father. She
had youth on her side, and the strength that youth gives.
"I want to speak to you."
He put his book aside, an irritable crease appearing between his
eyebrows.
"Well, what is it?"
"It is known that you are a French spy."
"Child----!"
"I know it, as others know it. You may be grateful that those who know
it are my friends."
Durrell sat staring, his face vacant, mouth slightly open. Nance had
expected a violent outburst, recriminations, arguments, denials.
Presently he spoke to her, making a great effort to regain his
self-control.
"What do you mean, child?"
"What I have said, father. Nor is that all. This man De Rothan may be
accused of murder."
Durrell's hands moved restlessly to and fro along the edge of the seat.
"Murder! I know nothing of that."
She stood looking down at him with her uncompromising eyes.
"God grant that you do know nothing. We must wait--and be patient.
Remember, now, that you are at the mercy of these friends of mine--who
know. It would have been better if you had trusted me a little."
XXVIII
Jeremy stopped at the "Queen's Head" Inn at Sedlescombe for some bread
and cheese and a mug of ale. He was an old campaigner and remembered the
needs of the inner man.
The landlord of the "Queen's Head" appeared to be a person of sense. He
had a shrewd, well-shaved face, and a mouth that spoke pleasantly, but
was always able to keep something back. Jeremy chatted with him for
twenty minutes. He had a queer way of getting hold of men, of making
them feel the grip of his character. Jeremy asked for the Brick House.
"You mean Mounseer de Rotten's place, sir?"
"That name's good enough."
"Go straight down the village, over yon hill, and take a lane to the
right. You'll see the house in a hollow."
The landlord and Jeremy looked at each other as though neither took the
other for a fool.
"Does mounseer keep a big staff of servants?"
"Three, sir, so far as I know."
"Men?"
"Men, sir, yes."
"I met the Chevalier in London. I might look in on him now that I am
down in these parts."
Jeremy strolled down the brick path to the white fence where a boy was
holding his horse. The landlord followed at his heels, staring
reflectively at the sturdy breadth of Mr. Winter's back. This was a
gentleman who walked very much on his own legs.
"Roads nice and dry, sir. You might be wanting a bed for the night?"
Jeremy paused with a toe in the stirrup.
"I'll keep you in mind, landlord. How far do you call it to Mr. de
Rothan's?"
"A matter of two miles, sir."
"If he hasn't a bed to spare, you may see me again. I like a quiet
place, and quiet people."
"We're quiet, sir, very quiet."
"I'll remember it. Good day to you."
The landlord watched him ride off down the village.
"Hum--what's he after? A gentleman of parts. He had an eye on me for
something, friendliwise. No small beer, I reckon."
Jeremy found the lane leading off the main road. It was a mere grass
track with high hedges on either side of it. The red chimneys of the
house showed above the thorns and hazels, and a plume of blue smoke went
up against the green background of a wooded hill. A gate closed the end
of the lane which opened into a meadow.
Jeremy dismounted and leaned his arms on the top bar of the gate and
looked across the meadow at the Brick House with its red walls, clipped
yews, and diamond-paned casements. The place looked peaceful enough in
the green dip of its valley, but Jeremy was not in quest of beauty. He
scrutinised every window of the house like a man staring at an ancient
tablet whose writing refuses to be deciphered.
Jeremy fastened his horse to the gate-post, and looked to the priming of
his pistols. He was playing a bold game, and in such case a man needs
something more dangerous to rely on than his tongue. He climbed the gate
and walked slowly across the meadow, slapping his right leg with a
little riding switch that he carried.
When he came within twenty yards of the brick wall of the garden, he
halted and stood staring at the house as though he were an antiquary
studying types of English domestic architecture. Jeremy was not going to
put himself within safe pistol-shot of the windows. To provoke a parley
a man must not give away all his advantages.
Jeremy began to walk up and down in the line of the garden wall, keeping
a sharp eye on all the windows. It was not long before he saw a face
appear at one of the upper lattices. It remained there a moment, and
then melted back into the shadow of the room.
