Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  When this had somewhat spent itself, the Captain explained the object of his visit to town.

  “I was on my way to wait upon you, sir, when this befell me,” he announced unblushingly. “I am hoping that by now you may have found some commission for me.”

  The statesman’s face lengthened. In Lord Carteret’s present mood it would be worse than futile to approach him on such a subject. But he refrained from saying so. He contented himself with deploring that so far naught of a quality worthy of the Captain’s high attainments had offered itself; but he protested that it was a matter he must not be thought to be neglecting, and soon he hoped to have the good fortune of offering Captain Gaynor something that he would consider acceptable. The Captain expressed his profound indebtedness.

  “Meanwhile,” said he, “I am for Scotland. I have friends there whom I desire to visit, whom I have not seen for years.”

  His destination, as a matter of fact, was Rome and his master’s Court, to report his failure. But to announce that he was returning abroad at such a moment must call for explanation, might even savour of flight, and were therefore imprudent in the extreme.

  “You will keep me advised of your whereabouts?” said Mr Templeton.

  “I shall be roaming,” was the answer. “So perhaps ‘twill be best, should you have letters for me, that you address to me at Childe’s — my bankers here, with whom I shall be in communication. I shall report myself to you immediately on my return to town.”

  On that, with the compliments which the occasion called for, they parted.

  Mr Templeton hired a chair, and went to wait upon Lord Carteret, whilst Gaynor and his friend Sir Richard sauntered off together.

  Upon the pretence of repairing the loss he had suffered by the picking of his pockets yesternight, Captain Gaynor paid a visit to Childe’s, upon whom he had a letter of credit. He drew there a sum sufficient for the journey that lay before him. Next, towards noon, they looked in at “White’s”, and for an hour or so they lounged there in amiable talk of the pleasant season they had spent in Italy in each other’s company, and of other matters.

  At the end of that hour they parted, the Captain to return to Chertsey and Sir Richard announcing that upon the morrow he was for his seat in Devonshire, where he hoped that Harry would visit him ere he left England for the post in the colonies that was to be obtained him.

  Captain Gaynor detested the deception he was practising upon his friend, detested having used him in his need. He would have liked at parting to tell him the truth of matters, but he dared not for his very life’s sake.

  He walked from “White’s” to the post-house at Charing Cross and thence rode post to “The World’s End” at Chelsea, where he but stayed for a word with Maclean and to recover his own horse.

  Heavy-hearted, now that the adventure was at an end, with all the burden of a sense of failure upon him, he rode on to Chertsey; and heaviest of all was the knowledge that tomorrow he must look his last upon that sweet lady he had met in the enchanted garden. Never again, it seemed to him would he ride fancy-free, never again find the cup of adventure all satisfying, never again be content to wander and take pleasure in the wandering. All was changed. All was very dark ahead in a world that but a little week ago had been so full of sunshine.

  Meanwhile Mr Templeton had gone to lay before Lord Carteret the desired evidence of Captain Gaynor’s whereabouts, together with conclusive proofs of the error under which the Secretary of State had laboured.

  This he performed with an abundance of smirks, an occasional chuckle and many a “Did I not tell your lordship how it was?” Finally he withdrew in magnificent, dignified triumph, his knowledge and perspicacity entirely vindicated, leaving his superior not only discomfited but extremely raw at his discomfiture. For to be guffawed over in such a manner by your underling, and to be forced almost to admit that you have sneered at warnings which an intelligent man would have heeded, is not to be endured complacently by any. Least of all is it to be endured by a Secretary of State when the chastening falls from such soft, pompous hands as those of a Mr Templeton.

  Lord Carteret, as is the wont of men in high office, looked about for someone upon whom he might visit his ill-humour and to whom he might impart some of his own rawness. To him in this questing mood comes that morning my Lord Pauncefort, very resplendent in black periwig and saffron-coloured coat.

