“Stand!” thundered a gruff voice.
Mr. Granby stood. He was not by nature foolhardy, and his common sense told him that a man with a levelled pistol was a man to be obeyed. He slipped a hand towards one of his holsters, furtively, to withdraw it again as he remembered that he had discharged both pistols at the commencement of his chase of Mr. Pepper.
“If it’s my purse you want—” he began, in haste to push on.
“I want more than that,” came the answer, interrupting him. And then, in the politer manner affected by gentlemen of the road, “Sir, it grieves me vastly to put you to discomfort. But the messengers are after me, and my horse is spent. I’ll trouble you to dismount.”
“But—” began Granby in dismay.
“Dismount!” bellowed the highway man, dropping all courteous affectations. “Dismount this instant, or I’ll blow your brains out.”
Mr. Granby came quickly to the ground. In an instant the tobyman was beside him. Another moment, and he had swung himself into Granby’s empty saddle, and was off at a gallop into the night.
There stood Granby — Granby, the heroic rescuer of distressed dames — on the white, sparkling snow, in sore perplexity, anger, and chagrin. Then, in a spirit of philosophy determining to make the best of matters, he mounted the spent horse that had been left him, the sorriest nag that ever wore a saddle, and gave it a touch of the spur. After all, his loss amounted to no more than a horse, and Mr. Granby was wealthy enough to envisage that loss without great concern. But what of Pepper and the lady he was to rescue? Surely Pepper would lag behind, and wait for him. But soon — being unable to get more than a walk out of the animal he bestrode — he realized that unless Pepper came to a standstill, there was no chance of his being overtaken; and if he were so foolish as to come to a standstill to wait for Granby to come up with him, then the whole scheme would be betrayed, and must miscarry. The horse staggered a quarter of a mile or so under the stimulus of Granby’s frantic spurring; then it foundered altogether, and Granby was forced to dismount.
He pondered the matter as best his rage would let him. To take the horse farther was out of the question. There was no choice but to leave the beast and push on afoot, trusting to Mr. Pepper’s ingenuity to afford him an early opportunity of coming to that pretty sword-play they had agreed upon. Mr. Granby set off at a run, taking the road that led to Guildford, for Guildford was the goal arranged. But Guildford was twenty miles away, and it was not until after eight o’clock of that Christmas morning that Mr. Granby dragged his weary body over the bridge that spans the Wey, and up the precipitous High Street of that ancient town.
He was a man utterly disillusioned, a man in whom the thought of his own physical discomforts had quenched all amorous aspirations, a man whose only remaining ambition was to dry his sodden boots in some comfortable inn parlour and mend his physical discomforts with an ample breakfast. If a thought he gave to any other matter, it was to curse the idiotic Pepper for having ridden on, as he appeared to have done, heedless of whether Mr. Granby was in pursuit or not.
He stamped wearily into the yard of the “Black Bull,” swung into the inn, and making his way down a passage, opened the first door he came upon. A lady and a gentleman were at table there, and Mr. Granby, realizing that he intruded, was for withdrawing hastily, when a cheery voice hailed him.
“Mr. Granby! Gad! You’re come at last!” Mr. Pepper had risen from the table, and was advancing towards him with a smile upon his pleasant young face. Granby gasped, and looked at the lady. It was Jenny.
“At least,” cried slow-witted Granby, thinking that matters were to be righted after all, “it seems I am not come too late.” And he put his hand to the hilt of his small-sword. But Pepper only laughed.
“If it’s the pretty show of sword-play you’re thinking of, you’re too late altogether. Come in, man, and break your fast with us. I make no doubt you’ll be nigh dead of hunger.” And he drew Granby, despite himself almost, into the room.
“What — what do you mean?” he demanded, scowling, for he noticed now that Jenny’s air was not such as her position should inspire; her cheeks were red, and she seemed a prey to laughter.
“Why,” said Mr. Pepper airily, advancing a chair for his guest, “when you never came, what was I to do with this lady on my hands? I ask you, what would you have done in my place?”
