Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  He cursed me roundly, and called me some names, which, out of pity for the fellow’s lack of manners, I withhold. Suffice it to say that it cost me fifty louis — twenty-five of which I borrowed from a friendly Jew — to pacify him.

  That night I slept but ill, for it seemed that my courtship took not a favourable turn, and as my busy thoughts were searching means wherein to mend affairs, they banished sleep.

  But in those waking hours I determined upon a plan which must perforce succeed, and in accordance with which I boldly visited the Marquise upon the following day. I chose an early hour whereat she would have no visitors, and therein I was successful, for I found her alone and in a gracious mood.

  I chided her gently for having treated my messengers with such scant compliment, whereat she looked regretful and cast down her eyes.

  Noting my advantage, and deeming the citadel of her heart now ripe for storming, I knelt to her — as I had knelt to a score of women before her — and told her, in words that from much repetition had acquired an eloquent fluency, how deeply I loved — I who had never known before what it was to love.

  She heard me through with a gentle hanging of her lovely head — a symptom which, experience told me, should augur well — and when for very want of breath I stopped, she laughed in tones that made me wonder had the long-concealed passion which she had fostered for me turned her head.

  Thinking it must be so, and hearing already the chink of St. Auban’s gold pieces in my pocket, I sprang joyfully to my feet, and, catching her round the waist, I awoke the echoes of the room with the sound of a hearty kiss.

  Were I to live a hundred years, I shall still remember the change that came over her face, from which all colour fled, and the terrible look that flashed upon me from her eyes.

  I liked it not, and, scenting danger, I became suddenly aware that it had grown late, and that I had an appointment at noon, which must perforce be kept.

  I looked about me for my hat, and, having found it, I made shift to go, when suddenly she broke the painful, uncanny silence.

  “Tarry a moment, monsieur,” she cried, and methought her eyes had taken fire. “Tarry a moment, I am loth to part with you!”

  Had I heard her aright? Did she desire my company, and were these signs of impending storm but affected, so that — womanlike — she might conceal her joy? Thinking it must be so, “I am your slave,” I murmured, with a gallant bow, “your humble slave, Marquise. Command me as you will, and those others may wait.”

  She laughed curiously, and her eyes wandered towards a riding whip which lay at hand, and which had I seen betimes, mayhap I should have been more prudent.

  “You have given me something, Monsieur,” she said, “and as it hurts me to remain a debtor, I will give you something in return.”

  In vain did I protest that what I had given her was of no consequence, and required no payment. She was of a different mind.

  “I will call again, Marquise,” I exclaimed, “you can repay me then.” And, knowing full well what was in store for me did I tarry, I stalked towards the door.

  But she forestalled me, and barred my passage, whip in hand.

  Seeing how matters stood, and having no illusions left, I deemed it best to grow dignified.

  “I trust, madame,” I ventured in my gentlest tones, fearing to arouse her anger further by any too great a show of firmness, “I trust that you will remember that I am a gentleman.”

  “I never knew it, sir,” she thundered back, in withering accents, “and from what I know of you, I can but remember that you are a knave.”

  Had I lived to be knaved by a woman? Mordieu! she carried her jests somewhat far!

  “Let me pass, madame,” I exclaimed angrily, advancing towards her as I spoke.

  But her hand went up, and the threatening whip checked my progress of a sudden. I deemed it best to effect a compromise.

  “I assure you, Marquise—” I began; but she cut me short.

  “I need no assurances from you, monsieur. You imagined that I was your dupe when first you came to me, tricked out in warlike feathers. You imagine that I scented not the coxcomb they masked — The roué, Vicomte de Vilmorin. How dull you were!”

  And here again her laughter jarred upon my nerves.

  “Deeming that you had made a deep impression, and that you had an easy conquest, you pestered me with your letters and your poems, and, lastly, with your musicians. Nor did you take warning when your offerings were returned, and your musicians carried hence with broken heads; but you must come here, to me, to offer me this crowning insult! You hound!”

