Richard Vont, as though he had been sitting there listening for the
raising of the latch, was on his feet before David could enter the
sitting room.
"The Lord's day has come," he muttered, dragging him in. "It's been a
weary while, but it's come."
David threw off his overcoat in silence, and the old man looked
wonderingly at his clothes.
"You've been taking your dinner up with them--at the house?" he asked.
David nodded.
"Yes," he assented. "Your note found me there. I came as soon as I
could."
"I never doubted ye," the old man muttered. "I knew you'd come."
David, suddenly stifled, threw open the cottage window. When he came
back into the little circle of lamp-light, his face was pale and set.
He was filled with a premonition of evil.
"I want you to listen to me, uncle," he said earnestly. "I have
something to say."
"Something to say?" the old man repeated. "Another time, my
boy---another time. To-night you have work to do," he added, with a
fierce flash of triumph in his eyes.
"Work?"
"Aye!--to keep your oath."
"But to-night? What can I do to-night?" David exclaimed. "No, don't
tell me," he went on quickly. "I'll have my say first."
"Get on with it, then. There's time. I'm listening."
"I have forgotten nothing," David began, "I am denying nothing. I
remember even the words of the oath I swore."
"With your hand upon the Bible," Vont interrupted eagerly,--"your hand
upon the Book."
David shivered.
"I am not likely to forget that night," he said. "What I swore we both
know. Well? I have begun to keep my word. You know that."
"Aye, and to-night you'll finish it!" Vont cried, with uplifted head.
"After to-night you'll be quit of your oath, and you can go free of me.
I've made it all easy for you. It's all planned out."
"I must finish what I have to say," David insisted. "It's been on my
mind like lead. He's a ruined man, uncle--beggared to the last penny.
I've dishonoured myself, but I've done it--for your sake. Beyond that
I cannot go."
"You cannot go?" Vont muttered blankly.
"I cannot. I don't know what this scheme of yours is, uncle, but leave
me out of it. I'm in Hell already!"
"You think--"
Vont was breathing heavily. The words suddenly failed him, his fingers
seemed to grip the air. David had a momentary shock of terror. Then,
before he could stop him, the old man was down upon his knees, holding
him by the legs, his upraised face horrible with a new storm of passion.
"David, you'll not back out! You'll not break that oath you swore when
I lent you the money--all my savings! And it might have gone wrong,
you know. It might have beggared me. But I risked it for this! You
don't know what I've been through. I tell you there isn't a night,
from darkness till nigh the dawn, I haven't toiled with these hands,
toiled while the sweat's run off my forehead and my breath's gone from
me. And I've done it! I've made all ready for you--and to-night--it's
to-night, boy! If you go back on me, David, as sure as that Book's the
truth, you shall know what it is to feel like a murderer, for I'll sit
and face you, and I'll die! I mean it. As God hears me at this
moment, I mean it. If you falter to-night, you shall find me dead
to-morrow, and if it blackens my lips, I'll die cursing you as well as
him--you for your softness because they've flattered you round, him
because he still lives, with the wrong he did me unpunished."
David dragged him up by sheer force and pushed him back into his chair.
"What is it you want me to do?" he asked in despair.
"You can't refuse me," Vont went on, his voice strong enough now.
"Watch me and listen," he added, leaning forward. "There's my hand on
the Book. Here's my right hand to Heaven, and I swear by the living
God that if you fail me, you shall find me to-morrow, sitting dead.
That's what your broken oath will do."
"Oh, I hear," David answered drearily. "I'll keep my word. Come, what
is it?"
Vont rose deliberately to his feet. All trace of passion seemed to
have disappeared. He took an electric torch from his pocket and led
the way to the door.
"Just follow me," he whispered.
They made their way down the little tiled path to the bottom of the
garden. In the right-hand corner was what seemed to be the top of a
well.
"You remember that, perhaps?"
David nodded.
"I know," he said. "I used to play down there once."
Vont rolled the top away, and, stooping down, flashed the light. There
were stone steps leading to a small opening, and at the bottom the
mouth of what seemed to be a tunnel. David started.
"It's one of the secret passages to Mandeleys!" he exclaimed.
"There are seven of them somewhere," his uncle replied, in a hoarse
undertone--"one, they say, from Broomleys, but that's too far, and the
air would be too foul, and maybe it don't lead where I want it to.