The question quenched all Mr. Granby’s vexation. Engrossed as he had been in his own calamities, he had given no thought to Mr. Pepper’s quandary.
“You’ll agree,” continued Mr. Pepper, “that I could scarce ride on with her after daylight. We should have been stopped. Besides, there are limits to a horse’s endurance, and to a man’s. We must stop somewhere. At the first inn would be Miss Egerton’s opportunity. She has but to call for help, and in what case should I find myself? I have been in gaol once, as I have already had occasion to inform you, and I have little fancy for repeating the experience. I hope, sir, that you realize my delicate position.”
“Indeed, sir,” murmured the confused and bewildered Granby, “I own it must have been trying!”
“You see, then,” Mr. Pepper cut in, “that it was necessary to do something that should put me in shelter from the law.”
“And he did,” Jenny explained, laughter sparkling in her eyes and dimpling her smooth, fresh cheek, “what you will agree was the only thing to do. He told me the truth. Oh, shame, Mr. Granby! Shame on you for setting such a scheme on foot and subjecting a poor girl to so much misery and discomfort.”
“But, madam — ,” groaned Mr. Granby unable to say more.
“Mr. Pepper was wise to tell me the truth, and cast himself, as he did, upon my mercy,” she concluded.
Mr. Granby said nothing. He sat nursing his hat, his gaze averted, abashed like a child caught in a naughty act. How different was all this from the brave plan they had made!
“Miss Egerton very charitably forgave us,” said Pepper, “and we determined to break our fast here whilst awaiting you.”
Granby screwed up his courage to ask: “And now?” in a very sheepish voice.
“You see,” Pepper explained confidentially, “even having made my peace with Miss Egerton, I felt myself far from secure. You’ll remember why I was in gaol two years ago. I told you the reason.” Granby nodded.
“Therefore,” put in Jenny, “it became necessary for Mr. Pepper further to protect himself.”
“In her mercy,” Pepper resumed, “she realized how unpleasant it might be for me if I were discovered here — by her guardian, say — alone with a child upon whom I had no claim of kinship. Besides, the lady has a reputation, and I could not in honesty have called myself your friend if I had allowed the reputation of a lady whom you had thought of making your wife to be placed in jeopardy. So while breakfast was cooking we stepped across the street, and were quietly married by the most civil parson in the world.”
“Odso!” roared Granby. “You are fooling me, then?” And he got heavily to his feet, his face purple with indignation.
“Fooling you?” cried Pepper. “Not I. I am telling you the truth. I ask you what else was I to do? You yourself forced the situation upon me. What other way out of it had I? And, rat me, sir, where have you tarried all night that you never overtook me as we had arranged?”
“Bah!” said Granby, who was now beginning to understand things. “I have been walking a matter of twenty miles since the knave you hired deprived me of my horse.”
He paused, summoning invective to his aid, his wits now penetrating to the very heart of this situation. It flickered in that moment through his mind that Squire Clifford had made some allusion to a spark for whom his ward was suspected of a fancy. This, then, was the sparking question, and Granby had been fooled by him. And it was into the keeping of this hair-brained young scapegrace — who had been gaoled already for running off with some girl or other — that Jenny had given her sweet young life! Granby felt naturally vindictive. He planted himself squarely on his f
eet, and dully eyed the couple at the table.
“Will you tell me,” he asked with grim unction, “the name of the lady for whose abduction you were gaoled two years ago, Mr. Pepper?”
Mr. Pepper looked disconcerted, Granby thought with relish.
“It’s something of an ordeal, sir, to be forced to confess to such follies in the presence of my wife, and — and on my bridal morning. Still, if you insist—”
“I do,” said Granby firmly. “She shall know what manner of man she had wed.”
“It’s two years ago, and that’s a long time in a young man’s life,” said Pepper. “My memory may be at fault, but I believe it was a Miss Egerton, of whom you may have heard, sir.” And from the ripple of laughter that broke from Jenny’s lips, Granby knew that he was being mocked with the truth.
