Jeffray, rising above the entanglements of the moment, took Bess by the
arm, and led her back through the gate towards the cottage. He spoke a
few words to her, warning her to keep the manner of Dan’s death secret,
and to leave the unravelling of the coil to him. Bess, looking like one
in pain, sank down on the rough bench beside the door. The shock of
seeing her dead husband’s face had unnerved her utterly for the moment.
Jeffray, turning from her with his mouth set, found that the officer and
his troopers were already at the gate, their red coats shining out
against the dark background of the trees. Jeffray acted on the
inspiration of the moment. He walked coolly down the garden path, took
off his hat to the officer, to be surprised by hearing his own name
coming glibly from the soldier’s lips.
“Mr. Richard Jeffray, I believe?”
The civilian bowed. He recognized the officer as the cornet of
Light-Horse, whom he had seen lounging in the doorway of the Wheat Sheaf
Inn at Rodenham.
“I see, sir, that I am known to you.”
The cornet showed his regular white teeth in a good-humored smile, and
ordered his men to stand back some paces.
“A mounted servant of yours,” he said, “fell in with us as we were
crossing Rodenham heath. The fellow appeared much concerned about your
safety.”
The cornet was studying Jeffray curiously with his large and melancholy
eyes. He had the dreamy and sensuous look of a young man whose
amiability made him popular with women. It was evident that he had been
enlightened in some measure as to the nature of Jeffray’s romantic
quest, and that being something of a sensualist, he regarded the
civilian with an erotic interest. Jeffray knew not for the moment
whether to bless or curse Wilson and the butler for meddling in his
adventures. He looked hard at the soldier as though to discover what
species of man he had to deal with.
“Of one thing, sir, I am assured,” he said, assuming an air of candor,
“that I have to thank you for rescuing me from a very hot and dangerous
corner.”
The soldier bowed slightly, and smiled in his tired and melancholy
fashion.
“We were ordered to assist these revenue fellows,” he explained, “in
rounding up one of the most savage smuggling gangs in Sussex. I can only
express my satisfaction at having been able to assist a gentleman whose
courage had carried him into the enemy’s lines.”
Such stately civility appeared to promise well for the adaptability of
the cornet’s sentiments. Jeffray felt by instinct that it would be
expedient for him to trust the man, pretend to make a friend of him, and
thus get Bess safely out of Pevensel.
“I suspect that we can understand each other, sir,” he said, with a
boyish laugh, “and I hold myself fortunate in having been thrown in
contact with a gentleman. If you will walk aside with me—I can
explain.”
The cornet stood aside from the gate, and confessed himself at Jeffray’s
service. He was one of those men who never quarrel by inclination, and
was indeed the very creature Jeffray needed, lazy, good-tempered, eager
for popularity, a man tinged with a sentimental devotion towards women,
a devotion that bowed down before a dimpled chin, and capitulated
smilingly to a pair of mischievous eyes.
“I am at your service, sir,” he said, bowing.
Jeffray took the soldier at his word, and, with an air of unpremeditated
abstraction, marched him straight for Dan Grimshaw’s body. The exquisite
son of Mars started at the sight of the contorted face shining a dead
white from the grass. He touched the body a little contemptuously with
his foot, sniffed, and shrugged his padded shoulders.
“Another poor devil shot,” he said.
Jeffray bent over the body as though it were new and strange to him.
“Hit in the chest,” he said, reflectively. “Your men were firing pretty
briskly into the mob.”
“They fired on us first, sir,” quoth the cornet, as though moved to
justify his orders.
“I don’t doubt it. Some of your shots came into the cottage where I was
cornered with the girl whose life I was trying to save.”
With much parade of mystery Jeffray unfolded to the sentimental youth as
much of the past as suited the occasion. He told how he had come to be
blockaded in the cottage, and confessed that he had been compelled to
fire on the smuggling folk in self-defence. Concerning Dan’s death he
was discreetly silent, nor did he divulge the fact that Bess had helped
him to hold the cottage. The cornet listened with the most serious and
sympathetic attention, stroking the silver facings of his coat, and
never so much as dreaming to wink at Jeffray.
“I am not astonished, sir,” he said, at the end thereof, “that the lady
should be a little shaken after such adventures.”
“Your sympathy does you credit,” returned Jeffray, with a bow.
“May I ask what is to be done with the lady?”
“I desire to disentangle her from such painful surroundings, and place
her under my housekeeper’s care at Rodenham.”
The cornet looked sadly at Jeffray, as though taking him for a very
eccentric person or a most human and devoted fool. Being an amiable and
sentimental creature, and not given to legal methods of reflection, he
showed himself very ready to assist Jeffray with the true courtesy of a
cavalier.
“Shall I lend you two troopers and a guide,” he said, “to convey you to
Rodenham? Is the lady fit to travel?”
Jeffray accepted the suggestion.
“I thank you for your courtesy,” he said; “the ride will take the girl
away from her own thoughts. I shall be very grateful to you if you will
make inquiries as to her husband—Daniel Grimshaw, and the old man,
Isaac. If you discover any facts bearing upon the mystery of the girl’s
past I shall be eager to receive them. My own mare is tethered in the
woods. One of the pack-horses would carry the lady.”
