THE RANSOM
/Sir Gervase/ departed that day from Trevanion Chase in the deepest
humiliation he had ever known. In another this humiliation might have
turned to gall, urging him to a mean vengeance in one of the forms
which the circumstances place so readily at hand. In Sir Gervase,
however, it inspired only self-reproach and shame. He had behaved
abominably. He had borne himself like an ill-mannered schoolboy, and
Don Pedro had dealt with him precisely as his case and condition
required, administering, with a magnanimity that was in itself a
cruelty, a corrective birching to his soul.
That Margaret must now utterly despise him seemed inevitable; that she
should be justified of her contempt was intolerable. Thus in his
almost excessive humility had he interpreted her indignation. Blinded
by it--for humility can be as blinding as conceit--he had never seen
the fierce concern behind it.
His opponent’s case was little better than his own. It was in vain
that Don Pedro defended himself by specious arguments, or paraded the
magnanimity and restraint to which Sir Gervase owed it that he had
come off the field without physical hurt. The Lady Margaret did not
desire that Sir Gervase should owe anything to the magnanimity of any
man. It was detestable to her that he should be placed in such a
position, and this detestation she divided impartially between himself
and the man who had placed him there. Towards Don Pedro her manner was
now aloof and frosty. She allowed him to perceive that she had formed
her opinion of his conduct and desired to hear no explanations, since
no explanations could modify the view she took.
After supper that evening, however, he made a vigorous attempt to put
himself right in her eyes. She was withdrawing with her cousin Francis
in the wake of her father, when he begged her to stay a moment. In
yielding it is possible that her intent was to render him yet more
fully aware of her indignation.
‘I vow,’ he said, ‘that you use me cruelly in being angry with me for
a matter which it was not in my power to avoid.’
‘It is not my desire to hear more of it.’
‘And now you are unjust. There is no deeper injustice than to condemn
a man unheard.’
‘I do not need to hear you, sir, to know that you abused your position
here, that you abused the trust I placed in you when I allowed you to
retain your weapons. The facts themselves are all I need to know; and
the facts, Don Pedro, have lowered you immeasurably in my esteem.’
She saw the spasm of pain ripple across the narrow, clear-cut face,
and look at her out of those great liquid and undeniably beautiful
dark eyes. This it may have been that, softening her a little,
suffered her now to listen without interruption to his answer.
‘Than that,’ said he, ‘you could inflict upon me no crueller
punishment, and it is an irony that it should fall upon me for actions
in which from end to end I was guided only by the desire to retain an
esteem which I prize above all else. I abused your trust you say. Will
you not hear my answer?’
He was so humble, the pleading note in his voice so musical, that she
gave her consent with a reluctance that was only apparent. He offered,
then, his explanation. Sir Gervase had come to him with the clear
intention of provoking a quarrel. He had dashed the lute from Don
Pedro’s hands, he had alluded in the grossest terms to Don Pedro’s
physical attributes.
These affronts he could have forgiven, but to forgive them would have
justified Sir Gervase in accounting him a coward, and that he could
not have forgiven because it would have hurt his honour. Therefore, to
avoid the unforgivable, he had consented to meet Sir Gervase Crosby,
but this only because no doubt of the issue existed in his mind and he
could depend upon his resolve to use his weapons only for a defensive
purpose, so as to render negative the combat. He had displayed his
mastery of those weapons, not in any braggart spirit, but merely so as
to place his courage above reproach when he should come to decline any
further quarrels that it might be sought to put upon him.
It made up a strong case, and his manner of presenting it was
impeccable in its modesty. But her ladyship was not disposed, it
seemed, to clemency; for whilst she confessed herself, as perforce she
must, satisfied with his arguments, the tone in which she confessed it
was frosty and distant; and frosty and distant her manner continued in
the days that immediately followed. She no longer showed any concern
for the entertainment of her prisoner. She left him to his own
devices, to seek exercise in lonely brooding walks, or to employ his
wits in agricultural and forestry discussions with Francis Trevanion,
whilst she rode abroad with Peter and Rosamund Godolphin, or
entertained these and other visitors, to the Spaniard’s exclusion, in
her own bower.
