The horse had been pulled up beneath the three posts, set in a triangle, joined by stout bars a foot or two above the heads of those standing in the cart. For a moment the green coat was lost to her sight as men leapt up beside the three condemned and roughly gathered up the ropes already about their necks. She caught a glimpse of a green sleeve, of a lolling body supported while they flung up the ends of the nooses, one to each cross-bar; crumpling against the side of the cart as they jumped down and stood away. ‘Oh, Gareth!’ she prayed, ‘look up, stand straight, for this last moment be the man that you are: leave us not with this — degradation — to remember you by…!’ She herself had sent him the laudanum, knowing that if he used it, she and all those who cared for him must pay with unworthy memories for his painless passing. Only… It was horrible to see it: to see him the object of the scorn and derision of the mob, pelted with filth scraped up from the ground round their feet, the ordure of rotted fruit and vegetables, of trodden straw, left over from other hangings there. Disappointed of a display of bravado from so renowned a malefactor, they spat and screamed, shaking angry fists, hurling abuse. His companions fended off the flying missiles, one laughing flung back as good as he got, one trembled and vomited and even at this last hour prayed mercy and begged not to die; but he — he stood as though deaf and blind to it all, sunk already into the oblivion of death.
A signal no doubt was given; for the crowd, knowledgeable, roared a last burst of mingled horror and joy. She saw the whip of the driver descend upon the startled horse which leapt forward in fear; saw the surge forward of the people, had a glimpse of faces she knew, of Dio’s face and Huw’s and little Willie-bach’s, as they pushed forward in readiness to the front rank of the crowd; and screamed out above the tumult for the last time: ‘Gareth! It is I, it’s your Vixen! Gareth I’m here with you: look up at me!’
Did he lift his head for a moment? — did he in that last instant, turn his face to hers? She saw in a blur the red roses crushed like heart’s blood against the green brocade of his coat, saw the lurch and sway as the horse plunged forward and the cart leapt away; saw the sickening sideways jerk of the dark head as the neck took the body’s weight, saw the three dummies dangle now, six foot above the ground: saw Dio and Huw and Willie-bach fling themselves forward, launching their weight upon the dreadfully dancing legs as the body jerked at the rope’s end slowly strangling to death; and screamed to the coachman, ‘Drive on, for God’s sake drive on! Take me away from this place!’
And she looked back for the last time, the little boy beside her clinging, bitterly weeping, to her skirts; and saw that it was over, that he hung limp and only now at last bowed this way and that as he had promised he would: gently turning to left and to right with the slow twisting of the rope. The hands that had clutched her red roses had dropped to his sides, letting the flowers fall into the filth beneath his lifeless feet.
I will love you till I die.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IF THE GANG CAME To give her thanks and farewell, she knew nothing of it: lying between life and death in the frilly white bed, with grave old men shaking their heads over her and saying that the child must come too soon, far too soon. She was aware hazily that David sat hour after hour at her bedside; one day awoke to find herself in heaven with a vision standing there, all white and blue and crowned with gold, and cried out for Gareth who also was dead and must come to her now, must help her now… But the vision withdrew and somewhere out of sight spoke in low murmurs but in the language of the living. ‘You’re besotted, David; she was in love with that villain highwayman, even in her dreams she calls to him.’
‘Very well but he’s dead; she has nobody now but me.’
‘And are you to be sacrificed, your whole life, your whole family — am I to be sacrificed? for this — this adventuress, who gives you not even her whole heart in return. No! — I will not release you: not for this.’
‘Blanche, for God’s sake, in your mercy… Now that you’ve seen for yourself…’
And a sad voice saying in tones very different from those that Gilda had heard in other days: ‘You loved me once, David.’
‘And would love you still, Blanche, in — in another way: if you would show me this goodness, if you’d be merciful to her. And to my child.’
‘Your children would have been mine.’
‘If she dies, Blanche — if she dies and my child with her — do you think I could ever love again or love another woman’s children? And if I leave her now, if I may not take her in my arms and promise her through her sick dreams that she shall be safe with me for ever — she will die.’