It was more than he could bear. He swung out of the room, and out of the inn, and tired, damp and hungry though he was, he determined to get a horse and ride back to Clifford Manor to tell the squire what had befallen. He realized with angry shame how those merry young gentlemen at the “King’s Arms” had fooled him the night before when they sent him to Pepper for guidance in this delicate matter.
While he waited in the yard for a horse, he could not resist a peep through the window of the room where the bridal couple were at table. A bright firelight played upon walls and ceiling, and relieved the lingering gloom of that Christmas morning. Jenny, he noticed, sat with a kerchief to her eyes, and Mr. Pepper with an arm round her neck strove to console her. The sight affected Granby oddly. Maybe she was weeping out of pity for the treatment he had received; maybe she was thinking of her guardian and the trouble he would make for them. Mr. Granby was honestly fond of the child, and he felt a lump in his throat as he pondered the matter of her tears. Tears on her wedding-day!
He noticed now how well-matched they were in youth and looks, and he realized how ill-matched would she have been had she wedded him as was intended. He remembered, too, now that his mood was softening, that, after all, Pepper was little to blame for what had happened. It was those rascally wags at the “King’s Arms” who had fooled him rather than Pepper. In Pepper’s place he might himself have done just what Pepper had done.
And then a peal of joybells crashed suddenly upon the morning air to remind Granby of what day it was, and what the message of that day was.
He straightened himself. He may have been dull, podgy and unimaginative, but he was a good fellow at heart. Back into the inn and into their parlour he strode, and so full of purpose was his step that Jenny looked up in alarm as he thrust wide the door. He advanced, his face rather red, his eyes more sheepish than ever.
“I forgot,” said he, “to wish you a merry Christmas, and I’ve come back to do it. If you’ll ride to Clifford Manor with me, I think I can persuade the squire to let us all spend this bridal Christmas happily together.” And he held out a hand to each of them.
MONSIEUR DELAMORT
I
In his outfit as a thorough-paced chevalier d’industrie, M. Delamort might be said to include all the more usual tools of his craft. He could tell your fortune by the cards, by your bumps, by the tea-cup, the crystal, or your hands; his legerdemain was a marvel of dexterity; he dabbled in hypnotism, and at times — where a particularly weak-minded individual was his subject — he achieved some slight measure of success. He practised medicine upon occasion, with results that were only a little more disastrous than those which frequently attend the efforts of duly qualified men.
Of all his accomplishments spiritualism was the one that afforded him the deepest measure of pride. Thanks to an ingenious fraud, with which, by the aid of a confederate, he had imposed upon simple folk in almost all the rural districts of France, he had amassed a very considerable sum of money, which is an easy explanation of his predilection for that branch of his trickster’s profession.
His confederate, unfortunately, took it into his head to apply to other ends the dishonesty acquired in his partnership with Delamort; and so clumsy was he that he got himself arrested for embezzling, and sentenced to a term of three years’ imprisonment.
To Delamort the loss was incalculable; nor did he think it even worth while to take any steps to repair it, despairing of ever finding another who could so plausibly play the part. He found himself compelled to abandon spiritualism. He no longer held forth to gaping villagers upon the mysteries of the spirit-world, no longer talked of “psychic forces” and the “obsessing flesh.” He fell back upon the more vulgar and less remunerative craft of fortune-telling, and had to be content to pocket silver, where before he had taken gold.
And then — quite by accident — it came to him how he might resume his trade in ghosts, single-handed though he was.
It happened at Soreau, one evening. He was sitting in the village inn, entertaining a little crowd of rustics with an exposition of sleight-of-hand, and leaving them amazed at his miracles, when the subject of spiritualism was introduced by old Grosjean.
“There was a man of your name could raise ghosts,” said the villager.
Delamort flashed him a piercing glance of his black, solemn eyes as he answered impressively: “I am that man.”
There was a momentary hush, followed by a babel of questions from those of the party who were not believers in spiritual manifestations. It was the sort of challenge to which Delamort was accustomed, and one for which he had often angled in the old days.