The soldier proved himself the very perfection of a Pandar in scarlet
and silver. He would as soon have assisted in so romantic an intrigue,
for such he fully believed it to be, as have perused one of the most
interesting passages in the life of one of Mr. Fielding’s heroes.
Jeffray’s mare was discovered safely hidden in the woods where he had
left her. One of the pack-horses was saddled and Bess mounted thereon.
Two troopers and a guide were ordered to put themselves at Jeffray’s
service.
“I wish you good speed, sir,” said the cornet, bowing and raising his
hat to Bess.
Jeffray, charmed by the young man’s urbanity, shook him heartily by the
hand.
“You will do me the honor of dining with me to-morrow?” he asked.
The cornet bowed, his brown eyes brightening with momentary relish.
“Certainly, if my duties permit the pleasure,” he said, smiling a tired
smile.
Into the sweet dusk of the wet woods rode Jeffray with Bess beside him.
The western sky was still streaked with gold beyond the trees, but the
woods before them were tangled deeps of mysterious gloom. All the June
perfumes of the earth streamed out from the brakes and thickets,
mingling with the pungent breath of the pines. Bluish vapor filled the
hollows, merging into the deep purple of the forest’s shadows. Here and
there some rain-pool in the grass was touched with the faint light from
the western sky. An infinite languor seemed to weigh upon the calm and
misty trees. There was still the dull drip of the storm’s dew from ten
thousand branches, the rhythmic plashing of water upon the bracken and
the grass.
The two red-coats and the rough laborer who acted as guide moved some
twenty paces ahead of Jeffray and the girl. There was still some peril
of their falling in with the folk who had been scattered from the
hamlet, and the troopers kept their carbines ready. Jeffray held the
bridle of Bess’s horse, so that they were very close in the dusk. Bess
had recovered from her faintness of an hour ago. Jeffray had given her
brandy from his flask, though she had refused the bread and meat one of
the soldiers had brought her from old Isaac’s cottage. The day’s burden
of dread seemed to lift from her as they drew away from the hamlet and
its memories, and sank deeper and deeper into the silence of the forest.
She was near Jeffray; sometimes her knee touched his. They could almost
hear each other breathing, while the sweet smell of the wet woods
steamed up like incense into the night.
Jeffray appeared sunk in thought. He looked often at Bess with kindlings
of tenderness in his eyes. The pleasurableness of life seemed to steal
into either heart, chastened by a melancholy born of the troubled
happenings of the day. They remembered, both of them, the dead man lying
in the grass. It seemed that the blood-red flower of Bess’s dream had
colored forth the shedding of Dan’s blood.
As they crossed White Hind walk, Jeffray drew in Bess’s horse very close
to him, stretched out his hand and touched her arm.
“You are not unhappy, child?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment.
“No, no, not unhappy.”
“You are thinking of Dan?”
“Yes.”
“Why should you pity him?”
“Ah, he was pointing his pistol at you—”
“It was for my sake, Bess, I know, I know.”
He looked at her thoughtfully and half sadly as though realizing how
much she had dared to save his life. It was a grim thing for a woman to
have blood upon her conscience, and that too—the blood of her own
husband. His tenderness deepened immeasurably towards Bess. The guilt,
whatever guilt there was, was his—not hers.
“There may still be danger for us,” he said, gravely.
Bess looked at him as though all terror would melt away before the calm
strength upon his face.
“Is Isaac alive?” she asked, putting her hair back from her forehead.
“I do not know,” he answered.
“If he should guess!”
“No one shall ever know that you fired the shot that killed your
husband.”
Bess questioned him with her eyes.
“Should the law ever snatch at us,” he continued, “I shall swear that it
was I who shot Dan Grimshaw.”
“You would swear that?” she asked, her whole face aglow.
“I would.”
“Ah—I should love you better than to suffer that.”
They rode on awhile in silence under the trees, the dark figures of the
troopers moving vaguely before them, the stars above like silver bosses
set in the vaultings of the forest. Often their eyes met; the girl’s
white face seemed to shine with an inward light through the darkness of
the woods.
“Bess,” said the man, at last.
She watched him—and waited.
“Let us leave this riddle to rot in Pevensel. What do I care whether you
are of the Grimshaw blood or no!”
She held out her hands to him with a great sigh.
“Take me away from it all,” she said. “I want you—and nothing more.”
A young moon was showing its silver crescent above the trees when Bess
and Jeffray came out upon the heath. The two troopers and the guide were
waiting for them, their figures showing dimly against the sky-line.
Jeffray hailed the men, assured them that he had no further need of an
escort, and, giving them a couple of guineas apiece, advised them to
ride back and rejoin their troop. The fellows pocketed the money, and
wished Jeffray a very good-evening. There might be spoil to be had at
the hamlet in Pevensel, rooms to be rifled, hidden money to be
unearthed. They turned back with the guide into the woods, leaving Bess
and her man to ride on to Rodenham alone.