"For what reason?"
"Because he is a traitor to my Prince."
"And yet you did not press for the death of the man Kyd, who was the
principal whereas Sir John was but the tool. Come, sir, be honest with
me; why is the extreme penalty decreed to the less guilty?"
Alastair did not answer at first. Then he said--
"Because Sir John Norreys is the husband of a lady to whom the
knowledge of his true nature would be death."
"That reply is nearer the truth, but still far from complete honesty."
Alastair had a sudden flame of wrath. "Do you accuse me of lying?" he
asked angrily.
Johnson's face did not change. "Sir, all men are liars," he said. "I
strive to make you speak truth to your own soul. The death of Sir John
is intended merely to save the lady from the pain of disgrace? On your
honour, for no other purpose?"
Alastair did not reply. The other sank his harsh voice to a gentler and
kindlier pitch, and the hand on the young man's arm from a menace
became a caress.
"I will answer for you. You love the lady. Nay, I do not blame you, for
all the world must love her. I love her most deeply, but not as you,
for you love with hope, and look some day to make her yours. Therefore
you would slay Sir John, and to yourself you say that 'tis to save her
from shame, but before God, you know that 'tis to rid yourself of a
rival."
The man's eyes were compelling, and his utter honesty was like a fire
that burned all shamefastness from the air. Alastair's silence was
assent.
"Sir, a lover seeks above all things the good of his mistress. If
indeed you love her--and it is honourable that you should--I implore
you to consider further in the matter. We are agreed that it is
necessary to save her from the shame of the knowledge of her husband's
treason, for it is a proud lady who would feel disgrace sharper than
death. If that were all, I would bid you god-speed, for Sir John's
death would serve that purpose, and you and she are fit mates, being
alike young and highly born. After the natural period of mourning was
over, you might fairly look to espouse her. But ah, sir, that is not
all."
He got to his feet in his eagerness and stood above the young man, one
hand splayed on the table, as he had stood that afternoon at the
Sleeping Deer.
"Listen, sir. I have watched that child in her going out and coming in,
in her joys and melancholies, in her every mood of caprice and
earnestness--watched with the quick eye of one who is half lover, half
parent. And I have formed most certain conclusions about that high
nature. She trusts but once and that wholly; she will love but once,
and that with a passion like a consuming fire. If she knew the truth
about Sir John, she would never trust mankind again. On that we are
agreed. But I go further, sir. If she lost him, she would never love
another, but go inconsolable to her grave. It is the way of certain
choice spirits."
Alastair made a gesture of dissent.
"Sir, did you not hear her singing?" Johnson asked. "Answer me, heard
you ever such a joy of surrender in a mortal voice?"
Alastair could not deny it, for the passionate trilling was still in
his ear.
"But your reasoning is flawed," he said. "Granted that my Lady Norreys
has given her love once and for all; yet if Sir John remain alive she
will presently discover his shame, and for the rest of her days be
tormented with honour wounded through affection."
"It need not be," said Johnson, and his voice had sunk to the level of
argument from the heights of appeal. "I have studied both of them
during the past weeks, and this is my conclusion. She has made a false
image of him which she adores, but unless the falsity be proved to the
world by some violent revelation she will not discover it. She is a
happy self-deceiver, and to the end--unless forcibly enlightened--will
take his common clay for gold. As for him--well, he is clay and not
gunpowder. He has been moulded into infamy by a stronger man and by his
ancestral greed--for, judging by the family here, his race is one of
misers. But let him be sufficiently alarmed and shown where his
interest lies, and he will relapse to the paths of decorum. Good he
will never be, little he must always be, but he may also be
respectable. He will not lose his halo in his lady's eyes and they may
live out their time happily, and if God wills some portion of the
mother's quality may descend to the children."
The thought to Alastair was hideously repellent. To whitewash such a
rogue and delude such a lady! Better surely a painful enlightenment
than this deceit. He comforted himself with the reflection that it was
impossible.
"But by this time Sir John Norreys is with his paymaster, and the
mischief is done."
"Not so," said Johnson. "Sir John does not ride to Kingston or to
Richmond but to Cumberland himself, and he lies far in the south. He
may yet be overtaken and dissuaded."
"By whom?"
"By you, sir."
Alastair laughed loud and bitterly.