  “Good morning, my lord!” the statesman greeted him, in a tone that implied that he wished the viscount anything but a good morning. “I was about to send for you.” Lord Carteret — a man of a comfortable habit of body, with a hooked nose, a crafty mouth, and small round eyes that were singularly penetrating and level — scowled upon his visitor. “What cock-and-bull tale was this ye brought me concerning one Captain Gaynor?”

  “Cock-and-bull tale” echoed Pauncefort, taken aback by the question and still more by the tone of it. He drew himself up to the full of his magnificent height, and stared down haughtily upon the Secretary of State. He was not accustomed to being addressed in the manner that Lord Carteret employed this morning.

  But he did not long maintain his stare or his haughty poise. The thin lips of the minister wore a sneer and the round little eyes flashed a contempt before which Lord Pauncefort was forced to lower his own. A slight flush crept into his swarthy cheeks.

  Men such as Lord Carteret may use men such as Lord Pauncefort; but from the moment they so use them equality ceases between them and is never again to be resumed. To Lord Carteret, the viscount was just a vulgar spy, to be used with contempt, paid his dirty wages and scorned as was his proper due. All this he showed in that faintly sneering mouth and disdainful eyes. “Those were my words,” he said steadily, and he repeated them. “Cock-and-bull tale. This Captain Gaynor was not at Chelsea last evening, and it has been made plain to me that it is impossible he should be Captain Jenkyn, as you have said. It was made plain to me yesterday; but I persisted under your assurances, and as a consequence I have enabled that coxcomb Templeton to laugh at me this morning. Now his Majesty’s Government, my lord,” he continued mercilessly, “is not paying you for fictions, but for exact — for scrupulously exact — information.”

  “And you have had it,” answered Pauncefort in a dull voice.

  The statesman rapped the table impatiently with his knuckles. “In this case we have not.”

  “In this case more than in any other,” Pauncefort insisted. “What should it profit me to accuse an innocent man who can prove his innocence as soon as he speaks?”

  “Yet that precisely appears to be Captain Gaynor’s case.”

  “Appears to be — ay. The fellow is slippery as Satan himself.”

  Lord Carteret pooh-poohed the statement. He proceeded to relate where and how Captain Gaynor had spent the night. Pauncefort listened attentively.

  “At what hour did the watch discover him?” he inquired.

  “At nightfall, I am informed.”

  “That would be at about half-past nine. And at what time were the arrests effected at Chelsea?”

  “At something before nine. He can hardly have been in both places within the time and drunk himself into a stupor in between. Besides, why should he?”

  “To set up an alibi, in case it should be necessary. Was he drunk at all?”

  Lord Carteret shrugged impatiently. “The watch affirm it: they should know, and Templeton swears he still stinks of brandy.”

  “And yet, that he is Captain Jenkyn I know; and that he was at Chelsea last night I’ll make oath.”

  “Had he been taken with the others, the fact that he is an agent of the Pretender would have been established, and we could have dealt with him. As it is — why, as it is, I must believe that Templeton is right and that he is—”

  “He is Captain Jenkyn, my lord,” Pauncefort insisted still.

  “You are becoming plaguily monotonous, sir,” snapped Carteret. “If you would prove a little more and affirm a little less I should be better pleased with you.
Ye see, we can’t hang the fellow on your bare word. Indeed anybody’s word would be almost better in the ears of a court than that of an informer. You understand?”

  That he understood his countenance showed. “My lord,” he burst out angrily, “you are putting an affront upon me!”

  The minister surveyed him coolly. “I am calling things by the names that belong to them,” he answered icily. And my lord was compelled to swallow that added insult — his very proper and inevitable wage.

  “I’ll wish your lordship a good morning” he said stiffly. He bowed curtly and gained the door. There, a thought striking him, he turned. “You said, I think, that Sir Henry Tresh was the justice before whom Captain Gaynor was brought at Westminster?”

  “That is so,” said his lordship. “Come to me again when your information stands upon better foundations.”

  The viscount went out raging, and kicked a flunkey out of his way to vent a little of the fumes with which he was swollen to bursting-point.