Presently a servant in black livery came out from the porch, and down
the path into the meadow. He approached Jeremy, and spoke in broken
English.
"What will monsieur desire here?"
Jeremy stood with feet apart, hands behind his back, staring at the
house.
"Good mullions, and excellent brickwork. There is a solidity about these
Jacobean houses. My good fellow, is your master at home?"
"What will monsieur desire here?"
"Nothing, Pierre, nothing, but a word with your master. Tell him there
is a gentleman here who is interested in old houses."
The man looked contemptuously at Winter and returned to the house. De
Rothan was waiting in the hall.
"Well, François?"
"A gentleman who loves old houses."
"Thunder, what, a dry-as-dust! Go and tell him the house is not to be
viewed."
François went back to Jeremy.
"Monsieur, my master the Chevalier de Rothan cannot be agreeable to your
curiosity."
Jeremy's eyes twinkled.
"Go and tell him I have ridden sixty miles to see this house. If he will
give me a few minutes I can explain."
This time the man was exchanged for the master. De Rothan appeared at
the porch, came slowly down the path and out into the meadow.
Stateliness was the pose of the moment. An aristocrat of France came to
speak with some antiquarian huckster who would force himself upon an
exile's privacy.
"Sir, I wish you good day."
Jeremy took off his hat and bowed. He could be damnably urbane when he
was most dangerous. De Rothan had not recognised him. Who would expect
to see a fencing-master from St. James's in an out-of-the-world Sussex
meadow?
"Sir, I take liberties in being here. I am one of those inquisitive
persons who are interested in everything."
De Rothan looked him over with supercilious politeness.
"A very admirable state of mind, but a little embarrassing at times--to
others."
"You cannot be so kind as to let me see your house, Chevalier?"
De Rothan's eyelids seemed to close a little.
"My house, monsieur, is not a museum."
"But I am told there is a unique curio to be seen in it, a thing of
particular, local interest----"
"Indeed! You surprise me."
"Not at all, sir, not at all. It is a gentleman who was stolen yesterday
out of Darvel's Wood. I am sure you will oblige me in the matter."
De Rothan's figure seemed to lengthen. His nostrils dilated, and his
eyes became very bright and staring.
"Sir, I fail to understand you. Nor do I love impertinence."
"Nor I, Monsieur de Rothan. I expect Mr. Jasper Benham to dine with me
to-night. It will be courteous of you to produce the gentleman, and to
deliver him over to me."
"You are talking nonsense."
"I'll wager that I am not."
They stood eyeing each other, challenging each other, gauging each
other's strength and grimness.
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
Jeremy's eyes twinkled. He had been standing with hands clasped behind
him. One hand had slipped itself into the tail pocket of his coat and
was gripping the butt of a pistol.
He began to speak slowly, and very distinctly, looking at De Rothan from
under frowning eyebrows.
"Mr. Frenchman, let us understand each other. I have two men over yonder
behind the hedge; neither you nor yours can play any tricks with me.
Now, I ask you, what is there to prevent me putting a bullet in your
body?"
Jeremy had a pistol out, and, holding it at his hip, covered De Rothan
with the muzzle.
"My good sir, this is like a stage play!"
De Rothan had nerve, and showed it in the casual way he glanced at the
pistol, and then looked Jeremy in the eyes. Quick wit and audacity were
divided pretty equally between them.
"Well, Chevalier, what do you say?"
"Of course, sir, if you wish to blow Mr. Benham's brains out----"
"Thanks. So I was on the mark--there."
"Do not congratulate yourself. I can tell you at once that Mr. Jasper
Benham is in my house, alive and well, save for a sword thrust through
the arm."
Jeremy nodded.
"You laid a trap for him and cheated him on a point of honour."
"My good sir, I outwitted him, if you call that cheating."
They were silent for a few seconds like men who break away and take
breath between two bouts of boxing. Jeremy's mouth looked ugly, but he
was as debonair as ever.
