With the possible exception of her ladyship, I do not think that there
was much sleep that night at Monsanto for any of the four chief actors
in this tragicomedy. Each had his own preoccupations. Sylvia’s we
know. Mr. Butler found his leg troubling him again, and the pain of
the reopened wound must have prevented him from sleeping even had his
anxieties about his immediate future not sufficed to do so. As for Sir
Terence, his was the most deplorable case of all. This man who had lived
a life of simple and downright honesty in great things and in small, a
man who had never stooped to the slightest prevarication, found
himself suddenly launched upon the most horrible and infamous course of
duplicity to encompass the ruin of another. The offence of that other
against himself might be of the most foul and hideous, a piece of
treachery that only treachery could adequately avenge; yet this
consideration was not enough to appease the clamours of Sir Terence’s
self-respect.
In the end, however, the primary desire for vengeance and vengeance of
the bitterest kind proved master of his mind. Captain Tremayne had been
led by his villainy into a coil that should presently crush him, and Sir
Terence promised himself an infinite balm for his outraged honour in the
entertainment which the futile struggles of the victim should provide.
With Captain Tremayne lay the cruel choice of submitting in tortured
silence to his fate, or of turning craven and saving his miserable
life by proclaiming himself a seducer and a betrayer. It should be
interesting to observe how the captain would decide, and his punishment
was certain whatever the decision that he took.
Sir Terence came to breakfast in the open, grey-faced and haggard, but
miraculously composed for a man who had so little studied the art
of concealing his emotions. Voice and glance were calm as he gave a
good-morning to his wife and to Miss Armytage.
“What are you going to do about Ned?” was one of his wife’s first
questions.
It took him aback. He looked askance at her, marvelling at the
steadiness with which she bore his glance, until it occurred to him that
effrontery was an essential part of the equipment of all harlots.
“What am I going to do?” he echoed. “Why, nothing. The matter is out of
my hands. I may be asked to give evidence; I may even be called to sit
upon the court-martial that will try him. My evidence can hardly assist
him. My conclusions will naturally be based upon the evidence that is
laid before the court.”
Her teaspoon rattled in her saucer. “I don’t understand you, Terence.
Ned has always been your best friend.”
“He has certainly shared everything that was mine.”
“And you know,” she went on, “that he did not kill Samoval.”
“Indeed?” His glance quickened a little. “How should I know that?”
“Well... I know it, anyway.”
He seemed moved by that statement. He leaned forward with an odd
eagerness, behind which there was something terrible that went
unperceived by her.
“Why did you not say so before? How do you know? What do you know?”
“I am sure that he did not.”
“Yes, yes. But what makes you so sure? Do you possess some knowledge
that you have not revealed?”
He saw the colour slowly shrinking from her cheeks under his burning
gaze. So she was not quite shameless then, after all. There were limits
to her effrontery.
“What knowledge should I possess?” she filtered.
“That is what I am asking.”
She made a good recovery. “I possess the knowledge that you should
possess yourself,” she told him. “I know Ned for a man incapable of such
a thing. I am ready to swear that he could not have done it.”
“I see: evidence as to character.” He sank back into his chair and
thoughtfully stirred his chocolate. “It may weigh with the court. But I
am not the court, and my mere opinions can do nothing for Ned Tremayne.”
Her ladyship looked at him wildly. “The court?” she cried. “Do you mean
that I shall have to give evidence?”
“Naturally,” he answered. “You will have to say what you saw.”
“But--but I saw nothing.”
“Something, I think.”
“Yes; but nothing that can matter.”
“Still the court will wish to hear it and perhaps to examine you upon
it.”
“Oh no, no!” In her alarm she half rose, then sank again to her chair.
“You must keep me out of this, Terence. I couldn’t--I really couldn’t.”
He laughed with an affectation of indulgence, masking something else.
“Why,” he said, “you would not deprive Tremayne of any of the advantages
to be derived from your testimony? Are you not ready to bear witness as
to his character? To swear that from your knowledge of the man you are
sure he could not have done such a thing? That he is the very soul of
honour, a man incapable of anything base or treacherous or sly?”
And then at last Sylvia, who had been watching them, and seeking to
apply to what she heard the wild expressions that Sir Terence had used
to herself last night, broke into the conversation.
