_ BOOK II. SHADOW
CHAPTER IX. CONCERNING THE OPENING OF A DOOR
"Anthony, give me the pistol!"
"Damme, no--ha' patience! Meantime take this--more useful if it comes t' scrimmage!" And he twisted a stake from the flower bed we were trampling and thrust it into my hand. "Enemy's country, Perry,--qui vive! Hist! Attention and all the rest of it! Forward an' curse the consequences!"
So we stole forward like the madmen we were, but very silent and very determined.
The house stood upon a noble terrace, a large house of many gables and windows, most of these last being unlighted. Fortune seemed to favour us, for we met with none to oppose us, and mounting a broad flight of stone steps, reached the terrace unmolested. But as I stood glancing about for some door or likely window whereby we might force entrance, Anthony dragged me down suddenly into the shadow of the balustrade, as round a corner of the house two men appeared.
"Wot," growled one, pausing, the better to spit in passionate disgust, "put the 'orses to the phaeton, must I? And at this time o' night--an' all for a couple o' light country Molls as is afeard to foot it 'ome in the dark, curse 'em!"
"She ain't no country Moll, Ben, leastways not 'er as I see--a reg'lar 'igh-stepper--all the lady, Ben--such eyes, ecod--such a shape to 'er, Ben--"
"Well, dang 'er shape, I says! Why can't she go as she come?"
"Summat in the wood give 'er a turn, scared 'er like, an' back she run to the Guv'nor an' orders 'im to 'ave the phaeton round, which the Guv'nor does; an' there's 'im an' t' others a-toastin' of 'er this 'ere werry minute. Oh, she's a lady, Ben, an' mighty 'igh an' 'aughty, by 'er looks."
"'Aughty!" sneered Ben, spitting again. "Lady! We know th' kind o' ladies as comes a visitin' th' Guv'nor or the Captain 'ere a-nights--"
"Shut your trap, Ben, an' get to your 'osses, lady or no."
"Lady--ha, fine doin's--fine doin's! Shameless 'ussies--"
"Close up, Ben, close up--mum's the word hereabouts! The Guv'nor's got a quick eye for a fine young woman--ah, an' so's you an' me, for that matter! An' I tell ye, this 'un's a fine lady, even if a bit frolicsome. So git to your 'osses, Ben--an' sharp's the word."
The man Ben sniffed and, muttering evilly, slouched away, leaving his fellow to sigh gustily and stare up at the moon; a square-shouldered, bullet-headed man who, leering up at Diana's chaste loveliness, began to scrape and pick at his teeth with a thumb nail. And then Anthony sneezed violently. The man stood rigid, thumb at mouth, peering.
"'Oo's there?" he demanded gruffly, and began to advance, head bowed and arms squared in a posture of offence.
In one moment, as it seemed, Anthony was upon him; ensued a scrape of feet, a thudding of blows, a strangled cry, and they were down, rolling upon the gravel and with never a chance for me to get in a stroke with my unwieldy hedge stake. At last Anthony arose, panting a little and smiling grimly, looking from the man's inert form to his own bleeding knuckles.
"This," he whispered breathlessly, "this is doing me--power o' good! Toughish customer--forced to give him--tap with pistol butt. How about the fellow Ben?"
"No, no, Anthony! The door yonder--quick--this way!"
I remember a long, dim-lit passage, a narrow stair, and we found ourselves in a broad and spacious hall where shaded lamps burned and nude statues gleamed against rich hangings.
Borne to our ears came a jingle of glasses, the line of a song and boisterous laughter. A door opened suddenly and a man stepped into the hall, his bulky figure outlined against the lights of the room behind him, but he paused upon the threshold to glance back and flourish something triumphantly.
"Treasure trove!" he laughed. "The memento of a delightful hour!"
With the words upon his lips he turned, and I recognised Captain Danby. He was halfway across the hall when he espied us and stopped to glare in wide-eyed amazement; something fluttered to the floor and he began to retreat softly and slowly before us, but Anthony was pointing down at a small bundle of lace with hand that shook and wavered strangely.
"Look at it, Perry--look!" he muttered. "Look, man! Why--God's death, Perry--it's her lace scarf--belongs to my Loveliness, Perry--should know it anywhere--it's--hers, man--and here! Oh, damnation!"
In a flash he had picked it up and, roaring like a madman, hurled himself against the closing door. For moment was a desperate scuffling and frenzied straining and gasping, a creaking of stout panels, then the door swung violently open and we burst into the room.
A disordered supper table littered with bottles, three or four breathless gentlemen who panted and glared, and a curtained doorway in one corner; all this I was aware of, though my gaze never left the face of him who stood before this curtained door, a tall, slender man very elegantly calm and wholly unperturbed, except for the slight frown that puckered his thick brows,--a handsome face the paler by contrast with its dark and glossy hair.
