“It was not, however, of my whereabouts that I came hither to speak to you, but of the whereabouts of Mr. Herbert.”
“Mr. Herbert?” says he, playing surprise. “What should I know of Mr. Herbert? Now, if I was to ask you the whereabouts of Mrs. Herbert, there would be some sense in the question, eh?” and he chuckled cunningly and poked a forefinger into my ribs. I struck the hand aside.
“What, indeed, should you know of Mr. Herbert,” I cried— “you that plotted his arrest!”
“Arrest?” he interrupted, yet more dumfounded. “Plot?”
“That is the word,” said I— “plot! a simple word enough, though with a damned dirty underhand meaning.”
“Ah,” he returned, with a sneer, “you take that interest in the husband, it appears, which I imagined you to have reserved for his wife. But as for plots and arrests — why, I know no more of what you mean than does the Khan of Crim Tartary.”
“Then,” said I, “will you tell me why you paid a visit to Mr. Herbert the night before he was arrested? And why you told him that if he came to Blackladies on the afternoon of the next day he would find Mrs. Herbert and myself in the garden?”
It was something of a chance shot, for I had no more than suspicion to warrant me, but it sped straight to its mark. Rookley started back in his chair, huddling his body together. Then he drew himself erect, with a certain defiance.
“But zounds, man!” he exclaimed, like one exasperated with perplexity, “what maggot’s in your brains? Why should I send Herbert — devil take the fellow! — to find you in the garden when I knew you would not be there?”
“And I can answer that question with another,” said I. “Who were in the garden at the time Mr. Herbert was to discover us?”
“The gardeners, I suppose,” said he, thrusting his wig aside to scratch his head.
“It is a queer kind of gardener that wears buttons of this sort,” said I; and I pulled the button from my pocket, and held it before his eyes in the palm of my hand.
He bent forward, examined the button, and again looked at me inquiringly.
“I picked it up,” I explained, “on a little plot of trampled grass in the Wilderness on the next morning.”
Rookley burst into a laugh and slapped his thighs.
“Lord! Mr. Clavering,” he cried, and rising from his chair he walked briskly about the room, “your button is something too small to carry so weighty an accusation.”
“Nay,” I answered, smiling in my turn, “the button, though small, is metal solid enough. It depends upon how closely it is sewn to the cloth of my argument It is true that I picked up the button on the morning that the soldiers came for me, but I was in the house on the afternoon before, and I saw — —”
Jervas Rookley stopped in his walk, and his laughter ceased with the sound of his steps.
“You were in the house?” His mouth so worked that he pronounced the words awry. “You were in the house?”
“In the little parlour which gives on to the terrace.”
Had I possessed any doubt before as to his complicity, the doubt would have vanished now. He reeled for a moment as if he had been struck, and the blood mottled in his cheeks.
“The house-door may be left open for one man, but two men may enter it,” said I.
“You saw?” He took a step round the table and leaned across the corner of it. “What did you see?”
I took up a lighted candle from the table.
“I will show you,” said I, and walked to the door.
He followed me, at first with uncertain steps. The steps grew firm behind my back.
They seemed to me significant of a growing purpose — so in the hall I stopped.
“We are good cousins, you and I,” said I, holding the candle so that the flame lighted his face.
“Without a doubt,” says he, readily. “You begin to see that you have mistaken me.”
“I was thinking rather,” said I, “that being good cousins, we might walk arm-in-arm.”
“I should count it an honour,” said he, with a bow.
“And it will certainly be a relief to me,” said I. And accordingly I took his arm.
We crossed the hall into the parlour. The window stood open, as I had left it, with the curtains half drawn. Rookley busily pushed them back while I set the candle down. The sky had cleared during the last half hour, and the moon, which was in its fourth quarter, hung like a globe above the garden.
“I met Mr. Herbert in the hall,” said I, “just outside this room. We had some talk — of a kind you can imagine. He went down the steps with his sword drawn. There he dropped his cloak, there he slashed at the bushes. Between those two trees he passed out of sight. I stepped out into the terrace to follow him, but before I had reached the flight of steps, I heard a pistol crack and saw a little cloud of smoke hang above the bushes there. I found the button the next morning at the very spot, and near the button, the pistol. It was Mr. Herbert’s pistol. That,” said I, “is my part of the story. But perhaps if we go back to the warmer room you will give me your part. For I take it that you were not in the house, else you would have heard my voice, but rather in the garden. You made a great mistake in not looking towards the terrace, my cousin.” And again I took his arm, and we walked back.
I was, indeed, rather anxious to discover the whereabouts of Rookley during that afternoon, since so far I had been able to keep Mrs. Herbert’s name entirely out of the narrative. If Jervas Rookley had been in the garden during the afternoon, and had only returned to the house in time to intercept Lord Derwentwater’s letter concerning the French King’s health, and had thereupon ridden off to apply for a warrant against me, why, there was just a chance that I might save Mrs. Herbert from figuring in the business at all.
Rookley said nothing until we were got back into the dining-room, but walked thoughtfully, his arm in mine. I noticed that he was carrying in his left hand the cord by which the curtains in the little parlour were fastened. He stood swinging it to and fro mechanically.