  And with that gentle apostrophe her whip came down about my shoulders, causing me to regret that I had not come to do my wooing arrayed in back and breast, as de Brissac had suggested.

  This was a disillusionment! And, mordieu! what an arm she had; and yet, how beautiful she was!

  Had I witnessed her thus chastising another I might have bent admiring eyes upon her; as it was, I withdrew into an angle of the chamber, so as to present as little surface as possible to her vindictive lash.

  Huddled up in my corner, I shrilly denounced her as a coward.

  But my loquacity only served to arouse her shrewish temper further, for, seizing me by the collar of my doublet, she dragged me forth from my shelter into the middle of the room, and there, despite my groans of pain and my entreaties, she did so mercilessly belabour me that the memory of it sets me writhing even now.

  And when at last she paused, exhausted, and I, crushed alike in body and in soul, sank down upon the floor, a mass of aching bruises, she bent over me to whisper in my ear a piece of sound advice— “Next time your fancy leads you into a drunken wager, see that there be no listening servants.”

  How I reached home it matters not. Suffice it that by the aid of some kind soul I was enabled to crawl into my bed-chamber an hour or so after my interview with that fury in female form.

  I penned a note to Monsieur de St. Auban, begging him to hold me excused from the revels he was holding that night, and alleging that a fall from my horse had injured me somewhat painfully.

  I will not offend the nice sense of my readers by a recital of the humiliations that were put upon me by my erstwhile boon companions. Needless to say, I was too much the gentleman to smirch the fair name of the Marquise by recounting the story of her outrageous conduct towards me. But, despite my own reticence, the thing was known all over Paris the next day.

  That gay city seemed to grow suddenly dull and uninteresting to me, and, after paying St. Auban in full, I deemed it best to leave court — at least for a while.

  I have since lived the peaceful life of a country gentleman, which somehow seems to suit me better than the vicissitudes of a roysterer’s career, and the consequence attendant on it.

  TOMMY

  The Royal Magazine, February 1901

  At the time that Uncle Harry was thirty-five, I was just bordering upon eighteen, with that vast knowledge of the world peculiar to my age, an appetite that was rather more than healthy, and a moustache of whose existence I alone seemed cognisant.

  We went just then — Uncle Harry and I — to live at Stollbridge, in a large, old-fashioned house on the river. There was a lawn that ran down to the very water’s edge, and an empty boathouse. By dint of endless blandishments I induced Uncle Harry to put a Canadian canoe into it, and after I had upset the beastly thing four times on four successive days, I began to master the art of keeping it right side upwards with a fair degree of success. In the process I ruined four suits of clothes, and five pounds’ worth of upholstery with which the boat had been fitted; I lost a gold watch, a silver cigarette case, four six shilling novels and no end of self-respect.

  Uncle Harry had pointed out in the most discourteous manner imaginable that my four shipwrecks had cost something like fifty pounds, and consigned the canoe to a remote, torrid zone that is not to be found on any Christian school maps.

  “Let me catch you again bringing half the river i
nto the house in your clothes,” he wound up, “and I’ll burn that infernal boat of yours.”

  His words sank deep into my heart, for at the time there were more reasons than one why I should desire to retain the canoe. The most potent reason of all was Tommy. Her real name was Amy Learoyd, but everybody called her Tommy. She was the bonniest maid conceivable; the very incarnation of Gilbert’s “Beautiful English Girl;” healthy in limb and mind, rosy of cheek, and merry of eye, with a laugh that was good to hear, and she laughed often — at me.

  We had met at Buxton a couple of years before, and at the time — precocious urchin that I was — I had fallen badly in love. But we had gone our different ways, and at sixteen one’s memory is short in such matters. When I came to make the discovery, however, that the Learoyds were the occupants of Holt House — some three miles up the river — my recollections were stirred up, and kindled in me a burning desire to renew our acquaintance.