Thus for Don Pedro three dismal days passed sluggishly. She observed
his dejected countenance when they met at table and was satisfied that
he could suffer, the more so because as a consequence of the events
Sir Gervase had not been seen at Trevanion Chase since he had departed
in defeat. If she could have guessed the full extent of Don Pedro’s
suffering, things might have been different. In regarding the
melancholy reflected on his pale face and in his liquid eyes as a
histrionic adaptation to what he conceived the requirements of the
case, she did him less than justice.
Don Pedro suffered in all sincerity, and the wistfulness which she
detected in his eyes when they observed her arose from his very soul.
It was inevitable, by the attraction of opposites, that this
dark-complexioned typical son of the South, thrown into such close and
constant association with that tall, golden girl, whose cheeks were as
delicately tinted as the apple blossoms, whose eyes were so
unfathomably calm, so blue and so frankly level in their glances,
should have lost his heart to her. She was so different not only from
the languishing, sheltered, ill-informed women of his native Spain,
but from any woman that he had ever met in any other part of Europe.
The liberty which she enjoyed so naturally, having known naught else
from childhood, gave her at once a frankness and a strength which
afforded her maidenhood a stronger bulwark than ever was supplied by a
barred casement or a vigilant duenna. She was innocent without
ignorance, frank without boldness, modest without simpering, and
maddeningly attractive without deliberate allure. In all his life and
all his travels, Don Pedro had never met a lady half so desirable or
one whose permanent conquest could be a source of deeper pride. And
all had been going so well and promisingly between them until that
unfortunate matter with Sir Gervase Crosby whom, from despising, Don
Pedro now began to hate.
Thus for three days he pined in the chill exclusion to which she
doomed him. On the evening of the fourth something happened to restore
him to the centre of the canvas, his proper place in any picture of
which he was a part.
They were at table when a servant brought word that a gentleman--a
foreign gentleman--was asking for Don Pedro. The Spaniard having
craved and been granted leave withdrew to the hall where this visitor
waited.
The worldly consequence of Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna was to be
inferred from the amazing celerity put forth to serve him by those who
were the recipients of that letter despatched to Nantes. Their speed
was so little short of miraculous that, within some eighteen days of
the sailing of the yawl that had borne the letter, the bearer of the
answer presented himself at Trevanion Chase.
Don Pedro, coming with swift, eager steps into the spacious grey hall,
checked abruptly at sight of the man who awaited him, a squarely built
fellow, in brown homespun and long sea-boots, black-bearded, and
tanned like a sailor. Under his arm he bore a bulky package wrapped in
sail-cloth. He bowed to the Spaniard, and announced himself in French.
‘At your service, monseigneur. I am Antoine Duclerc, out of Nantes.’
Don Pedro frowned and stiffened. His manner became haughty.
‘How is this? I had thought that Don Diego would have come in person.
Am I, then, become of so little account?’
‘Don Diego has come, monseigneur. But it would hardly be prudent for
him to land.’
‘He becomes prudent, eh?’ Don Pedro sneered. ‘Well, well! And who are
you?’
‘I am the master of the brig that went to fetch him out of Santander.
She is lying to a couple of miles from shore with Don Diego aboard,
awaiting your excellency. It is arranged we take you off to-night. I
have a boat in the cove under the cliff there and a half-dozen stout
Asturians to man it.’
‘Asturians?’ Don Pedro seemed surprised and not displeased.
‘We shipped a Spanish crew at Santander by Don Diego’s orders.’
‘Ah!’ Don Pedro came nearer. ‘And the ransom?’
The Frenchman proffered the package from under his arm. ‘It is here,
monseigneur.’
Don Pedro took it and sauntered across to the window. He broke the
heavy seals and with his dagger ripped away the envelope of
sail-cloth, laying bare an oblong ebony box. He raised the lid.