“Your suspicions,” said he, “discompose me. They discompose me very much. I gave you credit for more generosity;” and lifting up the brandy bottle, he held it with trembling hands betwixt himself and the candle.
“I am afraid that it is empty,” said I.
“If you will pardon me,” said he, “I will even fetch another.”
He laid the cord upon the table, advanced to the door and opened it wide. I saw him slide his hand across the lock.
“The key is in my pocket,” I said.
He looked at me with a sorrowful shake of the head.
“Your suspicions discompose me very much,” and he came back for a candle. I noticed too that he carelessly picked up the cord again.
“I think,” said I, “that I will help you to fetch that bottle;” and I went with him into the hall.
There was something new in the man’s bearing which began to alarm me. He still used the same tone of aggrieved affection, but with an indefinable difference which was none the less very apparent to me. His effort seemed no longer to aim at misleading me, but rather to sustain the pretence that he was aiming to mislead me. It seemed to me that since he had become aware of what I knew concerning his treachery he had devised some new plan, and kept his old tone to hinder me from suspecting it. I noticed, too, a certain deliberateness in the indifference of his walk, a certain intention in the discomposure.
In the hall he stopped, and setting down the candle upon a cabinet, turned to face me.
“Why did you come with me?” he asked gently.
“I did not know but what you might call your servants, and, as you put it, I am delicately circumstanced.”
He raised his hands in a gesture of pity.
“See what suspicion leads a man to! My servants hold you in so much respect that if I harboured designs against your safety, to call my servants would be to ruin me.”
I was inclined to believe that what he said was in a measure true, for I reme
mbered the interview which I had had with Ashlock in the steward’s office, and the subsequent consideration which had been shown me.
Then, “Look!” I cried of a sudden, pointing my arm. Right in front of me on that vacant space of the wall amongst the pictures hung the portrait of Jervas Rookley.
Rookley started ever so little and then stood eyeing me keenly, the while he swung round and round in a little circle the tassel of the curtain cord.
“You prate to me of suspicions,” I cried, “there’s the proof of their justice. This estate of Blackladies I held on one condition — that you should receive no benefit from it. We jogged side by side, you and I, cousins with hearts cousinly mated in the same endeavour! You still profess it! Then explain to me: how comes it the Whigs leave you alone, you stripped of your inheritance because of the very principles which outlawed me? Explain that, and I’ll still believe you. Prove that you live here without the Government’s connivance, I’ll forget the rest of my suspicions. I’ll count you my loyal friend. Only show me this: how comes it that I make my bed upon the bracken, and you lord it at Blackladies? Your presence the common talk, your picture staring from the walls?” and in my rage I plucked my sword from the sheath, and slashed his portrait across the face, lengthwise and breadthwise, in a cross.
The tassel stopped swinging. His shoulders hunched ever so little, his head came forward, the eyes shone out bright like beads, and his face tightened to that expression of foxy cunning I had noted before in mid Channel between Dover and Dunkirk.
“It is a gallant swordsman,” he said, with a sneer, “and a prudent too.”
“He looks to the original,” I cried, “to give him the occasion of imprudence;” and I faced him.
“There is a better way,” said he, with the quietest laugh, and he sprang back suddenly to the cabinet on which the candle stood. “We will make a present of a Michaelmas goose to King George.”
I saw his hand for an instant poised above the flame, red with the light of it; I saw his figure black from head to foot, and at his elbow another figure white from head to foot, the reflection of myself in the mirror by his side; and then his palm squashed down upon the wick.
The hall fell to darkness just as I made the first step towards him. I halted on the instant. He could see me, I could not see him! He had thrown off the mask; he had proclaimed himself my enemy, and he knew where I had been sheltered. It was that thought which slipped into my mind as the darkness cloaked about me, and made me curse the folly of my intrusion here. I had hazarded not merely myself, but Dorothy and her father. He could see me, I could not see him, and the outcome of this adventure struck at Dorothy.
I stepped backwards as lightly as I could, until the edge of a picture-frame rubbed against my shoulder-blades, and so stood gripping my sword-hilt, straining my ears. Across the hall I seemed to hear Rookley breathing, but it was the only sound I heard. There was no shuffle of a foot; he had not moved.
Above me the twilight glimmered beneath the roof; about me the chamber was black as the inside of a nailed coffin. If I could only reach the windows and tear the curtains back! But half the length of the hall intercepted me, and to reach them I must needs take my back from the wall. That I dared not do, and I stood listening helplessly to the sound of Rookley’s breathing. In that pitch-dark hall it seemed to shift from quarter to quarter. At one moment I could have sworn I heard his breath, soft as a sigh, a foot’s length from me; I could almost have sworn I felt it on my neck; and in a panic I whirled my sword from side to side, but it touched nothing within the half circle of its reach. My fears indeed so grew upon me, that I was in two minds whether or no to shout and bring the servants about me. It would at all events end the suspense. But I dared not do it. Tervas Rookley distrusted them. But how much more cause had I! I could not risk the safety of Applegarth upon their doubtful loyalty. And then a sharp sound broke in upon the silence. It set my heart fluttering and fainting within me by reason of its abruptness, so that for a moment I was dazed and could not come at the reason of it. It was a clattering sound, and, so far as I could gather, it came from the spot where I had last seen Jervas Rookley standing. It was like — nay, it was the sound of a shoe dropped upon the boards. I know not why, but the sound steadied, though it appalled me. It spoke of a doubled danger and cried for a doubled vigilance. Rookley could not only see my white figure; he could move to it noiselessly, for he was slipping off his shoes.