‘You can never bring back to her the man she really loves.’
‘You may be right in this; you may see more clearly than I do or even than she does herself. But at least let me offer her this final proof of my love. They say the will to live isn’t there: what has she to live for? — her true love gone, if you’re right in what you believe; living on, a kept woman with a bastard child. And Blanche — if she dies, do you think I could ever forgive you for having robbed me of this last comfort…? If she dies…’
Only half heard, half understood, the voices faded; but through her dreams came at last a promise, oft reiterated, gently forced through to the inner depths of her consciousness — come back, my love, from this long, deep sleep, come back to life and health and be my wife…
He brought ministers to her bed and prayers were read and a thin hand wearing a golden ring, signed with feeble fluttering a new name: and a few days later to Marigelda, Countess of Tregaron, a son was born.
Now the Bijou was abandoned altogether, Mrs Brown moved its furniture into comfortable lodgings and embarked upon a life of her own, not untinged with romance. Little Jake was sent off to an educational establishment which might fit him for another than his chosen vocation as highwayman, Bess was married, and the brothers established in their own flourishing careers; and for the second time as Countess of Tregaron, Miss Marigold Brown entered the portals of the great, dull house in Hanover Square. Upstairs in nurseries of almost regal splendour, nurses watched over the life of the new little Viscount Llandovery; frail as a bird with wings ever fluttering, it seemed, to fly away into the cerulean blue for ever. In the great four-poster bed on the floor below, his mother lay and also fought her way back to life. And the fluttering wings at last grew still and the fluttering heart grew strong, and his tiny lordship raised hazy blue eyes and lifted a rose petal hand to the bright flame of his mother’s hair; and that same candle flame was seen again at the playhouse and nowadays crowned with the glittering tiaras of the family store-house of jewels. If among the rest, she wore always a ring set with a great ruby, her new wealth of treasures was so vast that none questioned but that it was from among them. None but her husband.
The old Dowager mother-in-law came: stiff, resentful, inimical, belligerent. ‘You may tell your mother from me, David, that I shall not tolerate it. I’m mistress here now — let her like me or go away.’
‘My dearest, be reasonable,’ he said, laughing. ‘How could she ever like you? It’s too much to ask.’
In other days, she also would have laughed. Now she only said irritably: ‘Then let her at least be civil. Or let me leave here, let me go back to South Audley Street, I was happier there than ever I can be in this great tomb, as long ago I told you I should be. I’ll take my child with me, you may live with us there if you will or only visit us as in other days you did; which days, I confess, slut and strumpet and the rest of it, were far better days for me.’
And better days also, perhaps, for David, Earl of Tregaron — with the ghost of another man always between them, the ghost of another life, wild and free. But the brown eyes were steady and kind, patient and firm. He spoke to his family, presumably — made such arrangements as would satisfy all without too much wounding any; would it not be best if his mother and sister took up residence in the Dower House in Wales, with a house for the London season. ‘But before they lea
ve London, we must arrange the christening.’
‘I’ll have no christening with that old besom present. She’d spoil it all for me.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ he said, sharply now. ‘Of course the child’s grandmother must attend. And my sister shall stand god-mother.’
‘Very well. And Dio y Diawl shall stand god-father. I’ve long been resolved upon that.’
‘Dio y Diawl — that monster from a robber’s den?’
‘He’s my friend. He shall be god-father to my son.’
They faced each other across the huge, marble mantel-shelf in the huge, high drawing-room with its stiff furniture, exquisitely elegant, its portraits of past countesses wearing the jewels that nowadays adorned her own pale, haggard beauty. ‘You’re trying me, Gilda, to see how far I will be patient. I’ll be very patient, have been very patient; you’ve undergone great stress, you’ve been very ill, I know that you’ve been in deep grief — I think you owe me something, if only your respect, in that I don’t begrudge you your grief, don’t begrudge it to him. But though you were a leader once, my love, and absolute in command — you’re not so now. That was when the true leader, a man and therefore master, was absent. I am not absent and I am master here.’