"Are you mad, sir? I journey at once to the Prince's camp, for I have
news for him that may determine his future conduct. Already I am late
in starting. I must order my horse, and bid farewell to the ladies." He
moved to the door, and cried instructions to the Spainneach, who smoked
a cigarro by the hall fire.
Johnson seized him by the lapels of his coat. "I implore you, sir, by
the mercy of God. Follow Sir John and persuade him, compel him, at the
sword's point, if need be. The happiness of my darling child depends on
it. If you do not go, I must go myself. The Prince's news can wait, for
it will be only a few hours' delay at the most. What does it matter
whether or not he be in London a day earlier, compared to the
well-being of an immortal soul? I beseech you, sir, for the love of
Christ Who redeemed us----"
"Tush, man, you are raving," Alastair broke in, and moved to the
half-open door. At that moment the Duchess's voice sounded on the
stairs.
"Come up, sir," she said. "My lady will receive you before you go, and
she bids you bring the other, the clumsy fellow whose name I know not."
Duchess Kitty met him at the door of Claudia's chamber.
"Oh, my dear, she is the very archangel of angels, and of an innocence
to make one weep. She will come with me to Amesbury. She dotes on her
Sir John and will weary me, I fear, with her rhapsodies, but I am nobly
complaisant and flatter her passion. I fear you stand no chance, sir.
Her heart is wholly in the rogue's keeping. Enter, for she awaits you."
In the dim panelled room lit by many candles and a leaping fire the
figure of the girl sitting up in the great four-poster bed stood out
with a startling brilliance. Madam Claudia was dressed to receive him,
as she had been in the midnight colloquy at Flambury, in a furred
bed-gown and a nightcap of lace and pink satin. But her brown eyes were
no longer pools of dancing light. She held out a hand to Alastair with
a little sigh.
"I rejoice that you are free from your t-troubles, sir," she said.
"'Twas a shameful charge, and I did not credit it, nor truly did Sir
John. And justice, they tell me, has been done to the traitor! Sir John
was deceived like the rest of you, and 'tis a cunning rogue that can
hoodwink Sir John. You are at the end of your mission, sir, and can now
engage in the honest business of war."
"And for yourself, my lady?"
"I, too, take the road," she said. "You have heard of her G-grace's
kindness. I am fortunate to travel in such g-gentle company. So it is
farewell, sir. You ride this night to the Prince, who is at Derby? My
dear Sir John has preceded you there. Oh, would that I could be with
him!" And with a morsel of cambric she dried a rising tear.
"And you, Puffin," she asked, catching sight of Johnson. "Do you travel
south with us?"
"Nay, madam, I go with Captain Maclean to the Prince's camp."
"Bravo!" she cried. "You have declared yourself at last. God prosper
you, my gallant gentlemen. I will be there to cheer when you ride
behind the Prince into London."
Alastair was scarcely conscious of her words. He saw only her wild wet
eyes, compared to which those of the pretty Duchess were like pebbles
to stars. It was the child in her that overwhelmed him, the appealing
child, trusting utterly with no thought but that all the world was
well-disposed to her and her love. He had known many women in his time,
though none had touched his cold fancy, but he had never before seen
woman's face transfigured with so innocent an exaltation. The sadness
in it was only the anxiety of a soul that trembled for the perpetuation
of an unbelievable joy. He was nothing to her, nor was any man except
the one; the virgin garden of her heart was enclosed with impenetrable
defences. The truth moved him not to irritation, but to pity and a
protecting care. He could not mar a thing so rare, and if its
foundations were rotten he would be in league to strengthen them. For
the moment he was not the lover, but the guardian, who would perjure
his soul to keep alive a childish paradise.
He raised her hand and kissed it. "I am your very humble and devoted
servant," he said. And then she did a thing for which he was not
prepared, for with a little cry she put her hands over her eyes and
wept.
He hurried from the room without looking back. He had made a decision
which he found was like a dry patch of ground in the midst of rising
floods, for gathering from every corner of his soul were dark and
unplumbed tides.
* * * * * *
As he mounted, the Spainneach spoke: "He has gone by Milford and the
Ernshawbank. Likely he will sleep an hour or two at the Pegtop. You
might find him there if you haste."
Johnson's horse had also been brought, and its rider had some trouble
in mounting.