I've made air-holes along this, David. You take the torch, and you
make your way. There's nothing to stop you. It's dry--I've sprinkled
sand in places--and there's air, too. When you come to the end there's
a door. Four nights it took me to move that door. It's wide open now.
Then you mount a little flight of stairs. They go round and round, and
at the top there's a little stone landing. You'll see before you what
seems to be blank wall. You press your palms on it--so--and soon you
find an iron handle. It'll turn easy--I've oiled it well--and you step
right into the room."
"What room?" David demanded, in bewilderment.
The old man's fingers clutched his arm.
"Into the bedchamber of the Lady Letitia Mandeleys!" he proclaimed
triumphantly. "Keep your voice low, boy. Remember we are out of
doors."
"Into the--! Are you mad, uncle?" David muttered, catching at his
voice as though it were some loose quality that had escaped from him.
"There's never a saner man in this county," was the fierce reply.
"It's what I've worked for. It's the worst blow I can deal his pride.
Oh, I know she is a haughty lady! You'll step into her chamber, and
she'll see you, and she'll shriek for her servants, but--but, David,"
he added, leaning forward, "they'll find you there--they'll find you
there! The Marquis--he'll be told. The nephew of Richard Vont will be
found in his daughter's chamber! There'll be explanations enough, but
those things stick."
David suddenly found himself laughing like a madman.
"Uncle," he cried, "for God's sake--for Heaven's sake, listen to me.
This is the maddest scheme that ever entered into any one's head. I
should be treated simply like a common burglar. I should have no
excuse to offer, nothing to say. I should be thrown out of the house,
and there isn't a human being breathing who'd think the worse of the
Lady Letitia. You don't know what she's like! She's wonderful!
She's--"
"I'll not argue with you, boy," Vont interrupted doggedly. "You think
I know nothing of the world and its ways, of the tale-bearing and the
story-telling that goes on, women backbiting each other, men grasping
even at shadows for a sensation. You'll do your job, David, you'll
keep your oath, and from to-night you'll stand free of me. There'll be
no more. You can lift your head again after you've crossed that
threshold. Make what excuse you like--come back, if you will, like a
frightened hare after they've found you there--but you'll have stood in
her bedchamber!"
David shivered like a man in a fever. He was beginning to realise that
this was no nightmare--that the wild-eyed man by his side was in sober
and ghastly earnest.
"Uncle," he pleaded, "not this. Lady Letitia has been kind and
gracious to me always. We can't strike through women. I'd rather you
bade me take his life."
"But I don't bid you do anything of the sort," was the sullen reply.
"Death's no punishment to any man, and the like of him's too brave to
feel the fear of it. It's through her the blow must come, and you'll
do my bidding, David, or you'll see me sitting waiting for you
to-morrow, with a last message to you upon my dead lips."
David gripped the torch from his hand. After all, Hell might come to
any man!
"I'll go," he said.
It was a nightmare that followed. Stooping only a little, flashing his
torch always in front, he half ran, half scrambled along a paved way,
between paved walls which even the damp of centuries seemed scarcely to
have entered. Soon the path descended steeply and then rose on the
other side of the moat. Once a rat paused to look at him with eyes
gleaming like diamonds, and bolted at the flash of the torch. More
than once he fancied that he heard footsteps echoing behind him. He
paused to listen. There was nothing. He lost sense of time or
distance. He stole on, dreading the end--and the end came sooner even
than he had feared. There was the door that yielded easily to his
touch, the steep steps round and round the interior of the tower, the
blank wall before him. The iron handle was there. His hands closed
upon it. For a moment he stood in terrible silence. This was
something worse than death! Then he set his teeth firmly, pressed the
handle and stepped through the wall.
Afterwards it seemed to him that there must have been something
mortally terrifying in his own appearance as he stood there with his
back to the wall and his eyes fixed upon the solitary occupant of the
room. Lady Letitia, in a blue dressing gown, was lying upon a couch
drawn up before a small log fire. There seemed to be no detail of the
room which in those sickening moments of mental absorption was not
photographed into his memory. The old four-poster bedstead, hung with
chintz; the long, black dressing table, once a dresser, covered
carelessly with tortoise-shell backed toilet articles, with a large
mirror in the centre from which a chair had just been pushed back.
