set about the long process of his toilet. His cramped fingers made a
slow business of shaving, but at last his chin and cheeks were smooth,
and the mirror showed a face he recognised, albeit a face hollow in the
cheeks and dark about the eyes. As his dressing proceeded his
self-respect stole back; the fresh-starched shirt, the well-ironed
cravat, were an assurance that he had returned from savagery. By the
time he had finished he felt his bodily health improved, and knew the
rudiments of an appetite. The meal and the glass of brandy which the
landlord brought him assisted his transformation, and he seemed to
breathe again without a burden on his chest. He had bidden the landlord
look out for the Spainneach, and meantime he had an errand to do on his
own account; for it occurred to him that the arrival of the Duchess
Kitty was the solution of one perplexity.
He walked through the store-closet to the landing above the staircase.
At the half-opened door of the Brown Room stood a footman in the
Queensberry colours, one who had been with his mistress at Cornbury and
recognised Alastair. He bowed and let him pass; indeed he would have
pushed the door wide for him had not the young man halted on the
threshold. There were voices inside the room, and one of them had a
familiar sound.
The sight which greeted his eyes made him shut the door firmly behind
him. Duchess Kitty, still wearing the cloak of grey fur and the velvet
mittens which had kept her warm in the coach, sat in the chair which
Claudia had once sat in, one little foot on the hearth-stone, the other
tapping impatiently on the hearth-rug. On a table lay the remains of a
meal, and beside it, balancing himself with one large hand among the
platters, stood Mr Samuel Johnson. It was not the Mr Johnson to whom he
had bade farewell three weeks ago, but rather the distraught usher who
had made the midnight raid on Cornbury. His dress was the extreme of
shabbiness, his hair was in disorder, his rusty small clothes and
coarse stockings were splashed with mud; and he seemed to be famished,
too, for his cheeks were hollow, and for all his distress, he could not
keep his eyes from straying towards the table.
"I beseech your Grace to remember your common womanhood," he was saying
when Alastair's entrance diverted the Duchess's attention.
She recognised him, and a look which was almost alarm crossed her face.
"Here enters the first of the conquerors," she cried, and swept him a
curtsey. "What is the latest news from the seat of war? My woman tells
me that the Prince is already in Bedfordshire and that London is ablaze
and King George fled to Holland. Your news, Captain Maclean?"
"I have none, madam. I have been no nearer the Prince's camp than I am
at this moment."
Her eyes opened wide. "Faith, you have dallied long in the South. Have
you been sick, or is Beaufort's conscience a tender plant? Or did you
return to Cornbury?" Her face had grown stern.
"I left Cornbury on the day you remember, and I have not since seen my
lord, your brother."
"That is well," she said, with an air of relief. "I ask no further
questions lest they embarrass you. But you are come opportunely, for
you can give me counsel. This gentleman," and she turned to Johnson,
"has forced his company upon me, and, when you arrived, had embarked
upon a monstrous tale. He bespeaks my pity, so I have composed myself
to listen."
"The gentleman and I are acquainted, and I can vouch for his honesty.
Nay, madam, I have a fancy that his errand is also mine."
She looked curiously from one to the other, as Johnson, rolling his
head like a marionette, seized Alastair's hand. "It is the mercy of
God, sir, that you have returned," the tutor cried. "I have missed you
sorely, for that house of Brightwell is no better than a prison. Its
master is aged and bedridden and demented, and it is governed by two
malevolent spinsters. Brightwell! Bridewell is its true name. I myself
have eaten little and slept bare, but that matters nothing. It is my
poor lady I grieve for. 'Tis true, she has her husband, but he is
little at home, and is much engrossed with affairs. Soon, too, he will
ride south with his Prince, and Miss Claudia cannot travel with him nor
can she be left behind in that ill-omened den. She must have a woman to
befriend her in these rough days, and conduct her to Chastlecote or
Weston, but she has few female friends of her rank and I knew not where
to turn. But to-day, walking on the high road, I saw an equipage and
learned that it was Her Grace travelling south, and that she would lie
at this inn. So I ran hither like a Covent-garden porter, and have been
admitted to her presence, though my appearance is not so polite as I
could have desired." He bowed to the Duchess, and in his clumsiness
swept her travelling-mask from the table to the floor.
She looked at him for a little without speaking, and then fixed her
eyes on Alastair, those large childlike eyes which were rarely without
a spark of impish humour.