She looked at him like a petted, wilful child, still struggling, rebellious, though she knew she had been conquered. ‘I won’t have the child christened here. He shall be christened in Wales, where—’
‘Where your heart is,’ he said, quietly.
She looked at him like a petted, wilful child, still struggling, eyes. ‘Is that what you believe?’
‘It’s what I’m afraid of,’ he said.
She came to him, came close, put her lovely arms about his neck. ‘No, dearest, no: there you’re wrong, utterly. I love you and only you. For him I had — something; I hardly know myself what it was. But he’s gone; and with him, all but memories. With him I was free. Here, it’s true that I feel cribbed and cabined-in; but it’s because others intervene.’ And she tried to explain: ‘All my life I’ve been used to love; only to love — to laughing and petting and loving without question…’ Of the family of devoted brothers and sister he knew nothing, of the laughing, fond old mother, as young at heart as they. If the spectre of the supposed ancient, doting husband rose for a moment between them, that he put aside — he knew that no thoughts of life in Italy ever troubled her nowadays (as well they might not, since she had never seen stick nor stone of that country.) He said: “You’ve never been loved, Gilda, as you’re loved now. But to love isn’t just foolishly to indulge. The child will be christened in London and my mother will be present and Dio y Diawl shall not.” ’ He confirmed: ‘And we are to call him Gereth, after my brother?’
‘Or Gareth — after your other brother,’ she said.
He bowed his head for a moment, with closed eyes as though he prayed for patience; gave a small thump with his fisted right hand to the marble mantel-shelf. But his voice remained steady. ‘That was a private quirk — a private joke, perhaps — of my father’s. To name his first born, though out of wedlock, by the family name, with only the difference of one letter.’
‘What was good enough for your father—’
‘We shall call the child Gereth,’ he said, shortly. ‘You may spell it which way — in your heart — you will. When you write it for the world, you will write it as the world will: Gereth, Viscount Llandovery.’ But his stern mouth relaxed, he took her into his arms and held her close against his breast. ‘Gilda, try to forget him! Try to forget!’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CHILD WAS CHRISTENED in the church of St George in Hanover Square as David had said it should be; and with his mother and sister present as he had said they should be, with the Prince of Wales instead of Dio the Devil of the Court of Foxes, standing god-father — she remembered again the brazen impudence with which that other had claimed that this ‘intimate friend’ would be disappointed at not being able to stand as witness at a great society wedding, the subtlety with which she had been led forward until it was she who pleaded for the secret marriage which must somehow be contrived — and a spurt of laughter welled up in her, she felt, for the first time in many long days, her heart leap up and dance… Leap and dance — and remember; and die.
And now Gereth, the small Viscount Llandovery was to be taken down to be shown to his people and the tenantry in the great, all-embracing estates in Carmarthenshire… (But a few short months, she thought, since I rode there and cried Stand and deliver! to just such folks as nowadays I myself shall be…)
A promise was extracted from her. ‘No traffic, Gilda, with the Cwrt. That’s understood?’
‘I don’t want to see them anyway,’ she said drearily. ‘They remind me of too much.’
But she wrote to them nevertheless, at his bidding, in the care of the corn chandler of Caio, giving times and dates, to ask for safe conduct through the Cothi valley. ‘I know you will grant me this for old times’ sake. And you’ll never guess who rides in convoy with me,’ she wrote, ‘sheltering behind my petticoats — the Earl of Trove no less and my precious Lady Blanche Handley, going to their estates in Cardiganshire! They have waited for us; nowadays not daring to travel alone.’ And she asked wistfully: ‘I wonder how you fare? Is Dio y Diawl your leader now? I asked for him as god-father to my son, but you won’t be astonished to learn that this was refused me. We had the Prince of Wales instead! Times have indeed changed, you perceive, for Madam Vixen and I confide, for your ears alone, that it’s all very dull and sometimes I would feign be with you again.’ She received a reply in due course, ill-scrawled upon the back of a reckoning for corn supplied (but not to the gang). ‘Will give yr. messge to Y Diawl. Have no feer to come.’ Signed by Dai Thomas whose comings and goings as a messenger she remembered of old. ‘We are promised,’ she reported to David, ‘and your precious Blanche may come too; providing only for my part, that she stay in her own coach and sleep at separate inns on the way.’ No doubt, she added contemptuously, they would be half a week upon the journey.