"Listen to me, Chevalier. This spy business of yours is over and done
with. What I have to do is to call one of my men, send him galloping for
half a score red-coats, and hold you here at the pistol point till they
come."
"Very good, sir, very good. But I take it that you have some respect for
Mr. Benham's life."
Jeremy felt the cunning of the thrust.
"No doubt."
"Very well, do what you suggest. But I warn you that I have a man in the
house whom I can trust. He has had his orders. It is a nasty business
blowing out a young man's brains. Faugh--you will not drive us to that!"
"You are not without daring, Chevalier."
"I am one of the eagles of adventure, sir. I play my game and I play it
boldly. Mr. Benham is my hostage. I demand to be left alone, to be
allowed to give my plans a fighting chance. In three weeks or so French
cavalry may be sabring your red-coats in these lanes."
Jeremy reflected.
"I see your point, sir."
"Regard it in this way. I play my game--I put down my stake. This Mr.
Benham blunders in and tries to upset my table. I seize him and tie him
up in a corner, and, to defend myself from his friends, I have to keep a
pistol levelled at this good young man's head. You see, I hold him in
front of me, so to speak. Shoot, or stab at me--and Mr. Benham's body
takes the first blow. What you have to decide is whether you are willing
to sacrifice your friend."
"By George! Do you mean to tell me you would shoot the lad?"
"Mr. Englishman, I am the devil when I am in earnest. My man is watching
you, even now. If you were to fire that pistol at me--he would do the
same to Mr. Jasper Benham. You see how things stand. The decision is
with you."
Very rarely had Jeremy found himself fenced with so cleverly. De Rothan
held him at a disadvantage.
"Let me put things plainly. You, Chevalier, are a French spy. The truth
has been discovered. You expect the French fleet in the Channel, and
Napoleon to invade us. Good! To gain breathing space you tie up this
lad, hold a pistol at his head, and dare us to interfere."
De Rothan bowed and smiled.
"You have summed up the situation. It is very simple."
Jeremy lowered his pistol. He was baffled, and very furious behind that
imperturbable face of his.
"Very well, Chevalier. It seems that we are not in a position to
quarrel."
"Mr.----?"
"Winter, sir, Jeremy Winter."
"Mr. Winter, you show good sense."
Jeremy could have twisted De Rothan's neck. The man's complacent
audacity rubbed him raw.
"One thing, Chevalier. Have you any personal spite against the lad?"
He watched De Rothan narrowly.
"No more than the natural contempt of a grown man for a big fool of a
boy who tries to kick him."
Jeremy's mouth betrayed sarcasm.
"I believed he kicked--with success."
But he regretted the gibe when he saw the glint in De Rothan's eyes.
"Mr. Winter, I am too big a man to bear malice."
"Thank heaven for that!"
"I hold Mr. Benham as a hostage."
"And if the French come, sir?"
De Rothan shrugged his shoulders.
"A country squireling will not matter. He will be one of a mob of
sheep."
"And if the French do not come?"
"I shall still hold Mr. Benham at my mercy. He will be my shield, Mr.
Winter; you will shoot or stab at me through him."
"A very convenient arrangement for you, sir. I suppose it is useless to
suggest that we might come to terms and give you a safe passage out of
the country?"
De Rothan smiled.
"One does not count one's winnings, Mr. Winter, till the cards are
played. Especially when one holds a winning hand."
Jeremy bowed to him, and they drew apart, keeping their faces toward
each other.
"Good day to you, Chevalier."
"Good day, Mr. Winter. You will be careful how you meddle in any affair
of mine."
XXIX
When Jeremy was in a rage his imperturbable face had a smooth, tight
look, the lips pressed a little more closely together, the jaw well set.
His wrath was always a quiet wrath, deep, purposeful, not wasting itself
in words.