But, above all, that look in her face, from which every other
expression seemed to have permanently fled. Her lips were parted, her
eyes were round with horrified surprise. The book which she had been
reading slipped from her fingers and fell noiselessly on to the
hearth-rug. She sat up, supporting herself with her hands, one on
either side, pressed into the sofa. She seemed denied the power of
speech, almost as he was. And then a sudden wonderful change came to
him. He spoke quite distinctly, although he kept his voice low.
"Lady Letitia," he said, "let me explain. I shall never ask for your
forgiveness. I shall never venture to approach you again. I have come
here by the secret passage from Vont's cottage. I have come here to
keep an oath which I swore in America to Richard Vont, and I have come
because, if I had broken my word, he would have killed himself."
He spoke with so little emotion, so reasonably, that she found herself
answering him, notwithstanding her bewilderment, almost in the same key.
"But who are you?" she demanded. "Who are you to be the slave of that
old man?"
"I am his nephew," David answered. "I am the little boy who played
about the park when you were a girl, who picked you up on the ice once
when you fell. All that I have I owe to Richard Vont. He sent me to
college. He lent me the money upon which I built my fortune, but on
the day he lent it to me he made me swear a terrible oath, and to-night
he has forced me to keep it by setting foot within your chamber. Now I
shall return the way I came, and may God grant that some day you will
forgive me."
Almost as he spoke there was a little click behind. He started round
and felt along the wall. There was a moment's silence. Then he turned
once more towards Letitia, his cheeks whiter than ever, his sunken eyes
filled with a new horror. Even the composure which had enabled him to
explain his coming with some show of reason, had deserted him. He
seemed threatened with a sort of hysteria.
"He followed me! Damn him, he followed me!" he muttered. "I heard
footsteps. He has fastened us in!"
He tore desperately at the tapestry, shook the concealed door and
rattled it, in vain. Letitia rose slowly to her feet.
"You see what has happened," she said. "Richard Vont was more cunning
than you. He was not content that you should make your little speech
and creep back amongst the rats. Tell me, what do you propose to do?"
He looked around him helplessly.
"There is the window," he muttered.
She shook her head.
"We are on the second story," she told him, "and there is nothing to
break your fall upon the flags below. To be found with a broken neck
beneath my window would be almost as bad as anything that could happen."
"I am not afraid to try," he declared.
He moved towards the window. She crossed the room swiftly and
intercepted him.
"Don't be absurd," she admonished. "Come, let us think. There must be
a way."
"Let me out of your room on to the landing," he begged eagerly. "If I
can reach the hall it will be all right. I can find a window open, or
hide somewhere. Only, for God's sake," he added, his voice breaking,
"let me out of this room!"
A flash of her old manner came back to her.
"I am sorry you find it so unattractive," she said. "I thought it
rather pretty myself. And blue, after all, is my colour, you know,
although I don't often wear it."
"Oh, bless you!" he exclaimed. "Bless you, Lady Letitia, for speaking
to me as though I were a human being. Now I am going to steal out of
that door on tiptoe."
"Wait till I have listened there," she whispered.
She stole past him and stooped down with her ear to the keyhole. She
frowned for a moment and held out her hand warningly. It seemed to him
that he could feel his heart beating. Close to where he was standing,
her silk stockings were hanging over the back of a chair.--He suddenly
closed his eyes, covered them desperately with the palms of his hand.
Her warning finger was still extended.
"That was some one passing," she said. "I don't understand why. They
all came to bed some time ago. Stay where you are and don't move."
They both listened. David seemed in those few minutes to have lost all
the composure which had become the habit of years. His heart was
beating madly. He was shaking as though with intense cold. Lady
Letitia, on the other hand, seemed almost unruffled. Only he fancied
that at the back of her eyes there was something to which as yet she
had given no expression, something which terrified him. Then, as they
stood there, neither of them daring to move, there came a sudden awful
sound. It had seemed to him that the world could hold no greater
horror than he was already suffering, but the sound to which they
listened was paralysing, hideous, stupefying. With hoarse, brazen
note, rusty and wheezy, yet pulled as though with some desperate
clutch, the great alarm bell which hung over the courtyard was tolling
its dreadful summons.
Letitia stood up, her cheeks ghastly pale. She, too, was struggling
now for composure.
"Really," she exclaimed, "this is an evening full of incidents.--Don't
touch me," she added. "I shall be all right directly."