"You will delay me, sir, if you insist on keeping me company," said
Alastair.
"I am a strong rider when I am once in the saddle," said the other
humbly. "But why this hurry? You will be in Derby long ere daybreak."
"I do not ride to Derby, but down the vale to overtake a certain
gentleman."
He heard Johnson mutter a fervent "God be thanked" as he turned for a
last look at the house. In an upper floor there was a glow of firelight
and candlelight through the curtains of unshuttered windows. There lay
Claudia, stammering her gentle confidences to Duchess Kitty, but with
her thoughts ranging the hill-roads in the wake of her worthless lover.
And from one of those dark windows two grey beldams were peering into
the night and trembling for the riches that were the price of their
souls.
_XVII_ _Ordeal of Honour_
The night was growing colder, and the moon in her first quarter was
sinking among heavy woolpack clouds. The Spainneach's whisper had been
enough for Alastair, who in his sojourn at the Sleeping Deer had made
himself familiar with the neighbourhood, after the fashion of a
campaigner who may soon have to fight in it. The road led them past the
silent hostelry, and then left the vale and struck over a succession of
low ridges to another, where a parallel stream of the hills broadened
as it neared the lowlands. The men did not spare their horses, and, as
the hooves clattered on the bare ribs of rock which crossed the track
sparks like wildfire flew behind them.
Alastair's mood was as dark as the weather. The sight of Claudia,
babbling of her lover, had for a moment converted him to Johnson's
view. In a fine impulse of quixotry he had ridden from Brightwell, his
purpose vague towards Sir John Norreys but determined in the service of
the lady. If her love was pledged irrevocably to a knave and fool, then
be it his business to keep the said knave from greater folly, and see
that disillusion did not shatter a gentle heart. For a little he felt
the glow of self-conscious worth, and the pleasant melancholy which is
born of approving self-pity.
It did not last long. Visions of Claudia, dim-eyed, stammering, all
russet and snow, returned to ravish his fancy, and the picture of a
certain sharp-nosed gentleman to exacerbate his temper. Before God he
could not surrender such a darling, he would be no party to flinging
such a pearl before swine! His heart grew hot when he thought of Sir
John, the mean visage and hedge-hog soul. To condone his infamy would
be to sin against Heaven--to foster his lady's blind fondness the task
of a pander. Let the truth be told and the devil be shamed, for a
wounded heart was better than a slow decay.
Presently his mind had swung round to a new resolution. He would go
straight to Derby to the Prince, which was his direct soldierly duty.
He knew the road; the next left-hand turning would lead him there
before morning. He was already weeks, months late; he dared not tarry
another hour, for he alone knew the truth about the West, and that
truth might determine the Prince's strategy. True, His Highness was at
Derby now, and the Rubicon had been doubtless crossed, but in so great
a matter no precaution could be omitted. At that very moment Lochiel,
with his letter in his hand, might be looking in vain for the man who
had named Derby as the trysting-place. . . . He would sweep
southward with the Army to conquest, and then in their hour of triumph
would root Sir John from his traitor's kennel. The man must fight on
his challenge, and he had no doubt as to the issue of that fight.
But would he? Would he not disappear overseas, taking with him his wife
under some false story? If she were deceived in one matter, she might
be deceived in others. . . . No, by Heaven, there was no way of it
but the one. The fox must be found before he reached his earth, and
brought to account at a sword's point. Stone dead had no fellow.
The cross-roads lay before them where was the turning to Derby.
"There lies the Prince," said Alastair, his head over his left
shoulder. "My duty is to ride forthwith thither. I could breakfast in
the camp."
Johnson, though lacking a riding-coat, had grown warm with the
exercise, and both he and his mount were blowing.
"You would not falter in your most honourable resolve?" he puffed.
Alastair clapped spurs to his beast. "No," he said, "I am resolved
before all things to find Sir John Norreys. But when I find him I will
kill him."
He heard a gasp which was more than Mr Johnson's chronic shortness of
breath. As he cantered forward the slower and heavier beast of his
companion was forced alongside of him, and a hand clutched his arm.
"I beseech you, sir," said a tragic voice, "I pray you, in God's name,
to turn aside to Derby."
"I will first meet Sir John," was the reply and the hand was shaken off.
"But he will be safe at your hands?"