De Rothan had made him more furious than he had been for years, and even
the knowledge that Jasper was very little the worse for his adventure in
Darvel's Wood did not modify Jeremy's anger. De Rothan was the kind of
man who filled him with a scornful disgust, and to be baffled and
dictated to by such a man left Jeremy quarrelling with his own
self-respect. He damned De Rothan as a coward, and was equally indignant
over the contradictory conviction that the adventurer had audacity and
courage. De Rothan had seized a desperate chance. It had been a clever
move, too confoundedly clever to please Mr. Winter.
"Curse it, what shall I tell the girl?"
He laughed at his own impatience.
"Why, Jerry, my boy, you want to appear infallible, do you, dallying
with a snuff-box, and proudly overwhelming all ruffians with one look.
The lad's alive. Tell her that. She'll be ready to kiss you, though you
have brought nothing but news."
It did not astonish Jeremy when he found Nance watching for him where
the lane topped the high ground to the east of Stonehanger. She was
sitting on a turf bank under a thorn-tree, out of sight of Stonehanger
House.
Jeremy gave her the best news he could, while he was still some yards
away.
"The lad's alive, and they tell me not much the worse."
The way her face changed stirred Jeremy, man of fifty that he was. It
was good to be young, to desire, and to be desired.
"Where is he?"
"Ah, that's a long story. You and I have got to hold a council of war."
He dismounted, fastened his horse to the thorn-tree, and seated himself
beside Nance on the bank. Her face still retained much of the radiance
that had poured into it with the first rush of relief.
"What has happened, then?"
"They kidnapped Jasper in Darvel's Wood. I guessed it. De Rothan has him
shut up safely in that house of his beyond Sedlescombe."
"As a prisoner?"
"Yes."
"But how absurd, in these days! Then we shall soon have him out."
Jeremy wagged his head.
"My dear, you don't know Monsieur de Rothan."
"What do you mean?"
"He has the audacity of the devil. He has snapped up Jasper as a
hostage, and dares us to interfere."
"He told you that?"
"Why, to be sure, we had a parley in the meadow. I covered him with a
pistol and asked him to tell me why I shouldn't shoot him. His argument
was that one of his own men would promptly shoot Jasper. You see, they
are holding him against us as a kind of shield."
Nance's face lost some of its radiance.
"But De Rothan dare not do this."
"Unfortunately he does dare, in fact, he is obliged to dare. It is the
one chance left him of forcing his game through. We are on the edge of
a crisis. The next month may decide whether we are to be invaded or not.
De Rothan is standing out for a fighting chance."
She looked very gravely into Jeremy's eyes.
"Do you think he would be brute enough to murder Jasper?"
"My dear, I do."
"Then if we threaten or inform against him, Jasper will be sacrificed?"
"Exactly. That's what makes me feel like a caged tiger."
It seemed to take Nance some minutes to realise the vindictive grimness
of the thing.
"But what a villain!"
"Call him that if you like, child. He is a clever gambler and has to use
a gambler's tricks. The end justifies the means. That is what he tells
himself."
She smoothed her dress with her hands, and looked into the distance.
"It makes me ashamed and furious that we are so helpless. And yet we
have to be polite and swallow our anger. Can anything be done?"
"And take the risk of having the lad shot?"
"No, no, you know I don't mean that! But to think that we should have to
truckle to this man!"
"I see no other course at present. I am not a lamb myself. I would run a
sword through the man to-morrow if I thought that it would help us. But
it won't. We have got to be careful."
"I see--yes, I see."
"We must hold our tongues, not let the truth out, and yet try to find
some way out of this blind alley. If we were to let our neighbours know
the truth, they might come blundering in and lose Jasper his life."
She held her breath at the thought of such a chance.
"Then there is father. I spoke to him this morning."
"You did?"
"He is a strange man. I thought he would storm, but he looked stunned. I
don't see that he could help us. He might even be dangerous."
"Yes, set everything in a blaze. I had thought of that. I think that I
had better see Mr. Anthony Durrell."
She looked at him questioningly.
"But----"
"I have dealt with all sorts of men in my time."
"Do you mean to frighten him into silence?"