"Your friend," she said, "has already opened his tale to me, but his
manner of telling it is not of the clearest. Since you say that his
errand may be yours, I pray you expound it. But be seated, gentlemen
both. I have already a crick in my neck from looking up to such
enormities."
Mr Johnson, as if glad of the permission, dropped into a chair, but
Alastair remained standing. His legs no longer felt crazy, but they
were amazingly stiff, and once in a chair he distrusted his ability to
rise. He stood at the opposite side of the hearth to the Duchess,
looking down on the elfin figure, as pretty as porcelain in the glow of
firelight.
"I do not ask your politics," he said, "which I take to be your
husband's. But you are an honourable lady, by the consent of all, and,
I can add of my own knowledge, a kind one. To you a traitor must be
doubly repulsive."
Her answer was what Claudia Norreys's had been in that very room.
"You judge rightly, sir. If I thought I could betray a friend or a
cause I should hang myself forthwith to avert the calamity."
Alastair bowed. "Mr Johnson has told you of this girl, my lady Norreys.
She is own sister to you, tender and brave and infinitely faithful. Her
husband is otherwise. Her husband is a black traitor, but she does not
know it."
Mr Johnson cried out. "I had thought better of him, sir. Have you got
new evidence?"
"I have full evidence. News of desperate import is sent to him here by
another in the South, that other being one of the foremost agents of
our Cause. That news should go forthwith to the Prince's camp. It goes
forthwith to the enemy's."
"For what reward?" the Duchess asked.
"For that reward which is usual to traitors in times of civil strife.
They induce honest but weak-kneed souls to take a bold step, and then
betray them to the Government, receiving a share of the fines and
penalties that ensue. Great fortunes have been built that way."
"But if the rebellion wins?"
"Then they are lost, unless indeed they are skilful enough to make
provision with both sides and to bury whichever of the two villainies
is unprofitable."
"He is a young man," she said. "He shows a shocking precocity in guile.
And the poor child his wife dreams nothing of this?"
"Ah, madam," cried Johnson. "She is the very soul and flower of
loyalty. If she suspected but a tithe of it, her heart would break."
"His precocity is remarkable," said Alastair, "but he is not the
principal in the business. The principal is that other I have mentioned
who is in the very centre of the Prince's counsels."
She put her hands to her ears. "Do not tell me," she cried. "I will be
burdened with no secrets that do not concern me. I take it that this
other has not a wife whom you would have me befriend."
"Nevertheless I fear that I must outrage your ears, madam. This other
is known to you--closely allied with you."
Her eyes were suddenly bright with anxiety.
"His name is Mr Nicholas Kyd."
Her face showed relief; also incredulity.
"You are certain? You have proof?"
"I have long been certain. Before night I will have full proof."
She fell into a muse. "Kyd--the bluff honest _bon enfant_! The man of
the sad old songs and ready pathos, who almost makes a Jacobite of
me--Kyd to play the rogue! Faith, His Grace had better look into his
accounts. What do you want of me, Captain Maclean?"
"Two things, madam. My purpose is to do justice on rogues, but justice
is a cruel thing, and I would spare the lady. I want you to carry her
southward with you, and leave her at Chastlecote or Weston, which you
please, or carry her to Amesbury. She shall never know her husband's
infamy--only that he has gone to the Prince, and when he does not
return will think him honourably dead."
The Duchess nodded. "And the other?"
"I beg your presence when Mr Kyd is confounded. He is on his way to
Brightwell and this night will sleep there. His errand in the West is
now done, and to-morrow, as I read it, he descends into Nottinghamshire
to the Government headquarters to receive his reward. Therefore he will
have papers with him, and in those papers I look for my proof. If they
fail, I have other sources."
"And if he is found guilty, what punishment?"
Alastair shrugged his shoulders. "That is not for me. Both he and
Norreys go bound to the Prince."
She brooded with her chin on her hand. Then she stood up, laughing.
"I consent. 'Twill be better than a play. But how will you set the
stage?"
"I go to Brightwell presently, and shall force admission. My lady
Norreys will keep her chamber, while in another part of the house we
deal with grimmer business. I nominate you of our court of justice.
See, we will fix an hour. Order your coach for six, and you will be at
Brightwell by seven. By that time the house will be ours, and we shall
be waiting to receive you. You will bring Mr Johnson with you, and
after that you can comfort the lady."