  I became a very constant visitor at the Learoyd’s, and for a while I was content that Tommy should teach me to play tennis as tennis should not be played. Then followed the canoe episodes, and finally when I had, as I have shown, mastered the thing, it occurred to me that it would be exceedingly pleasant if, in return for her tennis lessons, I were to teach Tommy to paddle.

  Accordingly I made my way up stream one bright summer afternoon, and found Tommy sitting on the low wall of her garden, in a white gown that defied description. I did not mention the little mishaps that I had recently encountered; such a task I took to be both unnecessary and unprofitable. Her mind jumped at the idea, just as her body would have jumped into the canoe, had I not imbued her with a due sense of the caution necessary to effect a dry and successful embarkation.

  “How delightfully comfortable,” she purred, as she sank back on to the gaudy, new cushions, which I had brought out partly to do her honour, and partly because the wishy-washy appearance of the others told a story that might have shaken her confidence in my skill. “How delightfully comfortable! You dear, thoughtful man.”

  Our trip was in every respect a success, and it is not surprising that it should have been followed by several other equally successful ones, until at the end of about a month I became so rabidly in love that I began to take a serious view of things, and — although Tommy was four years my senior — to look at life as one long, delightful journey a deux in a Canadian canoe.

  The impending crisis was unexpectedly accelerated by Uncle Harry one evening at dinner. He had been rather silent during the meal, and whenever he chanced to address me it was with an asperity of tone that was not calculated to render our board a festive one. As soon as Stephen — his jack-of-all-trades of a servant — had left the room, he fired his bomb.

  “I want to say a word or two on a rather painful subject, Charles, if you will be good enough to listen.”

  Urbane and polished though he always was, there was a strained politeness about him that augured anything but well.

  “Ye — es,” I answered.

  “I saw you on the river to-day, about a mile above Holt House. I don’t think you saw me; I was on the steam launch” — he alluded to a noisy little steamer that did a ferry service up and down the river.

  “You were not alone,” he added impressively.

  “No — o, uncle.” In my heart I was glad he had found me out. He was saving me a lot of ice-breaking.

  “You had a — er — female with you.”

  The disrespectful epithet, which he had chosen with great care, was decidedly discouraging. Nevertheless, I overlooked the fact at the moment, and made the rapturous exclamation:

  “Isn’t she lovely, uncle?”

  He fixed me with a severe eye.

  “She may be ravishing,” he answered with biting sarcasm; “nevertheless, you are committing the gravest of errors if you imagine that I approach so painful a subject for the purpose of discussing this — er — person’s charms.”

  “But, uncle—”

  “One moment, if you please. I wish you to understand, Charles, that I have cause to be displeased with you. You have not behaved with that uprightness characteristic — on your mother’s side at least — of the family to which you have the honour to belong. You have led me to believe that these long excursions of yours in the canoe, which in a moment of weakness I purchased for you, were undertaken so that out in the open air you might, by reading, make amends for the years that you wasted at College. I do not say that you have deliberately told me an untruth, but you have suppressed the truth, which amounts to the same thing.”

  “But, uncle—”

  “Interrupt me once again,” he said calmly, “and I shall give orders for your canoe to be broken up for firewood.” Uncle Harry had the faculty of calmness largely developed. He would deliver himself of the most scathing speech conceivable without permitting a muscle of his face to move, and without altering in the least the monotonous inflection of his level tones.

  “I do not wish, Charles, to be under the unpleasant necessity of again reverting to this distasteful topic, and I shall look to you not to give me cause to do so. To ensure for myself the peace I seek, and to which I believe myself entitled, I ask you now, Charles, to give me your word that you will not again permit yourself to repeat the folly which I had the misfortune to witness this afternoon.”