For a single moment he knew that she had nearly fainted. She caught at
the side of the wall. Then they heard a cry from outside. A spark
flew past the window. A hoarse voice from somewhere below shouted
"Fire!" And then something more alarming still. All down the
corridor, doors were thrown open. There was the sound of eager
voices--finally a loud knocking at the door which they were guarding.
Letitia shrugged her shoulders.
"This," she murmured, "is fate."
She opened the door. There was a little confused group outside. The
Marquis, fully dressed, stood with his eyes fixed upon Thain at first
in blank astonishment,--afterwards as one who looks upon some horrible
thing. Grantham in a dressing gown, took a quick step forward.
"My God, it's Thain!" he exclaimed. "What in hell's name--?"
Letitia turned towards her father.
"Father," she began--
The Marquis made no movement, yet she was suddenly aware of something
in his expression, something which shone more dimly in the face of her
aunt, which throbbed in Grantham's incoherent words. Her brave little
speech died away. She staggered. The Marquis still made no movement.
It was David who caught her in his arms and carried her to the couch.
He turned and faced them. In the background, Sylvia was clinging to
Grantham's arm.
"You gibbering fools!" he cried. "What if an accursed chance has
brought me here! Isn't she Lady Letitia, your daughter, Marquis?
Isn't she your betrothed, Grantham? Your niece, Duchess? Do you think
that anything but the rankest and most accursed accident could ever
have brought me within reach even of her fingers?"
No one spoke. The faces into which he looked seemed to David like a
hideous accusation. Suddenly Gossett's voice was heard from behind.
"The fire is nothing, your lordship. It is already extinguished. Some
one seems to have brought some blazing brambles and thrown them into
the courtyard."
"Get some water, you fools!" Thain shouted. "Can't you see that she is
faint?"
The Duchess began to collect herself. She advanced further into the
room in search of restoratives. The Marquis came a step nearer to
Thain.
"Tell me how you found your way into this room, sir?" he demanded.
"By the foulest means on God's earth," Thain answered. "I came through
the secret passage from Vont's cottage."
"Without Lady Letitia's knowledge, I presume?" Grantham interposed
hoarsely.
"No one but a cad would have asked such a question," David thundered.
"I broke into her room, meaning to deliver one brief message and to go
back again. Vont followed me and fastened the door.--Can't you read
the story?" he added, turning appealingly to the Marquis. "Don't you
know who I am? I am Vont's nephew, the boy who played about here years
ago. I lived with him in America. He paid for my education at
Harvard; he lent me the money to make my first venture. He has been
all the relative I ever had. Out there I pledged my word blindly to
help him in his revenge upon you, Marquis, in whatever manner he might
direct. To-night he sprung this upon me. I was face to face with my
word of honour, and the certainty that if I refused to fulfil my pledge
he would kill himself before morning. So I came. It was he who rang
the alarm bell, he who planned the pretence of a fire to trap me here.
This was to be his vengeance.--Be reasonable. Don't take this
miserable affair seriously. God knows what I have suffered, these last
few minutes!"
Letitia sat up, revived. She was still very pale, and there was
something terrible in her face.
"For heaven's sake," she begged, "bring this wretched melodrama to an
end. Turn that poor man out," she added, pointing to David. "His
story is quite true."
Every one had gone except the Marquis and Grantham. Neither of them
spoke for several moments. Then the Marquis, as though he were awaking
from a dream, moved to the door, opened it and beckoned to David.
"Will you follow me," he invited.
Very slowly they passed along the great corridor, down the broad stairs
and into the hall. The Marquis led the way to the front door and
opened it. Neither had spoken. To Thain, every moment was a moment of
agony. The Marquis held the door open and stood on one side. David
realised that he was expected to depart without a word.
"There is nothing more I can say?" he faltered despairingly.
The Marquis stood upon his own threshold. He spoke slowly and with a
curious lack of expression.
"Nothing. It is the times that are to blame. We open our houses and
offer our hospitality to servants and the sons of servants, and we
expect them to understand our code. We are very foolish.--Since you
have broken this silence, let me spare myself the necessity of further
words. If your contrition is genuine, you will break the lease of
Broomleys and depart from this neighbourhood without further delay. My
agent will wait upon you."
Without haste, yet before any reply was possible, the Marquis had
closed the great door. David was once more in the darkness, staggering
as though his knees would give way. The avenue stretched unevenly
before him. He started off towards Broomleys.