"I shall try to treat him as a reasonable creature. It is no time for
soft phrases."
She thought awhile, knitting up her forehead, and clasping her hands.
"Perhaps it will be best."
"Shall we go on? I may find Mr. Durrell at Stonehanger."
The essential weakness of a man of Anthony Durrell's character showed
itself in the parley that followed between him and Jeremy Winter. The
man of action and the man of the bookshelf were pitted against each
other, though Jeremy, unlike most Englishmen, had subtlety and a very
quick sense of humour. Nance had left them alone together in the
stone-room, feeling vaguely sorry for the thin, white-headed figure that
looked so ineffectual.
Jeremy went straight to the point with a merciless directness, much as
he would have attacked with a sword. Durrell's hysterical verbosity was
like the clumsy and excitable fencing of a greenhorn who has never
learned to use his hands. He chose the high, ethical, magniloquent
attitude, being sincere enough in his wild, foolish, visionary way.
Jeremy thrust the egregious fanatic through and through with the brutal
logic of his common sense.
"You need not stand and orate, Mr. Durrell. Take the facts and leave
your theories. Here are you, a traitor to your country, with a noose
dangling invitingly over your head."
Durrell flapped his arms.
"I stand for liberty--for a great idea----"
"Bosh, man, bosh! We don't win things in this world in that way. Answer
a straight question. Do you want your daughter to see you hanged?"
Durrell was disjointed, wild, hysterical. Jeremy kept up his body blows,
driving home truth after truth till he had this poor, exclamatory piece
of scholarly discontent battered into impotence. Durrell was a weak man.
He was not built for pounding, for fighting toe to toe. He might have
quarrelled and stormed with women. In the presence of a man like Jeremy
he collapsed.
Winter softened a little when the enthusiast crumpled up into a chair.
"Mr. Durrell, sir, try to realise that we are your best friends. Have
nothing more to do with this scoundrel De Rothan. You've got something
valuable to live for in the shape of a daughter."
Durrell mumbled, and twisted this way and that. Jeremy had cowed him,
and seized the dominating influence that De Rothan had held.
"I will think over what you have said, Mr. Winter. Heaven knows I would
not countenance any violence to this young man."
Jeremy left him a beaten man, and went out into the garden to speak with
Nance. She looked steady and sure of herself, and Jeremy respected the
strength in her. It struck him that she would be able to dominate her
father now that Durrell had been shocked into a kind of panic.
"Well?"
"You must forgive me if I have been a little rough with your father.
Soft words are of no use at such a time."
"What does he say?"
"I think he has surrendered to us. I had to 'tarrify' him, as they say
in these parts."
"If only he would keep to his books."
"That's it. Some men are made to live with books."
They walked through the shrubbery to the gate where David Barfoot was
holding Mr. Winter's horse. Jeremy spoke what was in his mind.
"Go and play the daughter to him, my dear. I think he is in a mood to be
managed. Some oldish men have to be treated like children."
"I will try."
"There must be plenty of good stuff in your father."
"Yes."
"I take you as my proof."
Cynicism, tinged with benevolence, such was Jeremy's attitude toward
life. It was not very reasonable to expect a girl of spirit to hold a
man of Anthony Durrell's nature in great love and reverence. Durrell
needed hurdling in like an old sheep, and left to browse contentedly
among his books.
Jeremy had already quarrelled twice that day, but he was yet to have a
third quarrel laid upon his shoulders. This time it was with a woman,
and the woman--Miss Rose Benham.
He found her at Rush Heath, energetic, inquisitive, and voluble, driving
the inarticulate Jack Bumpstead into comers, and insisting upon
examining Devil Dick in his stall. She had scolded the groom till he had
involved himself in a maze of muddled contradictions, hunting him round
and round with her cross-questions and her curiosity.
Jeremy's mouth went grim. His patience had borne up bravely, and he was
in no mood to be teased by a managing and meddlesome young woman.
"Mr. Winter, what does all this mean?"
