Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated), page 314
“It need not be,” said Johnson, and his voice had sunk to the level of argument from the heights of appeal. “I have studied both of them during the past weeks, and this is my conclusion. She has made a false image of him which she adores, but unless the falsity be proved to the world by some violent revelation she will not discover it. She is a happy self-deceiver, and to the end — unless forcibly enlightened — will take his common clay for gold. As for him — well, he is clay and not gunpowder. He has been moulded into infamy by a stronger man and by his ancestral greed — for, judging by the family here, his race is one of misers. But let him be sufficiently alarmed and shown where his interest lies, and he will relapse to the paths of decorum. Good he will never be, little he must always be, but he may also be respectable. He will not lose his halo in his lady’s eyes and they may live out their time happily, and if God wills some portion of the mother’s quality may descend to the children.”
The thought to Alastair was hideously repellent. To whitewash such a rogue and delude such a lady! Better surely a painful enlightenment than this deceit. He comforted himself with the reflection that it was impossible.
“But by this time Sir John Norreys is with his paymaster, and the mischief is done.”
“Not so,” said Johnson. “Sir John does not ride to Kingston or to Richmond but to Cumberland himself, and he lies far in the south. He may yet be overtaken and dissuaded.”
“By whom?”
“By you, sir.”
Alastair laughed loud and bitterly.
“Are you mad, sir? I journey at once to the Prince’s camp, for I have news for him that may determine his future conduct. Already I am late in starting. I must order my horse, and bid farewell to the ladies.” He moved to the door, and cried instructions to the Spainneach, who smoked a cigarro by the hall fire.
Johnson seized him by the lapels of his coat. “I implore you, sir, by the mercy of God. Follow Sir John and persuade him, compel him, at the sword’s point, if need be. The happiness of my darling child depends on it. If you do not go, I must go myself. The Prince’s news can wait, for it will be only a few hours’ delay at the most. What does it matter whether or not he be in London a day earlier, compared to the well-being of an immortal soul? I beseech you, sir, for the love of Christ Who redeemed us—”
“Tush, man, you are raving,” Alastair broke in, and moved to the half-open door. At that moment the Duchess’s voice sounded on the stairs.
“Come up, sir,” she said. “My lady will receive you before you go, and she bids you bring the other, the clumsy fellow whose name I know not.”
Duchess Kitty met him at the door of Claudia’s chamber.
“Oh, my dear, she is the very archangel of angels, and of an innocence to make one weep. She will come with me to Amesbury. She dotes on her Sir John and will weary me, I fear, with her rhapsodies, but I am nobly complaisant and flatter her passion. I fear you stand no chance, sir. Her heart is wholly in the rogue’s keeping. Enter, for she awaits you.”
In the dim panelled room lit by many candles and a leaping fire the figure of the girl sitting up in the great four-poster bed stood out with a startling brilliance. Madam Claudia was dressed to receive him, as she had been in the midnight colloquy at Flambury, in a furred bed-gown and a nightcap of lace and pink satin. But her brown eyes were no longer pools of dancing light. She held out a hand to Alastair with a little sigh.
“I rejoice that you are free from your t-troubles, sir,” she said. “‘Twas a shameful charge, and I did not credit it, nor truly did Sir John. And justice, they tell me, has been done to the traitor! Sir John was deceived like the rest of you, and ‘tis a cunning rogue that can hoodwink Sir John. You are at the end of your mission, sir, and can now engage in the honest business of war.”
“And for yourself, my lady?”
“I, too, take the road,” she said. “You have heard of her G-grace’s kindness. I am fortunate to travel in such g-gentle company. So it is farewell, sir. You ride this night to the Prince, who is at Derby? My dear Sir John has preceded you there. Oh, would that I could be with him!” And with a morsel of cambric she dried a rising tear.
“And you, Puffin,” she asked, catching sight of Johnson. “Do you travel south with us?”
“Nay, madam, I go with Captain Maclean to the Prince’s camp.”
“Bravo!” she cried. “You have declared yourself at last. God prosper you, my gallant gentlemen. I will be there to cheer when you ride behind the Prince into London.”