“Why do you apply these words to Captain Tremayne?” she asked.
He turned sharply to meet the opposition he detected in her. “I don’t
apply them. On the contrary, I say that, as Una knows, they are not
applicable.”
“Then you make an unnecessary statement, a statement that has nothing to
do with the case. Captain Tremayne has been arrested for killing Count
Samoval in a duel. A duel may be a violation of the law as recently
enacted by Lord Wellington, but it is not an offence against honour; and
to say that a man cannot have fought a duel because a man is incapable
of anything base or treacherous or sly is just to say a very foolish and
meaningless thing.”
“Oh, quite so,” the adjutant, admitted. “But if Tremayne denies having
fought, if he shelters himself behind a falsehood, and says that he has
not killed Samoval, then I think the statement assumes some meaning.”
“Does Captain Tremayne say that?” she asked him sharply.
“It is what I understood him to say last night when I ordered him under
arrest.”
“Then,” said Sylvia, with full conviction, “Captain Tremayne did not do
it.”
“Perhaps he didn’t,” Sir Terence admitted. “The court will no doubt
discover the truth. The truth, you know, must prevail,” and he looked at
his wife again, marking the fresh signs of agitation she betrayed.
Mullins coming to set fresh covers, the conversation was allowed to
lapse. Nor was it ever resumed, for at that moment, with no other
announcement save such as was afforded by his quick step and the
click-click of his spurs, a short, slight man entered the quadrangle
from the doorway of the official wing.
The adjutant, turning to look, caught his breath suddenly in an
exclamation of astonishment.
“Lord Wellington!” he cried, and was immediately on his feet.
At the exclamation the new-comer checked and turned. He wore a plain
grey undress frock and white stock, buckskin breeches and lacquered
boots, and he carried a riding-crop tucked under his left arm. His
features were bold and sternly handsome; his fine eyes singularly
piercing and keen in their glance; and the sweep of those eyes now took
in not merely the adjutant, but the spread table and the ladies seated
before it. He halted a moment, then advanced quickly, swept his cocked
hat from a brown head that was but very slightly touched with grey, and
bowed with a mixture of stiffness and courtliness to the ladies.
“Since I have intruded so unwittingly, I had best remain to make my
apologies,” he said. “I was on my way to your residential quarters,
O’Moy, not imagining that I should break in upon your privacy in this
fashion.”
O’Moy with a great deference made haste to reassure him on the score of
the intrusion, whilst the ladies themselves rose to greet him. He bore
her ladyship’s hand to his lips with perfunctory courtesy, then insisted
upon her resuming her chair. Then he bowed--ever with that mixture of
stiffness and deference--to Miss Armytage upon her being presented to
him by the adjutant.
“Do not suffer me to disturb you,” he begged them. “Sit down, O’Moy. I
am not pressed, and I shall be monstrous glad of a few moments’ rest.
You are very pleasant here,” and he looked about the luxuriant garden
with approving eyes.
Sir Terence placed the hospitality of his table at his lordship’s
disposal. But the latter declined graciously.
“A glass of wine and water, if you will. No more. I breakfasted at
Torres Vedras with Fletcher.” Then to the look of astonishment on the
faces of the ladies he smiled. “Oh yes,” he assured them, “I was early
astir, for time is very precious just at present, which is why I drop
unannounced upon you from the skies, O’Moy.” He took the glass that
Mullins proffered on a salver, sipped from it, and set it down.
“There is so much vexation, so much hindrance from these pestilential
intriguers here in Lisbon, that I have thought it as well to come in
person and speak plainly to the gentlemen of the Council of Regency.” He
was peeling off his stout riding-gloves as he spoke. “If this campaign
is to go forward at all, it will go forward as I dispose. Then, too, I
wanted to see Fletcher and the works. By gad, O’Moy, he has performed
miracles, and I am very pleased with him--oh, and with you too. He told
me how ably you have seconded him and counselled him where necessary.
You must have worked night and day, O’Moy.” He sighed. “I wish that I
were as well served in every direction.” And then he broke off abruptly.
“But this is monstrous tedious for your ladyship, and for you, Miss
Armytage. Forgive me.”