She nodded. "I will come masked," said she, "and I do swear that I will
not fail you or betray you--by the graves of Durrisdeer I swear it, the
ancient Douglas oath. Have you men enough? I can lend you two stout
fellows."
"Your Grace has forgotten that you are a Whig," said Alastair, laughing.
"I have forgotten all save that I am trysted to a merry evening," she
cried.
* * * * * *
When Alastair returned to his attic he found the Spainneach.
"Your Kyd is nearing port," he said. "I have word that he slept at
Blakeley and dined early at Little Laning. In two hours or less he will
be at Brightwell."
"And the Spoonbills?"
"Await us there. Haste you, Sir Sandy, if you would arrive before your
guest."
_XV_ _Bids Farewell to a Scots Laird_
The night was mild and dark, and the high road which the two men
followed was defined only by the faint glimmer of the rain-pools that
lay in every rut. The smell of wet earth was in their nostrils, and the
noise of brimming streams in their ears, and to Alastair, with a sword
at his side again, the world was transformed. All might yet be saved
for the Cause, and in twelve hours he should see the Prince; the
thought comforted him, but it was not the main tenant of his mind. For
a woman's face had lodged there like an obsession in sleep; he saw
Claudia's eyes change from laughter to tragedy and back again to
laughter, he heard her tongue stumble musically among greetings, he
fancied he saw--nay, it was beyond doubt--her face some day light up
for him, as a girl's lights up for her lover. . . . Across the
pleasant dream passed the shadow of a high coat-collar and a long sharp
nose. He shivered, remembering the ugly business before him.
"Where are the Spoonbills?" he asked.
"By now they will be close around Brightwell, ready to run to my
whistle."
"Are they armed?"
"With staves only. We are men of peace."
"Suppose Norreys has a troop of Kingston's Horse for garrison. Or even
that he and Kyd and a servant or two have pistols. We are too evenly
matched to administer justice in comfort."
"Then we must use our wits," was the answer. "But a file or two of your
Highland muskets would not be unwelcome."
The wish was fulfilled even as it was uttered. As they swung round a
corner of road, half a mile from Brightwell gates, they had to rein in
their horses hard to avoid a collision with a body of mounted men.
These were halted in a cluster, while by the light of a lantern their
leader made shift to examine a scrap of paper. The sudden irruption set
all the beasts plunging, and the lantern went out in the confusion, but
not before Alastair had caught sight of him who had held it.
"God's mercy!" he cried. "Charles Hay! Is it Tinnis himself?"
"You have my name," a voice answered, "and a tongue I have heard
before."
Alastair laughed happily. "Indeed you have heard it before, Mr Charlie.
In quarters and on parade, and at many a merry supper in the Rue
Margot. Your superior officer has a claim upon you."
The lantern, being now relit, revealed a tall young man with twenty
troopers at his back, most of them large raw lads who were not long
from the plough tail. The leader's face was flushed with pleasure.
"Where in God's name have you been lurking, my dear sir?" he cried. "I
have looked for you at every bivouac, for I longed to clap eyes again
on a soldier of Lee's, after so much undisciplined rabble."
"The story will keep, Charles, and meantime I claim a service. You are
on patrol?"
"A patrol of Elcho's ordered to feel our way down this valley and
report at Derby town by breakfast. 'Tis a cursed difficult affair
riding these hills when there is no moon."
"You have time and to spare before morn. Turn aside with me here for a
matter of two hours. You shall have a good supper to cheer you, and
will do your Prince a distinguished service. I pledge my word for it."
"Lead on," said Mr Hay. "I am back in Lee's again, and take my orders
from Captain Maclean."
He cried to his men, and the troop wheeled behind him, where he rode
with Alastair and the Spainneach. "Now tell me the ploy," he said. "It
should be a high matter to keep you away from Derby this night, where
they say the fountains are to run claret."
"We go to do justice on a traitor," said Alastair, and told him the
main lines of the story. Mr Hay whistled long and loud.
"You want us to escort the gentleman to Beelzebub's bosom," he asked.
"I want you to escort him to the Prince."
"Not the slightest use, I do assure you. His Highness has a singular
passion for gentry of that persuasion. Yesterday Lord George's force
brought in a black-hearted miscreant, by the name of Weir, caught
red-handed no less, and a fellow we had been longing for months to get
our irons on. Instead of a tow or a bullet he gets a hand-shake from
His Highness, and is bowed out of the camp with 'Erring brother, go and
sin no more.' Too much damned magnanimity, say I, and it's not like
we'll get much of it back from Cumberland. Take my advice, and hang him
from the nearest oak, and then apologise to His Highness for being in
too much of a loyal hurry."