For a tense moment there was silence but for Anthony's loud and irregular breathing; when at last he spoke his voice sounded wholly unfamiliar:
"Damned scoundrels--look at this! My wife's scarf--is she here? By God, if she is, I'll find her if I have to kill you one by one and wreck this hellish place--"
"Fellow's drunk!" suggested some one, whereupon Anthony cursed them one and all, and I heard the sharp click of the pistol as he cocked it, but I restrained him with a gesture:
"Mr. Trenchard," said I, "Mr. Haredale--Devereux or whatever name you happen to be using, I have forced myself upon you to-night to inform you that, knowing you at last for the foul and loathsome thing you are, I am very earnest that you should pollute the world no longer. Two years ago you struck me in the yard behind the Chequers Inn, at Tonbridge; I call upon you to account for that blow to-night--here and now!"
"Let any man stir and I shoot to kill!" said Anthony between shut teeth; his heavy tread shook the floor behind me, then he had swung me aside and fronted Devereux the pistol in his hand, face convulsed and murder glaring in his eyes.
"Trenchard," said he in strange, hissing whisper, "there is a curtained door behind you--whom are you hiding in there? Trenchard, I am yearning to kill you and kill you I will, so help me God, unless you draw that curtain and open that door--d'ye hear me?"
Trenchard's tall form seemed to stiffen, his mocking smile vanished, but his eyes never wavered.
Anthony levelled the pistol.
"Trenchard," said he softly, "I'll count three!"
Then Trenchard laughed lightly.
"Egad, sir," said he with a flourish, "drunk or no, you have a devilish persuading air about you. Behold then, and judge of my felicity!"
Thus speaking, he drew aside the curtain and reached white hand towards the door behind, but at this moment and before he could touch it, the door swung open and Diana stepped forth.
"Mr. Vere-Manville," said she, her soft voice calm and even, "pray give me my scarf, your wife made me a present of it days ago!" And she reached out her hand with the old, imperious gesture that I remembered so well. So Anthony gave her the handful of lace and turned his back upon us.
"O Perry!" he exclaimed with a groan, "O Perry, dear friend--what have I done! God forgive me--"
"Heavens, Anthony!" quoth I. "Pray why distress yourself upon a matter so trivial--besides, I knew already. And now, Mr. Trenchard or Haredale or Devereux, if this lady will be so obliging as to retire, we can settle our small concern very comfortably here across the table."
"No, Peregrine!" said Diana in the same even tone.
"Mr. Trenchard--" I began.
"I say you shall not, Peregrine!" said she softly.
"Mr. Haredale--" quoth I.
"O Peregrine," she sighed, "suspicion has poisoned your mind against me or you would never stoop to doubt me--even here--"
"Mr. Devereux," said I, "will you pray have the courtesy to desire your charming friend to leave us awhile--"
"O Peregrine!" she gasped, and though I never so much as glanced in her direction, I knew she had shrunk farther from me. "Some day, oh, some day, Peregrine, you will regret this bitterly--bitterly--" Her voice broke, and in its place came Devereux's hateful tones:
"'My charming friend' is well aware that her society is my joy and delight, nor shall I cheat myself of one moment on your account, sir, whoever you chance to be."
"Why, then," said I, laying my card on the table, "the lady's presence need not deter us, I think. Let us be done with the affair at once."
"Absolutely and utterly impossible, sir!" he answered, taking up my card. "Since you desire me to kill you, I will do so with a perfect pleasure, but at my own time and place and--" Here he paused as he read my name, and stood a moment staring down at the pasteboard with that same faint pucker of the brow; then he laughed suddenly and tossed my card to Captain Danby. "Odd, Tom!" said he; then turning to me, "Mr. Vereker, I will meet you at the very earliest moment--shall we say five o'clock to-morrow morning? There is a small tavern called 'The Anchor' a few miles along the Maidstone road, a remote spot very suitable for a little shooting. And now, sir, pray begone. I am occupied, as you see--while my friends pour libations to Bacchus, I worship at the shrine of Venus."
Here, turning very ostentatiously, he bowed to Diana, viewing her with look so evil that I clenched my fists and made to spring at him, but Anthony's powerful hand arrested me:
"Come away, Perry," he whispered, "you can do no more to-night. Don't show 'em your pain--pride, man, pride! Come away, old fellow."
So I suffered him to lead me whither he would, following the impulse of his guiding arm like a blind man, for the shadow had closed in blacker than ever, to engulf me at last, and it seemed that my only escape from this horror was to grasp the kindly hand of Death.
Once clear of this accursed house I was seized of a great disgust, a nausea that was both mental and physical, and I groaned aloud in my extremity.
"O God, Anthony! Oh, my God!"