"That is as God may direct," said Alastair.
His resolution being now fixed, his spirits rose. He let thoughts of
Claudia flush his mind with their sweet radiance. He pictured her as he
had last seen her--the light from the candles making her slim white
neck below the rosy nightcap take on the bloom of a peach, and the
leaping flames of the hearth chequering the shadow of the bed-curtain.
He saw her dim eyes, heard her melting voice, felt the warm vigour of
her body as she cowered beside him in the dark of the Flambury
galleries. Too young for wife, too old for child, but the ripe age for
comrade--and such a comrade, for there was a boy's gallantry in her
eyes and something of a child's confident fearlessness. He did not hear
the groans of Mr Johnson pounding dismally behind him, or the
shuddering cry of owls from the woods. The world was a quiet place to
him where a soft voice was speaking, the thick darkness was all aglow
with happy pictures. The man's soul was enraptured by his dreams. He
found himself suddenly laughing to think how new and strange was this
mood of his. Hitherto he had kept women at arms' length, and set his
heart on policy and war, till he had earned the repute of one to be
trusted and courted, but one already at thirty middle-aged. Lord! but
there had been a melting of icebergs! And like a stab came the thought
of yet another molten iceberg--Sir John--of the sharp nose and the high
coat collar! Alastair cried out like a man in pain.
They rode into Milford half an hour after midnight. There was no light
in any house, and the inn was a black wall. But the door of the yard
was open, and a hostler, ascending to his bed in the hayloft, accepted
a shilling for his news. A man had ridden through Milford that night.
He had not seen him, but he had heard the clatter as he was bedding the
post horses that had come in late from Marlock. How long ago? Not more
than an hour, maybe less, and the fellow checked his memory with a
string of minute proofs.
Alastair swung his horse's head back to the road. "Courage, my friend,"
he cried. "We are gaining on him. We shall overtake him before morning."
Again Johnson caught his arm. "Bethink you, sir," he stammered. "You
ride on an errand of murder."
"Nay," was the answer, "of love."
But the next miles were over roads like ploughlands, and the rain blew
up from the south-west and set the teeth chattering of the cloakless Mr
Johnson. The night was very dark and the road seemed to pass no
villages, for not a light appeared in the wastes of wet ling and fern
and plashing woods. The track could be discerned well enough, for it
was the only possible route through the rugged land, and happily for
the riders there were no crossways. No other traveller met them or was
overtaken--which, thought Alastair, was natural, for with the Prince at
Derby the flight of the timid would be to the south, and not north or
west into the enemy's country.
Long before dawn he was far beyond the countryside of which he had any
knowledge. He had been given Ernshawbank by the Spainneach as the
second point to make for, and had assumed that there, if not before, he
would fall in with Sir John. Yet when he came to a village about
cockcrow, and learned from a sleepy carter that it was Ernshawbank, he
did not find his quarry. But at the inn he had news of him. A man
answering his description had knocked up the landlord two hours before,
drunk a gill of brandy, eaten a crust, and bought for a guinea the said
landlord's cocked grey beaver, new a month ago at Leek Fair. Two hours!
The man was gaining on him! It appeared that he had ridden the path for
lower Dovedale, as if he were making for Staffordshire and Trentside.
The two breakfasted at an ale house below Thorp Cloud, when a grey
December morning was breaking over the leafless vale and the swollen
waters of Dove. Their man had been seen, riding hard, with a face blue
from cold and wet, and his fine clothes pitifully draggled with the
rain. He had crossed the river, and was therefore bound for
Staffordshire, and not Nottinghamshire, as Alastair had at first
guessed. A minute's reflection convinced him of the reason. Sir John
was specially concerned with cutting off the help coming to the Prince
from the West, and therefore went to join those, like the Duke of
Kingston, who were on that flank, rather than the army which lay
between Derby and London. The reflection gave him acute uneasiness.
Nottinghamshire was distant, so there was a chance to overtake the
fugitive on the way. But, as it now was, any hour might see the man in
sanctuary. The next village might hold a patrol of the Duke's. . . .
He cut short the meal, which Mr Johnson had scarcely tasted, and the
two were again on their weary beasts pounding up the steep lanes
towards Ershalton and my lord Shrewsbury's great house.