Alastair was scarcely conscious of her words. He saw only her wild wet eyes, compared to which those of the pretty Duchess were like pebbles to stars. It was the child in her that overwhelmed him, the appealing child, trusting utterly with no thought but that all the world was well-disposed to her and her love. He had known many women in his time, though none had touched his cold fancy, but he had never before seen woman’s face transfigured with so innocent an exaltation. The sadness in it was only the anxiety of a soul that trembled for the perpetuation of an unbelievable joy. He was nothing to her, nor was any man except the one; the virgin garden of her heart was enclosed with impenetrable defences. The truth moved him not to irritation, but to pity and a protecting care. He could not mar a thing so rare, and if its foundations were rotten he would be in league to strengthen them. For the moment he was not the lover, but the guardian, who would perjure his soul to keep alive a childish paradise.
He raised her hand and kissed it. “I am your very humble and devoted servant,” he said. And then she did a thing for which he was not prepared, for with a little cry she put her hands over her eyes and wept.
He hurried from the room without looking back. He had made a decision which he found was like a dry patch of ground in the midst of rising floods, for gathering from every corner of his soul were dark and unplumbed tides.
*****
As he mounted, the Spainneach spoke: “He has gone by Milford and the Ernshawbank. Likely he will sleep an hour or two at the Pegtop. You might find him there if you haste.”
Johnson’s horse had also been brought, and its rider had some trouble in mounting.
“You will delay me, sir, if you insist on keeping me company,” said Alastair.
“I am a strong rider when I am once in the saddle,” said the other humbly. “But why this hurry? You will be in Derby long ere daybreak.”
“I do not ride to Derby, but down the vale to overtake a certain gentleman.”
He heard Johnson mutter a fervent “God be thanked” as he turned for a last look at the house. In an upper floor there was a glow of firelight and candlelight through the curtains of unshuttered windows. There lay Claudia, stammering her gentle confidences to Duchess Kitty, but with her thoughts ranging the hill-roads in the wake of her worthless lover. And from one of those dark windows two grey beldams were peering into the night and trembling for the riches that were the price of their souls.
CHAPTER XVII. Ordeal of Honour
The night was growing colder, and the moon in her first quarter was sinking among heavy woolpack clouds. The Spainneach’s whisper had been enough for Alastair, who in his sojourn at the Sleeping Deer had made himself familiar with the neighbourhood, after the fashion of a campaigner who may soon have to fight in it. The road led them past the silent hostelry, and then left the vale and struck over a succession of low ridges to another, where a parallel stream of the hills broadened as it neared the lowlands. The men did not spare their horses, and, as the hooves clattered on the bare ribs of rock which crossed the track sparks like wildfire flew behind them.
Alastair’s mood was as dark as the weather. The sight of Claudia, babbling of her lover, had for a moment converted him to Johnson’s view. In a fine impulse of quixotry he had ridden from Brightwell, his purpose vague towards Sir John Norreys but determined in the service of the lady. If her love was pledged irrevocably to a knave and fool, then be it his business to keep the said knave from greater folly, and see that disillusion did not shatter a gentle heart. For a little he felt the glow of self-conscious worth, and the pleasant melancholy which is born of approving self-pity.
It did not last long. Visions of Claudia, dim-eyed, stammering, all russet and snow, returned to ravish his fancy, and the picture of a certain sharp-nosed gentleman to exacerbate his temper. Before God he could not surrender such a darling, he would be no party to flinging such a pearl before swine! His heart grew hot when he thought of Sir John, the mean visage and hedge-hog soul. To condone his infamy would be to sin against Heaven — to foster his lady’s blind fondness the task of a pander. Let the truth be told and the devil be shamed, for a wounded heart was better than a slow decay.