He handed his horse over to Jack Bumpstead, gave the groom one
terrifying look, and bowed Miss Benham out of the stable.
"My dear young lady, I think you are a little excited."
He was deluged, but managed to divert the stream into a quiet corner of
the garden.
"Miss Rose, you are inclined to call this affair your own. I warn you
that it is nothing of the kind. I even forbid you to meddle with it."
"Forbid, indeed! I shall----"
"Excuse me, you will not."
"What right have you----?"
"Expediency justifies me--and a man's honour."
"Jasper's? You mean to say----"
Then Jeremy told what was very like an audacious lie.
"Miss Benham--Cousin Jasper will very shortly be married. And I am
glad--because of the woman he will marry. Honour is concerned in it,
even his very life. He is in great danger. One careless word may wreck
everything."
Rose was white, furious, and astonished.
"To be married! And all this wild talk----?"
"My dear Miss Benham, sometimes two men desire to marry the same woman.
It is not unusual. And one of the men may be desperate and unprincipled.
The unprincipled man may take advantage of the other's sense of honour."
"But Jasper--is he in danger?"
"Very grave danger."
"Then why on earth don't you do something?"
Jeremy gave her one of his shrewd smiles.
"That is just what must not be done, for the moment. It will spoil my
masterly inactivity if fools go cackling about the country. We are in a
very delicate dilemma. I shall not explain it, as the less that is known
about it--the better. You have it in your power to lose Jasper his
life."
She flinched, as people had so often flinched in Jeremy's presence.
"If he is in danger, I----"
"Yes, you will be kind and cautious. You will say nothing. And for God's
sake leave Jack Bumpstead alone, and not a word to Squire Christopher."
Rose tossed her head.
"I do not need to be lectured like a schoolgirl, Mr. Winter. I am a
woman of sense. I will not interfere in a man's love affairs--even if he
is my cousin."
And Jeremy saw that he had piqued her into a proper pride.
XXX
The men who had built the Brick House had framed the attic story of huge
baulks of oak, posts and beams that looked like the halves of great
trees, with struts and cross-pieces worked in quaintly at all angles.
There was a long gallery connecting the attics, and the whole place
looked like the interior of a ship, the little windows high up no larger
than portholes. The plaster had not been whitewashed for years, and
beams, rafters, and posts were a deep rich brown. Even the floor-boards
were of oak, and riddled with worm-holes.
Jasper Benham's prison room was the attic at the far end of the gallery.
Its dormer-window was squeezed in between the slopes of two gables.
There was no furniture in the attic save a rough box-bed in one corner.
Nor did the bed belong to Jasper. The man Gaston slept there with a
pistol under his pillow.
Jasper had been given a truss of straw to lie on. They could not have
managed otherwise, for the simple reason that they had put him in irons.
His ankles were chained and bolted to the floor-boards, and his wrists
handcuffed. He might have been a negro in the hold of a slave ship, or a
refractory seaman undergoing discipline.
Both De Rothan and Jeremy Winter were cynics, with the difference that
one possessed far more natural kindliness than the other. Their
materialism kept its eyes fixed upon the sensuous aspects of life. They
knew good wine, and a woman who was worth following, and were ready to
be amused by the ingenuous wraths and enthusiasms of youth.
As for De Rothan, he found Jasper a most companionable young person, a
man who took his own honourable indignation with vast seriousness, and
could be pricked into all manner of odd exasperations. Jasper had not
learned to wink at life, or to sneer upon occasions. De Rothan baited
his youthful sincerity. He would take his glass of wine and smoke his
cheroot in Jasper's attic, sitting on the edge of Gaston's bed, and
prodding the Englishman with his cynicism as he would have prodded a pig
with a stick. He made a daily habit of this parley, spending an hour or
two with his prisoner while Gaston had a change of air in the garden or
meadow.
It was the fifth day of his imprisonment, and Jasper heard Gaston's
descending footsteps meet those of De Rothan, who ascended to take his
place. The Frenchman came in with his glass of wine and his cheroot,
bowed ironically to Jasper, and took up his usual position on the bed.