  He straightway sought the magistrate upon a pretence of being a friend of Captain Gaynor’s who had just received news of his arrest. Sir Henry informed him that the Captain was already at large, whereafter his lordship lingered in talk concerning the erstwhile prisoner, and in the course of their entertainment Chance favoured Pauncefort in a manner entirely unexpected. He learnt that Sir Henry had been at “The World’s End” at Chelsea last night when the arrest of the plotters was being effected, and he learnt something further, something which was imparted that evening to Sir Richard Tollemache Templeton by his cousin.

  “What, think you, is my Lord Carteret’s present view of your friend Gaynor?” inquired the Second Secretary.

  “Does he hang there still?” quoth Sir Richard in surprise.

  “’Tis an obsession with him — an obsession! Oh, ’tis incredible that fatuity should go to such lengths — incredible! And the story itself would be incredible to any but a man who is — ah — lost to all sense of the ridiculous. Why, listen to’t. It transpires that by an odd chance Sir Henry Tresh was at ‘The World’s End’ last night when the arrests were made. He was sitting over his wine with a friend when the stir took place. Having witnessed it he goes to his wife’s room, finds the door locked, and believes that he hears voices within the room. He knocks; there is a delay, and finally the cuckold is admitted. He demands an explanation of those sounds, of the delay and of the extraordinary agitation in which he finds her. Whereupon she tells him that a gentleman unknown to her entered her room and locked the door, leaving thereafter by the window.

  “Sir Henry — a most obliging husband, this — believes her implicitly, assumes that like enough the fellow would be one of the Jacobites who escaped the general arrest. Today my Lord Carteret hears the story, and concludes — can you credit it? — that here, at last, is the explanation of why Captain Jenkyn was not taken with the others. If he were to pause there, I could credit him still with an — ah — with a remnant of sanity. But straightway Captain Jenkyn becomes Captain Gaynor again, in spite of the alibi, the credentials and all else. What, I ask you, Tollemache, can you say to such a man?”

  “God help England, I think,” answered Sir Richard. “And the worst of it all is that he threatens to execute the warrant for Captain Jenkyn upon Captain Gaynor.”

  “Is he quite mad?” asked Tollemache.

  “Quite — oh, quite!” And Mr Templeton shook his great head. “He’ll be in Bedlam before the year is out. But I’ve washed my hands of the affair. I have told him so. I have warned him. Let the consequences of it — if indeed he goes so far — recoil upon his own head. I shall take measures to protect mine. I shall publish it broadcast that in this blunder at least I am not concerned, that indeed I have done all in my power to avert it. Then, when his lordship rightly becomes the — ah — laughing-stock of the country for an alarmist who sees Jacobite agents in every shadow, then we shall see — we shall see.” And Mr Templeton washed his hands in the air, his eyes glowing upon a vision of power that should be transferred to his own more capable hands as a proper and fitting result of his chief’s disgrace and downfall.

  Chapter 12. NATURE TRIUMPHANT

  On the morrow Captain Gaynor made his preparations for leaving England.

  He had learnt upon returning to Priory Close of the messenger who had sought him there, and thus realised how narrow had been his escape. For the present, however, he had obtained — thanks to Mr Templeton and his own wit — a temporary respite, and that respite he proposed to employ in giving my Lord Pauncefort his quietus. He looked upon this as a sacred duty, and he could not account himself at liberty to depart out of England until he had discharged it. His intention, therefore, was to return to London, and that very day seek out his lordship and, wherever he found him, force upon him a quarrel demanding immediate adjustment. He reflected that the affair would serve him well, and would leave Mr Templeton with an obvious explanation of his subsequent flight from England. He should be glad of that, for he had no reason to embroil the Second Secretary, who had been so very good a friend to him.

  He began that morning by desiring his valet, Fisher, to pack his few belongings, and by informing Fisher that once London were reached he would be obliged by circumstances to dispense with a body servant. The valet, who in the week during which he had served the Captain had found him not only a kind and considerate master, but further had been drawn to him by that magnetism which the Captain’s strong personality irradiated, was so distressed as to seek the reason of this.