Presently his mind had swung round to a new resolution. He would go straight to Derby to the Prince, which was his direct soldierly duty. He knew the road; the next left-hand turning would lead him there before morning. He was already weeks, months late; he dared not tarry another hour, for he alone knew the truth about the West, and that truth might determine the Prince’s strategy. True, His Highness was at Derby now, and the Rubicon had been doubtless crossed, but in so great a matter no precaution could be omitted. At that very moment Lochiel, with his letter in his hand, might be looking in vain for the man who had named Derby as the trysting-place. . . . He would sweep southward with the Army to conquest, and then in their hour of triumph would root Sir John from his traitor’s kennel. The man must fight on his challenge, and he had no doubt as to the issue of that fight.
But would he? Would he not disappear overseas, taking with him his wife under some false story? If she were deceived in one matter, she might be deceived in others. . . . No, by Heaven, there was no way of it but the one. The fox must be found before he reached his earth, and brought to account at a sword’s point. Stone dead had no fellow.
The cross-roads lay before them where was the turning to Derby.
“There lies the Prince,” said Alastair, his head over his left shoulder. “My duty is to ride forthwith thither. I could breakfast in the camp.”
Johnson, though lacking a riding-coat, had grown warm with the exercise, and both he and his mount were blowing.
“You would not falter in your most honourable resolve?” he puffed.
Alastair clapped spurs to his beast. “No,” he said, “I am resolved before all things to find Sir John Norreys. But when I find him I will kill him.”
He heard a gasp which was more than Mr Johnson’s chronic shortness of breath. As he cantered forward the slower and heavier beast of his companion was forced alongside of him, and a hand clutched his arm.
“I beseech you, sir,” said a tragic voice, “I pray you, in God’s name, to turn aside to Derby.”
“I will first meet Sir John,” was the reply and the hand was shaken off.
“But he will be safe at your hands?”
“That is as God may direct,” said Alastair.
His resolution being now fixed, his spirits rose. He let thoughts of Claudia flush his mind with their sweet radiance. He pictured her as he had last seen her — the light from the candles making her slim white neck below the rosy nightcap take on the bloom of a peach, and the leaping flames of the hearth chequering the shadow of the bed-curtain. He saw her dim eyes, heard her melting voice, felt the warm vigour of her body as she cowered beside him in the dark of the Flambury galleries. Too young for wife, too old for child, but the ripe age for comrade — and such a comrade, for there was a boy’s gallantry in her eyes and something of a child’s confident fearlessness. He did not hear the groans of Mr Johnson pounding dismally behind him, or the shuddering cry of owls from the woods. The world was a quiet place to him where a soft voice was speaking, the thick darkness was all aglow with happy pictures. The man’s soul was enraptured by his dreams. He found himself suddenly laughing to think how new and strange was this mood of his. Hitherto he had kept women at arms’ length, and set his heart on policy and war, till he had earned the repute of one to be trusted and courted, but one already at thirty middle-aged. Lord! but there had been a melting of icebergs! And like a stab came the thought of yet another molten iceberg — Sir John — of the sharp nose and the high coat collar! Alastair cried out like a man in pain.
They rode into Milford half an hour after midnight. There was no light in any house, and the inn was a black wall. But the door of the yard was open, and a hostler, ascending to his bed in the hayloft, accepted a shilling for his news. A man had ridden through Milford that night. He had not seen him, but he had heard the clatter as he was bedding the post horses that had come in late from Marlock. How long ago? Not more than an hour, maybe less, and the fellow checked his memory with a string of minute proofs.
Alastair swung his horse’s head back to the road. “Courage, my friend,” he cried. “We are gaining on him. We shall overtake him before morning.”
Again Johnson caught his arm. “Bethink you, sir,” he stammered. “You ride on an errand of murder.”
“Nay,” was the answer, “of love.”
But the next miles were over roads like plough-lands, and the rain blew up from the south-west and set the teeth chattering of the cloakless Mr Johnson. The night was very dark and the road seemed to pass no villages, for not a light appeared in the wastes of wet ling and fern and plashing woods. The track could be discerned well enough, for it was the only possible route through the rugged land, and happily for the riders there were no crossways. No other traveller met them or was overtaken — which, thought Alastair, was natural, for with the Prince at Derby the flight of the timid would be to the south, and not north or west into the enemy’s country.