Sheer force of habit brought him to his feet, that he might reply with fitting impressiveness, and for the next few minutes he descanted in his sharp, metallic voice upon that vexed question, causing his audience to gasp at the boldness of his statements.
A tall, lean figure, dressed in clothes of faded black, aquiline of nose and clearcut of face, with long black hair brushed back from the forehead, fiery of glance and liberal of gesture, he imposed upon those simple men of Soreau as much by his presence, air, and voice as by the things he said.
Yet some materialists there were whom neither his manner nor his matter could impress, and among them was old Grosjean, who was, in his way, a man of fair education and some reading. It was this fellow whom Delamort singled out for his special prey upon this occasion.
A quick judge of character, he had read at a glance the cupidity so plainly advertised in Grosjean’s close-set eyes, in the lines of his thin-lipped mouth, and in his lean, claw-like hands. To these very apparent characteristics of the old man did he owe the notion with which he was so suddenly inspired, and upon which he set himself at once to act.
“You may laugh, you fools!” he thundered, with a fine assumption of anger. “I have been laughed at before by men as ignorant. But I have changed their mirth to terror before I had done with them; and I will do as much for you if any here has the courage to submit to the trial.”
Grosjean cackled contemptuously, whereupon Delamort swooped down upon him as does the hawk upon the sparrow.
“Derider!” he cried fiercely. “Dare you undergo the test?”
“Bah!” snarled Grosjean. “You are an impudent swindler. I have heard of you.”
For a second Delamort’s steady glance wavered. Then he recovered, and let it rest balefully upon the speaker.
“Insult,” said he sententiously, “is a woman’s argument, not a man’s. I am no swindler.”
“Prove it and I’ll believe you,” was the answer.
“Certainly I will prove it,” returned Delamort promptly. “You have but to name the man whose spirit you would have me evoke, and I will undertake to render it visible and audible to your skeptic senses.”
“Very well,” quoth Grosjean, still derisive. “Let me behold my father’s ghost and I will believe you, and withdraw the term I have applied to you.”
His friends, and indeed they were all friends of his — for Grosjean was as well known in Soreau as the steeple of the village church — encouraged him in his attitude of defiance.
“You shall have your ghost,” Delamort promised hi
m grimly. “But, messieurs, I am not to be insulted in this fashion by a parcel of country clods without taking satisfaction for it. It is not my way to gamble over a matter so terrible as this which I am about to embark upon, but you have said so much that before I carry out M. Grosjean’s demands I should like to know how much each of you is disposed to wager that I fail to do this thing?”
“I expected that,” said Grosjean, with a senile chuckle, and he lacked not for chorus.
“Did you?” sneered Delamort in his turn. “And I suppose that, as it becomes a question of risking a little money, you would prefer not to submit, for fear that I should prove you wrong.”
Grosjean’s reply was to produce ostentatiously three napoleons and bang them on the table.
“I’ll wager those,” he cried, “that you fail to raise me my father’s ghost or, indeed, any ghost whatsoever.”
“Excellent,” said Delamort. “And these other gentlemen — your friends — will they also manifest in gold their opinion that I am an impostor?”
“I’ll wager a louis,” cried one, and his example was followed by almost every member of the company, until a little pillar of twenty-six napoleons stood upon the wine-stained table.
Delamort quietly produced his purse, and counted out a like sum. Then, taking up also the money staked by the company, and having obtained a sheet of paper, he wrapped up the fifty-two napoleons and handed the package to the landlord, begging him to act as stakeholder.
“Now monsieur,” said be, turning to Grosjean, “if monsieur l’hote will find us a room I am ready to commence my seance.”
II.
Grosjean paled a little before the man’s assurance, and in consideration of the confidence which had led him to wager a sum of over six hundred francs. At heart, however skeptic, the old man was far from valiant, and he would certainly have backed out of the business had he seen a way of doing it without loss of prestige.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 465