  “I am very sorry, sir,” he said. “I hope your Honour has no cause to be displeased with me. I have done my best, but there has been little opportunity—”

  “It isn’t that,” said the Captain. He laid a hand upon the little man’s shoulder, and looked kindly into his sharp face. “You have done very well, and I am sorry to part with you. But — to take you into my confidence, which you’ll respect, I know — I have an affair on my hands.”

  “Oh, sir!” the fellow cried, with quick understanding, and Gaynor was moved by the look of concern that leapt into those keen eyes.

  “If it end one way, Fisher,” the Captain continued, “I shall require no more servants. If it end the other — as I am trustful it will — I shall be put to it to fly the country, and I cannot take you with me.”

  “But why not, sir?” cried the valet. “I’ve travelled aforetime. I was in France and Italy with his Grace of Wharton when I had the honour to serve him. I know foreign ways. I—”

  “I do not doubt it at all, my friend,” the Captain interrupted him. “But there are reasons why I cannot take you, reasons for which you must not press.”

  “I shouldn’t dream of such a liberty, sir.”

  “Then we must leave it there. I am sorry, Fisher, sorry to part with you.”

  “And I am sorry, sir,” said the little man with profound sincerity

  “Thank you, Fisher.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Then the Captain went downstairs. He was touched a little by the valet’s manner. It seemed to increase the burden that was upon him. He was almost obsessed by a sense of imminent evil, born, no doubt, of the impending farewell that he must make to one with whom he must leave, it seemed, a part of himself — and that the better part — when he rode away that day.

  He was exercised, too, by the continued absence of Sir John Kynaston. There was news that, Sir John’s brother being now out of all danger, the baronet would be returning on the morrow or the day after. But Captain Gaynor dared not wait and the abruptness of his departure demanded an explanation; more, the events which had transpired in these last few days made it necessary to convey a warning to the baronet. Yet how was he to accomplish it? Write, he dared not; for letters are ever dangerous and liable to miscarriage, and the things he had to say might, if written, come to prove a deadly witness against Sir John. Thus he was driven to the decision that he must entrust his messages by word of mouth to Evelyn — by whom, of course, he meant Damaris.
/>   He reflected that Sir John might prefer her to remain — like the rest of the household — in ignorance of her father’s slight association with the Jacobite Cause; but he had no alternative. It was a choosing of the lesser of two evils; and, after all, he had perceived in this sweet lady such admirable qualities of head and heart that he was comparatively easy in his mind at the thought of confiding in her. Moreover, he would so put it as not to betray Sir John even to her in any unnecessary degree. With this intent he sought her now.

  He was informed by a servant that Miss Kynaston was with her ladyship in the latter’s withdrawing-room. Thither he went, to find, of course, Lady Kynaston and Evelyn. They accorded him a pleasant, friendly welcome. He hesitated to ask for the lady whom he sought, and he was spared the need, for through the window he espied her walking in the garden.

  Yet for all his haste to join her there, he must linger awhile in a properly deliberate exchange of courtesies with his hostess. She had been perusing The Daily Courant of yesterday when he entered, and, presumably for lack of other matter, she alluded to something she had read.

  “Did you hear aught in town, sir, of these knavish Jacobites who are again attempting to undermine the peace of the realm?” she asked him, and in the main, she was quoting words that she had read.

  “I heard something, madam,” he answered lightly.

  “Ah!” said she. “You do not treat the matter with a proper seriousness.”

  “Is it very serious, ma’am?” he asked her.

  “Serious? Why, the notorious Captain Jenkyn is in England again.”

  “Pooh! A rumour, no doubt.”

  “Nay, sir, no rumour — a report.”

  “’Tis all one, mother dear,” said Evelyn from the window, where she was standing. “I hope they will not take him,” she added, and paid that gallant unknown the tribute of a sigh.