At this he clasped me in his arms and I stood awhile, shivering, my face hidden in his bosom.
"Dear fellow!" he muttered. "Women are the devil. I know--I'm married, d'ye see!"
Faint and far away a church clock struck the hour.
"What time was that?" I enquired.
"Eleven o'clock, Perry."
"Six weary hours to wait!" I groaned.
"B'gad, yes--only six hours!"
"Thank God!" quoth I fervently, and so we went on again, arm in arm.
"You mean to kill that damned fellow, Peregrine?"
"If they place us near enough."
"You are good for twelve paces, I suppose?"
"I don't know."
"But you--you shoot reasonably well, of course?"
"Very badly! This was why I was so anxious to do my shooting across a table--"
"But you--you--O Lord, Perry--you are familiar with the weapon--practised at the galleries occasionally?"
"I have shot once or twice at a target to please my uncle Jervas, but never succeeded in hitting it that I remember."
"Oh, damnation!"
"That is what my uncle Jervas said, I remember."
"But then--why how--oh, man!" stammered Anthony, viewing me in wide-eyed dismay, "how in the fiend's name d' you expect to hit your man?"
"I don't know, Anthony--except, as I say, across a table or a handkerchief. But what matter? After all, perhaps it is--yes--just as well--"
"Why, then 't will be rank murder! Ha, by heaven, Perry, you--you mean to let the fellow murder you--is this it?"
"I mean to shoot as straight as I can."
"It will be murder!" he cried wildly, and then tossing up his long arms in a helpless, distracted manner, he cried, "By God, Perry, you are as good as dead already!"
"Why, then," said I, grasping him by the arm, "listen to the voice of a dying man and one who has never accomplished anything as yet--indeed, I have been a failure all my life--"
"You, Perry? A failure--how, man, how?"
"Well, I yearned to be a poet--and failed. I tried to be a painter--and failed again. I endeavoured to become a man and have achieved nothing. I am a sentient futility! But to-night--ah, to-night kind fortune sent me--you. And you were drunk again!"
"I'm sober enough now, b'gad!"
"Drunkenness, Anthony, as you know, is the refuge for cowards and weaklings, and all unworthy such a man as Anthony Vere-Manville--"
"Egad, will you preach at me, Perry?"
"Call it so if you will, but to-night is something of an occasion and here is a setting excellently adapted to the sermon of a dying man."
And indeed it was a night to wonder at, very still and silent and filled with the splendour of a great moon whose peaceful radiance fell upon the sleeping countryside like a benediction.
"Look," said I, "look round you, Anthony, upon this wonder of earth and heaven! Does it not wake in you some consciousness of divinity, some assured hope that we in our nobler selves are one with the Infinite Good?"
"Why, to be sure, now you mention it," he answered easily, glancing from me to the radiant heaven and back again, "it is a very glorious night!"
"Yes!" said I. "'In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wide sea banks and wafted her love to come again to Carthage!'"
"Eh?" exclaimed Anthony, peering at me anxiously.
"'In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs,'--and in such a night your friend, who may never see another--takes occasion to ask a promise of you."
"What is it, Perry?"
"That henceforth you will be drunk no more. Give me your word for this, Anthony, and come what will, I shall not have lived in vain."
"Why, Peregrine," he mumbled, "dear fellow--not quite yourself--very natural--quite understand--"
"On the contrary, I have never been so truly myself as now, Anthony. Grant me this and--if death find me to-morrow morning, I shall indeed have accomplished something worthy at last. So, Anthony--promise me!"
For a moment he stood very still, gazing up at the moon, then, all in a moment, had caught my hand to wring it hard; but the pain of his grip was a joy and the look on his face a comfort beyond words.
"I--I Swear it!" said he between quivering lips. "God's love, man, I'd promise you anything to-night! And now--laugh, man, laugh--oh, dammit!" Here he choked and was silent awhile.
"Where are you taking me, Anthony? I cannot return to the 'Soaring Lark.'"
"Of course not. You're coming with me to 'The Bear' at Hadlow. I have a room there. And you'll promise to be guided by me until this--this cursed affair is over--place yourself and the affair in my hands, Perry?"
"Most thankfully."
"Then I stipulate for supper and bed as soon as possible."
"Very well, Anthony--though I ought to draw up some sort of a will first, oughtn't I?"
"Yes, it is customary, dear fellow."
"There's my Wildfire, I'll leave him to you--if you'll have him."
"Of course--and thank you, Perry."
"You'll soon grow to love the rascal in spite of his mischievous tricks--"
"I hope to heaven I never have the chance--oh, curse and confound it--don't be so devilish calm and assured. You--you talk as if you were going out to your execution!"
"No, no, Anthony," I answered, slipping my hand within his arm, "let us rather say--to my triumph." _