Nestling on a cushion of purple velvet lay a string of flawless,
shimmering pearls, every bead of which was nigh as large as a
sparrow’s egg. He took it in his hands, setting the empty box upon the
window-seat.
‘Don Diego has done well,’ he said at last. ‘Tell him so from me.’
The seaman looked his surprise. ‘But will your excellency not tell him
so, yourself? The boat is waiting…’
Don Pedro interrupted him. ‘Not to-night. It leaves me no time to make
my little preparations. You shall come again at dusk to-morrow when I
will be ready.’
‘As your excellency pleases.’ Duclerc was uneasy. ‘But delays are
dangerous, monseigneur.’
Don Pedro slowly turned, and slowly smiled. ‘All life is dangerous, my
friend. And so at dusk to-morrow in the little cove where the brook
joins the sea. God accompany you.’
Duclerc bowed, and departed. Alone, Don Pedro stood bemused a moment,
holding that priceless string in the cup of his two hands, admiring
the lustre of the pearls so chastely iridescent in the waning sunshine
of that autumn evening. He smiled faintly, musingly, as he considered
precisely how he should present them. At last he lightly tied together
the two silken ends, and returned to the dining-room.
He found that his lordship and Francis had departed, and that Margaret
was now alone, occupying the window-seat and gazing out over the
parterres from which the glory of the flowers had almost entirely
passed. She glanced over her shoulder as he entered; but his hands
were now behind him, and she caught no glimpse of the thing he
carried.
‘Is all well?’ she asked him.
‘All is very well, my lady,’ answered he, whereupon she resumed her
contemplation of the sunset.
‘Your visitor is from… overseas?’ she asked.
‘From overseas,’ he replied.
He sauntered across to her, his feet rustling in the fresh rushes with
which the dining-room floor was daily spread. He stood close behind
her at the window, whilst she, awaiting so much as he might choose to
tell her, continued to gaze outward. Very quietly he raised his hands,
poised that splendid necklace for a moment, and then let it slip over
her golden head.
She felt the light touch upon her hair and then quite cold upon her
bare neck, and she leapt instantly to her feet, her cheeks aflame. She
had conceived that what she felt was the touch of his fingers. And for
all that he smiled as he stood now, bending slightly forward, he was
stabbed by the swift resentment of what he saw she had imagined.
Perceiving her error and seeing the necklace hanging there upon her
white skin, she laughed a little, between awkwardness and relief.
‘Sir, I vow you startled me.’ She took the pearls in her fingers to
examine them, and then, realizing the magnificence of what she beheld,
she fell breathless and some of the colour slowly faded from her
cheeks.
‘What is this?’
‘The ransom that I have had fetched from Spain,’ he answered simply.
‘But…’ She was aghast. She knew something of the value of jewels,
enough to discern that here upon her bosom lay a fortune. ‘But this,
sir, is beyond all reason. It is of enormous price.’
‘I told you that if you left it to me I should set a high value upon
myself.’
‘It is a prince’s ransom,’ she continued.
‘I am almost a prince,’ he deprecated.
She would have said more on the same score, but that he brushed the
matter aside as trivial and of insufficient moment to engage their
notice further.
‘Shall we waste words upon so slight a thing in an hour when every
word of yours to me is become more precious than all the foolish
pearls upon that string?’
Here was a new bold note upon which he had never yet dared to touch, a
lover’s note. She stared at him blankly, taken by surprise. He swept
on, explaining any ambiguities in the words he had used already. ‘The
ransom is delivered, and the hour of my departure is approaching--too
swiftly, alas! So that I have your leave, your consent, my release
from the parole which binds me, I sail to-morrow night for Spain.’
‘So soon?’ said she.
It seemed to him, no doubt deluded by his hopes, that she spoke
wistfully; the shadow which crossed her face he assumed to be of
regret. These things were spurs to his desire. He was a little
breathless, a little stirred out of his habitual composure.
‘“So soon?” you say! I thank you for those words. They hold the very
seed of hope. They lend me audacity to dare that in which I must
otherwise have faltered.’