"Well, Mr. Benham, how is the forlorn lover to-day?"
De Rothan's sleekness, his white linen and smoothly shaved face filled
Jasper with a kind of fury. He felt himself unclean on his bundle of
straw, with a five days' beard on his chin, and his face and hands
unwashed. The wound in his right arm was giving him no trouble, but they
had not offered to dress it for him, and Nature was responsible for any
process of healing.
"Your consideration, Chevalier, does not run to a crock of water and a
piece of soap."
"Why, my good sir, what should you want with such things? I might find
an old clay pipe and let you blow soap bubbles!"
"It is something to feel clean, especially in the presence of people
whose honour happens to be foul."
"We have been taught that it is the heart that matters. Inward
cleanliness, eh? You have heard, Mr. Benham, of the old saints and
hermits. Dirt and vermin were held to be honourable."
"You would talk in a different way if I were out of these irons."
"Pardon me, my dear young man, I think I should not. Besides, why should
you trouble about your beard? The sweet charmer is not likely to see
you--though there is pathos about an unshaven chin. Do you think that
she troubles----"
He sipped his wine, and watched Jasper over the rim of his glass.
"I drink Miss Nance's health. She is a clever girl, Mr. Benham. How we
laughed, she and I! It was funny, although so damnably serious."
"Curse you, what do you mean?"
De Rothan regarded him with infinite relish.
"What an honest soul! You really believe that Miss Durrell wanted me at
the end of a rope, and you kneeling romantically at her feet?"
Jasper had nothing adequate to say.
"Nance led you on so cleverly. She sent you off with her blessing to
Darvel's Wood. Dear, honest fool!"
"You need not tell me lies about Miss Durrell."
"I don't, sir, I don't. She was kind to you, was she not? When did the
kindness begin? Ask yourself that. Was it not when you had blundered
like a bumble-bee into our web and seemed likely to give us trouble? Of
course Miss Nance was circumspect. She handled you very cunningly, Mr.
Benham."
"You need not try to make me believe that."
"It would be impossible? Your vanity is too serene and confident? No
woman would have the audacity to treat you like a fool, would she? No,
of course not. It would be impossible. Mr. Jasper Benham is too
dignified and important a person to be played with."
"Make the most of your tongue, sir."
"Really, you refresh me. When our Emperor is in London, I must present
you to him as a unique young man without any sense of humour. You would
amuse the Court. You will continue to amuse my dear Nance when she is a
great lady of the Empire."
"Don't boast too soon."
"I may as well tell you some news. You will not gossip and spread it
abroad. The noble Nelson has been chasing a wild goose instead of your
Lady Hamilton. Villeneuve has tricked him. And in a week or two
Villeneuve will be blowing your Brest ships out of the water. Then we
shall come up Channel, and the Emperor will land in England. It will be
a fine spectacle. I shall enjoy it."
"It may prove a very fine spectacle."
"Ah, you dear English--you think yourselves invincible. Are you better
men than the Germans, the Austrians, or the Russians? Are your country
bumpkins so valiant? Why, our Grand Army will devour you. Think of the
American colonists, think of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and Cornwallis at
Yorktown. We French have had two years of war. We have fought all
Europe. We are veterans, and a nation of soldiers. We shall gallop over
you, hunt you hither and thither with the bayonet."
Jasper lay down on his straw.
"It must be a pleasure to you to talk, Chevalier," he said.
Jasper Benham was reliable, and he believed in the reliability of those
in whom he trusted. De Rothan's clever mockery might exasperate him, but
it did not shake his faith in Nance.
Meanwhile at Stonehanger Nance was strengthening her hold upon her
father. The economics of life would seem to be very delicately balanced
so far as old men were concerned. They may retain their faculties in a
state of fair efficiency so long as no abnormal event interferes with
that sanity that is begotten of old habits. But this equilibrium may
easily be disturbed, and an illness or a great sorrow may age an old man
more in one month than in the ten previous years.