‘My mother can’t travel two hundred miles in a day.’
‘She travelled it swiftly enough that other time — when…’ When I held up her coach, she had been going to say, but halted it. His mother had been hastening then because her first-born had been shot and killed upon that very road; and by herself, by Madam Vixen who was now Countess of Tregaron and her daughter-in-law.
They spent the second night in fact at Monmouth; but the roads were bad from recent rains and it was early evening before they drove, rattling and jingling, down the steep hill towards the Aberbranddu farm, with only the long rise through the hanging forests of scrub oak, between themselves and the chapel and smithy of Cwrt y Cadno; and then one more climb up and then all the way downwards to home. They must all now spend the night at Castell Cothi but tomorrow the old woman might be despatched to her new residence in the Dower House, the Earl of Trove could take his daughter and continue to Cardiganshire. And I, thought Gilda, I can settle down to the company of sheep and cows, as long ago we dreaded that I should have to. She had given her promise faithfully, to go no more to the Fox’s lair. ‘In any event, now adays it is but the Devil’s Den. What is it to me without him?’
‘Gilda, he’s dead. I myself saw him nailed into his coffin, I myself saw him decently buried,’ he lied. Thrown with two others, and the rest uncoffined, into a common grave, he did not say; but ended always with the old despairing plea: ‘Try to forget!’
It was late summer; all about them the trees were in full leaf washed to a shining green by the soft Welsh rain; along the rough roads, foxglove and ragwort were in rampant bloom and the spreading white flowers they call Queen Anne’s Lace; and dandelions and king-cups to outmatch her own marigold hair in their satiny gold. And up and over the bare mountains the gorse spread everywhere its heavily scented sweetness through an evening of sunshine now that the rain had passed. Its perfume brought back to her, almost more even than the sight of the mountain
which now was all that hid the lair from her vision, the memory of those old days. For the gorse was with them always. Kissing’s out of season, they said in Wales, when the gorse is not in bloom. At the Court of Foxes the gorse had been always in season: and the kissing too.
The Dowager travelled in the coach with them, Anne being in the second coach with Blanche and her father. The nurse sat opposite, the child in her lap, its blue eyes looking up, wondering, at the hanging lantern, unlit, swaying with each lurch of the wheels. ‘We’re coming down towards Aberbranddu,’ said Gilda. ‘It was here I always told them… It was there that she had taught them they should conduct their hold-ups, with room for the ponies to manoeuvre, not as had been their custom, among the scrub oak trees, further up the hill — and proved to them time after time, how right she had been.
The Dowager Countess of Tregaron had been travelling this road before Madam Vixen had been born or thought of. ‘I think we’re sufficiently aware of the points of interest on our way,’ she could not forbear to say sharply. Including, she did not dare to add, a tree overhanging the road a little further on, where their first acquaintance had been made — the present countess having upon that occasion, however, been upside-down. ‘Do you recall,’ she said to David, deliberately excluding Gilda from the conversation, ‘how when you were a child we still had to ford the river here? Now that the bridge is built, it’s safer; but then with the coaches brought to a halt when the water was deep, it was a dangerous place for — for…’ Her voice faltered.
‘For hold-ups?’ said Gilda. ‘And could be now, may I remind your ladyship. When you turn your back and address your civilities exclusively to others, recollect that but for me you wouldn’t be riding here so free to exchange your reminiscences unmolested.’ David shook his head at her warningly, his mother glanced anxiously at the nurse — dozing, however, with the baby on her knee. ‘Oh, pish!’ said Gilda. ‘What do I care? Not a doubt but she knows all about it, they all do. All I say is that only through my good offices do you ride here without anxiety — you and your precious friends who must all come cap in hand to me, every time you would set foot outside your own gates—’
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