The gates of Brightwell to Alastair's surprise stood open, and in the
faint light from a shuttered window of the lodge it seemed as if there
had been much traffic.
"Where are your Spoonbills?" he asked the Spainneach.
"I do not know. In furze bush and broom bush and hazel thicket. But
when I whistle, in ten seconds they will be at the door of Brightwell."
The troopers were left in the dark of the paved court, with certain
instructions. Accompanied by the Spainneach, Mr Hay and Mr Hay's troop
sergeant, Alastair rode forward to the great door, and pulled the
massive bell-rope. A tinkle sounded inside at an immense distance, and
almost at the same moment the door was opened. There was a light within
which revealed the ancient butler.
"We have business with Sir John Norreys."
"Sir John awaits you," said the man. "But are there not others with
you, sir?"
So the conspirators had summoned their friends, doubtless a troop of
Kingston's Horse from down the water. A thought struck him.
"We are also appointed to meet a Scotch gentleman, Mr Kyd," he said.
"Mr Kyd arrived some minutes ago," was the answer, "and is now
repairing his toilet after his journey. Will you be pleased to enter?"
Alastair spoke in French to Mr Hay, who gave an order to his troop
sergeant, who took the horses and fell back; and the three men passed
through the outer portals into the gaunt gloomy hall, in which Alastair
had shivered on his first visit. Tonight there was a change. A huge
fire of logs roared up the chimney, and from a door ajar came a glimpse
of firelight in another room, and the corner of a laden table. Miserly
Brightwell was holding revel that night.
Hay flung himself on a settle and toasted his boots.
"Comfort," he cried, "after bleak and miry moors, and I have a glimpse
of the supper you promised me. Sim Linton will hold the fort against
any yokels on cart-horses that try to interrupt us. But what has become
of your swarthy friend?"
The Spainneach had disappeared, and the two were alone. Kyd has his
papers here, thought Alastair, and it were well to make certain of them
first. Evidence should be collected before the court sat. It would seem
that the staging of the play was in other hands than his, and what had
been proposed as a feast would by an irony of destiny be turned into
mourning. . . . And then he realised with a shock that Claudia was
beneath this roof, an unwitting, unsuspecting dove in a nest of ravens.
. . . But in a little the Duchess Kitty would be with her and she
would be safe in Oxfordshire, and some day he would journey
there. . . .
A figure was standing at the foot of the great staircase, a splendid
figure, with a nobly laced coat and such ruffles as were rarely seen
outside St James's. It wore a sword, but its carriage was not that of a
soldier. It advanced into the circle of the firelight, and, seeing it
was observed, it bowed and smiled graciously. Its face was that of a
young man, with a long sharp nose.
"I bid you welcome, gentlemen," it began, and then its eyes rested on
Alastair. An instant and extreme terror flooded its face. It stopped
abruptly, stumbled a step and then turned and ran.
Alastair was after the man like an arrow, but his feet slipped on the
stone floor, and ere he had recovered himself Norreys had disappeared
in the corridor which led to the back regions of the house. It was in
gloom, but a lamp burned at the far end, and to this Alastair directed
himself. But the place was a _cul-de-sac_, and he had to turn back and
find a side-passage. The first led him into cellars, the second into
the kitchen, where there seemed to be a strange to-do, but no sign of
Norreys. At last he found the way to the back-yard, and rushed through
an open door into a storm of rain. Surely the Spoonbills must have
prevented the man's escape. But the Spoonbills had been nodding on that
side of the house, for it was certain that Norreys had gone. No doubt
he had kept a horse always ready saddled, and the sound of hooves could
be heard growing faint on the turf of the park. Hatless and cloakless,
Sir John had fled to his Whig friends in Nottinghamshire to claim
reward and sanctuary.
Alastair's first impulse was there and then to ride the man down, with
Hay's troopers and the Spoonbills alike on his trail. His hatred of him
had flared up furiously, when the mean face in the firelight had broken
in on his thoughts of Claudia. The fellow must be brought to justice,
or the castle of fancy he had been building would tumble. But it was
clear that Kyd must first be dealt with, and, bitterly unwilling, he
allowed his inclinations to give place to his duty.