Her ladyship protested the contrary, professing a deep interest
in military matters, and inviting his lordship to continue. Lord
Wellington, however, ignoring the invitation, turned the conversation
upon life in Lisbon, inquiring hopefully whether they found the place
afforded them adequate entertainment.
“Indeed yes,” Lady O’Moy assured him. “We are very gay at times. There
are private theatricals and dances, occasionally an official ball, and
we are promised picnics and water-parties now that the summer is here.”
“And in the autumn, ma’am, we may find you a little hunting,” his
lordship promised them. “Plenty of foxes; a rough country, though;
but what’s that to an Irishwoman?” He caught the quickening of Miss
Armytage’s eye. “The prospect interests you, I see.”
Miss Armytage admitted it, and thus they made conversation for a while,
what time the great soldier sipped his wine and water to wash the dust
of his morning ride from his throat. When at last he set down an empty
glass Sir Terence took this as the intimation of his readiness to deal
with official matters, and, rising, he announced himself entirely at his
lordship’s service.
Lord Wellington claimed his attention for a full hour with the details
of several matters that are not immediately concerned with this
narrative. Having done, he rose at last from Sir Terence’s desk, at
which he had been sitting, and took up his riding-crop and cocked hat
from the chair where he had placed them.
“And now,” he said, “I think I will ride into Lisbon and endeavour to
come to an understanding with Count Redondo and Don Miguel Forjas.”
Sir Terence advanced to open the door. But Wellington checked him with a
sudden sharp inquiry.
“You published my order against duelling, did you not?”
“Immediately upon receiving it, sir.”
“Ha! It doesn’t seem to have taken long for the order to be infringed,
then.” His manner was severe, his eyes stern. Sir Terence was conscious
of a quickening of his pulses. Nevertheless his answer was calmly
regretful:
“I am afraid not.”
The great man nodded. “Disgraceful! I heard of it from Fletcher this
morning. Captain What’s-his-name had just reported himself under arrest,
I understand, and Fletcher had received a note from you giving the
grounds for this. The deplorable part of these things is that they
always happen in the most troublesome manner conceivable. In Berkeley’s
case the victim was a nephew of the Patriarch’s. Samoval, now, was a
person of even greater consequence, a close friend of several members
of the Council. His death will be deeply resented, and may set up fresh
difficulties. It is monstrous vexatious.” And abruptly he asked “What
did they quarrel about?”
O’Moy trembled, and his glance avoided the other’s gimlet eye. “The only
quarrel that I am aware of between them,” he said, “was concerned with
this very enactment of your lordship’s. Samoval proclaimed it infamous,
and Tremayne resented the term. Hot words passed between them, but
the altercation was allowed to go no further at the time by myself and
others who were present.”
His lordship had raised his brows. “By gad, sir,” he ejaculated, “there
almost appears to be some justification for the captain. He was one of
your military secretaries, was he not?”
“He was.”
“Ha! Pity! Pity!” His lordship was thoughtful for a moment. Then he
dismissed the matter. “But then orders are orders, and soldiers must
learn to obey implicitly. British soldiers of all degrees seem to find
the lesson difficult. We must inculcate it more sternly, that is all.”
O’Moy’s honest soul was in torturing revolt against the falsehoods he
had implied--and to this man of all men, to this man whom he reverenced
above all others, who stood to him for the very fount of military honour
and lofty principle! He was in such a mood that one more question on
the subject from Wellington and the whole ghastly truth must have come
pouring from his lips. But no other question came. Instead his lordship
turned on the threshold and held out his hand.
“Not a step farther, O’Moy. I’ve left you a mass of work, and you are
short of a secretary. So don’t waste any of your time on courtesies. I
shall hope still to find the ladies in the garden so that I may take my
leave without inconveniencing them.”
And he was gone, stepping briskly with clicking spurs, leaving O’Moy
hunched now in his chair, his body the very expression of the dejection
that filled his soul.
In the garden his lordship came upon Miss Armytage alone, still seated
by the table under the trellis, from which the cloth had by now been
removed. She rose at his approach and in spite of gesture to her to
remain seated.
“I was seeking Lady O’Moy,” said he, “to take my leave of her. I may not
have the pleasure of coming to Monsanto again.”