Long before dawn he was far beyond the countryside of which he had any knowledge. He had been given Ernshawbank by the Spainneach as the second point to make for, and had assumed that there, if not before, he would fall in with Sir John. Yet when he came to a village about cockcrow, and learned from a sleepy carter that it was Ernshawbank, he did not find his quarry. But at the inn he had news of him. A man answering his description had knocked up the landlord two hours before, drunk a gill of brandy, eaten a crust, and bought for a guinea the said landlord’s cocked grey beaver, new a month ago at Leek Fair. Two hours! The man was gaining on him! It appeared that he had ridden the path for lower Dovedale, as if he were making for Staffordshire and Trentside.
The two breakfasted at an ale house below Thorp Cloud, when a grey December morning was breaking over the leafless vale and the swollen waters of Dove. Their man had been seen, riding hard, with a face blue from cold and wet, and his fine clothes pitifully draggled with the rain. He had crossed the river, and was therefore bound for Staffordshire, and not Nottinghamshire, as Alastair had at first guessed. A minute’s reflection convinced him of the reason. Sir John was specially concerned with cutting off the help coming to the Prince from the West, and therefore went to join those, like the Duke of Kingston, who were on that flank, rather than the army which lay between Derby and London. The reflection gave him acute uneasiness. Nottinghamshire was distant, so there was a chance to overtake the fugitive on the way. But, as it now was, any hour might see the man in sanctuary. The next village might hold a patrol of the Duke’s. . . . He cut short the meal, which Mr Johnson had scarcely tasted, and the two were again on their weary beasts pounding up the steep lanes towards Ershalton and my lord Shrewsbury’s great house.
The mist cleared, a wintry sun shone, and the sky was mottled with patches of watery blue. Mr Johnson’s teeth began to chatter so violently that Alastair swung round and regarded him.
“You will without doubt catch an ague, sir,” he said, and at the next presentable inn he insisted on his toasting his small-clothes before the kitchen fire, drinking a jorum of hot rum, and borrowing a coat of the landlord’s till his own was dry. For suddenly the panic of hurry was gone out of Alastair, and he saw this business as something predestined and ultimate. Fate was moving the pieces, and her iron fingers did not fumble. If it was written that he and Sir John should meet, then stronger powers than he would set the stage. He was amazed at his own calm.
The rum made his companion drowsy, and as they continued on the road he ceased to groan, and at the next halting-place did not stare at him with plaintive hang-dog eyes. As for Alastair he found that his mind had changed again and that all his resolution was fluid.
His hatred of the pursued was ebbing, indeed had almost vanished, for with the sense of fatality which was growing upon him he saw the man as no better than a pawn; a thing as impersonal as sticks and stones. All the actors of the piece — Kyd, Norreys, the Spoonbills, Edom, the sullen Johnson, grew in his picture small and stiff like marionettes, and Claudia alone had the warmth of life. Once more she filled the stage of his memory, but it was not the russet and pearl of her and her witching eyes that held him now, but a tragic muse who appealed from the brink of chasms. She implored his pity on all she loved, on the casket where she had hid her heart.
With a start he recognised that this casket was no other than Sir John Norreys.
He might shatter it and rescue the heart, but how would the precious thing fare in the shattering? Her eyes rose before him with their infinite surrender. Was Johnson right and was she of the race of women that give once in life and then utterly and for ever? If so, his errand was not to succour, but to slay. His sword would not cut the bonds of youth and innocence, it would pierce their heart.
He forced his mind to reconstruct the three occasions when she had faced him — not for his delectation, but to satisfy a new-born anxiety. He saw her at Flambury, a girl afire with zeal and daring, sexless as a child, and yet always in her sweet stumbling phrases harping on her dear Sir John. He saw her in the Brown Room at the Sleeping Deer, a tender muse of memories, but imperious towards dishonour, one whose slim grace might be brittle but would not bend. Last he saw her set up in the great bed at Brightwell, one arm round the neck of Duchess Kitty, the other stretched towards him in that woman’s appeal which had held him from Derby and the path of duty.