Kyd's papers! The thought struck him that Norreys might have carried
them off, and sent him hurrying along the passages to the hall, where
Mr Hay was still basking like a cat in the warmth. There, too, stood
the Spainneach, looking like a panther in his lean dark shadowy grace.
"Mr Kyd is in his chamber, cleansing himself of the stains of travel
and humming merrily. I mistrust the servants, Sir Sandy, so I have
replaced them by our own folk. Where are the said servants, you ask?
Shut up in various corners, very scared and docile. Likewise I have
discovered Mr Kyd's travelling-bag. It is in strange wardenship. Come
and see."
The man, stepping lightly, led the way up a broad shallow staircase, to
a room of which he noiselessly opened the door. The hospitable warmth
downstairs had not penetrated to that cold chamber, for the air of it
was like a tomb. On a table stood a saddle-bag from which the contents
had been spilled, and over these contents hung the two grey women whom
Alastair had seen on his earlier visit. They caressed the papers as if
they were misers fumbling banknotes, one lean and hawk-beaked, the
other of a dropsical fatness.
"Sir Robert Leatham--fifty men and five hundred pounds--good pickings
in that, sister. That makes the roll of Hereford complete. The fines
will not be less than half a million pounds, and at two pounds per
centum that is a sum of ten thousand--half to cousin John and half to
him we know of. . . ."
The other was fingering the rings on a tally-stick.
"He favours you, Caroline, and between you there will be a rare
fortune. Cousin Johnnie has promised me Brightwell, when our father
leaves us, and I look to you to assist the conveyance. That is my
price, remember. If you play me false, I will scratch your eyes out and
curse him till he rots. Ay, and I will tell on him to that puling miss
in the Green Chamber. . . . Does Johnnie sup to-night?"
"Ay, and departs early, for he is bound for the Duke of Richmond, but
he we know of stays till the Duke comes hither. He's the great man,
sister, and Johnnie but a boy. A clever dutiful boy, to be sure, with
an old head on his young shoulders. I'll wager that when they both come
to die there will be little difference between the fortunes of Sir John
Norreys of Weston and Sir Robert Grosvenor of Eaton. The pity of it
that he has set his heart on that baby-faced wench."
"She brought him a fine estate, Caroline."
"Pish! He thinks less of the good acres than her pink cheeks. I could
scratch them till the bones were bare. . . . Read the Shropshire
roll again, sister. How deep is Henry Talbot?"
The two witches, obscene, malevolent, furtive, bent over the papers as
over a bubbling cauldron. Alastair stepped forward, choking down a
strong disgust.
"I must beg your permission to remove these papers, mesdames. They are
required for the conference to which Mr Kyd will presently descend."
The women huddled together, stretching each an arm over the papers.
"Mr Kyd gave them into our charge," they said in one voice.
"He releases you from that charge," said Alastair. "Permit me, madam,"
and he laid a hand on the saddle-bag and began to re-fill it.
The women would have resisted had not the Spainneach stepped behind
them and murmured something into the lean one's ear. Whatever it was,
it caused her to draw back her protecting arm and bid her sister do
likewise. Alastair bundled the papers into the bag, and left the room
followed by two pairs of wolfish eyes. The Spainneach locked the door,
and left the key on the outside. "Best keep these wild cats fast in
their cave," he observed. "There might have been a tussle over that
treasure-trove, had I not remembered something I had heard of those
grey ones long ago. Now I go to find the servant Edom."
"When Kyd leaves his room see that the hall is empty. I will await him
in the dining-room. When I ring, do you and Hay enter and join us. Make
Edom wait at the meal with the servants you have provided."
"It is a noble meal which is now cooking," said the Spainneach. "Even
the miserly will spend themselves on a high occasion. It is the habit
of Madame Norreys to sup in her room, and that room is at the far end
of the house from us. She will not be disturbed if we grow merry."
Alastair sat himself by the fire in the great vaulted dining-room and
tore open the saddle-bag. He ran hastily through the papers, for he was
looking for what he knew to be there, and it did not take him long to
discard the irrelevant. Once or twice, as he found what he hoped and
yet feared to find, an exclamation was wrung from him. He selected
several documents and placed them in his breast, and re-read others
with set lips and a knotted forehead. Then he looked into the fire and
mused. . . .
Through the open door came the sound of a step on the paved floor of
the hall, a heavy, assured, leisurely step. The young man kicked the
saddle-bag under the table and stood erect by the hearth with an odd
smile on his face. Grimness had left it, and a wry courtesy remained.