I listened for the creak of a board, for the light padding sound of stockinged feet, for the rustle of his coat; and while I listened, I moved my sword gently in front of me, but my sword touched nothing and my ears heard nothing. Yet he must be coming — stealthily stepping across the hall — I felt him coming. But from what quarter would he come? During those seconds of waiting the question became a torture.
And then a momentary hope shot through me. When he put the candle out his sword was in the scabbard. He had not drawn it, since I had listened so strenuously that I must have heard. However carefully he drew it, a chain would clink; or if not that, the scabbard might knock against his leg; or if not that, there would be a little whirr, a sort of whisper as the blade slid upwards out of the sheath.
There was still a chance, then. At that point of the darkness from which the sound should come I would strike — strike the moment I heard it, with all my strength, down towards the floor. I tightened my fingers about my sword-hilt and waited. But it was a very different noise which struck upon my hearing, a noise that a man may make in the dragging of a heavy sack. I drew myself up close to the wall, setting my feet together, pressing my heels against the panels. The sound filled me with such terror as I think never before or since I have known the like of. For I could not explain it to myself. I only knew that it was dangerous. It seemed to me to come from somewhere about midway of the room, and I held my breath that I might judge the better on its repetition. After a moment it was repeated, but nearer, and by its proximity it sounded so much the more dangerous. I sprang towards it. A sobbing cry leapt from my lips, and I lunged at a venture into the darkness. But again my sword touched nothing, and with the force of that unresisted thrust I stumbled forward for a step or two. My cry changed into a veritable scream. I felt the fingers of a hand gently steal about each of my ankles and then tighten on them like iron fetters. I understood; halfway across the room Rookley had lowered himself full-length upon the floor and was crawling towards me. I raised my sword to strike, but even as I raised it he jerked my feet from beneath me, and I fell face forwards with a crash right across his body. My sword flew out of my hand and went rolling and clattering into the darkness. My forehead struck against the boards, and for a moment I lay half stunned. It was only for a moment, but when that moment had passed, Jervas Rookley was upon me, above me, his arms twined about mine and drawing them behind me, his knees pressed with all his might into the small of my back.
“We will truss the goose before we send it to King George,” said he.
CHAPTER XVI.
ASHLOCK GIVES THE NEWS.
THEN I REMEMBERED the curtain cord. I felt that Rookley was trying to pass it from one hand to the other beneath my arms; I could hear the tassel bobbing and jerking on the floor, and I summoned all my strength to draw my arms apart For if he prevailed, here was the end of all my fine resolve to secure Mr. Herbert’s enlargement!
I had flattered myself with that prospective atonement, as though it was a worthy action already counted to my credit. I saw this in a flash now, now that I was failing again, and the perception was like an agony in my bones. It seemed to me that a woman’s face rose out of the darkness before me, mournful with reproach, and the face was not the wife’s who waited in Keswick, but Dorothy’s. She looked at me from beneath a hood half thrown back from the head and across her shoulder, as though she had passed me, even as I had seen in my fancies a woman’s face look at me, when I had watched the procession of my hours to come in the Rector’s Library at the Jesuit College.
Meanwhile R
ookley’s knee so closely pressed me to the floor that my struggles did but exhaust myself, and delay the event. I was no match for him in bodily strength, and he held me, moreover, at that disadvantage wherein a weak man might well have triumphed over a strong.
I could get no purchase either with hand or foot, and lay like a fish flapping helplessly on the deck of a boat, the while he pressed my arms closer and closer together.
It is not to be imagined that this unequal contest lasted any great while. The thoughts which I have described raced through my mind while my cry seemed still to be echoing about the walls, and as though in answer to that cry, a latch clicked as I felt the cord tighten about my elbows.
The sound came from somewhere on the opposite side of the hall, and I do not think that Rookley heard it, for now and again he laughed in a low, satisfied fashion as though engrossed in the pleasure of his task. I heard a shuffling of feet, and a light brightened in the passage which led to the steward’s office. A great hope sprang up within me. There was one servant in the house whom I could trust.
“Ashlock!” I shouted at the top of my voice.
The footsteps quickened to a run.
“Damn you!” muttered Rookley, and he let go the cord. He had raised his hand to strike, but I did not give him time for the blow. With a final effort I gathered up my knees beneath me and raised myself on my fore-arms. Rookley’s balance was disturbed already. He put out a hand to the floor. I got the sole of my foot upon the boards, jerked him off my back, and rolled over upon him with my fingers at his throat. Ashlock ran towards us with a lighted lamp in his hand. I let go my hold and got to my feet. Rookley did the same.
“You came in the nick of time,” said Rookley, “My good cousin would have murdered me;” and he arranged his cravat.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 234