“She is on the terrace, I think,” said Miss Armytage. “I will find her
for your lordship.”
“Let us find her together,” he said amiably, and so turned and went with
her towards the archway. “You said your name is Armytage, I think?” he
commented.
“Sir Terence said so.”
His eyes twinkled. “You possess an exceptional virtue,” said he. “To be
truthful is common; to be accurate rare. Well, then, Sir Terence said
so. Once I had a great friend of the name of Armytage. I have lost sight
of him these many years. We were at school together in Brussels.”
“At Monsieur Goubert’s,” she surprised him by saying. “That would be
John Armytage, my uncle.”
“God bless my soul, ma’am!” he ejaculated. “But I gathered you were
Irish, and Jack Armytage came from Yorkshire.”
“My mother is Irish, and we live in Ireland now. I was born there. But
father, none the less, was John Armytage’s brother.”
He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight, supple
lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His lordship, remember,
never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine woman. “So you’re Jack
Armytage’s niece. Give me news of him, my dear.”
She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a
rich marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at
Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood
friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no opportunity
to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the niece. Her own
personal charms may have contributed to it, for the great soldier was
intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty.
They reached the terrace. Lady O’Moy was nowhere in sight. But Lord
Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be troubled.
“My dear,” he said, “if I can serve you at any time, both for Jack’s
sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it.”
She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go, arguing a
sudden agitation.
“You tempt me, sir,” she said, with a wistful smile.
“Then yield to the temptation, child,” he urged her kindly, those keen,
penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here.
“It isn’t for myself,” she responded. “Yet there is something I would
ask you if I dare--something I had intended to ask you in any case if I
could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is why I was waiting there
in the garden just now. It was to waylay you. I hoped for a word with
you.”
“Well, well,” he encouraged her. “It should be the easier now, since in
a sense we find that we are old friends.”
He was so kind, so gentle, despite that stern, strong face of his, that
she melted at once to his persuasion.
“It is about Lieutenant Richard Butler,” she began.
“Ah,” said he lightly, “I feared as much when you said it was not for
yourself you had a favour to ask.”
But, looking at him, she instantly perceived how he had misunderstood
her.
“Mr. Butler,” she said, “is the officer who was guilty of the affair at
Tavora.”
He knit his brow in thought. “Butler-Tavora?” he muttered questioningly.
Suddenly his memory found what it was seeking. “Oh yes, the violated
nunnery.” His thin lips tightened; the sternness of his ace increased.
“Yes?” he inquired, but the tone was now forbidding.
Nevertheless she was not deterred. “Mr. Butler is Lady O’Moy’s brother,”
she said.
He stared a moment, taken aback. “Good God! Ye don’t say so, child! Her
brother! O’Moy’s brother-in-law! And O’Moy never said a word to me about
it.
“What should he say? Sir Terence himself pledged his word to the Council
of Regency that Mr. Butler would be shot when taken.”
“Did he, egad!” He was still further surprised out of his sternness.
“Something of a Roman this O’Moy in his conception of duty! Hum! The
Council no doubt demanded this?”
“So I understand, my lord. Lady O’Moy, realising her brother’s grave
danger, is very deeply troubled.”
“Naturally,” he agreed. “But what can I do, Miss Armytage? What were the
actual facts, do you happen to know?”
She recited them, putting the case bravely for the scapegrace Mr.
Butler, dwelling particularly upon the error under which he was
labouring, that he had imagined himself to be knocking at the gates of
a monastery of Dominican friars, that he had broken into the convent
because denied admittance, and because he suspected some treacherous
reason for that denial.
He heard her out, watching her with those keen eyes of his the while.
“Hum! You make out so good a case for him that one might almost believe
you instructed by the gentleman himself. Yet I gather that nothing has
since been heard of him?”
“Nothing, sir, since he vanished from Tavora, nearly, two months ago.
And I have only repeated to your lordship the tale that was told by the
sergeant and the troopers who reported the matter to Sir Robert Craufurd
on their return.”
He was very thoughtful. Leaning on the balustrade, he looked out
across the sunlit valley, turning his boldly chiselled profile to his
companion. At last he spoke slowly, reflectively: “But if this were
really so--a mere blunder--I see no sufficient grounds to threaten him
with capital punishment. His subsequent desertion, if he has deserted--I
mean if nothing has happened to him--is really the graver matter of the
two.”