  “I am very sorry, sir, but I can’t promise,” I answered boldly. “I couldn’t keep my word if I were to give it. I am glad in a way that you mentioned the matter, uncle, because I intended to have spoken of it to-night. I wish to — to ask you to sanction my engagement to—”

  “Charles!” he burst out excitedly. Then suddenly recovering himself: “Please say no more,” he continued. “Forgive me if I call you an idiot and if I bewail the fact that you are my nephew. Definitely allow me to answer that nothing could ever induce me to sanction such an act of folly. You are eighteen years old — an infant at law, and a baby in intelligence — and you wish to become engaged to the first scheming petticoat you come across! If you were not my nephew, my sister’s son, I should laugh at you. Unfortunately our relationship denies me even that scant satisfaction.

  “But uncle—” I cried indignantly, “you are most unreasonable. She is Miss—”

  “I have not the least desire in the world to know who she is,” he interrupted, rising. “She is a woman. A woman, Charles, as you will learn when you are older, is a creature that preys upon men of weak intellect with the object of inducing them to commit against themselves the crime of matrimony.” He pushed his chair forward, and leaning over the back of it— “Let me hear no more of this, Charles,” he said with sudden sternness. “Since you won’t give me the promise I ask of you, understand at least that I forbid — utterly forbid — the continuance of these clandestine meetings. Let me see or hear of a repetition, and I shall effectively stop matters by sending you out to your brother in Jamaica; and in Jamaica you shall remain until you have reached the age of manhood — the age of reason, I am afraid, you will never reach. I am going into the garden.”

  The threat to send me to Jamaica had been worn too threadbare to inspire much fear. I had heard it about once a week, on an average, ever since I had lived at my uncle’s mercy, so that I came to look for it as the peroration in each reproving discourse to which he treated me.

  Nevertheless, three days went by before I again launched the canoe. Uncle Harry was nowhere to be seen; in fact, I believed him to have gone into the town. But suddenly, just as I was pushing off:

  “Charles,” came his voice from the lawn behind me, “I trust that you will bear in mind our conversation of Tuesday night.”

  “All right, Uncle Harry,” I shouted back, as I got out into the middle of the stream, and then made off as fast as I could drive the boat. And as I went I made up my mind that with my uncle’s sanction or without it I would propose to Tommy Learoyd before I returned home that evening.

  The lawn at Holt House was deserted when I got there, so landing and drawing up the
canoe, I went in quest of the family, as it seemed probable that where the family was there would Tommy be. I found them in the tennis court at the back — the two girls, Mrs. Learoyd and a young man from town with yellow hair, whom Tommy was teaching to play tennis. That girl never wasted a chance of teaching a man tennis.

  “Hullo!” she cried when she caught sight of me, then added in a breath, “Forty, love,” followed by her inevitable laugh.

  After that ladylike and affectionate greeting, there was nothing left for me but to drop into a wicker chair besides Mrs. Learoyd and listen to her dissertation upon that profound and many-sided question — the weather.

  At last the set was over, and Tommy came across to where we sat, flushed with victory and exertion, and bringing her defeated and perspiring opponent with her, she introduced him to me as Mr. Palethorpe.

  “Did you bring the canoe?” she asked me.

  “Yes. I thought that you might like a ride.”

  “So I should.” Then turning to Palethorpe, “I can paddle beautifully,” she declared with touching modesty. “I’ll take you out after tea.”

  “That would be delightfully cool,” said Palethorpe.

  Of course, I professed myself delighted with the arrangement, and after tea I assisted them into the boat, and pushed them off; then I sat down in solitude by a clump of bushes, and set myself to invoke untold blessing upon the iniquitous soul of Leslie Palethorpe.

  Some fifty yards below Holt House the river took a sharp curve to the right, and round this curve in a moment came a man in a whiff, pulling as if he had a train to catch.

  “So long, Charlie,” Tommy sang out as she headed the boat up stream. “You can think about me until we come back. We won’t be long.”