The ring of his voice was not to be mistaken, nor the gleam of his
dark eyes, nor yet the flush that came to warm the ivory pallor of his
cheeks. All her femininity vibrated to it; vibrated in alarm.
He leaned over her. ‘Margaret!’ It was the first time he had uttered
her name, and he uttered it in a caressing murmur that lingered fondly
over each vowel. ‘Margaret, must I go as I came? Must I go alone?’
She saw that she must deliberately misunderstand him so as to leave
him a clear line of retreat from an advance in which it was not
desired that he should continue. ‘You’ll have friends on board, I make
no doubt,’ she answered with simulated lightness, seeking to steady
the fluttering of her heart.
‘Friends?’ He was scornful. ‘It is not friends I lack, or power, or
wealth. These are mine in abundance. My need is of someone to share
all this, to share all that I can bestow, and I can bestow so much.’
He went headlong on before she could check him. ‘Will you waste your
lovely life in this barbarous corner of a barbarous land, when I can
open all the world to you, render you rich and powerful, honoured,
envied, the jewel of a court, a queen of queens? Margaret!’
She shrank together a little. It was impossible to be angry unless it
were with herself for a lack of circumspection which justified the
presumption of his speech. And yet in the manner of it there was
nothing presumptuous. It was respectful, pleading, humble. He had said
no word of love. Yet every word he had uttered spoke of it with a
convincing eloquence; his accents of entreaty, his very attitude of
supplication were all instinct with it.
The prospect he held out was not without allurement, and it may even
be that for a second the temptation to possess all that lay within his
gift may have assailed her. To be powerful, rich, honoured, envied. To
move in the great world, to handle destinies, perhaps. That was to
drink the full rich wine of life, to exchange for the intoxicating cup
of it the tasteless waters of this Cornish home.
If the temptation assailed her, it can have done so only for a moment,
during that little pause of a half-dozen heartbeats. When she spoke
she was calm and sane again and true to herself. She answered him
quite gently.
‘Don Pedro, I will not pretend to misunderstand you. Indeed, that were
impossible. I thank you for the honour you have done me. I esteem it
that, my friend, believe me. But…’ She lingered a moment on the word,
and raised her shoulders in a little shrug. ‘It may not be.’
‘Why not? Why not?’ His right arm was flung out as if to encircle her.
‘What power is there to hinder?’
‘It is the power to compel that is wanting.’ She rose, and her eyes,
candid, pure, and true, almost on a level with his own, looked him
squarely in the face, whilst she dealt his hopes the blow that should
completely shatter them. ‘I do not love you, Don Pedro.’
She saw him wince as if she had struck him. He fell back before her a
little, and half turned away; then, with a swift recovery, he came
back to the assault.
‘Love will come, my Margaret. How should it not? I shall know how to
awaken it. I could not fail in that, for love begets love; and to such
love as I pour upon you, your own love must respond.’ He was white to
the lips, so that his beard seemed to take on a deeper shade of black.
His vivid eyes glowed with passion and entreaty. ‘Ah, trust me, child!
Trust me! I know, I know. I am wise…’
She interrupted him very gently. ‘Not wise enough to see that this
importunity must give me pain.’ Then she smiled, that frank clear
smile of hers, and held out her hand to him, as a man might have done.
‘Let us be good friends, Don Pedro, as we have been since the day I
took you prisoner.’
Slowly, compelled to it, he took her hand. Meanwhile the fingers of
her left were touching the pearls upon her bosom. ‘These I shall
treasure less for their worth than for the memory of a pleasant
friendship. Do nothing now to spoil it.’
He sighed as he bowed low over the fingers he grasped. Reverently he
bore them to his lips.
Before the irrevocable note of her voice, before that friendly
frankness, which in itself made a stouter barrier between them than
mere coldness could have done, he confessed himself defeated. He made
no boast when he said that he was wise. He was skilled beyond the
common in deciphering human documents, and his skill did not permit
him here to persist in error.