“I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of
Regency--a sort of scapegoat.”
He swung round sharply, and the sudden blaze of his eyes almost
terrified her. Instantly he was cold again and inscrutable. “Ah! You are
oddly well informed throughout. But of course you would be,” he added,
with an appraising look into that intelligent face in which he now
caught a faint likeness of Jack Armytage. “Well, well, my dear, I am
very glad you have told me of this. If Mr. Butler is ever taken and in
danger--there will be a court-martial, of course--send me word of it,
and I will see what I can do, both for your sake and for the sake of
strict justice.”
“Oh, not for my sake,” she protested, reddening slightly at the gentle
imputation. “Mr. Butler is nothing to me--that is to say, he is just my
cousin. It is for Una’s sake that I am asking this.”
“Why, then, for Lady O’Moy’s sake, since you ask it,” he replied
readily. “But,” he warned her, “say nothing of it until Mr. Butler is
found.” It is possible he believed that Butler never would be found.
“And remember, I promise only to give the matter my attention. If it is
as you represent it, I think you may be sure that the worst that will
befall Mr. Butler will be dismissal from the service. He deserves that.
But I hope I should be the last man to permit a British officer to be
used as a scapegoat or a burnt-offering to the mob or to any Council of
Regency. By the way, who told you this about a scapegoat?”
“Captain Tremayne.”
“Captain Tremayne? Oh, the man who killed Samoval?”
“He didn’t,” she cried.
On that almost fierce denial his lordship looked at her, raising his
eyebrows in astonishment.
“But I am told that he did, and he is under arrest for it this
moment--for that, and for breaking my order against duelling.”
“You were not told the truth, my lord. Captain Tremayne says that he
didn’t, and if he says so it is so.”
“Oh, of course, Miss Armytage!” He was a man of unparalleled valour and
boldness, yet so fierce was she in that moment that for the life of him
he dared not have contradicted her.
“Captain Tremayne is the most honourable man I know,” she continued,
“and if he had killed Samoval he would never have denied it; he would
have proclaimed it to all the world.”
“There is no need for all this heat, my dear,” he reassured her. “The
point is not one that can remain in doubt. The seconds of the duel will
be forthcoming; and they will tell us who were the principals.”
“There were no seconds,” she informed him.
“No seconds!” he cried in horror. “D’ ye mean they just fought a rough
and tumble fight?”
“I mean they never fought at all. As for this tale of a duel, I ask
your lordship: Had Captain Tremayne desired a secret meeting with Count
Samoval, would he have chosen this of all places in which to hold it?”
“This?”
“This. The fight--whoever fought it--took place in the quadrangle there
at midnight.”
He was overcome with astonishment, and he showed it.
“Upon my soul,” he said, “I do not appear to have been told any of
the facts. Strange that O’Moy should never have mentioned that,” he
muttered, and then inquired suddenly: “Where was Tremayne arrested?”
“Here,” she informed him.
“Here? He was here, then, at midnight? What was he doing here?”
“I don’t know. But whatever he was doing, can your lordship believe that
he would have come here to fight a secret duel?”
“It certainly puts a monstrous strain upon belief,” said he. “But what
can he have been doing here?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. She wanted to add a warning of O’Moy. She
was tempted to tell his lordship of the odd words that O’Moy had used to
her last night concerning Tremayne. But she hesitated, and her courage
failed her. Lord Wellington was so great a man, bearing the destinies of
nations on his shoulders, and already he had wasted upon her so much
of the time that belonged to the world and history, that she feared to
trespass further; and whilst she hesitated came Colquhoun Grant clanking
across the quadrangle looking for his lordship. He had come up, he
announced, standing straight and stiff before them, to see O’Moy, but
hearing of Lord Wellington’s presence, had preferred to see his lordship
in the first instance.
“And indeed you arrive very opportunely, Grant,” his lordship confessed.
He turned to take his leave of Jack Armytage’s niece.
“I’ll not forget either Mr. Butler or Captain Tremayne,” he promised
her, and his stern face softened into a gentle, friendly smile. “They
are very fortunate in their champion.”