The mist cleared, a wintry sun shone, and the sky was mottled with
patches of watery blue. Mr Johnson's teeth began to chatter so
violently that Alastair swung round and regarded him.
"You will without doubt catch an ague, sir," he said, and at the next
presentable inn he insisted on his toasting his small-clothes before
the kitchen fire, drinking a jorum of hot rum, and borrowing a coat of
the landlord's till his own was dry. For suddenly the panic of hurry
was gone out of Alastair, and he saw this business as something
predestined and ultimate. Fate was moving the pieces, and her iron
fingers did not fumble. If it was written that he and Sir John should
meet, then stronger powers than he would set the stage. He was amazed
at his own calm.
The rum made his companion drowsy, and as they continued on the road he
ceased to groan, and at the next halting-place did not stare at him
with plaintive hang-dog eyes. As for Alastair he found that his mind
had changed again and that all his resolution was fluid.
His hatred of the pursued was ebbing, indeed had almost vanished, for
with the sense of fatality which was growing upon him he saw the man as
no better than a pawn; a thing as impersonal as sticks and stones. All
the actors of the piece--Kyd, Norreys, the Spoonbills, Edom, the sullen
Johnson, grew in his picture small and stiff like marionettes, and
Claudia alone had the warmth of life. Once more she filled the stage of
his memory, but it was not the russet and pearl of her and her witching
eyes that held him now, but a tragic muse who appealed from the brink
of chasms. She implored his pity on all she loved, on the casket where
she had hid her heart.
With a start he recognised that this casket was no other than Sir John
Norreys.
He might shatter it and rescue the heart, but how would the precious
thing fare in the shattering? Her eyes rose before him with their
infinite surrender. Was Johnson right and was she of the race of women
that give once in life and then utterly and for ever? If so, his errand
was not to succour, but to slay. His sword would not cut the bonds of
youth and innocence, it would pierce their heart.
He forced his mind to reconstruct the three occasions when she had
faced him--not for his delectation, but to satisfy a new-born anxiety.
He saw her at Flambury, a girl afire with zeal and daring, sexless as a
child, and yet always in her sweet stumbling phrases harping on her
dear Sir John. He saw her in the Brown Room at the Sleeping Deer, a
tender muse of memories, but imperious towards dishonour, one whose
slim grace might be brittle but would not bend. Last he saw her set up
in the great bed at Brightwell, one arm round the neck of Duchess
Kitty, the other stretched towards him in that woman's appeal which had
held him from Derby and the path of duty.
There is that in hard riding and hard weather which refines a man's
spirit, purging it of its grosser humours. The passion of the small
hours had gone utterly from Alastair, and instead his soul was filled
with a tempestuous affection, not of a lover but of a kinsman and
protector. The child must at all costs be sheltered from sorrow, and if
she pined for her toy it must be found for her, its cracks mended and
its paint refurbished. His mood was now the same as Johnson's, his
resolution the same. He felt an odd pleasure in this access of
tenderness, but he was conscious, too, that the pleasure was like a
thin drift of flowers over dark mires of longing and sorrow. For his
world had been tumbled down, and all the castles he had built. He had
always been homeless, but now he was a thousandfold more an outlaw, for
the one thing on earth he desired was behind him and not before him,
and he was fleeing from hope.
In the afternoon the rain descended again and the road passed over a
wide heath, which had been blackened by some autumn fire so that the
shores of its leaden pools were like charcoal, and skeleton coverts
shook their charred branches in the wind. The scene was a desolation,
but he viewed it with calm eyes, for a strange peace was creeping into
his soul. He turned in the saddle, and saw six yards behind him Johnson
jogging wearily along, his heavy shoulders bowed and his eyes fixed
dully on his horse's neck. The man must be near the limits of his
strength, he thought. . . . Once again he had one of his sudden
premonitions. Sir John Norreys was close at hand, for he had not yet
stopped for a meal and he had now been on the road for twelve hours.
The conviction grew upon him, and made him urge his tired beast to a
better pace. Somewhere just in front was the meeting-place where the
ordeal was appointed which should decree the fate of two souls. . . .
The drizzle changed into half a gale, and scouring blasts shut out the
landscape. There came a moment's clearing, and lo! before him lay a
bare space in the heath, where another road entered from the west to
join the highway. At their meeting, set in a grove of hornbeams, stood
an inn.